I’ve been so busy displaying my virtue on Facebook by denouncing people who live in North Carolina and celebrating PayPal as an example of diversity (nothing says “diverse” like an all-white Board of Directors! (type their names into Google Image search)) that I haven’t had time to ponder the practical questions of gender and lock rooms.
Suppose that Person A walks through a door labeled “Women’s locker room”. Someone complains that Person A doesn’t fit a cisgender-normative concept of “woman.” The police are called? And then what? If there is a law saying that Person A has to use a locker room labeled consistent with Person A’s birth certificate gender, how can that be applied in practice? Person A is not required to carry a birth certificate, right? Some Americans don’t even have birth certificates and/or the authenticity of their birth certificates is questioned. Is Person A hauled off to jail until a birth certificate can be located? A medical examination conducted? A chromosome test run by Theranos?
What if we consider the situation without North Carolina’s hateful laws. Let’s say the above facts occurred in a progressive state such as California. Person A showers with a bunch of women who become upset that Person A lacks a body that meets cisgender-normative assumptions of “female.” Can Person A be arrested for having shown up in clothing from a store’s “men’s department”, using a name traditionally associated with so-called “men”, failing to wear a sign that says ‘I identify as a woman”? If Person A is arrested, what is the legal standard applied to determine whether or not Person A’s gender identification as a woman was legitimate on that particular day?
Phil,
Like yourself, I have a very young daughter. As such, if I see a “man” entering a restroom that my child is currently occupying, there will be a brawl of epic proportions. And I don’t give a fuck what Bruce Springsteen or PayPal thinks.
This stuff has turned the far lefts into total whack jobs.
See me (a 53 year-old male) walk into a women’s bathroom in southern Virginia and then see me being carted out on a stretcher. (As I deservedly should be).
These crotchety lawmuckers spend so much time thinking about everyone’s crotches, no doubt they are dreaming of ways to check ’em all out even as we speak.
It is of course the right question to ask (in addition to pointing out that PayPal operates in countries that jail or sentence to death, homosexuals).
What is to stop a horny 17yo male from entering women’s bathroom/locker-room at a school where the cheerleading squad “just happens” to be?
@ Mark
And that’s the problem with the NC law, Mark. It forces bearded men to use the ladies room if that’s what their birth certificate says.
The laws aren’t intended to arrest people. They are intended to get transgender people to not be transgender in public. And more broadly, they’re there simply to legalize discrimination. They used the bathroom/locker room as an easy way to defend the law. I mean, basically they want to wreak confusion.
A transgender man is going to dress like a man. The law wants them to use the restroom that matches their birth certificate. So now you have people who will appear to be men forced to use a women’s rest room. Isn’t that making the commercials that support those laws come to life?
The law now makes Mark more likely to get into a brawl because someone is following the law. I guess it was just too complex to have no law and people just used common sense based on their appearance.
Also, just repurposing the gun rights argument, this law won’t stop criminals from assaulting people in public restrooms/bathrooms.
Paddy
The answer is “nothing” That’s why some type of law is required. Otherwise you have perverts in every public women’s bathroom at will. And frankly there are numerous wackos that would like to exploit loopholes to do so. I’d rather suspected perverts arrested first and turn it over to the court system to resolve. At least that would serve as some type of deterrent.
Relative to NC. The governor clearly warned Charlotte in advance to remove the “bathroom” portion of the law only, but the city council ignored that request. That triggered a tremendous state-wide backlash over the bathroom portion of the law. That led to a special emergency one-day session of the legislature to strike the entire Charlotte law down and stop any other copycat laws. It also resulted in the loss of everything the LGBT community was trying to achieve. The City council deserves 90% of the blame for this mess. Hopefully they’ll all be voted out in the next election cycle.
I don’t believe most people in the state care about the legitimate use of restrooms by the LGBT community. Perhaps th. e best solution is the mandate of more gender neutral bathrooms.
I live in Seattle, a city with a relatively large transgender population, and I feel like this wasn’t an issue at all until the state got involved a few months ago. People managed by being discreet. Making it a political issue just seems to have called attention to something that few people ever thought about before, and not in a good way.
(That being said, I suspect that gay marriage would’ve taken much longer to come about had states not enacted all those “marriage is between a man and a woman” laws 15-20 years ago. Perhaps this is a boon for transgender rights after all.)
In the spirit of compromise, how about we all forget about gender assignment, and pass a law specifying that segregation of dressing rooms should be based on amount of body hair. There, problem solved.
@Nate
Show me a woman who has naturally grown a beard AND a cock and balls and I’ll change my tune.
You can’t, so I won’t.
Phil,
Only slightly off topic:
How is it these folks only want to be whatever sex they’re actually not? Why do they discriminate against other forms of nature? Eg instead of Gary feeling the need to turn into a girl, why can’t he believe that he was actually intended to be a bird? Or a seal, perhaps?
Let’s watch Gary prove to us he’s actually a bird as he soars from the top floor of a ten-story building.
Lastly:
This goes far, far beyond gay rights. This deals with people who are clearly suffering from a mental disorder. Transgender participants are ill people. Yes, they are mentally sick.
If you think they aren’t, let’s see you pull down a “gal’s” panties only to discover a penis and testicles and THEN tell us how you feel about transgender “rights”.
When do we begin to allow dogs and cats to vote? Or cows to exert their rights to freedom, thus allowing them to roam freely?
What’s next?
@Mark: You have nothing to fear from transgendered men or women. I don’t know why they bother you so much, but I hope you get over your irrational fears.
Mental illness comes in many forms. I wish you a speedy recovery!
Women have a lot to fear from trangendered “women”. The assaults aren’t imaginary, but extensively documented.
@ The Practical Conservative
Link, please?
The comments so far demonstrate that people are passionate on this subject (much more so than I am!), but I don’t think that my original question has been answered. As a practical matter, given that we have no European-style national ID cards that people are supposed to carry, nor any requirement to carry a birth certificate, how are these situations sorted out in states with and without North Carolina-style laws?
I love Phil’s blog, because it is a gallery of the absurd things in life (particularly in the USA). I don’t know why some people are so passionate about transgender issues – personally I don’t care what people identify as, as long as they don’t harm anyone else.
Regarding the situation described by philg, I don’t think there is any procedure in place, and probably the whole thing will get tested once a finally conflict arises. Surely this might have come up in the news before, perhaps in another state? Do we have any examples?
Sorry to go off topic, but I just want to point out an interesting take on the transgender theme by fabulous troll of feminists, Milos Yiannapoulus. He makes an interesting point that feminists have been pushing the idea that women and men are the same as far as their brains go, and they’ve simply been socialized into their cisgender normative roles. But by having transgendered persons who feel they are women trapped in a mens’ bodies, that must means then, that there must actually be such a thing as a distinctly woman’s brain. So how can it be possible that women and men are the same?
Someone calls the police and they sort it out like many things. Where and how will be at the discretion of the officer. Laws will not define how the police will act. It will range from nothing to being put in jail. A citation/charge may or may not be made. The DA may or may not pursue the case. Everyone has discretion. I hope that makes it clear as muddy water. 🙂
Here is a simple solution:
men’s room for cis/straight/males, individual shitters for everybody else.
Then nobody has to inadvertently share space with a Trump supporter.
I read that PayPal has operation centers in Malaysia and Singapore. I also read that homosexuality is illegal in both those countries. Should we expect PayPal to cease operations in those places?
Maybe they just rotate counterclockwise or whatever gets them up.
Sean P –
Actually, I believe it was the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ that defined marriage as being between a man and a women that was passed by the federal gov’t, signed into law by Bill Clinton, not the states, 20 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act
GermanL –
“personally I don’t care what people identify as, as long as they don’t harm anyone else.” – Therein lies the rub: what is harmful to other people? Is it harmful for a grown man to watch teenage girls use the restroom? Is it harmful for my three-year-old daughter to see grown penises in a public restroom? LIke Mark, I think it is.
Apparently being seen naked is harmful enough to Erin Andrews to be awarded $55 million for the trauma. So, how do you decide what is harmful?
I would add that most of the debate over LGBT issues is, in fact, disagreement between people over what is ‘harmful’
Philg-
There is no real answer to your question – obviously, somebody pushed this through without thinking it through.
“Should we expect PayPal to cease operations in those places?”
I definitely think they should. Likewise for Apple and others who so obviously enjoy to epater le bourgeoisie, or what remains of it. Have the courage of your convictions / don’t just do your bullying in pre-paid jurisdictions.
The North Carolina law requires state agencies to ensure that people who use their bathrooms/locker rooms do so in accordance with the gender on their birth certificate. North Carolina University for instance has decided to implement this by asking people to use the facilities corresponding with their birth certificate. Should a state agency not comply with the act there is no enforcement provision.
Even worse the act would require transgender men who have not changed their birth certificates to use the ladies (in state owned facilities) – yes this seems to be opposite to the intention of the act.
From the perspective of the proponents of the act it seems to be useless – however its real intention is to cause fear and concern in the transgender community and in this respect if has been very successful. If you are trans in North Carolina you can lose your job and be evicted from your apartment just for being trans. And if you use a restroom there is a very real threat of violence as demonstrated by “Mark”‘s comments.
Moving on to your Californian example. It is very unlikely a transwomen who say still has a penis would shower in an open shower cubicle instead of say a private cubicle. Why would she wish to cause alarm to the other women and risk being arrested. Therefore police would be called and it is likely that the perpetrator would be charged with a sex offence. How do the police and courts tell the intention of the individual? Well the whole of criminal law is about “mens rea” the guilty mind or intention. Someone who identified as female is likely to have plenty of evidence to back it up (and is unlikely to have committed the act in the first place).
@mark very disappointed (but not surprised) to read threats of violence against trans people. The man whom you wish to attack may well have been born a girl and be required by the law in North Carolina to use the women’s restroom.
In terms of protecting your children, a number of Republican Senators have been found guilty of committing sex offences in restrooms – perhaps you should campaign for a law banning Republican Senators from public restrooms.
@sam – transgender rights have never included the right for grown men to watch teenage girls using the restroom or for 3 year girls to see penises in restrooms.
There are obviously some very strange idea how women’s restrooms are laid out. They have stalls with doors. Nobody watches anyone else or exposes anything in a restroom unless that is they are committing a criminal offence.
@Sarah North Carolina House Bill 2 covers “bathroom and changing facilities” so to get naked with womyn skip the restroom and head for the shower right?
@Locker Room Boi/Grl indeed 🙂 If HB2 said that inappropriate genitals should not be revealed in communal showers and changing facilities I don’t think many people would have much objection, but it doesn’t say this. Under HB2 a transman with a penis but female on his birth certificate would have to shower with the girls!
Sarah: And this gets us right back to my original question… the law hinges on a document (the birth certificate) that there is no legal requirement to possess, carry, or even be aware of. So I don’t see how it can work (though, as noted in the original posting, I also don’t see how any gender-based objections to restroom/lock-room use can be resolved as a practical matter in states without such laws).
We had a transgender man come out at our company back in the 1990s. He started wearing women’s’ clothes to work. Then he would be in the men’s bathroom. People complained. The women did not want him in their bathroom. After some discussion it was decided he would use the nurses private bathroom. No one complained after that. The guy was a good worker who did not interact with many people or customers so he just kept working and wearing women’s clothes. He was still working there when I retired many years later and still using the nurses bathroom.
So I suggest that transgender people use the stand alone bathrooms.
(I have to say that I’m disheartened at the hostility toward the transgendered. The original posting was exploring whether or not it was practical for government to regulate this matter. I was not proposing a referendum on whether it is good or bad to be transgender. (personally I feel sympathy for anyone who needs to interact significantly with the U.S. medical system) What I think is interesting about Transgender Nation is not transgenderism per se but how society and the laws will be set up once the idea of male/female is tossed. The locker room/restroom issue is just one example where we have a huge investment in physical infrastructure predicted on the existence of two sexes/genders for humans and adult sex/gender being the same as birth sex/gender 99.99% of the time.)
I wonder after reading through if we’re looking at it the wrong way. The comment about a transman in a ladies washroom got me thinking; what if the intention is that he’s not supposed to use the ladies, he’s supposed to use the men’s. If he’s in the ladies, he better have his birth cert stating that he was born female. So really the law is saying if you’re going to use a washroom/change room that you don’t physically identify with then you should have a birth certificate that proves you should be there. Perhaps it’s about keeping the deviants and teenagers who think they can pull a fast one because of a loophole out of the women’s?
Separately; I was at State & Main not too long ago and found the washrooms were all individual rooms with toilets and sinks. Oddly though there were still separate Women’s and Men’s. I assume because men are vastly unable to not make a mess when standing.
just have one bathroom. In Moscow, many bathrooms are unisex. I think in Europe also. source
Phil,
Speaking only for myself, I have no hostility towards transsexuals. I simply do not understand the hubbub that people who are clearly mentally ill are causing in the USA. And yes, these folks absolutely have a mental disorder.