Policies must avoid transgender stigma

I thank Eric Peterson for his efforts to bring another voice - my own - into the discussion about the District 211 case concerning a transgender girl's access to the girls' gender-appropriate locker room. I feel compelled, however, to correct any misperception that my own position on this matter is supportive of the school district's stance in denying this student full access to the girl's locker room.

I believe that any privacy interest of non-transgender students should ultimately give way to the interest of transgender students to not be stigmatized, outed and discriminated against, particularly in a public school setting.

The discourse around this topic suffers from a commonly made, but incorrect, assumption that sex and gender are the same. Indeed, I believe that, to date, Title IX has not held sway in federal district court cases in part because judges, like many in our society, are wedded to a binary concept of gender determined solely on the basis of anatomy.

According to this logic, one is born either male of female as determined by one's body at birth. This narrow viewpoint ignores a growing recognition of gender, where science and research tell us that gender is determined as much by the brain - one's core sense of one's self - as one's anatomy.

We can only hope that even if we are not quite ready to fully abandon our current conceptualization of gender as binary, we are, at least, closer to a place of understanding, tolerance and respect for those whose gender identity differs from that assigned at birth.

This starts by recognizing that transgender girls are girls and not members of the "opposite" sex. Likewise with transgender boys.

At present, however, our inability to see this greatly limits our ability to have an enlightened dialogue about how to make room for all persons along the gender spectrum.

Sacha M. Coupet, Associate Professor of Law

Loyola University Chicago School of Law

Chicago