Judge Blocks Federal Transgender Restroom Rule Nationwide

WASHINGTON - Oct. 23, 2016 - PRLog -- A federal judge has extended and expanded nationwide an order mandating that the administration stop requiring public schools to allow anatomical male students to use female restrooms based solely upon their claim to feel female.

        The order, which blocks use of the guidelines which apply to transgender students of both (or all) genders - but which has been controversial largely only when applied to female restrooms - now is expanded nationwide rather than being confined to the Texas jurisdiction in which it was issued.

        Interestingly, both sides in this controversy - which pits the interests of transsexuals to use the restrooms with which they are most comfortable against the interests of girls and women not to have anatomical males free to use their restrooms without even any proof of their transgender status - seem to have overlooked an obviously win, win, win solution, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

        Banzhaf has won over 100 gender discrimination legal actions, supported LGBT rights, and publicly criticized the North Carolina statute for requiring even transsexual people who have completed sexual re-assignment surgery to use restrooms corresponding to the genitals they were born with but no longer have.

        Prof. Banzhaf cites an experimental all-gender multi-user restroom now being tested in his law school which not only satisfies the interests of both sides, but - unlike another proposed remedy - does not require the often-difficult and usually-expensive construction of many new single-user restrooms.

        It also satisfies the needs of transsexuals as well as transvestites - who dress in a manner inconsistent with their anatomical sex - to be able to have ready access to conveniently located restrooms without having to declare any particular gender preference or identity, while at the same time insuring that girls and women will not find anatomical males (transgender or otherwise) in their female restrooms.

        What his law school has done, says Banzhaf, is simply to re-designate what was formerly a typical men's restroom - with 3 urinals, 1 toilet in a stall, and 2 wash basins - as an all-gender restroom.  Since the percentage of students who are transsexual is very small, most of the time the room functions as any other male restroom would, with many men able to urinate in a brief period of time.

        However any person - including not only transsexuals, but also transvestites, men who are simply bashful, have shy bladder syndrome (paruresis), etc. - can enter this restroom without exposing themselves or identifying with any particular gender, and relieve themselves in the privacy of the stall.

        Because typical women could even use this stall toilet if time is short and the lines at the nearby women's room are too long, both F2M and M2F transsexual students can relieve themselves in the room's stall-enclosed toilet without revealing anything about their anatomical or identity gender, notes Banzhaf.

        Since in most buildings male and female restrooms are usually close together, this system would open up almost half of all restrooms to transgender students, and seemingly comply with the directive that transgender students not be forced to use single-seat restrooms if other students need not do so.

      While such a system would occasionally expose typical male users to an anatomical female, most men seem unconcerned about any potential privacy invasion and, unlike the reverse situation, have no real fears about suffering sexual assaults or rape from anatomical females, Banzhaf notes.

         So this approach - converting all or at least most male restrooms into all-gender restrooms - may very well provide a quick and easy way to comply with the new federal directive, and do so without adversely affecting transsexuals, nor typical girls and women concerned about privacy and sexual assaults.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW, Wash, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/  jbanzhafATgmail.com  @profbanzhaf