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What Do You Think About The Recent Transgender Issue


JosephM

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What are your thoughts on the latest transgender issue that says people (school children and adults included) ought to be able to use the bathroom they are most comfortable with rather than matches their body parts.

 

trans·gen·der
transˈjendər,tranzˈjendər/
adjective
  1. denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.
    Joseph

 

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Apparently there are already Unisex Toilets, marked as such by both and female "stick figures".

 

As I see it, for the moment there is no reason to have anything other than Male, Female and Unisex. With such choice, surely all can feel accomodated and "comfortable"?

 

Then who knows just what the future will bring.

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Derek,

That would appear to take care of part of the issue but what they are saying is that a person ought to be able to choose either male or female restrooms whichever they feel the most appropriate to their self identity regardless of whether their organs match the conventional definition of male or female or not. We already have UNISEX bathrooms in many places but the directive from our administration ....

 

The administration’s directive -- citing Title IX in telling schools to give transgender students access to all activities and facilities consistent with their gender identity .

 

 

​It seems to me it may make a minority more comfortable but at the expense of making a majority uncomfortable here in the US .

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So what could the actual issues be here?

 

A male walks into a female toilet and uses a cubicle just like the girl next door. Personally, I don't see why that should be a problem for anyone. We all do the same business as each other, just out of different body bits.

 

Now maybe a female person walking into a male toilet where males use an open urinal may run the risk of a female seeing male genitalia. That wouldn't bother me and obviously it wouldn't bother the 'questionable' person going in there.

 

I'm currently in Korea and using a many shared, unisex toilet. In my office I'm often standing at the urinal when the lady cleaner is sweeping and mopping around my feet! Urinals here tend to be single ones, side by side, but with 'wings' which afford a little more modesty.

 

I think the above changes may take a little time to adjust, but once people are over that hump I think we'll see that there's nothing awfully unique about male vs female toilets.

 

Maybe our kids will mature a little around sexuality and genitalia in the process?

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The issue is fear ... and giving up years of indoctrination.

 

Society, NA in particular, has developed a phobia of things sexual.

 

Take a look at our TVs ... we can have death, mayhem, blood and gore galore on our TV screens. But the sight of a nipple or is avoided like the plague.

 

It is an issue because we make it so.

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pe·nis

/ˈpēnis/

noun

plural noun: penes; plural noun: penises

1 the male genital organ of higher vertebrates, carrying the duct for the transfer of ###### during copulation. In humans and most other mammals, it consists largely of erectile tissue and serves also for the elimination of urine.

 

I had to smile ... just to prove my point; I presume, the automatic sexual content censor in my previous post blocked out the word and replaced it with #####.

 

And it also censored the word sp-erm in this post.

 

:rolleyes:

Edited by romansh
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  • 2 weeks later...

​It seems to me it may make a minority more comfortable but at the expense of making a majority uncomfortable here in the US .

 

Once upon a time the majority would have been uncomfortable sitting in the same end of a bus with Rosa Parks?

 

Don't get me wrong here, I too am uncomfortable. But then growing up can be uncomfortable as well.

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Rom,

 

It seems to me that the analogy you used in context to the issue is not fairly represented. In the case of Rosa Parks it was a clear issue of prejudice, disdain or a feeling of one being inferior to another. In the issue of transgender, I have none of these feelings for the transgender and would think there are more alternatives to relieving an uncomfortableness for a transgender than allowing a transgender as defined in the first post to force the majority that do not wish to share privacy with others that have body parts that do not align with their stated or perceived sex. In my opinion It opens up a bag of worms that Americans are not ready for whereby its societal privacy rights in locker rooms, showers, bathrooms and the like are being dictated by a minority that in my view can be accommodated otherwise without causing uncomfortableness to the many..

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I'm sure it does open up a can of worms and many, many people will have trouble adjusting I am sure. But that doesn't mean we can't move past this uncomfortableness, eventually.

 

What is it about our bodies that make us uncomfortable about other people seeing our 'bits'? Perhaps the bigger question is why we should feel that way in the first place? Maybe if we had a more practical view about the human body we wouldn't be so hung up on dress standards and 'morals', but rather could simply accept, as every other animal does in this world, that our bodies are nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about, but rather they are simply the flesh that our species have been dealt with.

 

So I guess these changes could perhaps be uncomfortable for the 'majority', but I think it's a move forward for everybody regarding acceptance of all.

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Good point Paul and perhaps we will evolve past the present taboos yet it seems to me it is unwise to force it on a majority of the American people before they are ready. Evolution needs time to undo that which has been ingrained or programmed into many. Education and reason may be the key but what religion has done for centuries is difficult to change in a day with simple logic. :)

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I'm not in the US and I am unsure of the commentary around this issue, but I would imagine there must be some degree of support for such changes to be made, otherwise the government/s of the day can expect to be turfed if this is such an uncomfortable yet passionate issue for the majority.

 

Of course the hope could be that once implemented, soon thereafter people might decide there really was no big deal after all with sharing the toilet.

 

Changerooms could be a different issue I guess if a male identifying as a female wants to use the female showers, but the original post was only referencing bathrooms, which I just can't see as being a big deal once people start to share them.

 

Certainly religious baggage is always hard to break/bring forward without often a degree of consternation.

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Yes the original issue was for bathrooms only and many parents are concerned about the safety of their children since anyone could then go in any bathroom and claim they are transgender. And of course many parents have been brought up and expect separation of the physical sexes when using bathrooms. It may work out okay in the long run but there is extreme resistance at this time to the push by transgender people to allow such. Then there is the fear by some that the push will also be brought into change rooms and showers.

 

Here is the original Washington report story that triggered the uproar.... the directive did go out.....

 

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity. A letter to school districts will go out Friday, adding to a highly charged debate over transgender rights in the middle of the administration’s legal fight with North Carolina over the issue. The declaration — signed by Justice and Education department officials — will describe what schools should do to ensure that none of their students are discriminated against. It does not have the force of law, but it contains an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid. The move is certain to draw fresh criticism, particularly from Republicans, that the federal government is wading into local matters and imposing its own values on communities across the country that may not agree.

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I like what tariki said about male/female bathrooms, a great solution. I think the problem is that transgender individuals feel they will get beat up in a male bathroom so they do not feel safe and I can understand that with the hate and fear being spread by political parties and multi-media. In schools we already have many fights that corner individuals in the bathroom so why not have a safe place for males and females to answer nature's call without the potential to get in a fight. Girls also gang up on other girls so they would also be relieved to not meet up with a gang that opposes them.

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I am reminded of Heinlein's Starship Troopers, well the film anyway.

 

The unisex showers.

 

We have been programmed with society's fears and we pass them on to our children. I have been and I have passed on the programming too.

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Rom,

 

It seems to me that the analogy you used in context to the issue is not fairly represented. In the case of Rosa Parks it was a clear issue of prejudice, disdain or a feeling of one being inferior to another. In the issue of transgender, I have none of these feelings for the transgender and would think there are more alternatives to relieving an uncomfortableness for a transgender than allowing a transgender as defined in the first post to force the majority that do not wish to share privacy with others that have body parts that do not align with their stated or perceived sex. In my opinion It opens up a bag of worms that Americans are not ready for whereby its societal privacy rights in locker rooms, showers, bathrooms and the like are being dictated by a minority that in my view can be accommodated otherwise without causing uncomfortableness to the many..

 

I would agree that withholding federal monies could be heavy handed and have many unintended and perhaps unwanted consequences. But then every journey begins with a first step.

 

I disagree ... it is a fair comparison. The majority likely did not want to sit next to Rosa Parks. How many decades do we wait for Americans to be ready?

 

Uncomfortableness I suspect is simply a politically correct euphemism for prejudice. I am prejudiced, I am totally uncomfortable/prejudiced when it comes transgender issues, but then my reason wins out over my emotion,

Edited by romansh
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Yes the original issue was for bathrooms only and many parents are concerned about the safety of their children since anyone could then go in any bathroom and claim they are transgender. And of course many parents have been brought up and expect separation of the physical sexes when using bathrooms. It may work out okay in the long run but there is extreme resistance at this time to the push by transgender people to allow such. Then there is the fear by some that the push will also be brought into change rooms and showers.

 

Personally, if my children are still young enough to be sexually assaulted at all, I wouldn't allow them to go to a toilet on their own, regardless of whether trans people could enter them or not (or others maybe taking advantage of the new laws). I have boys, so in a male toilet I take care with them. If I had girls, I think I would still take care, regardless. Adult female women might still be threat to young girls (or teenage girls could be the threat, or indeed simply other children). I think it is a fairly naive view if people think their kids are safe in sex-designated toilets vs shared toilets.

 

Yes, many parents have been brought up with separation - so how does anyone start to break down these taboos unless laws are changed? I didn't see apartheid in South Africa come to an end because white people felt it was time. If blacks were the minority (like transgender) should we be concerned about the majority, or about acceptance/helping of the minority? Uncomfortable as it may be (which personally I fail to see why anyone should be uncomfortable, although I acknowledge that because of their conditioning some people are) I think the community can work through this and come out fairly unscathed.

 

There was extreme resistance in the US south to blacks integrating in previously all-white schools. Many black people were punished, harmed, even killed because of this resistance. We are miles from those dark days but still with work to come. Maybe this is one small step forward to better accommodating/accepting/understanding that minority of transgender brothers and sisters?

 

I'm not sure though the push is only by transgender people though. To me, if the government is prepared to pass new laws to accommodate this issue, there must be a fair degree of confidence that more than the minority transgender community will support this? It would seem to me that a fair number of non-TG people must be for these new laws.

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I think the problem is that there is no real criteria for transgender other than the self identity clause. Any male (adult or child) could technically go in the girls restroom dressed anyway they like and if challenged say they are transgender and feel more comfortable using this restroom. It opens a real can of worms with teenagers and beyond.

 

An additional Unisex/Family bathroom choice for those who prefer not to enter one matching their physical organs presents to me the best option. They already exist in many stores/places and people don't seem to have a problem with them as long as there is still an option for a mens or ladies bathroom. What do you think?

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It is an option. And perhaps a reasonable halfway step.

 

But ultimately it does not address our emotional preferences having been formed by ancient societal taboos.

 

Do you think we as a society and as individuals should address these societal taboos? And if so how and what time scale?

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I'm not sure though the push is only by transgender people though. To me, if the government is prepared to pass new laws to accommodate this issue, there must be a fair degree of confidence that more than the minority transgender community will support this? It would seem to me that a fair number of non-TG people must be for these new laws.

 

Actually the Federal government sent out the directive to schools which only means they can hold back funds for non-compliance. Obama says its based on the law. In defiance the states are the ones passing laws to the contrary.such as Mississippi and North Carolina which will allow people to use only public bathrooms that correspond to their biological sex at birth. The Federal government is suing those states. Other states have similar referendums that are being considered for law but perhaps many will wait to see what comes of the Federal governments suing those states first.

You can imagine the strong feelings the mainstream church people are having at this time. They see the directive as insanity.

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It is an option. And perhaps a reasonable halfway step.

 

But ultimately it does not address our emotional preferences having been formed by ancient societal taboos.

 

Do you think we as a society and as individuals should address these societal taboos? And if so how and what time scale?

 

I think that society is addressing these issues and they take time. It seems to me in this modern day, Government can't force these things on people before they are ready to receive without some violence or revolution. To your last question... i don't know.

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I think that society is addressing these issues and they take time. It seems to me in this modern day, Government can't force these things on people before they are ready to receive without some violence or revolution. To your last question... i don't know.

 

I understand Joseph.

 

A government can't force these things? So NC can't force people to use bathrooms that match their genitalia?

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The schools in the US always have a problem with conservatives and sex education where in Europe they don't have this problem and their teen pregnancies are a lot lower than ours. When I taught Biology I was told I could not teach the reproductive system as if it was not a system in the human being to High School Students who need to know and are probably the most interested in this system. I think we need to teach tolerance, but the only way I know is by being tolerant, but we could teach religion in school meaning, we teach equally all religions and atheism the same number of days.

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