Science My transgender hobbyhorse

[thebeave]

Without getting into the debate, I'd just like to clarify that most American cis women, as far as I can tell, don't want any men in their rest rooms. It's not so much about danger as it is about privacy. I don't want to pee in a stall next to a man. I have no problem with trans women in the ladies room and I don't mind super butch. looking women in my rest room. I just don't want men in there. I've actually discussed this thread with a friend the other day. She was horrified at the thought of having men in our rest room.

Plus, at least in the US, the Women's room is more than just a place to pee. Some older rest rooms have lounges where women can breast feed, literally rest, support a friend who is upset, fix their hair or makeup, or share secrets with female friends. It's always been a place to get away from the male dominated world, as well as a place to take a quick pee. I've never pooped in a public rest room, but some women do. I doubt they want men coming and going while they are emptying their bowels. I've even known women who don't want their own husbands in the area when they are eliminating. I would assume that these same women don't want strange men in the area when they are doing their business, as the saying goes.

It may be cultural. That's fine. I'm fine with the male or female single rest rooms, but I do miss the traditional ones that were mostly found in large department stores or hotels. This reminds me of Marilyn French's first feminist novel, titled "The Women's Room". Too bad I can't remember much of it since I read it about 30 or 40 years ago. Maybe it's time for a reread.

While I didn't save the link, I read that American men don't want women in their rest rooms either. I once accidentally started to wander into what I thought was a ladies room. It didn't have a door. It was one of those that had a hallway leading to the room. A man was on his way out and he gave me an ugly, horrified look. "Oh, excuse me," I said, as I turned around and located the ladies room.

I don't think little girls want little boys in their rest rooms either. There are times when females want to be totally free of men. Having a private place to pee is one of those times, at least that's the case where I live.

I'm done, so now this male dominated discussion can go back to making claims about what women want.

Exactly. Young women and men are especially self conscious about their bodies and bodily functions. Can you imagine being a teen/young adult girl who barrels into a bathroom with a major case of the gassy shits only to find your secret "crush" is in the bathroom washing his hands at the sink, aware of what is going on behind him, and who it is. That would be horrifying. Does he snicker and tell his friends what he saw, heard (and smelled)? Will you soon be the laughing stock of the school/job?

 

[Jarhyn]

SoHy, you have expressed a desire for spaces in which there aren't "men", and in fact where certain culture can be withheld from "men".

I do not personally look with any great respect on those who express a desire for spaces in which there aren't "women", and in fact look down on attempts to carve out spaces where certain culture can be withheld from "women".

You have expressed a desire for exclusion of "men" from places such as feeding lounges which were not engineered into the spaces provided for "men", mostly because of oversight, and which "men" are not allowed to access and won't ever see moved because of these engineering issues you laud (induced lactation for those who can't otherwise get their tissues to produce milk is now a thing and if you think it is going to remain "sex/gender exclusive" you're in for a surprise).

In some respects many "men" wish to become more "feminine".

I generally don't agree with the rabid MRA ballsacks that go on about "what about men". Rather what about literally everyone? This is about the release of cultural strongholds and exclusivity.

I do not believe in "______ only" spaces. Anywhere. Ever.

It is not about "men" telling "women" how they must feel about "men" in "woman" spaces.

It is about the fact that neither "men only" or "women only" spaces should exist because it is sex discrimination. It would even be in some ways different if these were only strong social suggestions with social consequences for violation

If you want a room exclusively for yourself, rent one and only invite your friends who only think like you do.

Or, maybe build facilities where it doesn't actually feel like you are shitting next to "a man", but where it feels like you actually get to shit "alone".

Further, why do you think "men" want that any more than "women" do? Why do you think "women" are entitled to it when "men" are not?

Apparently some people here never had to deal with people bullying them over their bathroom usage patterns... Maybe rather we should focus on punishing bully behaviors and designing facilities less prone to such abuse for all.

 

[Bomb#20]

I'm done, so now this male dominated discussion can go back to making claims about what women want.

And life imitates art again...

SoHy, you have expressed a desire for spaces in which there aren't "men", and in fact where certain culture can be withheld from "men".
...
Further, why do you think "men" want that any more than "women" do? Why do you think "women" are entitled to it when "men" are not?

Jarhyn, what the bejesus is wrong with you? Where the hell do you see SoHy saying men aren't entitled to single-sex spaces too?

"While I didn't save the link, I read that American men don't want women in their rest rooms either. I once accidentally started to wander into what I thought was a ladies room. It didn't have a door. It was one of those that had a hallway leading to the room. A man was on his way out and he gave me an ugly, horrified look. "Oh, excuse me," I said, as I turned around and located the ladies room."​

SoHy is clearly okay with sauce-for-the-goose sauce-for-the-gander. Stop putting words in people's mouths. You're acting like a jerk.

 

[Jarhyn]

Jarhyn, what the bejesus is wrong with you? Where the hell do you see SoHy saying men aren't entitled to single-sex spaces too?

Read the statement again, this time for comprehension:

If "women" have a right to a space free of other persons who they call "men" why are "men" not entitled to that, too?

It's logic that rather implies any space guaranteed to be free of something should be guaranteed to everyone, that they may access it to be free of that thing.

It reduces to the fact that if "women" feel "men" in a bathroom might lead to harassment, it's fairly naive to think that "men" are also quite put out by "men" harassing them in the bathroom and want to be free of that too.

Of course, allowing sexism to be the solution leads to engineering solutions that only afford half the population peace.

Do I accept this? No. I expect society to engineer better solutions that suck less. Like well constructed stalls with more exposed "common access" utilities and more generically accessible universal spaces for things like childcare.

 

[Bomb#20]

Jarhyn, what the bejesus is wrong with you? Where the hell do you see SoHy saying men aren't entitled to single-sex spaces too?

Read the statement again, this time for comprehension:

If "women" have a right to a space free of other persons who they call "men" why are "men" not entitled to that, too?

It's logic that rather implies any space guaranteed to be free of something should be guaranteed to everyone, that they may access it to be free of that thing.

It reduces to the fact that if "women" feel "men" in a bathroom might lead to harassment, it's fairly naive to think that "men" are also quite put out by "men" harassing them in the bathroom and want to be free of that too.

If that's what you meant, well, where the hell do you see SoHy saying men aren't entitled to a space free of other men? You're still putting words in her mouth. She said "I'm fine with the male or female single rest rooms". Lots of places are putting in those one-person-at-a-time restrooms with locks; they give both men and women a way to be free of other people of all descriptions.

 

[Jarhyn]

If that's what you meant, well, where the hell do you see SoHy saying men aren't entitled to a space free of other men?

Work through it. I have confidence in you to be able to do that.

 

[Bomb#20]

As for what my views are about whether your husband is a woman, you have no idea what my views are

Yes, because every time when you have been asked to give a definition of "female" that doesn't lead to nonsense such as capturing "horse" as a chair, you provide nothing of merit.

You have been asked myriad times to actually present and defend this definition alluded to since the OP and you have failed miserably.

And yet again you prove you're a tribal zealot who sees all his outgroup as interchangeable parts. None of that ever happened.

None of what, now, has ever happened?

None of what do you think? None of "every time when you have been asked to give a definition of "female"". None of "You have been asked myriad times to actually present and defend this definition alluded to since the OP". You posted sixteen times in this thread before you made those claims about me, and the number of them in which you asked me to define anything was, wait for it, zero. In one of your posts you challenged DrZ for a definition, and in one of them you challenged Oleg for a definition. Me? Not once. The three of us are not interchangeable parts. So ditch the revisionist history. Why do you even do it? Who said what is a matter of public record. Any reader who suspects you might be telling the truth about me can go back and check for himself and see that you are not. That's what you should have done before you decided you gave so little a damn about whether you were telling the truth that getting your feelings about me out right away was more important to you than fact-checking your accusations. Here, you can do it now, I'll even help you out. Your posts were 9, 11, 13, 21, 23, 25, 27, 30, 32, 37, 40, 49, 52, 54, 56, and 58. Go read them and quote one of them where you ask me to define "female" or "woman".

I am pretty sure that you and DrZ have both been repeatedly asked for a definition of "woman" that does not run foul of where you would see it go.

Based on long experience, what you are pretty sure of has very little connection to reality.

Please cease with the dishonesty,

Please cease with the serial libel. You have made false, damaging accusations against me with malice and with reckless disregard for the truth. That you sincerely believe what you say about me is true doesn't make you honest; it just makes you a self-deceiving intellectually dishonest fool who believes his own disinformation campaign. You are delusional. You trump up accusations against your opponents with no factual basis. And when called on it you double down with your character assassination when it would cost you only a few minutes to go back and fact-check. Stop behaving this way.

and get on with providing a definition

I already provided a definition, way back in post #10. The fact that you don't like my definition does not entitle you to falsely claim I didn't provide one. And the fact that my definition wasn't "this definition alluded to since the OP" does not give you any grounds for complaint. I'm not the author of the OP. What the OP does or doesn't allude to is an issue for you to take up with DrZoidberg. This is not rocket science.

which, as has been mentioned, will most certainly not stand up for the purposes you have for it.

It has most certainly stood up to your accusation that it leads to nonsense such as capturing "horse" as a chair. You had no reason to think it does; you were merely conflating it with how you took some other opponent to be defining "woman". Stop treating us as interchangeable parts.

As for whether it will stand up for the purposes I have for it, how the heck would you know? You are completely ignorant of my purposes for it. You just post one baseless claim after another where you make up things for me to be supposedly inferring from it. Stop putting words in my mouth.

Nobody asked me for any definition alluded to since the OP.

I have asked repeatedly. Read the thread, maybe?

Put up or shut up.

I volunteered a definition without being asked -- "One of those." -- and that is quite plainly a definition that does not lead to nonsense such as capturing "horse" as a chair.

No, that isn't a definition at all. It's just an arbitrary selection of some things.

Of course it's a definition. If you have some philosophical objection to ostensive definitions, well, there are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (And the selections aren't arbitrary; go read some Wittgenstein.)

You have not justified your selection of "those" as the basis for likeness, nor have you in any way defined what it is to be "like" them.

Who are you quoting? Where did I say anything about likeness or being "like" them? You appear to be suffering from the popular but naive folk-linguistics misconception that words for categories group like things.

Nobody in the history of English has thought anybody who said a chair is "one of those" was implying a horse is a chair.

And nobody in the history of the English language has ever successfully managed to use such a definition to exclude something from membership, because "one of those" does not provide a basis for exclusion in the first place.

Oh for the love of god. Have you considered the merits of exposing your pristine ivory tower analytical philosophical reasoning about synthetic propositions to the harsh test of comparison with empirical data?

Every fluent speaker of every natural language has successfully managed to use such a definition to exclude something from membership. People could not learn their mother tongues without it. And just such a definition has been successfully used a number of times, in this very thread, by a number of people -- notably, by you yourself -- to exclude a horse from membership in the "chair" category. The fact that "one of those" excludes horses from chair eligibility is the whole reason people keep bringing it up. If the "chair" category were so fuzzy that even a horse could qualify then MickeyDee and Hermit would have found it useless for refuting Mr. Linehan's attempt at a non-ostensive definition.

He doesn't. He has experience being himself.

You're the one insisting

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Your statement that he "is" something is an insistence that someone is something.

Sure enough, that word doesn't mean what you think. I said he was something, and you told me I was wrong, so I dropped my claim that he was that thing and made do without that premise for the rest of the discussion. That is the opposite of "insisting".

I did not say he was "female". I made an educated guess as to how you would classify them but YOU are the one who decided "female" was appropriate. I don't feel it is. Maybe my husband might?

I have no wish to invade your husband's privacy by making inquiries; I'm just making the most reasonable guesses given whatever information you've chosen to volunteer. If you then tell me my guesses are wrong, that gives me more information and I can update my guesses.

If your husband has no experience being female then why did you make a stink about my having inferred that his opinion is not germane? Why do you, married to a man who has never been a woman, think you have better insight into how women feel than I, who get told about it day after day year after year by my female soulmate?

My point is that your own definition is inadequate. You make all sorts of declarations for others what they are or what they aren't, what is essential to them having opinions vs what isn't, when really that all just boils down to sexism, no matter who is spewing it.

Quote me. What are these "all sorts of declarations for others what they are or what they aren't"? I'm making no claim about whether your husband is a woman. I'm making no claim about his opinion, let alone about what is essential to his having it. Everybody gets to have opinions whether they satisfy others or not.

I don't claim to have an insight how "women" feel.

I do claim to have an insight about how what culture tells people about how they ought to feel when in a bathroom can be rather skewed and problematic, so much to the point where people will injure themselves over such nonsense.

That just now was you claiming to have an insight how women feel! You just claimed the girls who injure themselves feel the way they do because of culture telling them they ought to feel that way. Whether your claim is right or wrong, you are blatantly claiming to have insight into how they feel.

 

[Jarhyn]

I already provided a definition, way back in post #10. The fact that you don't like my definition does not entitle you to falsely claim I didn't provide one.

You did not provide a definition. You provided a template for definitions. A template for definitions is not a definition. You can tell by the fact that there are three extra words in "a template for definitions". In addition, the post you responded to asked for a definition too.

You still haven't given any basis of what makes "things" "like those". You have not even provided training sets! You certainly haven't justified them, nor even the use of the model.

Rather I privately merely assume you have a heuristic definition that you will not disclose because a heuristic is even more vulnerable to recognition as to arbitrariness or unsuitability.

You realize I know how to develop definitions well enough to teach them to sand, right? My entire career and livelihood revolves around the act of definition, and properly handling such.

When I have pointed out that definitions are necessary and not yet provided, this is in fact a demand for definitions. Your participation in the thread whose pilot post is "what is a woman" wherein one of the primary responses by the first person gullible enough to get suckered into watching that sexist trash pointed out that they never actually said is enough to be construed as a request for definition.

The above paragraph is yet again a request for definition. Using this definition of request for definition, I leave you with the homework of actually locating all the requests.

 

[Bomb#20]

I do not believe in "______ only" spaces. Anywhere. Ever.

Except you believe in making academia a tolerant-people-only space.

You're the one trying to exclude folks.

PaRaDoX Of ToLeRaNcE!!!111

Funny story about paradoxes. They aren't true. That's part of what makes them paradoxes.

"Paradox of tolerance" is self-congratulatory claptrap from intolerant people who want to pat themselves on the back about how tolerant they are while behaving indistinguishably from every other ideological bully.

Nobody has an obligation to tolerate those who fail to tolerate. This is where the paradox actually breaks down.

And since you keep treating disagreeing with progressivism as proof of intolerance, you de facto believe in making academia a progressive-only space.

When one party unilaterally imposes a gender on a second party, it is the unilateral imposition that will and ought see sanction.

Calling a transwoman "he" is a unilateral imposition of a gender only on the speaker's speech, not on a second party. It doesn't force anyone else to call the above person "he"; it doesn't force the transwoman to perceive t.a.'s self as male.

On the other hand, progressives in government who coerce the speaker to say "she" on pain of monetary harm are unilaterally imposing a gender on the speaker. That does the speaker harm; it picks ta's pocket or breaks ta's leg. So yes, that unilateral imposition ought see sanction. At the very least, such public officials should lose their jobs for violating the speaker's civil rights and attempting to establish an illegal state religion; it would be still better if the officials could be held personally liable instead of the taxpayers having to pay the court-awarded damages.

 

[Jarhyn]

Except you believe in making academia a tolerant-people-only space

More "paradox of tolerance" bullshit.

I also believe in making society in general a "no killing people" place, and a "no threatening people place".

You somehow can see around the paradox of applying the strength of the collective for the good of the collective with respect to threatening: there is a threat leveled only against those who threaten beyond the threat against those who threaten.

The same math operates on tolerance.

If that means that only progressives remain, you have argued for progressivism and that you ought get on that bandwagon.

It is far better than previous iterations which demand piety. All this is demanding is that you don't impose things on people.

Calling a transwoman "he" is a unilateral imposition of a gender only on the speaker's speech

No, it is a unilateral imposition of labeling upon another person.

Calling you some nasty name that would get me banned is similarly an "imposition upon my speech", but I don't do it because it also imposes an unfair imputation on others.

It imposes a gender upon the person spoken of.

As to what "progressives" would coerce people to do, I've been in a months long argument trying to get the forum to NOT force people to use pronouns, but to offer agnostic terms for people that don't want to participate in that.

I do not sue for validation, I sue for tolerance, and you can't even offer that much.

 

[Bomb#20]

I already provided a definition, way back in post #10. The fact that you don't like my definition does not entitle you to falsely claim I didn't provide one.

You did not provide a definition. You provided a template for definitions. A template for definitions is not a definition. You can tell by the fact that there are three extra words in "a template for definitions". In addition, the post you responded to asked for a definition too.

So? He wasn't asking me. It's not my job to justify Walsh's opinions. I was kibitzing -- pointing out that bigfield and DrZ and Walsh all seemed to be looking at this the wrong way.

You still haven't given any basis of what makes "things" "like those".

You still haven't given any basis for Geminis being incompatible with Virgos. Why do you keep challenging me to prove claims I haven't made? Where am I supposed to have said "things" are "like those"? Don't project your linguistic pseudoscience onto me.

You have not even provided training sets!

The hell I haven't. I wrote:

'A language learner learns what that sort of word means not by being taught criteria but by observing which things other people use it to refer to. Which things are in the "those" set is determined by the collective perceptions of the language community.'​

For you, the training set was everybody who got referred to as a "woman" in your presence from the time you were old enough to distinguish the word until you'd incorporated it as a regular part of your vocabulary; I'm guessing from about age 2 to age 4.

You certainly haven't justified them, nor even the use of the model.

"Justified them?" Who do you think you are, the Académie Anglaise? Meaning is determined by use.

Rather I privately merely assume you have a heuristic definition that you will not disclose because a heuristic is even more vulnerable to recognition as to arbitrariness or unsuitability.

Yeah, you would, because assuming things about people who don't think like you has been such a reliable guide for you in the past.[/sarcasm]

You realize I know how to develop definitions well enough to teach them to sand, right?

I'm trying to visualize a definition holding a piece of sandpaper.

My entire career and livelihood revolves around the act of definition, and properly handling such.

If you expect to be recognized as an authority in spite of your endless stream of errors, good luck with that.

When I have pointed out that definitions are necessary and not yet provided, this is in fact a demand for definitions. Your participation in the thread whose pilot post is "what is a woman" wherein one of the primary responses by the first person gullible enough to get suckered into watching that sexist trash pointed out that they never actually said is enough to be construed as a request for definition.

Enough to be construed as a request to DrZ, not to me. I'm not Walsh's spokesgoat.

The above paragraph is yet again a request for definition.

And I gave you a definition. Whine about it for not matching your private conception of the Platonic Form of the Properly Handled Definition all you please. You be you.

Using this definition of request for definition, I leave you with the homework of actually locating all the requests.

Put up or shut up.

 

[Jarhyn]

A language learner learns what that sort of word means not by being taught criteria but by observing which things other people use it to refer to. Which things are in the "those" set is determined by the collective perceptions of the language community

And then when intelligent, the language learner learns that definitions built from such concepts are the basis of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy: unless you actually produce a semantic border around the concept, a heuristic, you can't actually claim something "isn't" one of those, or "is" one of those, you can only make relative comparisons.

If you wish to claim otherwise, I invite you to program a computer to do literally any thing by just typing into the computer "things like those". Or for that matter reproduce the definition.

At any rate, you can't hold up those myriad exposures either in my past. You can't even assume they exist at all, or at least you shouldn't.

In the same way as a young child I could reject nonsensical combinations of numbers, however, I can reject as an adult a nonsensical combination of ideas which is to say the absoluteness of "sex" in the human animal, recognizing that this is merely a proxy, a simple-seeming face placed on a number of disparate factors that must in any rigorous approach be taken individually.

To wit, I realized the rules there were made up and the points didn't matter except with respect to something not conducive to most of your position (pregnancy theoretics), and which doesn't get you any traction against trans people.

And I gave you a definition

Oi, no you didn't, you claimed I already knew your definition because people taught me an inane definition in the same way you learned your own different inane definition.

 

[southernhybrid]

I've read several articles and opinion pieces regarding gender neutral rest rooms. One man who supports gender neutral restrooms was surprised that he was in the minority, although I was a bit surprised that quite a few people supported the idea. Maybe younger folks are more open to this idea.

The article that made the most sense to me, which I will link, was from a blog from SLOAN. The opinion was that a lot of people would feel very uncomfortable with gender neutral rest rooms, so the suggestion was there should be 3 rest rooms, including a gender neutral one.

We are each entitled to our own opinions. As a cis woman who has been gawked at, hit on and once threatened with rape, I simply don't feel comfortable using a rest room that has men in it. It's not that I'm worried about being raped in a rest room, I just want my privacy from men when it comes to certain things. Men also have their private spaces in their own rest rooms. It's not like they don't have a place that frees them from women. It's not like men never have all male social events. I'm fine with that.

But, if we are going to accommodate all minority genders, then having either single rest rooms or 3 different rest rooms seems to make the most sense. The Publix where I shop has three rest rooms. One is labeled a family rest room. I've used it when the women's room is closed for cleaning. I doubt anyone would care if a nonbinary person used that room if they felt uncomfortable using one labeled for men or women. Still, most of the non-binary people who's photos I've seen, appear to be either male or female, so I doubt there would be any problems using the rest room that matched their appearance.

Plus, I visited several discussion boards that were designed for nonbinary people. Most of them said that while they liked the, they/them pronouns, it wasn't very important to them. Some even said they went back to using the pronouns that most matched their appearance/biological sex, even if they didn't fully identify as one gender. Nobody should feel left out if they need to pee in a rest room, and no female or male should feel as if their privacy is being invaded by having to use a gender neutral rest room. That is why I liked the SLOAN piece. It was about compromise.

Here's the thing.... Those who identify with minority genders often seem to think that the rest of us should conform to their needs, but many of them don't seem to understand that we cis folks have needs too. There should be a way to compromise. Having single rest rooms or three rest rooms seems like a reasonable compromise to me. And, let's not forget that social change takes time. Perhaps 50 years from now, this will be moot and everyone will be used to sharing the same rest room. I don't think the US is ready for that right now.

https://www.sloan.com/blog/gender-inclusive-restrooms-when-they-make-sense-and-how-do-them-right

 

[Jarhyn]

We are each entitled to our own opinions. As a cis woman who has been gawked at, hit on and once threatened with rape, I simply don't feel comfortable using a rest room that has men in it. It's not that I'm worried about being raped in a rest room, I just want my privacy from men when it comes to certain things. Men also have their private spaces in their own rest rooms. It's not like they don't have a place that frees them from women. It's not like men never have all male social events. I'm fine with that.

So, first off, as a human being who has been the victim of people who call themselves "men", in fact in the context of a bathroom, I simply don't feel comfortable using a restroom that has "men" in it.

If you have such a problem sharing the sinks outside the toilet area, I find that rather unreasonable and bordering on "separate but 'equal'", single quotes on account of the fact that these spaces are clearly NOT equal, as evidenced by the discussion of fucking FEEDING LOUNGES and changing tables.

And no, "men" have no private spaces in their restrooms, unless the restroom is a private single-user stall.

I find it fairly sexist that you think that SOME folks you call "men" don't deserve freedom from specific problem folks you call "men" in the same way you insist for "women".

Is this a special freedom to only reserve for women?

 

[southernhybrid]

We are each entitled to our own opinions. As a cis woman who has been gawked at, hit on and once threatened with rape, I simply don't feel comfortable using a rest room that has men in it. It's not that I'm worried about being raped in a rest room, I just want my privacy from men when it comes to certain things. Men also have their private spaces in their own rest rooms. It's not like they don't have a place that frees them from women. It's not like men never have all male social events. I'm fine with that.

So, first off, as a human being who has been the victim of people who call themselves "men", in fact in the context of a bathroom, I simply don't feel comfortable using a restroom that has "men" in it.

If you have such a problem sharing the sinks outside the toilet area, I find that rather unreasonable and bordering on "separate but 'equal'", single quotes on account of the fact that these spaces are clearly NOT equal, as evidenced by the discussion of fucking FEEDING LOUNGES and changing tables.

And no, "men" have no private spaces in their restrooms, unless the restroom is a private single-user stall.

I find it fairly sexist that you think that SOME folks you call "men" don't deserve freedom from specific problem folks you call "men" in the same way you insist for "women".

Is this a special freedom to only reserve for women?

I don't want to argue about this any longer. I'm sorry if you feel that you have been discriminated against, but based on some of your comments, I don't think you have any idea what it's like being a cis woman. I have nothing against you. I've already linked to a piece that promotes the idea of having three separate rest rooms, including one that is gender neutral. That won't happen overnight, but I think it's probably the best solution for this issue, at least in the foreseeable future.

I feel it's very unfair of you to judge people who have a different perspective from yourself on this issue. I'm not judging you, but I do think it's a bit unfair to expect others to make you feel more comfortable by making themselves feel uncomfortable. That seems to be what you're suggesting, regardless if that's not your intention. I'm going to end it here because this discussion is getting a bit bizarre. I've done my best to explain why I would feel very uncomfortable in a gender neutral rest room. Hope you find a way to feel more comfortable with the options that are currently available. The good thing is that lately, I'm seeing of those single person use restrooms. They are convenient for people of all genders to use without any discomfort.

 

[thebeave]

And I thought it was only the far right who liked the saying "fuck your feelings".

A more appropriate saying for this is from a wise man who once said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one)".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So what? The doors out to the rest of the building aren't locked, so anyone could just walk in when the bathrooms were gendered.
... Bullying and harassment of teenagers by teenagers isn't new, isn't surprising, and isn't effectively addressed by gendering bathroom spaces

Exactly. Gendered bathrooms provide an illusion of protection, they provide no actual protection.

"Unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities, research by The Sunday Times shows. Almost 90% of reported sexual assaults, harassment and voyeurism in swimming pool and sports-centre changing rooms happen in unisex facilities, which make up less than half the total."​

archive.ph

[3... 2... 1... Cue somebody explaining that changing rooms are totally different from restrooms, so the fraction of sexual assaulters, harassers and voyeurs deterred by single-sex rules in changing rooms are invariably unaffected by single-sex rules in restrooms.]

Note that they are counting things like voyeurism. When I see research like this I strongly suspect the reality (women sexually assaulted) is the opposite. Note, also, that those are high-volume facilities, the serious events are very unlikely to happen there.

 

[Bomb#20]

We are each entitled to our own opinions. As a cis woman who has been gawked at, hit on and once threatened with rape, I simply don't feel comfortable using a rest room that has men in it. ...

...
If you have such a problem sharing the sinks outside the toilet area, I find that rather unreasonable and bordering on "separate but 'equal'", ...

And once again you analogize ladies' rooms to racism. We had a brief exchange on this earlier...

No matter how much you complain that you have to share a drinking fountain with darkie, it is still your own tantrum that injures you.

Yeah, I was pretty sure sooner or later somebody was going to make that analogy. You know what would make it a better analogy? Whites-only drinking fountains having been established by the dominant blackiarchy as a kindness to the white underclass, in recognition that white people have good reason to be afraid of black people after thousands of years of social subordination of whites enforced by black-on-white violence.

You are arguing that making a historically-oppressed group a protected category with a set-aside for their benefit is the same thing as making a non-historically-oppressed group a protected category and having a set-aside that institutionalizes harm to the historically-oppressed group. I.e., you are arguing that affirmative action is racism. Do you in fact think affirmative action is racism?

When you replied to that post you snipped out that whole section. But the question hasn't gone away. Do you in fact think affirmative action is racism?

 

[Jarhyn]

Bomb, you seem to be laboring under the faulty (and roundly rejected) presumption that it's impossible for blacks to be racist against white folks.

It's not really possible for them to be  institutionally so (as black people don't control any institutions to the extent of enforcing that racism), but it is absolutely possible to be sexist against "men" and racist against "whites".

As to whether that rises to the level of need for social mechanisms to prevent it has yet to be seen.

It is not, however, racist to apply equal opportunity, and if you wish to talk about racism and affirmative action, that would require its own thread, which you are free to start.

I am always going to reject the primitive elements of unethical prejudice.

I am generally going to support, however, mechanisms that dilute the circular logic that feeds unethical prejudice (ex: "there are no "female" firefighters therefore "females" don't make good firefighters therefore we shouldn't hire "females" as firefighters"), and which increase participation of otherwise excluded minorities in academic pursuits on account of the 'problem of perspective', a problem closely related to the fragility of biological monocultures, and the fragility of monocultures in general.

 

[Bomb#20]

A language learner learns what that sort of word means not by being taught criteria but by observing which things other people use it to refer to. Which things are in the "those" set is determined by the collective perceptions of the language community

And then when intelligent, the language learner learns that definitions built from such concepts are the basis of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy: unless you actually produce a semantic border around the concept, a heuristic, you can't actually claim something "isn't" one of those, or "is" one of those, you can only make relative comparisons.

Well then, Mr. 'nonsense such as capturing "horse" as a chair', by all means produce your semantic border around the concept of "chair".

If you wish to claim otherwise, I invite you to program a computer to do literally any thing by just typing into the computer "things like those". Or for that matter reproduce the definition.

The observation that seventy years of research in artificial intelligence has not yet caught up with five hundred million years of natural selection for brain intelligence does not place substantive limits on what can be accomplished by intelligence.

At any rate, you can't hold up those myriad exposures either in my past. You can't even assume they exist at all, or at least you shouldn't.

Why shouldn't I? Was your mother-tongue something other than English? If so, what was it? Whatever that language was, I'll bet dollars to donuts it contains a word you learned as a child that "woman" is a pretty accurate translation of.

If you mean you're a native English speaker but you somehow managed to never absorb the wider culture's intersubjective sense of what "woman" meant, that has a low probability of being an accurate recollection.

In the same way as a young child I could reject nonsensical combinations of numbers, however, I can reject as an adult a nonsensical combination of ideas which is to say the absoluteness of "sex" in the human animal, recognizing that this is merely a proxy, a simple-seeming face placed on a number of disparate factors that must in any rigorous approach be taken individually.

And there we get to the nub of what's the more likely explanation for why you think I shouldn't assume those exposures exist at all: you are projecting your current objections to the wider culture's intersubjective sense of what "woman" means -- objections that appear to be based on philosophy, linguistic prescriptivism, erroneous folk-linguistics, and your emotional experiences with your sexuality -- onto a three-year-old child you surely barely remember.

To wit, I realized the rules there were made up and the points didn't matter except with respect to something not conducive to most of your position (pregnancy theoretics), and which doesn't get you any traction against trans people.

Stop fabricating positions for your political opponents; it's a nasty thing to do and it's a stupid self-deceiving thing to do.

In the first place, I don't know what "pregnancy theoretics" is supposed to mean but just from the name it cannot possibly be a correct label for my position.

And in the second place, I am not looking for this so-called "traction against trans people" of which you speak. I have nothing against trans people -- it's a free country. What I'm arguing for is liberalism; consequently I argue against the intrinsic illiberalism of the progressive stack. Many progressives perceive any challenge to the legitimacy of their practice of making their moral judgments with a stack instead of with principles to be an attack on whoever the people are whose height on the progressive stack led those progressives to throw liberal principles under the bus. But it is nothing of the sort.