When It Comes To Transgender People & Civil Rights, It Really Is Always About The Bathroom

Heterosexual men have a lot to answer for. Why are their women so terrified of them?

I've seen both sides

 The news clip arguement is A man that wakes up one day and feels like a woman for one day.  Which is much different from a few years ago.  True the religious wackos will still use the we are mentally ill but times are changing.   Now what is changing?

 IMHO, we that are or have transitioned are productive members of society, the same as Gay and Lesbians, we are not fitting the definition that has been painted of us by our opposition.  We have been writing our own definition.

 As for the term you used, non-passing transgender Some people need a bit of help.  We have been trying to act like men (MtF) and some of those learned habits are hard to break.  Same goes for FtM.  Some go from one extreme to the other because they watch to much TV.  Read to many magazines.  Or what have you.  Instead of finding the true you, which takes times.  When a person is comfortable with her looks she is part of society, not passing.  I feel a great thing would be a greeter at Wal-Mart or Target or What ever store, make some money and observe people in everyday world.  In one our on a busy Saturday at a Wal-Mart, you will see the full stretch of people.  Men that look burly, Women that Look Danty, Tall women, Fat women, thin women and men,  you get the drift, all different.

  Rudy's Picture in drag shows a great example of what recreational Crossdressing is.  A deffinition so to saw.
When rudy was asked why he died dress as a waoman, he said for fun.

 Which leads to why do men crossdress?  For Fun.  Under the umbrella of Transgender Rudy fits.  Rudy crossdressed for fun.   This gives many a definition of what crossdressing is about.  Her on PHB his pictures where shown,
 Add them here, need visual. Rudy in drag.

 Is what Rudy was doing a true roll of being trasgender?,
I think not.  again it will come to how we define ourselves.

We Need to give all these people who support us what to expect form those with in the group.  Hate to say, but it is needed to find the safe place for all that are covered by the Transgender Umbrella. in Public places.

The same as with buying a car, a boat, or a ring.  there is a system in place.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

To start with I do not think that Rudy is the archetypal example of your average crossdresser.
If most crossdressers did it as some light entertainment why are crossdressing forums frequently filled with desperate pleas for explanation as to why crossdressers have an overwhelming need to crossdress, why even after repeated purges they can't quit, why even when their wife of decades is threatening to leave them taking the kids too if they don't quit that they still can't shake themselves of the need to do this?

If this was light entertainment then crossdressers would quit with the first purge of clothes and make-up not repeat it as an ongoing cycle. They would not be hiding their stash of clothes, they'd be openly out and about all the time if it was just a recreational activity. There would not be threads of discussion where someone confesses they are thinking of ending their lives because they can't stop being a crossdresser.

I don't hear about fishing or beach cricket leading to these things, those are recreational activities.

To say that these people are just recreational is to dismiss their experience and to devalue their suffering. I have serious issues with that.

I dabbled a bit in cross dressing when I first came out as a gay man. I wanted to experience every aspect of gay culture and literally tried it on to see if it fit (I look like Rosie O'Donnell in drag - very scary). It was an interesting study because when I started I was totally clueless about the hows and more importantly the whys and the whos. Along the way I met some truly wonderful people. Some were transgender (both directions) who were trying to make money in order to pay for gender reassignment surgery or to be able to afford to move to NYC or San Francisco and it was one of the few places where they could work (1980's flyover country). Some were people who considered themselves professional entertainers who were playing a role. Some others were just gay men camping it up. I fell into the professional entertainer/camp group because I certainly couldn't "pass" I did only comedy routines and what was known at the time as "bag lady drag." I had a great deal of  fun, but it didn't really fit me or what I wanted to do and I knew I wouldn't be a successful entertainer.

During that time I met people who cross dressed outside of the entertainment arena. Many of them did it because they felt the other gender's clothing was physically more comfortable or they liked the tactile feel of the materials against their skin and they were materials only used in the other gender's clothing (men's silk boxers and women's silk panties are made out of two different kinds of silk cloth and feel different against the skin). I had a good friend who loved to wear long skirts because he hated how shorts fit and skirts are cooler in the summer without exposing his legs to getting sunburned. They also didn't chaff his thighs. He looked a little strange wearing a t-shirt and a skirt with size 11 boots, but people just assumed he was a bit eccentric and didn't really give him a hard time. Of course it helped that he was 6'2", 210#, and wore a beard (amazing what you can get away with when you look like you can kick serious ass). I met people who cross dressed in order to achieve sexual arousal as part of a fetish and they only did it in that context.

I learned early on to never assume why anyone cross dresses. The motivations are as individual as we all are.

Never try to train a pig. It's a waste of time and it annoys the pig.

There is a substantial amount of social pressure not to crossdress in public. Certainly an aweful lot of closeted crossdressers only go out in public at times like halloween where they can do so with a minimum of abuse and ridicule. How many of those who crossdress on halloween are really closeted crossdressers doing so to get a taste of freedom rather than just for fun? Who knows but I bet it's a large proportion. If you asked a closeted crossdresser on halloween they'd still say it was just 'for fun' and they would still be acting fairly 'male' despite the clothing for fear of being outed regardless. Some closeted crossdressers don't even feel capable of that for fear that someone will twig to the fact that this isn't a unique occassion.

On those occassions when men have supposedly dressed purely for 'fun' that I personally know of it was within the context of a good amount of alcohol, a large group of 'mucho' 'straight' friends and a lot of embarassment and even then I knew one person involved was in fact a closeted crossdresser. An event filled with fear and discomfort, that is where the 'humour' (not that I'd call it that) and 'bravery' was involved. And those men only had the courage to do this in public while within the safety of a supportively hetero-normative (for want of a better worrd) group and environment. None of those did that in public more than once.

So if we apply the term 'recreational crossdressing' validly I think it would apply to only a minute number of people, most of whom do so on single or rare occassions, generally in a hetero-normative (again there may be a better term for this) environment considered socially acceptable and devoid of the normal risks, labeling and discrimination that comes with public crossdressing (or the public discovery of private crossdressing).

The vast majority of crossdressers and I think also the vast majority of reasons for crossdressing would not be 'recreational'.

 But there are those that crossdrees for fun, hence, Recreational.  As you said in your diary,

For many of the crossdressers I know there is indeed a sexual component attached to some of their dressing. For many that is a phase that lessens or passes as they increase their self-acceptance while for others it is consistant. That does not however mean that it is a purely sexual act even when there is a sexual component

 It is that sexual component that the Fundies link to all of us.  The link is the same one that Peter LeBarbera links to Gays and Lesbians regarding Leather Events such as IML in Chicago or Folsom Street in SF.  I would say that 95% of the GLB have nothing to do with the activities that take place at those events. (95% of those that take part are heterosexual anyway)

 When I came out, my parents asked me to see a psychologist of their choice to give me an evaluation.  He asked me in 10 different ways if I masturebated when I dressed, did I get arroused?  My answer was NO.  I felt insulted after the third time he asked me.

 It would be nice if Rudy answered a few questions of why he dressed.  It would give us a good way to point out that he is what we are not.  As we are in a fight to validate our existance, prove we are not the sexual preditors we are accused of being.

 Not by our choice, those of us that finally decide to transition are lumped in with the recreational crossdresser that dresses for sexual pleasure.  And I have issues with that.  They are causing us problems when it comes to which bathroom to use by being lumped in with them.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

And that includes myself.

There is a vast, vast, nay Monumentally Collosal difference between those who get a sexual thrill out of crossdressing and something done recreationally as in for light entertainment and is easilly quited. As a gay friend said when discussing the subject of gay people being determined and acknowledged by their sexual acts and not their romantic emotions 'repressed things tend to show up through sexual desire first'. And to dismiss people on account of their ethical sexual turn-on isn't ok either and where it is a central sexual focus I'd hardly call that 'recreational' unless we are going to start applying it to a lot of LGBT people too, maybe replace 'straight-acting' with 'recreational'? Wouldn't that be trivialising their gay experience and their freedom to behave in whatever way seems appropriate themselves?

Dismissing those for who crossdressing is substantially or partially sexual is to dismiss a lot of people whose emotional difference follows the sexual over time as, through the sexual first the repression barriers are undone. Also it is just as bad as dismissing people because their sexual attraction is for people of the same sex. The line is ethical (ie involving only sane adults making informed consent) which is a really simple line to draw.

The 'fundies' have no understanding of the philosophical difference between subjective personal morality and objective ethics and so try and impose their subjective personal morality over others when that is an unethical behaviour. That is the essential problem as they will point at anything different to them and hiss at it and whatever is most different is used to taint by association everything that is 'other' in emotive reactionary rhetoric devoid of anything but a surface logic or shallow and neccessarily ignorant reasoning. Buying into their game is a good way of entrenching their ideal of illogical, irrational un-thinking into the populace which perpetuates the core problem, the genuinly successful counter would be to propagate critical thinking which would be very good for rights and democracy though very bad for advertising and commerce.

My guess is that Rudy is just like most crossdressers who refer to something as 'for fun' dress a few times in public while laughing slightly nervously and then rush back into the closet. Repressed. Of course it could have been just an exercise to try and emphasise his pro-gay reputation (back when he had one) but I doubt it.

If I do accept the validity of the term 'recreational crossdressers' at all it'd be for those who dress up only as a lark on those rare occassions wherin it is considered socially acceptable to do so such as halloween, certainly it is offensive to apply to those for whom it is a strong sexual fetish let alone the vast, vast majority of crossdressers who get a sexual thrill out of it early on, who cannot keep repressing this part of themselves, who purge and binge and purge and binge and then eventually find it is more than sexual once they start trying to accept and stop repressing this part of who they are that you have judged as likely transexual. That pattern fits the vast majority of crossdressers!

So even if the phrase is valid, you would still be using it invalidly as you are invalidating those who discover their transexuality (as per your diagnoses) via sexual arousal or otherwise who don't feel or consider themselves transexual yet for whom this is a deep intrinsic part of themselves they cannot successfully repress indefinatly or excise from their lives.

 As others here have posted, TG/TS combined support groups can leave a bad taste in one's mouth.  It did for me. (note that I let my feelings known in March 2005, I knew that I was a woman born with a penis)  

 I also agree that those that crossdressers purge.  It is also the same for many transsexuals.  I would have to say that I know more people that are transsexual that started out crossdressing as they were discovering who they are. Just a way of gravitating to those we have more in common with.  

 The main point of this post is when it comes to attacking TG,TV,TS and CD.  We are all lumped into the same box. It is all about bathroom use, period.  Yeah there is a line in the bible that has to do with men dressing as women, but the Fundies know they can't use it to shove their bible down the T's throat. So they use the bathroom aspect.

 Can you help a bit more?  As you said,

Cause if those people who purge are transexual then there are literally tens of thousands of undiagnosed transexuals who only want to change for a few days a week or even a month

 Which bathroom should they use?

 Does the 'PASSING' come into effect?

 Do letters from doctors and psychologists mean anything?

 Here is the problem we face, having to be able to tell Joe and Jane Public who and which bathroom we under the transgender umbrella use?  

 I will give my opinion,

 If you live full time as a woman use the ladies room, what is between the legs doesn't matter. Private areas where total nudity happens, genitalia matters.

 I would also say that a letter from a psychologist would also be a requirement.

 Again, thank you for engaging in honest dialogue without throwing insults.

 

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

Public perception of threats are different to the actual threats. I'm horrified by how few people know about domestic violence attacks on men by women (my next-door neighbour was one victim, one of my 1st cousins another) a report on livescience.com put the rate now at about 50-50 between men and women perpetrators, even if that isn't accurate the popular belief that women do not commit such crimes or are incapbale of doin so is untrue (and sexist). Most women I know are still mostly concerned about sexual assault from strangers, while this occurs and one friend of mine has suffered this the most common attacker is someone known to the victim. The same is also true of child abuse.

What I think needs to be done then, for everyone's sake, is to first and foremost fight against communal toilets and showers. If every public toilet, shower or changeroom was a single stall unisex room with a security camera or two outside we'd all be much more safe no matter who we are. That would protect everyone from the real bathroom dangers.

It certainly seems better than the alternatives. The doctors letter suggestion particularly strikes me as unworkable. Would it come into play only when challenged? So people would have fundies burst into the bathroom on them demanding to see their doctors letters or proof that they were WBW? Would the suspected illegal transexual urinator then have to hang around the bathroom under citizens arrest untill the local toilet inspector or nearest police officer arrived to verify the document is genuine? Or a more workable but still problematic option would be to install a bar-code reader into every public toilet and the transexual would have to scan the barcode on their doctors letter to get in. Too bad if the reader broke down sending an alert on a failed scan and the police arrived. The risk would remain that someone might hack the code reader with a counterfeit document. Perhaps we'd have to microchip genuine transexuals like we do dogs? Or tattoo the barcode or registration number onto them?

Wow that's some chilling and repellant thoughts there! No I don't think that a system to verify transexuals with or without broader transgender inclusion would be practical and also the cost for the infrastructure involved to police it would likely end up higher, especially in the long term, than it would be to convert all public toilets, showers etc to single use ones and there would still be cash left over for the security cameras (after all those are being installed almost everywhere as it is) and any such registered transexual verification system would do nothing to raise the safety of everybody else at risk in public toilets.

Again, thank you for engaging in honest dialogue without throwing insults.

   logical, to the masses, as it does also myself.

I know that many are stuck between choosing transitioning or losing family.  A spouse and/or children would leave them is they transitioned.  Valid fear.  I feared losing my family if I came out as a Transsexual

 And when do you think these will begin to support us, those who live our lives daily out in public as women, at Wal-Mart, the grocery, the drug store, the mall, everywhere, when do you think they will begin to give us employment beside as a drag queen in the gay sectors? When will they support the "T", not only in the mind politically but in reality?

  It's nice to know they think one way, but in deed's they turn the other way.
  Thinking don't get it, that don't help me pay my bills and they're passing up great skills and dedicated employees. After all, I only have 40 years experience.

  WTF?  

 

I'd rather be a lion for one day, than a sheep for my entire life.

"addressing transgender bathroom use "always" boils down to Christian faith, the charge that transgender people are mentally ill ...,

   That is pure conjecture based on assumptions of a personal political agenda, for the purpuse of attributing to people who question purportedly sound judgment to the effect of "tearing the bathroom doors completely off it's hinges" they are the same as the fundamentalist without any foundation for such an ssumption.  There are many different Christian faiths, who differ profoundly as you well know and to over look this for the sake a political statement to formulate a mindset, is slanerous and is a charge that all christrian people attribute transgender people as mentally ill, or that all who oppose to some degree or question that all transgenders be allowed to use any public restroom are christian and view transgender person as mentally ill and is completely unfounded, unwarrentied and inaccurate.

I reiterate; 

really, I have never run into the "threatening/ aggressive cross-dressed guy in ladies' room" scenario in 50+ years of peeing, from the suburbs to the Port Authority. I think it more likely to run into male-dressed male peepers or spycams. No male-identified guy really wants to be both wearing women's clothes AND in women's bathroom. Girlie cooties!

The question of the reason for laws in society is something to ask a philosopher, historian or sociologist (oh and/or an anthropologist too.. but I'd reccomend the philosopher) not a lwayer, if the lawyer has studied that question they will have done so from the context of the historical pressures philosophies and sociological forcs that lead to their profession, often this is not explored to any depth though to concentrate more on learning the actualities and practicalities of the system. But I digress.

Why on earth would someone, not already quite insane, make substantial permanant changes to their body for the purposes of duping society? As personal entertainment is really stretching it, though I have heard of some people going through permanant substantial surgical procedures as supossedly 'art' they are very few indeed. Most changes people do make like tattooing or piercing or minor cosmetic surgery is done as decoration, to increase attractiveness or for a variety of personal reasons and most people only go through a small number of these and even heavy tattooing or piercing are minute alterations in comparison to SRS.

Now someone wanting to go through SRS because of mistaken beliefs, that I do know does happen. People thinking that it will make them happy, give them legitimacy or will justify things that come not from transexuality but other things like borderline personality disorder or other situations may request SRS when it is not going to give them the result that they are searching for.

But someone having large and pretty much irreversible alterations to their anatomy to fool, commit fraud or dupe society? That would probably require a substantial psychological problem to be capable of knowingly or willingly doing that. A sane and mentally healthy person with no transexuality and/or transgenderism would need to have a life-or-death level of motivation (like the rumours that one of the Alcatraz escapees had SRS to hide their identity) to do something like that to themselves and even that is seriously questionable!

Certianly I do agree that a therapist should be involved in SRS, not to protect the rest of society as I think that is a collosally unlikey need (a psychopath who undergoes SRS is a danger to society with or without the SRS) but to protect the requester from themselves, from making a mistake undergoing an ireversible procedure if it is not right for them. If they can be happiest as a crossdresser rather than an SRS transexual it is the therapists professional ethical duty to lead the person to that state whereas if for their happiness and mental health they should go through SRS then it is the therapists professional ethical duty to lead them to that.

 The Dumbest thing I would say that ever became law is the Baker Act  And YES I have attempted suicide.  This whole line of save a person from themselves gives me the creeps.  

 I have been Baker Acted, false charges from my ex-wife.  Only the next day to come to the Psycho ward and tell them I wasn't going to kill myself that night. 5 years before I came out.  She didn't like guns, I owned them. I was clesning them and she got pissed off and said I was going to kill myself.

 No, When I did try, it was by drug overdose.  And that was in 2004 when I couldn't deal with the fact of coming out and dealing with te fear of rejection from family. The shame they might endure haveing a transsexual daughter.

 I was in a support group in Ft Lauderdale, and one of the people that was in the group was a MtFtM.  Yes, he talked about all the reasons why he transitioned the first time and 12 years later decided it was the wrong thing for him to do.  I feel bad for him.  Now a man with a vigina when he had one in the first place.  I consider him to be in the same boat as ex-gays.  They fit the pattern

 Anyhoo, a person that knows he or she is transsexual has dealt with it for life.  You can try to out run it,  Good Luck, because when you stop running from it,,,,,IT IS STILL THERE.

 Yeah he said he did it out of fantacy, he tought his life would be easier as a woman. and he was wrong, wrong for living a fantacy.

 What I live my life as is a woman, that easy,  I work, raise my two daughters, Have sex with men when times are right, no children beating on the bedroom door.  The only thing that doesn't show up are some femine products.  As I had my reproductive organs removed.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

Ok. The therapist is important to ensure that SRS is what the person actually needs rather than what they think they need.
People can be misguided. Sure there are people who are transexual that always know from the youngest age and I'm certainly in favour of getting them the assistance they need ASAP. However there are people such as in your example who aren't entirely sure, who may change their minds later, who are misguided, who fall between the cracks of standard definitions or who see SRS as they cure-all for other additional issues.

If we don't need this safeguard then I see no reason anyone couldn't get SRS if it pleased them to do so and they coughed up the cash required, certainly I don't see that society needs protecting from people who don't need SRS but merely want it. However people who want it at one stage in their life but who do not need it are likely to regret it in the future and so, just as we place safeguards to prevent inebriated people getting tattoos etc till they sober up it makes sense to have a safeguard of a qualified person there to ensure that SRS is the right way forward for that person. Also that they are prepared for it and to help with any adjustment required.

Another benefit is where SRS would be paid for by the public health system it ensures people with a genuine need, or the most desperate need, are the ones getting the surgery, someone who just wants it could get it done privately at their own expense but the state funds would go where it was imediatly needed.

For the record, I'm not SamieD, just as you're not SuzyQ or Catherine.  Please don't assume that Samie and I have the same opinions on everything.  You pivoted early in your comment from talking about my post to complaining about what Samie said earlier -- again, I'm not SamieD.

My comments on arguments against transgender civil rights legislation always coming down bathrooms, and listing three arguments against allowing transgender women from using women's reistrooms is based on years of archiving news with Stephanie Stevens and Meryl Sizemore at transgendernews.  I wasn't always contributing to the archive until 2004, but the archive goes back to 2002.  It's not a comprehensive archive, but it's as comprehensive a record as there is available -- we find and archive articles and press releases from religious right organizations and press outlets, the mainstream press, the LGBT press, and non-profit organizations.  We're not comprehensive in our archiving, but we're pretty thorough in collecting data and information.

When arguments against specific pieces of transgender civil rights legislation are made -- well, let me put it this way: In the past 3-1/2 years I've personally archived news, I've never read an article outlining why people are against specific pieces of transgender civil rights legislation that haven't included one or more of the three elements I've listed in my piece above.  And, I do mean never.

If there are any experts on arguments against transgender civil rights legislation, Stephanie, Meryl, and I are among the experts.

I can also tell you that when I seached the archives, I found only one article in over 25,000 articles outlining preditory behavior by a man dressed as a woman and/or a transgender woman in a public restroom.  Let me repeat: Almost six years of archiving, and we've only found one case of preditory behavior by a a man dressed as a woman and/or a transgender woman in a public restroom.

The fear of men dressed as women in women's restrooms is real, but the facts don't support the fear.

-----
~~Autumn~~

As if there were safety in stupidity alone.
--Henry David Thoreau

Although, traditionally you need to be coherent in order to hijack discussion, Phyllis has managed to do it nonetheless.

PS: Autumn and I are not the same person.

<3 Sam

A transgender woman has admitted robbing a New Plymouth taxi driver
after spraying him in the eyes with deodorant.

Justin Morgan-Peka was born a man but appeared as a woman before Judge
Allan Roberts in the New Plymouth District Court on Thursday.

The 21-year-old, who is originally from Whangarei, put her hand up to
the aggravated robbery, as well as a charge of shoplifting.

  this kind of behavior begins to become more and more common place, because the TG merry go round can carry so many riders and many more will jump on too, the more restroom doors you tear off.

  I felt so uncomfortable and afraid while I was staying in Florida outside Kissimmee. I was sleeping in my van, (presenting as male at the time, closeted) and working at a restaurant to get money to buy a computer for my van called the "brain" before driving back to home. When I was off work I would use some public restrooms at a park off the highway and they were "one of those places", a pick up place. I couldn't go inside and crap without one or two coming inside and mingling around, and before you'd go inside, they'd stare at you, one, two, or three of them depending how many were waiting on "you". When you'd come out, they stare at you too constantly. EEeeerie. I hated those a _ _ _ _ _ _ _. All I wanted was some privacy to use the shitter, not have a cloud of predators hanging over me. I thought if they were that hungry, why didn't they go inside and do each other and leave innocent people alone who just want to use the restroom?

I've seen both sides yet so many of you try to play me stupid, like I don't know what I'm talking about and make imbecilic comments rather than any discussion of the pro's and con's.  

 

I'd rather be a lion for one day, than a sheep for my entire life.

Two lesbian killers who murdered a 16-year-old girl for being annoying smiled at each other today as a Perth court was told it took their victim half an hour to die.

Jessica Ellen Stasinowsky, 20, and her girlfriend Valerie Paige Parashumti, 19, pleaded guilty in December to the wilful murder of Stacey Mitchell.

They admitted in the West Australian Supreme Court to killing Ms Mitchell between December 17 and 21, 2006, while the girl was staying with them at a house at Lathlain in Perth....

...They later forced a 15-year-old boy to watch the mobile phone footage and made him help clear up the blood.

So I guess you better be afraid of everyone then. Because, quite seriously, women can be predators too. And while the numbers haven't equalised yet I've read that they are balancing out quickly as more and more women grow up realising that they can be violent too, they can murder too, they can molest and rape too. Perhaps those are the floodgates now open?

I am not impressed with the lurid and eploitative emphasis of lesbian in the headline of that article or the way they make uneccessary mention of the 'vampire sub-culture' near the end as neither really had any reasonable bearing on the fact that two human beings murdered another. Plenty of lesbians are not murderers, plenty of members of vampire sub-cultures are not murderers. I remember reading about a bhuddist monk some years back who hacked off his abbots head. People of all shapes sizes types and walks of life commit all sorts of crimes crimes and plenty don't commit any.

I don't really understand where the posing as hitchhikers comes from as my quote and the article it came from is about a pair of lesbian women who killed someone who was staying with them in the same home, no mention of hitchhikers there (at least in that article).

I posted the quote and article to show that women who are not transgender are also capable of horrific acts including against other women. Bathrooms need not be involved in an example as people capable of murdering, laughing about it and tormenting a child with the evidence of their crime could commit such acts anywhere convenient to them at the time. That could involve bathrooms as much as anywhere else, after all the bathroom is a likely place for a woman to be alone and vulnerable in the same space as a sadistic lesbian killer.

So if non-transgender women can be a threat to women.. then a concern about only transgender women won't sail.

You provided a quote (as yet bathroom free) of minor but significant violence from a transgender woman that is presumably recent, I provided a quote (also bathroom free) of a vastly higher scale of violent crime from a pair on non-transgender women and the report was also recent. If we conclude that you provided evidence that taxi drivers should fear transgender women and that women should also fear transgender women especially in bathrooms then I provided evidence that women should fear lesbian couples and that women should fear lesbians especially in bathrooms.

Or alternatively (and the conclusion that I think seems more valid) we both provided evidence that all humans are capable of violent crime irrespective of which arbitrary catagory they might be identified by, bathrooms or no bathrooms.

So no matter whether bathrooms were involved in the case you quoted from or where the hitchhikers come into this (where do the hitchhikers come into this?) the fact is that women comit atrocities too so shall you speak out against lesbians using womens toilets now? What about women who are members of vampire subcultures?

I spent the evening today with a lesbian couple, both of whom have been known to attend large goth gatherings and to be honest I think they are lovely people and despite having posted this quote earlier I did not fear being alone with them because I don't think that all lesbians or the majority of lesbians are sadistic killers just because some are.

Personally, I think that was a much better approach than being concerned with whether or not she has a penis and whether or not she intended to keep it.


I'm only a click away.

  or transitioned, that, that is a wonderful thing to have happen to you, and comforting. My problem is with partime folks who refuse to live full time but want to use the restrooms whenever, where-ever. Personally, if you don't live as female use the restroom at the bars where you hang out when "dressed", with the other secreted cross dresser or transgender folks.

  Consider that that person you saw had been someone who was clearly not, comfortable in their feminine costume, 5 o'clock shadow, nervous,(as a man would be if in the women's restroom when a woman came in except at the local CD club), and has masculine mannerisms, looking like a man in a dress. Would you have felt as comfortable? Would a 14 year old feel as comfortable? Some men are effeminate, but most simple are not, even if they claim they are transgender, they are in no way effeminate. Have you been to a cross dresser club and seen for yourself? Can we look at gay men for an example? Many gay men are clearly not effeminate, and do not immitate it either. Imitation is not reality. It might be fun "to play dress up" but clearly not effeminate in reality. They know that, and we know that.

   I go to college and there I met a guy who "called" himself a feminine name at times, thought of himself as "girl" in certain (undefined to me) terms and would dress up at times and go to his favorite "gay bar" for fun. After meeting me and observing  me for two semesters, (I never spoke to him about my views on transgender and transsexuality because I didn't associate with him enough to do that, I am 39 years older than he) he clearly recognized that he was not like I, that he was not transgender or transsexual, that he was "gay male" and told friends and a professor who is on speaking terms with us, that he was "going back boy". The professor ask me about myself whether I would go back boy and I replied, this is it for me, this is who I am and who I have always been. Transsexualism is not for experimentation, we have struggled all of our live with the confusion of who we identified as and what we were forced to live as, male, by parents, by society, and by ourselves while we sought to be a success as the males of our outer being, to have the world proud of us, successful as men. I told this person's friend, who is female, that being transsexual is not fun and she replied in surprise "it isn't?" I said "no", I have hated my life for 50 years and wished I was dead ten thousand times, suffered depression on a continueing basis, could never find any fulfillment or satisfaction as male or in male activities, always felt empty and was driven by my true identity to dress female when possible, seek out a male lover and lived a double life, and when possible lived as his wife, and for this female part of my life I live in denial pretending it didn't exist, the whole time portraying myself as male, while living in misery as male because I was not living as myself, and true to myself. Transgender may be open for experimentation but transsexualism is not. It is who we are.   

   Since I have transitioned fully as female full time in every aspect possible with the exception of SRS, (not post-op yet), why do you feel that I am wrong for not wanting to associate with men who dress up as women occasionally? As living as a woman full time, I don't want to associtate with that, and I don't want people who live as men, in the restroom with me. I want to "transition" not be in between, a third sex, that's not transitioning anything, that's remaining male, of which one should do if they won't transition to live full time as female, HRT and theapy with their lifetime experience, name change and etc., and whether or not they have SRS is not the question, the question is, do they identify as female and live as female, then they must be female. 

Consider that that person you saw had been someone who was clearly not, comfortable in their feminine costume, 5 o'clock shadow, nervous,(as a man would be if in the women's restroom when a woman came in except at the local CD club), and has masculine mannerisms, looking like a man in a dress. Would you have felt as comfortable?

With the exception of the shadow, you've described the way a great many butch lesbians behave in the rest room.

That said, I've encountered cross-dressers in a women's room from time to time and never much cared.  I figure it's a lot safer for them to be in the women's room than it is for them to be in the men's room.

I'm only a click away.

Also your use of the word experimentation seems to be dismissive of the experiences of many transgender people. Sure some people do experiment (with all sorts of things in life) but is a genderqueer person just 'experimenting' even if they've expressed themselves in that way all their life? Is a life-long crossdresser 'experimenting'? Why can't that be also 'who they are'. If it's important enough that it cannot be quit, cannot be purged away even at risk of long term relationships and the repression and denial of it lead to misery, unhappiness, mental illness and suicide then it isn't recreational, it isn't a hobby and it isn't experimentation.

Perhaps there is a problem with the premises you are building from, they don't seem to match all the data. Could perhaps your personal subjective experiences be biasing your judgement of others?

As for association... we have this nice thing called 'freedom of association'. You can choose who you do and do not talk to. However I'd hope you have a better reason for wanting people excluded from neccessary facilities just because you find their presence uncomfortable as otherwise there'd be no operative difference than people who feel uncomfortable with goths or punks or people of different ethnic backgrounds wanting them excluded.

You don't want to be considered transgender or part of a 'third sex', that's fine. That doesn't mean you get to force those who do into a gender binary that they don't want to be considered in. You don't get to be arbiter of other peoples identity either so don't say their transition is invalid for them just because it'd be invalid for you and don't decide for others that they are 'remaining male' just because that's how you would feel.

As for the safety issue according to an article I just read here http://www.generationq.net/new... the rape of males in australia is about 16% of rape cases. Shouldn't we try and protect these men too? In which case why don't we put aside our differences and work together to remove the communal (and therefore dangerous) space from inside public facilities and provide cctv cameras outside them? That way we protect everyone, no matter their gender, sex, ability or age.

Or are you happy to have vulnerable people remain in vulnerable situations just so long as you feel reasonably safe?

    Cross dressers struggle all thier lives? And these are probably transsexual, but hae yet come to terms with it. I sympathize, but have lived the very exact same for many many years.  You evidently don't read my posts, so why comment about my writing, batty...or you think I'm a liar about my honesty. I am very candid about my past and present.

   I am "out" in public daily, dressed very female, not living in safe zones, i.e. gay community, inner city goth, punk, hippie, etc. but in fact live in the suburbs, where it is mostly mainstream amerika culture, many churches, conservative, votes republican hence Sen. David Vitter. I don't pass well, but I do pass quite a bit. I was a seaman 6 years working a tug boat, pulling 10 inch round nylon double braid lines 40 to 60 ft long, when putting up a three part starboard, port and bow line, very broad shoulderd, and if I seem gruff to some maybe it's enviornmental and cultural, so hate me for that too, the water front can do things to people, anyway, batty, that's a far cry from being "safe" but I'll say what is safe, the closeted cross dressers who hide and who don't and won't support the rest of the community in employment and speaking out at work for LGBT inclusion in the work force and I include Bi-sexuals in this subset also.

   I was first a transvestite by 13 years old, (I learned at the jr and high school library), and by early 20's thought transsexual, later considered I was just gay, to eventually come to terms that I was transsexual. Transitioned after secretly dressing whenever possible as female through 44 years. You know nothing of my misery, nor remember that I said that,  but I have known much, walking around wishing I was dead in my teens through last week. Being rumored in jr and hight school as queer is not being completely ignorant of what your "question" was, that you thought I was ignoring. I have already addressed it but I didn't want to use the women's restroom. I actually wanted to live as a woman. 

   Be who you are, but until your living full time as female, remain in your gender role of choice and that includes the restroom, in my opinion.

   Now batty, since you can't keep up with statements I've made and I have had to repeat myself and defend myself as to where I've been and been through in my life, which I have already stated previously, I know longer want to discuss with you, as I told you as much a while back. Now, nice knowing you, bye.  

   A woman told me once about my X, that she lies a lot, and I said, well, I hate to say she lies a lot, but she does have one terrible memory.

Cross dressers struggle all thier lives? And these are probably transsexual, but hae yet come to terms with it.

So I'm a transexual now? That's news to me. And probably every single person who self-identifies as a crossdresser (as opposed to someone who dressed as a woman for a single halloween as a lark) is really transexual? Wow! I think you just turned almost all (the rest of) transgenders into transexuals in a single statement multiplying the number of transexuals in the world by a substantial factor! On what do you base such a massive sweeping statement?

and if I seem gruff to some maybe it's enviornmental and cultural, so hate me for that too,

batty, that's a far cry from being "safe" but I'll say what is safe, the closeted cross dressers who hide and who don't and won't support the rest of the community in employment and speaking out at work for LGBT inclusion in the work force and I include Bi-sexuals in this subset also.

Closeted crossdressers aren't safe. They, like all closeted folk, exist in a state of constant fear and terror, self hatred and shame, partly afraid of real risks, substantially filled with false and baseless fears too. Trapped in cages made partly by society and partly by themselves. Just like any closeted community berating them won't bring them out. Guilting them will work on some but providing a safe comfortable and supporting welcoming and forgiving community has a tendency to slowly lure them out. You can include any closeted folk in the same model from gay folk to goths and punks (yep you get closeted sub-cultures too!) to people who desperatly hide part of their racial/ethnic heritage!

Not that that has anything to do with my point about creating safe space for every shape and size of human beings needing to use public ammenities by removing the dangerous communal space! Maybe you should actually address my real point? Rather than running on with a morass of unrelated obfuscation and nebulous diatribe that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue I brought up?

You know nothing of my misery,

nor remember that I said that,  but I have known much, walking around wishing I was dead in my teens through last week. Being rumored in jr and hight school as queer is not being completely ignorant of what your "question" was, that you thought I was ignoring. I have already addressed it but I didn't want to use the women's restroom. I actually wanted to live as a woman.

Be who you are, but until your living full time as female, remain in your gender role of choice and that includes the restroom, in my opinion.

Firstly that still leaves vulnerable the disabled when they haven't got a seperate disabled toilet, members of minority groups who have to share the toilets with their oppressors from clealry out gays to ethnic minorities and also children who are very much at risk as has been most eloquently pointed out to me. That last point was the issue that changed my opinion on the subject and forced me to acknowledge the absolute imperative of moving to single stall zero private communal space toilets!

Are you really saying it's better for you to be able to go into women nominated amenities (something I still support) but not transgender identified people when with single stall 0 communal space unisex toilets we can protect everyone especially protecting children from predators?

Now I don't live full-time as male, so the full time as female argument seems no different. I often fall in between. Even when presenting as male I have occassionally been mistaken for female (I guess they had eyesight problems but nevertheless it's happened several times). I know genderqueer people and naturally androgynous people whose sex cannot easilly be determined. Where do all these people go? Should the butch lesbian with her male haircut and male clothes who nevertheless doesn't consider herself transgender at all use the male toilets in your opinion?

Now batty, since you can't keep up with statements I've made and I have had to repeat myself and defend myself as to where I've been and been through in my life, which I have already stated previously,

Try actually addressing my actual points. In might prove informative and move the discussion somewhere useful rather than endlessly reminding us of life events which were clearly very important to you but which really have nothing much to do with the discussion at hand beyond establishing the validity of you participating in the discussion as much as I or just about anyone else.

I know longer want to discuss with you, as I told you as much a while back. Now, nice knowing you, bye.  

I've not been struggling to keep up, I've been ahead of you waiting for you to actually bring your side of the intelligent discussion and watching you argue in circles about your life experiences and avoiding like the plague the direct valid actually congruent apt points I have brought to the table! Might I suggest that you finally start to address them?

I find this discussion really strange. When I look at this, what I see is people with penises discussing their entitlements too and how they are going to divy up women's rooms. Did it ever occur to you that the women's room is not yours to divide up and re-arrange and that you have no entitlement to it at all.

You act as if your dilemna is a burden that women must bear to the point that you are willing to convert women's rooms up to fit your needs?

Did it ever occur to you that this is not a women's problem but a problem for people with penises that does not magically translate into a problem that women are going to have to deal with? It's not women's problem that males may feel feminine, whatever that means. It's really not. There is no demand that women be uncomfortable to accomodate you. Please get it.....

"A person doesn't need to experience the same experience as another to, once given enough pertinent detail be able to catch an imperfect glimpse of such by comparing it with similar experiences of their own. I've had my share of miseries in life, I've suffered hate and discrimination for being different. I've been incorrectly labeled by people and attacked on that basis. I have not had your exact experiences, but the only people incapable of empathy are psychopaths and those with autism, neither of which afflict me"

This is amazing. I wonder if there is any possibility for communications here? Something says something to you and you are an expert on their feelings? From the response and how the center of the conversat was shifted to "ME" I wonder if you truly empathized at all?  

Any discrimination is the problem of every human being. Every crime against humanity is the problem of every human being.

If your argument was correct we should have poor and orphaned children back down the coal mines (not middle class adults problem) black people back in slavery (not white peoples problem) the disabled back begging in the streets (not abled peoples problem) etc.

Truly why have any civilisation or society at all as we have just rendered the basic role of society, mutual cooperation for mutual benefit, null and void. Let us each ignore the needs of their fellows and thus extinguish the existance of humantiy.

Or we could recognise the notion of mutual reliance and mutual obligation. That way we could each work to fulfill everyone's needs regardless of their genitals or any other arbitrary quality.

I wonder who it is that doesn't understand. Women do not have penises and would not be ok with them. We do have out spaces which are being colonized by people with penises and this has been the traditional relationship.

May we look at the deflections?

"I'm illiterate", I don't understand and lifelong defense offered in this thread "which is we aren't really dangerous". Perhaps you aren't dangerous but women don't want penises in our bathrooms. I have seen all kinds of rationalization but none of them take women into account. They are constructed to exclusively meet the needs of people with penises. That's the historic relationship between women and men.

Lets start by disecting this.
1. I put no words in your mouth. I simply extended your argument to it's natural logical conclusion. An inevitable one in fact.

2. Your definition of women is sexist and bigoted and deterministic. Even if we ignore the entire transgender debate nonetheless by defining what women are and what they want you are actively restricting what women can say or do. You are speaking for all women which is always wrong. Why can't a woman want a penis or have one? An xx woman may do with her body whatever she wishes can she not? Well if she wants to have a penis you have just oppressed her by dissallowing her that in that statement. Not to mention intersexed women who might be quite happy to keep their gneitals the way they are.

3. I did not deflect. I didn't even say you were illiterate. Again you show that you have a problem with understanding the level of English I'm using which proves, it doesn't suggest it proves with the evidence of your own words, that you need to work on your comprehension. There is no point trying to join into a sophisticated discussion if you cannot manage to comprehend what the person whose comments you are trying to criticise actually said.

My arguments have actually taken women into account. Including the fact that women too can be sexual predators or violent. My argument isn't to let men into womens spaces at all. Maybe you should actually read my posts. Or perhaps you have and failed to comprehend those also. I have in fact been arguing for the utter destruction of all mens and womens public facilities which lead to opportunities for assault especially of children. I have argued thst all public facilities be converted to single use unisex disablity enabled facilities with cctv camera protection external to such to maximise universal safety and universal access. This would protect women from men, men from men, children from men, children from women, women from women, the disabled from the abled and so on and so forth. A single act that in one sweeping act of reform ensures safe space for everyone.

Perhaps this may not fit into your polarised worldview but nevertheless that is my position. Universal equality and the protection of all the vulnerable.

You really have not dealt with anything I've said or anything that is centered around women or our feelings.

Men feel discriminated against when they are told "No." There isn't any discriminated as there are clearly places for people with penises to use the bathroom.

"Any discrimination is the problem of every human being. Every crime against humanity is the problem of every human being.

Ok here are some discriminations. Women are trafficked all over the world. There is female genital manipulation. Women are being killed tried and sentenced to death for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia. Congress has eighty six percent men. There are no women CEOs in the fortune 50 and two percent in the fortune 500. Women in poverty have no way to work and get childcare. A woman is raped by a person with a penis every four seconds.

Those are significant discriminations against women of huge proportions. Then we can ask what it is that you are worried about? People with penises reorganizing women's rooms for their benefit. It's not your room to reorganize. You have a place to go to the bathroom. You are not being discriminated against.

They are anatomically male. Women are not anatomically male.

No lets get a bigot who only wants to get rights for themselves while denying them to others in that role.

Oh wait, that's the problem right now isn't it.

You reveal yourself identical to all the other oppressers. You use the same argument, the same calculation. You simply swapped one arbitrary value in the victim variable for another. The answer to the alegbraic equaiton is clear, you are no different than the other bigots.

Anatomically or otherwise.

A penis just means they have a penis.

Your sexist misandrony is somewhat bothersome, by itself (but common to a lot of second wave feminism), but your lack of knowledge regarding the language and biology is somewhat more disturbing.

Women can be anatomically male, as well.

Men can be anatomically female. 

THe presence or lack thereof of a vagina and/ior a penis doesn't, in and of itself, mean they are  anatomically anything.

Yes you have listed a large list of evils perpetrated against women. A little of that namely a large proportion of female genital mutilation performed in Africa is traditionally done by other women. Still most of the attrocities are comittend by men. However firstly it is sexist to assume all men are responsible for the actions of some. It is sexist to assume that all men support these things. It is sexist to assume that no women support these things or are complicit in them (or did you not read the accounts of groups of women baiting women of other tribes to lure them into gang rapes and helping hold the victims down and shouting abuse while the act was comitted?). It is sexist to assume that women are incapable of comitting rape.

Now I deplore each and every one of the attrocities committed against women and I support the cause to eliminate each of these. But that has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion. Now if you were to compare statistical proportions of violence against women with proportions of violence against gender non-conforming people with proportions of violence by women with proportions of violence by gender-non-conforming people you might be able to make your list of attrocities relevant to this discussion.

All humans owe all other humans basic human rights. If you don't agree with that you risk actually justifying all those attrocities comitted against women. This simple logical consequences of your own argument.

And yes, I have been discriminated against. I have been discriminated against for my gender non-comformity. I have been discriminated against for my goth apperance. I have been discriminated against for my legally recognised medical disability. I have been discriminated against with acts of violence. But this isn't actually about me.

It's about everyone.
Getting everyone a safe place to go to the toilet.
My solution does that more than any other thus far suggested.

Transgenders see women as being in a role. We are not in roles. We are women.

But let's talk about rights which are also constructs. I claim I have have a right to have personal space from here to california. That claim is likely to be challenged because actually it's a supercillious claim.

"Rights" are protections reserved and bestowed by the dominant class.

You have a penis. You claim you have a right to spaces reserved for people without penises. You don't have any such right. It does not exist except between your ears because of what is in between your legs.

You are an anatomical male. You live your life as a male. You have absolutely no right to be in a women's room.

Women have absolutely no obligation to accomodate you at our expense. The transgender movement is about to hit a brick wall. It's Time !

Rights are logical consequences of accepting equality and freedom as precepts for further philosophical moral and ethical reasoning.

They are not arbitrary like you suggest. the formal recognition and legal protection of them however is.

Do your homework and actually learn a little about what you are arguing!

What is between my legs and any gender specific aspects of my brain have no relevence on my capacity for rational intelligent discussion. Some of the most logical people I know including the ones who educated me about Logic, Reason and Human Rights were natal women.

If you would rather not embarass yourself even further might I suggest you finally pay attention to the fact that I am NOT wanting to go into 'womens space' and have in fact stated that very frequently. Even directly to you!

Your posts so far on this subject have been a veritable cornocopia of logical fallacy. You do not address the point that your own argument suggests that men do not have to accomodate women at their expense either! Your very own argument validates mysogeny! It actually ends up supporting the oppression of women!

This would be funny if it weren't for the very real consequences on peoples lives.

When told "No", they immediately deflect the discussion to "Humans". The issue is not about the abstraction of human. The issue is that penises do not belong in the women's room.

Why don't you actually apply some brains rather then endlessly spouting your obsessive genital cathcphrase. Answer me WHY!

1. Why penises do not belong in the womens room.

2. Why for example someone with functioning testes but an amputated penis but with all other qualities of being male would be ok as they have no penis and yet an intersex person with every other aspect being anatomically female from birth but whose genitals form a penis should be excluded?

3. How that invalidates the argument that everyone would be safer with single use unisex disability enabled 0 communal space toilets?

Enough with the shallow waffle. Bring your argument up to a reasonable intelligent level. Let your arguments stand the test of rigourous analyses rather than simply asserting it ad neuseum.

Because females will not tolerate sharing personal spaces reserved for us with males.

2. Why for example someone with functioning testes but an amputated penis but with all other qualities of being male would be ok as they have no penis and yet an intersex person with every other aspect being anatomically female from birth but whose genitals form a penis should be excluded?

And testicles.

3. How that invalidates the argument that everyone would be safer with single use unisex disability enabled 0 communal space toilets?

That's your argument. Not mine. I'm totally safe AND comfortable with other females in our spaces.

"Enough with the shallow waffle. Bring your argument up to a reasonable intelligent level. Let your arguments stand the test of rigourous analyses rather than simply asserting it ad neuseum."

Actually I'm not going to do that. Why? Because men make up the rules. I'm not going to play a game of proof where you control the rules of evidence. That would be silly wouldn't it? Btw, that's a very old male ploy.

So what is female thinking then? argument from revelation only? That would be news to every natal academic woman I know.

And what about all the men who argued for the inclusion of knowledge by revelation? All the poets and artists. Were they anexing female thinking then? What fields are left to women when science medicine and maths are considered male? isn't it sexist to assume logic and reason and the scientific method are male? I'm pretty sure it is.

There is a difference between the topic of discussion and your position within that discussion.
If you look for example at the topic heading at the top of the page it is not: "people with penises should not be in spaces reserved for females."

Your response is obfuscatory. You have not answered the points raised against you. Your claims have been shredded by simple logic. You have mischaracterised my position constantly which is itself a judgement on your character. You are at every turn condemned by your own logical errors.

You do very real harm to yourself and your position by acting thus. I do hope you swiftly see the error of this and instead raise the standards of your side of this discussion. All you have to do is leave out the generalisations, the logical fallacies, circular reasoning and restate your view in such a way as not to invalidate itself.

It's actually not my community as it is a men's community. Prior to LGB the lesbian community had a strong cohesive community. I always thought that combining the lesbian and gay struggles was a realy big error. During the AIDS epidemic gay men received and enormous amount of physical emotional, emotional and spiritual support from lesbians and Gays came to to see that it may be advantageous to make it appear they were poltically inclusive of lesbians. However there never really has been been any symmetry. Then bisexuals were added. That would be bi-sexual men and women with ties to men. Then the transgender movement was added which is a male defined annexationist movement.

LBGT really does not work for women. You will find feminists supporting LBGT. When is the last time you ever saw LBGT sponsor a pro-choice event?

Your argument may or may not be an apt criticism of LGBT groups when it comes to pro-choice struggles etc. That however does not invalidate the notion of universal rights as a universal responsibility. After all what other justification is there for women to have rights? Gays to have rights? Anyone to have rights at all?

It is the reciprocal recognition of choice, freedom and equality that is the foundation for the conclusion that anyone has rights beyond their capacity for brute force and power. To invalidate universal human rights is to invalidate all civil rights.

Please learn a bit of philosophy! Maybe then you might understand that your own argument directly destroys itself.

Becuase your arguments are incongruent. Laced with logical fallacies. What school of ethics are you trying to argue from? Is it objectivist? Utilitarian? You misunderstand the origin of the notion of rights, you use generalisation in almost every sentence. You show by evidence of your own words a substantial lack of familiarity with the subject!

I'd recommend you google "rights based arguments"

People with penises have no "right" to invade space reserved for females. You may claim through your entitlement but you have no such rights.

Really that's just mind boggling.

I've sat through enough lectures on the subject, participated in enough face to face discussions with experts on the subject, and read plenty on the subject to understand the notions that lead to arguments of intrinsic rights.

I reccomend you read some Noam Chomsky and counter balance that with some Peter Singer. Maybe you should look into the origins of the U.N. Charter on Human Rights and H.G. Wells involvement.

Perhaps a little of 'on the rights of man' might help you.
There have been many fascinating books too on the interelationship between the writings og the Enlightenment and both the French Revolution and formation of the political systems of the United States of America.

But it was me who said that rights are a male construct and you are validating that even quoting works that use the generic "man" rendering women invisible which is exactly what transgender ideology attempts to do.

So no, I'm not into reading a men's lit course which is what obviously informs you.

You know, engaging men is so predictable. You all must hand out manuals in boy scouts or something. All of this of course is why you should not be allowed in women's spaces.

I'm not a man.

I'm not even male.

I am a feminist. Of a sort that can see your sort for the outright sexism it is.

There is no such critter as a "transgender ideology".

None.

THere is a classification of persons. Created by a transsexual, based on a word coined by a transvestite. It includes *anyone* who crosses the lines of gender as defined by the social roles of the society they dwell in.

Transsexuals do that. 

Transsexuals also cross sex lines (that is why they are called transsexuals, after all -- a word coined by someone who was not a transsexual or a TV or a CD). That's in addition to crossing gender lines.

Surgery isn't required to do that, either.  IF one is legally recognized as female, then it is a lie to call them a male.

It has the potential of allowing for suit of libel or slander or defamation.

You need to cut the sexism.  NOt merely your anti-patriarchical concepts, but your slavery to heterosexist patterns.

Because that's a part of it, too. 

You wouldn't need to do a 'mens lit' course to read the stuff I suggested to you. I'm only talking about a milestone in the origins of  civil rights after all. Any course in any rights literatuire should include it and the other basic texts of the enlightenent philosophy that determined that all people had value, worth and self determination. If rights are a 'male' construct then what? Women don't have rights? Are you so fundamentallly devoid of the capacity to think?

Ok: Rights are a male construct. Therefore women don't have rights. Therfore they have no rights to keep men out of womens spaces. Therefore your argument destroys itself. (thats the consequence of your argument!) So much for your being adept at philosophy, you just failed logic.

Or mine: Rights are an intrinsic consequence of equality and freedom. Therefore women have rights. Transgenders have rights. Everyone has rights. Society has responsibilities to the needs of it's constituents. Safe public toilets are necessary to meet human needs. Therfore society must provide them.

So now logic has destroyed your argument.

Perhaps if you change your mind on something (I'd suggest starting with the notion of intrinsic rights might help because if you are right you just lost everyone their civil rights and destroyed the validity of feminism! Thankfully I'm certain you are wrong) you could try and develop a new argument that still supports keeping womens toilets transgender free but this one is annihilated. It's functionally illogical, disproven and quite unable to be true.

You have my sympathies.

And neither are they being left spluttering.

And the topic is not persons with penises should stay out of women's rooms.

Some women have penises.

And testicles

And they are still women.

Some are even still female. 

Gender and sex are two separate concepts, and you keep conflating them. It doesn't matter if you have some irrational belief they are the same or not -- they are not, its been proven, and its been verified.

Gender is a social construct, and men and women and masculine and femnine are not qualities of physicality but of social setting.

IF you'd like to get nto a doctoral level discussion of such, I would be more than happy to oblige you.

Male and female are aspectsd of sex, and single features in and of themselves do not produce a specific existence as such.  Male and female are the majority sum of 5 to 7 basic structures common to all persons within those classes, and  few people -- born that way or helped along to it -- meet all of them.

Hormones are the chief of all these things, as they create most of the differences in and of themselves. Even chromosoems can't be used, as there are enough variations in them alone to account for more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your facile attempts at philosophy.

THere are females with penises.

If you don't like that, fine -- say it like that. Own up to it.

But don't try to justify your irrationality and prejudice.

IT just pisses me off. 

And testicles

And they are still women.

Some are even still female.

Gender and sex are two separate concepts, and you keep conflating them. It doesn't matter if you have some irrational belief they are the same or not -- they are not, its been proven, and its been verified.

Gender is a social construct, and men and women and masculine and femnine are not qualities of physicality but of social setting.

IF you'd like to get nto a doctoral level discussion of such, I would be more than happy to oblige you."

Both Sex AND Gender are socially constructed in thier meaning. The transgender movement benefits from this because then anatomical males gain access to female facilties. The basis for this whole vein of thinking is that there is a mysterious thing in nature called "gender". Gendering is a learned perceptual process. Children mis-gender things with great frequency until they learn the way gender is coded in given culture and time.

"Gender" is the irrational belief not that sex and gender, both constructs. I really do not think you are ready for "a doctoral level discussion of such."

Secondly, this "incident" was found out to have been staged by an anti-LGBT group who showed up at the health club en masse and sent one of their own into the locker room in a dress to try to manufacture a propaganda news story.

Its an organization that doesn't give a rats ass if you have a enis or not -- if you wee assigned male sex and gender at birth, then they don't want you using the women's bathroom.

Period.

ANd you can't use the men's, either.

And they oppose *adding* bathrooms. 

You see, they dont' want you in public.  THey want you to stay in your home, to remain stealth, to woodwork and yet never forget that you are, to them, neither male nor female, neither woman nor man.

IF yu want to support them, fine.

I mean hey, there are LGBT folks who support Bush. ITs a free country.

People are free to do stupid things all the time,. 

I certainly do not support the right and I also do not support a movement that wants to put cross dressers, drag queens, transvestites and people with penises in the women's room.

Because without rights as constraint on power the only thing left is power itself.

Don't you see the implications of that? The state can do whatever the state can do, might becomes right, the whole system of morals and ethics collapses without fundamental rights.

Now if you take back that idea (or supply a better framework for developing an objective system of right and wrong from, good luck with that!) then maybe you could try and have a point that doesn't destroy itself.

What's your problem with penises anyway? You mention them constantly. If your concern is rapists in the womens bathroom we could discuss that, though that hardly neccessitates penis involvement. If your concern is men in womens spaces that then requires a reason for you to justify defining men only by their genitals and also why men should not be in womens spaces or why there should be seperate men and womens spaces.

Now why don't you answer the questions in that last paragraph and maybe we can have an intelligent conversation. Maybe we could even learn from one another.

Actually, in the formulation of the second wave, the idea of a women's right's movement was rejected by founding feminists. Women's rights was a term coined by the press and not feminists. I've never used the word intrinsic and the idea of natural law and other natural rights remarkably coincides with the needs of white males who constructed the idea. When I talk about abortion I simply say that that, "Women insist on bodily autonomy." Women do not have to ask other people what we can do with our bodies. I do not appeal to male constructs - ever. Feminism is not a movement that really insisted upon equality as this is a misogynistic society with an implicit set of male standards which you have continually been appealing to. There is an old feminist saying, "I don't want a different piece of the pie, I want a whole new pie - meaning social structure. My model is not one youd understand.

I just happen to think that penises are grotesque and they do not belong in spaces reserved for females. As to male and female space - certainly there are sanctioned spaces for men such as the Altlanta Gold Club and in places where there are no official sanctions women are not truly included in the way we understand inclusion. I definitely think there should be all female spaces and I wouldn't mind living in one all the time. I'm not queer or LBGT.

Firstly who coined a term has no bearing on the accuarcy or inaccuracy of that term. Fine, you reject all notion of intrinsic rights? They don't need to be considered natural rights because the notions of universal self determination requires reciprocal recognition. The notion of intrinsic rights goes entirely against the 'needs of white males' if those white males want to preserve their hegemony. Because of course fully considering all people (arguably all sentience) equal regardless of arbitrary attributes like position of birth or race or sex completely destroys white male hegemony. So that argument you just offered is diametricly opposed to reality and logic.

You refuse to use all male constructs... do you realise that many women contributed to some of those constructs, often without sufficent recognition? That there were great women philosophers and mathematicians? And also does this mean you forgo all maths? all medicine? all science? Should it be important only that something is accurate or inaccurate not who thought of it first? And what if some other women has built onto or extended something that was first thought of by a man? Is that ok or not ok? Or vice versa? The laws of physics function the same mo matter who has discovered them. The law or theory is a construct which describes the reality which exists partly beyond the direct perception of human senses. It is either more accurate than past constructs or not and no amount of ideology whether marxist or feminist or any other such has any bearing on the measurable reality, only the interpretation thereof.

You talk of women insisiting on bodily autonomy. I happen to concur that all humans have bodily autonomy. But on what grounds if not the right to self determination do they insist on that autonomy? You can't just make a claim without considering the ramifications it has on other related things! If women have bodily autonomy why? Because they have a right to it? Because they will fight to get it? What happens if men insist that women do not have bodily autonomy? what makes one right and the other wrong? Intrinsic rights ensures women should have bodily autonomy. What though if rights do not exist makes women who insist on bodily autonomy correct? What makes men insisting women don't have bodily autonomy wrong?

"Feminism is not a movement that really insisted upon equality as this is a misogynistic society with an implicit set of male standards which you have continually been appealing to. There is an old feminist saying, "I don't want a different piece of the pie, I want a whole new pie - meaning social structure. My model is not one youd understand."

Strange that the feminists I know disagree with that, though of course there are many forms of feminism. Society has many biases, it is a bias driven society which I too disagree with. However I do not concur that the standards I've been apealling to are implicitly or intrinsicly male. I see no aspect of rational thought, logic or the scientific method that is intrinsicly male. I was taught the value of those things by women who prised them not as male but as the highest form of understanding. In fact I put it to you that it is sexist to attribute these things as male and also that it is demeaning to women to suggest that these things are male and therfore wrong or inappropriate for women.

In fact a feminist woman friend of mine insists that it is the argument that reactive emotionalism and feelings based notions of self are inherantly female and rational thought, critical and reason inherantly male is a part of patriarchal oppression of women that keeps them good consumers, easily manipulated by emotive propaganda and advertising and holding back their academic and career progress by sabotaging their arguments. Not by placing unfair male-oriented standards upon them but instead encouraging them to oppose intelligent standards of logic rendering their arguments unfounded self contradictory and stupid. My conversations with you seem to be bearing out her argument to a level I find quite frightening.

You personaly think penises are grotesque. That's fine. That's your personal subjective reality and I respect that. But as a personal subjective reality it only has bearing on your personal self and does not have bearing on whether or not penises do or do not belong in womens spaces.
Your not lesbian etc. Fine, I accept your identifying yourself how you choose. May I ask though why you would only want to live in womens only space? I hope you are not sexist as how could you reject sexism against women while supporting sexism against men? Isn't that hypocracy?

However you have neatly ignored answering my most vital questions and vital points, ones essential for a proper dialogue.

Men say that all the time. The point is, that there is no obligation to make sense to men especially when one has just been dismissed as being dull of "contradictory nonsense." I don't maintain that men are nonsense; just irrelevant. I have no obligation to make sense to you nor is there an obligation that I answer your questions.  You asked about science. It's been constructed to answer men's questions and to meet their needs. Math? I didn't come here to have abstract conversations or to talk to a crossdresser.

Nothing you have said is intrinsinsically male for there is no such thing. I haven't used either inherent or intrinsic. But everything you've said reflects a socially male standpoint.

I came to say that people with penises should stay out of spaces for women.

That's all.

Bye.

Men say something all the time huh? Corollation or causation? Men call the writings of Lewis Carrol fiction all the time too.

Something that one person calls nonsesne may be either nonsense, they might be wrong and it not be nonsense or they may be partially correct and it partially nonsense. None of which is neccessarily dismissive. Just right worng or both.

Your only obligation is action in expectation of reciprocity. The avoidance of a form of hypocracy. You have no more need to answer my questions than I do to respect your desire for me not to enter 'womens spaces'. Without intrinsic rights then what operative principle makes my going wherever I want wrong? In fact without intrinsic rights what operative principle makes rape and murder wrong? While the notion 'you may claim no right or privilege that you do not freely allow to all others' and the notions of rights distinctly doesn't just claim that rape and murder are wrong but provide a functional logical congruent reason for them to be wrong. Maybe the voices of second wave feminism needs to explore moral and ethical reasoning to at least a basic level so that their ideology need not be both unethical and immoral (as characterised just on the arguments from it that you have used here).

By what do you determine that science was constructed to answer men's questions and to meet their needs? What makes that so? What makes it any but a coincidence that most scientists happened to be male because males had the privilege that enabled them the opportunity to be scientists? Would science be any different at all if most scientists had been women? And what about the many women scientists through history? Again claims and claims without foundation! Again dismissal and dismissal of real efforts and real results by natal women.

Abstract? Hello? I guess you are really ignorant about women of history. allow me to introduce you to Hypatia of Alexandria http://womenshistory.about.com...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/...
Who made important contributions to mathematics and science who was a crossdresser on account of her wearing the clothes of a scholar or teacher. She was murdered horribly by the patriarchy, her works were mostly destroyed by the patriarchy. She is also the devestating nemesis of your argument.

By the works of her and others like her science and mathematics and logic are as much the valid provence of women as of men, no matter how few have been able to take it up. It is only true that for too long women have been unfairly denied or discouraged from their contribution to it, participation in it and often the power and resources that stems from it.

And what do you consider makes a viewpoint socially male? And what makes all socially male viewpoints neccessarily wrong or invalid in this discussion?

You came here to say one thing but what you have actually successfully communicated is another thing entirely. You demonstrated your lack of knowledge, lack of understanding, you put forward arguments that consequentially validated and justified all the worst crimes against humanity including all the violations and discriminations against women (I can't believe you pulled 'just because' out, the very worst might makes right authoritarian argument in perhaps all of human history!) and tried to dismiss all of the fatal flaws and apt criticism that met your oft repeated penis obsessive posts with the notion that everything that doesn't agree with you is a male construct.

I'm glad that I have known so many wonderful intelligent wise rational and logical women in my life. People I look up to and respect. What have your arguments left for women? You've excluded almost everything since the rise of agriculture in one form or another! Youve dismissed the important contributions of women to whole fields of human endeavour by sweepingly classing whole fields of knowledge as 'male'. You have invalidated the lives and struggles and glories and victories of women through the ages. You have argued for an arbitrary definition of right and wrong that itself validates the oppression of anyone and everyone. You seem to be, despite your naiive intentions, but judged from the biased sexist minimilising and narrowing arguments you have put forward to be an enemy of women rather than their champion!  

All your arguments thus far have the amount of evidential and logical weight of 'because I said so' the standard response of the bigot, the oppressor and the uncomfortably ignorant unable to back up their opinions and unwilling to question and reevaluate them.

Also you avoid answering the vital questions and arguments I present to you.

All you do is state the same thing over and over and wave around the notion of 'male constructs' as if it invalidates the very laws of physics just because a man happened to be the one with the priviege and opportunity to uncover them. Surely for these 'constructs' to be invalidated one must be able to show they are arbitrary or in error.

And as for that 'male standards' rubbish. That is a circular argument. A logical fallacy. Utter nonsense. By being built only upon itself it may exist only as hypothetical fantasy. The argument equivalent of an optical illusion. The verbal mirror of the art of M.C. Escher, though not nearly as elegant.

Just keep your penis out of women's rooms and be sure to play dressups with the boyz.

And the very fact you try shows your true names. Sexist. Bigot. Not called that by my words, oh no, those are the accurate definitions that apply to your tactics and your words as you emulate most perfectly the worst qualities of the male chuavenist pigs.

And you know what happened the day before yesterday? I had my birthday and yes I attended my party dressed entirely as a woman. My friends straight, bi, gay and lesbian all were accepting and supporting. And one of my best friends there is a lesbian natal woman who was dressed in a suit and tie entirely like a man. So again your sexism is revealed by your "be sure to play dressups with the boyz" attempt at wit.

I guess reality proves you wrong once again.
I feel a dreadful and profound pity for you. It must be a difficult life living in a world of distortions and falsehoods and inability to adapt your mental landscape to any part of the real world that does not fit your fantasies.

is playing dress ups.

Got another baseless assertion have we? Another comment bereft of any cogence, logic or basis in reality?

Or have you actually got something to say this time?

On what, exactly, do you base the notion that 'playing dress ups is all i'm doing?

Also bear in mind that you might just have to justify why it might be a bad thing if that was all I'm doing while also justifying that you are correct in that it is all I'm doing.

And hmm.. quite a few people seem to be dead recently and throughout history on account of 'playing dress ups'. Maybe it might not be a game. ever considered that? Is it all the extreme sports people getting killed for playing the latest danger-sport? Are the people who surf on cars or get dragged around on mattresses behind trucks the ones getting shot for playing the latest extreme sport.. crossdressing?

No. So clearly you don't know what you are talking about because the people getting killed aren't 'playing dress ups'. They are expressing themselves as they have an internationally recognised human right (freedom of expression!) to do! Even under threats of violence many still do this. Because of the threat of violence and ignorant rubbish from people using the same words and arguments as you many cower in fear and don't go out... but they can't quit because this is not a game. It is a deep need within the self, a part of the inner self that must be expressed.

Despite risking losing husbands and wives, children, families, careers and even lives these people still need to do this. Clearly it isn't a game.

While all you are doing appears to me to be passing judgement on people you don't understand and making pronouncements on topics you don't understand. Oh and ignoring all information that doesn't fit your preconceptions that might impact on your views.

Willfull ignorance.
One of the worst condemnations of a mind possible.