You know what shouldn’t be difficult, like, at all? Going to the bathroom. When I need to go to the bathroom, my biggest fear isn’t “Oh no, people who aren’t gender normative! Eek!” so much as it is “Jesus Christ, I hope the last guy who was in here flushed before — OH, COME ON.”
My point is, which bathroom someone uses shouldn’t be that big a deal. People should be able to use whichever bathroom they feel most comfortable with. You’re just voiding yourself of waste product; whether the person awkwardly trying to ignore the sound of your deuce is cisgender, transgender or intersex is somewhat irrelevant to the situation.
Well, good news! The Toronto District School Board has created a new policy that allows students to use whichever bathroom they like based on their gender identity.
The Toronto District School Board has introduced a new set of guidelines that spell out what kind of accommodation the board must offer to “transgender and gender non-conforming students and staff.”
The policy says schools must keep a student’s gender non-conformity or transgender status confidential and should never disclose it to a parent or guardian without consent from the student.
“It is strongly suggested that staff privately ask transgender or gender nonconforming students at the beginning of the school year how they want to be addressed in correspondence to the home or at meetings with the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s)/caregiver(s),” the policy says.
It also says students and staff have the right to use a washroom that “best conforms to their gender identity” without having to “prove” their gender. Schools must also offer an “accessible all-gender single stall washroom” for any employee or student who needs “increased privacy.” (Source)
All in all, I think the policy makes a lot of sense. How people identify themselves is more indicative of who and what they are than whether or not the collection of muscle and nerve tissue in their pubic region manifested on the outside or the inside.
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