There is no appropriate gender for sex-segregated locker rooms.
Because you’re mixing gender with sexual preference. This is also implied by your drawing a parallel between you being into “BDSM” as you termed it, and transsexuals.
Transsexuals are not people who just decide to modify their bodies to change their appearance - they are diagnosed over a period of time by mental professionals as having a brain, thought processes, etc. which are much more different to their physical gender than similarly to it, sometimes profoundly different.
A gay man is a man who says “I’m a man, and I like other men.” A straight transwoman is a person who says “I’m a woman, and I like men, but my body isn’t right, so I need to fix it to the best of my ability.”
Typically when one asks the question you do (and there are no unique questions about transsexuals; I’ve seen or heard them all) it’s because they honestly do not believe that someone can have a mental gender which is different than their physical gender. They often, if they are not hostile, are in the “whuddevermakesyouhappy” class, which often is another way of saying “I think you’re a loon but you aren’t immediately inconveniencing me so I won’t argue with you.”
The problem is often one of personal exposure. I know, chat with, phone, work with, play with, and live with transwomen on a daily basis. Last night I played cards with one wonderful transwoman until 2am. Today I’ve already chatted with another, and am going dancing with about 10 or so transwomen tonight. Tomorrow I’m going shopping with a couple more. I’m making the appeal from authority, in other words. I have no more questions about the veracity of transsexualism than I do that the Earth orbits the sun.
I have found, in my experience, that those who doubt but are not hostile to transsexuals without exception change their views when they get to know or spend extended time with a real, honest to goodness transsexual person. When you can see how serious and how profound the difference is, and understand how no one willingly would do what they are doing unless their lives did not depend on it (not hyperbole; see the prior suicide stats), and when you’ve studied how ineffective counseling and psychotropic drugs are for “fixing” the problem - then one has no difficulty believing as well. Of course if one happens to actually be a transwoman, than one certainly has no problem believing either…
And when you know transsexuals you find one thing stands out - how normal they really are. Aside from the issue of their gender identity they are just like all the rest of folks who at heart just want to do things like have a go to school, get a good job, have a nice house, be a good neighbor who always mows their lawn on Saturday morning, have BBQs and go out for drinks, watch TV and see movies, go to church, have hobbies and vacations, and fall in love, maybe raise a family.
The FUD towards transsexuals typically boils down to some combination of ignorance, penis panic, hysterical homophobia, and religious puritanism, and it’s shameful, really, and I mean that with more intensity than is typically implied by the word.
I have my doubts about how inevitable it is, but even if that were the case, that doesn’t mean discrimination or segregation, even against a protected class, is always illegal or unfair. There are practical reasons why expecting society to treat anyone thinks they are a woman to be treated as one is not always logical or possible. Certainly not without proper documentation and treatment from a licensed professional (which this person seemed to lack), and certainly not when it imposes unreasonable restrictions on a private business which does its best to be accommodating.
How do you know? Most thought this would never happen in the first place, yet it did.
The government is not in the business of protecting people’s feelings. I don’t think anyone here hasn’t been sympathetic to trans folks here, but the reality is the psychological pain comes from them believing they were born in the wrong body, not because society is reticent to abandon its opinions on gender and sex.
This is just scapegoating pure and simple. Is there anywhere where trans people don’t have a higher suicide rate, depression rate, etc.? The traumatic part is the individual’s mental pathology, not that that society is not universally accommodating. Could people be more open? Of course, but that is not what happened here. You had a business owner response to a complain in the most reasonable way possible. This guy didn’t yell epithets, or intend to demean the customer. He just tried to make the best of a bad situation.
It is in many cases. Unfortunately, there are too many instances where “mental” doesn’t align with “objective reality”. Largely due to that fact, you can’t allow everyone to think that THEIR truth should predominate, nor that it should guide the behavior of others. Brain chemistry is certainly important in understanding people’s behaviors and emotions, but it’s not particularly compelling to society’s desire to create effective laws and statutes that guide legal and ethical conduct. There are people that want to cut off their own limbs because they are SURE they would be happier as an amputee. Do you think society should allow doctors to cut off the limbs because someone is sure they don’t want them? If someone truly feels they were meant to be born paralyzed, or blind, should we allow a doctor to paralyze or blind them? Why or why not?
And before you go off about how those people are sick, and transgendered people are not, I think you need to appreciate that it’s largely because the latter has been normalized (justifiably), and former hasn’t yet. It’s no less biologically reasonable to think that people can be born the wrong gender than it is that they can be born with an extra or missing limb. If we were to accept that the brain is all that matters, shouldn’t we allow doctors to blind people who desire it in the same way we allow sexual reassignment surgery?
There is research that indicates pedophiles have different brain chemistry. Should that really change our response to when one of them engages in illegal conduct involving a child? I don’t think so. Of course that might affect the compassion individuals feel towards them, but I don’t think our law need to change solely to accommodate their brain chemistry. I can’t imagine it’s easy to live with schizophrenia, or to be “wired” to find kids attractive, or to think you are born in the wrong body, or to really really want to cut off your leg; but, I don’t think that is the end all be all wrt how we make laws.
If someone wants their limb cut off because it makes them distraught, and psychotherapy and medications don’t help, why shouldn’t they be obliged? I see no reason to consign another human being to despair just because I personally like having legs. Why do you object?
Who said I object? But the reality is you cannot just cut your leg off at your own house and expect to live. You will need medical intervention, which basically means you are gonna involve others on some level. I am not sure I think society should be paying for ER visits from people who feel compelled to do at-home surgery. So the question becomes whether you want to make medical intervention for conditions like this acceptable? Should a doctor be able to gouge someone’s eyes out because they want to be blind? Would about doctors killing otherwise healthy, but suicidal people? I’m not sure where I would draw the line, but it’s not some matter of just letting people do what makes them happy.
As you said, people are just going to do it on their own anyway, which is dangerous. I don’t see any reason why a doctor can’t do it instead, maybe after a trial period of limb-binding to make sure it’s really what the patient wants. After all, there’s no other solution that allows the patient to live a happy life. Why should your feelings on the matter come into it at all?
And in addition to everything Una Persson said, there’s the fact that medical technology is piss poor at making penises. I’d guess that most transmen don’t bother with bottom surgery simply because it’s major surgery, with all the risks that entails, with results that don’t function well and won’t fool anybody.
So for a lot of people it can’t be the measuring stick, because it’s beyond current medical abilities.
(I’ll also note my surprise that you’ve been into BDSM for so long and have never met someone who is trans. That’s a near-impossible feat in Chicago.)
There is a difference between treating someone, and encouraging their delusions. Do you think it’s okay for a doctor or a random person to kill someone who is suicidal?
Of course it is; what do think that, for example, marriage and the parent/child bond come from? Brain structure and brain chemistry. In fact, that’s where ultimately all human behavior comes from, and therefore everything that the law concerns itself with.
That’s like how homophobes try to equate same sex marriage with bestiality or pedophilia. Missing a limb or a sense is a defective state; being a man or a woman is not.
Actually, that is not all the law concerns itself with. In fact, most laws restrict behavior, not thoughts or brain chemistry.
That’s a value judgment. It’s no more implausible than being born with the wrong brain/genitals. Why is it okay for you to call someone who feels they should have been born paralyzed, blind, or without unwanted limbs defective, but someone who feels the same way about a transgendered person is a bigot? Why is a trans person’s “truth” real, and a BIID person’s is not? Where do you draw that line?
Again, I don’t really care what people do to themselves. I don’t have an issue if you want to live as a man, woman, amputee, etc. I, and most others, will be as courteous and respectful as the situation warrants. However, that doesn’t mean I want society to make laws based solely on your reality when it does not align with what most others experience and know.
No, no, it’s not that their truth isn’t real, it’s that their belief is not that they should have a whole “normal” body, but a defective “abnormal” body. A transgendered man wants his body to be a whole, healthy, functional male body, just like any other man.
That being said, my answer to all your "should we"s is yes. Yes, if psychiatric counseling and medication doesn’t resolve the BIID, then sure, why not? And yes, I absolutely believe that doctors and nurses should provide legal and painless means to allow people to commit dignified suicide after reasonable treatment for comorbidities is attempted.
Because, again, missing limbs or senses is a damaged state, a defect. Being a man or woman isn’t. Are you trying to claim that one gender is healthy and the other defective.
This is not about “my reality”, it’s about biological fact.
What nonsense. Why is cutting off your penis any more normal than cutting off your leg?
Fair enough. Now if we say that doctors cannot discriminate against BIID people by refusing them treatment, would you be okay with that? I personally don’t care what people do, but I don’t think we should have laws asking people to involuntarily cater to any and everyone.
I am saying enlisting an outside party to cut off your penis so that you are a “man” is not much different in my mind than cutting off your leg. Your desire to label one a defect and another a remedy is solely based on what you find normal, not any biological reality. People are born male, blind, deaf, and missing limbs all the time. Why is is one state a defect?
For example, I know someone who was born with 6 fingers. It’s actually a dominant trait. He has had it removed. Now, nobody would blink at him removing his sixth finger, but if he chose to remove another digit, leaving him with 4, people would think it was weird at the very least. Why? Obviously, we are anchored to 5 digits as the norm, so people who are actively desirous to change that are seen as troubled. I get that. What I don’t get is thinking those norms are perfectly acceptable wrt limbs, digits, and every other body part and characteristic, but not with genitals and gender. What makes that so special?
No it’s not.
What’s the suicide rate for people who have BIID and are not treated? What’s the rate of alcohol and drug abuse? What risks are they at for severe depression? How well do they respond to non-surgical treatment? If the answers to those questions work out about the same as they do for transpeople, then yes, they should be allowed access to elective amputation to resolve their issues. If the answers work out more favorably for BIID, then I don’t think it’s a useful analogy for GID.
If someone has persistent feelings of discomfort and eerie unbelonging associated with one of their limbs, how is that a delusion? It is unfortunate, certainly, and I’m sure that person wishes they felt better about it, but that doesn’t make the feelings go away.
Someone with irreparable major depression who has gone through all possible therapies and still feels miserable should be allowed to die if they want to, sure. Once you stipulate that nothing else will alleviate the discomfort, again, what other acceptable option is there?
Because roughly half of born people do not have penises.
And also because “cutting off your penis” is only one tenth the operation: the operation is known as a vaginoplasty, because it is the creation of a vagina. The penectomy is only the start. There’s nothing abnormal or disfiguring about having a vagina.
Oh, sure, let’s just append another whole thread here… 
Yes, with some limitation: just as I believe that pharmacists have a professional obligation to dispense prescribed abortifacient drugs (or whatever offends them) because that’s part of their profession, I believe that physicians should perform all medically indicated procedures that are a generally recognized part of their specialty. So if/when surgical alteration becomes a generally recognized part of whatever surgical specialty it makes most sense to adopt it, then those people who choose that specialty should be prepared to do the job. If they donwanna, they should choose another specialty.
HOWEVER, I’m not inhuman. I don’t want people who donwanna operating on me or people I love or care for. When I’m Queen of the World, there will be some sort of provision grandfathering physicians out of such obligation if they entered that specialty some x number of years before it became an accepted part of the field. (Let’s just say “accepted” by the Board of that specialty, appearing in recommendation lists, part of current best practices articles, etc.)
It might be of use at this point to note that people who really suffer from BIID (and presumably have been evaluated etc etc) do actually benefit from having the offending limb amputated. I saw a documentary on the subject quite some time ago. The people suffering from BIID were definitely similar in their descriptions of the particular limb “not being part of them”. Having it removed did not cause the fixation to shift, as had been feared. On the contrary, they found peace after years of struggling.
I do not intend to conflate the BIID with transexuality, I’m just saying that I do think that if someone has been adequately evaluated and it is determined that there is a high chance they might be happier having their leg amputated, then the law should be accommodating.
This is correct. it’s worth noting, however, that some transsexual people very pointedly do not identify as transgender, specifically because they have never really changed gender, only sex. (though that is of course, only internally. socially, transitioning does require changing how one is gendered by other people.)
I personally do not find the use of transgender as an umbrella term for transsexuals and other gender variant people particularly helpful. After all, most transsexuals do end up identifying within the binary, as either men or women, and not as any gender in between. Though, some do (as in, there are transsexual people who ID as genderqueer). And of course, it does muddy the distinction between these different groups to cisgender people who aren’t at all familiar with queer issues. I think simply saying “gender variant” is preferable. But that’s me.
So because it might be the least bad option, you would codify the diagnosis as being based on fact? That is, that a person can literally be born with too many limb or faculties? That’s the problem I have with this. I one thing for the mental health community to recommend treatments to alleviate suffering of any kind. It’s an entirely different thing to use those diagnoses to inform the law under the assumption that the patients’ perspectives are accurate, and to force others to agree with that interpretation.
The delusional part is thinking that they were meant to be both with a different body. That the mistake is with how their body developed, and not their mind. Mere commitment to an alternate reality is not evidence that that reality is exists. Moreover, it’s not sufficient cause to force other under penalty of law to accept that reality.
For example, let’s say that tomorrow, George Clooney wakes up, truly thinking he is Black. He decides to tell everyone and live his life as a Black man. Then one day he is arrested for seemingly no reason. He decides to sue them, alleging the cops were racist against Black people. Is the judge supposed to act as though Clooney is actually Black? What if Clooney wants to open a business, and he decides to apply for a loan as a underrepresented minority. Should he be allowed to get the loan? Why or why not?
Not forcing everyone else complicit in their decisions. Obviously you can’t prevent people from killing themselves. But, that doesn’t mean you should act as their decisions are rational or justifiable.
And roughly 99.9% of those with penises have no desire to cut it. If the frequency of the trait or behavior is really the issue, than we would never allow trans people to have SRS.
This is completely irrelevant. There is no logical reason why cutting off your penis is more normal than cutting off any other body part, yet people here act as if it is. This justification is absolutely laughable. As if the fact that it’s not JUST cutting off your penis makes it more rational. Feel free to replace penis with breast in the example if it makes the issue clearer for you.
No, it doesn’t, because we’re not talking about the same thing. I’ve tried rephrasing it, and cannot think of another new way to be more clear, so I’m going to stop now. Thank you for the discourse.