Public Bathrooms Or “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell!”
“Excuse me, but it’s a condition of this public bathroom that I inspect your genitals!”
“Oh, but I’m clearly in the right bathroom… You can’t suspect me of…”
“Sorry, but there was a trans woman in here last week and nobody noticed, so we’re being extra careful. And she matched your description.”
“But you’re a man. You shouldn’t even be in here.”
“No, on the contrary, I was born a woman but I’ve always felt that I was, well, a man and given the new restrictions where you can only use a bathroom based on the sex on your birth certificate, I felt the safest thing to do was to take this job guarding the female bathroom.”
Ok, in one simple dialogue I’ve managed to take a highly emotive issue and annoy just about everyone by completely over-simplifying it and showing that, as a man, I have no understanding whatsoever of any of the concerns of anyone.
Yep, it’s what I do.
I figure if Andrew Bolt and Paul Murray and Alan Jones have made more money than I get for trying to educate young minds then it’s only a matter of time before someone connected to Rupert thinks that I’m outrageous enough to offer me a column or a show where I reduce any situation to my opinion – or an interview with someone who agrees with my opinion – and I’ll be paid such vast sums that will give me the chance to do an incredible amount of good… only to decide that doing good is a waste of time because when I tried to do good, I was paid so little that I was only able to do a little good and now I’m being paid excessively I’ll be inclined to go: “Why didn’t I do this earlier?”
Anyway, as to the whole issue of trans women in female bathrooms, I’d like to announce I am a completely disinterested party here because a) I’m not a female; b) I’m not trans and c) I’m not a bathroom.
Having again said something that I’m sure will upset people so much that they’ll attack me so much that even if I don’t get to take over Bolt’s spot at least more people will respond than listen to his show on Sky After Dark (SAD, as I call it).
The whole thing seems to me that there are some legitimate points of view here that need to be worked through in a respectful and careful way.
- Women need spaces where the feel that they are safe from men
- Trans people who identify as a woman need spaces where they feel safe from men.
- Everyone needs a place where they can pee in peace.
- People should not make rash generalisations about other people without evidence.
- Point 4 is a rash generalisation but I’m writing this so, in the spirit of Bolt, it’s a legitimate point of view and doesn’t need evidence.
However one feels about the whole issue, I must say that when I read things from people that say that one can always tell a woman, I feel a little bit confused because I want to know how they know that they were right?
And however one feels about the issue, maybe we need to remember that there are plenty of people who need consideration and protection and we need to respectfully hear and consider different points of view…
Ah shit, I’ve just ruined my chance of becoming a rich, Murdoch mouthpiece…
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10 comments
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Jess Oh -
Jack sprat -
Paul Smith -
Fred -
Andyfiftysix -
New England Cocky -
Terence Mills -
Douglas Pritchard -
leefe -
Stephengb
Return to home pageDisappointing that you decided to make a joke out of this. Also that you’ve chosen to believe the trans activists’ narrative that all people who oppose gender ideology are right wing and religious. And that there has ever been any suggestion of bathroom police from the feminists and LGB people who oppose gender ideology.
You have failed to address the issue of women’s sports, women’s prisons, women’s rape counselling services, health care for women, intimate care for women with disabilities, women’s scholarships and awards, and women’s choice to be separate from men because they choose to be.
You have failed to acknowledge the misogyny and homophobia of gender ideology. Choosing instead to make jokes about women’s rational and justified concerns about male violence.
You failed to acknowledge that believing in gendered souls that can be born into incorrect bodies is an act of faith. And a nonsense.
You also seemingly cannot tell men from women. And think no one can. Something that babies can do. That dogs can do. That women can by do instinct because our lives depend on it.
You think you’re progressive? Inclusive? You’re not.
The ruling class throws a lot of time and money arguing about the so called culture wars , it’s a orchestrated diversionary tactic to divide the public and focus their attention on the already marginalized minorities such as transexuals , Muslims , indigenous people and refugees , this way the real problem of class war never gets debated or into the headlines.
RB, I like how you have addressed this topic with humour as distinct from making a joke out of it, and find it disappointing that some people will not be able to tell the difference and will prefer performance to engagement in response. For my part I think the situation you use to make your wider point can be fixed by having three toilets instead of two: Male, Female and Unisex. Yes, that’s a lot of retrofitting, but hey, one of the arguments against having female MPs back in the day was… there’s no female toilets in Parliament House.
PS Agreed – with one minor difference – only unisex toilets are required. If every variation of gender can cope with using a unisex toilet then so can males and females.
Its a fetish of the sexually retarded. Unisex toilets is the way to go.
Jess oh, get a life. Turning on people who are supportive will not advance any cause. Perfect PC only attracts ridicule.
If you go down walking st in pattaya, you will come across many ladyboys who are indistinguishable from real women. Point being, who can tell for sure? And there the whole rediculous logic is on show. Are we going to have toilet police?
In sport the whole notion of ” men are better than women” gets trotted out. One thing i can guarantee, if men didnt tie their balls up, the 4 minute mile would never be broken. So men use technology to show their physical superiority.
This elegant demand for unisex toilets is just another reason why your readership on AIMN will always be greater than the viewing audience on Merdick media among the shards.
A little humour with a tinge of satire helps expose our foibles – like a skinny dip in winter some will glow with health and others whither on the vine.
Unisex toilets ! brings back unsavoury memories of long flights and having to hold your breath while you did a hurried pee.
Maybe others will recall the “bathroom” situation in Western Germany in the 1960s.
I was doing Nashoes, and we would regularly frequent a late night venue in town which had a single room devoted to the business of unburdening all the beer.
It had cubicles along one wall and urinals on the other and handbasins somewhere. The notice on the door was simply Toilet, but in german
It wasnt somewhere to linger, but it did the job.
Jess Oh:
There’s so much wrong with what you’ve said, but I’ll just highlight a few issues.
“* …there has ever been any suggestion of bathroom police from the feminists and LGB people who oppose gender ideology.*”
I’ve been bailed up going into a gendered public toilet because I don’t do female satisfactorily. So have cis women I know, some straight, some gay. And trans friends of mine have used public toilets without issue because, guess what, they do gender better than I do.
“You also seemingly cannot tell men from women. And think no one can.”
I can’t reliably tell women from men from enbies – and, in fact, no–one can – because men/women is gender and we don’t know anyone’s gender unless/until they tell us. Gender is not what is generally called “biological sex”, and sex amongst humans goes way beyond the simply binary taught in introductory biology. Anatomy, chromosmes, genes, hormones all play a part in regard to sex, and the complexities of how it is expressed are sometimes mindboggling.
I’ve seen TERFs go all “we can always tell” about straight cis woman athletes like Kate Ledecky. So, nah, you can’t always tell.
“You failed to acknowledge that believing in gendered souls that can be born into incorrect bodies is an act of faith. And a nonsense.”
First, it has nothing to do with belief, or with souls. It is about the mind and the way the brain operates. There is a great deal of biological science relating to reproduction that goes beyond XX=vagina, uterus, ovaries=female; XY=penis, prostate, testicles=male, and that science supports the reality of transgender people.
The existence and reality of transgender people is not misogyny, nor is it homohobic. People are what they are. Gender is just a public performance, it has no actual objective reality. Let people dress and live and behave the way they want (as long as no-one is hurt) instead of trying to stuff everyone into a narrow straitjacketed performance of what you want to think is appropriate. A trans woman wearing a dress isn’t hurting you any more than a trans man wearing jeans and Blunnies (trans men also exist, remember, but it’s odd how the TERFs like to gloss over that bit) or an agender person like me wearing what I do.
There’s a lot of religious and conservative bigotry feeding into the anti-trans movement and a lot of that IS genuinely misogynistic. I refuse to be defined and confined by my reproductive anatomy. Die mad about it.
Well said Leefe.
Meanwhile Jess Oh – I have one thing to say about your little rant –
Fcuk off