Ruling just ‘gratuitous cruelty’
School can be stressful enough for youngsters, what with peer pressure and parental pressure and the constant testing and alwayswondering about college andwhat you are going to do with your life.
The stress, I can only imagine, must be10 times or100 times greater for a transgender student.
There is the fear of even getting out of bed in themorning and going to school. The name calling. The mocking. The humiliation. The eating lunch alone. Thewondering if there is going to be a fight.
And now, you can add the fact that transgender students knowthe president of the United States does not have their back. And nowthey have the added stress of knowing that their bathroom choice is being discussed nationwide.
Taking a few minutes off frombashing the media and immigrants, DonaldTrump lastweek ended federal protection for transgender students that required schools to allow them to use bathrooms matching their gender identities. The administration called it a “states rights” issue, using that as the excuse to discriminate. Please.
Not that there have been any problems with the rules allowing students to use bathrooms that match the gender with which they identify. I haven’t heard of anybody complaining in South Florida or elsewhere (the rules are actually on hold), ButTrump decided itwas a good time to throwa bone to the ultra conservatives and religious zealots who helped put him in office.
So the administration has gone after vulnerable youngsters. It is very humiliating that in 2017we are talking about denying a class of people basic equal rights— like Florida and much of the nation tried to fight gay marriage— but that’s whatwe have now, until the courts hopefully tell theTrump administration what they can do with their prejudice. In the next month or so, theU.S. Supreme Court will hear a transgender bathroom case involving a student fromVirginia.
No matter the decision, the cultural change is inevitable.
South Florida school administrators have made it clear transgender studentswouldn’t notice any change. Broward School SuperintendentRobert Runcie said “. . . we will continue to respect, value and support the varying needs of our diverse students.” In other words, there shouldn’t be bathroomupheaval at South Florida schools.
“Thank God for the school boards in South Florida that will stand up for transgender student rights,” Iwas told by Howard Simon, executive director of theACLUof Florida.
“This (ruling) isn’t only an issue of law. It’s gratuitous cruelty. It is the result of bigotry. Some people just don’t feel comfortable around transgender people.”
And all of this has to hurt transgender students, who have already experienced plenty of hurt in their lives as they wrestled with the idea of trying to be themselves. When small-minded adults got involved and started stoking fear, and passed that fear down to their kids, problems arose.
Again, in 2017, we should be past that. We shouldn’t be denying anyone their basic rights. But that’s what is going on.
Through all of this, I kept thinking aboutMelaniaTrump. You know, the one who lives in the penthouse inNewYork instead of theWhiteHouse.
She said after the election that shewould like to get involved with making people aware of the dangers of bullying. I thinkMelania needs to have a serious talk with her husband.
Gary Stein can be reached at gstein@sunsentinel.com, or 954-356-4616. On Twitter@SSEditorial.