Or, of course, someone who claims to be the mother.
What about if that happens in a place where you had to go with your birth gender? Wouldnât the restaurant (or wherever it was) either provide different facilities or allow one WC to be unisex while the other was out of order (They could always have an attendant there if it was an issue)? If I was in that situation and there was really nowhere else to go, I would probably just ask permission and I can imagine women being understanding. There seems to be a lot of overthinking going on about this rule when most objections seem to come from cis men rather than women and trans people being able to choose one bathroom over another is at least as much for safety reasons as for preference.
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So you are counted on the âjust let him inâ side. Thatâs fine, and if everyone treats the issue in the common sense way you are doing there will be no problem.
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Iâm saying that if I were in the position of that guy, I would identify as a man who needed to use the toilet and ask to use their bathroom. If that meant that I needed to wait for the women in the bathroom to finish and go in when it was free with someone standing outside to warn women that there was a man in there, so be it. If people refused, Iâd find another place rather than claiming some right to use the womenâs bathroom (although I would complain to the restaurant for not making other arrangements). I donât see why the law would need to be involved in a case like that though.
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Perhaps you are not a resident of the United States of America?
The nation where Freedom from Butthurt is every citizenâs birthright, and where lawyers are standing by 24/7 to take your case?
I hate that this kind of thing, along with women-only train cars, is necessary. Fellow males, what the fuck is up?
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This is starting to get pretty far off the subject at hand, but Iâd say in that scenario a simple solution would be âmanagement puts up a sign indicating the Menâs room is out of order and the Womenâs room is temporarily a shared facility.â
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See, I am torn on this. On one hand, I get that women want to feel safe. On the other hand where does exclusion end? Where does reasonable precaution end and â-ismsâ begin? What about excluding blacks or Muslims or Mexicans because you donât feel safe around them? Or say Muslim women around non-Muslims or non-family member escorts? (which is the norm in many cultures) If the exclusion is broad enough then it isnât an â-ismâ?
I donât really have an answer, because like I said, I can see the reasons for the fear, but at the same time I guess I would caution letting your fear rule you.
It takes a pretty tortured interpretation of both situations to say âlaws forbidding trans women from using the public restrooms they identify with is EXACTLY THE SAME as a private carshare company that only serves women (including trans women).â
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As a group, women are genuinely physically vulnerable to sexual assault (and other form of physical assault) from men. This isnât sexist paranoia, itâs a fact borne out in countless statistics. That doesnât mean the genders always need to be segregated, but it does mean that a woman who feels more comfortable sharing a car with a stranger who is also a woman need not be some irrational man-hating harpy.
âI donât want to sit in the same vehicle as a Mexicanâ is just racism.
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Yes but one could argue:
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That crime statistics support some of their fears.
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How do we differentiate between logical and illogical fears? Is an illogical fear - even one you acknowledge - any less terrifying or upsetting? Letâs even move away from hot topic issues and just use something more benign like spiders. Some people are terrified of them. Granted hating spiders causes no social ills, but at the same time, is their fear any less valid of a fear?
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I agree with you that women are generally more susceptible to physical attacks due to our sexual dimorphism, but are there actually enough attacks to warrant exclusion? At what percentage of likelihood does it go from a rational to an irrational fear? And once you have that number, can you apply that past gender to something more specific like race or nationality or religion?
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If there is not magic number, then this loops again to people who have have genuine fears even if their fears arenât supported by statistics of it being likely to happen. Are they any less valid? What if they had a bad experience in the past that caused them to be that way? Again, this may be something they acknowledge, but still canât help that their brain reacts that way.
My impression is that the latter (what @Mister44 mentioned) is the reason they have intent behind the women-only cars on the Dubai Metro, although women are not required to ride in it (not by the Metro authorities, anyway). However, any woman (Muslim or not) could avail herself of the women-only car, given the former (what @Ulysses mentioned), but I donât think thatâs specifically why the carâs there.
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My point is that any law or policy dependent on individualsâ self-reported gender identities is discriminatory if it isnât trivially bypassed, allowing men to invade women-only spaces. Obviously a guy with an enormous beard and Adamâs apple will be objected to, but whereâs the line exactly? How does a Chariot driver determine whether a passenger looks female enough? They canât claim to be woman-safe and trans-friendly while having a policy that is either ineffectual or may will result in less-feminine-looking transwomen being challenged on their identities, i.e. discriminated against.
Freedom from being raped for being the âwrong kindâ of woman or man? Thatâs not the nation we live in.
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But again, âcisgendered men who claim to be trans women in order to perv on/assault other womenâ just isnât a thing in real life. Itâs just a bogeyman used to discriminate against actual trans people.
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Not to stray back into off-topic, but some of the things you said really resonated with me even as I recognize some of the issues that other people mentioned. I think of it like this:
Not that that is meant to be a complete picture. Some people identify as different genders at different times or have genuine ambivalence or just donât really recognize how the binary applies to them at all.
But for me, itâs like, when my actual toddler, for a few months, called me the âwrongâ one of âMomâ and âDadâ I didnât feel the need to correct them while my co-parent, being somewhat jealous of their own title, did (that is, they had to correct the toddler referring to me because they didnât want to share their gendered parent title with me). People who have met me in person undoubtedly have a very strong impression of my gender, and I feel they are welcome to it. So I donât have dysphoria (and Iâm super glad about that) and since I donât intend to change my physical body I accept the assessment of others.
There is a testable definition of âidentify asâ, you ask people what they identify as an they tell you and thatâs what they identify as. So what happens in the scenario you describe is that the women (if she identified as a woman) uses the womenâs washroom or the man (if he identified as a man) is told not to use the womenâs washroom or the man (if he identified as a man) is told, âYes, of course you can use the womenâs washroom if the menâs is out of orderâ. I hope the former if the person in question is a woman or the last one if not. If a man said he was a woman to âprove a pointâ I would personally respond by just insisting that at the time they were, in fact, a woman.
Iâm willing to place real money that most men who want to make an anti-trans point are desperately attached to their gender identities as men. Mike Huckabeeâs insistence that he would have committed sex crimes if given the opportunity as a teenager notwithstanding.
I think he meant the US is a nation where people believe they have freedom to avoid dealing with their own emotions when exposed to the fact that someone else is the âwrong kindâ of woman or man.
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Likewise, I remember a few months ago you (I think it was you, at least) asked whether the men in the thread would be willing to live as a woman for the rest of their lives, as a mental exercise in recognising internal gender. It didnât help me at all - I do identify as male, but have no great allegiance to that and have often felt very uncomfortable in my own skin. I donât think that would mean that I would feel more comfortable as a woman - I donât know what that would feel like, so I canât comment either way. I think of a lot of the outward markers as cultural though, and plenty of women donât feel comfortable conforming to the stereotypes either, without feeling less female. The crap they have to go through doesnât make them feel less female either - itâs not about the social benefits of being one gender or the other. I donât think the bell curves in your comment are innately all that steep or separate anyway (I realise they werenât meant to be accurate), but there are many female marked qualities that I identify with and male ones that I really donât. Honestly, while I see differences between people and general differences between men and women, I have no idea what internal gender even is. Sexual orientation I can understand (more or less), but the older I get the less I identify with my gender as an essential part of myself. Maybe thatâs my male privilege talking, but unless youâre talking about physical gender, thatâs mostly cultural too and not innate.
I think a lot of discomfort comes from stories like this, or at least the causes for them - a lot of the sexual and physical violence in the world comes from men, and proposed solutions often involve keeping men at an armâs length in one way or another. Itâs not that I blame women for that - the threat is there, but I think thatâs where a number of the ânot all menâ ideas can come from. A lot of generalisations about men (by the most visible men and also about men) are both negative and ones that I donât identify with (even if I can see where they come from). Iâd really rather that wasnât what many people thought of if they saw me in public, and I know many other men who donât fit that mould at all - far more that donât than that do, in fact.
Possibly more profoundly, thereâs a discomfort about being male in a male dominated world, white in a white dominated world, straight in a heterosexually dominated world, western, university educated, English speaking etc. I have many advantages that other people donât, but I generally get on better with people that arenât in my group, and would rather identify with them. Doing what I want and promoting my interests has a real potential to harm others. Phrased in this way, it should be clearer that Iâm not looking for the social advantages of being a woman/POC or whatever else and the way forward is not to seek to identify as an honorary member of a less privileged group, but to use the advantages I have to benefit them and work towards a society where these labels donât make much of a difference. Anyone who thinks about these issues should be uncomfortable about their position in an unjust society, and should really be working towards a point where more general labels (like âhumanâ) are the ones that matter the most (not that we shouldnât care about non humans!).
This quote by Malcolm X is talking about racism, but I thought it was an interesting principle anyway that can be generalised to a lot of social issues - my discomfort about my privileged identity isnât helping anyone, and there are real things that I can do:
âWhen I say that here now, it makes me think about that little co-ed I told you about, the one who flew from her New England college down to New York and came up to me in the Nation of Islamâs restaurant in Harlem, and I told her that there was ânothingâ she could do. I regret that I told her that. I wish that now I knew her name, or where I could telephone her, or write to her, and tell her what I tell white people now when they present themselves as being sincere, and ask me, one way or another, the same thing that she asked. The first thing I tell them is that at least where my own particular Black Nationalist organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is concerned, they canât join us. I have these very deep feelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are âprovingâ that they are âwith us.â But the hard truth is this isnât helping to solve Americaâs racist problem. The Negroes arenât the racists. Where the really sincere white people have got to do their âprovingâ of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where Americaâs racism really isâand thatâs in their own home communities; Americaâs racism is among their own fellow whites. Thatâs where sincere whites who really mean to accomplish something have got to work.
Sorry for the long post - itâs just something Iâve been thinking about lately, and I found that particular section illuminating.
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What about refusing to answer calls from areas with significantly above average crime rates?
Anecdotes ainât data, but Iâve been led to believe that Uber is much more customer friendly in this regard than are traditional medallion cabs.
In the case of bathrooms itâs not a thing, but assaults on and by rideshare drivers definitely are a thing, which is the impetus for Chariotâs existence.
Besides, the issue doesnât have to be men pretending to be trans in order to attack drivers, itâs men potentially pretending to be trans in order to get a ride, and âinsufficiently transâ people being discriminated against as a result of trying to prevent that.
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Why would they do that, especially when alternatives like Uber and Lyft already exist? Itâs no different than the fearmongering about cisgendered dudes pretending to be trans in order to use the womenâs restroom. Itâs not a phenomenon now and thereâs no real reason to think it will be any time soon.
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