Here’s a new way of checking your privilege: do you feel comfortable using your gender-mandated bathroom? As a cisgender person, is your school day free of worry regarding how you’ll ‘hold it’, how you’ll dehydrate yourself all day so that you won’t be forced to use the bathroom that has a sign reflecting the complete opposite of how you feel internally? Is using the bathroom a right for you, as in you do not have to fight for the right to use it? Then you’re one of the lucky ones because transgender students across the world, not just America, struggle with their simple desire to use the bathroom in school.
You may remember hearing of a transgender student, Gavin Grimm, and his plight to use the bathroom he feels most comfortable in, even if said bathroom did not match with his biological sex. His fight to use the restroom extended over state courts, reaching the federal level until ‘president’ Trump shot the case, as well as Title IX — the law which protects against gender discrimination — back to the state level. Trump and his cabinet claimed that the issue of transgender kids using which bathroom they felt belonged to them was a state issue, rather than a federal court issue. This, of course, is simply incorrect. Human rights issues deserve the ultimate and speedy attention of the highest branch of justice courts. By Trump’s logic, however, transgender rights should be restricted, erased or, occasionally, relaxed, on a state to state basis.
The point is this: to use a bathroom is a basic human right, a basic human need. All transgender students are asking for in this case is to use the bathroom in which they feel most comfortable, whether said bathroom aligns with their physical status or not. They aren’t looking to commit sexual harassment or sex crimes on fellow students. All they want is to freakin’ use the bathroom. That’s a right that everyone deserves the full extent of, and it’s simply a crime in itself to deny young students what’s becoming a privilege, rather than a right.
As of March 2017, Gavin Grimm is still fighting for his right to use the bathroom. The case has now exceeded his own small town in Virginia, becoming a plight for transgender youth as a whole throughout the country. If your school hasn’t introduced a gender-neutral bathroom or is still wavering on the idea of allowing trans students to use the bathroom they don’t biologically align with, please try urging them with a petition or with the help of a GSA club or local LGBT+ group. Trans youth face an uphill battle with each day Title IX is gone. We need to protect trans youth, and believe it or not, that can begin with simply making sure they can use the damn bathroom. in their own schools.
