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Hands Off the Ladies’ Rooms
If it concerns sex in any way, you can be sure that our culture will fixate on it and manage to defy common sense with hyperventilating indignation. Same sex marriage roiled the waters for decades, but now that the Supreme Court has big-footed that question, culture warriors are prowling for new realms of transgression to embrace. So, coming to a bathroom near you – transgenderism.
I’m just back from a weekend at Harvard University where unisex bathrooms are the norm. On behalf of womankind, I say: To the Bathroom Barricades!
Bathroom injustice has been a feature of the world for a very long time. Ask any woman. Most buildings feature equal-sized bathrooms for the two sexes – an automatic disadvantage for women who cannot use urinals (at least as of this writing). At every concert, stadium, lecture hall, or large meeting room, the line for the ladies’ room will usually curl out the door and around corners while the men breeze through their facility with assembly line efficiency. The only building in Washington, DC I know of where this is not the case is Constitution Hall, built by and for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Constitution Hall has twice the number of women’s bathrooms as men’s. Revolutionary indeed.
Some opponents of permitting “transgender” individuals to use the bathroom of their subjective feelings rather than their biology point to the risk of sexual assault. That seems a negligible risk. Hard to imagine rapists donning skirts the better to grab women in a ladies’ room surrounded by female witnesses. But the trans bathroom movement offends in other ways.
Gender-neutral bathrooms are nothing new. We use them on airplanes and trains all the time. At the risk of offending some men, there are two things that should be said about this. First, we women hate using unisex public bathrooms. Men are messy. They leave the seat up most of the time, and sometimes fail to raise it in the first place if you get my drift. Sure, some women are also unsanitary – but fewer. One survey found that 62 percent of men, but only 40 percent of women failed to wash their hands after using the toilet.
Second, airplane bathrooms are single use and thus don’t raise privacy/modesty concerns (I know, I’ve heard those urban legends too, but leave that aside). A locker room, dressing room, or larger public bathroom is a different matter. Outside of stalls, women in public restrooms change their clothes, adjust their undergarments, purchase supplies from vending machines geared toward women, and otherwise engage in activities they would be uncomfortable conducting under the eyes of a male (even one who feels himself to be female, or aspires to be female after years of surgery, depilatories, and hormonal dousings).
People with gender dysphoria, like those with other psychological ailments, doubtless feel miserable much of the time, and competent professionals should treat them. The former chief of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Paul McHugh, has studied the matter for decades and opposes “gender reassignment surgery.”
In most areas of life, when someone holds a view of himself that is at odds with reality – McHugh offers the example of people with “body dysmorphic disorder” who falsely believe themselves to be horribly ugly – psychiatry offers therapy to cure them of their mistaken perception. Only in the area of sex does the profession, and the larger society, lose its grip on reason completely and declare that any and all delusions, wishes, hopes, and behaviors are to be ratified and even celebrated in the name of non-discrimination.
We’ve become so discombobulated that perfectly intelligent people will say, without noticing the contradiction, that homosexual behavior is an inborn trait, but the “male/female binary” is a socially constructed fiction.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has now ruled that a “transgender” 17-year-old must be permitted to use the bathroom of her imagined “gender identity” rather than her sex. “It’s easy to forget that these debates are about personal dignity,” scolded The New York Times.
There is nothing dignified about ratifying an unhappy person’s tragic misperception. What if the young person considered herself African-American like Rachel Dolezal? Should she get preferences in college admission? Or what about Danny Almonte, who was 14 when he starred in the 2001 Little League tournament? If he felt 12, does that make it okay?
When you figure that out, culture warriors, let us know. In the meanwhile, hands off the ladies rooms.
Published in General
If you still have it hanging between your legs, you’re a man…use the men’s room. Besides, there are stalls in the men’s room too.
And don’t even talk to me about using the women’s locker room showers.
As someone who’s done a fair amount of public bathroom cleaning in his early working years–the Women’s is filthier BY FAR.
I’m glad to say that I carry and if a man tries to share a ladies with me at a rest stop if I’m traveling, I would run him out, and keep him out with a little help from my .38. I have faith the other ladies would appreciate it.
There is a restaurant in NYC that has a gender neutral bathroom with 4 stalls in it. I remember going to the bathroom and when I stepped out of my stall, a guy stepped out of his. It was REALLY uncomfortable for me to know that there was a dude, going to the bathroom in the next stall.
Now some people may think, does it really matter. Actually it does, especially since in the United States we have those weird gaps in our bathroom stalls that people can see into. I agree Mona, #Takebacktheladiesroom
Somehow the unisex bathroom initiative is related to the transgender bathroom issue, but I can’t figure out how. A transgender person will want to go into a bathroom that is not unisex. He/she wants to use one of the specific gender he/she identifies with, because he/she feels uncomfortable in the same bathroom with people of the same physical gender as himself or herself.
I disagree that there is a neglible assault risk. The current trend means that any man can simply declare himself a woman and go in a woman’s bathroom.
Glad to hear it! I have been baffled that more women haven’t been protesting this. My wife as been a Target shopper for years. As of yesterday, since they announced they are welcoming men into the women’s restroom, she won’t. Unfortunately, she seems to be in a small minority.
We’ve been inexplicably gearing the entire society down to the needs of a tiny fraction of the general population. It’s as if we suddenly had to gear all public facilities to people who weigh 800 pounds. Imagine if all the public restrooms were made to widen the doors and install giant toilet seats etc. Why are we even discussing this, let alone letting them dictate public policy! The first man who even tries to enter a ladies’ room that I or my daughter is in will get a very bad surprise.
The term unisex would imply it can only be used by one sex. A bathroom used by both sexes would be bisex.
Under such a rule a man could wait all day long in a woman’s bathroom, waiting for single victims, all the while with iron-clad deniability that he had any ill intent, and nobody would have any legally protected mechanism to question him, much less to remove him.
And he wouldn’t even need to bother donning a skirt.
OK, call it “inclusive” then. The point is that the transgenders have been complaining that they have a right to go in to a non-inclusive bathroom for the gender that does not match their anatomical gender. (I have seen “unisex” used for “inclusive” though.)
The problem is that it used to be that having a penis made one a man by definition but liberal males have largely escaped from manhood, hence the confusion.
Because the terms “Men” and “Women” are now problematic we should simply change bathroom signs to “Penis” and “No Penis”. A little stark but hard to challenge linguistically even in activist Bizzaro world and a telling reminder of just how dignified and wonderful the left makes life for all of us.
It’s bad enough for women, but I would think girls and teenage girls would be mortified to share a restroom with men who say they feel like they’re women. So much for privacy.
I’m not sure I want to see the new iconography for that distinction.
Somebody always has to say this, so today I’ll be that somebody. Why–especially on this issue–can’t the “againsts” put together a movement against, say, Target? The pressure always comes in the other direction, which is why we only move in one direction.
This is not really a man’s issue. As I have heard it said if you are a man the world is your urinal. If I do not like a places restroom accommodations I am perfectly happy with going around the back of the building and taking a leak. If they upset me too much I can do the same on their front door to make a point. Since a man can now go into a womyn’s restroom or a womyn can now go into a man’s restroom then I can not see how anybody could have an issue with me whipping it out and urinating on their door since nobody would be seeing anything different they they would see a few feet away in that companies restroom.
Mona,
Common sense has become very uncommon. Sexual schizophrenia a wonderful new idea to be enabled. Decadent perversity to be normalized.
Actually, we’ve been ankle deep in this garbage for a long time. What is new and most frightening is that the Supreme Court hangs by a thread. With Scalia on it, the Court gave us SSM. Now anything is possible.
Woe unto us.
Regards,
Jim
I’m not sure why it’s taken this long to hit me, but I’ve cracked upon the real reason for this — if men can use the women’s restroom, women can use the men’s.
Guys, say goodbye to your shorter bathroom lines. This is one woman fully willing to risk making you uncomfortable if it means not worrying about wetting my pants while the ladies ahead of me decide to void all 30 feet of their intestines or whatever they’re doing to keep me from a needed toilet. And I can’t believe I’m the only one.
The question I have is: Are we supposed to think of transgenders as people with a disability? Or just a proud minority? Is being born into the wrong body a disability? You’d think so. Who would want that to happen to them after all? So is the transgender movement supposed to be more like the Americans with disabilities movement or the gay rights movement?
Much of this is cemented in the Progressives’ false premise: that genders are perfectly equal and interchangeable. It’s coupled with the idea that two dads or two moms are the exact same thing as a mom and a dad.
Eventually reality will come to bite us on the rear end, and the Progressives will be shocked that such a thing could happen.
I can guarantee that this measure of convenience will come with a price. Using most men’s rooms involves an extraordinary degree of difficulty–even the Russian judge gives it a “10.” Be careful what you ask for. And that’s assuming your cohabitants are sober.
That already happens at sporting events, concerts, and bars during St Patty’s Day. Guys will sneak their girlfriends in to avoid the line, and most guys laugh about it. The other way around ain’t so funny.
A member of Planet Fitness in Michigan reported to the front desk that there was a man in the women’s locker room. They told her he is transgender and that he was allowed. She took it to the corporate offices. She was told they were a “non-judgment zone.” When she continued to object. they canceled her membership. The tail is wagging the dog.
Don’t speak too fast. We’ve had to do this at the hospital.
I’d pretty much guarantee that this person will not go to the Michigan Human Rights Commission (or whatever it’s called). Conversely, had PF refused the trans person access, is there any doubt what would have happened?
With this new bathroom free for all, I’m curious about what happens to lewdness laws.
Flashers are a real thing. They take sexual gratification in making others see their penis. I’ve had the opportunity to represent some defendants who suffered from this fetish. They do it in public, but that’s always been held to be illegal by statute.
Mixing bathrooms will present a new factual defense. What if one of these men exiting a stall is late in getting zipped up? One with a fetish will do this all day.
If a woman complains, a prosecutor is going to be faced with the challenge that a man gets to pull down his pants and pull out his penis in a lavatory. The reason for having the room is so that he can pull down his pants and take out his penis.
That is pretty cool. Makes complete sense.
Here is the other thing I want to say about this issue.
Political correctness is so white hot right now that someone with a legitimate question, free of judgment, can’t ask it, lest he be called a bigot.
I’ll ask the question here, but I’m not sure anyone here is on the other side, so I fear the person answering here will be just making a best guess.
Here is the question:
“Why does a person born a man, who identifies as transgender, want to use the ladies room?”
I can’t get that question answered. It seem to me to be the natural start of the conversation, but so far I’ve just been dismissed and judged poorly for asking it.
I have follow-ups depending upon the answer.
I think the whole bathroom debate is a ploy on behalf of the people who never changed their profile pictures back from being an equals sign – they need something else to stand for so they can continue supporting equality, one profile view at a time.
No no – it was started by the plumbers union because all public buildings are now going to have to add a 3rd bathroom. Just brilliant!
Save that third bathrooms aren’t acceptable. The Social Progressives don’t want compromises; they want complete conformity.