Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
Is the fight for Bathroom Equality necessary?

My intent is to show the equal nature of the LGBT community as it pertains to

bathroom usage, bathroom bills and, most importantly, bathroom equality. This interests

me because before maybe around 2015, bathrooms had not been in the forefront of

rights issues since the 1960s. I wanted to examine this debate and see what I could

grab from it and as I studied this topic I came to my current thesis. The decisions of this

issue can and will change the we as people interact within bathrooms no matter your

race, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation. This may even eventually reach out

of the United states and into other western societies as well. I have decided to join the

more opposed side of those who believe that the fight for bathroom equality is

unnecessary. This is important because I want to prove that the inequality that the

transgender community claims to be experiencing is not at all as common as they and

the media, who is upholding their narrative, would like you to think.

To start, I want to look at where this issue began to gain its prominence. The

most prominent case on the topic of bathroom bills is Grimm v. Gloucester County

School Board. Student Gavin Grimm had been diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria and

as such the doctor recommended as part of his treatment that Gavin begin using the

restroom that parallels with his gender identity. He was able to do so for weeks but

parents complained leading to the school board creating a policy that demanded

students use the restroom assigned to their biological sex. The school, however did

make special accommodation for Grimm and those like him but this was seen as

discrimination and as such a suit was filed by the ACLU on Grimms behalf. This was on

the grounds that the school boards treatment of him violated Title IX of the Educational
Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
Amendments Act of 1972. Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in any

educational program that gets federal funding. The Department of Education (DOE)

regulations implementing Title IX specifically allow schools to provide separate

restrooms based on sex. But in 2015, the DOE issued a memo saying that when a

school decides to treat students differently based on sex, it generally must treat

transgender students consistent with their gender identity. 1 The suit was initially turned

down but that decision was subsequently appealed. Grimm got his victory but at what

cost? Grimm is a part of a minority by all rights. Transgender people are .06% of the

United States population according to a study done in 2016. 2 This means that

statistically with Gloucester High school only having an upper level enrollment of 2000

students Gavin Grimm would be the only transgender person in the entire school. This

may not be true but it does give an insight to how much of a minority he really is. In

such a case the school has a responsibility to serve every student and so even though

Grimms concerns are valid he is one of many and should be willing to compromise with

the school.

Furthermore, the fight bathroom equality is unnecessary for a few reasons. the

one of these reasons is that transgender has become too broad a term. The problem

that people are having is that there is a new segment of the transgender community

that calls themselves genderqueer. These people believe that one can be transgender

without the trans, in other words they believe that you don't have to transition to be a

transgender person. Much of transgenderism is based upon the idea of gender

dysphoria therefore, a transgender person must transition or at least attempt transition

in order to uphold such a label. Gender dysphoria is defined as the conflict between a
Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
person's physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify. 3

The problem that we face today is that these genderqueer people don't really seem to

want a specific gender they just wanted to be what is called non-binary in other words

they want to be special they want to sit in the middle. The thing is, gender has no

middle, you are male or female, you have masculine traits or feminine traits. This fact is

see throughout all of nature and yet they try to challenge this notion. Transgender is

defined as people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at

birth.4 Enter the bathroom bill an idea spawned from these new transgender people

that do not even attempt to look or really be transgender they just say they are and like

magic they are a member of the LGBT community. There are now plenty of people who

fear that they could be at risk to someone who just says they are transgender but does

not even attempt to look the opposite sex.

A great example of someone being afraid of these new transgender people is a

father who is afraid that his daughter could be attacked by a man who enters the

womens restroom behind his daughter after Target initiated a neutral bathroom policy to

better serve the transgender community. Izzy Avraham took his daughter to target to

speak to the manager about this new policy. He asked her on a practical level how

Targets policy worked out if my 6-year-old daughter walked into the womens restroom

and someone with a biologically male body walked in behind her. 5 The manager

responded with, Target has always had a policy of non-discrimination, and that if

parents had concerns we could use the family rooms, or Tirzah could come in the mens

washroom with me, Avraham wrote. I told her that as a concerned dad, Im

uncomfortable with Targets decision to allow people with male bodies in the womens
Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
washrooms. And that we think its weird. We thanked her and left. I kept the whole

conversation really polite and as relaxed as possible. The Blaze article goes on to say

that Izzy Avraham and his daughter thought it was weird for target to allow biological

male bodies into female restrooms. They once again quote him with this passage on

inclusivity:

So, heres what so wrong about this. Targets recent inclusivity announcement

concludes by saying Everyone deserves to feel like they belong. And youll

always be accepted, respected and welcomed at Target. Really? Telling me

youre ok with men walking into the bathroom behind my baby girl doesnt make

me feel like I belong. It didnt make her feel like she belonged either, to hear the

manager tell us that in person. Basically, Target just told us and millions of

concerned parents that were no longer accepted, respected, and welcome in

their stores.

My friends, Target has crossed a line, and I believe this is a test case. If youre a

concerned parent I invite you to do three things. 1. Share this story. 2. Then go to

your nearest Target and do exactly what we did. 3. Then share your story, and

use this hashtag:

This is an example of how trying to make big changes for the few can impact the many.

Target only took account of how the transgender community would feel and by doing so

demeaned some of their other customers.

There are up to nineteen states currently applying or fighting bathroom bills and a

common defense against the bills is that transgender people have no precedent of
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Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
putting women and children at risk.10 The problem is this is untrue as there are multiple

cases of such freedom allowing a loophole for predators to enter. In 2012, a man in

Toronto, where gender identity bills that allow for entrance of public spaces based on

gender identity have been passed, by the name of Christopher Hambrook, is said to

have posed as a transgender woman named Jessica and sexually assaulted several

women.6 There was also a situation at the University of Toronto where a woman saw a

cellphone reach over the shower stall dividers. This is a case of voyeurism that

happened on two separate occasions and caused the University to change its policy.7

These are clear examples of what an open or gender neutral bathroom policy can cause

and lead into my second reason why the fight for bathroom equality is unnecessary: a

victory for transgender people with create a loophole for predators. An example of this

that overlaps with both this and my previous point is that of a man in 2016, Seattle,

Washington who entered the womens changing room at a public pool and began to

unclothe in front of female members both women and children. When asked to leave by

the women he said, The law has changed and I have a right to be here. the women

had to get pool staff to ask him to leave only for him to return during another youth lap

swim. According to Life Site, officials stated he had made no attempt to present himself

as a woman, nor to identify as transgender when he checked in. By all appearances, he

was a man. But appearances do not matter when it comes to "gender identity." LGBT

theorists hold that biological sex is distinct from gender, which is determined solely by

the person's mental self-identification. They say that they want people to feel

comfortable but with such an open-ended policy how could anyone feel comfortable?

Many felt that the man was just trying to peep on women "Either identify yourself as a
Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
transgender or you're not, and you're just taking advantage of a loophole," Maryanne

Sato, who visits the pool several times a week, told USA Today.8 Apparently, there was

another incident in 2012 when a 45-year-old biological male who calls himself Colleen

Francis lounged naked in a womens locker room, in an area frequented by girls as

young as six. According to the police report an eyewitness stated, There were girls 6 to

18 years of age and they were not used to seeing individuals in situations like this. But

the facility gave him the right to continue using its facilities as he wished. 8 This

disproves the point that there has been no precedent for crime with such openness.

Transgender people may not be endangering others directly but indirectly they are

allowing predators into restrooms and locker rooms.

My antithesis would probably speak on how the fight for bathroom equality is

necessary due to the nature of bathrooms in movements like the civil rights movement. 9

but there is a large difference in this case is that authentic transgender people; people

who dress and/or transition to the opposite sex, have been going to the restroom that

they identified with, with no problem for decades it was only when the umbrella of

transgender became broader that there became a problem. I reference to the case of

the man at the Seattle pool Life Site states that, Some in the city(Seattle) felt the action

was intended to stoke those unfounded fears. Gunner Scott, a transgender activist, told

KIRO radio host Jason Rantz he felt concern that this was a setup by opponents of

LGBT equality to try to exploit the recent debate of basic rights of transgender youth.

But even if that is so it shows that there is a clear-cut loophole to this sort of leftist

activism. They would also suggest that bathroom bills assume that what transgender
Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
people feel is not valid. This is also untrue, it is just that the feelings of children and the

99.94% of people are cared for as well and must be taken into consideration.

All in all, with so many equality bills already in place and so many people working

to ensure the equality of people of all races, creeds and orientations, there is no reason

to be having a battle over who uses what bathroom. People who pass or at least

attempt to be authentically transgender should be allowed to use the bathroom of the

sex they identify with not their gender and others should look for a compromise with

single user restrooms or going to the restroom of their biological sex. Also, transgender

people who have had sex assignment surgery should not be required to go to the

restroom stated upon their birth certificate because they pass as the opposite sex and

essentially are now a member of the opposite sex by all accounts. That is an

infringement on their right to privacy and personal liberty and as no one can tell they are

not of the opposite sex it should not be contested.

Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay

Annotated Bibliography

1
Ulrich, Lana. "National Constitution Center." National Constitution Center

constitutioncenter.org. Constitution Daily, 6 May 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2017.

This article provides a large amount of unbiased history on the debate behind bathroom

bills and what has brought them into the forefront of the LGBT rights movement. I

am using it to get information on the origins of the prominence this issue has

taken in our society.

2
Hoffman, Jan. "Estimate of U.S. Transgender Population Doubles to 1.4 Million Adults."

The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 June 2016. Web. 08 May 2017.

This article talked about the rising number of transgender people in the United States.

At this point the percentage has effectively doubled but is still small in comparison to

most other groups being as it is a subset of many other subsets. I used this to indicate

the relative size of the transgender community.

3
Parekh, Ranna, MD. "What Is Gender Dysphoria?" Psychiatry.org. N.p., Feb. 2016.

Web. 08 May 2017.

This article is used to define gender dysphoria as a predecessor to transgenderism. It

speaks of the characteristics and research behind gender dysphoria and the issues that
Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
those who experience it must fight through. This article also makes the distinction

between gender dysphoria and gender non-conformity.

4
"Transgender FAQ." GLAAD. N.p., 14 Apr. 2017. Web. 08 May 2017.

This source was used to define transgender as a specific term rather than an umbrella

of people. It talks about gender identity and the difference between sexual orientation

and gender identity. There is also talk of pronouns, respect and equality.

5
Urbanski, Dave. "Dad Takes Daughter to Target to Confront Manager on Transgender

Bathroom Policy - and Isnt Happy About What the Manager Tells Him."

TheBlaze. TheBlaze, 25 Apr. 2016. Web. 9 Mar. 2017.

This Article focuses on a father who dislikes targets new restroom policy which allows

for people to enter bathrooms based upon gender identity alone. It caused a problem for

him as he felt that his daughter would be at risk of attack by predators looking to take

full advantage of this new policy.

6
Baklinski, Peter. "Sexual predator jailed after claiming to be transgender to assault

women in shelter." LifeSiteNews. N.p., 4 Mar. 2014. Web. 2 Mar. 2017.

Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
This Article speaks on a sexual predator that used open ended laws set in place by

leftists and transgender activists in order to better serve the LGBT community as a way

to infiltrate an area and sexually assault several women while pretending to be

transgender. I made use of this article to prove the point of indirect hard transgender

people can bring by battling rather than compromising.

7
Chin, Jessica. "U of T Decreases Gender-Neutral Bathrooms After Voyeurism Reports."

The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 07 Oct. 2015. Web. 3 Mar. 2017.

This article focuses on two cases of voyeurism at the University of Toronto where they

have gender neutral showers and how this created a space where women began to feel

unsafe and had to have designated zones to bathe among other things. This was used

as an example of how the system can be abused if the transgender community has their

way.

8
Johnson, Ben. "Man strips in front of girls in locker room, says transgender law allows

it." LifeSiteNews. LifeSiteNews, 18 Feb. 2016. Web. 9 Mar. 2017.

This article covers the story of a man who enters a recreational pool in Seattle only to

enter the womens locker room and begin to undress in from of young girls and

their mothers saying that the law entitled him to be there. He clearly looked like a

man and made no attempt to look feminine. This shows the tragic flaw of gender

identity as it, being a mental state, can be asserted on a whim and is not proven
Myndra Aaron

Gray

ENGL 1102

Research Essay
with the only real basis being how someone feels. I used this to prove that point

and to show what such open-ended laws can do to our society and how they

open the door for predators.

9
Steinmetz, Katy. "Transgender "Bathroom Bills:" Inside the Debate." Time. Time, 28

July 2015. Web. 08 Mar. 2017.

This article although with an unbiased name, is very much so toward my anti-thesis so I

implemented some of its arguments as well as arguments made from article 8 to

show what sort of thoughts or ideas those who oppose my way of thinking may

have. The article was about how the debate effected transgender people, how

they feel, how they have not committed crimes in restrooms which I have a hard

time believing as they have been around for decades.

10
Kralik, Joellen. ""BATHROOM BILL" LEGISLATIVE TRACKING." National Conference

of State Legislatures. NCSL, 12 Apr. 2017. Web. 1 May 2017.

This article is a legislative tracking page of all bathroom bill legislations up until April 12

2017. I used this source in order to get an accurate number of the number of states

currently dealing with or working toward bathroom legislation.