I'm not sure what your ok means, but obviously this discussion is getting far afield. Clearly, a nose job or a tattoo isn't the same as a sex change. Rick brought those things up and I clumsily attempted to address them. My point was simply that in an ideal world we'd all be happy with exactly who we are and the way we are.

Tattoos have become so interwoven with modern fashion they shouldn't be part of the discussion. (Still, I know many people for whom tattoos/body mods have become an obsession. Very few people stop at just one.)

But with regard to plastic surgeries, obviously we're talking about people who feel their natural looks are inadequate in some regard. That in itself is a problem society would be well-served to address.

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Freedom is our Strength.

Why is that our business?

I mean, if the medical profession decides that it is unacceptable that is different but it seems like the modern ideas about it are that it is a good but not complete solution. Ironically, much of the issues around it seem to come from how society treats them.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Why is any mental illness our business? You sound like Rahm Emanuel. Fuck 'em. Let 'em wander the streets.

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Freedom is our Strength.

If you read my response to pittmike that's my answer. As I understand it it's more than just comfort the person is getting by using the woman's bathroom.

I have a divorce case right now where opposing counsel and her client are transgender. They are both assholes. They are also both people. I see the looks they get as they walk through the courthouse. I see how the clerks and judges react to them. I've had multiple lawyers come up and ask me "what it's like to have a case with those freaks". The people that aren't openly hostile to them will talk shit about them behind their backs.

I don't get why someone who has male genitals would want to be a woman, but I'm not going to begrudge someone for feeling that way. I don't think Spaulding is a bigot for feeling uncomfortable sharing a bathroom with a man who believes he is a woman. She and everyone else has got a right to feel however they want about anything. However, if personal comfort is the only reason that Spaulding and others can come up with as to why a trans person shouldn't be allowed to use a bathroom, then it's not a compelling reason.

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Then the only right solution was already posted and the thread should be over.

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Elections have consequences.

Brick - in heels you'd be like 7 feet tall and could easily look right over stall walls. Problem?

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

What judge is it in front of?

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Freedom is our Strength.

I've said too much already.

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Yeah, probably. But I doubt any Circuit Court judges are reading this. When dolphin gets appointed to the federal bench he'll be our first CSFMB judge.

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Freedom is our Strength.

Yeah, this is pretty much how I feel. My impulse reaction is usually to side with the "minority" rights because of how childish and judgmental many are in the discussion of gay rights. But I must admit that the transgender argument is much more difficult and has many more potential ramifications like the one being discussed here (I'm not saying the two are the same - it's just similar in a sense that a relatively small group of people is trying to obtain "rights" that decades ago wouldn't have even been considered).

Honestly, the whole thing doesnt "seem" right or that anyone should be able to decide to change genders (just being honest). However, most of the arguments I would use against it would almost certainly make me a hypocrite, given my thoughts on gay rights (comfortability, slippery-slope, etc.) This is a tricky one. All I'm sure about is that I don't want Muslims using my bathroom.

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But isn't personal comfort the only reason transgendered people want to be allowed to use a certain bathroom? Why is it such a compelling reason on that side of the argument?

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Freedom is our Strength.

I guess we could have special bathrooms for tall people.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It is a tricky question. I think you can equate much of it to the gay rights debate though. From the perspective of a gay or transgender person, their preference (either in partners or their own gender) is not a matter of choice. It is something they were born with and have no control over. So a transgender person born with male physical features would have the "soul" of a female. To them they are a female and have always been a female regardless of how they appear.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I will never understand the bathrooms in this country. Why is it that the doors on the stalls do not come all the way down to the floor?

So you can see if a man is wearing high heels to see you taking a dump.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

walls to the floor would make glory holes much more titillating.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Like I said to pittmike, it's more than just personal comfort. Many people are uneasy seeing a trans person anywhere, let alone a bathroom. If a man dressed as a woman goes to a sporting event, a bar, really any place where there are lots of people and booze around and walks into the men's bathroom there is a very real risk they could be harmed.

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I thought that's who Obama nominated for Scalia's throne.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

The false dichotomy of "human being or [some bad term]" is a tired argumentative trope employed the likes of Tumblr otherkin, SJW identity politics, etc. It is used to paint anyone that dares deviate from the dictations of the LGBTQ+ community on how exactly to treat transgender individuals as a bigot right off the bat. And anyone that is in for a penny on "human being" is in for a pound on anything and everything else, because to question would be not treating them as "human beings". Sorry, I'm not engaging on such a dubious front.



See? You did use the terms in that way, and you didn't even know it. Of course I don't think of transsexuals and those suffering gender dysphoria as "less than", come on, nothing I've said in this thread--barring disingenuous interpretations of a metaphor I used concerning statutory rape--has indicated such.



Oh, there's the disingenuous interpretation of the metaphor. That was explained earlier in the thread.

So a man in drag goes to the men's room and Curt Schilling is cool with it right?

Would you give a bulimic a tongue depressor with which they can induce vomiting easier?

Would you send someone claiming to be Napoleon to a tailor and plastic surgeon to make them shorter?

Does society tell the guy seeking out designer steroids so he can look like a superhero where he can find the good Chinese stuff?

Would you send someone saying they've always felt and wanted to present as Asian to that same exotic plastic surgeon?

Do we encourage the guy trying to look like a Ken Doll to keep going to the nose cutter so he can get that bridge juuuuust right?

No, we send all these people the psychiatrist's chair, because those feelings aren't normal. All of those people "feel" a certain dysphoria concerning their bodies and their place in society, but we don't encourage or indulge their behaviors when they cross over into "clinical disorder" territory.

But, for some reason, we tell someone that wants to mutilate their body and its hormone ratio because they've always felt like a woman, to stay off the psychiatrist's chair, and tell them to get right into hormone treatment and the OR. Then we tell the rest of society to now deal with biological males using the same bathroom and locker room facilities as, for lack of a better term, "normal" biological females, because that's how the biological male decided to "present" today. Any attempt to deviate or push back against this is labeled as bigotry and "hate speech" (a statute I just know is coming).

Something is wrong here.

This is a guy that doesn't understand that gender is more than XX or XY.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I still have yet to hear a compelling argument as to why this matters at all.

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Like I said, I'm all "up" for co-ed locker rooms at the gym. Unfortunately I don't think there will be many women in there.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I still have yet to hear a compelling argument as to why the comfort of transgender individuals is more important than the comfort of, again for lack of a better term, "normal" adults using the same facilities.

If it shouldn't matter to me, then why does it matter to the the transgendered people where they pee? Why can't they use any bathroom?

As I've said multiple times in this thread it is more than just comfort that a trans person is provided when they use a bathroom. If a man dressed as a woman were to use the men's bathroom there is a very real possibility that they could be harmed, either verbally or physically. The right to use a bathroom without the risk of being verbally or physically assaulted trumps the right to not feel offended by the sight of a person who looks like a man using the women's bathroom.

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I think this is where we're hitting the disconnect. I highly doubt Spaulding is offended by the sight of a penis.

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Freedom is our Strength.

Because they kick and scream louder.

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Elections have consequences.

Then there must be zero chance the women in that bathroom a transgender uses would verbally assault them either?

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Elections have consequences.