true

Few schools didn’t or do not teach about the “blind” or the “deaf” or those with various “disabilities” mental or physical. Most schools have long included aspects of their curriculum aimed at advocating gender inclusion and racial inclusion etc. for some time as those movements picked up a lot of mainstream steam during the “civil rights era” of the 1960’s and continued seeing mainstream advancement through the 1980’s and even into the present.
In contrast Americans claiming “Arab” on the census make up less than 1% of the US population- but social attitudes and attempts at respect and inclusion have been made with set backs along the way to such groups as well.
At the end of the day we can say it comes down to human respect- and there really isn’t any number besides perhaps zero when it comes to human beings and questions of wether we should attempt to respect and accommodate them I personally think. Whatever group a person is part of, in the end they are a unique individual…

.. who by virtue of their individuality is statistically insignificant. The rights and freedoms outlined at least in the American constitution do not have any asterisks saying a certain threshold of population must be met before those rights can apply- the key principle is that while the majority of peoples needs and desires need to be weighted, a large group doesn’t get to dictate the path of everyone simply by majority. The principle exists throughout our system- if not for the “weighting” of votes, popular us and large states that tend to be liberal could easily dominate national politics- a state like California could require upwards of 10 states to vote differently just to offset its National vote if we only cared about majority rule.

At a state level, state policies would also be dominated by large cities in many states where single cities or urban areas outnumber the entirety of the rural population. I do agree that we must balance such things, that we must do the greatest good for the greatest number while trying to respect those in minority groups but can’t necessarily allocate resources solely to the needs of smaller groups- sure. However the issue is a rather sticky thorn. With perhaps .3-1.5% of the population give or take as “trans”- it’s unlikely that many people will ever meet a transgender person unless one party or the other go out of their way to make that happen. They may encounter a trans person and not even realize it. So then if this issue is such a pocket case- why do so many people feel so strongly about it? Why do schools and states needs trans specific legislature to keep trans people from sports or the bathroom of their choosing?

The question sort of shows the problem and why trans awareness and acceptance is so important perhaps. Why does anyone care if a trans athlete makes a game “unfair” if their population is statistically insignificant and their presence is statistically insignificant in the history of sports for example? If a single sport at a single league is “ruined” out of tens of thousands or more such games played a given weekend and many millions over history past present and likely future- why do we even need to address the issue? We can see that people may be fine when that statistically insignificant number exemption hurts a small but real live person they don’t know or perhaps care about- but when they find themselves faced with a disruption to their lives because it’s statistically insignificant- suddenly there is a problem.

This is why we hear about such things so often and why we see laws being enacted and such. We make a law when we have a problem that isn’t covered in the law. There weren’t laws about driving cars before there were cars, and once cars became common enough or enough people were aware of them- people wanted laws specific to cars because applying the laws for horses wasn’t working. If no one had a problem- we would t need a law. If the status ally insignificant population of trans people had a statistically unlikely encounter with a specific person such as wanting to play sports, and everyone involved was like: “ok.” We would t hear anything about it likely. It’s when a person tries to do something legal and customary and someone says “no,” then we have a fight.

Of course- if we step away from the idea of population size and look at it as individuals it makes much more sense. If you or your child wanted to play sports or whatever mundane thing that millions of people do everyday but someone said: “not you…” by virtue of some aspect of your being- you’d likely be upset even though it only impacts one person- a very statistically insignificant number compared to the general population. Of course going back to self identified Arabs who are 1% or less- if an Arab person is denied housing because they are Arab, the law gives them every right to sue for discrimination. The law is worded specifically so that it doesn’t matter the size of your protected class- just that discrimination occurred because of protected class. The principle being that all humans have certain rights and dignities that a free society shouldn’t and can’t deny simply because they are a minority or lack power.

So of course trans people will, when able and willing, libby and go to court for their legal rights. Of course again illustrating much of the issue- the law often doesn’t acknowledge trans people of their fundamental rights. There is ongoing debate as to wether trans is a status that is included under protected class like gender or sexual orientation (intrinsically it would seem that one of those things or both could or would cover trans gender- it’s in the name…) or even if trans people deserve the same basic human rights as other people or groups. Historically and morally speaking denying people rights or considerations because they are underrepresented in statistics hasn’t generally been a good place to be.
Of course the very nature of trans existence challenges our societies functionality- even more so than homosexuality- which if we recall gay marriage only became widely legal in the 21st century….

Gay marriage brought some challenges and continues to bring challenges to a culture and system designed around heterosexual ideas. Issues with insurance and inheritance and adoption and all manner of legal contracts as well as simple things like a narrative that largely uses phrases like “man and woman” or husband and wife etc. trans individuals often bring some similar complications to a system designed for hetero cis life, but with genital differences and hormones and other considerations trans people bring a lot of questions to society that we currently aren’t readily equipped to deal with. In that sense it may seem quite the unjust burden to say we are going to upend and drastically change so many facets of society and how the “world works” to accommodate such a relatively small percentage of the total population.

We do have to consider a few things however. Marginalized groups tend to be historically under reported. Stigma and other bias or fear of bias tend to lead many to hide or even repress their true selves to hopefully avoid issues or shame etc. from society or those close. When we make an environment more inclusive for a group we tend to see more of that group in that environment and we usually start to see more individuals emerge openly. Even 20 years ago the idea of professionals and high ranking figures being openly gay was almost unthinkable outside perhaps a narrow window of possible exceptions. Ellen came out in 1994 and stirred massive controversy. Today entertainers and public figures- even politicians live openly gay or LGBTQ+ etc. with little or no fan fare. At one time census data recorded the number of homosexuals as less than 1%.

We know now that was probably WAAAY off base simply because society made it so hard or dangerous to be gay, that many people simply hid or denied that part of themselves and didn’t want to be identified as such. So who knows what the real numbers are or what they may become if and when our society becomes more accepting of transgender people?
At the end of the day one of the principles of America and of freedom in general is the opportunity to live a life one chooses free of undue burden. So 1 or 100 million- if we aren’t providing that opportunity we aren’t fulfilling the promise of freedom. That’s just my take anyway.