Bathrooms, Discontinuity and Our Community

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I love it ....Throwing an empty stereotype out like its an insult.. it just highlights your own insecurity and old fashioned bias about men and women....
its fascinating that on one level you want to break down barriers, but on other levels you are stuck in an endless loop of what makes a man and woman circa 1955

i hardly ever try stuff on just to see it on me...life is too short...i guess i'm still a man...or perhaps i just know everything i try on is gonna look adorable..heh
my brother in law tries on a billion pairs of pants to pick one...go figure
also i do not clean my house in heels

and the thing about creepiness is not only a theoretical...i once took a cd out for a "girl time" thing where i gave her the guts to walk into the mall etc... we went into the ladies room and the next thing i know the camera pops out, she is in a stall and asking me to take a picture..sorry that's real..its a CD MINDSET.... when the cd is out and about, that is a wonderful keepsake of the femme side and i've probabaly been in more pictures than i care to count of all the times i went out as a cd..those keepsakes are important and valid...but when i saw the camera came out in the bathroom stall, i had a sense of enough is enough...
surely my friend was hurting no one, but its creepy

The world is not perfect.. and its a simple fact...generally speaking, the majority of women don't want men in their private spaces...

What Melissa said about passing priviledge is spot on.
if you are a transsexual woman and you don't look the part, you need your papers and your quality of life is going to be impacted..especiallly is some jerk gets on your case..
...that is unfair and sad to me, but no law, no ordinance or policy is going to change how people feel..

maybe someday an enlightened crowd will go co-ed or just allow public mens and womens spaces to be totally appearance based...but until then you are just gonna have to deal with it.

[becky77]

Are you telling me you've NEVER tried on a branded dress (Andrea Crawford or Carla Zampati or similar) just to see what you look like in it?

No actually. I have a wedding next year, why would I try on an outfit that I may love but then can't afford. I can't see any fun in that if the price tag is beyond me.

Not fitting or looking right is a long way off from, trying on a load of dresses for a giggle, taking selfies and then leaving them for someone else to try and buy.

I'm not talking about Trans woman here. I'm talking about men with a liking for women's clothing that is purely recreational.
Why does a male identified man think putting on a dress gives him carte Blanche access to a woman's only area?

I know we can't tell the two apart, but the male identified CD should have the courtesy to know they don't belong and not take the piss.

[LeaP]

... the "issue" is that women have a right to womens spaces... its pretty simple...

... and the fact a man feels unsafe doesnt mean he can do whatever he wants to feel safe no matter what anybody thinks.
...
i frankly don't see any way out of it...if you are ts, you got a problem...you can have your legal documents and still have a problem... and its pathetic....and a big cause of it is the insistent invalidation we get from the crossdresser community that conflates their very real problem with our very real problem even though they are not the same..

Exactly. I don't know why people can't see the difference between the problems on one hand, and why there is such insistence on only one possible solution on the other.

TS - Problem: Access to women's restrooms. Pre-op and/or pre-documentation change, a practical problem, a legal minefield, and rights no-woman's-land. Post-Op with documentation updated, this reduces to practicalities and passability (at least until someone passes a "birth sex" bill somewhere).

CD - Problem: Safety in the men's room. End of story.

For TSs, there are a variety of potential solutions for the pre-op, pre-doc contingent, depending on location, whether public or private, etc. There will never be a universal solution in my lifetime that works for everyone, everywhere. Access is by right post-op/post-doc in places of public accomodation. People are trying to dispute that, but go to court right now and the challenger loses.

For CDs, access to women's restrooms is one possible solution. The more I consider it, the more problematic it seems, though. It doesn't actually address the problem, which is men's room safety. It creates the potential for confrontations, if not actual violence, over women's restroom use, and it undermines progress and understanding of a fundamental TS need.

****

The OP theme is the misuse or misapplication of the spectrum concept to mask real differences. Or, put another way, different kinds of things. I like the cite of "intensity" as an example of how a descriptor is used in isolation as if it were a proxy for some thing that is real. Semantically, it's akin to the difference between adjectives and nouns. There are beautiful men and beautiful women. Oh wait ... there are beautiful horses and butterflies, too. Some people even think some spiders are breathtakingly beautiful. (Ew) All these things might be conceptually grouped for a variety of reasons, maybe as simple as having a reference picture collection of beautiful things. But you don't treat the elements of such a collection as if they were the SAME thing.

Quick, which is MORE beautiful - that woman ... or that spider? The problem is in the nature of all such qualifiers when we try to quantitatively normalize them across disparities. (Spectra are just one way of doing that.) The next degree of separation from reality is constructing taxonomies across the normalizations. The third is inputing alikeness based on taxonomic semantics. And the last - and it's all too often a goal (or hidden agenda) - is the crushing of difference for someone's (or some group's) benefit. History of the world, my friend.

So very different people get collected under the transgender umbrella. Recognizing some superficially similar patterns (e.g., intensity), a spectrum is imposed and people are roughly mapped into it. In turn, that's sliced and diced into identity categories which seamlessly blend into one another. Lo and behold, we've transformed everyone into a mere manifestation of a theoretical construct that rests, moreover, on a very shaky foundation. That last is rarely a problem for the militant, enthused, and needy, though ... they will go to tautologies or oxymorons every time! The foundation only LOOKS shaky - they are actually quite sound - we just haven't discovered why yet.

Where's the beef? Just as you can follow the money in finance, you can follow the issues and outcomes with things transgender. Most TS will tell you that they lose out, every time. For decades prior to the transgender conception, everything was lumped under homosexuality (usually as sexual inversion). TS had to fight for a place at the table, i.e., their identity, need, and rights, under that regime, despite having set that table at Stonewall. It's the same pattern under the transgender umbrella. And for the record, I'm not under it.

[Kate T]

Quick, which is MORE beautiful - that woman ... or that spider? The problem is in the nature of all such qualifiers when we try to quantitatively normalize them across disparities. (Spectra are just one way of doing that.) The next degree of separation from reality is constructing taxonomies across the normalizations. The third is inputing alikeness based on taxonomic semantics. And the last - and it's all too often a goal (or hidden agenda) - is the crushing of difference for someone's (or some group's) benefit. History of the world, my friend.

Actually I think lots of spiders are really quite amazingly beautiful A hangover from watching way to many nature documentaries.

It's curious don't you think, as you have pointed out Lea, that nature celebrates and encourages diversity, yet as humans we always just seem to want to crush it

Becky. Consider a CD'er. His wife is DADT, he respects that, he desperately wishes she could understand or see some of how he feels, but she is unable. He lives his life dutifully, fulfils all the socially required responses and responsibilities for his job and family, and yet there is this one thing that can give him an incredible moment of happiness, to stand there looking in a mirror and see himself in a dress and feel just once "I am beautiful". You would truly deny him that simple moment of happiness? Really? There is no way he could ever buy that dress, he has family responsibilities, his children need clothes for school, his wife needs money to get her hair cut and blow dried, the car needs servicing etc. etc. Isn't a little inconvenience worth knowing that you could give that person a moment of happiness, of escape?

[AllieSF]

Becky, It seems that the people that offended you had the store's permission to be in there, or were not prohibited from being in there, and as someone else stated girls and even some women do the same thing. Your complaint should go to the store rather to us here, and based on the rules there in the UK take whatever action is necessary if it is not according to the legal laws of the land. I respect your opinion as just that, your opinion. But, it also seems that you dislike CD's from enjoying the same rights that you have, while in some States here in the USA have been granted us, maybe even in the UK too? I totally disagree with your opinion that a MtF CD "... should know that they do not belong and not take the piss". Did you mean pics? Here where I live it is legally my choice and "I" belong there and go there when presenting as a woman. With regards to "... gives him carte blanche access..", the store or the law gives him that right, just as they give you that same right.

You acknowledge that we can't tell the two apart. Do you also acknowledge that GG's and TS's may also do something similar while in that sacred place, probably when you are not around? Would you complain about them too as you have done here? Life is complicated, and legislating laws and workable rules to allow everyone to live their own true lives is even more complicated. This is a difficult subject for most to understand, but sometimes we get the best that we can get based on what we know and can actually do and enforce. Allowing people access to facilities based on their presentation is a fair and workable law that allows people to be who they are. People like you may get upset, but to me anyway, it sounds more like a complaint about exclusivity than actual human rights and how to enforce those rights.

There are a lot of things in life that that we may dislike, however, when it is legal, we all, including you and me, need to learn to live with it, or go some place else where we do not have problems with it, or lobby with a workable alternative to change the current law. I have learned to live with it, and I seem to live with less insignificant problems and issues.

Regarding this comment "... it's not a funhouse for their CD kicks.", As mentioned above girls and some women do the same thing, so are you saying that these cis-females are also getting their "CD kicks"? It is unnecessary comments like this that creates the "us versus them" situations in good threads like this one. We all have opinions and have the right to express them, but why should a group be denigrated with words such as yours? Why not just say "get their kicks"? Why the CD identifier, when it also applies to cis -women too?

Zooey, you make a good case for a fragmented, my understanding of what you wrote, spectrum, where who one is (motivation and goals) may be the fragmenting factor. Though from my brief experience in this transgender new world of mine, from a broad more distant view it still looks continuous. I know what my roots are on this spectrum but am not quite sure yet where my new experiences and feelings may lead me. To me, it seems like I am moving slowly from one part of the spectrum with no major fragments. Most likely, if and when I get to a point where I may define myself as TS I will truly understand and recognize that difference. I would love to read more in this thread about your concept and less about what facility different parts of the spectrum should use. The latter are always more contentious on both sides of that spectrum.

[Eryn]

Keep hammering those wedges, ladies. Sooner or later you'll figure out what 'ol Ben meant when he said "We must all hang together..."

As for my "male approach" remark, I've spent years convinced that I was a man and many men treat shopping as a search-and-destroy mission. Get in, buy stuff you need, get out. It's not universal, but in many circles it isn't considered manly to spend too much time trying stuff on. It's a habit I had to unlearn when I embraced my female side.

[pamela7]

that's why we are here Eryn, is it not?

[Cheyenne Skye]

Spectrum or not it still comes down to self determination. At least until there is a scientific test to determine who is truly TS and who is not. But then again maybe not. Even among those that transition, there are degrees. Those that seek surgeries to those that don't and every combination in between. Then you start getting into the "trannier than thou" attitudes. Where does it stop?

As to the inclusion in woman's spaces, I have a situation at work. Someone broke the partition to two of the three stalls and the doors no longer latch properly. I have been out at work for a year and a half, had all my documentation amended yet no surgery to date. Yet if I have to go and use the stall without a proper latch, what do you suppose could happen if another woman accidentally opened the door while my panties are down? I'm not just a CDer out for the night. According to my ID, I'm a woman and have every right to use the facility which coincides. But of course hate and fear mongers will not see it that way. They will say I'm a man invading a woman's space just because of my anatomy. Would any of this discussion even matter at that point? (Yes I have legal protections here but there was a fairly famous case here about a trans girl being beaten within an inch of her life by two young women for being in the woman's restroom. I'd like to not become a statistic, thank you.)

[dreamer_2.0]

This thread sure makes one excited for full time....

[becky77]

Becky. Consider a CD'er. His wife is DADT, he respects that, he desperately wishes she could understand or see some of how he feels, but she is unable. He lives his life dutifully, fulfils all the socially required responses and responsibilities for his job and family, and yet there is this one thing that can give him an incredible moment of happiness, to stand there looking in a mirror and see himself in a dress and feel just once "I am beautiful". You would truly deny him that simple moment of happiness? Really? There is no way he could ever buy that dress, he has family responsibilities, his children need clothes for school, his wife needs money to get her hair cut and blow dried, the car needs servicing etc. etc. Isn't a little inconvenience worth knowing that you could give that person a moment of happiness, of escape?

There are plenty of dressing services for that kind of thing? I'm not saying 'OMG how terrible' I'm asking if a man is in a woman's area for the sole purpose of his dressing needs, is that appropriate?

I totally disagree with your opinion that a MtF CD "... should know that they do not belong and not take the piss".

I have said male identified several times, no one seems to quote that bit. I have also not said they can't use the facility. If they know they think like a man and they've gone in to a woman's personal area don't abuse the situation. Be quiet and descreet, don't get a camera out and turn it into a fashion photo shoot. Am I so wrong to ask for respect?

Also, why do people keep quoting me what other women get up to? It's not comparable.
Might be if those women were doing it in the men's changing room.

Why do you think it's ok for a man (I say man as in how they think not birth gender, I hoped that was obvious), can wear a dress and walk into any female only area?
We need to understand the very real difference between a man that dresses as a woman vs a Trans woman.
Nothing to do with exclusivity, that word pops up so often and is nearly always used in the wrong context.

I remember in the early days going to Trans clubs and struggling to fit in, after a while it clicked.
(Nearly all MtF), there are all these 'women' some looking amazing yet despite the female attire they are sitting at the bar chatting sports and women and I'm sorry to say usually sexual fantasy, I'm generalising a bit not all were like this but most were.
You take away the dressing needs and the vast majority were typical guys albeit with a secret.
If we forget temporarily about the dressing aspect, you have a typical man that thinks he has the right to use woman only areas because he may don a wig and skirt.

It's an interesting debate.

[Eryn]

I have a situation at work. Someone broke the partition to two of the three stalls and the doors no longer latch properly. I have been out at work for a year and a half, had all my documentation amended yet no surgery to date. Yet if I have to go and use the stall without a proper latch, what do you suppose could happen if another woman accidentally opened the door while my panties are down?

1. Tell the person in charge of facilities that the bathroom stall doors need repair and you are uncomfortable using the bathroom with defective doors.

2. In the interim, how much time do you spend in the stall waving your stuff around? When you're sitting nothing is apparent, so you have two small windows of exposure. Just be sure that other people aren't in the room during those times of exposure.

[Jennifer-GWN]

I'm curious... I know none of us want to be the victim of violence however, how often does this really happen? Is it a 1:10 1:100 or is my chances of being struck by lightening better? Seems we might be overly caught up in corner cases or should one expect an altercation more often then not?

Terms and definitions aside and assuming that lumberjack bill doesn't just dawn a dress and stroll into the women's washroom. I'd hope that appropriately presenting you'd be fine. No? If not then I'll adjust and hope like hell I make it back to my hotel room bathroom and not have to again pee on the floor.

Becky I'm with you on looking at this from the side of practicality. Maybe I'm wrong and my mindset has moved on from a transition perspective or maybe a dose of reality check is needed.

[Zooey]

I remember in the early days going to Trans clubs and struggling to fit in, after a while it clicked.
(Nearly all MtF), there are all these 'women' some looking amazing yet despite the female attire they are sitting at the bar chatting sports and women and I'm sorry to say usually sexual fantasy, I'm generalising a bit not all were like this but most were.
You take away the dressing needs and the vast majority were typical guys albeit with a secret.
If we forget temporarily about the dressing aspect, you have a typical man that thinks he has the right to use woman only areas because he may don a wig and skirt.

I relate so much to this that it hurts. This is the kind of fundamental difference in perspective that I was talking about. I don't believe it's possible, much less advisable, to attempt to judge a book by its cover. That's why things like bathroom debates are tough - nobody wants the kind of policing it would take to enforce any meaningful rules, so people just need to get comfortable being tolerant.

That said, once you start reading a book, it becomes obvious pretty quickly whether you are reading a novel or the dictionary. Those are fundamentally different books, no matter how similar the covers look.

[Kate T]

That said, once you start reading a book, it becomes obvious pretty quickly whether you are reading a novel or the dictionary. Those are fundamentally different books, no matter how similar the covers look.

And yet both "books" belong on the bookshelf, both have their purposes and reasons and stories to tell, albeit quite different stories.

I think Zo and Bec what you are asking for is respect, that a CD should respect that the women's toilet is not an "experience", the change rooms are not a place to go for a cheap thrill. In that I agree. I think though we must be careful that we also return that respect such that we don't automatically assume that just because someone is CD they don't understand and respect the feelings and privacy of others. Honestly I have met a number of CD's who are far more respectful of others than a number of TS I have met. It's about the person, not the label.

[flatlander_48]

Regarding the Spectrum...
Personally, I think there is a spectrum. I think if you have a large enough of a sample, it will appar to be essentially a continuous curve. I think there are too many variables, each with a possible 0% to 100% rating, for the curve to not eventually fill in. Now it could be that natural clusters in the data will form, but all that says it that certain data points are more prevalent than others.

One thing to note is that in this discussion, the thought process has basically concerned itself with crossdressers and transsexuals with little or no thought given to what's in between those poles. I fall into that midrange known as transgender (regardless of what the popular press says). Someone with little or no alignment between the physical and emotional is a candidate to become a transsexual. At the other end of that arc is where I fall: mostly male-identified but distinctly not completely. Many have talked about the shame, guilt and remorse brought on by their dressing and how those feelings have lasted for a long time. Over maybe 10 years, the total for me in that mode would be like one work day or less. It is just not a burden that I have carried for any significant time. Someone asked me recently if it is difficult for me to wear male clothing. My answer was no, it isn't. I'm used to it and there isn't any particular negative aspect. When I dress, it feels good. I started out being fairly comfortable with the idea of being dressed and it has only gotten better. It really feels like I am representing this other facet of my personality in keeping with where this sits for me. That said, I do worry about certain situations and try to avoid them. That has nothing to do with how I feel inside and everything to do with protecting myself.

So, being easily comfortable with myself when dressed and never really having the shame-guilt-remorse-purging-depression deal leads me to believe that I am transgender. But, and this is significant, my degree of misalignment is nowhere near enough to warrant thinking about transitioning.

Somewhere here there was a comment about what male-identified crossdressers talk about. I'll confess that this surprised me. I expected discussion about clothes, sales, stores, etc. but most of the discussion was around work (and not from a transitioning perspective). Go figure. Every now and then I get compliments related to my outfit (and yes, I do look good!), but that never seems to spark further discussion. Curious.

Regarding Restrooms...
Laws work after the fact. Until something happens, there are no consequences. The technology of the Minority Report doesn't exist. It would appear that in order to get existing laws to be changed, someone has to be sacrificed. Personally I have no intention of going into a men's restroom while dressed.

I have been in a few women's resrooms and I try to be as unobtrusive as possible and focus on what I need to do. I do everything I can to minimize my time in the restroom short of thrashing around as that attracts attention.

Good Luck and let's be Safe out there,

DeeAnn

[ReineD]

Historically, the sexual segregation of men and women was done to protect women from men. This may not be such an issue in the modern Western world, but it still is an issue in other cultures, the middle east for example. Women are generally less physically strong than any man who might want to take advantage of them. And even in our society there are still men who do rape women. I suspect the segregation of the sexes occurred historically for the same reason as the institution of marriage, to protect inheritance, in the process also protecting a woman's sense of security.

In any case, the ultimate way to tell the sex of a person is by their genitals. It doesn’t matter if a female is big, strong and hairy or a male has a micropenis and is 5’ tall. Same sexes cannot procreate. If historically the rules had been written to be flexible, to examine each person in any given society annually to determine if they fell in a gray area that would require a decision as to what side of segregated spaces they belonged to, it would have taken an enormous amount of resources and manpower. Hence the black and white laws, which were easy to enforce because universally, the hormones that create gonads also create other visible gender cues.

The knowledge that a small percentage of people have gender IDs that do not match their sexual characteristics has only surfaced in the last century or so. And to give credit, there is enough research now and corroboration from transsexuals to warrant debate and slowly begin to change the laws or at least provide private rooms for MtFs so they are not forced to use men’s rooms. But when it comes to using women’s rooms, the issue is that no one can tell a person’s gender ID; this is not something that can be outwardly measured in any way (for someone who is still read as a male), save for the physical changes a person has undergone such as HRT and/or SRS. If a substantial number of individuals in the TG community, who are not transitioning and who do not plan on reducing their testosterone/increasing their estrogen to female levels, nor are they removing their physical ability to procreate with women, insist on using women’s rooms, how can people possibly know their intent? And in an ideal world, HRT would also remove other visible male gender cues (MtF TSs would not be read as men), but this does not always happen and so how do people know that the TS is in fact a woman. Hairstyle, makeup and clothing alone are not enough to determine this, given the amount of MtFs who wear these items and who are still men.

It’s not fair to TSs. I’m not up on the laws, but maybe in some states/countries transitioners can use the ladies’ bathroom?

But, there is hope for the future. If it comes to pass that there will be a personal database attached to all our fingerprints, I can see having all public bathrooms/changing rooms accessible with a finger-reader to anyone who is legally female, regardless of her birth sex. And out of respect for men who have an emotional need to dress, I think it would be wonderful for society to recognize this and provide more individual bathrooms so they wouldn't have to use the men's rooms.

I hope I haven't offended anyone.

[Nadine Spirit]

I love how people just state, here is why we have segregated bathrooms, and then offer up their opinion on the matter as if it were fact.

https://reason.com/archives/2014/04/...building-codes

[Claire Cook]

I'll bet you a dollar that every single one of those concerned gals would have a heart attack if I was hanging out in the Men's room with their husbands.

Thanks Melissa -- we needed a touch of humor here.

[STACY B]

I think this whole Bathroom ordeal is for people that are in close personal places,, Like schools,, Jobs, Where they KNOW the other is Trans, I really don't think this is your run of the mill Public restroom problem? If you were out in a public place and there was just a chance that you looked the part and wasn't doing anything weird and minding your bizz I really don't think it would matter at all.

Like I said places where people are SURE that someone is Trans like school, Work, An it has been announced that they are that's where the whole big problem starts, When they knew them as one gender and they switched to another and they can't handle the change. Millions of different situations I'll bet,, JUST SAYING.

[Rianna Humble]

I love how people just state, here is why we have segregated bathrooms, and then offer up their opinion on the matter

Nadine, your link does not provide any useful input for those of us who live outside of the area referred to. Also, I'm not sure how your link advances the discussion about whether there is a continuum between CD and TS, or a series of distinct identities lumped under one umbrella?

Moderator's note:
The OP said this thread is not about the bathroom debate, so let's get the thread back on track. No more bathroom debate please folks.

[Nadine Spirit]

My link was just an article that, while based on building codes, gave some sort of brief history and geographic overview of segregated bathrooms in general. It was an attempt to dispute the myth that segregated bathrooms came about from a need to protect women and make sure they have a safe space from potentially rapist men.

Though I do agree fully that this thread should not be focused on the never ending unsolvable bathroom debate and I am sorry that some of the comments regarding that have ruffled my feathers and I felt a need to dispute certain comments regarding that.

[Zooey]

And yet both "books" belong on the bookshelf, both have their purposes and reasons and stories to tell, albeit quite different stories.

Yes, insofar as when you organize books by author name, you can end up with cookbooks next to auto repair guides. The library is great, because there are lots of books, of all different sorts. We categorize things there too, because otherwise it's too difficult to find what you're looking for. If your library had one shelf called "All The Books", you would probably find that odd.

[flatlander_48]

Odd is splintering a constituency. I have yet to see a useful purpose come from that.

DeeAnn

[Kaitlyn Michele]

what constinuency?? the men using women's bathroom lobby??

[flatlander_48]

That's a joke, right?

DeeAnn