Lovely, long, lazy travel.
It’s years since I travelled by charter or even standard airlines.
Or in the words of Kipling (more or less), ‘better to travel hopefully than arrive’.
I bought a EuroRail card, travelled by train in India, and travelled on ferries in the Greek islands. All involved overnight women-only accommodation.
This century, travel has been limited to the UK and back.
Shared women’s compartments on trains and the same for cabins on Brittany Ferries. P&O doesn’t give the option for that. You have/had to buy an individual cabin.
On the train, it can be anyone’s guess as to who your pals are. Mostly they are fine.
One journey from Paris to Spain included an African (Nigerian?) woman and her daughter. We started chatting immediately. When she wanted to go to the buffet, she left young Dasha in my charge, and told her to obey her new auntie.
When we got off the train in Madrid, we met up with her family and enjoyed breakfast together.
On the same journey, the other occupant of our compartment was a French (?) woman. She met some man on the train and asked if she could bring him into our compartment to spend the night. No. Dasha’s mama and I both said an unequivocal no.
Women-only compartments are for women, and their children. Not for men.
Chatting about the cross-channel routes, I was laughing at my partner who, whenever he has gone on the ferry, has never managed the privilege of an empty shared cabin.
On the other hand, my trips on Brittany ferries, opting for a shared – and therefore cheaper — cabin, ended up with me in glorious isolation. Maybe not all women aren’t comfortable about sharing small, private space with other women. Or maybe some women can afford a private cabin just as they can a private compartment on a train.
As we chatted away, and I gloated about me getting private ferry cabins for the price of a shared one, a horrible thought hit me.
I could end up sharing a two-bed cabin, or even a four or six-bed train compartment, with a man who says he is a woman.
I really do not want to do that. While everyone is carping on about the rights of male to female trans people, women’s rights, as usual, are being trampled upon.
Can anyone tell me why I should have to share overnight accommodation with a biological man, when the accommodation is for women only?
I do not want to share women-only space with XY chromosome people (usually known as men), or men who wake up one day suddenly deciding they are female. Complete with female penis and female testicles.*
This goes beyond toilet and changing room facilities. We’re talking about spending the night together.
*For the benefit of those not oppressed by up on the trans debate, it is important to note that a penis belonging to a man, who thinks he is a woman, can often be regarded as a female appendage.
roughseasinthemed
Clouds moving in 
Damning the torpedoes once again are we?
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Probably.
It just struck me as spooky that I would have no choice in the matter. But hey. What’s new?
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@RSitM
That would be quite an unfortunate situation.
The labels will come out for this one because there isn’t a reasonable argument to be made against your statement – unless you believe somehow that how a person feels overwrites your boundaries and expectations of safety.
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Well there you have it. Someone else’s feels indeed takes priority.
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What a strange thing to think! If that happened to me, I would shrug and mentally say ‘Yes’ to this unique experience if, for no other reason than I could come to a better understanding of why some people might fear such an innocuous accommodation. After all, it’s not transgendered people out raping and assaulting in percentage rates equivalent to the general gendered population.
Now, imagine the courage of someone entering the public domain knowing that they are going to be judged negatively because of the identity they portray is the one they feel is necessary. It reminds me of Billy Jean King being asked on a talk show – back in the day – when she decided to become gay? Her answer (paraphrasing) was enlightening to me:
“When did you decide to become straight? (no answer) Do you honestly think anyone would choose to go through all this spectacle, this legal hostility, this social rejection, if they didn’t feel compelled to do so, and that this feeling was greater in power than having to face up and deal with in some constructive way all the disapproval and hostility and vilification?”
I can’t help but feel this threatening transgendered bathroom issue, this threat to children, threat to commit sexual assault, all this generating of fear, has been manufactured and sold to the fearful for reasons other than what’s true.
I know of only two transgendered people in the real (not including the online world) and I would never consider these folk some kind of sexual threat greater than anyone else I know and a good deal less than some. Seeing all the shit they have to go through day in and day out, the fearfulness and cruelty done by those who cannot understand and so cannot accept, tells me that their need for this identity is at least equal to my own and just as valuable to them as mine is to me. But I haven’t had to fight nearly as hard or as much as long to be accepted by others as true to myself. In fact, I knew a military guy that went through this transition and out of the battalion of potential sexual violence makers I dealt with every day on base, he I would rank the very least likely out all the men AND women.
I expect the Other to treat me fairly as the individual I am, and (drawing from King) not by the colour of my skin but the quality of my character. Isn’t it reasonable that when challenged by my own fear of differences, I hold myself to the same standard of fairness in my dealing with the Other?
I think by utilizing your fear, someone is duping you. You’re better than this, RSITM.
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@tildeb
Should the other not also be expected to respect one’s boundaries? And more to the point, haven’t men since civilization been trying to define what women are, and how they are to act?
You do realize that by using their fear, that is how many women navigate through our society right? Women are the under constant threat, not only to their autonomy, but to their bodies as well. Fear is an intrinsic part of the lived female experience, would it not behoove you to acknowledge that fact?
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@Tildeb
A little more from the other side of the fence on the boundary issues and women – I apologize in advance for the text-wall-copy-pasta.
“So Obama decided to pull his President card to force all public high schools in America to allow trans kids to use whatever bathroom they please. Funny how this is the thing he uses his executive power to address, while thousands of immigrants are being treated like animals in private detention centers.
I’ve got mixed feelings about his order. On the one hand, there’s a possibility that GNC and trans kids in high schools could be less likely to get harassed in the bathroom if they’re using the one that corresponds to their gender expression. On the other hand, this is the beginning of a fucking terrible, dangerous, misogynistic descent into a world where gender is further installed into our society and where males are given unrestricted access to females.
A group of high schools girls banded together somewhere to protest a trans male being allowed in their locker room, not long ago. They all clearly felt uncomfortable with this boy who hasn’t even begun any kind of medical, physical transition–and fuck, may never–being allowed in a space where they undress, without any adult supervision. He, of course, doesn’t give a fuck how they feel because he’s male and only cares about himself and feels entitled to everything he wants. So what does Obama’s impending statement tell these girls? What does it tell every girl in this country, who wasn’t asked if they would feel safe and comfortable with boys in their bathrooms?
It tells them the truth: that no one cares how they feel. Men don’t care: not the president, not the men in government, not the men who make laws, not the fucking liberal/leftist men who champion the trans agenda without any critical thinking whatsoever, not the boys they go to school with every day, and sure as fuck not trans-identifying males. They don’t care, they never did, and they never will. In fact, not only do they not care, but they’ve been waiting for this opportunity for decades: the opportunity to take away female space, to make female boundaries impossible, and to create a world in which males have 24/7 access to females, all while looking ~progressive~ and morally superior to anyone who disagrees. Obama’s statement is going to tell the girls of America the truth: men decide. Period. Men decide for women the conditions under which women live. That’s what these girls are about to learn, and maybe it’s a good thing they’re learning it early in life, as opposed to getting smacked with it in college or in the adult work force.
I’m just sorry for them, for every high school girl who now has nowhere to go on her school campus where she can escape male presence. Who’s going to be reminded every single day that her boundaries don’t mean shit. That she has no right to boundaries. That she’s the bad guy if she feels uncomfortable with males being able to come up in her space or if she feels outraged that she wasn’t consulted by the powers that be before a decision was made that directly affects her. That she’s going to have to swallow this bullshit so soon in life that gender is innate, that womanhood is a feeling men have sole authority to describe and if she wants to be a good, politically correct liberal, she’s gotta nod her head and ask no questions and just accept that any male who puts on a dress and lipstick and grows out his hair is a woman equivalent to her.
God, I can’t imagine being a teen girl and having to deal with some shithead boy who says he’s a ~nonbinary trans femme~ or having a “girl” day in his ~bigender~ cycle, all the while looking exactly like a fucking male with nail polish on or pink hair or whatever the fuck, loitering in the girl’s bathroom. Watching. Eavesdropping. Following a girl in there when she’s fleeing him, because now he can.”
This from bourbonandblacktea.
So, would the above thoughts count as fear-mongering or the experience of some women whose objections are not being heard? Some combination thereof? How quickly should these sorts of concerns be dismissed or labelled as fear-mongering?
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I was fearful, too, when I had use a unisex bathroom. I mean, really, scared. But a funny thing happened… the bathroom turned out to be a sexless, gender-less place… a place far too busy with all kinds of people entering and leaving and doing, you know, bathroom business. It’s segregated bathrooms that people – especially creationists in positions of authority – like to troll for sexual gratification.
Yes, I think it’s fear mongering regarding transgendered people because it’s not real. There has not been a rash of transgendered people assaulting children and vulnerable women in women’s bathrooms. For Christ’s sake, Arb, if fear of assault were the prerequisite for cattle barriers installed, then the world would be divided in every location starting in every bed.
You know that I think implementing gender-based rules is not a very clever way of reducing gender discrimination but a way of maintaining it. That being said, where’s the concern for the fear felt by transgendered people just trying to use a bathroom but knowing that neither Mens nor Womens ‘restrooms’ will be free from its genderized occupants exhibiting hostility and a very real source of potential violence? It’s a fucking bathroom with toilets and everything.
Look, this fear is manufactured just by the idea of a man in a woman’s bathroom, a man lurking about in its shadows searching for a victim. That phrase – a man in a woman’s bathroom – demonstrates the inherent bias that assumes this will be the case. Now, I’ve known two transgendered people who have faced the gender barriers in real life… one in the military and one in high school. In both cases, the bathroom issue only phased the ignorant and those imagining that this is the what the change would mean. Once it became a daily event – a biological male but a person with a female identity – the fear evaporated because of knowledge; these folk needed to use the bathroom just like any other woman and did so. That’s how you dispel the fear.
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@Tildeb
The link in the other comment would provide a different view of male behaviour in washrooms.
So why in developing (and developed) societies are women fighting for segregated spaces? For women to have respite against the violence, degradation and oppression that they face *every day* of their lives. I’m thinking of the female only market in India or the push for female only train cars(Japan, Germany, Brazil etc).
Japan –
“Groping in crowded commuter trains has been a problem in Japan: according to a survey conducted by Tokyo Metropolitan Police and East Japan Railway Company, two-thirds of female passengers in their 20s and 30s reported that they had been groped on trains, and the majority had been victimized frequently. Authorities have been unable to stop groping, as trains are too crowded to identify and catch the perpetrators, which would later escape; courts have traditionally been lenient, and victims are often too ashamed to come forward.[4] The police and railway companies responded with poster campaigns to raise awareness and with tougher sentences, but have been unable to reverse the trend.[5] In 2004, the Tokyo police reported a threefold increase in reported cases of groping on public transportation over eight years.[6]”
Brazil –
“In April 2006 the Rio de Janeiro Metro implemented the mandate established by state law passed the previous month, to have dedicated passenger cars for women to avoid sexual harassment.”
Malaysia –
“Sexual harassment in Malaysia is common, and since 2010 trains on the Malaysian Railway have included pink-coloured women-only cars as a means of cutting down on it.[15] There are also women-only buses in Kuala Lumpur since 2010.[15] In 2011, the government launched a women-only taxi service in the greater Kuala Lumpur area.[16] The taxis have women drivers, and operate on an on-call basis.[16]”
India –
“Safety is why this car exists. On a daily basis here, women in public spaces are disrespected by men. On buses, men push women or pretend to fall on them, says Neetu Singh, 27, a primary school teacher and a regular user of the metro rail system. It is a pretext to touch women inappropriately. This is common in other Indian cities, which is why commuter trains in Mumbai and Kolkata have had women’s cars for decades. Here in Delhi, the metro rail system was launched in 2002, but the women’s car wasn’t added until 2010, after complaints of sexual harassment.”
Furthermore from that same article:
“It would be wonderful if men learned to accept women’s presence in public spaces without feeling the need to harass them. We wouldn’t need the ladies’ compartment then. But until they do, the women’s car is one good way for us to assert our right to public spaces. I can’t speak for my sisters in Germany, but women here in India’s capital love the women’s car. They don’t have to worry about wearing a sleeveless shirt, or how loudly they laugh or talk. The space is theirs, and they feel safe and comfortable.”
I would be much warmer to the idea of non-segregated spaces if men would only live up to their end of bargain. Most equality arguments seem to minimize or exclude the idea that here..right now 2016…it is pretty shitty to be female and the notion that taking away the *very few* spaces that women have fought for their safety, privacy, and protection is step one in the egalitarian project of gender equality.
Step number one is addressing the root cause of this – *generational male violence and misogynistic attitudes towards women that are passed down, amplified and replicated by our society.
Step One is fucking calling men out on their shit behaviour and stopping that shit in its tracks, step one is tossing the whole patriarchally approved gender hierarchy out the window, step one is changing the behaviour of the male people who perpetuate and maintain the sexist status quo in our society
Did you want equality? – that starts to happens when men smarten the fuck up and start treating the other half of the human race as if they were people and not the mere objects of their desires. Until men step up and put their big boy pants on – and really start to ‘get’ exactly what they and patriarchy do to women the cold hard 24/7/365/eon – in favour of gender segregation I will be.
1. Transwomen are afraid to use the men’s washroom because of male violence.
C. Valid concern.
2. Women are also afraid of male violence in general, and do not want males in their spaces (see concern 1).
C. Somehow invalid, those damn **women** not wanting the class of people who commit violence and acts of aggression against them in their spaces.
Is the current societal solution set focusing on the problem? *male violence* Nope, men might have to change their ways, and the solution obviously is to force women to accommodate in their spaces – because that is what expected (historically speaking as well) of women, to shrink, to shut-up, and place the needs of others ahead of their own.
Reasonable accommodation would be the male washroom, on the first floor, and then every alternating floor in all buildings should be gender neutral. So, men and women who are comfortable with the notion of unisex washrooms have free and easy access. Those people who are less comfortable with the idea, still have access to sex segregated spaces. Sounds very rights of the individual, liberty for all-esque to me.
The same treatment for locker-rooms and other situations, the primary male room becomes gender neutral and secondary facilities are repurposed so individuals can have the choice about their level of comfort and what they feel is their level of safety.
The onus should be on men to fix the violent behaviour that is making it necessary to have female-only spaces in first place, not legislating ways for men to invade the few female spaces that exist.
Seems kinda onerous, perhaps even preposterous the idea that men need to change their behaviour. And that is what living in a patriarchy does to one’s world view.
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I really don’t see much difference in the fear being manufactured over this issue and the fear white folk use to have against having to mingle freely with those people of colour and slanty-eyed foreigners. Holding on to and respecting fear for the basis of law is not very rational but a guaranteed way to prop up the very patriarchy we both want taken down.
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The comparison stated becomes a bit more tenuous when the realization that the white people were the dominant, power holding class in society.
Women are not in the situation you put forth as they are, and have been historically the subjugated and oppressed class in society.
It might be good here to explain then how, historically and sociologically speaking that male violence is not a problem in our society any more, and the concerns women express over male violence in our society are incorrect.
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The problematic assumption you present in this vein of the comments is that some biological male now identifying as a woman should continue being treated as male and therefore still offers the same credible threat as any other man. This, I think, is the inherent discrimination at work, as if gender identity can safely and reasonably be assumed to take a back seat or is less than a serious alteration to the biological sex and normative behaviours associated with that sex the individual was born with.
Both of these are not good assumptions.
We know that people who identify as transgendered really do accumulate statistics that reveals that living this identity radically correlates robustly with very negative results – from economic poverty, blatant service discrimination, social marginalization, to extraordinary rates of suicide. yet we’re to put all this aside and demand that these folk must deal with the world and be treated as if their at birth genitalia was the paramount factor. This seems to be what you’re supporting and then justify it by claiming any change to this treatment – like allowing a transgendered woman to be treated as if a woman, a transgendered man to be treated by the gender identity they live with – is patriarchy. Well, in one sense it is… that gender has any affect whatsoever reveals some kind of ‘-archy’ at work. But beyond this, failing to allow gender identity to trump biological sex assignment is in real life insidiously cruel and unjust, and examples of the cruelty and unfairness abound in this society that is patriarchal. Your argument would keep it this way as if this supports feminism. Maybe in some minds, but such a belief grants a stamp of approval and support to discrimination on the basis of gender identity. On this issue, I think you’re on the wrong side of history.
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@tildeb
Socialization starts from birth. The lessons of what it is to be man or woman are learned through every interaction, implicit and explicit, that we experience. One does not unlearn these patterns easily or quickly, or maybe not at all.
Trans-women are men. One’s thoughts and feelings do not overwrite the biological reality and socialization of the situation.
The growing list of violence, mentioned earlier, against women perpetrated by men who identify as women offers a rebuttal to your assertion that men who identify as women offer less of a threat to women. Does this list typify all trans-women, of course not, but it does contradict the trans-activist narrative that NO violence is perpetrated by trans-women against female persons.
We are a sexually dimorphic species and making a distinction based on that is not problematic, in the majority of cases. Our society bases its expectations on the sex that we are assigned at birth. Much of the oppression that women face is based on the biological features of being female in society. If naming the reality of the situation is discriminatory in the pejorative sense, should we change what we think are the facts of the situation? That isn’t how science works, nor should it be.
Necessarily so. Otherwise, why are not females in droves, identifying as male? I mean, whew patriarchy solved right? Sex based oppression remains untouched by how we identify – if you are read by society as female you will be oppressed, versus being lauded if being read as male. Your thoughts and feelings are irrelevant to this categorization process.
As with any minority, their concerns should be addressed by society at large and every effort made to lessen the negative conditions they face.
The lessening of their social ills should not, however, be at the expense of another oppressed class in society. The way this debate is framed is that biological females wanting to keep their female only spaces and services are somehow the root cause of the problem and thatis were we need to change. Wherein the actual problem is the male structures and violence toward both trans-women and women that is responsible for the misery of both classes of people.
Yet changing the deleterious male behaviour/structure of society (the systemic change that would necessary to alter society for the better) is almost never addressed.
It doesn’t matter which trumps which on the individual level. If you are read as one or the other by society, you will be treated as such. This does not change the material reality of the sex based oppression in our society. So again, is the problem women and their boundaries or the fact that the system itself that is dictated by male violence?
Concomitantly, why are we spending so much time making sure that people are treated in the ‘correct’ oppressive way rather than trying to dismantle the boxes (the root cause of the misery) that are the very reason for the oppression in the first place?
If believing that respecting woman’s rights, boundaries,and person-hood places me on the wrong side of history I’ll happily stay there and continue to advocate for women and their struggle to be recognized as full members of society (and as full human beings).
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@tildeb
In other words according to the material, scientifically accurate, biological truth of the matter. I may need a refresher on how factual analysis works, if by calling a man, a man is somehow inaccurate.
Rebecca Reilly-Cooper on gender identity.
So yah there are problematic assumptions at work going on both sides of the fence.
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For your consideration.
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@tildeb
When did I mention either fear or assault? It’s not fear. It’s people invading my space, who don’t belong there, and are telling me what to do, think, and say. They are called men.
Somewhat like you with your patronising mansplanation of why women should accept men who *feel* like women in women-only space.
So some guy (no reassignment surgery, no drugs) decides he feels like a woman and gets to share space allocated to women. If I have been duped, you have bought into neo-liberalism. Surely you are better than that? Neo-libs won’t eradicate patriarchy. Ever.
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“So some guy…”
There’s the problem the transgendered are trying to get you to face: your assumptions not just framing their identity but shaping their rights to be different from your own, justifying this sleight-of-rights in your own mind by assigning to them your discomfort… in the name of your ‘safety’. You’re safe from the transgendered, RSITM. Now make them safe from you and your assumptions.
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@Tildeb
That is sort of a haphazard generalization no? Men are violent toward women in whatever form or identity they choose to present.
Just because a male declares himself a woman does not change the male socialization and misogyny he’s learned through being male in society.
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Yes, it is haphazard, and yes, all kinds of people will cause harm to others. But my point was that you are far safer with a transgendered person identifying as a woman than, say, going to college (1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted). Should I present a list of women who have been sexually assaulted at colleges and universities as if that justified why women who wish to feel safER therefore shouldn’t attend higher institutions of learning? Is this really a desirable solution to address sexual assault… with genitalia-based segregation?
If we follow your line of reasoning to allow for people to feel safeER by using genitalia segregation on a train, then we should maintain the principle and extend it to the rest of our lives, too. I see no reason why we shouldn’t therefore segregate from birth and maintain a strict genitalia segregation in all ways.
I don’t think this will in any way help reduce gender discrimination, mind you; I cannot for the life of me see how it possibly could. If the goal is reduce sexual assaults, where’s the evidence that genitalia-based segregation is the way to attain it without directly increasing gender-based discrimination?
I think the cost isn;t just too high for transgendered people; I think the cost is too high for all of us.
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When are you going to drop your patronising male privilege tildeb? Do NOT keep telling me what to think. You are not a proponent for dismantling patriarchy by continuing to deride my point of view as a woman.
What part of my comment did you not read? I told you I did not mention fear. Nor did I mention safety. This is a bigger issue that I am thinking you can’t grasp. But:
Here’s an interesting article:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/05/what-gender-anyway
Please note, if you don’t read through it, this extract:
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You didn’t mention fear specifically; Arb asked me to behoove the possibility. After all, you said, “…a horrible thought hit me. I could end up sharing a two-bed cabin, or even a four or six-bed train compartment, with a man who says he is a woman.” Horror using denotes fear and revulsion, if I’m not mistaken. You will correct me if I’m wrong and, hopefully, forgive me for making any connections you did not intent to make. Having slept in mixed bunk houses and using unisex bathrooms for months at a time, I do not understand this natural sense of horror at doing so. You may assume this point is patronizing male privilege but I do not offer it in this sense. I offer it to show that sleeping with mixed gender and mixed genitalia is not a sexual act and should not require your consent, using a bathroom with mixed gender and genitalia is not a sexual act and should not require your consent. In neither case should the presumption be that such unisex settings are the places where sexual assaults are waiting to happen; in fact, the opposite seems to be the case. This – non-segregated settings are where the likelihood for sexual assaults is higher – is the assumption I think you’re making that is based not on good reasoning, not on good reasons, not on good evidence, but created from and by you for your own motivations, and then imposed outwards on others where you then think you are entitled to do so to effect.
I beg to differ. I think this attitude is part of maintaining and promoting gender discrimination for poor reasons and one that comes at an additional cost that harms real people in real life when acted upon.
The sky will not fall for me doing so.
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1) Horrible: very unpleasant (def from OED)
So, yes, that’s the first correction.
Which means the rest of your assumption is equally flawed.
However, did you sleep in mixed sex accommodation knowing it was exactly that?
Or did you sleep in men-only accommodation, only to find women were there too?
If I am informed something is women only, what is the point of allowing biological men into that space? If it is not women only, then I have been misinformed.
2) Stop trying to go round in circles. I am not talking about permissive sleeping in the same room with the opposite sex (sleeping only). I am talking about invading women’s spaces. Redefining who women are.
3) I will repeat again. I have not mentioned fear, safety or assault in this post. I am talking about women’s rights (such as they are) which are continually being eroded. However, as you are interested in assault, what part of Gregory Schwartz, dressed as a woman, assaulting a woman in a toilet do you not understand?
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You frame this as if it’s only a woman’s issue; it’s not. We had this talk when women sport journalists wanted access to men’s locker rooms and barring them from doing so on the basis of genitalia was determined to be workplace discrimination. Not everything is about sex.
The government of Canada is going to introduce legislation today to make gender identity an fundamental legal right prohibiting any discrimination on this basis. In spite of your opinion, this is not an attack on women; it’s a recognition that gender identity is no basis for discrimination… like who is and is not identified as a ‘woman’ for sleeping arrangements according to RSITM.
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Ah. I missed the part about oppressed men didn’t I?
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Who said any such thing?
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You?
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No.
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I’m tired of people badgering other people. Everyone has the right to believe as they wish. None of anyone’s business. People should deal with themselves and their own problems – which should leave them little time to micromanage others’ thoughts and behavior.
As far as the US mandate about bathrooms in schools. Only a person who doesn’t have kids or has actually worked in a big city public school would suggest this. The amount of behavior problems this will cause is unbelievable. (Note whose kids go to private schools with well behaved kids). There will be spite videos, fights, and kids changing bathrooms to piss people off. At one time any girl or boy being harassed/stalked/bothered could flee to the bathroom to escape a persistent/ annoying person of the opposite sex. Has anyone been in the boy’s bathroom of a big city school? – it stinks and they are not above having pee-fights and spraying innocent bystanders – or targeted individuals. The floor is gross and sticky. At one school we had to take the stall doors off to stop not only smoking and trying to set the school on fire, but boys slamming kids heads into the toilets. (7-9 graders). Don’t worry there was a shielding hallway into the bathroom. There’s not enough personnel in schools to monitor classrooms, halls, stairs (lots of fights there) and the bathrooms.
Unisex bathrooms are OK, but there still needs to be traditional gender specific bathrooms for those who are more comfortable “in their most private of times” (as the administration has said). Why should the large group lose their comfort zone/privacy for .003 of the population?
Note: schools have traditionally offered the use of the bathroom in the nurse’s office for any student who is afraid, overly shy, has medical conditions, gets embarrassed, is afraid they will get beat up or just doesn’t want to go into the big ones. It’s worked fine here.
What people are not talking about is that it’s not just bathrooms. The Obama mandate includes locker rooms, showers, changing rooms – all facilities. If Title IX (equality for girls and boys in schools as far as athletic spending, equal opportunities in sports/facilities comparable and to make sure girls get equal opportunities to take math, science, business and all courses) is what they are basing the mandate on, then it’s all open the barn door for all areas and I don;t see how as Title IX covers boys and girls, not transgender. Those individuals are covered anti- discrimination rulings, though.
Oh, and the federal funding the administration is threatening to pull is the money that helps pays for the free lunches for poor children. (Here, the school districts and state pays for free breakfasts). So pulling funding for noncompliance will hurt the poorest children. Great plan.
And it is blackmail – aimed to cause division and chaos.
Public areas in parks and communities are one thing – voluntary attendance with parents attending or knowing about facilities. Unisex will work. It’s a choice.
But K-12 public schools are a whole different situation with required attendance of children of all beliefs and faiths.
All I can see is that the private and church schools will be jammed by new applications. The public will demand voucher systems for tuition at the school of their choice.
And I can clearly understand wanting to sleep in a woman’s only compartment. Relaxing is relaxing. With women born women, you kinda know what kind of chemistry you are working with and how their brains tend to work – common experiences.(and even if there’s a threat, you aren’t facing a bigger bone and muscle structure in most cases.)
Sorry about the long rant. But pretty irritated about this
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Well, here it is. Bound to happen. A woman thinks another woman in the bathroom is transgender and harasses her. Expect more like this. Foaming media driving people to do stupid things http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-mistaken-transgender-harassed-walmart-bathroom-article-1.2638748
The reason the Houston ordinance allowing people to use the public bathroom they felt comfortable in failed when the people voted was because the mayor insisted on a provision that would allow anyone harassed or asked to leave could then file a lawsuit against the other party for discrimination – and get money awarded by courts. What a mess.
Things like this man’s attempt at extortion because of a cake and his attempt to stir up emotional opinions do not help anything: he admitted he did it himself. http://www.kvue.com/news/local/whole-foods-accuser-drops-lawsuit-over-cake/196619953
“Crying wolf” when it’s a fake in order to get money or thinking it advances some cause is happening far too often here. The end does not justify the means, people. Hurts any cause when truth comes out
If people were quiet and minded their own business and kept their noses out of others’, a lot would work better.
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Did you read the arb’s links about harrassment and assault? If not, take a look.
When I was a kid, I went to single sex toilets in France. Still do the same in Spain. But it is just one toilet. Big difference.
I agree. Out of control.
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