[RD] LGBTQ news

[schlaufuchs]

Point of order. A black woman is not defined by dark skin. Black women very commonly have skin that is very light, lighter sometimes even than people who consider themselves white. My mother and my siblings all have very light skin, despite my father and I being dark skinned. But we are all still black.

Sorry, of course you're right. I puzzled over a way to express the point succinctly without leaving out some aspect of the grouping, which probably should have been an indication that I should have used a different example. My apologies.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sorry, of course you're right. I puzzled over a way to express the point succinctly without leaving out some aspect of the grouping, which probably should have been an indication that I should have used a different example. My apologies.

I understood the point you were making. No worries.

 

[Berzerker]

Yes or no - do you believe transwomen are women? The only way your argument makes sense is if you don’t believe transwomen are women. And if that is the case I’d politely ask you to stop posting in this thread.

Oh, now you're polite? Are we dropping the t from lgbtq? Is that not a recognition transwomen are not women? They are women born with male bodies. Can we accept that reality or are we back to a binary world?

The only solution is to tear up the rules and to go to an honour system which has been completely sufficient in most parts of the western world. There is no epidemic of men sneaking into women's bathrooms to do illegal things and if a man wanted to go into the women's bathroom to do something illegal no amount of laws or rules demonising transpeople will stop them.

Does that mean unisex or mens and ladies bathrooms and transpeople can use what they want? I thought the problem was transpeople avoided bathrooms out of fear of harassment. The sign provides them legal protection, it informs would-be bathroom monitors of that protection and tells them to back off.

Interesting question. When does a man become a transwoman? When does a transwoman become a woman? Do we need a "trans" aspect to the gender tag?

ruh roh

I wasn't thinking about cfc gender tags. But depending upon how one answers the questions I put out there, the trans tag might not be needed in general. The trans tag implies that there is a process needed to move one's gender from one to another and it is not just a personal decision. If there is a process, then there is a "beginning" and an "end". Today I am a man. On today + x steps I will be woman. That raises the question: At what point in that process would I be "woman enough" to use a woman's public bathroom or locker room?

Changing the body to match the mind was preceded by the mind knowing the body didn't match. I think some confusion is created because trans sounds like transition. I assumed that meant steps are being taken to align the two, but I dont see why that would be required. The mind doesn't change its...mind.

Why do you feel that trans people should be restricted to a set of criteria that is created fore the sake of cis-people's understanding, when not only does that already happen in a multitude of aspects but also harms trans people?

You only have to take a cursory look through trans communities to see this is harming them and yet the constant demand from cis society is to double down on it

I just want you to imagine if i came up to you and asked you to justify your existence by forcing you into a strict definition of what you are and then claiming to be confused when you inevitably bristle and push back against those attempts

Cis-people aint a box? Who came up with cis and lgbtq?

 

[Berzerker]

As a ciswoman, I find it offensive that we demand transwomen "start transitioning" before being recognized as women.

it matters in sports

Oh hey there Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Margaret Thatcher! Historically, it wasn't like female rulers were known for their compassion and kindness. The Byzantine Empress Irene had her son blinded in such a brutal fashion he died from wounds a few weeks later.
Women are no more or less compassionate or peaceful than men.

Women in a man's world, right? Yes, some women can be just as vicious and evil as men. But long before kings and emperors females devoted their existence to raising kids, not armies.

 

[Berzerker]

Pretending that you don't see a difference between the sign in question and the traditional men's room/women's room signs is dishonest and a bad faith argument.

What is the difference? Do you think women want a sign letting them know the arrangement has changed?

"They" is people who feel hostility towards trans people and anything they see as liberal causes and "they" are trying to "warn" folks sympathetic to their ideology that they should be angry and afraid of said trans people and liberal causes. "They" have mal-intent towards trans people and liberal causes and "they want to get attention" from like minded people.

I'm debating the effects of the sign. I was under the impression transpeople feared public bathrooms because whatever legal protection they had was sketchy at best and they could be assaulted and their attackers walk or face minimal sanctions. The sign is not only legal protection, it publicizes an injustice to children.

You're now taking the position that you view the sign as literally equivalent to Jim Crow... but you're still in favor of displaying it?!? It's fascinating that you are actually arguing in favor of what you yourself see as Jim Crow against trans people, on the basis that trans people will benefit... from Jim Crow. The Civil Rights movement exposed the evil of Jim Crow and the need to get rid of it... so you are in favor of bringing back Jim Crow... so we can have another Civil Rights movement to get rid of it again? Just don't bring it back in the first place!

Not literally, I said the sign was inclusive whereas Jim Crow signs were not. But both signs reveal an injustice, this one says we're dealing with it. If I were to attempt a literal equivalent it would be the introduction of a sign during Jim Crow allowing black and white use of a bathroom. I'd call that a step forward.

As an aside, you've repeatedly taken a position of opposition to Black Lives Matter... so the nonsensical way that you are now trying to extoll the benefits of Jim Crow, in order to ostensibly inspire a new Civil Rights movement... that you will then oppose (as the "woke crowd" or similar) just like you oppose BLM... is irony and absurdity of the highest order. You obviously oppose trans people's causes and masking that in a position that instituting a new Jim Crow for trans people will somehow benefit them is... ridiculous.

I oppose violent tactics and I'm not extolling the benefits of Jim Crow, exposing Jim Crow was instrumental to defeating it and the bathroom issue illuminates an injustice faced by transpeople.

And people who hate and/or are angry and afraid of trans people will explain to their children that trans people are bad and that the kids should hate trans people as well. Forcing people to explain their prejudices to their children is not going to suddenly cure them of the prejudices, on the contrary, it focuses them on coming up with justifications for the prejudice. Kids are not in any position to logically deconstruct the ideology of their parents. They will just adopt it, for the most part. The fact that you would use a phrase like "the goal of the woke crowd" is pretty conclusive evidence that you are clueless about the goals of the people you are talking about.

Is it not a goal of the lgbtq community to present and defend themselves to children via literature and entertainment? I didn't know that was even debatable. Doesn't the sign and this issue create that opportunity? So let the haters teach their kids to hate, thats already happening. The sign puts the pressure on the haters to defend themselves, thats a good thing.

 

[Arakhor]

Long before kings and emperors, armies were not needed.

In other news, happy Pride month!!

 

[NinjaCow64]

I think you actually (paradoxically) need a binary system to account for non-binary. As in "x isn't 0 or 1, but one can be any progression of 1s and 0s and still be TG". For example, someone who consciously has no intention to transition, and (hypothetical) consciously wishes to at times be regarded as TG and at times as non-TG. The issue creates problems regarding legal stuff, otherwise we know from experience that you never are aware of what the other person is, impressions are mostly projections.
Some TG is 0110, another 1011, another millions of 0s and 1s, another some 0s and 1s at times and at other times either 1 or 0, and you can't build a law without categories.

Generally when binaries are described regarding gender it is referring to dividing gender into two distinct categories (almost always male and female). By acknowledging exceptions in the binary you’ve gone beyond the (flawed) binary system by definition.

A fuzzy problem does not prevent anybody from throwing a binary classifier at it. There are going to be errors on the edges and there is the question whether it is a good idea, but it can certainly be done. As with most unsupervised classification, there can be as many classes as you want there to be.

True, but binary classifiers across large spectrums lead to moe than just “errors around the edges”. It causes a lot of problems when there are datapoints that don’t easily fit into those classifications, especially when those datapoints are human beings.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Do? Should? Would? women feel comfortable if a person with a penis came into a woman's gym locker room to shower and change?

People’s discomfort has often been weaponised to discriminate against the vulnerable. Up until l 1990 (although the last known attempt at enforcing the law was in 1974) disabled people were unable to legally use public spaces due to the “ugly laws” with the rationale being that they were too disgusting to look at. Similar arguments were used against lesbians that are now used against transwomen in the 90s and early 2000s - they made women uncomfortable in change rooms and bathrooms and they could assault someone therefore they shouldn’t be in there.

If a woman respectfully uses the female gym locker room for its intended purposes then other women’s discomfort is immaterial - she should be allowed to use it without harassment. This is true for all women, including disabled, lesbian and trans women.

 

[Farm Boy]

If we're talking rights, then "respectfully" doesn't play in at all, does it?

 

[NinjaCow64]

If we're talking rights, then "respectfully" doesn't play in at all, does it?

True that was probably a bad way of phrasing it. I just wanted to preemptively dismiss strawman arguments about people being inappropriate in bathrooms and harassing other people ect. By being respectful I mean respecting the unwritten rules of the space and not acting asocially.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, we need to get over respect if it's a right. You can inappropriately use a bathroom, and the consequences for that, if there are any consequences, are different than using the "wrong room."

Hey, a sign at least clears up the latter part. Small blessings(that's always bitter in tone, in my experience(just for clarity)).

 

[NinjaCow64]

Oh, now you're polite?

Mate, considering the vile things you have been implying in this thread I’ve been positively civil.

Are we dropping the t from lgbtq?

No, my implication was that you would cease talking about all LGBTQ issues because your opinions on transpeople are terrible and you refuse to listen to people who know more about this subject than you do. I am certain your opinions on other members of LGBTQ are equally as awful. Why do you keep haunting this thread if you do not wish to learn or reach understanding?

Does that mean unisex or mens and ladies bathrooms and transpeople can use what they want? I thought the problem was transpeople avoided bathrooms out of fear of harassment. The sign provides them legal protection, it informs would-be bathroom monitors of that protection and tells them to back off.

Can you just stop? There is no way you actually believe this. To call it nonsensical would be an insult to nonsense. I can’t even present a counterargument to this because its so monumentally stupid.

Cis-people aint a box? Who came up with cis and lgbtq?

Cishets did when you lot started calling us slurs and killing us. We just called a spade a spade.

 

[Farm Boy]

There is a good argument that modifying public restroom signage to be more inclusive offers a lot of leeway to rules-minded people, who would otherwise be indifferent, to become slightly better people. Whether you think he believes it or not is sorta moot, would you not say?

 

[NinjaCow64]

They're being pretty open that what, for the most part, they're being afraid of is cis men hiding under trans women's skirts to do nefariousness.

Some people might believe that, most are using it as a smokescreen for discrimination. The nefarious deeds that men could get up to in women’s bathrooms is already highly illegal. I am skeptical that the threat of extra jail time or extra fines from “being in the wrong bathroom” will deter men from these sorts of crimes. And if it would then why not just make the nefarious deeds themselves have more jail time or fines attached? Why bring transwomen into it at all?

People act like the bathrooms provide a magical force field that protects women from men and I just don’t get it.

There is a good argument that modifying public restroom signage to be more inclusive offers a lot of leeway to rules-minded people, who would otherwise be indifferent, to become slightly better people. Whether you think he believes it or not is sorta moot, would you not say?

I haven’t been presented with a good argument for this.

 

[Farm Boy]

The nefarious deeds, that mostly don't exist, are already punished harshly when they warrant it. The reason these norms popped up is because there was a problem. Same with the shields between priests and confessing parishioners. The world is not a happy place.

Regarding the signage, we've correctly identified that some problematic portion of the population does not believe that trans women are women. They think they are cis men. So they're using the "wrong" bathroom. Intentionally, which means they're probably up to something kinky that we need to be scared of. That's how it comes to me when I see it, a mostly uninvolved cis guy surrounded by mostly uninvolved cis women(but for it being "their" bathroom space generally at issue). Now, if there's a "seperate but equal" situation that arises regarding the stools, then yes, I don't think that works right at all. But if we sign the existing bathrooms more inclusively, that gives an enormous amount of moral authority to people who are otherwise uninvolved to say, "Wtf are you talking about? She's using the room clearly marked for her. Get the fudge out of her pants."

Edit: Was trying to dig through the big bag of biases to get a better look, like every thorny issue requires, and I have a personal riddle. Trying to decide how many conversational participants I think would switch sides if we were not talking about people in Nashville, but instead people in Berkley.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

So I was puzzled how/why the sign initially posted in this thread would even exist. Given that it's entirely up to the individual establishment to decide their own policy on how the toilets are used, it didn't seem to make sense that an establishment would be pro-trans enough to decide that their toilets were open to everyone to use, but to then be anti-trans enough to advertise this fact with what looks like a biohazard sign.

So after 30 seconds research I wasn't too surprised to discover it's not a real sign.

 

[Farm Boy]

...I said it was a political point a number of pages back, not that anyone is obligated to believe me.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Ah well, apologies, I did only just skim over the thread.

 

[Farm Boy]

Read all 26 and put a report on my desk in the morning.

 

[Gorbles]

So after 30 seconds research I wasn't too surprised to discover it's not a real sign.

The point is this type of sign is required by law (or will be, when it comes into effect, if it hasn't already). The example of the sign itself I believe comes from a political activist, which sure, you could argue is overblown, but the law (allegedly, because I don't have it to hand) specifically mandates a rather noticeable (and arguably hostile) set of guidelines for said signage.

Do you believe singling out inclusive businesses in this way is a positive move that will both help said businesses and their marginalised customers?