4 ms·

> If we're living in an era where everyone thinks the details of their gender and sexuality are important, that's not because of hipsters in Brooklyn, it's beca

by x1798DE 10y ago

> If we're living in an era where everyone thinks the details of their gender and sexuality are important, that's not because of hipsters in Brooklyn, it's because of fundamentalists in Kansas. I'm pretty sure no Kansas fundamentalists care (or even know) about subtle distinctions between sexualities. It's not like you can tell a socially conservative person, "I'm not actually gay, I consider myself queer and I'm attracted to personalities, not genders." and have them say, "My mistake."

foldr 10y ago
They seem to have pretty strong opinions on exactly which groups of people should be allowed to use which bathrooms.
- x1798DE 10y ago
  I can't say that I follow the news on identity politics closely, but my understanding from liberal sources is that conservatives believe that people should use the bathroom assigned to their biological sex, and they don't know or care about whether someone is post-op or pre-op or genderqueer or any of the other gradations of gender. So, again, it seems nonsensical to explain the subtle gradations of gender identity and sexual orientation that have emerged in recent years (i.e. past 30-40 years, say) by saying that conservatives were requiring this information somehow.
  - foldr 10y ago
    >and they don't know or care about whether someone is post-op or pre-op or genderqueer or any of the other gradations of gender. But to enforce the policy you have to care about precisely this, because there are plenty of transmen who look like men and transwomen who look like women. So in practice you have to go around asking every man/woman in the bathroom whether they have a penis/vagina. If you "don't care" whether someone is genderqueer or not, then simply let men use the men's bathroom and women use the women's bathroom, without bothering to check their genitals first.
    - x1798DE 10y ago
      Again, my understanding is that they don't care what gender you say you are or where you are on the physical spectrum, they care about your gender at birth. This does not necessitate anything further than, "I was born male" or "I was born female", referring to biological sex, except in edge cases like chromosomal abnormalities and ambiguous genitalia. Handling cases of biological gender ambiguities is not covered by the emerging vocabulary around the gender spectrum, so again, those distinctions are entirely meaningless to conservatives. If your hypothesis were true and these increasingly precise distinctions of sexual and gender identity are a response to conservatives, why did they emerge only after liberal attitudes became prevalent enough that people could openly embrace these identities? One would expect that if they cared about these subtleties, these differences would have been more important when the conservative viewpoint was near universal.
      - foldr 10y ago
        I think maybe you’re not picturing how such a regulation would work in practice. Suppose someone who looks like a woman goes into the women’s bathroom. Do you ask them if they have a penis, or do you just let them use the bathroom? To enforce the regulation that people have to use the bathroom corresponding to their biological sex, you would have to continually ask people about their genitalia. In other words, you’d have to continually take an interest in whether any given woman is a transwoman or a cis woman. Also, I didn’t quite say that increasingly precise distinctions of sexual and general identity are a response to conservatives. I said that it’s because of conservatives that these distinctions are thought to be (and in practice are) very important. If we lived in some kind of free-wheeling hippy society, then these aspects of people would be of the same level of interest as, say, their dietary preferences. As things currently stand, if you are a woman with a penis, there are lots of people ready and waiting to tell you that you're not really a woman. It's hardly surprising that transwomen take their gender identity very seriously when it's constantly under attack. Nor is it surprising that they construct new categories (e.g. 'transwoman') when the existing categories are so rigidly policed.
        GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
- humanrebar 10y ago
  The desire there was to provide women and boys with safe spaces more than to discriminate against anyone. It's a protective instinct, not an oppressive one. I'm not saying women are right to think all men are potential rapists or something, but there used to be a system in place to help with that issue. Now, what? I guess women need to hang outside the restroom until it seems safe? Or always go in groups? Maybe we'll see more single-person restrooms going forward. Anyway, point being, it's easy and reductionist to boil complex human emotions down to bigotry. I think the "classic bathroom rules" had some good points to them that we haven't replaced.
  - foldr 10y ago
    >The desire there was to provide women and boys with safe spaces more than to discriminate against anyone. But that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. How would preventing transpeople from using the bathrooms that align with their gender identity make anyone safer? Is there a single recorded incident of a cis woman being raped by a transwoman in a bathroom? Also, the effect on boys is that they'll be sharing bathrooms with transwomen instead of with transmen. From the bigot's point of view, that ought to make boys less safe (as they think that transwomen are "really" men and transmen "really" women, so that transwomen are more likely to be rapists). It's telling that the supposed justification in terms of safety isn't even internally consistent.
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      You misunderstand. The issue isn't trans people who are good citizens. It's bad actors that have a new loophole. The mechanism ("no men in the ladies room") has been removed, so there's no longer a mechanism for the assistant manager of a Target to help his female customers relax and have a safe space to take care of things. That safety may now only provided after some sort of leering, proposal, or assault has already taken place. Also, for the record, I don't think much of this makes sense. If we were objectively worried about safety, we would focus on driving less and slower and locking up swimming pools. Stranger danger is largely overblown. That being said, I've seen particular things where particular men (almost always men) harass particular women (almost always women) and in most cases there's not much the victim can do about it. This is more about concerns along those lines.
- balabaster 10y ago
  Which seems pretty odd considering that with the exception of urinals, toilets themselves are enclosed in cubicles anyway. It seems kind of weird that they even segregate bathrooms... if they did away with urinals, all we'd be really sharing are sinks anyway. Though, I've heard horror stories about the state of women's bathrooms. I've never seen the inside of one. So perhaps they should remain separate XD
- astine 10y ago
  Having a good deal of familiarity with the sort of people you are talking about, I'd say that your understanding is almost exactly the opposite of the case. It depends a little on exactly which group of Kansas fundamentalists you are talking about, but the standard view is that things gayness or transexuality are not biological identities but character flaws. There is a common belief that homosexuality is a side effect sexual license. Much of the importance of a gay 'identity' or a transexual 'identity' is in reaction to just this attitude. Homosexuals find the need to emphasize that their homosexuality is inbuilt and not some moral failing and so turn it into an identity.
  - foldr 10y ago
    So they are actually fine with transwomen using the women's restroom? I'm not quite sure which part you're disputing.
    - astine 10y ago
      It's this statement here that I disagree with: "The people who think it's most important of all are the people who disapprove of it." Social conservatives don't want transwomen using the women's bathrooms because they don't think that they are actually women. That's the only distinction that they care about: biological sex. Everything else is fiction to them. Bear in mind that this is a simplification of the stances of millions of people, all of whom are different. Some will more readily admit to the existence of transpeople and homosexuals.
      - foldr 10y ago
        I'm not sure where we disagree. As you say, conservatives think that the difference between cis women and transwomen is very important, as they believe that transwomen are not really women.

by x1798DE 10y ago

foldr 10y ago

They seem to have pretty strong opinions on exactly which groups of people should be allowed to use which bathrooms.

x1798DE 10y ago
I can't say that I follow the news on identity politics closely, but my understanding from liberal sources is that conservatives believe that people should use the bathroom assigned to their biological sex, and they don't know or care about whether someone is post-op or pre-op or genderqueer or any of the other gradations of gender. So, again, it seems nonsensical to explain the subtle gradations of gender identity and sexual orientation that have emerged in recent years (i.e. past 30-40 years, say) by saying that conservatives were requiring this information somehow.
- foldr 10y ago
  >and they don't know or care about whether someone is post-op or pre-op or genderqueer or any of the other gradations of gender. But to enforce the policy you have to care about precisely this, because there are plenty of transmen who look like men and transwomen who look like women. So in practice you have to go around asking every man/woman in the bathroom whether they have a penis/vagina. If you "don't care" whether someone is genderqueer or not, then simply let men use the men's bathroom and women use the women's bathroom, without bothering to check their genitals first.
  - x1798DE 10y ago
    Again, my understanding is that they don't care what gender you say you are or where you are on the physical spectrum, they care about your gender at birth. This does not necessitate anything further than, "I was born male" or "I was born female", referring to biological sex, except in edge cases like chromosomal abnormalities and ambiguous genitalia. Handling cases of biological gender ambiguities is not covered by the emerging vocabulary around the gender spectrum, so again, those distinctions are entirely meaningless to conservatives. If your hypothesis were true and these increasingly precise distinctions of sexual and gender identity are a response to conservatives, why did they emerge only after liberal attitudes became prevalent enough that people could openly embrace these identities? One would expect that if they cared about these subtleties, these differences would have been more important when the conservative viewpoint was near universal.
    - foldr 10y ago
      I think maybe you’re not picturing how such a regulation would work in practice. Suppose someone who looks like a woman goes into the women’s bathroom. Do you ask them if they have a penis, or do you just let them use the bathroom? To enforce the regulation that people have to use the bathroom corresponding to their biological sex, you would have to continually ask people about their genitalia. In other words, you’d have to continually take an interest in whether any given woman is a transwoman or a cis woman. Also, I didn’t quite say that increasingly precise distinctions of sexual and general identity are a response to conservatives. I said that it’s because of conservatives that these distinctions are thought to be (and in practice are) very important. If we lived in some kind of free-wheeling hippy society, then these aspects of people would be of the same level of interest as, say, their dietary preferences. As things currently stand, if you are a woman with a penis, there are lots of people ready and waiting to tell you that you're not really a woman. It's hardly surprising that transwomen take their gender identity very seriously when it's constantly under attack. Nor is it surprising that they construct new categories (e.g. 'transwoman') when the existing categories are so rigidly policed.
      - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
humanrebar 10y ago
The desire there was to provide women and boys with safe spaces more than to discriminate against anyone. It's a protective instinct, not an oppressive one. I'm not saying women are right to think all men are potential rapists or something, but there used to be a system in place to help with that issue. Now, what? I guess women need to hang outside the restroom until it seems safe? Or always go in groups? Maybe we'll see more single-person restrooms going forward. Anyway, point being, it's easy and reductionist to boil complex human emotions down to bigotry. I think the "classic bathroom rules" had some good points to them that we haven't replaced.
- foldr 10y ago
  >The desire there was to provide women and boys with safe spaces more than to discriminate against anyone. But that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. How would preventing transpeople from using the bathrooms that align with their gender identity make anyone safer? Is there a single recorded incident of a cis woman being raped by a transwoman in a bathroom? Also, the effect on boys is that they'll be sharing bathrooms with transwomen instead of with transmen. From the bigot's point of view, that ought to make boys less safe (as they think that transwomen are "really" men and transmen "really" women, so that transwomen are more likely to be rapists). It's telling that the supposed justification in terms of safety isn't even internally consistent.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    You misunderstand. The issue isn't trans people who are good citizens. It's bad actors that have a new loophole. The mechanism ("no men in the ladies room") has been removed, so there's no longer a mechanism for the assistant manager of a Target to help his female customers relax and have a safe space to take care of things. That safety may now only provided after some sort of leering, proposal, or assault has already taken place. Also, for the record, I don't think much of this makes sense. If we were objectively worried about safety, we would focus on driving less and slower and locking up swimming pools. Stranger danger is largely overblown. That being said, I've seen particular things where particular men (almost always men) harass particular women (almost always women) and in most cases there's not much the victim can do about it. This is more about concerns along those lines.
balabaster 10y ago
Which seems pretty odd considering that with the exception of urinals, toilets themselves are enclosed in cubicles anyway. It seems kind of weird that they even segregate bathrooms... if they did away with urinals, all we'd be really sharing are sinks anyway. Though, I've heard horror stories about the state of women's bathrooms. I've never seen the inside of one. So perhaps they should remain separate XD
astine 10y ago
Having a good deal of familiarity with the sort of people you are talking about, I'd say that your understanding is almost exactly the opposite of the case. It depends a little on exactly which group of Kansas fundamentalists you are talking about, but the standard view is that things gayness or transexuality are not biological identities but character flaws. There is a common belief that homosexuality is a side effect sexual license. Much of the importance of a gay 'identity' or a transexual 'identity' is in reaction to just this attitude. Homosexuals find the need to emphasize that their homosexuality is inbuilt and not some moral failing and so turn it into an identity.
- foldr 10y ago
  So they are actually fine with transwomen using the women's restroom? I'm not quite sure which part you're disputing.
  - astine 10y ago
    It's this statement here that I disagree with: "The people who think it's most important of all are the people who disapprove of it." Social conservatives don't want transwomen using the women's bathrooms because they don't think that they are actually women. That's the only distinction that they care about: biological sex. Everything else is fiction to them. Bear in mind that this is a simplification of the stances of millions of people, all of whom are different. Some will more readily admit to the existence of transpeople and homosexuals.
    - foldr 10y ago
      I'm not sure where we disagree. As you say, conservatives think that the difference between cis women and transwomen is very important, as they believe that transwomen are not really women.