Personally I think this is a tricky issue. The feminist in me is saying “listen to the women!”, but the anti-transphobic in me is saying “listen to the trans-women!”. They pull in different directions.
It is like a person saying “I’m just scared of black people, I can’t control it”. The equivalent here is “I don’t feel safe being around trans-women, I can’t control it.” You can tell all sorts of facts about the black/trans-people, but the emotional response stays. What can you do? Do we deny her right to be scared? (Which is what Rowling and TERF are saying, that they are being silenced.) Or do we just let them be? (Which an anti-transphobic/anti-racist would say is equivalent to tolerating transphobia/racism.)
I mean it’s super easy to do this… within a community. It’s really hard to do this between communities.
If younger people’s answers are “come up with a solution that has no reference to definitions of any kind”, and older people’s answers “how can you possibly say what is or is not acceptable if we’re not allowed to define anything?” you can see what it feels like a generation gap and also that there’s not going to be any answer that satisfies everyone.
Some people will never learn and maintain that fear. You can’t make them get rid of it. But you don’t keep whites only bathrooms because a little old lady tells you she’s in terror of black people. This fear is simply irrational. The trans group, or anyone who falls into this category, is very small and the bulk of them just want to live their lives and not have to worry about this stuff.
Predators are predators. We have laws for them but guess what, most of our law and police work are reactionary and not that great at preventing much. So… women should continue what we always do in public, be careful. Heck when I worked a night, years ago, and there were number of us that were escorted to our cars at night because we employees parked way in the back and a woman walking alone at night in a mostly empty parking lot is a potential target. We don’t force men into their houses at night because one of them might jump someone one day.
This is definitely definitely an anxiety among white liberals of my age group (mid 40’s.) I tend to be pretty sanguine about shit because that’s my personality. I remember having a discussion with a buddy a few days ago saying “It’s contextual. You know what makes sense when you’re actually in a situation. No general principles needed.” And this made him deeply uneasy, which on the one hand I kind of get, but on the other I’m really tired of drawing borders in minute detail for people who are already perfectly aware of where they are.
She was abused in the past. Shouldn’t there be some level of acceptance that people who have been traumatized might be specifically scared of things related to the abuse?
I can give her somewhat of a pass in her personal life. If she wants to leave the bathroom when someone who has a masculine appearance enters basically quietly removing herself from a situation that causes her stress I would understand. But your irrational fear is something that you should have to deal with not something that you should attempt to deal with through the use the authority of government or society.
I’m not sure it’s totally age based even if it is age related. I think it is personality. Some people are much happier/less uneasy if there are rules and logic instead of context based.
My grandad was a simple man who barely had any education and he lived much of his life in the Balkans, as a sheperd. When I was in my teens, in the 90s, I recall asking him what he thought about gay marriage etc. He shrugged and said “Who cares?”. I didn’t think much of it at the time but later I realised there was wisdom in his reply in the sense that he didn’t really grasp the concept but, unlike the morons such as Rowling, he was not afraid of what he did not understand, he just admitted it was beyond him and moved on.
To be fair, transwomen using women’s bathrooms has actually proven to be dangerous (for the transwomen anyway).
If anybody’s wondering, the bad guy got 6 years for the attack (which resulted in 5 bone fractures).
I still don’t know why we have changed the label from “hate crime” to “bias crime” in my state (OR). Maybe “hate crime” makes the guilty party look bad or something.
Exactly. That, and the women’s room is usually full, while the men’s room is easy in, easy out! At the theater (back when you could still go see a play or a musical), it was always hilarious to see the gent’s facilities with no line, while the ladies room line extended up to the balcony.
If your wife is feeling ballsy (metaphorically), she can just use the cubicle in men’s toilet. You can spot for your wife and make sure nobody peeked. 😂
I welcome the move to unisex toilet, but I know some people, especially women, aren’t happy, because they feel like they are losing “safe space”.
Once, I was on a bus full of college students (this was, ahem, a while ago shall we say) in Italy, on the autostrada. We pulled into the equivalent of a service plaza or rest stop and the guys on the buss proceeded into the men’s facilities. Right after we got there though another bus, this one full of Italian women, arrived, and quickly overfilled the women’s bathrooms. The ones who couldn’t wait then walked in to the men’s room and ousted all of us, effecting a rather efficient conquest.
I’ve also seen exactly what you describe, women using an under-utilized men’s room with spotters. Fine by me; everyone’s gotta pee.
In the good old days of the late 70s, I once found myself at a concert standing at a urinal, next to a young woman using the next urinal. This was perhaps the most extreme example I’ve seen of women sharing the more accessible men’s facilities, and of course there was a notable lack of sobriety all around.
A couple of years ago, I attended a stadium concert in Berlin where they had dropped mens urinals and only had unisex stalls. Resulting in all lines extending to the balcony, so to speak. So the worst of both worlds. I would guess that they had a significant drop in beer sales that evening. I know that we stopped getting beer way sooner than we had planned.
Same. Saw this in SF a few years ago - a common sink area but private, fully enclosed and locking, toilet cubicles. I like the approach but heard nothing but complaints from all females in the group I was with that weekend, including one very outspoken feminist. Mostly arguments about how women end up spending more time at the sink and mirror and don’t want to be be self conscious around men, the risk of lining up with unknown men, etc.
