# Political fallout of transgender bathroom issue **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 14, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775 "2016-05-14T18:29:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/261 "2016-05-18T04:08:58Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > **Yogsothoth** : Should chicks with dicks be allowed in the women’s locker room? A person who claims not to be transphobic uses one of the worst transphobic slurs there is in the Elections forum, and gets away with it. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/262 "2016-05-18T04:39:02Z")
I honestly thought that was just a cheeky term. I was not trying to offend, so I sincerely apologize, and will not say it again. (I don’t think they are “chicks” anyway, after all.) ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/263 "2016-05-18T04:49:06Z")
BTW, on that high suicide rate. I’m sympathetic: I lost my father to suicide, as well as a close family friend. But I feel they needed better psychiatric intervention to save their lives. The Johns Hopkins psychiatrist cites the high trans suicide rate when making his case. So I am unsure how it helps your argument. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/264 "2016-05-18T05:03:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > The Johns Hopkins psychiatrist cites the high trans suicide rate when making his case. So I am unsure how it helps your argument. I believe you meant the psychiatrist McHugh , who ignores the work in transgender health in these last 30 years that led to a reversal by HHS, whose views are stuck firmly in the past. You’re relying on an old, outdated, wrong, outlier of a doctor, whose views are simply not in line with the rest of the medical community. But then you know this. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/265 "2016-05-18T05:09:49Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > The Johns Hopkins psychiatrist cites the high trans suicide rate when making his case. So I am unsure how it helps your argument. Good grief. That he acknowledges a fact doesn’t mean his alleged “solution” has any merit at all. But **Euphonious Polemic** put it best. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/266 "2016-05-18T06:07:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > BTW, if you search for that article (or even just the author’s name) and then click the link you get from the search, you can read the whole thing. I was doing just that, but I came across the response first, which obviated the need for me to read the original. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/267 "2016-05-18T06:57:05Z")
Mmm hmmm. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/268 "2016-05-18T07:14:31Z")
Look, this stuff about whether it’s “in your head” and thus “the way you think should be corrected” is silly. The brain is part of the body, and mental health is, in many ways, just very difficult to treat physical disorders whose therapy often involved interpersonal interaction. It is **nothing new** that we treat mental health by changing body chemistry. We have antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication and everything else. All of them fundamentally change your body chemistry, like hormones. What matters is the suffering certain thoughts cause, and what the best treatment is. The vast majority of evidence find the best way is to treat it as a physical condition, largely dealing with hormone imbalances. This may not be the way forever, in The Year Of Our Lord 2050 maybe they’ll invent a pill that will instantly treat any dysphoric thoughts that costs $5 and only has to be taken once. Great, cool, that’s probably the best solution; low societal cost, low personal cost. However, that’s not the reality we live in and talk therapy and, if they’ve been tried, mind or mood-altering drugs have proven notoriously unreliable. There’s always talk about “what about people who think they’re Napoleon, or animals!?” And, really, a lot of it comes down to social cost. Treating your CEO like a woman now doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme, treating your CEO like a civil war veteran a la Twin Peaks probably has significantly more cost associated with it. Likewise, treating humans like animals raises significant ethical issues given the general lack of freedoms animals have. This is in the framework that being transgender is an illness, which is contentious. But my point is, even if you assume it’s a mental illness, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the “cure” is talk therapy to “get over it”. As for people on Twitter or Tumblr blowing up because of misgendering or deadnaming. People on microblogging cites can be mob-mentality reactionary assholes, news at 11. This has nothing to do with transpeople, and everything to do with the reductive and cliquish nature those sites engender. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/269 "2016-05-18T09:13:39Z")
Really good points, **Jragon**. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/270 "2016-05-18T10:25:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But homosexuality is about what people prefer to _do_. “I like to kiss other men, and snuggle with them in bed late on Sunday mornings, and then make mohitos and go to brunch.” Cool, sounds like a nice weekend. “I’m not into all that romantic stuff, but I like to really get pounded by a dude.” Right on, knock yourself out: not my thing, but whatever floats your boat. This silliness is about a nudge away from the “lifestyle choice” claim that many gay bashers promote. Homosexuality is not about what people “prefer to do.” It is about the unchosen impulses of attraction and desires for intimacy that a person experiences. Supporting universal hedonism might cause one to align with the supporters of Gay Rights, politically, but it does not actually demonstrate an understanding of homosexuality, (or even human sexuality). That misunderstanding certainly does not provide one with the competence or aptitude to understand or intelligently comment upon homosexual issues, much less transgender issues. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/271 "2016-05-18T12:04:09Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > That’s not a very accepting or sympathetic-sounding way of framing mental illness. Seems to me you are complaining about stigmatizing transgenderism, while doing it to the mentally ill (who are, of course, far more numerous). Then I apologize for using that language. I’ll rephrase: It took lots of people a long time to recognize that gay people weren’t mentally ill… I’m sure it will take a long time for many to accept that trans people aren’t similarly mentally ill. I expect that you’ll accept the overwhelming consensus of mental health professionals about a population that has been treated abominably by society one day. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/272 "2016-05-18T13:33:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I support the first because to do otherwise has been proven to risk serious harm to trans people; I have no preference or position on the second, since neither option causes any harm that I’m aware of. And as we’ve discussed, “harm” is a very squirrelly word. Some people feel harmed when their personal privacy preferences are violated. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/273 "2016-05-18T13:39:08Z")
It all comes down to whether we care about being around people in bathrooms based on their genitals or their appearance–sex, or gender–and which one we accommodate at the expense of the other one. If it matters doesn’t matter what sex someone is, why does it matter what gender they are any more? If genitals don’t matter, why does looking like someone who typically has a certain set of genitals still matter? Why is gender even a thing to be cared about in certain situations like restrooms? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/274 "2016-05-18T13:39:32Z")
It is not the failure to be or act “normal” that I consider mentally ill (or regardless of the DSM, a problem for an individual that the individual insists is society’s problem), but the insistence that a person with a Y chromosome and functional adult male genitalia is to be considered 100% a woman in every respect. Remember, I have said from the beginning that I believe there should be compromises, a third way, and so on. A kid who considers themselves trans should not be forced to use the group bathroom of the gender they were born with. And in public buildings that have only group bathrooms and where people don’t know what gender someone was born with (unlike at a school where they have probably grown up with that person) then obviously if you can pass, you can pass. No one is going to be checking birth certificates at the door. But acknowledging that such a person is neither fish nor fowl is apparently unacceptable to the trans rights community. This inflexible attitude that we cannot possibly acknowledge any difference between a woman who has a vagina and a uterus and one who has a penis and testicles is _my_ failure of imagination? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/275 "2016-05-18T13:58:32Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > And as we’ve discussed, “harm” is a very squirrelly word. Some people feel harmed when their personal privacy preferences are violated. I have no doubt that white supremacists believe they are harmed by being near black people, and homophobes believe they are harmed by being near gay people, but I think they’re wrong, and I don’t think I’m going out on a limb in saying so. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/276 "2016-05-18T14:01:35Z")
**Lance** raises an important point. The obvious and clear logical implication of the trans rights argument is that we should all get over having gender segregated bathrooms. It should just be like the Ally McBeal scenario, although I assume this means the end of urinals–which are much more efficient in space and water usage. But my sense is that many trans people are not interested in seeing society evolve in this respect, because they are more about reifying gender than anybody. Obviously this doesn’t describe everyone, but I think it is common. To have everyone be on a continuum and have lots of ambiguous/androgynous people would not be satisfying to them. They want to really embody the retrograde stereotypes of the gender they choose. And they want everyone else to treat them as such. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/277 "2016-05-18T14:03:09Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > But acknowledging that such a person is neither fish nor fowl is apparently unacceptable to the trans rights community. This inflexible attitude that we cannot possibly acknowledge any difference between a woman who has a vagina and a uterus and one who has a penis and testicles is _my_ failure of imagination? Sure we acknowledge a difference – some are trans and some are cis. Some are even intersex (at birth, at least – I don’t know if intersex people consider themselves to necessarily be intersex as adults). Allowing them to use the bathroom they identify with harms no one, and not allowing them to do so has been proven to cause great harm to trans people. Recognizing that trans people are trans has been demonstrated to be extremely helpful in their mental health by professionals in the field. Why (since your ‘third way separation’ idea is a non-starter) is it better in your mind for society and law to treat trans people differently? Who does it harm if they can use the bathroom they identify with? Why would you want people who fit society’s expectations for appearance of women to use the men’s room, and people who fit society’s expectations for appearance of men to use the women’s room? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/278 "2016-05-18T14:04:19Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > I tried to explain things as I see them because you yourself said that you weren’t clear on it. Forgive me if that came across as condescension. It wasn’t meant that way, nor did I think that was the tone I was taking. But I’m not going to lose sleep over it. > > You win. I’m done. It’s the same to me either way, but if you’re going to want to complain about other people’s condescending tones, my advice for you going forward would be to avoid posts which consist of entirely of things like “Just read it. You might learn something” - especially when “it” consists of some basic knowledge that anyone even slightly familiar with the issue has already encountered multiple times and which does not relate to the point you’re responding to. But your option. > [@tomndebb](#): > > I don’t know why you are portraying my statement in exactly the reverse of what I have said. The letter was in preparation for several months. What I have said is that the intended release date of the letter may have been something different than last week, but that it is possible that the release date was changed in response to the North Carolina attack on Civil Rights. The point is that this was not some hastily written document created in response to the NC legislature, but that it had been under consideration for a long time. I’ve not portrayed your statement in exactly the reverse of what you’ve said. What I’ve noted is that your statement (and I extend this to the above quote) is not in contradiction to anything I’ve said here (or that anyone else has said here, that I recall). So it’s puzzling that you continue to make a big deal about it, unless this is some sort of distraction technique and attempt to impute things to other people. > [@](#): > > Of course, the Dear Colleague letter makes no effort to threaten schools with loss of funding, either. However, I will note that the Dear Colleague letter has a long tradition in the Department of Education (which issued the letter jointly with the Department of Justice). They, in fact, have a policy of providing guidance on numerous issues through exactly the same sort of document and your claim that they would (normally?) just answer individual questions when asked has no basis in fact. Dear Colleague letters is a primary method of providing all school systems with consistent information. As noted previously in response to another denialist, virtually all reporting in the mainstream media included the interpretation of that letter as containing an implicit threat of loss of funding. I linked earlier to CNN, but here’s the [NYT](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/us/politics/obama-administration-to-issue-decree-on-transgender-access-to-school-restrooms.html?_r=0), and it’s a trivial matter to find any number of other sources by people more familiar with the political process than you who assumed the same. You want to argue that you’re right and everyone else is wrong, we’re going to have to leave it there. > [@](#): > > I saw the statement in one of the numerous articles in papers and the internet from the last two weeks and cannot now find it. This is not the type of thing that you would expect to be found in one hard-to-find source. 28,000 responses from institutions is a big deal. > [@](#): > > Searching for “28,000” will not bring it up because the actual number was 28,465 or 28,095 or something like that, (which is why I only indicated “over 28,000”). OK, so forget the exact number. Find something that there was a request for public comment and responses from a bunch of educational and other institutions. I would note that there is no mention of this in the DOJ letter itself or in the DOJ blog post about it, and the reporting I’ve seen mention the DOJ assertion that it’s been in the works for months as a claim by the DOJ, not as something that would have been previously well known based on a comment process of that scale. It’s extremely unlikely that your claim is true. > [@](#): > > You are free to ignore that point, although your claim that such a request and response would have made a bigger splash in the news, like your erroneous claim that the various agencies would have only responded individually to individual requests rather than sending a document simultaneously to all interested parties, is not based on reality. How many of the over 300 Dear Colleague letters sent out over the last ten years (for example) have attracted even two inches of type in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or Washington Post? This one was only reported after the North Carolina brouhaha blew up. I agree with you, but your point undermines your claim. The fact is that most “dear colleague” letters, as you call them, are not a big deal _even when they’re issued_, and that’s why even if they were at some point in a “request for comment” phase, they don’t attract much attention. But here we’re discussing a very hot-button issue that made huge headlines when the letter was released, and if there was a request for comment process that was broad enough to attract 28,000 responses from institutions, it would have attracted some more notice (and even now, would leave more of a trace). To be clear, I’m not accusing you of making the whole thing up out of thin air. I think you’re most likely confused about something you read. However, now that it’s been challenged, the forthright thing to do would be to put up or back off. Unfortunately, considering your performance in this thread, where you’ve previously posted bogus information and failed to acknowledge when this was refuted, that’s probably unlikely to happen this time as well. > [@Jragon](#): > > Look, this stuff about whether it’s “in your head” and thus “the way you think should be corrected” is silly. The brain is part of the body, and mental health is, in many ways, just very difficult to treat physical disorders whose therapy often involved interpersonal interaction. > > It is **nothing new** that we treat mental health by changing body chemistry. We have antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication and everything else. All of them fundamentally change your body chemistry, like hormones. > > What matters is the suffering certain thoughts cause, and what the best treatment is. > > […] > > There’s always talk about “what about people who think they’re Napoleon, or animals!?” And, really, a lot of it comes down to social cost. Treating your CEO like a woman now doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme, treating your CEO like a civil war veteran a la Twin Peaks probably has significantly more cost associated with it. Likewise, treating humans like animals raises significant ethical issues given the general lack of freedoms animals have. > > This is in the framework that being transgender is an illness, which is contentious. But my point is, even if you assume it’s a mental illness, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the “cure” is talk therapy to “get over it”. That’s kind of how I look at things. Whether something is or is not a “mental illness” seems overly judgmental on the one hand, and seems like a moot point on the other. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s any clear-cut way to delineate between a personality difference which is or is not a mental illness. And I tend to be skeptical of the ability of psychologists to cure anything, including but not limited to transgender issues. So as a practical matter, the only thing that counts from the perspective of any given transgender person is how they want to deal with their personality and the challenges that it brings them in life. Which is remarkably similar to the only thing that counts from the perspective of any given cis person, as regards to their own personality challenges. All that said, I do think that making a rallying point out of transpeople being people “born with the wrong body” and suppressing any other perspective as bigoted, would have a deterring impact on the likelihood of your suggestion that by 2050 “maybe they’ll invent a pill that will instantly treat any dysphoric thoughts” coming to pass. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/279 "2016-05-18T14:05:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > **Lance** raises an important point. The obvious and clear logical implication of the trans rights argument is that we should all get over having gender segregated bathrooms. It should just be like the Ally McBeal scenario, although I assume this means the end of urinals–which are much more efficient in space and water usage. No, this is not the “obvious and clear logical implication”, any more than the implication of gay marriage is pedophilia or bestiality. > [@](#): > > But my sense is that many trans people are not interested in seeing society evolve in this respect, because they are more about reifying gender than anybody. Obviously this doesn’t describe everyone, but I think it is common. To have everyone be on a continuum and have lots of ambiguous/androgynous people would not be satisfying to them. They want to really embody the retrograde stereotypes of the gender they choose. And they want everyone else to treat them as such. Your sense sounds an awful lot like fantasy-straw-manning. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/280 "2016-05-18T14:07:41Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I have no doubt that white supremacists believe they are harmed by being near black people, and homophobes believe they are harmed by being near gay people, but I think they’re wrong, and I don’t think I’m going out on a limb in saying so. And you prove my point once again. You can’t just throw a classic civil rights desegregation template onto this issue, because the very heart of it is supporting a segregated system and giving transgender people access to that segregation. Just as whites said they were harmed by being in the presence of blacks in restrooms, women say they are harmed by being near men in the restrooms, and vice versa. That’s why we have restrooms segregated by sex. Yet you have no problem with that. You want transgender people to have access to that segregation. We banned whites-only and blacks-only restrooms, but we still support men’s-only and women’s-only restrooms. If you propose solving this issue by ending gender-segregated restrooms and locker rooms and changing them to unisex, then you can go around comparing this to the struggle against white supremacy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775.md?page=15)