In Theory: Religious groups weigh in on restroom case

Several religious groups have filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in response to a transgender boy’s request to use his public-school restroom. In their brief, they argue against extending Title IX protections to transgender students and say that doing so would threaten religious liberty, the Salt-Lake Tribune reports.

In an op-ed, civil rights attorney Samuel Wolfe argues that while preserving religious freedom is important, “denying civil rights to a misunderstood minority sets a dangerous precedent.”

While the brief acknowledges the groups disagree on “many points of faith,” adherence to one’s biological sex is called “divinely created and immutable.”

But Wolfe writes that there are too many external and internal variances.

“Genesis tells that all are created in God’s image, in a male/female duality. Gender appeared after day and night, land and sea,” he writes. “Why must gender be a stark divide when other dualities bear complexities, such as seen at twilight?”

The arguments laid out in the brief play on unfounded fears, Wolfe argues.

“Protecting a vulnerable minority doesn’t delegitimize religion, it’s doing what’s right,” he writes.

Q. What are your thoughts on the arguments in the brief and Wolfe’s criticism of it?

Those who oppose allowing transgender individuals to use the restroom they deem appropriate to themselves are scapegoating a vulnerable minority to allay their own sense of gender panic. Reliance on fear and shame to impose one religion’s definition of social order on everyone is a principle of theocracy, not democracy.

The alarmists who once despaired when men began wearing their hair long (despite the traditional depictions of Jesus with flowing mane) have long since mellowed; even Liberty University now allows male coifs to extend below the collar. The gnashing of teeth and rending of gender-specific garments by those who bemoan the threat they think is posed by protection of the rights of the transgendered people comes from some of the same folks who once panicked over bell-bottoms and miniskirts. Take note, we survived.

Relying on shame instead of acceptance of difference is one of the most negative elements of religion. Current attempts to roll back advances in equitable treatment amounts to an attack on the safety, health and dignity of transgendered people. Dehydration, urinary tract infections, and kidney stones are just some of the problems made worse by creating barriers to transgender people using the facilities they choose. No one is harmed when individuals are free to determine for themselves how they express their gender identity.

Alas, bullying is the political style this season. It is sadly ironic that in an era when the president dismisses his own callous comments and abusive behavior as mere “locker room talk,” that he and some of his supporters, in the name of faith, are scapegoating the most vulnerable by policing where people relieve themselves. The Unitarian Universalist Assn. has a number of resources on ways to be supportive of transgender people available on its website.

Respecting minority rights threatens no one else’s liberty. Let’s trust in human decency, rather than creating bathroom police, so we can end discrimination against transgender people and relieve ourselves of the oppressive prejudices of the past.

David L. Hostetter, Ph.D.
Vice President, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills
La Crescenta

..

I have no quarrel with individuals who believe that their personal identity as a male or female is “divinely created and immutable,” as the authors of the brief claim is the case for all humanity. Even if it were true, the Establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution would prevent the imposition of that belief on our laws and regulations.

Nothing in the brief explains how religious liberty is actually threatened by the relatively few individuals whose gender identity diverge from the physiological sex of their birth, and who merely want to use the toilet of their choice.

Mr. Wolfe makes a good point in reminding us that existing United States case law has already extended Title IX protection against sex discrimination to transgendered people. Gender discrimination is sex discrimination.

As a dedicated lap swimmer I have used pools all over the world, frequently encountering completely co-ed facilities, including group showers in which you leave on your bathing suit. For activities that reveal private parts, like changing clothes or using the toilet, there is a wonderful invention — the stall — with walls and a door.

This is just not a big deal.

Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose

..

There are only two genders, and everyone knows this fact whether they are religious or not. Everyone has the same physical biology on either side, and if you’re uncertain as to which you belong, simply check your plumbing.

Transgenderism has little to do with identifying one’s actual gender. It has to do with the psychological disconnect from one’s born anatomy and the cultivation of its associated traits. I am unsatisfied with the politicalization of the issue, where instead of getting people who believe themselves the opposite of what they really are the therapy they need, society has taken the “Emperor’s New Clothes” approach and is bending over backward to facilitate their delusion. Even the question today is confusing, as one doesn’t know if the “boy” in question is a boy who thinks he’s a girl, or a girl who thinks she’s a boy. Where are the parents of this child? Have they coddled this confused predilection?

A biological man should not enter the private chambers of true women who have the parts of their gender and who find comfort sharing a private area with like members. And no man should have to stand at a urinal in the men’s room and have a female walk in on him. How embarrassing, and it is not made less so because she dresses like a man and tries speaking in a lower register.

If society’s going to champion a third gender, then it can cough up the funds to build separate facilities. And since it’s a spiritual fraud, religious institutions should be exempt. It isn’t as though anyone is currently being denied needful use of a restroom, it’s just that they must follow the rules as everyone else and use the one where those in the space share identical God-given anatomy.

I don’t think this is going away, so I’d suggest making all restrooms single user small, and just putting a picture of a toilet on the door. Come one come all, but if this is untenable in religious places, then leave them alone. There is a sense in which even a religious space “preaches” the religion’s message, and so too the fact that God made us male and female and does not appreciate sinful man’s attempt to obfuscate.

“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this” (Deuteronomy 22:5).

Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga