The recent spate of stories about the transgender teen in Palatine, IL has, among other things, drawn some real exhibition of lack of understanding...one might even call it ignorance...on the part of some of those commenting. It's the sort of thing one might expect to find from the right-wing commentariat rather than at Daily Kos.

It has made me question whether the 11 years I have spent posting at DK have done anything good whatsoever.

Tuesday's Editorial at WaPo An Illinois high school’s tragic discrimination against a transgender student serves a couple of necessary purposes beyond what I have written or what Kerry Eleveld has written about the situation.

First of all it will be read by more people. Secondly, it includes some facts previously not mentioned.

The writer begins by decrying the fear-mongering, which is good. When it comes to trans people, the Fearmongers Shoppe is always open.

The Fearmongers Shoppe, serving all your phobia needs since 1947.

To understand the bid of a female transgender student to use the girls’ locker room at her suburban Chicago high school, it is necessary to get past all the fear-mongering that unfortunately has become a staple of these debates about bathrooms. Listen instead to what this young girl has told school officials: about having her own sense of privacy, about being isolated and ostracized and about how all she wants is “to be a girl like every other girl.”

Her right to equal treatment is recognized as a civil right by this government, but not by its citizenry, it seems. And when rights are not recognized at ground level, they effectively don't exist.

School officials have doubled down. In a well-orchestrated public relations campaign rolled out even before the finding was made public, they contended their solution to have the student agree to the use of privacy curtains was spurned by a federal government that was overreaching in its demand “to have opposite-sex students in the same open area of the locker room.” Hardly.

What??? The PR output was not, truth, but rather "truthiness??? Yes, indeedy. And the size of the contingent that fell for it is quite disappointing.

It’s mystifying that some solution couldn’t be reached between the two parties, but details of the two-year investigation prompted by the girl’s complaint paint a far different picture than that suggested by the rhetoric of school officials. How the girl, who is undergoing hormone therapy and is recognized by the school as a female in all other respects (including her use of bathrooms), first asked — and was denied — an opportunity to change clothes privately within the girls’ locker room in an area such as a restroom stall. How the school’s insistence she use separate facilities for the past two years has stigmatized her. It is clear from the government’s investigation, which included inspection of the facilities and interviews with school staff about conduct common in the locker rooms, that the privacy of all students could be protected without singling out this girl for separate and discriminatory treatment. It is a point that was underscored by the hundreds of students and community members who signed a student-led petition in support of her access to the locker room.

It is estimated that there are very small numbers of transgender students, but as school superintendent Daniel E. Cates pointed out in his public statements, figuring out how to best accommodate them is an emerging and critical matter for school districts everywhere. Those challenges, though, are nothing compared with the difficulties that confront transgender adolescents, so it’s important that schools set the example by replacing emotion with reason.

There is an epidemic of ignorance trying to put transgender students in their place, which seems to be thought to be in their bedrooms contemplating suicide. Admittedly, there has also been some common sense occasionally.

Bill would make Wisconsin 1st in nation to have transgender restrictions in public schools

Bellevue (NE) school board decides to keep policy on transgender students, despite criticism

Debate heats up over crafting state [Nebraska] policy on transgender students' participation in high school sports

Tulsa Public Schools Adopts Guidelines For Transgender Students, Faculty

Tennessee lawmaker proposes law for transgender students using school restrooms

Virginia court rules against transgender student