[Commentary] [WI, USA] Bill on transgender students doesn't move Wisconsin forward
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Stephanie Stevens
Oct 10, 2015, 9:30:24 AM10/10/15
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI, USA
Emily Mills | In My Opinion
Bill on transgender students doesn't move Wisconsin forward
By Emily Mills
Oct. 9, 2015
Last I checked, Wisconsin's motto is "Forward," is it not? I had a moment of doubt when I read about yet another attempt by politicians to walk the clock backward on progress, especially given how coldly out-of-touch and callous this particular effort appears to be.
Reps. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) and Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) recently introduced a bill that would essentially target transgender students and forbid them from using the bathroom or locker room that aligned with their gender identity.
Several school districts across the state already have policies in place to protect transgender students from discrimination of this kind, but Nass and Kremer seem determined to undo these local efforts of support for some of society's most vulnerable members.
The two men claim that the proposed law is about safety, ignoring or simply not caring about the safety of the students who would be most directly impacted by the ramifications of such a bill — transgender kids who are already at some of the greatest risk of bullying and depression. Public restrooms and school locker rooms are already enough of a mine field for adolescents, regardless of their gender identity. Why enforce a whole new level of legally mandated and totally unnecessary pain?
Not only that, but the bill would flagrantly violate recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Education in relation to Title IX, which has been clearly defined as prohibiting discrimination against transgender students. So it's both a deeply heartless move and a waste of time while our Legislature should be working to strengthen our society and our economy. This does neither.
The Kremer-Nass bill also takes a rigid, outmoded view of gender and sex that completely ignores the wide variation that exists in human beings. It attempts to define a student's sex as the physical condition of being male or female, as determined by an individual's chromosomes and identified at birth by that individual's anatomy.
What about intersex students, those with ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal differences? Are the schools going to be required to do genetic and hormonal testing on students about whom someone raises questions? Every one of these reactionary and transphobic efforts fails completely to account for the Pandora's Box of unenforceable and cruel policies that would need to follow in order for them to be carried out.
Literally no one is harmed by someone using the restroom with a gender designation that fits how they self-identify. There have been no cases of male students pretending to be female, or vice versa, claiming to be transgender, and then using access to the others' bathroom to perpetuate crimes. There have been countless instances of verbal and physical abuse against actual transgender youths for simply having the audacity to exist and be true to themselves. And simply having a trans kid use a separate, private bathroom facility does nothing to solve the problem of that kid already feeling marginalized, pushed aside and othered.
Neither is the concept of passing the solution here. It shouldn't matter what people look like. It should only matter that they say they belong and feel more comfortable in the bathroom of their choice. I have been yelled at and assaulted on several occasions for using a public woman's restroom and I'm female-identified both at birth and now. Because I don't fit some folks' idea of femininity, however, I'm apparently deserving of immediate suspicion and scorn. And all for just trying to use the toilet in peace. I can only imagine how much worse my trans brothers and sisters have to deal with in their day-to-day lives.
We should be doing everything in our power to make life better for our children (and for ourselves, frankly). Younger generations are ready to teach us if we'll just let go of our judgment and preconceived notions and listen to them. The gender binary in this social construct that tells us there's just one way to be a man (or masculine), and one way to be a woman (or feminine), and no space in between or outside of those two identities is a dangerous farce. Biology is not destiny.
The Kremer-Nass bill would be a giant step backward for Wisconsin and would put real students in real danger. I urge you to contact your representatives today and tell them to oppose this backward piece of legislation.
The more we let go of our fear of things we don't immediately understand, a fear that holds us all down, the more we're going to be able to go forward and help support the world that our kids already know exists and is so much brighter.
Emily Mills is a freelance writer who lives in Madison. Twitter:@millbot; Email:emily...@outlook.com
© 2015 Journal Sentinel, Inc.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/bill-on-transgender-students-doesnt-move-wisconsin-forward-b99591897z1-331653501.html
Emily Mills | In My Opinion
Bill on transgender students doesn't move Wisconsin forward
By Emily Mills
Oct. 9, 2015
Last I checked, Wisconsin's motto is "Forward," is it not? I had a moment of doubt when I read about yet another attempt by politicians to walk the clock backward on progress, especially given how coldly out-of-touch and callous this particular effort appears to be.
Reps. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) and Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) recently introduced a bill that would essentially target transgender students and forbid them from using the bathroom or locker room that aligned with their gender identity.
Several school districts across the state already have policies in place to protect transgender students from discrimination of this kind, but Nass and Kremer seem determined to undo these local efforts of support for some of society's most vulnerable members.
The two men claim that the proposed law is about safety, ignoring or simply not caring about the safety of the students who would be most directly impacted by the ramifications of such a bill — transgender kids who are already at some of the greatest risk of bullying and depression. Public restrooms and school locker rooms are already enough of a mine field for adolescents, regardless of their gender identity. Why enforce a whole new level of legally mandated and totally unnecessary pain?
Not only that, but the bill would flagrantly violate recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Education in relation to Title IX, which has been clearly defined as prohibiting discrimination against transgender students. So it's both a deeply heartless move and a waste of time while our Legislature should be working to strengthen our society and our economy. This does neither.
The Kremer-Nass bill also takes a rigid, outmoded view of gender and sex that completely ignores the wide variation that exists in human beings. It attempts to define a student's sex as the physical condition of being male or female, as determined by an individual's chromosomes and identified at birth by that individual's anatomy.
What about intersex students, those with ambiguous genitalia or chromosomal differences? Are the schools going to be required to do genetic and hormonal testing on students about whom someone raises questions? Every one of these reactionary and transphobic efforts fails completely to account for the Pandora's Box of unenforceable and cruel policies that would need to follow in order for them to be carried out.
Literally no one is harmed by someone using the restroom with a gender designation that fits how they self-identify. There have been no cases of male students pretending to be female, or vice versa, claiming to be transgender, and then using access to the others' bathroom to perpetuate crimes. There have been countless instances of verbal and physical abuse against actual transgender youths for simply having the audacity to exist and be true to themselves. And simply having a trans kid use a separate, private bathroom facility does nothing to solve the problem of that kid already feeling marginalized, pushed aside and othered.
Neither is the concept of passing the solution here. It shouldn't matter what people look like. It should only matter that they say they belong and feel more comfortable in the bathroom of their choice. I have been yelled at and assaulted on several occasions for using a public woman's restroom and I'm female-identified both at birth and now. Because I don't fit some folks' idea of femininity, however, I'm apparently deserving of immediate suspicion and scorn. And all for just trying to use the toilet in peace. I can only imagine how much worse my trans brothers and sisters have to deal with in their day-to-day lives.
We should be doing everything in our power to make life better for our children (and for ourselves, frankly). Younger generations are ready to teach us if we'll just let go of our judgment and preconceived notions and listen to them. The gender binary in this social construct that tells us there's just one way to be a man (or masculine), and one way to be a woman (or feminine), and no space in between or outside of those two identities is a dangerous farce. Biology is not destiny.
The Kremer-Nass bill would be a giant step backward for Wisconsin and would put real students in real danger. I urge you to contact your representatives today and tell them to oppose this backward piece of legislation.
The more we let go of our fear of things we don't immediately understand, a fear that holds us all down, the more we're going to be able to go forward and help support the world that our kids already know exists and is so much brighter.
Emily Mills is a freelance writer who lives in Madison. Twitter:@millbot; Email:emily...@outlook.com
© 2015 Journal Sentinel, Inc.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/bill-on-transgender-students-doesnt-move-wisconsin-forward-b99591897z1-331653501.html
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