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I don't think it's an issue of just humiliation. A trans woman who is on estrogen for a substantial amount of time and has developed breasts or had bottom surgery is likely to be at risk of sexual assault if she is forced to use a men's bathroom or a men's locker room. There's also the risk of regular non-sexual assault by transphobic men against someone who has had the hormone profile of a cis woman for years and has the accompanying muscle mass. I agree that bathroom assault risk is pretty low for each individual use, but a trans woman in a space where 99% of the other people are cis men has two orders of magnitude more encounters with potential assailants than a cis woman in a woman's room where 1% of the users are a trans women.
I have a trans friend, she passes pretty well now but a thing I witnessed happen a couple times when we were hanging out in bars earlier in her transition was men hitting on her without realizing she was trans, realizing she was trans as the encounter went on, and getting aggressive once they figured that out. I would fear deeply for her safety if that encounter was playing out in private in a men's room and not in a crowded bar where she had friends around. To say she's forced to use men's restrooms is to force her to take on a substantial risk of assault (sexual or otherwise) to exist in public, and frankly for some people I think that's the point, to exclude trans people from public life.
I mean, the solution for this poor unfortunate is to work through whatever issues drive interest in transgenderism rather than transitioning. Make your bed and now lie it, I suppose- using the men’s locker room is a risk for some biologically male transgenders, but society oughtn’t to be in the business of protecting individuals from the consequences of their own bad decisions at the expense of people who haven’t made such bad decisions.
This proves too much¹; your argument could be adapted to defend either cancel culture or Jim Crow laws!
or
Your argument also begs the question² of whether transitioning is a bad decision; furthermore, even if it were, if the 'consequences of a bad decision' include extralegal violence, protecting people from it is one of the most fundamental functions of society, and protects you from somebody else deciding that some aspect of your life-style is a 'bad decision' that they are entitled to assault people over. (You still Kant dismiss univeralisability.)
¹Proving too much: an argument which, if valid, would also prove something known to be false; elaborated here.
²In its older sense of 'a proof of P that assumes P'.
Donno man, there are a million 'bad decisions' a guy can make in a bar that will 100% get him beat up -- wearing a dress probably isn't even top 50.
And yet somehow society, while it will sometimes intervene if the aggressor is too hard to ignore -- mostly treats barfights over dumb shit as plus-or-minus consentual, and the response trends in the direction of 'even less than if you report your bike stolen'.
That seems incompatible with 'fundamental function of society' -- maybe you meant to say 'protecting women from extralegal violence?'
Yes, I am aware that there are many ways in which our society falls short of perfection.
If Adam and Bob get into a bar fight, with Adam being the first to escalate to physical attack, then Adam not being charged with assault does not mean that Bob was not wronged, any more than a lack of response to Charles stealing David's bicycle means that the bicycle in question was Charles' property all along.
(Although I could see the case for dismissing charges against Adam if Bob had referred to Adam's ethnic group as 'cockroaches', or called Adam's disabled relative a 'useless eater' or a 'life unworthy of living', or accused Adam of some grave act of moral turpitude such as sexual assault against an infant; but anything short of that....)
...which includes any instance in which the aggressor is substantially stronger, or arranges to have a half-dozen friends when the victim is alone. (If it is two people of approximately equal strength inflicting approximately equal damage on each other, one could make the case for limiting the societal response to a sternly-worded "Don't. Do. It. Again.".)
No, when I said 'people' I meant 'human beings.' The principle¹ that Alex should not be obligated to follow the demands of Bob the Random Nobody merely because Bob happens to be stronger than Alex does not depend on Alex's gender.
¹A principle originally dating back to at least the Bronze Age, even if inconsistently applied.
-- Code of Hammurabi.
So it's all who/whom after all. If Bob does something you find offensive, Adam is excused for hitting him.
No, I was merely acknowledging the circumstances in which the argument for an absolute never-respond-to-words-with-violence-never-ever-never-forever policy is at its weakest. (They are also circumstances in which it would be reasonable for Adam to fear that Bob, if not deterred, might escalate to violence against Adam or his relatives. Prior to the genocide in Rwanda, certain Hutu radio broadcasters regularly referred to Tutsi as 'cockroaches' (inyenzi); 'Useless eaters' (Nutzlose Fresser) and 'Life unworthy of life' (Lebensunwertes Leben) were terms used to refer to disabled people by the Nazis prior to murdering them in 'Aktion T4'.)
If Bob said to Adam "Your mum threw herself at me and ten of my friends last night.", or "You can't $OCCUPATION worth beans, they just promote you because you're golf buddies with half the C-Suite and have pictures of the other half in flagrante.", or "It looks like you have a dead rodent glued to your scalp.", Adam would be justified in being upset, but would not be justified in escalating to assault.
"Acknowledging" is the wrong word. You were advocating for or choosing those circumstances based on your own principles of what is most offensive. These do not turn out to be universal. For instance, insulting someone's mother's the way you mentioned is often considered sufficient provocation, to the point where you'd only expect Bob to do it if he WANTED a physical fight.
No, I was admitting to where I am least certain of my position. In the circumstances I listed, it would still be better if they were dealt with by something akin to a legal process, so that Adam has just as much recourse even if Bob is much larger and stronger.
Based on my priors of what is most likely to signal the likelihood of impending violence against Adam, or against people he cares about.
I think the notion of "(1.) Speech should not be responded to with force; (2.) if (1.) is ever not the case, it would be when the speech indicates the impending use of force.", if not universal, is at least universalisable in the Kantian sense.
Probably as a hold-over from societies in which it was a prelude to "...therefore your family is dis-honourable, therefore my family and our allies can get away with taking your stuff." (This was a much bigger threat in places with-out robust public order, which is why, even though I sympathised with many of the complaints raised in 2020 about the tactics and methods used by police, the calls for the total abolition of police departments never sat well with me.)
Thus, among the examples listed in the second group, it is the closest to the line, even if I would still not hesitate to find Adam liable were Bob to sue him and I were to be on the jury, whereas I would be less immovable in the first group of examples.
That is the other exception to "The person who threw the first punch committed a tort."; covering professional pugilists, people who mutually decide to settle their disputes outdoors, and certain non-standard carnal practises.
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