California Assembly candidate Young Kim hopes to win votes in one of the state’s tightest races by attacking a new law requiring schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms of their choice and participate in sports by their gender identity rather than their anatomical gender.
“That doesn’t represent the values of this community,” the Fullerton Republican said. She also expressed concerns about practical repercussions. “This bill adds a giant additional burden to our schools.”
But school districts contacted by the Register said they’ve experienced no increased costs or drain on resources. They said the impact of the law, which took effect Jan. 1, has been minimal and what changes it has brought have been positive.
Assembly District 65 incumbent Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, said Kim is preying on misunderstanding and fear for political gain.
“I understand, in the way it’s being described, why parents would be afraid,” said Quirk-Silva, who backed the law in a largely party-line vote. “They’re trying to present is as a divisive, fearful issue.”
Nonetheless, the trend toward greater acceptance of transgender individuals continues to meet with opposition. A signature petition to place an initiative on the ballot to overturn the new state law, AB 1266, attracted 487,000 valid signatures, just 17,000 shy of the amount needed to qualify. And efforts to roll back the law continue.
The privacy issue
While bathrooms have private stalls, locker rooms pose a different issue when transgender students use the facility opposite of their anatomical gender, according to the Pacific Justice Institute, which sponsored the proposed initiative and is challenging the disqualification of some of the 132,000 signatures rejected by election officials.
“Student privacy means not having students have to take off their clothes in the locker rooms in front of the opposite sex,” said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute.
That issue has been dealt with at the Los Angeles and San Francisco unified school districts – which have had a policy similar to AB 1266 for more than 10 years – by using partitions or having transgender students change before or after others. Los Angeles also uses that strategy for showers; San Francisco has no showers.
While the Los Angeles and San Francisco policies are becoming models for districts statewide, Dacus points out that the state law makes no such provision for partitions or separate changing times. Rather, it simply requires access to “facilities consistent to his or her gender identity.”
The Los Angeles and San Francisco policies “are by no means as radical as state law,” Dacus said.
Kim’s list of potential issues went well beyond locker room issues. But three of Orange County’s largest unified school districts – Santa Ana, Capistrano and Garden Grove – were contacted by the Register and none reported any conflicts regarding implementation of the new law so far.
“Both schools and administrators have been very accommodating and supportive,” said Amy Stevens, spokeswoman for the Garden Grove Unified School District where three of their 48,000 students have been recognized by the district as transgender individuals. “The students and families are happy as well.”
The two largest districts in Quirk-Silva’s Assembly district did not return Register calls for comment, although Quirk-Silva said her office has contacted all the superintendents in her district and was told that there have been no requests for transgender accommodation.
‘At risk’ students
Coordinators for the transgender policies in the Los Angeles and San Francisco school districts – along with many of the law’s proponents – believe that most transgender individuals have innate, deeply held gender identities.
Kevin Gogin of SFUSD said three transgender students entering kindergarten in the fall have been identified. At that age, parents are typically the ones to bring the issue to the school’s attention, although schools work with parents to integrate transgender students of all ages, he said.
The goal is to accommodate all students with an environment conducive to learning. Transgender students tend to be at higher risk of dropping out, depression, drug use, homelessness and suicide, said Laura Kanter, director of youth services at The Center OC, an LGBT support organization that worked with that city’s school district in developing its transgender policy.
Judy Chiasson, coordinator of the Human Relations, Diversity and Equity program at the LAUSD, agreed with Kanter that if students are not marginalized, the risk is reduced.
“We want all our transgender students coming to school feeling safe, affirmed and part of the school community,” Chiasson said.
Chiasson said that parents fearful of transgender students at school tend to “think a male will walk into a female facility and victimize their daughter.”
But she said that transgender students tend to more modest and less likely to misbehave than the average student. None of the five school districts contacted by the Register reported incidents of sexual harassment by transgender students. And none had males dressing as females just to get into girls’ bathroom and locker rooms.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Chiasson said.
Other concerns dismissed
One of Kim’s first public criticisms of Quirk-Silva’s support of the new law came last year in a mass email she wrote to support the signature-gathering effort of her church, Cerritos Presbyterian, for the petition to overturn AB 1266. She has subsequently brought up the issue when meeting with voters and pointed to it as a key difference between the two candidates in a Register interview.
Among Kim’s worries about the new law is that new bathrooms or locker rooms may need to be constructed. But Chiasson said that separate facilities are counter to the state law, and would further stigmatize transgender students. None of the districts contacted by the Register has built or plan to build new facilities.
Kim’s other concerns:
• Additional resources could be needed. Those contacted by the Register said student counseling and faculty training are incorporated into other counseling and training programs. Chiasson said she spends less than 5 percent of her workday on transgender issues.
• Students could change their identity “on a whim.” Chiasson and Kevin Gogin, director of Safety and Wellness at SFUSD, said that “persistency and consistency” are key to identifying a student as transgender, and that accommodations are usually made in consultation with parents. “We have never had a student change gender on a whim,” Gogin said.
• Male-to-female transgender students would have an unfair advantage in sports. Chiasson and Gogin said this has not occurred in their districts. And Quirk-Silva doubts it will become an issue.
“A boy doesn’t wake up one morning and say, ‘I’m going to become transgender and dominate the girls’ tennis team,” said Quirk-Silva, who spent 27 years as a teacher before being elected to the Assembly in 2012. “If parents really understood what the law does and doesn’t do, they still might not agree with it personally, but they might not be as fearful.”
Kim, who spent 20 years as an aide to Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, didn’t back off of her opposition when school districts’ rebuttals provided details for her.
“My main point about the bill is what it demonstrates about the Legislature,” she said. “Our schools have major problems, our students are falling behind, and the Legislature spends its time debating and passing a bill that was unnecessary and that may very well have many unintended financial consequences.”
Trend of acceptance
The new law is among recent developments indicating society’s growing acceptance of transgender individuals, who account for an estimated 0.5 percent of the population.
On July 28, President Barack Obama signed an executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gay and transgender workers. In June, Time magazine ran the cover story, “The Transgender Tipping Point.” The cover featured transgender actress Laverne Cox of “Orange is the New Black.”
Closer to home, Cassidy Lynn Campbell was elected homecoming queen last fall at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by a 5-3 ratio.
“I’ve never seen any issue evolved more quickly than LGBT,” said political scientist Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of CSU Los Angeles’ Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs. “I imagine in 20 years and especially with generational change, it’ll be, ‘What was all the fuss about?’”
But for now, part of the fuss is about the 65th Assembly District race, which is key to whether Democrats retain their two-thirds supermajority in the lower chamber. Both candidates are 51 and have four children, but have contrasting views on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Kim says transgender individuals “deserve to be respected.” But she doesn’t believe they were born with their gender identities or that gays were born with their sexual orientation.
“I think it may have more to do with the environment one grows up in,” she said. Kim also opposes gay marriage.
Quirk-Silva supports gay marriage and leans toward the belief that gay and transgender people have been born that way.
“I’m not a scientist,” she said. “But when you talk to parents, they often say they knew since the time their kids were very young.”
Does she think the issue could cost her the election?
“It will be perceived as a liability,” she said. “They’ll do everything they can to scare people. And some people will be moved to vote because of it.”
Contact the writer: mwisckol@ocregister.com
