NC's transgender law violates Civil Rights Act, Justice says

Parent Cafe
181

“I expect that TX will not be declaring an emergency. They won’t need any of that evil dirty money from the fedrul
gubmint.”

They whined like a kid whose mama wouldn’t give them anymore candy after the fertilizer explosions. Said they couldn’t afford the additional amount after 75% of needed fed funds were given. And the extra amount was requested was only $17 million - yet they are willfully giving up a billion $'s in school aid to keep icky kids from using the bathroom of their choice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/us/fema-denies-texas-request-for-full-disaster-aid-rankling-stricken-town.html?_r=0

Guess they will have to raise state taxes to make up the difference - poor lambs.

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I suggest that you read the book “Becoming Nicole,” a memoir about a set of identical twins male at birth. Nicole knows from an early age that she is a girl. Her father has been a tireless champion on her behalf, although he wasn’t initially. In a letter in February-“If I could meet with you and your fellow governors, I would sit down with you and ask, “What are you afraid of?” These kids just want to go to the bathroom, maybe visit with their friends to discuss their day, to laugh and just be kids. Why does it have to so hard? Their classmates do not care and they are not afraid. It is time to listen, watch and learn from them to understand that being transgender is not a big deal.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/nicole-born-identical-twin-boys-now-brother-sister-34539470

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@momofthreeboy:

We aren’t talking locker rooms here, we are talking bathrooms, the NC law was specifically targeted at a law that allowed transgender people to use restrooms for the gender they identitied as/are, it was not the locker room issue. In a restroom women don’t go around nude, when they do their business they do it in a stall, so a transgender person in that circumstance would not be ‘displaying’.

As far as the locker room issue goes, that is a complicated one, and to be honest I am personally not sure that especially in schools having a transgender girl (or boy) using the open locker room is necessarily a great idea, I understand that teenagers are self conscious about their bodies, and to be honest I wonder if more than a few transgender kids might not feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, if the NC law covers locker rooms, then basically they are telling a transgender girl to use the boys room, and that is unacceptable.

One other thing I will point out, assuming that an adult transgender woman in a locker room would be ‘displaying her naughty bits’ (assuming she wasn’t post SRS, or he was post the various surgeries for a transgender male), flouting them, is kind of false logic. I know some transgender women who belong to gyms and such, and when they use the woman’s room they are careful about others and they don’t exactly ‘flaunt it’. I also think maybe that people have to grow up a bit and get beyond some of the more stupid ideas out there, that somehow body parts are dirty or that if a transgender woman (I am talking an adult) is in a locker room and has male genitals, that maybe the problem is the reaction that that must be a man and of course they are out to ogle the other girls or do something bad. How is this turning the world upside down? What the heck is so revolutionary about seeing someone who might look different? If I see a guy who started life as a woman, who still has his original equipment, how the heck does that affect me? Is it dirty? What I can’t understand how is someone who looks like a woman, who is using a woman’s gym, who happens to have male genitals, a threat? Why is it jarring? Why is it a problem?

We are upset at ISIS, at their ‘backward’ thinking, but how different is that kind of reaction? Some women I have heard complain say that seeing a penis reminds them of rape, but is that a normal reaction? Is the idea that seeing the genitals associated with the opposite gender/sex dirty, or somehow promotes lust? I just don’t understand it. I have been to nude beaches, and despite popular myth, it is no big deal, except to those who somehow see this as Soddom or Gomorrah or dirty. A transgender woman in a locker room is not a guy trying to pick someone up, she isn’t looking at others with list, and her genitals don’t mean anything more than what genitals to do any woman…so why is it such a big deal?

As far as sucking it up for being different, black ballplayers often faced the same situation you did when they integrated college and professional sports, they often were faced with leaving the stadium without showering because down south it was illegal for black and white players to shower together and the stadium had no ‘colored’ facilities. Yeah, I am sure you will say that it is different for transgender women, since they “chose” their path, but that totally misses the point that they didn’t choose anything, they are what they are, any more than identifying as a woman or man for those born that way is a choice, any more than sexual orientation is a choice. Arguments were made to keep racial segregation, that whites were too uncomfortable to be forced to eat in the same places, shower in the same places, stay in the same hotels, but in the end it was simply bias. My biggest point is not that women may be uncomfortable around transgender women who haven’t had surgery, but rather that the problem is why they are uncomfortable, that there is no rational reason why they feel that way, and that is much like the feelings of whites for blacks, it is learned behavior, and maybe it is time to grow beyond that.

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momofthreeboys, as musicprnt points out, you’re conflating locker rooms with bathrooms. I have no doubt whatsoever that you’ve shared women’s restrooms many, many times with trans women who haven’t had genital surgery, and yet it’s obvious from your own post that you’ve never once seen any such “dangly bits,” as you so tastefully call them. Stalls have doors. People don’t parade around naked in public restrooms in my experience. Nor do women’s rooms have urinals. So your second sentence isn’t really very logical – although if I took it literally, then it wouldn’t matter anyway, since I seriously doubt that there are many trans women actually capable of performing that particular feat, and none at all who would want to in public. This is all a solution in search of a problem.

Separately, I disagree with musicprnt’s attempt to argue that women who don’t want to see “assigned-male” genitals in a locker room are not being rational, should get over it, grow beyond that, etc. But it’s all beside the point, because every trans woman I know of who used women’s locker rooms without (or before) having had genital surgery was extraordinarily careful to be discreet, and would have been horrified at the idea of entering a communal shower. The last thing they want is to be “read” or perceived as different from other women, let alone in that particular way. (As far myself, I’m not a locker room kind of person; I developed an extreme antipathy to them in high school, for a lot of reasons, and have avoided locker rooms – of all kinds – as much as humanly possible, ever since.)

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And thank god we had enough women who thought enough of themselves that they were not content to quietly sit “sweaty and smelly” in a bus while the guys showered. Otherwise that’s what we would all still be doing.

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I’m glad we live in a time when these ideas are being challenged. Perhaps our grandchildren will find them as archaic as we find the racist attitudes so commonly accepted not so many years ago.

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I’m not confusing anything…OK in the bathroom with stall doors especially if there is no peeing on the floor signs if we are going to have co-ed public restrooms which is basically the only ‘right’ answer for public restrooms only,…not OK naked in my locker or spa changing room. And you probably aren’t going to change my mind about the locker rooms…sorry.

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^When your local gym or spa allows transgender persons to use their preferred locker rooms, will you stop going there?

189

momofthreeboys, allowing (for example) trans women to use women’s restrooms is hardly the same thing as having universal co-ed restrooms. The latter is not necessary to achieve the former – which already exists in practice; the purpose of anti-discrimination laws is simply to prevent trans people from being arrested for the act of existing in a restroom.

And nobody’s asking for co-ed locker rooms or spa changing rooms either. Again, you’ve probably shared both with trans women on more than one occasion. You must have an extremely odd notion of what trans women all supposedly look like.

190

There is a trans woman at my gym. She changes into her exercise clothes in the toilet stall as she pees, as do I (got the pants down to pee so might as well take’em off). She covers herself with a towel as do a lot of us between shower stall and dressing stall.

Since she is obviously trans I prefer that she is in our dressing room rather than risking having the crap beaten out of her for using the men’s room.

191

Only if they get naked in my presence and they are all there for the world to see. I’d be gone in a heartbeat. I was serious when I said that time is my sanctuary from living with men 24/7.

I think universal restrooms is the ONLY answer. I think it’s a bit silly to try and police who was born with male parts and who was born with women parts and who really cares when you shut the stall door. What’s wrong with universal public restrooms? I don’t have any problem with that other than many men are abit messy with their aim and bathroom usage, even mine and I used tinkle targets when they were little…didn’t work.

I don’t really care “what” trans-gender people “look like” – they are around plus they aren’t an alien species. I specifically said I don’t want to be confronted by dangly parts during my sanctuary time. If someone walks in, throws their stuff in a locker and doesn’t strip down I probably won’t care…I don’t want to see naked male dangly parts. I don’t know how much clearer I can be. It is just as irritating for me to be around naked man parts that aren’t family as it probably is for people with man parts who wish they didn’t have them, but I’m not inclined to change my feelings on this issue as far as changing facilities go. My beliefs go to privacy and modesty not animosity toward transgendered persons or fear. You got male parts…I don’t want to see them. I even passed on the night-time skinny dipping when i was young.

I lived in an small apartment building back in the 80s in and area called Loring Park only to discover after I moved in that everyone in the building were gay men…and me. It was fine and really one of my favorite and most fun living situations, except in the 80s they wore these ridiculous tiny little shorts slit totally up the sides and their dangly bits were often right there falling out of their shorts when we shared the rooftop for suntanning. I yelled at them all…all the time. They were my friends but I still don’t want to see it unless i choose to see it. Good thing I’m not a female sports reporter, I do know my limitations. I’m probably not alone, but which minority “gets” to have it their way? This is where the rubber meets the road. I find the entire trend these days of inclusion and blindness to male/female gender identities and motivations very interesting and there are many good things happening, but this is where I draw my personal line.

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If the probability that you are actually going to see “man parts” is slim to none (since transwomen don’t want to stand out as different from the other women using the facility), are you still opposed to allowing them to use your locker room on the rare possibility that you MIGHT see “man parts”?

I don’t know these things from any recent personal experience, since I have not been in a locker room in literally decades.

193

Yup, because the odds of perverted manly-men who just want a look-see at women using that as an excuse far outweigh the inconvenience of gyms or spas accommodating the modest or transgendered. Believe me I’ve been flashed in urban cities I’ve lived in by exhibitionists and worse - ever been on an urban subway at rush hour? Hah, like I really wanna see it. Being able to claim they are a women in their soul is nothing for the perverts. Most perverts aren’t going to hurt me but I really don’t need it in my life. Heck if they allow “men” in the women’s locker room I might keep my membership if there is a private space for me otherwise I’m outta there. Unfortunately transgendered people are forever going to have to deal with their bio-parts unless they surgically don’t have to deal with them. I’m a woman and I have to “deal” with my parts and who gets to see them and that is tough enough. And unfortunately there are plenty of men who can’t keep it zipped up to share only with their family. We talk an awful lot about “consent” in these forums and threads…and frankly I don’t consent to seeing male dangly parts I don’t want to see and I don’t see a need to “legislate this.” How do you separate the perfectly wonderful people from the perverts? You can’t. So don’t try to legislate it. What percentage of the population is criminally voyeurs or exhibitionists and what percentage are transgendered? I’d bet money that the percentage of exhibitionists is higher than that of transgendered people. It’s a no-win situation.

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This is starting to remind me of that thread, “naked old men”. I guess no one wants to see dangly parts!

Seriously, I can’t imagine a trans woman would be anything but modest in a public dressing situation if she is somewhere in mid-transition. Of course there are all types of people out there but the old men lounging around naked in the spa, or their female equivalent, are the ones you are more likely to run into.

I wonder what Iceland is doing with their famous single sex washrooms where you are watched while soaping up to make sure you do a good enough job before they let you into their (not terribly chlorinated) pools? Probably nothing.

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I guess I just find this kind of sad.

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Your estimation of the odds is based on . . . what facts, exactly? Surely not on the number of incidents of this kind in the 16 states and more than 200 municipalities that have laws protecting trans people, some of them in effect for many years now? None of which serves as an excuse for a “manly man” to walk into a women’s locker room and expose himself? And in none of which places anyone has even tried to use such laws as an excuse for such behavior? (There was one alleged case of a trans woman supposedly “parading naked” in front of little girls, which turned out to be almost entirely fictional, including the parts about being naked and exposing herself and little girls.) This conversation reminds of what happened in Connecticut the other day with someone I know: she was talking to someone who was all upset about the Dept. of Education’s new directives requiring trans students to be accommodated in schools – until it was pointed out to her that this has already been required for several years under Connecticut law, without a single problem.

Laws protecting trans people have not increased, and do not in any way increase, the risk of your being exposed to what you object to without consent, whatever you may assume. I don’t consent to having an already-vulnerable population exposed to arrest and physical violence, and turned into lawbreakers for exercising normal bodily functions (or going to a gym), simply because of a non-existent problem and a fictional risk.

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Well, life is not a fairy tale where everyone is happy and all is wonderful .Life is inherently messy and sometimes not fair. So I say, stand up for what you believe in, not all will agree, but at least we live somewhere where it is possible to speak our opinions and go through the messy process of figuring out what we as a group of citizens can minimally all live with and sometimes agree upon. I may not always agree with certain positions, but I certainly agree that each is entitled to their position.

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^yeah, that’s all well and good, but we’re not talking about opinions here. We’re talking about laws. I don’t care what your opinion is, but when the aggregate of opinions turns into law, which hurts people, then I do care.

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A quick correction to another post. It was stated that no one is asking for use of communal rooms, such as locker rooms and spas. However, my town council just turned down a request for a couple trans males to use the female locker room at a high school. This is a standard open locker room with communal showers etc. I believe similar happened in VA and that district took the opposite decision, but believe that parents are appealing. So, there are trans people asking for use of locker rooms, spa rooms, and communal rooms with people of the opposite sex.

These two quotes illustrate quite well exactly what is going on in the real world outside CC. Both groups are reacting to this personally, but, for some reason, one group dismisses the fact that someone should have personal agency on this issue.

When did having personal agency on whom sees one naked and who one chooses to view naked cease to exist? I never knew that stopped. However, many posters are pretending here that that personal agency never existed. No, it always existed and exists now. When an anatomical male or female chooses to go into a locker room and use it, they implicitly give their consent for others of the same sex to see them in various stages of disrobe. They did not give consent for others of the opposite sex to see them. Therefore, the response of finding this natural exercise of personal agency as “sad” means that there is no logical response to why consent and personal agency are no longer valid here - thus the emotional response of “sad,” which is purely emotional, devoid of intellectual content.

And note that there is also no answer (in fact, no has ever answered this on this thread) of exactly how real perverts are separated from the good people. The answer is always a deflection and never a concrete answer. It is obvious why the response was “sad.” It is because there is no way to distinguish between the good and bad people, and the deflection is to be emotional, not give logical response that answers the question. (To give some context - at a chain I invest in, we decided to ban all teenagers below 18 who were without parents. Why? Because video camera proof showed that 90% of shoplifting and vandalism of items were done by kids 16 and younger. Since there is no way to tell the good kids from the bad ones, it was necessary to ban all. It cost just to much to let even a few of the bad apples in).

Additionally, a good question was asked about percentages of different groups. Why is asking a perfectly logical question deemed as “sad?” I suspect it was labeled as “sad” because it is politically incorrect to ask the most logical questions in an effort to truly determine one’s personal risk. This is another attempt to try and make people give up their personal agency when determining their own safety. However, asking questions that directly goes to assessing one’s safety is the holy grail of personal agency and protection of personal well-being. But, I guess asking the question means that an answer would be searched for and there are those who rather not know the answer.

It is also interesting how posters make sure to keep the discussion about adults and have yet to address the effect on kids. Did that 8 year-old girl consent to seeing adult nude male parts in the female locker room? Ditto for boys. Why do people, who are not parents or family members. think they have the right to force that on her or him and take away the parent’s rights to determine the civil and behavioral boundaries for their children? And why pretend that intruding on the personal agency of young, developing minors is of no consequence? That is truly bizarre behavior by adults in its own right - the rough-shodding of what they want at the expense of kids without thinking of the consequences on the kids. And, here I do agree that it is “sad” to treat kids this way.

All-in-all, an interesting discussion.

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^The problem, awcntdb, is that this is not some abstract academic discussion. You and others are apparently fine with this individual and others like her (still children, while you are at it) being forced to use the men’s facilities. Maybe they don’t want to see man-parts either. And if being a girl in a men’s room is somehow dangerous, how is it NOT dangerous for HER? The only rationale for your position that I have heard (elsewhere) is that this girl CHOSE her state, so has to live with the consequences, even if they include being beaten or raped. Personally, I’m not good with that, but maybe that’s because my agency extends beyond my own person.

http://perezhilton.com/tag/corey_maison/#.VzcsjeTm5tU

Do you see at all that the stated rationale for a lot of Jim Crow laws was that black men were going to rape white women and girls? In this case it is even more askew, since it is proposed that perverted men (not the transgender persons themselves) are going to assault women and girls. So we are denying one group something because of what another group MIGHT do.