xkcd
Campaigns
TS-Si supports open and immediate access to publicly funded research.
Petition: remove women of transsexual / intersex history from the GLAAD Media Reference Guide. [ sign ]
Read: Andrea Rosenfield's call for reform.
Opening Doors to Transsexual Medical Research
TS-Si
is dedicated to the acceptance, medical
treatment, and legal
protection of individuals correcting the misalignment
of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition
into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
is dedicated to the acceptance, medical
treatment, and legal
protection of individuals correcting the misalignment
of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition
into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
| Towards a Philosophy of Bathroom Facilities |
 |
 |
| Opinion - Global Warning | |||
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |||
| Tuesday, 11 September 2007 20:15 | |||
|
Methinks the bathroom issue smells too much of testosterone
Washington, DC, USA. Science observes the universe, records what has occurred, and then develops a testable  theory that can explain those observations and make predictions on future ones.
Albert Einstein was very good at thi...The relatively recent development of the concept of personal privacy, and the concurrent rise of individual modesty, also colors our views on the bathroom.
Originally, of course, as hunter-gatherers, we did our business wherever and whenever the need arose (hopefully, however, not in our sleeping nests and caves and probably, as with modern humans, off in the woods a bit from the rest of the hunting pack or softball team). By 2000 B. C. E., domestic bathrooms appeared in Crete.
By 60 B. C. E., during the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman bath house was in full swing. Conservative in their attitudes towards women, mixed baths were prohibited and there were separate baths for men and women (and presumably separate public restrooms). [1]
Depending on your country of origin, a bathroom can be called a toilet, loo, lavatory, or Water Closet (WC). All of them are plumbing fixtures and disposal systems designed to get rid of human waste (urine and fecal matter). [2]
The demand for personal privacy and modesty has made separation by sex so characteristic of public restrooms that pictograms of a man or a woman are often used to indicate where the respective bathrooms are. [3] Toilets in private homes are practically never separated by sex, except in the Middle East.
By 2000 C. E. in the West, the public bathroom has become a battle ground for gender theory and those people who do easily fit within society’s expectations for external genitalia (vaginas in the women’s and girls’ restrooms, penises in the men’s and boys’). If you are suspected of using the wrong restroom, especially if you have a penis, security guards and police may haul you off to jail, the courts may label you a sexual predator and place severe limits on your liberty.
The most significant problem in public space is one of intimidation. Women, in general, are wary of sharing public bathrooms with a strange man. [4] When that public space is sex specific like a restroom, a place that everyone should be able to go without incident and without feeling intimidated, addressing this problem becomes critical.
Three givens —
it’s the nature of the human animal that cannot be washed away by religious belief or social theory.
Given that, it is understandable that many women are reluctant to share their bathrooms with a transgendered male who has testosterone in his body and a working penis. You cannot make public policy that ignores the reality of female existence. Until we find a fool proof way to distinguish the sexual predators who walk among us, women must always err on caution’s side when dealing with men they do not know. [5]
This does not mean that transgendered males should be harassed or forced to hold their urine while out in public (or resort to peeing in dark alleys or heavily forested fields). Transgendered males, no less so than women, should be free from sexual harassment or physical intimidation, but, just as women must, they need to be aware of their surroundings and not knowingly place themselves in physical jeopardy. [6]
For transgendered men, the problem is not with the women’s restroom but with the men’s. The problem is with the men in the men’s restroom (the non-transgendered men, the morally indignant men, the sexually repressed men) who greet the transgendered among them with harassment and violence.
No one should be threatened for the clothes they wear or the life they chose to lead (assuming the life they lead does not result in violence on others). But the problem is with the men and that is where the solution lies. If transgendered males are harassed in the men's room, then the harassers need to be kicked out. If anyone, transgendered or not, is beaten for using the restroom, the aggressors, the ones who did the beating, need to be arrested and removed from society.
Anyone can — or should — understand why women in the women’s restroom might be uncomfortable with having a “male bodied woman” in their midst (it’s the muscle and working penis thing), but the men need to grow up and stop playing their macho, little boy games. Male adolescence behavior is neither attractive or sexy once the boys are too old for middle school.
By the same token, transgendered males cannot ignore the impact of their transgenderism on others. They need to be aware of their surroundings and anticipate the reaction of others. The faux innocence that many transgendered men cloak themselves in is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest – you cannot be transgendered and think the world will not notice.
A critical weakness in the campaign to let transgendered, fully penised males into women’s restrooms is the argument that transgendered males are not safe in a normal public men’s room. They fear the other men will cause them physical harm.
If that is an acceptable rationale for transgendered men to use the women’s room, if transgendered men do not want to enter men’s restrooms because of the violence men might possibly do to them, why is it any less important, any less acceptable, any less correct, for women to bar men from entering a women’s restroom, fearing the violence men may do them?
Do the rights of transgendered men to live their lives as they want have more value than the rights of women to live theirs?
Are we to accept that when push comes to shove, the needs of men outweigh the needs of women? That bullshit went out of style decades ago, except of course in the minds of those men who continue to want to impose male will on women everywhere.
Methinks the bathroom issue smells too much of testosterone. What say you?
1 The word plumbing comes from the Latin word for lead (plumbum).
2 The word "toilet" refers to the fixture itself or to the room containing the fixture, especially in British English. In North American English, the word "toilet" refers solely to the fixture itself and not to the room that contains it (asking for the "toilet" in North America would be considered vulgar). North American euphemisms for toilet are bathroom, restroom, washroom, men's room or ladies' room. The author speaks standard North American English.
3 Symbols such as the DOT pictograms have been criticized for perpetuating gender stereotypes; however, there may be no practical alternatives.
4 Any unknown male who approaches a female must be viewed by any rational female as a potential sexual predator as must any male, known or unknown, who surprises a woman in an enclosed, private space. That’s just a matter of biology, physical strength, and personal safety that must be considered by all women when they are out in public.
5 It is noteworthy that college campuses (where everyone pretends to know everyone else and all students are assumed to be pure and studious) are in the forefront of a movement for gender neutral bathrooms. These are the same colleges that hold “take back the night” demonstrations against male sexual predation and construct elaborate contracts that students must be followed to assure mutual consent to intercourse.
6 A transgendered male needs to remember he has surrendered male prerogative and no longer is protected by the good fellowship of men.
 Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is a Co-Founder & Principal of TS-Si. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. She maintains another site, StarPoet.com, for her poetry and literary works.Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. Use the form below or email via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
Email this
Comments (0)
 Write comment
|
|||
| Last Updated on Wednesday, 12 September 2007 01:22 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
Show/hide comment form
The TS-Si News Service
and the TS-Si Research Service are collaborations of TS-Si officials, staff, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The contents do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si or its owners, participants, partners, or affiliates.