I think the problem is they are such a small percentage of the population that giving them separate amenities and so forth isn't really viable, resource-wise.

You mean it's not profitable.

Couldn't agree more. #2 is probably the best option in most cases; it would benefit everyone, so the relevant politicians and business owners couldn't use "small percentage of the population" as a reason to ignore the issue.

A lot of places are already opting for unisex/family/handicapped bathrooms that are used by a single person at a time. These are perfectly inclusive, since they are designed for literally everyone, and it cuts out all the safety and comfort issues involved with using a bathroom with a bunch of strangers simultaneously.

Either way, if they want to make special allowances for people based on their gender-identity, then they also need to move past the current system of "split by genetics". It's not safe for anyone, trans or otherwise, to try recognizing trans people by just giving them free reign over which bathrooms they can enter.

The restrictions of bathrooms, changing rooms, etc should never be user-defined; otherwise, there will be people who abuse that power by making whichever choice allows them to most easily commit violent criminal acts against other people.

So yeah, feel free to be more inclusive and respectful, etc, by giving people appropriate amenities; just don't do it by randomly violating the restrictions already in place, because that is in no way appropriate for anyone.

Luckily, there are a variety of solutions (some of which were outlined earlier) that would increase the safety and comfort of everyone, even compared to the current "split by genetics" system.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 13 2015, 2:25 pm by Azrael.

LOL! fuck im being forced to say something substantial fucking sac

Since these two groups of people are well-defined, please illustrate your definitions and how to demonstrate them, and whether this definition and method of determining these if these definitions are met, combined, are practical, while taking into account: genetic variance, ambiguous genitalia, the variety of surgeries that one may have had (penectomy, orchiectomy, hysterectomy, circumcision, etc.).

The so-called "bathroom bills" introduced in some of the American states illustrate the problems of privacy and practicality, as well as the suggestion of checking a birth certificate or blood test, as if either of these things should be readily available to strangers, or should be necessary when performing a daily, frequent, and menial task such as using the bathroom.

I don't see where I said "there are only two genders." I'd go with (2) and (3) as solutions, both.

Security? What exactly is bothering you? Lay it out so I can actually address them. I'm really good at hand-waving as well so if you want a hand-wave answer, I'm okay with that.

This is as much as I can post atm, but I want to know if this so far addresses anything.

Well you've completely reinforced the perception that you've started this thread as if you're the all-knowing oracle and have the answers to everything, or even that you have some special authority on these subjects but haven't done anything to qualify why that might be.

The same thing that would bother me if bathrooms designed for multiple people were made unisex. Being "trans" or "not trans" doesn't make you more or less likely to commit sexual assaults or other violent crimes, especially in a highly concealed area outside of the public view.

Most crimes of a sexual/violent nature aren't even planned out ahead of time, they're crimes of opportunity; purposely increasing those opportunities is stupid and reckless. In an ideal situation, no one would ever share a bathroom; I highly doubt public bathrooms were made communal because people liked the idea of hearing each other crap.

It was done for the sake of practicality, and for obvious reasons, the users were split up in a way that would reduce the potential for crimes of opportunity as much as possible. That doesn't mean all such crimes are prevented; you wouldn't let your six-year-old son or daughter enter a public bathroom by themselves, after all, for this exact reason.

In normal circumstances though, the users of each bathroom are of approximately the same size and physical capabilities (maximizing the chance that a victim can fight off or escape from their attacker), and a majority of people are heterosexual (minimizing the chance that a potential attacker will be tempted to violate those around them, as opposed to having men and women share a bathroom simultaneously). This is just taking an objective statistical assessment of reality and choosing the option with the least potential for grievous harm.

These restrictions aren't in place because people are scared of trans people; I'm pretty sure that when bathrooms were split by genetics in the BC era, the prefix "trans" never came up in the conversation (and this was in a society where homosexuality was so commonplace that they didn't even have a word to differentiate it from heterosexuality).

No, these restrictions are in place because people are scared of other people, and for good reason. If your local park or restaurant or high school could have used one bathroom or changing room for everyone, they would have. No business wants to split people up, because it costs them twice as much money; they are forced to as a matter of necessity.

I'm sure you've heard of Amnesty International, since they're one of the big leaders in the fight for human rights. Even in their own assessment of the basic steps needed to "Stop Violence Against Schoolgirls", they make it clear that school bathrooms must be segregated in this way to "make schools safe for girls".

And let's not pretend that trans people aren't going to be beaten or killed for breaching this safety barrier that women are accustomed to being protected by. The only difference in legalizing it is that these incidents will stay in the bathroom where no one can record them, and the bodies won't be found until after the unknown assailants are long gone.

I would think that, at the very least, you'd sympathize with the trans side of this situation. The "solution" some politicians have presented is to tell trans people that they're not worth accommodating, and that it's too bad if they don't like it, since they can just use the other bathroom that's there; despite everyone involved knowing that this suggestion is disingenuous and lazy, and is putting the trans person's safety and comfort at risk.

That kind of "solution" doesn't favor anyone except the politicians, business owners, and sexual deviants. The first one gets to continue taking money from interest groups that want to keep marginalizing trans people, the second one never has to spend a penny in the name of accommodating a single trans person, and the third one will purposely exploit the rights of trans people (whether they are actually trans themselves or not) to stake out the inside of their new hunting grounds and stalk their prey inside, all with the carefree confidence which only comes from knowing that no one can legally do anything about it until after a victim's life (or the lives of multiple victims) has already been destroyed.

This is all a matter of practicality. Creating single-person unisex bathrooms for everyone is a marvelous idea. In contrast, creating gender-split bathrooms and then letting people from either group enter the other group has obvious serious implications to everyone's comfort and safety (yes, including yours), and ignoring those implications in pursuit of some gender-free utopia is being purposely ignorant at best.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 13 2015, 11:26 pm by Azrael.

Uh. I guess that might be true, since I think about this all of the time, mostly because (1) I have to (2) most people don't. In a way, there isn't anything I can do besides be dogmatic because in this sort of conversation, that i have to start most times, im the only one arguing for my side (most times). Sorry. Do you want me to clarify on why I might be knowledgeable?

I will get to Azrael's post soon (tm)

You took the words right out of my mouth.

I agree that single-user washrooms are the most ideal solutions.

Your problem with this concession regarding gender identity is already a problem with different facts: http://montrealgazette.com/life/transmen-in-womens-bathrooms-get-used-to-it Any cis man can already masquerade as a trans man and enter a woman's washroom under the current paradigm, since trans men are forced to use the women's washrooms.

Crimes of opportunity: Most sexual assault crimes happen between people who know each other and in spaces that aren't public. Public bathrooms are public and exchanges are between people who don't know each other. Additionally, there is nothing to say that the change would invite any more abuse than there already exists. That is to say, under existing standards, there are already just as many avenues of abuse as there would be under permitting people to choose the washroom that corresponds to their gender identity (as opposed to state-assigned sex-designation, or arbitrary calls by any random stranger), while simultaneously implicitly discriminating trans people.

If your concern with practicality is sincere, then you would support the notion of a "physical strength or size" measurement in order to split bathrooms.

Amnesty International's act doesn't mention anything about cis women needing to use one washroom and trans women using another.

Trans women (and men) are harassed, assaulted, and murdered because of transphobia and disrespect for common decency and law that mandates people not to harass, assault, and murder, and apart from that, because of reactionary logic that the kind that you are laying out that justifies reactionary violence. Cis women being accustomed to not treating trans women as women doesn't excuse violence, just like how trans women being given the explicit legal right (as if we don't already do this) to use the bathroom that fits their gender identity doesn't excuse violence or deception.

User-defined: The present state is explicit discrimination under fear that some cis person will abuse this to commit illegal acts. How is this not at all covered by the fact that crimes are still treated as crimes nonetheless? How does the present state provide compensation for trans people who would be harassed even if they do use the bathroom that fits with their birth-assigned gender? How does this cover any trans person who has their legal sex marker appropriately configured to reflect their gender?

The practical concern of security is that regardless of who is using the washroom, if they commit a crime, they are arrested, even if they are claiming to be transgender. You aren't allowing in any higher number of people into either washroom space because, assuming an ideal scenario in the traditional, not well-defined model of binary gender, everyone is using the appropriate washroom anyway... which still invites abuse, harassment, and violence.


The "trans side of this situation" is that all trans people are permitted to use the washroom they are most comfortable with. If a trans woman decides not to use the women's washroom, then let them use the men's washroom, and if there is a third, accessible washroom, then they may choose that as well, and to enforce the laws that prevent abuse, harassment, and murder, because the enforcement of these laws are the ones that indiscriminately benefits everyone, instead of playing choose-your-inconvenient-marginalized-group-and-further-marginalize-them.

This "solution" benefits trans people. I don't understand why you would deny this. Any binary-identified transgender person would benefit from having the explicit legal protection to use the washroom that corresponds to their gender identity. Why are you implying that we don't feel it would be beneficial to us?

Sexual deviants: Why do you even use this phrase to describe someone who would sexually assault another person? It's sexual assault -- that means regardless of the person, whoever commits it will be sought for justice. That means that a want-to-be criminal still has to consider not getting caught for the actual material crime of sexual assault.

None of this addresses that any such law would be utterly unenforceable and constitute enormous privacy problems, all in the name of preventing abuse by people who want to commit crimes of opportunity in a publicly-shared space. I conjecture that any situation in which you might find a cis man masquerading as a trans woman using the women's washroom, having the confidence and the (un)fortunate situation that provides a crime of opportunity (late hour, nobody in the vicinity, waiting for a cis OR TRANS woman in the women's washroom) its context, would already be capable of committing a predatory crime without even needing to masquerade as a trans woman.

Ultimately, your position has no consideration for the problems of the present state that already unrealistically permits these crimes, even though such legislation that would explicitly grant transgender men and women the right to use the washroom with which they are most comfortable the right to be free from harassment, assault, and murder.

I think you fail to realize that such legislation is being pushed to pre-empt harassment, assault, and murder of transgender people, and that any abuse, practically speaking, is extremely unlikely, unpractical, and would be worse than a man under the current system posing as a cleaner in a women's washroom because of the existing prejudices that discriminate against transgender people.

I take the issue seriously, but under no circumstances is it reasonable for anyone regardless of gender to commit crimes like sexual assault, stalking, physical assault, harassment, or murder while using the washroom, but the fact of the matter is, and the only practical "security" question here, why only transgender people are being harassed, murdered, physically assault, sexually assaulted, and stalked. This is, in large part, because we are already dehumanized and implicated as an inconvenient demographic and statistical outlier.

---

Oh, last thought: you're talking about crimes of opportunity, but what you're suggesting (a cis man masquerading as a trans women) doesn't sound like a crime of opportunity at all and additionally erases everything that trans people have to do to validate their existence, as if there is no difference between a cis man masquerading as a trans woman and a trans woman.

If you want a non-user-defined, non-discriminatory, non-problematic "Measure" of which bathroom someone should use, I think you seriously need to reconsider in what name are you defending any sort of process that would guarantee people are who they say they are, and inconveniencing cis and trans people alike. Clearly, any policy that would differentiates between cis and trans people is subject to abuse and discriminatory practice (and this is evident in things like TSA checks), and requiring people to keep blood test results and birth certificates on them are similarly impractical.

All in the name of protecting a public space in which people are already expected not to harass, sexually assault, physically assault, or murder someone else, from abuse (while simultaneously, the facts are that only transgender people are harassed, physically assaulted, or murdered). With respect, I don't think you're dealing with practical concerns in a practical way.

---

EDIT:

I agree that multiple individual washrooms are the answer; however, as they are currently implemented as accessible and family washrooms, their high occupancy rates force trans people to hold and wait, to their detriment, while simultaneously forcing people who are not able-bodied to hold and wait for people who are able-bodied, when a trans person could simply be using the gendered washroom that fits their identity.

This is besides the point that this sort of trans/cis segregation in public washroom space is tantamount to discrimination and/or normalizes discrimination, much like how state-assigned sex designations are abused wrt birth certificates.

Also, it seems that Sac wasn't trolling?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 15 2015, 12:20 am by Sand Wraith.

Hilarious, but also somewhat relevant to this topic:

http://imgur.com/gallery/O3ROgBL

I think of that joke as the type of joke that is only funny when a very specific person with a specific understanding and background tells it, otherwise, it's just a really good example of ignorance and bigotry.

Since I don't know you well enough, I would say that is a really repulsive joke. It's also not the first time I've seen someone tell it and by this point it's quite annoying and unoriginal to me.

EDIT: I just realized that the discussion veered into bathroom usage. I'm not really surprised at all by this, since it always seems to be spotlighted in lieu of the actual intent of the bill and the realistic need of it, for example, in identifying hate crimes.

I would like to note that the Senator who suggested the amendments to C-279 is outright transphobic and that the amendments really have nothing at all to do with security, but with how he thinks his children would be disgusted by the sight of a male body in the women's washroom.

On a different note, here are three essays I found that I find interesting:
http://www.transgenderasia.org/sass-wronged-body.htm
http://janetmock.com/2012/07/09/josie-romero-dateline-transgender-trapped-body/
http://janetmock.com/2015/02/16/six-trans-women-killed-this-year/

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 17 2015, 9:31 am by Sand Wraith.

It's impressive how you can simultaneously agree and disagree at the same time.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 18 2015, 3:40 am by Sacrieur. Reason: DUDE :D

Ok I'm sorry. The point wasn't to offend you, it was to bring up something relevant in a humorous way. As to my actual opinion on the topic, I think people should pretty much be free to do whatever they like on their own time. If you were born with one kind of junk, and want another kind of junk, that's fine with me. Go knock yourself out.

What I don't understand is why anything you want should free you from the reality of the situation. If you're a dude and you chop off your wee-wee aren't you still a dude? If you're a woman and you stick a penis on how does that make you a dude? Why aren't you 'a woman with a penis' or 'a dude with no dick'? As hard as I could want to be an attack helicopter, I will always be a dude, even if my body started producing the wrong levels of attack-helicopter hormones. If I chop off my dick and stick a 30mm cannon in its place, I should still have to use the men's room right?

Anyway, I suppose my point is that the rules shouldn't be based off of what people want. They should be based off something like what azrael brought up about lower crime rates due to having men and women use separate bathrooms. I don't even think I care all that much what the justification is, as long as there is some form of consistent justification. I think "I should get to use the women's room because I chopped off my dick" is a bunch of crap. Just like transphobic and homophobic viewpoints and blah blah blah is all bullshit too. People shouldn't get to say "That dude over there has no dick so I don't want him in my bathroom." Bullshit, if he's a dude he's a dude, everyone's gotta follow the rules. The bottom line is these folks are just weird-ass people like the rest of us 'normal' weird-ass people and deserve all the same protections under law. But I think that means they should abide by the same laws as well.

@Sac: I don't see how that is impressive. There is a large set of assumptions and issues implicated by what Azrael is suggesting and I don't have to agree and disagree simultaneously on all issues.

@Vrael: A large part of the problem is the belief that a trans woman is a man, a misunderstanding of what sex reassignment surgery (SRS) a.k.a. gender confirmation surgery (GCS) entails, and what makes a woman a woman and a man a man and whether these two genders sufficiently capture what gender expressions exist.

Like, "chop off your wee-wee" is not what happens in SRS at all, although where medical access is not available, that might be an option. Attaching a penis to a woman and thereby making a trans man is also not what happens at all in SRS for trans men. This also doesn't capture those trans people who do not elect to have SRS at all. I only know that for trans women, it mostly involves inverting the penis and removing the testicles.

This understanding also tries to box trans people into the definition of "you're only the gender you identify as if you have a specific set of genitalia," which is completely ill-defined when you consider intersex people (and their discrimination and problems that they have to face because of the expectations coerced upon them, potentially from birth, by cis people) and intersex related conditions, endocrine conditions, and so forth.


Going back to gender identity: it is, throughout most people, a highly consistent identification that is correlated with neurological features. Thus, the "choice" aspect of the typical understanding is not accurate. Compared to genitalia, gender identity is much more concrete and immutable.

You can't just say "the reality is" and then say something like "aren't you just a woman with a penis or a dude with no dick?" Ultimately, this begs the question of "what makes a woman a woman and a man a man", and additionally, whether these two concepts "man" and "woman" capture the full range of gender. No, trans women are not just men without a penis, and no, trans men are not just women with a penis, because we are asking to be identified and treated as a woman or man and claiming otherwise is, practically speaking, coercion.

A very common example to help cis people get a basic understanding of what being transgender is like or what gender dysphoria is like is being a man or woman but being born in the body of the opposite sex. Being told constantly that "you look like a boy therefore you are a boy" or vice versa for girls is outright damaging for young trans people because it denies the autonomy and empowerment that comes from self-identification and also denies how they feel. When someone knows that they are hungry, and they say, "I'm hungry," you don't simply say "No, you don't look hungry", or similarly if they were to tell you they were angry, or sad, or tired -- but this is only because being hungry, angry, sad, tired, or what-have-you is a common, accessible experience across most people.

Gender dysphoria, on the other hand, is not a particularly accessible, convenient experience to have.

This is why that joke you provided is so offensive: because it denigrates transgender people's lived experiences, denies self-identification, dismisses our concerns, trivializes the difficulty in accessing medical care of /any kind, let alone SRS or HRT/, and further, validates violence toward transgender people by casting us as dishonest or "simply wrong." A homosexual person is not lying or simply wrong about knowing that them being attracted to the same gender as themselves -- why, then, is a transgender person cast as lying or simply wrong about who they are? And I might propose that this discrepancy (and at times, double-standard, when homosexual people are the ones discriminating against trans people or even bisexual people) is because people have an idea of what being a man or a woman means and they are coercing others to fit their ideals.

---

In particular, Bill C-279 specifically tried to get gender identity and gender expression into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but due to Conservative opposition, was reduced to gender identity and then further amended to remove some sex-segregated spaces from the access of trans people. Realistically speaking, it already isn't against the law for a cis or trans man to be in a women's washroom and vice versa, and permitting trans people to use the washroom that correctly corresponds to their gender identity would decrease discrimination against trans people.

The crimes against trans people are hate crimes in nature, but without legislation like bill C-279, it's often harder to actually get someone charged for hate crimes.

Trans people are treated unfairly under the law because law-makers typically don't understand a single thing about being transgender and they use reasoning like "well if you're a man just because you chop off your penis doesn't mean you're no longer a man." Legislation that specifically prohibits certain kinds of behaviour, e.g. discrimination based on race, is followed by everyone equally but the law technically treats different people differently based on context. Similarly, bill C-279 would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity (which can be interpreted to cover sex).

---

If you want any clarification I'll try my best to provide it in a relatively timely manner. I highly recommend investigating some or all of the links I've posted throughout the thread. But to provide a counter-response specifically to your need for consistent justification: I would say use gender identity as the consistent justification. Practically speaking, it's no more verifiable than genitalia or chromosomes, since no one has the time, patience, motivation, etc. to constantly be examined before they get to use a public washroom. It's more consistent than how someone appears physically. It's harder to falsify when trans people aren't openly discriminated against and thus have social connections that can verify that a person consistently identifies wrt gender.

In terms of security: I'd say a public washroom filled with other people isn't much more dangerous when the people are randomly distributed men and women, regardless of whether these men and women are cis or trans. That's because (1) I believe that people are going to be watching out for each other and (2) I believe most people aren't crazed sex beasts looking to molest other people.

Given the points above, and also the fact that trans people /are/ still discriminated against and may remain in the closet, however, I would still say that providing gender neutral, co-ed, or accessible washrooms or converting existing segregated washrooms into such washrooms is a better idea than using traditional measures, and at worst, are no worse than traditional measures... whereby, in any case, passing trans women and trans men are going to use the washroom that correspond to their gender identity, because screw ignorant cis people. lol (among other things that I've mentioned previously)

What's impressive is that you tried so hard to disagree with something you essentially agreed with. My premises were based on stated facts; you merely glossed over those facts as it was convenient for you, by making nonsense assumptions (eg, "a lot of violent sex crimes are committed by someone the victim knows, so making bathrooms unisex won't increase the crimes of opportunity committed against women") and by completely dodging the reality of the facts (eg, "I don't see where Amnesty International says that men who decide they are 'trans women' shouldn't be let into the women's bathroom; I only see where it says that men and women shouldn't share the same bathroom! Let's ignore the fact I just got done pretending that there wasn't a problem with unisex bathrooms, which this piece of information and the entire post surrounding it both clearly contradict.")

Basically, it seems like you not only need to be "right," but that you also need to be the most authoritative. It comes across as abrasive and unreasonable, and is only going to alienate people from your cause; although when that happens, I guess you can just call them transphobic.

No, sorry. "Gender identity" is purely mental. It only exists in your own personal thoughts. There is no way for anyone else to check it for you, or to have it verified by anyone in any way.

Considering there have always been people who change which gender they "identify with" partway through their life (even as part of their midlife crisis), it is not "concrete" or "immutable" or even remotely verifiable. It is the opposite of those things.

What is concrete? Letting the question "Are you a man?" have the same answer as "When you were a kid, did you have Y chromosomes?" This is a pretty simple binary test, and it is actually concrete and immutable.

Once again, these premises are based on facts. You'll notice I never said there needs to be a concrete indicator of gender; only that gender identity does not remotely resemble the term "concrete", unless you're talking about when it's still wet inside the mixer.

As for the rest of your post, it has so much purposely ignorant content that it's now obvious you're completely intent on ignoring any facts that contradict anything you've ever said at any point. The most obvious example is that you're still pretending unisex bathrooms would be safe ("lol because all bathrooms are always filled with tons of people!"), despite the fact my previous post explained how that is grossly misinformed and simply wrong. You can consider yourself the authority on all things trans, but I would hope that when it comes to human rights violations against cis women, you would be able to concede that Amnesty International is a lot more experienced and authoritative than you are; and they've made it extraordinarily clear that unisex bathrooms are unsafe for women and result in violent crimes against them which would otherwise have been avoided.

Even if you can't understand the logic and explanations given by some random forum-goers, that fact alone should at least make you consider the possibility that you could be wrong about something. It's a little unsettling you're preaching something that you know to be objectively unsafe, especially after having just read relevant information about it. We don't need to theorize about the safety of unisex bathrooms, since third-world countries already tried that out for us on a massive scale; now we have international humans rights groups pouring money into getting women sex-segregated bathrooms.

I'm amazed you'd ignore this, continuing to pretend it might be even remotely safe, and making light of all the rapes, murders, and gang brutalizations that resulted from such an obviously dangerous implementation, which was only ever used by anyone because the countries in question couldn't even afford clean drinking water. I hope you're not going to tell me you identify as a woman, when you seem to care exactly 0% about them; you don't show even the slightest concern that actual human lives would be sacrificed as collateral damage, just so long as you get to poop in an identical-looking room that's ten feet from where you usually poop. Kind of disturbing, considering that plenty of other alternatives have been mentioned that would improve safety while still giving you what you wanted.

I'm actually pretty surprised that you'd bring the validity of your entire position on trans rights into question by wantonly espousing such a misinformed and provenly dangerous suggestion, especially considering that "the safety of women in unisex bathrooms" has absolutely nothing to do with trans people (aside from the fact that unisex bathrooms is one of a million ways you could fulfill your personal desire to take a dump in the same place as a woman).

Maybe I did misunderstand you. I'll try to re-read what you posted and come up with a better post.

I want to express all of my relevant thoughts. If this means coming across as authoritative and abrasive, then I'm sorry. However, I'm really quite confused as to what you expect me to say. I like correctness and I try my best to pursue it. Even if I do agree with someone in the final point, I don't think this is sufficient to understanding the totality of someone's position. I'll try to articulate my points better. I don't mean to come across as abrasive and I'll try to better cite my facts so that I can at the very least substantiate my claims. I hope you do as well.

That is to say, I want there to be no illusion that even if we agree on a solution we do not need to agree wrt reasoning toward implementing that solution, and that if we do or don't, I want to express this. That's simply me and my character.

As I write this post read the old posts, however, I'm quickly realizing that you, Azrael, are largely ignoring a lot of what I say and throwing your own weight around, and it's pissing me off since you are accusing me of this.

---

I might post some more after I've gotten some sleep. I'll try to address at least some points before I go to bed.


Here is what I actually said:

If you want to say that the implication is incorrect, that the opportunity factor is not affected by these facts, or that you were talking specifically about violent sexual assault crimes, I'm more interested in what you have to say and how you substantiate your claim. But here are the facts:

https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-offenders
Maybe I misunderstood these statistics or what you meant.
Would you mind substantiating your original claim?
This isn't even me going to google to search this just to prove you wrong -- I already knew this, but I'm only noting this because you are noting that I am being authoritative. I only know what I know.

Actually, the more I read, the more I realize that your assumptions are complete and utter bullshit. Permitting trans women access (or, in this case, not excluding trans women access) to women's spaces is not a grant for men to access women's spaces because men are not women. Trans women are women. Trans women are a subset of women. So are cis women. Men are not. Trans men are a subset of men. So are cis men.

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/tperae.pdf
http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/ethicalinquiry/2012/May.html
http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/11/gender-neutral-bathrooms-building-codes

This makes me much less sympathetic to both your position and your protests of me being authoritative and abrasive.


No, evidently, most of this reasoning is wrong because the most of the facts and assumptions are wrong. Given that "genetics" wasn't even a thing in the BC era, how on Earth do you manage to say that? The prefix "trans" never came up? Sure, maybe not literally, but gender bending, as a rough concept, has pretty much appeared everywhere and dealt with in various ways: http://www.bilerico.com/2008/02/transgender_history_trans_expression_in.php . Lanthanide has also provided a few examples of different cultures that engage with possibly analogous transgender people.


No. This is completely fucking false. There is a reason why I linked multiple studies that deal with transgender people and neurology. Here's a video completely refuting your claim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erexuu8PTo8


Yes, there always have been people who change which gender they identify with/as partway through their life, even as part of their midlife crisis, and thinking that they are still a man is explicitly denying that, in pretty much all cases I know about, that such a person originally wanted to live life as a woman from a young age, identified as such, perhaps not verbally, specifically because discrimination against transgender people has been worse in the recent past.


http://www.isna.org/faq/y_chromosome :
Go fuck yourself. I don't care at this point if I'm abrasive or not, because you, specifically you Azrael, are putting words in my mouth, ignoring the links that I posted, that Fire_Kame has noted that these are links that anyone can Google, claim to have "facts" and yet link or cite NOTHING but a news article and a 2007 (8 year old) Amnesty International report.

Here's two resources from Amnesty International:
an article https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2014/02/europe-transgender-people-face-discrimination-and-inhuman-and-degrading-treatment/
and a full report https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR01/001/2014/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR01/001/2014/en/ <-- This one, upon skimming and searching for the term "room," reports multiple quotations of younger transgender students talking about restroom usage.

In fact, it's funny you cited Amnesty International, since from the looks of it, they do not hold or affirm the view that if a person was born as a man or a woman, they must always be seen and treated as a man or a woman respectively. As an organization, in fact, AI puts treating transgender people as their identified gender to be a human rights issue, to the point that denying a trans man or woman their self-identification as a man or woman to be denying them a human right. Ergo, if you read the report as "cis women" and not just "women" (the latter of which would be a set inclusive of trans women), you are the one suggesting Amnesty International is wrong.

But hey, at least you've convinced me of at least one thing: AI does appear to hold the position that there should always be a gender-segregated washroom facet as part of how washrooms should be structured. So I will no longer support having only multi-user unisex washrooms.

However, you've also convinced me that you see trans women as men and trans men as women and that you plant this belief inside of the AI report. I'm not okay with that and neither is AI. Speaking from the perspective that AI appears to take, trans women are women and thus are guaranteed access to women's spaces, because they are women.


You know what? How about you come back with something that substantiates these facts? You're absolutely right, I don't need to be some sort of authority in this discussion. You go and substantiate your position at least as well as I have through external means. I'm okay with being stupid, abrasive, and wrong; at the least, I have multiple resources to back my position up that are relatively consistent.


You're right, I overstepped my knowledge when I claimed unisex washrooms only would be a good idea.

However, I'd like you to start putting some numbers or other authority to your claims that unisex multi-user washrooms are a bad idea. Even in AI's report, although they are proposing gender segregated washrooms, there is no discussion on this position or how they reached this position or how relevant it is to first-world countries or those countries or communities that do not segregate washrooms on basis of gender and do not have social problems related to systematic gender discrimination.


"rapes, murders, and gang brutalizations that resulted from such an obviously dangerous implementation" -- I've been searching hard to substantiate this. I'll also let you know, since it seems to be your principal concern with permitting trans women access to women's washrooms, that of all the cases I know of a cis man pretending to be a trans woman, there is only one case that /might/ have happened (I have no other sources to substantiate it) that was listed on a conservative "family values" sort of website.


I'm surprised that you mention this when I'm just a single individual, and failing to realize this. Sure, I would love to be seen as an authority on the subject, but I'm not really any sort of certified authority on the subject, and like I said, my rhetoric is my own (and may or may not be shit). This is also why I put in lots of links for others to read, because they don't have to believe me. There are probably other trans women other than me who might (dis)agree with your position(s) and for reasons different than mine.

"misinformed and provenly dangerous" -- I tried but I couldn't substantiate your concerns, besides what you pointed out on Amnesty International (which respects transgender people's access to their identified genders).

On unisex washrooms: you're right about AI being right, we shouldn't have exclusively unisex washrooms (but even then I want to know why this decision with substantiation).

I'll note that I'm more concerned with refusing transgender men and women access to men's and women's spaces to clear ambiguity.

---

Here is something I thought I posted before but didn't: http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/11/13-myths-and-misconceptions-about-trans-women/ It's an article about myths and misconceptions about trans women, and hopefully, it can articulate my points in ways that less authoritative and abrasive.

Once again, I'm sorry to pretty much everyone that they might see me as authoritative and abrasive. I only know as much as I know and I am angered to be called out by someone who literally commits the same problems that they accuse another person of. I've already explained multiple times how gender identity can be seen and should be seen as the primary, typical determinant of access to gendered spaces. Ultimately, I'm more bothered by the exclusion of trans people from their identified spaces.

Fuck it, I'm not sorry. If you're at this point, have willfully ignored the links, have ignored the research, have ignored all of the recent developments on why seeing transgender women and men as not who they claim they are is fucking bullshit, then you are most definitely part of the problem, Azrael. I'm definitely open to saying sorry to pretty much anyone else though.

I'm very tired and I might have made some mistakes. I'm okay with that, I'll fix them later.

I give 0 shits about 'gender expressions' just like I give 0 shits about 'artistic expression' or anything else like that. I think you should be free to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt me, and vice versa. Naturally this means you should be protected from violence by law. Additionally, it would make sense to not systematically belittle or ridicule people who want to change their gender or whatever as well. However, I don't give any shits about someone else's 'belief' that they are a man or a woman. If I believe you are a woman, and you believe you are a man, what does that make you? There needs to be a consistent way to evaluate the answer irrespective of who is asking the question. If you can prove to me that there is some 3rd category - not because you 'feel' differently, but because of some rational mechanism which would probably be based in biology - then OK sure, we can add that category.


If I had a brain transplant into a womans body (my God I hope it would be a hot woman), then I would consider myself to be a woman, despite being born and living as a man for so long. Even though I was born a man, the reality would then be that I had a woman's body, and however much I might detest having my 'gender identity' as a man stripped away from myself I would have no choice but to acknowledge my newfound womanhood. This is the opposite of what I've heard described so far for trans people - people who are born one way and want to be another way, and don't want to acknowledge the reality of their situation. Maybe if I had that brain transplant I would want to try and get a new penis so I could go back to living like a man - but I would still be a woman, short of some truly extraordinary magic which I describe below.

If, someday, someone designs a virus which completely rewrites you down to the DNA such that there are exactly 0 distinguishing characteristics left to identify you as the previous sex, then fine you can change genders. The point here is that such a virus would change the reality of the situation. You wouldn't be 'a man with a vagina', you would actually be a woman. You would be capable of carrying a fetus and having periods and all those wonderful womanly things that men can't do. [Note: using 'you' in the general population sense here, not 'you' specifically SandWraith]

To our young example trans boy, I would not say "You look like a boy therefore you are a boy." I would say "You are a boy - but don't let that stop you from doing what you want." If he went and chopped his dick off and dressed like a woman, no problem - but he's still a boy. If he got a brain transplant into a woman - ok now he's pretty definitely a woman. (Ignoring the ethical ramifications of brain transplants of course). No one gives a shit about your 'autonomy' or 'self-empowerment' or 'self-identification' - that's all nonsense, you can go do that in your own personal la-la land.

But you do deserve to be treated equally and fairly by society. You do not deserve violence or discrimination. We all have to follow the rules. If you want the rules to change, that's fine. If you have a rational mechanism to show that instead of mens bathrooms and ladies bathrooms we should have cis bathrooms and trans bathrooms or something like that because sexual assault will decrease or something, cool. If your point is just that people are abusing you and it needs to stop, cool. But I don't agree with the whole "I am a woman because I feel like a woman" or "because my hormones are imbalanced" or "because I had my dick made into a vagina" thing. There needs to be a definition where if a hardcore flag-burning Texan evangelist and a bleeding-heart hipster New Yorker wanna-be novelist both get asked the question "Is this a man?" they give the same answer.


Like I said, I'm sorry it was offensive. But you're gonna make things a lot tougher on yourself if you don't learn how to laugh at yourself. Obviously you have to deal with a lot of shit for being the way you are, and that's wrong. But the reason trans people are "simply wrong" about 'who they are' is because they're trying to redefine well-established criteria for sex based on a feeling - even if its a compulsory hormone based feeling. The 'correct' answer for a trans person (say, born male) is not "I am a woman", but rather "I am a man who is hormonally compelled to dress, act, reconfigure my body, etc as a woman." The better thing to do might just be to say "I am a trans woman" and leave the actual definition of sex alone, i.e. define a 'new' (i realize trans has been around forever) term instead of redefining the old one. I'm sure there's some hardcore asshats out there who believed gay people were 'simply wrong' about liking other men too - the difference is you don't have to redefine the fundamental dichotomy of our biology in order to talk about gay people. You're just 'a dude who puts his weiner in other dudes buttholes' instead of in vaginas. With the cis/trans issue, trans folk are trying to use sex terms in a way that differs from how they have been defined since forever. So here's my proposed compromise: trans people make up some new words ("I am a man (sex) who is glarbity (new-age gender identity term thing) and attracted to other glarbity men."), and us cis folk will add them to the dictionary and stop abusing you.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 19 2015, 6:23 pm by Vrael.

'd at your whole post and your hardliner opinion. (Not that mine differs that much )
Innocent question: Isn't there already a differentiation in the English language for that?
My translator gives me the same word for both sex and gender: "Geschlecht" (apparently we don't have that differentiation in German)
But it denotes that sex is the biological Geschlecht and gender the social Geschlecht.

So my understanding was all the time the sex is fixed to whatever you were born and depends solely on chromosomes, and as such could only be changed with the retro-virus you described. And that gender is what you identify as, which can include anything society makes up including the lovely apache gender.

Yeah, that's the gist of it.

With regards to the brain transplant, I was under the impression that male and female brains operate differently in many ways. Even with a brain transplant you would still have the brain of your original sex, making you a man inside a woman's body/woman inside a man's body, rather than completely a man/woman.

In English gender and sex are essentially synonymous. In merriam webster, both 'sex' and 'gender' come up with 'the state of being male or female'. Obviously we should take a german lesson and figure out a way to differentiate the two. There will naturally be people who are afraid to accept anything other than binary sex, but if there are ladies with dicks out there (which there already are of course), I for one would like to know so I can decline appropriately, so I am happy to have a new word to denote this non-sex gender thing. Just like "I am a gay man" - Oh great! Wonderful but not interested. "I'm a trans woman" - Oh swell! Good for you but not interested, hope you find someone. Yeah yeah sounds discriminatory, but point is, in English saying "I'm a woman" when you mean "I'm a trans woman" is not the same thing. I won't hate on you for only liking natural-born males with synthetic vaginas who wear fluffy ears and like cats, if you won't hate on me for liking natural vaginas kind of thing.

Jack, the brain transplant depends on the implementation details. It's as fake as the retro-virus I described. If you prefer, consider a "soul transplant" for the sake of the argument.