Some college students today face a self-imposed dilemma unknown to our forebears: Which bathroom do I use? One example is Cecil, a student at the University of Alabama who believes that she is a man. Now, Cecil is afraid that Alabama’s laws and regulations may limit the freedom of that bathroom decision-making process.

As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, recent federal regulations issued by the Department of Education (DOE) have stated that Title IX protections against sex-based discrimination in education apply equally to sexual orientation and gender identity. These regulations stipulate, among other things, that transgender people must be permitted to access campus bathrooms that allegedly align with their “gender identity.”

Some states, such as Alabama, have fought to overturn these DOE regulations. To complicate matters, the Alabama university system must follow a state law that university bathrooms are to be used on the basis of biological sex only, which contradicts the Title IX regulations as now interpreted. As The Chronicle relates, “Cecil … is left wondering how he [sic] might be affected by that [Alabama] law—which takes effect in October—and by everything else going on.” Since The Chronicle article’s publication, the Supreme Court has also upheld two lower courts’ temporary injunctions.

The Chronicle article goes on to detail the potential effect all this will have on “the rights of transgender students.” Those who defend the recent, more inclusive Title IX regulations and oppose the Alabama state law (and similar laws in other states) present themselves as defenders of rights, implying that transgender people deserve to have a choice in whether they use male or female bathrooms. Now, if there is such a thing as transgender rights, surely the people defending them are in the right, as the very language used implies! A “right” is what someone deserves to receive in justice.

But do transgender people have such rights? I think much of the confusion over the issue stems from the current prevailing definition of a right. The standard liberal definition of a right would be something along the lines of, “every human being has the right (deserves) to be free to pursue his own goals and happiness in perfect freedom.”

If we accept that definition, then the only argument that can be mounted against the Title IX regulation clarifications is that it infringes on other people’s rights—say, for example, the rights of biological females not to have biological males in their bathroom. But here, we enter into an impasse. For, even if that latter right were acknowledged, we’re still left with the dilemma of whose right is more important. Transgender people or biological females? (The left will say it’s the former; the right will say it’s the latter.)

To resolve the impasse, we must break out of a paradigm that envisions this issue as a battle between various groups’ rights to pursue their own definition of fulfillment (the right of the transgender person to female bathrooms, the right of other students to be free from someone of the opposite sex using their restroom, the right of universities to determine their bathroom policies, etc.). An endless battle between these various contenders to equal rights can only end in a deadlock.

Rather, we ought to step back and consider the real nature of rights, law, and their relationship to the common good.

In short, we have to ask, does one have the absolute right to freely pursue any behavior? The answer is no. A right exists to help promote justice in light of an objective moral order that functions in accordance with reason. Rights are for the good of individuals and the common good of society as a whole. But both individuals and society have responsibilities to an objective moral order, and when we ignore them, we move away from “the good.” We can use our reason to know what is good for a person and for society and what is not, what leads to the flourishing of all and what does not.

Certain actions disrupt the good of both individuals and society, and so there can be no right to such actions. The current leftwing view of rights tells people to do whatever they each feel is right or will make them happy. This conception of rights can be called monism, according to attorney Aníbal Sabater, who explains that “Monism focuses on subjective rights at the expense of the obligations that are the reverse of those rights.”

A legal system based on monism becomes a complicated apparatus with the Sisyphean task of balancing the claims of a million various parties to their own autonomy in the public sphere. This is what we see with the Title IX tussle. “With its disregard for obligations, monism fosters a culture of individual entitlement, as opposed to one of respect for others and work towards the common good,” Sabater writes.

On the other hand, an older conception of the legal system would hold that it ought to safeguard the common good. This is the classical legal tradition of Cicero, Sabinus, Thomas More, Blackstone, and Aquinas, founded on the idea of the common good and governed by human reason and natural law. Sabater writes, “The classical legal tradition quite often operated the other way around—setting out precise obligations from which subjective rights and common good goals could be inferred.”

Transgender legal battles can be resolved only if, following the classical legal tradition, we acknowledge and defend a few truths: (a) that there is an objective reality, both biological and moral, that we are obligated to conform to; (b) that aligning ourselves with that reality is actually the best thing for both citizens and the state.

In short, we must acknowledge that there simply is no “right” to live a transgender lifestyle because it violates natural law and therefore harms individuals and society.

Legal pandering to transgender people is neither just nor charitable. In fact, it is cruel since it encourages a behavior that is ultimately founded upon a lie that damages those who embrace it. With charity and understanding, we ought to gently help those suffering from gender confusion learn how to embrace their God-given biological sex, which is the path to true freedom and happiness for them.

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