Bathroom Bill in Illinois!

Here is an editorial by a student in the class.

House Bill 4474 in the Illinois General Assembly is now being called the “Bathroom Bill”. The new bill decides who can use bathrooms and locker rooms according to their sex. To the bill sex is an individual’s anatomy at birth.  

Amends the School Code. Requires a school board to designate each pupil restroom, changing room, or overnight facility accessible by multiple pupils simultaneously, whether located in a public school building or located in a facility utilized by the school for a school-sponsored activity, for the exclusive use of pupils of only one sex. Defines "sex" as the physical condition of being male or female, as determined by an individual's chromosomes and identified at birth by that individual's anatomy. Provides that no member of the female sex may use a pupil restroom or changing room that has been designated by the school board for the exclusive use of the male sex and no member of the male sex may use a pupil restroom or changing room that has been designated by the school board for the exclusive use of the female sex, with exceptions. Authorizes a school board to provide reasonable accommodations to a pupil to use a single-occupancy restroom or changing room or the regulated use of a faculty restroom or changing room if the pupil is an adult or an emancipated minor, or the parent or guardian of a minor pupil submits to school officials, in writing, a request to receive such accommodations and the pupil is a member of the male sex but does not identify as a member of the male sex or the pupil is a member of the female sex but does not identify as a member of the female sex. Sets forth a complaint procedure. (ilga)

Let’s say this bill passes, in some people eyes it will stop the perverts. The new bill’s purpose is to have privacy while in the bathroom and safety for the children.  Except the new bill will only prevent the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming youth. This is basically saying that they have no rights, they’re not respected, or valued. 

They should be allowed to feel safe and secure in a restroom. It is only fair for the students to decide for themselves, not be singled out because of their gender identity. This will only make a bigger problem instead of solving an issue. 

We’re in the year of 2016, in a generation that’s very accepting, so why take steps back when we’ve been progressing altogether by including the LGTBQ community? The new bill is like a slap to the face of the transgender community. We like to encourage and accept people, but once it’s done we want to take their rights. It’s wrong, it’s unfair, and there’s not enough evidence that this new bill will stop any unsafe activity going on in the restrooms. 

Wow, this bill has many co-sponsors, and it has some bi-partisan support.  One way of looking at it is the misguided definition of sex: “as determined by an individual's chromosomes and identified at birth by that individual's anatomy.”  I guess whoever drafted the bill didn’t know anything about Maria Patino and other women athletes (about 1 in 500) who have XY chromosomes like men, but don’t have a sensitivity or receptor for testosterone, and therefore develop as women and are physically women.  Or, what about when the the SRY gene gets deleted from a Y chromosome or displaced onto an X chromosome?  What about the intersex persons?  Surely people these days know that sometimes the sexual assignment at birth is wrong.  And now of course, as you say, we are accepting people who don’t even want to be put into the dichotomous categories of male and female. 

It turns out that there have been some occasional problems with men going into women’s bathrooms wearing disguises as men, or claiming that they are transgendered, but in every case I have read about, the man was heterosexual and not at all transgendered, and was using the excuse to get into the bathrooms to satisfy some sort of kink, or just to make a point.  And even in these incidents, I have never heard of any violence, and ever case I am aware of took place in adult bathrooms, not in schools. Would it not be strange if the only men who are bothering women in bathrooms are men who want to pass laws to keep transgendered women out of women’s bathrooms because they were assigned a sex of male at birth or happen to have a Y chromosome?  They are creating the problem they seek to remedy.

Any excuse to pass more laws and give police and tyrants more excuses to fine people and get them involved with the devilish mechanisms of the justice system. I am shocked that this bill has so much support in the General Assembly. Perhaps someone will offer an amendment to change the way sex is defined in the bill.  Or, more likely, it will just die in the Rules Committee. Barbara Currie from Chicago chairs that committee, and she has some sense.

REFERENCES

Illinois General Assembly - Bill Status for 4474. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2016, from http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=4474