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Inaugural Singer, Transgender Sister Want to Talk with Trump About Potty Rule

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2017-02-23

So did you hear the one about the President who invited a girl to sing at his Inauguration, then told her sister she can’t pee in the ladies’ room?

Jackie Evancho sang the National Anthem at the Inauguration last month. Her sister Juliet, born Jacob, is a transgender woman.

Yesterday, President Trump tore up President Obama’s guidance to schools that transgender students have a right under Title IX to use the bathroom that fits their gender identity—i.e., their gender identity, not the gender others say they should be.

Now Jackie and Juliet would like a chance to sit down with the President and explain that crying “states’ rights” and whining about “overreach” cheaply dodge this Administration’s responsibility for discrimination and bullying:

Juliet and Jackie Evancho
Juliet and Jackie Evancho

“I guess I just want to enlighten him on what my sister, I’ve seen her go through every single day in school and people just like her, what they deal with,” Jackie Evancho said. “The discrimination, it’s terrible.”

…On Thursday, Juliet Evancho said she would also bring a message of understanding were she to meet with Trump.

“Basically that being at a high school where the policies on the bathroom are unclear, I, as Jackie has said, I kind of live it every day, going through discrimination,” she said she would tell the president. “I’ve had things thrown at me. I’ve had people say pretty horrible things and the unsafe environment is just very unhealthy so I feel like Donald Trump needs to know that being in such an unsafe environment won’t do any good not only for the transgenders and the LGBTQ community but as well as everyone as a whole.”

“When I heard about it I was very disappointed and I realized that we would need to take action in order to enlighten the administration on everything,” she said [Katie Kindelan and Kelly McCarthy, “Jackie Evancho and Transgender Sister Hope to ‘Enlighten’ Donald Trump After Reversal of Transgender Bathroom Guidance,” ABC News, 2017.02.23].

I worry that Jackie and Juliet are operating under the mistaken assumption that the man in the White House is open to enlightenment.

Attorney General Marty Jackley applauds the President’s order but says he wants to “find a solution to the transgender concerns without forcing children of the opposite sex into the same bathrooms and locker rooms.” Um, Marty? Check out that picture above. Juliet is a female. President Obama’s guidance was meant prevent schools from forcing girls like Juliet into the boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms.

At least South Dakota’s legislators had the good sense to withdraw their anti-transgender bill and focus their insecurities on other measures of manhood.

Tangentially Related: New research on risky youth behavior from 1999 to 2015 shows that in states that enacted same-sex marriage laws prior to the 2015 Obergefell ruling, suicide dropped 14% among gay students and 7% among all students. Suicide in states like South Dakota that held onto same-sex marriage bans saw no change in youth suicide attempts.

Published in national

11 Comments

  1. Ryan Deplorable 2017-02-23 18:05

    Imagine if both sides put time and effort into research that would help solve the mental disorder that is transgenderism.

  2. Roger Cornelius 2017-02-23 19:38

    “the mental disorder that is transgenderism”.
    This is first I’m hearing that being transgender is a mental disorder. You’ll have to provide some research deplorable.
    I shouldn’t be too surprised by deplorable, there are those that still that believe that homosexuality is a mental disorder.

  3. mike from iowa 2017-02-23 19:58

    Being Gay is a mental disorder according to wingnuts, Roger. They think transgenders are confused about their gender. I think being a wingnut is a mental disorder, especially when they claim too many shootings are done by mentally unstable so let’s vote to let more mentally unstable have guns. What could possibly go wrong?

  4. Ryan Deplorable 2017-02-23 20:23

    Johns Hopkins is a good school right?

    http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/johns-hopkins-psychiatrist-transgender-mental-disorder-sex-change

    Also, the World Health Organization has catagorized transgenderism as a mental health disorder. Only recently (Summer ’16) have they considered removing it from the “mental disorder” list. World Health Organization is the group that handles all the diseases on planet Earth, if you cared about facts or anything like that. I know statistics and empirical evidence go over the libs’ heads sometimes.

  5. Nick Nemec 2017-02-24 04:50

    “same-sex marriage bands” (sic)

    But I do love a good wedding dance.

  6. Jenny 2017-02-24 08:24

    http://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/clinical-updates/endocrinology/addressing-the-challenges-of-transgender-health-care
    Mayo Clinic is also a top school and healthcare organization and usually beats John Hopkins in being among the best, Ryan. Mayo Clinic strongly supports transgenders and offers a multitude of services for them.
    Mayo Clinic statement is “being transgender indicates diversity and not pathology”.

    Interesting how just one state over can be the total opposite of SD and have total compassion on these issues instead of hate and discrimination.

  7. Mildred 2017-02-24 10:15

    Jenny: the web site you gave for Mayo Clinic is unavailable ☹️

  8. Donald Pay 2017-02-24 10:49

    There has been a gradual realization that gender identity and sexual preference are not mental disorders. Sex and love makes everyone crazy. LGBT folks are just as crazy as we straight folks.

  9. Porter Lansing 2017-02-24 10:50

    Ryan … You know it’s not about bathrooms anymore than the Civil War was about state’s rights. It’s about your need to hate somebody enough to distract from how much you hate yourself.

  10. OldSarg 2017-02-25 05:20

    Wouldn’t it be much more constructive to address why the attempted suicide rate is over 41% for those who identify as transgender rather than which potty the individual uses?

  11. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-02-26 12:04

    Ha ha! Thanks for catching that typo, Nick! I’ll fix that. :-)

Comments are closed.