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We ignored the bathroom signs and nobody died.

Northern Light said:
I stand corrected. Looks like it happens, though rarely. So what's the problem with this? 1/10 of 1% are certifiably trans. How is this harming people?
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It's a privacy issue, not a harm issue.

And frankly it's a little odd to say to a girl that they must be comfortable in the locker room around someone they have known as a boy since pre-school.
 
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Goshin said:
Personally I am largely indifferent to who uses what bathroom.

Where I have issues is when government mandates that a MTF transgender who is PRE-OP must be allowed to shower and change in the girl's locker room in high school, despite still being equipped with a penis.

Gotta tell ya, lots of people don't like that much.
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Ok. I'm not gonna tell ya that's an unreasonable feeling, given the society we grow up in.

Here's my question.

Where to do we put them instead?

They aren't allowed to get the surgery as a minor. So, literally, they have no choice but to be in this situation.

Should we send them into the boy's locker room, and take the risk they'll be beaten when they go in there with their long hair, make-up, and possibly breasts? Did you know 70% of trans people report being assaulted and harassed in locker and bathrooms?

I can tell you from first hand experience how horrible things in high school can be to LGBT kids. One of my friends was literally almost beaten to death, on school grounds. And you know I'm not exactly over the hill -- this wasn't very long ago.

So I understand your reservations.

But where should we put them?

We need to answer that question, because "make them keep going into the boy's lockeroom" is not an acceptable answer. We might as well be telling them to play Russian Roulette.
 
AlbqOwl said:
There is such a thing as modesty that many if not most Americans feel. It is part of them. And it is their inate and cultural sense that men and women are different. So many if not most women really prefer to clean up, dress, or tend to other more private matters without men looking on. And I think many if not most men really prefer to take care of most bodily functions without women looking on. Otherwise it just feels wrong whether or not anybody is molested or intentionally made to feel uncomfortable.

The best solution for me is to have a ladies room, a men's room, and a unisex room in between that anybody can use. On the theory that most women would choose the ladies' room--I would and I am no homophobic prude--and most men would use the men's room, that would take care of everybody's needs without embarrassing or making anybody uncomfortable.
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I'm American. And I saw more American expats at Pride than I ever have anywhere else.

People just want to pee, and there are stalls available. I really don't think this is as big of a deal as everyone's making it out to be. Truth is, you've probably been sharing bathrooms with trans people your whole life, and never known.
 
Lovebug said:
When you gotta pee you gotta pee. Form a single line and take the next available facility. Problem solved.
In your case, you did your try out at an event where, more or less, like minded people gathered.
Not sure if you would be reporting the same results had you gone to some event frequented by more traditionally minded people.
Let me say this once more, and please don't disregard my first paragraph. No one cares who pees where. No one expects anything sinister to happen in gender neutral bathrooms,but mixed bathrooms make it a bit easier for those who have sinister motives regardless of rules.
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How so? Do you really think someone who intends to commit rape in a public bathroom cares that much about the plaque on the door? Cool with raping someone in public, but too law-abiding to disobey a simple sign?

I probably wouldn't be reporting the same results, no. But there's no reason that has to be the case. People make this a problem.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
I'm American. And I saw more American expats at Pride than I ever have anywhere else.

People just want to pee, and there are stalls available. I really don't think this is as big of a deal as everyone's making it out to be. Truth is, you've probably been sharing bathrooms with trans people your whole life, and never known.
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If that is the case, they were able to fool me into believing they were women, but in any case I was not uncomfortable. But honestly, women (and I presume men) use public restrooms for many more purposes than just having to pee. Sometimes it is necessary to change clothes for whatever reason, or fix a broken bra strap, or any number of cases that expose you more than you would be comfortable with men looking on.

I just don't see why the feelings and preferences of the huge majority of women and men who prefer same sex public restrooms are less important that the opinions and feelings of the few who don't want to allow that. Or why adding a unisex restroom wouldn't solve the problem for everybody.
 
AlbqOwl said:
If that is the case, they were able to fool me into believing they were women, but in any case I was not uncomfortable. But honestly, women (and I presume men) use public restrooms for many more purposes than just having to pee. Sometimes it is necessary to change clothes for whatever reason, or fix a broken bra strap, or any number of cases that expose you more than you would be comfortable with men looking on.

I just don't see why the feelings and preferences of the huge majority of women and men who prefer same sex public restrooms are less important that the opinions and feelings of the few who don't want to allow that. Or why adding a unisex restroom wouldn't solve the problem for everybody.
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Exactly. I know many people that are opposed to unisex bathrooms and I'm sure the amount of people opposed to the policy is far greater than the number that support it.

Regardless, it's actually kind of unbelievable that people keep using the "you didn't know" excuse. The fact that I didn't know is PROBLEM. The fact that these people actually intend for people to not know the difference is a PROBLEM. The fact that people not knowing the difference actually causes problems like people being tricked into relationships or sex with them is a PROBLEM.
 
AlbqOwl said:
If that is the case, they were able to fool me into believing they were women, but in any case I was not uncomfortable. But honestly, women (and I presume men) use public restrooms for many more purposes than just having to pee. Sometimes it is necessary to change clothes for whatever reason, or fix a broken bra strap, or any number of cases that expose you more than you would be comfortable with men looking on.

I just don't see why the feelings and preferences of the huge majority of women and men who prefer same sex public restrooms are less important that the opinions and feelings of the few who don't want to allow that. Or why adding a unisex restroom wouldn't solve the problem for everybody.
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Trans women are not men. They are women.

Do you obsess over whether there might be lesbians looking on... somehow... from inside your stall? I doubt it.

I have never seen a woman change in the common area of a bathroom in my entire life, and I have been in many bathrooms over the years. You act as though women's bathrooms aren't composed pretty much entirely of stalls.

But honestly, in front of that group? I probably wouldn't have cared.

The people who scare me most, in the event of peakage, are the ones who view women as so alien that they feel we must be segregated from each other in order for society to work -- the ones who are moaning the loudest about trans people wanting to pee in peace. Those are the people who are likely to tout crap like "she was asking for it," because they don't believe that people who don't adhere to their rules are deserving of decency. Those are the people who assault trans folk.

But those are not the sort of people who support giving trans people the right to pee in peace. Those people give zero ****s. The folks at Pride yesterday? I'd feel perfectly safe in any state in that bathroom.

This is an attitude problem, not some sort of problem of nature. Places the world over -- including some of the West -- don't have these strict segregations, and they're not getting raped in bathrooms every day (or ever, at least by trans people -- there is not a single case of that ever happening).

With adding a third unisex bathroom, you would basically be forcing every business and public building to make an additional bathroom that their floorplan doesn't account for. I don't think America should spend millions of dollars on placating some people's transphobia and inability to even deal with being at the same sink as them, when it's much easier and cheaper for them to just grow up and leave trans people alone.

I also dislike the stench of "we're still denying that you are your gender" that goes with forcing them into a unisex bathroom, but no one else. These are people with some of the highest suicide risks in the country. Can we please just stop taking pot shots at them?

Ideally, I'd just neutralize everything. Then we can just end this whole silly debate. But I'd be fine with just keeping the tired old binary and letting trans people go where they feel they need to. And for people to be so frightened of them that they won't extend a basic courtesy to preserve the safety and the lives of one of the most discriminated against minorities in America in just beyond me.

We need to just get over this. This is not worth people suffering for. This is not worth 70% of trans people being assaulted and harassed in bathrooms.

When the completely arbitrary preferences of most Americans are causing a group of people to be assaulted every time they try to pee, I think they have to change. America is for everyone.

We have changed lots of times, when our arbitrary preferences where causing a group to suffer. And that is always the correct response.
 
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SmokeAndMirrors said:
Ok. I'm not gonna tell ya that's an unreasonable feeling, given the society we grow up in.

Here's my question.

Where to do we put them instead?

They aren't allowed to get the surgery as a minor. So, literally, they have no choice but to be in this situation.

Should we send them into the boy's locker room, and take the risk they'll be beaten when they go in there with their long hair, make-up, and possibly breasts? Did you know 70% of trans people report being assaulted and harassed in locker and bathrooms?

I can tell you from first hand experience how horrible things in high school can be to LGBT kids. One of my friends was literally almost beaten to death, on school grounds. And you know I'm not exactly over the hill -- this wasn't very long ago.

So I understand your reservations.

But where should we put them?

We need to answer that question, because "make them keep going into the boy's lockeroom" is not an acceptable answer. We might as well be telling them to play Russian Roulette.
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The school in question attempted to provide a separate private changing area for h/er use alone... and a Fed court said that was discrimination and ordered the school to allow him to shower and change with the girls.
 
Goshin said:
The school in question attempted to provide a separate private changing area for h/er use alone... and a Fed court said that was discrimination and ordered the school to allow him to shower and change with the girls.
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Ok. Well, I see both points, here.

I see why the school may not have wanted to mainstream her. Our culture creates a lot of fear around this subject, and they were probably concerned about their student body's reactions. And possibly, also concerned about the safety of the trans girl -- not all girls are sugar and spice either.

I also see why the court ruled how they did. These are people for whom normality is important -- vital to their survival, even. Trans people have a suicide attempt rate of over 40%, and a lot of it is because they feel so isolated. These are children of very fragile mental health.

There's also no easily solution. There is a reason surgical transition on minors is usually not done. I don't know how much you've read of CC's posts on the topic, but transitioning minors beyond just socially is still very controversial in medicine, and for reasons that actually do make medical sense. American doctors tend to be a little more conservative about it than European doctors, but I think the more conservative ones do have some valid points in this case, and more studies are needed about early medical transition. I don't claim to know what the right answer is, or what the standard protocol will eventually wind up being within the medical community.

I think a change needs to happen on a social level. People need to understand gender better, so that something like a trans person in their locker room doesn't feel so threatening to them. There's no reason it has to -- some places don't even have segregated locker rooms, even in the West.

When there is an underlying cultural stigma, no, it isn't as simple as just ruling that trans people can go where ever they feel most comfortable. Legal protections need to be there, but for it to be safe for them, a social shift also has to happen.

But what I'm saying here, is that we can't leave it the way it is in most of the country, where trans people are often forced to go into their bio-sex locker and bathrooms even after social transition. I'm not saying this will be easy or fast to fix, even after legal protections are in place. But we can't leave this the way it is.
 
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SmokeAndMirrors said:
Ok. Well, I see both points, here.

I see why the school may not have wanted to mainstream her. Our culture creates a lot of fear around this subject, and they were probably concerned about their student body's reactions. And possibly, also concerned about the safety of the trans girl -- not all girls are sugar and spice either.

I also see why the court ruled how they did. These are people for whom normality is important -- vital to their survival, even. Trans people have a suicide attempt rate of over 40%, and a lot of it is because they feel so isolated. These are children of very fragile mental health.

There's also no easily solution. There is a reason surgical transition on minors is usually not done. I don't know how much you've read of CC's posts on the topic, but transitioning minors beyond just socially is still very controversial in medicine, and for reasons that actually do make medical sense. American doctors tend to be a little more conservative about it than European doctors, but I think the more conservative ones do have some valid points in this case, and more studies are needed about early medical transition. I don't claim to know what the right answer is, or what the standard protocol will eventually wind up being within the medical community.

I think a change needs to happen on a social level. People need to understand gender better, so that something like a trans person in their locker room doesn't feel so threatening to them. There's no reason it has to -- some places don't even have segregated locker rooms, even in the West.

When there is an underlying cultural stigma, no, it isn't as simple as just ruling that trans people can go where ever they feel most comfortable. Legal protections need to be there, but for it to be safe for them, a social shift also has to happen.

But what I'm saying here, is that we can't leave it the way it is in most of the country, where trans people are often forced to go into their bio-sex locker and bathrooms even after social transition. I'm not saying this will be easy or fast to fix, even after legal protections are in place. But we can't leave this the way it is.
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And the high school girls who are not comfortable with the idea of turning around in the shower at school and seeing an individual with a penis showering beside them? Don't their concerns have any weight or validity?
 
Henrin said:
It's a privacy issue, not a harm issue.
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The only thing being harmed is people's sensibilities. Nothing more.

Henrin said:
And frankly it's a little odd to say to a girl that they must be comfortable in the locker room around someone they have known as a boy since pre-school.
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No one has a right to be comfortable, not when medical issues are involved.
 
Goshin said:
And the high school girls who are not comfortable with the idea of turning around in the shower at school and seeing an individual with a penis showering beside them? Don't their concerns have any weight or validity?
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I just said they do, and I understand why the school acted the way they did. I'm impressed they did anything at all to accommodate her, frankly.

But a trans child's risk of disastrous mental health outcomes due to isolation also has weight and validity.

This needs a social fix, and we can fix it.

Frankly, it's a really sad indictment of our culture that girls don't feel safe around people with penises, even surrounded by witnesses and friends, when so many other cultures do. That by itself is unfortunate and unnecessary.

But you add to this that these conflicting needs always cause someone vulnerable to lose out, and this needs to change. People need to be better educated about this topic so that it's not a choice between girls feeling threatened and trans people killing themselves from isolation.

And this can change really quickly if we really set our minds to doing it. I'm living in this era of girls feeling threatened by people with penises, and in that regard, the UK really isn't *that* much better about it than America is -- certainly not like much of the rest of Western Europe.

Yet, if those bathrooms had been shower rooms instead, I can honestly say I would have felt safe. I wouldn't have, if I'd been in a mainstream mixed sex shower room.

So here's an example of thousands of people even right now who have gotten to the point where this is no longer a threat to anyone, despite growing up in a culture that generally feels it is. This is something we can do. Especially since we're discussing people who are still learning how they should feel about society, rather than 50-year-olds who are set in their ways.

We just have to decide we want to.
 
Goshin said:
And the high school girls who are not comfortable with the idea of turning around in the shower at school and seeing an individual with a penis showering beside them? Don't their concerns have any weight or validity?
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Kids aren't forced to use the showers. There are kids that are uncomfortable getting naked in front of other kids of the same gender. Do you think we should just build private stalls for every student who requests one ?
 
Absentglare said:
Kids aren't forced to use the showers. There are kids that are uncomfortable getting naked in front of other kids of the same gender. Do you think we should just build private stalls for every student who requests one ?
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When I was in school, showering was not optional. Possibly that has changed, I don't know.


Private stalls would cost more, but considering how much we spend on football and basketball maybe it is an option we should consider.
 
Goshin said:
When I was in school, showering was not optional. Possibly that has changed, I don't know.

Private stalls would cost more, but considering how much we spend on football and basketball maybe it is an option we should consider.
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It was optional at my school. Most girls didn't shower.

Although P.E. is probably also much less intense than you remember. Most high schoolers don't have it more than twice a week, and some don't have it at all. As I remember, it wasn't required for my last couple years of high school. And even when it was, it was usually possible to get away with doing almost nothing.

While part of me is frustrated by the possibility of increasing all these weird body fears rather than reducing it, by making private stalls, I'd rather do that than have this problem where trans kids have no good options and have to compete with the vulnerable feelings of girls, or for trans boys, risk assault even if they can go into the correct shower room.
 
Goshin said:
When I was in school, showering was not optional. Possibly that has changed, I don't know.


Private stalls would cost more, but considering how much we spend on football and basketball maybe it is an option we should consider.
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This doesn't ever happen for PE any more. There would be threats of lawsuits and the state of PE is so pathetic no one breaks a sweat. Often even the teacher is severely obese (mine was). How can anyone take this seriously?

The obvious exceptions are sports and communal living. However, only the basketball team to my knowledge used them, because practice was before 1st period. Yes even the football team would gather on the bus or drive home muddy. Even my first college dorm that was built in like 1960 had some privacy. It's just demanded any more
 
Goshin said:
When I was in school, showering was not optional. Possibly that has changed, I don't know.


Private stalls would cost more, but considering how much we spend on football and basketball maybe it is an option we should consider.
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We weren't forced to shower, we were forced to change which meant stripping down to underwear. I only know for the schools i attended, though, which were admittedly in California.

They wouldn't necessarily need a whole lot of private stalls, the kids can still take turns.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Trans women are not men. They are women.

Do you obsess over whether there might be lesbians looking on... somehow... from inside your stall? I doubt it.

I have never seen a woman change in the common area of a bathroom in my entire life, and I have been in many bathrooms over the years. You act as though women's bathrooms aren't composed pretty much entirely of stalls.

But honestly, in front of that group? I probably wouldn't have cared.

The people who scare me most, in the event of peakage, are the ones who view women as so alien that they feel we must be segregated from each other in order for society to work -- the ones who are moaning the loudest about trans people wanting to pee in peace. Those are the people who are likely to tout crap like "she was asking for it," because they don't believe that people who don't adhere to their rules are deserving of decency. Those are the people who assault trans folk.

But those are not the sort of people who support giving trans people the right to pee in peace. Those people give zero ****s. The folks at Pride yesterday? I'd feel perfectly safe in any state in that bathroom.

This is an attitude problem, not some sort of problem of nature. Places the world over -- including some of the West -- don't have these strict segregations, and they're not getting raped in bathrooms every day (or ever, at least by trans people -- there is not a single case of that ever happening).

With adding a third unisex bathroom, you would basically be forcing every business and public building to make an additional bathroom that their floorplan doesn't account for. I don't think America should spend millions of dollars on placating some people's transphobia and inability to even deal with being at the same sink as them, when it's much easier and cheaper for them to just grow up and leave trans people alone.

I also dislike the stench of "we're still denying that you are your gender" that goes with forcing them into a unisex bathroom, but no one else. These are people with some of the highest suicide risks in the country. Can we please just stop taking pot shots at them?

Ideally, I'd just neutralize everything. Then we can just end this whole silly debate. But I'd be fine with just keeping the tired old binary and letting trans people go where they feel they need to. And for people to be so frightened of them that they won't extend a basic courtesy to preserve the safety and the lives of one of the most discriminated against minorities in America in just beyond me.

We need to just get over this. This is not worth people suffering for. This is not worth 70% of trans people being assaulted and harassed in bathrooms.

When the completely arbitrary preferences of most Americans are causing a group of people to be assaulted every time they try to pee, I think they have to change. America is for everyone.

We have changed lots of times, when our arbitrary preferences where causing a group to suffer. And that is always the correct response.
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Sorry but you're making this a lot harder than it has to be. What is it in the water that makes some people insist on there being winners and losers? I have no problem accommodating the transsexual or anybody else who want to use the opposite sex facilities, but accommodate him or her with a unisex facility. And allow women to enjoy the privacy of an all women facility and the men an all male facility. Win win for everybody.
 
AlbqOwl said:
Sorry but you're making this a lot harder than it has to be. What is it in the water that makes some people insist on there being winners and losers? I have no problem accommodating the transsexual or anybody else who want to use the opposite sex facilities, but accommodate him or her with a unisex facility. And allow women to enjoy the privacy of an all women facility and the men an all male facility. Win win for everybody.
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You're suggesting that ailing American businesses and public buildings spend millions if not billions of dollars building dedicated bathrooms for a small minority of people, because you're too afraid of using the sink next to them. How am I the one making it harder than it needs to be?

Dude, you go to the bathroom in a stall. What difference does it make?

And by the way, letting trans people just go into the bathroom of their post-transition sex would still mean bathrooms are all-woman/all-man bathrooms. A trans woman is a woman, and a trans man is a man. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the biological and neurological reality that trans people are real does not mean they stop being real. They're real whether you like it or not.

I wonder if you think we should build segregated bathrooms for anyone with an intersex condition, which is basically the exact same thing, except with differences in the body or internal organs, rather than the brain. Somehow I doubt you even think of that.
 
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SmokeAndMirrors said:
You're suggesting that ailing American businesses and public buildings spend millions if not billions of dollars building dedicated bathrooms for a small minority of people, because you're too afraid of using the sink next to them. How am I the one making it harder than it needs to be?

Dude, you go to the bathroom in a stall. What difference does it make?

And by the way, letting trans people just go into the bathroom of their post-transition sex would still mean bathrooms are all-woman/all-man bathrooms. A trans woman is a woman, and a trans man is a man. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge the biological and neurological reality that trans people are real does not mean they stop being real. They're real whether you like it or not.

I wonder if you think we should build segregated bathrooms for anyone with an intersex condition, which is basically the exact same thing, except with differences in the body or internal organs, rather than the brain. Somehow I doubt you even think of that.
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I'll just file this post under the 'missed the point entirely' category. Have a good evening though.
 
AlbqOwl said:
I'll just file this post under the 'missed the point entirely' category. Have a good evening though.
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I addressed every aspect of your point, and even a couple additional aspects you didn't address, actually.
 
AlbqOwl said:
Sorry but you're making this a lot harder than it has to be. What is it in the water that makes some people insist on there being winners and losers? I have no problem accommodating the transsexual or anybody else who want to use the opposite sex facilities, but accommodate him or her with a unisex facility. And allow women to enjoy the privacy of an all women facility and the men an all male facility. Win win for everybody.
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What privacy is being violated here? They are stalls. Do women walk out of the stall pants still hanging halfway down, flashing their vagina to all the other women present? If the issues is they shouldn't be ogled at then that issued should be addressed across the board and they should have privacy not to be ogled by lesbians as well.
 
chromium said:
This doesn't ever happen for PE any more. There would be threats of lawsuits and the state of PE is so pathetic no one breaks a sweat. Often even the teacher is severely obese (mine was). How can anyone take this seriously?

The obvious exceptions are sports and communal living. However, only the basketball team to my knowledge used them, because practice was before 1st period. Yes even the football team would gather on the bus or drive home muddy. Even my first college dorm that was built in like 1960 had some privacy. It's just demanded any more
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Those are not not obvious exceptions. Israel's military have communal barracks when men and women sleep and shower together. No issues arise there. It is something that can easily be done.
 
maquiscat said:
What privacy is being violated here? They are stalls. Do women walk out of the stall pants still hanging halfway down, flashing their vagina to all the other women present? If the issues is they shouldn't be ogled at then that issued should be addressed across the board and they should have privacy not to be ogled by lesbians as well.
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Lesbians are not part of the equation so far as I am concerned. If they are an issue for you, that is your problem. But the scenarios I mentioned do not need to be done in a stall and could be more difficult to do in a stall. If I choose to change clothes in the ladies' room or fix a broken bra strap or repair makeup or whatever functions women prefer to do without guys looking on, I prefer to do it in a women's only setting. And I also prefer to discuss things as they are, and not the toxic element others wish to insert into it.
 
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