Worried for LGBT students in states now legalizing discrimination

Parents Forum
841

However, philosophically, this is not what you have been proclaiming in your posts. Reading your statement above, @EarlVanDorn is spot on to what you have been saying in your writings.

What you have been stating does indicate/expect there is some “special rights” because you have the belief that your so-called “similar…kinds of protections” are not equally applied to “religion” as to the LGBT. To the point, you have made it clear that the LGTB supposed right to have wedding cake made by a religious baker who does not believe in the message sent by the cake and does not want to be involved trumps the religious person’s right to hold and practice his belief. As @EarlVanDorn said, this is expecting some “special rights” that supersedes the rights of others.

And your writing about the Civil Rights Acts says nothing that one right is above another, but that is defacto what you saying should occur. Wrong.

842

Welcome to the real world - no special rights. Consideration, yes, but no special rights, and no expectation that one can bully an entity or a person into an activity, which they do not want to be part of.

Interesting that this person chooses to attend another school, but there is this argument on this thread that the religious baker must bake a cake with a message becoming part of an activity that they do not believe in. How about a similar approach - if this person can find another school, which will accommodate, then others can do similar and find a more suitable baker who is accommodating.

843

The federal government and the courts have just started requiring schools to allow students to use the bathroom of the opposite sex just as soon as they declare they “identify” with that sex. So one day the kid comes to school as a boy, the next he’s hanging around in the girl’s restroom. Most people do not want this, and state laws are needed to prevent this (and yes, states can sometimes prevail in these situations).

There is also the issue of sports. A male who declares himself a woman will have a tremendous advantage when competing in women’s sports. It’s like being allowed to use steroids.

844

I the OP am going to drop out of this thread now -hope the moderator will close it as posters are coming on here now deliberately trying to invalidate transgender student’s identities … that is a form of bullying towards transgender students. I am not going to be a party to this.

845

Well, that is an interesting question about sports teams…

846

There was a 60 Minutes piece a few weeks ago about a Harvard swimmer who won a scholarship to swim on the women’s swim team. As a woman, he was a champion. However, this woman took a gap year before college and returned as a man. Harvard allowed him to compete on the men’s team. (60 Minutes didn’t mention what happened to the scholarship). As a man, he is barely keeping up, despite the testosterone injections.

847

This seems to be a solution looking for a problem! There is and has never been a rash of transgender men/women attack people in bathrooms. There have been plenty of cases of heterosexual men assaulting kids, and women in bathrooms. This has got to stop. I just realized the Mississippi and Tennesee laws allow doctors to refuse care!?!

This is why state and local elections are far more important than the general election.

848

@TatinG,
Harvard doesn’t award athletic scholarships so this athlete’s award would have been need-based. The swimming would doubtless have given him/her a bump in admissions and it’s possible she wouldn’t have been admitted as a male swimmer. In any case, Ivy league admittees are not bound to follow through with joining the team. I know a number of kids who were recruited to NESCAC or Ivy League schools who later chose not to play.

849

Another false narrative to deflect on what others have been saying.

I do not recall anyone saying that transgenders, as a whole, molest people. I may have missed such post, but I doubt it. (Rest assured you do have company in the false narrative in that Caitlyn Jenner used female bathroom in Trump Tower and declared no one got assaulted. Stupid statement because no one ever accused Jenner of being a molester. A non sequitur that attracts only non-thinkers and meme-followers.)

However, you stumble upon the real argument without knowing it, thinking that you are making cogent argument, when in fact, you actually make the case of why people object to this.

People object to this on two grounds: 1) making heterosexual molestation/assault of minors and adult females assault a higher possibility and 2) the right to privacy regarding minors and adults who do not want to expose themselves nude to members of the opposite sex. (No one has objected on the grounds that transgenders, specifically, are assaulters)

You are very correct that heterosexuals do molest in bathrooms. Given this fact, the point of any public policy should be to do what is best to decrease the chances of such molestations, not make it easier of heterosexual molesters to gain access to potential victims.

I will speak for myself (but, obviously, I cannot be alone) and tell you that here is no longer a person who is going to be a concerned and active bystander with respect to this specific situation and women’s safety.

A month ago, if I were in a place and saw a young female or even an adult female enter a women’s bathroom or locker room, who is then followed by an obvious looking male, I would have alerted someone very quickly, as something is just not normal there.

Today, those females are on their own, and if any of them gets assaulted in that bathroom/locker room by a real male assaulter mistaken to be a transgender, well, they can thank this policy for making me not alert anyone.

And that is the issue - it is not transgenders, as a group, that worry people about, it is the fact that there is literally no way to distinguish between a transgender that still dresses as and looks male and an actual real male molester or rapist. Thus, this push to make all locker rooms and bathrooms open literally throws the active bystander concept out the window. Does not seem too bright to me.

Second, there are parents who do believe that their young kids (girls and boys) should not be exposed to nude adults of the opposite sex in public places - the major reason they do not go to nudist camps and beaches or buy nude magazines and have them lying around their house. However, this new approach does not respect these parents rights re their kids and the right to raise their kids in terms of decency and morals that they believe - many of which are religiously grounded. Interesting that many of the same people would not agree with these parents buying their kids nude magazines of adults, but then say that the parents must accept nude opposite sex adults in front of their kids in public locker rooms and bathrooms - very illogical and disjointed thinking.

The same goes for adult females who do not want to expose their private parts to the opposite sex. Why should they be forced to? But, this can easily go even further, as former sexual assault victims may have an much higher aversion to naked opposite sex body parts of strangers in front of them. Why force them to endure that? I darn sure would not want to be in a locker room if i were a rape victim and have to endure strangers’ penises in front of me or me exposing myself to them. That strikes me as just plain wrong to make someone have to go through against their will.

Until these actual issues are addressed, I suspect that the pushback is going to continue to be huge.

850

awcntdb, these issues are being addressed. At a high school district in the Chicago area, a 17 year old boy cannot legally enter a strip club where adult women consent to show themselves in various stages of undress. However, he can legally hang out in the high school girls locker room/shower where many high school girls do not consent to having him share what used to be a private space for them. Some states desire to have a line drawn on what is appropriate, but that line is disappearing and inconsistent with other state and local laws.

851

It is just a bad idea period for high schools and colleges to have communal nude areas like gang showers or locker rooms. Think Dennis Hastert. Think Penn State. Privacy and locked doors might have prevented some of this. And then neither females or males would have to worry about anyone male or female leering at their nudity.

852

It’s also a bad idea to ever teach young women and girls to ignore their own concerns about safety in favor of being sensitive to others’ needs. That’s how women have been socialized to be victimized. It will pretty much never be a transgender person who will call attention to him or herself or commit a crime. That is not a thing. However, molesters are always looking for opportunities and count on silence because people don’t want to make a fuss, and the unintended consequence of these regulations is to give monsters an opening AND to teach women that their discomfort doesn’t matter. If I ever teach my daughters anything it is to always listen to their intuition and act accordingly. I find it interesting that some posters who are all about women’s rights and safety (to their credit) are supporting situations which encourage women to be polite at the expense of safety, without ever considering that it’s a complicated situation in which neither the transgender people nor the ordinary facilities users are bad guys, and both have legitimate needs. It’s a reasonable conversation to have because, again, the bad guys are actually bad guys by any measure, but rather than talk and maybe come up with a solution that would work for everyone, would rather name-call, drive away the most informed and wise posters, and then shut the thread down because no disagreement is tolerated.

853

Being sexually attacked in a locker is not a frequent occurrence. It’s not more frequent than being attacked jogging in a park or waiting for the bus at the stop. And there are already laws that address this kind of assault. There was no surge of heterosexual predators rushing to dress up as women to prey on our children before this. It’s easier and less hassle to just pull up a white van next to the playground and draw kids by asking for help finding a lost puppy or hand out candy. We know this is true, because this the modus operandi common in child abductions and rapes. It’s the same tropes safety officers are trained to look out for. Until recently, no one thought a hetero man in drag as a common ploy to nab innocent children in the bathroom. Maybe it’s because a hetero man in drag is much more conspicuous than a man pretending to have lost his dog. Remember, hetero males in drag don’t blend in easily for obvious reasons, and there is a very high risk that his cover will be blown before he nabs your daughter so the bathroom threat has always and will continue to be very low.

Seriously, the only reason the NC law was put in place was to reverse a transgender bill passed by Charlotte city government. This was acknowledged by the bill’s supporters, openly and publicly. The threat of similar laws spreading to other cities scared the bejeezus out of the conservatives. The bill Gov. McCrory signed is a bald manifestation of the culture war. Denying that is just plain dishonest. Please stop saying this is about safety, and not about politics.

We obviously don’t agree on which side of the culture war is right. But there’s no denying that politics is why none of us is budging an inch on this issue.

854

I don’t agree. It’s not politics for me. It’s common sense. But the issue for me isn’t the law or not having the law, it’s the fuss surrounding all of it.

I actually think that the law really was in search of a problem because it’s the publicity surrounding all of this that I find to be the problem. In my personal experience with transgender people, they don’t look like people dressed up as something else, they just are who they are and if not for all this hullabaloo, nobody would ever know. It annoys me greatly that both sides use innocent people to score points, but both sides absolutely do. And as far as locker rooms, I am a firm believer that in a place with minor children, everyone should be covered up in communal areas.

And then what? No one can say anything to him. The threat will be greater than it would have been without the law and without the resulting glee from opponents.

855

@awcntdb Its not a false narrative, it is what has been said and or insinuated consistently by some public figures.

And for the record, I feel for people who are transgender, but I also dont feel boys or girls, should have to share facilities especially in high school. Having said all of that, the hysteria by some that women will have to share a bathroom with stalls with a transgender woman, is just that hysteria. There is absolutely NOTHING right now from preventing a man from walking in a womens bathroom and vice/versa. The fact that they are now codifying these rules is just creating a problem that doesnt exist. As I said, there are no cases of a trans raping/assaulting a woman.

I have kids, and when my son was was growing up, if I thought he was taking too long in the bathroom, once I let him go alone, I have gone in the mens bathroom to make sure he is okay. Oh the horror!

856

Do people actually think beyond a meme anymore?

I do note that males and females have to be in the same place for heterosexual sexual assault to occur. Not sure if your statement has statistical validity, but if it is accurate, ever thought it could be that sexual assaults may not be higher in lockers because no males at all are allowed in currently and would be stopped if tried to enter? Thus, a natural reduction in opportunity because male/female proximity is zero.

This drag stuff is just another false narrative because according to the proposed policies it is discriminatory to stop any male, even ones dressed in a tee shirt and blue jeans or a suit and tie, from going into female locker room/bathroom because he could be transgender, but does not dress in drag. That is just patently silly.

The main point is it should never be public policy to make it easier to access potential victims of sexual assault.

As I said, females are now on their own, as I am not stopping any male going into or following a female into any female-designated room. I am OK, as my wife is packing heat, so she will be fine, and she is on guard for males in her vicinity where they do not belong and who tries to assault her.

857

The issue is not even right or wrong; it is forcing behavior onothers that is against their beliefs.

Even if transgenders were given their own facilities tomorrow, they would be still protesting because they really want to use facilities that do not match their anatomy. Therefore, forcing others to be around and view things they do not want.

Interesting that the same people who understand that college students should have safe spaces from hypothetical halloween costumes, chalk signs, and from a picture of Woodrow Wilson seem not to give a darn about female minors and adult females wanting a similar safe space away from adult male penises when taking care of their persons, especially when nude. Very strange and illogical juxtaposition.

858

Do these people really think they’ve never been around someone TG? It’s not like TG people don’t have to use public restrooms. The fact that you haven’t heard a lot of complaints about TG people using bathrooms is in and of itself evidence they’ve been able to successfully use the bathroom that matches how they present.

How are these people worried about TG people going to react when someone with a full beard (and a vagina hidden in their pants) walks into the ladies room?

Furthermore, who’s exposing themselves in the bathroom? Certainly not TG women, who use stalls just like all the other women, nor TG men, who don’t have the equipment to use urinals.

859

@awcntdb , out of curiosity, have you ever actually done this?

860

This is a case where a good dose of common sense would come in handy. Even putting aside the morality of the issue, laws requiring transgender men and women to use the facilities that match their birth gender actually increases the problem awcntdb is describing. Right now, if I saw someone presenting as unambiguously male in a women’s bathroom, I’d get the heck out, not assume I was encountering a trans woman. Were I to move to North Carolina, I wouldn’t know whether I was dealing with a potential predator or a trans male forced into using the ladies room because his birth certificate still said “female.”

That paradox exposes the ugliest aspect of the bill. It isn’t a response to a demonstrated problem, because there isn’t a demonstrated problem. But even if we assume that there IS a problem, it seems to me that it is one without a solution, unless we completely deny the existence of trans individuals. As long as there are visibly gender non-conforming people, there are always going to be scenarios in which people encounter those whose appearance and/or genitals don’t match the gender designation of a bathroom or locker room.

In the absence of any legal remedy (to the extent that such a remedy is necessary), again, the best solution is common sense and respect on all sides. If I see someone in a restroom who is an obvious biological male making no attempt to present as female, I’m going to have my guard up. In locker rooms, I think it is appropriate to expect trans women with male genitalia to be discreet while changing – which I have no reason to believe they wouldn’t be in the vast majority of situations. That doesn’t mean I think there should be legal penalties for someone who doesn’t use such discretion.

Sometimes, there are problems that can’t be solved by the law. And that’s OK.