Why We Will Homeschool--Reason Number 857837820

My wife and I don't live in Oregon, but I'm from there. So this does strike close to home for me, in a sense (my emphases added):

Oregon’s state government released a set of guidelines for schools Thursday informing educators that students must be allowed to use whatever locker rooms they want and play on opposite-sex sports teams as long as they say it reflects their chosen gender identity.

Not only that, but if the student doesn’t want his or her parents to know, teachers don’t have to tell them.

The 15-page document makes Oregon one of just a handful of states to release detailed guidelines for how states should handle the topic of transgender students. In general, the guide tells teachers to adhere to the wishes of students when it comes to affirming their chosen gender identity.

“A student who says she is a girl and wishes to be regarded that way throughout the school day should be respected and treated like any other girl,” it says. “So too with a student who says he is a boy.” Students should be called by whatever name they wish (regardless of their legal name), and they have the right to use bathrooms and locker rooms of either sex in accordance with their wishes...

the LGBT-rights group Basic Rights Oregon declared the new standards were a “wonderful first step” for the state in improving transgender rights in school.

And what happens in the more progressives states soon get exported to saner states, either by the slow slipping of the culture or by judicial (or presidential) fiat.

As an added aside, I noticed this passage in the document:

"Students are often still in transition at the time of graduation and have not necessarily completed legal name changes and other documentation. Recommended best practice for graduating transgender students is to provide two diplomas and two sets of transcripts, one with the legal first name and one with the preferred first name."

Really? At that point in my life, I was going by a different name from my legal name (and I still do, though now I go by either my nickname or my given legal name or my last name preceded by the appropriate appellation depending on circumstance). My diploma was written in my legal name. My wife has changed her name from maiden to married last name since graduating--but alas, her diplomas all still have her last name on them. In other words, this document is encouraging a special privilege to transgendered students "above and beyond" what the other 99.99% of students are provided. It may be a petty thing to be hung up on (this is really one of the least important points in the damned document), but there it is.

Also, there's this, from page 10 (the same page which says that boys can now use the girls' room and vice-versa):

Based on a recent OCR finding against an Illinois school district, it is recommended that alternative accommodations, such as a single “unisex” bathroom or private changing space, should be made available to students who request them, but should not be forced upon students, or presented as the only option.

This paragraph started strong and then fizzled. Frankly, the single-use restroom, shower, or changing area/locker space is the best option available if we concede that people should not simply be made to use the space provided to their anatomy. In other words, the compromise position is out; trying to avoid this battle in the culture wars will not be permitted. It certainly lends credance to the idea that these fights over lockerroom use, the so-called "Bathroom Wars"* really are less about the bathroom and more about the war.

And now, a prediction, with a bit of irony. Years ago, when I was an undergraduate student, this kind of thing was all the rage among the proto-Brownshirts of the "Social Justice" set. I remember there being discussions and arguments, and even resolutions brought before the student body's senate as to whether we should make our campus' bathrooms unisex. This is not many steps away from simply allowing everyone to use whichever bathroom or locker room he or she chooses--indeed, the two proposals have the same effect. And, on a similar note, there were rumblings then (and more so at the university where I did my doctoral work) that dorm rooms should be made optionally coed.

My prediction then is this: whether dorm rooms are made to be co-ed or not, I suspect that this bit of insanity will eventually render the point moot. A young woman will decide one day that she is actually a he, and then be assigned to a dorm room accordingly, or (perhaps more frequently), a young man will decide that he is really a "she" and be assigned to a room accordingly. And while I must confess that I wonder what the response of the university housing would be if said students change their minds once, let alone several times (will every transexual now be given his or her own private room, above and beyond what is allocated to other students), there is another problem here. Namely: what recourse will the normal and sane students who are not undergoing some gender confusion have?


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* I would prefer "Bathroom Battles" both for the alliteration and as a reminder that they are one front in a greater cultural war.