El Paso School Districts Deal With Transgender Restroom Issues

Texas Senate Bill 6 – also known as the "bathroom bill" - would require transgender students to use the school bathroom or locker room based on their gender at birth, not the sex they currently identify with.

The battle over that bill is going on in Austin, but one El Paso area school districts is working on its own plan to accommodate transgender students. YISD says they doesn't have a specific policy, but they do things like give transgender students the chance to use nurses office restrooms or single-stall faculty restrooms. YISD says they have been dealing with transgender student issues for years without any problems.

EPISD, Socorro ISD, Canutillo ISD, and Fabens ISD do not have policies in place for dealing with transgender students.

There are some in the LGBQT community who aren’t happy with the way transgender restroom issues are being handled. They say making transgender people use single stall rest rooms, like in a nurse's office may seem like a reasonable compromise, but it discriminatory because a student should have access to the restroom of the gender with which they are currently identifying.

Worrying this much about where students go to the restroom may seem silly, but think about when you were in school and faced with using the showers after gym class. Being a teenager is tough enough without having to deal with questions and stares from other students about your body. If having a couple of single-stall restrooms available for transgender students can help a child get through those difficult teen years, then so be it. It's not a lot to ask.