Bathroom equality regardless of gender identity

Six-year-old Coy Mathis wandered the halls of Eagleside Elementary school in Colorado. As she approached the bathrooms, she reluctantly stepped into the door with the male sign on it.
Mathis, who identifies as a female, has been forced to use the boys bathroom at her school even though she has identified and dressed as female for most of her life.

Equality for transgender people, especially in bathrooms, is becoming a serious issue in the American school system.

Assembly Bill No. 1266 would help rectify this in California, ending exclusion on school property and in school activities on the basis of gender identity.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill this August making it illegal to force a student to use a bathroom that doesn’t correspond with his or her gender. It will go into effect Jan. 1 and will make California one of the few states to have such laws.So does Colorado.

Mathis, who has identified as a girl since she was 18 months old, was banned from using the girls’ bathroom at her school. In February of last year, her parents filed for a civil rights complaint and in June, the court found that the school has denied Mathis access to school faculties on the basis due to her gender identity.

While Mathis’s case was a great step in the right direction for treatments of transgender students, it’s not enough. Of the estimated 6,450 transgender students surveyed by National Center for Transgender Equality in the U.S., 78 percent in the K-12 grades said they faced some sort of harassment and 35 percent faced physical violence.

This problem needs to be addressed in the education system. If any LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) education is taught in schools, it is centered around sexuality, not gender identity. Educators as well as students need to be taught how to help transgender students and how bullying for any reason, including gender identity, is unacceptable.

Transgender individuals, like Mathis, should be able to find a safe, accepting place not just through support groups, but also at school. Gender identity is an essential part of a person. It shouldn’t be suppressed just because people find it different than what they are used to.