The issue here is not just fairness. This is a lawsuit involving the violation of Grimm's civil liberties. Grimm is being represented in the lawsuit by the ACLU.

A person's (or a class of people's) right to exercise their civil liberties does not depend on how his doing so will affect society. It is not a balancing act, in which you measure a person's right to exercise his basic civil liberties against the potential inconvenience, discomfort or disturbance to other people of having to adapt to his doing so.

Surely, honoring Grimm's right to exercise his civil liberties will require effort from others, individually and culturally. It is society's job to figure out how to accomplish the task of respecting his rights.

It is not Grimm's job to forego his civil liberties because of how it might affect other people. Not under the law, and in my view, not morally or ethically.

Please understand that I'm trying. There is a young person very dear to me who at the age of 6 used to run across the floor where I worked and throw herself into my arms. At the age of 12 this person decided he was a boy. His entirely supportive mother's initial response was "Is this because I didn't freak out when you told me you were a lesbian?"

I am now retired. My young friend's mother no longer works where we did. They've moved and I rarely see them. I miss them.

The restroom argument is ridiculous. But imagine a gym locker room. Fifteen boys. Fourteen have penises. One has a vagina. It's not the ones with the penises I'm worried about. There is a lot of horsing around in a locker room. I don't want my young friend at the mercy of the class bully.

I try to imagine myself at the age of fourteen in a locker room with a group of young people with penises and one person with a vagina. I don't know how I would have felt. I think I might have been embarrassed. I know I would have been intensely curious. (This was before every junior high school student had access to internet porn.The Playboys we found in the town police trashcan were airbrushed to the point where they were as anatomically correct as a department store mannequin.) I honestly don't know whether I would have been aroused. Like most men I can be aroused visually. It may have been a special challenge during puberty.

I'm trying to learn. I asked a loved one, a gay man who is in a long-term relationship. He said "Don't ask me. I don't get it." So I went to the most authoritative source available to me, a lesbian MD recently retired from a medical school. She gave me a slightly more technical version of some of the information you have provided. She didn't grasp my locker room concerns, but she's never been bullied by a fourteen year old boy in a locker room.

Then I asked her if at the age of 14 she had the opportunity to be a boy she would have. She told me that at the age of 14 she would have given anything to be a boy, but at the age of 24 she was absolutely glad she was a lesbian. How certain can this 14 year old really be?

Then I think of my gay loved one. Neither he nor I have the slightest doubt that he was born gay. At the age of 5, when boys wore blue sneakers he wore red like girls. He like playing with and dressing trolls, sort of a cross between a doll and an imp. Nothing erotic about it. He started having relationships with boys and dating girls/women. Dating women certainly made his life safer back then. He told me he valued his experiences with girls/women. How else would he have known whether he was gay or bi? I wonder if the trans option were available back then he would have made a decision that he has no doubt would have been wrong for him.

My young friend's decision has no effect on my feelings for him. I want him to be happy. I also want him to be safe, physically and psychologically. It would be wonderful to find out I'm missing something obvious.

Peace.