It's always the same shit. it's always different. Everything's always shifting. It always stays about the same. I work out of a building designed to serve the LGBT community. The office (non)policy at my place of work is that "transgender people are welcome to use the restroom of the gender which they present."
*blink*
Yes, Human Resources and the Facilities department really came together on that one. We are free to do what we do everywhere we go--pick a door and hope there's no one behind it who takes issue with our nature's call.
The reasoning's always the same: 1) there are women who use our services who may be victims of assault at the hands of men; it would be difficult, if not frightening for them to have to share a facility with men, and 2) to convert the restrooms we would have to take out the urinals and install toilets with stalls; that's $5,000 per stall!
I can't deny the monetary cost of making the change, nor can I deny the fact that some cisgender women feel unsafe around cisgender men. But shouldn't a center for LGBT individuals prioritize safety for all of the communities it serves? This includes gay and straight men, trans people and cisgender women who are survivors of sexual assualt; this includes gender variant individuals who don't fit or present within a gender binary.
But instead, trans folk just kinda get fucked. Tacked onto the end of an acronym. dragged around. shoved out. dropped off. screwed. Health care benefits don't cover surgery, hormone, or therapy costs. Collegues fumble with pronouns, assume that FTMs are dykes, that MTFs are fairies. It's the same shit.
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