# Transgendered person kicked out of a gender divided bathhouse/spa **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 1, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777 "2013-01-01T21:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/41 "2013-01-02T20:12:47Z")
> [@Kaio](#): > > Need more details. You know what? Society is big and there are too many people to request fine details for every individual situation. The general rule is that there’s a men’s room and a women’s room, and it should not be more complicated than that. If an individual situation is more complicated than that, perhaps he or she should delay using open changing areas. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/42 "2013-01-02T20:15:12Z")
**WhyNot** , you may not know which direction it went, but I’d be willing to bet a steak dinner that it was a pre-op female with a penis going into the women’s locker room. Men wouldn’t complain about a naked male/female-whatever-they-perceived-a-preop-FtoM to be. I get the philosophical problems posed by this, but we tacitly accept that it is OK to separate totally female females from totally male males. Am I right about that? Nobody has complained that they have a policy that one sex uses one locker room, and one sex uses another. That’s the way locker rooms have been in the US forever. So if we’re OK with that rule, then I can’t get too upset by the owners deciding sex of customer one way or another. But it is the owner’s call, not the customer’s. If the customer doesn’t like which locker room they’re given to use, they go to a different bath house. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/43 "2013-01-02T20:22:27Z")
Do you really believe that a pre-op trans person in a single-sex environment would get naked in front of other people and flaunt their “wrong stuff”? Trust me, it just does not happen. Having the “wrong stuff” is the source of a lifetime of pain and cruelty for trans people, and the last thing they’d want to do is flaunt it. What they want is to change it. Rather, what happens is that cis people freak out whenever they find out a trans person may be within a ten-mile radius and, making the above mistaken assumption, freeze out all trans people pre-emptively. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/44 "2013-01-02T20:22:40Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > The idea of the general public somehow being exempt from seeing people in the process of transitioning strikes me as, at best, missing the point. It is an exercise for the transitioning person to learn how to interact with the public and to use public facilities as their preferred gender and it’s a great opportunity for the rest of us to learn how to be cool. Oh, aargh. This whole thing is so complicated and so difficult sometimes I don’t even know how to be “fair” or “right”. I would be very uncomfortable with penises in the locker room, and would absolutely take my business elsewhere, if it was made clear to me that that was considered OK. And yes, I guess that’s wrong…but I don’t know, at what point do I get a right to be comfortable too? Or do we all have to make sure transitioning people are comfortable above all? Whose rights take priority? I don’t have the answers, I promise you that. I will think about it some more. Johanna, TBH, I couldn’t agree with you more. Who wants that kind of humiliation? Like I said, I don’t think the story is anywhere near what the OP says, it’s just something that’s been blown entirely out of proportion, one way or another. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/45 "2013-01-02T20:28:01Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You know what? Society is big and there are too many people to request fine details for every individual situation. The general rule is that there’s a men’s room and a women’s room, and it should not be more complicated than that. If an individual situation is more complicated than that, perhaps he or she should delay using open changing areas. 1\> Well, it _is_ more complicated than that, as evidenced by this thread. And in our big society, beyond this individual spa, we also have family bathrooms now, not just in recognition of TG individuals but for the fact that sometimes Dad is the one watching his 3-YO daughter, and one or the other sooner or later will need to use a bathroom. So no, it’s not as simple as men’s rooms and women’s rooms, and (thankfully) hasn’t been for a long time. 2\> I’m not supposing to dictate to a TG individual how to handle this, here, but to answer WhyNot’s question – is this something that rises to the level of depriving this spa of my business because of the way this individual was treated? I can’t tell, without more details. Which I will probably not get. FWIW, if I get the opportunity to go to this spa again, absent new (and reliable – FOAF is not likely to be good enough) information that clarifies things, I probably will simply because there’s no way for ME to tell if the staff acted inappropriately under the circumstances or not. Right now, all this is, is a rumor. BTW, I may be wrong about being able to skip the naked wet spa, actually. Looking at their website they say that you must use the (wet) spa before heading to the (dry) sauna rooms in the clothing-required area. So I think at a minimum you have to shower first, and the showers are not in private stalls. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/46 "2013-01-02T20:43:03Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > And yes, I guess that’s wrong…but I don’t know, at what point do I get a right to be comfortable too? Or do we all have to make sure transitioning people are comfortable above all? Whose rights take priority? I don’t have the answers, I promise you that. I dunno, either. I only know me and I know that if for some reason, I became aware that a person with a vagina were in the men’s locker room, I wouldn’t feel anything but gratitude that I’ve never had to think about whether it was more appropriate for me to use the men or women’s room and I would think that my momentary discomfort and confusion is not worth making a big deal about given that if I can handle the awkwardness for 20 minutes, they get to have a slightly less stressed experience that they’re probably not really all that psyched about in the first place. Obviously the dynamics are inherently different between a person with a vagina in the mens room and a person with a penis in the womens room. And I know, culturally, there’s a stronger sense of violation when a person who presents, at a casual glance, as a man is in a woman-centric space than the inverse. So, yes, this is not an ideal world where everyone is ok with everyone else’s particular needs but I don’t think the onus lies entirely on the person transitioning. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/47 "2013-01-02T20:54:00Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I dunno, either. I only know me and I know that if for some reason, I became aware that a person with a vagina were in the men’s locker room, I wouldn’t feel anything but gratitude that I’ve never had to think about whether it was more appropriate for me to use the men or women’s room and I would think that my momentary discomfort and confusion is not worth making a big deal about given that if I can handle the awkwardness for 20 minutes, they get to have a slightly less stressed experience that they’re probably not really all that psyched about in the first place. Hmm, truth. But we can’t change people’s (including mine) attitudes over night, with a snap of the fingers. I dunno. Like I said, I’ll go back and think about it. Trans issues in general are something that I have been mulling over in my head for what feels like years. It’s something that I’ve not figured out in my own head yet. But I would also submit there is a difference between a woman in the men’s locker room and a man in the woman’s locker room. I’m not sure I can say exactly what that difference is without being picked apart by people, but I am sure I feel far less comfortable and safe with a strange naked man than the average man feels with a strange naked woman. ---
**Author:** ![Kaio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c68b51/32.png) [@Kaio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaio)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/48 "2013-01-02T21:06:06Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Do you really believe that a pre-op trans person in a single-sex environment would get naked in front of other people and flaunt their “wrong stuff”? No. Flaunting is pretty much beside the point, I can see someone is naked whether they flaunt or not. I never said my triggers were rational, in fact I went out of my way to explain that they are not. But they are deeply ingrained and if I haven’t gotten rid of them in 20+ years, the split-second I have in this hypothetical locker-room situation isn’t gonna do it. The coping skills I have are predicated on either knowing in advance, being clothed, or both. I wish it were different – I _like_ being nude and comfortable. But you can blame the guys who assaulted me; and I’m sadly not an unusual case. These triggers have nothing to do with transgenderism/transsexualism or being “freaked out” by it, and everything to do with the normal emotional fallout of sexual assault. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/49 "2013-01-02T21:53:44Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Between the two choices, maybe the unsuspecting general public shouldn’t be involuntarily and unknowingly recruited into being part of the individual’s treatment. “the unsuspecting general public shouldn’t be involuntarily and unknowingly recruited…” OMG stop right there, for you will never type anything as funny as this if you live to be 100. Kudos. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/50 "2013-01-02T22:01:03Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Agreed. I was thinking about this thread overnight, and I’d be made really uncomfortable to be an unwilling participant in this. This is analogous to back to the the 1960’s, when people were uncomfortable being an unwilling participant in desegregation. Or back to the 1970’s, and mainstreaming of handicapped children into schools, where some children and teachers were uncomfortable being unwilling participants in that program of inclusion. Transpeople have a diagnosed medical condition, studied by tens of thousands of professionals in nearly all nations of the planet, for at least a century, which is so pervasive and tenacious that the only effective treatment for the population is transition. We can also extend that to inclusion of ethnic groups and religions which might make others uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/51 "2013-01-02T22:11:53Z")
Unless you entirely reject the concept of segregating toilets, changing rooms, and other similar facilities by gender, then you can’t analogize gender to race, ethnicity, or religion. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/52 "2013-01-02T22:15:56Z")
I mean, to take it out of the more hair-trigger environment of the lockerroom, if you’ve ever been to a busy mall, there is a chance you passed by or even interacted with someone in the process of transitioning and were “involuntarily and unknowingly recruited into being part of the individual’s treatment” in regards to being out in public attired and conforming to societal standards as expected of their preferred gender. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/53 "2013-01-02T22:22:11Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Do you really believe that a pre-op trans person in a single-sex environment would get naked in front of other people and flaunt their “wrong stuff”? Trust me, it just does not happen. Having the “wrong stuff” is the source of a lifetime of pain and cruelty for trans people, and the last thing they’d want to do is flaunt it. What they want is to change it. > > Rather, what happens is that cis people freak out whenever they find out a trans person may be within a ten-mile radius and, making the above mistaken assumption, freeze out all trans people pre-emptively. You know what, you’re correct. I was going to address some of the other folks having issues with transpeople in the context within this thread, but I really think it boils down to the story beggaring belief. As I previously posted, and after further thought and chatting about this thread with a few transwomen community leaders I know, it is _vanishingly_ rare for a pre-op transperson to expose themselves, for the very reasons you elaborate on. And the single time I _personally_ know of, the transwoman was around only other transwomen. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/54 "2013-01-02T22:55:29Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I mean, to take it out of the more hair-trigger environment of the lockerroom, if you’ve ever been to a busy mall, there is a chance you passed by or even interacted with someone in the process of transitioning and were “involuntarily and unknowingly recruited into being part of the individual’s treatment” in regards to being out in public attired and conforming to societal standards as expected of their preferred gender. Which is fantastic: I am more than happy to be a part of that as long as my vagina isn’t out in the process. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/59ef9b/32.png) [@FlyingRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRat)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/55 "2013-01-02T23:35:41Z")
I don’t believe it’s been pointed out yet, but the discussion of “pre-op” and “post-op” fails to account for those transgendered individuals for whom surgery is not part of the transition process. There are quite a few transmen and transwomen who are fine with the bodies and the genitalia they started out with, and don’t link their gender identity to their physical equipment. However, since the prevailing assumption in our society (as reflected, unthinkingly, in many of the posts in this thread) is that the gender binary is strict and absolute, these individuals are “left out” to a greater or lesser degree when it comes to restrooms, spas, and so on (along with, oh, \*legal \*standards for transition). Which, IMO, just straight-up sucks, and I’d like to see us as a culture be a little more willing to engage with this question. Deconstructing the gender binary will be a long time coming, but if we can at least get to the point of being more critical of the idea of “penis = male = aggressor”… (Also, \<3 to \*\*Una \*\*and **Inner Stickler**.) ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/56 "2013-01-02T23:46:28Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > I mean, to take it out of the more hair-trigger environment of the lockerroom, if you’ve ever been to a busy mall, there is a chance you passed by or even interacted with someone in the process of transitioning and were “involuntarily and unknowingly recruited into being part of the individual’s treatment” in regards to being out in public attired and conforming to societal standards as expected of their preferred gender. And there are plenty of people who are fine with it as long as everyone is dressed. ``` I'm sure that nearly all pre-op transgendered people would not "get naked in front of other people and flaunt their "wrong stuff" ". But I can believe it happens on occasion , only because I don't think being trans confers some sort of immunity to the sort of extremist , attention/publicity seeking, or "everyone must adjust to me and I must adjust to no one" behavior found in every other human group. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2013, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/57 "2013-01-02T23:51:23Z")
> [@Kaio](#): > > No. Flaunting is pretty much beside the point, I can see someone is naked whether they flaunt or not. The point is that getting naked in front of others in a single-sex environment is very much not something that trans people ever actually do. Nudity itself would be tantamount to “flaunting” the wrong stuff. I was using the two pretty much synonymously. I’m a rape survivor too and I have my triggers to deal with in life. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/58 "2013-01-03T00:11:01Z")
Where is this “gender divided” locker room stuff coming from? Locker rooms are divided by sex. I am expected to use the men’s locker room because I have a penis, not because I self identify as a man. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/59 "2013-01-03T00:41:52Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Unless you entirely reject the concept of segregating toilets, changing rooms, and other similar facilities by gender, then you can’t analogize gender to race, ethnicity, or religion. I do reject that concept, because it’s a silly concept to begin with. Oh, I know it’s what everybody is comfortable with now and everyone would get their knickers in a twist if it were suddenly changed. But let’s be honest: penised people having to go into a different cubicle _in a different room_ from vaginaed people is just silly. Yes, there are people with good reasons to be uncomfortable and there are people who were just raised that way so they can’t help it, but there are also people who have a penis _and_ breasts so it will end up being difficult at some point. Better to do away with the totally arbitrary division all together. In my ideal world there would be some cubicles for those who prefer that, and then just a general “family” changing room. There are several places in the Netherlands where they doing away with gendered lavatories. But I realise that for most of the world that is not going to happen any time soon, and for most people the idea is uncomfortable. I just wish it weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777/60 "2013-01-03T01:09:45Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Where is this “gender divided” locker room stuff coming from? Locker rooms are divided by sex. I am expected to use the men’s locker room because I have a penis, not because I self identify as a man. Oh goody. So, Buck Angel (just google him) who is far more muscular than I am, who has more masculine facial features and manlier hands, should use the women’s room because he has a vagina?? **WhyNot** Add me to the list of folks who demand more details. This story just doesn’t feel right. **FlyingRat** you make an excellent point. Not everybody opts for surgery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transgendered-person-kicked-out-of-a-gender-divided-bathhouse-spa/645777.md?page=4)