North Carolina recently passed the controversial "bathroom law," HB2, that mandates public bathroom usage based on physical anatomy rather than gender identity. Similar laws are on the table in nine other states.
Many of us have strong feelings about thisโwe are disappointed or concernedโbut then we get on with our days. Pamela Valentine, mom to a transgender child, doesn't have that option.
Valentine lives in Illinois where a similar bill amending school code, HB4474, has moved to the Rules Committee for further consideration. Like the North Carolina law, it would require her son (born her daughter) to use the bathroom and locker room of the sex assigned to her child at birth. The Illinois law, "Defines 'sex' as the physical condition of being male or female, as determined by an individual's chromosomes and identified at birth by that individual's anatomy."
RELATED: Your Transgender Child Is Not In a Phase
For Valentine and her son, Jake (a pseudonym to protect his identity), this proposed legislation is a nightmare.
"This bill is not about my trans son using a bathroom, but is an invasion of privacy, a breach of his civil rights," Valentine told me in a recent interview. She questions how these new bathroom laws are going to be enforced. Will there be blood tests to check for X and Y chromosomes? Will the school start conducting gender checks, and, if so, who might conduct those? Will birth certificates be required to use a bathroom?
Those things might sound far-fetched, but for mothers of transgender children, they are very real questions.
But the positive aspects of transgender awareness may be having a negative impact on transgender children in school settings.
As transgender awareness in America increases, society is also approaching a tipping point. Parents like Valentine are learning the hard way that their transgender children are increasingly vulnerable to a growing bias that is playing itself out in state and municipal legislative bodies across the country.
Valentine has a theory as to why transgender issues are now at the forefront.
"The term is LGBTโlesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. A lot of these issues have been resolved in federal courts, like marriage equality or the military policy of 'Don't ask, don't tell.' Now it is time for the 'T' in LGBT. Transgender issues are having their turn."
But the positive aspects of transgender awareness may be having a negative impact on transgender children in school settings. Valentine said she feels very strongly about school bathrooms being at the center of this movement.
"Schools should be a haven for our children, all children," she said. "You can't learn if you don't feel safe. Sending transgender kids to the bathroom of their assigned gender as opposed to their identified gender sends the message that there is no safe space for themโthey are not allowed to be themselves or protected."
Given what research provesโthat transgender children who have the support and protection of their families fare betterโit stands to reason that those same vulnerable children would equally benefit by being protected at schools.
Protection is crucial for transgender children. While the national suicide attempt rate for Americans is 4.6 percent, that figure jumps to 41 percent for transgender individuals. The numbers inch higher to 45 percent for young people (18 to 24 years old). For youth harassed or bullied at school, the suicide attempt rates trend even higher to 50 to 54 percent. (Statistics compiled by The Williams Institute, 2014.) Transgender children that fare the best are those who receive open acceptance and support at home.
Jake, Valentine's son, first showed signs of being transgender as a young toddler. The then little girl would say, "I am a boy!" This went on for years. Finally, Valentine said, "You couldn't not listen to him anymore."
She said she asked herself, "What am I doing? What am I doing to my own child?" It was at that point, Valentine said, that she realized there is so much more to gender than simply boy or girl. She supported her child's needs and wishes to transition.
RELATED: Raising a Transgender Child
The Human Rights Campaign states on their website that parents who are concerned about whether their child is transgender should listen to them and provide non-judgmental support. The pattern for asserting a different gender identity is "consistent, insistent and persistent." In other words, not the boy who likes pink or the girl who plays with trucks, but the child who, over a period of months or longer, reports feeling different than the gender they were born as.
Given what research provesโthat transgender children who have the support and protection of their families fare betterโit stands to reason that those same vulnerable children would equally benefit by being protected at schools. For now, the transgender children in North Carolina don't have that, and transgender children in Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee are on the cusp of losing it.
Pamela Valentine wants to know why.
You can read about mothering a transgender child at Pamela Valentine's blog on ChicagoNow, Affirmed Mom.
