He used a lot of words to make his point and somewhere you must have used one or more of the same words in your posts, so in his mind you are agreeing with him.
I’m not familiar with Azeotrope’s grandma, but mine shares housing (including bathrooms) with about 300 people of both genders. The only bathrooms which are marked “little boys” and “little girls” are the small ones on the bottom floor, each of which has three stalls (full door but they can’t be locked, due to the age and general infirmity of the residents); the two large ones in the same floor and those in every other floor are unisex. Sometimes the person helping her bathe or use the toilet is a dude. Sometimes the person helping a dude bathe or use the toilet is a woman. She previously shared housing (including the bathroom) with a lot less people of both genders.
Louis XIV of France, aka the Sun King, made sure he was the center of attention in the French court and every aspect of his daily routine, and I mean EVERY aspect, was made available for public view.
Going to bed, for instance, consisted of the ceremonies of le grand coucher where the nobility, men and women both, could wish him good night as his manservants stripped him balls naked and put his nightshirt on him, and then moved on to le petit coucher which was witnessed by his closest friends, those invited to watch, which was a great honor, and those who could cough up an exorbitant amount of money to buy an invitation.
The last part of le petit coucher was the king sitting on the chaise percee, which is in plain English a potty chair, where he would finish up his business for the day while also doing his royal business.
Somehow, over the past 300 years, we’ve gone people paying a fortune just to watch a guy take a dump to otherwise sane people getting all verklempt just because someone a little bit different might be on the other side of a solid wall, behind a solid, closed door, just because a toilet is involved.
Bonus: Louis XIV’s younger brother Philippe was homosexual (though he did marry women and produce offspring because noblesse oblige) and liked to wear makeup and dress in women’s clothing. History doesn’t seem to have anything to say about his bathroom habits, though.
Paternal grandmother was a fancy lady who would have objected to a man in the ladies’ room because it just “wasn’t done,” although she shunned public bathrooms, and even bathrooms in other people’s houses, as a general thing because they were “dirty” even when they weren’t.
Maternal grandmother was a lot less dainty and you used the bathroom at her house at your own risk, because you never knew who would be in there with everything hanging out. One time at the grocery store she went in the mens’ room because she had to go and she wasn’t walking all the way across the store to use the ladies’ when there was a bathroom right there.
In short, they were two very differnt women with two very different ideas of potty protocol. I know the lance armstrongs of the world, who think every woman is part of some hive mind and what one thinks the rest all think, will find that hard to believe, but it’s true. Really.
Moving a discussion from another trans thread (not bathroom focused) here, to avoid a hijack.
I don’t know if it’s okay, but I’m not nearly as concerned by such a thing as anything that actually causes harm. Though I don’t think there exists a possible form of racial segregation that is “truly harmless”, unlike the bathrooms, from what I can tell.
People prefer gendered bathrooms, it seems – by “nobody cares”, I mean that no one cares that bathrooms are segregated by gender… no one is bothered by this fact.
But I think there would be massive public opposition to eliminating gendered bathrooms, which (since they cause no harm) is more than a good enough reason not to do so.
Transgender people want to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity for multiple reasons, presumably – they don’t want to be forced to out themselves as trans every time they go to the bathroom; they want to have a safe and secure bathroom to be confident in using; they want to be seen and treated by others as the gender they identify as; in the context of modern society they may feel more comfortable using the bathroom with only others that match their gender identity; and probably many others.
It’s not identical, but since the opponents of trans rights motives, as much as we can tell, are identical to similar anti-gay pushes, then we can reasonably conclude that it’s pretty similar to proposals limiting the rights of gay people.
But try as you might, you just can’t make anyone care about this polite fiction in our society that is gendered bathrooms. There are tons of things that are, at some level, a bit illogical about certain aspects of society – why do you focus on this one, which harms no one? Pretty much everyone wants gendered bathrooms (which harm no one), and trans people want to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity. In the context of modern society, it makes perfect sense to me. Why is it a problem for you?
Here we go again!
YOU aren’t concerned. What if others are?
Why not?
What if whites and blacks jointly agreed not to associate with each other in certain places because they both though they needed a place feel comfortable with only their own kind?
And there is already talk of having schools just for black kids, or boys, or girls, or black boys, or whatever, based on the idea that they need special help and they get lost in the shuffle of integrated schools. If they chose that, would that still be harmful?
That doesn’t make it right.
So? There’s some pretty massive public opposition to transgender use of bathrooms too, but…
And what did biracial people want when they were confronted with black vs. white bathrooms? Which did they want to use?
The motives are irrelevant, only the outcomes.
Because the transgender issue focuses on it. It’s not me. I don’t care.
It’s not. It’s the casual way people use certain lazy logic to justify it instead of working harder.
For instance, whenever I hear “it shouldn’t matter who you go to the bathroom with!” I point out that, well, everyone - including transgender people - care, alot, or else we wouldn’t have gendered restrooms in the first place. Or “It’s discrimination! It’s hate!” Keeping men out of the women’s room and vice versa is discrimination in the first place, and on the other hand we don’t say women hate because they don’t want them in the lady’s room.
That’s all I’m talking about - the lazy way people think about this. I commend you for trying harder than most though.
Let’s not beat a dead horse though. This thread is exhausted. You can have the last word if you want it.
I’d listen to their concerns and evaluate them.
I can’t conceive of a real world scenario in which such segregation wouldn’t cause harm. But your third paragraph isn’t about segregated schools – it’s about addressing and helping the kids who “get lost” in the shuffle, not all kids of a certain race.
Doesn’t make it wrong, either.
…but that clearly causes harm.
Don’t know – don’t know how it’s relevant, either.
You seem to care about the reasons behind gendered bathrooms. I think they’ve been reasonably explained, but you seem to disagree.
Maybe those are poor arguments, but there are perfectly good arguments for both gendered bathrooms (e.g. everyone prefers them and they don’t cause harm) and for trans people to be allowed to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity (listed above, and there are probably many more).
Who are you, and what have you done with lance?
LOL. Even I get tired sometimes.
Though watch out - sometimes I’ll think of a new angle on what I’m trying to express and I’ll suddenly appear again. For instance, I recently thought of how this transgender bathroom thing is a little like declaring that biracial people should have their choice of whites-only or blacks-only facilities. It’s just hard to fit a traditional civil rights, non-discrimination scenario on top of a form of segregation that everyone accepts - and, in fact, transgender people want access to.
I remember you lecturing a disabled poster about what she ought to feel and do about the lack of appropriate transportation options. Seems to be a specialty of yours, this speaking on behalf of people you are not. Why listen to women when we have Lance to represent our views? Why listen to transpeople when we have Lance to tell us all that is wrong with their framing of their rights?
Lance, my dear, you are a delightful bundle of mansplaining, cissplaining, able-bodiedspaining goodness. I’m sure you’ve got a fine line in whitesplaining as well. I hope it doesn’t bother you to know that you are a veritable caricature of defensive reaction to even the slightest loss of privilege and authority. Here you are thinking you’re all edgy and cool, but there are millions of men just like you 'spaining their way around the internet, as if the people they’re 'splaining away to were incapable of speaking for themselves.
Annoying the fuck out of people on the internet is such a marvelous accomplishment. You certainly dedicate a fair amount of your time to it.
I did no such thing.
(And you don’t know if I’m disabled, but whatever.)
I am not saying that either.
Actually, no, you’re the one doing that to me.
You don’t know shit about what I think. You are like all the others - you are reacting, not reading.
See what I mean? I STRONGLY SUPPORT transgender access to the restroom of their choice. The fact that you don’t know that demonstrates that you’re talking through your ass.
You didn’t understand the thing about disabilities, and you don’t understand my point about transgender issues either. I think I’ve made myself pretty clear, so either you didn’t bother to read enough or you don’t get it. I don’t care which - I don’t have time to babysit people like you.
I’ve spoken for nobody but myself.
Finally we agree on something.
You want a serious conversation? Let me know.
Interestingly, you prove my point here. Who is losing privilege in the bathroom debate? Are men losing the “privilege” of having male-only restrooms? Or women the privilege of women-only restrooms? Well, no, because nobody has proposed unisex restrooms. Transgender people don’t want to destroy the “privilege,” they want to join in the “privilege” of using restrooms they prefer and not mix with those they don’t want to mix with. See how weird it is to apply the standard civil rights language to this debate? No, you probably still don’t, which is why you don’t get it and why you should stay out of conversations you don’t understand.
Our politicians do a similar thing, except instead of using a potty chair they just crap on the American people and call it “legislating.” Don’t believe me? Mention any major politician’s name and there’ll be several dopers along in minutes to point at his or her turds.
Good news: transmen are men! Transwomen are women! By forcing a transman to use the women’s restroom, you are in fact going against the will of the people. Seriously, have you looked at Buck Angel recently?
Seriously, have you read the thread lately? Have you read ANY of my comments lately?
Cis people with anti-trans feelings stand to lose the “privilege” of not having to acknowledge or respect the existence of trans people.
I don’t particularly care to.
But I thought the presence of trans people had no effect on them at all. Never mind - if you want to call the requirement that somebody actually knows, and tolerates (far short of any requirement that they acknowledge or respect them - one need do neither to go to the bathroom in the same room as someone else) a “privilege,” even when they can go back to their old attitude toward them as soon as they zip up, then sure, call that a privilege if you really want to.
But again, it’s still a bit weird to say that’s a privilege. Is white privilege the ability to not acknowledge or respect the existence of other races? Just their existence? Do trans people suffer from other people not acknowledging that they exist? Do they even want to be acknowledged? It seems a transgender person wants to be thought of as the same as everyone else of that gender and NOT to be thought of as different or “acknowledged” as such.
Cool. Then I don’t particularly care to read your comments either. Since you haven’t read the thread, they add nothing to the conversation. You’d know why if you read the thread.