Sigh…. (h/t Instapundit)
It has been a momentous week for civil rights, as the U.S. Supreme Court issued rulings concerning voting rights, affirmative action and same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, another significant case played out in Colorado involving a transgender 6-year-old child.
Like other civil-rights movements, the push for transgender rights stirs resistance because it stirs fear. Which is why the story of Coy Mathis, the very definition of unscary, is so important.
Born with a boy’s body, Coy has known she was a girl from the time she could articulate it. She just wants to live her life and go to school. And use the bathroom.
The Fountain-Fort Carson School District in Colorado, having let her use the girls’ room as a kindergartner, changed its policy in December, when she was in the first grade. Officials understandably were worried that as Coy matured, other girls and their parents would be uncomfortable having this anatomically male student use the girls’ room. Coy’s parents, equally understandably, sued, and this week they won the right for her to use the girls’ room.
It sounds almost like a parody: The latest frontier in civil rights, after the voting booth and the classroom and the wedding chapel, is … the lavatory? And phrased like that, it does sound a little silly.
Yet as the U.S. moves toward embracing transgender rights – – 17 states, including Colorado, and at least 150 cities and counties have laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity on a range of issues such as employment, housing and education — the bathroom remains a conflict zone as the rare place where use is generally segregated on the basis of sex.
We kind of already have bathroom integration. I can’t count all the event’s I’ve gone to where the ladies just walk in, or what’s worse commandeer the men’s restroom and keep the guys out.