Trans Females in Men’s Spaces
Trans Females in Men’s Spaces
By Amy Contrada
The progress of the transgender rights movement would not be possible without institutional endorsement. Propagandists have successfully induced the leaders of our educational, governmental, cultural, and media institutions to buy into the notion that a physiologically normal male can “really” be a female and that a physiologically normal female can “really” be a male. More and more students, at younger and younger ages, are being indoctrinated into accepting the idea that sex is merely “assigned” at birth and may not match one’s true “identity.” Those who do not accept this obviously false notion are coming under increasing pressure to self-censor their thoughts and actions lest they be attacked, ostracized, suspended from school, or fired from their jobs.
Though the transgender movement represents only a tiny fraction of the population—0.03 percent—the legal apparatus set up to support it has far-reaching ramifications for all aspects of life, including language, relationships, and medical practice. If our cultural and political leaders can force us to deny the biological reality of male and female through language manipulation and anti-discrimination laws, it is not overstating the case to say that a totalitarian impulse is at work.1
The Bathroom Wars
Though many aspects of the turmoil caused by transgenderism warrant detailed analysis, here I will limit my discussion to an area where government enforcement is most obvious: what were once sex-segregated private spaces.
The so-called bathroom wars reveal the monstrousness of the trans ideology. Trans encounters in bathrooms affect us on a visceral level. We feel that something is fundamentally wrong. Nor are safety and privacy the only things at stake. Many people also instinctively perceive that being forced to accept a person of the opposite sex in their bathroom is the beginning of thought control: You must believe that this man is a woman. That’s why there is so much resistance—though that understanding is rarely voiced out loud.
To date, most of the talk has been about women’s spaces being invaded by men who pretend to be women. This is a serious concern, especially given that about three-quarters of male-tofemale transgenders have intact male genitalia. Women who have had to share an intimate space with a strange male who is probably mentally disturbed2 know how disconcerting and even frightening it can be.
But the opposite scenario—female-to-male transgenders invading men’s private spaces—is also cause for concern, yet hasn’t been discussed nearly as much. So, it will be the focus of my attention here.
Perhaps the relative silence regarding female interlopers in men’s bathrooms and locker rooms is another aspect of the ongoing “war against men” waged by radical feminists.3 These interlopers are, after all, biological women who, in denying biological men’s sole right to these spaces, are seeking to blur the line between male and female. On the one hand, it’s a method of social conditioning to usher in a genderless utopia, but on the other, it’s an assertion of the feminist dogma that a female’s sincerity cannot be challenged, even if she identifies as a man.
If a male points out that it’s in the female’s best interest to stay out of a male space, he is guilty of bigotry. Gender ideology now dictates that it’s discriminatory for a male to be concerned about a female’s safety in such spaces. It’s also forbidden to be concerned about the privacy or modesty of the males themselves in their space. That doesn’t count anymore.
School Scenarios
The problem is not only, or even mainly, limited to adult encounters. Reports are accumulating of middle-school and high-school girls suing for access to boys’ restrooms and locker rooms. (Trans activists know how vulnerable school districts are to costly lawsuits.) Mainstream news coverage portrays these trans girls (pretending to be boys) as justly suing for their “rights,” and courts usually rule in their favor. Little or nothing is said about the boys’ rights. Here are some examples, among many that could be cited:
– In March 2018, a federal district judge in Talbot County, Maryland, ruled for a teenage trans girl who demanded access to the boys’ restroom and locker room at her middle school.4 The school board policy, intended to protect all students, had been that the girl should change for gym class in a gender-neutral bathroom, but the judge declared that such a requirement constituted “discrimination on the basis of gender stereotypes.” In reality, of course, the policy made a rightful distinction on the basis of biological sex.
– In April 2016, a trans girl in Gloucester County, Virginia, who went by the name of Gavin Grimm, charged her school with sex discrimination under Title IX because she was denied use of the boys’ restrooms. Children’s hospital gender clinics, trans-affirming doctors, LGBT activist groups, and school administrators from around the country supported the girl’s lawsuit. So did 59 major corporations.5 The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that her case should go forward,6 although the lone dissenting judge said the ruling completely tramples on all universally accepted protections of privacy and safety that are based on the anatomical differences between the sexes. This unprecedented holding overrules custom, culture, and the very demands inherent in human nature for privacy and safety, which the separation of such facilities is designed to protect.
The case was eventually appealed to the Supreme Court, which sent it back to the lower courts, where it is still being litigated7 although the student herself has graduated.
– In July 2016, a Wisconsin trans girl sued the Kenosha School District after being denied use of the boys’ restrooms. Her suit alleged that she was isolated from her “peers”—i.e., male classmates—on overnight school trips. So not only did she want to relieve herself in the presence of boys, she wanted to sleep in hotel bedrooms with them. The case was appealed to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which in May 2017 ruled in her favor, forcing the school to pay her $800,000.8
– In February 2018 in Ohio, a ninth-grade girl wrestler who identifies as a boy charged Wilmington High School with gender discrimination because although the school’s wrestling coach allowed her on the boys’ team, he wouldn’t let her change in the boys’ locker room. The girl also claimed that a boy wrestler on the team discriminated against her when he said he wouldn’t wrestle her because he didn’t want to grab her female bottom.
At the time, the girl said she was “about 70 percent through [her] transition” (she appears to have had a double mastectomy and testosterone treatments but not a penile implant), but even so, if the other boys on the team didn’t already know she was a girl, they would soon have found out in the course of wrestling with her. (Of all sports, wrestling has got to be the least suited to co-ed teams.) Nevertheless, the girl’s mother claimed that the coach “outed” her daughter as a female, and in doing so both humiliated the girl and revealed confidential medical records. The suit also claimed that the other wrestlers, after finding out the girl was trans, threatened and bullied her, though no details were supplied.9
To the unenlightened observer, it would seem that the coach and teammate were guilty of no more than observing biological truth and respecting the girl as a female. Yet for the very reason that they wanted to observe common decency and protect her modesty, they were deemed guilty of discrimination. How ironic such a story is in this age of MeToo-ism.
Public Restrooms
Trans madness is not only proliferating in schools. It is also being extended to public restrooms.
A goal for many trans females is to stand to urinate, as men do, and various “stand-to-pee” devices have been developed to facilitate this. There are also websites that give advice on their use, such as how to wash out the device after use in a public men’s room without attracting attention and giving away one’s biological sex.10 The few trans females who have had fake penises attached reportedly have problems, as well; the prostheses don’t look convincing and often have leakage issues.
How will men react to seeing such things? It is natural to feel uncomfortable around anyone who shows signs of being mentally disturbed, and women who are willing to go to such lengths in pretending to be what they are not clearly exhibit such signs. Moreover, trans females face some level of danger themselves when they use men’s public facilities. That they are aware of this is implicitly acknowledged in the advice they are given, such as the following:
[The men’s room] is not a social space. Nobody talks or makes eye contact with anyone else. People don’t stand next to each other at urinals unless they are all filled. Usually folks in the men’s room stand in line in the middle of the bathroom…Don’t feel out of place for using a stall…If you need to sit down to pee and are worried that someone will notice, try using a can lid or medicine spoon…You can also try one of the various stand-to-pee devices…
If you are feeling nervous when entering a bathroom, take a deep breath and remind yourself that there’s nothing wrong with you and that you have the right to be there as much as anyone else does…
If you are feeling safe and bold, try confronting bathroom harassers directly…If they question your choice in bathrooms, tell them, “I am transgender and I have a right to be here, deal with it.”11
Trans females are also advised to “bring a buddy” with them for safety when they enter a men’s room.
Why do these women want to put themselves in situations where there may be a harassing or violent reaction to their presence? How safe can they really be in the men’s facilities in highway rest areas, sports stadiums, or health clubs? Sadly, their abnormal behavior may trigger a male who has had too much to drink or who is simply a ruffian. This is uncharted territory, and these women will, at a minimum, spark men’s dismay and repulsion. Yet they forge ahead, crashing men’s spaces and claiming it is their right to do so.
Government Complicity
Boys’ and men’s sense of biological identity is being challenged through this intrusion. But that doesn’t matter to transgender activists; their demands take precedence.
And they are being backed up in their attack on common sense by powerful forces. State and local governments are passing “gender identity” non-discrimination laws and ordinances covering public accommodations.12 The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has declared transgender restroom use a “health and safety matter,” yet, in disregard of actual health and safety, it advises that no restrictions be placed on an individual’s choice of bathroom.13 In this, OSHA is kowtowing to the radical Human Rights Campaign’s dictate that trans individuals take precedence over everyone else: “Co-workers uncomfortable with a transgender employee’s use of the same restroom or locker room should be advised to use separate facilities.”14
Official policies now declare that separate, set-aside facilities are harmful to trans persons. They must be allowed in the facility of their choice. But there’s no consideration for the other 99.97 percent of the population. We are told there’s something wrong with us if we are uncomfortable losing our privacy and peace of mind.
False Safety Concerns
Transgender activists claim there’s an epidemic of violence against trans individuals, but this claim has been debunked.15 Still, these agitators say they must use the restroom “matching their gender identity” for safety reasons. But when it comes to trans females’ actual safety, their hypocrisy is obvious.
Trans schoolgirls are irrationally putting themselves into unsafe situations with the blessing of the adult activists who back them at every step.16 Trans girls and women are encouraged to enter spaces holding psychological and possibly physical danger for them.17 (It’s no wonder transgenders have higher rates of anxiety than the general population.18)
This intentional risk-taking exposes the phoniness of the “safety” card played by LGBT activists for decades. It was Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network), who in the 1990s first floated the idea that LGBT students faced danger in schools. GLSEN’s solution was to introduce gay clubs, “safe zones,” and LGBT curricula in schools. It was a sly scheme to bring gay and transgender indoctrination into the education system.19
“Safety” will also be used as an excuse to remove children from parents who don’t go along with the trans ideology that has infected their child. The NEA (allied with the ACLU and Human Rights Campaign) and the Massachusetts Department of Education have laid out circumstances under which trans students should be “protected” from their own parents.20 In February, a judge in Ohio removed a teen from her parents’ custody because the parents did not support their daughter’s “transition.”21
If our society is really concerned about safety, the transgender movement must be curtailed. Young people especially are being used as pawns and are terribly harmed in this political battle. Protections for “gender identity” need to be rescinded. People need to speak out. Maybe some real men will come to the defense of the wrestling coach in Ohio!