Transgender bathrooms

[psalms 91]

After seeing the news I am appaled at this. Whatever happened to common sense and decency? This is a travisty that should be stopped. Others thoughts?

 

[Lamb]

I hate using public bathrooms all together. I prefer my own private toilet area

 

[psalms 91]

Yes, you and I have a choice but I wonder about the schools and others that for whatever reason have to use a public restroom

 

[tango]

After seeing the news I am appaled at this. Whatever happened to common sense and decency? This is a travisty that should be stopped. Others thoughts?

What news is that?

Only yesterday I was in a park where the men's bathroom was out of order, so the women's room became a de-facto unisex room. As far as I could tell nobody had any complaints. All the cubicles need is better screening (so people couldn't stand and look over the wall) and as far as I can see all the problems go away. Not only that it would mean that everybody was in one place so you wouldn't have a room containing women, transgendered women, and maybe the odd pervert who said he felt female that day in the hope of seeing women in the bathroom.

 

[psalms 91]

transgender people who say they identify with an opposite sex are now permitted to use that bathroom no matter what plumbing they may have

 

[tango]

transgender people who say they identify with an opposite sex are now permitted to use that bathroom no matter what plumbing they may have

... and truly transgender people are almost certainly not going to represent a problem.

A person born a man who has become a woman, who presents themselves as a woman, who dresses as a woman, using a stall in the women's bathroom, is vanishingly unlikely to cause any problems. By the time they've gone through all the gender realignment and hormonal treatments the chances are they will have little if any sexual desire for the women around them.

If there are problems they are far more likely to come from a man who simply announces that he identifies as a woman in order to be allowed into the women's bathroom. And as I've mentioned in a few other places the all-encompassing answer seems to be to turn bathrooms and changing rooms into unisex facilities with cubicles offering actual privacy rather than the rather lame offerings current available in most US bathrooms. It treats the transgender community just the same as everybody else while also making life vastly easier for all sorts of other people (e.g. parents with opposite sex children, people with disabled parents or a disabled spouse etc). Everybody is treated the same - you go into the room, pick a cubicle, do what you need to do, and leave.

 

[psalms 91]

agreed but what about the kid that is in there and sees something that is foreign and how do you protect against that? Not to mentionm those who would take advantage of this and prey upon people

 

[Rens]

agreed but what about the kid that is in there and sees something that is foreign and how do you protect against that? Not to mentionm those who would take advantage of this and prey upon people

Even though we don't have that nonsense here I never let my kids go alone to a men's room with those weird pee things, as if they only prey on girls and I Always go with them to the ladies' room, but most of the time they just pee in the bushes tbh.

 

[tango]

agreed but what about the kid that is in there and sees something that is foreign and how do you protect against that? Not to mentionm those who would take advantage of this and prey upon people

How does it change anything?

There isn't anything currently in place to stop a predatory man from walking into the ladies' room. Allowing transgendered people into the ladies room doesn't really change anything other than enshrining into law what almost certainly happens now. And why would a child see anything - if someone is in a cubicle with the door closed nobody else sees what they are doing.

If a child sees someone coming in to use the bathroom why would they thing anything is foreign? If you force people to use the bathroom that corresponds to their birth gender you're far more likely to create other issues - how would you explain to a six-year-old boy why the person who just went into the stall in the men's room is wearing a dress and makeup? How would you explain to a six-year-old girl why the person with a beard is using the ladies' room? If people go into the bathroom, pick a cubicle and close the door, where is the problem with children in the first place? The person who comes in wearing the dress might have been born female, they might have been born male and transitioned to being female. Maybe they are a man who just likes to dress in women's clothing. But whatever is under the dress is hidden because they do what they need to do behind a closed door.

If anything it makes it harder to prey upon people when everyone uses a unisex room. With traditional rules in place (i.e. use the bathroom based on your gender at birth), a man going into the women's room has either made a mistake or is looking to take advantage of someone. An honest mistake doesn't need legislation; the man looking to take advantage can be fairly sure he is unlikely to face serious opposition. But what if everyone is in the same room, only separated by cubicle walls? Now if you go in hoping to take advantage of a vulnerable women you've almost certainly got other men around, maybe even the woman's husband or boyfriend. So instead of tackling a 150-pound woman you might be facing a 150-pound woman and her 250-pound weightlifting boyfriend.

Those who look to prey on people aren't going to worry too much about existing laws anyway, so it's not as if new legislation really changes anything.

 

[tango]

Even though we don't have that nonsense here I never let my kids go alone to a men's room with those weird pee things, as if they only prey on girls and I Always go with them to the ladies' room, but most of the time they just pee in the bushes tbh.

This is another side of the argument - the people who are worried that pedophiles will have access to their daughters are apparently unconcerned that those same pedophiles have always had access to their sons. And in a unisex facility you can be standing right there to protect your daughter, if you feel so inclined.

 

[SpiritPsalmist]

Yes, you and I have a choice but I wonder about the schools and others that for whatever reason have to use a public restroom

I don't like it at all. If I had children in public school I would definitely be looking to home school them. As far as public restrooms go, I don't really have much of an issue other than the stalls should have floor to ceiling walls and door making them totally private. I would also not send a child or a teenager alone. For that matter, I don't know that I'd go in alone.

 

[psalms 91]

Yes, anymore hard to tell what you will run into

 

[tango]

The key thing is that for as long as there is some form of segregation anyone going into the women's room with ill intentions can be reasonably sure that he's only going to find women in there (and maybe there's an outside chance of finding a transgendered person in there). With decent privacy provided by the cubicles, if your enterprising pervert now knows he's not going to see anything of interest and if he does try anything on there are likely to be other men around who won't take kindly to his antics so maybe he'll think twice. And if he's the sort who wouldn't even let the thought of a 250-pound weightlifter beating ten bells out of him for bothering his girlfriend bother him, chances are he's going to be the sort to lie in wait in the parking lot anyway.

 

[Lamb]

The more wall coverage you have to have for the type of bathrooms you're talking about (enclosed), the more they need cleaning since there is more area to have to clean by the janitors/cleaning crew. More money...well, besides the expense of having to redo bathrooms. Who is going to pay for all that?

 

[psalms 91]

Better question is who is going to exercise common sense on this issue and protect our kids

 

[Ruth]

This topic makes me have to go to the bathroom! lol

 

[psalms 91]

lol Ruth

 

[tango]

The more wall coverage you have to have for the type of bathrooms you're talking about (enclosed), the more they need cleaning since there is more area to have to clean by the janitors/cleaning crew. More money...well, besides the expense of having to redo bathrooms. Who is going to pay for all that?

They manage just fine in the UK. The first time I used a bathroom in the US I was amazed that people accepted such a total lack of privacy.

As for who is going to pay for it, how about leaving companies to decide whether they want segregated bathrooms or unisex bathrooms, merely requiring that if they want people with different plumbing in the same room they have to provide proper privacy? That seems to solve both problems.

 

[tango]

Better question is who is going to exercise common sense on this issue and protect our kids

How is it a child protection issue? There's lots of howling about protecting daughters but the same people who are apparently waiting to prey on young girls have had pretty much unfettered access to young boys for generations and nobody has seen anything wrong with it. And if you're allowed to go into either bathroom a father can go with his daughter if he feels he needs to watch over her.

 

[psalms 91]

Yeah lets just open it up to anyone. Whatever happened to common sense that says if you have boy parts you use the boys and if you have guirl parts you use the girls? Why is it that common sense and intelligence go out the window to be pc?