Transgender Bathroom Access Rights

[Kotohono]

This article made so excellent points against the typical arguments, so I decided was worth posting here.
Transgender Rights and Public Bathrooms

Rebuttals to Arguments Against Transgender Public Accommodation
Privacy -- There is the argument that non-transgender persons have the right to privacy and safety while in the bathroom. That is true, they do and that has not changed in the 17 states, Washington D.C., and more than 200 cities and towns have passed non-discrimination laws protecting gender identity in public spaces. A transgender person who uses the opposite sex bathroom in favor of using a bathroom consistent with his or her gender identity is using the bathroom for all of the same reasons as someone who is not transgender. No one's privacy or security is being infringed on. One person, regardless of sex is occupying a space for a specific purpose. No law is being broken.

Non-Transgender Persons' Comfort -- Under the transgender public accommodations laws, there is also the argument that a non-transgender person feels uncomfortable with a transgender person using the same bathroom. This is the same argument that was once made of people of color using public bathrooms, seating on public transportation, public drinking fountains and more. It is a lack of understanding at best, and hateful at worst.

Additionally, what about the comfort of a transgender child? What about the child who wants to use the bathroom that makes him or her feel comfortable with his or her gender identity? I know of one nine-year-old transgender girl living in my community named Ryan. This was a point that Ryan's mother made to me; she would like to see her nine-year-old daughter be able to use the bathroom that she is comfortable using.

Public Safety -- Under the transgender public accommodations laws, there is also the argument that a sex predator could dress up as a female to gain access to a female bathroom to prey on victims. First, they can already do this with or without this law. Second, that is a violation of the law, and not what the transgender public accommodation law is permitting. Third, we should not deny someone a right because others may abuse that right. Gun rights opponents claim that people who abuse guns should not be the reason to take away the right to bear arms. Supporters of welfare programs claim that people who abuse welfare should not be reason to take welfare away from law abiding users of welfare. What we need to do with people who abuse guns, welfare, or public accommodations such as bathrooms is to prosecute the people who abuse the law but not interfere with the rights of law abiding citizens.

Child Safety -- There is an argument that states "what if someone does seek to abuse that right, posing an outright danger to the public? All of these conflicts are magnified tenfold whenever children are involved."

First it is important to remember that someone who is abusing protections afforded under transgender public accommodation is a criminal. Second, the argument about child predators targeting transgender children tacitly fear mongers and ignores the manner in which pedophiles operate. A pedophile exploits a trusted relationship with a child the pedophile knows. They do not typically prey on children they meet in public spaces.

Discrimination Lawsuits -- There is the argument that the transgender public accommodation law would "allow for cross-gender bathroom usage and expensive 'discrimination' claims." That is if someone violates the law. Again, we should not deny one group of people rights because others may abuse the law. We don't do it with guns, welfare, voting, or any other area of public policy. We prosecute people who abuse the law. We don't deny someone civil rights because someone else may abuse the law.

Meanwhile I really I wish I could say this surprised me, but it doesn't as it appears they'll do anything to promote their baseless fear-mongering and this is just an another example of that .

Fox Reports Another Fabricated Bathroom Incident To Attack California's Non-Discrimination Laws

Fox News reported a bogus story about a California mom who claims to have been kicked out of an REI sporting goods store for complaining about a man frightening her daughter in the store's women's restroom. Fox's reporting was based on statements made by an anti-LGBT hate group with a history of fabricating similar incidents in order to fearmonger about transgender people using public restrooms.

[Archon_Wing]

You know, I never knew Faux News was literally that.

[roxybudgy]

Too bad people can't use common sense (which is sadly lacking in this day and age), instead they assume the worst and make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone. There should just be one unisex bathroom with multiple stalls with lockable doors, and a shared area for hand washing basins and hand driers.

At work, my scheduled lunch break is 1pm. I like to first stop by the bathroom (which is near the office exit) to take a leak before leaving the office to buy my lunch so that when I return from the deli, I can go straight to my desk to eat, rather than having to either take my food into the bathroom, or walk all the way to my desk to drop off my food then walk back to the bathroom and back to my desk.

More often than not, this is also the same time the cleaner chooses to clean the ladies' bathroom, and because the cleaner is male, he is required to stick up a sign on the door barring access to the bathroom until he is done, and ladies are expected to use the disabled toilets instead. I don't normally use the disabled toilets because there is either another person in it already, or it has been left in a disgusting state.

Personally, I would not have any problem doing my number ones and twos in a stall in the ladies' bathroom while the male cleaner is cleaning (or any other person for that matter). What's he going to see anyway while I'm in my stall? But I guess the office managers see this as inappropriate, hence the sign on the door while the cleaner is in there.

If people are concerned about being "perved on", then gender segregation isn't going to fix that. I remember back in primary school, we used to go to the local public pool for swimming lessons. One time, a group of girls in our class had made disparaging comments about other women's naked bodies in the change rooms (the showers did not have curtains or doors), openly laughing and pointing at other (elderly) women who were showering. One of the women had complained, and us students were given a talking to about appropriate conduct in change rooms.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by roxybudgy

Too bad people can't use common sense (which is sadly lacking in this day and age), instead they assume the worst and make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone. There should just be one unisex bathroom with multiple stalls with lockable doors, and a shared area for hand washing basins and hand driers.

I'm 100% behind this. There's no reason not to simply have individual stalls in a unisex bathroom. It would get rid of this whole kerfuffle immediately and it would probably reduce building costs to boot. Win-win

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Dextro

and it would probably reduce building costs to boot.

Doesn't lower the number of bathrooms you need, nor the need the label them as bathrooms.

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by GDB

Doesn't lower the number of bathrooms you need, nor the need the label them as bathrooms.

In plenty of places it might. Instead of two separate rooms you can probably make do with a single one that's slightly larger to have more stalls but since you reduce area taken up by the number of entries you can free up some space. Also the fact that everyone shares the same room could mean that a place with 2+2 stalls could be easily covered by just 2 or 3 stalls depending on the number of people that it services. It simplifies floor planing, at least imho.

[Jagger]

Originally Posted by roxybudgy

Too bad people can't use common sense (which is sadly lacking in this day and age), instead they assume the worst and make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone. There should just be one unisex bathroom with multiple stalls with lockable doors, and a shared area for hand washing basins and hand driers.

Let's not exaggerate. Ending bathrooms by sex and putting everyone in the same bathroom is a terrible idea. How can you say that common sense is lacking when you're basically proposing an extreme PC bathroom? PC isn't logical. Transgender people represent 0.3% of the US population, probably even less in Australia. It's a minuscule issue in the grand scheme. Do you want to see tampons, blood, used pads when you go to poop? You could, if bathrooms were shared, people are nasty. Do you want women to see your dick when you pee at a urinal? I mean - maybe that's your fetish - but it's a pretty awkward situation for everyone involved.

[-Antares-]

Originally Posted by Jagger

Let's not exaggerate. Ending bathrooms by sex and putting everyone in the same bathroom is a terrible idea. How can you say that common sense is lacking when you're basically proposing an extreme PC bathroom? PC isn't logical. Transgender people represent 0.3% of the US population, probably even less in Australia. It's a minuscule issue in the grand scheme. Do you want to see tampons, blood, used pads when you go to poop? You could, if bathrooms were shared, people are nasty. Do you want women to see your dick when you pee at a urinal? I mean - maybe that's your fetish - but it's a pretty awkward situation for everyone involved.

First, can I please take a moment to point out how amusing it is that you're saying transgender people are such a miniscule population not worth changing this for, yet you bring up the silliest problems as if they're important to prevent...

Alright, so here's the thing. Seeing that stuff isn't pleasant for anyone, regardless of your gender. Unless it's your fetish, as you said. Girls don't want to see dicks? Yeah, I'd bet the average guy doesn't want to either. Guys don't want to see blood? Neither do girls. But everyone already has to deal with these things, and they do it with extreme ease once they stop acting like children about everything.

I'd also like to point out that, at least in the US, you will basically never see used tampons or pads unless you yourself are planning on disposing of one. I mean, unless making all bathrooms unisex requires, for whatever reason, that the little covered garbages in every single stall in female bathrooms (as well as existing unisex ones) are removed. Wouldn't be seeing any dicks if there were no urinals or if those actually had some privacy, either.

[Asehpe]

Originally Posted by AHH

Seeing that stuff isn't pleasant for anyone, regardless of your gender. Unless it's your fetish, as you said. Girls don't want to see dicks? Yeah, I'd bet the average guy doesn't want to either. Guys don't want to see blood? Neither do girls. But everyone already has to deal with these things, and they do it with extreme ease once they stop acting like children about everything.

My thoughts exactly. Thanks for putting it so well. If only more people would think a bit about what exactly it is that they find problematic with that, how unfrequent it is and how easy it is to remedy it with a little common sense!... As in the case of other kinds of discrimination, the 'danger' or 'awkwardness' you're against is more imaginary than real, and needs to assume that other people are horrible and want to invade your privacy at every step.

[Archon_Wing]

Oohhhh, so if someone is a woman, they'll automatically want to see my dick?

Damn, they should just ask.

I dunno, every time someone brings something like that up, I'm like "don't flatter yourself"

[GDB]

If someone intends to break the law by sexually assault a woman in the bathroom, do you honestly think having a law that doesn't allow them into said bathroom is preventing them from doing it? It's not like there are cops standing outside of every bathroom checking genitals.

All I'm seeing as a retort is that we shouldn't change to accommodate the 0.3% because the 0.0003% will be bigger idiots than they otherwise would be and we need to protect them from themselves. Why accommodate the 0.0003%?

[Reckoner]

There's only two ways I see this argument making sense either way. Either make all bathrooms gender neutral and get rid of urinals, or we keep it as is.

The whole idea of accommodating transgender folk into bathroom comes with the assumption that normal people wouldn't be bothered by them being present in the bathroom. Well... Are transgender people not included in this argument? If transgender people are bothered by being in the "wrong" bathroom, wouldn't the general population also be in consideration for being bothered by seeing these individuals in their bathroom?

So if no one really cares anyways, let's do away with the current bathroom system in its entirety? This is pretty much the end result of this and if you're comfortable with that, fine. Otherwise, I do not really see an argument for their consideration. You're either inconveniencing them, or you're inconveniencing others. You're asking for most of the population to "deal" with it, rather than them "dealing" with it. I know it's not a nice way to look at things, and it's a very difficult issue, but I think that's that.

[Solace]

Everybody poops. I really don't understand why this is an issue. Oh wait, I'm a male. I'm almost never concerned about someone assaulting me in a bathroom unless I'm in a seedy part of town. Although to be honest, even in those places I'm more worried about how unclean the bathroom is.

"Girl uses boys bathroom" is culturally less offensive than "Boy uses girls bathroom". That's the problem.

[-Antares-]

As a female I'm never concerned about being sexually assaulted in a bathroom. Maybe you could argue I can only say that because bathrooms are currently segregated, but really, I can't see how having the bathrooms segregated by gender is much of a deterrent. You're probably way more likely to be sexually assaulted walking around alone in the dead of night, or by something that is extremely common and seen as normal: dating.

Bathroom stalls do have locks, even if they are shoddy. Not to mention public bathrooms should have a constant influx/cycling of people, and a pretty intense echo that would alarm anyone if someone started yelling from inside.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

So if no one really cares anyways, let's do away with the current bathroom system in its entirety? This is pretty much the end result of this and if you're comfortable with that, fine. Otherwise, I do not really see an argument for their consideration. You're either inconveniencing them, or you're inconveniencing others. You're asking for most of the population to "deal" with it, rather than them "dealing" with it. I know it's not a nice way to look at things, and it's a very difficult issue, but I think that's that.

Speaking personally, I'd much rather share a public washroom with everyone who identifies as male than share a public washroom with literally everyone. The former would be far less awkward for me. And I say that as someone who isn't transgendered.

Honestly, Reck, I strongly disagreed with your post overall. You honestly think it would be a good thing to completely remove urinals from all public washrooms? I find them highly convenient, and I'm pretty confident that most adult males do.

[Reckoner]

What I was saying is that the argument goes that the general population should accommodate transgender individuals in bathrooms because they say no one really cares. I said if no one really cares why not just make every bathroom gender neutral? It's just taking the logic to its natural conclusion and seeing if people truly even want that.

I also raised the issue that it stands to reason if no one cares, why do transgender people care? Are they somehow more emotionally sensitive to this issue than the general population? Yes, they do care. Well people in the general population seem to care to! What does that leave us with? That's why I said it's a difficult issue.

[GDB]

Transgenders want to use the rooms that are assigned to the gender they identify as. They merely want to be accepted for who they feel they are.

Opposition wants others to use the rooms that they want them to use. They merely want others to fit into their own worldview and refuse to accept anyone else's.

This is an alternate way to look at the argument.

[Archon_Wing]

It's kinda moot the way I see it.

I don't think recognizing transgender people equals to ignoring gender or sex or having unisex bathrooms whatever the hell you want to call it.

The only thing that matters is whatever they're legally classified as. We're talking about laws, so it's about what appears on their ID or whatnot as opposed to people's opinions are.

It's not necessary to change bathrooms at all. And as a generalization, many of us have pretty clear concepts of male or female regardless of gender identity or sexuality. To make it more clear, if some dude goes into a men's bathroom and looks like a dude to some degree, you're probably not going to have the urge to "examine" them to wonder what they were born as-- please, lol.

[Lord of Fire]

Originally Posted by GDB

Transgenders want to use the rooms that are assigned to the gender they identify as. They merely want to be accepted for who they feel they are.

Opposition wants others to use the rooms that they want them to use. They merely want others to fit into their own worldview and refuse to accept anyone else's.

A transgendered person is still the gender/sex s/he was born with. If they want to be treated as the opposite gender/sex, then they should get themselves operated on and transformed into the gender/sex of their desire, as that is the only way regular people will be able to tell that they are what they claim to be. I see no reason why they deserve special treatment, just because they feel like they're different from the others.

[GDB]

I don't know about you, but I do not regularly force people to reveal their genitals to me so that I may discern their gender.