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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022

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Thanks for agreeing with me.

Okay, I know that's not what you meant. Gender-segregation of bathroom by sex-on-birth-certificate as opposed to apparent gender is new.

  • -10

It's not so much new, as non-existent. No one cares about your birth certificate, people care about what sex you are.

If no one cares, then why did the law under discussion get passed which does the following:

The bill amended state law to preempt any anti-discrimination ordinances passed by local communities and, controversially, compelled schools and state and local government facilities containing single-gender washrooms to only allow people of the corresponding sex as listed on their birth certificate to use them

Because they were hoping the sex listed on their birth certificate is going to correspond to their sex.

My understanding of the social norm is that people would be unhappy if someone who appeared to be a woman entered the men's bathroom or if someone who appeared to be a man entered the women's bathroom. I find it hard to believe that instead of going by appearance, checking sex recorded on government issued ID is something that would have occurred to anyone prior to this Culture War fight.

My understanding of the social norm is that people would be unhappy if someone who appeared to be a woman entered the men's bathroom

This strongly contradicts my experiences in men's restrooms. Women seem rather entitled to using the men's room when theirs is occupied, with the concern being for their privacy and safety rather than the men's even when arguments against it are made.

Yeah, no way. You're saying that pre-, say, 2010, if a masculine looking woman went to the women's bathroom, someone got upset, and she pulled out her ID to prove she's female, people would still be upset at her that she didn't go to the men's room?

I'm saying that I can't imagine "pulling out her ID" ever being a step in resolving that conflict.

I can totally believe a person with ambiguous gender presentation not being welcome in either bathroom.

Why not? It was an easy and relatively non-intrusive way of providing some sort of confirmation for your birth sex.

In any case, the only way your original claim would be true, is if people were still upset upon getting the confirmation.

Progressives use the word "gender" to mean some sort of inherent essence of manness or womanness, that is seperate from your body, rather than a synonym for biological sex. So he used the different meanings of the word to jokingly claim you're agreeing with him.

Further, he believes the separation of bathrooms/locker rooms/etc. has always been done on the gender-as-inherent-essence basis, and that it's the conservatives who were trying to change the rules recently.