It's About The Bathrooms, Again

When I was in school, I very rarely went to the bathroom.  That wasn't because I ate an unusual diet or had extraordinary self-control.  Rather, I was just too damned scared to use the boys' bathrooms. To me, they were the most dangerous parts of the school:  If I were harassed or beaten, there would be nobody to stop it.  

In elementary school, all of the teachers were female.  In high school, we had some male teachers, and most of the security guards were men, but their bathrooms were separate from the students'.    


I was always a target for bullies because I was considered a "sissy" or "girly" boy.  In fact, some--and, I would later learn, a couple of teachers--actually referred to me as a "girl".  Ironically, they were right, but in school that put me in danger.   After I started to work out and play sports, the school thugs no longer punched me in the face in the hallway or body-slammed me into lockers.  However, the bathrooms were like black holes:  Kids quite literally disappeared into them.

If it was so dangerous for me even though I was a fairly athletic teenager, I can only imagine what it would have been like had I been living and dressing as a girl, or even if I'd been more androgynous than I was.  

Even after I left school, male-only bathrooms terrified me.  Whenever I had to use a toilet while away from home, I sought out bathrooms that weren't gender-specific.  That meant going to a pizzeria, coffee shop or store that had a single bathroom or toilet stall for all customers.  Even the filthiest, smelliest ones didn't frighten and repulse me as much as male-only facilities.

I think of those experiences whenever any government or other institutions is crafting transgender-inclusive policies, or at least rules that don't discriminate.  It seems that most people don't object until it comes to the part about bathrooms.  That is where people's acceptance of diversity in gender identity and expression stops.  People who were all for equal rights adopt "boys are boys and girls are girls" attitudes that could make any fundamentalist preacher seem like the director of PFLAG.  

Not surprisingly, that's happening in Massachusetts right now.  The Bay State's Department of Education has just issued a list of directives for handling transgender students so that schools are in compliance with the 2011 anti-discrimination law to protect transgender people.  Included are policies that allow students to use bathrooms or play on the sports teams designated for the gender by which they identify.  


While resistance to these policies has been, perhaps, not as strong as opposition to similar policies in other parts of the nation, it has been not only present, but almost entirely predictable. 

How predictable?  It uses the same trite and misinformed arguments as other objections to such policies.  Here's another maddening similarity:  the name of the group leading the opposition.  In this case, it's the Massachusetts Family Institute.

Why is it that so many transphobic and homophobic groups have the word "family" in their names?   My cynical self says it's a smokescreen.  However, people who oppose the kinds of policies adopted in Massachusetts almost always are sincere in the belief that they support "families"--or, at least, their concept of them.  They usually make voice their objections in religious terms: "The Family" is, in their view, based on differences in gender that are ordained by God.

However, I cannot understand how anyone can purport to be advocates of families or "The Family" if they are not concerned with the safety and well-being of children.   Trans kids need to be in an environment where they can learn without unwarranted threats to their physical beings and emotional health.  In that sense, as in many others, they are exactly like all other kids.  

I can understand the discomfort some might feel over someone they perceive to be of the "other" gender in their bathrooms.   Most of us feel the need for privacy as we take care of our needs.  Most school bathrooms provide that, at least to some degree:  The ones I've seen all have stalls.  (When I was living as a male and using men's bathrooms, I used the stalls even if I had only to urinate:  I didn't want to stand alongside other men at the urinals!)  Others are worried about the potential for rape and harassment.  I have looked long and hard, and I have yet to find any report of a male-to-female transgender of any age harassing a woman in a bathroom.  We don't go to bathrooms for that reason; still, we are conflated with "peeping Toms" and pedophiles.  

I have found that most people understand what I've just described if it's explained to them, and they actually get to know a trans person or two.  On the other hand, those who belong to "Family" organizations seem to cling to their phobias, no matter what facts are presented to them.

The Yankees Get It

Disclaimer:  In spite of its title, this post has nothing to do with baseball.   (By the way, I'm a Mets fan!)

I am referring to natives of New England.   They always seem to be ahead of the rest of the country (save, perhaps, for San Francisco) when it comes to legislation and policies that help to bring about equality for LGBT people.

Massachusetts, of course, was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.  Now that voters in Maine have approved such unions, the only New England state in which same-sex couples can't get married is Rhode Island.  However, the Ocean State recognizes same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

Last year, Massachusetts Governor Patrick Deval signed a law that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in employment, education, housing, credit and lending.  It also makes violence against transgender individuals a hate crime. Now similar laws are on the books in all New England states, with one exception:  New Hampshire.

However, the situation in the Granite State may change.  As voters in Maine were voting in favor of same-sex marriage, New Hampshire's voters elected their first transgender lawmaker.

Stacie Laughton beat out two Republican challengers for one of three seats in the Granite State's House of Representatives in Ward 4.  She says she hopes that her victory will inspire others in the community "to get into politics, or into any other position, for that matter".  On the other hand, she says, "I don't want being transgender to be a focal point," and that she can "work between party lines and not let political partisanship hold us up when it comes to the important matters before us in the Statehouse."

She seems to understand that, aside from discrimination, those matters are the same for transgender people as they are for everyone else:  jobs, the economy, healthcare, education and such.   Would that others understood!

Michelle Kosilek: A Dilemma Of The Eighth Amendment

On one hand, we have the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which forbids "cruel and unusual punishment."  This is interpreted to mean, among other things, that prisoners cannot be denied necessary medical care.

On the other hand, we have someone who brutally murdered a spouse nearly two decades ago.  This person has a condition that was not diagnosed until after the murder conviction, and is listed as a psychiatric disorder in DSM-V.

It just happens that treatment for this person's condition is very expensive.  Only two insurance plans in the United States cover the cost of it.  It's one of the reasons why the vast majority of people with the condition don't get, or get very minimal, treatment.

Since you're reading this blog, you've probably guessed where this is going:  What if the prisoner is transgendered, and the condition was diagnosed after the murder?  

The prisoner in question is Michelle (nee Robert) Kosilek.  As a Boston Phoenix editorial points out, she's "an unsympathetic poster child for prisoner or transgender rights.   And those two issues are central to this case."

Kosilek has been receiving hormone treatments since she was diagnosed nine years ago.  Recently, Chief US District Court Judge Mark Wolf ruled that the State of Massachusetts has to provide Kosilek with gender-reassignment surgery.  Wolf, who has the reputation of being a tough "law and order" judge, recognizes that GRS isn't cosmetic surgery and that under the law, he really couldn't make any other ruling.  Still, he noted--perhaps with irony or sarcasm--that, "It may seem strange that in the United States, citizens do not have a constitutional right to adequate medical care, but the Eighth Amendment promises prisoners such care."  

On one hand, I can see how some people would think it unfair that Kosilek is getting a surgery most people can't afford and almost no insurance plan covers.  The ire of some such people is no doubt fueled by their misconceptions or hatred of trans people.  Others may simply object to so much money being spent on someone who committed a brutal murder. On the other hand, I understand that Judge Wolf--who, I suspect, has a pretty high level of integrity--knew that he was bound by the Constitution of this country.  He would have made the same ruling if Kosilek were still living as Robert and, instead of gender dysphoria, he was suffering from some form of cancer or some rare disease.  Yes, it's unfair that many people die because they can't afford, or their insurance doesn't cover, the treatments.  However, denying care to someone else for whom it is available doesn't right the situation of someone who does not have access to the necessary care.  


Judge Wolf made, I think, the correct decision, given the circumstances.  Now, if we really think it's unfair that prisoners have access to medical care that perhaps one out of every four Americans don't (and most prisoners wouldn't, were they not in prison), we have to figure out a way to make access to health care more equitable.  Denying care to someone, or some group of people, is not the way to do it.