I have met several transgender individuals and respect their right to be identified as they wish. What I don't understand is how any of this works. For example, a female tran with male organs that prefers women is straight or gay? How does this individual differ from a straight cross dressing man? And was I out the day that this was taught in school? How about we all sit down and talk this out so that we're all accommodated as best as possible.
3
In public buildings in Denmark, I have only found unisex bathrooms. This includes multi-stall.
I think a major problem is that in North American bathrooms, the stall dividers often have one-inch gaps in them, and there is almost a foot of space under the doors. It really doesn't feel like privacy at all. Why not have proper walls and doors around each stall? And no urinals. Then the whole issue is moot.
I think a major problem is that in North American bathrooms, the stall dividers often have one-inch gaps in them, and there is almost a foot of space under the doors. It really doesn't feel like privacy at all. Why not have proper walls and doors around each stall? And no urinals. Then the whole issue is moot.
3
"But for a lot of people, the transgender bid to reconsider norms — the vocabulary, a girl who has a penis — has burst into the public consciousness quickly, and seems bewildering."
Bewildering ain't the half of it. "A girl who has a penis?" Really? As the Robot on "Lost in Space" used to say: "It does not compute! It does not compute!"
Bewildering ain't the half of it. "A girl who has a penis?" Really? As the Robot on "Lost in Space" used to say: "It does not compute! It does not compute!"
1
Why do I want people to rethink the push for gender neutral restrooms, and accommodations in ladies rooms?
Well, ask any woman who had to wash out hosiery because it turns out that ads lie about just how much blue liquid a feminine product can contain, or tries to mop and dry a shirt that suffered from a too-long meeting that ran over into pumping time.
The ladies room really is about *biology* not gender. Accommodation doesn't change biology, or the desire for as much privacy as possible when dealing with the more undignified biological inconveniences.
Well, ask any woman who had to wash out hosiery because it turns out that ads lie about just how much blue liquid a feminine product can contain, or tries to mop and dry a shirt that suffered from a too-long meeting that ran over into pumping time.
The ladies room really is about *biology* not gender. Accommodation doesn't change biology, or the desire for as much privacy as possible when dealing with the more undignified biological inconveniences.
4
I do not identify as transgender. I'm simply a woman with short gray hair who dresses in jeans and a T-shirt. My friends tell me I don't look like a man, and my breasts are clearly visible underneath my clothes. But I can't tell you how many times that someone has told me I was in the wrong bathroom or actually called the police. It is so uncomfortable for me to go into a public wome's room I often wish there was a unisex bathroom for me to go into. The reality is women's restrooms are not for women. They are only for women who meet the cultural concept of women.
1
As a young girl in the ‘50s and ‘60s, I was horrified as I learned of all the privileges and opportunities that only boys were allowed to have. Since then, I’ve protested and fought for women to be allowed to be like men, whether it was the ability to wear pants back in high school or the ability to enter careers that were denied women. I was certainly unpopular to keep questioning the status quo, but continue to fight for all people to express who they are.
Apparently, transgender refers to “a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.” That certainly describes me but I respect my female body and never thought I needed to be in a male body to come to terms with my male side.
So I don’t get what transgender people want. What exactly does it mean to “identify” as the opposite sex. It seems they have some old conventional ideas of what females and males identify with. It’s not about a man’s “right” to “compete” on a girls sport team or expose their penis in a girls locker room. That just reeks of the same male privilege that I grew up with.
Why isn’t the transgender community trying to change the restricted definition of what men and women can do? Is body mutilation really required? Men still have such a constrained definition of manhood that they can’t even wear certain “women’s” clothes.
Apparently, transgender refers to “a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.” That certainly describes me but I respect my female body and never thought I needed to be in a male body to come to terms with my male side.
So I don’t get what transgender people want. What exactly does it mean to “identify” as the opposite sex. It seems they have some old conventional ideas of what females and males identify with. It’s not about a man’s “right” to “compete” on a girls sport team or expose their penis in a girls locker room. That just reeks of the same male privilege that I grew up with.
Why isn’t the transgender community trying to change the restricted definition of what men and women can do? Is body mutilation really required? Men still have such a constrained definition of manhood that they can’t even wear certain “women’s” clothes.
12
You are really something. What do you mean you don't know what they want? They are telling you. You just have to listen. Clearly you just don't want to.
Being a transgender is all about "body mutilation'?
It seems Rebecca hasn't figured out that science and social norms have evolved from the 1950s and 1960s.
It seems Rebecca hasn't figured out that science and social norms have evolved from the 1950s and 1960s.
In the printed Magazine, this article appears under an enormous headline: “Room for All.” Sadly, within the article, “All” doesn’t include transgender boys or men. Any doubt about their exclusion is dispelled near the end of the article. After ten paragraphs that fail to mention transgender boys or men, Ms. Bazelon writes:
“For transgender kids, it’s showering near your peers in your own stall, and then maybe getting dressed behind a privacy curtain. (Other girls with their own reasons for shielding their bodies from view might welcome a curtain, too.)”
Wittingly or not, “Transgender kids” and “other girls,” really? Transgender kids are not only girls. “Room for All” is the wrong headline for an article that is very unsubtly not about “all.”
“For transgender kids, it’s showering near your peers in your own stall, and then maybe getting dressed behind a privacy curtain. (Other girls with their own reasons for shielding their bodies from view might welcome a curtain, too.)”
Wittingly or not, “Transgender kids” and “other girls,” really? Transgender kids are not only girls. “Room for All” is the wrong headline for an article that is very unsubtly not about “all.”
2
Picture the men's shower room in a gym. A man is alone showering and a women walks in naked and stands near him to shower. He will be a bit confused, but other than that, he will not be afraid. He might hurry up a bit because of the oddness, but not before taking a quick peek at her body, of course!
Now picture the women's shower room in a gym. A woman is alone showering and a man walks in naked and stands near her. The women will be very afraid and she has good reason to be.
Should the man, at that point, simply reassure her that he is transgender?
"Don't worry, I am a transgender male to female, so you can ignore that I have male genitals, am heterosexual, am attracted to females, so just continue with your shower, as if you are not standing there alone and naked with an equally naked male stranger."
Works for everyone? (By 'everyone', I mean all men, because only men's needs matter.)
Now picture the women's shower room in a gym. A woman is alone showering and a man walks in naked and stands near her. The women will be very afraid and she has good reason to be.
Should the man, at that point, simply reassure her that he is transgender?
"Don't worry, I am a transgender male to female, so you can ignore that I have male genitals, am heterosexual, am attracted to females, so just continue with your shower, as if you are not standing there alone and naked with an equally naked male stranger."
Works for everyone? (By 'everyone', I mean all men, because only men's needs matter.)
12
Yes this is an article about who uses what bathroom, rather than what can make the bathroom more user friendly. Nonetheless here's a suggestion for a simple thing to make public bathrooms more ‘Accommodating’ to everyone: the type of door lock that shows "VACANT" or "OCCUPIED" on or under the door knob just like those on the doors of airplanes. Then anyone inside can presumably feel more at ease that someone outside isn't just going to attempt to barge right in or whatever other way one attempts to enter a supposedly "closed" restroom. Public restrooms on the ground in the US that have these types of locks are not the norm. It would help answer the basic question: is this WC being "OCCUPIED" by anyone. Because after all how many knock first these days when a door is closed?
2
The Copenhagen railroad station has a unisex toilet facility which appears to work well.
2
My # 1 concern in using a public bathroom is personal safety. All these NYT's discussions about bathrooms talk about "urban bathrooms". But any laws developed will apply to apply to all public bathrooms. A bathroom in a restaurant is much more secure than bathrooms where there aren't a lot of people around.
There's a murder case in Massachusetts now.
http://wgntv.com/2015/11/20/video-shows-teachers-last-steps-before-being...
He killed her in the women's bathroom. If it were an office building instead of a school, the bathroom would probably require a key.
There's a murder case in Massachusetts now.
http://wgntv.com/2015/11/20/video-shows-teachers-last-steps-before-being...
He killed her in the women's bathroom. If it were an office building instead of a school, the bathroom would probably require a key.
4
Here's what you're missing. The pendulum has swung too far to the left. It's coming back to the center... fast. To equate transgender rights with the civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s is absurd. No one is buying it. People are willing to make accommodations but there will be no wholesale capitulation. Not now… not this election cycle. Our collective feet are firmly on the brakes. With all the problems we have in this country: poverty, health care, unemployment, education, the environment, our crumbling infrastructure etc. you choose to focus on this. Brilliant! You have finally found an issue that unites rich and poor, black and white, liberal and conservative, young and old, male and female. United we stand against unisex bathrooms! Score another one for the lunatic fringe of the politically correct. This will be vigorously opposed until the major issues facing this country are addressed. Enough is enough. If I didn’t know better I would think articles like this are right wing plot to get Donald Trump elected. Keep it up. You may achieve this goal yet. You did a great job of bringing out the Republican vote in Texas.
17
Now I realize that the solution of redesigning locker rooms and public toilets would incur considerable expense but that seems to be the one that would give all parties equal access. The Girl Scout camp I attended as a teenager recently built a new shower house and guess what, the showers are now private. No longer does anyone need to undress in front of others and take a shower. Body image is a huge issue for young girls when their bodies are developing. All bathrooms and shower facilities should give everyone personal privacy.
13
Body image will likely always be an issue for children, female and male. I understand your point, but I am not sure that "personal privacy" is the way to go. Fears need to be faced, and bullies who make fun of their peers need to be dealt with accordingly.
After all, in some worse case scenarios, if the harassment is in a "private" area with no witnesses, then it becomes a case of 1 vs 1. If harassment takes place in that group shower or the locker room with others standing around, harassment will (and always will regardless of what is done) occur, but can be dealt with because there are now witnesses (and coaches, for example, can patrol the locker room; they cannot patrol the private shower per se).
We live in a communal society (which is intentionally redundant); we need to learn to get along with one another, and part of that is learning to deal with one another's differences. That way we can all act like adults, at least theoretically. But hiding in our own personal showers and toilets and vehicles and houses with our little technological gadgets that allow us to "socialize" yet be near no one will likely not do any of us much good.
Again, society needs to grow up.
After all, in some worse case scenarios, if the harassment is in a "private" area with no witnesses, then it becomes a case of 1 vs 1. If harassment takes place in that group shower or the locker room with others standing around, harassment will (and always will regardless of what is done) occur, but can be dealt with because there are now witnesses (and coaches, for example, can patrol the locker room; they cannot patrol the private shower per se).
We live in a communal society (which is intentionally redundant); we need to learn to get along with one another, and part of that is learning to deal with one another's differences. That way we can all act like adults, at least theoretically. But hiding in our own personal showers and toilets and vehicles and houses with our little technological gadgets that allow us to "socialize" yet be near no one will likely not do any of us much good.
Again, society needs to grow up.
1
The simple fact that more and more often the restroom is simply a bathroom to be used by which ever gender is in it first seems to suggest that if bathrooms were built in such a way - single person use - then much of this hoopla would go away. That being said, I understand the efficiency, financial and otherwise, of a large, many person accommodating bathroom. Fine. Many single-use stalls and a row of enclosed urinals with a sign on the outside of that stall stating 'Urinals'.
Part of this problem, though, is the inhibition of people to use a toilet around other people. I experienced this from men when I was in the military (although the DIs work quickly to break you of that - 'Cross sabers!' boys, i.e. share that urinal), and my wife complains quite a bit how women, more often young females, sometimes verge on the hysterical when she walks around the shower room (large gym) naked and, god forbid, enters the sauna naked (with a towel).
Obviously, puritanism is hugely embedded into the USA psyche. We need to grow up.
Part of this problem, though, is the inhibition of people to use a toilet around other people. I experienced this from men when I was in the military (although the DIs work quickly to break you of that - 'Cross sabers!' boys, i.e. share that urinal), and my wife complains quite a bit how women, more often young females, sometimes verge on the hysterical when she walks around the shower room (large gym) naked and, god forbid, enters the sauna naked (with a towel).
Obviously, puritanism is hugely embedded into the USA psyche. We need to grow up.
1
Having been a competitive swimmer most of my life, from age group to college through to masters swimming, I have changed and used bathrooms all over the world. In France the chances that someone will run into someone of the opposite or different sex in the locker rooms or toilets is very high including security guards with dogs and AK47 guns (long before the recent terror activity. But I have also been in gym locker rooms here in Utah where mothers have brought ten and eleven year old boys into the changing areas for what must be their sex ed
1
The problem with American "rest" rooms is the lack of privacy. If the stalls had walls that went from floor to ceiling, as is common in Europe, I would have no problem with making them unisex, but as it is I don't want someone who looks like a male sharing the space.
8
I am happy to support solutions for this issue, but despair at yet another word -- accommodate -- banned by the thought police for its negative implications. This endless game of "gotcha" with vocabulary is wearisome and counterproductive; pushed too far, it makes a mockery of the causes it seeks to advance. It is also producing a generation of students who are conflating real sensitivity and empathy with the much cruder and more cynical art of identifying which words and concepts are "dangerous," and to be avoided.
10
Whatever parts you have, and whether or not they're the ones you started life with, you're welcome in the bathroom I'm using. Please don't be embarrassed for me if my back is visible to you while I use the urinal, even if we have a few different parts. I'm really not worried about your seeing some shred of my body while I take care of necessary functions.
If we wind up in the bathroom together at the same time, you should know that I'm not a rapist and I'm not getting off on whatever you're exposing. I'm here for business. By the way, I don't think you're some helpless victim, or hussy, or sissy, or freak, or whatever others might have suggested to you. And most other people won't think that either.
Finally, if you're bothered by this, please tell me. We can deal with this without new signs, awkward laws or a plethora of new and specialized bathroom facilities.
Thanks. Good talk.
If we wind up in the bathroom together at the same time, you should know that I'm not a rapist and I'm not getting off on whatever you're exposing. I'm here for business. By the way, I don't think you're some helpless victim, or hussy, or sissy, or freak, or whatever others might have suggested to you. And most other people won't think that either.
Finally, if you're bothered by this, please tell me. We can deal with this without new signs, awkward laws or a plethora of new and specialized bathroom facilities.
Thanks. Good talk.
4
I'm bothered by this. I have watched my entire life as men (chromosomes do matter) are accommodated over women. Transgender women? They may feel and identify and essentially believe they are women. But they have all the facets of maleness and I don't want to share a bathroom with them. Completely transitioned? Sure, come on in. You're a girl. But before that, no.
2
According to the 2010 census there are about 309,000,000 people in the USA. Of these, 700,000 list themselves as transgender. Got these numbers off of the web and we all know the web never lies. So my math says we have about 2% of the population that claims to be transgender. Just for reference, consider these facts: 618,000 kids are on the autism spectrum, roughly 50% of kids are born to unwed mothers and a fourth of the children in this country go to bed hungry each night. Why not concentrate on these solvable issues and not the feelings of a small minority of the population. I am sure that most women and men would accept transgender folk in the same bathroom with them if they would have the appropriate surgery to make them more like what they claim to be.
4
The reason men's room lines are shorter is because men can use a urinal. We don't need privacy. We need to pee.
Don't penalize us in this debate. That's the problem with unisex toilets: they slow everyone's usage down to the pace of the slowest people's. Let those of us who are willing to let it hang out in front of others in order to get in and get out of the public toilet continue to do so. Keep that line moving.
Don't penalize us in this debate. That's the problem with unisex toilets: they slow everyone's usage down to the pace of the slowest people's. Let those of us who are willing to let it hang out in front of others in order to get in and get out of the public toilet continue to do so. Keep that line moving.
2
I think the only solution that would work for everyone is completely segregated bathrooms, with a sink, urinal (optional), and a toilet, like on an airplane, which works right? Millions of people use this system daily without complaint AFAIK.
BTW, I identify as male but sit down and pee. I prefer the company of women to men, and the thought patterns of women to men (and I've been the only male in my family since my died when I was four: mother and sister; and now married with two daughters). I am attracted to women but not to men (though men try to pick me up sometimes) - I am extremely comfortable with my gender identity and sexuality. I'd like to think I think of all the women in my life whenever I think about something and I raise my kids to be open minded and accepting/tolerant.
I think there is indeed a spectrum between male and female and it is supported by biology and science: it has to do with the presence of particular hormones and their quantities, rates, and patterns at which they are expressed, used, and metabolised. Genitalia alone does not define gender. We now do sophisticated gene and protein expression studies to understand phenotype and if we applied these techniques to all the humans in the world, regardless of whether they had a penis or a vagina, we'd see a continuum of distributions.
BTW, I identify as male but sit down and pee. I prefer the company of women to men, and the thought patterns of women to men (and I've been the only male in my family since my died when I was four: mother and sister; and now married with two daughters). I am attracted to women but not to men (though men try to pick me up sometimes) - I am extremely comfortable with my gender identity and sexuality. I'd like to think I think of all the women in my life whenever I think about something and I raise my kids to be open minded and accepting/tolerant.
I think there is indeed a spectrum between male and female and it is supported by biology and science: it has to do with the presence of particular hormones and their quantities, rates, and patterns at which they are expressed, used, and metabolised. Genitalia alone does not define gender. We now do sophisticated gene and protein expression studies to understand phenotype and if we applied these techniques to all the humans in the world, regardless of whether they had a penis or a vagina, we'd see a continuum of distributions.
3
As a male software engineer, I can tell you that finding an open bathroom when the other gender has plenty of room is not just a problem for women! Of course, the cause is different, and one could easily argue that it is another result of sexism.
Frankly, I've never been entirely comfortable with the level of privacy in public bathrooms. Of course, I use them, but more because nature's call can only be ignored for so long.
The privacy issue can be solved by making _all_ bathrooms more private. This would be expensive (esp for existing buildings), but it wouldn't break the bank, and everyone would benefit. In particular, we would totally avoid the awkwardness faced by transgender people. Furthermore, we would eliminate imbalance (whether it be male or female).
As noted in Brown vs. Board, even though in principle, separate and equal are distinct issues; in practice, separate inevitably leads to unequal. Therefore, let us slough bathrooms separated by gender, and address privacy by (gasp) making bathrooms more private!
Frankly, I've never been entirely comfortable with the level of privacy in public bathrooms. Of course, I use them, but more because nature's call can only be ignored for so long.
The privacy issue can be solved by making _all_ bathrooms more private. This would be expensive (esp for existing buildings), but it wouldn't break the bank, and everyone would benefit. In particular, we would totally avoid the awkwardness faced by transgender people. Furthermore, we would eliminate imbalance (whether it be male or female).
As noted in Brown vs. Board, even though in principle, separate and equal are distinct issues; in practice, separate inevitably leads to unequal. Therefore, let us slough bathrooms separated by gender, and address privacy by (gasp) making bathrooms more private!
5
How lopsided we are becoming. The right is spewing hate and intolerance, while the left is trying to outdo them at the other end. I am socially liberal, but despite the author's attempt to convince me, I am not buying this argument.
My 8-year old daughter takes swim classes at a college nearby. In the locker room, she is in her birthday suit while she is drying and changing, as are many other girls and women. The day I see anyone there with a penis, I will scream and call police/security.
If someone born male undergoes hormone therapy, surgery, and at a casual glance looks female in their birthday suit, THEN AND ONLY THEN would I be OK with him/her using the female locker room.
My 8-year old daughter takes swim classes at a college nearby. In the locker room, she is in her birthday suit while she is drying and changing, as are many other girls and women. The day I see anyone there with a penis, I will scream and call police/security.
If someone born male undergoes hormone therapy, surgery, and at a casual glance looks female in their birthday suit, THEN AND ONLY THEN would I be OK with him/her using the female locker room.
11
For all the "oh noes! someone with different genitals is using the bathroom stall next to me" panic people: why do you care? It's not like you're watching others relieve themselves (right? I certainly hope not). Plus it's pretty sexist from both sides to assume both that men who are men are going to sneak into a women's bathroom to assault women and that women who are women never do those things.
I'd venture a guess that someone who has transitioned in either direction is far less safe entering the bathroom of their original presumed gender than the vast majority of the rest of us would be if someone with something different in their pants entered our spaces. (So quit the panic already.)
I'd venture a guess that someone who has transitioned in either direction is far less safe entering the bathroom of their original presumed gender than the vast majority of the rest of us would be if someone with something different in their pants entered our spaces. (So quit the panic already.)
3
What a an act of intimidation this article is. The clear inference is that anyone who opposes separation is motivated by bigotry. Too many people give in to these demands because they are repulsed by the possibility of being either hateful or discriminatory. That is why this method of promoting a point of view is used so often. But as is clear from so many comments here, many woman are smarter than that. They understand that securing public places where they can feel safe is in no way an attempt to marginalized others. It is, rather, an affirmation of their concern for all woman.
14
"Other girls with their own reasons for shielding their bodies from view might welcome a curtain, too."
Hear, hear! As SCOTUS Justice Ginsburg pointed out, the differences between schools' male locker rooms and female locker rooms are enormous. Most girls dislike (even hate) being naked around their peers; there's hardly any camaraderie, it's just change change leave. A curtain for every girl (not just those with their period or who are switching gender) would be ideal.
Megan Shull's middle-school novel The Swap explores the issue more vividly!
Hear, hear! As SCOTUS Justice Ginsburg pointed out, the differences between schools' male locker rooms and female locker rooms are enormous. Most girls dislike (even hate) being naked around their peers; there's hardly any camaraderie, it's just change change leave. A curtain for every girl (not just those with their period or who are switching gender) would be ideal.
Megan Shull's middle-school novel The Swap explores the issue more vividly!
3
Boys don't like being naked in the locker room with each other either. However, I think being naked around others and getting over the embarassment and self consciousness is an important part of growing up, accepting yourself and your body, etc.
people use toilets to relieve their bodies of waste. unless they are degenerates very few people wish to share such experience, whether they are the gender assured majority or a dualistic or confused minority. take private profit out of the dilemma, put public good in, create very private toilets for all of the public and end of all this nonsense.
3
Young children make up about 10% of our population, at least 100 times the number of transgender people. Yet, most public bathrooms are utterly unaccommodating for them. Even in NYC, where age discrimination is against the law, nothing has been done to improve the public bathroom experience for kids. Just reaching the faucet is impossible for most under-6 year olds, and even if they do so (with a grown-up's help! -- a task that normally then can perfectly well do themselves), they end up less clean than before washing up, because they have to literally put their arms into the sink, just to reach the water. Let's give the few transgender individuals their privacy, while we get busy addressing the concerns of tens of millions of (small) people.
3
So what is this argument really about? Man identifies as a woman and wants to use the women's bathroom? I don't see transgender women who identify as men knocking down the walls to use the men's room. At the end of the day this is just men- imposing their will on women, and the culture at large as well. How Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner could have won a woman of the year award should tell you everything. Sorry for the women who actually deserved that award. Once again, move over ladies... the men are here again.
17
Emily Baezelon makes a rare point, if inadvertently. The point is that, whatever your gender (assigned or otherwise) using the bathroom or locker is not a big deal, drama queens notwithstanding. I have yet to see an example, even anecdotal, of an incident that resembles the "reasons" some object to what is really an insignificant change. Sexual fear trumps reason yet again.
1
"Unisex" is exactly what the "transgender" ideology is all about: pretending that sex does not matter, that physical sexuality is irrelevant to what is in one's head. Apart from being scientifically bogus, most Americans happily still recognize that it demands the next surrender of reality in the face of pretended "rights."
5
In all this discussion, a theme I have often seen before repeats: transgender women (those born as men) want access to a space that heretofore has been for women only, and demand access to that space. These individuals born as men wanting access to women's space, tend to view themselves as an oppressed minority, and paint the women who would keep them out of that space, as intolerant oppressors. THe sexism of such a viewpoint is often disingenuously dismissed.
Transgender women believe that they are women, but women born as women are under no obligation to view them as women, and many do not. There is a difference between a "trans woman" and a woman. Where this difference is minimized or dismissed, there is often a lack of respect for the experience of women.
I suggest three types of restrooms: one for women, one for men, and one private restroom that is for either, where you lock the door and there is one set of facilities and no one else can enter when you are there. It seems to me that many people would actually prefer not to be in the restroom with ANYONE else, regardless of the other person's gender, genitalia, chromosomes, attire, or inner experience of their gender. So having unisex single room restrooms could serve the needs that many have for privacy.
Transgender women believe that they are women, but women born as women are under no obligation to view them as women, and many do not. There is a difference between a "trans woman" and a woman. Where this difference is minimized or dismissed, there is often a lack of respect for the experience of women.
I suggest three types of restrooms: one for women, one for men, and one private restroom that is for either, where you lock the door and there is one set of facilities and no one else can enter when you are there. It seems to me that many people would actually prefer not to be in the restroom with ANYONE else, regardless of the other person's gender, genitalia, chromosomes, attire, or inner experience of their gender. So having unisex single room restrooms could serve the needs that many have for privacy.
14
With all the problems in the world, it's really hard to have any empathy here and even harder to believe there are grown ups seriously debating this issue. Really, who cares ?
1
The objectors in this thread would be just as certain about the inappropriateness of ending Jim Crow segregation as they are now about disregarding the equal treatment of transgender individuals.
Many of you, both men and women, would have argued against womens' rights to vote or work, using similar logic about some assumed fitness or weakness of an entire class of people.
And you probably argued against the right for homosexuals to marry.
You're probably arguing against allowing refugees into the country right now.
You do this because you fear change, because you lack empathy for things you cannot quickly relate, or because you are reluctant to cede any shred of power you feel you have over someone else.
Because of you, superior individuals fought for our civil rights laws. They reached down into the spirit of American culture and forced you to accept them with its righteousness for equal treatment of all citizens, and you will accept transgender individuals with those same class protections. You'll have no choice, because equality is right, and because it is the American way of life.
I hope you learn to be accepting rather than forming this tedious, wasteful, and repetitive rut of pointless protest that has propelled this society not to the heights of human achievement and grace, but to the darkest and filthiest wells of decay and ignorance you could imagine. Please do better!
“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.” - Maya Angelou
Many of you, both men and women, would have argued against womens' rights to vote or work, using similar logic about some assumed fitness or weakness of an entire class of people.
And you probably argued against the right for homosexuals to marry.
You're probably arguing against allowing refugees into the country right now.
You do this because you fear change, because you lack empathy for things you cannot quickly relate, or because you are reluctant to cede any shred of power you feel you have over someone else.
Because of you, superior individuals fought for our civil rights laws. They reached down into the spirit of American culture and forced you to accept them with its righteousness for equal treatment of all citizens, and you will accept transgender individuals with those same class protections. You'll have no choice, because equality is right, and because it is the American way of life.
I hope you learn to be accepting rather than forming this tedious, wasteful, and repetitive rut of pointless protest that has propelled this society not to the heights of human achievement and grace, but to the darkest and filthiest wells of decay and ignorance you could imagine. Please do better!
“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.” - Maya Angelou
1
Please explain how having separate bathrooms for men and women is like racial segregation or preventing black people from voting. Because despite what you write, it's not at all self-evident.
6
I think your assessment is not very accurate. While some people who resist this idea are certainly the ones you describe it most are women who have been, and continue to be, margenalized and victimized by men and patriarchal attitudes and so are not willing to accept men just because they claim to be women any more than blacks who have been eslaved, victimized and institutionally held back by whites, are willing to accept a woman with two Caucasian parents as black just because she really wants to be. You can't just shed your privilege and wrap yourself in the mantle of the very people you have victimized and even worse claim it is you who is being mistreated.
5
Most women do not fear transgenders using female bathrooms. Toilets in women's rooms are in separate private stalls so one may excrete in privacy. Transgenders are not seen as big criminal threats to women.
Yet, men assault, rape and murder women in bathrooms. A teenager is on trial right now in Massachusetts for following his math teacher into a bathroom, raping and murdering her. Women have legitimate safety concerns about allowing males into bathrooms.
Science tells us and most people get that sex is biological and inexorable, maleness determined by XY chromosomes, femaleness by XX. No amount of makeup, clothes, hormones or surgical mutilation can change sex; asking people to believe totherwise is asking them to pretend the naked emperor has clothes on. We do not put one who thinks he is a fish in an aquarium, we get that he is delusional and mentally ill. A male who thinks he is female, who hates his body so much he wants to chop parts off needs compassionate mental health treatment, and not indulgence of his delusions.
Many object to normalizing transgenderism and that expanding transgender privileges indulges male supremacism, giving XY-chromosomed males the power to decide what privacy rights women must relinquish to XYs. Women see inherent misogyny in XYs seeking to compete with women in contests of athleticism, beauty, MM, attempting to prove that males pretending to be female are superior to real women.
Bathrooms are not really the problem.
Yet, men assault, rape and murder women in bathrooms. A teenager is on trial right now in Massachusetts for following his math teacher into a bathroom, raping and murdering her. Women have legitimate safety concerns about allowing males into bathrooms.
Science tells us and most people get that sex is biological and inexorable, maleness determined by XY chromosomes, femaleness by XX. No amount of makeup, clothes, hormones or surgical mutilation can change sex; asking people to believe totherwise is asking them to pretend the naked emperor has clothes on. We do not put one who thinks he is a fish in an aquarium, we get that he is delusional and mentally ill. A male who thinks he is female, who hates his body so much he wants to chop parts off needs compassionate mental health treatment, and not indulgence of his delusions.
Many object to normalizing transgenderism and that expanding transgender privileges indulges male supremacism, giving XY-chromosomed males the power to decide what privacy rights women must relinquish to XYs. Women see inherent misogyny in XYs seeking to compete with women in contests of athleticism, beauty, MM, attempting to prove that males pretending to be female are superior to real women.
Bathrooms are not really the problem.
13
If Theresa-This-Week is still playing with makeup and dresses, yet sports her original equipment, then she has no business in a women's room. A woman isn't whatever a man says it is. We've been through enough of men defining women's appearance, behavior, and now even basic composition to put up with any more of this appropriation. Chop it all off, Theresa -- remove once and for all your ability to regain male privilege at the drop of a bra and the swiping off your clownlike makeup -- and then we can talk.
11
Hasn't anyone else been to a bar with co-ed restrooms? I know I've been to at least a couple. It seems odd at first, but since all the toilets are in stalls, it ends up not being that big of a deal. Granted, the doorways were open and there were attendants directing people to open stalls, so maybe this removes the safety concerns everyone is worried about.
But as far as those safety concerns...how often are you in a public restroom alone? And if you are? What is preventing a male from watching you go in solo and following you? It's not like the ladies' room has a lock.
On the other hand, to those who are concerned with the loss of the female 'meeting place' - I will admit it was odd applying lipstick next to the guy washing his hands at the sink next to me. (What if he was the one I was hoping would ask me out?)
But as far as those safety concerns...how often are you in a public restroom alone? And if you are? What is preventing a male from watching you go in solo and following you? It's not like the ladies' room has a lock.
On the other hand, to those who are concerned with the loss of the female 'meeting place' - I will admit it was odd applying lipstick next to the guy washing his hands at the sink next to me. (What if he was the one I was hoping would ask me out?)
What seems to be ignored here is that women have special needs in a bathroom, beoynd those of men.
Like dealing with those monthly periods, which involve changing pads or tampons, for example. Not many women are keen on doing that next to men.
Like dealing with those monthly periods, which involve changing pads or tampons, for example. Not many women are keen on doing that next to men.
9
Could we pause this onslaught of NYT trying to push their transgender propaganda and ask for some clarification. Define transgender. I don't see a consistent definition online. It seems that transgender is anyone who has a "feeling" that they are the opposite sex. They may have felt this since childhood, or they may have decided one day to be the opposite sex and then decided later to change their minds.
Since you don't need to alter your biology to be considered transgender, can you look just like a typical male or female and call yourself transgender? Why in the world are men and boys allowed to compete in a girls high school sports team. A muscular, 6'5" male loaded with testosterone can compete on a girls sports team and insist on showering and changing with the girls. Are you kidding!! Women fought hard for some sense of equality with Title IX and now the girl sports champions can be crushed and defeated by men who think they should be on the girls team? Why don't the Olympics allow men to compete on women's teams?
Too often it seems that men who "identify" as women cling to some stupid stereotype of women: showing emotions, wearing high heels, sexy dresses and lots of makeup. While women fought hard for the ability to dress as they please, men still can't wear "women's" clothes. I'm not convinced that some men who claim to be transgender, whatever that is, might not be better off working to open up the tightly constrained definition of what it means to be a man.
Since you don't need to alter your biology to be considered transgender, can you look just like a typical male or female and call yourself transgender? Why in the world are men and boys allowed to compete in a girls high school sports team. A muscular, 6'5" male loaded with testosterone can compete on a girls sports team and insist on showering and changing with the girls. Are you kidding!! Women fought hard for some sense of equality with Title IX and now the girl sports champions can be crushed and defeated by men who think they should be on the girls team? Why don't the Olympics allow men to compete on women's teams?
Too often it seems that men who "identify" as women cling to some stupid stereotype of women: showing emotions, wearing high heels, sexy dresses and lots of makeup. While women fought hard for the ability to dress as they please, men still can't wear "women's" clothes. I'm not convinced that some men who claim to be transgender, whatever that is, might not be better off working to open up the tightly constrained definition of what it means to be a man.
17
Of course this problem is only really apparent when non-passing trans folk use the bathroom of their preferred gender. Those who do pass will (thankfully) be able to continue to use them unnoticed, as they have done for a long time, with no incident & regardless of what's in their underwear.
Personally, I would be terrified if I was a trans woman who presented unconvincingly as female & was forced to use the mens room!
Personally, I would be terrified if I was a trans woman who presented unconvincingly as female & was forced to use the mens room!
Just this week I went to a presentation on disability access at the London Olympics site. The site was designed to be used by people with disabilities.
I asked about the bathrooms. The presenter said that they have mens' bath rooms, women's bathrooms, and unisex bathrooms. The unisex bathrooms are designed to be big enough for a wheel chair, and an assistant to someone in a wheel chair. So even there there aren't provisions for transsexual use of bathrooms -- they are supposed to use the big unisex bathrooms generally used by families with small children and people needing assistance. They said that too many people have religious restrictions to have group unisex bathrooms.
The Olympics in London had a big budget and the site was designed to be reused as a public park.
As far as encouraging kids to shower in their underwear, I read another study that said that boys who only shower in private get complexes because they think their bodies should look like the male bodies in porno movies.
I asked about the bathrooms. The presenter said that they have mens' bath rooms, women's bathrooms, and unisex bathrooms. The unisex bathrooms are designed to be big enough for a wheel chair, and an assistant to someone in a wheel chair. So even there there aren't provisions for transsexual use of bathrooms -- they are supposed to use the big unisex bathrooms generally used by families with small children and people needing assistance. They said that too many people have religious restrictions to have group unisex bathrooms.
The Olympics in London had a big budget and the site was designed to be reused as a public park.
As far as encouraging kids to shower in their underwear, I read another study that said that boys who only shower in private get complexes because they think their bodies should look like the male bodies in porno movies.
1
The author, by no means, write a coherent solution. She left me with the impression she is mulling over many conundrums not immediately solvable in a cultural context. Although, she offered many "what if`s".
I'm not particularly sympathetic to the call for accommodation by a small group of people insisting I redefine many of the principles I grew up with. The more strident the voice the less I find myself interested to even participate in the conversation. Actually, someone yelling at you telling you how wrong you are doesn't even fit my definition of a conversation... or even a debate.
But then I read so,e of the letters in opposition here talking about "those" people and how I don't care what they think or feel or hurt because my pain is more real than their's my feel ins and opinions are more human; unconcealed anger and poorly disguised hatred surrounded by irrational fear. So I've decided I'm open to reasonable accommodations if it means I can keep from ending up sounding like some of those people.
But then I read so,e of the letters in opposition here talking about "those" people and how I don't care what they think or feel or hurt because my pain is more real than their's my feel ins and opinions are more human; unconcealed anger and poorly disguised hatred surrounded by irrational fear. So I've decided I'm open to reasonable accommodations if it means I can keep from ending up sounding like some of those people.
I thought that it was not the transwomen who were the object of fear in this case, but the cismen? For women who have legitimate fears of well-documented cismale violence, all-gender toilets can seem like a bad idea (I say this remembering how often as an adolescent girl I was threatened on the street, and so glad that I was in a visible safe space.) No thanks!
3
As I read these comments, it seems to me that in attempting to accommodate transgendered people, there is definitely a danger of not accommodating people who aren't transgendered.
17
As long as one person uses the john at a time I see no problem. But certainly not otherwise.
8
Once again, anything that involves 'sex' or sexual organs, throws Americans into a tizzy. Many countries have had unisex bathrooms, unisex saunas/hot springs, as a matter of course for centuries, and apparently it has worked out so well that no changes were felt needed to be made.
14
And your point is what---that we should not accommodate those who have what you consider to be puritan sensibilities? But I will bet tht you believe that when you go to other countries, you should respect their norms...what about giving the same respect to those of us in this country who don't subscribe to your beliefs?
How ethnocentric. How about asking how the rest of the world does it? I have traveled to many third world countries, and they all have separate gender-segregated bathrooms, even when these are pretty rudimentary.
Women's public washrooms in China are gender-segregated, even though they might involve women squatting next to reach other and chatting while they "do their business"...
Women's public washrooms in China are gender-segregated, even though they might involve women squatting next to reach other and chatting while they "do their business"...
2
No, it's pretty universal really. In most first-world countries, the only woman in a men's room will be someone cleaning it. The US is only prudish in the sense that female cleaners must wait until the room is empty before cleaning it. This "transgender" nonsense is too much already--most people don't but it in a literal sense even if we are all clear that gender and its expression exists on a continuum. You are not Napoleon despite your protests otherwise.
2
I really don't care who is in the restroom with me as long as he or she is peaceful and leaves me alone. But if I see that you have the large hands and feet, and other undisguisable physical characteristics, of a male, yet are dressed as a female, then I reserve the right to stare.
I might even ask you why you feel you have to wear what you conceive as
feminine attire to prove that you are not the male you once were considered to be. I might not say anything.
Just letting you know.
I might even ask you why you feel you have to wear what you conceive as
feminine attire to prove that you are not the male you once were considered to be. I might not say anything.
Just letting you know.
10
"I might not say anything."
That would be the right thing for you to do, since it doesn't increase the disrespect so openly demonstrated by your supposed "reservation" of the supposed "right" to stare.
That would be the right thing for you to do, since it doesn't increase the disrespect so openly demonstrated by your supposed "reservation" of the supposed "right" to stare.
That would be outrageously rude and puts trans people who do not physically "pass" as their chosen gender in harm's way.
Hmmmm. Some women have large hands and feet. Seinfeld even did a "man hands" episode once.
This notion of co-ed bathrooms being 'threatening' to women's safety would only apply in very rare or specific instances. At large-capacity venues (concert halls, theatres, etc.) bathrooms will usually have all stalls in use at the same time (during intermissions). No one would attempt to 'assault' someone at such a time. In most restaurants, when there is a good quorum of diners, again, for someone to try and assault a female patron in the bathroom (in such close proximity to a full restaurant of diners, waitstaff, etc.) would be extremely rare.
Loud bars (where any noise coming from the bathroom could be inaudible)...cafes or fast-food places where diners are alone and/or transient (in and out quickly) could also pose a danger. But the types of venues where co-ed bathrooms would be safe and present many benefits are going to be more of the norm. And if a woman feels that 'threatened' by using a co-ed bathroom she could simply ask someone else to 'guard' the entrance for her etc. I think women are getting too hysterical over this idea and exaggerating the potential for danger.
Loud bars (where any noise coming from the bathroom could be inaudible)...cafes or fast-food places where diners are alone and/or transient (in and out quickly) could also pose a danger. But the types of venues where co-ed bathrooms would be safe and present many benefits are going to be more of the norm. And if a woman feels that 'threatened' by using a co-ed bathroom she could simply ask someone else to 'guard' the entrance for her etc. I think women are getting too hysterical over this idea and exaggerating the potential for danger.
4
Lisa, threat to women's safety "would only would only apply in very rare or specific instances" -- is that not bad enough? I don't wish it on any woman. One is too much! Don't be such a sell-out.
4
I (female) am all for communal bathrooms. The biggest problem with male vs female-only bathrooms presents itself at large venues (concerts, the theatre, etc.) when large numbers of people all head to the bathroom at once. Then we see huge lines for the women's room but not for the men's.
Yes, it takes a bit longer for women to use the toilet as it involves the removal of more clothing, whereas men can just 'whip it out' for the most part. But beyond that, women have more of a tendency to 'dilly-dally' which irritates me to no end. Women see long lines all the time in their bathrooms, so out of courtesy they should be preparing in advance while they are in line (opening up your belt, undoing top snap, etc....anything to help speed the process). Similarly when they are done with the toilet, they can still be modest while exiting the stall, and finishing buttoning up their pants, their zipper, their belt etc., OUTSIDE the stall. Wash your hands and grab a paper towel to dry as you are exiting. Use your head on how to get in and out as quickly as possible, for the benefit of others behind you.
Even though it takes longer for women, and there's nothing we can do to change that fact, women could do more to speed up the process in small ways. And so I feel that if the lines were comprised of men AND women waiting together, the men would be more apt to incent the women to hurry up more. Women DO dilly-dally. They need to see this process as more of an in-and-out thing.
Yes, it takes a bit longer for women to use the toilet as it involves the removal of more clothing, whereas men can just 'whip it out' for the most part. But beyond that, women have more of a tendency to 'dilly-dally' which irritates me to no end. Women see long lines all the time in their bathrooms, so out of courtesy they should be preparing in advance while they are in line (opening up your belt, undoing top snap, etc....anything to help speed the process). Similarly when they are done with the toilet, they can still be modest while exiting the stall, and finishing buttoning up their pants, their zipper, their belt etc., OUTSIDE the stall. Wash your hands and grab a paper towel to dry as you are exiting. Use your head on how to get in and out as quickly as possible, for the benefit of others behind you.
Even though it takes longer for women, and there's nothing we can do to change that fact, women could do more to speed up the process in small ways. And so I feel that if the lines were comprised of men AND women waiting together, the men would be more apt to incent the women to hurry up more. Women DO dilly-dally. They need to see this process as more of an in-and-out thing.
2
How undressed do you think that they would be before they get to the door to the Ladies' Room?
1
I wouldn't call zipping up my pants while still in the stall "dilly dallying". It's called basic decency.
5
A person with a penis does not belong in the women's restroom. That person should be accommodated with a private toilet. Everybody's rights need to be respected, not just those of the minority.
55
A neighbor of mine is a strong feminist.
On one occasion she heard a man come in the ladies room and enter the adjacent stall.
She could see his feet which were pointed toward the toilet.
The man urinated standing up as most guys do.
Was this person transgender or just someone who was in the wrong restroom?
My neighbor knew not.
She just knew that she was very uncomfortable by the experience.
Someone with a penis does not belong in the women's room.
Someone who doesn't have a penis does not belong in the men's room.
Simple as that.
On one occasion she heard a man come in the ladies room and enter the adjacent stall.
She could see his feet which were pointed toward the toilet.
The man urinated standing up as most guys do.
Was this person transgender or just someone who was in the wrong restroom?
My neighbor knew not.
She just knew that she was very uncomfortable by the experience.
Someone with a penis does not belong in the women's room.
Someone who doesn't have a penis does not belong in the men's room.
Simple as that.
2
But why? And if the person otherwise presented as typically female, how would you even know? What's the harm being done to you?
Unless the .03% minority is male, in which case it appears that the rights of the 50% majority that is female must take second place, as always.
1
"The problem is that this vastly oversimplifies the experience of transgender people and the biology of chromosomes, which can appear in other combinations. There is a spectrum of male and female"
This is ignorance masked as scientific explanation. The author needs to learn more about gene expression and the interplay of paired chromosomes before making this comment. The presence of a Y determines male sex. An XXY, also known as Klinefelter Syndrome, is not somehow "trans." There are many associated problems in a person with Klinefelter but the assertion that they might be "female" is completely wrong.
The OVERWHELMING majority of trans people are XX or XY with a delusional disorder, a fixed false belief, of which gender identity disorder was a subset. It is interesting the psychiatry community only changed gender identity disorder to "gender dysphoria" but didn't change to "delusional dysphoria" covering a much larger spectrum of false beliefs. It was politics leading subjective diagnostic criteria.
This is ignorance masked as scientific explanation. The author needs to learn more about gene expression and the interplay of paired chromosomes before making this comment. The presence of a Y determines male sex. An XXY, also known as Klinefelter Syndrome, is not somehow "trans." There are many associated problems in a person with Klinefelter but the assertion that they might be "female" is completely wrong.
The OVERWHELMING majority of trans people are XX or XY with a delusional disorder, a fixed false belief, of which gender identity disorder was a subset. It is interesting the psychiatry community only changed gender identity disorder to "gender dysphoria" but didn't change to "delusional dysphoria" covering a much larger spectrum of false beliefs. It was politics leading subjective diagnostic criteria.
50
ES
As you point out, none of the major medical groups agree with your view. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the bible on mental conditions, specifically states that gender dysphoria is not a mental disorder.
Perhaps the opinions of thousands of medical professionals who actually study and work with transgender people are more accurate.
As you point out, none of the major medical groups agree with your view. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the bible on mental conditions, specifically states that gender dysphoria is not a mental disorder.
Perhaps the opinions of thousands of medical professionals who actually study and work with transgender people are more accurate.
That you call the DSM the "bible" speaks to your own personal bias. Psychiatry and psychology, more than any other medical specialty, rely on sets of subjective diagnostic criteria unlike, say hypertension or anemia, which are defined by actual values. The decision to cast transgenderism as the new normal is political. And, no, there is not universal agreement among thousands of mental health providers as you suggest.
You know I agree with a lot of the comments here supporting seperate bathroom spaces. As a man I don't want to share the bathroom with women - I don't want to impinge on their safe space because that is incredibly important for them - particularly given that a man in enclosed space could be quite threatening.
I also don't want to go to the bathroom and feel judged - having someone looking at me wondering if I'm going to attack them or worse. I just want to go to the bathroom in peace and not be judged or feel I have to act 'safe'.
If you think that is an over-reaction look at many of the comments on this page equating males with rapists.
Also it is just plain embarrassing to drop a stinky number two and walk out to see a female colleague. Somethings are just best left to people of your own gender.
And to all those people saying that male toilets are worse than female toilets - I worked in a cinema for years and the female toilets were routinely far far far worse. Long story short - all toilets are gross - independent of gender.
I also don't want to go to the bathroom and feel judged - having someone looking at me wondering if I'm going to attack them or worse. I just want to go to the bathroom in peace and not be judged or feel I have to act 'safe'.
If you think that is an over-reaction look at many of the comments on this page equating males with rapists.
Also it is just plain embarrassing to drop a stinky number two and walk out to see a female colleague. Somethings are just best left to people of your own gender.
And to all those people saying that male toilets are worse than female toilets - I worked in a cinema for years and the female toilets were routinely far far far worse. Long story short - all toilets are gross - independent of gender.
39
Ms. Bazelon, maybe you don't get out very much. Where restaurant toilets are known to be one-at-a-time, it is common in many areas for a waiting person to take the first unoccupied toilet room, regardless of gender indication. Some restaurants use a unisex symbol on the door, but some haven't gotten around to that and the patrons deal with it anyway. There are ways to be respectful about this, and ways to send signals ahead to politely avoid startling the next customer, who may not be expecting to see a male emerge through a door with a skirted silhouette. A larger social problem is the plastic liner bags in the waste receptacles, that repel all discarded items onto the floor until some brave soul with faith in her/his immune system gathers the litter from the floor and mashes it into the bin. :-)
6
I am cis-Asian but I am really white. I fully expect to be accommodated as such when I apply to college!
21
I'd write "oh brother" at the silliness of this 'made-for-TV' non-issue but would probably be chided for being sexist or transphobic or some other made up word by the liberal academic wing it community.
15
Some of my best friends have penises. That doesn't mean I wish to shower with them. For the state to try to mandate that girls and women are expected to disrobe around *strangers* with penises - well, all the cries of "transphobia" or the astounding attempt to portray women's wish for sex-segregated facilities as some sort of old-fashioned longing for a "camaraderie of the ladies’ room" - as the author does - will be met by ever-increasing resistance as more people understand what is truly at stake here.
Dress as you wish. Believe what you will. Live your lives. Go be you, whatever that may be. But do not expect us to be complicit in a delusion which may endanger - or even inconvenience - the 99.9 per cent of women who do not use the prefix, transgender.
Dress as you wish. Believe what you will. Live your lives. Go be you, whatever that may be. But do not expect us to be complicit in a delusion which may endanger - or even inconvenience - the 99.9 per cent of women who do not use the prefix, transgender.
77
"There is a spectrum of male and female..."
Lol
No, there's not.
Lol
No, there's not.
47
Ok, first of all...good for the Trans-woman who says this is non-issue...but as another trans-woman who has transitioned for a little longer than you, believe me it will happen to you one day. Or, you are one of the lucky ones who is 100% passable. If so, excellent for you. As for me, I hate going to the bathroom so much. I usually just blur my vision and try not to make eye contact or talk to anyone. Every once in awhile though it doesn't work, and some woman who doesn't understand or is some sort of second-wave feminist sometimes makes me going to the bathroom into a traumatic event that leads to hours of crying and feeling like a freak who doesn't deserve to live.
The reason I commented though is all the people commenting about genetics. I'm sure the second-wave feminist commentators would make all sorts of accommodations for a woman with Turner Syndrome (X) or complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (XY but with female external genitalia and internal atrophied testes). No, they don't even realize these people exist. They believe the world fits simply into XY patriarchy and XX victimization. To these people all I have to say is please reduce your ignorance. Gender is not defined by XY or XX. Gender is fluid and determined by a complex interplay of multiple genes and ones environment.
Many people think they need the simplicity of a black and white universe. Once they embrace the gray, I think they will find that the world has become a much better place.
The reason I commented though is all the people commenting about genetics. I'm sure the second-wave feminist commentators would make all sorts of accommodations for a woman with Turner Syndrome (X) or complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (XY but with female external genitalia and internal atrophied testes). No, they don't even realize these people exist. They believe the world fits simply into XY patriarchy and XX victimization. To these people all I have to say is please reduce your ignorance. Gender is not defined by XY or XX. Gender is fluid and determined by a complex interplay of multiple genes and ones environment.
Many people think they need the simplicity of a black and white universe. Once they embrace the gray, I think they will find that the world has become a much better place.
16
You lost me at "second-wave feminist."
8
It seems to me to be above all a basic safety issue -- for transgender women in particular. If a person who looks like a woman walks into a men's room, there's a good chance that, once certain men realise she has a penis under that skirt, she would be physically attacked. Of course not every single time. Probably not even most of the time. But a real risk nonetheless.
Conversely, as a woman, it's hard to imagine feeling threatened if a transgender woman were to walk into the ladies room. Mild curiosity, perhaps. But not fear.
Conversely, as a woman, it's hard to imagine feeling threatened if a transgender woman were to walk into the ladies room. Mild curiosity, perhaps. But not fear.
16
If you would find it 'hard to imagine feeling threatened' in a situation where you were showering at a gym and a naked man walked in (because today he 'felt' like a woman), then you have indeed had a lucky life.
3
Notes from the frontlines. Went to Whitney Museum and used the gender neutral facilities. Let me apologize on behalf of my filthy brethren for the wretched conditions. Pee all over the place. Do women really need this kind of "equality"? As for pre-op m to f trans ppl, I hope your disassociation w your birth sex means that you to sit not stand, otherwise I'd say you are truly trying to have it both ways at women's expense.
26
Just because a person is a transgendered woman who was born with male sexual organs, does not mean that she is not sexually attracted to women, and not to men. It just means she identifies as female and not the gender assigned at birth, and wishes others to accept & identify her as a woman, too. People feel sexual desire, is it not true that a transgendered woman who has not had surgery to remove her make sexual organs will not still feel sexual desire and want to use the organs she still has? I have several transgendered friends and acquaintances, two of whom have had surgery and are on hormones. One is small in stature and one is the size of the Incredible Hulk. Most men are physically stronger than most women - and most Trans women still carry that physical strength.
As a victim of rape, I absolutely would not be comfortable sharing a space with anyone - acquaintance, classmate, colleague, or stranger - who has an attached, functioning penis, if any part of my vagina, breasts or anus will be guaranteed to be exposed to open air behind a closed door, be it showering, dressing/changing in various states of undress, or evacuating waste. I have nothing against Trans people, and I know this isn't the case for most Trans women, but it provides a way in for those who are looking to exploit it, and also for men with criminal minds who are not Trans.
I don't see Trans men who have not yet fully transitioned demanding to be allowed into men's bathrooms or placed in men's prisons.
As a victim of rape, I absolutely would not be comfortable sharing a space with anyone - acquaintance, classmate, colleague, or stranger - who has an attached, functioning penis, if any part of my vagina, breasts or anus will be guaranteed to be exposed to open air behind a closed door, be it showering, dressing/changing in various states of undress, or evacuating waste. I have nothing against Trans people, and I know this isn't the case for most Trans women, but it provides a way in for those who are looking to exploit it, and also for men with criminal minds who are not Trans.
I don't see Trans men who have not yet fully transitioned demanding to be allowed into men's bathrooms or placed in men's prisons.
26
At my son's college, all of the dorm restrooms are coed. So you can have the slightly uncomfortable feeling of knowing that there is a guy (or woman) in the stall or shower next to you. The students seem fine with it and neither we nor our son has heard of any problems.
When we looked at colleges it seemed like this was common in many of the NE colleges.
When we looked at colleges it seemed like this was common in many of the NE colleges.
1
I am a cisgendered (not-trans) lesbian woman and am physically larger and stronger than most women. I use the women's bathroom routinely, with no problems; I don't see why it would be any different for a trans woman. I'm not there to look at women. I'm DEFINITELY not there to rape women. I'm there to pee.
Bathrooms are bathrooms; they are not for sex. If someone wants to go into them for nefarious purposes, it will not matter at all what sign is on the door. I don't understand how keeping rule-abiding trans women and men out of their appropriate bathrooms/changing rooms/locker rooms does anything to keep anyone safer.
Bathrooms are bathrooms; they are not for sex. If someone wants to go into them for nefarious purposes, it will not matter at all what sign is on the door. I don't understand how keeping rule-abiding trans women and men out of their appropriate bathrooms/changing rooms/locker rooms does anything to keep anyone safer.
1
The article rests on the premise that just because trans women believe they are women everyone else should. By contrast, a substantial body of research shows that these individuals suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is an intense phantasy, a persona. I have no problem with someone wanting to make a phantasy, or persona, an identity. In fact giving the conditions in which they were raised it has a certain inevitability. But before psychology was medicalized, it was much more difficult to physically transform, so many people who suffered from gender dysphoria worked hard at making their sexual and gender identities align. Now medicine has made it "too easy" to take the "easy" road. Moreover, because psychology is dominated by women, and many women do not want to acknowledge that their neglectful, seductive, and abusive parenting skills played a substantive role in transgenderism (along with the husbands they chose), what appears to to be a strictly caring position is in fact loaded with neglect, and therefore by default, abuse. As these differing views are not likely to be resolved anytime soon, it is premature to accept that someone who claims to be a woman is actually one. Instead, as the article suggests, it makes more sense to be treated as a disability. As such, the only solution that makes sense for all parties involved is to make accommodations with gender neutral bath and shower spaces.
6
Inconvenient Truth
Wow! Just wow!
Let's start with your casual, blatant misogyny. Your belief that women's "neglectful, deductive, and abusive parenting skills played a substantive (sic) role in transgenderism (sic)"displays a shocking hatred of women. Most misogynists these days at least try to cloak their misogyny instead of splashing it across the New York Times.
The idea that bad moms cause their children to become transgender is just laughable. Our best guess is that it is a hormone imbalance in the womb that leads to an difference in development of the baby's brain and genitals. Blaming the mom sound like the old, discredited ideas of the causes of homosexuality. Psychiatrists (almost always male) would reach for this explanation because it was simple and easy. The only problem is that the blame-the-mom approach was wrong for lesbians and gays and it is wrong for transgender people.
Wow! Just wow!
Let's start with your casual, blatant misogyny. Your belief that women's "neglectful, deductive, and abusive parenting skills played a substantive (sic) role in transgenderism (sic)"displays a shocking hatred of women. Most misogynists these days at least try to cloak their misogyny instead of splashing it across the New York Times.
The idea that bad moms cause their children to become transgender is just laughable. Our best guess is that it is a hormone imbalance in the womb that leads to an difference in development of the baby's brain and genitals. Blaming the mom sound like the old, discredited ideas of the causes of homosexuality. Psychiatrists (almost always male) would reach for this explanation because it was simple and easy. The only problem is that the blame-the-mom approach was wrong for lesbians and gays and it is wrong for transgender people.
3
Inconvenient Truth
Sorry -- there were so many issues with your post that I had to run over.
You use the correct term, gender dysphoria, but totally mis-characterize it. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the bible for diagnosing and categorizing mental conditions, states explicitly that gender dysphoria is not a mental disease. The simple description of someone with gender dysphoria is that the gender of their brain does not match the sex of their body. They have a boy's brain in a girl's body or vice versa.
Major medical groups with a position on this are unanimous that transgender people are not mentally ill and the best treatment for gender dysphoria is transition.
Anyone who thinks that transitioning is the "easy" road does not have any idea of the level of discrimination, hatred, pain, and violence transgender people face every day. Transgender people who transition (or even just come out) can all too easily lose their parents, children, spouse or SO, home, job, savings, friends, dignity, and lives. Often people opt to transition only when they can no longer meet the demands of society, their families, their friends, their employers, and others that the trans person should continue to pretend to be someone they are not and never were since birth.
Sorry -- there were so many issues with your post that I had to run over.
You use the correct term, gender dysphoria, but totally mis-characterize it. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the bible for diagnosing and categorizing mental conditions, states explicitly that gender dysphoria is not a mental disease. The simple description of someone with gender dysphoria is that the gender of their brain does not match the sex of their body. They have a boy's brain in a girl's body or vice versa.
Major medical groups with a position on this are unanimous that transgender people are not mentally ill and the best treatment for gender dysphoria is transition.
Anyone who thinks that transitioning is the "easy" road does not have any idea of the level of discrimination, hatred, pain, and violence transgender people face every day. Transgender people who transition (or even just come out) can all too easily lose their parents, children, spouse or SO, home, job, savings, friends, dignity, and lives. Often people opt to transition only when they can no longer meet the demands of society, their families, their friends, their employers, and others that the trans person should continue to pretend to be someone they are not and never were since birth.
I just read this in a newspaper about asylum seekers in Europe:
"At the refugee shelter in Bonn, Nesrin, who arrived with her parents, brother and sister in the former German capital, has to share a toilet with "at least 100 other people," including men, causing discomfort and a potential problem for her and the other female asylum seekers. Cramped accommodation, common toilets and rooms that cannot be locked from the inside have created an unsafe atmosphere for women and children, according to social welfare organizations like Pro Familia, the Paritätische Hessen, the Hessen women's council and the society of Hessian women's offices, who formulated their concerns about living conditions in refugee centers in an open letter. "Women say that they and also children, have been raped or are exposed to sexual attacks," the groups write." . . . The organizations suggest separating accommodation for men and women and ensuring that men do not have access to women's areas."
So it's a human rights issue for female asylum seekers in Europe to have sex-segregated areas, including bathrooms . . . but not a human rights issue for US females?
"At the refugee shelter in Bonn, Nesrin, who arrived with her parents, brother and sister in the former German capital, has to share a toilet with "at least 100 other people," including men, causing discomfort and a potential problem for her and the other female asylum seekers. Cramped accommodation, common toilets and rooms that cannot be locked from the inside have created an unsafe atmosphere for women and children, according to social welfare organizations like Pro Familia, the Paritätische Hessen, the Hessen women's council and the society of Hessian women's offices, who formulated their concerns about living conditions in refugee centers in an open letter. "Women say that they and also children, have been raped or are exposed to sexual attacks," the groups write." . . . The organizations suggest separating accommodation for men and women and ensuring that men do not have access to women's areas."
So it's a human rights issue for female asylum seekers in Europe to have sex-segregated areas, including bathrooms . . . but not a human rights issue for US females?
40
Could we please call a spade a shovel here? The vast majority of public "bathrooms" lack bathing facilities. These facilities are public toilets.
2
Dear NYT,
Please abandon your unending campaign to force me to have a bowel movement in a bathroom stall next to my male coworker. Please stop insisting that's it's okay for penises to be in the gym locker room where I shower, dress, do my hair, and put on makeup, nearly everyday. I have rights too!
Please abandon your unending campaign to force me to have a bowel movement in a bathroom stall next to my male coworker. Please stop insisting that's it's okay for penises to be in the gym locker room where I shower, dress, do my hair, and put on makeup, nearly everyday. I have rights too!
73
I am a big fan of allowing transgender men and women to use the men's and women's rooms, respectively, as befits their actual gender (if not their physical anatomy). I am, however, not a fan of the unisex bathroom, except in nicer restaurants where the single user unisex restrooms tend to be well-maintained. As a woman, I would also be concerned about using a large unisex restroom out of fear that there might be an increased risk of sexual assault. I have zero fear that a transgender woman, with or without a penis, will assault me. I welcome my transgender sisters to the ladies room and pray we don't go the way of the unisex bathroom in all public spaces. It seems to me they are only appropriate when the restroom has one toilet and a lock on the door so that whoever is using it can be assured of complete privacy and safety. In multi-stall bathrooms, that level of privacy and safety would not be assured, and both women and transgender men and women would be at greater risk for assault.
9
Here are my thoughts as a cis-male.
I do sympathize with trans-women and their desire to mingle with the gender they affiliate with.
However, I also sympathize with the many cis-women who express a very deep aversion to sharing their assigned space with persons bearing male genitalia. I suspect there are aspects to how cis-women think of male genitals that can't be understood by anyone, trans-woman or cis-man, that has ever had them.
I think unisex (I like the term polysex) bathrooms would be best. I'd like to think people would be mature enough to share them, but I fear they'd have to be individual. If we must have gendered bathrooms I think they should be segregated not by gene nor gender but by physical genitalia.
I do sympathize with trans-women and their desire to mingle with the gender they affiliate with.
However, I also sympathize with the many cis-women who express a very deep aversion to sharing their assigned space with persons bearing male genitalia. I suspect there are aspects to how cis-women think of male genitals that can't be understood by anyone, trans-woman or cis-man, that has ever had them.
I think unisex (I like the term polysex) bathrooms would be best. I'd like to think people would be mature enough to share them, but I fear they'd have to be individual. If we must have gendered bathrooms I think they should be segregated not by gene nor gender but by physical genitalia.
12
If you have a vagina (born with it or not) you should be in the women's room. If you have a penis (born with it or not) you should be in the men's room. None of this nonsense about how you feel inside.
22
Agreed. Imagine if I feel trans-racial (NOT inter-racial), I could sue someone who accuse of me of enjoying white privilege for denying me the race I feel I am.
1
It's very simple. If you're wearing a dress you go into the bathroom with the image on the door of the person with the dress. If you're wearing pants you go into the bathroom with the image on the door of the person wearing pants.
9
What if you're a woman wearing a pant-suit or a man wearing a kilt?
Very good point.
Dear Ted in Brooklyn,
By this metric at least 85% of the female population should head into the men's. Surely you've noticed this the last time you got out from under a rock and went out in public?
By this metric at least 85% of the female population should head into the men's. Surely you've noticed this the last time you got out from under a rock and went out in public?
Q: What is the difference between a cis-gendered, heterosexual who identifies male and a trans-female lesbian who dresses butch?
A: Which restroom has the shortest line.
The ONLY place that the transgender movement can logically go is all unisex bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers because any attempt to externally identify what constitutes a "woman" (i.e. hair length, makeup, clothing, boobs) is ultimately discriminatory and prejudicial.
A: Which restroom has the shortest line.
The ONLY place that the transgender movement can logically go is all unisex bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers because any attempt to externally identify what constitutes a "woman" (i.e. hair length, makeup, clothing, boobs) is ultimately discriminatory and prejudicial.
4
Back in the early 50s when I was in high school, "transgender" was a word I'd never heard (and I suspect 99% of people never even imagined it). We had only one shower in the girls' locker room, so no one showered at all, but shy girls like me would really have appreciated a curtain when we were dressing, anyway.
2
Men's bathrooms are admittedly honestly gross. But in my experience trans women mostly out-women other women, so i'm sure they'll be neat.
Note that that may be true whether or not they're "really" women. what determines their behavior is that they're desperate to be perceived and accepted as women.
Note that that may be true whether or not they're "really" women. what determines their behavior is that they're desperate to be perceived and accepted as women.
1
I am at a loss to understand why some women blame men for the long lineups in women's washroom. How is it men's fault that some women take forever to use a washroom. Nor do I understand why some women can't understand that for many men, a female in a men's washroom can be every bit as offensive to men, as the other way around.
We have come to a place in North America that male gender privacy is becoming expendable, but not the other way around. To all those who disagree; what's sauce for the gander must also be sauce for the goose. It's 2015, no more deference and privilege based on gender.
We have come to a place in North America that male gender privacy is becoming expendable, but not the other way around. To all those who disagree; what's sauce for the gander must also be sauce for the goose. It's 2015, no more deference and privilege based on gender.
4
Maybe expense/ logistics are an issue but change the architecture of bathrooms to solve the problem. More and more places I go to have bathrooms that are one contained room by themselves with sink, hand dryer, etc. included. The signs on these bathrooms have both men and women on them. So for those waiting to use the facilities, they can use any room as soon as it becomes empty. Also, some places have "family" restrooms i addition to the usual men/ women dichotomy, allowing caregivers of the opposite sex to help their relative or client go to the bathroom with no embarrassment.
5
How about separate rooms with toilets? And a door that goes down to the floor? And an outer room with sinks, mirrors, towels, usable by all. And that is more or less open to the hallway.
5
"The problem is that this vastly oversimplifies the experience of transgender people and the biology of chromosomes, which can appear in other combinations"
Really?! Are we making up science now in addition to history? I've never seen one reputable (or even irresistible) study showing x and Y chromosomes having any other combinations.
Really?! Are we making up science now in addition to history? I've never seen one reputable (or even irresistible) study showing x and Y chromosomes having any other combinations.
6
The existence of intersex people is a well established medical fact. Turner's Syndrome, Klinefelter's Syndrome, and some other intersex conditions are cases where someone is born with something other than XX or XY, and there are cases where someone is born with one set of chromosomes but the physics characteristics of the other.
3
Yes, but that is not the case with the transgendered, whose genetic status is normal even if their feelings about whether they are male or female are altered.
2
Please check a high school biology text. Just off the top of my head:
Turner syndrome (X), Triple - XXX (and even XXXX or XXXXX), Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), and XYY syndrome.
The world is much more varied and much less simple than you think.
Turner syndrome (X), Triple - XXX (and even XXXX or XXXXX), Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), and XYY syndrome.
The world is much more varied and much less simple than you think.
I don't necessarily have a particular issue with people using the bathroom or locker room of their choice, but I find it interesting in these arguments that folks, like the author, dismiss the discomforts of one group while bending over backwards to legitimize the discomforts of another. Why is the discomfort of the trans community more valued over the discomfort of those who prefer segregating based on physical sex, rather than gender? Why is it assumed that gender identification preferences should outweigh those who prefer to change or relieve themselves among members of the same sex, regardless of preferred gender? Can't we just rename the bathrooms "penis" and "vagina", rather than "men" and "women".
I find it disgraceful that those who prefer to toilet apart from members of the opposite sex are shamed while those who prefer to toilet apart from members of the opposite gender are championed. Those who prefer not to intermingle the physical sexes are told to toughen up - it's no big deal, while those who prefer not to intermingle with their stated gender have their discomfort routinely supported.
I find it disgraceful that those who prefer to toilet apart from members of the opposite sex are shamed while those who prefer to toilet apart from members of the opposite gender are championed. Those who prefer not to intermingle the physical sexes are told to toughen up - it's no big deal, while those who prefer not to intermingle with their stated gender have their discomfort routinely supported.
51
Maybe because transgender women get beat up all too often when they use the men's room and women get very uncomfortable when a bald, hairy, muscular transmen walks into the ladies room.
1
Oh good after the terrorist attacks I was worried that I wouldn't be able to read my daily article on transgender people. I shouldn't have been worried. After all even though they are .0001 of the population we can talk about this as if it's the Civil rights era all over again and we are dismanteling American apartheid. Not that I have a problem with transgender people.
25
Are there cases of people with female genitalia and two X chromosomes but who identify as male who want to use the bathroom designated for men?
1
Yes, it's called my life and the daily lives of thousands of trans men. You probably have shared bathroom space with them if you're a man, whether you realized they were trans or not.
6
I always use a stall and sit (if I can). I wouldn't know regardless of what society finally decides. By the way, I don't much like the company of men. The make me very anxious. I would much prefer to have never showered or toileted with men. I prefer the company of women. I am not one "of thousands" so it is unlikely the New York Times will advocate for safe space for me. But hurrah for our diversity. It is literally what makes us strong as a species.
The rest of the U.S. does not have to accommodate this deviant lifestyle with its infringement on the use of separate bathrooms for men women.
Previously a he, Dr. Richard Raskind, top-ranked amateur tennis player became a transgender.
In her book, “No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life,” Dr. Richards lists so many regrets relating to her sex change…“Better to be an intact man functioning with 100 percent capacity for everything than to be a transsexual woman who is an imperfect woman.”
This is not only a deviant life choice but a deadly one.
Johns Hopkins University pioneered transgendered surgery. They stopped due to the high rate of suicide among those who had the irreversible surgery.
A Netherlands large-scale 2011 study found treated transgenders had much higher than normal death rates due to suicide, drug abuse, AIDS, etc.
Transgenders need psychiatric help and counseling to accept their physical designation as to who they really are.
Without this change transgenders, sadly, will live a life of tragedy or one of befuddlement forever.
15
Whether I am changing and showering (locker room), or using a bathroom, I don't want a male stranger looking on, even if he is dressed as, and "identifies" as a woman, and I certainly don't want to see a male stranger's penis, no matter how inadvertently, in any setting. Once more, it seems, men - now it's those gotten up in female garb - are dictating what they want, deserve, and must have. Women's desires, or needs, be damned, and if we feel uncomfortable with the new regime, well, just duck behind those new privacy curtains, ladies.
44
I have no problem with relabeling bathrooms so transgendered people feel more accepted. Even if they really are "delusional" as is sometimes claimed, there's not much benefit to anyone in trying to argue the point via door signs.
I'm also not convinced that unisex bathrooms are usually a threat to women, although in some cases they probably could be.
But what seems dubious to me is the claim that proprietors are obligated to change their bathroom policies. It's difficult to justify the claim that a system of sex distinctions based around transgendered principles is the only objectively correct system of sex distinctions. If anything, it is supported by less evidence than the alternatives.
And once you treat the push to change bathrooms as an obligation, then everyone else does suffer a loss, which is the loss of linguistic and intellectual freedom.
So I think what makes the most sense is to just let proprietors label their bathrooms on a completely voluntary basis.
I'm also not convinced that unisex bathrooms are usually a threat to women, although in some cases they probably could be.
But what seems dubious to me is the claim that proprietors are obligated to change their bathroom policies. It's difficult to justify the claim that a system of sex distinctions based around transgendered principles is the only objectively correct system of sex distinctions. If anything, it is supported by less evidence than the alternatives.
And once you treat the push to change bathrooms as an obligation, then everyone else does suffer a loss, which is the loss of linguistic and intellectual freedom.
So I think what makes the most sense is to just let proprietors label their bathrooms on a completely voluntary basis.
3
As long as sexual segregation is still the choice of most Americans, we will need three restrooms: male, female, and accommodated. And the "accommodation" - whether privacy, disability, fear, children, LGBT - need never be explained.
19
That's what they built in the London Olympic village.
There are many many public buildings, office buildings etc. that still don't have an ADA compliant bathroom.
One problem w big bathrooms is that they are sometimes used for other purposes.
There are many many public buildings, office buildings etc. that still don't have an ADA compliant bathroom.
One problem w big bathrooms is that they are sometimes used for other purposes.
Urinals are not an accommodation to men. They more more sanitary then men, who stand to urinate, using a toilet bowl. Simply discribed the urine stream does come out in a perfect stream but often sprays out. When the spray has to travel a distance to the bowl it often misses. That's why toilet seats lift.
6
... Wait, that makes it sound like it IS an accommodation to men (who might otherwise because of the physics of their anatomy have trouble not making a mess).
3
Here's a data point from real life: I transitioned six months ago. No one has ever objected to my using the women's room. In public, where I am not out as trans, nobody stares at me or says anything. At work, where everyone knows I'm trans, absolutely no one cares, and believe me, I've asked my boss if anyone has complained. For me and everyone around me, this is a non-issue.
12
You know people may feel uncomfortable but be too considerate to bring it to your attention, if they did would you accommodate them?
16
You think your boss would tell you the truth about complaints and open your company up to a potential lawsuit? HR has provided him/her a script.
14
Sorry Danielle, but if you still have male genitalia I do not want to share the locker room with you.
10
Why don't we just require that there be twice as many "stalls" in
women's bathrooms as mens.
The require one Uni-Sex bathroom for each set of Male/Female bathrooms.
You know there are close to 5 million homeless in this country and their
needs are surely as great as the 0.03 % - i.e. - 90,000 people who might
want to use a uni-sex bathroom.
Where is the outcry for the Homeless ?
women's bathrooms as mens.
The require one Uni-Sex bathroom for each set of Male/Female bathrooms.
You know there are close to 5 million homeless in this country and their
needs are surely as great as the 0.03 % - i.e. - 90,000 people who might
want to use a uni-sex bathroom.
Where is the outcry for the Homeless ?
42
I remember talking to my uncle who worked as a janitor at La guardia airport. He told me that every night the janitors would toss coins for cleaning of the bathrooms, heads men and tails women. I asked why, he said no one wanted to clean the women's bathrooms they were way worse than the men's bathrooms with sanitary products left on floors along with numerous accidents caused by selfish behaviour and not caring about who comes after you. It seems the ladies only care about the seat being down when hygiene is the real problem.
well this article isn't about homeless people
It is true that separate bathrooms for men and women is a relatively recent social convention, but so is the convention of relieving oneself only in private. It true that the men and women of Ancient Rome urinated and defecated in front of each other in public bathrooms, but persuading Americans that the practice should be acceptable today is going to be a hard sale. In Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street," one of heroine Carol Milford's proudest accomplishments was the creation of public restrooms for women in the fictional town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, so that farm women had someplace to relieve themselves when they came to town.
14
I've worked in professional theater for over 15 years. When having to strip down quickly to accommodate a quick change in the show there is generally no privacy. Men and women, sometimes almost naked, changing together. Most likely with stagehands close by. I've never been abused or harassed.
When I was a teenager in Paris, my lodging had a big shower room for both sexes. Showers were partitioned off, but I was never abused or harassed.
The last time someone I knew was attacked in the bathroom was when a coworker of mine was sleeping with her boss, and the boss' wife tried to choke her in a NYC restaurant bathroom at a work gathering. Neither of them were transgender.
When I was a teenager in Paris, my lodging had a big shower room for both sexes. Showers were partitioned off, but I was never abused or harassed.
The last time someone I knew was attacked in the bathroom was when a coworker of mine was sleeping with her boss, and the boss' wife tried to choke her in a NYC restaurant bathroom at a work gathering. Neither of them were transgender.
19
Well a large percentage of American women have been sexually harassed and/or raped. You're fortunate this never happened to you. I'm sure you can understand that using the restroom is something a woman wants privacy from men for. A woman has to undo her clothing to use the restroom and a woman is almost always not as strong has a man. Meaning a woman being forced to share a restroom with a man is completely disadvantaged.
18
Most people are not professional actors or other people with different standards of propriety. They have no desire to have their privacy violated in order that someone else can pretend to be a different gender.
4
It is so very interesting how if an XY individual articulates a desire, such as to use the women's bathroom, then the desires of a hundred XX individuals suddenly become moot. Isn't this just the old patriarchy, dressed up in new togs? Isn't this just the same as saying that what men want counts, and what women want doesn't count? Statistics show 1 in 4 females have been assaulted by males: don't these females deserve a place safe from male intrusion? Men feeling entitled to encroach on women's spaces and transgress women's boundaries is the same old patriarchal story with a new location. Given the massive problem of violence against women in our society, I say women's rights to a bathroom space of their own without men should be given the utmost consideration. That would be the feminist stance to take, in my view.
114
Actually the fastest growing demographic of abusers and abused are male victims and female abusers. I was violently sexually abused as an eleven year old boy in a boys washroom at school by a female principle. I've listened to and been involved with male abuse victims for decades, many of whom were abused by women. They are just starting to come forward. A recent editorial in Canada's National Post found solid evidence that males are abused at the same rate as females and males were far from the only abusers. The Wall Street Jounal had an article earlier this year claiming 90% of sexual assaults in male youth detention centres in the US are perpetrated by female staff.
I'm saying that both genders rights to a bathroom space of their own without the other gender should be given the utmost consideration. That should also include male prisons and pro-sport locker rooms where women insist they have the right to invade the gender privacy of men. Yet we make special deference and privilege to assure women their gender privacy. I say that we even out the rights to gender privacy. What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander and vice versa, in spite for feminist privilege.
I'm saying that both genders rights to a bathroom space of their own without the other gender should be given the utmost consideration. That should also include male prisons and pro-sport locker rooms where women insist they have the right to invade the gender privacy of men. Yet we make special deference and privilege to assure women their gender privacy. I say that we even out the rights to gender privacy. What's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander and vice versa, in spite for feminist privilege.
1
Thank you. In total agreement - and am also very liberal. And let's have three bathrooms if need be.
5
@GoodReason I feel so conflicted about this argument. It's true, I do have the feeling that men who are transitioning to be women are all about the surface, and have no clue what it is to be a woman beyond adding makeup and feminine gestures. And as a woman, I feel vulnerable to danger from men, and do not want them in my private space. But, I admit that my knowledge about transgender is an impression based on television, and I actually don't really know anything about it. So, part of me, recognizing that, wants to welcome our sisters, no matter how they came to sisterhood. That seems so much truer to me to what a woman is, below the surface, someone who creates, who accepts, who loves. So, consequently, I hope there is a lot more discussion about this issue, a lot more care taken for all sides, a lot more sharing of knowledge and ideas, until there is a consensus and easiness about what happens.
2
As a woman, I do not want a person with a penis in the women's locker room or showers, no matter how much he 'feels' he is a female or how much he 'feels' he has 'suffered' for his 'feelings'.
He is not, except in his own mind, so why is it that women, 50% of the population, are yet again being asked to sacrifice their right to privacy for cross dressing men who make up .03% of the population, the vast majority of whom are heterosexual men with a sexual fetish?
You want suffering? Try being a woman who grew up without the right to control her own body, with not only no reproductive rights, but not even the right to learn about how babies were made. Try giving birth to children because you do not have those rights.
Women cannot simply change their clothing or hairstyles to make the world give them basic human rights, as can any transgender, so pardon me if I do not shed any of tears on this.
He is not, except in his own mind, so why is it that women, 50% of the population, are yet again being asked to sacrifice their right to privacy for cross dressing men who make up .03% of the population, the vast majority of whom are heterosexual men with a sexual fetish?
You want suffering? Try being a woman who grew up without the right to control her own body, with not only no reproductive rights, but not even the right to learn about how babies were made. Try giving birth to children because you do not have those rights.
Women cannot simply change their clothing or hairstyles to make the world give them basic human rights, as can any transgender, so pardon me if I do not shed any of tears on this.
101
The problem with your comment is that this transphobic thinking. They are not men dressing up as women; they are women. And the idea that they are not women because they cannot give birth is disgusting. You should reevaluate your perspictive in life before you make stupid comments like this. Perhaps if you opened up your mind and heart you'd realize how insensitive and crass this is.
3
Transgenders represent some 0.003% of the population. The transgender suicide rate hovers around 40 percent.
All this is about is destroying the human species by preferring to choose selfish lifestyles that are dead ends.
If they do reproduce like heterosexuals they immediately invalidate their deathly lifestyle which has killed millions of people all over the world.
This is a suicidal pact of a minuscule group of humanity.
And they want to drag our society down with themselves.
Tragically their legacy ends with them.
1
As a man I don't want a person with a vagina in my washroom, locker room or anywhere else. You may wish to advise your sisters of that when they feel the right to invade men's privacy in male prisons and pro-sport locker rooms..
4
I just really don't get the hostility shown by the intolerant here.
Live and let live? Because I don't see in what way your lives are impacted by young children going to the bathroom that coincides with the gender (not sex) they feel themselves to be.
Live and let live? Because I don't see in what way your lives are impacted by young children going to the bathroom that coincides with the gender (not sex) they feel themselves to be.
7
How about the right of my young daughter to not see a man, no matter how he defines himself, in the bathroom with her - for her to not feel awkward and uncomfortable. You wouldn't walk into a strangers house, announce you live there and expect diner to be served no matter how entitled you may feel to it and no matter how much you justify that houses are really just social constructs...it shouldn't happen.
12
The issue is that this acceptance of non females in a restroom opens the door to males who may have the intention to do harm to females.
9
Nymike,
I have had my young daughter with me at museums, restaurants, amusement parks, etc, when her Mom wasn't with us and I happily took her into the men's room to use the toilet as sending her alone into a the women's room would have been neglectful.
Likewise, if my young son is out with my wife, she escorts him into the female restroom to use the toilet.
Well adjusted kids should not "feel awkward or uncomfortable" because of the gender of someone they see in the bathroom.
I have had my young daughter with me at museums, restaurants, amusement parks, etc, when her Mom wasn't with us and I happily took her into the men's room to use the toilet as sending her alone into a the women's room would have been neglectful.
Likewise, if my young son is out with my wife, she escorts him into the female restroom to use the toilet.
Well adjusted kids should not "feel awkward or uncomfortable" because of the gender of someone they see in the bathroom.
2
All the endlessly wordy op-eds in the world don't change reality, as the voters of Houston well know.
Maybe we should "accommodate" the privacy of the voting booth so that can't happen, right?
Maybe we should "accommodate" the privacy of the voting booth so that can't happen, right?
8
Are Transgender men fighting for inclusion in men's prisons? Are fathers, shopping with their daughters, bringing eight and ten year olds into the Men's room?
Spaces without men are safer places.....for both women and an occasional female look alike. I am certain there are scores of places Transwomen can social with women other than a bathroom. Actually, I would be far more accommodating if the women's restroom were open to Transwomen and closed to all males over five that weren't trans.
Spaces without men are safer places.....for both women and an occasional female look alike. I am certain there are scores of places Transwomen can social with women other than a bathroom. Actually, I would be far more accommodating if the women's restroom were open to Transwomen and closed to all males over five that weren't trans.
7
Trans people of all genders are at terrible risk for rape in prison, to the point that they often willingly accept the torture of solitary confinement as an alternative.
2
I assume all young or frail or seemingly effeminate prisoners face issues. These being a risk associated, most often, with men's prisons. They are not allowed the 'priviledge' of escaping to the women's units. If a trans woman has the right to lay claim to the women's restroom because that is what they 'really are', then.......
Having it all ways is not reasonable. It gives the some more rights than the other. The trans community needs to find a far clearer line than....any way I want it.
Having it all ways is not reasonable. It gives the some more rights than the other. The trans community needs to find a far clearer line than....any way I want it.
In 1952, while hiking in the mountains of Norway, I came across an outhouse in a remote area. The two doors were marked "damen" and "herren". Inside were two holes with toilet seats and no partition. The Scandinavians do not confuse sex with dressing, undressing, bathroom habits, etc., which seems to make life easier.
3
That was an outhouse in the middle of nowhere, and clearly a bit of humor. Are ALL Scandinavian bathrooms unisex? I rather doubt that.
23
A big reason why women do not want to share a bathroom with men, such as in a unisex bathroom, is because it's the one space where we don't have to experience any sexual harassment. Most of us experience sexual harassment, in some form or another, sometimes subtle and sometimes overt, throughout the day. From comments, to unwanted attention, to being stared at, all the way to being groped and touched without permission. This happens on public transportation, in the classroom, on the street, and many other spaces. All of this is not magically going to stop once we enter a unisex public bathroom.
But for this same reason, I welcome transgender women into the bathroom with me. It is transgender women who are dealing with the worst, and often, the most dangerous forms of harassment and out right violence. They are also entitled to a bathroom space that is safe. In any case, transgender women and girls are already using public restrooms reserved for women, and I for one am glad they are doing so.
But for this same reason, I welcome transgender women into the bathroom with me. It is transgender women who are dealing with the worst, and often, the most dangerous forms of harassment and out right violence. They are also entitled to a bathroom space that is safe. In any case, transgender women and girls are already using public restrooms reserved for women, and I for one am glad they are doing so.
55
Also: men are slobs, and the Men's Room is often a disguisting mess. (Sorry, PC police, true.)
Do men have to intrude/take over/define everything we do?
Do men have to intrude/take over/define everything we do?
46
'...It is transgender women who are dealing with the worst...'?
Seriously?
Why are women so self hating?
Seriously?
Why are women so self hating?
23
Are you telling me that men are worse slobs than women, what a sexist comment. How would you know? Are you a janitor in public bathrooms at airports, where the janitors would rather clean the men's room than the women's room because in all instances the men's rooms are easier and cleaner than the feminine napkin ridden women's rooms
2
If you are a person with a disability and need assistance with toileting and your personal care attendant is not your same sex, where do you go?
If you are a young woman taking care of a vocal but vulnerable 4 year old boy, do you drag him kicking and screaming into the designated women's bathroom or allow him to enter the men's room unattended?
If you are transgender, is there a safe place to pee?
I say we take the signs off the doors, put a privacy wall in front of urinals and try a little civility. If those of the male persuasion could remember to put the seat down it would be appreciated ;)
If you are a young woman taking care of a vocal but vulnerable 4 year old boy, do you drag him kicking and screaming into the designated women's bathroom or allow him to enter the men's room unattended?
If you are transgender, is there a safe place to pee?
I say we take the signs off the doors, put a privacy wall in front of urinals and try a little civility. If those of the male persuasion could remember to put the seat down it would be appreciated ;)
17
1. You need to think about that in ADVANCE. And perhaps choose a same-gender caretaker. Or use Depends.
2. Nobody is talking about taking very young children (pre school) into the bathroom with a parent or guardian, no matter the gender of the child, adult or bathroom. This is a non-issue.
3. You should have thought about that before defying Mother Nature and God, and pretending to change genders. You cannot really change your gender or sex, anymore than you can breathe underwater with gills, or flap your arms and fly.
4. The problem is not in urinals and men's rooms, as men don't face the dangers women do -- and FTM transsexuals are much less common than MTF.
2. Nobody is talking about taking very young children (pre school) into the bathroom with a parent or guardian, no matter the gender of the child, adult or bathroom. This is a non-issue.
3. You should have thought about that before defying Mother Nature and God, and pretending to change genders. You cannot really change your gender or sex, anymore than you can breathe underwater with gills, or flap your arms and fly.
4. The problem is not in urinals and men's rooms, as men don't face the dangers women do -- and FTM transsexuals are much less common than MTF.
12
I see elsewhere you are a woman. It is easy for women to find caregivers of the same sex, not so, men. I work with the elderly and disabled so I see this play out all the time.
2
And then the men would be waiting in line with the rest of us for the whole intermission.Wonder how that will go.
1
I don't think I've ever seen someone's genitals in the bathroom, so I fail to see why this matters so much to those who aren't transgender. But for a transgender person, it can mean outing themselves, which can be a threat to their life. The stakes are higher. If a man wants to go into a woman's bathroom and rape her, he will do that whether or not there is a law allowing transgender people to use whatever bathroom they want. My guess is, this happens very infrequently anyway. We should allow people to use whichever bathroom they feel more comfortable in, same as with changing rooms. Curtains would be nice for teens anyway, since puberty brings a lot of changes that makes everyone a bit self-conscious. I look forward to seeing gender neutral bathrooms everywhere, so we can eliminate the stupid long lines for women's bathrooms while men get to go in and out in no time. And single bathrooms should never have a gender identifier, it doesn't make any sense.
32
You are missing the point (possibly on purpose). It is not that men cannot rape women in bathrooms now.
It is that if I SEE a man enter a ladies' room today, I can call the police or store security and they will remove him. If these laws pass, he will have EVERY RIGHT to hang out in that bathroom, and I can't do a thing to stop it.
BTW: it is not about seeing anyone's genitals. It's about privacy and THE TRUTH. The truth is that transgender people have not really changed gender. They are still the same as when born. They are just dressing in opposite sex clothing. The majority never have "bottom surgery".
Yes, women need "potty parity" -- more toilets in the ladies' rooms -- but that is another question for another day.
It is that if I SEE a man enter a ladies' room today, I can call the police or store security and they will remove him. If these laws pass, he will have EVERY RIGHT to hang out in that bathroom, and I can't do a thing to stop it.
BTW: it is not about seeing anyone's genitals. It's about privacy and THE TRUTH. The truth is that transgender people have not really changed gender. They are still the same as when born. They are just dressing in opposite sex clothing. The majority never have "bottom surgery".
Yes, women need "potty parity" -- more toilets in the ladies' rooms -- but that is another question for another day.
56
Then make a transgender bathroom. It's safe. The real reason is it legitimizes their belief that they are really women.
4
Concerned Citizen
Sorry. That's not the way it works in real life in the literally hundreds of jurisdictions with trans-inclusive anti-discrimination. Even in Texas non-transgender men would be able to declare that this afternoon they're "really" female and head to the ladies room. They get arrested for their conduct -- the same way anyone does.
Of course, if you really want to make it easy for pervy guys, just demand that everyone use the bathroom of their original birth certificate. When the bearded, balding, and hairy transmen are forced into the ladies room, I think people will have a quick lesson in unintended consequences.
Sorry. That's not the way it works in real life in the literally hundreds of jurisdictions with trans-inclusive anti-discrimination. Even in Texas non-transgender men would be able to declare that this afternoon they're "really" female and head to the ladies room. They get arrested for their conduct -- the same way anyone does.
Of course, if you really want to make it easy for pervy guys, just demand that everyone use the bathroom of their original birth certificate. When the bearded, balding, and hairy transmen are forced into the ladies room, I think people will have a quick lesson in unintended consequences.
The writer starts out with the premise that segregated bathroom have only been in existence since the 19th century, claiming this segregation was a "cultural creation, with its roots in the Victorian era". How ridiculous. The only reason that bathrooms were not segregated before this time was because there was no indoor plumbing available, hence no bathrooms. Cultures have segregated by gender since time immortal.
92
I laughed at that too.
If you go back far enough, people defecated in the streets. They urinated (maybe! if lucky!) into a trough in an alley. There was no toilet paper. There was no soap. There was no clean running water.
A little luck, and lefty liberals will take us right back to the stone age.
If you go back far enough, people defecated in the streets. They urinated (maybe! if lucky!) into a trough in an alley. There was no toilet paper. There was no soap. There was no clean running water.
A little luck, and lefty liberals will take us right back to the stone age.
13
Bathrooms existed before "indoor plumbing." Where do you think people "went to the bathroom" before the advent of indoor plumbing?
For the same reason, no reason to continue a tradition that is outmoded and is already being accomodated in planes and many other places. I'd say all toilets should be like how they are on the plane (I mean in terms of access, not necessarily anything else).
She showers in her underwear, which other girls her age do as well. - WHAT?
44
OK -- I am a woman. I went to school in the 60s-70s. I was a bit shy and awkward in Junior High, and I got permission to shower behind a (very flimsy) curtain. I never EVER saw any kid shower in their underwear!
I also have daughters, a step daughter, a daughter in law and 2 granddaughters. Never heard of this.
It defies common sense. If you are in underwear, you are not getting clean. Then I guess you sit all day in school, in sopping wet underwear? What is the POINT of showering in underwear? you sure aren't cleaning any important bits.
I also have daughters, a step daughter, a daughter in law and 2 granddaughters. Never heard of this.
It defies common sense. If you are in underwear, you are not getting clean. Then I guess you sit all day in school, in sopping wet underwear? What is the POINT of showering in underwear? you sure aren't cleaning any important bits.
22
It surprises me to hear that although you once asked for an accommodation for your awkwardness and discomfort, you demean others who would do the same.
3
In the early 50's girls did not shower in their underwear and i lived in a very conservative, Christian community. Ye gads.
1
Men in the women's restroom; it can spawn a whole new Reddit community of under stall pics and creep shots. The changing tampon thread will be a hit. People advocating this are either completely naive or utterly callous towards the lives experiences of women on this world.
103
No more being able to see "under the stall." It'll be like on a plane.
So the flash controversy of "transgender" accommodation has replaced the flash demand for "family" accommodation where parents of one sex felt compelled to accompany their opposite sex child into a single sex bathroom facility or those who needed assistance from an aide of the opposite sex had limited bathroom choices even in health care facilities. The result was those large unisex "family" rooms intended to accommodated everyone (including groups of teens) of every size and gender as well as all the appliances of living such as walkers and wheelchairs. Try using one from a wheelchair.
Most "toileting" facilities currently in use in public spaces (workplaces, schools, restaurants) in the US are poorly designed and poorly maintained. I applaud the demands of those who do not fit comfortably into the narrow stereotypes of current designs which rarely meet the needs of people. As someone who has had a temporary disability, however, the failure to implement usable ADA compliant design in facilities or in access after so many years doesn't offer me much hope bathroom designs will ever improve enough.
Most "toileting" facilities currently in use in public spaces (workplaces, schools, restaurants) in the US are poorly designed and poorly maintained. I applaud the demands of those who do not fit comfortably into the narrow stereotypes of current designs which rarely meet the needs of people. As someone who has had a temporary disability, however, the failure to implement usable ADA compliant design in facilities or in access after so many years doesn't offer me much hope bathroom designs will ever improve enough.
13
In articles on college racism, some liberals defend the need for "safe spaces," or at least, they understand the desire. Meanwhile, the percentage of physical violence of whites against people of color is much lower than that of men against women. But there is much less sympathy for girls and women who long for safe spaces. I don't oppose transwomen using women's bathrooms. But I resent women's fears being brushed aside as silly or bigoted.
115
If your concerns are not on the list of approved and acceptable concerns - be prepared.
8
"For people with disabilities, reasonable accommodation is about a bar next to the toilet and a button that opens the door." Good grief, there's a variety of disabilities. I have both a urostomy and a colostomy. Previously, I self-catheterized. I wish all restrooms had a shelf where I could put supplies. It's also terrific if there's a sink in the stall with hot water and soap because I often want to wash both hands before I adjust clothes or touch the door. Like some others, I sit backward on the toilet to have more of the toilet bowl available. There needs to be space for my legs in that position. Accommodating people with disabilities is not as easy as the author suggests.
37
I really just don't want to share a bathroom with men. Nothing political about it. No social commentary about gender or sex. I don't care if you are transgender, transsexual, transvestite, whatever. The fact of the matter, and the matter is about simple hygiene, is that men's bathrooms are always GROSS. For the few people who are born biologically male and become female either in identity or sex or both, then welcome to the club of people, women, who know how to clean up after themselves, and I welcome you into our bathrooms.
40
You must use different public women's restrooms than I do. It is second nature to check for pee on the seat. Not that I've surveyed a lot of men's facilities, although I've been involved in liberating a few of them when the need arose.
10
I agree. I cringe whenever I go into a restaurant that has unisex bathrooms. The floors are always sticky, the seat is up, etc. I don't have a problem with trans women in the bathroom, women with young sons (been there), women with male attendants. I do have a problem with having to put the seat down (even after making a mitten out of toilet paper to do so), putting the seat down, and standing in someone's misplaced urine.
26
I have heard similar reports. Apparently many women using public toilets have not encountered the rhyme
It does no good to stand on the seat.
(Insert place name) crabs can jump 10 feet!
It does no good to stand on the seat.
(Insert place name) crabs can jump 10 feet!
Make all bathrooms unisex and provide a sufficient number of stalls. Many public restrooms in France have always been this way and I don't recall any particular complaints from either sex, including my very modest wife. For a guy, once you get past the initial discomfort of peeing at a urinal with a woman behind you, it becomes no big deal. We make entirely too much of this issue.
10
And European public bathrooms in general, modern ones at least, have much more private stalls than US ones, which would help address the issue.
9
You are, of course, entitled to go and live in France.
I prefer to live here, and keep our single-sex bathrooms, thank you very much.
I prefer to live here, and keep our single-sex bathrooms, thank you very much.
26
That sounds horrid. I can't imagine being forced to watch a man pee while waiting in line. Do the men have to watch women change their tampons?
3
I searched this article in vain for mention of coed bathrooms in Europe. Fifty years ago I experienced same in Paris. While it was initially a bit of a shock to have a man combing his hair over the next sink in fact the single stall coed bathrooms worked quite well. No overly long lines for women. Since everyone has their own stall there were no privacy issues. I assume safety was okay or this system would not have been in place. If we cannot see our puritanical way towards this "accommodation" then we should embrace single user water closets so that everyone has a fair shake at entry. I for one am sick and tired of waiting in long lines for the ladies room while men go in and out of theirs. Alternatively there should be potty parity whereby new building offer as many pee slots for women as men including urinals. Where is the fairness in the current system?
13
Excellent article. Not at all what I would expect from one on a law school fellowship, and I'm a lawyer. Just accommodate, like the ADA. Well argued. (There are also different supporting points on female-to-male trans differences the article probably didn't have room for.) It all seems so simple when viewed through the eyes of a child trying to fit in.
4
"We could see the urinal as an accommodation for the male body".
Actually, urinals are more cost effective than toilets: less porcelain material, significantly less floor space, minimal use of privacy screening compared to a stall, and from a water-resources standpoint, less gallons per flush: http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/commercial_restroom_audit.aspx
Actually, urinals are more cost effective than toilets: less porcelain material, significantly less floor space, minimal use of privacy screening compared to a stall, and from a water-resources standpoint, less gallons per flush: http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/commercial_restroom_audit.aspx
3
There used to be urinal style toilets for women, a long narrow 'U' that one stood over, no seat. 1950s. I remember them from when I was small.
1
If I have to deny science in order to accommodate your point of view (religious, political, humanitarian, environmental, or other), then I will not accommodate your point of view.
Sex is a biological and scientific fact, that at present is immutable in human beings. Apparently, it has also become an inconvenient truth to some.
Sex is a biological and scientific fact, that at present is immutable in human beings. Apparently, it has also become an inconvenient truth to some.
49
It is a simple case of The Emperor's New Clothes.
Lefty liberals WANT to "prove" you can change your gender. So they simply ban all discussion that does not agree -- if you don't take the Transgender Oath (or Gay Oath or Gay Marriage Oath), then you are a homophobic "hater". And they will do ANYTHING they can to destroy you -- ask Brendan Eich.
So we see what is clearly a big burly man in a dress and we MUST all say we think we see a woman -- or we are punished. We must give up privacy -- 99.7% of us -- so some nutty guy in a dress doesn't get his precious little feelings hurt.
Lefty liberals WANT to "prove" you can change your gender. So they simply ban all discussion that does not agree -- if you don't take the Transgender Oath (or Gay Oath or Gay Marriage Oath), then you are a homophobic "hater". And they will do ANYTHING they can to destroy you -- ask Brendan Eich.
So we see what is clearly a big burly man in a dress and we MUST all say we think we see a woman -- or we are punished. We must give up privacy -- 99.7% of us -- so some nutty guy in a dress doesn't get his precious little feelings hurt.
19
"Concerned"- I dunno. I think Eich's a bigot. And I've taken no "oaths." "Big burly" is a description a romance novel would employ--is that your line of work?
Incidentally, no problem with transgender people per se but feel that women should have restrooms to themselves, unless said person has surgery. Anyway tiring of all the focus in The Times on transgender.
Incidentally, no problem with transgender people per se but feel that women should have restrooms to themselves, unless said person has surgery. Anyway tiring of all the focus in The Times on transgender.
6
Actually, sex isn't as black & white as you appear to think it is - http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/marriage.html (Start with, "Here's a litany of other ways people can end up biologically difficult to classify, through no fault of their own.")
1
If men could become women or women could become men, transgenderism wouldn't be an issue, would it? But men can't become women and women can't become men. Names changes, wardrobe changes, wigs, hormone therapy, cosmetics, "sexual reassignment surgery" and Photoshop do not change a person's sex. Humans are not among the species that can change sex after birth. Transgender individuals are not people who have transitioned from one sex to another. They suffer from gender dysphoria, a condition manifested in a variety of ways, including strong desires to be treated as the other gender or to the rid of one’s sex characteristics, or a strong conviction that one has feelings and reactions typical of the other gender. The condition causes clinically significant emotional distress, but it has no effect on gender. Pretending they are members of the opposite sex helps gender dysphoria patients cope with their emotional distress, but this does not obligate the rest of us to pretend we are deceived by the pretense. We should accommodate individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria by providing a mix of unisex bathrooms along with bathroom segregated by gender. However, males who suffer from gender dysphoria should not be allowed to plays on girls’ sports teams. They enjoy the same size and strength advantage as other males. What if Bruce Jenner had decided to change his name to Caitlyn in high school?
75
Gender dysphoria is probably the norm as everyone is pretending: gender is a social construct that varies from culture to culture all the way down to the individual. Sex may be relatively 'fixed' but that does not automatically into a gender norm, which is more about social grouping and less about biological determinism.. in others words belonging, which is what this article addresses.
1
@William Case: And your credentials are ... what? Read Deirdre McCloskey, a brilliant economist, in her autobiography, "Crossings". Ten years ago , the writings of transgender people were of the nature,"I have always been a woman. I was trapped in a man's body." (Or vice versa.) Then Dierdre wrote, "I'm a woman; I used to be a man." I still can't make complete sense of this, but I have seen her in person (at a talk on economics), and I completely believe her sincerity. (Full disclosure: She graduated from Harvard a year ahead of me and knows a number of my friends.)
So unless you have walked the walk, don't presume to decide who is a man and who is a woman; and most of all, don't call them dysphobis.
So unless you have walked the walk, don't presume to decide who is a man and who is a woman; and most of all, don't call them dysphobis.
2
It is not as either-or as your comment makes it seem. Some people appear to be one gender on the outside, but have the reproductive equipment of the other, hidden inside. Some people even have both -- what do you suggest they do? They are certainly not "pretending" anything. Life is challenging enough -- can't we be a little more (yes) accommodating?
4
One signature difference between male vs female bathroom culture: for adults, men's bathrooms are largely devoid of chatter. It's just not done for men to talk with one another while in the process of elimination of either kind. There might be perfunctory and terse talk (not chatter, and not conversation) at the washing sinks, but infrequently.
3
Whaaaat? I've used men's washrooms for 67 years. Of course men talk. Maybe not as much as women but if I know the guys in there I converse. Now some men may be so homophobic that they can't differentiate between a comment and a pick up artist, but I've never run into that problem. I'm a big boy, I'm not afraid of the guy standing in the urinal beside me.
4
"The district refused, saying that ‘‘privacy concerns’’ required sending her to a separate room down the hall. She and her family brought a civil rights complaint, and the United States Department of Education intervened earlier this month, asking the district to give her the right to shower and change in the same locker room with her female peers. A privacy curtain could address both her needs and other students’ concerns, the Education Department said — as long as other girls are also allowed to change behind the curtain, if they choose."
This is NOT accurate. It is the school district which now offers to have the transgender child change behind a curtain in the girls' locker room. DOE OCR, extremist as always, will not accept this. It insists she be able to change out in the open without the curtain. The curtain will merely be optional for BOTH the transgender child and the girls.
Let's not do another Lily Ledbetter and leave the public misinformed about what is in contention.
This is NOT accurate. It is the school district which now offers to have the transgender child change behind a curtain in the girls' locker room. DOE OCR, extremist as always, will not accept this. It insists she be able to change out in the open without the curtain. The curtain will merely be optional for BOTH the transgender child and the girls.
Let's not do another Lily Ledbetter and leave the public misinformed about what is in contention.
54
Amanda: thank you for clarifying. The school in this situation tried EVERYTHING to accommodate this young man, but he and his parents REFUSED. He wants to be a physically intact male with a penis, testicles and sperm and still shower with the girls in his school. That is the facts of the case.
He is not a girl. He is a physically normal teenage boy.
He is not a girl. He is a physically normal teenage boy.
61
You're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.
Student A has been on female hormones for about 2 years. I think she was on puberty blockers before that. As a result, her testosterone levels are probably about half those of her female (yes female)classmates and her genitalia is probably not very developed. She legally changed her name and her passport says female.
She asked to be able to change in a restroom stall in the girls locker room. The district refused to allow her in the girls locker room and wanted her to use a separate facility.
After pressure from the ACLU and the OCR, the district put up privacy curtains that any girl in the locker room could use to change behind. They demanded that one girl, and only one girl, had to promise to never come out from behind the curtain -- Student A.
Given the dysphoria of most transgender people feel and Student A's initial request to change in a stall, it is highly unlikely that Student A will change in the middle of the locker room. She wants to do what her classmates do, change behind the curtain and then rejoin her classmates.
Can you imagine how you would develop your friendships if you have to sit walked off behind a curtain? In high school I talked with my friends in the locker room; we rolled our eyes at the coach's latest speech; and we tried to look out after our friends. Try to do it that from behind the curtain.
Student A has been on female hormones for about 2 years. I think she was on puberty blockers before that. As a result, her testosterone levels are probably about half those of her female (yes female)classmates and her genitalia is probably not very developed. She legally changed her name and her passport says female.
She asked to be able to change in a restroom stall in the girls locker room. The district refused to allow her in the girls locker room and wanted her to use a separate facility.
After pressure from the ACLU and the OCR, the district put up privacy curtains that any girl in the locker room could use to change behind. They demanded that one girl, and only one girl, had to promise to never come out from behind the curtain -- Student A.
Given the dysphoria of most transgender people feel and Student A's initial request to change in a stall, it is highly unlikely that Student A will change in the middle of the locker room. She wants to do what her classmates do, change behind the curtain and then rejoin her classmates.
Can you imagine how you would develop your friendships if you have to sit walked off behind a curtain? In high school I talked with my friends in the locker room; we rolled our eyes at the coach's latest speech; and we tried to look out after our friends. Try to do it that from behind the curtain.
1
At the end of the day, one key question is whether Student A is a girl, albeit a girl with some body defects, or not.
For Student A's classmates*, for her doctors, for the U.S. State Department, the Office of Civil Rights, for her parents, and for Student A, the answer is clear: Student A is a girl. As such she is entitled to equal access to facilities.
*Student A's classmates, the very girls she would be sharing a locker room with and the girls that the district is trying so assiduously to "protect", signed a petition asking that the district allow her free access to the locker room.
For Student A's classmates*, for her doctors, for the U.S. State Department, the Office of Civil Rights, for her parents, and for Student A, the answer is clear: Student A is a girl. As such she is entitled to equal access to facilities.
*Student A's classmates, the very girls she would be sharing a locker room with and the girls that the district is trying so assiduously to "protect", signed a petition asking that the district allow her free access to the locker room.
But this article is wrong. There is a simple definition of male and female and it is about biological parts, complicated only for those with disorders of sexual development (which is something completely unrelated).
That transgender people "feel" as if they are male or female in contradiction to what their biology said is an intellectual and psychological stand. They have every right to live their life according to this but they do not have the right to make other people accept their definition. And that is what this bathroom issue is about, the rest of society is expected to define male and female as they do.
That these are deeply held beliefs that seem unpeelable from the person is irrelevant. Many people have deeply held religious beliefs that can not be divided from them but they do not have the right to make the rest of us live them. Denying gays marriage for example, or women the right to work.
Asking for more single bathrooms is a reasonable accommodation, and will benefit more than themselves. Asking us to redefine our definitions for theirs is not. And while it might relieve their distress, it will cause great distress to many religious people I know for whom the sexes are very segregated. I would also add that if a transgender person can not accept that they were not born with the biological parts of the gender they have decided to identify as, they are not well served by society helping them not confront that. However, unpleasant reality must be faced.
That transgender people "feel" as if they are male or female in contradiction to what their biology said is an intellectual and psychological stand. They have every right to live their life according to this but they do not have the right to make other people accept their definition. And that is what this bathroom issue is about, the rest of society is expected to define male and female as they do.
That these are deeply held beliefs that seem unpeelable from the person is irrelevant. Many people have deeply held religious beliefs that can not be divided from them but they do not have the right to make the rest of us live them. Denying gays marriage for example, or women the right to work.
Asking for more single bathrooms is a reasonable accommodation, and will benefit more than themselves. Asking us to redefine our definitions for theirs is not. And while it might relieve their distress, it will cause great distress to many religious people I know for whom the sexes are very segregated. I would also add that if a transgender person can not accept that they were not born with the biological parts of the gender they have decided to identify as, they are not well served by society helping them not confront that. However, unpleasant reality must be faced.
108
I understand where NSH is coming from, but I can't help but think that, a decade or so ago, a majority of people in this country might have said that gay people "feel" an attraction in contradiction to their biology, and society shouldn't be compelled to redefine our definitions of marriage, or love, for them. Today, this view (I hope!) feels very wrong to most of us.
Our understanding in areas like biology, the brain, gender, and sexuality is improving all the time with more study. It will take time (and that time is likely to be very painful for both transgendered people and people who are uncomfortable with the idea of accommodating transgender people), but I think that society will learn to embrace a definition of gender that's not necessarily tied to anatomy, the way most of us have learned to embrace a definition of sexuality that isn't tied to anatomy.
Our understanding in areas like biology, the brain, gender, and sexuality is improving all the time with more study. It will take time (and that time is likely to be very painful for both transgendered people and people who are uncomfortable with the idea of accommodating transgender people), but I think that society will learn to embrace a definition of gender that's not necessarily tied to anatomy, the way most of us have learned to embrace a definition of sexuality that isn't tied to anatomy.
3
You confuse gender with"sex". One is about physcial characteristics and anatomy. The other is a societal construct, about norms and behaviour and expectations.
Gender roles -- what we think of as "women's work" or how a man behaves or what makes a "real man" or "what it means to be a man" or "today the boy became a man" or "he acts like a girl" or "she is a tomboy" or "don't be a little girl" -- have nothing to do with biology but societal expectations.
You need to start diferentiating between the two and even ask why biology should be the determinate of gender
Gender roles -- what we think of as "women's work" or how a man behaves or what makes a "real man" or "what it means to be a man" or "today the boy became a man" or "he acts like a girl" or "she is a tomboy" or "don't be a little girl" -- have nothing to do with biology but societal expectations.
You need to start diferentiating between the two and even ask why biology should be the determinate of gender
4
Nobody has the right to make us live by their religious beliefs? Then why are all those people seeking to prohibit others' lawful access to contraception and certain medical procedures?
But, my real point is that, just as we don't have the right to dictate others' religious beliefs or to deny that they hold them, we can't dictate what gender someone is or that person's feelings about it, as you seem to want to.
You would probably be surprised to find out how many times you have unknowingly shared a restroom with someone you do not consider entitled to use the same one you do.
But, my real point is that, just as we don't have the right to dictate others' religious beliefs or to deny that they hold them, we can't dictate what gender someone is or that person's feelings about it, as you seem to want to.
You would probably be surprised to find out how many times you have unknowingly shared a restroom with someone you do not consider entitled to use the same one you do.
2
Because, despite what some of our hysterical feminists may believe that the overwhelming majority of transgendered individuals or those of the opposite sex view a restroom as a place to do one's business quickly and quietly as possible, nothing more.