The website lifesitenews.com reported last Tuesday that the Maine Human Rights Commission decided that it is discriminatory to force a “transgendered” boy to use a boy’s restroom in Maine’s public schools. The Maine Human Rights Commission has been studying the concept of “biology-based bathrooms,” believing that rather than giving a child access to a bathroom segregated by standard definitions of “male” and “female” based on the body parts with which a child born, a child should be allowed to use either a boy’s or a girl’s bathroom based on the gender that they perceive themselves to be.
The entire story is as follows:
Tuesday September 28, 2010
School Must Allow ‘Transgender’ 6th Grader to Use Girls’ Bathroom: Maine Human Rights Panel
By Kathleen Gilbert
AUGUSTA, Maine, September 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Maine Human Rights Commission (HRC) has ruled that a middle school unlawfully discriminated against a "transgender" sixth-grade boy by disallowing the child from entering a girls' bathroom and instead assigning him his own separate bathroom.
The matter concerned Orono Middle School's treatment of a child whose parents have insisted has a right to use a girl's bathroom, despite being biologically male, because of his chosen gender identity.
“In choosing to disallow [him] to use the girls’ bathroom facilities, the school was implicitly isolating and alienating her (sic) from other students,” the parents wrote, according to local reports. “We determined that we needed to modify our actions to do the best we could to ensure [our child’s] safety.”
The panel also ruled against Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono last year, when the same parents issued a similar complaint over the school's conduct while their child was in the fifth grade, in the 2007-08 school year.
The school contended that officials had adequately accommodated the child, by educating staff and students on the situation, giving the child his own bathroom and locker room, and even arranging frequent meetings with his parents. “For the most part, she (sic) appeared to be happy and involved in the school community,” officials wrote.
The parents also alleged that the school subjected the boy to a hostile environment due to harassment from other students, a claim rejected by the HRC panel. He has since been removed from the school district.
In a September 20 meeting, the panel announced they would wait until the election of a new state governor before issuing guidelines on how schools ought to accommodate "transgender" students.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Maine Human Rights Commission Debates ‘Biology-based Bathrooms’ http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10030307.html
I strongly believe that it is neither healthy nor appropriate to integrate bathrooms in public schools. It is a recipe for disaster. Putting aside all arguments for or against the legitimacy of “transgendered” as a state of being, the potential for abuse in integrating public restrooms in a school is enormous. If this catches on, there will be a significant increase in sexual harassment and sexual assaults in public schools. Any claims by transgendered people that their needs are legitimate will be grossly overshadowed by the damage done by people who misuse or abuse a claim of a transgendered status in order to gain access to a bathroom for someone of the opposite sex. I would prefer schools have individual bathrooms rather than larger, multi-person bathrooms if the needs of transgendered people must be met.
Stories such as this one are appearing with more frequency. They’ve surfaced in Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York. I will not allow my children to attend an institution where they have to expose themselves to members of the opposite sex while changing in a locker room or toileting. It simply isn’t going to happen.
Sure that's what I want to have happen: my 13 yr old daughter in a bathroom when a male "self perceived female" thinks he has a right to be there.
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