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The Minnesota Daily

Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

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U should expand bathroom access

Last week, President Barack Obama’s administration issued a wide-reaching directive instructing public schools to allow transgender students access to whatever bathroom facility best fits their gender identity.
 
The decision follows a deluge of criticism over a bill signed by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory that precludes transgender people from using public restrooms that differ from the sex they were assigned at birth.
 
In Minnesota and state legislatures across the country, lawmakers have peddled similar discriminatory bills. Making specious claims to “public safety” and “privacy,” officials have tried to legitimize such legislation.
 
The rhetoric behind these bills — which present transgender people as a threat — only serve to pathologize an already marginalized demographic.
 
In recent weeks, the University of Minnesota Senate has passed a resolution written by the Transgender Commission which recommends the school adopt a systemwide restroom and locker room policy that would be make facilities more accessible to transgender and nonconforming people.
 
Some schools, like Yale University, have joined a growing minority of higher education institutions that have decided to champion gender-neutral restrooms.
 
Bathroom exclusion — whether codified by law, or dictated by archaic social standards — can have serious impacts on those who identify as transgender. According to a study by Georgia State University, a strong relationship exists between rates of suicide and denial of lavatory access among transgender college gradutes.
 
At a college institution that purports to be an advocate of students’ mental well-being, we urge University administrators to disavow myopic bathroom formulations, and instead strengthen gender netural options on campus. Inclusivity starts with defending the rights of the transgender community.
 
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