Why should they be occurring “thousands of times more”? How are you deciding that’s the threshold of concern?
Unless I missed a post, I haven’t seen any data that demonstrate we haven’t seen an increase in incidents of voyeurism and other complaints occurring in women’s restrooms, locker/dressing rooms, and other spaces over the last few years of gender inclusivity. The factsheet you posted wasn’t complete (it only focused on restrooms and only for a short time period), and it didn’t even show any statistics.
Since the vast majority of these offenders are men, it is extremely hard for me to believe that relaxing restroom and locker room policies for male-bodied persons would have zero impact on their opportunity to offend.
You realize we’re talking about fully half of the sexual predators in the entire nation, supposedly given free access to women’s showers and bathrooms due to these laws, and there won’t be thousands of incidents if you’re correct?
You linked to that UK study of a subset of their public pool changing rooms, they had well over 100 incidents in a 1-2 year period to demonstrate the difference between unisex and single sex changing rooms. In the US, we’re talking states totaling more than twice the UK population, covering 100% of every bathroom, locker room and changing room in the region, and we have the same 5 incidents being brought up again and again.
And don’t tell me that nobody cares. The White House would be thrilled beyond thrilled to be able to prove how dangerous these laws are and stick it to the libs. To be able to put out solid scientific evidence that Democrats are deliberately putting women at risk? It’s a gold mine.
Yeah, it’s become more and more clear to me that there is no getting through to them. Despite self-ID being in place for years in multiple states and countries, with no issues (other than the few exceptions that keep getting brought up), the paranoia abounds.
They don’t care about how well it works, because they have their irrational fears of a “potential” future, and how can we defend ourselves against that? They will find any excuse to restrict our rights for a vague notion of “safety” and i’m done indulging in their what-if fantasies.
Self-ID works, period. Hell, I didn’t even know myself that it was so prevalent around the world until I started doing some research, and that makes me much more hopeful.
You are making assumptions that you shouldn’t make.
Many predators don’t even know about gender inclusive policies. They would rather target “safer” settings than risk getting in trouble by sneaking into a women’s room.
Some predators know about gender inclusive policies, but live in localities where it’s rare to cross into single-sex spaces. Rather than risk standing out like a sore thumb and draw attention to themselves, they stick with the settings they know about.
Some predators know about these policies and take advantage of them, but are able to get away with offenses. Either the victims don’t know they are being spied upon or it doesn’t gets reported due to fear, uncertainty, or inconvenience. This kind of reticence occurs all the time in non-private settings, so we know it’s happening in private rooms too.
It is only the few predators that get caught that we hear about. So we’re talking about a fraction of a fraction.
The same 5 incidents of what? Please don’t tell me you’re looking for an exhaustive list of males attacking females in restrooms and other settings. The instances posted to this thread are only the most obvious examples of people taking advantage of lax policies. Come on, dude. Your attitude is why #metoo had to happen.
What I’m looking for is evidence that males fraudulently using transgender policies to hurt women, represents a greater danger to women than being struck by lightning.
But I guess we bitches be cray. We’re just paranoid for no reason. We have nothing to fear from men, males, or any of the other o58 flavors of humanity. I could post a 1000 more articles like this and it wouldn’t change anyone’s minds. So maybe we individuals with cervixes need to just shut our silly little mouths and let the transwomen and their allies tell us how it’s gonna be from now on. When we see a male in a wig in our restroom or locker room, we just need to raise our fist up in the air in solidarity and say “You go, girl!” No other response is acceptable. Because it is obvious they are harmless, you silly TERF! More harmless than the ciswomen, actually. Especially those lesbians! The ciswomen are the scourge we all need to worry about. They are the true enemy. Not the men, who aren’t being told to make accommodations or sacrifices for anyone. No one is even asking them to stop being murderous transphobic perverts. Cuz boys will be boys, amirite? LOL! It is simply easier to scold women for refusing to believe that males transform into females by saying some magical words than it is to fix the actual problem here. So lets keep dumping on those stupid ciswomen. That’s what we’ve always done, so why stop now?
Of your links, we have one from 8 years ago, one from 7 years ago, one from a place with no transgender law, one from Japan, one involving an actual transgender person but also in a place with no transgender law, one from Virginia before they enacted a transgender law, an article 4 years old, detailing 6 events over a 7 year period, and an event from 11 years ago.
Just checked, my links are all US, and the oldest is from last year.
Do you think those rare and insignificant criminals will be easier or harder to detect when women are scolded for being afraid of males dressed up like women?
Because if you are somehow imagining that nothing at all will change, then you’re hopelessly naive.
But why should you care anyway? It’s not you who has to deal with this kind of thing to begin with, so of course you think it makes sense to liken it to lightning. What’s your next act? Articles about women being attacked by one-armed ninjas? Would you do this if we were talking about transwomen being victimized? If a transwoman told you that she is worried about her likelihood of being attacked a man getting worse in a society that doesn’t allow males to self-identify as females, and I responded with a long list of articles about women being attacked by lightning, don’t you think that would be a tad–I dunno–insensitive? I wish you would just say something like, “It really is fucked up that men feel entitled to women’s spaces and cause women to be fearful. But suck it up, cupcake.” Because that would at least be a different tune.
Like I said, attitudes like yours is why #metoo had to happen.
The question I’ve asked is real simple and still hasn’t been answered: What has been the trend in voyeurism, harassment, and other offenses since gender inclusive policies have been implemented? Not just in restrooms, but in all settings that used to be single-sex only?
If you are unable to show stats that answer this question, just say you don’t know. Don’t just keep insisting we’re talking about events as rare as lightning strikes, because that shit is dismissive. Here’s a suggestion: if it would never occur to you to treat transwomen’s rates of victimization that way, you might not want to do it with women. Not unless you want to be written off as too biased to engage with.
I have actually attempted to answer this question. I have included statements from law enforcement, who have said that offenses have not increased, and studies to show that incidents do not increase. I looked and did not find any studies or statements of fact suggesting otherwise.
Have you done anything to answer this question? I promise I will read anything you provide that isn’t a person presuming that this is a problem, or a list of individual assaults.
Again, this isn’t about what will happen. Has it already happened in the half of the US that already has these laws? I’m not interested in imagining what will happen, the time to imagine the outcome is over.
This was the main finding of that police study you cited:
Based on our review of sexual assault complaints in Atlanta, Dallas, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens and Tucson, before and after an official amendment to the human rights ordinance in that locality, we did not find evidence of sexual assaults taking place in which men, under the guise of being women or transgender, entered women’s bathrooms to commit a sexual assault or otherwise victimize women.
This information is not responsive to my question. We can’t infer from this that there hasn’t been an increase in all sexual-related complaints (not just sex assault) and we can’t infer from this that complaints in other single-sex facilities is flat.
I continue to be disturbed that your response to me pointing out this lack of information is to make lighting strike comparisons. But it’s funny. As rare as lighting strikes are, I avoid walking outdoors when I hear thunder. I do my best to stay indoors to protect myself, knowing good and well that my chances of getting hit are extremely low. I plan to teach my kids to do the same thing.
I will also teach them to never use a public restroom or dressing room by themselves if a man is in there. The risk of shenanigans may be very low, but it’s not worth chancing when simply walking out is so easy to do.
Yes I have looked. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as if any impartial party is analyzing this information and reporting out on it in any kind of comprehensive fashion. Most of what I’ve found are articles in the popular press that are really opinion pieces masquerading as objective journalism.
Background: There is an almost complete lack of statistical data on the relationship between gender-identity policies and incidents of sexual violence in bathrooms and change rooms. Using Target stores as a case study, we analyzed 220 media-reported sexual offenses in Target stores from 2003 to August of 2017 to determine the association, if any, between their gender-identity access policy made public in April 2016 and reported sexual offenses in their stores.
Results: Sexual incidents increased over the course of the entire timeframe of the media reports. In particular, voyeurism-related offenses (Upskirt and Peeping Tom) increased significantly after the publication of Target’s gender-inclusion policy in April, 2016. The three-season forced-category measurement found a 2.3x increase in the amount of upskirt incidents after the policy, and a 2.9x increase in peeping tom incidents after the policy. In a Poisson regression, using trimesters to control for seasonal variations in offenses, the fold change in rate from the four year pre-policy period to the post-policy period was 3.03 for Upskirt and 3.14 for Peeping Tom. Using a two year pre-policy period, the rate change was 2.16 times for Upskirt and 2.34 times for Peeping Tom.
Conclusion: While media-loss remains a limitation in the analysis, the present study supports the theory that sex predators may take opportunities afforded by gender-inclusion policies to perpetrate sexual violence against women in public spaces. No other theory seems to account for the significant and precisely-timed increase seen in the Target reports. Further study would be helpful to compare police reports to media-reported crime and to geographically match Target with similar stores to investigate whether sexual offenses have increased elsewhere.
This is only one analysis, and I’m inclined to believe the group that did this research is ideologically biased, so I will continue to look more. The fact that it’s so hard to get a yes or no answer to this question is pretty bothersome, though. If there is a movement trying to push for radical changes, then a commitment to monitor the impact of those changes post-implementation is a great way to get buy-in for those changes. What we’re seeing is evidence that isn’t this kind of commitment at all. Given this, pushing back is 100% logical.
I’ve been looking at reddit. There’s loads of posts on r/asktransgender that are some variation of ‘is it just a fetish?’ The answer is always ‘no, you’re trans’, and multiple posters claim it’s normal to get turned on by wearing a dress or imagining having a female body. Dunno how representative this is of the offline world.
I actually don’t think that trans women are women - full stop. I think transwomen are transwomen. But I think in most EVERYDAY situations that reduce gender to a binary category that transwomen should be included within the broader category of woman. And that includes public restrooms.
Yes, at birth their doctor will make the quick and easy determination of their sex based on their genitalia. But in most other life situations they are not going to be naked when they meet people. And in everyday life situations people are going to make the male/female determination based on their outward appearance. This is how it should be. I’m not comfortable with people I meet socially thinking about my genitals. To be honest, this probably wouldn’t be a problem for me personally, I appear unambiguously female. But I really feel for androgynous cis-women as well as trans women if people are going to be trying to game their genitalia every time they need to pee.
I think it should be unacceptable for anyone to behave badly in a public restroom. If a totally male presenting person came in and started acting like a troll, I’d call him on it. I believe in one of my first posts in this thread I told about seeing some guy in a dress in the subway and I made a determination that he was a guy in a dress based on…well, the guy (athletic and college aged) and the dress ( which was a Catholic schoolgirl outfit) . The Hello Kitty backpack was another clue, I think it was some sort of initiation stunt. But if that guy had walked into the ladies room I probably would’ve called him on it. The only reason I say probably is if I saw I cis-man come into the ladies room with obvious physical urgency - or if he yelled “knock knock ladies, the men’s room is out of order“, before coming in- I wouldn’t be upset.
But in the absence of any of these circumstances, I would call out a male presenting person in the ladies room, absolutely.
Ironically - and this is something I’ve mentioned several times without an answer - if your “bathroom bill” is passed, I will be more hesitant to call out a male presenting person in the ladies room.
Because these bills would force transmen - burly bearded transmen - to use the ladies room if they need a public restroom. This is a major source of consternation for my nephew and it defeats the safety argument. Because bathroom bills would put trans men in the ladies room and you’d have to accept that the law requires this. The scary penis-owner wouldn’t even have to shave and put on a dress in order to creep on or assault women. He could just walk into the ladies room ,beard and all, and claim he had a vagina. It’s not like anyone is going to check.
That’s a good point I hadn’t considered. If the laws are passed to force us into the bathroom, locker room, etc. with men, despite the fact that I look just like an average woman, that means trans men would be forced to use women’s facilities. And when it comes to them, they tend to pass as males a lot better than we can pass as females. So the only way to know would be a genital check, which i’m sure no one would agree to.
I wonder if they would be so accepting to have someone that has the appearance of a cisgender man but has a vagina in a women’s restroom. Since they tend to put so much emphasis on genitals.
I don’t think anyone here has supported an actual bathroom bill. What I want is recognition that giving more rights to one minority can have an impact on those of another, and for us to remember that single sex facilities, spaces etc were mostly created for good reasons that have nothing to do with affirming anyone’s gender. If we can have an end to the assumption and insistence that trans men and women should automatically be treated the same as cis men and women in every situation and that there is no difference between bathrooms and prisons or sports, and instead do a cost benefit analysis that takes everyone’s needs into account, then I’ll be happy. This may mean we have no rules for bathrooms and allow people to decide for themselves which one to use, add cubicles to changing rooms so those who want privacy can have it, create separate leagues for trans and non-binary people in sports, and decide individually based on circumstances if a trans person goes to the men’s or women’s jail, and/or create a separate prison or wing for them.
I agree with you. I think this study has its flaws, but has something useful to say. This is an issue that is crying out for hard nosed scientific study. Both sides of the discussion should be demanding it.