Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[IcyTea31]

Hurrah for single-occupant, unisex toilets.

[wierd]

Hurrah for single-occupant, unisex toilets.

Works great for us at work. As long as everybody understands not to leave a damn mess in there, and to always knock, it is never a problem.  The issue is that building engineers producing buildings with a certain high occupancy (like big stores), need to balance the need for many people to potty at once, and this leads to the segregated bathrooms as a compromise.

Really, people just blow the issue way out of proportion, because I can assure you, the little "Female" sign outside a bathroom is not going to dissuade a rapist in any way, shape or form. (Dad was a cop for 26 years. I have heard lots of terrible things, and read lots of psych reports on terrible people.) As such, the segregation is more to play into a mere feeling of security, rather than any real security. Unisex bathrooms are no more or less dangerous than gendered bathrooms, and having transgendered people in the bathroom is not going to in any way increase incidence rate of sexual impropriety. It just makes people squeemy, and that's all. Basically, some squeemy ninnies need to learn to just buck up and STFU, and stop harping about the damn bathroom. /.02$

[milo christiansen]

Basically, some transgendered ninnies need to learn to just buck up and STFU, and stop harping about the damn bathroom. /.02$

FTFY

[wierd]

I am NOT insensitive to people who have their identity called invalid, nor to the subtle accumulation of slights against that identity (which being told to use their birth gender's bathroom certainly is), so No-- I will not accept that 'fix'.

The ones being the ninnies are the women who think a transwoman should not use their bathroom, because "OMG! PERVERT!", when the transwoman certainly is not a pervert in any way.

The one that needs to buck up and STFU about the damn bathroom are the ones telling the trans people which bathroom they should be using.

[McTraveller]

My personal observation on the modern flavor of all "-isms" is that they are really just versions of "preference-ism".  That is, "my personal preference is the way things should be for everyone, and everyone should be able to realize their own personal preferences."

The ideas are wrapped in a veneer of "equality" which makes it sound palatable and "the right thing to do" but in reality there are dangerous subtleties.  The biggest subtlety that is lost is that "equal under the law" doesn't actually mean "equal in capability" or "equal in merit" or any other type of equality.  It's also lost that "equal opportunity" and "equal outcomes" are mathematically/physically impossible to be simultaneous goals.

[TD1]

Their sex is male, female, or in some very rare and strange circumstances a mixture (the last added to satisfy pedants.) Being asked to use the sexually appropriate toilet for their sex is, perhaps, a minor slight, though I find that debatable. However, given segregated toilets are a thing required, as you note, when there's large usage, it's a required slight they'll have to buck up with. The alternative is asking people very uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a bathroom with members of the opposite sex (which, I'm going to assume, are a large percentage.) to do so. That is a slight worse than using segregated toilets as they are meant to be used - namely, segregated into sexes.

To simplify - I don't want to share a bathroom with a female, regardless of whether or not they define themselves differently. Alas, maybe I ought to just "STFU" and bow my head before political correctness, ignoring both my discomfort and that of many others like me.

Though I agree wholeheartedly on the use of feminism to denote equality.

[Harry Baldman]

Their sex is male, female, or in some very rare and strange circumstances a mixture (the last added to satisfy pedants.) Being asked to use the sexually appropriate toilet for their sex is, perhaps, a minor slight, though I find that debatable. However, given segregated toilets are a thing required, as you note, when there's large usage, it's a required slight they'll have to buck up with. The alternative is asking people very uncomfortable with the idea of sharing a bathroom with members of the opposite sex (which, I'm going to assume, are a large percentage.) to do so. That is a slight worse than using segregated toilets as they are meant to be used - namely, segregated into sexes.

To simplify - I don't want to share a bathroom with a female, regardless of whether or not they define themselves differently. Alas, maybe I ought to just "STFU" and bow my head before political correctness, ignoring both my discomfort and that of many others like me.

Well, there's a pretty easy mantra to remember if that's your particular issue: trans men are men, trans women are women in an inalienable, psychological sense. To think about it much deeper than that mostly comes down to an unhealthy preoccupation with other people's chromosomes, and would be a fairly good reason to do some introspection on what precisely is the element that causes this feeling of discomfort with other men who'd mostly be occupying a private bathroom stall.

To be perfectly honest with you, I don't think you'd legitimately notice if a trans man was in a public bathroom with you unless you really go out of your way to spy on them, in which case I'd say it's not really them that constitute the real menace to bathroom safety and sanctity, is it?

[TD1]

Whether or not I'd notice is beside the point. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. If a normal woman with short hair entered the bathroom, I may not notice either. But she ought not be there - it is a social (possibly even legal; not sure of the subtleties) law that a woman uses the room accorded to her sex.

"Trans men are men, trans women are women." Psychologically, I do not doubt that this is their internal definition. Alas, what the mind wants, the body does not always mirror - and it is the discomfort associated with different bodies meeting which is the issue. Not how they view themselves. It is another case of gender vs. sex, a distinction which seems to be increasingly bandied about - their self-gender is different, their sex is not. Segregated bathrooms segregate according to sex. Saying your gender is different is a moot point.

But I get the distinct feeling that I am only repeating myself now.

[Loud Whispers]

y not unisex bathrooms

[scriver]

On principle, I dislike redefining words away from their lingual roots.

Feminism is a combination of Feminine, the female gender-- and --ism, (from dictionary.com) "a suffix appearing in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form action nouns from verbs ( baptism); on this model, used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence, etc. ( criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism; intellectualism)."

Together, this literally means "The practice or state of being female."

If you want gender equality, then use a proper term, like "Equalitarianism"

If you claim you are a feminist, I will take you for your word, that you promote the state of being female over other issues, and are thus not interested in equality. No, you do not get to redefine words to suit your whims.

If you claim to want equality between people in all ways, please call yourself an equalitarian, as that is the correct word to use.  I am an equalitarian. NOT a feminist.

This is why the field of virology is the field of looking at phlegm

[Felissan]

This is why the field of virology is the field of looking at phlegm

Wait a second, are you telling me electrons aren't made of amber?
More seriously, I've never been fond of using a word's etymology as an argument against the people who use it. Language has always been too fluid for a word to have any meaning other than the ones that were chosen for it.

[hector13]

Whether or not I'd notice is beside the point. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. If a normal woman with short hair entered the bathroom, I may not notice either. But she ought not be there - it is a social (possibly even legal; not sure of the subtleties) law that a woman uses the room accorded to her sex.

"Trans men are men, trans women are women." Psychologically, I do not doubt that this is their internal definition. Alas, what the mind wants, the body does not always mirror - and it is the discomfort associated with different bodies meeting which is the issue. Not how they view themselves. It is another case of gender vs. sex, a distinction which seems to be increasingly bandied about - their self-gender is different, their sex is not. Segregated bathrooms segregate according to sex. Saying your gender is different is a moot point.

But I get the distinct feeling that I am only repeating myself now.

I think you're just getting into things a bit too deeply. Sex is a physical thing, gender is a social construct. In the very specific instance of using a bathroom, it literally doesn't matter. Everyone in a bathroom is, ideally, evacuating waste from their body. Ideally they will all be in their own semi-private little cubicle, so what does it matter that they have a penis or a vagina, or a medical tube or just a hole from which fluid comes forth?

[TD1]

Because people are people, and they do not view the world with such clinical eyes.

[birdy51]

Honestly, etymology be damned. Words are fluid and are capable meaning over time regardless of what their roots might say.

That said, I frankly do not care who is in the bathroom. As long as shit happens in a sanitary and ethical manner, it's all good in my eyes.

[Trekkin]

Because people are people, and they do not view the world with such clinical eyes.

And this is why they need separate toilets too: in case one of those filthy pragmatists tries to go to the bathroom like they're people or something.

/s