A Sign
This article may require an opening of the mind, first.
Do we really want the government to get involved in policing our bathrooms and our privates in order to solve the great bathroom gender debate? Here's my simple proposal to end the debate. Anyone worried about it can make one simple sign: "no perverted activity in the restroom." Can it be that easy?
Well, we already have laws against sexual assault and so forth, so really there's not much else to be done.
Let the businesses, schools, and parents decide for themselves how to handle this issue. Otherwise, we have just drawn police officers into inspecting someone's privates or doing an interrogation for something as simple as going to the restroom. Any unusual conditions at schools can be dealt with by the child's doctor via a note as per the standard practice.
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Situational
Let's play the government intervention scenario out. A man enters the woman's restroom and is challenged. His response is: "well, I identify as a female". At this point, can he be asked to leave? There are accounts in the news accounts of women, perhaps not fitting some expectations of femininity, being accosted for "being a man in the lady's restroom"! Just remember that for every law that is passed, someone's Life, Liberty, or Property is at stake, because those laws are ultimately enforced via fine, time, or gunpoint in increasingly escalating fashion for refusal to comply. Will someone be prepared to inspect his (or her) crown jewels or lack thereof to determine the actual gender?
In discussing the issue with my wife, I also suspect that the odds of getting sexually assaulted are much greater at bathroom at a gas station at night, than some perverted gender interloper trying to assault someone in the Target bathroom. So what are we really talking about?
Politics
It seems to me that some unusual conditions are being overplayed politically, perhaps in response to a failure to acknowledge the conditions on the opposite side of the political spectrum. While I empathize with the concerns on both sides of the Great Restroom Debate, I must ask: do we REALLY want to effectively open the door to government policing of our privates? They already have some rationale to perform searches for drugs. Will the police need to inspect what is inside our pants to make a proper determination as to gender? Are they qualified to make that determination?
Another point is that if transgender issues are overplayed politically, this issue can dissolve the inherent diversity between the sexes - in an attempt to make everyone the same, it may, in effect, rob the sexes of their differences! Perhaps those overplaying it are reacting to other issues being downplayed? What if the bathroom signs for men and women were replaced with unisex and genderless - effectively dissolving any lines between the two genders.
Both sides may be losing since the over and underplaying battle over relatively rare conditions is another in a long set of movements that blur the otherwise very distinct lines between male and female. Consider that in all our efforts to grant females more access to traditional male roles, and by proxy, this debate over transgender issues, has our culture downplayed all of the strengths and gifts that a woman has, that a man can not have?
Borrowing from the Monty Python, where a man declares that he wants to be a woman:
“STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'. REG: What?! LORETTA: It's my right as a man. JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan? LORETTA: I want to have babies. REG: You want to have babies?! LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them. REG: But... you can't have babies. LORETTA: Don't you oppress me. REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!”=Hermaphrodites and Unusual Genitalia= Next let's deal with physical gender or what we we call sex
Legal Issues
Unintended Consequences
This is yet another debate over labels and one-size-fits-all approaches. Unfortunately, the results of these are often unintended consequences such as the following story:http://www.upworthy.com/heres-what-itll-look-like-if-trans-…In the linked story, a man would HAVE to use the ladies room, if bathroom laws were passed without thinking about such unusual cases.
Sexual Assault Already Illegal
The legality of sexual assault would seem the same in either situation and there are laws on the books for that already. So what are we left with other than a sign saying: No perverts in the bathroom, or if you are a pervert, don't do perverted things in the bathroom. Sounds unrealistic and even downright silly, right? Well, in order to pacify the fine folks of Anniston, Alabama - that is basically what they said. The law basically says, hey if you're in here to cause trouble, you go to jail for a year and pay a bigger fine. That ought to stop the pervert gender interlopers! Or at least some of them, right?
Personally, I suspect that if someone is deranged enough to try to sexually assault someone in the bathroom, that some gender sign is not going to stop them any more than a no perverts sign would stop anyone or a no guns sign would stop one of those sick souls shooting up a school.
With regard to the government, we already have tools to solve this problem - molesting people in the bathroom is ALREADY illegal, and I personally don't see a need to bring any more government into my pants than is absolutely necessary.
Concerns and Responses
Transgender Label Abuse
Let's deal with the possibility of abuse of the label, transgender, that is, the people who may not be confused about their gender and simply want to prove a point or enter the opposite bathroom without consequence.
Private Property and Economic
If you don't want to shop at a place where they let guys dressed like girls in the bathroom, then don't. Let them feel the $ loss and maybe they'll listen, eventually. If you don't mind, then do shop there. Problem solved, right?
Schools
As for the schools, well, let those with rare conditions get a doctor or mental healthcare professional's note. Problem solved, mostly. All others can be decided by the school board. Let the local people deal with these situations. And if the school board is off base, vote 'em out. This is a local issue.
Slippery Slope Fears
As for the concerns on the traditionalist, really what is being said is that men are generally more perverted than women and will abuse the bathroom gender labels, therefore there needs to be some legal method to stop such things that might make people feel unsafe, ogled, or even molested while in the bathroom. Perhaps. I could see it happening.
But, perhaps gender interlopers have ALREADY been in the 'other' restroom for years now? I've personally seen some men dressed up as a woman that I wouldn't have known had they not told me. What about dirty old men who like to touch little boys? What about any potential homosexual people who may want to ogle or molest people of their own gender, while in the bathroom and while NOT in the bathroom? What signs shall we use for these conditions?
Why are there signs over the restrooms in the first place other than indicating which restrooms smell worse and have urine all over the seats and floor? A point made by a friend of mine, A. Cronshaw, is that bathroom signs indicate a space of trust. I agree. I want my privacy just as much as the next guy. I imagine this goes doubly for ladies who may desire some privacy. At present, anyone not "dressing the part", that is walking, acting, and talking like a woman while in the women's restroom will quickly find themselves confronted.
Source of the Differences?
Let's think about the differences in opinion on this topic as well as speculate on some sources of the a tendency of some minds to favor the role of one sex while being in an opposite body.
Physical Machinery
There are individuals who have certain rare conditions where their reproductive organs aren't easily classified. By my estimates, that means there are about 2 to 3 people in my hometown who are just a little different in this area. Other estimates say 1 in 300! But, despite a general lack of awareness of these types of genetics, if the logic is played out any further, it could mean a bathroom specific to each type of unusual genetics. Such a thing is simply unrealistic.
There are individuals who have certain relatively (warning medical nudity in the link) rare conditions where their reproductive organs aren't easily classified. What are the odds?
Mental Machinery
Another part of the debate is about those who seem to have some interesting mental machinery without the supporting abnormal physical genetics or genitalia that would correspond to their apparent mental state, yet, homosexuals are attracted to their own gender - how is this any different from a mental machinery perspective? When I was growing up, there were several individuals that we already knew were gay well before they ever came out of the closet. Such thing have been seen in the world of nature as well, if a zoo can count as ... nature.
Some of these transgender individuals go on to modify their bodies in significant ways. If such individuals dress, act like, and genuinely believe they are a woman, the real question is STILL whether or not they are doing so to be perverted, scare people, etc. or for other reasons. No perverted activities in the restroom?
From a more rationalist perspective, one idea is that for these mental machinery exceptions, the brain may have developed differently from the rest of the body, while in utero, depending upon the mix of hormones such as testosterone and estrogen in the development environment / womb. Consider this article: on the transgender brain. If it is possible for the hormone mix to influence the brain, perhaps it is possible for chemicals which are said (depending on who you ask) to influence endocrine function, to have some influence on pregnancy. I wonder how many pregnant women they tested the chemicals out on : ) Hint: they don't! See hormone hacking for a discussion of the endocrine function as it relates to glyphosate, the chemical used in many commercial weed killers, which may enter our food supply. Perhaps Monsanto and its ilk are causing all these gender bender issues via certain chemicals that may alter endocrine function and are as yet undetectable or only cause the effects within certain thresholds not currently tested? I'm about 90% joking and about 10% serious :).
Esoterics
For a more esoteric perspective, who knows - until any one of us have died, do we really know how life works? Maybe such people just spent the last 100 lives being a woman and are having a hard time adjusting to life as a man? There is much we don't yet understand about the mind-body connection, particularly, as it relates to exceptions to the rule.
The Amish are known to be a deeply religious people. Do the Amish people have transgender problems? If they do, perhaps such conditions might go under reported (perhaps such conditions have been underreported historically), yet if we consider an alternate view - perhaps different cultures and mindsets attract different types of spiritual entities for incarnation into this realm. Maybe a transgender person in an Amish community is rare due to the properties of that culture? I understand that in certain Indian and other cultures, a 3rd gender has been recognized for some time now. I wonder why. The broader picture is that gender has important spiritual implications.