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Recently, in another thread, RonF offered an opinion on trans people using bathrooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n I wrote a reply, and then decided that it was too far off-topic for that comment thread. So here it is in its own post.<\/p>\n RonF:<\/p>\n But a lot of people don\u2019t want to have to share a bathroom with someone who is biologically not the same sex they are, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the province of the State to force them to have to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Good heavens! Of course<\/i> not. You shouldn\u2019t be forced to use a bathroom with someone who makes you uncomfortable! If you see a person in a bathroom whom you suspect to be trans, I think you have every right to not use that bathroom and to seek a different bathroom, or to use the private bathroom you keep in your home!<\/p>\n Likewise, if someone is getting onto a subway car, and sees a trans person on the car, or they see you on the car, they have every right to wait for a different car. After all, during rush hour, they may well end up a lot closer to the trans person in that car, or to you, and for longer, than they will to anyone in a bathroom. (Yes, I know; their pants will be up, so they\u2019ll be safe. I\u2019m guessing you\u2019ve never happened to be wearing an above-the-knee skirt in a subway car during rush hour. You might feel less safe. I certainly do.)<\/p>\n What the State should not be able to do is use force to clear you out of the bathroom or the subway car in order to protect them from their discomfort at your proximity.<\/p>\n It apparently baffles many people, especially conservatives, that trans people seem unable to understand that we make people uncomfortable. We\u2019re well aware of it, and we probably understand it better than such people think. What baffles many trans people is the cis people who think that there\u2019s Some Other Place for trans people to go. There\u2019s not. If I were to go into the men\u2019s room, there would be a lot of consternation. Men would object. If I walked in and checked my look in the mirror, a man using a urinal next to me would almost certainly feel uncomfortable and awkward. There\u2019s a decent chance that I\u2019d be assaulted. And then either I\u2019d end up injured or dead, or, because I am who I am, he\u2019d end up restrained and\/or injured, and in either case my injuries or his injuries would be my fault because people would demand to know why I wasn\u2019t in the women\u2019s room.<\/p>\n No matter what I choose, if anything goes wrong, I should have been in Some Other Place, and people would tell me that it\u2019s my fault that I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n People wanting me to go to Some Other Place, when Some Other Place doesn\u2019t actually exist, is people not wanting me not to exist. And if they use the power of the State to compel me to go Some Other Place which doesn\u2019t exist, that\u2019s using the power of the State to compel me not to exist, or to make life hard enough that maybe I\u2019ll take care of that problem myself.<\/p>\n That there\u2019s no Other Place should, by itself, be sufficient. I have to go Some Place That Actually Exists. It doesn\u2019t matter what cis people conjecture would happen when they picture their own personal bogeytranswoman in their minds and their imagined reaction to her. I can tell you, from actual lived experience, that my presence doesn\u2019t alarm cis people. Those same cis people can\u2019t tell you that from their<\/i> experience, because they don\u2019t know that they\u2019ve shared a bathroom with a trans woman, because I don\u2019t volunteer that I\u2019m trans when I\u2019m in the women\u2019s room. But I<\/i> know.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s passing privilege, because I can pass as cis. Leave it aside; it matters, but it shouldn\u2019t. You know what should matter? My society has set aside a place where only women can go, and I\u2019m a woman, so I go there. My society has set aside a place where only men can go, and I\u2019m a woman, so I don\u2019t go there.<\/p>\n Some people in my society worry that I will assault women while I\u2019m in women\u2019s space. Trans women assaulting cis women in women\u2019s spaces is a thing which basically doesn\u2019t happen; people wanting to keep trans women out have had to<\/a> resort<\/a> to<\/a> making<\/a> incidents<\/a> up<\/a>. On the other hand, people assaulting trans women in women\u2019s spaces has happened many times.<\/p>\n (No doubt it will eventually happen, somewhere, sometime, that a trans woman assaults a cis woman in women\u2019s space. And then it will leap from \u201cnever\u201d to \u201cstaggeringly rare\u201d.)<\/p>\n Trans women aren\u2019t assaulting cis women in women\u2019s spaces. Cis people are giving themselves the heebie-jeebies over a thing which doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s my question: why is this even my problem? Why do you want me to make sacrifices to pander to the groundless fears of other people? I don\u2019t control any of this. I didn\u2019t ask to be trans. I never wanted to be trans. I used to experience shame at being trans, but I don\u2019t anymore, because I dug into that poison oak of fear and loathing, rooted out as much as I could, and planted healthy things where the fear and loathing used to grow. I had to do that, inside myself, to be at peace with myself. I\u2019m still working on it, but mainly with regard to other issues. On trans issues, the bulk of it is done. It took a lot of work, but it was in my<\/i> head, and so even though I didn\u2019t put that stuff in there, it was my<\/i> job to deal with it. The grief I get about being trans no longer comes from within. It comes from without, from other people who want me to carry their load.<\/p>\n This discomfort which other people experience is not in my<\/i> head. It\u2019s in their<\/i> heads. There\u2019s no way for someone outside their head to edit its contents (and thank Heaven for that!). They have to do it themselves. And it takes hard work and humility and sometimes pain to root it out. It\u2019s difficult. I know this, because I did it. But I can\u2019t do it for other people. They have to do it for themselves. It\u2019s in their<\/i> heads.<\/p>\n But many people are lazy and would rather impose on other people, hurt other people, than work on their own embedded prejudices. Which, okay, whatever. But it\u2019s hard to have respect for lazy people.<\/p>\n Grace<\/p>\n PS. I\u2019m not a cyborg. I\u2019m 100% biological. And the existing neurological evidence suggests that I\u2019m female. So, the phrase \u201cbiologically the same sex\u201d is just another attempt to set up a bulwark so that you can draw a line around \u201cwomen\u201d with me outside of it, without having to actually say it in so many words. It\u2019s equivalent to saying that a civil union is just like a marriage, except for the name. But if there\u2019s anything the debate taught us, it\u2019s that in some meaningful way, a civil union is not a marriage; there was clearly a meaningful difference, or people wouldn\u2019t have fought so hard to keep marriage heterosexual. Well, clearly, in some meaningful way, saying \u201cnot biologically a woman\u201d is saying \u201cnot a woman\u201d.<\/p>\n Please. Stop drawing that line there. Surely your time could be spent more productively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, in another thread, RonF offered an opinion on trans people using bathrooms. I wrote a reply, and then decided that it was too far off-topic for that comment thread. So here it is in its own post. RonF: But … Continue reading
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