Split Gendered spaces, split from Drag Shows

[Emily Lake]

You can believe whatever you like, but ours is a secular nation; you don't get to impose your beliefs on other people without qualification or rebuttal.

Unless that belief happens to be that people who say a particular set of magic words are somehow imbued with a gendered soul that grants them the privilege of stomping all over the rights and dignity of women?

Seriously, what is "Transwomen are Women" other than a blatantly religious catechism and declaration of faith?

 

[Emily Lake]

As far as I can tell, Emily Lake and Toni have neither suggested that transgenders had no place in a locker-room. Their interest is with pre-surgical transgender men. Your interest is apparently with perverts. You are obsessed with perverts.

"Pre-surgical" implies they will eventually have such surgery. Most trans people never have bottom surgery because the results aren't very good.

True. And yet women are expected to throw open the doors to every john dick and randy that says they're trans, regardless of their presentation or their anatomy... and just shut the fuck up and let males do whatever they want?

 

[Emily Lake]

It is assault to demand someone leave so that your sensibilities are not offended by you looking/seeing.

While I agree with the rest of your list I don't see how this is assault.

Flashing toms are committing sexual assault. Intentional exposure of one's genitals to another person who does not want to see them is a crime, outside of the very narrow range of spaces where nudity is expected.

And that's the crux of the issue. Nudity of OTHER FEMALES is expected in FEMALE ONLY SPACES. We never consented to allow males to come into those spaces and expose themselves to us, nor for them to view us while we are nude. We did not consent.

You are removing our right to consent, and our right to boundaries. You are putting us in a position where any male who wants to see naked women can walk into a locker room whenever they want to, and look as much as they like and we have no say in the matter. Any male who wants to flash a woman doesn't have to risk being caught by the cops - he can just wander into the shower and show off his wedding tackle and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

You are robbing us of our boundaries and our consent.

 

[Emily Lake]

Indeed. It's almost as if our culture has some endemic problems with catering to prejudice.

You're approaching this as if it's a case of "separate but equal" and therefore is bad. But it's not. It's "separate because not equal". It's the same reason we separate adult and child facilities in many cases, or why children are accompanied by parents in mixed-age facilities. It's why we have little leagues, fercristsakes!

When it comes to physical reality, women and men are not equal. And no amount of cosmetic surgery or exogenous hormones can change that.

 

[Emily Lake]

It is disgusting to insist that asserting a woman’s right to privacy is equivalent to Jim Crow.

I cannot get over the number of males in this thread telling females that our boundaries and our insistence upon consent is bigotry against males who want to violate our boundaries and disregard our consent.

 

[Emily Lake]

Come to think of it, my great grandmother would have been pretty goddamned upset if she had walked into a gym locker room and found white and black women changing together. Do I understand where she's coming from? Yes, absolutely. That's how she was raised. Her fear and discomfort caused her real and genuine distress. But do I think that black women should be forced to use separate facilities? No. No, I do not, and never will.

Tell you what, this is dumb. There has NEVER been a statistical threat to white women from black women. There has never been a persistent risk that black women would harm white women. Never. It's not a thing. It never has been.

On the other hand... there IS a statistical threat to women (of all colors) from men (of all colors). It is a risk that spans history and culture. It remains massively disproportionately high throughout time and space. It remains disproportionately high even in the most advanced and progressive of first-world countries.

So I'll tell you what. You get those stats down to a point where there is just as much risk of a male being sexually harassed or assaulted by a female as there is the other way around... then I'll consent to let random males see me naked. Until such time, no - I do not consent. I am entitled to my bodily autonomy and my boundaries. It is not up to males to decide that I must relinquish my rights.

 

[Emily Lake]

Hang on a damn minute, I have always advocated for universally designed changing rooms. That's not the problem. Forcing already marginalized people into an uncomfortable or dangerous situation because you think their body is a threat to you.

From whom are they at risk? Why is their comfort more important than mine? Why is the danger they face more important than the danger I face?

 

[Toni]

Excuse me: You are admitting that a MTF would be at risk in a male locker room. At least two posters in this thread have written about being unsafe in male locker rooms.

It is pretty obvious that the threat to other people’s safety comes from MEN. #NotAllMen, obviously.

So if MEN admit that they feel threatened/at risk of violence and harm from other men in dressing g rooms, WHY on earth do you think that women should meekly accept a naked person with a penis in their shower without any concern?

Yeah, I get it, men don't matter, it's all about what happens to those who are by your definition women. Once again, no different than what we used to see with race issues.

Obviously you do not get it. It’s not convenient for you to admit or address the fact that people with penises are more violent and much, much more likely to assault other people.

Signs telling people that guns are not permitted on the premises do not prevent some determined person from entering the premises with a gun and shooting someone.

Signs that state that guns are prohibited DO provide a good screening tool to let people know that anyone with a gun on the premises has bad intentions and will be removed from the premises. Even if they had no intention of shooting up the place.

Signs that indicate a space is for women only do not prevent persons with penises from entering but they do serve as a screening device. Unfortunately an imperfect one because it is impossible to know if the naked person with a penis is a MtF woman who is harmless or if they are someone who is looking for a victim.

Apparently a sign that says Men is an indication that you should expect to be assaulted no matter what your genital configuration. You seem to be perfectly fine with that.

As you and others have mentioned, there is often a need for someone to assist another person with toileting, dressing, showering. The two ( or more) people might not be the same gender/sex. Private dressing and showering stalls would certainly be very useful. I think they should be universal, at least until men get their shit together and stop assaulting other people.

 

[Emily Lake]

I am absolutely NOT proposing segregated: male-female-trans facilities.

I AM. I absolutely support male (and post-op transman), female (and post-op transwoman), and separate unisex facilities. With the exception of prisons where I unabashedly don't give the transmen a choice of being housed with males, regardless of whether they've had surgery.

 

[Emily Lake]

You can believe whatever you like, but ours is a secular nation; you don't get to impose your beliefs on other people without qualification or rebuttal.

Isn't that exactly what the trans identified men are doing to women?

No. It asks nothing of you to "allow" them to perceive themselves in a way that you don't. You can have whatever thoughts you like. Your thoughts do not give you the right to force other people to live differently than they would choose.

Their thoughts don't give them the right to force me to relinquish my boundaries.

They can perceive themselves however they wish, however they do. Their thought do not give them the right to force me to allow males to view me when I'm naked, or to expose themselves to me.

 

[Emily Lake]

Too bad you do not recognize that women are marginalized in many ways. Their extremely legitimate concerns for safety are to be ignored because men see no reason for women to object to make appearing bodies in their showers, dressing rooms and bathrooms.

Obviously, women, one in four of whom will be raped in her lifetime are simply ridiculous bigots.

Of course the mere idea that men should address their own propensity for violent crimes including sexual violence is seen as just some feminazi crappola.

Women must simply accept that there is no where they can go and feel safe. Anything but men get a grip on their own behavior.

Sometimes I feel like the progressive objective is to get women barefoot and stuck in the house. They wrap it up in different words than the christian right... but the end result is the same: the exclusion of women from social and economic life.

 

[Emily Lake]

Can you think of any other circumstance in which the law attempted to enforce involuntary segregation of bathroom and changing facilities. What other valid comparison could one possibly make? That is by far the most similar historical-legal analogue to the situation we must now adjudicate as a society, and it is inevitable that we'll be discussing it.

Almost every fucking public school in the nation. Where adults are not allowed to use the children's restrooms or showers, and are expected to use staff facilities.

Because children are not adults, and no matter how much some adults really, really, really want to be in the locker room with the naked kids, normal and sane people recognize that there is a significant disparity in power and physiology, and it is incumbent upon us all to protect the weaker more vulnerable elements of our society from those who may wish to do them harm.

 

[Bomb#20]

Interestingly, women are actually much more accepting of trans rights than men, despite the men vs women narrative being pushed in this thread. In both cases, most men and most women oppose the use of bathrooms and locker rooms by trans people, that's not in dispute. Ours is a transphobic country to the core. But women are slightly less likely, not more likely, to hold prejudicial attitudes about trans people in publuc spaces.

Yes, women are on the whole more accepting than men. Women have ALWAYS been more accepting of gender nonconforming people than men have been. Women do not enforce social gender norms nearly as harshly as men do, and this has been true throughout history and across cultures.

But... and this is important... If you ask women whether they are okay with pre/non op transwomen using female-only spaces where women are naked or vulnerable... A large majority of women do NOT support that.

Even if more women than men are okay with it, it is still true that the large majority of women oppose it.

On top of that, there are two obvious confounding factors that aren't reflected in the "more accepting of trans rights" summary. The first is that being okay with boys in the girls' room strongly correlates with progressive ideology, and more women than men are progressives. It could be that support doesn't vary by sex among progressives or among non-progressives, and more women than men would still be okay with it overall. And the second factor is you can get any result from a poll you please by constructing the question to get the answer you want. Letting "transgender students" use the bathroom they identify as isn't the same thing as "trans rights". The conflation sweeps the entire issue of self-id under the rug. I'll bet a lot more women are okay with it if a boy has a doctor's note saying he really is gender dysphoric than if any boy who wants to can get a free pass to the girls' room by saying he is; but I'll bet a heck of a lot of men don't find that distinction nearly as important. If "trans rights" is taken to mean "self-id", which it customarily is in the prevailing political environment, I'd be very surprised if anyone can produce empirical evidence that women are "more accepting of trans rights than men".

 

[repoman]

There is a difference between vanilla MTF and the narcissistic asshole freaks that want to disrobe in female spaces especially with no hormones or surgery. Notice a lot of them on news interviews are middle aged loner dudes in poor physical shape? Completely clueless dickheads.

 

[Emily Lake]

Women are more likely than men to be supportive of trans people. A majority female faction within our society is, to you, "the patriarchy"? What definition of patriarchy are you using, here? One in which you (a man yourself, if I'm not mistaken) ignore women's perspectives if they are saying things you don't like, but use them as rhetorical tools if they do?

And yes, forcibly divided bathroom facilities are a purely Christian invention, no older than the 18th century.

You keep trotting this out as if it really means something. "More women than men support transgender people using the showers of their gender identity". That's great, you just kind of gloss over that whole bit where THE VAST MAJORITY OF WOMEN DO NOT SUPPORT IT.

So hey, let's say that 5% more women than men support transgender people using the shower that corresponds to their gender identity rather than their sex. You see that as a great win. But when that 5% is because 95% of men oppose it and only 90% of women oppose it... well, you sir are lying with statistics.

 

[Emily Lake]

Too bad you do not recognize that women are marginalized in many ways.

I don't know how you came to that conclusion. Sexism is a real and serious problem in our society, and one that I care greatly about. If society weren't already callously cruel to women, trans women would be in far less danger.

So let me get this straight... your "solution" to the rampant sexism is... to focus on protecting a subset of males while materially increasing the risk and sexism to which females are exposed? Instead of being bothered to address the cruelty to females, you choose to "solve" the problem by focusing on the danger to a subset of males from other males.

 

[Emily Lake]

A so-called trans male who rapes women in showers is not really a trans, but a bisexual. One who truly identifies as trans would not be interested in a woman. So this issue is a case of identity fraud. The problem in that case, is not the trans, but their phonies who claim to be trans.

Where are you getting this from?

When we had clinical gatekeepers in place, and FtM transitioners were required to have several years of therapy and clinically monitoring before they even began any kind of transition, yes... most of the transwomen where androphilic. But that is no longer the case. As soon as the gatekeeping was removed, the number of gynephilic transwomen has skyrocketed. The majority of transgender identifying males right now are gynephilic.

If you have a way to weed out the "phonies" as you call them, I'm all ears. Because as long as self-id is the policy approach, I don't see a way.

 

[Emily Lake]

No rational person would deny that women have serious problems in our culture, and in the entire world. But to protect both women and the small percentage who claim to be trans as best we can is also worthwhile. Even small men face similar problems, in prisons, and no one seems to care to defend them.

I am absolutely on board with changing prison culture so that males are not at risk from other males while incarcerated. Happy to do so.

I just don't see that placing males in with females on the basis of their magical catechism is a solution that has any merit at all.

 

[Emily Lake]

A so-called trans male who rapes women in showers is not really a trans, but a bisexual. One who truly identifies as trans would not be interested in a woman. So this issue is a case of identity fraud. The problem in that case, is not the trans, but their phonies who claim to be trans.

I don’t agree: I think an individual can be a trans woman AND attracted to other women. I think a lot are.

That would make them bisexual. Which is what I said.

Nah, many of them are completely and incontrovertibly gynephilic. To the point where a majority of gynephilic transwomen are unwilling to date other transwomen. In rational terms, we would call them heterosexual males - they are males who are sexually attracted to females. They call themselves "lesbians" and insist that females who are same-sex attracted are transphobic bigots who need to be re-educated out of their genital fetish, because their "ladydique" isn't a male body part, it's a female penis that lesbians should be perfectly happy having inserted into their vaginas.

To be fair, some of the transmen have been trying this on with gay men as well - insisting that males who are same-sex attracted should be willing to have sex with their "front holes" and that it's transphobic for gay men to not want to have sex with vaginas.

The world is no longer even remotely rational. If your view of how things work actually held true... we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. That's how it used to be, and women were willing to accommodate the occasional transsexual in our spaces. We beleived that they had undergone years of counseling and training, and had removed their penises and scrotum before being allowed to use female-only spaces. We were wrong about that last part - turns out that even when there was considerable gatekeeping in place, most transsexuals retained their male genitals. But we still have the comfort of knowing that someone had vetted them and made sure they were not a danger to us.

That's not how it is anymore. To the detriment of both women AND the androphilic transwomen.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yes it is. It is prejudice to demand "female appearing only" spaces.

Just like it is prejudice to demand "white appearing only places".

The existence of the space such a that it is divided on some sort of appearance rather than self-selection is prejudicial.

It is absolutely prejudice to be frightened or apprehensive or angry when a white person encounters a black person in a "whites only" space: the existence of the "whites only space" is itself prejudicial.

I advocate similarly for "singleton privacy spaces", but I won't for a second pretend that prejudice is not absolutely born at the demand for a separation of spaces on the basis of mere appearance.

I continue to think that the proper division is not some imaginary boundary between "male" and "female" as judged by genital appearance at birth, but rather "doesn't care" and "does care" with respect to others seeing or seeing others' genitals.

The only people your virtuous objective benefits is males.