Extending Rights to Transgender People
WASHINGTON -- The White House now offers a gender-neutral restroom, for use by men, women and anyone whose gender is less than certain. If this news tempts you to giggle -- please refrain.
Certainly, the bathroom wars are a bizarrely outsized aspect of a serious subject, which is ensuring full rights for transgender Americans. Bring up the issue, and it fast deteriorates into a debate, equal parts frivolous and overheated, over what might ensue if a male transitioning to female uses the ladies' room. (Answer: the transgender individual goes into a stall and closes the door. No big deal.)
The White House restroom policy is that anyone can use the facility that fits his or her needs. It added the gender-neutral option, in the old Executive Office Building, to accommodate anyone who might not feel comfortable -- or who might worry that others feel uncomfortable -- in a single-sex restroom.
This move is a minor part of a belated revolution in the way the federal government, and society as a whole, treats the issue of transgender rights. Just a few years ago, it was such an edgy outpost of the broader issue of gay rights that it was at risk of being sacrificed to the larger cause.
In 2007, for example, then-Rep. Barney Frank removed gender identity from legislation to prevent employment discrimination against gays and lesbians because the measure could not pass with protections for transgender workers.
Now, the issue has become, if not exactly mainstream, far less controversial. Popular culture deserves some credit here; witness television programs such as "Orange is the New Black" and "Transparent" featuring transgender characters. So, too, does the Obama administration.
Just in the last few weeks:
-- The Justice Department went to court to argue that Georgia prison officials violated the constitutional rights of a transgender inmate to be free from cruel and unusual punishment when they refused to provide her with hormone treatments.
Its filing builds on the department's announcement last December that it would treat discrimination against transgender individuals as discrimination on the basis of sex under the federal job discrimination law, a reversal of its previous position.
-- President Obama's executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees took effect.
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Copyright 2015 Washington Post Writers Group
