Gender identity issues

Aunt Bea said:
IMO sharing a bathroom is about behavior and common courtesy more than it is about gender or orientation.
I've been in very few restrooms over the years where people of either sex could not peacefully coexist.
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I just think. ‘Ladies Public Toilets’, should be just that, the thought of using a cubicle with a strange man next door dosn’t appeal to me in the slightest and of course there is also the issue of sexual assaults and harassment, I imagine it would be open season for paedophiles to stick on and dress a follow young girls into the toilets under the pretext of being Transgender
 

Wren said:
I just think. ‘Ladies Public Toilets’, should be just that, the thought of using a cubicle with a strange man next door dosn’t appeal to me in the slightest and of course there is also the issue of sexual assaults and harassment, I imagine it would be open season for paedophiles to stick on and dress a follow young girls into the toilets under the pretext of being Transgender
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I understand what you are saying. The key word in your post that IMO helps make my point is imagine. I believe it is the things that we imagine that cause most of our problems and not reality.

I apologize to the OP for taking this thread off the track and into the weeds.
 
sad to be in such a delama ' stress of going thro the ordeal of change -hospitals dr--- etc waiting for the nxt operation ---hormone s to take --
truly sorry for the individual , but understanding and caring and listening helps - but like all things in this life' we do manage to go thro it …………...
 

toffee said:
sad to be in such a delama ' stress of going thro the ordeal of change -hospitals dr--- etc waiting for the nxt operation ---hormone s to take --
truly sorry for the individual , but understanding and caring and listening helps - but like all things in this life' we do manage to go thro it …………...
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I am good friends with two women whose children have undergone gender transitions. One male to female, and one female to male. Both Moms have been hugely supportive, (they are both divorced) and female to male child also has a sibling, a brother. He had to adjust a bit to going from having a sister to having a brother, but also became an advocate for his sibling.

Just as an aside, it's interesting to converse with these women about their children. There are liberal use of the pronouns "he" and "she" just as their would be in any conversation we'd have about each others' children. But in these particular cases, each of their Moms would switch from the feminine to the masculine (or the reverse) and back again, depending on which era of their child's life they were talking about!! "When she was a baby" vs "now that he's an adult" or "she had really blonde hair when she was little, but his hair is so dark now!" That kind of thing. Both these Moms switch back and forth effortlessly. I admire them so much for the love and support they've shown their children, and has been discussed in other threads, their kids' genders are secondary to them, the fact that they're people first is what's paramount!
 
About the ever-popular restroom issue (especially in this country), I can't for the life of me figure out why restrooms have to be group activities. In other words, just have several individual, unisex booths. It works on planes. (The booths hopefully would be a little larger and more comfortable than the planes' restroom facilities, but same idea.) End of problem.

To get back to my original question, my own problem with it boils down to pronouns. Some trans people wish to be referred to by the pronoun of the gender they identify with, not the one they were born with. Others want to be called "they." The rules for this seem to be changing all the time. The idea of referring to a single person as "they" seems kind of ridiculous and very confusing. Example:

"My granddaughter, who used to be my grandson, is coming to visit next week. I can't wait to see them!"

"Oh, is she now part of a couple, or bringing a friend?"

"No, they are coming alone. They are a single person. They want to show me their new dress, and they will wear it here."

And so on. The English language was not designed with this in mind!

On a more serious note, this whole trans thing seems to me a form of mental illness, heavily promoted by those afflicted by it. I've even read that some in the homosexual community are pretty irritated
by the way the "trans" group has latched onto the gay rights movement, added their initial to LGBT, and are demonstrating in the gay rights parades.

Obviously, this is nothing that really affects me, or that I would do anything about, even if I could. But everyone has a right to an opinion about it, especially when it's being shoved in our face.
 
Wren said:
I don’t know, or care, enough about ‘Gender issues’ to give an opinion, but I certainly don’t enjoy having to wash my hands, after using a Ladies public toilet, with a man in a dress at the next sink, as happened last week !

So I do think there should be Gender friendly toilets for anybody who chooses to use them
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I was at a lovely cantina in Mexico a few years ago. Toilets were in small gender neutral rooms, roughly the size of closets. Immediately outside the bathroom was a long sink with several faucets. After using the rest room I washed my hands next to a gentleman who had also just used the facility. It stuck in my mind because I thought it was such a clever way for them to save space and plumbing resources. It also served as a little social pressure to make sure that employees and patrons were washing their hands.

BTW, not uncomfortable at all.
 
Sunny said:
About the ever-popular restroom issue (especially in this country), I can't for the life of me figure out why restrooms have to be group activities. In other words, just have several individual, unisex booths. It works on planes. (The booths hopefully would be a little larger and more comfortable than the planes' restroom facilities, but same idea.) End of problem.

To get back to my original question, my own problem with it boils down to pronouns. Some trans people wish to be referred to by the pronoun of the gender they identify with, not the one they were born with. Others want to be called "they." The rules for this seem to be changing all the time. The idea of referring to a single person as "they" seems kind of ridiculous and very confusing. Example:

"My granddaughter, who used to be my grandson, is coming to visit next week. I can't wait to see them!"

"Oh, is she now part of a couple, or bringing a friend?"

"No, they are coming alone. They are a single person. They want to show me their new dress, and they will wear it here."

And so on. The English language was not designed with this in mind!

On a more serious note, this whole trans thing seems to me a form of mental illness, heavily promoted by those afflicted by it. I've even read that some in the homosexual community are pretty irritated
by the way the "trans" group has latched onto the gay rights movement, added their initial to LGBT, and are demonstrating in the gay rights parades.

Obviously, this is nothing that really affects me, or that I would do anything about, even if I could. But everyone has a right to an opinion about it, especially when it's being shoved in our face.
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The pronoun awkwardness merely points up a frustrating limitation of the English language. Just as Ms. was added to move a woman's marriage status into the none-of-yer-bizness realm, it's time to devise and adopt a gender neutral singular pronoun. Describing people who are transitioning or gender fluid isn't the only place this challenge arises. I find myself often using the awkward he/she and him/her for people whose gender is unknown to me. And it's not just humans. Someone says (ahem) he/she got a new dog named. I don't really care about the dog's gender, but find myself asking just so that I can use the proper pronoun during the conversation.

I've never heard that the homosexual community might be irritated by trans and others who've appended themselves to the gay movement. Quite the opposite. More like: been there, done that and happy to help you through. Wide cultural understanding and acceptance for one type on non-hetero opens the door to acceptance for others.
 
Sunny said:
I don't remember ever seeing this issue discussed here, though it seems to be in the news a fair amount.

How do you feel about the "trans" people? The other day, I came across the term "gender fluid." I looked it up, and it means exactly what it sounds like. At times male, at other times female. Sometimes neither. Many of the trans people prefer to be called "they" rather than he or she.

I have trouble wrapping my mind around this concept. It seems to me that a person's sexual identify is present in every cell of their body. Our DNA identifies our gender. (Doesn't mean we have to be happy about it, it just means that's what we are.) And it has nothing to do with gay or straight, as far as I know.

Any opinions on this?
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I don't feel any way about trans people. It's their business, not mine, and I've no right to judge their choices about their bodies.
 
Wren said:
I just think. ‘Ladies Public Toilets’, should be just that, the thought of using a cubicle with a strange man next door dosn’t appeal to me in the slightest and of course there is also the issue of sexual assaults and harassment, I imagine it would be open season for paedophiles to stick on and dress a follow young girls into the toilets under the pretext of being Transgender
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I don't know why it would be an issue of sexual assault, etc. People who have transitioned ARE the new sex in their minds, and therefore a trans woman would be no more likely to assault another woman than a cis woman would. AND, persons who have transitioned to female do not look like a man in a dress. Hormones and surgeries have changed their bodies to where they have lost the male secondary sex characterstics and have developed female ones. And do you really think pedophiles are going to dress up as woman just to follow people into the restroom? I also think a public restroom is an unlikely place to be assaulting people in the first place -- they are actually pretty public -- can you imagine a sexual assault going on in a Wal-Mart restroom with other people around?

How do you feel about sharing restroom with lesbians -- does that bother you, too?
 
Butterfly said:
I don't know why it would be an issue of sexual assault, etc. People who have transitioned ARE the new sex in their minds, and therefore a trans woman would be no more likely to assault another woman than a cis woman would. AND, persons who have transitioned to female do not look like a man in a dress. Hormones and surgeries have changed their bodies to where they have lost the male secondary sex characterstics and have developed female ones. And do you really think pedophiles are going to dress up as woman just to follow people into the restroom? I also think a public restroom is an unlikely place to be assaulting people in the first place -- they are actually pretty public -- can you imagine a sexual assault going on in a Wal-Mart restroom with other people around?

How do you feel about sharing restroom with lesbians -- does that bother you, too?
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What if it does bother her? Is she not entitled to her own opinions or do we have to be constantly barraged by the prevailing societal moral righteousness? As far as I know, lesbians are women and as such, welcome in the "ladies room."

A man can have all the "gender reassignment" he pleases but in his DNA, he's forever a man.
 
‘I imagine it would be open season for paedophiles to stick on a dress and follow young girls into the toilets under the pretext of being Transgender’

‘I also think a public restroom is an unlikely place to be assaulting people in the first place -- they are actually pretty public -- can you imagine a sexual assault going on in a Wal-Mart restroom with other people around? ‘


Many sexual assaults take place in Public Toilets, these facilities are not just in large stores, we have them in parks, by beaches, libraries, in the countryside, swimming pools and sports centres, where many occur in the ladies changing rooms, most taking place in unisex cubicles incidentally

This has nothing to do with my private opinion, just stating the facts, google it if you want statistics
 
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Yes, public restrooms can be dangerous places, but I'd wager very few restroom sexual assaults (pedophilia or otherwise) have been committed by transvestites, transgenders, or people cross-dressing merely to gain access. Mostly these crimes are perpetrated by males wearing garden-variety men's clothing who manage to slip into a ladies room unnoticed - or attack a boy in a men's room.
 
StarSong said:
Yes, public restrooms can be dangerous places, but I'd wager very few restroom sexual assaults (pedophilia or otherwise) have been committed by transvestites, transgenders, or people cross-dressing merely to gain access. Mostly these crimes are perpetrated by males wearing garden-variety men's clothing who manage to slip into a ladies room unnoticed - or attack a boy in a men's room.
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Qft.
 
Sigh, OK, back to the bathrooms again. I'll repeat my own statement about this. Wouldn't it end all the bathroom assaults right then and there?

About the ever-popular restroom issue (especially in this country), I can't for the life of me figure out why restrooms have to be group activities. In other words, just have several individual, unisex booths. It works on planes. (The booths hopefully would be a little larger and more comfortable than the planes' restroom facilities, but same idea.) End of problem.
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C'est Moi said:
A man can have all the "gender reassignment" he pleases but in his DNA, he's forever a man.
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It is not just men who transition to female. Women have transitioned as well. Most well known is Sonny & Cher's daughter, Chastity transitioning to Chaz.

There are so many places now that have "Family bathrooms" to make it easier for a parent to go in with the opposite sex child. They are single room bathrooms. They are also handicapped accessible. They can be used by either gender, do not have to have a child with them.

Remember that primarily, gays and trans people are NOT pedophiles. Most are heterosexual men. As for a "man in a dress" being a predator in the bathroom, looking for little girls....what about the men in the mens room looking for little boys?

I still say live and let live. It is not all about the bathroom, there is so much more. Considering all the negative out there, and knowing that men and women still would choose to transition than stay unhappy, should say something to every one.

If it were your son or daughter wanting to transition, or a good friend...or someone on THIS forum. Would you think any less of them? Or love them less?
 
Marie5656 said:
It is not just men who transition to female. Women have transitioned as well. Most well known is Sonny & Cher's daughter, Chastity transitioning to Chaz.

There are so many places now that have "Family bathrooms" to make it easier for a parent to go in with the opposite sex child. They are single room bathrooms. They are also handicapped accessible. They can be used by either gender, do not have to have a child with them.

Remember that primarily, gays and trans people are NOT pedophiles. Most are heterosexual men. As for a "man in a dress" being a predator in the bathroom, looking for little girls....what about the men in the mens room looking for little boys?

I still say live and let live. It is not all about the bathroom, there is so much more. Considering all the negative out there, and knowing that men and women still would choose to transition than stay unhappy, should say something to every one.

If it were your son or daughter wanting to transition, or a good friend...or someone on THIS forum. Would you think any less of them? Or love them less?
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Qft.
 
Marie5656 said:
It is not just men who transition to female. Women have transitioned as well. Most well known is Sonny & Cher's daughter, Chastity transitioning to Chaz.

There are so many places now that have "Family bathrooms" to make it easier for a parent to go in with the opposite sex child. They are single room bathrooms. They are also handicapped accessible. They can be used by either gender, do not have to have a child with them.

Remember that primarily, gays and trans people are NOT pedophiles. Most are heterosexual men. As for a "man in a dress" being a predator in the bathroom, looking for little girls....what about the men in the mens room looking for little boys?

I still say live and let live. It is not all about the bathroom, there is so much more. Considering all the negative out there, and knowing that men and women still would choose to transition than stay unhappy, should say something to every one.

If it were your son or daughter wanting to transition, or a good friend...or someone on THIS forum. Would you think any less of them? Or love them less?
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I am perfectly aware that some women have gender "transitions." However the discussion was about men in the ladies' bathroom so that was the focus of my remarks.

Honestly, I don't give a happy damn what people do with their own bodies. I just get really tired of hearing about it.
 
My sons would have been mortified if I went into a "family bathroom" with them after about age 5. They were entitled to their privacy. Ditto our daughter and my husband. I can see checking a single stall bathroom to be sure it's clear, and waiting outside for one's elementary aged child, but going into the toilet compartment with them? Only if there were no other choice - even then, I'd find a reason to turn my back.
 
I've never heard that the homosexual community might be irritated by trans and others who've appended themselves to the gay movement. Quite the opposite. More like: been there, done that and happy to help you through.
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Starsong, the fact that you've never heard about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. There was an article in the paper about it, a couple of years ago. Sorry I can't copy and paste the entire article; it was too long ago. But I didn't hallucinate it. Some people in the gay rights community might feel as you seem to think they do. But others do not.

Gay doesn't equal transgender. They are totally separate from each other. But apparently, the trans folks were smart enough to latch onto the gay rights movement.
 
Sunny said:
Starsong, the fact that you've never heard about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. There was an article in the paper about it, a couple of years ago. Sorry I can't copy and paste the entire article; it was too long ago. But I didn't hallucinate it. Some people in the gay rights community might feel as you seem to think they do. But others do not.

Gay doesn't equal transgender. They are totally separate from each other. But apparently, the trans folks were smart enough to latch onto the gay rights movement.
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I don't disagree that some in the gay community might take issue with trans and others who've bundled themselves onto the lesbian and gay movements and apologize if you read my remark that way. I was pointing out that it doesn't seem to be a widespread attitude. Virtually all gay outreaches, celebrations, community centers, AIDS foundations, etc., offer (and accept) supportive services for all people, even heterosexuals.

It's absolutely true that transgenders and cross-dressers are not necessarily gay. Nevertheless, most share a common bond of the pain of discrimination and being marginalized because of their sexual/gender expression or orientation.
 

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