Opinion: Don't Fear Transgender Youth Who Should Also Have Safe Bathrooms

Transgender youth won a major victory in the state legislature in August, a victory that could be short lived.

Assembly Bill 1266, The School Success and Opportunity Act, allows students in grades K-12 who identify with a gender different than what's on their school records to participate in sex-segregated public school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and even use those facilities.

This law would have allowed someone like me, a female, to have wrestled in her New Hampshire high school team. It also would have allowed my brother, a transman—that is, his birth certificate describes him as female because of his anatomical parts—to have used the boys bathroom at his high school. (Fortunately that wasn't an issue since he went to an "all-girls" high school. But that's another policy debate.)

My 29-year-old brother Skyler Cruz has been on testosterone for close to two years and recently underwent "top surgery," a bilateral mastectomy. He has facial and chest hair, and he uses the mens' bathroom.

When he "came out" in high school he told me that he liked girls, but he also said that he didn't want to be called a Lesbian. I understand the reasons now.

My brother—who at the time identified as a woman because he didn't have the terms, confidence or perhaps support—dressed like a "boy" with baggy jeans, plaid shirts and matching baseball caps. It must have been awkward for him to use the "girls" bathroom and it may have been just as awkward to the females in the bathrooms who didn't realize that biologically he was still like them.

"Everyone is freaking out about AB 1266," said Anthony Ross, director of The Outlet program, a resource program for LGBTQ youth in the South Bay and Peninsula. Outlet is part of the Community Health Awareness Council in Mountain View. "So much ignorance and misinformation about this, because people have no understanding of what being transgender is about."

And like other Lesbian Gay Transgender Bisexual and Questioning (LGBTQ) policy issues, AB 1266 already has its opponents. Privacy For All Students coalition, launched a campaign to get a referendum on a 2014 ballot to overturn the law, which passed by significant majorities in both the Senate and Assembly, before Governor Jerry Brown signed it into law on Aug. 12, 2013.

Recently on a Mountain View Nextdoor.com forum, a father from the Los Altos Eastenders neighborhood posted about his fears.

"It sounds scary to me. I have two daughters. I cannot imagine when she is in her school's bathroom, a boy comes in by declaring 'my own sex is a girl,'" the father said. His identity and that of others will be protected. "No matter what the intention is, if this law is true, it is just ridiculous. Let's help repeal this law by signing a voter's petition to put this law to vote in 2014."

A resident of the Mountain View neighborhood Sylvan Park called the father's fears "unfounded" and his perspective an "urban legend."

"The odds of a child arbitrarily declaring him or herself the opposite gender just to get into a locker room or bathroom has got to be infinitesimally low," she said. "Transgender bias is even worse than gay bias in this country. We have enough overblown fear tactics keeping our children from walking to school, using a public bathroom, or walking to a neighborhood park by themselves."

"Let's be tolerant of these kids, not make assumptions based on falsehoods or LGBT-phobias," she continued.

An article on the Privacy for all Students raises this very issue, that for the most part, kids in K-8 don't identify as transgender. And let's be frank (or Frances, if you prefer), many high school students, generally, avoid undressing or showering in locker rooms. Who has positive body image at that age? The article looked at how a Central Valley community is up in arms about the law.

Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District Superintendent Barry Groves told the San Jose Mercury News that currently trans students use staff bathrooms, but the district "will come up with a policy that respects the needs of its diverse population."

Back in the Nextdoor forum, a neighbor of the Eastenders father, replied to some of the comments about sharing restrooms with transgendered Googlers.

"On my first day at Google, there was a transgendered engineer in my new hire orientation. I couldn't help but stare, as he looked like a dude in a dress to me. When he followed me into the bathroom, it shocked me, as it never occurred to me that 'she' might consider herself female," the Googler said. "Over time, I got used to the transgenders at Google; there are actually quite a few. And they are very accepted, mostly because Google has an explicit LBGT inclusion policy."

She went even further to address the fears.

"And I can't imagine why a transgender would commit a sex crime against someone of the opposite sex—it makes no sense to me," she said.

Outlet's Director Ross, a transman himself, recognized the challenges that the misconceptions create in communities.

"This ignorance is layered and problematic in so many ways—destructive to all children," he said. "Everyone is so offended by 'boys' in girls bathrooms, which is not the point of this Act in the first place, but no one has commented or been outraged about 'girls' in boys' rooms. I'm of course not advocating for this argument or any of it's kind, but this wreaks of the misogynistic society we live in, and it's incredibly discouraging to me that in 2013, in the Bay Area, people are still not able to hold compassion and respect for diversity," Ross said.
 
"Frustrates me to no end."

Daily my brother astonishes me by his level of self-awareness. His decision to become who he feels he is, fills me with pride and admiration.

But I worry about him and other transgender people because of fears that cause communities to become more restrictive instead of more understanding and problem-solving. 

As an ally, I'm frustrated too.