Editorial: Pitt takes step backward with transgender policy

The Pitt News reports some disturbing developments in today’s paper. The Pitt News reports some disturbing developments in today’s paper.

The University’s case-by-case dealings regarding transgender students and which restrooms they wish to use has been rescinded in favor of a new policy that shows a distinct lack of progressive thought.

The unwritten policy says that in order to use any gendered facility on campus — some gender-neutral ones do exist — one must select a bathroom intended for the gender that matches his or her birth certificate.

That means that students who identify with a different gender must update their birth certificates. The Pitt News reports that to do so, one must have sex reassignment surgery, which can be prohibitively expensive. After surgery, one must go before a judge and present his or her documentation in order to change the birth certificate..

No university will have a large amount of transgender students, but that doesn’t mean that any who are present shouldn’t be acknowledged at all.

It’s one thing to forgo a distinct policy and operate on a case-by-case basis. But to rescind that rule in favor of a less tolerant policy is a huge step backward.

We don’t know why Pitt think this is the right move; they haven’t told us their justification. Perhaps the University worries about the larger student body’s reception of transgender students.

Although that is a logical case to make, any number of conflicts can arise between people: political and religious disagreements and sexual orientation and personality differences are some of the common ones. There are policies in place to handle these situations, so the conflictive nature of this issue is not a convincing argument against implementing gender-neutral housing arrangements.

In any event, if transgender people use the facilities they are most comfortable in, isn’t that the safest arrangement?

One might also say that there could arise a safety issue with such arrangements. For example, how might a woman who identifies as a man be received by other men? Is there a possibility of sexual abuse there?

There is, but this reasoning skews our recognition of the root problem. Instead of victim-shaming and encouraging guilt of the abused, we stand with a different approach: Sexual violence is not the victim’s fault.

Thus, the issue of safety when it comes to transgender arrangements shouldn’t be dependent on the violence variable. A transgender man or woman has the right to sexual safety, and his physical state shouldn’t be grounds to deny him comfort just because those rights might be threatened.

By its adopting such a prohibitive policy, we see that the University doesn’t want this to be a big issue — in fact, it seems that the administration would rather not deal with this at all.

The intolerance that such a stance propagates is an abysmal indication of how woefully close-minded Pitt is. And it shows that the University really doesn’t meet the needs of some of its most vulnerable students.

Implementing a policy like this without any student input at a University that claims to try to foster intellectual development through discourse is regressive. In fact, it illustrates a purpose directly contrary to the mission of higher education.

Nationally, we see that the transgender acceptance has not caught up to other LGBTQ acceptance — in fact, the Department of Justice offers statistics on hate crimes related to sexual orientation, but not those involving gender identity. We expect more from a progressive university.

Instead, Pitt administrators have said that a more progressive policy would be “too radical.” But how is it too radical to treat a human being the way he or she wants to be treated?

This issue is far from over. You will be hearing more from us about this shameful mess.