As I remember it, the slippery slope argument conservatives were making in 2008 was that “If you make gay marriage legal, polygamy, bestiality, and incest are sure to follow.” Now the OP is using “transgender students in the restroom” as a proxy for “polygamy, bestiality, and incest”. I suspect that in his mind they are self-evidently the same thing, and so the equivocation makes sense. But that is not at all the case.
Pretty much nailed it there.
Una had a great AMA thread a couple of years ago. Seriously - well worth reading through.
Hell no I’m not saying that. Why the hell would you make something like that up to attribute to me?
There is a slippery slope, in that once most people are convinced that gay people aren’t evil monsters, it is easier to convince them that transgender people aren’t evil monsters. Oh the horror.
Several articles in Bay Area newspapers have noted that we have had equal bathroom rights for years with no apparent ill effects. But I suppose bigots have to be bigots.
Thank you.
When did transgender become an issue?
If I may simplify for ease of discussion, does a high school guy who identifies as a woman want to avoid the jerks in the men’s room, or be able to use the women’s room?
Oh I know. I also know that the chances that Clothy will come back to a thread after he drops one of his little nuggets is close to zero.
Awareness has been growing, gradually. It probably got its biggest boost back in 1979, with Wendy Carlos’ Playboy interview.
I think the latter is the stronger reason: gender self-identification. “I am a woman; I get to use the women’s room.” The sorry fact is that there will be jerks in both bathrooms. (I guess, traditionally, women are less likely to be overtly violent about it.)
I’m sorry but I’d have to say Carlos’ interview doesn’t even break into the top-50 trans-related news events pre-2012. You have Dillon and Cowell in the 1940’s, Jorgensen, McLeod, Rees in the 1950’s, Georges Barou’s pioneering of the “modern” SRS technique in the late 1950’s, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot (which followed the Coopers Donut’s action and the Dewey’s Lunch Counter protest and the Black Cat Club raids…), Coccinelle and her campaign in Europe, Harry Benjamin writing “The Transsexual Phenomenon” in the 1960’s, Stonewall, Richards suing to play tennis, Jan Morris, April Ashley torpedoes transgender rights in the UK for 30-some years, Canary Conn, and “The Transsexual Empire” hate book etc. in the 1970’s, Biber and the Trinidad clinic and Virginia Prince and the divide between crossdressers and TG people growing, and Tula/Caroline Cossey the trans “Bond Girl” in the 1980’s, the rise of gender studies and queer activism in the 1990’s…
IMO what started getting the issue on the daily news was likely the decision in Macy v. Holder in 2012, which established, along with Obama Administration pushing, that we could sue as an EEOC action if we were fired for being transgender. Letting us keep our jobs (or giving us hope of keeping our jobs) started a groundswell of transgender people “coming out,” and while not the primary cause of my coming out (it was my suicide attempt in 2012 from lifelong depression from being transgender but closeted) it was the cause of a large part of transgender awareness. From there things started to snowball. Janet Mock and Julia Serano and Jennifer Boylan get really vocal, Laverne Cox is put on the cover of Time, then we have Caitlyn Jenner, the rise of the transkids and the trans tiger moms…my folks have advanced more in the last 5 years than the last 500.
Well, much depends on which segment of society you’re talking about… I had never heard of almost all of the things you just listed. (I had heard of Jorgensen.) But everyone I knew was talking about Carlos’ Playboy interview.
Una, you’ve mentioned that you do speaking engagements; do you have any of your talks available as transcripts? Like Trinopus, I don’t recognize more than 1/3 of your references in post #149, but I can get the history of transgender people, rights and medical advances on my own. I think there’s special value for some of us in reading/hearing from a transgender person who has not only a deep understanding of the social and cultural histories but a clear and persuasive command of language.
James Baldwin and others were able through their words to sometimes temporarily jar young academics out of their white, straight privileged blinders in an earlier civil rights era. I suspect your words, and those of others who you might recommend, can work similarly with cis men and women today.
Slight hijack. I know this thread is primarily about all the other stupid shit in the OP, but I’m curious; Besides the implied and/or inferred discomfort of “those fucking queers have the same rights as normal people now,” HOW HAS gay marriage affected you, personally?
As for transgenders (not transvestites, completely different) using the bathroom of their choice; there are already laws in place to stop people from staring at my whatever or showing me their whatever in a public restroom. All this law does is further marginalize, ostracize, and bring unwanted attention to people who just want to go about their lives as normally and anonymously as possible.
And, thanks Una. for all those obscure (to most of us not directly involved) references…off to Wiki to learn new stuff.
Personally, it’s great, because I have friends who are married when, before, they wanted to be and couldn’t. It makes me happy because it makes them happy. It’s all to the good.
A tiny handful of assholes are peeved because they have to sell cakes to gay couples. Oh, the tyranny.
Thanks, Trinopus.
Honestly, I don’t give a fuck about the OP and the whole idea.
Society changes. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Things that were never imagined or perceived as a need or area of concern by the majority can change quickly, or be opposed and fought over for ages. Gay rights is a battle that has been fought for generations now. It isn’t over. Gender issues are gaining footing, and the stodgy old “I don’t like change” crowd is having a fit. And of course, like Slavery, Women’s Rights and Gay Rights, Gender is being opposed on Religious grounds by those who think the way they were raised is the way it should always be, and because they don’t like something means that other people are wrong for merely existing and forcing them to face facts.
Like we’re getting in various forms from Republicans these days: “If people would just shut up and put up with the discrimination and crime against them, everything would be right with the world.”
While I give many lectures almost none are recorded. It’s something I’m working on however.
You and Jim Bakker:
What? Who is doing the forcing here? I don’t recall any bill in Congress or in any state legislature giving rights to transgendered persons to use the bathroom of their choice.
This is a decree from on high from the President.
Gay marriage started the same way in Massachusetts and ultimately from the Supreme Court.
This font of rights is unlimited:
- I and others like me want to do X.
- I am not permitted to do X.
- Just like slaves, then free blacks, women, and gays were treated differently because they could not do Y, I am exactly the same because I cannot do X.
Is there anything I cannot fit into that?
Thanks for responding, Una. I hope you’ll mention on the 'Dope when and if you can share some of your lectures.
I’ve noticed that some of the same people I know who used to be dreadfully ignorant and fearful regarding gay people, but who now have been forced through familiarity into acceptance and [somewhat] better understanding, seem to require the very same process when it comes to the transgendered. (I’m thinking particularly of my in-laws, but they’re hardly unique here.)
I’ve thought for a long time that the biggest obstacle to social progress is the severe selectivity people have when it comes to empathy. Almost everyone can be empathetic, unless they’re truly sociopathic, even to the point of extending it to animals and sometimes inanimate objects. But most of us are damn stingy with the ability unless we’re forced into using it.