For California’s transgender students, access is no longer denied
On Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 1266 into law, and in so doing brought California a step closer to ensuring that transgender students throughout the state have full access to facilities and activities based on the gender that they feel identifies them.
Put simply, it means boys who identify themselves as girls will be allowed to participate on girls’ teams, use girls’ locker rooms and otherwise have equal access to facilities.
As expected, the new law has drawn fire from some groups, including the Traditional Values Coalition, which argues that the legislation will “encourage youth as young as 5 years old to question their sex and gender.”
Such arguments are misleading and unfounded.
As The Times’ editorial board wrote in May, “discomfort is not a valid reason to allow discrimination, just as it would not have been acceptable for schools to ban gay or lesbian students from the bathrooms of their respective genders 30 years ago.”
Moreover, numerous school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, already have similar full access policies in place without incidents or problems. The new goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2014.
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