In the context of the discussion in this thread?
That is the crux of the discussion. If a XY boy is transgendered, then is he a boy or a girl?
I don’t think that there is a “crux” of the discussion that allows you to ignore the other factors. When a transgendered girl is told that she has to change in the boy’s locker room and shower with the boys, it can be very unpleasant for her.
Is that the correct definition of a strawman? From Wikipedia:
I’m not refuting an argument not advanced by you, you said:
I’m answering that by using an example to show that if the bar is set at that small of a percentage (0.2-0.3%), many “concerns” of students which might not be popular or even acceptable in modern society exist, which probably should not be accommodated. I responded to give an example of why the bar cannot be set so high. So the answer is “what is the greater good here. Who is more likely to suffer actual, tangible, physical or psychological harm as a result of the decision, and to what order of magnitude?” Two scenarios:
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A cisgender girl is uncomfortable with a transgender girl in the girl’s locker room. She (the cisgender girl) is surrounded by her friends and peers, about 20-30 other cisgender girls. She cannot realistically be physically threatened by the transgender girl, nor even harassed without 20-30 cisgender witnesses to back up her story.
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A transgender girl is forced into a men’s locker room. She is surrounded by 20-30 teenage boys who know she is a transgender girl. Maybe the transgender girl, if she’s over age 12 or 13, already has breasts, long hair, no body hair, and female curves and features (except for her gentials). If she is harassed, threatened, bullied, or assaulted, she faces a “testosterone wall” when she tries to complain. (I went to boy’s gym; I know what happens down there in the lockers.)
In scenario 1, what is the actual risk of harm to the cisgender girl who is uncomfortable? In scenario 2, what is the actual risk of harm to the transgender girl?
What I don’t understand is why you picked such a small number to represent your argument of those who may feel uncomfortable around transgender students. Surely the number would be much larger. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 5%.
So was it really a “strawman” argument after all?
And when a cisgendered girl is told she has to change in the same locker room as someone with a penis, that can be very unpleasant for her. The question remains on how we balance these competing interests.
We can accomodate the one transgender, but then what do we do when one or more cisgenders complain? We can’t make them change in a separate room, because we apparently can’t do that to the transgender girl. We can’t tell them to suck it up and change in front of the penis-bearer, because being told who you have to change in front of is too unpleasant.
So we build lockers rooms for all the combinations - one locker room for the transgender women who don’t want to shower with men, one for transgender men who don’t want to shower with women, one for cisgender women who don’t want to shower with transgender men, one of cisgender men who want to shower with cisgender women, and a couple of others for situations no one has thought of yet.
Problem solved. Tough on the school budget, but telling one person to either change with the other penis-bearers or go into the closest broom closet if he is that stressed out is apparently the moral equivalent of lynching.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s not about being ‘prudish’. Many transgender people suffer from dysphoria - a feeling of being trapped in the wrong body. Forcing them to use the bathroom of the gender they do not see for themselves is rather cruel.
Imagine (as a weak analogy) that you had a real phobia about being called a girl. Maybe you grew up with slightly feminine features, and were constantly teased about it. So you go to the teacher and say, “The boys in the bathroom are constantly bugging me about how girlish I look!”. And the teacher says, “Hey, problem solved. You DO look like a girl, so from now on you will use the girl’s bathroom.” Does that sound like a fix for your problem? Or something that might make it worse?
For a transgendered person, being ‘misgendered’ is like a stab in the heart - a reminder that your body and mind are not in alignment. It can trigger dysphoria and depression.
So I have no problem saying we have to accomodate transgendered people. My point is that we must do so while remaining sensitive to the psychological needs and sensitivities of the other people involved. We have a situation where rights and social norms are conflicting, and in those situations we need to tread carefully and look for compromise. I happen to think having a ‘unisex’ bathroom is a really good one. Anyone going in there should expect to find people of different gender. And going into one does not pin a gender on you.
This is also a good solution for transgendered people (or anyone else) who are still very shy about their bodies and don’t want to be changing in front of anyone, male or female.
In public facilities like pools and gyms, a good solution is the ‘family’ change room. Originally designed for parents with a child of opposite gender who can not go into a change room alone, they have private change booths for everyone.
I am VERY sympathetic to transgendered individuals. I know several, and know what they went through. I know what the suicide rate is when they are placed in hostile environments and not allowed to transition. It’s a very traumatic, very difficult problem. We need to accommodate them.
But that doesn’t mean they get to just trample all over our social norms and force other people to live way outside their own comfort zones. Not every issue is the new racism, and not every disadvantaged person is Rosa Parks. Gender is an intrinsic part of human nature that affects us at very deep levels. You can’t simply declare that it doesn’t exist, or demand that people ignore their biological programming as if gender issues are no different that racism.
In fact, saying things like “Gender is a social construct” and using that as an argument to hand-wave away real issues people have is just as insensitive and uncaring as saying, “Transgendered people should just get over it.” After all, if gender is just a social construct, what’s the big deal? Just use the bathroom for the parts you were born with, right? Well, no. Gender IS a big deal, which is WHY transgendered people have so much difficulty with it.
But that cuts both ways. If gender is a big deal, then you have to be sensitive to people who have other gender issues - including not wanting to be naked in front of someone who is visibly of the opposite sex, or not wanting your children to have the naughty bits of the opposite gender exposed to them on a regular basis.
And Una explained(quite well, in my opinion) what the difference was in the levels and types of unpleasantness in the two situations. The cisgendered female is not alone and in danger of being harassed when a transgendered girl enters the locker room-at worst, she may feel uncomfortable. When a transgendered girl is made to change in the boy’s locker room, the situation is much worse than that for the transgendered child.
Thanks all.
Will be interesting to see how this type of dynamic plays out in the future.
That’s too bad. Many cisgender people suffer from a feeling of being trapped into showering with penises. Forcing them to use the same locker room with such is rather cruel.
Agreed, which is why it was unfortunate to rule out the compromise where the needs of the many took precedence over the needs of the few, or the one.
Regards,
Shodan
I agree with the latter, but why the assumption that a cisgendered person will at worst feel ‘uncomfortable’? What if she was raped, and seeing male bits causes her to break down from PTSD? What if she was raised in a very strict environment and told that sex was sinful and seeing male parts is highly traumatic?
I thought we were supposed to be providing ‘safe spaces’ for people? Or do ‘safe spaces’ only apply to special protected groups you approve of, and everyone else just has to suck it up and get over their trauma? It seems to me that the greatest need for a ‘safe space’ might be one where you are at your most vulnerable - say, a place where you have to get unclothed in front of other people. Isn’t that were we need to tread most carefully to avoid making anyone feel unsafe?
How about religious rights? Muslims seem to care a lot about covering up around the opposite sex. If being in a change room with someone they believe is a man is a gross violation of their religious duty, are they just out of luck? Do they have to stay home because we’re not going to budge an inch to accommodate anyone but the current victims that are in fashion?
Here in Canada we’re currently going nutty because the left believes a Muslim woman has a right to keep her face veiled for an official government photograph. Anything less would be a violation of her religious rights. Yet the same people insist that she has to change in front of a man because we just arbitrarily announced that gender is nothing but a social construct?
I think there’s a pretty significant difference. Do you know anyone who killed herself because she saw a penis? Transgendered people have a very high suicide rate because the dysphoria is extremely traumatic. It’s a real problem, and it’s a lot worse than just feeling uncomfortable in a situation.
Not a fan of that quote, as it’s little more than a justification for trampling individual rights. It’s a statement you expect to hear from a communist. I didn’t like it when Spock said it, and I don’t like seeing it used by someone who doesn’t believe in it in any other way other than that it appears to be a useful weapon in a specific debate.
The U.S. constitution is based on the belief that the rights of the one often outweigh the needs of the many.
And what’s more, I’ve been in that situation. I have an intersex hormone disorder, which means I had an A-B cup when I was in junior high school, I never developed body hair, did not have facial hair, and because I was thin I actually had a slender hourglass figure.
The tortures the boys in the locker room did to me were the sort of thing which would get adults sent to prison for nowadays. And the coaches not only did nothing, they encouraged it when they saw it. I complained to the principal, the school counselors, anyone who would listen - and when they would look into it, they would hit the testosterone wall - “we don’t know nothin. They’re just clumsy and fall down a lot. People get hurt in gym.” Then the tortures would redouble because I “narked.”
The boys were especially attracted to my breasts, from the standpoint of punching them, pinching them, slapping, and even trying to stab them with a pen once to “pop” them. And all the while the verbal abuse, catcalling, shoving, pushing, stealing my clothes and books. Because, you know, I was a “freak,” and that’s what we deserve.
But some macho men on here probably think there’s nothing wrong with that…just penis bearers being penis bearers…bullying builds character on both ends! “Sack up!” :rolleyes:
I skipped a lot of school and a lot of gym classes over it. No one helped. I tried to run away from home. I injured myself on purpose to get an excuse from gym. The harassment and bullying in the lockers continued until the very last day of gym.
I’m a child of the 80’s. Until I see clear and convincing proof that 2015 boys locker rooms with their jock culture are substantially improved over that of my era, I’m going to argue vehemently and continually that no other transgender girl (whether they are on or off hormones) face what I had to. :mad:
Oh and I can predict the macho men response: “all boys matter.” Yeah, pretend like none of us ever experienced or have any concept of how a crowd singles out and bullies those who are different from the norm…please. :dubious:
una you obviously don’t care, and are having whatever success you are enjoying advancing your agenda. But by misrepresenting anyone who asks questions, and by presenting over-the-top analogies, you miss out on an opportunity to persuade some folk who might be open to persuasion. But perhaps I don’t appreciate the degree of fear and bias that causes me to say this… :rolleyes:
Tone policing on the other hand is always effective and never inappropriate.
Oh yes, the old “I was juuuuuuust on the point of agreeing with you on a civil rights issue which is far beyond the scope of an online discussion, but then you didn’t kiss my ass enough on a message board, so tough noogies!” Wow, that never gets old on here. :rolleyes:
In the direct reply I made to you, that was not an over the top analogy. That was a fact in both scenarios. That in one case there is a lone transgender girl who may cause offense, and in the other case there is a lone transgender girl subject to potential offense from many. That’s not over the top, that’s a factual situation, unless you assume that there are more than one trans student involved. Which part would be in dispute as over the top, exactly? I’m going into that very situation next week to help out on one of my visits to a local high school. I assure you it’s not over the top.
I even bolstered your side of the argument by disagreeing and saying that perhaps many more students might be offended by the transgender student (my 5% comment).
Show where I misrepresented or used an over the top analogy in that reply.
Nope, never was close to agreeing with you. Maybe I could not have been convinced, but your approach was not effective with this one individual. Better luck with whomever else you wish to confront/persuade.
Since describing real situations wasn’t effective in your opinion, what approach do you think would have been effective?
This is an awfully thin limb you’ve worked yourself out to.
Might have been more effective to start off with those real situations. Instead, following my first few posts, she took issue with my choice of the word peculiarity. Looked in Word’s thesaurus, and think it was a fine choice.
Then she followed up with a couple of posts essentially conflating my questions with racism. By the time she got around to describing real situations (anecdotes? hypotheticals?), she had already succeeded in priming the pump.
I’m done here. Feel free to continue or not as you wish.
So Una, if you had it your way and you could have changed in the girl’s locker room, do you think that would have solved your bullying problem? To me, it would seem to make it even worse. You might not be as physically abused while in the locker room, but I don’t doubt these same “jocks” would still find ways to abuse you, and I doubt changing in the girl’s room would be a cakewalk either.