Transgender Choosing Left or Right?
One of the scariest things a person can do in such a judgmental society is to truly be oneself in public. There is a distinguishing difference between challenging society’s norms and coming “out” to the public. In most cases people are almost never comfortable at first to be themselves. But in the case of transgender people coming “out “ it is flat out daring; especially when it comes to using public restrooms. If you would like to know how a person feels about a transgener individual ask them which restroom should a transgender enter in a public place?
Gender in the dictionary is classified as the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones). The classification of gender has only been shaped by language, which is something that humans have put together to create a type of communication. There are not any facts behind it, like for example why do we call a tree a tree? In the book The Technologies of gender written by Teresa de Lauretis it states that, “ In grammar, it is a category by which words and grammatical forms are classified according not only to sex or the absence of but other characteristics, such as morphology characteristics in what is called ‘grammatical gender ‘.” In all 50 states except Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Texas and Utah laws have been passed to forbid discrimination against transgender individuals from using public utilities. Also, there are many laws that have been passed to protect transgender students from being discriminated against from using the locker room and restrooms. Some states tried to accommodate by creating a law that allows transgender people to use restrooms which correlates best to their morphological characteristics. Since these laws have been passed there hasn’t been an incident where a transgender has harassed or assaulted someone; this proves no matter which bathroom they choose they are definitely not the problem. Sometimes depending on the state transgender individuals are arrested for entering a bathroom that does not reflect their identification card verses their characteristics.
In Florida a law has been passed to make it a crime for transgender people to use a public bathroom. The state Represented Frank Artiles verbalizes in the Huffington post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/09/florida-transgender-bathroom-law_n_6645910.html) newspaper “It’s not that the transgender or the gender identity community is dangerous by any means, but [the ordinance] creates a giant loophole for criminals, sexual deviants and sexual predators to walk into a shower, a woman’s locker room under the cover of law.” This does not give the state the right to completely ban transgender individuals from using the restroom in public but it is merely a justification to pass the law. If we assume that Artiles statement, that the law was created to protect the public, is to be true then there should not be any sexual predators and sexual deviants happening within the state of Florida but that’s not the case. At this point, transgender people are being segregated and discriminated against.
Lets take a few steps back and consider the old south in the 1800 when the law of Jim Crow was passed. The use of public bathrooms was prohibited and was a crime for “ people of color.” Society tends to have a culture shock when it comes to new/different ideas that approach the norms and this is because throughout history these ideas of having the same norms are engraved in our past; so it makes society panic at the idea that societies norms can be altered. The same idea applies to transgender people. They are being discriminated against for being them selves in front of the world and it is understandable that some people are going to be against the idea and some are going to accept the fact. However, there is a thin line between not accepting someone for who they are and trying to stop them from utilizing public restrooms and public areas.
It’s really hard to feel the difference within a society that is still fighting for equality and against discrimination; so to see progress against transgender is even harder. Some people might say that the laws that have already been passed to protect transgender people from being discriminated against in public restrooms are not really in progress. But the truth is that progress is not just by receiving everything you want at the time that you want it; but it is the steps you take to get you to where you want to be.
