The article “State Freedom Caucus holds presser, blasts YMCA over transgender policy” described one policy issue that caused a lot of controversy. This was a locker room policy at the Kerasotes YMCA. Two months ago, a 16-year-old girl Abbigail Wheeler and her family protested over the fact that the YMCA allow transgender people to use the same locker room that matches with their identity. And this issue came across due to an incident of when Wheeler went into the locker room and saw a transgender woman there, and was uncomfortable about potentially seeing that person change out of their swimsuit. Although she was not exposed to the transgender woman’s genitals, the situation did make Abbigail Wheeler uncomfortable.
Abbigail’s father, Dan Wheeler spoke at the rally and was quoted in news media as saying: “ Rather, we stand here today in unity to advocate for all the families that drop their children off at the YMCA in Springfield, by bringing awareness to a flawed policy based on, my opinion, of improper interpretation of current state statute that allows children to be potentially exposed to individuals of the opposite biological sex in the girls’ locker rooms.” On the news, after mentioning the rally, the coach was quoted as saying that there “was nothing they could do by Illinois state law.” Also, someone from the YMCA said that if she was uncomfortable then she could use the family locker rooms or she could change at home, and that she did not need to use the facilities used by the trans woman. The Illinois human rights act prohibits businesses or in this case recreational centers, from denying or refusing the “full and equal enjoyment of facilities, goods, and services” solely based on someone’s gender identity according to the Illinois Department of Human Rights website.” On the other hand, Abigail and her teammates did send a hate speech message towards the trans community by posting signs like “Biological women only” and “men are not welcome here” on the door to the women’s locker room. That is showing bad behavior on their part as well.
Both the news and the article showed how there are major flaw in the YMCA policy, specifically when it comes to both women’s privacy and safety. Even though, I agree that any sort of discrimination towards the trans community is wrong and should not be tolerated as stated by the federal laws. “There are still policies that need to be put in place. Overall, one policy to avoid more outcomes and or issues of this from appearing could be by giving transgendered persons their own bathrooms based off their identity. So, it will allow them to feel comfortable in their own spaces and for the biological sex to not be uncomfortable as well. Or another way to solve this without it being overly expensive is to have personal stalls in locker rooms for the protection of others’ privacy.
Reference
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpringfieldIL/comments/14yx9e2/some_truth_comes_out_about_the_y_scandal/
This seems like an ethical dilemma. Abbigail Wheeler and her parents and politiicans of the Freedom caucus are appealing to a purity ethic about two things: they are claiming that transgender women are still men, and they are saying that women in changing rooms and showers of a YMCA have a right to be in sex-segregated situations where no men will be mixed with them. The law and most of us are claiming that transgender women are essentially women, and should be treated no differently from other women. We are saying that excluding transgendered women from women's locker rooms and showers and bathrooms would violate their human rights and civil rights.
There are a variety of circumstances that give rise to persons who are not easily placed into categories of male or female (e.g., intersex conditions at birth). Likewise, slight mutations in a fetus can alter how they respond to certain hormones, so that persons with a brain of one gender might have genitals of another gender. One project embraced by most progressive people is to reframe the categories and constructs related to male and female, masculine and feminine, suggesting these can be vague or flexible. A counter project embraced by many conservative people is to claim that gender is immutable and clearly defined, so that everyone (or nearly everyone) belongs in one of two categories, and will remain in whatever category they were born into for their entire life.
Most of the conflicts arise from assumptions and definitions about what we mean when we say someone is a "female" or a "male" person.
At any rate, I prefer private stalls for changing and so forth. It's slightly awkward in a gym or pool locker room when taking showers in a communal shower or changing out of a swimsuit with other people around. I only find it slightly awkward, and have never been particularly uncomfortable about it, but I can tell that some people find this sort of thing extremely disturbing, and if they happen to fear that someone of the other gender will see them, and they old traditional binary attitudes about gender, they are going to be feeling hurt by policies such as we have in Illinois. Perhaps the solution is the one you suggested, where we use private stalls for changing.
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