By Sarah Baker
It’s a civil rights debate that has expanded over decades of political debacles and ethical arguments; gender-neutral bathrooms and furthermore, the proposed right for trans Americans to use whichever binary facility they identify with.
This debate has reached legislators in over 32 states this year, including Washington where SB 6443 was defeated 25 to 24 votes.
The legislation would have repealed a previous rule allowing transexual individuals to use the gendered bathroom they identified with.
Peninsula College transgender student Jupiter Hills said the fact that SB 6443 was defeated by only one vote is a civil rights concern. “
It affects the rights of transgender people,” Hills said, “it shouldn’t be up for real debate in the first place. Gender shouldn’t be a part of politics because someone’s identity isn’t anyone else’s business.”
Peninsula College professor Tara Martin Lopez said, “Gender and sex are separate. People don’t realize gender is much more powerful.
“It largely shapes our identity. In restricting people to use the bathroom of their choice, you’re restricting their identity as a whole.”
Peninsula College has at least four gender-neutral bathrooms itself, and welcomes trans students to use the bathroom they identify with.
However, other places are not as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender friendly.
Hills said, “The transgender community is not something a lot of people are used to, especially the older generation.
“If people were exposed to it as a normal thing early in their lives, it would change a lot of minds.
“We could educate kids about this during sex-ed courses. We could expose them to these things in a positive way earlier.”
Lopez agrees.
“It’s less about ignorance and more about exposure,” Lopez said. “If the message was framed differently and people were first exposed to support instead of antagonism – they would think differently.”
Lopez adds that this is the problem and solution with every demographic that has ever faced discrimination:
“There are always going to be people with personal antagonisms, no matter the group they don’t like, whether that be transgender or female or black people,” Lopez said. “But emotions and hatred aren’t going to get us anywhere.
“We wouldn’t be as divisive if people made decisions based more on their personal knowledge than their emotions, and influential people didn’t use these topics as political pawns.
“They’re using their prejudices to create social norms. They try to make their hatred justifiable, make it into something normal when it isn’t and it shouldn’t be.”