Tag: transgender

I’d Prefer Unisex Bathrooms…but

it’s got to make sense

The rights of transgender individuals to use the bathroom which aligns with their gender identity has become a major hot button issue in the past few years. I didn’t have much cause to think about it until recently, when I saw a sign posted at a local YMCA that states that individuals are allowed to use the bathroom which correlates with their gender identity. Again, I never thought about it until I was on line with my daughter for the bathroom at another (different) location and an individual dressed in women’s clothes and wearing a wig, was on line ahead of us. No one said anything. No raised eyebrows or exchanged glances, or at least none that I noticed. The individual went in, went out and that was it.

Maybe because I live in a very liberal city, maybe because I’m woman and the bathrooms are typically multi-stalled or maybe because it’s not that big a deal, but I think unisex bathrooms are a reasonable way to be inclusive and respectful towards everyone. Who knew that ‘Ally McBeal’ would be way ahead of its time? I thought about this and wondered, what about locker rooms? The reality is, not everyone is a decent human being. If the YMCA’s policy allows access strictly based on self identity, then you make the grave assumption that everyone is going to be forthright and honor the spirit in which the provision was made, but we know that’s not the case.

My issue is that in an effort to be on the right side of history, politicians are putting the cart before the horse, causing anxiety and resistance to what is an important cause. Unless re-design happens within the necessary areas to make it more amenable for everyone to use, everyone shouldn’t use them.

Imperfect Creatures

I was watching the Bruce Jenner interview with family last week. My cousin was a bit unsettled by the concept that someone could be born into the wrong body. To him, it implies that God had made a mistake and that didn’t sit well with him. I gave his comment great thought, but my initial instinct was to rebut it, but I didn’t know how; it’s pretty sound logic after all. How does God, who is infallible, give a man’s body a woman’s soul? While I understood what my cousin was saying, I still felt great empathy for Jenner who was working on becoming his authentic self (something many of us should strive to do) and who was doing something tremendous by publicly telling his story. So which is it: God screwed up or we’re just screwed up? Or maybe it’s neither. Maybe this is the result of a perfect creator and his imperfect creatures. We have never been perfect, in form or function; If we we’re, we wouldn’t have the afflictions, diseases or physical ailments that we do. We accept physical and mental issues as a part of life and not evidence of God making mistakes, so perhaps someone being born into the wrong body is just further evidence of the imperfect creation process rather than an imperfect God.