May a Boy in a Wig Use the Girls’ Bathroom?

Last week, a 17-year-old boy in a wig and a skirt made national headlines by demanding to use the girls’ restroom and locker room at his small-town Missouri high school. The young man, whose real first name has not been released, began publicly calling himself “Lila” this year, proudly proclaiming his “trans” identity. Biologically, he’s a boy. He’s not doing hormone therapy or anything body-altering. He’s a boy in a wig.

Lila was offered the use of a gender-neutral bathroom by the school administrators, and he refused it. But unfortunately, Lila’s desire to pee and change with the girls doesn’t sit well with—guess who?—the girls. Two hundred students staged a walkout at the school to protest “boys in the girls’ room.” The media condemned the students’ “hatred” and “intolerance,” and administrators voiced concerns about potential lawsuits and federal-governmentMy friend shared her thoughts about the Missouri case:

Fear (or is it prejudice?) has been spread about trans girls or boys abusing their gender identity to attack other girls and boys in the bathroom. It has gotten to the point that my own cisgender daughter was stopped from going into the women’s restroom at her college by administration because, from the back, they thought she was a boy. My daughter is very feminine, with short hair and a punk aesthetic. In other words, this bathroom falderal has backfired onto straight, cisgendered peoples’ lives.

These are not men dressed in drag going in to rape innocent damsels! These are women who went into the restroom to powder their nose or tinkle, like every other woman who goes in there. Yet, every time a trans woman uses a restroom, she puts her life at risk. Using the men’s room would most certainly result in harassment at minimum.

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