On May 13, the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division issued a letter announcing to the nation's schools that under Title IX (the 1972 law that bans sex discrimination to schools that receive federal funding) transgender students must be allowed to use rest rooms that are consistent with the gender that they identify with.
We asked Dr. Carlos Vargas, President of Southeast Missouri State University, how Southeast accommodates the needs of transgender students.
Vargas: Well the genesis of this just to make sure that our audience is up to speed is a letter by the U. S. Department of Justice on May 13. They issued a "Dear Colleague" letter that states among other [things], "A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity." And gender identity is defined, refers to an individual's internal sense of gender. A person's gender identity may actually be different from or the same as the person's sex assigned at birth.
So that letter, which of course is a presidential directive, we need to abide by. And so that's there but I am pleased to actually tell you that at Southeast over the years, we actually have not had a problem with that. We deal with situations where students have...when they have special housing accommodations on a case-by-case basis. And actually some of the guidelines that we follow fit in well with the "Dear Colleague" letter that I mentioned.
For example in the residence halls we have community style residence hall bathrooms where everyone on the same floor shares the bathroom facilities. And we also have suite-style residence halls where two student rooms share bathroom facilities. In the case of the community style residence halls, the students are given access to bathroom facilities of the gender they identify with even if this is opposite to what is on the file with the university. So essentially what you see there is that we are doing exactly what the "Dear Colleague" letter is telling us to do. So, and that again we do on a case-by-case basis.
In the case of suite-style rooms, students would be housed with students of the gender listed on file with the university, in principle. So, if they identify with the opposite gender, we would have a conversation with the student and figure out the way to do it. In some cases, the student chooses to go to a single room where they have their own bathroom. In other cases, we will see if there is a way to accommodate that student with another with a roommate who is comfortable [and] accepts that kind of a roommate to be sharing the room with them or with her.
Woods: So the university really tries to just work individually in each situation to make sure that all parties are comfortable?
Vargas: That's exactly right. Our objective here is to be responsive to the needs of the students. And we've done that in a very effective way I believe because I think proof of that is that we really haven't had cases of complaints coming forward and expressing difficulty in having their housing accommodations be met. So, we're really happy that that is the situation here at Southeast.
Woods: Dr. Vargas, thank you so much for joining us today.
Vargas: Thank you very much, Dan. It's a pleasure to be here as always.
