In 2009, there was a plan to make public bathrooms for transgender people in Chennai, India. According to the local authorities, the purpose of the plan is to broaden understanding of transgender people in society. The new brought on active debate over its pros and cons among transgender people.When I read the news, I became concerned that having bathrooms for transgender people would stimulate discrimination against transgender. Recently, the acceptance of transgender people is becoming widespread. However there are still many people who believe that there are only men and women in the world, and consider people who are between men and women as unnatural. Therefore, those people would oppose bathroom for transgender people.
Moreover, I think that people who had surgery or who try to look like men or women want to be treated as the sex which they believe themselves to be. They don't want to be distinguished as transgender. So I don't think bathroom for transgender is needed.
The bathroom issue is important to transgender people. They struggle which bathroom (men's or women's) they should use. For people who are under the process of changing sex, the bathroom issue is especially serious. There was a case that a transgender person who was receiving surgical process was arrested three times for using women's bathroom. For these people, having bathroom for transgenders is helpful.
Therefore, I don't know the plan of making bathroom for transgender people is really a good idea or not. It can cause discrimination. On the other hand, there are transgender people who need it. I learned the gender can include many things about men and women from my class. Gender should be more fluid thing. Therefore I haven't decided whether there should be the bathrooms for gender people. At least, I don't agree about dividing bathroom by labeling because I don't think people need to be distinguished by means of sex.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/chennai-move-on-separate-toilets-for-tra.../432575/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4DD1731F932A35750C0A9609C8B63&scp=1&sq=transgender%202006%20march&st=cse
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Nice discussion. I was unaware of this debate in India. It always comes back to bathrooms, doesn't it? :-)
ReplyDeleteYou do a good job of examining this story and connecting it to course content. I'd like to see a little more discussion of the media aspect. You cite some news stories - it would have been interesting for you to note how the media is covering this story, whether they talk about transgender issues in a respectful way, if they perpetuate stereotypes, etc.
Great blog entry!! I really like how you not only think about what other men or women might think about transgender, but you also consider how the transgender themselves might felt like when the bathrooms for transgender is built. I agreed with you when you say that you don't think the transgender people would like to be classified specifically as "transgenders." They spent the time and money and go through a lot of pains for only one purpose- to be perceived by others as the gender they wish to have. Therefore, I think it is really pointless to make a special bathroom for transgender people. This form of classification is very necessary.
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