Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Rolfe]

I don't see why women should have to justify their desire to keep men out of women-only spaces to you in the first place. But if you're just going to mock every example, then there's no point to the conversation.

Why do you, personally, desire so much to pee in the women's toilet?

 

[Thermal]

Rolfe, you've made your position clear, including that you refuse to read, and constantly feign misunderstanding. I'm bored with that, and am going to stick with EC and thepresige, who have consistently discussed this in good faith. Thanks.

 

[d4m10n]

I still.keep wrestling with why we even have sex segregated spaces. Does it all boil down to puritanical hangups?

George P. Murdock's famous list of cross-cultural human universals includes "modesty concerning natural functions" which I'm pretty sure covers much of the bathroom discussion above. I suspect there are reasons deeply rooted in evolutionary psychology why people generally prefer to avoid each other (and most especially the opposite sex) when engaging in such business.

 

[Rolfe]

Rolfe, you've made your position clear, including that you refuse to read, and constantly feign misunderstanding. I'm bored with that, and am going to stick with EC and thepresige, who have consistently discussed this in good faith. Thanks.

Whatever.

 

[d4m10n]

Women have a right to their own safe space, seperate from men when they are getting naked, getting dressed, using the bathroom.

Rights are socially and legally constructed, ever shifting and contingent; not an excellent foundation for an argument here.

There is a colorable argument to be made that the right you've described above does not exist in jurisdictions such as California, where it is illegal to discriminate based on sex, which explicitly includes gender identity.

 

[Rolfe]

George P. Murdock's famous list of cross-cultural human universals includes "modesty concerning natural functions" which I'm pretty sure covers much of the bathroom discussion above. I suspect there are reasons deeply rooted in evolutionary psychology why people generally prefer to avoid each other (and most especially the opposite sex) when engaging in such business.

Yes. My own theory from the woman's perspective is that we're hard-wired not to allow males to see us in intimate situations or when partially dressed. There's an undertone of immodesty about it, as if we're consenting to make ourselves sexually available to a man if we consent to his seeing us in these situations. We want to control who we will accept as a sexual partner, and we can't do that if we're not allowed to maintain our boundaries.

That's just speculation, but it's something very deep-seated. I even recall my mother trying to persuade me that I didn't have to be so particular about covering myself with a towel when changing on the beach. She said, it really doesn't matter when you're only five. I replied in all seriousness, it only matters when you're six? She certainly didn't teach me this. Even the women who had been intimately examined by the doctor flurried to wrap shawls round themselves when he came into the organ loft where we were changing before a concert.

 

[Thermal]

George P. Murdock's famous list of cross-cultural human universals includes "modesty concerning natural functions" which I'm pretty sure covers much of the bathroom discussion above. I suspect there are reasons deeply rooted in evolutionary psychology why people generally prefer to avoid each other (and most especially the opposite sex) when engaging in such business.

Well, yeah, that's why we have doors around ye olde stalls. Is modesty about washing your hands on Murdock's hot 75? Cuz that's what's largely going on in the common area of a restroom. In my local Depot (my most frequently used public rest room), the door is propped open for the world to look in. The urinals are tucked barely out of view, and each commode has privacy walls and doors. Seems to me to comply with Murdock, yet a woman would not be out of place at all.

 

[Rolfe]

Always about your own personal experience, and what you personally are happy to tolerate, as a man. Nobody else is allowed to have any different standards.

 

[Thermal]

Always about your own personal experience, and what you personally are happy to tolerate, as a man. Nobody else is allowed to have any different standards.

LOL. And your arguments have been..?

 

[d4m10n]

Is modesty about washing your hands on Murdock's hot 75? Cuz that's what's largely going on in the common area of a restroom.

It seems likely you are generalizing from your lived experience of men's rooms to how things go in other rooms.

I've no idea how often the women's common area is used to resolve red tent issues, do you?

 

[Thermal]

It seems likely that you are generalizing from your lived experience of men's rooms to how things go in other rooms.

Assertions are made on this thread as if they are unquestionable common knowledge. I am countering by pointing out that I don't think they are as universal as assumed.

I asked earlier about these gang showering escapades that were asserted to be so everyday. Pretty sure everyone who answered said 'yeah we don't do so', or 'my gym has privacy stalls'. I'm not saying '(g)you're wrong'. I'm saying your claim is not common or universal, and I'm pretty sure not even representative.

I've no idea how often that common area is used to resolve red tent issues, do you?

No idea, but as I said, I acknowledge that female specific need for both privacy from the general public, and a maybe a little help from other women who might be more compassionate, having been there themselves.

 

[varwoche]

The post after post about this. How many women have been raped in Women's bathrooms by a transgender individual?

You could make an argument that women's concerns are unfounded without taking the leap to "transphobe". But no, you presume the worst, casting differing opinions in the worst possible light. Highly unimpressive.

 

[Hercules56]

really sad how some folks think that women are bigots just because they don't want men in the changing room with them. There are still lots of changing rooms in the USA that are communal, and it simply not feasible to turn them all into private change stalls. It would require many places to literally build new buildings to accommodate such features.

Who is going to pay for all that reconstruction?

 

[Myriad]

Take a look at that woman. Thin as a rail, I doubt if she weighs a buck 10, She fought off a determined, much larger rapist barehanded, haven taken a simple self defense class three weeks prior. It really is that simple to have a fighting chance.You are not the guaranteed loser, and never tell yourself that, or you will start to believe it for no reason. You can win.

"All you rape and assault victims could have fought back harder." Are you going to follow up with how not fighting back harder shows they really wanted it, or are you capable of stopping digging?

Here's an idea: the transwomen can take the self-defense lessons instead. That should equip them to fight off any violent intolerant men who would assault them in the men's room.

 

[Hercules56]

"All you rape and assault victims could have fought back harder." Are you going to follow up with how not fighting back harder shows they really wanted it, or are you capable of stopping digging?

Here's an idea: the transwomen can take the self-defense lessons instead. That should equip them to fight off any violent intolerant men who would assault them in the men's room.

Exactly. Since women don't feel safe with trans women AKA men being in changing rooms with them, why can't the trans women just change with men? They are on average stronger taller and bigger than women therefore they are much more likely to be able to fight off an attacker.

 

[Thermal]

"All you rape and assault victims could have fought back harder." Are you going to follow up with how not fighting back harder shows they really wanted it, or are you capable of stopping digging?

Here's an idea: the transwomen can take the self-defense lessons instead. That should equip them to fight off any violent intolerant men who would assault them in the men's room.

Please don't misunderstand: that was directed to EC, because she stated her personal belief that it was not possible to defend herself against a man. That's a side quest for me, to get that idea out of her head. I've spent a lot of time being the dummy in our free self-defense classes for women, and I want to plant that seed whenever I can: You can win. Don't tell yourself you can't, and give up.

BTW: "stopping digging"? Et tu, Myriad, et tu? Really?

 

[varwoche]

How many women have been raped in Women's bathrooms by a transgender individual?

That's the wrong question. A more pertinent question is: How many women have been sexually assaulted in bathrooms? It most certainly happens.

Transgender Teen Guilty of Sexual Assault in Loudoun County High School Girl's Bathroom Case (pdf)

Woman attacked by rapist in hospital toilet

Woman attacked in Hilliard store restroom

Woman fights off sex offender attack in Seattle-area bathroom

Transgender woman arrested accused of sexually assaulting teen in Walmart bathroom

While I could go on at length, it wouldn't show that the occurences are frequent enough to drive policy. But maybe it's enough to convince you that it's unfair to brand people as transphobes for expressing the concern.

 

[theprestige]

Please don't misunderstand: that was directed to EC, because she stated her personal belief that it was not possible to defend herself against a man. That's a side quest for me, to get that idea out of her head. I've spent a lot of time being the dummy in our free self-defense classes for women, and I want to plant that seed whenever I can: You can win. Don't tell yourself you can't, and give up.

All this business about your "side quest" seems unnecessarily personalizing. It's not your job to fix EC. It's not the topic of this thread.

As to the idea that yes, a fighter at a disadvantage can out of desperation get a win... That's not good enough. There's a lot of risk involved, even in winning a fight. EC doesn't ever want to be in that position. "Don't lose hope, you always have a chance!" isn't helpful here.

Safety comes from having an overwhelming advantage. You're talking about mere chance of survival.

 

[Myriad]

Please don't misunderstand: that was directed to EC, because she stated her personal belief that it was not possible to defend herself against a man. That's a side quest for me, to get that idea out of her head. I've spent a lot of time being the dummy in our free self-defense classes for women, and I want to plant that seed whenever I can: You can win. Don't tell yourself you can't, and give up.

I'll take that at face value and apologize for my misunderstanding. I hope for your part you can appreciate that within the more general context in which the exchange took place, which is you expressing skepticism of the validity of women (who have experienced various forms and circumstances of assault and attempted assault) feeling unsafe in mixed-sex settings, it's better to save said side quest for another time.

 

[Thermal]

@Myriad and @theprestige : you both may truly feel that this toxic, pointless thread is more important than a fellow forumite, and you are certainly entitled to that view. While this might not be the ideal time and place to bring it up. there surely ain't a wrong time, if you take my meaning.

Yet it speaks directly to EC's claim, that women are so functionally helpless and overwhelmed that the threat of being overpowered is literally absolute, when the very 'stats' brought up to prove the threat is real literally refute that. The Seattle woman wasn't the only one who fought back and escaped.