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In non-Trump news, I have some new data on revealed preferences. I live in a pretty leftist place, and my employer recently made a switch for about half of the non-single occupancy bathrooms on each floor to be gender neutral. What's interesting is that this has resulted in women completely abandoning those bathrooms. Shortly after the switch, I even saw a number of women about to go in the former women's rooms, realize that they're now gender neutral, and reverse course to presumably go find an actual women's room. Some female coworkers mentioned to me that they like trans people and "have trans friends", but don't like the bathroom change. I guess I like this change, because it's effectively increased the number of men's rooms, since no women want to use the former women's rooms. So make of this revealed preference data what you will.
One bad aspect of this is that they've covered over the urinals in the former men's rooms. I asked my wife if she would care if there's a urinal in a bathroom she was using, and she said that she wouldn't like it, because she doesn't want to see a guy's dick. I guess women don't know that you can't really see dicks of someone using a urinal unless you specifically look around their body to try to see it.
I presume this is the type of observation I will be hearing about until the day I die.
Most people seem to have no idea what a trans person is or what trans rights are. So when even the slightest personal inconvenience arises, the good folk will balk at the notion and do their best to shield themselves and their immediate environment from the thing they've been advocating for most of their lives. You could make the same observation for nigh every policy.
I think the squeamishness is less about trans people themselves and more about the physical danger of biological males in a women’s restroom or changing room. The current state of trans is that it’s basically on the say so of the male — if a man is in the women’s restroom, he is allowed to be there unless he’s very obviously and blatantly doing something creepy. He’d basically have to openly masterbate, attempt to take pictures, or attempt a rape. Until them, all he has to do is claim to be trans — no supporting documentation required— and nobody can do anything about it. In fact, it’s much more likely that the woman who objects will face punishment for “transphobia” than tge male will.
But that's what a trans person is and that's what trans rights are in practice. Anyone who is squeamish about these things is by definition transphobic. As well as being, pardon my French, hysterical and ridiculous. As if your male coworkers suddenly turn into a physical danger as soon as you have to share a porcelain bowl...
There's an entire progressive dialect invented to get past these hurdles. Followed by a ruleset that should allow any well-meaning actor, who is concerned with the rights of trans people, to get along with their day without allowing their transphobia to negatively affect trans people as they try to exist.
Unisex toilets exist all over the world. This is transphobia masquerading as misandry. It should not be allowed to stand in any case if we are holding ourselves to any egalitarian modern standard.
There have always been pervy guys. Even Japan has to have separate cars for women on their trains. And the reason that the cameras on all phones make noise when you take a picture is because of up skirting (taking pictures under the skirts of women without them knowing). It’s a very small subset, and to my knowledge probably even rarer among true-trans people. But on the other hand, restrooms and changing are very private areas where women are vulnerable. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say “this guy just said he was a woman two minutes ago for the first time, so sorry granny, he gets to be in your changing room and see you naked.” With a process that involves time and effort, I get it.
If you think your coworker is a weird pervert then you need to take that issue up with your supervisor. Not wave it around as a hypothetical at the expense of human rights for trans people.
Restrooms aren't just a place of vulnerability for women. They are also a place of vulnerability for trans people. There need to be some pretty strong material arguments made for why trans people should be barred from the bathrooms of their experienced sex that go beyond TERF'ist misandry. That is, if we want to ground our position in reality rather than phobia.
Gender dysphoria and being trans is not treated with 'two minute' levity anywhere I know of.
The ur-example that kicked off all the trouble in Scotland, a violent rapist who suddenly decided after being convicted that in fact he was a she and that's why she had committed those rapes, it was all the dysphoria and psychic distress you see.
Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv making a nice little earner out of suing immigrant-owned/workers small businesses for transphobia because brown women didn't want to wax a feminine penis and testicles.
The Wi Spa guy (yes, guy) who casually admitted he got his gender notification changed easily but did absolutely nothing else to transition:
The ACLU brought a case the decision of which compelled the prison system to send trans prisoners to the prison of their "experienced sex" (to use your phrasing). Now, that may indeed be a good thing for the human rights of trans people. Except this grifter then took advantage of it, forced his (and I am saying "his" because if you've still got all your working male parts and can get cis women pregnant, I don't believe you are genuinely trans) removal to a female prison, and there we go, two new babies came into the world.
Those cases are out there. The defence of them, along with legitimate trans people, is what causes the trouble. Discard the liars and nutcases, then ordinary people will be more willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Men who, when faced with going to prison, suddenly discover their inner womanhood - they don't get to go to women's prisons (and it is remarkable how many, out of the small transgender prison population, are serving terms for sexual offences). Make it legally enforceable that "guy with working male genitals can too come into a female space just by saying he is now she" and then don't be surprised when people object.
Cases of criminals raping their fellow inmates is not an argument against trans rights any more than interracial rape is an argument against civil rights.
If you want to argue that being raped by penis is worse than something else, you should start by looking at men's prisons. If you want to argue rape in general is the problem, female inmates rape eachother more than male inmates.
Individual cases are irrelevant to the scope of the discussion, which is human rights for trans people. When we are talking about prison populations and criminals the discussion will get dragged into an unsavory quagmire with a lot of negative connotations that transphobic people try to associate with the concept of trans rights. This is a dishonest guilt by association tactic that's not relevant to the actual discussion of the topic. Proven by the fact that people refuse to engage in similar rhetoric regarding race.
I'm not surprised people object when they don't know what trans rights are, nor what transphobia is. The modern prison system is a crime against humanity. It places people in terrible conditions that facilitate further suffering and strife to no one's benefit. Those who choose to argue against trans rights rather than argue in favor of a better prison system betray their transphobic bias and abdicate any moral highground they may have pretended to occupy.
It's not quite clear if it was rape or was consensual with the Real Woman having penis-in-vagina reproductive sex with the two cis women inmates.
However, I do think that if you are putting a person with a functioning set of genitals that demonstrably have met their telos in reproduction into the same place as people who can get pregnant from those functioning genitals, then we're past the point of discussing "transness" and well into "let's blow up all definitions of what is a woman and what is a man and biology and sex and gender and gender roles" territory.
I've seen some attempts at using "seahorses" for "transmen who get pregnant" as an attempt to ground the new gender/sex option in current biological reality (male seahorses carry the offspring! that means males can get pregnant!) but as yet, nothing for "transwomen who knock other women up" since we don't seem to have a biological option for that one (maybe there is, amongst hermaphrodite species like earthworms, but I don't see "worm" being adopted as a popular term).
Since the very argument for "put this person into a woman's prison" is "this is a woman and not a man", then we really do need to decide "can women get women pregnant? can a woman have a penis and testicles and viable sperm?" What is a woman, after all?
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