In a courtroom, yes it would probably be easier to get to the truth, but what about the incidents that don’t even warrant the police being called, let alone a trial?
So instead of, “this person says they’re trans, so I guess we can’t prosecute them for installing cameras in the women’s room”, it would be more like this person says their trans so we can’t kick them out of the women’s locker room even though they spend a good majority of their time in the locker room eyeing women taking off their clothes and it seems like they rarely use the gym equipment. Or this person says their trans so we can’t make them leave the women’s locker room, but they spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out by the toilets and we can only guess that they do so to listen to women urinate. Or this person says they’re trans but they pretended to be texting and took a pic of me while I was undressing; of course by the time I got dressed and found an employee they deleted the pic and deny it ever happened. Or this person says their trans but their body is indistinguishable from any other male and they walk around completely nude and always just so happen to be nude when the high school girl’s team comes to the gym to train.
Incidents like those will absolutely cause women to stop using the locker room and either shower/change clothes at home or quit the gym. Private gyms for women only will probably pop up that don’t allow transgendered people at all in order to provide a safe and harassment-free locker room for women…which seems a lot worse than transwomen using the men’s locker room or using a unisex locker room.
@Summerday, I agree with you that that is the kind of mess we should expect to see if TWAW is implemented literally. A lot of folks are suffering from a failure of imagination, so they don’t think what you are envisioning would occur.
But women put up with similar shit right now. The shit just happens outside of women’s spaces.
For instance, when women complain of sexual harrassment in the workplace, they are typically disbelieved unless they have concrete proof. Even when they have evidence, their feelings are second-guessed by men and cool chicks. “So what, Coworker stares at you all the time and says you’re pretty. He’s just paying you a compliment! Stop being a Karen!” “So what, he touched you without your permission! It was just a hug! Hugs are harmless! Stop being a frigid Karen, Karen!” Right now, the women’s restroom and locker room are the only places where women are not subjugated to this kind of shittery. Women are in control of these spaces. They don’t have to prove to men’s standards that a situation is inappropriate or creepy. A man has no business being in those spaces, so a man in those spaces is automatically guilty of wrongdoing.
Under TWAW, any male who crosses the threshold of a women’s space is assumed to be a woman. Even when a woman knows better, that male will be treated as a woman by the owners of that space. So it would be insane for us to assume the same oppressive dynamic women experience in their daily lives now would not play out in women’s spaces. What would stop it from playing out? Women who scream when an obvious male steps into the room with them will be scolded for screaming. Women who complain to the building manager when an obvious male steps into the room will be scolded for tattling. Even the women who avoid the space when an obvious male is in there would be scolded. They will be likened to racists for being prejudiced, even when they have very valid reasons to be prejudiced. Anyone who doubts this would happen is super naive.
I’m not eager to be one of the guinea pigs. Not until we can come up with some rules that would maintain ciswomen’s control over their own spaces.
This right here. Under the status quo, there is no he said-she-said. A male that is caught in the women’s restroom or locker room is presumed guilty of trespassing at a minimum. As a result, the women who have been spied on or harassed by this male don’t have to work very hard to be believed. It is not like this in the general public because the rules are different. Out there sex-based boundaries are less restrictive so there is more doubt whether a male has actually violated a woman’s boundary or if it’s just one big ole understanding. But not in a single-sex room.
You take that away from women and we will essentially have to have witnesses, photographic evidence, and/or signed confessions just to prove the lecher over there is lechering.
I read that whole post and this is all you seem to think is a “pro” of the concept
So, really, it’s no surprise that when you weigh the pros and cons that you’re firmly on the con side of the whole thing. If all the trans community gets out of this is some warm and fuzzies, then yes, let’s give them their third spaces. They can have their own bathrooms, their own locker rooms, their own water fountains, a special space on the back of the bus, whatever.
But it isn’t about warm and fuzzies. It’s about validation of their humanity, bringing a group so vehemently discriminated against that they practically weren’t allowed to exist 50 years ago, into the fold. It’s about cutting teen suicides by giving them options they never had before, letting them know they’re valued people and not circus freaks.
It’s the same story as every civil rights fight in history. It’s never about eating at a particular diner, where you sit on the bus, or the relative value of a civil union vs. marriage, it’s about recognition by the majority that you are an equal. A real equal, not a separate but equal, a no-bullshit equal.
That’s not how trespassing works. It’s also not how the penal system works. Walking into and using the bathroom or locker room of the opposite sex isn’t a crime, which is why States started scrambling to propose “bathroom bills”.
When the policy is that single-sex rooms are only for member of a sex class, males are subject to a lower bar of suspicion. They can be ejected for any reason and resisting opens them to trespassing charges.
Nonbinary folks have existed for eleventy-billion years. Do they not deserve a space that affirms their gender identity?
Agender folks have existed for brazillions of years. Do they not deserve a space that affirms their gender identity?
Years from now, 20-somethings will be identifying as mavericks–the new and hip gender identity that our cavemen brains can’t even conceptualize because we’re so primitive and unenlightened. Will mavericks be entitled to toilets that affirm their gender identity?
I use the unisex toilet in my office all the time. Pissing and pooping in this toilet does not deny me of my humanity. If I ever feel my identity slipping away, I can just look in the mirror that is installed in this restroom. My own reflection should give me all the validation and affirmation I need. If using a unisex restroom was enough to destroy my self-esteem and sense of humanity, I would ship myself off to a psychotherapist’s office. I would not expect society to give a flying fuck about my self-esteem, because I would recognize that my self-esteem is a “me” problem, not a “you and everyone else” problem. It is a sign of mental unwellness to believe that your humanity is tied up with the sign hanging over a restroom’s door.
Racial segregation was abolished because we realized that having separate facilities for white and black folks was wasteful and damaging to the oppressed group. We abolished those spaces because we collectively came to the conclusion that “race affirmation” is divisive and stupid and does not serve any greater good.
What greater good does “gender affirmation” provide? If we dismantled all sex segregated spaces and informed everyone that gender affirmation is something you get from family and friends, not from public spaces, do you think humanity would disintegrate? Or do you think everyone would get gender affirmation from family and friends and keep it moving?
If someone told you they needed to have their racial, religious, nationality, and handedness identities affirmed whenever they urinate out in public, you’d probably laugh in their face and tell them fuck off with that nonsense. Because you probably would share my belief that desiring that degree of affirmation is a sign of mental unwellness. Just because a tiny group feels sad whenever they are reminded of their own biological reality does not mean society must adopt a super radical proposal to make them feel better. Society can adopt a reasonable proposal to help them. But it shouldn’t have to adopt a radical one like TWAW.
I’m not seeing reasonable proposals coming from your side of the table. I’m only hearing crazy-ass slogans.
I’m pretty sure that separate facilities being “wasteful” had literally nothing to do with abolishing segregation, but your idea is to literally create separate facilities for the trans community.
I’m also pretty sure that “damaging to the oppressed group” was the real reason behind abolishing segregation, and is the real reason behind people’s support of the trans community. Historically, they were oppressed into non-existence. Oppressed to the point where people who felt this way could never act in ways they feel comfortable, never be known as the person they felt themselves to be.
Oppressed, even now, where JKR can publicly state that the very fact increasing numbers of people are admitting they are trans is a problem for society. Can you imagine saying something like that about race? That the Civil Rights movement was bad because it encouraged more people to acknowledge their black ancestry?
They are an oppressed group, historically and today, and they are damaged by that oppression.
Creating mixed-sex spaces that are open to anyone—men, women, trans, non-binary, tetrisgender, etc—is not trans exclusionary. Females need the option of a single-sex room for their protection, privacy, and biological needs, but still we can still give non-passing transwomen the dignity of a room that doesn’t misgender them.
The more you push against this very reasonable compromise, the clearer the message becomes that you aren’t concerned about the concerns and needs of women and girls. You believe gender affirmation is more important than protecting females from opportunistic predators.
No it’s not. The civil rights movement in the 1960s wasn’t about “validation,” it was about actual civil rights. The right to be fairly considered for a job, to be able to rent or buy a place to live, to be served in a restaurant. The fight for gay marriage was about the right to engage in a fundamental legal agreement. The women’s rights movement was about the right to vote, to own property, to be treated under the law as equal. These were actual, concrete elements of discrimination. These weren’t just about being personally validated, certainly not directly.
I’m pressing you to read this because years from now, when we’re talking about this shit the same way we talk about eugenics, lobotomies, Catholic priests, and the Salem Witch trials, I don’t know want to hear any whining about cover ups and suppression of the truth yadda yadda yadda that is always said after the fact. The truth is out there; there are just too many people pretending not to see it.
Increasing numbers of teenaged lesbians hacking off their breasts and taking sterilizing hormones is a goddamn public health concern, not a Civil Rights issue.
That’s because it isn’t the exclusionary part. I’m sure you can figure out which is the exclusionary part if you think hard enough.
It’s about equality, acknowledged that you are fundamentally a person equal to other people. Telling someone, you’re equal to all of us… here’s your separate but equal bathroom and locker room and changing room because if you use the “regular” one, we’ll have you arrested… isn’t equal.
So are non-trans women. Allowing people to self-certify their genders and allowing those people into female locker rooms and toilets will inevitably lead to further oppression of cisgender women by sexually predatory men who’ll take advantage of the new rules. And no matter how noble your intentions, if changing the rules to accommodate one oppressed group risks putting members of another oppressed group in danger, then the rule is morally unjustifiable. This goes double if the group being harmed (cis-women) is about a thousand times larger than the group you want to help.
In order to get around this, you’d need to create a rule which satisfies the following criteria:
A) Allows trans-women to use female facilities.
B) Does not allow predators to con their way into said facilities by lying about being trans.
C) Doesn’t rely on intrusive gatekeeping, because any rule which does would be unacceptable to the TRA community.
Coming up with a rule that satisfies all these criteria is completely and utterly impossible, because the above criteria are totally incompatible. Therefore, trans-women can’t use female facilities. That sucks for them, but let’s be honest, it’s not the end of the world either. It’s certainly not as serious as the inevitable violations and assaults which will ensue if the rules about entering female spaces are changed in a way that predators can take advantage of.
Unisex = everyone! Not just transwomen, but all 58 flavors of humanity! Everyone benefits from unisex restrooms since everyone can use them, regardless what “mental state” they possess in any moment in time.
Your side is the only one trying to entrench a system of unfairness. It is unfair to all the nonbinary or gender fluid folks to exclude them from the right to gender affirmation. You seem to only want trans folks to enjoy that right, perhaps because only the trans folks are sympathetic to you. But that’s not how rights work. Everyone is entitled to rights. Not just one special interest group. If you aren’t prepared to give everyone their rights to something, then you shouldn’t be calling that something a right.
True fairness would be either a system where no one has their gender affirmed in public spaces or a system where everyone has their gender affirmed via public spaces. You are telling me that gender affirmation is a fundamental right for everyone, but you aren’t pushing for nonbinary restrooms or agender locker rooms or androgynous prisons. If you want me to really believe that gender affirmation is a fundamental right, then you need to be logically consistent with your proposal. I’m not going to feel like gender affirmation is a crucial to the survival of humanity as long as the discourse is only about what transwomen and transmen want. There are other gender minorities out there. If your side can’t be arsed to factor them into the equation, then this “gender affirmation is a right!” stuff will always reek of so much bullshit.
Precedence is very important in the legal realm. If we enshrine gender affirmation as a legal right and use this to justify giving males unfettered access to women’s spaces, then what would stop people with the maverick gender identity from demanding their own restrooms and locker rooms? Why would we tell those people to go suck an egg, when we didn’t tell 300-lb bearded linebackers that when they were wailing for the “privilege” to pee next to little girls? On what basis would we to tell other gender minorities: “You weirdos aren’t entitled to gender affirmation, but 300-lb bearded linebackers who think they are girls are”? What makes nonbinary folks, agender folks, or mavericks a bunch of crazy weirdos while other gender minorities are deserving of protest marches on their behalf? Seems to me either all gender identities are deserving of the same rights or none of them are.
I have worked in buildings where the johns were lockable single-occupancy stalls. If I were designing a building layout and people were going to complain about who gets to pee next to whom, that solution is pretty obvious.
At the gym it’s not that simple, because the locker room layout is open and everyone is naked. I am not sure whether or not I would personally care if the room were unisex, but someone presumably would, and the room being full of people is no guarantee nobody will act creepy.
I disagree with him in all the places I disagree with you. He’s not breaking new ground here with the whole “I can’t logically define woman as anything but biologically”, and “if we let people self define, women’s rooms will be overrun with perverts.”
I’d be very happy to let them have their rights and their identity without surgical alteration.
One thing that is odd is that nudist areas often have men/women restrooms and locker rooms. That seems like the one place where unisex rooms should be fine. But even in a place where public nudity is the norm, people still use gender-segregated areas.
You literally just described men. I have a separate but equal changing room, bathroom, and in some places I’d be arrested or at least subject to considerable social opprobrium for using the wrong changing room. I still feel like I’m treated correctly under the law.
Well, your generosity is great but it wont stop them from getting unnecessary surgeries or taking drugs that compromises organ function, weakens bones, puts them at risk of uterine and vaginal atrophy, and plenty of other side effects. Gender affirmation has nothing to do with this.
The longer this thread goes on, the more I get the sense that it’s men—not transwomen—who feel most oppressed by sex segregation. Because every argument that @Cheesesteak and others are making could easily apply to men.