Oct. 16--I, too, am transitioning.
From a person with rigid, binary notions of gender identity to a person with his mind fully wrapped around the idea of transgenderism, gender queerness and gender fluidity.
From a baby boomer whose childhood peer group routinely, unthinkingly and matter of factly teased those whose appearance or manner deviated from stereotypical masculine/feminine norms to a citizen of the 21st century who honors such differences.
From an "Oh, get over it" skeptic about the idea that gender isn't necessarily defined by birth genitalia to a "You go, kid" cheerleader who complies without question when Joan asks to be called John or Cathy starts going by Carl.
I must admit that, like many of my generation, I'm not all the way there; that old habits of thought die hard and the pace of change on this issue has left me straining to keep up. It's an effort to keep my pronouns straight and to remember to use "cisgender" instead of "normal" when referring to those whose gender identity has always matched the genitals with which they were born.
My first impulse, upon hearing of the controversy at Northwest Suburban High School District 211 involving a transgender girl who wants unrestricted access to the girls' athletic locker room, was to consider the privacy concerns of the cisgender girls who also use that locker room.
How would they feel, seeing and being seen in various states of undress by a person who is biologically male?
That concern, after all, is why we have traditionally segregated locker rooms and restrooms, even single-use restrooms, by sex.
And it's the same concern that inspired District 211 administrators to require transgender students to change their clothes in special "privacy stalls" if they want to use a locker room that doesn't correspond with their birth gender -- an accommodation that Superintendent Dan Cates described as "every bit of reasonable" and in line with many other accommodations the district makes for such students.
But in response to a complaint filed by the unnamed girl's parents, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights ruled the requirement is discriminatory and violates Title IX gender equality laws. If District 211 doesn't drop the requirement and integrate her into the locker-room setting, it risks losing more than $6 million a year in federal funding.
The requirement "reflects a parent concern, not a kid concern," said American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois staff attorney John Knight, who represents the student and directs the ACLU's LGBT HIV Project.
"Kids know transgender students and tend to be quite accepting of them," Knight said. "They see this kind of transitioning all the time among their peers and generally don't have a problem with it. And for those (students) who do have a problem, we think the school should give them separate, private places to dress, not impose a requirement on transgender students."
Knight argues that forcing transgender students into changing stalls serves to marginalize and isolate them -- to suggest, in this case, "that she isn't really a girl."
And indeed that very suggestion -- that there is something trivial, phony or even prurient about transgenderism -- appears to be the animating spirit behind conservative legislative efforts around the country to prohibit people from using restrooms or changing facilities that don't align with their chromosomal or birth gender.
But it's that suggestion that rings false.
My second impulse in reacting to this story is to admire the courage of this girl in making her transition and to acknowledge that no one would ever go through such a difficult process simply in hopes of getting a peek at some private parts.
For all practical purposes, she really is a girl. And, ultimately, balking at that, insinuating otherwise, is not reasonable.
Schools and other public accommodations need to transition as well by providing locker-room privacy stalls for anyone who wants them and unisex bathrooms for those somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum.
It's a new era. Some of us are entering it more slowly than others, but we're getting there.
