by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Staff Reporter
Monday Jul 6, 2009
Controversy surrounds the finding by the Maine Human Rights Commission that a transgendered child should have been allowed to use the girls’ bathroom because she identifies as female.
A July 1 article at the Bangor Daily News reported that the Commission found against a Maine school district, ruling that the Orino School Department had subjected the child to discrimination.
The article reported that the lawyer for Orino School Department foresaw difficulties ahead as Maine schools try to implement inclusive restroom policies; meantime, some parents (and grandparents) are angry with the outcome, and say that boys and girls belong in their designated washrooms.
However, for GLBT equality groups, the Commission’s finding is a step forward for a poorly understood population that is often subjected to vilification and misunderstanding.
Trangendered individuals believe, innately and unchangeably, that they are of a given gender–even if their physical characteristics belong to the other gender. Thus, a transgendered child may believe, and insist, that she is a girl, even if anatomically she is male.
But transgendered individuals may not necessarily be homosexual; indeed, some men who seek gender reassignment are heterosexual and continue to pursue relationships with women even after they have, themselves, transitioned physically to the female gender.
Such physical transitions often, but not always, involve surgical procedures. They also involve hormone treatments and lifestyle changes: even without surgery, a woman in a man’s body may begin wearing women’s clothing and makeup.
Such transitions also reportedly give a sense of peace and rightness to transgendered individuals, who may never have felt comfortable in the gender roles and clothing assigned to them by society at large.
Continue reading at:
http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=93433
