A “would you rather” bathroom wars question

Last updated on: April 14, 2016 at 11:46 am by Jane the Actuary

A “would you rather” bathroom wars question 2016-04-14T11:46:03-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Short and simple:

Women: Would you rather be changing, in a women’s locker room in a public place, alongside an individual who “presents” as a man, to use the terminology, but who, let’s say, has a woman’s parts underneath? Or with an individual who “presents” as a woman, but who has a penis?

Men: Would you rather be changing, in a men’s locker room in a public place, alongside an individual who “presents” as a woman, to use the terminology, but who has a penis? Or with an individual who “presents” as a man, but with no penis?

I suspect it matters much less to men than to women, so specify which applies if it’s not obvious. And I’m speaking specifically of locker rooms, e.g., at the public pool or at a health club, not just who pees in the stall next to you.

And it also seems to me that this has become an issue where it wasn’t before, not just because of a push for Transgender Rights, but because of the growing claim that one’s gender is purely determined by one’s self-identification. After all, it used to be that the term was “transexual” and the assumption was that the person would “change sex” through a series of operations with the end result of looking passably like the sex one wished to “change into.” Now, the new idea is that surgery is unnecessary, and from what little I understand, it’s more common for such an individual to have “top surgery” but not “bottom surgery”; what’s more, the new push is for states (or federal governments, in other countries) to provide official recognition of the altered sex, upon request, without requiring “proof” or physical changes.

The link that led me to ask this: from Mother Jones, ” I’m a Transgender Man in North Carolina. Here’s What the Bathroom Law Means for Me,” which describes the experience of an individual, born female but now taking testosterone, beginning again to use women’s restrooms after having been using men’s restrooms. While there is no actual harm being recounted, the person describes a fear: “I’m afraid to leave the bathroom and to be met by that woman’s boyfriend or husband or an authority figure. Because I could easily be socked.” Is this fear reasonable? I don’t know. Are there particularly many instances of people getting punched because they’re suspected of wrongly using the women’s room?

Me, my biggest gripe with the women’s locker room at the pool is when mothers disregard the sign that only boys under age 5 are allowed in (there are family changing rooms as an alternative for older boys, when a mother isn’t comfortable with the boy using the men’s locker room alone).

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