PIERRE, S.D. (AP) \u2014 When Thomas Lewis told his South Dakota high school last year that he is transgender, teachers called him by his new name and used male pronouns when addressing him. But he says the accommodations stopped at being able to use the men\u2019s bathroom.<\/p>\n
Instead, the 18-year-old senior chooses to go home, where he feels safe to use the restroom, before returning from lunch to rejoin his classmates at Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls.<\/p>\n
Lewis has even spoken to his state\u2019s Legislature against a bill that would require transgender students like him to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex at birth, telling them that such a law \u201cmakes me feel like I\u2019m not a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
It fell on mostly deaf ears: South Dakota is a governor\u2019s signature away from being the first state in the U.S. to approve such a law.<\/p>\n
Several states have looked at addressing gender and public facilities in the past several years. South Dakota\u2019s bathroom bill is one of several measures introduced in its 2016 legislative session addressing transgender rights, including one that would void a South Dakota high school activities association policy that allows transgender student athletes to request playing on the team of their choice.<\/p>\n
Advocates say the bathroom bill is meant to protect the privacy of students and not meant to be hurtful. Republican Sen. David Omdahl, a supporter, said it\u2019s inappropriate for a young girl to be exposed to the anatomy of a boy.<\/p>\n
Opponents say it\u2019s discriminatory, and Lewis says it exposes a significant problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law means that no matter what people might think at school, how they might accept me at school, the state doesn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under the plan, schools would have to provide a \u201creasonable accommodation\u201d for transgender students, such as a single-occupancy bathroom or the \u201ccontrolled use\u201d of a staff-designated restroom, locker room or shower room.<\/p>\n
Federal officials have said that barring students from restrooms that match their gender identity is prohibited under the Title IX anti-discrimination law, and advocates of South Dakota\u2019s bill say it\u2019s a direct response to the Obama administration\u2019s interpretation.<\/p>\n
Though the measure puts schools\u2019 federal funding at risk, said Democratic Sen. Angie Buhl O\u2019Donnell, it also has \u201cvery real emotional impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe this bill is not intended to be disrespectful, but I would submit this: If a whole community of people tells us that we are hurting them, who are we to decide that we didn\u2019t?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Lewis came out in March after an event in Sioux Falls where he read aloud a poem he\u2019d written about a transgender man named Thomas. The reaction helped turn feelings of fear into \u201celation\u201d and courage to be open about his gender identity, Lewis said.<\/p>\n
His mother and close friends accepted him without question. But at school, the bathroom is still an issue.<\/p>\n
Sioux Falls Superintendent Brian Maher said he couldn\u2019t talk about specific accommodations for individual students because of privacy issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would always have an accommodation for a student to use a bathroom on campus,\u201d he said. \u201cWe would not make a student leave campus to go to the bathroom. Whether or not it would be the bathroom of that student\u2019s choice or not could be another issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota and Human Rights Campaign said it\u2019s not clear how many transgender students there are in South Dakota.<\/p>\n
Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard offered a positive reaction last week to the proposal \u201cat first blush,\u201d but said he\u2019d need to research the issue and listen to testimony before deciding.<\/p>\n
Another measure in the South Dakota Legislature this session would require government entities that accept information on a South Dakota birth certificate to recognize all information on the birth certificate as official \u2014 meaning transgender people would been seen in the eyes of the state as their sex at birth, not their current gender.<\/p>\n
Republican Rep. Jim Bolin, the bill\u2019s sponsor, said such claims of different gender are \u201cprofound\u201d and challenge \u201cmany basic concepts as to the nature and character of life and society.\u201d<\/p>\n
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota called the bill out for being \u201can attack on the very existence of transgender people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly, I think we\u2019ve seen enough of those attacks this year,\u201d said Libby Skarin, the organization\u2019s policy director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) \u2014 When Thomas Lewis told his South Dakota high school last year that he is transgender, teachers called him by his new name and used male pronouns when addressing him. But he says the accommodations stopped at being able to use the men\u2019s bathroom. Instead, the 18-year-old senior chooses to go home, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19489"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}