Quite a few places DO have a “separate but equal” option along with Men’s and Women’s restrooms, specifically the “family” restroom meant for parents and young children who need assistance. It’s usually just a larger than normal single-occupant bathroom that also acts as an accessible bathroom for folks with mobility issues. That said, I don’t think this is a worthy option for trans people who ought to just be able to use the bathroom they’re most comfortable with, period.
I think in a lot of situations it also may leave people open to unwanted questions from co-workers or whoever as to why they’re using that bathroom, when they’re neither accompanied by a child nor appearing to have any mobility issues.
If all or most of the restrooms are like that, of course, that wouldn’t be likely to come up; but in a lot of places there are a significant number of gendered stalls and only one “family” version.
Yes, but it until trangenderism no longer becomes an issue it could be a voluntary option for transgendered people who are worried about being harassed, and also for bigots who get the vapors over the fact that the shared bathroom might contain someone with the “incorrect” genitalia.
Are you equally upset about liberals “deliberately deconstructing” the term “marriage” to designate same-sex as well as opposite-sex pairings? Are you butthurt that liberals employed “social pressure and ultimately state violence as enforcers” of same-sex couples’ right to marry? Was that an unjustifiable exertion of “control of what is acceptable to think”, according to you?
If not, then why are you pouting about the fact that liberals are now similarly standing up for the rights of transgender people, by being willing to change language and laws to recognize their existence?
(For that matter, are you also bothered by the fact that language users “deliberately deconstructed” words like “parent” and “mother” and “father” to apply them to people who adopt children instead of producing them biologically? Are you being unjustly subjected to “control of what is acceptable to think” every time you’re expected to say just “parents” when what you mean is “biological parents and adopters”?)
I was initially opposed to the idea of same sex unions being called marriages but an expansion of the term for secular purposes ultimately isn’t that troublesome to me. I think religious communities have every right to perform sacraments according to their traditions assuming said sacraments aren’t gross violations of my interpretation of human rights.
However, I don’t think that expanding who qualifies to marry is in any way analogous to forcing people to speak and think a certain way with regards to their own perceptions of biological reality.
It’s not about recognizing existence. It’s about compulsion. There is no moral obligation to share your particular perception of reality. You do not have a privileged point of view that allows you to dictate to others the one true objective reality that we must all agree to. Now in certain spaces, folks do have the power to sanction those who don’t parrot the mantra but unfortunately that’s just a might makes right type of situation.
I have a problem with any form of ideological compulsion. Most everyone knows that biological parent and adoptive parent aren’t the exact same set of individuals with the exact same set of properties. Nor do we have a problem with noting the differences.
TLDR… no, I have no problem at all with humans having human rights. I do have a problem with the idea that there is a moral failing among people who don’t adopt the latest way of thinking at the exact same speed as the most radical/“progressive” among us and that the demands of ideological purity are in the long term counterproductive.
And most everyone knows that cisgender people and transgender people aren’t the exact same set of individuals with the exact same set of properties, either. Nor do we have a problem with noting the differences.
If you don’t think it’s unacceptable “ideological compulsion” to expect well-meaning, non-bigoted people to use the term “parents” for both biological and adoptive parents, then ISTM you don’t have a logical leg to stand on when you complain about expectations that well-meaning, non-bigoted people should use the term “women” or “men” for both cisgender and transgender women or men.
In neither case is anybody trying to “dictate” to anybody any “one true objective reality” or denying “biological reality” in any way.
If I say, “I am a woman.” and you say, “No, you are a man.” which one of us is doing the imposing of their reality on others?
…deconstructing language and the thought we associate with it is a sign of intelligence. You want to investigate your automatic thoughts, in order to see if they can be improved. Simply believing something because it’s always been that way is antithetical to rational thought. You always question tradition to see if it still has merit.
It sounds to me like @octopus doesn’t want to have to investigate his thoughts or assumptions. And that he freaks out when other people have done so and come to a different conclusion. It can’t be that they’re right (because octopus is right) so it must be some sort of hive mind.
You really should consider the possibility that multiple people come to the same conclusion because there is a factual basis for that conclusion. These assumptions change for a reason. The old ones were found to not represent reality.
In this space, that exchange would lead to a warning for ‘hate speech’ or something similar. So, what would the point be to entertain that hypothetical? In real life, where I dictate my standards of behavior, I don’t have a problem with addressing folks how they wish.
So what was so special about 2022 that made a certain way of expression the officially sanctioned way of expression? Some mass awakening of consciousness that was revealed from on high?
I’m glad to hear that in real life you’re a decent person.
No snark or sarcasm intended, I’m being sincere.
I, for one, am getting really bored with arguing about “objective reality” and “mental illness” with people that are obsessed with an invisible sky daddy that they beg for favors and sing to once a week, especially when they advocate letting the imaginary ramblings of their invisible daddy dictate the laws of our country.
Even so, I try to be respectful of their views, as ridiculous as I find them, but when they start lecturing me about objective reality, they can go fuck right off.
Lol, I am a decent person here as well. I just don’t agree with the methodology of the most vocal of the progressives. It is straight up counterproductive and has all the traits of an indoctrinated cult.
You mean, because 2022 is when this board in particular adopted those criteria for not misgendering transgender people? There’s nothing “special” about 2022, it simply happened to be the year that was current when a particular organization (the SDMB) formalized its cumulative awareness about changing practices in language use.
Why not 1999 or whenever this board was started?
You mean, why didn’t the SDMB adopt its current rules against misgendering transgender people back in 1999? AFAICT, it’s because that particular shift in language usage hadn’t happened back then.
(Hell, even the less recent shift in language usage about calling same-sex partnerships “marriages” hadn’t fully happened back then—the “Defense of Marriage Act” explicitly rejecting such a shift was passed in 1996, IIRC—and the SDMB didn’t mention that in its acceptable-usage rules, either.)
It’s been over 20 years since 1999, and surprise surprise, language use has changed in many ways since then. In other news, the man who invented the cuckoo clock is still dead.
I wasn’t talking about “this space” I was talking in general.
That’s all that anyone asks. All your whining about deconstructing language or imposing reality on others is simply stuff you made up to be mad about.
The most vocal are rarely representative of the bulk. So, if you are here to complain about the most vocal, then you are complaining to the wrong people.
All that is asked is that if someone says, “I am a woman.” you refer to them as a woman. You already said that you do that, so what is it exactly that you object to?
Are you really part of our “cult” if you don’t deliberately misgender people?
That’s my point. You are missing the fact that change doesn’t occur simultaneously through the whole universe and what you perceive as a fundamental human right isn’t going to be adopted by the masses of sentient beings at the exact same time. When you made your change of perception and speech and thought is no more or less moral than another’s.
There is a difference between choice and compulsion. In a free society people have the right to choose. And it has to be a real right not a theoretical right.
Nobody’s “missing” that fact. All we’re doing is saying that here on the SDMB, we don’t have to wait for a particular language shift to be recognized “through the whole universe” by all “masses of sentient beings at the exact same time” in order to formally recognize that language shift in our own rules.
Hell, there are still, unfortunately, at least tens of millions of at least nominally sentient beings who don’t agree that it’s unacceptable to call black people the n-word. But that doesn’t mean you get to call black people the n-word on the SDMB.
You’ve got it exactly backwards: the SDMB administration made its rules against misgendering people precisely because they, along with an overwhelming majority of SDMB users, think that rejecting such misgendering IS more moral than permitting it.
Again, a particular language shift doesn’t have to be universally adopted before a particular organization can officially endorse and enforce it within its own territory.