Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On the other hand most women would probably feel differently about someone who is 40 years old, 120kg weight, transgender lesbian, without single medical procedure, with massive erection starring and salivating for half an hour(totally made up situation for comparison purpose).
Pretty sure I would also be uncomfortable in that situation, and I'm not a woman. Your hypothetical isn't an issue of 'wrong gender using wrong bathroom', it's an issue of a genuinely weird / scary person being, well, weird and scary. It has literally nothing to do with transgenders.
edit re: your links: I'm not a fan of pride days/months/whatevers and I find many LGBTQ 'events' crass and unpleasant to be around. Nevertheless, I'd easily take a bunch of merry people with facepaint and body glitter in various states of near-nakedness over folks decorated with swastikas and balaclavas throwing siegheils around. The fact that you think the two are anywhere remotely comparable is rather disturbing, in fact.
On July 03 2023 20:31 Harris1st wrote: I didn't follow the whole discussion (just this last page) but it peaked my interest.
Bathroom: If you want to keep the current split you can either do it by genitalia or by definition. You could open a third (forth? fifth?) bathroon category but who is allowed there? Also this is the most complicated and expensive solution from a building/ engineering pov. Or you could just do unisex, scratch the urinals and do all stalls from floor to ceiling
Sports: No idea. Basically every solution I could come up on the spot will be wrong for somebody. Curious about your opinions
You can't split bathrooms by genitalia. You never could, it's never been done, and you never can. Why not? Because it would require everyone to show their genitalia to some authority figure to confirm that they have the "correct" genitalia, and that's considered unethical and a waste of time. For as much as some people believe that genitalia (or chromosomes) make deciding these categories easier, the reality is that you have absolutely no idea what 99.9999% of strangers' genitalia or chromosomes are.
I actually think it's the opposite as long as you can see the person. 99% of people are obviously male or female. The number of people where this is not obvious is a small minority.
That's just circular reasoning (or reasoning based on other characteristics) though. They're male because you assume they're male (or conclude it using other traits), not because you actually know what their genitalia or chromosomes are. Therefore, I wouldn't say the bathroom splitting is truly based on genitalia or chromosomes. I think that actually gets to the heart of what people use as determining factors for male gender (and sometimes the sex of a man), in practical everyday scenarios: Do they "pass" / fit the preconceived mold and schema of what one "typically" looks like. It's not about having a penis, because people won't check, but rather, do you appear like the type of person who has a penis. And can that classification broaden in certain ways (maybe men might dress or look or act a little more diversely than how they used to, maybe it's about more than just having a penis or XY chromosomes), to help shape more inclusive or less restrictive working definitions of gender and sexuality.
For example, putting genitalia aside for a moment since you won't know their genitalia, suppose there are 10 characteristics that you use when assessing whether or not you think a person looks like they're male (facial hair, height, weight, clothing, etc.), when you pass them briefly on the street. And let's suppose that if they tick off 5/10 of those boxes, then you assume they're male (not that you need to assume they're anything, but still). Perhaps, then, we learn over time that actually a lower bound of 4/10 or even 3/10 (not the higher bar of 5/10) ends up including more people who identify as male, and that we learn that there's even more overlap in terms of gender and some of these 10 characteristics aren't particularly telling anymore.
On July 03 2023 23:24 Silvanel wrote: I was about to say something similar. There are people who 100% feel and look male/female while: -have no visible genitalia -have underdeveloped/damaged genitalia -have both sets of genitalia (though I think in most countries one those is being removed at birth or very early)
Gender is not only about genitalia. Our gender related growth/differentiation (hormones etc.) affect all our bodies, including our brains.
I agree with this. It seems to not be the case that we split up the bathroom based on genitalia, but rather, a series of other characteristics that we group together to categorize as the kind of people who ought to walk into the men's room, and the kind of people who ought to walk into the women's room.
On July 03 2023 23:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: I think 'can't know for certain' is more precise than 'have absolutely no idea', because indeed, I'm guessing if you make me guess the genitalia of 1000 randomly selected adults I'm getting 990+ correct, at least in norway. But I'd most likely only be completely certain of between 0 and 1 of them.
You're right. My phrasing with regards to that should have been more careful. I didn't need to say "absolutely no idea" to simply get the point across that someone doesn't actually check everyone's genitalia for bathroom access. Other gender-based/sexual characteristics may have a relatively strong correlation to genitalia, but (perhaps pedantically, semantically) I wouldn't necessarily say that's sufficient to say bathrooms are split by genitalia.
On July 04 2023 01:51 Razyda wrote: Somewhat off topic - considering sports events, or concerts I think you just invented worst job ever
Nothing ironic about that, because it's quite obvious that Plasmid was talking about what the future might look like and where things are heading in her opinion, not that there are trans people being queued up for gas chambers right here and now. Also, who cares? It's one post from one person a year ago, but I guess that invalidates literally anything anyone could say on the topic now because LiBeRaL CrYbAbIeS aLwAyS ExAgGeRaTe EvErYtHiNg MeAnWhIlE SaN FrAnCiScO iS LiTeRaLLy BuRnInG RiGhT NoW.
What do you mean who cares? MP said I made something up so I posted something to the contrary. Are you throwing a tantrum because I didn’t just concede that I was making it up?
I mean that quite literally. Who cares? People exaggerate shit, people use imprecise wording, people get emotional when discussing topics that are important to them. It happens, and it's alright, spending dozens of posts bickering whether something falls under this specific definition or not -- when you full well understand what the person is saying regardless of whether the words or expressions they used were 'right' or not -- is tedious and serves no purpose whatsoever.
It's not a non-issue how you talk about these things. How are you ever going to have a constructive discussion about the situation of trans people if you let any absurd exaggerations pass? And then when someone exposes the lies and exaggerations YOU bicker for ten pages about it. If anyone of you actually wanted a conversation in good faith, your response would be something like: "Sure, BJ, there are no kidnappings of trans children, we are not in the beginning of a genocidal campaign, but I think X Y Z are real problems that need to be addressed."
More to this point, and in an interest of moving away from holocaust discussion, here’s a video of a senate hearing a couple weeks ago on the rights of LGBTQ people.
The Human Rights Campaign President gives super vague answers on what gender even means, saying at some point something like “young people are exploring all kids of ideas about gender and it’s our job to create a safe space for them to do so” (paraphrasing from memory). Ok… the idea that we’re taking direction from young peoples rapidly evolving thoughts on gender seems a bit anti-science… then she goes on to basically evade the simple biological truth that males have advantage over female in sports by giving non answers like Serena Williams could beat a geriatric man in Tennis.”
Really throws some sand in MP’s opinion that people on the left want to have a reasonable conversation about MTF athletes in sports and people on the right just want to shut it down. How is having a reasonable conversation refusing to even acknowledge that men have an advantage over women in sports? I’m going to go out a limb by saying people will defend this by suggesting Anthony Kennedy was trying to get her with a “gotcha” question, he’s arguing in bad faith, etc. all the usual suspects. What I would say is that if acknowledging a simple scientific fact is considered a “gotcha” then the entire foundation of your argument is flawed.
I don't really care about discussing a YouTube video, nor about MP's opinion. I think at this point if you want to genuinely discuss issues relating to trans people, it's best if you just give a more detailed description of what you yourself think, rather than what is problematic about what other people think. Like, we can agree that there's been a growing number of people experiencing gender incongruity over the past decade. How do we best address that?
Full disclosure it's not really a topic I myself care about, as I think it's mostly an issue of a) let medical professionals handle it and b) I'm just gonna be respectful and treat people how they want to be treated. I honestly think you are on board with b), but I have the impression from earlier posts that you might, at least in the US, think that the American medical community is not entirely trustworthy on the issue / that desire for profit might in your view trump what is best for the patient in question?
Thanks for asking. I guess I’ll add my thoughts on a few “trans issues”
Gender-affirming care
Obviously no sane person would oppose gender affirming care for adults so this is going to be about minors. While I don’t think the medical establishment is infallible (can cite many examples) I think they are still the best ones to make decisions on gender affirming care than politicians. Ultimately you need 3 parties consent here for any intervention, child, parent, and doctor. I don’t think parental rights are limitless but I generally yield to them vs the opinions of politicians. Whether a child ends up with regret may be tragic, sometimes that’s just life
Of course that simply means the medical establishment should call the shots, it doesn’t say what shots I think should be called. For example the medical establishment in America recommends gender affirming care for minors and the medical establishment in Finland/Sweden recommend against it. I don’t think the medical establishment in Finland/Sweden is full of bigots and transphobes and I obviously share some of their concerns e.g the unexplained rise in prevalence of gender dysphoria in female adolescents and rigorous evidence that shows the benefits outweighs the risks. I’ve posted before in this thread about social contagion. I think most people here believe that trans people are “born that way.” I tend to believe most things are a combination of nature vs nurture and it’s only for controversial topics that people will adopt this “it’s entirely genetic” or “it’s entirely environmental” dogma that hasn’t been proven.
In general I think gender affirming care is not something that should be immediately adopted. I’m also not familiar enough to know if it is or not. I don’t think a boy goes to a therapist for the first time and says “I’m a girl and my name is Susan” and the doctor says “Hi Susan.” I would hope there would be some “interesting… well why do you feel that way” beforehand. But ultimately it may be the judgement of the doctor and the parent that it’s not a phase they will grow out of and gender affirming care may be necessary. So I would say generally I think there should be a line drawn between reversible and irreversible interventions. E.g. role playing and puberty blockers as reversible. There’s some evidence that puberty blockers transitioned into hormone therapy in teenagers causes infertility, and I don’t really think anyone should be having top/bottom surgery before 18.
Transgender women in supports
This is anecdotal but most transgender women I meet are not athletes. They are definitely not elite athletes. I also think there’s a gap between men and women in sports, and not a small one. Often high school level boys can compete with professional women at the top levels. I also think Rayzda is right that without protections over time most world records would belong to MTF athletes. I also think most reasonable people agree this is unfair. I think most people think there should be some protections in place. For example to be a transgendered woman there are no requirements other than proclaiming yourself to be a transgender woman. I think if a male athlete just proclaimed themselves to be a transgender woman and wanted to race the next day against women most people would opposed this.
In short, a blanket ban on all MTF athletes doesn’t make sense because for the vast majority of the less talented athletes it accomplishes nothing in protect women’s sports and only excludes transgender athletes needlessly. Obviously there’s a small percent of cases where there is an obvious advantage that allows them to dominate and become champions and they are the few that should be excluded.
Bathroom bans
Just political theater in my opinion. People don’t go into the wrong bathrooms not because it’s the law but because that’s what societal norms dictate. I’m not aware of this being a problem and if it becomes a problem then you can worry about legislating it.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on these issues, and I think I agree with more of what you’ve written than the amount I disagree.
Question for you: Let's assume that a pediatrician actually does their due diligence (conversation with a minor, etc.) and supports an introduction to gender-affirming care for a child (respecting pronouns, advocating dressing differently / whatever is comfortable for the kid, not anything as drastic as hormone treatment or surgery). Let's say the MtF child is 12 years old, just to pick an age. So the kid wants it and the doctor condones it, but assume the parents are very much against validating their trans kid. In other words, it's basically the trans kid + doctor vs. the parents. I know there's no perfect solution to this scenario, but what do you think should happen / what would you hope happens?
Parents trump the doctor in that scenario. There are cases where the state can intercede, e.g. a kid has appendicitis and the parents don’t believe in treatment, but I don’t think this is one of them. Wait until you’re 18 and you can do what you want.
Can you please elaborate more on what "parents trump the doctor" actually looks like, in that scenario? Should the doctor tell the trans kid to listen to the parents and suppress being MtF? Remember, this is just about "simple" gender-affirming care like wearing different clothes and acting differently, not anything like hormone treatment or surgery.
Nothing ironic about that, because it's quite obvious that Plasmid was talking about what the future might look like and where things are heading in her opinion, not that there are trans people being queued up for gas chambers right here and now. Also, who cares? It's one post from one person a year ago, but I guess that invalidates literally anything anyone could say on the topic now because LiBeRaL CrYbAbIeS aLwAyS ExAgGeRaTe EvErYtHiNg MeAnWhIlE SaN FrAnCiScO iS LiTeRaLLy BuRnInG RiGhT NoW.
What do you mean who cares? MP said I made something up so I posted something to the contrary. Are you throwing a tantrum because I didn’t just concede that I was making it up?
I mean that quite literally. Who cares? People exaggerate shit, people use imprecise wording, people get emotional when discussing topics that are important to them. It happens, and it's alright, spending dozens of posts bickering whether something falls under this specific definition or not -- when you full well understand what the person is saying regardless of whether the words or expressions they used were 'right' or not -- is tedious and serves no purpose whatsoever.
It's not a non-issue how you talk about these things. How are you ever going to have a constructive discussion about the situation of trans people if you let any absurd exaggerations pass? And then when someone exposes the lies and exaggerations YOU bicker for ten pages about it. If anyone of you actually wanted a conversation in good faith, your response would be something like: "Sure, BJ, there are no kidnappings of trans children, we are not in the beginning of a genocidal campaign, but I think X Y Z are real problems that need to be addressed."
More to this point, and in an interest of moving away from holocaust discussion, here’s a video of a senate hearing a couple weeks ago on the rights of LGBTQ people.
The Human Rights Campaign President gives super vague answers on what gender even means, saying at some point something like “young people are exploring all kids of ideas about gender and it’s our job to create a safe space for them to do so” (paraphrasing from memory). Ok… the idea that we’re taking direction from young peoples rapidly evolving thoughts on gender seems a bit anti-science… then she goes on to basically evade the simple biological truth that males have advantage over female in sports by giving non answers like Serena Williams could beat a geriatric man in Tennis.”
Really throws some sand in MP’s opinion that people on the left want to have a reasonable conversation about MTF athletes in sports and people on the right just want to shut it down. How is having a reasonable conversation refusing to even acknowledge that men have an advantage over women in sports? I’m going to go out a limb by saying people will defend this by suggesting Anthony Kennedy was trying to get her with a “gotcha” question, he’s arguing in bad faith, etc. all the usual suspects. What I would say is that if acknowledging a simple scientific fact is considered a “gotcha” then the entire foundation of your argument is flawed.
I don't really care about discussing a YouTube video, nor about MP's opinion. I think at this point if you want to genuinely discuss issues relating to trans people, it's best if you just give a more detailed description of what you yourself think, rather than what is problematic about what other people think. Like, we can agree that there's been a growing number of people experiencing gender incongruity over the past decade. How do we best address that?
Full disclosure it's not really a topic I myself care about, as I think it's mostly an issue of a) let medical professionals handle it and b) I'm just gonna be respectful and treat people how they want to be treated. I honestly think you are on board with b), but I have the impression from earlier posts that you might, at least in the US, think that the American medical community is not entirely trustworthy on the issue / that desire for profit might in your view trump what is best for the patient in question?
Thanks for asking. I guess I’ll add my thoughts on a few “trans issues”
Gender-affirming care
Obviously no sane person would oppose gender affirming care for adults so this is going to be about minors. While I don’t think the medical establishment is infallible (can cite many examples) I think they are still the best ones to make decisions on gender affirming care than politicians. Ultimately you need 3 parties consent here for any intervention, child, parent, and doctor. I don’t think parental rights are limitless but I generally yield to them vs the opinions of politicians. Whether a child ends up with regret may be tragic, sometimes that’s just life
Of course that simply means the medical establishment should call the shots, it doesn’t say what shots I think should be called. For example the medical establishment in America recommends gender affirming care for minors and the medical establishment in Finland/Sweden recommend against it. I don’t think the medical establishment in Finland/Sweden is full of bigots and transphobes and I obviously share some of their concerns e.g the unexplained rise in prevalence of gender dysphoria in female adolescents and rigorous evidence that shows the benefits outweighs the risks. I’ve posted before in this thread about social contagion. I think most people here believe that trans people are “born that way.” I tend to believe most things are a combination of nature vs nurture and it’s only for controversial topics that people will adopt this “it’s entirely genetic” or “it’s entirely environmental” dogma that hasn’t been proven.
In general I think gender affirming care is not something that should be immediately adopted. I’m also not familiar enough to know if it is or not. I don’t think a boy goes to a therapist for the first time and says “I’m a girl and my name is Susan” and the doctor says “Hi Susan.” I would hope there would be some “interesting… well why do you feel that way” beforehand. But ultimately it may be the judgement of the doctor and the parent that it’s not a phase they will grow out of and gender affirming care may be necessary. So I would say generally I think there should be a line drawn between reversible and irreversible interventions. E.g. role playing and puberty blockers as reversible. There’s some evidence that puberty blockers transitioned into hormone therapy in teenagers causes infertility, and I don’t really think anyone should be having top/bottom surgery before 18.
Transgender women in supports
This is anecdotal but most transgender women I meet are not athletes. They are definitely not elite athletes. I also think there’s a gap between men and women in sports, and not a small one. Often high school level boys can compete with professional women at the top levels. I also think Rayzda is right that without protections over time most world records would belong to MTF athletes. I also think most reasonable people agree this is unfair. I think most people think there should be some protections in place. For example to be a transgendered woman there are no requirements other than proclaiming yourself to be a transgender woman. I think if a male athlete just proclaimed themselves to be a transgender woman and wanted to race the next day against women most people would opposed this.
In short, a blanket ban on all MTF athletes doesn’t make sense because for the vast majority of the less talented athletes it accomplishes nothing in protect women’s sports and only excludes transgender athletes needlessly. Obviously there’s a small percent of cases where there is an obvious advantage that allows them to dominate and become champions and they are the few that should be excluded.
Bathroom bans
Just political theater in my opinion. People don’t go into the wrong bathrooms not because it’s the law but because that’s what societal norms dictate. I’m not aware of this being a problem and if it becomes a problem then you can worry about legislating it.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on these issues, and I think I agree with more of what you’ve written than the amount I disagree.
Question for you: Let's assume that a pediatrician actually does their due diligence (conversation with a minor, etc.) and supports an introduction to gender-affirming care for a child (respecting pronouns, advocating dressing differently / whatever is comfortable for the kid, not anything as drastic as hormone treatment or surgery). Let's say the MtF child is 12 years old, just to pick an age. So the kid wants it and the doctor condones it, but assume the parents are very much against validating their trans kid. In other words, it's basically the trans kid + doctor vs. the parents. I know there's no perfect solution to this scenario, but what do you think should happen / what would you hope happens?
Parents trump the doctor in that scenario. There are cases where the state can intercede, e.g. a kid has appendicitis and the parents don’t believe in treatment, but I don’t think this is one of them. Wait until you’re 18 and you can do what you want.
Can you please elaborate more on what "parents trump the doctor" actually looks like, in that scenario? Should the doctor tell the trans kid to listen to the parents and suppress being MtF? Remember, this is just about "simple" gender-affirming care like wearing different clothes and acting differently, not anything like hormone treatment or surgery.
I think it is just a reality of the situation. If parents think X and doctor says Y that the parents don't like, the parents are probably heading to another doctor that says X, or at least not doing Y no matter what the doctor says. And you cannot really force them to. See vaccinations for example.
What do you mean who cares? MP said I made something up so I posted something to the contrary. Are you throwing a tantrum because I didn’t just concede that I was making it up?
I mean that quite literally. Who cares? People exaggerate shit, people use imprecise wording, people get emotional when discussing topics that are important to them. It happens, and it's alright, spending dozens of posts bickering whether something falls under this specific definition or not -- when you full well understand what the person is saying regardless of whether the words or expressions they used were 'right' or not -- is tedious and serves no purpose whatsoever.
It's not a non-issue how you talk about these things. How are you ever going to have a constructive discussion about the situation of trans people if you let any absurd exaggerations pass? And then when someone exposes the lies and exaggerations YOU bicker for ten pages about it. If anyone of you actually wanted a conversation in good faith, your response would be something like: "Sure, BJ, there are no kidnappings of trans children, we are not in the beginning of a genocidal campaign, but I think X Y Z are real problems that need to be addressed."
More to this point, and in an interest of moving away from holocaust discussion, here’s a video of a senate hearing a couple weeks ago on the rights of LGBTQ people.
The Human Rights Campaign President gives super vague answers on what gender even means, saying at some point something like “young people are exploring all kids of ideas about gender and it’s our job to create a safe space for them to do so” (paraphrasing from memory). Ok… the idea that we’re taking direction from young peoples rapidly evolving thoughts on gender seems a bit anti-science… then she goes on to basically evade the simple biological truth that males have advantage over female in sports by giving non answers like Serena Williams could beat a geriatric man in Tennis.”
Really throws some sand in MP’s opinion that people on the left want to have a reasonable conversation about MTF athletes in sports and people on the right just want to shut it down. How is having a reasonable conversation refusing to even acknowledge that men have an advantage over women in sports? I’m going to go out a limb by saying people will defend this by suggesting Anthony Kennedy was trying to get her with a “gotcha” question, he’s arguing in bad faith, etc. all the usual suspects. What I would say is that if acknowledging a simple scientific fact is considered a “gotcha” then the entire foundation of your argument is flawed.
I don't really care about discussing a YouTube video, nor about MP's opinion. I think at this point if you want to genuinely discuss issues relating to trans people, it's best if you just give a more detailed description of what you yourself think, rather than what is problematic about what other people think. Like, we can agree that there's been a growing number of people experiencing gender incongruity over the past decade. How do we best address that?
Full disclosure it's not really a topic I myself care about, as I think it's mostly an issue of a) let medical professionals handle it and b) I'm just gonna be respectful and treat people how they want to be treated. I honestly think you are on board with b), but I have the impression from earlier posts that you might, at least in the US, think that the American medical community is not entirely trustworthy on the issue / that desire for profit might in your view trump what is best for the patient in question?
Thanks for asking. I guess I’ll add my thoughts on a few “trans issues”
Gender-affirming care
Obviously no sane person would oppose gender affirming care for adults so this is going to be about minors. While I don’t think the medical establishment is infallible (can cite many examples) I think they are still the best ones to make decisions on gender affirming care than politicians. Ultimately you need 3 parties consent here for any intervention, child, parent, and doctor. I don’t think parental rights are limitless but I generally yield to them vs the opinions of politicians. Whether a child ends up with regret may be tragic, sometimes that’s just life
Of course that simply means the medical establishment should call the shots, it doesn’t say what shots I think should be called. For example the medical establishment in America recommends gender affirming care for minors and the medical establishment in Finland/Sweden recommend against it. I don’t think the medical establishment in Finland/Sweden is full of bigots and transphobes and I obviously share some of their concerns e.g the unexplained rise in prevalence of gender dysphoria in female adolescents and rigorous evidence that shows the benefits outweighs the risks. I’ve posted before in this thread about social contagion. I think most people here believe that trans people are “born that way.” I tend to believe most things are a combination of nature vs nurture and it’s only for controversial topics that people will adopt this “it’s entirely genetic” or “it’s entirely environmental” dogma that hasn’t been proven.
In general I think gender affirming care is not something that should be immediately adopted. I’m also not familiar enough to know if it is or not. I don’t think a boy goes to a therapist for the first time and says “I’m a girl and my name is Susan” and the doctor says “Hi Susan.” I would hope there would be some “interesting… well why do you feel that way” beforehand. But ultimately it may be the judgement of the doctor and the parent that it’s not a phase they will grow out of and gender affirming care may be necessary. So I would say generally I think there should be a line drawn between reversible and irreversible interventions. E.g. role playing and puberty blockers as reversible. There’s some evidence that puberty blockers transitioned into hormone therapy in teenagers causes infertility, and I don’t really think anyone should be having top/bottom surgery before 18.
Transgender women in supports
This is anecdotal but most transgender women I meet are not athletes. They are definitely not elite athletes. I also think there’s a gap between men and women in sports, and not a small one. Often high school level boys can compete with professional women at the top levels. I also think Rayzda is right that without protections over time most world records would belong to MTF athletes. I also think most reasonable people agree this is unfair. I think most people think there should be some protections in place. For example to be a transgendered woman there are no requirements other than proclaiming yourself to be a transgender woman. I think if a male athlete just proclaimed themselves to be a transgender woman and wanted to race the next day against women most people would opposed this.
In short, a blanket ban on all MTF athletes doesn’t make sense because for the vast majority of the less talented athletes it accomplishes nothing in protect women’s sports and only excludes transgender athletes needlessly. Obviously there’s a small percent of cases where there is an obvious advantage that allows them to dominate and become champions and they are the few that should be excluded.
Bathroom bans
Just political theater in my opinion. People don’t go into the wrong bathrooms not because it’s the law but because that’s what societal norms dictate. I’m not aware of this being a problem and if it becomes a problem then you can worry about legislating it.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on these issues, and I think I agree with more of what you’ve written than the amount I disagree.
Question for you: Let's assume that a pediatrician actually does their due diligence (conversation with a minor, etc.) and supports an introduction to gender-affirming care for a child (respecting pronouns, advocating dressing differently / whatever is comfortable for the kid, not anything as drastic as hormone treatment or surgery). Let's say the MtF child is 12 years old, just to pick an age. So the kid wants it and the doctor condones it, but assume the parents are very much against validating their trans kid. In other words, it's basically the trans kid + doctor vs. the parents. I know there's no perfect solution to this scenario, but what do you think should happen / what would you hope happens?
Parents trump the doctor in that scenario. There are cases where the state can intercede, e.g. a kid has appendicitis and the parents don’t believe in treatment, but I don’t think this is one of them. Wait until you’re 18 and you can do what you want.
Can you please elaborate more on what "parents trump the doctor" actually looks like, in that scenario? Should the doctor tell the trans kid to listen to the parents and suppress being MtF? Remember, this is just about "simple" gender-affirming care like wearing different clothes and acting differently, not anything like hormone treatment or surgery.
I think it is just a reality of the situation. If parents think X and doctor says Y that the parents don't like, the parents are probably heading to another doctor that says X, or at least not doing Y no matter what the doctor says. And you cannot really force them to. See vaccinations for example.
I agree that that would probably happen, but my original questions were "what do you think should happen / what would you hope happens?" As in, if you were able to shape the conversation and perhaps have the final say as a puppet master in charge, rather than predict what would probably happen in most of these cases.
On July 04 2023 02:13 BlackJack wrote: @Rayzda yes, I forgot to mention that the other caveat for MTF athletes competing in women’s sports besides them not being allowed to win is that there needs to be locker room accommodations made for women that may not feel comfortable undressing in front of someone with a penis.
Can't anyone feel uncomfortable undressing in front of anyone, though? It's not like having a penis means you're going to harass or abuse someone with a vagina, and if you feel uncomfortable because you see a penis or a vagina then you could also just stop looking at it. Cis-women could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of trans-women... or other cis-women... or men... or non-binary people. Straight men could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of gay men or other straight men. Why not just allow locker rooms to have changing stalls with locked doors, similar to fitting rooms at clothing stores, so that anyone who wants privacy while changing can have it? Pretty much every department store I've shopped at has a single, unisex fitting area, rather than a "men's only" fitting room and a "women's only" fitting room. (This is also why I think unisex bathrooms are totally fine as well: because people can do their private, vulnerable business safely behind a locked door, and if an attack was going to happen, the sign in front of the bathroom / locker room isn't going to stop an actual predator anyway.)
Lol that is actually kinda amazing. Can't believe that is shared by his own team - it looks like an attack ad on him. Kinda challenging the 'competent Trump' image that has been cultivated with stuff like that, cause this is in clown trump territory - just even worse from a policy pov.
That said it is also kinda hilarious if you consider it a semi-sarcastic meme video from a pro-desantis crowd. I do assume he isn't actually campaigning on being evil, at least.
How does something with that trash tier production quality and random montages of photos get approved? Like... I watched HSC this weekend and they had some video montages. Most of them stupid, all of them with about 1000x the production levels of that "ad". And nobody here is going to convince me that taketv has more money to spend on their skits than whatever superpac produced that. Like... my grandma with Windows Movie Maker would do a better job...
Yeah, that DeSantis ad is something else. It’s kind of brain-breaking to watch – I think they’re trying to recapture the energy of those “Can’t Stump the Trump” videos from 2016 – but I think the unavoidable part is how explicitly it celebrates DeSantis’ reputation for pushing Draconian anti-trans policies. There’s not even a pretense of “we’re protecting kids” or w/e; it’s just “he will hurt them,” no qualifiers or justifications needed. I’m pretty sure everything about it is off-putting to normal voters – the celebration of hurting people for sure, but also the weird memelord production quality, the homoerotic imagery trying to make you horny for Ron DeSantis… Just the whole thing, really.
But it also puts us in an extremely weird position for the election. The Republican frontrunner is a defeated former president who led an insurrection against the country and is currently under indictment for multiple felonies. His main challenger is a terminally online memelord who’s intercutting shots of himself with shots of Brad Pitt in Troy, trying to tell you how sexy he is and how badly he’s going to hurt trans people.
It seems like a fundamentally untenable situation for a political party, but I’m not really sure what it would take to change the situation between now and the 2024 primary.
Like I can totally imagine that for a DeSantis 2024 Discord server, that ad can get a lot of laughs and people celebrating it. I think you're totally on point with them attempting to copy some of those can't stump the trump videos. But DeSantis can't beat Trump at being Trump and for him to try that is total suicide. He was supposed to try to execute Trump's popular policies without the idiocy - but instead he's doing Trump's idiocy without the (largely unfathomable but nevertheless undeniable) charm. Sharing this seems like a Howard Dean Scream. (Edit: I just actually looked at the video of that scream and.. wow. In today's climate, it looks entirely unfathomable that this was in any way whatsoever consequential. )
On July 04 2023 05:37 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I think that actually gets to the heart of what people use as determining factors for male gender (and sometimes the sex of a man), in practical everyday scenarios: Do they "pass" / fit the preconceived mold and schema of what one "typically" looks like. It's not about having a penis, because people won't check, but rather, do you appear like the type of person who has a penis. And can that classification broaden in certain ways (maybe men might dress or look or act a little more diversely than how they used to, maybe it's about more than just having a penis or XY chromosomes), to help shape more inclusive or less restrictive working definitions of gender and sexuality.
Yep. As a cis male with long hair, bathroom goers frequently mistook me for female when I was younger. I did nothing to present as female (no skirts/dresses, no cosmetics, no accessories, no pink). The only cues were (1) this person is minding their own business in a male-designated space, and (2) this person has long hair. That was enough for many people to assume I was female and in the wrong space.
I mean people have been declaring the DeSantis campaign dead since well before it officially launched. But it was at *least* supposed to serve as the bastion for “principled conservatives”to at least say they supported in the primary, before endorsing Trump in the general because they have to stop Hunter Biden or w/e. But it’s kind of hard to see how *this* campaign can even serve as a temporary rhetorical retreat at this rate.
If DeSantis does crash and burn this early, we have to have *some* kind of opposition candidate in the primary, but I have no idea who. Hard to imagine Haley or Pence rising to actual relevance. I know there’s a bunch of other Republicans that announced but it’s a bad sign I can’t even recall their names right now.
On July 04 2023 02:13 BlackJack wrote: @Rayzda yes, I forgot to mention that the other caveat for MTF athletes competing in women’s sports besides them not being allowed to win is that there needs to be locker room accommodations made for women that may not feel comfortable undressing in front of someone with a penis.
Can't anyone feel uncomfortable undressing in front of anyone, though? It's not like having a penis means you're going to harass or abuse someone with a vagina, and if you feel uncomfortable because you see a penis or a vagina then you could also just stop looking at it. Cis-women could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of trans-women... or other cis-women... or men... or non-binary people. Straight men could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of gay men or other straight men. Why not just allow locker rooms to have changing stalls with locked doors, similar to fitting rooms at clothing stores, so that anyone who wants privacy while changing can have it? Pretty much every department store I've shopped at has a single, unisex fitting area, rather than a "men's only" fitting room and a "women's only" fitting room. (This is also why I think unisex bathrooms are totally fine as well: because people can do their private, vulnerable business safely behind a locked door, and if an attack was going to happen, the sign in front of the bathroom / locker room isn't going to stop an actual predator anyway.)
Why even have men and women’s locker rooms at all? Why not allow cisgendered men into womens locker rooms? As you said, just because someone has a penis doesn’t mean he is going to abuse someone with a vagina.
On July 04 2023 02:13 BlackJack wrote: @Rayzda yes, I forgot to mention that the other caveat for MTF athletes competing in women’s sports besides them not being allowed to win is that there needs to be locker room accommodations made for women that may not feel comfortable undressing in front of someone with a penis.
Can't anyone feel uncomfortable undressing in front of anyone, though? It's not like having a penis means you're going to harass or abuse someone with a vagina, and if you feel uncomfortable because you see a penis or a vagina then you could also just stop looking at it. Cis-women could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of trans-women... or other cis-women... or men... or non-binary people. Straight men could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of gay men or other straight men. Why not just allow locker rooms to have changing stalls with locked doors, similar to fitting rooms at clothing stores, so that anyone who wants privacy while changing can have it? Pretty much every department store I've shopped at has a single, unisex fitting area, rather than a "men's only" fitting room and a "women's only" fitting room. (This is also why I think unisex bathrooms are totally fine as well: because people can do their private, vulnerable business safely behind a locked door, and if an attack was going to happen, the sign in front of the bathroom / locker room isn't going to stop an actual predator anyway.)
Why even have men and women’s locker rooms at all? Why not allow cisgendered men into womens locker rooms? As you said, just because someone has a penis doesn’t mean he is going to abuse someone with a vagina.
Do you have a specific objection, or are you asking sardonically with the understanding that DPB is talking about some kind of open-space change room, instead of specifically a room with private stalls as clearly mentioned?
On July 04 2023 02:13 BlackJack wrote: @Rayzda yes, I forgot to mention that the other caveat for MTF athletes competing in women’s sports besides them not being allowed to win is that there needs to be locker room accommodations made for women that may not feel comfortable undressing in front of someone with a penis.
Can't anyone feel uncomfortable undressing in front of anyone, though? It's not like having a penis means you're going to harass or abuse someone with a vagina, and if you feel uncomfortable because you see a penis or a vagina then you could also just stop looking at it. Cis-women could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of trans-women... or other cis-women... or men... or non-binary people. Straight men could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of gay men or other straight men. Why not just allow locker rooms to have changing stalls with locked doors, similar to fitting rooms at clothing stores, so that anyone who wants privacy while changing can have it? Pretty much every department store I've shopped at has a single, unisex fitting area, rather than a "men's only" fitting room and a "women's only" fitting room. (This is also why I think unisex bathrooms are totally fine as well: because people can do their private, vulnerable business safely behind a locked door, and if an attack was going to happen, the sign in front of the bathroom / locker room isn't going to stop an actual predator anyway.)
Why even have men and women’s locker rooms at all? Why not allow cisgendered men into womens locker rooms? As you said, just because someone has a penis doesn’t mean he is going to abuse someone with a vagina.
Yes. That's exactly the point I was making, by having unisex areas with solo private changing rooms/showers for anyone who feels uncomfortable around others (regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc.). If you're scared of black people, or men, or gay people, or old people, or anyone else, you can use a safe, private space. You don't even need to explain why you want privacy or which demographic offends/worries you! (Not "you" personally; I mean its general use.)
On July 04 2023 02:13 BlackJack wrote: @Rayzda yes, I forgot to mention that the other caveat for MTF athletes competing in women’s sports besides them not being allowed to win is that there needs to be locker room accommodations made for women that may not feel comfortable undressing in front of someone with a penis.
Can't anyone feel uncomfortable undressing in front of anyone, though? It's not like having a penis means you're going to harass or abuse someone with a vagina, and if you feel uncomfortable because you see a penis or a vagina then you could also just stop looking at it. Cis-women could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of trans-women... or other cis-women... or men... or non-binary people. Straight men could feel uncomfortable undressing in front of gay men or other straight men. Why not just allow locker rooms to have changing stalls with locked doors, similar to fitting rooms at clothing stores, so that anyone who wants privacy while changing can have it? Pretty much every department store I've shopped at has a single, unisex fitting area, rather than a "men's only" fitting room and a "women's only" fitting room. (This is also why I think unisex bathrooms are totally fine as well: because people can do their private, vulnerable business safely behind a locked door, and if an attack was going to happen, the sign in front of the bathroom / locker room isn't going to stop an actual predator anyway.)
Why even have men and women’s locker rooms at all? Why not allow cisgendered men into womens locker rooms? As you said, just because someone has a penis doesn’t mean he is going to abuse someone with a vagina.
Yes. That's exactly the point I was making, by having unisex areas with solo private changing rooms/showers for anyone who feels uncomfortable around others (regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc.). If you're scared of black people, or men, or gay people, or old people, or anyone else, you can use a safe, private space. You don't even need to explain why you want privacy or which demographic offends/worries you! (Not "you" personally; I mean its general use.)
The main problem with this solution is space. If you have a lot of floor space, you can afford to build individual unisex toilets and changing rooms. If you operate on a small property, for example in the inner city, then you have to choose between inclusiveness and a long queue at the toilet.
EPT
