We’ll just bring them in front of you or your little girl. Apparently you can tell just by looking at them.
Yes, it’s okay to feel that way, and it’s okay to prefer to use a bathroom with one’s own gender, in my opinion. Haven’t I said that already?
I’m lost. You asked me how I would feel and respond to something, and I answered about how I’d make such a decision in that scenario.
It’s a fucking hypothetical. If you don’t like it, don’t answer it.
It’s perfectly possible to know for sure if someone is biologically male.
Uh, no. I don’t have to do that. My specific question isn’t about transgender people. It’s my question.
It’s her uncle Fred.
Happy now?
The question wasn’t posed to you so don’t worry about understanding it or what it is about.
We don’t have to pretend – the vast majority of people will continue to use their gender-corresponding bathroom. This won’t change when discrimination against transgender people is no longer considered acceptable.
If there was a horde of people who wanted to go into the opposite-gender-corresponding bathroom, then maybe we’d actually have something to discuss. Without that, I don’t really understand what you’re getting at, at all.
You seemed to be saying that your support for allowing transgender people in the restroom of their choice is conditional on whether you approve of the reason for it.
So it is okay to want gender privacy and not share a bathroom with someone of the opposite gender (again, leaving transgenders out of it for now).
So that means you want to respect that feeling by continuing to have gender-separate restrooms.
Right so far?
No, I’m saying that I support the request/demand by transgender people to have safe access to the bathroom that corresponds to their gender. If they made another request (say, for magical bathrooms in the sky) then I’d have to evaluate that request on its merits. I would not support any and every bathroom request that transgender people asked for or demanded.
If transgender people demand Nazi bathrooms, I will disagree with them. If they demand teacup-sized bathrooms for their imaginary friends, I will disagree with that too.
I didn’t say that.
Are you saying you don’t know anyone in the world who you are certain of their sex? Every single person, save perhaps your wife and kids, could be either sex under their clothes? Have you seen their genitals? Or can you just “tell by looking at them?”
A little girl is upset because her Uncle Fred, a person she knows and who definitely NOT a total stranger and thus outside the parameters of your hypothetical is in the women’s room?
Do better, or admit that you can’t answer the question.
I don’t judge total strangers in bathrooms if they mind their own business. Does that surprise you?
You can’t leave transgender people out of it – transwomen are women; transmen are men. It’s entirely reasonable, in my opinion and in society as it presently exists, for a woman to prefer to use a bathroom with only other women (including transwomen) allowed.
I think this is reasonable. I hope that society will evolve to the point to which people (especially women) no longer have cause for fear of the non-corresponding gender in their bathroom, but in present society I think it’s reasonable to continue to have gender-separate bathrooms.
I don’t need to “do better” for two reasons. First, you know it’s possible to know someone is male without being related to them or seeing their gentials. It’s a stupid demand.
Second, you don’t get to dictate what I do.
You walked into a conversation you don’t understand. You think you know what it’s about, but you don’t. You’re not adding anything to it. I’ll continue it with those who can handle it.
Of course I can. I just did.
It really doesn’t matter anyway. If a transgender person looks like a man, but is actually female, and using the WOMEN’S room with your daughter, it wouldn’t be an issue anyway. That’s why I didn’t include them, because my question isn’t about that. It’s simply about gendered restrooms, period.
Fear? What about plain old privacy? What about locker rooms - should women be perfectly okay with being nude in front of strange men, or being nude with them? Even if it’s not about fear?
I’m not asking if you hope that someday nobody will care. Sure, maybe someday nobody will care. But plenty of people care now. So should we respect that, or override it, or what?
So you do admit that all you(and your hypothetical daughter) have got is “I knows 'em when I sees 'em”. I can see why hypothetical daughter gets upset a lot if she is taught stuff like that.
I’m finding a lot of your verbiage about transgender people confusing, but that doesn’t seem to be a part of this particular question.
I won’t judge such feelings. Anyone can feel however they like regarding privacy in the bathroom. I’m much more concerned about actions.
Do you mean respect the lack of a desire to go from gendered bathrooms to unisex bathrooms? Sure, I’m fine with that. I think it’s reasonable to continue to use gendered bathrooms in our society.
lance – when you assert that gender separated bathrooms are somehow meaningless, or pretend, since they can be violated through deceit, it sounds as strange to me as asserting that the difference between kitchen sinks and toilets is meaningless or pretend because someone might choose to shit in the sink.
Sure, shitting in the sink is bad, and sure, using deceit to access the opposite-gender bathroom is bad, but so few people want to do these things that it seems ridiculous to me that this possibility somehow renders gendered bathrooms or kitchen-sink/toilet distinctions meaningless or pretend. Most people won’t shit in the kitchen sink, and most people will use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender. It’s not meaningless or pretend since not shitting in the sink, and using the gender-corresponding bathroom, are what most people do, and it appears to be what most people want to do.
Edit: Never mind, I saw I was responding to an old post in a long thread so decided to remove it.
I’m always a little bit confused about why so many people involved in this flavor of debate automatically assume there are never males in the women’s bathroom. There are quite frequently boys in there - in public restrooms, any kid a mother doesn’t feel comfortable leaving alone lingering outside the bathroom waiting on her will be in there with her, probably hanging out near the door looking sort of awkward. I quite often see boys well past toddler-age doing exactly that in public restroom. Occasionally, I even see older boys in the ladies’ room - kids who have developmental delays of one sort or another whose parent doesn’t feel comfortable leaving them outside for whatever reason while she uses the bathroom.
Hell, once in a while I see very, very apologetic-looking adult and apparently cis-men lurking in the doorway carrying on encouraging conversations with the female child they’re escorting but don’t feel comfortable taking into the men’s room (or who flat won’t go).
The point here being that anyone’s hypothetical six-year-old daughter is already going to have to suck up having biologically male persons in the restroom with them. Speaking as a formerly six-year-old daughter, I was a lot more freaked by other little boys (who were my age) in the bathroom than anything else. My mother’s response then - as it would be when confronted by a transwoman not passing so well - was that I was in a stall so I should just go on about my business and let other people go on about theirs.
I wonder what lance’s daughter would think coming out of her stall and being confronted by my transgender man friend Andy, who is 5’10 and 230 pounds, and looks like a big old hairy Cajun love machine (less bald spot) - but who still has a vagina.
But hey, that’s better than letting an evil transgender woman like myself in to pee, right?