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In the UK this weekend there has been some debate after an MP received death threats when her views on trans women were made public.
She does have history.
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/11/rosie-duffield-anti-tr...
The idea of self identification is being hyped as any big hairy bearded guy can enter a female only "safe space" and say
"it's ok, I identify as female today!"
I don't know of that ever happening, but the argument is used by right wing radio and newspapers.
Is this common everywhere? using the argument to sow the seeds of hate into women against trans women?
We all know being trans more chance of being murdered, assaulted etc, so it's not the only problem.
Never hear of men worry about trans men using their bathrooms.
Comments
just try being
a serial minority member!
I've come to realise that in almost every part of my life i'm in some sort of minority that is often under fire for one reason or another. So i hold up my hand, i'm Trans, i'm a bicycle rider (apparently cyclists are the anti christ where road building and transport is concerned) and i'm an archaeologist (holding up all those new road builds and now being cut from, at the last count, 4 UK universities including my own alma mater) all of which have been unjustly under fire through the media in recent months for one reason or another. The only thing that could make it worse would be to be a tax inspector (a job i have done!).
Persecuted? threatened? vilifiled? the Member for Canterbury doesn't have a clue.
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Shakes head
For a Labor MP to hold these beliefs is sad... very sad. I could imagine a Conservative having those views but it seems as if the Tory party has become more inclusive than that of Her Majesties Opposition party.
Canterbury is a big University town. Many of these traditionally elect a Labor MP. I wonder if she'll be ousted the next time that we vote for our representatives in Westminster?
AFAIK, she is making a mountain out of an ant hill.
Samantha
What I don't get is, as
What I don't get is, as anything like this actually happened?
Female bathrooms. (I have used when dressed) are just toilet cubical's they have doors that lock. Outside these there are wash basins and often mirrors.
Women are fully dressed unless in a locked cubical. OMG the person standing next to me may have a penis. I'm so vulnerable standing here washing my hands. It's the same as being afraid of a trans person working in a kitchen with you.
Male toilets you can get a quick look at each others bits if you want, a lot less private than women's.
Don't get it.
Leeanna
And what always, always
And what always, always pisses me off about people like this is they say they're trying to 'protect women', and any criticism of them is labelled 'misogyny'. :-(
Debs xxxx
Nothing new ☹
Here in the USA, this trope has been paraded around by transphobes and misogynists (and Republicans) for years. AFAIK, no one has ever been able to track down an actual case, it's all been unverifiable rumors. (E.g., they say it happened in city X, but the police in X have no record of an incident, so the rumor switches to county Y.) There have, however, been verified cases of cis women being attacked by people who claim that their victims are really predatory trans women sneaking into the ladies' room.
Also, here in the USA (and Canada?), police departments hate these so-called "bathroom bills," because they see it as just a source of nuisance complaints. They're a solution in search of a problem.
It's all just hate- and fear-mongering, which we've seen many times before. It used to be gays and/or lesbians. The targets change, the slanders remain the same.
(There are days when I have no faith left in humanity — or in the future — and I think, maybe it's just as well that I don't have all that many years left...)
Works Both Ways
Some can pass very easily as female. I'm one of those but the caveat is I'm not post SRS and at my age it is only a dream now. I stick with the men's if there isn't a unisex restroom, even when I'm wearing heels and a dress. All my identity hasn't been changed, there is the bathroom laws. Men get amused a female is in their territory. I can protect myself although it's rare I need to do so. It has happened off and on through life. It's probably been more than forty years since I used a urinal so I'm good.
And then there is this. https://www.foxnews.com/us/colorado-school-shooter-sentenced...
It almost brings me to tears as we have worked so hard through the years to convince the public we are the same as them. When this kind of story emerges it starts all over again we are mentally sick and this proves it.
I don't blame Bubba in a Skirt for what she does. But crap, does she need to use the women's restroom, dressing facilities? I've seen a few videos where Bubba changed into a beautiful woman, the momentary expense is horrendous.and most can't afford it. I just wish they would understand the relationship damage they do to all of us before waltzing into women's sacred territory.
There will always be the crooks who are forbidden to buy a gun but purchase one anyway. The voyeurs who aren't trans by any definition but what better way to get their jollies than being allowed to go into women's forbidden territory and ogle?
Who suffers for all the wrongs? It certainly isn't the stupid politicians who pass stupid laws. Nor is it the crooks who walk out of jail the same day they see a judge. It's not the pedophile or voyeurs who spend time in the women's bathrooms and dressing rooms while claiming they are trans and the laws allow them that pleasure. Hell of a lot safer than looking in through bedroom windows.
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/art...
Humans being human, this mess will only get worse as people give up more and more of their individual right to be safe. Sadly they aren't old enough nor experienced enough to understand safety comes with a hellacious price if it's administered by those in government.
The gov mandated I use the men's. No biggie and quite amusing at times. I can live with some laws. I'm also gender fluid. I don't mind if someone calls me ma'am or sir. I'm whatever they decide.
Hugs people, stay safe first of all.
Barb
Life is meant to be lived, not worn until it's worn out.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
So much stinking thinking going on,
The church I attend was founded by a pastor whom I knew for years. When he felt "called" to start another work in California (the state he grew up in) he turned the church over to our current pastor. The founding pastor has, on occasion, been a guest speaker at our church. The last time I attended when he was speaking made my wife and I decide to fail to attend when ever he is guest speaker.
He did a thirty minute sermon on California's passage of a trans friendly law regarding bathroom use. Not one point was backed up by scripture. Not even a passing reference to Duet 22:5. He got quite aggressive in condemning trans women as men who say they are trans so they can get into the women's restroom for a quick peek at partially dressed women. Claiming that all such people are motivated by sexual thrill.
I really wanted to debate with him but knowing the man as I do, he wouldn't back down if there were irrefutable proof presented. My question for him and other such minded people is, given that "men" who come out as trans often lose their family (wife divorces; children shun) and employers find reasons to fire them, wouldn't it be better to assuage the need for that kind of thrill by going to a strip bar? There they could ogle partially clad (and sometimes nude) women to their hearts content with out losing anything or any of the drama.
I feel that a great part of the problem is that T has even tagged on with LGB. That skews perception of cis people as to the nature of being trans.
Clearly, LGB are sexual in nature and T isn't.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Not Called
Many were called but didn't answer. Many came who were not called. Your wayward pastor was never called. He serves himself.
Matthew 22:2-14
Hugs Patricia
Barb
I don't speak for God but I know He loves us. We aren't a mistake but a special blessing.
John 15:18
“And if the world hates you, know that it hated me before you.”
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
DEUTERONOMY 22:5
DEUTERONOMY 22:5
There shall not be an article (keli) of a man upon a woman, and a man shall not put on a wrapper of (simlat) a woman, because everyone doing (who does) these (things) is an abomination of (unto) the Lord your God.
Very confusing.
Matthew Henry's view that the text might mean more than a simple change in dress. Scholars suggest that the text may refer to the idolatrous custom of the Gentiles. In the worship of Venus, to which that of Astarte or Ashtaroth among the Canaanites bore a striking resemblance, women appear in armour and men in women's clothes.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2048-astarte-wor...
In Nigeria, many think women are crossdressing by wearing trousers.
Bible Gateway Leviticus 11 :: NIV. You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. "`There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you
But anything in the seas or the rivers that has not fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and of the living creatures that are in the waters, is detestable to you.
So no shellfish , lobster shrimp clams etc.
(Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11) prohibit an individual from wearing wool and linen fabrics in one garment, the blending of different species of animals, and the planting together of different kinds of seeds
I love the way people pick the bits that they agree with a spout them out to others while ignoring all the other parts.
I'm sure the nasty pastor follows all these rules
Leeanna
That's literally TERF dogma right there.
And here's point 1.
1. There are LGB trans people they and str8 trans people literally suffer from the effects of homophobes and more.
2. Your little last line and this graphic ignore Ace trans folks as well.
I don't comment here much but I'm vocal elsewhere and separationist sentiment does the bigots work for us.
Bailey Summers
Every time I see this issue arise...
I think of my time spent in Japan in the mid 70's. Japan doesn't (at least didn't back then) have the cultural taboo's on nudity that we have in the western world. I saw full nudity on the TV all the time, (remember cable didn't exist back then.)
I'm sure I've posted this before but public bathrooms was another area where Japan was completely different. The City I was in, there was a lot of small, almost outhouse style public toilets. These consisted of their version of a toilet (you actually stand or squat over them, not sit) along with 3 walls and a roof. Notice I did not mention a door. That's right someone walking by could see you squatting with your skirt hiked up to your waist and panties at you knees.
My Japanese was good enough to get around as was my ability to read Kanji script. (Hardest part was remembering to read it backwards...LOL) So I could tell if a restroom I entered had any signs stating it was for men or women.
Segregated toilets did not exist! And not just in Yokohama, where I was staying. As I took the train to Tokoyo to spend a long weekend to see as many of the museums as I could cram into a 3 day weekend. The largest public restroom I entered while in Tokoyo was at the museum of natrual history. It had a wide unobstructed entryway, no doors or privacy walls. a row of urinals along the right wall, a row of sinks along the left wall and a row of toilet cubicles (the first with doors I had seen in Japan) along the back wall.
So having lived in a place where everyone used the same restroom, I think you can imagine what my thoughts on this issue are :)
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
I sorta have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, the idea of a guy following me into the bathroom makes me nervous. On the other hand, I know there are some people who would see *me* as the guy following them into the bathroom. I'm really not sure what I'd do, if I was forced to use the men's room.
Compromise
It seems to be such a foreign concept anymore.
What's wrong with the old idea of "carry papers"? You go see a therapist for a week or two and you get a letter to carry with you that can be used (if needed) to show you are not just a guy perving in the ladies room. If you need a permit to dig in your own back yard or a business license to be a blogger, a little effort for something so important to many of us seems trivial and argumentative to rail against.
I for one think it's a reasonable compromise between "Do whatever you feel, man!" and "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"
"Papers Please!"
I feel like I'm falling victim to Poe's Law. Good one.
Crescenda
AKA
Your friend
Crash
I'm serious
If which bathroom they're using matters enough to a person, they can take a few hours of time, see a therapist, (which if you're TG you should do ANYWAY) get corroborating proof that they're SERIOUS about being trans and not just screwing around, and end this silly debate. Just having that should be enough to make all these "Bathroom bills" unnecessary.
I am a woman (says so on my driver's license and everything!) and I don't want men (meaning people that have male mentality, including F2Ms, regardless of their anatomy or genetics) in a bathroom I'm using in public. I have "nervous bladder" enough as it is! Having a guy in the next stall grunting to go would be too much for me to take.
There's a reason we have separate facilities. Mine is a common feeling in this society. I like having a place I can go that men aren't allowed. The only way to ensure that men aren't abusing the system for a cheap thrill is to have enforcement. The only way for enforcement to work is to have proof that you're a woman if you use a ladies room. A DL or piece of paper is NOT overly burdensome to ask for. If I were "clocked" in a ladies room, I can show my DL and end the debate immediately, likely with an apology.
I just don't see how this is even a question. No one bats an eye at having to have a permit to put a shed up in your own backyard, but somehow it's suddenly a burden to carry proof that you're a woman to get along with everyone else. In all likelihood, just having this compromise would mean it would become a non-issue. The only reason to fight it would seem to be for the purpose of being needlessly antagonistic... to "get in the face" of other people, just for the purpose of being antagonistic.
If anyone can point to a valid reason this compromise wouldn't work to end the debate, feel free to say so.
Beep!
Americans have proven time and again that they will resist carrying papers to prove their rights to engage in common activities. It ain't necessarily rational, but there it is. See current debates about masks and shots.
You say "No one bats an eye at having to have a permit to put a shed up in your own backyard," and I say, jeez! what planet do you live on? :) People bitch about that all the time and refuse to get the permits. I have two sheds in my backyard put up by my father and I KNOW he did not get permits for them. It didn't even occur to him, I'm certain.
Here's the thing: there are no incidents reported of males claiming to be trans in women's bathrooms causing problems. Creating a requirement for paperwork to deal with an undocumented problem is not a solution. There are reports of women and men going into women's bathrooms and trying to throw people out, some of whom were actual cis-women with what might have been called a masculine appearance. Do all women have to carry ID? You can't single some women out by their medical history, it would have to be all women, or none.
But yeah, most trans people I know DO carry some ID or a note from their psychiatrist. They do this for their own safety, not beause it is required. Requiring it is marking them as separated from society.
Another problem is the federal system. Laws on this would be and probably already are different in every jurisdiction. And many of such new requirements would likely run afoul of the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, tenth and/or fourteenth amendments, not to mention various federal statutes.
I'm in favor of requiring TERFs and other bigots to carry ID instead. A license to whine, perhaps. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
OK, good point
You make a valid point about all people being treated equally. I also see no issue with requiring ALL people using a public restroom to carry ID. Everyone does ANYWAY as it's essentially impossible to DO anything in this society WITHOUT one. (you can't even use a credit/debit card without showing ID most of the time) I don't agree with it, but I don't make the rules... I just have to try and get along in this world.
I do take issue with the idea that because some people break the law then it gives excuse for everyone to. I think requiring a permit for a LOT of things is ridiculous, but the fact is that those things do exist and we as members of the society that requires them should either obey the law or change it. Since not enough people seem inclined to change it, we have to obey or risk legal trouble... and take the consequences if we get caught.
I still see no valid reason why requiring carry papers or a valid ID showing gender can't be a reasonable compromise. Regardless of whether or not any actual attempts have been made (that we KNOW of) of men entering the ladies, just knowing it's possible is enough to make ALL of us TG look like we don't care that it COULD happen.
I revert back to my original point... that it's as though compromise is a foreign concept anymore. We want it ALL our way and are unwilling to even entertain the idea that anyone else's opinions are even worth considering. I just wish we could learn to... coexist... and be more tolerant. (and by that I mean both the other side AND us)
"Papers Please"
I've had the pleasure of meeting some of my Norwegian relatives that lived through the Nazi occupation of Norway during WW2. I've heard the stories they told of that time, and I'll be brutally honest. I can't see any way that having to carry an ID to use the restroom won't go wrong. So, you're carrying an ID to allow you to access the correct bathroom. Why not require it to access a restaurant? Work out at a gym? ID please. Try to buy makeup? Show the proper ID. Marriage license, drivers license, clothing purchases? Papers please. There's a story on BC about Congress passing laws that require people to dress as the gender shown on their Birth Certificates. No more TG, no more crossdressing. Had SRS? Too bad. You have to start dressing as a man. No hormones, no surgery, God made you a man, you have no choice.
Don't say it can't happen. It can, all too easily.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Two major problems
Inadequate provision for ID change - Only 10 states permit gender marker change on birth certificates. it's only slightly better for driver's licenses.
https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/images/Drivers... Note that some states will amend driver's licenses ONLY with an amended birth certificate.
Buth the real problem is the myth of male predators in women's facilities.
https://time.com/4314896/transgender-bathroom-bill-male-pred...
Police and school officials say they haven’t seen it either. Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog, has asked state leaders, law enforcement and school officials in places with these protections whether they’ve seen any increase in sexual assault or rape after passing these laws, and they have repeatedly said that they have not. “We have not seen that,” a Des Moines police department spokesman told the outlet in 2014. “I doubt that’s gonna encourage the behavior. If the behavior’s there, [sexual predators are] gonna behave as they’re gonna behave no matter what the laws are.”
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/2/8711051/mike-huckabee-transgend...
https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/5/13/17938102/transgende...
In another investigation, Media Matters also found that 17 school districts around the country with protections for trans people, which collectively cover more than 600,000 students, had no problems with harassment in bathrooms or locker rooms after implementing their policies.
Where they have seen problems is when boys enter girl's rooms to attack trans girls merely for being who they are and no change in ID is going to stop toxic male behavior towards any trans child; MtF or FtM.
In fact, sexual assaults in bathrooms are overwhelmingly carried out by adult males molesting male minors in men's facilities. And this: https://www.ywca.org/wp-content/uploads/WWV-CSA-Fact-Sheet-F...
A common myth is that child sexual abuse is perpetrated by strangers and pedophiles. But most
people who sexually abuse children are our friends, partners, family members, and community
members. About 93 percent of children who are victims of sexual abuse know their abuser. Less than 10 percent of sexually abused children are abused by a stranger.
Love, Andrea Lena
False equivalence
You lost it at making resistance to bigotry the same as bigotry. Nope.
Me insisting on being left alone is NOT the same as people wanting to tell me how to live. As long as I'm not endangering anyone (like refusing health department orders, or traffic laws, or licensing requirements for dangerous machinery), then I'm not the one causing a problem.
And here's the other thing. THEY don't want compromise. They've proven it over and over again with more and more restrictive laws on the rights of marginalized citizens, WHEN COMPROMISE WAS OFFERE. See the history of bathroom bills, birth certificate rules, etc.
You want TG folk to carry identity papers? That's an invitation to these assholes to make such papers impossible to get. Believe it, they've already tried it in several states.
It might work in CA, NY, New England, or a few Western states, but the states where the problem is are the ones that would seize this "compromise" and weaponize it. They've done this for IDs to vote, to prove citizenship, and more.
They don't want a solution, they want us dead. Ask them. Many of them have said so in national media.
BTW, everybody does not carry ID. In the states where this idea is most problematical, many people cannot get IDs that are accepted by the people making the IDs hard to get.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Apparently, you missed
The whole voter ID debacle. The fact of a state ID being required to vote conveniently ignores the fact that minorities, the poor, etc do NOT have those IDs, nor is there anyway to easily acquire them. This. places an undue burden on those groups. Requiring those same IDs to use a public restroom doesn't make them any easier to obtain.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
I remember a little bit of something,
I can't remember where I read it though. If people are to be forced to use the bathroom of the gender they were assigned at birth, wouldn't that mean that FtM transgendered would then be using the female restroom? It would seem to me that that would be more jarring for the bigots, having people outwardly male using the female restroom. Perhaps it would make for a good story idea, although not one I feel driven to try and write.
Bloody good point! Holly
Bloody good point! Holly
What a way to show how ridiculous this whole thing is. Get some of the F 2 M's to start using female bathrooms and tell them this is what the laws mean.
What a brilliant way to protest this.
Shame I don't know any.
Leeanna
FTM transperson upsetting bigots by using women's room?
That would make a good story! Or I thought so anyway:
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/69929/what-about-bob
It was my contribution to a whole spate of bathroom-imbroglio stories
that appeared here in back 2017. The story by Sarah Goodwoman that
it's a 5-minutes-later sequel to is no longer posted at BCTS, but you'll get
the general idea of what's happening. Hysterical self-appointed bathroom cop
Esther Krumnagel is NOT having a very good day (snerks!)
~hugs, Veronica
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Hygiene
The biggest real issue here is that we don't teach our young men to clean up after themselves. Back when I was a sanitation engineer the men's restrooms were filthy from miss-aiming and over splash. Women's restrooms were always in much better shape and much more inviting.
Lets start a campaign to improve young men's bathroom habits. Then we can knock out one more stone in this artificial "separate but equal" wall.
Bathroom bills, and other "fear the trans" campaigns are just the standard wedge issue: Blame a powerless minority for a problem they have no control over then ride the fear of the the other to greater fundraising and high public office.
We can do better.
Organize, Protest, Lobby, Vote.
Crescenda
AKA
Your friend
Crash
We are closer to that then we were once.
The real reason that that argument has been so persuasive is that there's been pressure on the medical community to take people who say they are trans at their word, no matter what. This is why people like Kenneth Zucker got, for all intents and purposes, exorcised from the profession. The idea is being critical or wondering what external factors could be leading to someone thinking they are trans is equivalent to denying their identity. Abigail Shrier's "Irreversible Damage" concetrates on a resulting phenomenon of instances of claimed FtM transgenderism spiking, and there being considerable evidence that it is motivated by societal pressures rather than by the youths in question actually being gender dysphoric (along with how pressures on the medical community have further enabled it). For all that she gets called transphobic, she is remarkably in line with 1990s-2000s conventional thinking regarding gender dysphoria.
As far as your "I identify as female today" statement, that was literally discussed by the guys on my residence hall at college as a way to avoid getting in trouble for being in the restroom with their girlfriends. I wish I was kidding.
It's sad that non tg would
It's sad that non tg would use that argument, but that's what the fear is about by simply saying "I identify as female today" lets you "invade women only spaces with impunity.
It doesn't seem to happen, but there is no security stopping a man going into a women bathroom, so in a way it doesn't matter. One way round this would be having unisex cubicles. I have seen this in the UK. No urinals, just sit down toilets with sinks that go straight out into the street or building.
I have a unisex bathroom in my house. The only complaint I get is weather the seat should be left up by default.
Leeanna
That is the extent of
That is the extent of unquestioning acceptance that modern academia is instilling - that a six foot guy with a serious beard who works at the university's outdoor ropes and challenge course could believe that saying that line would get him out of trouble for being in the woman's restroom.
As far as I am aware, though, he never actually tried it.