Transgender Issues

1. After reading the articles assigned for the transgender issue, one can argue for and against the transgender issue. “When a Transgender Person Uses a Public Bathroom, Who is At Risk?” states that the North Carolina bathroom bill is causing controversy over safety. However, there is a discrepancy on who is being harmed by the bill. There are arguments for allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of the sex that they identify with. This article also provides an argument against the use of free bathroom choice, saying that allowing freedom of bathroom choice provides the opportunity for sexual predators to change their clothes to enter a women’s bathroom and violate laws that already exist. An argument for the use of bathrooms comes from UCLA School of Law’s Williams institute, where they conducted a study to see
The reason why the policy was enacted during Obama’s presidency was to grant freedom to the transgender students and enact social change. One constitutional issue that arose from this bill was the issue of the 10th Amendment. Due to Obama’s action, one could argue that the issue of checks and balances comes into play. The attorney general from TX argued that Obama bypassed Congress so that he could change the laws in order to enact “radical social change” (CNN news article). The transgender use of public bathrooms issue also comes into account on a federal vs. state level. In particular, in NC, there was a bathroom controversy over the safety of the people and who is at risk. In order to address this issue, NC Governor Pat McCroy made HB2 into a law, limiting the civil rights protection for the LGBTQ people and preventing governments from extending rights beyond the state (npr.org). Therefore, there is also a debate as to whether the issue should be based on federal or state