The New York Times is being disingenuous in talking about issues involving transgender-identifying high school students in terms of “bathrooms and other facilities” and then barely naming those other facilities so as to focus on restrooms. USA Today is a bit more honest in referencing “bathrooms and locker rooms,” since the issue here—and the impetus behind the discussed state legislation—is more about locker rooms and showers than restrooms, although restroom fears were used effectively in the defeat in Houston of an anti-discrimination provision.
I don’t believe activists are going to win public support for students who are physically male using the girl’s locker room and shower facilities, or who are female using the boy’s facilities. In this case, providing alternative private changing/showering facilities is not “just like segregation,” but a reasonable accommodation. The Obama administration, by threatening schools that want to provide such reasonable accommodations, is making matters worse.
It’s also likely that drawing a line in the sand around locker room use in public (including schools) and private facilities is going to sink future LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, which used to be focused on employment, once upon a time. That, along with the addition of “public accommodations” in a way intended to force small businesses to provide expressive services to same-sex weddings despite religious objections.
But the defeat of future anti-discrimination measures will allow LGBT activists to continue claiming victim status and keep the money rolling in from the faithful, who are told the equivalent of anti-LGBT Jim Crow is just around the corner.
38 Comments for “Transgender Locker Room Use: The New Line in the Sand”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
… going to sink future LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, which used to be focused on employment, once upon a time …
You sound almost nostalgic for the days when you could simultaneously oppose ENDA and bash Democrats for not passing ENDA.
… along with the addition of “public accommodations” in a way intended to force small businesses to provide expressive services to same-sex weddings despite religious objections …
Tell me, again, why a “small business exemption” wouldn’t suffice, as it does in employment and housing non-discrimination law.
Oh, forget it. I already know. A “small business exemption” would solve the problem but not satisfy the need to stir up the conservative Christian wing of the base.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
1. As I understand things, a person that wants medical approval for a sex change procedure has to be able to first successfully live as the gender that he or she plans on becoming (via surgery).
OK,. now let us suppose that a guy is going through this process and must be able to live as a woman, before he can get medical approval for the sex change operation. Which bathroom should he use? If the guy simply uses the men’s WC/changing room until, won’t that invalidate the rule that he is able to successfully live as a woman?
(Setting aside the other practical matters involved, like where the “alternative” bathroom or locker room shower would be)
2. Whenever I ask this question — or something quite similar — from people who object to any sort of civil rights protections covering transgender people, I rarely get any sort of rational answer.
Instead, we seem to get the suggestion that transgender people should never shower or use the W.C., except when they are at home (although housing discrimination is a real problem) .
posted by Jorge on
OK,. now let us suppose that a guy is going through this process and must be able to live as a woman, before he can get medical approval for the sex change operation. Which bathroom should he use? If the guy simply uses the men’s WC/changing room until, won’t that invalidate the rule that he is able to successfully live as a woman?
No.
Heterocissexism (I just made up the word) is not a medical complication. A medical consultation should take that into consideration.
That consideration boomerangs eventually. We *could* require that medical ethicists change their ways. That will have consequences.
2. Whenever I ask this question — or something quite similar — from people who object to any sort of civil rights protections covering transgender people, I rarely get any sort of rational answer.
I think that has more to do with the quality of the question. You should be asking it in a more open-ended form.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Tom J: 2. Whenever I ask this question — or something quite similar — from people who object to any sort of civil rights protections covering transgender people, I rarely get any sort of rational answer.
Jorge: I think that has more to do with the quality of the question. You should be asking it in a more open-ended form.
Jorge, what question would you have Tom Jefferson ask, and how would you answer it?
Q: ?
A: ?
posted by Jorge on
Jorge, what question would you have Tom Jefferson ask, and how would you answer it?
“Which bathroom should that person use?” is fine. But the follow up should be more along the lines of asking “then what should that person do to successfully live as a woman?” Using the positive voice is more powerful.
(Let’s be real, I’d use the word “she”, in progressive chain of commands, and “he” everywhere else.)
And that parenthetical statement is typical for how I would answer that question. I favor situational ethics here: do what you can get away with. If it’s against the law for you to use you own bathroom, you can break the law, get arrested, and act as if you are immune. This is probably very dangerous to personal safety. You can also follow the law, which will be dangerous to your mental health. The best way out of this trap is probably to form a gang.
This thought exercise has made me more inclined to believe that the transgender rights movement is motivated more by plain self interest than any objective values. It cannot be avoided. Power corrupts the powerless as well as the powerful.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Stephen has always been mighty “flip flopp”-y about whether or not ENDA should be passed.
When he wants to send the message, “Democrats, Bad, Republicans Good” he has critizised (sic) the party for not doing enough to get it passed.
Yet, when he wants to see the message, “I really, really, really, really, really want the cool, libertarian kids to invite me to their party”, he seems to find the idea of ENDA to be a waste of time, even an insult to all things decent, and pure.
posted by Jorge on
It’s probably his age showing. I think ENDA represents something that Mr. Miller is against but that he wants a progressive movement to be for. You don’t see him complaining about too many progressive “advances” over the past generation or so.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Oh.My.G-d.. And this guy is the best that the Republican “establishment” has to offer?
posted by Jim Michaud on
I’m comparing and contrasting the Democratic and Republican Presidential campaigns. All I can say is ee-freak-a-wow! The Dems are having a serious discussion and acting like adults. The GOP side is behaving like a bunch of 12 year olds. You know how way back when you were a kid and attended a birthday party and all the kids were well behaved? Then along comes little Johnny. He’s a hyperactive kid who starts flinging food and running around. This causes the other previously good kids to join in and make a mess. Well, something like that is happening to Republicans.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Well, on second thought, if Rubio has to make dick jokes to stop Drumpf, G-d bless him. Doesn’t say much for the Republican base, though.
posted by JohnInCA on
I’m gonna have to beg forgiveness, but I really can’t treat Mr. Miller’s as though they’re sincere.
To the best of my recollection, there hasn’t been a single legal advance for LGBT people that he’s actually supported before it happened. So his lack of support for this one is neither surprising or worthy of comment.
So on a different topic, have you heard about the Texas baker who refused a gay couple? “Kern’s Bake Shop” owned by Edie and David Delorme. Now, there’s no relevant non-discrimination laws, but for some reason they’ve gone ahead and decided “attain the legal representation of the First Liberty Institute, formerly known as the Liberty Institute.”
Reminds me of that wedding chapel in Idaho that insisted for months they were being sued.
Anyway, amusing enough, the bakers say they just want “equal rights”. Because apparently they don’t know that religion is already covered under the Civil Rights Act. And that they think they should have a right to not have people say mean things about them.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
So, an ear piece made Donald Trump delay formally rebuking David Duke. Now, I am not saying that it impossible that the ear piece given to him by his staff or the studio was not up to par with the usual, high quality ear piece…
However, what exactly did Trump initially think the question about David Duke was?
posted by Houndentenor on
So now that the religious right has (mostly) realized that picking on gays isn’t getting them anywhere (in fact, it’s hurting them) they have moved on to trans people who are fewer in number and have fewer allies. And what’s worse there are gay people happy to jump on the trans-bashing wagon. Shame on all of them. I’m disgusted with the lot.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
So now that the religious right has (mostly) realized that picking on gays isn’t getting them anywhere (in fact, it’s hurting them) they have moved on to trans people who are fewer in number and have fewer allies. And what’s worse there are gay people happy to jump on the trans-bashing wagon. Shame on all of them. I’m disgusted with the lot.
To be fair to Stephen, he has argued that transgender issues are distinct from issues affecting gays and lesbians for close to two decades, and he has consistently criticized the “LGBT left” for taking up transgender issues for as long as I’ve been reading IGF. He is not, unlike the conservative Christians, a johnny-come-lately.
posted by Wilberforce on
On this issue I agree with Stephen.
The bathroom and shower issue destroyed enda before, and it will do so again. And trans people don’t even like us. I would say it’s more akin to hatred.
But I’m sorry if strategic and realistic thinking disgusts you.
I would also say that you guys who push this issue owe us all an apology, for the earlier defeat of enda, and for wasting our time with the same ridiculous agenda. I don’t expect to hear one though.
posted by Houndentenor on
ENDA isn’t passing a Republican House anyway so that’s irrelevant. You’re the one who brought up practical matters. What disgusts me is using trans people for the “ick factor”. Since I’m old enough to remember when that was used against gay men, I’m certainly not going to give the very same people a pass for using it against someone else. Yes, I understand the argument for passing gay rights laws without trans protections because that’s the only way to get them through, but what I am opposed to is demonizing people because they need to pee in a public restroom sometimes. When I asked right wing relatives in Houston last year where trans people should go to the restroom their response was, “they shouldn’t.” Yes, I am disgusted by that and so should any decent person be revolted by such a response. I’ve been thrown under the bus for political expediency in the past. I am too ethical to turn around and do the same to someone else. Perhaps you are not bothered by such ethical concerns.
posted by Jorge on
I’m not impressed by “no true Scotsman” lines of thinking.
Since transgender protections don’t exist, we could write in a ban on transgender people even existing.
All you’d need to justify it is ignorance–or a hefty dose of moral authoritarianism. So long as this country has better things to do with its time, you won’t see such a law come close to passing.
You couldn’t possibly suggest that the mere existence of the transgender lifestyle is protected under the Constitution, could you? Once upon a time, we did find a constitutional right to sodomy, but that was based on the right to privacy. The right to live a life as the gender you perceive yourself to be is based on, what, the First Amendment?
posted by Doug on
‘The right to live a life as the gender you perceive yourself to be is based on, what, the First Amendment?’
Try ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.
posted by Jorge on
That phrase isn’t from the US Constitution.
It’s in the Declaration of Independence.
The right you are speaking of is cited as a divine right. The US Constitution is a secular document that prohibits religious preferences. But I suppose we could squeeze it into the Ninth Amendment.
posted by Houndentenor on
It’s sex discrimination. And it’s odd to find people of a more libertarian bent not respecting the right of people to live as the choose (or feel they need to) with regard to gender expression. What’s it to me if that’s how they want to live? It’s certainly not causing any harm to anyone else. Who’s being authoritarian here?
posted by Jorge on
The locker room issue crosses the line from respecting the right for people to live as they will into legitimate social order concerns. I such a hard time taking seriously your suggestion that it is not causing any harm to anyone else that it gives the smell that you are being deliberately disingenuous, even misanthropic. The way for a society to come to a consensus on difficult political quandaries is not to deny that they exist and delegitimize the interests of one group.
Making transgender legal protections extend into bathrooms and locker rooms crosses the line from respecting the right for people to live as they will into a form of nanny state social policing that is arbitrary, micromanaged, and punitive. To suggest that no one is harmed by such things is nonsensical as arguing that trickle down economics creates a rising tide that lifts all boats. By definition, there are winners and losers in politics; it is never possible to make everyone in one’s community part of the winning class.
My impression of Mr. Miller is that he has two basic objections. One, he hates nanny state politics. Two, he believes that bulldozing over established social order conventions without giving the mainstream public a chance to engage in the political processes is objectively reckless and politically unwise.
posted by Jorge on
“I such a hard time taking” >> I have such a hard time taking…
posted by Wilberforce on
Enda is irrelevant. That’s rich. It could have passed years ago. It didn’t because you ethical people destroyed it. Then you switched our agenda to gay marriage, and empty win if ever there was one. It benefits much fewer people with only minor perks, some tax right offs. Put that next to job security for the entire community. There is no comparison. And who knows what congress will be next time. But even if it did a 180, it would do us no good, because you folk are wasting our time with symbolic victories. Bathrooms indeed. Trans people can’t go in certain rooms? News flash, there are enclosed stalls in every restroom. So we’re supposed to give up on job protections for their non-issue. Thanks a heap.
posted by Jorge on
I don’t believe activists are going to win public support for students who are physically male using the girl’s locker room and shower facilities, or who are female using the boy’s facilities.
The words “locker room” in the context of schools conjure certain deep-seeded fears of gay and straight men alike. It is fear of a form of danger to young men that is poorly perceived, and thus the fear strikes out wildly for a target. You hear many stories of male coaches who use their power over such environments to allow the world become a more unjust place. Those who push the world to become a slightly better place are out there, but they do not talk about it in any place that I can see. There are many men who can be persuaded to strike back against such a culture; it’s not the same as telling men to pee sitting down. I cannot guess at where women would fall on this.
When it comes to transgender accomodations per se, “Locker room fears” seem to me to take the form of exhibitionism whereas “bathroom fears” take the form of more predatory behavior.
So I actually believe the transgender rights movement can more easily persuade on the locker room issue than the bathroom issue.
Anyway, bathrooms and locker rooms aren’t a bad place to be stopped at. The danger is that they get stopped, and then forced back.
I absolutely agree with Mr. Miller that there is something wrong when schools are punished by the federal government for taking the view that they should offer reasonable accommodations. It is a reasonable view for LOCAL government institutions to take in a situation where there has been no legal or political groundwork. This is probably about the only issue where I might concede that there is good reason to abolish federal education law–and unfortunately it’s a persuasive one. I wonder if the No Child Left Behind Act’s replacement gutted this part of the federal education law?
No, of course not. Title Whatever of the Civil Rights Act didn’t impose racial quotas, and three Supreme Court decisions later we still have them. (This is a bad comparison because it goes in the opposite direction.)
LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, which used to be focused on employment, once upon a time.
Oh well. I’ve got mine. The powerless got nothing. Yay for wearing clankly bangles and posting rainbow posters at work. Blue state fat blobs and red state duck dynasts for Trump.
But the defeat of future anti-discrimination measures will allow LGBT activists to continue claiming victim status and keep the money rolling in from the faithful, who are told the equivalent of anti-LGBT Jim Crow is just around the corner.
Oh, please. You know the first openly gay president will be a Republican.
posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on
1. None of the transgender people that I know have hated gay people. I am not saying that such hatred does not exist, but it has not been my experienc
posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on
2. Supporting civil rights and some sort of small business exemption would be a great place to actually deal with every ones concerns like adults.
Heck, if the only complaint to a gender identity rights bill, was pre-op people using the bathroom they would use when they are post-op, it would be a great place to start a conversation.
3. At the federal level, I can see being pragmatic about SOGI bill versus a SO bill. However, if its going to take more resources to advance GI rights, where are the resources going to come from?
posted by JohnInCA on
Re: 2
Sure, except that most people that don’t want trans* people using the right bathroom don’t want trans* people using the bathroom *at all*. They don’t care whether the trans* person is pre-op or post-op, they just want them *gone*.
So I’m very skeptical that this is a point that can be compromised on. The “other side” doesn’t want to go to the table. They want to flip the table.
And I know you’re set on a “small business exemption”, but even aside from how there’s just not much interest in it (see: Hobby Lobby), this would be a bad vehicle. Think about how it would work in practice. I mean hell, it’d be worse then having to ask for the key to the bathroom at a gas station, because you also have to ask if it’s a small business, and if it is, what’s the place’s policy? Chances are, even the manager in most of those places aren’t going to know what you’re talking about. And that’s your idea of a good compromise?
posted by Houndentenor on
I have relatives in Houston. Just before the HERO debate I asked a relative which restroom he thought a trans woman should use to pee. “She shouldn’t.” The lack of empathy is shocking. People have to go to the bathroom and the appropriate place for a trans woman to go is the women’s restroom. This is not that hard and the only reason to make it such a big deal is to beat up on a tiny minority with few allies. What kind of sick person does that? Oh right. There are a lot of them. Disgusting.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
My impression of Mr. Miller is that he has two basic objections. One, he hates nanny state politics. Two, he believes that bulldozing over established social order conventions without giving the mainstream public a chance to engage in the political processes is objectively reckless and politically unwise.
Where do you suppose transgenders go to the rest room now? I don’t imagine that there is any hard data, but my guess is that trans people use “dress appropriate” facilities, not “organ appropriate” facilities, and, if so, that seems to be working reasonably well.
The ruckus is being raised by right-wingers who are determined to change that …
posted by Jorge on
Where do you suppose transgenders go to the rest room now?
I could say that I’m ignorant and not answer the question. But I feel like giving an ignorant answer.
I would suppose that if they’re under 18, they use the bathroom corresponding to their sex, if they’re over 35, they use the bathroom corresponding to their gender, and if they’re between 18 to 35 it differs from person to person, including some who are in a less gender-binary category where their outward “dress” may present different apparent genders on different occasions.
This is going to be wildly inaccurate because I’m really only guessing based on developmental differences. But there are significant generational differences as well, and I have no idea how to predict the interaction between the two.
There’s something not quite right with your comment.
You didn’t say anything about locker rooms.
There was a Republican governor who vetoed one of those bathroom bills this week, writing it did not address any pressing issue, and the schools should handle it.
I have a 1991 book, The Alchemy of Race and Rights by Patricia J. Williams, I *think* a grad school reading but it may have been college, that talks about the bathroom issue for one student in about the same terms that the locker room issue is being talked about today for one student. Copyright 1991, eh? I suppose I can’t use that book to say I don’t think things are working out reasonably well. But I really don’t.
There’s a truly disturbing online news article about a transgender woman who committed suicide after online harassment after coming out. The method she used is a type of “pill-swallowing” that’s extremely lethal, I don’t dare publicize it more than that for fear of starting a trend. You know women tend to choose less lethal means than men do and they cite pill swallowing. But that is going to change soon.
We will find data about transgender people who have died as an indirect result of bathroom and locker room-related social harassment. And then the Bloomberg Nanny State will banish all evil. Curse Satan and repent, America, for you do not deserve your freedoms.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I could say that I’m ignorant and not answer the question. But I feel like giving an ignorant answer. … This is going to be wildly inaccurate because I’m really only guessing based on developmental differences.
If you are guessing, you are guessing. So am I. I have three transgender friends. All women. All dress as women, and all use the women’s room. What the state of their anatomy might be, I don’t know, and am not about to ask.
But doesn’t the fact that we don’t hear about problems suggest to you that the “bathroom controversy” is a lot of noise about nothing?
But there are significant generational differences as well, and I have no idea how to predict the interaction between the two.
You don’t know that, and neither do I.
There’s something not quite right with your comment. You didn’t say anything about locker rooms.
I didn’t say anything about it because I wasn’t thinking about it, being well beyond the gum bunny stage of life. I haven’t got a clue about transgender locker room use, but again, we never hear about it, which suggests to me that it shouldn’t be a ginned-up controversy.
And the controversy over transgender people is ginned-up, as we all saw in Houston. Transgender people have as much right to employment as the rest of us, and as much right to expect to be judged on merit. Transgender people have as much right to use public bathrooms as the rest of us. Transgender people have as much right to use a locker room as the rest of us.
So we need to figure out how to make that work, and we should not tolerate allowing transgender to become the new faggot, subjecting a small minority of people to become the objects (word intended) of a “fear and loathing” campaign by conservative Christians and political fear-mongers ginning up the issue for political gain. All of use who claim to be decent people, but gays and lesbians, in particular, having so recently had the experience ourselves.
posted by Jorge on
You don’t know that, and neither do I.
The history of the ever-changing acronym for non-straight people, and the acronym’s many variants and experiments, is proof enough.
But doesn’t the fact that we don’t hear about problems suggest to you that the “bathroom controversy” is a lot of noise about nothing?
I suppose most hate crimes and other incidents I hear about happen elsewhere.
But sorry, I don’t.
The best way for me to describe it is that I think the bathroom issue touches on integration, in a way that other issues such as employment, housing, and public safety of transgender people don’t. You can say the latter is anti-discrimination, don’t do bad things. And you can make it objective and have some intellectual distance from it.
The bathroom thing is a lunch counter sit-in in comparison. It forces an intellectual confrontation with the very nature of a discriminatory order. It heralds not just a legal change but a change in how society ranks people. So I think much of the reason the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community have been caught off-guard by the backlash in Texas is because they did not realize that was what was going on, that the law made not just a legal change but a large social one (gee, I don’t usually believe that). They tried to pretend the bathroom issue was not a big deal, and they didn’t spend a good deal of time laying the groundwork to support transgender rights both legally and socially.
Because you know, I’m sure people like Trent Lott “didn’t hear” about any problems involving segregation when he spoke in the 2000s in praise of Strom Thurmond’s (segregationist) campaign for president. Just the murders.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The analogy between the campaign to “protect the flower of White Womanhood” against “rutting n*ggra bucks” and the current campaign to protect women from cross-dressing rapists and other perverts who will supposedly haunt women’s bathrooms if transgenders are legally allowed to use “dress appropriate” bathrooms rather than “organ appropriate” bathrooms does have a ring of similarity to it.
My point, which feeds into yours, is that most transgender people probably now use “dress appropriate” bathrooms without incident and that the hysteria about bathrooms is constructed hysteria, ginned up by conservative Christians, in furtherance of the conservative Christian campaign to keep gays, lesbians (and now transgenders) set aside, legally, as separate and apart, and by the politicians who service them for short-term political gain.
Homocons are in an uproar with the rest of us because transgender protections have been included in recent non-discrimination laws, asserting that if only the “T” wasn’t included, the non-discrimination laws would pass without problem.
I think that Houston’s recent experience gives lie to that assertion.
posted by Mark F. on
How about we take the transgender stuff out of the Houston bill and see if it passes?
posted by Doug on
Everything will work out just fine. Caitlyn Jenner says she will be Ted Cruz ambassador to the trans community if he becomes President. Words escape me.
posted by Doug on
Not to worry. Caitlyn Jenner says she want’s to Ted Cruz ambassador to the trans community if he becomes president. Words fail me.
posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on
1. It’s possible that ENDA might have a slightly better chance of passing in Congress if it didn’t deal with the issue of gender identity.
I still think it would be an uphill battle, largely because of committee leadership and public attitudes in key States and Congressional districts.
Also ENDA only deals with employment law, and not, say housing.
At the State and local level I have not seen much evidence to suggest that opposition to LGBT civil rights laws would fade away, if only the “T” was put back in the civil rights closet for another day.
The organized opposition to HERO in Texas, were pretty clear that they were opposed to civil rights for gay people as well as transgender people.
I’m not opposed to being pragmatic about passing civil rights legislation, but cutting out gender identity from a civil rights bill has to be based on a certainly that a sexual orientation bill will pass, and that substantial time and money will be spent on gender identity rights.
posted by All They Can See is the "T" - IGF Culture Watch on
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