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| Blogs > MJputergurl > Many Gendered Things |
Transgender persons and bathroom etiquette.
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Transgender persons and bathroom etiquette. To all my transgender friends - For goodness sake, PLEASE don't take this or use this as a reason to fight amongst ourselves or bring up alphabet soup labels that divide us!! I implore everyone to maintain respect, dignity, and kindness with one another as we discuss this! Some of you might know I've been involved with the recent legislative fight going on in Arizona about transgender persons' rights to use a bathroom. The recent attention the issue has received is not going to blow over or diminish. As gay and lesbian people are increasingly gaining their rights across the nation, this means that the hateful or ignorant will be forced to choose new targets to discriminate against. I have also witnessed how we are often pawns in an overall contest between conservative and liberal groups. As gay and lesbian people gain their rights legislatively, their issues are no longer on the table as bargaining chips. Guess who's rights are next in this ugly shell game? I can tell you from listening to the points the opposition that supports these bills are saying, that trans people of all sorts still have a very real image problem with a lot of people. I have seen that this image problem exists even among people who you wouldn't otherwise expect have any prejudices towards anyone. I know as much as anybody that this image problem is often voiced by those who are ignorant about trans people, and unfortunately too bigoted or hateful to want to learn. Certainly, many of the fears these people have are groundless and often brought about by the false impressions popular media constantly portrays of us. But these persons' fears are still very real to them, and they do act on them; even if it is out of ignorance. I have to imagine that most transgender people here would also say their own bathroom behavior is beyond reproach; that you always conduct yourself in a restroom like a lady, or a man in case of trans men. MSNBC reported about an incident in Idaho that played out very recently. A transgender woman has been banned from a grocery store over her alleged conduct in the grocery store bathroom. There is some question about what exactly happened, but the report has stated that there were multiple complaints about this trans woman using the restroom, and standing up to urinate. As much as I wish it weren't true that this sort of thing occurs, as much as I wish we could always attribute reports like this to ignorant or hateful falsehoods; certainly they are often unsubstantiated falsehoods or misunderstandings. But I do have trans woman friends who have witnessed this sort of thing first hand from other trans women. Again, PLEASE don't take this or use this as a reason to fight amongst ourselves or bring up alphabet soup labels that divide us! If you want to be ugly about it, please go elsewhere. If you do sometimes use the bathroom this way when out as a lady, I only ask you to please consider what impact this has on people who witness it, what that does to their impressions about trans people everywhere; ultimately too, how it impacts us all later when incidents like this come up and the harm it does to trans persons' unity as a group. I respect that every person has a right to use a bathroom and not have their behavior scrutinized or judged. I wish we lived in a world where everyone minded their own business and just let everyone be. The unfortunate reality is that we don't have that luxury, and it isn't going to happen soon. Thanks for listening. "Know masculinity, maintain femininity, and be a ravine for all under heaven." - Lao Tzu |
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Many good points have been made the main one being that when out in public one should consider how their individual actions affect the whole. Sadly but true one negative experience can wipe out a thousand positive experiences, one of the flaws of human nature I guess. When in public we should act and conduct ourselves in a manner consistent to the image we are presenting. I agree that standing to urinate while presenting as a woman in a women's restroom is unacceptable. That said however, There are a collection of devices (GoGirl, SheWee, PeePocket, etc.) for women to use to pee standing up. And there are instructional books, websites, etc. on how to use your fingers to point and shoot. (Presumably into a urinal, but the sky is the limit.) So at the end of the day, it takes all kinds. If women are doing it when they have the wrong equipment, why not the women who do have the equipment to write their name in the snow?  Personally, I find it nasty and crude. But who am I to define proper manners these days? It would be nice if we could all set fine examples, but "well-behaved women seldom make history." Just try not to make a mess that everyone else has to deal with is my only real concern. Even an herb as sweet as basil is nothing without its bite. Lord Basil
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Honestly, this one gets me. Like time zones. Is this really something that we still need today? Does it really matter if the sun comes up at 5am or 8pm? The sun still comes up the same time it always does. (Well, accounting for the natural expected changes.) You still put in an 8 hour shift at work. Who cares what the clock reads? So why not just move the whole world to GMT and be done with it? Bathrooms? The same. Just go unisex for all, already, IMHO. No one (well, almost no one) wants to watch you pee. Or drop a deuce. It's all pretty gross, actually. Just put in a bunch of stalls, one door, call it a day. Besides, we've rather known for a long time already that sexual orientation and gender are two completely separate issues, so trying to "protect" us from one by targeting the other is just plain stupid. As is trying to make enough different bathroom doors that everyone has their fair "safe" bathroom. Just get over it already. That's my two cents anyway. The ever-present stupidity of humanity? That's just always a given, in all things. Average intelligence is, after all, just that: an average. Standard deviation says, there will be dumb people. Just as there are smart ones. So of course someone is always going to be dumb enough to fuck things up. Hopefully the intelligent of us will do our best to forgive, overlook, forget, or whatever it takes to get through yet another day in paradise. Together, we can do anything. In spite of ourselves.  Even an herb as sweet as basil is nothing without its bite. Lord Basil
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Many good points have been made the main one being that when out in public one should consider how their individual actions affect the whole. Sadly but true one negative experience can wipe out a thousand positive experiences, one of the flaws of human nature I guess. When in public we should act and conduct ourselves in a manner consistent to the image we are presenting. I agree that standing to urinate while presenting as a woman in a women's restroom is unacceptable.
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I've no wish to be combative on this, though the point does wake my inner grammar-Nazi, ha ha! In using an "ed" on green-eyed, one is applying the "ed" to "eye" and not to "green". In a hyphenated word containing an adjective "green", that modifies a noun, "eye"; yes, the "ed" is appropriate to apply to the noun. Again, applying "ed" to an adjective is not appropriate, just as we wouldn't call that green-eyed person a "greened" or a "green-ed". Hyphenating "ed" onto the end of an adjective doesn't change that. This certainly is not directed at anyone personally, in fact; I'm glad you brought up the example so it could be discussed. The larger idea here is to get away from turning a characteristic of some people into a means to objectify them and therefore rob them of their humanity. Every year, I help compile the list of transgender people who have been murdered, in preparation for the yearly "Transgender Day Of Remembrance" ceremony; where we memorialize those transgender people who have been murdered simply for being who they are. In doing so, it quickly becomes apparent how universally brutal these murders are. Transgender people are not simply shot or stabbed, they frequently are tortured, burned alive, dismembered, and otherwise treated like cordwood for disposal. Just as it's easier to treat objects we don't care about. These transgender people were friends, family, and loved ones; who's lives were treated like disposable units with no more value than one assigns to tissue paper.. Objectification of people is ALWAYS something to avoid. "Know masculinity, maintain femininity, and be a ravine for all under heaven." - Lao Tzu
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Making available such things as unisex and family bathrooms is indeed an avenue that is being recommended to businesses by those of us advocating for transgender persons. Despite the opposition claim that this forces unfair expense on businesses or government institutions; in most modern buildings, the solution is commonly as simple and cheap as replacing a door sign. In an effort to educate rather than correct anyone, I'd like to point out a simple rule of thumb in referring to transgender people. At no time is it appropriate to tack on an "ed" to the end of the word transgender. The word transgender is an adjective; being transgender is simply a characteristic, not a defining quality or identity. Just as we wouldn't call a green-eyed person "a green-eyed", or call a black person "a blacked"; a transgender person is not "a transgendered". This is often confused or justified by the fact that media and culture has become accustomed to using the word "gays" or "lesbians" to refer collectively to gay people and lesbian people. Since transgender people are often unwillingly grouped in or associated collectively with gay and lesbian people; the convention is often assumed to apply to transgender people as well. This may seem a niggling point, and while it is often subtle and innocently used; this language convention is nonetheless dehumanizing, and contributes to turning people into objects that are easier to justify perpetrating evils upon. Thanks for listening! MJ "Know masculinity, maintain femininity, and be a ravine for all under heaven." - Lao Tzu
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