Source: Women are Human
US — Palatine, Illinois. Directors of Township High School District 211 instituted a policy that lifted sex-based restrictions on access to locker rooms and restrooms. The policy, which was enacted without the knowledge of the student body or parents, permits students to use facilities consistent with their personal faith in their gender identity. Current and future attendees of District 211 and their parents filed a lawsuit challenging the policy. District Court Judge Jorge Luis Alonso ruled that students do not have a “visual right to privacy” over their “unclothed or partially clothed bodies.”
Feminist Ashley Elizabeth remarked on the ruling:
Judge Alonso held that there is no right to visual bodily privacy,’ which would make the following things a-ok: peeping toms; revenge porn; hidden cameras in bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms. Basically, all voyeurism. This is dangerous territory.
The policy was put in place when District 211 and the U.S. Department of Education reached an agreement with a male transgender student to allow him to access the girls’ facilities. Shortly after, two other transgender students – one male and one female – were granted permission to use facilities designated for the other sex.
Students learned of the new policy when suddenly exposed to members of the other sex while changing or relieving themselves in locker rooms or restrooms.
Students and parents of District 211, the largest high school district in Illinois, formed a coalition they named Students and Parents for Privacy, and sued District 211. The Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, three transgender students and the three students’ parents joined the case in support of the district.
Effects on Student Body
Physical education is a required class. Female students are sometimes topless while changing for PE and sports, the lawsuit noted, while students changing for swimming are sometimes naked. Many girls shower after swim class, and the showers are open, providing visibility to others in the locker room.
A sexual assault survivor was traumatized when she unexpectedly viewed the penis of a biologically male transgender student while using the facilities.
Another student wore “soiled, sweaty gym clothes under her school clothes for the rest of the school day” just to avoid changing in the locker room where the male student might be present.
Girls were “startled, shocked, embarrassed and frightened by the presence of a male in the girls’ restroom,” the lawsuit stated. Gaps around stall doors did not provide sufficient privacy for them to attend to menstrual needs, the lawsuit said. Some girls put themselves at risk of urinary tract infections, dehydration and constipation by avoiding restroom use. Some used the restroom during class period, when they figured the male student was less likely to be in there, but pointed out they missed some of the lesson in order to do so.
District 211 conveyed to students that those who took issue with the policy were intolerant and bigoted. Thus, few students felt comfortable approaching school administration to request private locker rooms.
The changes were also reinforced through bullying from peers. When a female student began using a private changing stall, other girls labeled her “transphobic,” and began calling her slang terms for female body parts. She stopped.
“Compelled Affirmation”
Transgender students and their supporters argued that they must access locker rooms designated for the other sex in order to affirm their claimed genders.
Students and Parents for Privacy denounced this as “compelled affirmation.” They asserted that students have a fundamental right to bodily privacy that protects their partially- or fully-unclothed bodies, which also includes the right to be free from government-enforced, unconsented risk of exposure to the other sex while partially or fully unclothed.
SPP pointed out that sex is a binary and immutable trait that is determined by the union of male and female gametes at one’s conception, while gender is a social construct that runs on a spectrum from very masculine to very feminine. A person’s perception of his or her own gender does not change his or her primary or secondary sex characteristics or his or her genes, SPP contended.
The Ruling
Judge Alonso held that “the right not to be seen unclothed by the opposite sex is not” a right that is recognized by the U.S. Constitution.
Feminist Ashley Elizabeth believes the policy especially disadvantages female students:
I know I for one would not have changed in the locker room when I was in high school if any males were allowed in there. I don’t care how ‘feminine’ they feel.
There aren’t porn sites dedicated to spy cam footage of men. The idea that we need to accept this or be chastised for bigotry is pure misogyny.
Transgender rights activists applauded the judge’s decision as a win for trans rights.
Jessica Yaniv, a prominent transgender activist who identifies as a woman, cheered the ruling on Twitter. As Women Are Human recently reported, Mr. Yaniv is accused by feminists and a prominent member of the trans community of being a child sexual predator with a menstrual fetish after several tweens and teens came forward to discuss how he violated them. Mr Yaniv frequently shared on social media an interest in seeing naked girls in locker rooms, and teaching girls between ages 10 and 12 how to insert tampons.
