Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[LondonJohn]

Can't you just have a separate block all the trans women go to.

How would that work when there are probably rarely more than 2 or 3 trans woman prisoners per individual prison population size?

It's an impractical and unworkable proposition (until and unless the sheer number of trans women being incarcerated makes it viable to open a trans-women-only block...).

At the moment, the only workable approach is to hold trans women prisoners in women's prisons. I would hope that the internal prison service regulations would stipulate that trans women inmates in women's prisons are always housed in single cells (and/or that cis women inmates are never forced to share a cell with a trans woman inmate), and that they are more closely monitored by staff - for the safety of not only the other women inmates, but also the trans women themselves.

But of course in the real world prisons are overcrowded, and there are constant issues with the number and the quality of prison officers. So I'm guessing that unfortunately those regulations may not always be followed (and this only adds to the reasoning behind trans-women-only blocks being an unworkable idea).

 

[cullennz]

How would that work when there are probably rarely more than 2 or 3 trans woman prisoners per individual prison population size?



It's an impractical and unworkable proposition (until and unless the sheer number of trans women being incarcerated makes it viable to open a trans-women-only block...).



At the moment, the only workable approach is to hold trans women prisoners in women's prisons. I would hope that the internal prison service regulations would stipulate that trans women inmates in women's prisons are always housed in single cells (and/or that cis women inmates are never forced to share a cell with a trans woman inmate), and that they are more closely monitored by staff - for the safety of not only the other women inmates, but also the trans women themselves.



But of course in the real world prisons are overcrowded, and there are constant issues with the number and the quality of prison officers. So I'm guessing that unfortunately those regulations may not always be followed (and this only adds to the reasoning behind trans-women-only blocks being an unworkable idea).

Was kind of meaning chuck them all in a block in one prison.

 

[LondonJohn]

Was kind of meaning chuck them all in a block in one prison.

Oh I see.

Well that too is unlikely to be viable, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the absolute number of inmates at any given time who are trans women - even when considering (say) the entire English prison population - is going to be very low (maybe no more than a couple of dozen maximum).

Secondly, those trans women inmates will typically have committed a wide variety of offences: from violent sexual assault, through minor drugs-possession offences, through to fraud. And those differing levels of offence require differing prison conditions and differing offender management programs/regulations. And that will almost certainly be very difficult (at best) to achieve if all trans women offenders are housed within the same prison block.

Lastly, it's the aim of the prison service to incarcerate offenders - especially those who've been imprisoned for relatively minor (and non-sexual & non-violent) offences - as close to their home address as is reasonably possible; this is so that it's fairer and easier for family and friends to visit them, and because it's easier to rehabilitate prisoners who are coming to the end of their sentences if their prison is reasonably close to their homes. But if there were only one facility in the country to which all trans women prisoners had to be committed, this would inevitably mean that a fair proportion of these inmates would be imprisoned far from their homes.

 

[abaddon]

Why does everyone avoid the real world in discussions like this?

As a separated Dad of two daughters, I got stressed about this whenever I brought them to a restaurant or whatever.

When one of them needed to go, which bathroom do I bring them to? The men's or the ladies? I know I can't simply stand at the door, I have to enter with them because they find public bathrooms scary. So which should I use?

Anyone have an answer? Because I do.

 

[LondonJohn]

Why does everyone avoid the real world in discussions like this?

As a separated Dad of two daughters, I got stressed about this whenever I brought them to a restaurant or whatever.

When one of them needed to go, which bathroom do I bring them to? The men's or the ladies? I know I can't simply stand at the door, I have to enter with them because they find public bathrooms scary. So which should I use?

Anyone have an answer? Because I do.

Well, I don't really think that anyone in this thread is avoiding the real world. In fact, an awful lot of the discussion in this thread has been very specifically about real-world situations (especially the matter of trans women in women's changing rooms and trans women inmates in women's prisons).

Regarding your situation, I think the preferable approach would have been for you to accompany your daughter(s) into the women's bethroom - perhaps stating as you opened the entrance door that you were coming in (and why you were coming in). And after all, it's not as if women ever undress and expose their genitals in the communal area of women's bathrooms in places such as restaurants are (I believe). So you as a man - whether you're standing in the area of the wash baisins etc, or whether you accompany your daughter(s) into a stall - would (again, I believe) be highly unlikely to encounter women in a state of undress.

 

[abaddon]

Well, I don't really think that anyone in this thread is avoiding the real world. In fact, an awful lot of the discussion in this thread has been very specifically about real-world situations (especially the matter of trans women in women's changing rooms and trans women inmates in women's prisons).

Regarding your situation, I think the preferable approach would have been for you to accompany your daughter(s) into the women's bethroom - perhaps stating as you opened the entrance door that you were coming in (and why you were coming in). And after all, it's not as if women ever undress and expose their genitals in the communal area of women's bathrooms in places such as restaurants are (I believe). So you as a man - whether you're standing in the area of the wash baisins etc, or whether you accompany your daughter(s) into a stall - would (again, I believe) be highly unlikely to encounter women in a state of undress.

Mostly false. Want an explanation?

 

[LondonJohn]

Mostly false. Want an explanation?

Eh? What's "mostly false"? I offered a suggestion, not a statement of fact.

But yes, I guess I'll go with the explanation...

 

[Roboramma]

Why does everyone avoid the real world in discussions like this?

As a separated Dad of two daughters, I got stressed about this whenever I brought them to a restaurant or whatever.

When one of them needed to go, which bathroom do I bring them to? The men's or the ladies? I know I can't simply stand at the door, I have to enter with them because they find public bathrooms scary. So which should I use?

Anyone have an answer? Because I do.

For myself, personally, I like unisex toilets. They are more convenient and a more efficient use of space.

Some women have expressed issues with unisex toilets, and I don't think my convenience should take precedence over that.

Toilets, though, seem a pretty minor issue to me. I doubt anyone would be severely upset if we went to unisex toilets. Changing rooms are a different story. Again, in that case I wouldn't personally have an issue with unisex changing rooms, but many women are uncomfortable with that idea, and I think their concerns are reasonable.

 

[LondonJohn]

For myself, personally, I like unisex toilets. They are more convenient and a more efficient use of space.

Some women have expressed issues with unisex toilets, and I don't think my convenience should take precedence over that.

Toilets, though, seem a pretty minor issue to me. I doubt anyone would be severely upset if we went to unisex toilets. Changing rooms are a different story. Again, in that case I wouldn't personally have an issue with unisex changing rooms, but many women are uncomfortable with that idea, and I think their concerns are reasonable.

I don't think that unisex communal changing rooms (ie where everyone undresses and changes etc in a communal area in view of everyone else) will ever, ever happen. For good reason.

But the type of unisex changing rooms where there are banks of private enclosed cubicles with lockable (from the inside) doors within which people undress and get changed etc... are (IMO) a wholly-viable possibility. Indeed, one of the sports centres which I occasionally visit had just such a system in place, and I don't recall hearing anything about women finding that solution uncomfortable etc.

However, I believe that it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to convert two gender-segregated changing rooms in gyms/pools/sports centres into one large unisex changing room using the system of multiple private partitioned cubicles. I believe that this sort of system can only be implemented if the facility were originally designed in this way (as I believe is the case with the sports centre I mentioned above).

 

[Roboramma]

Yeah, I don't see any obvious problem with that sort of facility where it's viable.

The issue I have with it is that it's much more space intensive than open changing rooms that don't have private changing stalls.

 

[LondonJohn]

Yeah, I don't see any obvious problem with that sort of facility where it's viable.

The issue I have with it is that it's much more space intensive than open changing rooms that don't have private changing stalls.

Exactly so - which is the main reason why, if sports centres etc are wishing to operate such a system, it needs to be designed and built into the facility from the get-go.

It might be interesting to see whether there's any kind of move towards this type of system in new-build gyms/pools/sports centres etc over the coming years.

 

[Meadmaker]

Why does everyone avoid the real world in discussions like this?

As a separated Dad of two daughters, I got stressed about this whenever I brought them to a restaurant or whatever.

When one of them needed to go, which bathroom do I bring them to? The men's or the ladies? I know I can't simply stand at the door, I have to enter with them because they find public bathrooms scary. So which should I use?

Anyone have an answer? Because I do.

I think the normal route with small children too young to be alone is to go into the room that matches the sex of the adult who is accompanying them. I know I periodically have found myself looking at young girl in the men's room on long trips, like in a roadside rest stop. The theory is that the young girls don't really care that they see a line of men standing next to urinals, and no one is going to feel invaded if they are in the presence of a small child while peeing, whereas they would feel their privacy was invaded if there was an adult of the opposite sex. Based on your previously expressed views that no one really ought to care, I would assume you wouldn't have any qualms about taking your daughters into a men's room. While I think a lot of people would find it awkward, I don't think think most modern people would have an actual problem with doing it, nor would they fear that the children would be traumatized by the experience.

If there is a "family" room available, that's the obvious choice, and indeed is the primary reason those rooms exist, but those are rarely available except in recent construction.

 

[abaddon]

Eh? What's "mostly false"? I offered a suggestion, not a statement of fact.

But yes, I guess I'll go with the explanation...

For clarity, I am a beardy bloke and obviously male.

I have had occasion to test this IRL.

If I brought one of my daughters to pee in the ladies room, screams of outrage ensue, including summoning managers/security, hell the pope for all I know. Nightmare. Not a happy place.

If I brought one of my daughters to the men's room, nobody said anything at all. At worst, a glance and a shrug. The only one feeling out of place was my daughter.

Needless to say, the Men's was the place to go from then on.

Never a single word there. Because blokes generally don't care. Because blokes realise what it is like to be a single dad of two girls.

Even when they were tiny and still in diapers, I couldn't use baby changing facilities. Because they are in the ladies room as a rule.

Why couldn't I leave them to their own devices? Because small kids are prone to...errors in the simple mechanics of ablutions. Dealing with clumsy mishaps is my job as a dad. It's why I had to tote wet wipes and such around for years.

Perhaps I should wait for some woman entering the ladies and hand my kid to them? No chance I would ever do that. Hand my child to a stranger? Seriously?

So the mens room was the only viable option because NOBODY MADE A HYSTERICAL SCENE. EVER.

As for the "no nakedness in the ladies room" all I can say is I have had drunken sex in a ladies room that I was dragged into (not unwillingly) decades ago. Ladies rooms are quite the revelation. They can be pretty mental. Nothing wrong with that so long as everyone is consensual. And I was not the only bloke in there either. This notion that all the women in a ladies room are always perfumed and pretty and no nakedness of any sort occurs is a myth.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I don't know if its worth added this sort of baggage to it but it does seem like there is a tendency (TENDENCY, not absolute) that men and women see public bathrooms somewhat differently.

 

[Meadmaker]

For clarity, I am a beardy bloke and obviously male.

I have had occasion to test this IRL.

If I brought one of my daughters to pee in the ladies room, screams of outrage ensue, including summoning managers/security, hell the pope for all I know. Nightmare. Not a happy place.

Seems what would be expected.

Since the advent of sex segregated public toilets, women have taken their small children, boys and girls, into the ladies' rooms. No screams of outrage ensued by the presence of a six year old boy in the ladies' room. I'm guessing, but have no real experience on the subject, that as the boys got older, there were some mean glares as moms who thought it was ok to bring the eight or nine year old in, from moms who didn't agree.

I remember seeing one sign saying "Children over six years of age must use the appropriate restroom."

What has changed in the modern world is that today, it is much more common for a man to be alone with his young daughters. That almost never happened 50 years ago. It's not that the blokes are much more relaxed than the women, although they are. It's just that everyone is more relaxed around a child in the "wrong" restroom than an adult in the "wrong" restroom.

But if for some reason a woman felt compelled to accompany her six year old son into the men's room, there wouldn't be screams of outrage and no one would be calling the manager. There might be quizzical looks, awkward glances, and, from the creepy guys, leers and suggestive behavior. I can't say I've ever encountered that situation. I've seen young girls with their dads in the men's room. I've never encountered a mom with her young boy in the men's room.

ETA: I know that there are some people here whose memories stretch back farther than mine. While it is much more common today to have this scenario, i.e. a dad travelling alone with his daughters, it had to happen occasionally even back in the days of Ozzie and Harriet. But back then, I think people would have had more grief about the young girl in the men's room. How did the older generation handle it? I can't see any other solution than having the girl use the men's room, or possibly there was less fear about having a stranger, who was probably also a mother travelling with her own children, take the girl into the ladies' room.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

But that's just it: you keep talking as if this were one thing, but there's more than one possible requirement here. The requirement that a doctor actually diagnose a condition based on definite criteria is different than the requirement that a doctor rubber stamp a request. Which goes back to my question: on what basis can a doctor refuse a diagnosis? If there is no basis, then the diagnosis is just a rubber stamp.

So which is it? I still don't have an answer.

If you are still asking and genuinely want to know details then you would need to ask a doctor. I'm not one. But I imagine they would diagnose gender dysphoria the same way they diagnose other things. They ask you questions and see whether the things you describe fit the condition.

For example if you went in and said 'I have gender dysphoria doctor, my left leg is very itchy and I can't see well' then a doctor would say 'those symptoms don't fit with gender dysphoria'

But you've successfully avoided my actual question again - IF a person thinks all a doctor is doing is rubber stamping then why would the person fight tooth and nail to keep the requirement?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Damn. I don't know if you saw my response before I edited it and replaced it with this one, but my previous response was based on the idea that you could not possibly be asking an honest, serious question. However, I see based on other replies, you were.


So I will give an honest, serious answer. Yes. No. No. The social contract is based on being in the place, not on how one behaves while one is there. If, in a very unusual circumstance, there is some need for a man to actually enter that space while in use, then the social contract requires obtaining permission before entry. i.e. yelling "Does anyone mind if I come in to get a towel for my eight year old daughter!" At which point the ladies inside will wonder what the hell is wrong with you and they will think of course they mind you idiot, but instead of saying that, they will offer to help her find her towel.

As for the lesbian rack-checker.....Is that a thing lesbians do? Well, regardless, how would anyone know that's why she was there? Unless she was literally wandering around making close examinations. No, on second thought, if that part was an honest, serious, question, it shouldn't have been. It's some silly word game trying to come up with some circumstance where something might not be true....and....it gets tedious.

Men. Stay in the men's room. Women. Stay in the women's room. Under bizarre circumstances, work it out on a case by case basis but it doesn't invalidate the general rule. As for males who identify as women? Well, that's what all the fuss is about, but based on one definition of "men", they are men, and as long as the majority of the ladies object, I'll side with the ladies.

When I read your responses I genuinely wonder how old you are and/or what year you live in. Do people still have such antiquated ideas of women?

Are you seriously arguing that lesbians don't check out women they find attractive?

But it's interesting that you say 'how would they know?' - which is exactly what I have been saying about transwomen. If a transwoman goes in there and behaves appropriately there would be no reason (other than prejudice) to think that the transwomen is checking anyone out.

Tedious? Yes. This whole thread of close-minded people just spouting their prejudices is tedious.

It's equally tedious when someone keeps claiming without evidence what the majority of women think/want.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Not at all. In fact, that has to be assumed, given how I set up the situation. Discussing the issue, it is clear that one side thinks X is bigoted, so person A who holds X is a bigot, by definition. But there’s other ways of being uncivil. Have we seen some in this thread?

Maybe not all the time, but if the point of the interaction is to discuss an issue that the parties disagree about, then you pretty much have to assume civility. How else will a conversation work?

I'm interested in having conversations with people who are capable of having interesting conversations. I'm not that bothered if they are the picture of civility to me personally. On the other hand if people want to be bigoted then I am not really interested in trying to persuade them out of it with polite conversation. I'm only interested in countering their bigotry.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Why does everyone avoid the real world in discussions like this?

As a separated Dad of two daughters, I got stressed about this whenever I brought them to a restaurant or whatever.

When one of them needed to go, which bathroom do I bring them to? The men's or the ladies? I know I can't simply stand at the door, I have to enter with them because they find public bathrooms scary. So which should I use?

Anyone have an answer? Because I do.

It's a pain isn't it. Luckily mine has generally been OK with going in by herself as long as I waited outside the door.

I actually don't think there is a 'right' answer to this question. In the situation I would probably see if there was a baby changing facility or something that we could use instead. If given a straight choice between ladies and gents then my tendency would be to say that since she's the one doing the business then we should use the facility for her - i.e. the ladies. But honestly, both ways SHOULD be fine. I think I'd feel awkward either way so another good argument for unisex facilities.

I hope at least that the people who say penises are shocking to women would not suggest that I should expose my daughter to multiple of them in the men's room?

Incidentally, if people are having sex in a ladies room openly then yes they are doing something wrong. Moreso if the ladies room is frequented by 6 year old girls.

 

[Meadmaker]

When I read your responses I genuinely wonder how old you are and/or what year you live in. Do people still have such antiquated ideas of women?

Are you seriously arguing that lesbians don't check out women they find attractive?

But it's interesting that you say 'how would they know?' - which is exactly what I have been saying about transwomen. If a transwoman goes in there and behaves appropriately there would be no reason (other than prejudice) to think that the transwomen is checking anyone out.

Tedious? Yes. This whole thread of close-minded people just spouting their prejudices is tedious.

It's equally tedious when someone keeps claiming without evidence what the majority of women think/want.

But of course, it doesn't matter whether or not the transwoman is checking anyone out. That's not the point. The presence of a man in the women's locker room is considered offensive, and many people, I think most people, consider the transwoman to be a man.

And my evidence about this being the way most people feel could come from that survey posted earlier about UK voters, or it could come from the fact that Betsy DeVos is the American Secretary of Education.