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Tuesday, March 19
The Indiana Daily Student

opinion

COLUMN: Sen. Tomes still doesn't understand trans people

The Indiana General Assembly kicked off 2016 by deserving an audible groan.

Sen. Jim Tomes, along with a posse of cis male Indiana representatives, authoring a bill that would make it a class A misdemeanor for individuals of one “biological gender”, to enter a public restroom not intended for the person’s gender.

A class A misdemeanor can carry up to one year in prison and a $5,000 fine.

There are a few reasons why this bill makes me laugh.

First, the text of the bill defines a “biological gender” as one that aligns with an individual’s physical anatomy at the time of their birth.

The definition also states females must have “at least one X chromosome and no Y chromosome” while males must have “at least one X chromosome and at least one Y chromosome.”

What is funny is that Tomes et al. chose to call this phenomenon a “biological gender.”

Gender is a quality determined in one’s brainit is their innermost concept of themselves. The bill’s language refers to sex.

Sex and gender are two separate things, and yet the bill combines them.

This is perhaps a strategic move to make readers of the bill believe it is being gender-inclusive, when in actuality it is a veil for this group of men to decide what makes a man a man or a woman a woman.

The second reason this bill amuses me is it completely grazes over the fact many trans people do not “look” like trans people. A trans woman who appears in every socially construed way as a woman would still legally have to use a men’s restroom, and vice versa.

Surely, this would come as a shock to those people who were originally spooked at the prospect of having someone of the “opposite gender” in their gender’s bathroom.

Not only that, it also strengthens the tension between trans people that who can easily be identified as trans and those who cannot.

Those who pass would receive the very special privilege of peeing in a comfortable bathroom, while those who do not are punished.

I erroneously assumed people just, like, get this by now.

I thought we all sort of accepted that not only do trans people exist just as much as cisgender people but they also do all the same things cisgender people do — like go to the bathroom.

I thought by this point in history our lawmakers would look at those they represent and choose to represent them fully by standing up for the rights of all people, not just those whose gender identities they agree with.

I am also crying about this bill for the same reasons.

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