GOP cosponsor of anti-trans bathroom bill is a danger to ‘unsuspecting women’

[ZiprHead]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/gop-cosponsor-of-anti-trans-bathroom-bill-is-a-danger-to-unsuspecting-women-probe-finds/

Slatery’s office is leading an investigation into multiple sexual harassment complaints against Durham. Although the investigation is not complete, Slatery said that the warning was necessary because of information learned during interviews with 34 different women.

 

[RavenSky]

why am I not at all surprised?

 

[laughing dog]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/gop-cosponsor-of-anti-trans-bathroom-bill-is-a-danger-to-unsuspecting-women-probe-finds/

Slatery’s office is leading an investigation into multiple sexual harassment complaints against Durham. Although the investigation is not complete, Slatery said that the warning was necessary because of information learned during interviews with 34 different women.

I don't see any hypocrisy unless he was going into women's bathrooms.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/gop-cosponsor-of-anti-trans-bathroom-bill-is-a-danger-to-unsuspecting-women-probe-finds/

I don't see any hypocrisy unless he was going into women's bathrooms.

He's harassing women, he's sponsoring a bill to supposedly prevent harassment of women.

 

[laughing dog]

I don't see any hypocrisy unless he was going into women's bathrooms.

He's harassing women, he's sponsoring a bill to supposedly prevent harassment of women.

You don't get it - he is simply against sexual harassment of women in bathrooms.

 

[ZiprHead]

He also helped a convicted child porn criminal get a lessor sentence.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2015/12/11/ramsey-says-durham-letter-shows-poor-judgment/77151368/

 

[RavenSky]

He also helped a convicted child porn criminal get a lessor sentence.

http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2015/12/11/ramsey-says-durham-letter-shows-poor-judgment/77151368/

so many disparate thoughts on this one, including

- I wonder if he knows the pastor in Kentucky


- I wonder if Derec will use the same terminology and demand prosecution for this guy as he did for the University of Wisconsin student

But, he wrote, "after much deliberation among prosecutors, law enforcement and University of Tennessee officials, I was granted a second chance in life due to many factors — not the least of which being my proven track record as a law-abiding and community-minded citizen up until that point."

- this guy's abusive behavior towards women started at a young age

Durham was arrested in 2003 when he was a UT student on charges of vandalism, theft and aggravated burglary. According to a Knoxville police report, Durham was accused of breaking into the home of a man who was dating an ex-girlfriend.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

In before, he's innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

 

[fast]

Just curious, how variant are changes in gender identification between the sexes? I probably didn't ask that right, so I'll make a claim. Just correct my percentages.

96% of transgenders born with a penis come to self-identify as female.
4% of transgenders born with a vagina come to self-identify as male.

 

[bilby]

Just curious, how variant are changes in gender identification between the sexes? I probably didn't ask that right, so I'll make a claim. Just correct my percentages.

96% of transgenders born with a penis come to self-identify as female.
4% of transgenders born with a vagina come to self-identify as male.

http://www.conseil-lgbt.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/How-Frequently-Does-Transsexualism-Occur.pdf

Conway finds that fewer than 1 in 5 Male-to-Female transsexuals have sex reassignment surgeries, and based on an SRS rate of 1 per 2,500 of the population, concludes that 1 in 500 people born with only male genitalia 'intensely' self identify as female; a lower bound rate of 0.2% of adult 'male' Americans. I can't find any good data on Female to Male transsexualism, but the SRS rate in that direction is considerably higher - however this may indicate that this group are more likely to have surgery, and may not say much about their general prevalence in the population.

The figures are all pretty woolly, as there is considerable social pressure for under-reporting of transsexualism; but it seems safe to say that 0.2%, or 1 in 500, is a lower bound on the prevalence of intense transsexualism in America; and that the prevalence is in the same order of magnitude in both directions.

Assuming that figure to be correct, we would expect there to be at least six million intensely transsexual people in the US, and at least 13,000 in Tennessee (of whom at least 1,300 live in Nashville).

So at least 0.2% of people born with a penis come to self-identify as female; and a similar proportion of people born with a vagina come to self-identify as male. And many more 'feel' incorrectly gendered, but don't go so far as to publicly challenge their gender identity.

Of course, that doesn't take into account the (less common, but still numerous) people who are born with both a penis and a vagina, or those born with neither; Many of whom are surgically assigned a gender shortly after their birth (either of the parent's or the surgeon's choosing) and some of whom then go on to identify as the opposite gender from that assigned for them as infants.

Sexual identity is not at all the clear-cut binary situation beloved of the hard-of-thinking, even if you take the over-simplified approach of simply inspecting genitalia or chromosomes. There are people born with both genders of genitalia and with neither; there are people born with XX chromosomes and male genitalia, and with XY chromosomes and female genitalia; there are people with XXY chromosomes, and XYY chromosomes. Biology is complex, and with 7+ billion throws of the dice, there is plenty of scope for even the very rarest combinations to crop up by the thousands and tens of thousands. Transsexualism is not that rare; A conservative estimate suggests that there are at least 120 million transsexuals alive today worldwide.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Just curious, how variant are changes in gender identification between the sexes? I probably didn't ask that right, so I'll make a claim. Just correct my percentages.

96% of transgenders born with a penis come to self-identify as female.
4% of transgenders born with a vagina come to self-identify as male.

I don't know the percentages, but based on my experience reading stuff on line, I'm inclined to think that near 100% of people who identify as transgender and were born with a penis identify as women (no idea how many also identify as female), and that near 100% of people who identify as transgender and were born with a vagina identify as men (no idea how many also identify as male).
Still, there are some who identify in other ways (i.e., not as men or women).

Granted, you were taking about transgender people, not about those who identify as such, but I don't know how else to assess those percentages.

 

[fast]

Let me try this again. Regardless of surgery, and excluding the silent, what percentage of transgenders were born with a penis? Likewise, what percentage of transgenders were born with a vagina? Since I'm not asking about anyone born with none or both, the two figures should add up to 100%

I suspect that the sheer number of men to women transgenders far (far) outweigh women to men transgenders, and I'm wondering if my suspicion is true.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Let me try this again. Regardless of surgery, and excluding the silent, what percentage of transgenders were born with a penis? Likewise, what percentage of transgenders were born with a vagina? Since I'm not asking about anyone born with none or both, the two figures should add up to 100%

I suspect that the sheer number of men to women transgenders far (far) outweigh women to men transgenders, and I'm wondering if my suspicion is true.

I see. I admit I have no clue.

 

[bilby]

Let me try this again. Regardless of surgery, and excluding the silent, what percentage of transgenders were born with a penis? Likewise, what percentage of transgenders were born with a vagina? Since I'm not asking about anyone born with none or both, the two figures should add up to 100%

I suspect that the sheer number of men to women transgenders far (far) outweigh women to men transgenders, and I'm wondering if my suspicion is true.

OK, I think I see what you are asking now; You want to know what the ratio of Male-to-Female (MtF) vs Female-to-Male (FtM) people is, within the transgender community, right?

That's not an easy question to answer - the data is pretty sparse - but I did find a few hints. This (pay-walled) study implies in its abstract that 81% of the study participants were MtF, although without access to the full paper, it is not completely clear (and this is a sample of attendees at a transgender conference, and may well be unrepresentative of transgender people as a whole).

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and predictors of transgender identity disclosure in a gender minority sample. Participants (n = 156) were recruited from a New England transgender conference, and most (81%) reported male gender assignment at birth.

Another (paywalled) study abstract says

A United States sample of 166 transgender adults including 50 male-to-females (MTFs), 52 female-to-males (FTMs), and 64 genderqueers (neither completely female nor completely male), were surveyed about identity development, levels of disclosure of transgender status, and relationship to community.

however it is unclear whether these proportions were chosen explicitly to be approximately equal between MtF and FtM participants; if this was a random sample of the trans/queer community, then (excluding the genderqueer participants) it suggests a roughly 49:51 ratio of MtF to FtM, but the selection process for the sample is not described in the freely available abstract, so that may not be a useful datum.

My gut feeling is that MtF transgenderism is likely no more common than FtM, but for a variety of social reasons, is more visible. FtM transgender people appear to be far more likely to enter and remain in stable relationships than are MtF; and the general public are more accepting of MtF transgender people - in my (anecdotal) experience, straight men speculate about whether a butch woman might 'really' be a man, but are far less likely to speculate in the same way about an effeminate man.

The only transgender person I personally know well is FtM, and most people he interacts with are completely unaware that he was born with female genitalia. I think your guesstimate that 96% of transgender people are MtF is most likely an artefact of the higher profile MtF trans people have over their FtM counterparts in our society. The few studies that touch on this imply that the ratio is somewhere between 80-20 and 49-51, and my gut feeling is that a 50-50 ratio is likely closest to the truth.

Most transgender people are simply not visible - you wouldn't know unless they chose to reveal their status to you. And that seems to be even more commonly true of FtM than MtF individuals, which will tend to skew perceptions. It also means that the entire circus around these insane bathroom bills is pointless - it's really not possible to spot most trans people, and if they used the 'correct' bathroom (according to these laws), the result would be VERY noticeable, quite alarming to the prudes who support the legislation, and almost exactly the opposite of what they claim to be trying to achieve - Women's bathrooms would suddenly be being used by people who are, to all appearances, men. To those who are scared of men in the ladies room, that seems to be something to be avoided, not mandated.

 

[fast]

That clears it up. I severely underestimated the prevalence of FtM transgenders--and probably for the reasons cited.