President Trump’s Administration announced on February 22 that they would rescind the guidelines put in place by the Obama Administration regarding transgender individuals. The guidelines, originally issued in a letter from the Obama Administration, advised public schools to allow students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms based on the gender they identify with (as opposed to the gender they were born with). The Trump Administration said this directive caused lawsuits and confusion, suggesting instead that the issue should be left to state governments.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told the media of this decision, “[Trump] is a firm believer in states’ rights and that certain issues like this are not best dealt with at the federal level.”
While some in Lubbock support this decision, for several in the transgender community in the Hub City, this decision causes alarm.
“What prevented me from coming out in school was not being protected,” said Cadyn Ribera. Ribera was born female and originally named “Taylor,” he is transgender and identifies as a male now. “And that’s the first thought that came through my head [after the Trump Administration’s decision] was these kids that thought they had a chance, and now I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to them.”
From looking at and listening to Ribera, you may not be able to tell that he was born female. Ribera refers to himself as “passing” which means he can pass for being a biological male in public settings. He is undergoing the process of transition which includes therapy and hormones.
“The earliest I remember feeling it, I was four years old. I didn’t really understand– I didn’t like Barbies. I would pitch fits when we would go to church and I would have to wear a dress,” Ribera recalled.
“I never felt comfortable in female clothing. I didn’t really have a word for it, I kind of felt like one day the blue fairy was going to come and I was going to wake up and be a boy.”
“At around thirteen, when I hit puberty, I remember staring in the mirror and hating what reflected back at me. And I felt very alone and very isolated,” he said.
Ribera recalled first “coming out” at around 13; he didn’t start identifying as transgender until late high school and early in college.
He’s been on hormones for nearly two years and plans on getting his name and gender marker legally changed. Ribera explained that he lost friends during the process of his transition, but he also gained support through Lubbock’s LGBTQ community.
“And it’s funny because before I came out I didn’t think there were any trans people in Lubbock, and now that I’ve come out and I’m part of the community,” he said. “There are a lot of trans people in Lubbock, of all different age groups, there are trans women, trans men, non binary, there’s all sorts of people in the spectrum.”
Ribera is the facilitator for Lubbock PFLAG’s Gender Spectrum Support Group, which offers a community for LGBTQ individuals in Lubbock. Many of the attendees of the group are transgender.
Especially as he now identifies as a male, it seems illogical to Ribera that after Trump rescinded the bathroom policy guidelines, he could be asked to use women’s restrooms even though he looks like a man.
“With the laws they want to put in place where they want to put people like me in the women’s bathroom, they don’t think about trans men, they are targeting trans women,” Ribera said. “I think that’s funny because when you see a trans man like me or several of my friends we have facial hair, we look like men and then they’re gonna freak out when we have to go in the women’s bathroom. It’s like you can’t win for losing honestly.”
Ribera said he would be open to using a unisex restroom, but above all he wants to see is his community treat everyone with love– regardless of their gender or sexuality.
Ribera said he was dismayed to hear about the decision from the Trump administration, because it felt like a step backward in terms of supporting transgender individuals.
“What kind of drives me crazy is that the Trump Administration said they were going to fight for the LGBT community, I think they don’t really look into the fact that it’s LGBT, they see it’s gay– just gay people a lot of time the ‘b’ and ‘t’ are silent. Bisexuals and transgenders get the short end of the stick.” he said.
That’s a sentiment shared by Lubbock resident Braxton Berry, who is also transgender.
“It at all goes against a lot of what [Trump] said in those rallies, in his campaigning,” Berry said. “Everyone’s saying [Trump’s] stuck to what he’s said and he’s made a statement saying he’s intending to protect the rights of LGBT citizens.”
Berry was born female and begain transitioning three years ago. He identifies as male now.
When president Trump moved to keep in place Obama Administration workplace protections for LGBT workers, the White House issued a statement saying in part:
“President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, just as he was throughout the election”
Last April Trump stated that people should “use the bathroom they feel is appropriate.”
“I’ve personally tried to keep my own political views as uninvolved as I can, I don’t necessarily have any problem with Trump but I don’t think he has any regard for us as humans,” Berry said. Berry added that he has been optimistic about Trump’s business expertise, but is frightened by Trump’s actions to rescind the transgender guidelines.
Berry describes being transgender under this political climate as “terrifying.” He explained that the controversy surrounding bathroom policy has already pushed him to stop using public restrooms altogether.
“It makes the whole being transgender thing even harder than it already was and I think that’s the worst part about it,” Berry said.
“I hope it goes back to the fact that they don’t have to agree with what we do with our lives, all we want is to be human, at the end of the day we just want to feel like normal people,” he said.
From a Counselor’s Perspective
Ann Akin, an ordained Methodist minister and a licensed, professional counselor has been working with transgendered clients for over seven years. She believes there are many public misconceptions about what being transgender actually means.
“I think a lot of times people do not read, they don’t understand so they see it as something that is a disorder, that there is something that is wrong with this person, that is not the situation,” she said. “A person is not mentally disturbed because they are transgendered, they simply identify internally with the gender that they do not present externally,” she said. While the conversation about transgender individuals in the public sphere is relatively new, Akin believes that transgender individuals have existed for as long as humans have.
“What we don’t need is a black and white — biological females go here biological males go here–because it is so much more complicated than that,” Akin said. “I think where a lot of my clients come from is that they are very anxious about the change and the political posture, the political rights that have been gained very slowly but surely and they do not want to go backward,”Akin said. She added that the anxiety is compounded to the stress transgender people experience already — whether related to coming out or in some cases taking hormones.
Support for States’ Choice
Some in Lubbock, support Trump’s decision to leave transgender policies up to the states.
Congressman Jodey Arrington said in a statement to EverythingLubbock.com Monday:
“Over the past 8 years, President Obama repeatedly administered top-down policies that should have been decided at the state level. President Trump’s action to revoke the Obama Administration’s guidelines on transgender bathrooms returns authority over these decisions to our families, teachers, and principals in West Texas.”
As a State, Texas leaders have stood in opposition to the Obama administration guidelines. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has already filed a bill that would force transgender individuals to use the same bathroom as their biological gender when in government buildings or public schools.
During the Obama administration guidelines, Lt. Gov. Patrick encouraged schools not to participate.
Several Lubbock area pastors gathered last spring to voice opposition to the Obama Administration guidelines. They stated they were concerned the guidelines would interfere with the moral development of school children.
Lubbock County Republican Party Chair Steve Evans believes the average Republican in Lubbock county will stand in support of Trump’s decision to rescind the guidelines.
“As a general rule the Republicans like governments left to the state,” he explained.
“The LGBT issue is really a sticky topic, most of the transgender people that we have come across, most of the transgender people that I have talked to don’t want this to be a big deal,” Evans said.
“This issue isn’t for the transgender people for the most part, this a Democrat talking point for the most part,” Evans said.
He added that as the official position of the Lubbock County Republican Party: “we support states rights and limited federal government any chance we can.”
Evans noted that the bathroom policies getting the bulk of the discussion involve public bathrooms.
“As far as private businesses are concerned, you let the free market work itself out,” he said of private bathrooms.