Yes, South Dakota’s Anti-Transgender Bill Really Is That Bad

[KamaAina]

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/02/19/3750916/south-dakota-daugaard-transgender-veto/

South Dakota is one signature — or five days of inaction — away from setting a devastating new precedent for discrimination against transgender people. House Bill 1008 would make it illegal for schools to provide accommodations to transgender students that recognize their gender identities. It passed passed in the Senate on Tuesday by a 20-15 vote, having passed in the House last month 58-10, which means only a veto from Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) can keep it from becoming law.

The consequences of this legislation cannot be overstated. It endangers every single school’s funding and budgets, and it endangers the mental health of every transgender kid in the state. Daugaard would be requiring every school district to violate federal law for the sole purpose of marginalizing transgender kids, possibly endangering their well-being to such an extent that they experience massive depression and even consider suicide....

Brynn Tannehill, a transgender activist and scholar, did not mince words when reacting to the South Dakota legislature’s passage of HB 1008. “Let’s stop calling these bathroom bills,” she wrote. “Let’s stop calling these an anti-transgender bills. Let’s call them what they are: Instruments of cultural genocide.” As brash as that claim might sound, it is actually supported the reality this legislation would create.

The bill would have immediate consequences for transgender youth. GLSEN, an organization that advocates for LGBT students, has long documented how safe students feel in schools across the country. The group’s latest study, collected in 2013, found that 59 percent of transgender students had been forced to use the bathroom or locker room of their legal sex. As a result, almost two thirds of transgender students (63 percent) reported avoiding bathroom facilities altogether, with a majority similarly avoiding locker rooms for the sole reason that they felt unsafe.

[hifiguy]

1. What the blueberry fuck is with reichwingers' fanatical obsession

with other people's genitals?

[Rex]

3. That is their first rule - control over others bodies.

Then they turn right around and yell DON'T TREAD ON ME and other sayings that prove they are either full of shit knowingly or so apparently ignorant to the plight of others they become a blight in the name of crazy voices in their head.

Whew.

[dilby]

2. Won't they lose federal funding?

Good luck South Dakota trying to educate your kids on State Taxes, might as well just tell parents to homeschool now.

[KamaAina]

4. They already have the lowest teacher salaries in the nation

[branford]

5. Such discrimination is not necessarily against federal law.

The Dept. of Education wants to include gender identity under the purview of sex discrimination under Title IX, but their guidance is not controlling and courts have not been nearly as accommodating as the article suggests. Similar issues exist for public accommodations and employment under Title VII and related laws. In fact, most precedent permits a great deal of leeway in discrimination based on sex in restrooms, locker rooms and similar areas.

While some state and localities provide explicit protections and accommodations to people based on gender identity, many do not, exceptions may exist for areas like restrooms, and there is no current constitutional mandate for such nondiscrimination.

The battles against gender identity discrimination will be fought in statehouses and town halls for the foreseeable future, and mischaracterizations and untruths about the state of the jurisprudence only breed ignorance, not effective activism.