Identity Politics

Considering all the controversy with North Carolina introducing a bill to make it illegal to go into a bathroom for the gender you weren't born with, I thought this would be an interesting topic.

This video kind of shows how absurd the question of identity and what society will accept can be if any and all ways a person would like to identify themselves are accepted as automatically true:



This is just an incidental story, but it made me laugh. I heard of this situation (can't remember all the details) on the Joe Rogan podcast recently where a white woman ran to gain some elected position within a college's student social committee or something. Well eventually, she decided that she does not identify as a woman, she identifies as a man, so she was removed from office by the rest of the committee because they wanted diversity, and they didn't want a white man in the position lol.

So what's your opinion?

Is there such a thing as going to far, or have we gone too far long ago.

 

I saw that clip and it is funny.

I don't know the answer on the bathroom situation. I don't have small kids, so honestly, it's not a hot issue with me. If my daughter was younger, I'm sure I'd care more.

Do I think Caitlynn Jenner should have to go into a men's bathroom? No. Her in the men's bathroom, hiking up her dress to take a wiz would be odd, to say the least. At the same time, I don't want some male pervert dressing up as a woman to molest kids. BUT, no law is going to stop that, so is this really an issue?

My thing is, if you look like a man or woman and go into the restroom you ID with and look like, no one is going to know.

Now my issue. Bruce Springsteen cancelled a concert in NC and PayPal won't do business in NC. Why? They decided they didn't want to serve someone (or a place) that disagreed with them. Fair enough. I support their right to do so. Reminds me of some cake makers who didn't want to bake a cake for a gay wedding and were sued and now owe $125,000 and are out of business. They said they would sell them a cake, just not one for gay wedding, because they didn't agree with it. What is the difference?

 

It does seem like hypocrisy doesn't it?

I've come to believe you can't legislate things like that.

 

That's the restaurant's right. Stupid. You don't like it? I'm sure there's other cake stores. You don't have to use that particular store. As a person of color if someone doesn't want to serve me food, what do I care? I'll go somewhere else and that store will lose money. Now obviously I'll still be upset and will tell my friends about it and that word of mouth will likely hurt their sales, but I'm not going to sue them. That's their right. The only time this could be an issue is if I'm travelling and I go down the street and I can't find a single place in an entire town who will feed me... Then I might press charges against somebody. But if you call a bakery and ask for a cake and they say "I don't serve _____" isn't that their right? I think so...

This transgender type thing though... Yikes. I have no idea how to fix that issue. I'm not comfortable with the idea of a guy who identifies as a woman, but is still biologically a man going into the woman's restroom just because it opens up the door for perverts who are just juking the system. Still though, like John3:16 said that problem will be there regardless so... oh well. Tough call.

 

@Barnstable I agree we can't legislate certain things, but we also need to continue to grow. Strive to be inclusive. I just feel like Trans people shouldn't be discriminated against with these laws and I don't see how forcing them into bathroom A or B is going to keep anyone safe (or more safe).

 

Women would LOVE to have gender neutral bathrooms because they always have a long line. However, once they see how disgusting us guys are, they'll change their tune.

 

Our high school required 100 hours of community service to graduate. I ended up cleaning bathrooms at one point and the men's was far cleaner than the women's. Maybe it was just that one bathroom, but my wife tells me women's bathrooms are generally disgusting.

As for the topic at hand, I expected it to be about people who identify with one party or the other regardless of who the candidate is. Since it's about this, I suppose we could do something along the lines of one third all urinals (women..err...people with vaginas [I guess I have to be crystal clear in this thread] would have no use for these anyway) and the other two thirds completely enclosed stalls? Everyone gets their privacy.

As for John's point about Pay Pal and the bakery, I actually thought about that. But what Paypal is doing is actually worse. With the bakery, they were only discriminating against the gay couple. Paypal and the NBA are discriminating against people for their religious beliefs and probably a lot of people who just aren't comfortable with it...Oh but wait, they are also going to discriminate against every other person in the state because they chose to live in proximity to the other people. The bakery would have to not let the gays buy the cake for their wedding AND they would have to not let anyone in their neighborhood buy a cake either because they happen to be living in a neighborhood that has a gay couple.

 

I worked as a janitor many moons ago. The women's rest rooms were always 1000x worse than the mens.

On the topic, I really don't know why the restroom thing is even an issue. It seems manufactured to me. I haven't heard of a bunch of perverts pretending to be women to sneak a peak at them in stalls. And if that did happen, you treat it exactly the same as you would if anybody, woman or man, were to try to peak at a person in a stall. It's harassment and you call the police to get them arrested.

The topic seems like someone pushing a b******* agenda to me.

 

It's a talking point for sure.

What I've read is that the actual legislation that transgender (and LGBT) care about is being protected from being fired or discriminated against in the office. The law puts into effect protections that have existed for a long time now for other "minority" groups.

That's what I've read, I haven't backed that up yet.

 

A. I'm shocked at you guys experience in the bathrooms. I just assumed the mens was worse. We're pretty nasty.

B. I agree the whole transgender "argument" is manufactured. Seriously, how would anyone know? I have a transgender client who has to be in therapy to get the operation. If I didn't know already, I'd never know she was born a male. What would be weird is if she was in the men's room.

 

With men's it's typically just pee on the floor (although, that is in women's too...somehow) and maybe some mud tracks. But women leave those too...and more. Scarring amounts of more.

 

i'll say it since you're being more diplomatic... the smell of bloody fermented tampons in and out of the trash.

 

Yep. You can sometimes smell it the second you walk in the bathroom. So thankful that was only about 1 month of my life. But it gave me a good perspective...on bathrooms at least.

 

I was really hoping you guys would push that limit and you didn't disappoint.

Bloody, fermented tampons has now entered my everyday vocabulary.

Thank you so much.

 

I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.

 

What's one more bodily fluid added to the cocktail?