What's the answer, transgendered students in high school gym dressing rooms.

In My Humble Opinion
121

History is on the side of the weak and the repressed. That is completely counter-intuitive, but it seems to be the case. Ask women. Ask black people. Ask gays.

The weak and the repressed are on a freaking roll these days. And as a betting man, that is where I’m putting my money. Want to be on the side of history? Find the weak and the repressed. Side with them. 'Cause this tide ain’t about to turn any time soon.

Also, you’re probably a better person for it. At least according to my moral voice.

(Man, that felt… interesting. Now I feel like picking up a guitar and my book of protest songs.)

122

As we’ve already noted, two different definitions of the word “girl” are being used. The hundreds of girls who protested in the episode the OP linked to presumably use the definition from the dictionary, quoted already. Perhaps they understand that if definitions of “girl”, “boy”, “male”, “female” are changed once, they can be changed again, and the consequences will likely go beyond merely allowing one student into one locker room. Which would make them smarter than some adults.

123

Okay, so women are weak? And so are blacks and gays?

124

Damn it, how did I come across as the bigot in that statement? That was so not what I was shooting for. :smack: :stuck_out_tongue:

Anaway: No. No, they’re not.

Rewind, and let me see if I can rephrase my earlier post. Gimme a second.

125

Oh, the slippery slope argument. That’s a good one. Maybe, in the future, girls’ locker rooms will double as designated hangout zones for gangs of violent rapists. Because *that *is the real issue being debated here. Sorry for not being smart enough to understand that.

Personally, I like crossing bridges when I get to them. Seems to work much better in practice.

(It’s also a good strategy for walking tours of European cities. Just as an aside.)

126

If you think about it a little further, why do we have separate gender bathrooms, showers, and dressing rooms? Does a symbol on a door stop a rapist from walking into the wrong room and going on a raping spree? No, what stops them is authorities (PE teachers, school security) and the girls/boys protecting each other.

I suspect the *real *reason we have separate facilities is not to prevent rapes. Quite the opposite. If you let horny middle school and high school students share bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms, where they get to look at each other’s bodies and even make physical contact…what might happen? (I’m mentally imagining a cloud of shower steam obscuring details as the male and female lead in a teen romantic comedy look into each other’s eyes longingly)

Reliable birth control only was invented relatively recently, in the 1960s, and it isn’t perfect, and due to religious moralizing, it is difficult for women under 18 to even get it without the cooperation of their parents. Teenage women lack the resources and job skills to effectively raise their kids this early, so it just doesn’t work.

Maybe in another 30 years we will have teenager safe birth control (there are methods that do not interfere with hormone levels so they wouldn’t interfere with developement during puberty), cures for all the STDs, and we will just let the teenagers do whatever they like in one big coed set of facilities. Until then, separating them seems like a good idea, just like how you separate 2 chemicals that bond together until you are ready to mix them. That’s what the institution is trying to do.

127

Yeah, in fairness, probably something like this. One for every high school in the world.

That’s what my intuition tells me, anyway. On the other hand, maybe not, and I could be completely wrong about that. My intuition doesn’t have that awesome a track record when it comes to these things. As pointed out upthread, there are already gay people using the restrooms of the gender they prefer. The world hasn’t exploded yet. And, in general, young men and women are sharing space in an unsupervised manner more now, at least in these parts of the world, than probably at any time or place in history. I think we’re OK so far. Maybe we should give the kids some credit.

128

Studies have also shown that the MAJORITY of children who identify as transgender transition BACK to their biological gender.

So is it your position that when transgendered individuals switch back that their brains are switching back and forth?

Apparently, someone always has to be on the wrong side of science, too.

129

Using the reactive chemicals analogy, you’ve let some chemicals in that want to bond with other chemicals in the same vat, but these chemicals are rare and have to encounter another molecule shaped a particular way for a hookup.

Mix girls and boys in the locker room, and almost every girl can potentially react with almost every boy. That’s a drastically more…reactive…environment.

Also, the consequence of a gay hookup is not visible or long lasting…

130

The brain is plastic and a mush of circuits that are self modifying all mashed together. People who are cross eyed can sometimes learn to use both eyes correctly. People who have trouble walking can sometimes learn. People who are confused about how to use their sex organs can sometimes “straighten up”. Heh. Whether or not this is possible for a particular individual obviously just depends on the mash of circuits and whether the queer wires outnumber the straight ones, or however you want to put it. (don’t be an ass in responding, I’m fully aware that at the neuroscience level it’s all just a mess of synapses that are wired to modify their neighbors and straight/gay is not even something current methods would be able to detect)

131

My comments were about gender identity, not sexual preference.

132

Also, concerning my intuition in general: I have to admit that I’ve been arguing in spite of it for much of this thread. To the point where I’m not entirely sure whether I’m being serious.

My intuition tells me that penis = power. I tend to side with the those who, at any one time, don’t have power. Which, as ITR champion sort of pointed out, could actually mean that I’m just another kind of bigot, when you think about it. Man, this stuff is hard. But thanks to ITR champion for giving me that opportunity for introspection.

Anyway, where was I? Right. So, when someone with a penis appears to be the one in need of championing, in opposition to a group who don’t happen to have penises, it really throws my intuition for a loop. I feel a bit as if an anatomical male, who claims to actually be female, doesn’t actually deserve my support, because as long as someone has a penis, they can look out for themselves. I also feel like maybe I’m being tricked, somehow. Maybe I can get behind the cause of a transgender teenager. But will I back the transgender fat 40 year olds, when they want to use the “wrong” changing room at my gym? It ain’t easy. Makes me feel bit queasy. Am I the useful idiot, like a leftist during the Cold War who becomes an apologist for Stalinism? 'Cause, you know, that would suck quite a bit. No one wants to be that guy.

Also, we have a long standing tradition for a double standard when it comes to cross-dressing. Women who cross dress to infiltrate male domains are heroic tricksters. They’re pirate queens, or the breakers of glass ceilings. Men who cross dress to infiltrate female domains… not quite as admirable. They’re Clodius Pulcher, gatecrashing the rites of Bona Dea. Or these guys. It’s harmless, maybe, until it becomes threatening. And where to draw that line? The dressing room door sure seems like a candidate.

So, I need to remind myself that this isn’t just about cross dressing. And, as noted by even sven, that science is probably a better guide than my intuition.

Yay, science, then. I’ll be taking it from there, I suppose.

And, as someone pointed out, I do wonder what the attitudes would be if the kid in question had the penis surgically removed. It’s funny how much depends on one sausage-shaped organ.

133

Even if this is the case (and I don’t know the science), does it matter? Is gender identity less real if it’s temporary? Should we have to be limited to one gender in a lifetime, and when you pick one, you’re stuck with it, otherwise you’re a poser or somehow dysfunctional?

Maybe a bit like with sexual orientation, I suppose. If someone seems to switch back and forth, they are assumed to be “experimenting”, or whatever. There seems to be a bit of pressure to pick a team and stick to it, or it doesn’t count. I did know one person personally who displayed every sign of preferring women, and no signs of faking it or being confused about it, but who ended up married to a man. Seemed a bit wonky to me. Stop changing your mind, already! Maybe it’s not, though.

I don’t know the science there, either, so maybe I’m just making a fool out of myself or barking up the wrong tree. I haven’t really thought about it, until now. But maybe these things don’t have to be lifetime membership things.

134

Well, one thing I’ve learned from these discussions is that I seem to have gone to the only high school in America where the girls’ locker room had privacy stalls. They don’t take all that much room…

Anyway, I think the point of sex segregation historically hasn’t been sex-control, it’s been pregnancy-control. Yes, the gay kids can have sex, but they won’t make babies doing it. And that’s something that’s still an issue, although a doubt a lot of babies can be made in the 5 minutes they gave us to change.

I think a good solution would be one big changing room with privacy stalls for everyone, or for everyone who wants one, anyway. This would address the needs of transwoman, and of young women who are embarrassed about their bodies. It would also address the needs of the people who don’t neatly fit the gender binary, and don’t identify wholly as either male or female.

Yes, like handicapped-accessible restrooms, that would take some construction.

135

Well, there are segregated changing rooms at my local gym, too. I don’t think that’s for pregnancy control.

When you start thinking about it, the reasons for segregated changing rooms are probably so deep and complex that they require a bunch of degrees in sociology, psychology, biology and history to explain.

136

Which is why to actually get to the heavy stuff – hormones and surgery – it requires a lot of therapy. That in no way means transgender people don’t exist, just that like with many things it can be easy to mistake some feelings as others.

And yes, from what I know, gender identity can change, often with age; AFAIK both adolescence and the onset of young adulthood can rarely change it. Just like some people have their sexuality change. Women changing to lesbians at some point in their 30s is something that’s been somewhat documented.

Everything with gender identity can be a very prickly issue especially when mono-gendered “safe spaces” are involved. When people are legitimately questioning their gender identity, it’s a very vulnerable time for them, and I don’t know if it’s clear what the correct thing to do it. It gets fuzzy in the pre-hormone period as far as “what to do” as far as these safe spaces go. I would argue that some degree of therapy and official diagnosis should be necessary to use the new gender’s restrooms, but it makes things even fuzzier in public restrooms since you can’t exactly go around policing peoples genders and asking for their diagnosis before they pee. There’s also the standard contention that “diagnosing” a transgender person is a bigoted idea just like treating homosexuality as a mental illness once was, but I don’t necessarily agree with that.

After hormone treatment progresses, it can become even weirder, since you really don’t fit anywhere. Good luck figuring out which locker room is appropriate if you have both breasts and a penis (or male fat distribution, a deep voice, and a vagina for transmen).

137

Cite? (For people actually identifying as transgender, not gender fluidity in 3-year-olds or whatever).

138

For those who support the transgender using the girls’ locker room, do you support coed locker rooms, and if not, why not? Can’t all your arguments be used to support that? Shouldn’t just the girls just deal with their discomfort and let the boys in? If not using a locker room is oppression, then isn’t gender segregation oppression too? We decided a long time ago that “separate but equal” isn’t equal.

Aside from school locker rooms, where individuals are known, what about other places, such as public bathrooms, pool and gym locker rooms? How are you going to distinguish legitimate transgenders from men who posing as them in order to ogle or assault women? Background investigations? A guard to check IDs at every public bathroom and locker room?

There are reports (Predator who claimed to be transgender declared dangerous offender | Toronto Sun) of a man posing as a transgender in Canada in order to rape women. With all the lengths certain men go to in order to victimize women and the risks they take, is it hard to believe some of them would don a wig and and dress, especially if they’re in a place where nobody knows them so they don’t have to keep up the ruse all the time?

Suppose you’re a father traveling with your 12-year-old daughter. You stop at a highway rest stop in the middle of the night and she goes into the women’s bathroom, where you aren’t allowed. A large, muscular, unkempt scary-looking genetic male with a wig follows her in. Is that acceptable? Are you a bigot for worrying about it or objecting to it?

139

Let’s see.
It took women 10000 years to start achieving some sort of equality of some sort in some places. So at any point in history except for the past 50 years, betting was on the “fuck women’s rights”. A woman in Teheran in the 60´s would’ve been wrong as to how much freedom she would’ve had in 2015.
Gays in weswtern culture are just starting
Blacks in western culture too
Yup, they are on a roll but “rolls” tend to dry up.
You seem to think that those gains are irreversible and also, betting on things whose outcome can only be seen in 100 years is simple.
History has no sides, believeing so (which is always accompanied by supposedly being on the “right” side) is arrogant hubris.

140

Grotonian’s statement may not have been worded perfectly, but what he’s saying is true.

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/why-transgender-kids-should-wait-to-transition

Popular opinion suggests that early intervention is the necessary approach in order to remedy a child’s gender dysphoria. This consists of early social transitioning followed by hormone blockers to prevent the otherwise irreversible changes of puberty, contra-sex hormones, and, if desired, eventual sex re-assignment surgery. Denying a child these interventions is viewed as antiquated and cruel.

But research has shown that most gender dysphoric children outgrow their dysphoria, and do so by adolescence

The author of that piece, Debra Soh, is a neuroscientist and sex researcher at York University in Toronto.