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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
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-poll-idUSKCN0XI11M
Forty-four percent of women favor letting a man who is in transition from male to female into their public toilets, compared to 39 percent who say they must use the facilities matching their gender assigned at birth.
It’s not to unusual to see women taking advantage of the mens facilities when the lines are long on the female side.
not so much… http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-poll-idUSKCN0XI11M
Poll that came out yesterday I think..
Americans aged 18 to 29 favor letting transgender people use the restroom of their identity by a 2-to-1 ratio. Among Americans aged 60 or more, the ratio was 2-to-1 in reverse with people saying restroom use should be mandated by the gender on one’s birth certificate.
Forty-four percent of women favor letting a man who is in transition from male to female into their public toilets, compared to 39 percent who say they must use the facilities matching their gender assigned at birth.
But the transgendered will protest this. Their complaints so far are that they want to go into a bathroom used only by those who are the gender that then identify with. That means gender- segregated bathrooms.
Is there an actual example of someone claiming to be transgender in order to gain access to a bathroom where that person will then engage in criminal acts against others using the bathroom? It seems like the bathroom legislation is a solution in search of a problem.
yep
Really, where? How often?
Yes. I believe it was Kozak who has posted numerous links, but they’re not in this thread. Check one of the others on the same topic on the Member Feed (if I’m remembering where I saw them correctly).
When all bathrooms have been de-genderized I bet a lot of men will just find a tree to go behind. I mean if that’s the only place left that hasn’t been ruined by the left…
I have yet to find someone who can clearly explain to me the difference between “gender dysphoria” and “body dysmorphic disorder.” The underlining is my emphasis.
The DSM-V criteria for Gender Dysphoria :
A definite mismatch between the assigned gender and experienced/expressed gender for at least 6 months duration as characterized by at least two or more of the following features –
The DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for BDD require the following:
Gender dysphoria seems to be a body dysmorphic disorder with sexual fixation.
In other words gender dysphoria is a preoccupation with a perceived flaw of intact, functioning anatomy and physiology (nonexistent flaw in appearance) that does not conform with self perception. The incongruence between physical perception and reality has additional ramifications related to social perception and reality. The condition may manifest in, among other things, reassurance seeking from others due to the significant distress and impaired functioning.
The laws are an attempt to have society at large affirm and reassure those distressed by their personal perceptions. If this were treated as BDD, therapy would be a key component to treatment. Whereas the literature has shown surgeries and procedures tend to worsen BDD symptoms, patients with gender dysphoria are encouraged to undergo dramatic “reaffirming” surgery and change society to fit their personal perception of reality. And individuals struggling with this are committing suicide at a rate 10-18x the general population.
Can you imagine the sit-ins for “support”? Goodness
California Man Dressed as Woman Busted for Videoing in Ladies Bathroom
Man caught undressing in front of girls at Green Lake locker room
Last one not technically illegal, but shows where we are headed if we don’t agree with the current Pravda.
Michigan woman loses gym membership after complaining about transgender woman
This has only been an issue for like 10 minutes, after our brief pause following gay marriage and lavishing praise on Bruce Jenner. Give it time.
Sorry, I was being picky and maybe a little obnoxious. The Unisex sign usage bugs me because it is the wrong use of the prefix. It is something I have brought up to restaurant managers who have them. Usually I just get blank stares, but it entertains me.
Your points are valid.
Excellent article. Transgender is the absurd dead-end of liberalism. Liberalism cannot accept that there are some things that are not changeable. It cannot accept that some things are natural and cannot be altered. Sex (gender) is one of those things. Liberalism has to support personal delusions in order to persist with its own delusion that there is nothing in this world that is unalterable. The upshot of this is that people who suffer end up suffering even more when reality ultimately pushes back and reveals that nothing can alter one’s gender and neither thinking nor surgery can make it so.
And the vast majority of guys would feel just as uncomfortable being the man in your story, too. It’s not like we wanna walk into a bathroom with women.
HA glad to know we were both uncomfortable. Obviously I wouldn’t know the male perspective, thanks for the insight.
Seriously, I can’t WAIT for the first person to challenge the “Selective Service Act” based on identifying as a woman on it’s 18th birthday, despite having xy chromosomes and a penis. Ditto the first person who demands a set aside or Small Business Loan based on “identifying” as a woman or minority. Used as an offensive weapon we have the potential to destroy the entire sex, race and ethnic spoils system we have in place….
There are some on the Left who are flummoxed by the trans movement, though, as it tends to define “female” and “male” by old-fashioned, stereotypical traits and characteristics. Girls wear pink and play with dolls. Boys wear blue and play with trucks. Those claiming to be transgender do not appear to consider these norms social constructs. These norms, in fact, form the basis for a transgender person understanding himself as a member of the opposite sex. What is a “gender-is-a-social- construct, everything-is-fluid” Leftist to do with such people? They do not fit the narrative.
I was just in the ladies’ in the Rome airport with my daughters, and the person pushing the floor polisher (while glued to a mobile phone) was male. Unpleasant.
CW,
Excellent analytical breakdown of the issue. However, I am of the old “untie the gordian knot with a sword” school. I have a great big rubber stamp (old technology) with the words “SEXUAL SCHIZOPHRENIA” on it.
I’ll use it too.
Regards,
Jim
Is existing law insufficient to punish folks exploiting this issue to engage in criminal activity?
Here’s what the GOP position should be – Women keep going to women’s restrooms. Men keep going to men’s restrooms. No new law needed to preserve the status quo. Why? Because predators go to jail.
I’m not sure that approach works when the federal courts have sided with the Dept of Education in ruling that enforcing the status quo is a violation of Title IX sex discrimination provisions.
How in the world did they reach that conclusion? I’d love to read that case. Title IX has gotten super bizarre lately, to the point of suspending students for having one night stands by assuming, without sufficient facts or evidence, the veracity of the other complaining student.
Not in the second case. He was following the law. In the third case the actual woman was punished with loss of her gym membership because she was uncomfortable with the faux woman in her locker room.
Define woman.
Define man.
What if I identify as a woman today?
It’s completely insane, but it was the basis of the ruling this week on the case in VA where a girl is being allowed to sue for not being allowed to use the boys’ bathroom. The 4th circuit appeals sent the case back to the lower court on that basis.
Wow, so a few weird cases led to this legislation it would appear. Why is the left fighting so hard against the law then? Why aren’t the proponents of the law pointing to the actual cases they claim the law would stop in the future?