Trans News/ Issues

[Greyson]

Gendered Restrooms and Minority Stress: The Public Regulation of Gender and its Impact on Transgender People’s Lives

By Jody L. Herman
June 2013

Transgender and gender non-conforming people report being denied access to gendered restrooms, and experiencing verbal harassment and physical assault in these spaces at alarming rates. The Washington, DC- based survey, conducted with the DC Trans Coalition, found that 70 percent of survey respondents report experiencing verbal harassment, assault, and being denied access to public restrooms. The study identifies the impact that transgender people’s negative experiences in gendered restrooms can have on their education, employment, health, and participation in public life.

Findings include:

• 27 percent of those who worked in Washington, DC, experienced problems using restrooms at work that, in some cases, caused them to change jobs or leave their employer entirely.

• 54 percent of all respondents reported having some sort of physical problem from trying to avoid using public restrooms, such as dehydration, kidney infections, and urinary tract infections.

• 58 percent reported that they have avoided going out in public due to a lack of safe public restroom facilities.

• 10 percent of survey respondents who attended school in Washington, DC, reported a negative impact on their education, including having excessive absences and dropping out of school due to issues related to restroom access.

• People of color and people who have not medically transitioned fared worse in some measured survey outcomes.

Read the Full Report:

http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.ed...-June-2013.pdf

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In the final point above it says "medically transitioned." I think we can all agree that medical transition could include surgeries and hormones. I point this out because many Butches experience the same sort of stuff when using the restroom. I don't think this only happens to Transexual people. I think it happens to people that do not conform, express their gender according to whatever "mainstream" construction that is put upon gender expression. This would include even female identified butches. Many may disagree with me but I think there are many butches that are transgender and not transexual. IMO, transgender is those who do not conform, express, fit in the box of what most of society thinks their gender should look and act like. You can very well be a butch and identify completely as a woman and still live your life outside of what most consider "gender norms."

My point, maybe we have commonalities that trump the differences.