Huh?
Musicprnt, technically, if you get your birth certificate amended, and it now says “F,” there’s nothing on it that indicates that it used to be “M.” And the original one is sealed. So in theory, if you did carry around your amended birth certificate – which nobody does, of course – there’s nothing anyone could do to contradict you. The problem is that it isn’t always so easy to change, and several states don’t allow people to do so under any circumstances, no matter what surgery they’ve had.
Also, you are correct that sex/gender designations on passports, Social Security Administration records, etc., can be changed without having had gender/sex reassignment surgery (which a lot of people now refer to as gender confirmation surgery). Mine were changed on both in 2005, which was a number of years before my final surgery.
The fourth circuit court of appeals has already ruled in favor of a transgender student. So why does Pat McCrory think they’ll rule differently this time?
That ruling was under Title IX; today’s lawsuits also involve Title VII, among other statutes. It shouldn’t matter, though; there are many decisions in the last dozen years or so ruling that trans people are protected against discrimination under Title VII. Here’s a link to a copy of the complaint in the Justice Department’s lawsuit filed today:
https://assets.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/documents/2827918/Read-the-Justice-Department-s-lawsuit-against.pdf
Remarkably, there’s nothing in this complaint (or in any of the previous judicial decisions on the issue, or in any of the anti-discrimination statutes currently in effect in 16 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 200 municipalities), suggesting that a man has the right to use the men’s bathroom on Tuesday, decide on Wednesday that his gender identity is female and enter the women’s bathroom while still presenting as a man, and go back to identifying as male on Thursday. So much for the gigantic straw man argument repeated ad nauseum by a particular poster on this thread.
See also this overview, from the National Center for Transgender Equality:
@DonnaL thank you. That’s has some great points.
@donnal:
Thanks for the update on birth certificates, I remember some states at one point had it so if you wanted to amend your birth certificate, it actually showed that it was amended and why (I don’t remember what states it was), and sadly there are still states that don’t allow someone to change it.
As far as McCrory goes, he probably is hoping that conservatives judges will play to the Federalist /Statutory law BS of the hard right, which is if a law doesn’t enumerate something specifically, then you can’t apply it (which as I have pointed out, is bogus, because English law which our laws are based on is not statutory law only, it is based on precedent). As Donna points out, Title VII already has been applied by federal judges to Transgender women, and if it gets to the Supreme Court it is likely it will favor the government, either by an appellate court ruling and Scotus going 4-4 (which I believe would leave the lower court ruling in place) or as is more likely, probably a 5-3 given Kennedy’s record on LGBT rights.
Of course, even if he personally wasn’t a bigot and a bible thumper, McCrory would be pushing this anyway, he is up for re-election and needs boobus north carolinus vote big time.
The whole bathroom argument is a straw man argument, one that is covered in gasoline and has a match ready to be thrown on it. As Donna pointed out, the reality is no such law would allow a man in a suit, or someone deciding one day they were a woman to use the restroom and the next day decide they were a man and not be able to use it, when transgender women use a restroom (or transgender men), it means they already are presenting as a woman or a man, so the argument about a man in a suit is idiotic…someone in a suit who identifies as a transgender woman is presenting as a man, so why would they want to use a women’s room? So the idea that this law would allow a man to do it is utter bs, beyond contempt, because it totally is blown apart by what kind of person would want to use the woman’s room, and that is a transgender woman who has transitioned or at the very least, is presenting as a woman.
The real reason behind this is obvious, in talking about the bill no one is talking about transgender men using a men’s room, it is all about transgender women using a women’s room, and that is telling. Among other things, it is because there is a heck of a lot prejudice against transgender men, they are a lot less threatening to boobus americanus then transgender women are, and the obsession about transgender women therefore shows itself to be what it is, sheer, ugly prejudice using ‘protecting women’ as an excuse. The old Jim Crow laws were supported by such nonsense, it was in part based on the vile idea that black men wanted nothing more than to get their hands on white women, and in the rhetoric over de-segregation arguments were openly made to that, that if whites and blacks were put into the same spaces, things like interracial rape would happen a lot more because of increased opportunities to do so…sound familiar?
Lol @ boobus americanus. Good one.
@LasMa I was referring to the fact that people who pass these laws usually a) are really conservative and pandering to their voters or b) have a few skeletons in the closet (pun intended)
@lasma:
I can’t take credit for that one, that was coined by HL Mencken, he who said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Looking at the current political climate and laws like this, the more I agree with him, the inmates are trying to run the asylum.
@InfinityMan :
Thanks for the clarification, I thought you aimed that @lasma:). Yeah, there is no doubt that those who make such a big noise about this issue likely have skeletons in their own closet, it has been shown time and again for example that the biggest homophobes are fighting their own feelings. With something like this, the opposition is both relatively clear (just plain ignorance and hate for someone who is different, either religious or otherwise), in others it is a bit more murky, there are a lot of women who otherwise you would suspect would be sympathetic, who even will be openly sympathetic to transgender women for example, who harbor fears that a transgender woman is really a ‘man in a dress’, and IME it comes from having bad experience with men /being sexually assaulted, so they freak out at the bathroom issue, there is the branch of feminist who hate transgender women and thus are opposed to transgender women using anything for ‘women’ (ironically, the same women often have no problem with transgender men using ‘women’s space’).
I think it is telling that in our society there is still this idea that if men and women are in a space together it automatically leads to sexual encounters or sexual behavior, that people can’t control themselves, when inappropriate behavior is inappropriate behavior, it is the same thing to me as when orthodox Jewish men refuse to sit next to women for fear of being tempted or those in the Muslim world who want women covered head to toe. I have been in the kind of unisex bathrooms other people have mentioned in Europe, and to be honest all I saw were people doing their business, washing their hands and getting out (or checking their hair, etc), and I didn’t see anyone lingering or gawking, and quite honestly I suspect if someone did they would stand out like a sore thumb and be made to feel uncomfortable for doing so. The NC law claim fails under this, if a guy in a suit went into a restroom to assault someone, assuming there are other people in there and the guy was peeking in stalls, hanging out checking out women, the inappropriateness would be known asap. A transgender woman going into a restroom wouldn’t stand out, if anything she would want to get in and out as fast as possible knowing that some may scrutinize her (especially if she may not be totally under the radar, because of height and features and so forth). One of the last things a transgender woman would do IME/IMO is linger in a restroom, because that draws attention…
The California Assembly has just passed a bill making all single seat restrooms genderless. Have you ever seen a men’s restroom? They are filthy compared to the women’s room. Men dribble. Men spray. I just hope that the restrooms will be cleaned more often if we women are going to have to use restrooms that men have used.
I’ve been to plenty of restaurants that have 2 single seat restrooms and they are both unisex. They didn’t seem dirtier to me. The payoff is that your wait time will be less than waiting for the one women’s room.
I once walked (accidentally) into the wrong restroom at the airport. My first clue was that there was filth all over the floor. That startled me so I looked at the sign and beat a hasty retreat.
I have unisex bathrooms in my house and we all seem to manage just fine. 
I’ve also been in ladies rooms which were filthy (rest rooms on the NYS Truway, for example.) . And for some reason usually half the toilets aren’t flushed. I’ve never figured out why that is - it’s not like it’s difficult to do.
Yeah, I’m a guy and I’m going to agree that men’s rooms are disgusting. Plus from my personal observation about 10% of guys don’t wash their hands afterwards.
This is why guys don’t talk in the restroom. We’re all holding our breaths and trying to get the heck out of there as fast as we can! :))
I’d rather have the single seat restrooms labeled men or women. I don’t care if transgender women use them. They do sit, right? :-S
@TatinG Not my experience. I work at a retail store in San Francisco, and I have to enter both of our bathrooms at times. The Women’s bathroom is never appreciably cleaner than the Men’s room.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread – a comment for which I was mocked by that extremely combative high school student, who seems to have disappeared! – I see no appreciable difference in cleanliness (including in the amount of pee one sees on the seats and elsewhere!) between men’s and women’s rooms, after extensive experience first in the former and more recently in the latter.
In New York City as well, by the way, all single-person restrooms in restaurants, etc., will soon be required to be gender-neutral. I think this is simply common sense.
And yes, I’ve never heard of a trans woman – including those who are capable of doing either – who did anything other than sit in a women’s restroom. It’s the polite thing to do, even apart from any concerns about being identified as trans.
My comment about men’s rooms is mostly referring to airport restrooms. Unfortunately I’ve spent a lot of time in airports this year! I agree that generally in restaurants and malls they tend to be ok, probably due to less traffic and more frequent cleaning.