In the past few years, a problem has risen involving the rights and treatment of transgender people and on the topic of "Gender Rights". The most notable example of what is being argued is the case of Gavin Grimm, a transgender student that was denied entrance to a men's bathroom at his school. Since that event, Grimm and other advocates have been searching for the US Government to pass acts recognizing transgenders and those with other abstract "gender identities" as what they say they are. In this post, I will be discussing my opinions on the matter; seeing as the aforementioned case of which bathroom transgenders should use is the first and most evident case, this will be the one I reference.
If I were asked whether or not I support gender rights, I would claim to be in heavy disagreement with it. Transgenders technically have the same rights as any other person, just without the recognition and agreement with what the individual identifies as. Rather, I see the calling for respect of these "rights" as just wanting special treatment and for others to have the same opinion as them. Rather than wanting rights, these people just want everyone else to agree with what they think they are. Using the bathroom incident as reference again, other students at Grimm's school stated that they were uncomfortable with having someone who was biologically a different sex in the same bathroom as them. In this case, you can get a sense of proportion to how others might feel about this. A very small minority that doesn't even make up half of a percent of the U.S. population wants their feelings put above the feelings of the other 99.7% of the U.S. citizens. And, besides that, a lot of the institutions and societal norms that these people are advocating for run off the basis of actual biological sex, not gender- therefore the points that these people try to make are unrealistic, and their claims have no value. If an individual such as Grimm, a biological female, does not have the genitalia of a biological male, there is no reason for the individual to be in there.
In final thought, I think that what these individuals demand is irrational. While it would normally be reasonable to want to be acknowledged for who they are, this is too much. I personally think the government should not take action in giving these people "rights", since they are not rights at all. I feel that, unless the individual gets an operation to have the parts of the other sex, they should continue to conform to the standards, rules, and areas set apart for the sex they were born as. If these rights were passed, I think they would be abused or set as an example for others who are self-entitled.
On March 30th, 2017, the blog Governmentally Insane, posted an article about Opinions of Gender Rights, and graciously explains why Gender Rights are more about changing peoples feelings and not that the other genders are discriminated in the case of transgender bathrooms. I do believe that transgender people are discriminated in other ways but the stance on transgender bathrooms, in agreement with Governmentally Insane, is unrealistic and unfathomable.
ReplyDeleteThe small ratio of transgender people to the rest of the country is minor, and to make a change of the way our government works it must take many people to advocate including many politicians. But politicians have greater things to work on such as Trumps radical ideas, and growing tension with North Korea. Being transgender is not illegal, you have the right to be who you want to be, but you do not have the right to push your beliefs and what you want on the majority. If transgender discrimination is happening in your job place, take a stand on that, because that is what real discrimination is. I think what bathroom you can use should be basis of discrimination.