President Obama’s LGBT Policy is the hot topic for all of the states since it came out on Friday, May 13th. I must preface this subject by saying I do not care what your sexual orientation is nor what your race or religion is. Be you Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender everyone must remember that you are a human being and all humans are deserving of some level of respect and should be treated with dignity. That is where I am coming from, so with that out of the way let me begin.
The LGBT community has been very active in securing their perceived rights under the United States Constitution and yet this same community has overlooked the fact(s) that the straight community has rights also. When the rights overlap without hurting either party then everyone should agree that nothing is won or lost by either group. But when the President had this letter issued he pushed the issue of how a Transgender person should be treated when in school. Some of things that the letter addresses are really not earthshaking and I will not address them. The major issues as I see them are what bathroom should be used, what locker room and what gender sports teams can a Transgender person play on.
Firstly lets look at the problem(s) that happen when you allow a physically male transgender to use the girls bathroom or locker room. I will make the assumption that we are talking about a post puberty (a teenager). Everyone knows that in the ladies room there are individual stalls and a common area to wash up in plus a couch, so you might assume that have a transgender individual who is of the opposite sex would not be able to see any straight or lesbian woman in any state of nakedness. This may or may not be the case, but even if this does not happen a teenager is going through a number of physical and hormonal changes which tends to be confusing enough without adding the possibility of being seen in a compromising situation by someone that they physically perceive as a member of the opposite sex. This can be very damaging to a persons self esteem and might cause physiological damage. For young teen men of course the problem is that there opportunities for the transgender person to be exposed to male genitals. But for most straight males this is not a problem.
Now the typical locker room has no private areas and this would present a very difficult and expensive set of solutions to create privacy for a very tiny minority. I really think that it would not hurt to go by the transgender person’s physical sex in this situation or offer them a separate locker room space. The exposure of male to female or visa versa in unwanted situations is undesirable and could be mentally damaging.
As to a transgender male playing on a female sports team, well the problem is that a male is generally stronger than a female and this could/would create an unfair condition for all of the players.
The real problem is that this new policy is not well thought out and pushing forward without regard to the problems that need to be addressed. That is not to say that sometime in the future this policy could be implemented as written, but for now it must be put aside. Education is the key, not pushing an agenda into everyone’s face and saying this is the way will be.
All those who are pushing for what is spelled out in the letter are just asking for a backlash that could cause more damage than good. What we are seeing now with the rise of Donald Trump is a backlash against political correctness because people are just fed up. It is my hope that the President will reconsider this new set of policies and push forward an education initiative instead that would serve all of us.
In closing I must say that I can not even imagine being transgender and all the physiological issues that have to be overcome plus all of the prejudice from the hate mongers. Someday soon it is my hope that through education people will be more accepting of those who they perceive as being different sexually from themselves. After all we are all human beings and deserve to be respected as a matter of decency.
That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike
