What Glenn Youngkin Missed on the Transgender Bathroom Issue
What Glenn Youngkin Missed on the Transgender Bathroom Issue
During a CNN town hall on Thursday night, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) answered questions from parents, teachers, and students on various topics.
It was probably not the wisest move by Youngkin to allow himself to be so blatantly set up by CNN. But, according to a new poll from Roanoke College, his job approval rating stands at an impressive 57%, so I’m sure he correctly figured he could easily defend his policies from whatever gotcha questions CNN staged for him. And boy, did they.
On the issue of transgender bathrooms and sports, CNN handpicked a 17-year-old girl who calls herself Niko and identified herself as a “transgender man.”
“Governor Youngkin, your transgender model policies require that students play on the sports teams, and you the restrooms that correspond with their sex assigned at birth,” she began. “Look at me. I am a transgender man. Do you really think that the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me?”
“What’s most important is that we try very hard to accommodate students,” Youngkin explained. “That’s why I have said many, many times, we just need extra bathrooms in schools. And so, people can use a bathroom that they, in fact, are comfortable with.” (RELATED: Glenn Youngkin Explains What’s What to Trans Student Regarding Bathrooms and Sports)
It was a decent yet incomplete answer, in my opinion. The issue isn’t just about what bathrooms “transgender” students feel comfortable using. It’s about the privacy and dignity of students who don’t feel comfortable sharing private spaces, like bathrooms and lockers, with members of the opposite sex. For example, girls should not be forced to share a bathroom or a locker room with boys. Period. This issue is about the safety, dignity, and privacy of everyone.
There’s also the genuine threat of students abusing “transgender-friendly” policies to gain access to these private, single-sex spaces. In 2021, a ninth-grade girl in Virginia’s Loudoun County was raped by a “gender-fluid” boy wearing a skirt in the girls’ restroom. The incident caused significant controversy because the school board tried to cover it up by not reporting it to the police and handling the case in-house. (RELATED: How the Radical Transgender Movement Led to the Cover-Up of Rape in a School Bathroom)
Youngkin’s suggestion about single-use bathrooms being available for students is a balanced solution. The problem with policies that allow anyone to use the bathroom of their choice based on their subjective “gender identity” and not their objective biological sex is not only can they be abused but that it forces the majority to accommodate a select few at the expense of their dignity and privacy. Single-use bathrooms allow these select few “transgender” students to use the facilities without making other students feel uncomfortable or unsafe and are a reasonable compromise. If the transgender cult can’t accept this compromise, then it’s proof they have sinister intentions by forcing their ideology on the rest of us.