“I woke up this morning to a news article about Washington (sate, not DC, but their are plenty of those too) lawmakers that want to send my six-year-old daughter, in Kindergarten, into the men’s bathroom, the men’s locker room, for the rest of her life.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me explain.
I’m raising four kids:
Second grader, female, vagina. Kindergartner, male, penis. Preschooler, male, penis. Another Kindergartner (twins!), female, penis.
My daughter was born with a penis. The doctor looked at her, saw a penis, and checked “M” on the birth certificate. We raised her in a nursery with blue walls. We dressed her in shirts with dinosaurs and fighter jets. Be buzzed her hair short, just like her brothers. In every real sense we raised the twins identically. Two penises. Matching clothes, haircuts, decorations. But it didn’t matter. She still was a girl. And as soon as she could talk and dress herself, she let us know.
I’ve had this conversation with enough people enough times to know what comes next. For a certain type of person I’m a perverted pagan communist parent. For some unknown reason I singled out one of my kids to try a crazy experiment on. Maybe I whispered “you hate blue…. you’re secretly a girl” in her ear every night. I don’t know. Or, in the very least, in my liberal delusional state, I’m enabling some serious mental (and obviously moral) illness.
To this type of person, it isn’t good enough that the psychologists, the psychiatrists, even our own pediatrician told us: If you try to force her to live like a boy, she’s very likely to commit suicide, but if you allow her to be herself, she’s very likely to grow up healthy and happy. Everyone knows that psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, heck–science itself, is in league with Satan bringing distorted lies and half truths into our godly homes. But even factoring in for the Godless, liberal bent of doctors, I thought to myself: On one hand I could beat her into submission, cut her hair off and put her back in manly jeans (I’m not unaware of this parenting strategy), or on the other hand I could trust my kid.
When I had to choose between her heart + brain on one side, and her genitals on the other side, (call me crazy), I picked her heart and brain. They seemed more important to me than her genitals.
Now, again, I know how certain people see this: She’s gender confused. Someone probably let her play with a Barbie when she was two and I wasn’t looking. She’s mentally deranged. As a good, loving, parent, I should correct the error in her thinking. But again, why is it more likely that God would let my daughter be born with a messed up brain+heart, than “messed up” genitals? In what universe would her privates tell me more about her soul than her brain and her heart do?
Plus there’s that whole other problem. No one has ever successfully “loved” a transgender person back to the gender they were assigned at birth. Ex-transgender people are as imaginary as ex-gay people. It doesn’t actually work.
So I chose to do more homework.
For one thing, it turns out that 1 out of 1,000 kids is born without XX or XY chromosomes. Without a penis or vagina. XXY, XYY, XO, etc. That’s called an intersex condition. It’s not what my kid has, but it changed the way I thought about all of this.
For another thing, the doctors were right. Look at the studies, talk to any transgender person: Transgender people who aren’t allowed to transition to their preferred gender are highly likely to commit suicide (imagine if someone forced you to dress and act like the opposite gender), but transgender people who are accepted and loved as they are go on to have happy, healthy lives.
And here’s another thing I learned: Transgender people are much, much more likely to be raped and murdered than the rest of us. Transgender people are already both historically and currently, actively being sexually harassed and assaulted in bathrooms and locker rooms. The fear-mongering of ignorant politicians is that potentially, in the future, transgender people might start harassing and assaulting non-transgender people in bathrooms and locker rooms.
But transgender people already exist. They already pee and change their clothes. And they aren’t harassing or assaulting anyone. Because they know that our community sees them as freaks and deviants. They know that the police will beat them and rape them and put them in prisons where there will be more beatings and rapes. They know how our community treats transgender people. They know how disgusted by them we all are.
As is usually the nature of fear, hate, ignorance, and evil, we have it completely backwards: Bathrooms and locker rooms are very vulnerable places for transgender people. They’re asking to go into the locker room where they’re the safest. Where they are the least likely to be assaulted or harassed. The anti-transgender rhetoric that is going around our nation right now is accusing the people most likely of being raped and murdered of being rapists and predators. It’s bearing false witness against our neighbor in the worst way possible.
So, I want you to ask yourself: which bathroom should I send my six year old daughter, with pigtails and a dress, into when I’m at the grocery store?
If you understand where I’m coming from, here’s what I need you to do: I need you to stand up for transgender people at Thanksgiving, at the water cooler, at the movie theater, and on Facebook.
Transphobic ideas have real consequences in the life of my child. I need you to email or call your elected officials and let them know that you want transgender people to be able to choose the safest bathroom and locker room for themselves. These laws will shape my child’s life.
If you still don’t get it, here’s some bullet points: The women’s locker room and bathroom is already used by people sexually attracted to women. They’re called lesbians and they’re real. You realize that you can’t tell if someone is transgender by looking at them, right? The women’s locker room and bathroom is already used by transgender women. Some of them have surgically created vaginas or breasts. Many of them have physically crushed their genitals into their body cavity so no one will assault them. Some of them are just private enough to change in a way that you can’t see their genitals. I’ve been in men’s bathrooms and locker rooms my whole life. I’ve never seen an erect penis in either. I’ve never been assaulted in either. How about instead of making laws to keep transgender women out of the women’s locker room, we have laws about sexually harassing, assaulting, and raping people? How would you enforce any of these laws? Should we have genital inspections upon entering locker rooms and restrooms? Should we conduct chromosomal testing upon entrance? Have you ever actually had your chromosomes tested? Where do you want the intersex people to go? Which locker room do you want her to use? Which locker room do you want him to use?
Lastly: Please don’t like if you’re not going to share. Please don’t comment on this telling me how much you support me / trans people. Go educate someone ignorant instead. Please CC your death threats to the Southern Poverty Law Center and FBI.
