The text of the bill can be found here.
First, no bill or amendment is ever perfect and neither is this one but I support it.
I would have felt better if it was defined as a Transsexual Rights addendum to the original bill but that will never happen in a liberal state like California. Personally I have no issues with any laws that help kids in K-12 that are transsexual or transgender/transvestite. I will tell you why after I discuss my few reservations on the bill.
Personally I believe a provision should require the student be under the care of a doctor but having said that I find it difficult to believe the parent(s) of any student in K-12 would let their child transition, which should be added also, and then submit the child to that crap without a medical exam and access to a therapist. The simple fact it restricts this access to areas designated female to students limits the probability of any transgressions. Transgressions are possible but highly unlikely since kids are decidedly different than adults. I do understand the concerns of some but since the child must have a gender identity condition and this must be public it means they must have transitioned. If they have transitioned in school they have more courage than you can possibly imagine and nobody is going to transition on a lark.
I am ambivalent about the ability of trans kids to play for the sports team of their new gender identity even though I believe they should be on blockers, at a minimum, when they reach high school. I just do not see this as an issue since the individual will have to be transitioned and if they have transitioned they are more interested in being accepted as girls or boys than making waves or calling undo attention to themselves is counterproductive. Could it happen? Yes, but it has not in many school districts where this has been the local rule for some time. I believe if it happens then the situation may need review but I just do not see it being an issue.
Along with protecting transsexual and transgender children this bill helps them be who they are. I have little fear that a male will transition and go through that hassle and then have to stay transitioned to try out for a girl's team just so they can "hurt" girls. I cannot see it happening.
If it helps people understand those born transsexual or even transgender better then it is good and besides the only ones that will transition at that age are those born transsexual and as someone that was out about that part of my life from 13 1/2 to 25 when I had surgery I can tell you fitting in is more important than sticking out. Since there are few if any surgeons that will perform SRS until children reach 18, although 17 is a possibility, I see most of this as harmless because those born transsexual rarely do anything stupid.
Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture and helping transsexual and transgender kids of any age is that part of the bigger picture for me.
29 comments:
Amen.
When it comes to transsexual and/or transgender youth, whatever we can do in the public school systems so that their authentic gender identities are affirmed as early as possible is what we should be doing to support them.
This bill can only serve as a piece of similar legislation were something of its ilk proposed where I live. So really it is up to Californian Americans to make up their minds about it. That Sid if something similar were proposed here I would be urging for the use of the term transsexual and not transgender. That said this is a piece of legislation I would support. We're something like it in place when I was a child, my life would now be very different.
I do have a concern that this legislation may be used as a wedge to make similar provisions for adults like Coleen Francis.
Cassandraspeaks
The Tee-Gees want to force normal girls and boys to be exposed to their brand of prevision.
Perverts like MR. Sandeen Will sexualize children to any extent as long as it serves their agenda of erasing women.
Your neighbor, and Not Your Friend
NYF
Perhaps I really am a small and petty woman... but I cannot help it! The line by Autumn (so that their authentic gender identities are affirmed as early as possible) even as it is trying with all honesty to be supportive sets my teeth on edge!
Affirm?
Identity?
Gender?
The last time I looked, the issue we are discussing here has less than zero to do with gender! Am I wrong? Isn't it the being born with sexual organs that do not match the "id" or sense of physical and mental self as described by freud? And more so, that in the end, does it matter not which way resolution is obtained just as long as the person carrying that burden can make things match up? (sadly to date there is only one way to reach resolution)
You see to me, the reason that the language sets my teeth on edge other than it is erasing of the actual issue is the same fear as Cassandra. That these youngsters are being used most cruelly as the wedge to open the door for those who have issues of gender expression so they have free license to enter any and all sex segregated spaces no matter what or why they are wanting entrance...
So I have to ask?
Yes, on the surface, it would seem that he kids do but if it is couched in this sort of language, then in the long run, are not these kids going to be tempted with the promise of normality, even as they are used as the agent to write into stone their otherness so those utterly unlike them can express something entirely different?
MKIA
@Cassandraspeaks,
I can tell you why terms like transgender, trans people, and trans youth are used in legislative and regulatory contexts.
One is the sad reality is that transsexual has the word "sex" in the middle of it, as well as the related reality of having the term transsexual being coopted by the porn industry. Last I read a few years ago, transsexual and she-male labeled porn is fastest growing sector in the porn industry. As such, much of what males in American society know about transsexual women is the false impression that much of transsexual porn gives of transsexual women.
The term transsexual also has the imagery of sex change operations -- which many in society, as we know, consider icky and weird. When the term transsexual is used in conjunction with children and youth, the mental image of many social conservatives have is what they consider to genital mutilation of 5-year olds genitalia.
It's good to keep in mind that Christine Jorgensen embraced the term transgender (spelled as she did, trans-gender) to specifically refer to transsexual people. From the Winnipeg Free Press on October 18, 1979:
"'If you understand trans-genders,' she says, (the word she prefers to transsexuals), 'then you understand that gender doesn’t have to do with bed partners, it has to do with identity.'"
The way Christine used the term transgender is how the term is currently used in legislative and regulatory context. To give you an example of how transgender is used as a replacement term for transsexual, I'll give you two talking point from the Transgender Law Center on AB 1266:
What if a boy identifies as a boy but just wants to dress like a girl?
That’s not what this bill is about. This bill is about making sure students who identify as females and students who identify as male have a fair opportunity to fully participate in programs and facilities appropriate to their gender identity. Gender identity is a person’s internal, deeply-rooted identification as male or female.
What about gender non-conforming youth?
It is true that gender non-conforming youth experience high rates of harassment and discrimination. However, this particular bill is specifically about transgender youth. Hopefully bills like this will raise dialogue among students about treating each other with fairness, respect, and dignity.
I understand why, Cassandraspeaks, why you and others would prefer the term transsexual would be used -- the term has a consistent, medical meaning. However, there are real reasons why the term transgender is used in political contexts.
Transgender does have a meaning regarding an umbrella term when the term is used within broader communities -- including LGBT/LGBTQIA community and their subcommunities -- but it's not the same meaning that's used within legislative and regulatory contexts.
I believe that's important to keep those thoughts about terminology in mind when discussing the terms gender non-conforming, gender identity, transgender, and transsexual.
"Transgender does have a meaning regarding an umbrella term when the term is used within broader communities -- including LGBT/LGBTQIA community and their subcommunities -- but it's not the same meaning that's used within legislative and regulatory contexts. "
The above statement is totally and utterly UNTRUE. It is a typical TeeGee double speak and a lie.
Colleen Francis took shelter behind the legal status of TRANSGENDER. The State of Washington forced the local college to essentially remove the high school girls to accommodate a 45 year old flasher.
This law is already building a monumental backlash.
I think Elizabeth is being naïve to believe that this is anything more than those sick old men in dresses using children to further their own perverted sexual fantasies.
Pissed off in Ohio
@Mika,
One of the things to keep in mind about AB 1266 is that five cities in California already have the policy put forward in the bill as their school district policies. Those are Benicia, Willits, San Rafael, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The policies of those five school districts are the one that's now being adopted with this law state wide.
Los Angeles's policy has been in place for more than eight years and there haven't been any of the kind of problems imagined.
Also, the School Success and Opportunity Act reinforces the policy that the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) has already put into effect for all transgender student athletes. To single out and exclude transgender students from playing on the appropriate team could impact that student’s well-being and create barriers for the student to succeed at school. In fact, participation in extracurricular activities is linked to the overall well-being and academic achievement of students.
In other words, the issues brought up as reasons not to implement the bill have already been tested out and addressed within the context of five California school districts and within the policies of the COF.
Elizabeth, you have similar concerns to mine. This law concerns me for two reasons, the first being that it MIGHT be used, as someone else points out, as a lead in to a similar law to be used regarding adults.
And while it has been mentioned that a similar policy is in place in San Francisco, I might add that here it is also a policy that any facility that involves "inevitable nudity" has to provided individual spaces that insure privacy OR they have to provide "separate but equal" access for those who have not had surgery. In another words, if you have not had full SRS, you are not allowed to mingle with members of the opposite sex. That is not required by thus law. I wish it had been.
And also, while there is the belief among some that age is the sole determinant between transsexuals and autogynephiles, I have seen a increasing number of young men exhibiting the same behavior as older transitioning males. So, while I doubt this will be an issue with lower grades, it could be in grades 10, 11, and 12.
And the sports issue is a major concern.
I honestly hope I am proven wrong, but then again, look at who is standing ready to take advantage of this law to further their extremist agenda.
The simple reason "transgender" is used is because certain extremists wish to muddy the waters to push their own agenda. They could not care less about the needs of real transsexuals, as that is not their concern.
" From the Winnipeg Free Press on October 18, 1979"
Nooooooooo
From Christen Williams
But it is the perpetuation of the myth that the term "sex" in transsexualism is somehow socially or publicly not acceptable. Once you start educating the public about the difference between gender identity issues (gender variances) and transsexualism this whole nonsense about "sex" just goes away.
It is like a 12 year old pubescent boy nonsense, an attribution of the giggle behind the hand to the thinking public.
An adult conversation about these things might help occasionally instead of playing the victim and riding the coattails of political correctness.
Quoting from the Wicked Witch of the West!
"And now, my beauties, something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye, and soothing to the smell. Poppies... Poppies. Poppies will put them to sleep. Sleeeeep. Now they'll sleeeeep!"
Sigh... I gotta hand it to you Autumn. You've learned the dogma well and you spew that evil brand of poison with a smile! That it's a total crock of shit designed to lull the unsuspecting into compliance with the fantasy of chicks with dicks as female, is after all beside the point is it not? No?
Well then, lets start by laying to rest this utter nonsense that "transgender is ohhh so much better cause it does not have that fear mongering boggie man word, "SEX" in it... This tired and erroneous cannard has been floating round since the transvestites started to push Transgender down our throats decades back! And yet here you are, more than two decades later still trying to sell your snake oil that "transgender" ne trans these days, is more palatable and easier on the ear...
Well my dearie, I call BS on that! Sex is only a fear word to those for whom this is not an issue of sex! Those who like their genitals just as they are and for whom this is about some issue of gender expression (ie playing dress up) and not the cursed few for whom this is an issue of sex... yes, sex Autumn.... Sex! Transsexual is all about being the wrong sex! It has NOTHING to do with gender!!! Why is that so damned hard to get across to you... oh wait... that's right you are a-ok with your sex as it was, still is but you want folks to think that you are just the same as a five year old kid trying to kill themselves in frustration because they have not the words nor the power to convince the adults ruling their world that there is one hell of a mistake in their pants!!!
Sigh... on to tired canard two. That transgender has been around as THE preferred term to describe transsexuals... and that it was not coined by Virginia Prince... (ignoring of course that VP had his-her lips to all the ears (quoted by you and Christian) that would listen to him for nigh onto sixty years. Well either that old biddy was a bald faced liar when telling me to my face that this was so... (and I know to you as well) or this is what it really seems to be! Later day sanitation designed to separate the honest and true meaning of transgender as well as origination of transgender from its roots... Sorry Charlie, but that ain't gonna fly. Cui Bono! Cui Bono!
Transgender, now "trans" only serves those who are not transsexual because tying all this into one neat little package of gender variance doesn't do diddly to make the life of a kid born transsexual one bit better but... it certainly does if it includes said kid... Then it make the life of all the old farts who suddenly come down with it in their fifth and sixth decades a hell of a lot better... Cui Bono!
And speaking of which... Tired canard Three.. that we need to keep this umbrella going because the porn industry has co-opted trans everything... and why perhaps do you think that so... Might it have somthing to do with chicks with dicks? Hummm? Does that ring any bells for you Autumn? Oh? Too close to home? Well then! How about Colleen Francis then... Yeah... or maybe any one of the hordes of chicks with dicks who salivate to get into Michigan Woman's Music Festival... not to hear bad music but for the sheer male joy of being able to force thousands of real vaginal owning women to pay heed to them and their fantasy as women with hard ons~
Yeah... Autumn... that really serves the needs of the young transsexuals really really well doesn't it? Just like it does when you and yours are doing your best to insure that Surgery for them is known as an "option" (unsaid but quite implied when you do this that it is an EXTREME option and only for the deeply troubled!) Girrrrr!!! Don't you get it! For a transsexual this is the difference between a terminal condition and LIFEd not... It is surgery or die and that fact does need to be a known! These kids are on blockers so as adults they can in fact say... I HAVE TO HAVE SURGERY!
You know, I could do this all night... Hijacking Liz's Blog to refute you point by point, but having done this now for almost two decades... me thinks it not only rude but a wasted effort... because even when it is done, and it has been done many many times. You and yours will be right back to spewing your self serving poison first thing in the morning! (and taking claim for this "trans-success" rather than the parents of these kids who did the work!)
MKIA
Reason is wasted on loons and those with vested interests.
- an old aunty
The problem with AB 1266 is that it's going to allow creeps, sexual perverts and sexual offenders such as Paul Ray Witherspoon, Colleen Francis & Norman Ballhorn in women's bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams. Without being challenged by anyone. It's going make bio born women very fearful because a Man can claim to be a woman and walk into a woman's bathroom without being challenged on.
http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/olympia-wa-school-officials-state-gender-identity-provision-overrides-title-ix-equality-for-girls-swim-teams/
http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/has-washington-state-given-norman-ballhorn-the-right-to-be-there-when-you-change-your-tampon/
http://gendertrender.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/child-sex-predator-paul-ray-witherspoon-ticketed-for-using-female-restroom-uses-gender-identity-defense/
What's happening is that you have transgender kooks such as Mr "Autumn" Sandeen giving a pass to men in dresses such as Paul Ray Witherspoon, Colleen Francis & Norman Ballhorn a pass. The one thing these transgender kooks can seem to explain is why their are convicted sex offenders and rapist in their group such as Paul Ray Witherspoon.
NKA
@NKA or Nicky
No offense Nicky but you are basically clueless on this one. AB 1266 specifically specifies it applies only to K-12 grades in public schools.
If they change it to include everyone them you have a case.
Elizabeth;
When you read the bill, it provides for so called Tee-Gee children to occupy locker rooms of the opposite sex and engage in sex segregated sports. Talk about boys invading girls spaces.
Just another way to sexualize children.
Regardless how good you may think this law is, it is not.
It is a bad law from the very beginning. NO oversight or gate keeping.
Thankfully the backlash has already started.
NYF
(Comment part 1 of 2)
Kathryn Dumke,
I've been in contact with the parents of the youth you'd call transsexual and they'd call trans youth (or transyouth). They have problems with the term transsexual; they don't like the term because of the surgical connotations put on elementary aged school children.
And trans youth like AB 1266 in significant part because it will make it easier for them to receive gym credits needed to graduate high school. Multiple trans youth testified for the bill, lobbied for the bill, and one trans male youth even presented over 3000 signatures on a petition supporting AB 1266 to Gov. Brown's Sacramento office.
Anonymous/NIKA, trans (and recently "trans*" with that asterisk) is language trans identified young people choose for themselves. (I don't even like trans* because I can't figure out how I'm supposed to pronounce it.) What you're not acknowledging, NIKA, is that there are a number of activists who are both medically transsexual and socio-politically transgender. These folk include Masen Davis, Allyson Robinson, Mara Keisling, Gunner Scott, Babs Sipperstein, Cecilia Chung, Gunner Scott, Shannon Minter, Kelly Moyer, Dana Beyer, Kelley Winters, and many, many more.
In fact, Dana Beyer and Kelley Winters can be credited for much of the reason why the diagnosis for transsexuality changed from the pathologizing Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in DSM-IV TR to the non-pathologized one of Gender Dysphoria in DSM-V. And with the Dysphoria diagnosis, there's a psychological "out" that the GID diagnosis didn't provide: through treatment one can resolve dysphoria, where one can't cure a disorder with treatment.
Dana's and Kelley's advocacy is in large part why you're no longer considered to have a pathological condition in the psychiatric and psychological communities. And again, they are transsexual women who also identify as transgender.
Trying to completely bifurcate transsexual from transgender/trans/trans* is an argument of the excluded middle. One can be a transsexual and not socio-politically identify as transgender, or as part of the transgender community, just as one can socio-politically identify as transgender and not be a transsexual.
You don't have to identify as transgender if you don't want to.
(comment part 2 of 2)
And changing the subject a little, NIKA, you need to get over the fact that Cristan Williams found a couple of the articles where Christine Jorgensen referred to herself trans-gender as a way to not own a term for herself that she saw as sexualizing her. Despite her wishes to be called trans-gender, society still refers to her as the first transsexual in the United States.
Education to have society embrace transsexual over transgender (or trans or trans*) when transsexual still has a sexualizing connotation would in the here and now mean consigning dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of trans youth currently going to schools in California to a system that won't see them as the girls, boys, young women, and young men that they are. Forcing students to wait for an educational program to change the terminology seems cruel to currently enrolled students.
And frankly, NIKA, who is going to do that education that you believe needs to take place? Is it going to be you and a number of your transsexual peers? Are you going to organize that effort? If you want that kind of education program set in motion, some of y'all are going to have to become public figures and provide that public education.
I take the tact, NIKA, that one not only needs to know what one is against, but one also has to know what one is for, and then work and sacrifice to achieve what one is for.
NIKA, what's you're tact going to be into the future regarding separating transsexual from transgender, and seeing transsexual used as the preferred term to be used with legislators and regulators?
I don't mean to be hard on you, NIKA, but give you a dose of reality. You personally would likely have to become a public figure for the kind of education program you envision to begin to take place. And then you'd likely have to organize a well-funded non-profit to carry on that effort -- with no guarantee of success.
Hey NIKA, if you think I want to be a semi-public figure, you're wrong. I'm sacrificing my privacy, as well as my time, to see that transgender and transsexual people who come after me to have easier transitions than most of us had. And, those easier transitions need to see insurers that currently exclude transsexual related medical treatments.
You should really look at what the Transgender Law Center achieved with regards to transsexual medical coverage in California. They worked to achieve transsexual medical coverage for transsexual Californians under the sociopolitical banner of transgender. The Transgender Law Center is serving the needs of transsexual people in California whether or not you think their efforts under the transgender banner are helpful.
NIKA, I don't know what else to tell you. You see me and my transgender identified peers as your enemies, but what we who are identified as transgender want overlaps a lot with what you likely want. Sometimes looking for commonalities is a lot more productive than highlighting differences.
Private to Elizabeth -- Oops, I used NIKA instead of NKA. If you could correct that in edit mode, I'd appreciate that.
MKIA
There is nothing that will stop these jouvinile sex offenders from having access to women's spaces, this is what they, the Tee-Gees want. This is what my neighbor and pervert Autumn Sandeen wants. There is a very dark side to Sandeen and others among the Tee-Gee activist ranks.
You are on the offense now because public backlash is gaining strength against your perverted agenda. You creepy men in dresses have stepped over the line, the real men won't put up with their females being threatened. Now I wouldn't do this but just wait, some Tee-Gee is going to molest or worse some young girl and there will be a lot more names to report on IDOR. The creepy men in dresses have crossed the line..
I was wondering, in that transadvocate article why is there a picture of you shows you stuffing your face?
Can't stop long enough for someone to take a picture.
And what is with the teen outfit.
Don't you think you should dress your age?
Not Your Friend
@Sandeen
Sorry Autumn but the only reason your pals pushed for anything was took make it feasible for penis packing men in dresses to live their lives openly and claim to be women. You are a classic example of this with your "gender confirmation surgery" which is not SRS but then you are quite accustom to bending the rules to fit yourself.
I actually help children through this process financially with a friend of mine. My life as a working women brought me great success financially and it allowed me to give back.
We are currently working with two families and they both used transgender until we sat down with them in person and explained the actual difference. Both sets of parents were shocked because they believed transgender meant transsexual which we both know is inaccurate.
Your continual claim that the sex in transsexual implies "sex" is total bullshit and you know it. It implies crossing sex or wanting to be the opposite sex. You never respond to my assertion that gender is the improper term because it is too fluid and basically undefinable but then the truth and fiction are something the transgender are good at intertwining.
Do not give me that bullshit that you support children. I have read your crap over the years and you support your own because you have not one iota of knowledge about children and any mother that would talk with you is a complete fool.
I do not edit comments so what you write is what you see. I would appreciate it if you would keep your personal issues with Nicky off my blog.
Sandeen. You are acting like the male bully that you truly are. You are attempting to dominate this conversation with your lies and tired old talking points. I am surprised that Elizabeth has tolerated you this long.
I can only imagine that she has done so to highlight you as the accomplished fraud, huckster and liar that you are.
P.O.'d in OH.
No woman in her right mind wants to be known as trans-gender. Please stop insulting our intelligence.
Sandeen, do you understand how incredibly opportunist your response to me was.
First you use parents alleged dislike of the term transsexual(ism) to say that transgender or trans youth is the more user friendly term even though it unquestionable denies in it's very nature the reality of transsexualism. While it convenient and easy to accede to such notions clearing up the misunderstanding might in fact have done some real advocacy for those that are in fact transsexual.
Secondly you use the children's desire to earn gym credits to make some point about why the language of the bill which is in fact a setback rather than an advance (in it's language) is appropriate.
And so transgender becomes a sleight of hand to mask what is really going for at least some of these children.
Finally you have this notion that DSM 5 revisions somehow de-pathologize the condition. This is not quite true. If you took the time to analyze the term dysphoria, you would know that it actually is simply a different word for depression. It is by definiton is a state of feeling unwell or unhappy; a feeling of emotional and mental discomfort as a symptom of discontentment, restlessness, dissatisfaction, malaise, depression, anxiety or indifference. To call gender dysphoria the de-patholizing of the condition belies in fact doubly what transsexualism is about. It only applies to those that are gender variant. Transsexuals have no discontent, depression or anxiety about their gender. They have a situational depression about their bodies because their bodies do not match their brain. The source of the situational depression is not non-acceptance by society at large as in gender variance. Transsexuals experience that they are physically wrong.
In this context ask yourself the following: Gender Confirmation surgery such as an orchiectomy is designed to neuter males or females while maintaining portions of the primary sex organs. In this sense it is a full expression of what gender variant persons experience, namely that they have no home in a binary setting of the sexes. Sex Reassignment surgery however is designed to fix, make whole the incongruence between brain and body.
Think about it. Opportunism in these things cannot ever be helpful.
@Kathryn
Wow, not sure it is possible to put it much better than you just have.
Bravo!!!
Liz
And....A thunderous silence from Mr. Sandeen.
Okay, by the power vested in me by muh feelings, I'm a woman now. So I'm gonna take me and my big black 7 inch wang and my frumpy hausfrau dress into women's bathroom and there isn't shit you stupid girls can do about it.
//snark over//
Again, if there is no objective exclusionary definition of "transsexual" then anyone can declare themselves the opposite gender and attain access to whatever facilities they want. For these laws to be fully beneficial without having harmful side effects, they must effectively distinguish between "transsexuals" and "perverts and fakes" just like other laws that deal with protected categories, which at least attempt to distinguish between say, people who are disabled and people who pretend to be such to claim benefits (ignore the fact that these laws are often abused - the INTENT is to prevent non-disabled people from getting disabled benefits, the ideological transgenders are demanding the equivalent of being able to walk into an SSI office, declare oneself disabled, and walk out with a regular SSI check)
Rosenkreuz, a lot of people claim that such never happens, that one one would actually attempt such a thing, etc. But more and more examples are coming to light. I agree that it is less likely to happen in a school environment, though there is one student in, I believe England, who has made quite an ass out of himself doing just that.
And yeah, I've always been amazed just how easy it is to make a false claim for SSI on mental grounds. I know of at least three people who have made such false claims. I have seen people with real, verifiable physical disabilities who had to hire attorneys and fight to get money they deserved. And people who simply claimed to be mentally ill get it without difficulty.
The irony is, one of those who made such a claim is now, quite literally, mentally ill. Acting crazy actually got to her, and she finally cracked up.
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