Don’t Protect Trans Kids: Challenging the rhetoric of Protectionism

I recently learned about the newest media-covered political stunt from everyone’s least favorite cheeto. Trump loves to start burning. dumpster fires like ending the social protections for trans people who want to use the bathroom designated for the gender they’re actually comfortable being. It’s nice and showy, a hot button issue that doesn’t require a lot of manpower to enforce but can usefully distract us from the fact that say, universal healthcare is being dismantled leaving trans communities at a great risk. These populations face higher rates of mental illness, and due to biology, need access to more medical interventions than the general population. People who have been on hormones for years could lose access, during a shortage nonetheless! This is a massively affective, life-threatening and discriminatory issue yet no mention in the news cycle…

So what does removing this protection mean? It means that across the country, government can now enforce bans against people using the bathroom of their performed gender — they have to use the bathrooms designated for penises if you have a penis and vaginas if you have a vagina. Technically speaking, a city could now pass a law setting up gender-ID checkpoints for public restroom use. This stunt is invasive and wholly unnecessary given the fallacious and non-evidenced concerns of public safety that prompted bathroom bans in the first place. And frankly, so long as we’re talking about stealth-trans people, it’s confusing for cis-people. As Buck Angel perfectly pointed out, women would be much more off-put by his presence in the women’s room than men would be in the men’s room. I also sympathize with the thousands of intersex people who are completely invisiblized throughout this debate. I totally understand the outrage, but the rallying around merely bathroom laws seems…shortsighted. Medium author Jake Fuentes has suggested that this lifting of protections might be a ploy to test the loyalty of the justice system and agencies. I think he might be right, since bathroom-bans are certainly not the apex of trans-discrimination and serve no real political purpose.

I mean, it’s not as though trans people weren’t uncomfortable using public bathrooms or being subtly discriminated against even as this one “protection” sat on the books. Trans children still, for instance, deal with ongoing dress code issues including the promotion of gender-specific uniforms right here in “liberal Massachusetts” (uniforms being used to curb displays of gang affiliation in at-risk areas). They still face a complete lack of curriculum about trans bodies when it comes to health classes. They still are registered in schools as either “male” or “female”. There’s still the fact that way too many americans don’t understand that gender is a spectrum or that biological sex itself exists on a spectrum. Reinstating the bathroom bans was symbolic; it was intended to send a message to the trans and progressive community that “we don’t like your version of progress” but from where I stand, I don’t see the creation of new problems, nor do I hear stories of significant changes in the lived experiences of my trans friends who dealt with discrimination alongside Obama setting up protections for students. This liberalization at the federal level merely cracks the wide open door to discrimination a bit more. People in this country have carried hate and discriminated against trans people this whole time.

I would be remiss to not point out how particularly transwomen have faced discrimination due to the perception of them faking femininity just to peep women in the bathroom. It’s utter bullshit. People totally don’t believe that a man could WANT to be a woman; more subtle mysogyny from sexist hypocrites who probably think the gender pay gap is contrived.

Which brings me to my next point: double jeopardy. Where leering sexually and peeping in public are already crimes, a bathroom ban serves no purpose other than to pre-criminalize trans individuals before they even did anything wrong, and leave them with two counts of criminal activity when really only one violation would be committed. This of course, is completely hypothetical since there are no known cases of trans-people being peeping toms in the bathroom. Sorry folks, you being uncomfortable around trans people in your bathroom is not a violation against you. If you feel that it is, you’re being bigoted. It’s called tolerance and it means that unless someone is explicitly getting in your business, you let it go.

So all of this bathroom ban stuff is awful and laced with misperceptions about trans people and human rights violations. It’s also not family-friendly to begin with since parents still have to assist their opposite-sex young children in the bathroom and this creates a big fat question mark in regards to how exactly a gender-based bathroom ban could be enforced without even more blatant trans-discrimination, since it’s doubtful that these gender-laws would ban fathers escorting daughters to the bathroom or vice versa.

The worst part is that it doesn’t need to be a thing at all. It’s not a thing in more progressive nations! We could follow suit and just make it standard practice to build bathroom stalls with full length doors and walls so that each stall is its own room. We could make it standard for bathrooms to be gender neutral and put this puritanical gender separation for urin/defec-ating to rest.

I support the shit out of trans people and the trans movement. But, I think it’s a problem to promote unification around the meme of protecting trans kids. First off, a synonym of “protect” is “to shelter”. I rather think sheltering is an inherent prescription for discrimination and in-preparedness to deal with the actual shit-ass, hate-filled world we live in. Shelter a trans kid until they’re 18 then release them into society without any tools and they are going to wilt under pressure and discrimination. Not good.

I recognize that trans children face risks to their health and safety as a result of discrimination. They absolutely do. Sheltering them could protect them from trauma during youth, but how do they build coping skills? How are they going to shape society and carry the torch forward if they don’t learn about this stuff first? It’s not like they’re magically going to become prepared to deal with discrimination upon the arrival of age 18, it’s not like we can protect them their whole lives. It’s not like protecting them fiercely is going to end bigotry.

Not only is protectionism/sheltering problematic when it comes to developing coping skills, but it’s perpetuating an ideal based upon the hugely problematic status quo. This slogan isn’t really calling for a change. It’s accepting, not challenging and attempting to usurp the violent discrimination that trans people face. It’s calling on those who already support trans people to do more futile work, rather than calling on bigots to stop being bigoted. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems like a lackluster rallying cry for change. Seems akin to telling women to dress less slutty as a way to end rape.

I tried to apply this verb in the context of the particular issues in the spotlight:

Why would you “protect” a trans child from using a public bathroom; they ought to use those restrooms if they choose! Why would you “protect” a trans-child from accessing comprehensive trans-healthcare? Healthcare is sought out, not something to hide from or avoid or be sheltered from. Why this verb? From my perspective, seems like a confusing call to action.

What I call for is a new meme: Accept, enrich, and empower trans kids. This way, the political movement isn’t seated in an “us” as protectors and “them” as violators who cannot change. It moves the focus away from combat and towards calling in. It reinforces the values of social justice instead of temporally-situated protest. We aren’t just dealing with bathroom bans, we’re dealing with raw and widespread bigotry.

Accept them who they are, let them be totally boy or totally girl or neither/both! Don’t set up dualisms in their lives that leave them ashamed of their wonderful uniqueness. Accept trans-mess, and gender-diversity and spectrums of difference.

Enrich trans kids, so they are less at risk of mental health issues linked to body image and self-esteem. Allow them to be constructive and explicit and political while defining and understanding their gender identities. Bring into their lives more than just the stress, insecurity and exclusion of not having the language to describe who you are and not having a community that appreciates you. Make sure that their gender identity questions are not quiet ruminations distracting them from the joys of being a child/youth/teen! Give them that language and reinforce that they don’t deserve the shit people give them and that they can say something back and it’s okay! Let them experiment with political action in ways other than rehashing of how much it sucks to be discriminated against. Allow them to #resist and to figure out how to capitalize on the fact that they are in the spotlight because they are unique. A trans-kid with leadership skills on their resume from participating in trans-community political action is going to have better outcomes than a child who was helicopter-parented by anxious adults trying to protect them. Acceptance is an obvious precedent for this measure.

Empower trans kids, so they are confident in their identity, and have the tools to face discrimination by shutting down bullies; not caving or relying on adults to “protect” them from the big bad world.

Change the expectations of society so we don’t end up sheltering trans kids in a misguided attempt to protect them from trauma. Allow trans kids to lead this charge since they are the focus. Promote the sentiment that trans youth have meaningful contributions to bring to society and that ease of navigating society is the goal for them, not living under the thumb of their oppressors, merely surviving, always seeking protection.

There’s nothing about transness that is wrong or weak or inherently lesser and requiring protection. Don’t “protect” trans-kids. Don’t accept the status quo from society. Call on society to do the actual work that will result in less victims and less violence. Accept, empower and enrich trans kids’ lives.