On the bathroom issue

[Seattle Husker]

And just how much of your livedexperience has been out in the gay and lesbian community? Mine is more than 35 years...and I haven't turned 50 yet...

How many times a day are you being called TERF in some online venue?

I'm not a member of the LGBTQ community although I do have a fair amount of interaction with it in both work and home. My prior 3 managers were lesbian and the godfather of one of my sons is gay and a close family friend. I also have 2 first cousins that are gay (1 male and 1 female). Of course, I sit in the liberal cocoon of Seattle just as I assume you sit in conservative Texas. I haven't heard the term TERF before but wonder how mainstream your views are on this topic if you are being called that many times a day. That's not to say that your view isn't valid but rather it could be a minority viewpoint.

 

[mb227]

Of course, I sit in the liberal cocoon of Seattle just as I assume you sit in conservative Texas.

Raised (and came out in the early 80's) in Houston...spent close to 15 years in Austin. Both are, all things considered, hardly what one considers conservative with respect to MOST things gay or lesbian. Hell, there is an argument that could be made that Annise was not even Houston's first lesbian mayor...and of course, Austin had Margo as a sheriff long before being lesbian was the 'cool' thing. Not to mention that Travis County had registrations for domestic partnerships something like 20 years ago...

The simple reality is that MOST people don't realize that the males in dresses have no desire to lose their pride and joy, err I mean their genitals. When even the surgeons who specialize in that stuff claim it MIGHT be 20% that will go to the point of THAT surgery, you know that trying to accommodate the delusional places women in harms way.

All too often, it is the males who are disregarding the concerns of those most impacted by this legislation (you know, actual females)...women should be permitted to not only have a voice in this matter but ALSO to have that voice actually listened to.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

"The bathroom issue" as you put it, is right up there with Benghazi, voter fraud, birther, etc.. almost completely unnecessary and made up by the right.

http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/23/a-rape-survivor-speaks-out-about-transgender-bathrooms/

The invitation to engage as a child had revealed my whole dilemma: I didn’t hate the little girl in the photo. I hated her need. I hated her anonymity. I hated the visible proof that she loved her abuser. I hated that she didn’t know any better, that it took her another ten years to figure out why she still slept with the light on and showered in her underwear and vigilantly lined the crack under the bathroom door with a beach towel and destroyed her teeth with gum she relentlessly chewed as a means of escaping the recollection of his breath on her face. I hated that he fooled her. He fooled everybody. He was really good.

“Wake up!” I wanted to scream at her. “Can’t you see what’s going on? Do something about it!”

It’s the same desperate inclination I’m fighting today. Everywhere I read in the news, there’s talk of another school or gym or business that is boldly adopting “progressive” new locker room policies designed to create equal rights for people who identify as transgender. These policies allow transgender individuals to use the locker room consistent with the sex they identify as their own, regardless of anatomy.

While some have proposed a third option for transgender people (single-occupancy restrooms and showers), this option has been largely struck down, and employees are prohibited from suggesting it, as it is considered discriminatory and emotionally damaging to a group of people who are working so hard to fit in. The solution? Anyone can use whatever restroom he or she wants without being questioned.

I read these reports, and my heart starts to race. They can’t be serious. Let me be clear: I am not saying that transgender people are predators. Not by a long shot. What I amsaying is that there are countless deviant men in this world who will pretend to be transgender as a means of gaining access to the people they want to exploit, namely women and children. It already happens. Just Google Jason Pomares, Norwood Smith Burnes, or Taylor Buehler, for starters.

While I feel a deep sense of empathy for what must be a very difficult situation for transgender people, at the beginning and end of the day, it is nothing short of negligent to instate policies that elevate the emotional comfort of a relative few over the physical safety of a large group of vulnerable people.

Don’t they know anything about predators? Don’t they know the numbers? That out of every 100 rapes, only two rapists will spend so much as single day in jail while the other 98 walk free and hang out in our midst? Don’t they know that predators are known to intentionally seek out places where many of their preferred targets gather in groups? That perpetrators are addicts so committed to their fantasies they’ll stop at nothing to achieve them?

Do they know that more than 99 percent of single-victim incidents are committed by males? That they are experts in rationalization who minimize their number of victims? Don’t they know that insurance companies highlight locker rooms as a high-risk area for abuse that should be carefully monitored and protected?

Don’t they know that one out of every four little girls will be sexually abused during childhood, and that’s withoutgiving predators free access to them while they shower? Don’t they know that, for women who have experienced sexual trauma, finding the courage to use a locker room at all is a freaking badge of honor? That many of these women view life through a kaleidoscope of shame and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, dissociation, poor body image, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, difficulty with intimacy, and worse?

Why would people knowingly invite further exploitation by creating policies with no safeguards in place to protect them from injury? With zero screening options to ensure that biological males who enter locker rooms actually identify as female, how could a woman be sure the person staring at her wasn’t exploiting her? Why is it okay to make her wonder?

Boy those hysterical women, huh? But it's ok, I'm sure she's a right-winger so who cares if she feels unsafe?

 

[Crockett]

Maybe I'm an idealist, but I think there must be some way to keep the pervs and predators out of women's locker rooms without making a bearded Chazz Bono pee with the girls and Renee Richards pee with the guys. Is there ANY room for common sense here.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Is there ANY room for common sense here.

The common sense measures would have been to let businesses handle it as they see fit based on the needs of their customers. Or to allow them to have a "gender neutral" bathroom option for the less-than-1-percent of the population who need it. Or to not demonize people who raise legitimate concerns and twist the issue into a conversation about hating the trans community.

I think a great rule would be that any establishment that decides to encourage mixed use of facilities should post signs on its restroom doors saying "this establishment proudly invites you to use the bathroom of your choice." That way everyone knows the rules going in, and if you're a concerned parent, you'll have been given your warning and can act accordingly.

 

[Mr. Deez]

The common sense measures would have been to let businesses handle it as they see fit based on the needs of their customers. Or to allow them to have a "gender neutral" bathroom option for the less-than-1-percent of the population who need it. Or to not demonize people who raise legitimate concerns and twist the issue into a conversation about hating the trans community.

I think a great rule would be that any establishment that decides to encourage mixed use of facilities should post signs on its restroom doors saying "this establishment proudly invites you to use the bathroom of your choice." That way everyone knows the rules going in, and if you're a concerned parent, you'll have been given your warning and can act accordingly.

Good points, and I think it's important to remember that the Left (City of Charlotte) is who tried to force an affirmative rule on this, and it was much broader and far more onerous than the state law, which only applied to government facilities and allowed flexibility for the gender neutral bathrooms.

 

[NJlonghorn]

mb227 -- you raise many interesting points, some of which I already agreed with, and others of which you have caused me to rethink my prior thoughts on the subject. However, some of your more extreme points leave me scratching my head. For example:

Anyone who tries to point this out online is quickly labeled as a TERF, a slur created by the men in dresses and originally only applied to women who were 'radical feminists' but is now used to slur ANYONE who dares speak out against the lunacy that is 'transgender.'

No offense, but the overall tenor of your writing is extremely anti-transgender. You use pejorative terms and a mocking tone when referring to transgender individuals, and you make sweeping generalizations that are far from universally true. I don't know you well enough to say whether you are a TERF (new term to me, btw), but I can see why somebody who rarely uses the term would choose you as the poster-person.

Meanwhile, they avoid the reality that even the 'professionals' admit that something like 80% of the males claiming trans have no actual desire for surgery-

The statistic I have seen is that roughly a third of transgender people have actually had reassignment surgery, and many more want surgery but can't afford it. I don't have any which statistics are more accurate, but I doubt yours given your proclivity for extremism.

We used to just call most of THEM 'butch' back in the day...but instead, trans'ing of the youth has become the new (and unfortunately, acceptable) conversion therapy to appease mommy and daddy who just cannot bear the thought of their kid being gay or lesbian.

Mommy and daddy can't stand their kid being gay, so they push them to be transsexual instead???? I can't imagine this EVER happens. I certainly don't accept that it is the norm.

 

[Joe Fan]

This should excite some of you ....

 

[Seattle Husker]

This should excite some of you ....

 

[Driver 8]

This should excite some of you ....

 

[Mr. Deez]

And the Obama Adminstration is officially going to war on this issue. Link.

 

[NJlonghorn]

And the Obama Adminstration is officially going to war on this issue. Link.

I can't believe Obama is doing this. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, SCOTUS tilts left and the war is won. By fighting so hard to win the war immediately, Obama risks bringing the right together and putting Donald Trump in the White House. This is pretty much the only way the LGBTQ culture war can be lost.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

[Clean]

He's worried about his legacy, which ain't caca at this point.

Also, it's more of a power grab by the executive branch than anything else. Big brother sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Obama is in it for himself, not the cause for the cause's sake. He's not worried about the best way to get it done, he's worried about himself being the guy who does it.

 

[Mr. Deez]

I can't believe Obama is doing this. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, SCOTUS tilts left and the war is won.

This sorta says it all about liberal jurisprudence. It takes a monumental butchery of language to make Title IX do what the Obama Administration is trying to make it do. However, nobody is talking about amending Title IX to make it actually apply to gender identity. Instead, they're talking about appointing a judiciary that won't consider itself bound by what Title IX actually says and will instead hand down a result-oriented decision. Kinda makes me wonder what the point is of having elected legislatures drafting laws anymore.

By fighting so hard to win the war immediately, Obama risks bringing the right together and putting Donald Trump in the White House. This is pretty much the only way the LGBTQ culture war can be lost.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It is stupid, and frankly, I don't think is a winning issue in the long term. The reason the Right lost on the gay marriage issue is that nobody could come up with a good answer as to why a man marrying another man or a woman marrying another woman hurts anybody else or puts them at risk. Personally, I oppose gay marriage, but once it was imposed by the Court, I pretty much went on with my life. It's not hurting me.

This is very different. People focus on the bathroom angle a lot, but that's actually the scenario that's easiest to manage. A trans-woman who goes into the women's bathroom is going to walk into a stall, and nobody's going to know if she's actually a dude. A trans-man is going walk into a stall (for obvious reasons), and again, nobody's going to know it's actually a woman. (Besides, most regular dudes don't care anyway. Chicks go into the men's room all the time.) If someone of either gender or sex goes into the women's room to cause funny business, he or she can be charged with a crime either way.

Where things are going to get interesting is when people are required to get naked and vulnerable without privacy - locker rooms, community showers, hotel rooms (for school functions), etc. The first time that happens against some girl's will, it's going to get ugly.

In addition, the optics of this action are terrible. Not only is the Administration launching a major crusade in the culture wars, he's doing it through an arrogant bureaucracy that's giving no consideration to the attitudes and cultures of the local communities. It couldn't have been done worse.

Finally, this is the kind of issue that motivates the GOP base and could get them to fall into line with Trump, which has been a major problem for him. And of course, if Trump wins, he'll wipe his *** with this. It's not like a court decision that has long-standing authority.

 

[NJlonghorn]

Where things are going to get interesting is when people are required to get naked and vulnerable without privacy - locker rooms, community showers, hotel rooms (for school functions), etc. The first time that happens against some girl's will, it's going to get ugly.

I hadn't thought about hotel rooms on field trips. Ugh.

 

[Joe Fan]

Profiles in courage

 

[Mr. Deez]

And Trump is exploiting it. Link. However, to be fair (and I try to be fair even to Trump), I don't see this as a change in position. I think you can oppose the NC law on the merits and still not like a tyrannical, unelected federal official making a mockery of federal law to force his or her own agenda on public schools.

 

[Mr. Deez]

It's this crap real? A friend who posted it on Facebook swears it is.

 

[Horn6721]

I read a report on people doing this 10 years ago. Still not sure how prevalent it is but there are some sick people put there

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Where things are going to get interesting is when people are required to get naked and vulnerable without privacy - locker rooms, community showers, hotel rooms (for school functions), etc. The first time that happens against some girl's will, it's going to get ugly.

Which is why that's not being discussed in the media. It's all about the bathrooms.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Which is why that's not being discussed in the media. It's all about the bathrooms.

Unfortunately, the Right is going along though. They far too often frame the issue in terms of men (or trans-women) going into the women's bathroom. They're really not doing a good job of tackling this issue.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

For whatever reason, the right has a much harder time getting its base on the same talking points. I've noticed this for a while now - liberals and progressives are absolutely dead-on in the way they approach certain hot-button issues. We make fun of it (playing the woman card, race card, whatever card), but they have great message discipline.

It's an echo chamber thing, but not in the sense that one side has it and the other doesn't. It's more that the right-wing echo chamber is typically fragmented, grass roots, with narratives being pushed by people who aren't necessarily "professional activists", but just regular people with enough time on their hands to write blogs and post incessantly on social media. The left-wing echo chamber seems a lot more about pushing out whatever it is that Vox or Slate or HuffPo wrote about something. That keeps their messaging a lot more on point.

Maybe it's also that progressive talking points are a lot simpler. It's pretty easy to understand "if you oppose transgenders in women's bathrooms, you're bigoted." It's a lot more nuanced to explain why you think that's a bad road to go down, and the people that freak out the most about the things that probably won't be an issue seem to be the ones people amplify. The person who says "look, I'm not worried about a transgender wandering into the bathroom while I'm in there. I'm worried about the erasing of gender lines that inevitably will lead to women who can never feel like they have any true sense of privacy or safety in spaces where they feel vulnerable, and ultimately will force us into making any and all gender-exclusive spaces (like say, gym shower facilities and locker rooms) into open-access areas" can't even get through that sentence until he's blocked out, shouted down and called a bigot.

 

[Phil Elliott]

Perhaps if we went back to just calling them all fags or queers or queens that would tighten up the message a bit.

 

[Mr. Deez]

For whatever reason, the right has a much harder time getting its base on the same talking points. I've noticed this for a while now - liberals and progressives are absolutely dead-on in the way they approach certain hot-button issues. We make fun of it (playing the woman card, race card, whatever card), but they have great message discipline.

It's an echo chamber thing, but not in the sense that one side has it and the other doesn't. It's more that the right-wing echo chamber is typically fragmented, grass roots, with narratives being pushed by people who aren't necessarily "professional activists", but just regular people with enough time on their hands to write blogs and post incessantly on social media. The left-wing echo chamber seems a lot more about pushing out whatever it is that Vox or Slate or HuffPo wrote about something. That keeps their messaging a lot more on point.

Maybe it's also that progressive talking points are a lot simpler. It's pretty easy to understand "if you oppose transgenders in women's bathrooms, you're bigoted." It's a lot more nuanced to explain why you think that's a bad road to go down, and the people that freak out the most about the things that probably won't be an issue seem to be the ones people amplify. The person who says "look, I'm not worried about a transgender wandering into the bathroom while I'm in there. I'm worried about the erasing of gender lines that inevitably will lead to women who can never feel like they have any true sense of privacy or safety in spaces where they feel vulnerable, and ultimately will force us into making any and all gender-exclusive spaces (like say, gym shower facilities and locker rooms) into open-access areas" can't even get through that sentence until he's blocked out, shouted down and called a bigot.

Outstanding points, PH.

 

[Seattle Husker]

I can't believe Obama is doing this. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, SCOTUS tilts left and the war is won. By fighting so hard to win the war immediately, Obama risks bringing the right together and putting Donald Trump in the White House. This is pretty much the only way the LGBTQ culture war can be lost.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I don't get why this is becoming such a big deal. The Obama admin raising the ante only helps mobilize the 'R' base. I'm coming around to the belief that Obama is doing this as a legacy play.

 

[Crockett]

Funny thing .. transgendered persons are rare and the circumstances where they find themselves in need of public restroom/locker rooms may or may not be a big deal for them. Before it became a political football, I expect most instances were handled well with humanity and common sense.
Do most of us want Chazz Bono in the women's restroom? I expect that the only ones for that are ones that want to use public policy as a tool to humiliate those they consider deviants. Do I want a teen-aged Mike Huckabee pretending to be Trans so he can expose himself to young ladies and watch them shower naked? Nope. Can we write a law or a policy that can be sensibly applied? Not if it's written by hysterical right wingers or knee jerk leftists.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Funny thing .. transgendered persons are rare and the circumstances where they find themselves in need of public restroom/locker rooms may or may not be a big deal for them. Before it became a political football, I expect most instances were handled well with humanity and common sense.
Do most of us want Chazz Bono in the women's restroom? I expect that the only ones for that are ones that want to use public policy as a tool to humiliate those they consider deviants. Do I want a teen-aged Mike Huckabee pretending to be Trans so he can expose himself to young ladies and watch them shower naked? Nope. Can we write a law or a policy that can be sensibly applied? Not if it's written by hysterical right wingers or knee jerk leftists.

I might piss some people off here, but this is a fight the Left picked, despite the media narrative. Conservative legislatures have taken action, but they didn't start this. For the most part, people were willing to let common sense prevail. However, liberal governments (cities and schools) decided to start imposing rules and guidelines on public and private entities dictating one-size-fits-all stupidity. State governments (like North Carolina) simply decided to counter such rules by setting their own policies for government entities (that were actually far more flexible than the rules they overturned) and to let private entities make their own decisions.

I think the Left is arrogant after winning the gay marriage battle, and they're now starting to overreach on this issue.

 

[ShAArk92]

Do I want a teen-aged Mike Huckabee pretending to be Trans so he can expose himself to young ladies and watch them shower naked? Nope. Can we write a law or a policy that can be sensibly applied? Not if it's written by hysterical right wingers or knee jerk leftists.

Huh?

What does Mike Huckabee have to do with this issue? some sort of irresponsible charge against a former POTUS candidate to presume a defense to prosecution/charge will be made? "here make him answer for this ... the 10% truth is that we used his name"

Hysterical right wingers? like whom?

As has already been stated eloquently by Deez right above this post ... it's the left which has been poking the bear and has completely lost any semblance of rationality.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Do I want a teen-aged Mike Huckabee pretending to be Trans so he can expose himself to young ladies and watch them shower naked? Nope. Can we write a law or a policy that can be sensibly applied? Not if it's written by hysterical right wingers or knee jerk leftists.

You probably would have come off a little more neutral if you hadn't felt the need to throw in the gratuitous insult. But nevertheless, I'd agree that there have been some hysterical responses from the right - the woman who got accused by another woman of being a transgender in the Wal-Mart bathroom just recently comes to mind. But I'm not clear what legislation you'd call hysterical.

There have been plenty of instances where men have tried to take advantage of women and children in public rest rooms. (I linked one example already and don't feel like hunting them down all over again. I'm surprised it's even a question.) The standard argument against is "Well we have laws against that, so those people are prosecuted." It's interesting how we also have laws against a lot of other discriminatory practices and violent acts, but we have no issue tacking on additional preventative measures. (Hate crime, anyone?)

Putting aside the fact that no trip into a locker room should have to be a game of Russian roulette (thank goodness that if someone does try something, they can prosecute him/her even though it's his/her word against mine and he/she is going to call me a bigot and a liar, and about 30 percent of the country will believe him/her with no questions asked), the reality is that when it becomes normal or acceptable for men to simply walk into a woman's facility without fear of being questioned, it becomes a lot easier to commit those sort of crimes. People become a lot more willing to plan them out, find their victim and act in a way where they can receive cover from well-meaning dupes who don't think a man going into a woman's restroom is odd or suspicious.