Other nations shaking heads at US transgender toilet battle

The right of transgender students to use restrooms in keeping with their own identity has become an afterthought in Norway and Argentina, where the world's most far-reaching laws allow children to have their sexual identity reversed on their birth certificates, passports and other official identification without any formal medical diagnosis.

If it's a trans boy, he goes to the boy's, said Barbara Magarelli, a gay rights activist in Argentina, where she advocates supports for transgender children — including her own 12-year-old, whose official documents were changed three years ago to reflect her identity as a boy.

The nation's sports federation advises schools and leagues that transgender girls should be allowed to play on girls' teams, arguing that inclusiveness trumps any concerns about competitive advantages.

A deficit in firm rules governing how to deal with transgender children does present challenges in European countries, activists concede, but they say that has helped avoid a U.S.-style culture of conflict on the matter.

Both Ireland and Malta, overwhelmingly Catholic lands where abortion remains outlawed, passed laws in 2015 permitting changes to sexual identity on official documents — Malta for even young children, Ireland at age 18.

Ireland's foremost transgender rights pioneer, Lydia Foy , spent decades following her 1992 sex-reassignment surgery fighting legal battles to have Ireland record her as a woman.

New Department of Education-approved guidelines recommend adopting unisex school uniforms and sports activities, respectful and consistent use of the student's new name, and appointment of a teacher trained in answering students' questions about transsexual issues — in part so that the school's lone trans student doesn't face all that pressure alone to explain.

Problems are most common, she says, in all-boys schools where a lone transgender girl might live teenage years of silent shame rather than risk being recognized.

[...] they are pretty decent to trans kids.