California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that will allow students to compete on sports teams and use facilities like showers and bathrooms based on their gender identity, regardless of what is listed on the student's records. Although other states, such as Colorado and Massachusetts, have policies on transgender equity and discrimination, California is the first to have the law written into state codes, mandating that schools must respect students' preferences for what programs they participate in and what facilities they use. The law, dubbed by some as the “School Bathroom Bill,” will go into effect on January 1, 2014.
In other words, no matter the sex of the student, if they have a form of a gender identity disorder, an illness that was once listed as a medical condition in the DSM-IV TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,) but has been replaced in the new DSM-5 with the more simple sounding gender dysphoria. According to the American Psychiatric Association, the rationale behind the new DSM includes: “Part of removing stigma is about choosing the right words. Replacing ‘disorder’ with ‘dysphoria’ in the diagnostic label is not only more appropriate and consistent with familiar clinical sexology terminology, it also removes the connotation that the patient is ‘disordered.’” Therefore, the new diagnosis emphasizes the societal and political stresses that this orientation sometimes engenders; not the disorder itself. It’s a sort of clinical designation for the victims of prejudice. The California law is an attempt to correct and or alleviate these pressures. In reality, it’s a mind-bending descent into government as Mommie-Dearest: Jerry Brown with a wire-hanger - beating everyone into submission; because, in the end, it’s for your own good.