North Carolina has taken their fight against the transgender community one step further. One high school has initiated a rule that states students are now permitted to carry pepper spray as a means to defend against transgender students. This rule is in direct correlation to the bathroom laws currently being debated. Many in North Carolina believe that if a transgender person is allowed access to the bathroom of the sex they identify with, females will be in danger and assaults on women will increase.
This is a clear case of discrimination and will only open up the transgender community to further harassment. What the school board fails to realize is, if a student identifies as female and has to use the bathroom, she probably is the last person that wants to announce she has a different anatomy. She will most likely be the girl who quietly and quickly does her business and gets out of there for fear of what might happen. She is not going to be the perpetrator, as suggested, and she certainly does not want to be pepper sprayed just by being there.
Some more logical thinking board member s had raised the suggestion that some students may use the new rule as an opportunity to pepper spray students or teachers for non-defensive reasons. They even did their research, bringing up past occurrences where this has happened.
In the end, the other board members fear of the transgender community far outweighed the consequences of a vigilante student body protecting themselves against a perceived but undocumented threat.
This is not a women’s right issue. Every woman deserves the right to protect herself if she feels threatened. But rules like this and the states “bathroom bill” are choosing one groups right over the other. If a transgender person is required to use a bathroom of the sex they are documented with, what protection is afforded them? We are kidding ourselves if we think a transgender man being forced to use a women’s bathroom because of their anatomy which we cannot outwardly see, is not going to cause more problems. Once again the fear of what is not understood fully has taken over logical thinking.