Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[Loren Pechtel]

I've never seen anyone else's genitalia in a public bathroom. I couldn't care less if there was a female in the stall next to me.

I have, multiple times. Most restrooms are small enough that you simply have a single line of urinals against a wall. However, when you get into really large facilities (the ones I have encountered are large airports, large convention centers. I suspect large stadiums but I've never been in a large stadium to know) will have multiple walls of facilities. The result is you will sometimes turn a corner so as to be facing along a line of urinals, if that line isn't packed you're liable to see some dicks. I've even seen an airport facility where there's a wall edge-on to the entrance with a short end-cap, urinals along both sides of that wall and stalls on the outer sides. Everyone entering that restroom who doesn't take the first stall is going to end up facing along a line of urinals.

isn't that traumatic....

He was saying you wouldn't normally see genitals in a restroom--I'm pointing out that in large restrooms you often do. Not the least traumatic, though.

 

[Playball40]

That's kind of the whole issue with Louden County. A male-bodied person raped a female-bodied person in the girl's restroom. The male-bodied person wore skirts pretty regularly, and the school has a policy of inclusion which supports students using the bathroom that fits whatever they say their gender is.

I mean, seriously... the state of California has decided to allow male-bodied, unaltered, undiagnosed prisoners to be housed in the women's prison solely on the basis of their claim to be transwomen.

And nobody has been raped in a girl's bathroom by a male-presenting male??

Emily's example wasn't an example of anything she was alleging. The Louden County case was a criminal act of sexual assault perpetrated against a teen girl who had had sex in some form with the assaulter before. The victim stated they both planned on meeting in the bathroom where she was assaulted by the perpetrator. That he wore skirts didn't mean much and the transgender policy for the County didn't even go into effect until after the crime was committed. This wasn't a case of a guy pretending to be transgender with the intention of assaulting some random person.

I'm glad Emily Lake hasn't tried to defend her poor judgment in defending her position with the unrelated crime of a rape of that teenager.

Not to mention, it's much more likely (and recorded) that a transgendered male will be harassed and assaulted in a 'male' restroom.

 

[TomC]

Bottom-line: there is clear neurobiological evidence for the argument that transgender people are probably born transgender, I just have to pee, I really strongly like people that bother to ask about my pronouns, and parental support can take a transgender kid's chances of attempted suicide from 60% down to 3%.

Objections seem to be, primarily:

A) semantics arguments, which are...semantics arguments...and

B) objections against critical theory, which I do not even really follow.

Does that about sum it up?

No.
What this looks like to me is a combination of mansplaining and male privilege.

What matters to you is all that matters. And you'll tell us why what you care about is important, while hand waving away the concerns of women, like @Emily Lake.

Does that about sum it up?
Tom

 

[Toni]

Why do you have such a hard-on for he, his, her, and she? The trouble occurs when we stop ignoring that some people exist that don't neatly fall into simple but arbitrary constructs.

Oy gevalt. I have already said, more than once, that as a polite fiction, I will use the 'preferred' pronouns that do not match sex with most people, if that's what they want, including singular 'they' (even though "non-binary", in my opinion, is a narcissistic signal that the person believes themselves to have ascended to a higher plane of existence).

I mean, does the duckbill platypus piss you off too?

No, monotremes do not piss me off. In fact, they can do Very Cool Things. But like any mammal, they cannot change sex.

7 gender-bending animals in the animal kingdom

There are many other species in the animal kingdom apart from our own that don't adhere to a gender binary.

www.sbs.com.au

I’m still not certain that I know whether this is a woman, a man or a trans individual. I should be, I suppose. But I’m not.

For a bunch of years, it made me uncomfortable, this ambiguity and not being able to place them in some neatly labeled box.

I suppose that I could actually say, ‘hey, we’ve been running into each other for years and I don’t even know your name’—which might give a good clue—or maybe their name is like mine: appropriate for male or female.

And then I got a clue: it was my problem, not theirs. There was zero reason or context under which it made any difference to me at all.

Exactly. If you're not contemplating taking them to bed what bits they have are utterly irrelevant. (Excluding modelling/acting situations.)

Even if they were in the same bathroom as me.

Once again, exactly.

BTW, I think single stall non-gendered bathrooms are the way to go….

I don't even think it needs to be single stall. One restroom, stalls, urinals and sinks. Those who are able and want to use urinals may, the others use stalls.

Yeah, I really disagree. I really really do not want to be in a restroom with a male I don’t know. I really really really would not want to send my 12 year old daughter into a bathroom where she might be accosted by a strange man.

I realize this wouldn’t occur to you, Loren because you’re not that kind of guy. But if you had a 12 year old daughter, you’d spend at least the next 10 years of your life knowing that there are those kind of men out there.

Plus: women do like to be able to escape to the ladies to do hair, make up, escape for a few minutes from someone at their table. Finding some guy in the bathroom is not a nice surrise

 

[TomC]

I really really do not want to be in a restroom with a male I don’t know.

The only reason I can think of for people to misunderstand this simple point is ideological purity.

I'm a guy. I don't care who is in the restroom or showering with me, because we don't have to care.
Women do have to care. Unfortunate, but true, women are far more at risk of invasion of privacy or outright assault than us guys are.

I don't see why that's so hard to understand for a modern person with access to the internet.
Tom

 

[Toni]

I really really do not want to be in a restroom with a male I don’t know.

The only reason I can think of for people to misunderstand this simple point is ideological purity.

I'm a guy. I don't care who is in the restroom or showering with me, because we don't have to care.
Women do have to care. Unfortunate, but true, women are far more at risk of invasion of privacy or outright assault than us guys are.

I don't see why that's so hard to understand for a modern person with access to the internet.
Tom

I think that some guys do not want to cede to women any control whatsoever over their bodies, their privacy, their spaces.

 

[ZiprHead]

I really really do not want to be in a restroom with a male I don’t know.

The only reason I can think of for people to misunderstand this simple point is ideological purity.

I'm a guy. I don't care who is in the restroom or showering with me, because we don't have to care.
Women do have to care. Unfortunate, but true, women are far more at risk of invasion of privacy or outright assault than us guys are.

I don't see why that's so hard to understand for a modern person with access to the internet.
Tom

This I understand and agree with.

 

[Emily Lake]

Likewise, there is not one singular difference between "men" and "women". There are many differences, and the differences will depend upon the men and women (or man and woman) in question.

Let's try something more explicit.

What do transmen have in common with males that they do NOT have in common with females, and is NOT based on stereotypes?

That was not the question Gen55 asked, and not the question I was answering. It is not more explicit, it is an entirely different question.

Alrighty, thanks for the non-answer I suppose.

Any chance you want to actually answer my question?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

BTW, I think single stall non-gendered bathrooms are the way to go….

I don't even think it needs to be single stall. One restroom, stalls, urinals and sinks. Those who are able and want to use urinals may, the others use stalls.

Large family restrooms are the best. Plenty of space, including special needs, a changing table so I can change my outfit, and a toilet that doesn't make me feel like I'm going to the bathroom inside a sardine can.

Personally, the only way to do it unisex in large numbers would be to remove the stall walls and doors, because at that point, no one would spend a fraction of a second longer in there than they absolutely had to!

 

[Emily Lake]

Have you tried a dictionary? I obviously recommend Merriam-Websters:

Merriam-Websters : woman

3: distinctively feminine nature

Hooray! Feminine gay males are women whether they like it or not!!!

d(1): one possessing in high degree the qualities considered distinctive of manhood (such as courage, strength, and vigor)

Woohoo! All females who serve in the military are men whether they like it or not!

You're taking euphemistic definitions that take poetic license and assuming that they're somehow useful in this discussion.

I am not. I am showing that there is more than one accepted definition for the word in question. In both cases where I did so, there was more than one definition for me to choose, but I only needed one to prove the point. In both cases, however, I chose a definition that it seems could be used to reference trans persons.

That's the point though. It's an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT definition than what is applied to female humans. There may be an overlap, but it's solely in the realm of stereotypes. You've got one definition that applies to human females , regardless of how they identify. You have a different definition that applies to how well a person conforms to a social stereotype. The first definition excludes all males, including transwomen. The second definition excludes tomboys and girls that don't like pink. Neither of them is inclusive of cisgender women and transwomen.

Can you come up with a definition of 'woman' that includes both cisgender women and transwomen, and excludes both cisgender men and transmen?

That's the point of my more explicit question: What do females and transwomen have in common that males and transwomen do NOT have in common? If you draw a venn diagram of female humans and transwomen... what is in the overlap?

 

[Emily Lake]

I am trying to figure out whether you are angry at all transgender people or just certain individuals.

Mostly, I'm angry at the ideology being peddled.

I have heard from others here as well that it is the trans ideology that is the problem, but I am nut sure what is meant by "trans ideology". Can you elaborate upon what you mean by it, and whether you think anyone here is engaging in, or pushing that ideology?

For a rough summary:

• The catechism "Transwomen are Women, Transmen are Men" and act as if it's actually completely 100% literally true.
• The argument that sex is a spectrum, and the use of people with disorders of sexual development as a foil even though they have nothing to do with gender identity.
• The argument that self-declaration should be the only requirement for a person to be treated as their declared gender in all legal, social, and interpersonal interactions with no questions whatsoever
• Pushing that transgender people should be allowed to play in the sports leagues of the opposite sex with no requirements for hormone therapy at all
• Pushing policies to remove any protections or safeguards on the basis of sex, including forcing rape and domestic violence shelters to accept anyone who says they're a woman regardless of how they look or present, and without any challenge at all, regardless of the effect this has on traumatized women trying to use those services
• Reframing sexual orientation as being based on gender, and labeling people who are exclusively attracted to only one sex as a bigot, and needs to give some serious introspection to why they're so exclusionary about who they'll consider as a potential sex partner.
• Insisting that anyone who disagrees with any element of the policies being pushed is an evil bigoted transphobic TERF.
• Believes that threatening, harassing, and harming the livelihoods of females who don't accept their ideology is a perfectly acceptable thing.
• Demanding that no discussion of the above be allowed.

Thanks for the detailed response. Does a trans ideologists need to possess all of these attributes? If so, I don't think I have met one, and I am pretty sure there are none posting in this forum.

Feel free to drop the last two off. There are a few posters on this board that possess the first several attributes. @Jarhyn, for example, insists that TWAW end of, that sex is a spectrum, that self-id is all that should ever be allowed, that no treatment or diagnosis be required for sports, that self-declared transwomen should be entitled to female-only spaces like prisons & shelters as a right regardless of whether they have transitioned at all, and that sexual orientation is based on gender. @Jarhyn also treats those who disagree with his beliefs on these issues as if they're morally tainted evil bigots.

@Politesse and @ZiprHead are both awfully damned close too. @Loren Pechtel isn't particularly far behind. After that, I start losing track of people.

 

[Emily Lake]

Rape is rape. It is illegal in and of itself, and if a trans person rapes someone they should be prosecuted just like a non-trans person.

Burglary is illegal, and if someone robs a house, they should be prosecuted. Should we then be required to leave our doors and windows unlocked? That's the equivalent here.

Yes, rapists should be prosecuted and jailed. But in situations where the likelihood of a rape is elevated, doesn't it make sense to reduce the opportunity for it to occur? Why on earth do you think we should create giant gaping loopholes, and just assure women that if they do end up getting raped, well, we'll just try to prosecute the rapist after the fact, and if we're lucky they'll go to jail. And well, if they're trans, they get put in the women's prison... and if they just happen to rape one of the women who cannot get away from them and has no way to protect themselves, well, we'll just add more time to their sentence and leave them in with their victims?

 

[Emily Lake]

The 14th Amendment to the US requires equal treatment under the law regardless of sex, and the 4th prohibits unlawful search and seizure. Your proposed policy cannot be enforced without violating both.

Gender Identity Is Not Sex

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

...we'll just try to prosecute the rapist after the fact, and if we're lucky they'll go to jail. And well, if they're trans, they get put in the women's prison... and if they just happen to rape one of the women who cannot get away from them and has no way to protect themselves, well, we'll just add more time to their sentence and leave them in with their victims?

Who is advocating for this?

 

[Emily Lake]

We have been over this. There is a different resil

This is even less of a non-answer than you usually provide. It think this might qualify as an imaginary answer.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Bottom-line: there is clear neurobiological evidence for the argument that transgender people are probably born transgender, I just have to pee, I really strongly like people that bother to ask about my pronouns, and parental support can take a transgender kid's chances of attempted suicide from 60% down to 3%.

Objections seem to be, primarily:

A) semantics arguments, which are...semantics arguments...and

B) objections against critical theory, which I do not even really follow.

Does that about sum it up?

No.
What this looks like to me is a combination of mansplaining and male privilege.

What matters to you is all that matters. And you'll tell us why what you care about is important, while hand waving away the concerns of women, like @Emily Lake.

Does that about sum it up?
Tom

You take it for granted that I consider @Emily Lake's concerns to be a priority, The problem is that I lack very much context to understand them, being neither assigned female at birth nor attracted even slightly to the female sex. While I do not believe that I would appreciate sexual assault if it ever happened to me, I currently have other priorities that matter to me more.

However, I have already told her, and now, I am telling you: I am not a prison administrator. How to go about housing prisoners, including transgender prisoners, is above my pay-grade. I do not envy experienced prison administrators that have to answer these kinds of complex questions. I would want smarter people than I to handle such arrangements.

By the way, transgender boys attempt suicide at a higher rate than transgender girls. I speculate that the combined problems of being transgender and being assigned female at birth must be pretty hard on them. I do not even slightly envy them if their families are not supportive.

 

[Emily Lake]

I most certainly and a number of other folks here are most probably laughing at this statement because you have made some grand assumptions about "why" my gender identity is any given thing, or what "coming out" entails.

Oh this is going to be spicy~

Question 1) Why do you consider yourself to be transgender?
Question 2) What is your gender identity?
Question 3) What sex were you observed to have at birth?
Question 4) What bathroom do you use in public spaces?

 

[Emily Lake]

American prisons have the best healthcare system in the world. I would probably go ahead and get the operation, and after that, I would probably be placed with the women. However, my motive would be largely based on the fact that it's free, and I kind of want to get the operation, anyhow.

Then again, I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of women's housing...if they are in there for violent crimes, I have a feeling that I would not benefit very well from the switch. I know how to deal with guys. Most of the time, physical aggression is just how they make friends with you, and they really don't mean any harm. I've gotten worse injuries from handling grain-crazed thoroughbreds if I am honest, and that's when they were in a good mood: they'll bite you black-and-blue just to flirt. I honestly am not afraid of men, even violent ones. I'm not as sure about the psychology of cis-women, though, especially ones that have gone down a bad path. If I had had the operation, I would probably be expected to move into women's housing, but I am not entirely sure if I would actually be safer or happier.

On the other hand, I do not really have any knowledge regarding prison administration. I know what I can deal with, but how do you make those kinds of decisions for other people? I would want whoever has the authority to make administrative decisions at a prison to act with the best interests of the people that have to live there. Regardless of what those people have done, all of those people are somebody's sons and daughters. I would not want to keep the system going unless I would be able to sleep with my own kid living in there. If that's not how the prison administrator thinks, then shut the whole system down, and let them all go. I would never want to have to make those kinds of decisions. They are hard decisions to make, and each way you roll, you are gambling with people's lives.

Therefore, I am not sure how to answer that question, and I would not want to be in charge of it.

That's a perfectly cromulent answer! Not being entirely sure is an eminently reasonable position. I have a broad guideline, with the understand that there should be some exceptions, but even so I know my starting position isn't perfect.

FWIW, part of what is important to me, and for which I respect you greatly, is that you are cognizant and considerate of the fact that it's NOT an easy answer. You're aware that there are different dynamics between men and women, and you haven't come in guns blazing with the DEMAND that all transwomen should be in the women's prison. It might seem like a small thing, but to me it's valuable that you view it as complicates and that the decisions affect many people.

 

[Toni]

BTW, I think single stall non-gendered bathrooms are the way to go….

I don't even think it needs to be single stall. One restroom, stalls, urinals and sinks. Those who are able and want to use urinals may, the others use stalls.

Large family restrooms are the best. Plenty of space, including special needs, a changing table so I can change my outfit, and a toilet that doesn't make me feel like I'm going to the bathroom inside a sardine can.

Personally, the only way to do it unisex in large numbers would be to remove the stall walls and doors, because at that point, no one would spend a fraction of a second longer in there than they absolutely had to!

That would render them absolutely unusable for most women or for parents who would like to send their kids into the bathroom alone.

I see the sense in large family bathrooms for certain spaces: Target, for instance or other retail establishments. Since we are talking about families needing bathrooms: Some department stores and other venues have nice places inside the ladies restrooms where nursing mothers can sit quietly and feed their children. Or with a bottle for that matter. Some babies can easily nurse--or drink from a bottle-- in more public settings but some babies (and some mothers) cannot settle properly to nurse. Some small children really do better if they can go into a quiet room to recover their upset. I agree that family bathrooms could be a good place for that but it still does not alleviate the need for nursing mothers to have some privacy in order to nurse. Or for some babies the need for privacy or quiet in order to be able to feed.

The idea of large family bathrooms in some venues: bars, for instance, and at least some nice restaurants that tend to cater to adults rather than families with young children, is ridiculous. And also ridiculous in many other settings. I'm thinking about where I worked, in the areas with patient/public access, there were numerous single stall restrooms, tucked in all over the place. Setting up a large family style bathroom would have taken a lot more space with no additional benefit. Those single toilet bathrooms were large enough to accommodate patients in wheel chairs, or walkers or those who needed an assistant in that bathroom.

I realize that many men do not feel the need for privacy in bathrooms, but certainly women do. Women's bodies are more exposed, for one thing. And honestly, do you want to see your mother change her tampon? Do you want your wife to have to use the restroom in front of strange men? Change her tampon in front of strange men? Probably not. Would you send your daughter alone into a mixed gender bathroom when she's 11 or 12 and pushing for more independence (I'm not a baaaaby, Dad)? Probably not.

 

[Emily Lake]

Which is my whole point, here. There are appropriate contexts for "scientific/academic" classification. These contexts relate specifically to the understanding of root causative conditions for similar outcomes so they may be inflicted or prevented or reversed as the case may be.

They do not relate to social interactions. The rules there acknowledge concepts of privacy. That acknowledgement of privacy involves that we have public lives and private lives and public parts and private parts as well.

Do we not, in this thread (or perhaps one of the other bullshit threads) have an example posted of a disastrous false identification?

You miss the point, and you seem to not get why it ends up back at language. Let me try to lay it out in clear terms.

A: I'm a woman and it's a violation of my civil rights to prohibit me from being housed with other women in prison.
B: You look like a man, you have a beard, and you have a penis.

B (cont.): So welcome to Block D, where we house the trans women with penises, since so many of you have been popping up in the system these days.

In reality, prison populations are segregated for all kinds of reasons. There is no reason they could not segregate the trans populations as well.

I'm happy to support that. I think it's a very reasonable compromise.