I like how Pete Davidson from SNL phrases it:
The theory is that men in their relentless quest to watch women go to the bathroom are going through years of hormones, surgery, changing their name, their wardrobe, coming out to their family…all for that big payoff of peeing in a room without urinals.
-Todd
When you put it that way, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
From my past experiences, womens’ rooms are universally nicer than mens’.
But I think it’s because, as men, we can’t have nice things.
From the objections I have read elsewhere the fear seems to be that allowing transgenders to enter restrooms with little girls will allow actual perverts, not necessarily the LGBT, to also enter the bathroom under “false” circumstances, shall we say. It is hard to tell a father he is somehow being over protective of his daughter by objecting to that idea. In today’s helicopter parent environment it is hard to think there wouldn’t be objections.
Personally I think they are being a little irrational in their fears, but try telling that to them.
I understand where that perception comes from but that danger/concern is just as present in Men’s rooms with all males.
-Todd
I’ve had to bring my daughter with me into a (Men’s) restroom when I was out and about without my wife. Surprise, surprise, nobody sexually assaulted her.
That’s not what my wife says. From her description, the women’s rooms are often at least as gross as the male facilities.
Sure, you just put her belt level around a bunch of men dropping trou. :)
Any parent with opposite-sex kids has almost certainly brought them into the restroom with them. The kid’s gotta go pee.
That’s the maddening thing about this moral panic – the (false) idea that these laws somehow makes molesting children legal. Or that there is some type of mystic force-field that prevents this behavior today that these types of laws would strengthen or weaken.
Honestly, are there laws in place today that women and men must use the restrooms marked for their particular gender, or is it just social convention? I mean, I know that there are laws that public places (especially restaurants) must have restrooms available to everyone and certain rules for things like stadiums require women’s bathrooms as well as men’s bathrooms, but is it actually ILLEGAL for a man to use a bathroom marked as a women’s room? I suspect that’s probably not on the books in too many places.
Do they have a single shared trough that they all use at the same time?
No.
No, they do not.
I know a few radfems and trans radfem allies on socmedia and you see the opposition to some of this being passed around. The are very vocal about one thing, a safe space for birth women so want birth female only spaces. Its not really the argument for this thread as they aren’t the Christian Right.
But, pics and profiles passed round on social media come in from the right too. Generally “visibly” men who identify as lesbian women, some refuse to conform to feminine stereotypes, some dress in mens clothes, grow beards and don’t start treatment. The population of this identity faction has got to be tiny as the same ones pop up over and over. The panic isn’t just around bathrooms, its around changing rooms in gyms and pools too, and the panic is summed up as “This mans penis is right next to your naked daughter” (or in the radfems case, them). This is what they fear. Even if she is very feminine and still has a penis, because <insert bias here>. I’m not going to enable their argument by presenting it.
I don’t have kids but have experienced European attitudes to nudity when in Europe and its not the end of the world but understand concern from others. Bathrooms are irrelevant, I’ve used genderless bathrooms many times, we have cubicles not the communal shitters of Rome.All i can offer in terms of debate is its complicated, because if anyone think American culture can handle opposite sex nudity and decades of paedo-scare media bombardment and just change overnight is being foolish. Not just American culture either, you have to look at catering to all global modesty cultures too or you’ll end up excluding them from public spaces. Like I said, it’s complicated, especially when some argue a 3rd option is transphobic. It’s a minefield.
As someone who has cleaned many restrooms in both the WTC and the Empire State building I can assure that the opposite is true 90% of the time.
God yes. Visiting my daughter at college, I went in with the assumption that four girls sharing one bathroom would keep it orders of magnitude cleaner than the horror-show that my three roommates and I produced in our joint lavatory.
Not even close. My daughter’s commode was about five days from achieving some kind of gestalt-fungal sentience and running amok through campus shouting Things that (Wo)Man Should Never Know in a baritone that transcends sound and sanity. It was astounding… I mean, my roommates and I could do our serious business in the library bathrooms during the day and only use our dorm toilet from a variable distance of several feet, but these girls had to sit on this thing at least two or three times a day. Like, skin-to-rubbery-fungus contact.
I feel the need to wash just thinking about it. And it’s in another state.
That’s a good question. I know building codes would dictate the size of a restroom and how many toilets you might need. But as to whether they have to be male-female I have no idea.
Blue Man Group joins others canceling North Carolina show dates.
-Todd
There’s some very vague laws in many places for things like “indecent behavior” which I bet in North Carolina can be applied to “being trans in our state” whenever the police so desire.
That was pre-HB2 as well, and well, with cops these days, a lot of other states as well.
Cops can come up with an excuse to arrest you very easily if they really want to. Being trans is pretty hard even in the states that don’t have these laws.
As well, many states are very lax in the way that they treat trans folk during jail intake. More enlightened venues will allow an officer of your choice to strip search you. Others don’t give a damn.
The 21c Museum Hotel in Durham, NC installed new bathroom signs. Designed by artist Peregrine Honig.
-Todd
That’s … awesome.
That is so beautiful. Sadly, the bathroom bill is the only part of the bill getting press and there were other sections that were very concerning that places like Mississippi picked up mostly intact.