Transman wins lawsuit agains school board (Virginia) [Title edited by MNHQ at poster's request]

[SusannaM]

bit.ly/3sV3ib0

Not sure if this has already been posted (link is to The Insider). Transboy took a school board to court because he was excluded from boys bathrooms.

Gavin Grimm said he wants those passing anti-trans legislation to know: "Slowly and surely we're coming for all of them."

Grim indeed.

Right I understand what catherine is saying and im not disagreeing as such

But surely condoms are a sex thing not a gender thing…what am I missing

@Artichokeleaves

It's too simplistic to say it's transphobic to segregate on sex. Facilities are segregated this way for the safety and dignity of the majority of users. You can't simply throw that out. If it's decided not to segregate this way you have to consider if the facilities are still fit for purpose.

Quite.

If someone states, for their sense of privacy, dignity, safety, identity, beliefs and comfort they do not wish to have to change in front of or shower with people of the same sex then absolutely that should be respected. No one should ever be forced to undress in a situation they feel uncomfortable and pressured in: safeguarding 101.

The answer is to absolutely provide them with alternative private facilities, no fuss, no problem. That's inclusion. That's diversity.

For a person to say for reasons of their sense of privacy, dignity and comfort they insist on being permitted to undress alongside students of the opposite sex who will have to change and shower alongside them regardless of their sense of privacy, dignity, identity, safety, beliefs and comfort.....? And I don't care about their consent?

No.

That is not inclusion, that's something else entirely. Other people have rights too.

Thank you - I think this explains the issue very well.

Have just come to the thread and was about to quote Artichokeleaves' post like StellaAndCrow. This is one of the clearest explanations of the conflicts involved. Thanks Artichoke I intend to steal this explanation to use in other spaces, hope you don't mind.

oops Artiechokeleaves*

So, ditch gender, but keep the female-specific provisions we currently have until society had evolved to the point we don't need them any more.

And how this would work in practice is to make single sex provision something you can opt out of but not opt into.

So a female person could opt out (on a case by case basis) of the female-only spaces and protections she has a right to use, but she can’t opt into male ones. Vice versa for males.

Clearly that means third spaces for the use of those who opt out, so parallel multi sex provisions become the norm.

Then over time, as we see single sex provisions becoming unused for a particular situation because although both sexes participate everyone is using the third space, it’s a good social signal that that specific need for single sex provisions has gone.

And so, we hopefully evolve to the point very few single sex provisions are needed, not by throwing them out wholesale because an ideology says we shouldn’t need them, but by ensuring the need has gone before we lose the space.

The beauty of the opt-out not in model is

Firstly the whole issue of trans ideology forcing the label cis and an associated gender definition onto everyone else in order to justify their claim to the opposite sex’s provisions goes away, because you can only opt out of your own sex provisions not into some one else’s.

Secondly, we (society) don’t need to work out in advance what needs to stay single sex and what doesn’t. We just make sure the mixed-sex option always exists, keep challenging sexism, sexist structures and stereotypes wherever we find them, and see what evolves.

Blibbyblobby What a brilliant solution! Wonder what sensible, coherent argument the TRAs could make against it. I'm sure they'll come up with something, probably starting with the frailty of "assigned at birth" sex determination ..............

Of course toilets are gendered spaces. For example, changing tables are often just found in women's toilets, condom machines in men's, I have seen hair straighteners and machines dispensing hair brushes in the women's... these unequal arrangements are based on gender assumptions/expectations.

I'm surprised at this list of examples. Aren't changing tables usually in a separate baby changing area so that fathers can use them too? I can't remember the last time I saw one in a women's toilet. I'm prepared to be told I'm wrong about this, as I may just have not noticed them.

I'm sure there are condom machines in some women's toilets, and I have never seen hair straighteners and hair brush dispensers.

The main difference is that there are machines for sanitary protection in women's toilets along with disposal bins. Sex, not gender.

For example, changing tables are often just found in women's toilets, condom machines in men's, I have seen hair straighteners and machines dispensing hair brushes in the women's... these unequal arrangements are based on gender assumptions/expectations.

Wait, feminists protest against this sort of gender stereotyped assumption, and genderists insist that gender stereotypes are nothing to do with gender identity too. So neither side would think gender stereotyped provision was a good idea.

I don't know why we can't just have unisex loos (the former men's) for men and everyone who doesn't think things should be sorted by sex, and keep women's loos for female sexed people who want it. At least as an interim measure where there is not yet resource to add separate third spaces for people who prefer or are happy with unisex. It's generally women who are excluded or disadvantaged by lack of single sex provision so that seems the best compromise.

And yes OldCrone, at least in the UK we have largely won the battle against changing facilities only being in the women's loo. Maybe other places are behind.

Baby change rooms are usually entirely separate with a lock- for either parent.
Great posts @Artichokeleaves and @OldCrone
As for sex and the 'association' thing- nah thanks
Sex not gender

@Greencoatblue

Have just come to the thread and was about to quote Artichokeleaves' post like StellaAndCrow. This is one of the clearest explanations of the conflicts involved. Thanks Artichoke I intend to steal this explanation to use in other spaces, hope you don't mind.

Not in the least, please do.

Blibbyblobby 's post about opting out but not being able to opt in I thought was an excellent one to keep in mind!

I can't say I've ever seen things like hair straighteners in a public washroom/changeroom.

I have seen them in semi-private kinds of places occasionally, but usually that is because there is demand for them, which is to say users have asked for them and so they've been placed, or the users themselves have left them. I don't really see this as some kind of gendered discrimination.

Is Catherine suggesting baby changing should be in women's loos because changing babies is something women should do rather than men?

The most basic difference in needs with public toilets or those in offices theatres etc etc.

Is that women need MORE and often there aren't enough so we have to queue. We need all cubicles. And sanitary bins.

While men like to have cubicles and urinals because urinals are quick n easy and give more provision. And if the ones that don't like them can use a cubicle.

I've been in plenty of women's bogs with machines with Tampax tampons and yes condoms.

Never seen hair straighteners and really that's so trivial. It's hardly a good deciding factor in which bogs are for who 🙄

It's really good that so many places now have a parent and child toilet with facilities for baby changing.

In John Lewis they even have ones with a normal toilet and a baby one! So you can sit and pee next to each other if that's your thing

This little Unherd post about the ACLU gives some sense of where they've gone so wrong, and I think gives a link to the larger expose done by the NYT a few months ago.

unherd.com/thepost/the-aclu-turns-against-free-speech/

The women front for the men as it looks better to the general public, then everyone wonders how things like Wii Spa happen.

It’s so bloody transparent, if you’ve got your eyes open! And people are waking up, but slowly because the trans lobby so cleverly linked itself with the LGB movement via Stonewall.

ACLU were the ones who went to court to stop women's rights groups finding out how many males in women's prisons weren't they?

Can anyone remember?

I've been in plenty of women's bogs with machines with Tampax tampons and yes condoms

Ooooooohhhhhh i seeeeeeee

Ive seen toothpaste! Not condoms…im obviously in the wrong toilets, or (and this is much more likely) completely unobservant

Lolol maybe.
The kids asked once I was erm...

What really fucked me off was when hiv/aids was a massive concern.

Many pubs took out the machine with pads tampons and put in a condom machine.

Not both which would have been fine obv.

How many women are more likely to need curry flavoured condoms than a tampon.

I'm sorry, curry flavoured condoms are just wrong.

Well quite.

I can't remember the other flavours.

I mean wtf tbh.

@Greencoatblue

Blibbyblobby What a brilliant solution! Wonder what sensible, coherent argument the TRAs could make against it. I'm sure they'll come up with something, probably starting with the frailty of "assigned at birth" sex determination ..............

Oh, they’ll make a false parallel with “white only” spaces, pretending that “cis” women’s “privilege” to be seen as “women” is an injustice over trans women equivalent to the injustice of white people’s history of privilege over black people (to be clear I in no way dispute the latter, I only dispute the TRA’s false parallel).

They will of course conveniently ignore the far closer parallel of the oppression of female people by male people, and the clear statistics showing the social and physical risks and disempowerment females still face from males.

^ And that TRA arguement also forgets that “female only” spaces do not mean “cis women” spaces, but spaces for females of any (or no) gender identity.

Which raises the interesting point that since at any point in time a female toilet block, for example, might happen to be occupied by some trans men and NBs but not cis women, why would a trans woman even regard it as a woman’s space in the first place

@MonsignorMirth

give people care based on their specific needs rather than lumping folks together into a specific body associated with a specific gender, throw the whole idea that men or women act or think a specific way away, etcetera.

Yet when GC folks fight for this they are told it's bigoted.

How would you suggest transition would happen for trans people who, for whatever reason, choose not to undergo medical/ surgical intervention, in this hypothetical world?

I'm interested in your point of view on this @Barheim
What things would you think would remain and what would be unnecessary/ unhelpful in the transition process in a world where people made no assumptions about your personality, presentation, behaviour, interests etc based on your sex?