A key ruling by U.S. Department of Education officials should give public educators pause when determining access to locker rooms and other facilities for transgender students. And it should cause Californians to reconsider before signing petitions for an anti-trans initiative that would restrict access to public restrooms, including those in public schools.
In the Illinois case, Palatine High School District 211 was found discriminating against a female student on the basis of her sex. The education department issued its findings after a lengthy investigation that concluded the district violated federal law for denying the student access to a gender-appropriate locker room for changing clothes, simply because the student is transgender. According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which brought the case, the education department made clear this week that the school district "is engaging in harmful discrimination."
The district thought it had found a solution when it required the student to change clothes behind a privacy curtain. But the education department disagreed, saying that the separate changing room, which the ACLU said was a long way from the locker room, violated Title IX because it separated and stigmatized the student solely because she is a trans teenager.
"The investigation made clear that the district's claims about any problems resulting from ending the discrimination were unsupported both because the other students were not concerned about the issue and because, in general, girls do not fully undress when getting ready for gym or many sporting activities," the ACLU said in a statement. "And to the extent that any girl wanted extra privacy, the district should offer them private areas to dress rather than isolating students who are transgender."
The education department's ruling was significant because it was the first of its kind on the rights of transgender students. And this issue is not going away. More that ever, young people are determining their gender identity at earlier ages, and many of them have the support of their parents, so school administrators and others are going to have to accommodate students without discriminating against them. And shielding a trans student from the rest of the class is not acceptable, the federal government has decided.
Here in California, the anti-LGBT group called Privacy for All is in the process of collecting signatures for a 2016 ballot initiative that would prohibit transgender people from using public restrooms in government buildings. It's called "Limits on Use of Facilities in Government Buildings and Businesses" and one of the more onerous parts of the measure would allow anyone offended by the presence of an individual in a restroom to sue that person for $4,000 in damages, as well as attorney's fees.
State Attorney General Kamala Harris approved the initiative for signature gathering back in June; proponents have until December 20 to gather 365,880 valid signatures to qualify it for the November 2016 ballot.
The defeat Tuesday of an anti-LGBT discrimination law in Houston reinforces the reality of a backlash and the false arguments our opponents will exploit at every turn. The restroom myth has been promoted to convince people to fear "boys" or "men in dresses" using female facilities.
Until neighbors, co-workers, and families know transgender people these specious arguments about who can use which restroom will remain a potent weapon. The irony of Privacy for All, as Equality California's Rick Zbur said a few months ago, is that it undermines its very name by seeking to invade the most basic dignity of not only trans people, but people of all orientations and identities.
This week's decision in Illinois should raise questions about whether such an initiative would be legal in California. Earlier this year Harris went to court to stop, before the signature-gathering phase, a ballot proposal that would require gays to be put to death.
The U.S. Department of Education's finding isn't the first time that Title IX has been used successfully in transgender discrimination cases, and we'd like to see Harris apply the same logic to the ballot measure being proposed in California.