Reject fear, respect rights

It’s a fundamental right: The ability to relieve oneself with privacy and dignity.

In March, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory stripped that right for the state’s transgender citizens, prohibiting their access to public restrooms by way of the North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy Act, more commonly known as HB2.

The law prompted President Barack Obama to order public schools in the United States to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

California is ahead on this one: In 2013 Governor Jerry Brown signed into law protections for transgender students. But it and the president’s mandate have been challenged. On Sunday, a federal Texas judge blocked Obama’s order with a temporary injunction claiming it violates Title IX, the federal education law that prohibits discrimination based on sex. Title IX, Judge Reed O’Connor wrote, “is not ambiguous” in defining sex as “biological and anatomical differences.”

It doesn’t surprise me that this injunction was handed down from my home town of Wichita Falls—a decaying North Texas city built on oil money and the military.

This injunction is one born out of fear. Fear of change, fear of those who are “different.”

Studies have shown such differences are neurological. For example, a 2013 Spanish study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, used MRIs to document genetic differences in the brains of transgender subjects.

It’s time to acknowledge that gender identity is complex. It’s time to reject fear. It’s time to respect basic human dignity.