Cont: Trans Women are not Women II: The Bath Of Khan

[Rolfe]

That's not the point. If you designate the facility "mixed sex", they don't need to disguise themselves as anything.

Also, if you put up a notice telling women that they mustn't challenge anyone they see in an apparently sex-segregated ladies room, because "they are using the facility where they are most comfortable and they know better than you do", then again it's just as easy. No need to disguise yourself as anything.

And yes it's weird. There's a whole other topic about fetishism and why it's an overwhelmingly male thing. It's not something men who don't have antisocial fetishes don't need to worry about. Women do, though.

 

[caveman1917]

There's a whole other topic about fetishism and why it's an overwhelmingly male thing.

Do women actually have less fetishes or do they just tend not to act on them?

 

[Ziggurat]

Cis men will disguise themselves as women (rather than as cleaners, maintenance men, or just waiting for a quiet moment), to install secret genitalia cams does sound a teensy bit paranoid to my admittedly male ears...

If you can access changing rooms or bathrooms simply by declaring yourself to be a woman, then you don't have to disguise yourself as anything.

ETA: I see Rolf already made that point.

 

[theprestige]

Cis men will disguise themselves as women (rather than as cleaners, maintenance men, or just waiting for a quiet moment), to install secret genitalia cams does sound a teensy bit paranoid to my admittedly male ears...

Here's how I think of it. This seems less paranoid to me:

We know some small but significant percentage of men will abuse easy access to women's spaces to harass and assault the women there. We agree that women should be reasonably free from worry about such men, in designated women's spaces. There are currently a number of legal and social barriers that prevent such men from gaining easy access to women's spaces. These barriers make it difficult for such men to gain access, and make such spaces reasonably free from worry about such men.

Should we lower the barriers to easy access for men into women's spaces? The argument in favor is that it's not fair to transwomen to make them carry papers and respond to interrogation about their sexuality, just to gain access to women's spaces. It's not respectful, and it's not tolerant. A transwoman shouldn't have to go through surgery and hormone treatment, and bring a note from their doctor, just to enter a women's locker room. They should be able to simply declare - as ciswomen do - "I'm a woman", and enter. In fact, even the declaration should be unnecessary. Ciswomen don't declare anything, they just enter. This is the ideal solution, for transwomen.

However, lowering the barriers against easy entry makes it easier - probably too easy - for that small but significant percentage of abusive men. Those who were previously deterred by the legal and social barriers no longer have that deterrent to keep them in check. Women who previously depended on those barriers no longer have them to depend on. Not only does such a policy make women's spaces less safe for all women, but it also makes those spaces substantially less free from worry, for the women who use them.

I would like to see a proponent of trans access to cis-gendfered spaces address this conundrum head-on. No quibbling about definitions. No repetition of the legal and social barriers in place today. No whining about transphobia. No dismissing the questioner as paranoid. Just answer the questions: Should we remove the legal and social barriers against men in women's spaces, in order to better welcome transwomen into ciswomen's spaces? Are you prepared to address the concerns and the trade-offs that would arise from such a policy?

 

[Rolfe]

Do women actually have less fetishes or do they just tend not to act on them?

It's hardly my subject but I read something about it somewhere. Apparently fetishism is very rare in women.

This is beginning to make some sense of something that happened much earlier in the thread. I had given the example of menstrual fetishism as one reason women don't want males to have access to women's sanitary facilities. (I suspect that menstrual fetishism may be a big driver for the hidden camera thing but I don't think I want to know!) Another poster replied with a rant about OK so it's fine if it's "cis-women" rooting around in sanitary bins and perving over other people's used tampons, just not if it's men?

I honestly didn't know how to parse that. I mean it's not something any women would do, nor would it be rational that they would. We've quite enough to be doing with our own tampons and sanitary pads to be at all concerned with anyone else's. I thought the rant was just another one of these "so you don't like this particular horrible thing that men do but you're fine if women do it" things. But I wonder if the poster actually seriously thought that was an actual thing.

(Confession. When I was about twelve, after I'd been given "the talk" but before anything had actually happened to me, I did open a sanitary bin in a ladies' room and saw a couple of bloodstained pads, and thought "crikey, it's real all right, they're not winding me up." And that's about it.)

 

[Meadmaker]

I was thinking of the "family" changing rooms at the pool near me which I mentioned upthread. It really isn't a risky thing going on there in terms of likelihood of assaults.

I'll assuming workers regularly "sweep" for hidden cameras there, though.

I think the style of facility is significantly different. The typical American "family" room is a small room for one person or one parent and child.


The image I have in my head of the UK unisex facility is a large common room with lockers and sinks, and individual changing stalls. Showers? Don't know.

I would expect significant harassment complaints In such a place, with an increased risk of assault. As for voyeurism, I'm assuming stall doors are floor to ceiling, so I'm not sure how it occurs, other than the hidden camera thing.

 

[Rolfe]

Apparently the hidden camera thing is a big deal. As is men with phones in camera mode somehow sliding them under the partition between toilet or shower stalls. Very few facilities are built with sealed-unit cubicles and it would take quite some time (and a lot of money) to convert them.

And why should we? Why do women's facilities, which they're comfortable with and depend on, have to be turned upside down and given unwanted and expensive makeovers to accommodate a small number of people? It should not be up to the female half of the population to change everything and give up its valued privacy to avoid hurting the feelings of a handful of non-conforming males.

 

[Meadmaker]

That's not the point. If you designate the facility "mixed sex", they don't need to disguise themselves as anything.

Also, if you put up a notice telling women that they mustn't challenge anyone they see in an apparently sex-segregated ladies room, because "they are using the facility where they are most comfortable and they know better than you do", then again it's just as easy. No need to disguise yourself as anything.

And yes it's weird. There's a whole other topic about fetishism and why it's an overwhelmingly male thing. It's not something men who don't have antisocial fetishes don't need to worry about. Women do, though.

It's definitely antisocial to do it without consent, but it's neither weird not fetishistic to want to watch women undress. It's pretty normal.

 

[Meadmaker]

Apparently the hidden camera thing is a big deal. As is men with phones in camera mode somehow sliding them under the partition between toilet or shower stalls. Very few facilities are built with sealed-unit cubicles and it would take quite some time (and a lot of money) to convert them.

If the unisex facilities don't have floor to ceiling partitions, then of course there will be voyeurism. What the heck is anyone surprised about?

 

[Belz...]

1) I am talking about what we are capable of actually doing in order to make the decisions that we need to do, not some theoretical future where we may have that info.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't clarify your statement at all. I am asking you whether your claim about knowing objective reality was general or specific to our more narrow discussion.

Your point 2 is something that can happen in the future. For now we have to decide what we do without that information.

Then you are saying that have actually no way to know _other_ than the word of the person in question?

 

[caveman1917]

A transwoman shouldn't have to go through surgery and hormone treatment, and bring a note from their doctor

Neither surgery nor hormone treatment are requirements, there are no medical requirements other than a doctor's note confirming that you have gender dysphoria, you don't have to change anything about your body to get a GRC under current law.

 

[kellyb]

I think the style of facility is significantly different. The typical American "family" room is a small room for one person or one parent and child.


The image I have in my head of the UK unisex facility is a large common room with lockers and sinks, and individual changing stalls. Showers? Don't know.

I would expect significant harassment complaints In such a place, with an increased risk of assault. As for voyeurism, I'm assuming stall doors are floor to ceiling, so I'm not sure how it occurs, other than the hidden camera thing.

They have a shower in the room here as one "side" of the changing room. It's really fancy. It's two micro-rooms connected, with a drape to separate the shower part, and a bench in the "changing room" side, and a door that locks to keep strangers out. Perfect. It solved a logistical nightmare for people.

I said earlier if all unisex showers were set up like that, there would be no real assault issue. It's too bad they're probably expensive additions. Turning all "public" showers into something like that would solve the whole issue with everyone happy.

 

[Meadmaker]

Dupe

 

[caveman1917]

They have a shower in the room here as one "side" of the changing room. It's really fancy. It's two micro-rooms connected, with a drape to separate the shower part, and a bench in the "changing room" side, and a door that locks to keep strangers out. Perfect. It solved a logistical nightmare for people.

I said earlier if all unisex showers were set up like that, there would be no real assault issue. It's too bad they're probably expensive additions. Turning all "public" showers into something like that would solve the whole issue with everyone happy.

Not necessarily. A significant part of the complaints in the UK (from the data posted upthread) are about harassment outside of the stalls themselves.

 

[Rolfe]

If the unisex facilities don't have floor to ceiling partitions, then of course there will be voyeurism. What the heck is anyone surprised about?

Which is a good reason for not designating ladies' rooms constructed in that way as mixed-sex, no?

Note, "unisex" specifically means a facility designed for single-occupancy with all facilities behind a complete, lockable door. What is going on is that previously single-sex facilities are simply being labelled "gender neutral" and anyone can enter. This is not unisex, it's mixed-sex.

 

[Rolfe]

Not necessarily. A significant part of the complaints in the UK (from the data posted upthread) are about harassment outside of the stalls themselves.

There's also the concern that a male may (legitimately) hang around in the common area outside the stalls until a woman or girl goes into a stall, and there's nobody else around. The woman or girl may then, when she opens the door, be forced back inside and the door shut while an assault takes place in this nice private space with floor-to-ceiling partitions and door. It has happened.

If it's illegitimate for a male to be hanging around in there, this danger is significantly lessened.

 

[Belz...]

The problem is people using their internal conceptions to decree whether one person or another is sufficiently of one gender or another to allow them to be treated as they wish to be.

As opposed to people using their internal conceptions to decree whether one person or another should treat them as they wish to be?

 

[Rolfe]

Neither surgery nor hormone treatment are requirements, there are no medical requirements other than a doctor's note confirming that you have gender dysphoria, you don't have to change anything about your body to get a GRC under current law.

I think that's what The Prestige is pointing out. He's giving a pocket summary of the trans demands.

 

[Belz...]

The argument in favor is that it's not fair to transwomen to make them carry papers and respond to interrogation about their sexuality, just to gain access to women's spaces. It's not respectful, and it's not tolerant. A transwoman shouldn't have to go through surgery and hormone treatment, and bring a note from their doctor, just to enter a women's locker room.

Why not?

They should be able to simply declare - as ciswomen do - "I'm a woman", and enter.

First of all, women don't declare anything in order to go. They just do. Second, and this is important, trans women are not women. They are trans women; hence the different name. The whole question should be how to give access to trans women and trans men to this or that. Whether they're actually women or men is already answered, unless you change the definitions involved.

 

[Rolfe]

It's definitely antisocial to do it without consent, but it's neither weird not fetishistic to want to watch women undress. It's pretty normal.

I see your point, but wanting to watch women who are complete strangers undress to use the toilet? Really? There's also the point about menstrual fetishism, which I think may be a significant part of this.