New Mexico, A Great Place To Live But Dont Use The Public Bathrooms

[Guest Joanna Phipps]

That got your attention, now let me explain what I mean quite often my state is help us as a great example of gender rights and fairness to the LGBT community. A cursory reading of the Human Rights Act (NMSA 28-1-1,15) seems to support this. I wonder how many have actually read the law in its entirety towards the middle is the exemptions section (section 9) this section begins with the obligatory “Nothing contained in the Human Rights Act [ 28-1-1 NMSA 1978] shall:” and continues to exemption E which reads “apply to public restrooms, public showers, public dressing facilities or sleeping quarters in public institutions, where the preference or limitation is based on sex”. I can kind of understand the showers, dressing and sleeping facilities but not being able to use the appropriate bathroom in a public institution, and such is never defined. NMSA 28-1-2(H) defines public accommodation as “public accommodation" means any establishment that provides or offers its services, facilities, accommodations or goods to the public, but does not include a bona fide private club or other place or establishment that is by its nature and use distinctly private; ” so to extrapolate from this public bathrooms would be any bathroom in a building that is open to the public, such as hotels, restaurants, shops, train and other transportation stations, gas stations. In short anything other than the bathroom you have at home, the one behind a locked security door at a place of business, or at a private club. I think it is time that we let the State Government know that this exemption is unacceptable in its current form and that it should be reworked to bring it into line with the spirit of the rest of the law. To that end I request that our New Mexico members, their friends, family and supporters use the following letter as a template to send to their representative, and the governor. Those of you from out of state might want to send it simply to the governor (Bill Richardson). Feel free to change the wording to make it more gender appropriate for you.

Dear

I applaud the state government for what it has done so far; however I hope that it, like myself, realizes that there is still much further to go in order to bring equality to all groups of the state population. It is my hope that this letter will go some way to pointing out the inequalities and give a starting point for the process.

I am writing to you to bring you some of my concerns as a member of the New Mexico transsexual community. A good place to start would be to try and estimate the size of the transsexual population in New Mexico. There is a big problem doing this because there really are no accurate statistics as to prevalence rates for Male to Female, Female to Male, and over all transsexual numbers. I will give the estimates based on the best information I can find. One thing all of the sources I can find do agree on is that the often quoted 1:30000 figure for Transsexualism is likely ridiculously low, for example it would yield a state wide transsexual population of only 67.

Using Lynn Conway’s prevalence rate estimates of 1:500 Male to Female Transsexuals (Conway, 2002), we get the following numbers in a state the size of New Mexico with a 2008 population estimate of 1,984,356 with a 2008 estimated male population of 49.3% or 978288 the number of MTF transsexuals would be 1957. The accepted ratio of MTF to FTM transsexuals is about 4:1 which would give us a state wide estimate of 402 FTM transsexuals for a total state wide of DIAGNOSED transsexuals of 2359. Estimates for the total number of transsexuals in the population, again according to Conway, of 0.25% to 2% using the median of 1.125% it would give us a total state wide Transsexual population of 22,324. Some do not agree with Lynn Conway's statistics they are the best that could be found at the time of writing. 

The New Mexico Human Rights Act (NMSA 28-1-1, 15) is a good starting point; however it is my feeling as well as that of several transsexuals I've talked to that exemption 9(E) should be revised to be more sensitive to the transsexual population. NMSA 28-1-9(F) which reads: “apply to public restrooms, public showers, public dressing facilities or sleeping quarters in public institutions, where the preference or limitation is based on sex”. On the surface this doesn't seem to be a cause for concern, and to the general population it isn't. To the Transgender community the public washrooms clause is a major concern. The reason being, many of us live and work as our target gender and on the surface the public bathroom clause seems to indicate that we should use the bathroom of our natal sex. This poses an immediate safety concern for me and I am sure many others, in some areas using the wrong bathroom can get a person severely hurt.

I live full time as a woman this means that there is no way I can reasonably and safely use the male washroom. The law states that I am not supposed to use the female washroom; so if there is no unisex bathroom what am I supposed to do? Simple I do what most of us do use the one appropriate to our gender presentation regardless of what the law says. Like most diagnosed and transitioning transsexuals I do have what is known as a carry letter. That is a letter from my therapist and psychiatrist that states I am in a structured program of gender transition and gives contact information for my therapist. This letter holds no legal force and effect but does give the reason for our cross sex appearance and that we are not doing so to evade capture or similar reasons. It is the one piece of evidence that I have never been asked to show.

Works Cited

Conway, L. (2002, 12 17). Education Institute. Retrieved 9 22, 2009, from Equality Arizona: http://www.education.equalityarizona.org/P...er%20Issues.pdf

Thanks in advance

[Guest ricka]

Joanna--once again I have to thank you for your efforts on behalf of transsexual people to fight for recognition, equality and justice. You are a real inspiration.

I will reference your letter with Basic Rights Oregon, the GLBTQ political organization with which I am involved---an organization I am proud to say is very much inclusive of trans people in it's political and social agendas.

Ricka