Oh, well in that case, since we can’t make it perfect best not do anything about it at all.
For the record, as a cisgender male, I would have had no issues in high school changing in a locker room with a transman.
That is an excellent question. I think it would be a net improvement. Words and ostracism certainly hurt, but IME it’s not on the same level as being beaten. The problem is one of it being a very different world - in the early 1980’s even the word “transgender” was practically unknown, and transsexuals were so rarely in the news that the average kid likely had no idea what one of us was.
The jocks could have found me after gym…but they already were doing it, and outside of the gym I had more avenues for escape, and more teachers who would have stepped in to stop it. After all, beating someone up is more difficult to do in Calculus than in a gym locker room with no supervision. And after school I could often find ways to avoid trouble, or someone to go home with. Not always, but often.
I’m not trying to be deceptive here, I just don’t have a good answer to your question.
I’d like to get over the use of “comfort” as analogous to rights. Because its not simply that people are uncomfortable, its the rights of people we’re talking about here.
To hell with the comfort of both cis and trans people. I couldn’t care less who’s uncomfortable with what. But what I do believe is that a trans person is the sex they identify as, and it would be against his or her rights to force them into a locker room against their will. If the girls are uncomfortable with a MTF trans girl in their midst, they can get the fuck over themselves. If the boys are uncomfortable with a FTM, they can get over themselves too.
Using “comfort” as a stand in for “rights” and then mocking discomfort or misleadingly assuming all discomfort is the same is a specious argument. So that is why we can and should ignore the discomfort of cis people who complain about having a transgendered person in their locker room, their comfort is meaningless drivel. We need to help the transgendered person be comfortable in the locker room of their choice because we are actually helping them to assert their right to use the other locker room.
I hear a good many anecdotes about cisgender females saying they were made to feel bad about body issues. Some of them even commit suicide over that, too. And I don’t believe letting the transgender teen in the OP into an all-female environment is going to guarantee that s/he won’t commit suicide.
Regards,
Shodan
Why don’t you guys argue what you really believe-- that transgender people should not be accommodated because you don’t believe that they are the gender that they identify with.
Being upfront with that is MUCH more honest and respectful than making up endless rationalizations. When you believe that transwomen are confused boys seeking attention, of course it doesn’t make sense to accommodate them. And as long as they is the basic belief behind your arguments, there is no debate. There’s no conversation to be had.
I don’t think I’ve ever done this before on this message board, but “+1.”
It’s like all the opponents to the Gay Rights movement who are opposed to it because they don’t want people to be gay. Know what? You’re not going to get your wish. Move on.
Speaking as a former teenage girl, I think changing in the girl’s room would ultimately be worse for transgender teenager. Teenage girls can be quite vicious and cruel to someone different than them. Furthermore, at that age physical female fights are not like physical male fights. It’s more savage like prison fighting. Whatever temporary average a transgender teen might have because of more muscle fibers and male hormones wouldn’t be enough to combat that.
The person best situated to make that choice is the transgender teen herself.
No, the similarities are spot on. The question of whether black people should be able to use the same restrooms as white people is irrelevant to the issue of whether restrooms should be segregated by gender. Similarly, the question of whether transgender people should be able to use the same restrooms as cisgender people is irrelevant to the issue of whether restrooms should be segregated by gender.
The issue here is not whether there should be separate restrooms for girls and boys. The issue is whether a girl who publicly and consistently identifies as a girl (with female pronouns, etc.) should be denied access to a girls’ restroom because she happens to have a penis.
And yes, that is indeed very similar to the issue of whether a girl should be denied access to a girls’ restroom because she happens to have black skin.
In both cases, the solution involves recognizing that being a white girl, or a cisgender girl, or any other variety of traditionally-privileged-group girl, does not entitle you to deny other, less traditionally privileged kinds of girls their right to use facilities that are specifically provided for the use of girls.
The only logical objections to that egalitarian argument (as other posters have already pointed out) are all ultimately based on the assumption that transgender girls aren’t really girls at all, and therefore allowing them to use girls’ facilities is granting them a special favor instead of simply acknowledging their rights.
So if you believe that transgender girls “aren’t really girls”, then you should say so, and we can argue about that. But if you accept that transgender girls are in fact girls, then there is no valid argument against their using the same restrooms as other girls.
Yes, agreed.
I am reading your posts. The issue is they are just long screeds short on cogent arguments or humility.
So do chronically depressed people, people with PTSD, and people with severe alcohol dependence. Should those facts in and of themselves require additional accommodation? Would you be okay with prohibiting liquor sales in a town where there are a lot of people with alcohol dependence? Should we prohibit stores from selling them guns or alcohol? Why or why not?
It is a real problem. The issue is less that then whether it’s society’s collective problem, and what types of accommodations are prudent to mitigate those problems. Let’s keep in mind here that no one is asking this girl to change with the boys. The choice is between a private changing area and the girls’ locker room. That is already an accommodation albeit one not deemed adequate by some.
How is being able to change in the locker room of your choice a right?
One, that is not what is happening here. Two, what steps does one need to take to identify as either gender?
Because almost everyone here doesn’t seem to be arguing that, so it’s a bit unfair to assume that’s what they are actually thinking. Let’s use a less charged example to highlight the fallacious reasoning you are employing.
There is a condition called body integrity identity disorder (BIID) where people believe a part of their body doesn’t belong there. Some people even refer to suffers as “trans-abled”. One theory for condition states that BIID results from “a neurological failing of the brain’s inner body mapping function (located in the right parietal lobe) to incorporate the affected limb in its understanding of the body’s physical form”. Sufferers seem to improve when they are allowed to correct these flaws, but few doctors want to amputate a healthy limb despite the positive outcomes of such surgery. To quot the abstract of this paper on the issue:
So how much accommodation is necessary to alleviate the suffering of people with this condition? Should we make doctors amputate their limbs based on the notion that not treating them is like not treating people based on their race? Should medicare pay for such surgeries? Now I fully believe these people do have limbs they shouldn’t have, that their pain is real, and that there should be some accommodations made for them (just as I do for transgender people ftr). However, that doesn’t mean I think those accommodations shouldn’t consider the rights of a doctor to not amputate healthy limbs, or for society to feel they shouldn’t have to pay for such a surgery.
Wrong. One case is saying everyone should be together, the other is saying I get to choose the segregated place I get to go. One is denying a valid basis for differentiation and segregation exists (eg. race) whereas the other is just arguing it doesn’t apply to them. The closer analogue would by a Black guy with vitiligo arguing he could now go to White lunch counter because his skin is “White”.
You are ignoring the fact that, for better or worse, “happening to have a penis/vagina” is the largest part of the rationale for separation in the first place. So you can’t just hand wave it away as some sort of afterthought or incidental issue.
Regardless, if you choose to frame the issue as you did above, it has absolutely nothing in common with segregated lunch counters and bathrooms.
So can bigender people use either facility? Do we create separate facilities for genderless, trigender, and pangender people? Why or why not?
Or that the basis for segregated locker rooms is traditionally not only gender but also sex. Typically, those two align, but in the event they don’t, it’s doesn’t mean the other is irrelevant because someone has a doctor’s note, or might be a danger to themselves.
Man, the debates are going to be so fun if we get single-payer healthcare.
“Look, those trans people can do whatever they want, I just don’t want my taxes to pay for their surgery or hormones or whatever.”
You lecturing me on how I need to be “humble?” OMG, maybe instead, you should start reading your own posts. They’re a riot!
And I didn’t see you admit that I had in fact made the point regarding doctor shopping. One would think out of a sense of humility you’d have the honor to do such. So let’s see the post - after all, you want to show humility, right? :rolleyes:
Eh, I cannot even believe he’s taking this seriously. He’s basically just rehashing the same previously-debunked arguments like the BIID fallacy, tone-policing me, and…well, I’m not even really sure what his aim is, other than spreading a lot of FUD and whining about how I need to be more humble.
All of it appears to be a smokescreen for what I suspect is his (and others’) real argument, which is exactly what was outlined by even sven.
You clearly are not following along. You said:
Which is both not what typically happens in reality, and would yield completely inconsistent results. For example, do we rely on the school’s doctors who might be inclined to push for less accommodation? Do we rely on the doctor who testifies that other girls will be psychologically “harmed” by seeing a penis. Do we rely on the transgender student’s doctor? Whose opinion matters in this case?
That’s, of course, why your assertion that “all we have to do is rely upon a diagnosis from a doctor” is nonsense. Real life is more complicated than that, and competing interests and practical realities have to be considered.
Humor me. Please explain how this has been debunked in detail. Feel free to use whatever tone you like?
Do you believe your average transwomen is a woman? Or, lets pin this down a bit. Do you personally believe that Caitlyn Jenner (to pick a well known name) is a woman?
Generally yes. She should be referred to as a women, and treated as a women. However, I think at this point, her gender and sex are different which may cause issue where that is a concern. An example of the latter would be sports in many cases.
Sorry, I have to stop you right there. I asked you to admit that I had previously made the point regarding doctor shopping (gaming counselors). I still haven’t seen that admission, you know, demonstrating to me that humility you’re demanding of me. You understand that if you don’t seem to be reading my posts (hence your gaff regarding doctor shopping), it’s difficult for me to believe you’re taking this topic seriously. It was in the very first post where I quoted you.
If you aren’t going to do that little, then this conversation is done.