(Danny Tarkanian) – I believe people should be allowed to live their lives the way they want so long as it does not significantly endanger the health, safety, and well-being of others.
When I first ran for public office, the hot topic was gay marriages. I would not support the Republican position that government should ban gay marriages. I have been criticized often on the campaign trail for not doing so. However, I do not believe it is the government’s business who a man or woman marries. It does not significantly endanger the health, safety, or well-being of others.
However, the same is not true for today’s hot topic, transgender people’s use of bathrooms and showers and participating in girls’ sports.
Transgender people’s use of bathrooms and showers:
Last week, the Douglas County School Board held a meeting to discuss this issue. The speakers favoring gender identification to be determinative presented the same argument. “It doesn’t hurt anyone. Don’t be scared of the unknown. Think of the poor transgender student and how it will make he/she feel.”
However, allowing a young child with a penis to share a bathroom and a shower with a young child with a vagina is harmful to the children. This is a universal fact.
Ever since Adam and Eve, society has felt the need to wear clothes and not expose one’s personal parts to the opposite sex without the others consent. It is the reason flashing, streaking and indecent exposure are against the law. However, in certain circumstances, it has been permissible for people with the same personal parts to be naked around one another. Health clubs, spas, locker rooms, beauty pageants, and overnight summer camps are a few examples.
Douglas County School Board President Susan Jansen proposed the crazy policy that school kids should share a bathroom and shower based upon their personal body parts. She stated, “(The policy) is to provide protection to girls in their private spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms. We have bathrooms and spaces that are unisex and that are accommodating to our transgender students.”
The ACLU believes this is an offensive and unconstitutional policy. They have threatened to sue the School Board. Under Nevada law, school districts are required to adopt policies that guarantee transgender and nonbinary students a “safe and respectful learning environment. Who is against that!
However, it is not unsafe and disrespectful to require young children to go to the bathroom and shower with children who have the same personal body parts or go to one that is designated unisex.
Transgender community advocate Brooke Maylath claims the policy is dehumanizing and that it would cause mental health issues for transgender youth.
What about the mental anxiety to young girls exposed to a penis in the bathroom and shower. In Wisconsin, an 18-year-old male student who claimed to identify as a trans woman, pulled out his genitals and exposed them to 14-year-old girls in the high school locker room. The senior stated, “I’m trans, by the way,” as he stripped and showered, exposing his male genitalia.
One of the parents pleaded with the school board. “I am asking you to keep male genitalia in the male locker room and female genitalia in the female locker room or create a trans locker room.
A school board student member responded, “What is the actual problem in this situation other than a trans student existing. That a student of this school undressed in a public locker room.”
No, the actual problem is forcibly exposing young children to the opposite sex’s private parts. It has nothing to do with gender identification or trans students’ existence.
In San Diego, a young teenager cried as she recalled seeing “a naked man” in her local YMCA, telling the Santee city council that she’d been traumatized by the experience with the person she described as a trans woman.
“As I was showering after my workout, I saw a naked male in the women’s locker room. I immediately went back into the shower, terrified, and hid behind their flimsy excuse for a curtain until he was gone.” She was especially worried that her 5-year-old sister could be exposed to the naked trans women. She noted that, “the locker room was supposed to be her safe haven to gossip with her friends, and shower and change.”
Riley Gaines is a 12-time All-American swimmer from the University of Kentucky. She described her feelings and that of the other women competitors when they were forced to share a locker room and strip their clothes in front of a biological male at the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming Championship.
“The overwhelming majority of us, girls, felt so uncomfortable. We felt betrayed. We felt belittled… it’s awkward. It’s embarrassing… the best word to describe it is traumatic…Our safety, our privacy, it doesn’t matter… We should smile and step aside and allow these men into our space, or else you’re a bigot… a 6-foot-4 male walks in, disrobes and is fully intact with male genitalia, while we’re simultaneously undressing”.
The administration responded, “If you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here are some counseling resources that you should see.” You can’t make this stuff up!
Douglas High School’s legal counsel cautioned the School Board that the proposed policy must have a compelling state interest. Has society denigrated so much that it is no longer compelling to shield our young children from the opposite sex’s body parts. Parents rightly want their children to stay innocent as long as possible. There is a reason, young kids are prohibited from watching PG and X rated movies.
It isn’t just exposure to the opposite sex’s body parts. It is the potential for violence. In Oklahoma, a transgender student was arrested for assaulting two female students in the girls’ restroom after the girls made some remark about the student being there. The assailant punched the girls and then proceeded to hit, kick and pull their hair.
In Virginia, a female student reported being sexually assaulted by a boy dressed as a girl in the girl’s bathroom. When the school board did nothing, the father heatedly demanded that the school board change its policy. The school board had the father arrested. The assailant was transferred to another school where he sexually assaulted another girl in the school bathroom.
Transgender people competing in sports:
This movement really shocks me. Women have been fighting for equality in sports for more than 50 years. In 1972, Title IX was passed to ensure women had the same opportunities in sports as men. The liberal left claim this as one of their hallmark victories.
Yet, it is the liberal left that is now trying to destroy equality in women sports. Apparently, the transgender issue is more important than equality for women.
The left hugging Nevada Independent recently wrote, “Research on whether transgender girls and women have an unfair advantage over cisgender female athletes whose gender identity corresponds with their sex assigned at birth is inconclusive because of a lack of scientific data.”
Hogwash! There is a reason men have competed against men and women have competed against women since the beginning of sports. The National Library of Medicine wrote, “Without the sex division, females would have little chance of winning because males are faster, stronger, and have greater endurance capacity.” This does not change when the male identifies as a woman.
The most well-known example of this is Lia Thomas. Lia was an average male swimmer. In his last year of competition, he ranked 65th in the men’s 500 freestyle but after identifying as a woman and taking testosterone suppressions for more than a year, Lia won the women’s 500 freestyle national championship. The Olympic Silver Medalist was second.
The National Library of Medicine explained, “Testosterone secreted before birth, postnatally, and then after puberty is the major factor that drives these physiological sex differences, and as adults, testosterone levels are ten to fifteen times higher in males than females.”
The governing body for international track and field recently barred transgender women athletes from elite competitions for women. The governing body explained, “(We) ultimately decided to prioritize ‘fairness and the integrity’ of the female competition over inclusion.”
It isn’t just fairness and integrity. It is safety for the women participants. Peyton McNabb, a high school volleyball player in North Carolina, was struck in the face by a volleyball spiked by a biological male who identified as a girl. She suffered a concussion and neck injury.
McNabb told lawmakers that she is still suffering physical and mental trauma from the incident. She suffers from impaired vision, partial paralysis on her right side, constant headaches, as well as anxiety and depression and that her ability to learn, retain, and comprehend has also been impaired, and that she requires accommodations at school for testing because of this.
McNabb explained. “Allowing biological males to compete against biological females is dangerous. I may be the first to come before you, but I won’t be the last.”
Mr. Tarkanian is a Douglas County Commissioner
