transgender student OKed for locker room access

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No, it *does* mean you are ignorant about this particular variation of human sexual development. Fortunately, if you choose that can be a temporary condition. As has been pointed out, as a health care professional you have a responsibility to learn about such things. Please do so. Your expressed sentiment is no different than a nurse half a century ago refusing to learn that people of other races are indeed still people and deserve the same level of care. It's no different than a nurse a hundred years ago *refusing* to learn about epilepsy and instead continue to insist that the patient was possessed by a demon, because the Bible says so.

Please, learn the science and medicine of what we are all discussing. See if you have access to PubMed. Start with Zhou, et all and work your way forward. Here are the highlights from the last 20 years:

Jiang-Ning Zhou et al., A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality, 378 , Published online: 02 November 1995; | doi:10.1038/378068a0 68–70 (1995)

Milton Diamond, Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development: “How Does One Know if One is Male or Female?,” 55 Sex Roles 589–600 (2006)

H. E H. Pol et al., Changing your sex changes your brain: influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure, 155 European Journal of Endocrinology S107–S114 (2006)

Kenneth J. Zucker & Anne A. Lawrence, Epidemiology of Gender Identity Disorder: Recommendations for the Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 11 International Journal of Transgenderism 8–18 (2009)

Heino Meyer-Bahlburg, From Mental Disorder to Iatrogenic Hypogonadism: Dilemmas in Conceptualizing Gender Identity Variants as Psychiatric Conditions, 39 Archives of Sexual Behavior 461–476 (2010)

David L. Rowland & Luca Incrocci, Handbook of Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders (John Wiley & Sons) (2008)

Melanie Blackless et al., How sexually dimorphic are we? Review and synthesis, 12 American Journal of Human Biology 151–166 (2000)

Frank P. M. Kruijver et al., Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus, 85 Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 2034–2041 (2000)

H. Berglund et al., Male-to-Female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids, 18 Cerebral Cortex 1900–1908 (2008)

Sonja Schöning et al., Neuroimaging differences in spatial cognition between men and male-to-female transsexuals before and during hormone therapy, 7 The journal of sexual medicine 1858–1867 (2010)

Eileen Luders et al., Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism, 46 NeuroImage 904–907 (2009)

Sheri A. Berenbaum & Adriene M. Beltz, Sexual differentiation of human behavior: Effects of prenatal and pubertal organizational hormones, 32 Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology 183–200 (2011)

D F Swaab, Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation, 19 Gynecological endocrinology: the official journal of the International Society of Gynecological Endocrinology 301–312 (2004)

Alicia Garcia-Falgueras & Dick F Swaab, Sexual hormones and the brain: an essential alliance for sexual identity and sexual orientation, 17 Endocrine development 22–35 (2010)

PENTTI K. SIITERI & JEAN D. WILSON, Testosterone formation and metabolism during male sexual differentiation in the human embryo, 38 Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 113–125 (1974)

Giuseppina Rametti et al., The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A DTI study, 45 Journal of Psychiatric Research 949–954 (2011)

Damian G. Zuloaga et al., The Role of Androgen Receptors in the Masculinization of Brain and Behavior: What we’ve learned from the Testicular Feminization Mutation, 53 Hormones and behavior 613–626 (2008)

P.T Cohen-Kettenis & L.J.G Gooren, Transsexualism: A review of etiology, diagnosis and treatment, 46 Journal of Psychosomatic Research 315–333 (1999)

This is my last contribution to this thread, and it's directed at Yigiren. This is from page 7 of this thread. You are either completely oblivious to reality or completely full of s**t.

I think RoadRatt and Yigeren concede that trans people exist.

They are arguing for a physical qualification to use a sex-based locker room, not simply "identity".

For example, some people have "gender fluid identites". Today they may desire to use the men's locker room, tomorrow the women's locker room. Are you OK with simply "identity" or do you agree with RoadRatt and Yigeren that there must be some physical qualification?

Not only that, but "there has never been a verifiable reported instance of a trans person harassing a cisgender person, nor have there been any confirmed reports of male predators 'pretending' to be transgender to gain access to women's spaces and commit crimes against them." (http://mic.com/articles/114066/statistics-show-exactly-how-many-times-trans-people-have-attacked-you-in-bathrooms#.97925EYkh) No attack on a woman in a public bathroom has involved someone pretending to be trans.

It may make you feel better to call yourself whatever you feel that you are, but it doesn't make it true.

I think RoadRatt and Yigeren concede that trans people exist.

They are arguing for a physical qualification to use a sex-based locker room, not simply "identity".

For example, some people have "gender fluid identites". Today they may desire to use the men's locker room, tomorrow the women's locker room. Are you OK with simply "identity" or do you agree with RoadRatt and Yigeren that there must be some physical qualification?

The problem with devising a "test" for trans people to use a specific locker room (aside from it being hella creepy) is that it would be discrimination. For it not to be discrimination would mean that cis people too must be tested, just to be sure that they are not "undeclared trans" - many trans people "pass" as cisgendered, and sometimes don't use locker rooms until they "pass" out of fear of attack. From the cis people I've spoken to, there are very few of them who would feel comfortable undergoing a test to confirm their gender.

You may not be comfortable with the fact that someone could say they were transgender without proof, but I don't think anyone is comfortable with the alternative, which could include a genital check/DNA test/blood hormone test/having to send a letter from your doctor/birth certificate to every gym/school/swimming pool/etc declaring that you are cisgender/transgender. And as I've said before, there is no evidence that allowing transwomen to enter the changing rooms they need is dangerous.

The problem with devising a "test" for trans people to use a specific locker room (aside from it being hella creepy) is that it would be discrimination. For it not to be discrimination would mean that cis people too must be tested, just to be sure that they are not "undeclared trans" - many trans people "pass" as cisgendered, and sometimes don't use locker rooms until they "pass" out of fear of attack. From the cis people I've spoken to, there are very few of them who would feel comfortable undergoing a test to confirm their gender.

You may not be comfortable with the fact that someone could say they were transgender without proof, but I don't think anyone is comfortable with the alternative, which could include a genital check/DNA test/blood hormone test/having to send a letter from your doctor/birth certificate to every gym/school/swimming pool/etc declaring that you are cisgender/transgender. And as I've said before, there is no evidence that allowing transwomen to enter the changing rooms they need is dangerous.



(also, you told me that what i was feeling didn't mean it was necessarily real, so you kind of did say I didn't exist. )



And you never did say whether you were comfortable changing in the same room as me. Given that a physical test would put me firmly in the women's changing room, despite my male charactaristics, are you certain that this is the route you want to go down?

This isn't even close to the same thing and you know it, or at least you should.

Again, under this argument we may as well not have any separation at all and everyone use the same room no matter the sex/gender because to do so would be discrimination against someone.

I'm not sure what you're saying here exactly, but if I'm reading it correctly. If you are uncomfortable sharing a locker room with people of your own sex and gender, that's your problem and no one else's. No one is forcing their sex or gender upon you under this situation that I can see.

I didn't say you didn't exist. I said you can't assume that a transgender woman knows that she feels exactly the way that I do as a cisgender woman, and that they can be sure they know how we feel. That is not the same thing at all. There is no way of knowing how it feels to be anyone else but yourself. That is something that can't be argued. Unless we find a way to go into someone else's head someday, and that would be weird.

And I don't think a transgender woman is the same thing as a cisgender woman. There are differences. What happens if transwomen are suddenly allowed to compete in women's sports? Ciswomen will have no chance and might as well not try. We are weaker and reflexes aren't as fast, everything. The body does not just magically transform completely in every way. And hormones aren't going to even things up.

And as far as women's changing rooms are concerned, I think all naked people look weird and don't want to see them. I try to avoid being seen by anyone myself. Someone who appears one gender but has different parts might throw me off for a second, but probably because I wasn't used to it. And I have seen some pretty gross naked people that are probably far more disturbing to look at than a transperson. Actually I don't feel threatened at all by trans men being in a woman's changing room. I would probably think it was interesting.

Yes, I know it isn't nice to say naked people look gross to me, but they do.

And just because something hasn't yet occurred, doesn't mean it won't or can't. As culture changes, so do crimes. It's not the real trans people that you have to worry about, it's the perverts out there who will see a new opportunity.

And actually, my biggest concern is some child predator disguising himself as a transwoman to get access to kids in the women's room. There are some really awful people out there, and I will never underestimate what they will be willing to do.

No, I don't, and it's not my responsibility to guess your point if you don't state it. Besides, someone living a hundred years ago would most likely say that you should know the argument works perfectly well and that noöne in their right mind would question that races have to be segregated.

How is it "my problem and noöne else's" if I'm uncomfortable changing clothes with people of my own sex, while it's "rightfully so" if others are uncomfortable doing it with someone of the opposite sex? Who gets to decide whose discomfort is worthy of enough respect to take measures to prevent it and whose isn't?

Girls who feel uncomfortable about trans person in the girls locker room should get their own locker room where they can feel comfortable.

We'd been separating races for quite a long time before we stopped doing so. Was that not discrimination, then? It's the way it had been all the life of anyone commenting on the situation back then, and farther back than that.