I don’t think you’ve made a good case – I disagree with (or am unconvinced by) several of your assertions above (and some of them have little or nothing to do with gendered bathrooms).
That being said, I’m fine with unisex bathrooms. But until I hear about real harm from folks who are actually harmed by gendered bathrooms, then I’m not going to be interested in fighting gendered bathrooms. Some vague notion of philosophical inequality means virtually nothing to me compared to actual harm.
I won’t stand in your way if you want to fight against gendered bathrooms, but until and unless harm is demonstrated to me, then I probably won’t be joining you.
The “transgender people fear assault” argument is a real concern-it really happens, you been told it happens by people in this thread and you’ve been given cites.
Your “suppose gay men fear…” is an imaginary concern that no one has brought up, complained about or cited, but I can see why you would want to bring up something like this to muddy the waters. Well…fuck that. Go start your “Imaginary Gay Men’s Right to Use the Women’s Room” elsewhere-This ain’t that thread, fucko.
I disagree. You know how it’s nice to have a single sewer system to take all sorts of foul waste from a household, instead of having different sewer systems for dirty dishwater, dirty bath water, toilets flushed by men, toilets flushed by women, etc? I see this thread serving the same purpose. It’s the unisex toilet of threads.
So if I proposed going back to whites vs. black restrooms - or, to be more realistic, to male- or female-only, or black-only, schools, as some have actually proposed lately - you’d wait until actual harm was demonstrated?
And again, what is harm? You’ve already said a simple desire to be only around certain people in a bathroom isn’t harm - after all, you don’t think that should apply with regard to transgender people, nor would you accept it for race. So unless I find a lesbian who was beaten up for looking male in a lady’s room, I guess I won’t be able to show harm by your standards anyway.
Duh. Did I say otherwise? No. Did I say I oppose transgender access to restrooms of their gender? No.
If you can’t handle thinking about hypotheticals just because they are interesting and challenging, YOU get your own thread where you can shit all over everything. At least one person here has shown he can handle it. The rest of you can go pound sand. This thread even has my name on it, so I’m not leaving.
Harm as already been demonstrated in racial segregation – I don’t need to wait. As for gender segregated schools, I would oppose mandating them (but they are and should be allowed for private institutions), since I see no evidence that they’d be better and there would be considerable expense in changing public facilities.
Harm can come in many forms, and in general I’d take each case individually. I don’t think you’re accurately describing my position on harm here – I believe that trans people have successfully demonstrated that banning them from restrooms causes harm, while anti-trans people have not demonstrated that allowing trans people to use restrooms causes any harm. And I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that gendered bathrooms cause harm. I’m open to the possibility, but I just haven’t seen it yet (and it should go without saying that this is just my opinion about harm).
I think it’s more fair to say that both may feel harm. The desire to not be around transgender people in a bathroom is irrational, yes - but so is the desire not to be around people of the opposite gender! Transgender people want to participate in that irrational system, not abolish it. People don’t necessarily hate transgender people just because they don’t want to be around them in a bathroom - just as they don’t hate the opposite gender because they don’t want to be around them. And nobody says the opposite gender is harmed by this and says we should have unisex bathrooms for that reason. So I think it’s reasonable to allow someone to say they are harmed by a violation of their privacy preference, even if it is irrational.
So it’s more fair, I think, to say that both parties experience harm, but the potential harm to transgender people far outweighs that to people who don’t want them in their restroom.
I wouldn’t say I have either - just that it’s a possibility that someone will someday. If you’re open to that, that’s enough for me.
People can say anything they want about what harms them, but I may or may not agree or believe them.
I don’t support (or, more accurately, tolerate) gendered bathrooms because they protect people from supposed “harm” from being around the opposite gender – I tolerate them because most people seem to prefer them, and I see no evidence of harm. When most people prefer something that doesn’t harm people, then I won’t be inclined to change it, in general.
So I think it’s an entirely consistent argument to tolerate gendered bathrooms while supporting the right of trans people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.
None of this is new. All of this could have occurred prior to trans issues becoming prominent.
That’s why it’s not a folly – you haven’t brought any new issues to light. All of this was already possible, and I see no reason to believe why it would be any more likely or common with trans rights being protected.
What I don’t get is what trans protection allows that wasn’t already possible before. People could be deceitful before and people could be deceitful now. People could choose to ignore practice and custom before, whether in disguise or not, and people could choose to do it now. People could get upset by someone they don’t think is being appropriate (say, a very masculine cis woman, or vice versa) in the past, and people can do so now. People could get upset about Aniya Wolf using the bathroom (either bathroom) before and they can do so now, or they can choose to not worry about it, as they also could have in the past.
There’s nothing new that I can see, except that trans people now have a hope of being protected by law and practice.
(Woman sees transgender woman is entering the men’s room).
“Hey, transgender woman! You can come in the women’s room now!”
“What if there are people in there who don’t like being around someone with male genitals?”
“That’s too bad. It would be silly for someone who dress and looks like a woman to have to go in the men’s room.”
“Great, thank you.” (she enters)
(Someone who appears to be a man enters the women’s room.)
“Hey, wait a minute - you can’t go in there, you’re a man!”
“How do you know?”
“You’re dressed like a man and you have hair like a man.”
“But what if I have women’s genitals?”
“You’re still a man, so you don’t belong here. Transgender people go to the bathroom of their gender now.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m a woman. I have female genitals AND identify as a woman. I simply dress and look like men do–though you can’t really say that any more, since I’m a woman and this is how women dress and look now too. So I’m going in the women’s room.”
“Wait - so there’s just no way to tell someone’s gender any more than we can tell someone’s sex?”
“Correct.”
“So there’s no point in even caring about either in bathrooms? And we couldn’t care even if we tried, since there’s no way to enforce our preferences anyway?”
“Correct again.”
“I think I’m starting to get it! There’s no point in gender restrooms, or gender anything any more. We have freedom for everyone - freedom to be any gender you want and freedom to DEFINE gender any way you want. And allowing people to prefer to associate only with one gender at certain times isn’t compatible with that.”
“Sorry, I’d be happy to talk about this more, but I really need to pee.” (enters bathroom)
But it’s not new – at least not a nearly-identical scenario – substitute people in disguise, or with non-standard features and dress, and we could have had almost the exact same scenario in the past (substitute “appearance” or something for the “gender” discussion in the last paragraph).
People could always use whatever bathroom they wanted, pretty much (with or without deception)… but almost everyone wants to use the “correct” one for their gender identity, so it didn’t matter. There was almost never any real enforcement, since it was almost never needed.
If 99.99% of people stick to a practice/custom, and are happy to do so, and it doesn’t hurt anyone, then it’s not folly (or dishonest) to continue the practice/custom.
Sure, things might change further in the future, but that doesn’t mean that for the short or medium term it’s wrong/dishonest/folly/whatever to continue with gendered bathrooms.
Whatever weird hypotheticals can be conjured that somehow “invalidate” gendered bathrooms that are pro-trans can be matched beat-for-beat with another weird hypotheticals that could be conjured to “invalidate” gendered bathrooms that are anti-trans. They weren’t actually invalidated in the past, and they aren’t now, just because occasionally some bathroom users might be confused or feel weird or something.
I’ve used the following analogy before: there’s a risk that some might choose to poop in the sink. There’s also no enforcement (except perhaps after the fact, but most of the time probably not even then) to prevent people from pooping in the sink. Nonetheless, that this risk exists doesn’t invalidate having toilets separate from the sinks in public bathrooms, since pretty much no one wants to poop in the sink. And what prevents people from pooping in the sink is not the possibility of being prosecuted for it, but because no one wants others to think of them as the type of person who poops in the sink.
People “in disquise” weren’t tolerated though. They were usually arrested.
That’s simply false.
Try using the women’s room some time and see what happens. Do it at work or at the mall or whatever, at a time when it is in heavy use. Go ahead.
You might get away with it, but not without, let’s say, social pressure not to.
Of course there was enforcement. The enforcement, in the form of social pressure, was so strong that it was “not needed” because nobody dared cross it.
I’ve explained this though - if 0.01% of people DON’T stick to that practice or custom, it forces the rest not to! If just one man goes in the women’s room, all the women in the women’s room no longer have gender privacy either.
It is when you frame it as a civil rights issue and say people have a “right” to a system of segregation. And it’s folly because the pressure for change is going to happen faster than you realize. But if you’re willing to say it’s coming eventually, that’s fine.
And I’ve explained this: now YOU are the one offering an argument against gendered restrooms. You are saying that “occasionally some bathroom users might be confused or feel weird or something” is not a valid reason for respecting their preferences. Well, if someone has no right to feel weird about using a restroom with a transgender person, why do they still have a right to feel weird about using a restroom with the opposite gender?
Cite? Not that I think such a cite is possible, but I see no reason to believe that this wouldn’t have been trivially easy to get away with.
I have, many times (as previously discussed), as have many others in many of these threads. In a crowded mall I’d probably get dirty looks, and that’s probably it. With an extremely minimal disguise I wouldn’t even get those, most likely, and I’m a big dude.
But no one (or almost no one) was/is interested in crossing it. People don’t dare do things when they have no interest in doing them.
Then why didn’t this .01% that violated the practice in past decades and centuries (like younger versions of me, my friends, and many other posters here) invalidate gendered bathrooms?
If a dude using the ladies room in the 80s didn’t kill/invalidate gendered bathrooms in the past, then why does the possibility of a deceitful/non-standard-appearance trans person do so in the future?
They don’t have a right to a system of segregation – they have aright to use the bathroom.
You say it’s coming faster than I realize… but how would you know how fast it’s coming? And I’m not saying it’s definitely coming eventually, just that it might. But that it might come in the future doesn’t mean that gendered bathrooms are useless, folly, invalidated, or anything else like that for the near term. It’s entirely reasonable and valid to continue with a practice that almost everyone wants to do, even if there is still the possibility that (just like in the past) occasionally someone might be confused or uncomfortable.
Because the possibility that someone might poop in the sink doesn’t mean that our differentiation between sinks and toilets is invalid. Pooping in the sink sucks, as does deceitful bathroom usage, but that these possibilities exist doesn’t mean that it’s invalid/folly/useless/pointless to separate sinks from toilets, or continue with gendered bathrooms.
Then there’s a poopy sink somewhere, but it doesn’t mean that there’s no reason any more to separate sinks and toilets.
No, I don’t see how that works, since I’ve never said that anyone doesn’t have the right to feel weird. Lots of people feel weird about a lot of things, and anyone can feel weird about anything at all.
How does that fit the transgender issue though? We once thought the differentiation betweeen male and female, cisgender-wise, was valid. Now we’ve changed our minds.
Your analogy fails because going to the bathroom next to someone of the other gender, or other sex, isn’t about “sucking.” If it is, and I (hypothetically) think it’s disgusting to pee next to a person with opposite genitals, I don’t get to live that preference any more.
Your analogy just doesn’t work. You can’t compare shitting in sinks to going to the restroom with someone of the same gender. Nobody is demanding the right to shit in the sink.
