Title IX – (en)gender
Trans Guidance Ruling: Actual Facts
While doing a short talk on 21st Century gender today, I felt I had to say something about the news that the WH will not be supporting trans students’ bathroom use.
Here’s a few things we know:
the attempted suicide rate for trans people is 41%
the Obergefell SCOTUS ruling legalizing same sex marriage correlates with a decrease in suicides by LGBTQ+ youth
trans people are at risk of violence, bullying, and harassment in bathrooms, not cis people
men do not to pretend to be trans or get more access to women to sexually assault them. rapists are usually known to their victims.
men who do rape and sexually assault generally do not get convicted
trans people do not sexually assault, harass, or bully cis people while in bathrooms
there are approximately 150,000 students in the US who identify as trans
All of which, added up, means that this tiny, marginalized, misunderstood minority of trans people need safe access to bathrooms, that they need bathrooms to get an education, that there is little risk to cisgender students when trans students use the bathroom, and that this whole idea that this is about preventing violence against women or children is completely fucking ridiculous, unfounded, and frankly, insulting to every woman and every feminist and every survivor (including the male ones) of sexual violence in this goddamned country.
Here’s NCTE’s FAQ on what the withdrawal of guidance means.
Love to all the trans people out there. I’m with you.
Title IX: Equity in Education (Not Just Sports)
I’ve been a self-proclaimed feminist for 20 years now, and it took me a very, very long while to realize that Title IX was not ONLY about sports. It states:
There is no specific mention of sports, you’ll notice. I’ll be honest that that bias toward the sports issues it raised really pisses me off. And to clarify: I don’t hate sports. I just hate the way sports take up all the air in the room, all the time. And in this case, one of the reasons every reference we hear to Title IX concerns sports is because right out of the gate there were people more worried about how this might disrupt male athletes for a tiny goddamn second.
So to clarify, Title IX actually addresses all inequities in ANY EDUCATION PROGRAM OR ACTIVITY, which includes (but is not limited to):
Education for Pregnant and Parenting Students,
Math and Science,
That said, today it has been 40 years since Title IX was enacted by President Nixon, and I’m glad we’ve got it. Lately, honestly, I’m wondering what happened that we seemed to abandon so many of the amazing goals of the 60s and 70s, or exactly when we took our eye off equity.