Editorial: Setting transgender policy for schools no place for S.D. Legislature

South Dakota lawmakers are wading into unforgiving waters.

Issues of sexuality and transgenderism are best not addressed by a majority vote.

Two bills making their way through our Legislature illustrate this point.

The first is a proposal by Rep. Fred Deutsch that would require students to use the bathrooms and lockers rooms of their biological gender. Transgendered students would have to submit a request to school officials if they wanted a separate bathroom.

The second is a measure filed last week by Rep. Roger Hunt requiring student athletes to compete under the gender indicated on a birth certificate or on a physical examination form written by a medical doctor.

Transgender 'community is scared by these bills'

Very few of us have a thorough understanding of what it means to be transgendered. Broadly speaking it is defined as person whose sense of who they are is the opposite gender to which they were born. It can lead to hormone treatment or surgery. Or not.

The issue of how public schools and the associated athletics deal with transgender students is complicated by our views of sexuality generally, how it relates – or doesn’t – to homosexuality, and a mind-boggling notion that a teenage boy wants to play on a girls volleyball team.

Which is to say that it is probably not something the South Dakota Legislature is going to resolve.

So in the interest of everybody involved – the administrators and coaches who actually deal with kids every day, the parents of those children and certainly for any child dealing with the complicated emotions of gender identity – just stop.

Reps. Deutsch and Hunt, please pull these bills.

The South Dakota High School Activities Association has already crafted a policy to deal with transgender athletes. It’s a solid plan based on the experiences of other states and the very real consideration of those students’ civil rights under Title IX.

Leave that alone.

When it comes to bathrooms in schools, the system devised by Rep. Deutsch will only serve to marginalize transgender students who already face a difficult path in terms of social acceptance. They already face the prospect of higher rates of suicide and threats of violence. Forcing these students to request separate bathrooms is the equivalent of marking them with a “Scarlet T.”

Don’t do it.

Whitney: Transgender policy for athletes makes sense

Parents have real and legitimate questions about the atmosphere in the schools. It’s important to have those discussions, for administrators and coaches and parents and students to understand the worries and motivations of everybody involved.

Let’s be honest, however. The numbers are likely to remain manageable. Children in our schools face serious threats from bullies, drugs and alcohol before they ever start tackling the academic challenges of a changing world.

It would seem the potential for the occasional uncomfortable moment in a bathroom is rather deep on the list of a day's complications.

Each person is unique. Each case has its own circumstances. Every child deserves consideration.

This is not a time for cumbersome bathroom laws set by a majority of state legislators.