# 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:** 18
**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 20, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/341 "2016-05-20T16:04:21Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > So I’ve wondered about this a while. Why do you make the distinction between bathrooms and lockers while most everyone else argues them interchangeably? I’m gobsmacked that you don’t see the obvious difference; furthermore, it is not at all true that “everyone else argues them interchangeably”. In fact, I’ve heard Gov. McCrory on NPR take pains to point out the distinction, as in [this NPR interview:](http://www.npr.org/2016/05/13/477974503/n-c-governor-calls-obama-transgender-guidelines-a-massive-overreach) > [@](#): > > SIEGEL: Well, we just heard Gavin Grimm, who’s a transgender high school high school junior, welcome the administration’s letter. Let me ask you - I mean, why should a North Carolina child in Gavin’s situation, as a junior in high school - why should he be required to use a girls’ room, where he would look and feel very out of place? > > MCCRORY: He’s actually not required to do that. He was offered and many other people in our existing school systems across the United States are offered alternative choices for this very complex situation in which there’s not a clear definition for gender identity or gender expression. There are no guidelines to follow in this area, up until today when the Obama administration ordered all schools throughout the United States to - you can offer an alternative, but the student doesn’t have to take it. And when you have a different anatomy than the other students using - by the way, not just the toilet, but also a changing room and shower facilities, which are a lot different than what the Virginia case - Virginia case is just talking about restrooms > > SIEGEL: There was no changing, no room locker room. > > MCCRORY: Right. The Obama administration applies the locker rooms and the shower facilities and… > > SIEGEL: You’ve called that… > > MCCRORY: …that’s where the anatomy is - causes some serious issues that we as a nation need to deal with. So in case that’s not clear, the point is that in a bathroom (a women’s restroom anyway), no one is in a state of undress except partially, and inside stalls that have locks on the inside. In a locker room, you undress out in the open, in front of everyone! ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/342 "2016-05-20T16:52:08Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’ve gotta stop you right there, because it’s not symmetrical. Rape is almost exclusively perpetrated by adolescents or adults with mature male sex organs. Which is why I proposed having one locker room for them (and/or anyone else who is willing to go and change on their turf), and one where they are prohibited from entering. I don’t think it’s important to keep the people you’re talking about out of the “men’s locker”. > > So I understand why you’d want to turn it around, but I’m not going to let you get away with that, sorry. > > […] > > No. You are “forgetting” that it’s pretty difficult for most men to completely overpower most other men, the way they can a child or a smallish woman. This is something most women understand very well, of course–leading me to suspect you are not a woman. Transwomen on hormones have strengths very close to women, similarly, transmen on hormones get much stronger. Likewise, while I know the canard is “rape is about power, not sex”, I would also point out that transpeople on hormones also have sex drives more similar to their target genders. Many (but not necessarily most/all) transwomen on hormones, androgen blockers specifically, also get a side effect that makes them unable to have penetrative sex. Of course you can rape without penetrative sex, and even cis women can rape people, but my point is there is a vast difference in things like sex drive and strength between transwomen on hormones and men. ---
**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 20, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/343 "2016-05-20T17:00:55Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If the harm is imaginary, then transgender people are not being harmed by being forced to use a rest room or locker room with a gender different from their own. If the harm is real, then cisgender people are being harmed by being forced to share a rest room or locker room with a gender different from their own. > > If it is harmful to a transgender woman to change or shower in a room with someone else with a penis, is it not equally harmful to a cisgender woman to change or shower in a room with someone else with a penis? > > Regards, > Shodan The harm isn’t about feelings – it’s about threats and assaults and murders. That’s why the present/past bathroom rules (without protection for trans people) are unacceptable – without them, things will continue as they have for decades, with trans people under risk of threats and assaults. That’s the harm. ---
**Author:** ![inscrutable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a88e4f/32.png) [@inscrutable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inscrutable)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/344 "2016-05-20T17:13:21Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > The harm isn’t about feelings – it’s about threats and assaults and murders. That’s why the present/past bathroom rules (without protection for trans people) are unacceptable – without them, things will continue as they have for decades, with trans people under risk of threats and assaults. That’s the harm. So the existing laws against assault are good enough to protect users of the ladies room, but not the men’s room? It is conceivable that you might be hit by a bus while crossing the street. Should we make buses illegal, or should we prohibit crossing the street? ---
**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 20, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/345 "2016-05-20T17:22:25Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > So the existing laws against assault are good enough to protect users of the ladies room, but not the men’s room? According to the statistics and reports for violence and threats against trans people, no, existing laws are not good enough to protect them. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/346 "2016-05-20T17:24:22Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m gobsmacked that you don’t see the obvious difference; furthermore, it is not at all true that “everyone else argues them interchangeably”. > > . > . > . > . > > So in case that’s not clear, the point is that in a bathroom (a women’s restroom anyway), no one is in a state of undress except partially, and inside stalls that have locks on the inside. In a locker room, you undress out in the open, in front of everyone! I meant most everyone else on the board. I haven’t seen, and maybe I missed it, some other poster parsing between bathroom laws and locker room laws. If you’re using the act of undress in a bathroom stall vs. openly, I’d have to question the logic of separating the two. You can undress in a stall in a locker room. In fact, there was a kid in my junior and high schools that did exactly that. Even PE period he’d take his clothes into a stall and change, he’d never change outside. If you recall, the purpose of liberal transgender bathroom _AND_ locker room laws are so that we don’t attack the gender identity of people and harm them by making them feel out of place. Allowing them the choice of going to the bath/locker room of their choice promotes that healthy mentality that sex and our bodies are not “wrong” if you feel like a woman/man in the opposite’s skin. Such liberal laws are both protection for the fragile psyche of people who are transitioning and a way to demonstrate that such things are not evil or wrong or immoral On the other hand, I see conservative laws as doing 2 very wrong things: promoting a boogeyman that doesn’t exist in purporting to defend women (and its ALWAYS females) from horrible perverts, and assuaging their constituents that their bigotry is normal and defensible by allowing them legal protection in not having to confront their hatred So what if someone with opposite genitals from people are changing in the same locker room? Its better to have that happen than tell transgender people they are somehow wrong and not deserving of being able to live as their gender identity. ---
**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 20, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/347 "2016-05-20T17:29:57Z")
Reading this kind of post, I can only interpret it as your being so steeped in this uber-progressive mentality that you are sort of floating in a vision of what comes across as a sort of combo of, say, Amsterdam or Scandinavia, and a futuristic society from a 1960s sci-fi novel. In the regular, real world we live in, this is trying to leap too far, too fast. I obviously have some doubts about whether we even \*should \*go that far, but I won’t claim certainty on that point. I am positive though that we are flirting with electoral trouble, because this will to most people appear to go way beyond common sense. ETA: I suppose we need a huge public works project, to do some mass building of individual changing rooms. Seems our culture has been headed toward shyness in locker rooms anyway. Which I have often thought is kind of a shame, but then when this kind of thing comes into play, it’s like “how fast can you build them?”. ---
**Author:** ![inscrutable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a88e4f/32.png) [@inscrutable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inscrutable)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/348 "2016-05-20T18:17:18Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > According to the statistics and reports for violence and threats against trans people, no, existing laws are not good enough to protect them. Compared to the statistics and reports for violence and threats against actual women? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/349 "2016-05-20T18:19:25Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > Compared to the statistics and reports for violence and threats against actual women? By transwomen? ---
**Author:** ![inscrutable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a88e4f/32.png) [@inscrutable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inscrutable)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/350 "2016-05-20T18:33:59Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > By transwomen? By buses? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/351 "2016-05-20T18:46:55Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > By buses? Pardon my brevity earlier. I thought you were getting at statistics of assaults on women by transgender people. If you’re just looking to bringing up the fact that there is statistically more violence against women in general, I am inclined to agree with you. But what does that have to do with transgender people? ---
**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 20, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/352 "2016-05-20T19:10:41Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > Compared to the statistics and reports for violence and threats against actual women? [Absolutely](http://www.avp.org/storage/documents/ncavp_transhvfactsheet.pdf), on a per capita basis. ---
**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 20, 2016, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/353 "2016-05-20T19:23:12Z")
I feel like we are really getting through the looking-glass here. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/354 "2016-05-20T23:04:07Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Reading this kind of post, I can only interpret it as your being so steeped in this uber-progressive mentality that you are sort of floating in a vision of what comes across as a sort of combo of, say, Amsterdam or Scandinavia, and a futuristic society from a 1960s sci-fi novel. In the regular, real world we live in, this is trying to leap too far, too fast. I obviously have some doubts about whether we even \*should \*go that far, but I won’t claim certainty on that point. I am positive though that we are flirting with electoral trouble, because this will to most people appear to go way beyond common sense. I suppose time will tell if this is too much too soon. But among those who are not aggrieved, there is rarely ever a “right time” for the oppressed to demand their rights. We heard it just recently with gay marriage. I think there’s a much more likely chance this is the right time in history to do this than later ---
**Author:** ![blueliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58f4c7/32.png) [@blueliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueliner)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/355 "2016-05-21T14:38:50Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Can you be more specific about your concern with respect to children? Adults who are gay or transgendered have been through their sexual development cycle, they understand themselves and who they are. Children don’t have that luxury. When Obama issues a mandate to public schools he’s not really dealing with transgendered rights, he’s further confusing the issue for some of those kids, a group of people who are not old enough or mature enough to have made that decision on their own. I think most people understand the difference and that’s why I think this will hurt the Democrats in November because while championing rights is fine child abuse isn’t. ---
**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 21, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/356 "2016-05-21T14:41:13Z")
> [@blueliner](#): > > Adults who are gay or transgendered have been through their sexual development cycle, they understand themselves and who they are. Children don’t have that luxury. When Obama issues a mandate to public schools he’s not really dealing with transgendered rights, he’s further confusing the issue for some of those kids, a group of people who are not old enough or mature enough to have made that decision on their own. I think most people understand the difference and that’s why I think this will hurt the Democrats in November because while championing rights is fine child abuse isn’t. You have just seriously accused the entire medical community of child abuse. You might want to go and educate yourself - just a little bit. ---
**Author:** ![blueliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58f4c7/32.png) [@blueliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueliner)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/357 "2016-05-21T14:43:54Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > You have just seriously accused the entire medical community of child abuse. You might want to go and educate yourself - just a little bit. I have accused the medical community of nothing, I’ve accused Obama and the public schools of child abuse. ---
**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 21, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/358 "2016-05-21T20:14:52Z")
**blueliner** sure seems pretty red to me. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2016, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/359 "2016-05-21T20:20:48Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > …So, SlackerInc has said that the reason there must be laws preventing transgender persons from using the restroom of their choice is that anyone with a working penis is potentially a rapist or molester. > > If this is true, then having one facility, “formerly the ‘men’s room’” as Slacker says, be accessible to all with working penises is NOT a solution, because if one person with a working penis is in a restroom with _any other person_–male or female, child or adult–then the potential for that working-penis person to commit rape or molestation exists. Or at least it exists IF Slacker’s hypothesis (that all with working penises could potentially commit rape or molestation) is true. > If that hypothesis is true, then the ONLY possible solution is that persons with working penises cannot be in a restroom in which ANY other person is present. > In other words, the only possible solution, if the hypothesis is true, is single-user restrooms for those with working penises. … > [@SlackerInc](#): > > … Rape is almost exclusively perpetrated by adolescents or adults with mature male sex organs. Which is why I proposed having one locker room for them (and/or anyone else who is willing to go and change on their turf), and one where they are prohibited from entering. > > …No. You are “forgetting” that it’s pretty difficult for most men to completely overpower most other men, the way they can a child or a smallish woman. This is something most women understand very well, of course–leading me to suspect you are not a woman. … You have been asserting that your support for laws restricting transgender persons to certain restrooms comes not out of a claim that transgender persons are more likely than others to commit rape (or other sexual aggression), but that anyone with a penis has the potential to commit rape or other sexual aggression. By framing your support for the laws in this way, you believe (I would assume) that you are successfully avoiding the charge of bigotry against the transgendered. But you are not successfully avoiding that charge, because your position remains illogical. You say that the problem with ladies-room-assess for transgendered male-to-female persons ‘with working penises’ is that no one with a working penis should be in a restroom with anyone they could rape or molest–but you assert that it’s fine for persons with a working penis to be in a restroom with boys and with other men. The rationale you offer, that > [@](#): > > it’s pretty difficult for most men to completely overpower most other men …is weak in itself, given that there are many instances of men overpowering other men. Certainly there are more instances of _that_ crime then there are instances of transgender people overpowering or otherwise sexually attacking…anyone. And you ignore entirely the obvious vulnerability of boys in restrooms to attack by men, or the vulnerability of one man to, say, two men–it’s not all that difficult for two men to “completely overpower” another man, is it? Why aren’t you interested in protecting all those potential victims? Your position is untenable; it has no consistency, given that you are ignoring the dangers-posed-by-working-penises to boys and men. Given this, your support for the anti-transgendered laws has no legitimate foundation; it’s clearly founded on a belief that transgendered persons are more likely to commit sexual violence than are other persons. Logically your position is not distinguishable from that of the recent poster who has been stating that letting transgendered persons use the restroom of their choice is the exact same thing as child abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2016, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775/360 "2016-05-21T20:23:22Z")
> [@blueliner](#): > > …who are not old enough or mature enough to have made that decision on their own… Yet another right-winger who believes people decide to be gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, or even straight. So tell us, blueliner, when did you make your decision to be straight? (And how much would it take to make you change your decision\> We could set up a GoFundMe account.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-fallout-of-transgender-bathroom-issue/754775.md?page=19)