I am new to this thread. I admit that I have not read all 5042 posts, but I did go back about a month to try and wrap my head around the general tone of the discussion. I am a 1999er, but I mostly lurk. Some of you might have seen a post or two of mine and many of you are thinking “Who is this guy???”
In short, I am a 67 year old straight man. I have been married to the love of my life for 45 years.
I came to this thread after attending a wedding Friday evening. I posted this in another thread:
I will read along here, and comment occasionally. I just wanted to be on record as to where I stand.
It wasn’t a brand new space, it was an existing bathroom, previously used by some adult staff. They just changed the sign on the door. Which is fine, no one needs a brand new space if existing spaces are adequate. The problem was the isolation.
You don’t recall wanting to “fit in” as a teenager? You would really have wanted to to be isolated and not allowed to be in the same spaces your peers used? You really can’t see how that created a ghetto?
My health club has open changing areas with a couple of little private rooms. The private rooms aren’t labeled, and anyone can choose to use one. I believe they added those when they were legally required to allow transwoman in the women’s changing room. They allow a transwoman to hide her penis without being ghettoized. They also allow other women to hide whatever they don’t want a transwoman to see if there happens to be one changing in the open area.
I assume anyone just lingering in the changing room displaying their genitalia would be asked to get dressed and move on.
There are lots of solutions that don’t require creating a ghetto.
You realize that exactly this reasoning supports excluding the black girl from the locker room. I’m not saying it unimportant to consider everyone’s needs and comfort, but that’s a slippery slope of it’s own.
I think this IS a red herring. I don’t think any school is going to allow a boy to say, “today I am a girl, just long enough to chase this other girl I’m harassing.”
Personally, I was harassed by girls a lot more than by boys in high school. I was once literally surrounded by a ring of hostile girls, and i escaped by looking to see which of them seemed least self-assured, and charging her. Another time, my best friend and I got into a fight and chased each other around the school. So I don’t think of a public restroom as a refuge, I actually think of gang ladies rooms as a potentially scary and threatening space. I don’t use them in train stations, for instance, because who knows who might be there.
This no doubt colors my emotional reaction to the these issues, as you experience colors yours.
Also, as an actuary, I’ve seen general liability claims. “Ladies rooms” are a common place for rapes to occur. A man who is willing to lie in wait to rape a woman isn’t deterred by a sign on the door, and may be helped by knowing that no “normal” man is likely to disturb him in his hunt.
Obviously, crowded public ladies rooms are safe, but there are other ways to protect yourself with numbers. Once, when backpacking through Europe, I was hanging out on a train platform with a lot of other young women. Suddenly, a panicked young man ran into our midst. He’d just been assaulted in the men’s room, by an older man, and he asked us to give him the protection of numbers. Which, of course, we did.
So a guy can “choose” to stand in the common area buck naked and no-one will object or mind? Or are the changing rooms there to discourage him (everyone) from doing so? What kind of health club is this?
ETA: I just realized you must mean the common areas are gender segregated.
It’s a women-only health club. They didn’t want to accept transwoman as members, but were required to by law.
It’s otherwise a pretty ordinary private gym, with a changing area with lockers and benches, private shower stalls, private toilet stalls, public sinks, a room full of stationary bikes, a larger room full of treadmills and elliptical machines, and an area with weights and machines that provide tension and stuff, a little bar that sells “health drinks”… I’m not sure exactly what you are asking about it.
ETA: oh, yeah, there’s only one “public” changing area because it’s a women’s gym. But actually, it’s large enough that there are several visually-separate areas, plus the little private rooms.
I wish this would be explained too. It really is central to the competing rights question.
The trans girl we’re talking about looks indistinguishable to a boy. In videos that I’ve seen, their gender expression didn’t even look particularly feminine. I’ve tried hard to look at this issue from the trans vantage point, and I can’t. I can understand their wanting to undress away from boys (bullying I’m sure is a problem) but their insistence on undressing with girls in lieu of their own space is where I get lost.
I mentioned this before but I will say it again. As a woman, the thought of me undressing with men is unfathomable to me NOT because of concerns about my own safety and privacy. It’s because I know my presence would be disruptive in that space. Rape and voyeurism probably aren’t on men’s mind if a woman showed up, but other things would be. Some might find themselves nervous and shy (no more locker room talk, fellas), some might find themselves worried about committing the cardinal sin of leering, some might be scared of involuntary reactions down below, and others might be disgusted at all of these involuntary reactions. I absolutely have no idea the gamut of things that could arise if a woman disrobed in the men’s, but they are unlikely to be positive for most occupants in the space. So I use the women’s locker room as much for their privacy and dignity as my own.
In this debate, if there was even a small hint that TRAs looked at things from a women’s perspective, I suspect things would be a lot less contentious. There still would be tensions, but this would feel less like a land grab and more like a negotiation. But the empathy seems to be expected to go in one direction only.
All the actual trans people i know are somewhat self conscious of their bodies and very sensitive to the discomfort of others – if only due to enlightened self-interest.
I’ve never seen a penis in my gym. If I’ve ever changed with a transwoman, I’m certain she chose to use one of the (non-ghettoized) private spaces.
And I’ve never seen anyone’s equipment in any public toilet ever. (I have been in unisex restrooms where I walked briskly past the urinals. A better design would eliminate the need for me to look away.)
I feel like there are practical solutions to these issues that address everyone’s needs.
No it’s not and really, we really need to lay off the flippant racial analogies. Unlike race, biological sex is not a social construct. It has practical importance that skin color doesn’t. The way we are socialized around sex is not arbitrary; it relates to how we function together as a sexual dimorphic species. There is a reason girls are trained to be wary of men when they are naked and alone, and it’s not irrational prejudice.
I’m sure this is true, but again, that’s not who is leading the change here. It is other people.
The trans girl that we’re talking about didn’t seem as that concerned about the discomfort of girls. She lobbied for the right to access their space over their objections. Can you imagine doing anything like this? I can’t no matter how I try.
I’ve seen naked parts (but not penises) in the gyms I’ve used; everyone lives something differently it seems.
But if exposure of private parts is so rare in your experience, that makes it even stranger so much significance is being given to gender affirmation. What material difference is it that the transgirl undresses in the boy’s locker room, when they all have male bodies and have privacy stalls to keep from exposing their bodies? How is undressing in a privacy stall within the girl’s room that different that it necessitates special accommodation and policy changes?
As a healthy straight male who has spent his entire life around gyms and health clubs, I feel like it’s worth noting that men need their “safe spaces” from women as well. Sometimes we just need a break from all that estrogen and to relax from sucking in our abs for a few goddamn minutes. Also, I’m happy to let whatever magic happens in the women’s locker room to remain a mystery. And women should be spared whatever shame goes on in the mens. It’s in the best interest for everyone, and the continuation of the species, really.
Not vag per se but vulva and mons pubis. There were regularly sightings at the women’s locker rooms I’ve used during my career. All three associated with federal government agencies, so we’re not talking about obscure facilities.
Fwiw, i joined the women’s health club because at the time there were two options, and it was cleaner, less crowded, had more equipment than the other, and was also both closer to my office and right across the street from my train station. I feel weird about it being women-only, and kind of apologized to my male friends for joining it.
They were all jealous until two more health clubs opened up that are on par with mine, and nicer than the other one. I’ve stayed because i like my personal trainer.
Honestly, these days, my “health club” is a beach towel in my bedroom and i see my trainer over Google Hangouts.
Some men are quite open about their nudity in the locker room. It’s not common, but it’s not unusual for fully naked men to walk from their locker to the shower, shave at the sink, blowdry their hair, blowdry their balls(!), etc. It’s like they consider the locker room a nudist resort and don’t feel the need to cover up. I get the feeling that kind of behavior virtually never happens in the women’s locker room. But then how to handle it if those men are sincere transwomen and do the same thing in the women’s room? I would guess that most women would find it extremely uncomfortable if a male-looking person was shaving at the sink while totally nude. The transwoman may have no pervy intent, but I would assume that most women would have serious concerns about what was going on.
