On Bathrooms and Johnny Manziel

[dude]

[Cole Parker]

Very impressive.

C

[Nigel Gordon]

Impressive but he forgot to mention Female on Male violence.

[ChrisR]

Okay, he has some relatively good points, but I think he is deliberately avoiding the issue regarding the trans-gender bathroom.

The example of the facility he showed at his church is pretty close to the facility that's been in every home I've ever lived. It's a sink and a toilet in a small room with a lock on the door for privacy. Granted it has the luxury of urinal and stool so the user can be choosy, but that's it. I really don't think even the most conservative folks would complain. I've seen exactly the same layout at Taco Bell for years now. it's in many airports and public buildings, etc. It's also handy because it's spaciousness fulfills the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Fine.

But the impression given by much of the press is that uni-gender bathrooms are open to all at any time with no attempt at privacy. That, I think, is the problem. I can't say I'm personally keen on guys kicking open the door to my throne while I'm doing my business (whichever it might be) and I'm equally as un-keen on gals, transgenders, or anybody else doing so.

This means that if a place installs a single-occupant facility, that's fine with me. Of course my high school men's rooms each had 4 stools and about a dozen urinals, so I guess that means replacements'll need 16 independent privies with the associated costs, not to mention a lot of construction and subsequent daily maintenance required. I don't think it's worthwhile. So build a few multi-purpose single-seat rooms for the few, fine.

But if they do end up mandating and installing the ubiquitous "everybody's welcome" rooms, I swear I will explode the first time somebody screams "who pissed on the seat?" or the dreaded "you left the f*cking toilet seat up again!"

[Cole Parker]

To me this is a completely silly, inane, insipid argument. There's no merit or substance in it. And I don't mean to demean or disparage trans people at all. But I simply don't see how where they go to the bathroom is a huge deal.

As far as I know, and I know very little about it indeed, women's bathrooms have stalls. The actual 'going' part of going to the bathroom is done in private. So it's no big deal for men who are identifying as women to use these facilities. With the stall door closed. Just like the women do. Which they're identifying as.

As for women identifying as men and wanting to use their facilities, are they planning to stand up at a urinal? No, I sincerely doubt that. It only makes sense, unless they're trying to prove some point that's way beyond me, that they'd use a stall. And shut the door, just like men do. Which they're identifying as. Now there are some boys' and/or mens' bathrooms without doors on the stalls. Not many, thank god. But in some schools, they think the boys will do who knows what if they have the privacy that stall doors permit, and so they've removed them. The answer to this? Put the doors back on. Problem solved.

So where's the problem? No one is being exposed. No one is seeing anything they don't want to see, or displaying anything they don't want displayed. This, to me, whole deal is the height of nonsense.

C

[Graeme]

I agree with Cole's analysis, but when you look beyond bathrooms to change rooms, things get more complicated. Most male change rooms I've been in do not have a private area for a transgender male to get changed in. I don't know about female change rooms.

[Merkin]

The outhouse on my grandfather’s farm was unisexual, on a first-come, first-served basis. On cold winter mornings there was plenty of push and shove among all sexes concerned. No one thought it should be otherwise.
Likewise, the bathrooms in every private home I’ve ever been in have been essentially 'gender neutral', and everyone takes their turn.

The issue is not access; it is privacy, both for toilet rooms and changing rooms. What school administrations are so worked up about is the necessity of having to face, finally, the redesign of locker rooms and shower facilities so that individual privacy can be assured. I think it is a good thing indeed to force institutional designers to rethink facilities that all too often had already become risky environments leading to bad behaviors long before the issue of transgender use became a hot topic.

[Pedro]

When I read Graeme & Merkin's postings a little bell rang in my head announcing that rare thing: the arrival of a thought.

Not being particularly 'sportif' my sample size is necessarily small, but in that limited experience I think that sports changing facilities are almost always open plan , although gender segregated, with one exception - swimming, where modesty cubicles for changing are common. I can't say for sure if this is true for both publicly provided facilities and private ones (hotels etc) but I think so.

So if it is not acceptable for swimming, why are open plan change rooms acceptable for other sports?

Having said that the Sports Psychologists will no doubt tell us there are good reasons for communal changing, especially for team games. Edwardian educationalists probably also thought them character building.

[colinian]

When I read Graeme & Merkin's postings a little bell rang in my head announcing that rare thing: the arrival of a thought.

Not being particularly 'sportif' my sample size is necessarily small, but in that limited experience I think that sports changing facilities are almost always open plan , although gender segregated, with one exception - swimming, where modesty cubicles for changing are common. I can't say for sure if this is true for both publicly provided facilities and private ones (hotels etc) but I think so.

So if it is not acceptable for swimming, why are open plan change rooms acceptable for other sports?

Having said that the Sports Psychologists will no doubt tell us there are good reasons for communal changing, especially for team games. Edwardian educationalists probably also thought them character building.

Swimmers and divers in my high school (Las Lomas High in Walnut Creek, CA) used the open plan locker rooms and showers, same as the guys who went out for football, soccer, basketball, wrestling, water polo, baseball, lacrosse, rugby (yes, we had varsity and JV rugby teams), cross country, track and field, tennis, etc. I never saw anyone who played golf get changed in our locker room; I assume that they used the clubhouse at the golf course. When we hosted other schools they used a separate visitors' locker room.

I have no idea what the girls' locker rooms and showers were like.

Colin

[vwl]

We've existed -- well, as far as I know -- in a don't-ask-don't-tell environment, so I'm not sure what problem the government is trying to solve. Clearly, if a facility is single-use, the door can be locked and privacy maintained irrespective of whether it says men, women or restroom on the door. It is only with communal facilities that any problem arises, but does the problem really rise to the level of a Federal 'edict' that is serious enough to overcome the desire for privacy.

I don't think it's the transgender people who will cause the problem. No, it is the pervert -- probably a male claiming to be a woman -- with an iPhone, taking pictures for the internet or worse who will really cause the problems. Since there's no registry of transgender people, there would be no way to exclude him.

Don't ask, don't tell worked. Why raise a ruckus that may backfire against the LGBT community. [in contrast, don't ask, don't tell was insufficient for gay rights.]

[Chris James]

​You have but to think of those middle and high school bathrooms where the doors on the toilets were removed. I found that especially true in Catholic schools where they were trying to remove any chance that a student might sit down and masturbate....what a sin, as if removing the doors wasn't a grave sin in itself.

Of course I doubt if a transgender student would attend Catholic schools, who would be foolish enough to put up with the dogma of the world's most perverse church? Bathrooms would be safer if priests were not allowed in them.

[Cole Parker]

I don't think it's the transgender people who will cause the problem. No, it is the pervert -- probably a male claiming to be a woman -- with an iPhone, taking pictures for the internet or worse who will really cause the problems.

Really? I can't see anyone in a bathroom taking pictures and getting away with it. Where is he going to stand, at the urinals shooting down the line? Aren't urinal users going to notice, and perhaps put up a small objection, like taking the phone away and flushing it? Taking pictures in a girls john seems to return to the point: take pictures of what? There's nothing to see.

Pictures in changing rooms would be something else, just like taking pictures in the showers. That can be done now, I guess. Boys can take pictures of boys and post them. Perhaps it's done now. But man oh man, get caught at that? I'm sure you'd be expelled, usually after having the tar beaten out of you. Because again, people would be sure to notice. I doubt in the real world this is a big problem.

[JamesSavik]

Or you'll get drafted by the Brown-stains.

[TalonRider]

When I was in High School, the doors had been removed from the restrooms to make it easier for a teacher to catch someone smoking.

[colinian]

That's against the law in California. There was a problem when one of the Mount Diablo Unified School District principals tried that and I think she was eventually fired.

Colin

[larkin]

I feel that this is a non-issue used to stir-up ignorant people and distract from important things.. ( just my personal opinion)

I think that bathrooms should continue to be gender specific for many reasons having nothing to do with the trans community.

As for a trans person, they should adopt their gender of choice, strive for privacy and use a stall.

[JamesSavik]

Larkin-

But... but... that solution involves the gratuitous use of common sense.

I'm not sure people are up to it anymore.

Sad but too true.

While the hounds are chasing trans-rabbits, the Chinese are rattling a very large saber in the South China Sea.

-JS

I feel that this is a non-issue used to stir-up ignorant people and distract from important things.. ( just my personal opinion)

I think that bathrooms should continue to be gender specific for many reasons having nothing to do with the trans community.

As for a trans person, they should adopt their gender of choice, strive for privacy and use a stall.

[larkin]

Are you sure you don't mean, The US is rattling a very large saber in the South China Sea,10 thousand miles from home.

[Cole Parker]

No, China. Japan is trying to calm things down, talk things over, find some middle ground. China doesn't seem to want to.

C

[JamesSavik]

Are you sure you don't mean, The US is rattling a very large saber in the South China Sea,10 thousand miles from home.

Quite sure. The Chinese are in the face of some allies we've been through quite a lot with- the Filipinos

[larkin]

Quite sure. The Chinese are in the face of some allies we've been through quite a lot with- the Filipinos

Although we agree on the bathroom issue, unlike most of the highly industrialized Asian states, the Philippines is an impoverished, corrupt, disaster with children living out of garbage dumps. That might be because it is a US client state not much better off than Honduras.

In regards to the Spratley Islands, at the end of the day, it is about oil. Has anyone considered diplomacy first. Maybe a conference proposing a joint venture? it might not work, but has the us sponsored something like this instead of moving up fire power?