CLARIFICATION: Due to an editing error, the definition of gender was unclear. Gender is one’s personal identity as a man or a woman. The Daily Orange regrets this error. 

Transgender students in California may soon be able to choose which school bathrooms and locker rooms they use and which sports teams they join based on their gender identity, rather than their birth-assigned sex.

But this all depends on California Gov. Jerry Brown’s approval, which would enact the first state law in the United States in this regard.

Brown should approve this bill, and other states should follow suit.

Gender is not just about body parts. Sex and gender are two different things, and the world is slowly starting to realize this. Sex is based on biological characteristics, like chromosomes, hormones and genitals, while gender is one’s personal identity of being a man or woman.

Sometimes a person’s mind and body aren’t in harmony. For generations, these people have been forced to hide who they are in order to conform to society’s expectations and unwavering gender roles.

Thankfully, transgender rights are becoming a greater issue of concern to our generation in particular.

President Barack Obama is the first president of the United States to have a closed-door meeting with transgender activists regarding transgender rights. Vice President Joe Biden has referred to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights as a civil rights issue.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it best: “LGBT Americans are our colleagues, our teachers, our soldiers, our friends, our loved ones and they are full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship.”

This argument is obvious and true, yet repeatedly denied by other political leaders and some fellow Americans.

Republican Sen. Jim Nielsen criticized the California bill, stating that elementary and secondary students, at their impressionable and vulnerable ages, will be subjected to some “very difficult” situations.

Transgender students, however, face more difficult situations daily. The other students, who are comfortable in their own skin, are not victims if this bill passes.

Perhaps there wouldn’t be this supposed discomfort if we stopped teaching strict gender roles and stopped telling one another the right and wrong ways to behave based on what’s underneath someone’s jeans.

Time and time again, the traditional comfort level of the majority is oppressing others.

A New Mexico high school told a transgender student he had to wear the white graduation gown designated for girls, rather than the black one for boys.

A Pennsylvania high school would only read a transgender student’s birth-given, female name at his graduation – instead of his male name.

A transgender student was rejected from Smith College, a women’s school, because although she identifies as female, she hasn’t had gender-reassignment surgery.

The attitude that people’s potential is determined by their sex is unfair and unjust. It transcends discriminating against those who don’t identify with the gender role traditionally assigned to their sex. It leads to lawmakers deciding how kids should express themselves solely because of how they were born.

Progress toward transgender equality, like the bill in California, is necessary to repair the damage this conservative view of gender has caused. Gender and sexuality are fluid, and it’s not the right of any politician to dictate.

This is especially important in schools, where students cannot learn and succeed if they are told to be someone they are not. Isolated is exactly the opposite of how children should feel at a critical time for growth and development.

People need to be taught from the very beginning to accept each other for simply being human. It’s well past the time to stop teaching traditional gender expression that implies a “normal” way to be. If we don’t, the majority’s “discomfort” will continue to oppress transgender people – and other groups, as well.

 Laura Cohen is a junior magazine journalism and women’s and gender studies major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected]. 

Published on July 11, 2013 at 11:59 pm