The titantic clash of protected rights

As I’ve said before, I truly pity transgendered people, those born with a hormone wash at odds with their body’s actual equipment.  I wish them no harm and believe that they should be protected from the sometimes venomous prejudice that follows their gender confusion.  Nevertheless, there is no doubt that elevating their needs to the sacred status of protected rights creates enormous inconveniences and pressures on everyone else, not to mention a whole bunch of risks to both the self-identified transgendered and those caught in the backwash of their protected rights:

Two San Rafael parents are upset by a school policy that allows students who identify as a different gender to use the restrooms and locker rooms assigned to that gender.

Mark and Elizabeth Swanson say the rule creates the potential for students to be placed in uncomfortable situations.

“This policy provides the opportunity for boys in a junior high school setting to have to change in the midst of a young woman, from whom they would be separated only by a curtain,” Mark Swanson told the district board at its meeting Monday. “I’m in favor of protecting the dignity of transgendered individuals. But that creates a difficult situation for those boys. It imposes upon their modesty and privacy.”

But San Rafael school officials say the policy is in keeping with state law, which treats gender and sexual identity as protected statuses. Unless students would be subject to “unavoidable nudity,” they could be asked to share a restroom with a student who is biologically of the opposite sex.

To do otherwise would leave the school district open to lawsuits, attorney Dora Dome said.

“A subject’s discomfort does not have the same legitimacy on a legal basis as supporting the rights of an individual,” said Dome, the district’s legal counsel. “Based on a substantial legal record, the district must allow access to transgendered students.”

The above clash, of course, is not surprising.  This is what happens when government starts handing out “protected rights” like candy on Halloween.  It initially seems like a cheap way to satisfy various interest groups, but quickly devolves into a battle to the death amongst those simultaneously clutching their protected rights like shields and wielding them like swords.