Poli’s ‘argument’ is based on his own observation and what his students have told him. I believe him.
IIRC, Poli's students are adults, in community college, not high school students. Perhaps it's true, perhaps it's their worry. The exact same argument leveled at you and I regarding whether or not our concerns about penis-havers in female intimate spaces are justified and rational applies here.
High school students may have known each other since grade school or may not have done. It’s fairly standard for multiple smaller elementary to feed into larger secondary schools.
Sure... but even if they're feeders (which is common), at least some portion of the students will absolutely know that Jane was John the prior year.
I confess that I had only responded in this thread as someone who has gad to deal with sexual assault and who, as most of us do, knows plenty of other girls and women who have had much worse experiences than I did.
I had forgotten just how awful a very small number of kids can be and how terrible they can make life for any of their targets.
I have always been sincere when I write that everybody deserves to feel—and be! safe, secure and comfortable in the facilities they use. I had not considered that having an all gender option paints targets in the backs of kids who use these facilities.
I understand the argument Poli has made. I challenge whether or not that target is larger or smaller or unchanged. Poli presented the argument as if these high school males did NOT have a target on them when they're invading female spaces, but that a target would come into existence if they use a sex-neutral facility. That relies on the assumption that nobody knows they're actually males in the first place, which I think is a flawed assumption.
Furthermore, the entire concept of having a neutral facility is that ANYONE can use them. They're not "trans only" facilities. The expectation is that most students will continue to use the facilities that are set aside for their sex, that trans students will use the neutral facility if they're not comfortable using the facility set aside for their sex, but also that the occasional really shy person might also use them once in a while too.
I would speculate that transgender identifying male students are already known to be male in most cases. Those male students will face some assholes who oppose them identifying as trans
regardless of which facilities they use. While I wish it weren't the case, I acknowledge that there is a baseline level of hostility that exists.
If they use male facilities, they will face that baseline, and might face additional hostility from other males who have deemed them not male enough to use male spaces. This is pretty much the same kind of abuse that gay men faced, where straight men are just dickheads to any dudes they think aren't man enough to be in the man club. I don't know the magnitude of hostility that boys face from other boys for the apparently unforgivable crime of wearing a skirt. But I assume some exists.
If they use female facilities, they will face that baseline, and they will face resentment and fear from a large number of the girls who they've imposed themselves on without consent. And they will probably face even more hostility from the boys in the school who do not support letting boys invade the girl's locker room and bathroom. At a minimum, there will be some girls who are made uncomfortable, and there will be brothers, boyfriends, and friends who wish to defend those girls.
If they use the unisex facility... I think the only hostility that will be faced is the baseline level that unfortunately already exists. That baseline level cannot be addressed by bathroom and locker room usage, it needs to be addressed more holistically.
So at the end of the day, when weighing the options it seems to me that using separate unisex bathrooms and locker rooms has the lowest available level of risk for transgender students. It also has the lowest level of risk for female students.
