Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

So, I know a fair segment of the population on this site isn't all that friendly to transpeople (i.e. "You were born a man, deal with it!"), but I thought it'd be worth discussing the round of bills the GOP has been pushing through on the state level.

These laws would require transpeople to use the restroom of their biological sex, not the gender with which they identify. Some make provisions for public areas to have unisex bathrooms that they be allowed to use. Their rationale for these laws is that sexual predators will pretend to be transwomen so that they can go peep on girls in the ladies rooms, but that strikes me as bald-faced fearmongering.

The latest and boldest bills are coming through the legislative pipeline in the conservative paradise of Kansas. Not only would SB 513 and HB 2737 forbid trans students from using the opposite sex's restrooms and locker rooms, but it would also allow non-trans students who encounter a trans student in their restroom/locker room to sue the school for up to $2,500 "for all psychological, emotional and physical harm suffered as a result of violation of this section."

In my personal opinion, these laws will do nothing but hurt transpeople by encouraging them to be seen as "the other." What do you guys think? Should transpeople be forbidden from using the restroom of the gender they identify as?

The problem with these is trying to legislate by science/logic instead of appearances, which in any other case would typically be a good thing. Science says if you have XY chromsomes you go in the boys bathroom and vice versa, but science doesn't consider that would leave some people who present themselves as female having to go into the boys bathroom/vv. This doesn't make transpeople "the other", it means they literally can't go to the bathroom in public (imagine a court case where a transwoman went into a male bathroom because her chromosomes say she's male but another male already in there claims his privacy has just been trampled on and he wants $2500 for seeing someone of the opposite sex in the male bathroom?!?!?).

What these laws need to do is legislate based on representation. Surgery or no surgery, do you present yourself as a female every day? Would someone who didn't know you try to stop you from "accidentally" going into the male bathroom because you clearly look like a woman? Even changing rooms have stalls, so anything beyond surface appearances shouldn't make a difference.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Empirical proof is a good thing most of the time, but when it comes to that complicated beast that is the human psyche, it tends to struggle and inadvertently cause problems.

I always thought that conservative people would create new a bathroom for transpeople, but this…
I know that some people may feel uncomfortable with someone trans on the same bathroom with them but like Lisa said the stalls hide everything that is not needed to see.

Politics at its finest. Pull a hypothetical scenario out of your ass with little if any real-world backing and use it for some good old-fashioned Helen Lovejoy-style fear-mongering and appeal to emotion to get whatever the hell legislation you want crammed down the people's throats.
To be honest, I think this stupid paranoia is one of very few reasons we even have gender-segregated bathrooms anymore.

The whole "They're gonna spy on people in the bathroom" shit is ridiculous.
1: Clearly they aren't aware trans people can be attracted to anyone other than their own biological sex (One minute they're gay men taking it too far, the next they're spying on the opposite gender, how does that even?)
2: Do we just not allow gays/lesbians into their own gender's bathrooms? Where do they go?
How about Bisexuals, are we just banned from any public bathroom?

Let's not make this out to be an issue where dumb people are making dumb laws.

Tradition probably plays the biggest part in all of this. Even if most men aren't (going to be) pervs (in the presence of women), you're probably going to have a lot of women who feel very uncomfortable peeing, pooping, or changing out tampons/pads while the bathroom is filled with men. If that woman is seen as a man, even if she is presenting herself as a woman, then those women (more than a very small minority) will be very uncomfortable. And many laws are based on comfort like taking pictures of a woman's panties or child's underwear if they're wearing a skirt on a train or on an escalator (but even those laws are iffy.)

Another matter is that being in the nude or exposed presents a feeling of vulnerability. Stalls or not, not everyone feels comfortable about stripping to their genitals in the same room for just a few moments where you can't easily move in the midst of the other gender, especially if that's a room with a stranger you don't know. Not your good friend and you vowing to have your backs turned to each other while you change.
 
And going into practice, you're bringing in a genderbending person who could present themselves as a certain gender, but very often does not "pass" very easily as that gender. Because most everyone who can incorporate social norms (We all do. If you don't, then you're actually missing out on a crucial aspect of humanity, and it'll place you more at a disadvantage in life than it will ever benefit you.) are going to think "There's a man right outside of this stall." Or, because there are true perverts in the world, men who will begin to dress up as women to go into women's restrooms.

Now those are not excuses. We really shouldn't be as hung up on nudity in general. If we could get pass that, we wouldn't have issues with breastfeeding, and it would help move the sexes to being more equal in terms of how nudity is viewed. Very often, men who are exhibitionists are treated and thought of a lot more harshly than women who are exhibitionists, and nudity for women is very rarely seen outside of a sexual context (even in a humorous context, there's a combination of sexuality and humor), where male nudity is very often played for laughs.
And even though I don't feel the same sort of vulnerability as many women do with men, we shouldn't live in fear about what a man could do when you're alone with them.

But this still isn't quite so cut and dry.

I feel like not only is it unnecessary, it's a waste of time. I'd write a monologue about it, except I'd basically be repeating the arguments above.

Also, if "biological gender" is defined by something like "the gender printed on your original birth certificate" then you' haven't solved anything-- there will still be people with the "wrong" genitals in the "wrong" place, if they've gone through surgery and hormone therapy and such.

This pretty much sums up what I wanted to say.

These are the forums, we're more accepting towards things like trans than our comment section /pol/-wannabe.

So…

I take it that if I didn't go on hormones I'd still have problems because…

uh…

I'm really surprised that people like to pretend that naturally androgynous people don't exist because seriously, what the hell would they do

"uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh"

It's always the "BUT THE CHILDREN" excuse, too, and we all know how well that goes out.

All in all, typical Republican butthurt creates knee jerk reaction which doesn't solve the original problem and causes more to boot. Good job, I'm sure you felt like you accomplished something by determining who can go in what bathroom. It's not like there are real problems in society like poverty or lack of accessible healthcare, food, shelter, clothes or the like- oh.