And now the totally expected Trans Bathroom laws result

[Jimmy Higgins]

In my opinion, at this time there are no protocols that will completely avoid these situations because we are dealing with people not robots.

People yes, but it gets more complicated. Some people think that transgender doesn't even exist. It is hard to manage a problem when people think transgender people are either crazy, perverts, or criminals. Then the issue of it impacting women more because, in general, the boundaries being crossed impact woman a lot more than man, and the indifference to this reality by others whether through legalistic simplicity or misogyny.

Then there is the actual issue of how to accommodate, if people took the rights to all sides involved in this seriously, which in itself, isn't easy. But we can't even get to that point.

 

[Toni]

Actually this would be a woman "breaking" social boundaries.

In what way?
How did she break any social boundaries?
Tom

So either Ruiz is a woman identifying as a male in the women's bathroom or a woman who identifies as a man going to the bathroom in the men's bathroom. Neither of these is baseline. The irony of this case is that this is opposite with the locker room shower, where no one would have batted an eye.

Almost certainly, for cis women in a shower who unexpectedly were confronted by someone like Ruiz, who from photos, appears to be male but who, according to Ruiz, still has female generalist, there would have been some confusion/double takes, depending on whether or not they had encountered similar individuals or were sophisticated enough to realize very quickly what the real situation was.

In an ideal world, of course it would not be an issue. In reality, people react from an emotional state.

I realize and am extremely sorry that at least some of the make posters in this thread have been assaulted because of how they are perceived and that some of the assaults have been sexual assaults. I believe all or most of the women in this thread have experienced sexual assault from males.

I understand that for some of the people posting in this thread, women’s bathrooms and locker rooms represent a space where they believe and hope that they can finally be free of the threat to their physical safety.

What I think is completely lost is the fact that cis-women also regard women’s bathrooms and locker rooms as safe havens where they do not need to deal with the possibility of being assaulted by a man or even being leered at.

So, it’s the same need. It’s unfortunate that for at least some women, a male looking person would be triggering—would bring up a fight/flight/freeze response based on their past experiences and centuries of social conditioning. The feeling of safety and security of the cis woman would be lost. I am guessing that the same loss of security and safety would be lost for the trans or gender non-confirming individual. There would be a lot of very complicated feelings to process almost instantaneously—something that seems impossible.

I agree that it is unfair that trans individuals have yet another burden placed upon them to demonstrate that they are no threat and that they do belong.

It is also unfair that cis-women are expected to give up their sense of privacy, security and safety because male people have an outsized history of violence towards women and towards any individual they deem as not belonging and that the unexpected presence of someone who appears male will instantly cause at least some women distress and even trauma.

The only solutions I can think of involve universal doors on individual stalls and changing rooms to ensure everyone’s privacy. Male/female/gender neutral alike. Another option would be gender neutral spaces where individuals who are non-surgical trans or otherwise gender-non-confirming would be expected to go. That ( a requirement to use only such spaces) seems discriminatory.

What is very likely to happen if cis women are forced to accept that trans Indy ideals who retain male genitalia are allowed in open dressing rooms and showers and bathrooms is that at least some women and girls will no longer participate in athletics at all. They will self segregate and stay home.

I think that there definitely are males who would be most pleased with this outcome.

What I do not understand—or maybe I just don’t like the probable reasons—is why there is mo enormous outcry against MEN for being so unwelcoming towards trans and non-binary or gender non-confirming individuals or gay individuals? WHY aren’t men required to change their behavior, their sense of entitlement, their bigotries?

 

[Toni]

In my opinion, at this time there are no protocols that will completely avoid these situations because we are dealing with people not robots.

People yes, but it gets more complicated. Some people think that transgender doesn't even exist. It is hard to manage a problem when people think transgender people are either crazy, perverts, or criminals. Then the issue of it impacting women more because, in general, the boundaries being crossed impact woman a lot more than man, and the indifference to this reality by others whether through legalistic simplicity or misogyny.

Then there is the actual issue of how to accommodate, if people took the rights to all sides involved in this seriously, which in itself, isn't easy. But we can't even get to that point.

In this thread, I have seen not one single person deny that some people are transgendered or otherwise non-gender conforming. In fact, people seem to be extremely accepting.

I realize that some people see me as the opposite because I stated that it was predictable that a woman would react in alarm at a male appearing person in a women’s only bathroom.

I even said that it is understandable from the point of view of a cis woman. At least I’m not being told this is the same thing as being a racist. In this thread.

I am 100% sincere when I say that I think everyone deserves to be able to go to the bathroom wherever they are most comfortable and to use whichever dressing room or locker room or shower they feel most comfortable using.

The FACT is that many women will feel uncomfortable with male appearing individuals in women’s only spaces.

The FACT is that no one seems at all interested in examining why, much less criticizing men for being so hostile towards trans and gay men in their bathrooms, locker rooms and showers. THAT is completely ignored. Apparently men cannot be criticized or expected to change their behavior, attitudes and prejudices.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In my opinion, at this time there are no protocols that will completely avoid these situations because we are dealing with people not robots.

People yes, but it gets more complicated. Some people think that transgender doesn't even exist. It is hard to manage a problem when people think transgender people are either crazy, perverts, or criminals. Then the issue of it impacting women more because, in general, the boundaries being crossed impact woman a lot more than man, and the indifference to this reality by others whether through legalistic simplicity or misogyny.

Then there is the actual issue of how to accommodate, if people took the rights to all sides involved in this seriously, which in itself, isn't easy. But we can't even get to that point.

In this thread, I have seen not one single person deny that some people are transgendered or otherwise non-gender conforming. In fact, people seem to be extremely accepting.

TomC and Bomb#20 (among others) appear very reluctant to accept transgenders changed gender.

 

[TomC]

and Bomb#20 (among others) appear very reluctant to accept transgenders changed gender.

Then you must be reading my posts with blinders on.
For example, I've consistently referred to Noah Ruiz as "he". I think it stupid that he is expected to use the women's room.

Because, as far as I can tell, he changed his gender years prior to this incident.

Could you explain why you think I'm at all reluctant to accept that trans people have changed their gender?
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If you can provide one post where you referred to a transgender woman as a "she", I'll concede to having misunderstood your position.

 

[TomC]

If you can provide one post where you referred to a transgender woman as a "she", I'll concede to having misunderstood your position.

Go back and find the thread about Lia Thomas. I consistently referred to her as she. That's just one.

Try to find a post where I referred to a trans woman as "he". The only one I remember was referring to that shark lawyer Scardina as a he, due to the very masculine assholish behavior.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

A posse of men savagely beating someone is not a form of "reacting in alarm" that is acceptable in a public space, no.

This is a bullshit response. You know full fucking well that Toni doesn't in any way at all support that reaction, she doesn't even turn a blind eye to it. Nobody here is turning a blind eye to it or hand-waving it away.

Your response is a misdirection, as if the only possible choices are to throw open the doors and put all female women at a serious disadvantage... or to somehow be supportive of roving gangs of beat-em-ups. It's a false choice, and it's fallacious in the extreme.

 

[Emily Lake]

Americans

You guys have to have a rule, and it has to be enforced without exception.

Have you ever considered not having a specific rule at all? No rules about who can lawfully use what spaces, no enforcement of such rules, everyone does what makes them and others around them feel comfortable, and anyone who instigates violence against anyone else gets arrested and charged.

You know, freedom.

OK, Americans don't know; But FYI, that's what "freedom" is.

It's also what you had, before a bunch of right-wing evangelicals and left-wing TERFs decided to make a big, vote-winning deal out of a non-issue.

We used to have that. We used to have a generally understood expectation that female spaces were for females. Sometimes, on occassion, a transwoman would also use those spaces, and we women were generally okay with it. They were rare, they were considerate and respectful, they were trying like hell to pass (even though many didn't pass all that well), and we had a degree of trust that they had a diagnosis and had treatment for their diagnosis and that their transition was the end result of not being able to reconcile to their sexed bodies.

It worked well. It wasn't a problem. It also, by the way, was the same situation that the UK and Australia, and New Zealand had.

And all of our countries are now having problems. We're having problems because of self-id. Because a group of (mostly male) activists decided that requiring a medical diagnosis and psychological treatment prior to be allowed to invade female spaces was just too much, and they felt that they should be able to invade females spaces because they felt like it and without the permission or even input of the females they were invading. Then we ended up with obviously male people, who were obviously not even trying to pass, showing up in our spaces - and in our daughter's spaces. We ended up with grown ass men with penises dangling walking around in front of young teen girls naked, and if those young girls were uncomfortable or concerned that a grown man was parading his penis around in the locker room... the girls are the ones who were treated as the bad guys and the entire fucking swim team was told that if they didn't like seeing dick in the FEMALE locker room, they could find a different place to shower after swim practice. We ended up with obvious dudes with obvious dicks showing their dicks off to women and children in the female side of the Korean spa... and once again, the women who complained were the ones painted as the bad guys. We ended up with the not-even-remotely passing dude with his junk out causing concern among girls at the Y, and the girls being told to suck it up, it's "her" right to show her johnson off to young girls, and the girls are the bigots if they are uncomfortable about it.

That's what changed.

And your shallow attempt to paint the entire thing as nothing more than a "right wing" scare tactic is incredibly offensive. It's also, by the way, pretty fucking misogynistic.

Throughout all of these discussion, the common theme has been that a bunch of men (not all of the men) feel somehow justified in telling women that we should just shut up, sit down, and deal with it, and that other men should have the right to violate the boundaries of women. It's a bunch of men insisting that men know what's best for women, and if any women disagree with what the men have decided, well, those women are just hysterical over-reacting harridans who should be shamed and harassed into compliance with the wishes of men.

 

[Emily Lake]

Have you ever considered not having a specific rule at all

That is what we have, for the most part. The problem is that a massive political engine has organized to create rules (that strongly favor their supposed religious views).

Part of the problem is also males with their dicks out in female spaces, and then the women who object being treated as if they're evil for not wanting to be forced to look at dicks.

 

[Emily Lake]

That's not a "shout of alarm". She was just shouting at them.

You don’t think the dialogue as presented sounded like she was alarmed?

I don't think so. The trouble is we really only had the Ruiz family's take on the events.

That’s true—but Ruiz’s account is not accusatory towards the woman. He did not say that she was screaming for help.

The whole Cis woman was a bigoted anti trans bitch for calling out some man in the woman’s bathroom seems to be invented while cloth by men in this thread.

Again: No woman was violent in this story. None. We don’t even have the victim of a beating implying that a woman got him beat up.

Given the animosity directed at a woman for speaking up, by people who were not even there, is it any wonder why women are uncomfortable with having a male person in the women’s only space?

So far, we have a cis, straight man whose ‘solution’ is to simply eliminate all women’s inky bathrooms and locker rooms. Duck women and their feelings and their concerns about sexual assault or just comfort! Oh, I believe in some thread or another, Loren implied that good men would ensure that the bad guys wouldn’t hurt women.

Every other male’s option in this thread seems to be..,.to attack the woman who protested and the women who said we could see her point and it was terrible that Ruiz was jumped by 3 men!

Rules of Misogyny #1.

1. Women are responsible for what men do.​

The males (not all of them) in this thread, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be "men", take the position that the woman who was alarmed is entirely at fault for three MEN beating the shit out of a female who is a transman. They have hardly a word to say about the fact that three MEN did the violence, they're focused solely on the female-women who aren't comfortable with visible penises in our female-only spaces.

It's always women's fault when men engage in violence. This is just one more case.

 

[Emily Lake]

It is certainly conceivable that the woman initially addressed Ruiz politely, and Ruiz's response might have been less than courteous, leading to the unfortunate escalation into violence.

The women did not engage in any violence, nor is there any indication that she approved of the violence that was committed by three men who were NOT in the bathroom in the first place!

Don't blame women for the violence perpetrated by men.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If you can provide one post where you referred to a transgender woman as a "she", I'll concede to having misunderstood your position.

Go back and find the thread about Lia Thomas. I consistently referred to her as she. That's just one.

Try to find a post where I referred to a trans woman as "he". The only one I remember was referring to that shark lawyer Scardina as a he, due to the very masculine assholish behavior.
Tom

I'll concede misunderstanding your position.

 

[Emily Lake]

The only personal reference I can think of would be "The state of Ohio decides that gay males must use the women's facilities to avoid discomfort for straight guys."
I'd be really shitty if that happened.

So would I. In part because it's a shitty thing to do to gay men, but in large part because gay men aren't women. Women aren't "non-men", we're not a drop-off for the cast-outs from "real men".

 

[Emily Lake]

It is certainly conceivable that the woman initially addressed Ruiz politely, and Ruiz's response might have been less than courteous, leading to the unfortunate escalation into violence. However, these specific details, while they may add context, do not absolve the root cause of the issue. An issue that will repeat itself at another time and place.

For this case, we don't know what the root cause was. Was the complaint coming from a woman, a Karen, could it have been diffused quickly, did someone escalate, was the woman's position on trans relevant?

What we do know is the person was told to go to that restroom at that camp site for a decade or so, and they belonged there. Everything else is based on the complications of that order and America's lack of maturity to deal with this subject.

That’s it: a woman objecting to an apparent t man in a women’s bathroom is now a KAREN???

It is a possibility, one of several I provided, and didn't actually choose which one had to be the case. But certainly, it is possible a woman felt entitled to lay down the law via needless meddling (just as it seems the Kevins did outside). Or a woman in general might have felt that the guy did not belong there because they thought the person was a guy. Or a woman might have initially thought he was a guy, then understood he was a woman (genital wise) and then her position on trans became the issue. Ruiz could have been upset having to defend their following the rules for the umpteenth time and made things harder.

Any number of hypotheticals here which all stem from different conflicts of the exact same situation. Which again, Ruiz did what they were told... and this happened. The worst types of problems to solve are usually the ones where neither side is wrong, and that generally gets harder when misogyny, bullying, bigotry, and ignorance get a play too.

Or... and bear with me on this... it could be that the interaction with the woman inside the restroom was resolved just fine after Ruiz said they have female genitals. It could be that three men took it upon themselves to beat the shit out of a person that looked like a man coming out of the women's room.

I know it's hard to fathom, but maybe, just maybe, women aren't responsible for male violence.

+++++++++++++++++++++

FYI, I know I'm being snippy, it's not directed at you specifically, Jimmy. I get where you're coming from, and you've been more supportive than many of the men on this forum, and I really do appreciate it. At the moment, I'm just fed up with the disregard for women... to a point where I'm very sensitive to stuff like this. Because even though you're trying to defuse the situation here, you're still framing all of the possibilities as having been caused by the woman, and you're not giving consideration to the fact that men are responsible for their own aggression and violence.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That's not a "shout of alarm". She was just shouting at them.

You don’t think the dialogue as presented sounded like she was alarmed?

I don't think so. The trouble is we really only had the Ruiz family's take on the events.

That’s true—but Ruiz’s account is not accusatory towards the woman. He did not say that she was screaming for help.

The whole Cis woman was a bigoted anti trans bitch for calling out some man in the woman’s bathroom seems to be invented while cloth by men in this thread.

Again: No woman was violent in this story. None. We don’t even have the victim of a beating implying that a woman got him beat up.

Given the animosity directed at a woman for speaking up, by people who were not even there, is it any wonder why women are uncomfortable with having a male person in the women’s only space?

So far, we have a cis, straight man whose ‘solution’ is to simply eliminate all women’s inky bathrooms and locker rooms. Duck women and their feelings and their concerns about sexual assault or just comfort! Oh, I believe in some thread or another, Loren implied that good men would ensure that the bad guys wouldn’t hurt women.

Every other male’s option in this thread seems to be..,.to attack the woman who protested and the women who said we could see her point and it was terrible that Ruiz was jumped by 3 men!

Rules of Misogyny #1.

1. Women are responsible for what men do.​

The males (not all of them) in this thread, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be "men", take the position that the woman who was alarmed is entirely at fault for three MEN beating the shit out of a female who is a transman. They have hardly a word to say about the fact that three MEN did the violence, they're focused solely on the female-women who aren't comfortable with visible penises in our female-only spaces.

That isn't applicable here. No penis was visible (it doesn't exist, as far as I can tell).

It's always women's fault when men engage in violence. This is just one more case.

I think you are reading way too deep into this. Statements regarding how the woman should have reacted to seeing Noah being misplaced aside, the reaction the woman had has been brought up for a couple reasons, including legitimate ones. Had the three guys heard a scream or alarm, that presents a presumption for them and they enter into the situation with an initial bias that there is trouble. This isn't the woman's fault, it is just an observational fact. The immediate decisions they choose to make will be influenced by this initial bias.

The reason the three men act as they do is unclear and we'll never know. The violence itself would be unwarranted in any case, shy of Noah assaulting the woman, but seeing there are no charges as such, that almost definitely did not happen. Jarhyn's reflection on her reaction was about it being the cause of violence, but instead regarding respect to Noah. That doesn't make it fair or correct, but I didn't seeing Jarhyn blaming the woman's reaction for the violence. Of course, there have been lots of posts, so it is possible I missed it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In my opinion, at this time there are no protocols that will completely avoid these situations because we are dealing with people not robots.

People yes, but it gets more complicated. Some people think that transgender doesn't even exist. It is hard to manage a problem when people think transgender people are either crazy, perverts, or criminals. Then the issue of it impacting women more because, in general, the boundaries being crossed impact woman a lot more than man, and the indifference to this reality by others whether through legalistic simplicity or misogyny.

Then there is the actual issue of how to accommodate, if people took the rights to all sides involved in this seriously, which in itself, isn't easy. But we can't even get to that point.

In this thread, I have seen not one single person deny that some people are transgendered or otherwise non-gender conforming. In fact, people seem to be extremely accepting.

TomC and Bomb#20 (among others) appear very reluctant to accept transgenders changed gender.

I need to readdress that...

TSwizzle and Bomb#20... etc...

 

[Emily Lake]

It is certainly conceivable that the woman initially addressed Ruiz politely, and Ruiz's response might have been less than courteous, leading to the unfortunate escalation into violence. However, these specific details, while they may add context, do not absolve the root cause of the issue. An issue that will repeat itself at another time and place.

For this case, we don't know what the root cause was. Was the complaint coming from a woman, a Karen, could it have been diffused quickly, did someone escalate, was the woman's position on trans relevant?

What we do know is the person was told to go to that restroom at that camp site for a decade or so, and they belonged there. Everything else is based on the complications of that order and America's lack of maturity to deal with this subject.

That’s it: a woman objecting to an apparent t man in a women’s bathroom is now a KAREN???

It is a possibility, one of several I provided, and didn't actually choose which one had to be the case. But certainly, it is possible a woman felt entitled to lay down the law via needless meddling (just as it seems the Kevins did outside). Or a woman in general might have felt that the guy did not belong there because they thought the person was a guy. Or a woman might have initially thought he was a guy, then understood he was a woman (genital wise) and then her position on trans became the issue. Ruiz could have been upset having to defend their following the rules for the umpteenth time and made things harder.

Any number of hypotheticals here which all stem from different conflicts of the exact same situation. Which again, Ruiz did what they were told... and this happened. The worst types of problems to solve are usually the ones where neither side is wrong, and that generally gets harder when misogyny, bullying, bigotry, and ignorance get a play too.

Earth to Jimmy: It WAS a guy coming in. Or do you not believe that trans men are men?

And WTF calling anybody names that are supposed to indicate gender specific white privilege?????

Yeah, let’s Fe is not much fun living under misogyny, bullying, bigotry and ignorance.

Wish you men folk would stop that shit like 2 thousand years ago but I’ll be happy with today. How about stopping that today.

It feels like you are responding to my post, but not what I said.

Sorry to be such an inscrutable woman.

Don't apologize for being fed up with this shit. Honestly, even men who think they mean well frequently miss the point entirely. I know Jimmy's trying to be considerate, and isn't actually a sexist... but even so, all of the possibilities he came up with place blame on the woman.

It's nice that he says "neither side was wrong"... but I disagree. The MEN who beat up Ruiz were wrong. They aren't really considered as a party to blame in any of the scenarios though... so apparently they're not one of the "sides".

Even if Jimmy means well and is really trying to find a reasonable middle ground, he's still approaching this with the assumption that the woman was the problem.

 

[Gospel]

It is certainly conceivable that the woman initially addressed Ruiz politely, and Ruiz's response might have been less than courteous, leading to the unfortunate escalation into violence.

The women did not engage in any violence, nor is there any indication that she approved of the violence that was committed by three men who were NOT in the bathroom in the first place!

Don't blame women for the violence perpetrated by men.

Please read my post again as well as consider the context that it is written under. No where in that comment or on this thread have I blamed the woman for the beat- em-up boys.

 

[Emily Lake]

Ruiz was attempting to do the right/ least troublesome thing.

I'm curious.
Have you any reason to believe that other than claims made by Ruiz and his mom?
Tom

Occam's Razor.

It's not a ridiculous claim to make. And I'll be transparent here: females (even those who don't identify as woman) are pretty well conditioned to follow rules. There's less benefit of the doubt given to females who break rules than for males. There's a whole lot of stuff that gets chalked up to "oh well, boys will be boys" throughout our childhoods. Males are conditioned to expect that they can get away with breaking rules, that they'll be forgiven for being "rambunctious" or "adventurous" and just get a slap on the wrist. Females don't get that, we get conditioned to "be nice", to follow the rules, to conform to expectations, to not rock the boat.

Ruiz identifies as a man, but they're still actually female. And they would have been exposed to all of the same conditioning as a child that other girls are exposed to.

With very few exceptions, transgender people still exhibit the socially conditioned behaviors of their sex. Transmen are still less vocal, less demanding, and less aggressive about their wants than males are. Transwomen are still inclined to expect their desires to be met and their wants to be acknowledged as legitimate, they still feel entitled to take up space and attention, they still behave with the privilege that boys are conditioned to expect.

Note: The types of rules and the degree of generosity shown to young boys varies by ethnicity and cultural background, as well as racial histories within any given location. Young black boys get less generosity from white people for rule breaking than white boys do... but they both get more generosity than white girls, and waaaaaayyyyyy more than black girls.