Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[none]

that's a message worth defending.

 

[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

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that tends to shame men that are not seen as (straight) sexual performers.

I know this side of the issue pretty well because I am a queer person of male birth, and I grew up in a conservative area. The pressure to perform is actually pretty high. When I was only 11 years old, other boys would shove me in the direction of a member of the female sex and pressure me to act like I was interested in her, and I was very confused by this. One time, they demanded that I ask one a question that turned out to be obscene, and I just asked the intended victim, "I am very confused by what they said. Do you know what they meant?" and she turned and yelled at them, to my absolute mortification. I did not understand any of it.

I am not sure how it is in normal areas, but where I grew up, the pressure was pretty intense. It started alarmingly early.

 

[none]

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

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that tends to shame men that are not seen as (straight) sexual performers.

I know this side of the issue pretty well because I am a queer person of male birth, and I grew up in a conservative area. The pressure to perform is actually pretty high. When I was only 11 years old, other boys would shove me in the direction of a member of the female sex and pressure me to act like I was interested in her, and I was very confused by this. One time, they demanded that I ask one a question that turned out to be obscene, and I just asked the intended victim, "I am very confused by what they said. Do you know what they meant?" and she turned and yelled at them, to my absolute mortification. I did not understand any of it.

I am not sure how it is in normal areas, but where I grew up, the pressure was pretty intense. It started alarmingly early.

she bit me.

 

[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

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that tends to shame men that are not seen as (straight) sexual performers.

I know this side of the issue pretty well because I am a queer person of male birth, and I grew up in a conservative area. The pressure to perform is actually pretty high. When I was only 11 years old, other boys would shove me in the direction of a member of the female sex and pressure me to act like I was interested in her, and I was very confused by this. One time, they demanded that I ask one a question that turned out to be obscene, and I just asked the intended victim, "I am very confused by what they said. Do you know what they meant?" and she turned and yelled at them, to my absolute mortification. I did not understand any of it.

I am not sure how it is in normal areas, but where I grew up, the pressure was pretty intense. It started alarmingly early.

she bit me.

The unicorn? Oh, that's how they flirt.

 

[Toni]

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

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture that tends to shame men that are not seen as (straight) sexual performers.

I know this side of the issue pretty well because I am a queer person of male birth, and I grew up in a conservative area. The pressure to perform is actually pretty high. When I was only 11 years old, other boys would shove me in the direction of a member of the female sex and pressure me to act like I was interested in her, and I was very confused by this. One time, they demanded that I ask one a question that turned out to be obscene, and I just asked the intended victim, "I am very confused by what they said. Do you know what they meant?" and she turned and yelled at them, to my absolute mortification. I did not understand any of it.

I am not sure how it is in normal areas, but where I grew up, the pressure was pretty intense. It started alarmingly early.

she bit me.

The unicorn? Oh, that's how they flirt.

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

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

As someone that is both queer and transgender, I have never fully understood it. Gay and bisexual men, in my life, have been considerate and respectful. My negative encounters, with the human race, have mostly been violent ones.

You have no idea how scary it is to be surrounded by five or more violent individuals, and you don't know whether they are trying to scare you, this time, or actually intent on killing you. Yes, I could tell you that living that way messes a person up, but I cannot really communicate it, even if you would choose to believe me. It is like explaining color to a blind person. This happened to me in the same year that Matthew Shepard was murdered. I don't know how to get it across.

It is like you trying to explain rape to somebody that wants to understand it, but a real understanding never gets through. It is a qualia that can only be understood by having felt it. And I STILL cannot genuinely understand that, except maybe I can understand the frustration of trying to explain color to a blind person and just feeling very alone because of that.

I'm sorry this has happened to you. My son was attacked multiple times in the bathroom (at 14 and 15 years old) being told to "prove" he was a guy. He eventually dropped out of school from fear of being attacked. And he went to a LIBERAL school. People suck and fear what they don't understand and it peeves me to no end reading thread after thread from certain people on this board hating or questioning transgendered persons. MY SON HAS A RIGHT TO LIVE HIS LIFE IN PEACE. But I know society is NOT going to make it easy for him.

Nobody should be physically attacked, but your child is female and tried to use a sex-segregated space reserved for males.

Why did you find it necessary to add a "but" there?

It is as if you are in some way trying to excuse that behavior.

If I were trying to excuse it, I'd have said the behaviour was justified. I don't know what Playball40 means by 'attacked' - I assumed physical but perhaps not.

The events illustrate two things to me: people generally perceive the sex of others correctly, and that people treat male bathrooms as sex-segregated.

No. It illustrates that some people are bullies who will victimize those they feel are vulnerable, which often is simply being different. One does not need to be transgender to be so attacked. Just perceived as vulnerable.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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

What you're missing here is that the law isn't magical. Forbidding female-presenting males from using the ladies room doesn't actually stop them. A rape is only going to happen when there are few people around--and if there are few people around nothing is going to stop a man dressed as a woman from entering.

As for escaping from someone at their table--you're assuming the person they want to escape from is male. And that's not enough of a reason for ladies room to exist anyway.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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?

We don't see it as creating a gaping loophole. Rather, I think you have a false sense of security.

 

[Bomb#20]

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

You are equivocating "people with penises" with "probably rapists".

She is doing nothing of the sort. You are equivocating "probably rapists" with "at more risk of being rapists than women should have to accept in their spaces", which amounts to equivocating "safe enough for women to have no legitimate objection" with "51% chance of not being a rapist".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'd really like to walk through a dark parking garage with people who will not rape me. I'd like to have gone on dates in college with people who didn't try to rape me.

Can you give me some guidelines on how to sort out which people are safe and which are not? It would be extremely valuable information for most people, and definitely valuable for females of the humans species across the entire planet. So please, pretty please, share that insight with us.

1) You seem to be working on the guideline that looks male = threat. That has a very high false positive rate.

2) The threat generally comes from people you don't see, anyway.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

I'd really like to walk through a dark parking garage with people who will not rape me. I'd like to have gone on dates in college with people who didn't try to rape me.

Can you give me some guidelines on how to sort out which people are safe and which are not? It would be extremely valuable information for most people, and definitely valuable for females of the humans species across the entire planet. So please, pretty please, share that insight with us.

1) You seem to be working on the guideline that looks male = threat. That has a very high false positive rate.

2) The threat generally comes from people you don't see, anyway.

You might as well tell a guy that has been mugged in the street that he doesn't really need to carry a pistol with him when he walks his dog. Even if you proved to him that the pistol did not really statistically benefit him, he would carry it, anyway.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

The "woman" sign will keep out the creeps but it won't keep out the actual threats. You have a false sense of security.

 

[Metaphor]

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

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

As someone that is both queer and transgender, I have never fully understood it. Gay and bisexual men, in my life, have been considerate and respectful. My negative encounters, with the human race, have mostly been violent ones.

You have no idea how scary it is to be surrounded by five or more violent individuals, and you don't know whether they are trying to scare you, this time, or actually intent on killing you. Yes, I could tell you that living that way messes a person up, but I cannot really communicate it, even if you would choose to believe me. It is like explaining color to a blind person. This happened to me in the same year that Matthew Shepard was murdered. I don't know how to get it across.

It is like you trying to explain rape to somebody that wants to understand it, but a real understanding never gets through. It is a qualia that can only be understood by having felt it. And I STILL cannot genuinely understand that, except maybe I can understand the frustration of trying to explain color to a blind person and just feeling very alone because of that.

I'm sorry this has happened to you. My son was attacked multiple times in the bathroom (at 14 and 15 years old) being told to "prove" he was a guy. He eventually dropped out of school from fear of being attacked. And he went to a LIBERAL school. People suck and fear what they don't understand and it peeves me to no end reading thread after thread from certain people on this board hating or questioning transgendered persons. MY SON HAS A RIGHT TO LIVE HIS LIFE IN PEACE. But I know society is NOT going to make it easy for him.

Nobody should be physically attacked, but your child is female and tried to use a sex-segregated space reserved for males.

Why did you find it necessary to add a "but" there?

It is as if you are in some way trying to excuse that behavior.

If I were trying to excuse it, I'd have said the behaviour was justified. I don't know what Playball40 means by 'attacked' - I assumed physical but perhaps not.

The events illustrate two things to me: people generally perceive the sex of others correctly, and that people treat male bathrooms as sex-segregated.

None of that tells me why you felt it necessary to add ", but" after "Nobody should be physically attacked". One usually only does so to point out some mitigating circumstance, and I don't think that your "but" should be considered a mitigating circumstance to being physically attacked.

If my sentence structure offends you, I don't know what to say.

 

[Metaphor]

What you're missing here is that the law isn't magical. Forbidding female-presenting males from using the ladies room doesn't actually stop them.

Quite the contrary. There is a difference between a bathroom labelled women where the policy is 'sex-segregation', and a bathroom labelled women where the policy is 'all genders welcome'.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

The "woman" sign will keep out the creeps but it won't keep out the actual threats. You have a false sense of security.

It sounded to me like the real problem was the idea that physically unaltered male prisoners ought to be housed with female prisoners, and to me, that is something that I do not have the 25 years' experience in prison administration that I would really need in order to feel confident about addressing. Prisons are very dangerous environments, and I don't even want people that have committed actual crimes to be there if the administration does not take safety seriously. I think that, in a world with predominately mentally well-adjusted and largely law-abiding, mostly educated adults, I would consider the idea of gender desegregation as a distinct possibility in the not-too-distant future, but many people in prisons are from economically and culturally devastated backgrounds. I am sympathetic with the fact that they come from difficult backgrounds, but the management of those kinds of people is not something I would take lightly.

I am sympathetic with a person in an American prison that is transgender, and I take that person's health seriously. That is why I think that a person with that kind of healthcare-related issue ought to be closely supervised by everybody on their healthcare team, including wardens, healthcare workers, therapists, endocrinologists, prison administrators, and everybody that that person interacts with. Like it or not, being a transgender person in an all-male prison is a very complicated healthcare-related situation. I would want latitude given to experienced prison administrators and healthcare workers to figure out the best possible solution to that kind of scenario. I think it is insanity to settle those kinds of questions based on political polls.

I believe that there is a stronger argument for experimenting with total gender desegregation in contexts like, for example, one building at an Ivy League university, where they could be pretty sure of setting healthy precedents for the rest of society to follow. That is something that actually makes sense to try. I believe that the most enlightened and culturally invested individuals in the entire country actually would be able to take leadership on establishing a new set of norms. Even then, I'd poll the students on it.

Cultural norms have substantially more control over people's behavior than laws, so when we are talking about cultural revolutions, I think we ought to be very serious about what kinds of individuals we want lighting the way. It sounds rosy and progressive and enlightened to say that "gender is so yesteryear," but there is a difference, to me, whether we initiate that kind of thinking among our cultural elites or among people that are likely to ruin it.

I mean I half-jokingly and half-seriously call myself a communist, though I don't really adhere to the philosophy. I just kind of like to trigger complete idiots that don't have the abstract thought of a mentally handicapped hobbit. However, I think that the reason why communism went so badly, in Russia, was that Russia was really a terrible country in which to experiment with a major cultural revolution. Russia is culturally dysfunctional, and when you just put dysfunctional people into a new house, they wreck it just like they wrecked the last one. Russia really set terrible precedents for the development of that philosophy. Communism didn't ruin Russia, but Russia ruined communism.

In the Nordic states, on the other hand, they did not just take the Communist Manifesto and make that into their holy law, but they quickly evolved the core ideas contained within it into a substantially more revolutionary system that really works substantially better than either traditional capitalism or a more orthodox interpretation of communism. Finland is one of the easiest countries in the world to start a new business, yet you can work as part of a trade union if you really want to. However, the Finnish already had reasonably strong cultural leadership. They were like that kid that if you threw them an iPhone, they would disassemble it and put it back together in twenty minutes, and they would casually tell you they jailbroke it for you. The Finnish, following similar suit, took the Communist Manifesto, dissected it, and appropriated what parts they actually wanted to use. It was a new idea, and they knew better than to take the first version of it to be a holy gospel. Furthermore, they have a long history of being educated blasphemers. They are going to be the first people in the world to turn sunlight and air almost directly into food. Wait, that's already happened:

Home - Solar Foods

solarfoods.fi

Granted, that's a marketing gimmick for being effectively a fucking algae-farmer, but let's not split hairs: that is fucking brilliant.

And please, let's not get derailed talking about either communism or algae-farming.

The point is that I am more excited than anybody about the idea of gender desegregation, but I would be just as alarmed as @Emily Lake if people came out, with sledgehammers in hand, and started knocking down walls between men's and women's sections of segregated multi-stall bathrooms in random places, not taking into account the cultural conditions of the places where they were doing it. Even though I think it's a worthy cultural revolution, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

In order to really change society, at a deep level, it is imperative that we be responsible about what norms and precedents we set for the next generation. Whatever mess we make today, it's going to be the mess that our generation's grandchildren are going to have to live in, not ourselves. What we already have is a mess. I do not want to pass on that mess to yet another generation. However, there is always the risk that you are going to make an even bigger mess by cleaning up the old mess incompetently.

I do not think that we ought to stay with the current system of gender segregation. I think that that system is partly to blame for the dysfunctional sexual ethics that also make some of us reluctant to change it. Sorry, @Emily Lake, but I don't think the right answer is to keep on throwing good money after bad like an investor that is trying to break even on a bad investment while walking away from more lucrative opportunities. I think that our current system is partly to blame for the dysfunctional sexual ethics that have created our current dilemmas and trilemmas, and we are dealing with a serious trifecta (I just had to do that alliteration) of being afraid to change the current system, not really having a clear idea of how to even start changing the current system, and having too many people determined to push for change without looking where the fuck they are going.

I also think that purity ethics, among the female sex, are just as much to blame as macho-ethics, among the male sex, for our current dilemmas, regarding gender relations. Think of it in terms of economics: Adam Smith--who is almost as much of a historical hero to me as Peter Kropotkin--presented us with the Diamonds v. Water Paradox.

“The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.” (The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter IV)

So, @Emily Lake, I think that the continued proliferation of purity ethics, among the female sex, is just contributing to this dynamic. They are enforcing a false scarcity at the same time that reactionary men are promoting fornication and adultery as a necessity for self-validation, and I see this as a serious problem.

Well, Finland is the most gender-equal country in the entire world, yet they have had co-ed saunas and bathhouses for generations. It's normal, there, for men and women to sit next to each other bare-assed in a dark wooden box full of steam, and to them, it's not a sexual thing. They are also the only country in the world that has figured out how to establish near gender-equality in the field of engineering, though. They figured out that the unequal representation of men and women in the field of engineering went back to the standards of education in the mathematics being designed to accommodate for the unique neurobiological advantages of boys, and they changed the way they taught the subject to also accommodate for the unique neurobiological advantages of girls. They have almost equal representation of the genders, in the field of engineering, in the same country that has some of the world's most casually libertarian sexual mores.

The idea that the problems, in gender relations, are somehow insoluble is a lie. It's one of the biggest lies in history.

I think that the place to start, with doing murder on that lie, is to do murder on our dysfunctional sexual ethics. We need to murder the part of macho-ethics where 11 year old boys are literally physically shoved at girls and commanded to be lewd, which is the shit that I went through and which I know is almost as disturbing to many straight boys. Murder it. The kinds of purity ethics where girls talk shit about each other for being perceived as sexually licentious also needs to die. Murder it with poison and fire. Kill it, kill it, kill it dead.

"Murder is forever," said the crow to his kinfolk. Crows of a murder mob predators together.

We are crows of the same murder, even though we were born different sexes. What led to you being sexually harassed or perhaps even raped, during your youth, led to me being put under intense pressure to become a part of that broken system, and when I didn't, I was beaten. Men of violence hefted me up around their shoulders and slammed my entire body down on hard asphalt in a wrestling maneuver that was designed for gym mats and is not even legal in respectable sport. If my muscles were not naturally more relaxed than most, then that maneuver could have snapped my spine and rendered me permanently paralyzed. I was living in a culture where the only way I wouldn't be called out as gay was if I proved my credentials as a straight man by harassing people like you, and when I wouldn't play in that role, I was made to fear for my life.

You have an ally in me, even though we might not always agree on solutions (which I hope we can amend, someday), and I believe that it is overdue for us to get serious about rethinking our sexual and gender ethics right through to the core. I would also agree with you that the right way is not to just unleash a bunch of maniacs to go and break down walls with sledgehammers. The cultural reforms are going to have to go deeper than just tearing down a few walls. The cancer is too deeply rooted to assume that we are going to get it into remission by just tearing down a few walls.

@Loren Pechtel is concerned about the false-positives that can occur due to men being called out for rape. Well, chemotherapy kills healthy cells as well as cancer. Tough titmouse, dude. If you don't like the chemotherapy, then get serious about fighting the cancer. Are you a fan of Adam Smith? If you are, then so am I! Adam Smith himself described the Diamonds vs. Water Paradox. We need deep reforms in the sexual ethics of both genders. The current system is creating an unhealthy dynamic that needs to be murdered. All of us need to be in on it. Just because we can't really stay on chemotherapy forever doesn't mean that the cancer isn't real.

I am saying, as a transgender woman, that we have to seriously rethink everything. Knocking down a few walls is not enough. Once I'm done transitioning, operation and all, I'm going to have to live with the actual reality of being a woman. I don't think that all of my problems are going to be fixed at once by knocking down a few walls, and I think that just blindly knocking down walls is not the right way to fight a serious cancer.

 

[Toni]

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

What you're missing here is that the law isn't magical. Forbidding female-presenting males from using the ladies room doesn't actually stop them. A rape is only going to happen when there are few people around--and if there are few people around nothing is going to stop a man dressed as a woman from entering.

As for escaping from someone at their table--you're assuming the person they want to escape from is male. And that's not enough of a reason for ladies room to exist anyway.

I'm not 'missing' anything but you are.

I don't actually have a problem with a transwoman in a multi-stall ladies room at the same time I am.

Rapes in bars happen with a full bar just outside the door. Yes, I'm specifically referring to a rape that I have personal knowledge of. Rapes even happen in the street with a crowd watching.

I know exactly what I meant in my example: I'm specifically talking about women wanting/needing to escape a (male) creep. Or just needing a break from a situation. Most often, those who persistently are being creepy and won't desist are male. And most women prefer to adjust their clothing, fix their hair and makeup and yes, urinate, defecate and change a tampon in more privacy than having some man in audience, even outside of the stall, would provide. No one should be forced to feed their child while sitting on a toilet in a bathroom stall because that's the only place they can have some privacy.

Enough of the world is ordered around what makes men comfortable--and titillated. Women should get to have a space where they can feel comfortable as well.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

1) You seem to be working on the guideline that looks male = threat. That has a very high false positive rate.

2) The threat generally comes from people you don't see, anyway.

You might as well tell a guy that has been mugged in the street that he doesn't really need to carry a pistol with him when he walks his dog. Even if you proved to him that the pistol did not really statistically benefit him, he would carry it, anyway.

The concealed pistol imposes no costs on anyone else. So long as he's taken the training and passed the background check to get it I don't care one bit. Mandating separate bathrooms imposes a substantial cost on people like you.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

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

What you're missing here is that the law isn't magical. Forbidding female-presenting males from using the ladies room doesn't actually stop them. A rape is only going to happen when there are few people around--and if there are few people around nothing is going to stop a man dressed as a woman from entering.

As for escaping from someone at their table--you're assuming the person they want to escape from is male. And that's not enough of a reason for ladies room to exist anyway.

I'm not 'missing' anything but you are.

I don't actually have a problem with a transwoman in a multi-stall ladies room at the same time I am.

Rapes in bars happen with a full bar just outside the door. Yes, I'm specifically referring to a rape that I have personal knowledge of. Rapes even happen in the street with a crowd watching.

I know exactly what I meant in my example: I'm specifically talking about women wanting/needing to escape a (male) creep. Or just needing a break from a situation. Most often, those who persistently are being creepy and won't desist are male. And most women prefer to adjust their clothing, fix their hair and makeup and yes, urinate, defecate and change a tampon in more privacy than having some man in audience, even outside of the stall, would provide. No one should be forced to feed their child while sitting on a toilet in a bathroom stall because that's the only place they can have some privacy.

Enough of the world is ordered around what makes men comfortable--and titillated. Women should get to have a space where they can feel comfortable as well.

I am thinking on a larger scale of comprehensive reforms in gender relations. If you think breaking down a few walls is not going to work under current conditions, then Lord of Ponies, I agree 100%. We need comprehensive reform in how the genders grow up thinking about their roles in society. I think that total desegregation might be a part of a better future, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it. That is the harvest. Soil needs to be turned, harrowed, and seeded.

 

[Emily Lake]

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

I don't think @Sigma has hand-waved away concerns.

@Loren Pechtel, @Jimmy Higgins, and @Jarhyn have though. It's the people who insist that sex doesn't matter, genitals are not a problem, and that women should just shut up and accept the risk of having people with penises in their spaces, because hey, what could go wrong? They're the ones hand-waving away concerns.

It's the male born-and-raised people who insist that because penises have never been a problem for them, and because they wouldn't be concerned to have a naked female in their midst, that the same thing should apply to women. They're the ones who see to think that the statistics for rape and sexual assaults are irrelevant, and that women just be crazy hysterical overreacting and all that.

As someone that is both queer and transgender,

Slight derail: what makes you queer?

Born male, attracted to guys. I am not sure "gay" applies, but if I called myself "straight," then that would be even more confusing. I am a transgender woman that is attracted to dudes. Any way you slice it, that's pretty queer.

I know of at least one transwoman who is attracted to men and just considers themselves 'straight'.

Seems like "queer" makes more sense in this situation, although certainly others take a different view. I mean, Sigma is male, and sexually oriented toward males... which would historically be considered gay. But Sigma is also transgender, and views themself as a woman... and being attracted to males would make her straight. I tend to dislike the term "queer", given it's history as an abusive slur, but this is a case where I don't really think that either gay or straight actually works well.

 

[Emily Lake]

You claim that your fear for your safety amid a world of bigger, larger, more aggressive people, some of which would attack you for merely existing, rape you even, is unique. It is not.

Have you considered the reason I carry a staff is because I am a small person, who will in this life of their own volition become smaller?

It's the shocking lack of empathy for those of us who share the same concern s about the same group of violent assholes that puts me at odds with you, Emily

And it's your insistence that women should throw open the doors and increase their risk of being attacked so we can assuage some ideological purity that you've invented that puts me at odds with you.

You show ZERO empathy for the women that are affected by your policies. I have empathy for men who are harmed by other men. But the solution to that is NOT to spread that harm to women and hope that men can redirect the predators to them! The solution is for MEN to deal with the violence and aggression of MEN.

I swear, you're like some dude who says "I've got nice things in my house, and I'm afraid they'll get stolen. But I also don't want to be bothered with locking my door. Therefore, everyone else in the neighborhood should be forced to leave their doors unlocked as well, so that I can socialize my risk onto them"

 

[Emily Lake]

It was the time I got surrounded by a street gang in the same year that Matthew Shepard was murdered that actually made me realize that homophobia and transphobia had gotten out-of-control, and because of that experience, I knew that gay rights wasn't just about our right to bugger each other. It was about the fact that someone should never treat ANYBODY that way.

I agree with this 100%. NOBODY should be subjected to such treatment, for ANY reason.