4 ms·

Getting to be a bit of a tangent, but living in Houston, I think that one was partly progressives being somewhat unprepared for how the campaign turned out. Pro

by mjn 11y ago

Getting to be a bit of a tangent, but living in Houston, I think that one was partly progressives being somewhat unprepared for how the campaign turned out. Progressives were ready for a gay-rights fight, and confident they could win it (probably rightly so). But they weren't ready for a trans-rights fight, in part because very little of the educational groundwork for that one has been laid (not that many people have a real idea what trans rights are, and haven't gotten used to how to think about them). Since LGBT nondiscrimination in general was included in the bill, conservatives decided to (probably wisely) ignore the gay-rights part entirely, and make it a single-issue campaign focused around the slogan "no men in women's bathrooms". (The ordinance didn't actually say anything about bathrooms, but they argued it was a slippery slope.) What also didn't help is that this vote was attached to an off-year municipal election, in which the median voter age was 70.

BuckRogers 11y ago
>make it a single-issue campaign focused around the slogan "no men in women's bathrooms". I don't have all the background knowledge on this and I'm admittedly not an expert on LGBT, but that's actually pretty brilliant. I have no particular feelings on LGBT stuff, but I certainly wouldn't want anyone that still has male genitalia in the same bathroom as anyone's wife or daughters. Not because I think those exact people would be harmful or aggressive, and this is more than likely going to be met with accusations of me being a bad man- but I don't know who else out there is going to pretend they're trans to creep/spy/abuse women. If they've gone far enough to do the operation and use the other facilities then I see no problem. That shows more commitment to the issue than I'd ever be able to muster. There's also a lot of Hispanics in Houston (I'm Anglo but my wife is a native-born Mexican; mother in law is Mexican in Mexico and has a 2nd home in The Woodlands; my cousin's family are Chicanos and own a non-profit publishing company in Houston; and my wife's aunt is a semi-famous LGBT Chicana author/professor, enough for a Wikipedia page, at the University of California). In my experience (probably extensive compared to the average HNer as I've lived in Zapopan, Jalisco; speak Spanish and married to a Mexican)- Latin Americans born there tend to be socially conservative and economically liberal, while Chicanos are just average Americans with some hispanic cultural background when you get down to it. Similar to how some folks run around saying they're Italian-American, they're just American but it makes people feel special (the real Italians, just like the Latin Americans disagree those Americans have anything in common with them).
- jtmcmc 11y ago
  Wow you wouldn't want anyone with a penis inside a women's bathroom regardless of what their gender is? Why is that?
  - jerf 11y ago
    Why don't you go ask your local university's diversity office and see what they say about it? "The left" as a whole can't have one part banging on about how all men are rapists if not confined by filled-out consent paperwork, but on the other hand they all have the right to go into women's bathrooms if they say certain magic words, which, by the way, it is transphobic to ask any questions about so don't make any silly claims about how this can't be fraudulently used because any attempt to prevent fraud is ipso facto transphobia. "The left" as a whole is going to have to pick one or the other; there is no way to convince the public of both.
  - h_r 11y ago
    What I think is funny is that he said exactly why in the second paragraph. You make it seem as if you got so pissed off at the first sentence that you immediately hit the reply link without bothering to read what he said. Why not address the reason he stated?
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  > Not because I think those exact people would be harmful or aggressive, and this is more than likely going to be met with accusations of me being a bad man- but I don't know who else out there is going to pretend they're trans to creep/spy/abuse women. This is the same logic used to discriminate against Muslims because we don't know that they're not terrorists. (And, incidentally, why on earth does everyone take it for granted that a public bathroom is a place where you can easily spy on other people's genitals? The entire problem could be solved forever if builders used proper floor-to-ceiling walls, with louvered vents for ventilation. It weirds me out that nobody else thinks bathroom design is insane.)
  - BuckRogers 11y ago

by mjn 11y ago

BuckRogers 11y ago

>make it a single-issue campaign focused around the slogan "no men in women's bathrooms". I don't have all the background knowledge on this and I'm admittedly not an expert on LGBT, but that's actually pretty brilliant. I have no particular feelings on LGBT stuff, but I certainly wouldn't want anyone that still has male genitalia in the same bathroom as anyone's wife or daughters. Not because I think those exact people would be harmful or aggressive, and this is more than likely going to be met with accusations of me being a bad man- but I don't know who else out there is going to pretend they're trans to creep/spy/abuse women. If they've gone far enough to do the operation and use the other facilities then I see no problem. That shows more commitment to the issue than I'd ever be able to muster. There's also a lot of Hispanics in Houston (I'm Anglo but my wife is a native-born Mexican; mother in law is Mexican in Mexico and has a 2nd home in The Woodlands; my cousin's family are Chicanos and own a non-profit publishing company in Houston; and my wife's aunt is a semi-famous LGBT Chicana author/professor, enough for a Wikipedia page, at the University of California). In my experience (probably extensive compared to the average HNer as I've lived in Zapopan, Jalisco; speak Spanish and married to a Mexican)- Latin Americans born there tend to be socially conservative and economically liberal, while Chicanos are just average Americans with some hispanic cultural background when you get down to it. Similar to how some folks run around saying they're Italian-American, they're just American but it makes people feel special (the real Italians, just like the Latin Americans disagree those Americans have anything in common with them).

jtmcmc 11y ago
Wow you wouldn't want anyone with a penis inside a women's bathroom regardless of what their gender is? Why is that?
- jerf 11y ago
  Why don't you go ask your local university's diversity office and see what they say about it? "The left" as a whole can't have one part banging on about how all men are rapists if not confined by filled-out consent paperwork, but on the other hand they all have the right to go into women's bathrooms if they say certain magic words, which, by the way, it is transphobic to ask any questions about so don't make any silly claims about how this can't be fraudulently used because any attempt to prevent fraud is ipso facto transphobia. "The left" as a whole is going to have to pick one or the other; there is no way to convince the public of both.
- h_r 11y ago
  What I think is funny is that he said exactly why in the second paragraph. You make it seem as if you got so pissed off at the first sentence that you immediately hit the reply link without bothering to read what he said. Why not address the reason he stated?
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> Not because I think those exact people would be harmful or aggressive, and this is more than likely going to be met with accusations of me being a bad man- but I don't know who else out there is going to pretend they're trans to creep/spy/abuse women. This is the same logic used to discriminate against Muslims because we don't know that they're not terrorists. (And, incidentally, why on earth does everyone take it for granted that a public bathroom is a place where you can easily spy on other people's genitals? The entire problem could be solved forever if builders used proper floor-to-ceiling walls, with louvered vents for ventilation. It weirds me out that nobody else thinks bathroom design is insane.)
- BuckRogers 11y ago