Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

[TheGoldcountry]

Come on now, you're quoting me and cropping out the part that addresses this exact point.

What evidence is there that this student was opening using the women's restroom rather than sneaking in for the secret meetups?

There is some circular logic going on here.

It's becoming clear that there was no need to sneak in, because of the open door policy in place.

Everyone here knows that you are banging the "nothing to see here, move along" trope very hard, but can you see, maybe just a teensy, weensy, ******* bit, why parents might be a tad upset that physiological boys going in and out of female restrooms were not only ignored, but that there was a specific policy in place telling others to do so?

Maybe, just maybe, school is a place where you expect certain boundaries to be maintained for your children?

No, it's just TERF fear-mongering. Anyone who disagrees with a certain social agenda must be a bigot.

 

[Meadmaker]

If Meadmaker is correct at #3240 the policy was implemented in plenty of time for this particular gender nonconforming student to take advantage, whether they turn out to be "actually" trans or not.

Is there any reason to think this was the case, other than wishful thinking?

There is no doubt that the bathroom access policy was implemented no later than 2019.

Whether or not this particular student was taking advantage of that policy by using the girls' bathroom on a regular basis is an inference I have made. I have not seen any confirmation of that inference. I explained the factors that went into that inference, the most important of which was the principal's belief that the student identified as female, or, more specifically, that he "did not know" that the rapist identified as male.

Other things that I have not seen confirmed:

1. That this was in fact a girls' bathroom. Prior to 2016, the school policy was to allow transgender students to use a private bathroom, and I can only assume the school maintained this as an option. The description of this as a girls' bathroom is something I have seen in media reports, but coverage is rather superficial. I do know that the couple was interrupted during their encounter by another girl who came to use the bathroom.

2. How many students, or teachers, were present in the building. This was May of 2021. Many schools had not resumed regular, in person, classes. I don't know the status of Loudoun County schools. The impression I got from some reports was that they were attending in person classes at the time, but I have not seen that confirmed.

ETA: The reason that point 2 is significant is that on a regular school day, a male entering a girls' bathroom would be noticed more often than not. Teachers frequently are in the halls. Staff can frequently view entrances to bathrooms. On at least 3 occasions the rapist entered, and exited, this bathroom, which it seems unlikely would go undetected if the school were occupied normally, which in turn suggests to me that his presence was known and he was acting within school policy. If, on the other hand, the school was sparsely attended, clandestine entrances and exits would seem more possible.

I would bet 10 to 1 that the kid was using the girls' bathroom, and the staff knew it, but I haven't seen that confirmed anywhere.

 

[Meadmaker]

Given that a cis-man's presence is itself a violation of privacy, how do you keep cis-men out while allowing trans women in? Because that, I think, should be a common goal for both sides of this debate.

Full disclosure, not wishing to pass myself off as more magnanimous that I actually am, my own goal would not allow anyone who has functional male genitalia into the female private spaces, regardless of what's in their head.

As noted numerous times in the past, if anyone convinces me that the girls don't mind their presence, I would drop my objection. This isn't a moral thing for me. It's about supporting the wishes of women and, especially, teenage girls.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

There is some circular logic going on here.

It's becoming clear that there was no need to sneak in, because of the open door policy in place.

There's a need to be covert, because they aren't using the bathroom for the quick business that they are intended for. Meeting up with another student in a stall is suspicious as hell to the point where being covert would be an obviously needed element to nearly anybody.

Everyone here knows that you are banging the "nothing to see here, move along" trope very hard, but can you see, maybe just a teensy, weensy, ******* bit, why parents might be a tad upset that physiological boys going in and out of female restrooms were not only ignored, but that there was a specific policy in place telling others to do so?

Maybe, just maybe, school is a place where you expect certain boundaries to be maintained for your children?

No, it's just TERF fear-mongering. Anyone who disagrees with a certain social agenda must be a bigot.

Given the history of bathroom panic turning out to be almost entirely a figment of the anti-trans imagination, I think it's more than reasonable to actually demand some proof before just assuming the worst.

We have a student that, according to his mother, does not identify as trans. There's no reporting to indicate that he was ever taking advantage of any gender ambiguity to enter these bathrooms, but rather was doing so for the specific purpose of getting sex. It's like asking why someone jaywalked on their way to bank robbery, someone willing to break the rules to have sex in a toilet is not going to give the least bit of concern to the sign hanging outside a bathroom.

It need not be said that there is no shortage of unambiguously masculine boys who would sneak into a girl's bathroom for the express purpose of a sexual liaison, even without the benefit of a trans-inclusive policy.

This one came up first on a quick google search:

Florida student caught having sex with up to 25 male students in school toilets on Snapchat

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/florida-student-caught-having-sex-25-male-students-school-toilets-snapchat-1561291

Again, is there a lick of evidence that trans-inclusive policy had anything to do with this incident?

Seems to me that the transphobes are trying to make the story of some guy date-raping his girlfriend into some tale about how trans women are generally dangerous and can't be trusted in gender segregated spaces.

 

[LondonJohn]

Full disclosure, not wishing to pass myself off as more magnanimous that I actually am, my own goal would not allow anyone who has functional male genitalia into the female private spaces, regardless of what's in their head.

As noted numerous times in the past, if anyone convinces me that the girls don't mind their presence, I would drop my objection. This isn't a moral thing for me. It's about supporting the wishes of women and, especially, teenage girls.

I see. And do you think white women in the Southern states of the US in the 1950s were happy about the prospect of black men now being allowed to sit right up against their teenage daughters on the small two-person bus benches?

I'm going to go out on a limb here.... and suggest that if white people had been polled in those states, a sizeable majority would have been against the idea of allowing black people to share bus benches with white people. If your "logic" had been applied in, say, Alabama in the 1950s, black civil rights might never have happened.....

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I see. And do you think white women in the Southern states of the US in the 1950s were happy about the prospect of black men now being allowed to sit right up against their teenage daughters on the small two-person bus benches?

I'm going to go out on a limb here.... and suggest that if white people had been polled in those states, a sizeable majority would have been against the idea of allowing black people to share bus benches with white people. If your "logic" had been applied in, say, Alabama in the 1950s, black civil rights might never have happened.....

At least in the states, civil right protections generally come from the least democratic body of government, the courts. Hell, even the liberal party here isn't in agreement about "basic" issues such as gay rights or abortion access, but instead had these controversial issues made moot by SCOTUS rulings. If such things were left up to popular approval, gay marriage and abortion would almost certainly be illegal in many states today (and may be again in the near future).

The Bostock ruling was generally considered a surprise, setting a precedent protecting trans rights (and gay rights) under existing law. Hard to say if that trend is going to continue considering the change in composition of the courts.

 

[TomB]

I see. And do you think white women in the Southern states of the US in the 1950s were happy about the prospect of black men now being allowed to sit right up against their teenage daughters on the small two-person bus benches?

I'm going to go out on a limb here.... and suggest that if white people had been polled in those states, a sizeable majority would have been against the idea of allowing black people to share bus benches with white people. If your "logic" had been applied in, say, Alabama in the 1950s, black civil rights might never have happened.....

I'll put you down as in favor of abolishing men's rooms and women's rooms in favor of unisex facilities.

Because what you just outlined is not an argument for allowing access to segregated spaces, but rather an argument to abolish segregated spaces.

 

[Meadmaker]

I see. And do you think white women in the Southern states of the US in the 1950s

*yawn*

 

[Meadmaker]

Seems to me that the transphobes are trying to make the story of some guy date-raping his girlfriend into some tale about how trans women are generally dangerous and can't be trusted in gender segregated spaces.

See previous notes.

the trans person taking advantage of the policy does not seem to actually be trans,

Which is precisely the point that has been hammered home again and again and again, and to which you appear to remain completely oblivious.

 

[d4m10n]

That this was in fact a girls' bathroom.

It was if you trust the paper of record in the U.S.

...evangelical Christians objected to a proposal to give transgender students access to the restrooms of their choice — complaints that were magnified when a male student wearing a skirt was arrested in an assault in a girl’s bathroom.

 

[d4m10n]

*yawn*

Once again, an analogy between sex (an actual biological phenomenon) and race (a made-up idea which groups humanity into an arbitrarily small number of groups based on either superficial characteristics or pseudoscience) isn't an analogy anyone needs to take seriously.

 

[Elaedith]

I'll put you down as in favor of abolishing men's rooms and women's rooms in favor of unisex facilities.

Because what you just outlined is not an argument for allowing access to segregated spaces, but rather an argument to abolish segregated spaces.

If women will sit next to white males but not black males the issue is clearly race.

If people will share changing rooms with straight people of their own sex but not gay people of their own sex, the issue is clearly sexual orientation.

When you produce evidence that women will happily undress in the presence of adult male strangers who are 'cis' but not adult male strangers who are 'trans' (assuming there is any way to tell the difference) I will believe the issue is being trans.

Until then your comparison remains as ridiculous and irrelevant as ever unless you are arguing that segregating anything by sex is the same as segregating by race.

 

[Meadmaker]

It was if you trust the paper of record in the U.S.

I would take bets it was a regular old girls' bathroom, based on the fact that a girl interrupted them. However, I have also seen it referred to as a "gender neutral" bathroom, so I am not 100% certain what the arrangements were for this particular bathroom. I haven't seen specific confirmation.

And no, I don't trust the paper of record. I think they could be guilty of lazy reporting. In the brief quote you gave, there's already some evidence of that, saying that the opponents were "Christian evangelicals". Yes, indeed, some of them were.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

See previous notes.

Yee, still waiting for any evidence this is what happened, rather than the fever dream of reactionaries.

 

[JihadJane]

Yee, still waiting for any evidence this is what happened, rather than the fever dream of reactionaries.

Do you understand safeguarding principles?

If so, do you think they were created from the fever dreams of reactionaries?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

See previous notes.

You seem to be missing my point. The anecdote of a trans predator taking advantage of bathroom policies to attack girls seems to be entirely untrue. The person does not seem to be trans, and there has never been a single shred of evidence that a trans-inclusive policy was ever a factor in allowing this crime to happen.

I've said over and over again, strangely to much gnashing of teeth in a "skeptics" forum, that the plural of anecdote is not data and that gruesome tales of violence are not great ways to guide policy. Ironically even in this anecdote, the details do not, on actual investigation, seem to support the anti-trans position. It's not even an anecdote at this point, but a flight of fantasy that is largely detached from the reality of two sexual assaults.

What the collapse of this totally false freakout shows is that the trope of the "trans bathroom predator" is simply an article of faith. It's dogmatic, and denying it strikes the true believers as absurd and upsetting as denying any other dogma. It doesn't need evidence to be believed, it is apparently self evident to the extent that it cannot be debunked even in the face of hard data.

 

[Meadmaker]

You seem to be missing my point. The anecdote of a trans predator taking advantage of bathroom policies to attack girls seems to be entirely untrue. The person does not seem to be trans, and there has never been a single shred of evidence that a trans-inclusive policy was ever a factor in allowing this crime to happen.

Well, someone is certainly missing the point, but it seems unlikely that one more explanation will change that.

 

[LondonJohn]

Once again, an analogy between sex (an actual biological phenomenon) and race (a made-up idea which groups humanity into an arbitrarily small number of groups based on either superficial characteristics or pseudoscience) isn't an analogy anyone needs to take seriously.

LOL you have no idea.

Since you appear to have misunderstood (or you're pretending to have misunderstood), this was specifically about Meadmaker's proposition that the question of whether transgirls should be allowed to use the girls' bathroom.... should reasonably be determined by asking cisgirls whether they'd feel less safe under such a move.

With me so far?


So:

Question 1: Should transgirls be allowed to use the girls' bathroom?

Proposition 1: This should be determined by asking cisgirls whether they'd feel less safe.

Cisgirls are asked. They (very probably) say that yes, they'd feel less safe.

Outcome 1: Transgirls are not allowed to use the girls' bathroom.


Still with me?


Question 2: Should black people be allowed to share the small bench seats on public buses with white people?

Proposition 2: This should be determined by asking white people whether they'd feel less safe.

White people are asked. They (very probably) say that yes, they'd feel less safe.

Outcome 2: Black people are not allowed to share the bench seats with white people.


Frankly, if you can't see the direct read-across similarity, you're either ignorant or wilfully deceptive. But yeah, keep bleating on about how race-based rights and transgender-based rights are, like, totally different (and of course yes they're different, but they share many points of similarity which you all are very tellingly trying to handwave away).

Which is why I don't bother engaging with you on your terms any more. I really don't care what you think, because most of you are cloaking your innate bigotry (which amusingly keeps revealing itself) under what you think is the catch-all mantra around ciswomen's rights and ciswomen's safety. You're all wrong, and history will judge you as such

 

[LondonJohn]

Hehehe oh lookee here:

Seems that certain sections of the Catholic Church have a less-than-tolerant approach to transgender people as well:

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1468769128815210509


Another fine institution to have as an ally, guys! You must feel very proud and oh so vindicated

 

[Meadmaker]

In one situation, group A objected to sharing a bathroom with group B.

Although group A's objection had been accommodated for a long time, at some point society at large evaluated the objections and decided that those objections should no longer be accommodated.

Therefore, any time any group objects to sharing a bathroom with a different group, the first group's objections should be ignored.

QED.