Remember the a-LOO-mo https://t.co/JUUG0Thy1v
— Wyeth Ruthven (@wyethwire) May 17, 2016
Texas will not give in to President Obama's attacks on our values pic.twitter.com/JAcZaxtxxn
— Dan Patrick (@DanPatrick) May 17, 2016
@PatrickSvitek @DanPatrick Meanwhile, Texas continues to go down the shitter.
— D'Void Of Decency (@janphar) May 17, 2016
Dan Patrick is not just any homophobic schmuck — he’s the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Texas.
And a fine illustration of the ancient joke about the deceased Texan too tall for any available casket: “… so they gave him an enema, and buried him in a shoebox.”
redshirt
I thought Dan Patrick was the sports talking guy.
Major Major Major Major
Man, they are really digging in with this bathroom thing. Sad!
shoggoth
From the graphic Molon labe becomes Moron lavatory I suppose.
Prescott Cactus
@redshirt: Sports talk guy to Lieutenant Governor of the state of Texas ?
Pay cut, loss of benefits. Prime time to CST. Not pretty.
Prescott Cactus
@Major Major Major Major: Their Water-loo !
Napoleon Bonaparte: “Never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake. That’s bad manners.”
scav
I can see the next stage of small government. Wandering posses of SEOs, asking all and sundry for their long form birth certificates on-demand, checking to verify their birth gender corresponds to that appropriate to the individual they just oogled in public. Special detachements of SEOs, both official and self-deputized, will crawl the malls, making sure that purchased clothing choices are also appropriate to same birth-certified gender identity.
hellslittlestangel
I’ll give you my toilet seat when you pry it off my cold, dead ass.
daves09
@hellslittlestangel: now that’s funny
But the nutters who always have to be afraid of something will approach each rest stop with fear and dread-and probably a concealed carry.
Elizabelle
I say we ladies leave the seat up every single time we exit a public restroom. Leave the scaredy cats wondering if unit was recently cleaned, or USED BY a (fe)male. Whooooo!
FWIW, I was unknowingly placed in a mixed gender hostel room (first thought on waking: my, that woman across the aisle is certainly tall and has an angular face…). My roommate is Richard, from Liverpool, Phillip K Dick fan.
And we had to move rooms to accommodate a large group arriving; now we’re in a dorm room for 6 and it is only us.
He looked tres surprised to see me dragging my stuff in yesterday.
Potty and hostel parity.
(PS: booked a girls only hostel room at the Generator Hostel in Barcelona. For the promised hairdryers and more mirrors. Fer sure.)
John M. Burt
http://alternateflags.tumblr.com/post/144543716435/httpswwwballoon-juicecom20160518late-night
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Now that teh gay can get married, it’s their new chew toy.
Shalimar
They don’t care what sex you were born as and they aren’t going to waste time checking IDs or birth certificates. This is about getting a thrill of superiority by harassing women who look masculine, whether they’re transgender or not.
NotMax
Avoiding U.S. politics for the nonce, a couple of items which caught the eye, both internet related –
‘net dragnet.
Idjits’ excursion.
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt: Not the same Dan Patrick. This guy is a wingtard radio dude who got into politics.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shalimar: That might be part of it, but it’s mostly about stirring up the ignorant bronze age base that might be thinking about sitting out the election due to Drumpf.
SectionH
@Elizabelle: Great to “hear” from you. I hope you’ll tell us all about your sea trip when you have time! And then how it goes on dry land again.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: Yeah, Iran sucks.
Schlemazel Khan
@NotMax:
We we just there last year, it is gorgeous but there are boardwalks and signs saying ‘keep off’. Two problems with that, one is that you can see bison tracks all over the ground there and, people are idiots.
The height of idiocy is the large number of tourists who get impossibly close to elk and buffalo, turn their backs an snap a selfie. Talking to a ranger he said they were working toward a record number of injuries from animal attack. The cherry on the idiot sundae happened recently when a couple decided a baby buffalo looked cold so they loaded it into their SUV and brought it to a ranger station.
RK
Trump’s a troubled man.
Elizabelle
@SectionH: Hello there!
Asked hostel roommate Richard, who was recently on a contract with a bank, what he thought of our elections. He is for Bernie. He says if Trump is 100% corrupt, Hillary is 95% there. He says she is “owned by the banks.” Interesting comment for someone who drew $$ for his trip to China (3 months!) from the very banksters. I should have asked him more. Sigh.
He reminds me a bit of kd lang, if she was 6 feet tall and a male Brit hetero. He told me face recognition software usually pegs him as female. His features are elongated prettiness.
Mostly glad to be missing the late stage primary scorched earthing you all discuss. If Bernie wants to rail about Democratic corruption, he needs to look more closely at his permanent campaign (guerillas) staff. The permanent campaign crap isn’t helping anyone but that segment of takers.
Heading to Barcelona tonight; will check back in with you then.
And: if you ever find yourself lucky pup enough to be in Copenhagen: Paper Island. Near the new Opera House. 7 day a week Food Trucks. And spirits. Heaven. But take Danish krona or plastic– no euros accepted, and their ATM appears broken. Reachable by super quick water taxi from Nyhavn.
With a Discow. (I thought those Danes could not spell. And then I looked up.)
TheMightyTrowel
@Villago Delenda Est: Dude. Leave the Bronze Age alone! #BronzeAgeArchaeologist
sukabi
@daves09: not gonna find the glory they’re looking for in the women’s bathrooms… all the he-men need to go back to their wide stances in the men’s room.
And you’re right about the superiority and control over women being the driving force…
Chris T.
I keep wondering how the heck these Bathroom Enforcers are going to do their thing in the first place (do we all need to carry birth certificates around so that we can show the correct box marked before we enter a bathroom?).
I also wonder if we should have some pictures of bearded, muscular men captioned something like: “Pat McGrory insists this is a woman* and must use the same public restroom as your daughter. (*As marked on birth certificate.)”
Hal
Dan Patrick’s logo looks like it belongs on a burger wrapper.
RedDirtGirl
@Schlemazel Khan: And apparently that young bison had to be euthanized as a result.
http://time.com/4337603/yellowstone-baby-bison-trunk-car/
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: The incidents I’ve heard of so far suggest that you’re right: the thing that gets you booted from a restroom, beaten or insulted is being a woman with short hair.
Matt McIrvin
It would be so horrifying to be in any way trans, genderqueer or odd-looking in these states right now. People at the highest levels of government and all over society getting together to make it clear that you’re going to be punished if you have any kind of public existence.
The “bathroom bills” claim to be about genitals or original gender, but of course what really happens is that people who don’t look traditionally hypermasculine or hyperfeminine get beat on. So they can’t even obey the law, let alone do what they actually want to do. What the movement really aims to do is eliminate them.
Keith G
@Chris T.:
First and foremost is to remember that this is primarily a drive to keep the herd together. Like many things that happen due to the fanatical right-wing Texans, this is not an issue meant to be acted upon, and won’t be in many Texas precincts. It is virtually unenforceable in private sector lavatories. Where this will hurt is in the school districts. And although any pain caused by this gross disruption of civil rights is unacceptable, I just do not imagine this is going to be an issue at all in the majority of school districts in the state.
Once the dust dies down, it will be clear that this posturing is not sustainable. If put to a vote, I believe that most high school students in Texas would find no problem with what the federal government directs the state to do. It might even be the same for their parents. The problem is that not a lot of calm discussion has been going on about this topic. This is actually an important time for opinion leaders like the president to engage in detailed discussions about what really is at issue here. Some of us have spent a good deal of time over many years thinking about issues such as GLBT rights.
Most people have not, especially the T part. Seems to me that there is a large number of folks who can easily be led to understand with minimal effort that this is really no big deal. They just haven’t had the time or exposure to think about what the facts are.
Matt McIrvin
@Keith G: Just went through a long argument with a Facebook commenter whose position was “it’s simple! Just look between your legs and go to the bathroom for your God-given plumbing!”
Turned out he wasn’t even in favor of these “bathroom bills”, insisted he’d have no problem with unusual-looking people in the restroom with him, and even thought gender-segregated bathrooms were kind of stupid. He just thought he’d come up with a super-simple resolution to the problem that anyone could easily follow.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris T.:
There’s been a lot of that going around on Facebook, but it might be counterproductive: it just reinforces the panic about people with atypical gender presentation. Not every transperson can pass, nor every cisperson for that matter.
EZSmirkzz
Swap out “Texan” with black, brown, woman, etc.
Northern support for Southern liberals continues to amaze me.
Thanks!
Elizabelle
Also, folks: the transgender bathroom legislation was the squid ink in NC. They wiped out NC localities ability to institute a higher minimum wage, and (if memory serves) environmental protections.
Because our media and professional grievance mongers (sometimes the same people) jumped on the bathroom issue, the other and even more important legislative obstructions have gone uncovered (at least in the major press).
I cannot speak for Texas. My sympathies to non wingnut residents of that
republicstate.D58826
@Prescott Cactus: Or what do you do when your enemy is digging himself into a hole? get him a bigger shovel!
greennotGreen
@Matt McIrvin: And who’s going to be the first bathroom cop to boot the women’s restroom user who’s flat-chested and bald? Because a lot of chemo regimens for breast cancer cause hair loss.
I got called “Sir” twice during chemo, and I’m 5’3″ and not flat-chested (but I was wearing a barn coat.)
EZSmirkzz
I’m pretty sure that we won’t carry the conversation when we allow conservatives to frame the issue.
What I want to know is what sort of pervert spends their time watching other people take a leak or dump? These are sick puppies.
The real issue is taking away judicial remedies for discrimination at the state level. That’s the only thing we should be discussing IMHO.
Just sayin’.
RaflW
Come and take it?
Come and take a shit in Texas? Kinda out of the way, but if they want to improperly dispose of my waste, ummm, OK, Lt Gov Patrick.
Really not a well thought out campaign slogan.
parkhyun
I remember about two decades of debating gay marriage. I also remember that during those decades, proponents of gay marriage repeatedly argued that (1) the right’s worries about this being a slippery slope were a total fantasy, and (2) gay marriage was necessary because gay people were born that way.
Now, immediately following the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage, we immediately have lurched into legal battles over civil rights for transgendered people. My questions are: (1) how is this not the slippery slope we insisted would not happen, and (2) doesn’t it undermine the “born that way” argument to then insist that a person who was NOT born female should have the same rights as women, because that person subjectively views himself as female?
I think lots of people are patting themselves on the back for being on the “right side of history” on this issue. That’s a premature assumption.
Chyron HR
@parkhyun:
Good news, there’s a political party that embraces your disgust and hatred of LGBT people.
It’s not this one.
Bye.
Mark B
@parkhyun: I don’t remember being ‘born this way’ being the sole argument for gay rights that anyone used. I think it was because gay people deserved basic civil rights because they are as human as anyone else, regardless of how their gayness came to be.
What’s the slippery slope? Once one group that you don’t understand and or respect gets basic human rights, all sorts of people that you don’t respect will become fully equal in the eyes of the law? That’s a bad thing?
parkhyun
Chyron HR,
1. Why do you assume I’m not gay, lesbian or bisexual?
2. Do you have answers to my questions?
3. If you do, why didn’t you merely respond to them?
4. Does having concerns about making gender identity a protected class mean one is a bigot?
5. Is there room in the Democratic party for liberals with concerns about enshrining gender identity as a protected class? If not, why?
6. Assuming I am a non-gay Republican bigot, is there any reason to avoid discussing this issue with me?
parkhyun
Mark B,
“Born this way” was one of the arguments, wasn’t it? You seem to imply that because it wasn’t the only argument, there’s no bad faith in ignoring it.
The “slippery slope” was, IIRC, a right- wing argument that, okay, there’s no harm in allowing gays and lesbians to marry, but the left will use it to push it’s social agenda forward. Good or bad, that is what’s happened, no?
Finally, you seem to imply that gender identity is a basic civil right. You also seem to imply that if I don’t agree with you, I must not understand or respect transgendered persons. Do you believe that the only reason to have concerns about making gender identity a protected class is bigotry?
NorthLeft12
@parkhyun: Being on the “right side of history” kinda means opposing bigotry and persecution and supporting everybody’s protection under the HUMAN rights that are supposed to be guaranteed for ALL.
But I will give you some small credit for recognizing, along with most RWNJs, that each individual battle for one group’s civil rights and equal treatment by the law and society, leads to another battle after that one has been won. It is a slippery slope and I am not surprised that Right Wingers stupidly and stubbornly resist each advancement. Thank Dog you lose everytime.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Which isn’t the same as what a lot of the bills are proposing. The bills want “birth gender”.
Chyron HR
@parkhyun:
Parkhyun;
That “Make America Great Again” hat looks very sharp on you.
Have a nice day.
NorthLeft12
@parkhyun: Please enlighten us as to why trans-gendered persons cause you such concern. Perhaps we have erred in assuming it is because you have some kind of irrational fear or hatred against them and you really do have logical and reasonable issues why these people should not be treated like all the other humans in society.
Keith G
@parkhyun: Regarding the slippery slope question: I guess it all depends if you’re willing to cast your intellectual faith with the medical and scientific communities. It is now considered the case that gender dysphoria is a real thing. Although, it impacts a very small percentage of the human population it is definitely part of the innate Human Condition.
Tell me now Mr. Hyunh, can there be a slippery slope when it comes to the extension of basic human rights?
There was a time in the history of the United States when one could find at all levels of government the notion that Asians living in this country deserved less regard than livestock.
That horrible prejudice had no place in our land. Now the prejudice that some are enacting against those with gender dysphoria also has no place in our land.
Mark B
Absolutely, it is. A hallmark of bigotry is that the bigot doesn’t believe their own bigotry is actually bigotry. There’s really nothing else to say.
Frankensteinbeck
@parkhyun:
1. Because it is very rare for LGBTs to attack their own side, and even the trans-exclusive assholes don’t do so with a framing that implicitly justifies bigotry in general.
2. Yes, as you can see.
3. Look up ‘sea lioning.’ You are doing it, and most people have learned that it is unproductive to meet this pretend courtesy with actual courtesy.
4. Yes. Almost by definition. You are pretending that discrimination is reasonable, which is bigotry.
5. No. The Republican Party has staked itself out as the party of bigotry. Liberalism heavily involves inclusion and human rights. The lines are clearly drawn.
6. Yes. See ‘sea lioning.’
BruceJ
@shoggoth: I refer the modern translation: “Moron Label”
parkhyun
It looks to me like this has proven my point.
I and millions of others spent two decades talking and reasoning with Americans opposed to gay marriage. We knew the arguments and took the time to change one person’s mind at a time. For that reason, gay marriage and gay rights will likely be a permanent part of American life.
In contrast, there has been no time taken trying to convince people that transgender rights are basic. Instead, those in favor of them (as seen here) immediately respond to skeptics with accusations of bigotry and jeering suggestions to vote for Trump, despite knowing how awful for this country a Trump victory would be.
For this reason, I doubt the transgender issue will be as successful or long-lasting as the victories for gay rights. There is no attempt to build consensus, and the approach is almost intentionally divisive. Please reconsider your methods.
Mark B
@Frankensteinbeck: Thanks for that:
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/873260-sea-lioning
Frankensteinbeck
@Mark B:
It’s ironic what argument sets the sea lioning off in that comic, but it is useful to have a term for asking offensive questions in a superficially polite way, with options for showing up out of nowhere, harassing persistence, and using other dishonest debate tactics while pretending that a polite tone means they are being polite.
Keith G
@parkhyun: What I need to know to understand the point you are making is this: Do you agree with the scientific and medical communities that what is sometimes casually referred to as transsexualism is a real way that some humans develop?
Either you do or you don’t. And the answer to that dictates how the discussion should proceed from here.
parkhyun
How can I politely disagree with someone about a social issue on a message board without being considered a sea-lion?
Belafon
@parkhyun: Which is not how things happened at all. Gays were prevented from marrying in a huge number of states, and the federal government allowed them to get away with it. What finally happened was that the SCOTUS finally said, hey, this is wrong, and shot them all down. A number of bigots are still screaming, but most people saw that it didn’t affect them, and let it go. I guarantee you that it will be real easy, if we get a conservative enough SCOTUS, for states like my Texas to reinstate the ban on gay marriage.
parkhyun
Keith G,
Absolutely! I genuinely believe that people can be born transsexual and that they deserve respect and dignity. I am very skeptical about enshrining gender identity as a protected class. I also do not think transgenderism is the equivalent of homosexuality or lesbianism. The latter only requires me to believe that a person’s attraction to those of the same gender is genuine. I do not believe -yet – that a biological male who seems himself as a woman should be treated as such, because that is literally untrue. I am open to convincing.
Unfortunately, the response here has been disappointing. People assume that my skepticism makes me a right-wing bigot, and when I ask for logic, I’m accused of “sea-lioning,” which sounds to me like an excuse to avoid any and all debate.
Davebo
Dan Patrick is a former local sports caster turned bankrupted restauranteur who raised enough cash to pick up a managing partner position in a small AM radio station about the time Limbaugh was hitting big.
In other words, irrelevant media type followed by failed business guy followed by pretty successful media guy riding Limbaugh’s coattails. He parlayed that, as well as some crafty “totally not illegal under election law” use of his airwaves (not his actually but that’s neither here nor there) to a state senate win.
He’s not an idiot, but he’s not exactly exceptional.
EZSmirkzz
@parkhyun: I recall more than four decades of this debate, having my opinion changed in the early nineties by a basketball coach who advanced the argument of physical differentiation of pituitary glands in male straights and gays. ( I also remember straight people having a different connotation for all those years as well.) This of course was the born that way argument.
Since you brought up the slippery slope of conservative’s, let’s go down the religious slippery slope of their argument, which condemns homosexuality, ala Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed before the Mosaic Law was announced, and anyone reading Ezekiel would have known were destroyed for reasons other than teh gays. Of course conservatives don’t like to discuss the reasons articulated in Ezekiel because it tends to describe them more than the men at the doorway to Lot’s house, (which is more related to the tale of Noah and the Nephelim,) than misuse of the procreative powers of mankind to make an image of the Living God. This disturbance of mankind’s place in the order of things led to the Septuagint translators to change the Scripture of Psalms which stated mankind was made just short of God to being made just short of angels. Obviously most conservatives Christians don’t want to tread down the path of the teachings of Gospels when considering the teachings of Paul on this matter either, as they are fundamental ignorant. AA has a wonderful saying in these matters, that when pointing a finger at some else we are invariably point three back at ourselves.
To answer your question, LGBT still stands for the same thing it has for all of these decades.
Where I think we differ with conservatives on the issue is they see things in a physical sense, whereas we liberals see it as a civil rights issue. It doesn’t matter how I feel about the sexual orientation and practices of other people, it is a fundamental human right to life, liberty and the pursuit of property, (or happiness as Mr. Jefferson revised it,) which is the crux of the matter. As I’ve stated before, I find it rather perverse to spend one’s time watching people in public toilets, especially for transgender people that have been using the same facilities in the same manner for centuries without accosting little girls and boys about their business.
Since, like many on the internet, you wish to speak in generalities it is impossible to speak to your concerns individually, but I hope this has helped you somewhat to understand how this one liberal has resolve the dilemma to his own satisfaction.
Peace.
Dog Dawg Damn
So glad to see the Mayors and School Councils of DFW stand against this bigot.
Dog Dawg Damn
@parkhyun:
Yes, the slippery slope argument turned out to be correct. Bakers making cakes. Mass polygamous marriages. Men marrying horses. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
It’s all come true.
Dog Dawg Damn
@parkhyun: Taking your argument in good faith, I would point out that your familiarity with the topic is rather shallow.
First, there is a large distinction between gender and sex. Regarding sex, a non-insignificant portion of the population is born neither male nor female–several variations actually. So it is not as if everyone is “either a male or female and that is that, case closed.”
Now, moving on to gender, surely you must agree that gender is a constructed social reality. Gender norms vary from culture to culture, and are enforced to varying degrees, but no one chooses to be born into the culture they are, and yet we get very strict gender norms forced upon them from a very, very young age. Even for cis people, this can be very traumatic, and I don’t see the transphobic people acknowledging that this process starts even before birth. It’s just rarely questioned.
Moving on to trans* people, the same leap of faith you must take to believe that gay people have a genuine attraction is required. If some people are coming to you and telling you that they have an overwhelming, innate, deep-seated sincere feeling that their gender identity is at odds with their biological sex, who the fuck are you to say they are mistaken? (This is the ‘born this way’ on steroids, because it doesn’t have to be from birth, even though society’s traumatic gender norming begins there.) Given that science, psychology, social science points to this phenomenon being just as they describe it, then they deserve protected class status for precisely the same reason women and gays do–namely, they are an extreme minority, lack political power and access, and have been discriminated against for quite some time, for a characteristic they have no control over. Fortunately “whether commenter on internet thinks some class deserves protection” isn’t the standard. Did you know that “illegitimacy ” is a protected class under Constitutional law? It receives the same level of scrutiny (nearly) as sex and sexual orientation? Did they run that one by you first? Lol.
So there you go. Get educated.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@parkhyun: I know, right? Slippery slopes, indeed. Some western states let women vote, and then the next thing you know, the whole country’s involved in the controversy. Free the slaves, and the next thing you know, THEY’RE trying to vote, and trying to pretend like they’re more than 3/5 of a person. Then you let Native Americans vote, and the next thing you know (ca. 1970’s) we’re making it legal for them to even practice their barbaric, non-Christian religions in public. Now we’ve let the danged lesbosexuals gaymarry each other, and now we have to put up with transpeople thinking that they’re human being with rights like other people. That’s some insightful commentary, there!
Next thing you know, “human being” will be a protected class under the law.
As for your “questions”, let me respond in order:
1. I assume you’re not gay, lesbian, or bisexual, because you’re speaking from a place of obvious heteronormative privilege. One doesn’t normally have to explain to people who have personally experienced bigotry why enshrining said bigotry into law is a bad idea.
2. I’m providing answers to your question right now, you fatuous, rectal-headed twit.
3. See above entry.
4. Yes, having concerns about making gender identity a protected class means one is a bigot.
5. I don’t speak for the Democratic party, but for my own part, you and any other “liberals with concerns about enshrining gender identity as a protected class” are welcome to die in a collective fire.
6. Assuming you are a non-gay Republican bigot, I’m not avoiding discussing the issue with you. But I won’t be pursuing this further, because the facts that would more than serve to enlighten your ignorance are so pervasively available that only willful disregard could excuse your current ignorance.
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: I think the people proposing them are just ignorant about all the shades of difference here: “birth gender”, sex chromosomes, external genitalia, hormone levels, personal feelings, appearance, pronouns, the law… these all give different classifications from one another, and it’s no good arguing that they’re the same 98% of the time because we’re talking about the rest.
parkhyun
Dog Dawg Damn,
Yeah, their slippery-slope arguments appeared to me to be totally ridiculous at the time. That said, I think it’s totally ridiculous to view as a fundamental civil right allowing people of the opposite gender to use others’ restrooms, but only if they see themselves as another gender, to be also ridiculous.
So here is the issue: I don’t see any problem with schools or businesses creating any-gender restrooms, and I don’t want to endorse fear or hatred of people who happen to genuinely see themselves as being of another gender, but it is simply logically, physically true that they are not the other gender. Therefore it feels Orwellian to imply that I’m bigoted or hateful when I say, “I know he genuinely thinks he’s a woman, but he is literally a man.”
If that is wrong, is every form of gender segregation wrong? Should a transgender person who genuinely sees himself as female be allowed to compete in women’s sports? Get funds from Emily’s List? Sue for gender discrimination? If not, what is the difference between those things and using a bathroom designated for women only?
Maybe I am horribly bigoted. Help me understand.
The Other Chuck
@parkhyun: So how many decades should trans people wait for their rights? What acceptable tone should they take while petitioning for them? If you don’t recognize that tired old argument, no wonder you’re not recognizing the source of the vitriol directed at you.
Although … “sea lioning”? This isn’t Daily Kos folks, let’s drop the tribal jargon.
Dog Dawg Damn
@parkhyun: You have yet to understand the distinction between gender and sex. You keep conflating the two.
Gender is constructed identity. Sex is chromosonal and biological.
No one is allowing people to use bathrooms of the opposite gender. These are people for whom their gender identity matches the bathroom even though their sex (which in 90% of cases or more, will not be ascertainable to you) may be at odds with it.
Have you even met a trans*man? Ever? Do you want a big burly, deep-voiced bearded hillbilly to be in the bathroom with little girls? His gender is certainly male. Maybe he has a vagina, but so what? Do women inspect each others’ genitalia in the bathroom? I’m pretty sure that’s something only men do.
Furthermore, what is the enforcement mechanism? This is just madness. A “solution” in search of a problem.
Dog Dawg Damn
You do realize that many (most) trans people pass? And that you are asking them to out themselves every time they need to take a tinkle, even though it doesn’t harm anyone if they use the bathroom that matches their gender?
Why do you want to elevate the “comfort” of people against the safety of others? Trans people are subject to high rates of abuse, violence, murder, and hate crimes. There has not been one case of a trans person abusing anyone in a bathroom. So you are saying basically that the comfort of some people is more important than the physical safety of an entire group.
parkhyun
DDD,
I don’t think I’m conflating. I just disagree. I’m not convinced gender is socially constructed.
I never thought I’d say this, but I think Nicky Haley had a point: no one’s complaining. For those who genuinely appear to be of the opposite gender, I and most other non-transgendered people probably will never notice, nor care, that they’re in the “wrong” bathroom. The bathroom laws are silly.
Keith G
@parkhyun: I also took a bit of time to become comfortable with this topic. For some that might seem a bit strange since I am gay. To be honest several decades ago I was being selfish. I figured I had enough problem trying to get society to understand who and what I was without the added drama of the transexual issue.
I just didn’t understand the medical ideas which were evolving at that time. Once I came to understand that if one is truly dealing with gender dysphoria it is not about choice; it’s not about what they would like or what they would want to be. In the lottery that is genetics it seems that a very small number of human beings are given emotional programming (ed. It would be more correct to say gender programming) that does not match the physical body that are given.
Still, they are my fellow human beings and my fellow citizens. If their best potential self will only be achieved by transitioning to the other gender, then I fail to see how it is not their basic human and even civil right to do so.
My view of Human Rights, one that I believe is shared by many, is that they are not negotiable.
Dog Dawg Damn
@parkhyun:
A baffling statement. Like saying the sky isn’t above our heads.
Good day.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@parkhyun: See Native American cultures. Thousands of years of accommodation of trans, gay, bisexual, and lesbian individuals without social chaos or gender anxiety, simply achieved through the virtue of having multiple gender categories and allowing individuals to declare for themselves which gender(s) they belong to. Try looking up “berdache”, “two-spirits”, “winkte”, “lhamanas”, etc. Or you could familiarize yourself with the biographies of individuals such as “Wewha”, who, in addition to being a trans person, was a Native American ambassador to Washington during the presidency of Grover Cleveland. Human history is replete with examples of cultures that define(d) gender as consisting of more than two genitally determined sexes.
parkhyun
Keith G,
Understood! Human rights are not negotiable, but whether something is a right and how it should be enshrined into law must be debated.
I haven’t seen any response to my questions about womens’ sports, Emily’s List or gender protections. These are all complexities that simply did not exist in the gay marriage debate. “If you don’t agree with gay marriage, don’t get one” was a good line, but I don’t see the same logic in, “if you don’t agree that a transgendered person should be legally treated as the gender of his or her choice, tough shit.”
I think it’s error to liken gay rights with transgender rights.
parkhyun
Reverend Crimson,
Thanks for the recommendations, I’ll look them up.
My thinking is that the gender-or-sex issue is a distinction without a difference. Many cultures may have had very different attitudes towards sexual and gender, but there are physical, hormonal, chromosonal and anatomical realities that form the basis for current gender-sex legal protections. It seems to me that adding a person’s subjective belief to those protections will result in laws that are overly broad.
Remember the NAACP head who turned out to be white? We all laughed at her, and she said, “race is more complicated than that.” Was she right? Isn’t race socially constructed? If so, should she have the right to be considered black? Should she have been able to qualify for affirmative action policies?
You may see that as apples and oranges, but can you understand why I and others may see the issues as similar?
Dog Dawg Damn
But you’re posing the same hypotheticals that haven’t actually caused any problems.
If you cared about the subject, you wouldn’t even ask these inane questions.
Sports–trans people already play sports with their respective gender. (That means transmen with cismen and transwomen with ciswomen.) It’s not been a problem. Will this result in some rule-making necessary for higher eschelon sports, the Olympics, say? Sure. But we don’t balk at civil rights just because rule-making might be necessitated.
Emily’s List–what the fuck is this about? Emily’s list is a stupid coupon sharing website that has gone down the tubes. Please tell me why a stupid website is a reason to not protect the civil rights of everyone.
But I’ll use a legally formalistic argument, because that often appeals to more conservative persons.
Gender and sex are already protected categories. If a biological male can chose to shroud himself in the architecture of the male gender, then a biological female should be allowed the same exact right. Case closed.
And yes, there is an element of “tough shit”. Once again, the comfort of those who are sorely uneducated on the subject cannot come before the daily (daily, hourly, down to the minute) realities of the people living as trans in a world that can be quite hostile.
When you can come up with one example of a cis person posing as trans for any sort of strategic advantage (which is what these stupid hypotheticals come down to), then get back to us. Until then, educate yourself on the realities as they are, not fanciful hypotheticals carefully designed to deny people their civil rights.
Keith G
@parkhyun: In regard to this issue, sports is interesting topic. The idea of athletic participation is also secondary to the Civil Rights issue I am concerned about. All folks regardless of gender identity need to be able to feel safe and secure as they are going about their routines of their day. We need to do that first and then worry about secondary effects later.
I think that there will need to be a serious study about the impacts of transitioned athletes in competitive sports. I just don’t think we have enough information to make wise decisions yet.
None the less, that issue is not a reason why more important human rights topics aren’t dealt with first.
J R in WV
@parkhyun: There is a former high school women’s swim team member (and record setter) who is now swimming for his (Ivy league) university’s men’s swim team. He isn’t breaking men’s records, but he is swimming for the team he identifies with. He would rather be placing rather than winning.
He had his breasts removed, and swims with those scars showing at every meet.
You still dubious about how serious we should take this? Then I have nothing further to say, other than to ask you to go away, please, back to wherever you came from.
Chris T.
@Keith G: The slope may or may not be slippery, but it goes the other way. We’re trudging up the hill (or Hill), not sliding down it.