christiefan915
Catalyst
This is the level hateful RWs are dragging the country down to.
"As soon as I placed a foot in the women's bathroom in Hyde Hall on University of North Carolina Chapel Hill's campus, I was breaking the law. On March 23, the North Carolina legislature passed, and Gov. Pat McCrory signed, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act. The new law says that people must use the bathrooms and locker rooms in government facilities (including schools, DMVs, and major airports) that match the gender noted in their birth certificate. I've undergone vaginoplasty and hormone replacement therapy. I am a woman. But my birth certificate still says I am a man. And so for me and other trans people in North Carolina, spending time on college campuses and other government facilities requires a long set of preparations...
I had come to campus to attend a lunch with Mark Joseph Stern from Slate and hear him speak on LGBTQ issues and law. Not wanting to risk the possibility of having to use the bathroom, that morning I took extra precaution in what I ate and drank. I went to the bathroom as soon as I woke up and right before I left. During the lunch, I drank as little water as possible and, as far as I could tell, stayed away from any food that might upset my stomach...
As open as I am about my experience with gender dysphoria, I'm not eager to rock the boat. As much as I disagree with the law that forbids women like me from using the women's bathroom, I wasn't 100 percent sure that if I had to use the bathroom, I could bring myself to break the law. It is, after all, breaking the law. My body had other plans, though. Despite my efforts, I had an ominous feeling in my stomach after lunch. The kind that urges you to go to the bathroom as soon as you can...
From my own experiences with transitioning, I feel depressed when I consider what measures transgender students are having to take to comply with the law. I began my transition when I was a student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, so I'm familiar with the challenges of being transgender in college. Though Margaret Spellings, president of the UNC system, said there was no way for universities to enforce the law, it is now too risky for some to use the right bathroom...
I'm sure there are some transgender students who are now having to plan around their need to use the bathroom: estimating how long they will be on campus for the day, figuring out if they can make it home between classes to use the bathroom, and wondering what they can eat at school, if anything at all...
I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. Part of me didn't want to break the law and worried something bad might happen if I did. But I also knew there was only one thing I could do. I couldn't use the men's. I couldn't. No one saw me going in — or rather, no one who wouldn't have been supportive saw me going in. And no one was in the bathroom when I used it. But even if someone had been in there, it wouldn't have stopped me...
I broke the law that day. I will have to be on UNC-Chapel Hill's campus many more times before I can get my birth certificate changed. From now until the law is repealed or settled in court, or until my birth certificate is amended, I will keep breaking the law. I'm not the only one. I will be an anxious mess every time I use the bathroom, but I don't see any option. It's all I can do, really. I am a woman.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11490498/north-carolina-bathroom-law-transgender
"As soon as I placed a foot in the women's bathroom in Hyde Hall on University of North Carolina Chapel Hill's campus, I was breaking the law. On March 23, the North Carolina legislature passed, and Gov. Pat McCrory signed, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act. The new law says that people must use the bathrooms and locker rooms in government facilities (including schools, DMVs, and major airports) that match the gender noted in their birth certificate. I've undergone vaginoplasty and hormone replacement therapy. I am a woman. But my birth certificate still says I am a man. And so for me and other trans people in North Carolina, spending time on college campuses and other government facilities requires a long set of preparations...
I had come to campus to attend a lunch with Mark Joseph Stern from Slate and hear him speak on LGBTQ issues and law. Not wanting to risk the possibility of having to use the bathroom, that morning I took extra precaution in what I ate and drank. I went to the bathroom as soon as I woke up and right before I left. During the lunch, I drank as little water as possible and, as far as I could tell, stayed away from any food that might upset my stomach...
As open as I am about my experience with gender dysphoria, I'm not eager to rock the boat. As much as I disagree with the law that forbids women like me from using the women's bathroom, I wasn't 100 percent sure that if I had to use the bathroom, I could bring myself to break the law. It is, after all, breaking the law. My body had other plans, though. Despite my efforts, I had an ominous feeling in my stomach after lunch. The kind that urges you to go to the bathroom as soon as you can...
From my own experiences with transitioning, I feel depressed when I consider what measures transgender students are having to take to comply with the law. I began my transition when I was a student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, so I'm familiar with the challenges of being transgender in college. Though Margaret Spellings, president of the UNC system, said there was no way for universities to enforce the law, it is now too risky for some to use the right bathroom...
I'm sure there are some transgender students who are now having to plan around their need to use the bathroom: estimating how long they will be on campus for the day, figuring out if they can make it home between classes to use the bathroom, and wondering what they can eat at school, if anything at all...
I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. Part of me didn't want to break the law and worried something bad might happen if I did. But I also knew there was only one thing I could do. I couldn't use the men's. I couldn't. No one saw me going in — or rather, no one who wouldn't have been supportive saw me going in. And no one was in the bathroom when I used it. But even if someone had been in there, it wouldn't have stopped me...
I broke the law that day. I will have to be on UNC-Chapel Hill's campus many more times before I can get my birth certificate changed. From now until the law is repealed or settled in court, or until my birth certificate is amended, I will keep breaking the law. I'm not the only one. I will be an anxious mess every time I use the bathroom, but I don't see any option. It's all I can do, really. I am a woman.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11490498/north-carolina-bathroom-law-transgender
