University Of Toronto Gender-Neutral Bathrooms Reduced After Voyeurism Reports

Seems simple enough to me.

 

If unisex bathrooms were available everywhere, that seems like it would be a good solution for the most part. But that's not the case, and it would be a massive undertaking to ensure such facilities are available everywhere.

Making bathrooms anatomy-based versus gender-based seems like a good solution on the surface, but it also has problems. First, I think there are (I assume very rare) cases where people have ambiguous genitalia. Second, it is psychologically distressing to require that a person who identifies and outwardly expresses herself as a female must be forced to go into a "penis" bathroom because she has a penis. I don't see how that's a better situation for anyone. For everyone involved, it would make much more sense to just have her go into a bathroom designated for women.

This is one of those issues where I think there's really no good solution. I understand fully why some people would be against allowing transgender people to go into the bathroom they're more comfortable with. Unlike some who've posted in this thread (e.g. Northside Storm), I don't think its simply because they hate LGBT lifestyle and want to discriminate against such people. I believe some of their concerns are legitimate.

By doing away with a clear and rigid formula for assigning which public bathroom a person may use, what prevents someone from just choosing whichever bathroom they like? "According to experts, there's no evidence that this happens" is not a satisfying answer to someone who is protective of their privacy or the privacy of their loved ones. It could still very easily happen, it seems, so how do we guard against it? There is no "gender" card that one carries around, which could settle it.

 

I read up on the case NS posted about the transgendered person's right to choose which restroom he identified with rather than being forced into a unisex or "trans friendly" restroom.

The sides could be framed as the rights of one's dignity afforded in shared private environments versus the rights of other people's privacy in places like restrooms or changing areas.

IMO, the former trumps the latter because people of the same sex are already consenting a loss of shared privacy by using those restrooms. The concerns raised by the former were largely addressed when fears about homosexuals copping sexual peeks or something more degenerate in restrooms were dispelled when the public and scientific communities gradually accepted homosexuality less as a pathology or sexual deviancy and more as a possible natural outcome in sexual identity....Meaning just because you could be attracted to someone in the same restroom doesn't mean it'd be in your nature to lose control, go wild and start humping that person's leg. Crossing that line is another step beyond just identifying yourself as LGBT.

WRT transgenders in restrooms, I can see how people of either side can harbor strong attachments to their position. For the "No side", in a place like a restroom, you're less likely to think with your mind and more about your own personal space and feelings of safety in a vulnerable state...something out of the ordinary that might not be an actual threat to you, but will still trigger feelings of uncomfortableness among others.

I don't think there is a good technological/legal solution. This is a human/cultural issue that will be solved over the gradual process of time if it ever does.

 

Actually I don't think this would be a massive undertaking at all. From my work in the architectural having to design two sets of bathrooms and meet separate gender counts is time and resource consuming. Doing single non-gender bathrooms would be much easier even if they had double the number of toilets as either single gender bathroom. In the meantime existing facilities could just drop their gender designations so that anyone of any gender could use them.


As Invisible Fan wrote this is really a cultural problem.

 

You could make a requirement that new buildings build nongender and it probably wouldn't be very problematic. However, I think social mores would dictate that bathroom stalls afford more individual privacy. The urinals would be a thing of the past. And stall walls would go floor to ceiling, or nearly so. People may want more space or thicker walls also as a buffer between them and those of the opposite sex while they make their very unsexy noises and smells in the stall. So, I'm guessing it might increase costs on a new build and make retrofits much harder than simply changing the sign on the door.

 

The Department of Justice has weighed in:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/north-carolina-hb2/481347/

It's looking more and more like this will cost McCrory the governorship.

Read more at http://www.wral.com/wral-news-poll-...-fall-campaigns/15637258/#sGSjhVijd8AQerQs.99

This might have been a null issue. It was Republicans who wanted to impale themselves on their own lances to make it not so. The result could be an energized Democrat base, the gradual transference of NC's purple state status to a blue state one with a Democrat governorship, and judicial rulings that smack down discrimination at every turn.

Applying gender identity protections to federal law without ambiguity, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has done, is a generational victory. How many more are left?

 

decrees, in a (supposed) constitutional republic...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Obama administration will issue a decree on transgender access to public school restrooms<a href="https://t.co/zJmEraGK0n">https://t.co/zJmEraGK0n</a></p>&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/730928712250724352">May 13, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

not sure how "decree" slipped past NYT editors; they are supposed to use euphemisms like "guideline", "directive", "rule"




.

 

Good move, IMO. Its a civil rights issue, and its appropriate for the federal government to stake a position on how transgender students should be treated in public schools receiving federal funds.

 

media doing their part; this is an incredible way to describe the feds decreeing boys must be allowed to shower with girls

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">JUST IN: DOJ and DOE: Schools must allow students access to sex-segregated facilities consistent with their gender identity.</p>&mdash; ABC News (@ABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC/status/731108613155127296">May 13, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Obama trolling Dan Patrick and the rest of the bathroom warriors.

 

Another issue politicians tossing out there to remind the sheep why they need them. And ppl jump on it.

All the sudden, who can use which bathroom becomes such a pressing issue, in an election year. People go crazy on bathroom, for 0.3% of the population.

As always, liberals started it, conservatives put fire on it, and general public get fooled and played. Pathetic.

 

This is an incredible way to describe the feds decreeing transgender girls should not be forced to shower with boys.

 

As an administrator I would say that anyone with a penis showers in the boys' locker room, or they don't shower at all.

Never understood the limiting principle with transgenderism. We don't accept people pretending to be - er sorry, "identifying as" - a different age, or race, or species. We treat such people as delusional, and perhaps in need of mental health treatment.

But for sex we are all expected to play along, indeed called a bigot if we do not.

 

Because being transgender is actually a phenomena rooted in biology. There is no scientific biological reason that one would identify as a different race, age, or species. But conservatives don't understand science, what else is new.

 

It is a civil rights issue, but I'm a little concerned that the Feds coming in to tell a Southern state what to do (and threatening funding) is perhaps bad tactics. They'll get their backs up about states' rights. I'd prefer to have the Supreme Court force the action than have Obama cut their education funding.

I always thought public showers were weird and dangerous, and places to be avoided in general, especially in school. If the outcome means my daughter doesn't have to shower with girls and my son doesn't have to shower with boys, I'll call it a victory.

 

A young girl probably should worry more about that administrator than a transgender in the bathroom or shower...

 

That's not the decree as no law has ever been passed forcing transgender girls to shower with boys. The girl could just not use a public shower.....

 

A young girl probably should worry more about that administrator than a transgender in the bathroom or shower...

 

True, and she probably would not want to shower with girls or boys. But she should be able to at least use a bathroom for non-shower purposes, and being forced to use the boys bathroom isn't right. She'd be subject to not only verbal abuse, but quite possibly physical violence. I guarantee that girls would be more accepting of sharing a bathroom with a transgender girl than boys would.

 

Funnier the first time....