When I first read Frederick Becklo’s letter to the editor (“In defense of the bathroom bill”) in the June 18 Recorder, I found myself thinking how comfortable and reassuring and easy his black-and-white world must be. A world where men are men, and women are women; and probably where this norm and many others are clearly and immutably (in his mind) defined in a certain ancient sacred text.
I think most of us realize, however, that sexuality is a continuum in the human species and many (most?) others as well. And sometimes the dividing line becomes very indistinct: when the physical genitalia and the brain chemistry determining sexual identity don’t line up. Please Mr. Becklo (and like-minded idealists), we’re not talking about men masquerading as women for the purpose of being a voyeur in a women’s room. (and vice versa) You may well be a 99 percentile male; and you think in terms of some sort of sexual overtones when thinking of a “man” in a “women’s” locker room. That’s not how a transgender person views the world.
A person with male genitalia who identifies as a female may well feel as out-of-place in a men’s room as you or I would if we accidentally walked into a women’s room. (again; and vice versa) I can only imagine how extraordinarily difficult it must be for a transgender person to navigate the fixed-gender partitions we construct in the world. They don’t need you, or anyone else, passing moral judgment on them as well. We may not fully be able to walk in their shoes; that does not make them “indecent and foul!” That language says more about you, than it does about them.
Mike Conboy
South Deerfield