Gender sure confuses some people

 Gender sure confuses some people

 

What is it about transgender kids that gets people all whipped up?   Generally the whipping up seems to be about keeping transgender children in their “proper place”.   According to these folks the “proper place” is the gender the child was assigned at birth. 

In Florida, a federal appeals judge upheld a school district’s policy of requiring kids to use restrooms based on the gender they were assigned at birth even if that is  inconsistent with their gender identity.  Assuming most school bathrooms have stalls with doors in addition to urinals in male bathrooms, not sure who will be assigned to police this one.  When I was training to be a teacher one of the first principles  of behavior management that I was taught is don’t make threats you can’t enforce.  So it will be interesting to see if this law can be enforced.  Lack of ability to enforce doesn’t change the lack of respect and sting it sends to trans youth.

Next up for the trans police is participation in intercollegiate sports.   West Virginia passed a law that bars transgender youth from participating in girls’ sports in the state. A judge recently ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for the West Virginia legislature to limit participation in school and college sports based on biological sex.   In 2021, this same judge ruled that to exclude a transgender student from sports “on the basis of sex” was likely in violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.   Either the judge learned a lot or forgot a lot in the past two years.

The judge did state that he felt the law was a solution in search of a problem since no transgender student has sought to participate in female sports before the legislature passed the law.  But he could not find that the legislature had acted in animus towards transgender students when it passed the law.

The state had asked the Supreme Court for or an emergency injunction forbidding the girl to participate in middle school girl’s track while the family continued with its appeal.   However, last week the Supreme Court in a very brief statement said that the girl could participate on the track team until such time as the family continued through all of its appeals.

Funny thing is, all parties agree, this transgender girl is a very average track runner so no one feels threatened on that issue.  Wonder what could be bothering these folk?