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

[Belz...]

Many restrooms provide disability-accommodating stalls in regular gendered restrooms. Also, disabled restroom facilities are inclusive, not exclusive. Transfolks and cisfolks both can already walk into an unoccupied disabled restroom and use it if they wish.

That's the beauty of it: anyone can go into those rooms and they are single-occupants. Problem solved.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Depends on the place. Plenty of places here have separate disabled rooms. I guess adding more of these would do the trick, on top of being more accessible for disabled people.

In the ancient predecessor thread I was shouted down for suggesting three bathrooms, on grounds of practical expense and building difficulties.

 

[theprestige]

I don't like this, particularly as it reminds me of the bad old days when homosexuality was considered a mental illness

I think this is probably a significant unstated component of the push to treat transwomen as women. If we treat them as mentally disabled (ugh - there really isn't a nice term for what I'm trying to express, I'm sorry), that opens up a whole can of worms we're used to thinking of as sealed up and locked away.

It may have been a mistake to lump transsexuals together with the sexual attraction categories. LGBQ makes sense. LGBTQ, perhaps not. LGBQ is about preferences in sexual attraction to other people. T is about gender-construct self-identity.

 

[Belz...]

In the ancient predecessor thread I was shouted down for suggesting three bathrooms, on grounds of practical expense and building difficulties.

Yes, I remember. But here my admitedly train-of-thought suggestion isn't a whole unisex restroom, but a single toilet. It's much smaller and less expensive to build, and many places already have those.

 

[theprestige]

In the ancient predecessor thread I was shouted down for suggesting three bathrooms, on grounds of practical expense and building difficulties.

I object to three bathrooms on grounds of not actually addressing the gender-disphoric's need to be accepted into the social construct of a specific gender.

"I'm not a man, I'm a woman!"

Isn't the kind of problem you can really solve with,

"We'll set aside a special not-a-woman bathroom for you."

 

[theprestige]

Yes, I remember. But here my admitedly train-of-thought suggestion isn't a whole unisex restroom, but a single toilet. It's much smaller and less expensive to build, and many places already have those.

What about women's changing rooms, and other communal safe spaces for women?

 

[Darat]

If this were a bunch of white girls objecting to a black girl using the room how would you side?

Originally I didn't think this was a good analogy but with a bit more thinking and I think it is a good analogy.

Just what about 50 years ago in the USA the vast majority would have agreed with the black girl not being allowed to use the white's toilets. But times change, and often social changes lag behind legislative changes, so although legal segregation was abolished many people would still have been uncomfortable with black and white people in the same changing room.

What changed, well of course the law, but also more people growing up with black and white people existing side to side so it becomes the norm. Also and I do mean it seriously lots of older people dying.

I think in matters of trans people we are on one of these cusp of change, bit we aren't there yet so we need to find a compromise which will establish trans people as "normal", and wait a little bit for the (mostly older) people to die off!

 

[Belz...]

What about women's changing rooms, and other communal safe spaces for women?

That's a harder one.

However I'll note that there is a much larger group of the population that pretty much has to suck it up year long: lefties. Sometimes you just can't get everything you want.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I object to three bathrooms on grounds of not actually addressing the gender-disphoric's need to be accepted into the social construct of a specific gender.

"I'm not a man, I'm a woman!"

Isn't the kind of problem you can really solve with,

"We'll set aside a special not-a-woman bathroom for you."

I think my suggestion was one for men, one for women afraid of transwomen, and one for transwomen and women who aren't afraid of transwomen.

 

[Darat]

This is too abstract and idealized. When you say Group A and Group B, that implies that the differences are trivial. But sex isn't trivial. There are deep differences between them, differences which have no analogue in most other group identities that get discussed, differences that no amount of social engineering can ever paper over. There are situations in which people will respond based on your sex, regardless of your individual behavior. And there are situations in which it's always going to be a hard ask to give someone the benefit of the doubt about how they're going to behave. For example, let's suppose you get arrested, and the cops decide they need to strip search you. That's generally supposed to be done by a member of the same sex as you. The rule isn't that a female can be strip searched by a male cop so long as the male behaves themselves.



Some level of accommodation can be made for trans people, but a transwoman is never going to be treated exactly like a woman, and a transman is never going to be treated exactly like a man. Categories aren't irrelevant. As a practical matter you're never going to evaluate everyone as only an individual. You can't, if for no other reason than you can't get to know everyone you have to interact with.

I could see someone saying exactly your comments and reasoning for arguing for black and white segregation.

 

[Belz...]

I could see someone saying exactly your comments and reasoning for arguing for black and white segregation.

Can you spot the difference between the two?

 

[Ziggurat]

I could see someone saying exactly your comments and reasoning for arguing for black and white segregation.

This is a copout. It's an attempt to appropriate the legitimacy of anti-racism without having to actually justify your position. Or even to express one comprehensibly, for that matter.

Race and sex are not equivalent. If someone thinks they are, they're an idiot.

 

[Strawberry]

I could see someone saying exactly your comments and reasoning for arguing for black and white segregation.

I can see someone using your reasoning to allow white people to self ID as black and take up scholarships, political positions,etc that were created for black people.

 

[TragicMonkey]

This is a copout. It's an attempt to appropriate the legitimacy of anti-racism without having to actually justify your position. Or even to express one comprehensibly, for that matter.

Race and sex are not equivalent. If someone thinks they are, they're an idiot.

I agree in principle, but I think it might be worth the effort to examine why it's different. Flat denunciation of the proposed equivalency with no explanation of the reasoning is unconvincing.

 

[theprestige]

I agree in principle, but I think it might be worth the effort to examine why it's different. Flat denunciation of the proposed equivalency with no explanation of the reasoning is unconvincing.

The equivalency that can be proposed with no explanation can be denounced with no explanation. If Darat sees a meaningful similarity there, that informs this debate, then it's his responsibility to explain it. Otherwise it doesn't inform the debate, and can (should) be discarded as irrelevant.

 

[Belz...]

The equivalency that can be proposed with no explanation can be denounced with no explanation. If Darat sees a meaningful similarity there, that informs this debate, then it's his responsibility to explain it. Otherwise it doesn't inform the debate, and can (should) be discarded as irrelevant.

Plus it's a blatant appeal to emotion: you wouldn't want to be called a racist, would you? It avoids the points made on their own merit.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The equivalency that can be proposed with no explanation can be denounced with no explanation. If Darat sees a meaningful similarity there, that informs this debate, then it's his responsibility to explain it. Otherwise it doesn't inform the debate, and can (should) be discarded as irrelevant.

I discussed reasons why it might be considered equivalent myself a few posts ago. Does Darat have to come up with his own answer or can he borrow my work?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Plus it's a blatant appeal to emotion: you wouldn't want to be called a racist, would you? It avoids the points made on their own merit.

If we discard everything that might be an appeal to emotion this thread would be quite small.

 

[Darat]

This is a copout. It's an attempt to appropriate the legitimacy of anti-racism without having to actually justify your position. Or even to express one comprehensibly, for that matter.



Race and sex are not equivalent. If someone thinks they are, they're an idiot.

But you are using the reasoning that was used to argue against equal rights for black people.

It was thought for a long time that there was "biological" reasons for black people being considered "inferior" so it was only right to keep white and black people separate.

 

[Darat]

I can see someone using your reasoning to allow white people to self ID as black and take up scholarships, political positions,etc that were created for black people.

What is "my reasoning"?