Millions of men, women, cats, dogs, and tree frogs know what your personal prejudices are from reading your posts. How could you possibly deny it?
BULLSHIT!!!
Or was this not you? Is someone posting under your username? Might want to let the mods know.
bolding mine. And not anything like a mild “may prefer”.
Are you completely fucking incapable of understanding the word “may”? That “may” doesn’t mean “do”? That “prefer” doesn’t mean, “wrong”, “anger”, “uncomfortable”, or “freak out”?
That I have stronger feelings of anger and rage at your behavior right this very second than I do about men in the women’s room with me…and that my feelings right now are mostly boredom and procrastinating work, and not really angry or ragey at all, just more of a mild irritation like a yeast infection that may or may not be manifesting? And that, as I said, nearly every woman I’ve spoken to shares the overwhelming sense of “meh” about guys in the women’s room or unisex bathrooms?
Can you understand that while women “may” prefer men not be in the woman’s room, they “may” have no problem with unisex bathrooms, or they “may” prefer to have women’s rooms and men’s rooms and have transgender people use whichever they wish, the way we’ve been doing it for several decades? Because I really don’t give a shit if you’d prefer I stop bringing up the transgender issue. THAT’S the real world issue right now, and no amount of your pretending that people are proposing unisex bathrooms in isolation is going to make it so. Without the growing awareness of the struggle of transgender people, nondiscrimination laws (MYOFB laws) would never have been passed, and discrimination laws banning unisex bathrooms would never have been passed in reaction. Trying to have a discussion about unisex bathrooms in 2016 without discussing transgender people and their need to pee without getting hurt is like trying to talk about integrating schools without mentioning segregation or Civil Rights.
I don’t demand anything.
I ask questions.
You can answer them, or not. Even if you don’t, that says something.
Awesome. So this is about “very angry” vs. “mildly uncomfortable” vs. whatever.
I didn’t say ALL women would be “very angry.” Is that cool with you? Can some women just be mildly annoyed?
THE POINT is that most prefer not to use a bathroom with a strange man, regardless of how severe their reaction may be. It’s pretty much absurd to argue against that.
You took words from an earlier conversation. Read what I write to YOU, NOW, please.
I wasn’t saying that, was I? I asked a simple question. It didn’t say anything about anger or freaking out. That was from an earlier conversation.
I’d say MOST prefer not to be. And I don’t think I have to prove that. It’s ludicrous.
And that’s why you aren’t hearing what I’m saying, because you can’t just separate the two. But it’s impossible to consider the transgender issue without it eventually leading to the gender issue alone, which is my point. And that’s fine. Just don’t pretend it’s not true.
But you can’t possibly talk about transgenders without talking about gender FIRST. If you can’t explain why we should have two separate bathrooms in the first place, it’s pointless to talk about which one transgender people should use.
This is a lie. Do not lie about me or my alleged prejudices. ANYTHING you have read that makes you think I have a certain prejudice is your mistake, and you need to read more carefully and completely. Got it?
I speak for myself. I tell you what I believe. You may not speak for me. If you can’t handle that, please don’t respond to my posts at all. I give you the same respect.
Now, back on topic - the questions I’ve asked, the answers which have absolutely nothing to do with me or my alleged prejudices, but are simple observations.
But wouldn’t “men using the women’s room” occur irrespective of which side of the debate you fall? If laws were passed requiring people to use the restroom of their birth gender, then trans men, who by all appearances may be manly men, would be forced to use the women’s room. If no laws were passed, then trans women, who many people view as men, would be able to use the women’s room.
nm
You can’t talk about gendered bathrooms without considering trans people. It works that way too. It’s impossible to talk about one without the other, no matter which you’d prefer to talk about.
Welcome to my thread.
I’m not talking about trans people or trans laws here.
We are - yes - down to debating whether most cisegender women prefer to use a women’s room free from cisgender men. In other words, whether our society has, and prefers, two restrooms.
I can’t even get people to simply acknowledge THAT.
And I’m not even asking that question to argue against transgender access to restrooms of their gender, because I don’t oppose it.
Is this the question you’re wanting an answer to? Because it’s not a simple question at all: it’s got a conditional in it (“would”) with no clarity as to what the condition is.
Three different possible clarifications:
- If tonight aliens magically change all bathrooms in the world such that they were all unisex, with men and women peeing and pooping in stalls next to one another, do you believe that tomorrow morning a majority of women would be comfortable with unisex bathrooms? Or men?
Nope.
- If lance strongarm becomes dictator for life (kill me now) and decrees that all bathrooms should become unisex, do you believe that a majority of women would immediately be comfortable with unisex bathrooms? Or men?
Nope.
- If over years more and more facilities become unisex, via an organic process of self-selected businesses providing unisex bathrooms, with stalls going to the floors, do you believe that a majority of women would be comfortable with unisex bathrooms? Or men?
Yup.
There may be some other conditional you’re imagining. But you’ve not stated it.
Of course . But you have to talk about gendered restrooms FIRST. The fact that we have them is why this debate exists. If we had unisex restrooms, transgender people would go in them too and nobody would care and that would be that.
You can’t talk about them without considering trans people. So there’s no “first” - the discussion about gendered bathrooms includes trans people, since they are people with gender.
The best reason to continue with gendered restrooms, IMO, is that most people, including most trans people, seem to prefer them, and there’s no evidence of harm as long as discrimination is prevented.
And I’ve heard no argument for unisex restrooms that, in the present, is better than this.
Hey, that’s great. But do you really believe you are the norm?
Do you really think women in Kansas and Nebraska or whatever don’t care? Or your grandma?
If nobody cares, why do we still have gendered restrooms? Why do we still teach our kids they can only use one of the two?
Do you really believe that if we suddenly imposed unisex bathrooms on everyone, there would only be a few complaints and grumbles? Do you really think we’re that far along?
And then there are locker rooms. Don’t even think of trying to tell me you think most women wouldn’t care if we had unisex locker rooms and public showers and all that at gyms and in schools.
I didn’t even ask if we should keep them. I asked if most people seem to prefer them.
Thank you!
Now can you tell the rest of the people in this thread to stop clogging it up by denying such a simple, obvious observation? You and I are way past that, but the rest haven’t caught up and still think I oppose transgender access and that I’m setting some kind of trap for them. (The actual trap, strangely enough, is watching them fall all over themselves to deny that most people prefer gendered restrooms, but whatever).
Now, back to you. If the only reason you can come up with for excluding certain people from a restroom based on gender is that most people prefer it that way - how does that not argue precisely for excluding transgender people?
I don’t think I’ve seen this mass denial. Who has denied or challenged that most people seem to prefer gendered restrooms?
And by my memory, you have in fact, before, asked why we should continue with them.
As to your last question, it’s because of the harm, like I just said. Gendered restrooms do no harm that I’m aware of as long as folks aren’t discriminated against.
Are you even reading this thread?
Yes, I did.
But people who don’t want to share a restroom with transgender people feel harmed by it. So harm isn’t enough. But we’ve already been through this. You define harm as you see fit. I think you have to work harder than that - and be willing to simply say that logical consistency may require you to go along with getting rid of gendered restrooms altogether, and not be afraid of it. It’s a bit like me saying don’t be afraid to support multiple marriages if that’s the logical outcome of supporting gay marriage.
Earlier you accused me of this belief, but you were wrong. Are you sure you haven’t misinterpreted the arguments of other posters too? Because I can’t recall anyone specifically challenging or denying that most people seem to prefer gendered restrooms. And that’s a different claim than the ones that have been disputed in this thread, at least from my memory.
Seems like it would be an easy claim to back up…
Harm is enough, but claims of harm alone are not. Claims of harm must be supported by evidence, in my opinion, to actually consist of harm. No matter what some white people claimed, they weren’t harmed by having to share a bathroom with black people.