By now you’ve heard about the New York transvestite who has won the right to use the Ladies’ facilities in the Metro, one 70 year old, Henry McGuinness, aka Helena Stone.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to allow riders to use MTA rest rooms “consistent with their gender expression,” the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced yesterday.
The group filed a complaint against the MTA on behalf of a 70-year-old telephone repair technician who was arrested for using the women’s room at Grand Central Terminal.
. . . .
“I’m a 24-hour woman,” Stone declared proudly. “I just feel like a woman and I like to wear women’s clothes.”
The MTA would not comment on the settlement but Stone’s lawyer said it also includes mandatory transgender sensitivity training for MTA employees and a $2,000 payment to the technician for legal fees.
Michael Sullivan, Stone’s lawyer, called the settlement of the complaint with the Human Rights Commission a “milestone” toward recognition of the city law that prohibits discrimination against transgender men and women.
It’s unclear just how the writer’s elision of transgender with “gender expression” is supposed to connect with the instance in question. I guess that in practical terms, one is welcome to use that lavatory that matches the clothing they’re wearing, which brings up a lot of questions, not least about security. And by forcing everyone to go to Transgender Sensitivity Training, I’m sure that the guy person’s made himself very popular with his co-workers.
As for how women by “nature” might feel about this recognition of the constructedness of gender identity, the MTA seems not much to care. After all, that would be the tyranny of the majority. What I do know is that if my daughter has to pee while we’re using the subway in NYC, ever, she can squat and use a cup, or I can carry a dress around to don so that I can enter the women’s loo.
In Italy, there’s a parallel row going on. I swear, some people are just so tetchy. I love the BBC headline:
Transgender MP in toilet fracas
Elisabetta Gardini, spokeswoman for former PM Silvio Berlusconi’s party, said she felt ill after the encounter during a break in Friday’s session.
The incident led to heated debate about which toilet the transgender MP, known as Vladimir Luxuria, could use.
Ms Luxuria says she has been using ladies’ toilets for years.
Using the men’s would have created even bigger problems, she said.
The matter has now been passed to parliamentary procedural officials to resolve.
On the suggestion list is the creation of a third sort of toilet for “transgendered” individuals, though Ms Luxuria is not one in the medical sense. Undoubtedly a right will be found to exist for which this next sort of toilet will be wo/mandated in all public places.
But ruling coalition deputies accused Ms Gardini of discrimination tantamount to racism.
Ms Luxuria said she had not expected such aggression in the parliament.
For the nonce, until more rights are discovered, I can only see one equitable solution. We should commit ourselves to providing at all public facilities, at least, a Non-Transgendered Women’s Room, a Transgendered Women’s Room, Whatever, a Transgendered Men’s Room and a Non-Transgendered Men’s Room. Please write your Congresspeople. If we let the war overshadow this kind of landmark legislation, we will already have lost.
What about coprophiliacs? Do they just get their choice?
Dan, my dilemma was when my boys we too old to go with me in the ladies’ room. I would stand outside the men’s room door and loudly say, “I’m right outside the door. Holler if anyone bothers you.”
Perhaps (depending on location) this approach might work for you. The good thing about women’s rooms is that the stalls have doors, so really there is some privacy.
How about this: if you deliberately and obstinately fling your wierdness in the face of society and your fellow man, don’t expect them to respond positively and support you. You’re an oddball, stop demanding the world conform to you.
In my situation, goddess, the stall doors might actually be a part of the worry. It’s all right, though, for the moment. I’m just not taking the family to NYC anymore.
Christopher–
Apparently someone is in need of sensitivity training.
At what percentage of the population do certain types of people cease to be “oddballs,” CT?
monky–
I don’t know. What’s the answer?
It’s at least 1%, monkyboy. If there’s not another person in a hundred with a similar deal, it’s probably odd.
But most weirdos, like snot collectors and Glenn Greenwald, manage to get their groove on without upsetting the Men’s room/Ladies’ room segregated excretion vibe in the NYC subway.
Are you having trouble figuring where to “go”, little buddy?
Really Monky,
By your reasoning, if the majority of Americans, say approve & vote for a particular Republican President from Crawford, Texas, then those opponents of the popularly elected President should just shut up as well… right? Since the voters represent a significant portion of the voting population…
And by “least”, I mean “most”.
Hehe,
If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.
As a ballpark figure…
I would say anytime a group would prefer their share of the money the government is spending to accomdate them instead of the actual accomodations…
They’re “oddballs.”
If you read that sentence and understood some meaning from it, you might be an oddball.
/Pablo Foxworthy
This pretty much answers the question of how it is that Ward Churchill is a Native American, though.
hmmm…. transethniced…. I identify with <ethnic group> therefore I am entitled to be treated as one. May have to start a new movement.
Dan, stop responding to monkybot. There isn’t any there there. If you catch my drift. All you’re doing is winding the key so it can sit and screech and bang its toy cymbals together.
Unless you like that – if so, then carry on.
Did Actus just get sick of all the baggage and change handles?
And the value added from your post is, Mikey?
Or do you consider yourself a member of some “special” group?
Also: Pre-Non-Gendered Rest Room, for Men and Women who are not yet sure of their gender; Pre-Whatever; Pre-Non-Transgendered Men’s Room, Pre-Non-Transgendered Women’s Room; a Womyns’ Room; a Womyn’s Room (in case a liberated female need to go alone); and Post-Pre-Homo-Hetero-Neo-Quasi-Crypto-Gendered room for those who don’t need to excrete in any way, but who need to express themselves politically in some way while in public.
Wow Monky arguing about “values”! What exactly has been the “value added” of any of your posts here so far, Monky?
As Dan’s wife, and the mother of the daughter in question, I simply want to say that there are no circumstances that I can imagine that would entice her to pee in a cup in a public place (or a private one). The days are long gone when she would, for instance, pee on the Queen’s gate in Edinburgh–there’s a shocking lack of public facilities in convenient places there, and what’s a 2 year old to do?
Naw, we don’t need all those. We just need a Meditation Station outside the restrooms, so you can talk yourself into being whatever gender has the shortest line.
So much for a physician ever getting a urine sample from her, I guess. She did pee herself while sitting on my lap on an Edinburgh bus when she was 4 or 5. It wasn’t very publicly done, though.
Dan, one day your daughter will Google you and she will be MORTIFIED that her bathroom contretemps were discussed on this blog.
My 14-year-old son is a 9th grader at the junior high where I teach, Oh, the fun of just threatening to embarrass him…
GOTC , I can only guess the little fella’ truly understands the meaning of the phrase “weapon of mass destruction “ Always remember with great power comes great responsibility. Ever spun him the tale of Damocles ? ….on second thought the poor bugger’s living it.
GOTC, my dad taught in the same district. Heck, my teachers bowled with him in the same league and on the same team. Needless to say I didn’t cut many capers in the classroom.
Bill, as in the Cold War, MAD works well. Remember, my son has seen me first thing in the morning…
This is good news. In September ‘07, I’m going to NYC if not before. I’ll just use whatever bathroom looks cleaner and/or less used and available. I’ll just act butch.
Would you people please dial down your freak about the “other gendered?” I get that you’re horrified (and mildly aroused) by the “other’s” proclivities. But as long as they pay taxes and don’t piss in your garden, what’s it to you?
Dan, great post. But I don’t think the term metro sexual really applies here. Metro sexuals are more about men getting their eyebrows waxed and using more ‘product’ in their hair than any of their female companions. Also, they’re very into skin care.
I applaud the latter as I love to try new products and I feel free to borrow from whomever I happen to be dating.
Men waxing their eyebrows is horrible. Stop it right now!
But back to the topic, this seems to me about just needing to pee right now. If you need to go right now, I think some social norms go right out the window (or down the drain, heehhee). You just have to go.
I ventured into the men’s room at a concert once , because the line was so long for the women’s restroom, I just wouldn’t make it.
It was disgusting and I just dehydrate myself before these events now!
Cynn–
Did it ever occur to you that certain social arrangements may have arisen for good reasons? The crime dramatists tell us that motive and opportunity and means are needed for the execution of a crime. Motive is a constant, more or less, when one’s dealing with rapists or robbers. Opportunity seems just to have been substantially increased. Means are easily had.
So, the first time that someone is raped by a burqah-wearing perp, I hope that you’ll come by and reflect that it was worth it for the folks who wished to express their vanity in this very selfish way.
Hehe, Dan,
Breaking out the what if a terrorist had knowledge of an imminent attack defense?
mb–
You mean that you don’t believe that this is actually going to happen?
And are you suggesting that in some way kicking against insane policy decisions is tantamount to torture?
And that, Dan, is what it is all about. Indulging the vanity of one selfish individual over the wishes of the vast – vast – bulk of the society. And no important civil rights were actually at stake. Life, liberty, property, none of those were threatened.
No, instead one selfish individual has decided to tear at the weave of society, those little behaviors and norms that help keep large numbers of strangers moving along rather nicely with as few bumps and bruises as possible.
Not good enough. One person decided to impose on everyone else to feed his vanity, his narcissism. And the greater society is coarsened just that much more.
– Maybe “she” just wants to wag it at the girls and voice some self-image supportive public comment like…”No really….this isn’t mine… I just wear it to pee through”…. or some such
Also: Pre-Non-Gendered Rest Room, for Men and Women who are not yet sure of their gender;
– Wouldn’t that pretty well encapsulate the majority of alt-sex choices in all their resplendent identity confusion?.
Dan, why are you still trying to communicate with monkybot? You aren’t ever going to get a coherent conversation going with it, all you’re going to receive for your efforts is a continuous stream of gibberish interspersed with hoots.
Though I admire your persistence, I question your good sense.
Mikey–
But you see, I can’t exfoliate (used that for you, lunarpuff) all the petals of my argument in a post and keep it to reasonable length, and I don’t want entirely to plunder the thing, but when mb or anyone else gives me or someone else an opportunity to unpack it more, why not?
Dan, brah, you makee no sensee. Are you making the fractured argument that raping people (a la rabid Muslamofisks) is an antidote to the deteriorating morals in Western society? So I should concede that acceptance of “gendered others” is a blanket invitation to widespread jihaddi armageddon?
You’re making a facile comparison, if I read you correctly. Please don’t be so simplistic.
– The entire thing can be solved by simply having three rooms:
“Men, “Women”, “Flip a coin”
Even better:
“Men”, “Women”, “Other”
or:
“Men”
“Women”
“None of the above”
Nice contribution, once again, Mikey.
No, Dan,
I’m just saying if you accept that even the most remote chance something will happen as a certainty…
Any argument to defend against it seems reasonable (to some people, at least).
How about:
“Men”, “Woman”, “?”
You’re not reading me correctly, Cynn. I’m saying that if all it takes to get into the women’s bathroom on the Metro is a dress, you’ve just created a stupid security issue that will inevitably lead to tragedy for someone.
And the idea that any expression of revulsion masks a secret frisson really ought to be put out of commission. It’s the intellectual equivalent of, “but she dug it, man.”
Sign lineup at London airport:
<<< Men’s Loo | Women’s Loo | Alternate seating in rear >>>
Have any of you actually used the bathrooms at Grand Central Terminal? It’s like the ninth level of Dante’s Inferno (and it’s been so long since I read that that I don’t even know if there’s a ninth level).
To use a more recent literary allusion: “The horror!”
P.S. I used the men’s room, not the other one, but I’m sure they’re pretty similar.
mb–
The chances are not remote. They are remote for any particular person making her particular visit to the loo. Given the numbers, it would be miraculous if it took more than half a year.
I frankly don’t give a damn about bathroom assignments. We all go where we can. I object to the idea that we now have to live in fear (a repuke construct) of “other gendereds” undermining our security simply because they exist. Bullshit. Nice try.
Dan, thanks for exfoliating. Smooches for you!
And Big Bang has good idea for new bathroom signs.
And it’s been a very short time, but I don’t recall what this thread was actually about!
Cheers! Skoal!
Personally, I think it’s a win for porn-sites everywhere. Now dudes just don a dress and go in and take pictures. No more fooling with secret cameras and whatnot.
oh! me! me! *waving hand* I don’t remember it being notable, though maybe i’m repressing that.
What’s bullshit is that they insist on doing so. Do you think they’ll be satisfied with a third bathroom? They don’t mean to undermine our security. I think that transgendered individuals probably pose less of a threat of sexual violence than others. HOWEVER, if you don’t believe that there are predators who will soon discover how to take advantage of this new normal, you are either very naive or deeply indoctrinated, or both.
maggie, I can’t believe you wouldn’t remember it. It’s seared, seared in my memory.
If you put it that way, Dan I can see the potential. You just wait with the back-up material, and when monkybot flings in its selection, you put in some of the back-up material.
Rather clever procedure in that it doesn’t depend at all on the actual content of monkybot’s post, merely the information you wish to put forward when the bell rings.
Sir, you have my admiration; you actually found a use for monkybot and I didn’t think that was possible.
Cynn,
I don’t think any of us really care what people do in private; it’s when it leads to problems requiring far-reaching court decisions that the effect is one of “pissing in [our] garden”, and it shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there’s a problem here.
Lately, we’ve been establishing rights based on very shaky foundations to address the demands of smaller and smaller population groups to the point where the declared rights are mutually exclusive.
Hypothetical question: What happens to New York if the female transit eployees sue the city for maintaining a hostile workplace environment? I think they’d have a strong case. I also would suspect the cost would be more than $2000 to the female employees. And that’s not covering the cost of another round of sensitivity training. It almost makes one suspect the whole situation is secretly a full employment act for sensitivity trainers…
TW: men44. No comment.
either that or it’s growing up in Oklahoma, have you seen some of the “rest stops” there?
OK, Dan has a hard-on for our transgendered sisters and brothers. Long let him rant; long may he wave. But they sure are a threat. Smack ‘em down, Dan!
Well,
Dan seems to be imaging some fictional bathroom security is already in place to prevent males from entering the woman’s bathroom without a dress on now.
The It’s been four years since Bush failed to stop terrorists attacking America defense.
Check out the post times ….. cool time warp about to happen , …or just did it ?
– The stripping of societal civility, and reasonable codes of adult conduct, privacy, and respect, goes on apace. Wonderful. Here’s to those intrepid souls that have a higher purpose than mere communal stability.
Cynn–
Now you’re just being ridiculous. If women want to use the men’s toilet, honestly I don’t care. I can, however, understand how many–most–women would not care to share their bathrooms with physiological men. And apart from feelings of revulsion, I can see where there would be some reason to their unhappiness with the arrangement.
You are using that language again, suggesting that I’m a closet homo/transgenderphile. Stick it. I repeat again, the predators will use this, and someone will get hurt, and as far as I’m concerned it simply isn’t worth it to cater to a small (I will not call it unimportant) group of people who view their desires as rights, and meanwhile subject a large number to anxiety and danger in order to do so.
Let’s turn it around, then, if you want to use that rhetoric. Anyone who thinks that their “right” to use the bathroom that best expresses their sense of their own identity who thinks that that’s more important than the psychological and physical well being of the vast majority of people with whom they identify, is a selfish prick.
They busted a guy who WAS wearing a dress, which caused the lawsuit that they’ve settled in this myopically expedient way, mb, presumably because someone noticed that the dude didn’t look like a lady. You know. A hate crime.
“….[is] a selfish prick.”
– or prickless, or both, or neither, just to cover all bases.
Looky here, Mr. Big Bang Hunter. I have no issue with civility and common sense. I would expect transgendered people to exhibit no less in proper society. I.E. I would expect them to consider their surroundings and act appropriately.
What I don’t like is some tool proclaiming that the fact that we have such people here to be a mandate for our destruction. And yes, I’m being as outrageous as he is.
“Dan seems to be imaging some fictional bathroom security is already in place to prevent males from entering the woman’s bathroom without a dress on now.”
Actually, I think he is complaining about the former, very real security that USED to be in place. IE, a lady yelling for a transit cop because some dude is in the bathroom. That deterent is now gone. What cynn and monkeyboy are deliberatly missing is that no one, NO ONE, is suggesting the 70 year old person is a threat to anyone. What the point is, NOW some perv can put on a dress and hang out in the womans bathroom, and no one can complain. If someone does tell a transit cop, especially if he has had the sensitivity training, nothing will happen for fear of “offending” or violating some imaginary right. I suspect both cynn and mb understand that’s the point, but its more fun to accuse everyone of wanting to keep the oppressed down. Plus you get to use cool words like “repuke”.
Beats me where they get terrorism from.
– I blame it all on Flockheart….
I wonder how many bathrooms Cynn has used in Europe.
In theory I have no problem with men and women using the same room at the same time. Don’t care.
In, practice however, hoooboy!
Ya’ seen these Cynn? And I swear, I’m fine with transgenders and all of that sort of thing.
But sharing bathrooms is just waaaaay more serious.
He was already in the bathroom, Dan.
I assume if he was actually a rapist…he could have committed the crime.
Alternatively, the transit cop will do nothing for fear of a lawsuit and a loss of employment.
I don’t care about their gender expression, Cynn. I don’t care about drag queens dressing up, so long as they shave; I don’t care about the transsexual–I compassionate her; I don’t care about the bulldyke just so long as she takes care of her Harley. I do care about this, though, for the reasons that I’ve stated.
I guess you don’t have to consider the argument if you’re convinced it’s cover for some hidden agenda.
mb, please go back and read what I’ve written. I honestly believe that you can figure out what I’m saying if you put some minimal effort into it.
Look, if sharing bathrooms is the big beef here, I owe Dan an apology. For a minute there, I thought I was involved in a real contretemps.
Holytoilet, did I miss something?
What are we destructing?
“I would expect them to consider their surroundings and act appropriately.”
– I see your point Cynn. We certainly would have every reason to feel assured of thier basic desire to follow sociatal norms.
Civiis- yep, pretty much.
cynn and mb continue to deliberatly miss the point.
Clearly if Dan has an opinion, it is the wrong one and they will fight to the death to oppose it, no matter the merits. Ok then.
– Look, I see these types of kerfluffles as being the personal issues of some wanker that needs to tweak his/her nose at the “syaytem”. which is fine. Nothing wrong with that. But I think the money would be better spent cleaning up the public cesspools that most of the bathrooms are these days, and providing enough toilet paper.
– I’m sort of pragmatic that way, and since that’s what we’re generally there to do, rather than put on a one person stage show, it seems more practical.
Well, and I’d accept it, too, if I were sure you understand what I’m saying. It’s not that I have a beef with transgender expression, and as I mentioned before, I think it likely that on average such people are much more likely to be victims of sexual violence than perpetrators of it. I don’t like the fact that it opens the door, not just metaphorically, to people who may actually be sexual predators. I think that from a policy point of view it’s a very stupid ruling.
syaytem = system
Dan, seriously, I missed your point. I didn’t get it. What is it exactly? Maybe I overshot.
I don’t think it’s a good idea for men to be able to use the women’s john. I don’t know how to put it more simply.
Simple is good.
Frankly, I just distrust men who would choose the women’s john.
Have they not compared the lines? What exactly are they thinking?
OK, non-issue. Don’t like it when they barge in, but I sure as hell go when and where I need to. Sorry, Dan
I’ve got yer OddBall, right here, MoBo.
I’m in favor of one unisex facility, let the chips fall where they may, and let the sheeple live with the consequences of their lame-assed “tolerance” and foolish legal system.
And I gues my point, simply put, is there’s a difference between real security and the illusion of security…
Consider the two fighters the Air Force dispatched to circle New York after that poor Yankee crashed his plane into a building.
Sure, maybe there’s an outside chance that al Qeada would send two light aircraft with nukes aboard to attack the same city…
…but in reality…if it had been a terrorist attack, all those fighters would have done is help spread the radioactive fallout farther.
I see this issue the same way…barring men in dresses from using the ladies room isn’t going to really make woman any safer.
– Unless it becomes something I can deduct from my income tax, or that 300 lb “Lady” in the Bill Blass shift, and slide heels, standing in line behind me hopping from foot to foot, starts whistling the theme from “Mr. Goodbar” I doubt I would even notice.
People are a little too preoccupied with elimination these days.
I think you ought to leave that decision up to the women. They’re the ones affected. I think that they’re perfectly capable of deciding what’s more secure for them regarding the Metro bathrooms.
– Woman are in too large of a majority to enjoy victim rights Dan. Besides, letting the people that are actually effected decide serious issues….Well we all know where THAT leads….
I sociology, “normal” is defined as in excess of 20% of the population.
You would last, maybe, 20 seconds in the military.
“A healthy paranoia is the beginning of sound operational thought.”
You don’t plan for probabilities, you plan for capabilities.
ooga
booga
oof!
particularly when they’re coming for your precious bodily fluids. ;D
With only 7,000 soldiers based in the U.S. currently ready to respond to “emergencies,” RTO…
Do you think that is an adequate preperation to defend America from an invasion by conventional forces?
Pompey assumed Ceasar would never cross the Rubicon with his legions…
GUFFAW!
Where on earth did you come by that number?
You don’t know history. You don’t know defense. Your logic chip was fried long ago and to top it all off, you CAN’T COUNT.
Here’s a tip: Start by finding out what the total end strength of the US Military is.
Well, monky that’s just too much.
Say what you will about what we’re doing elsewhere, but if you think there will be a conventional invasion on our soil, you are truly insane.
In your head, is this the same conventional force that is going to put W on trial for war crimes? I always wondered what foreign army was going to land on the white house lawn for this.
What a rich fantasy life you have! Do tell, who is this conventional army?
Hummm, I’m sensing a pattern here…
RTO,
The numbers come from the Army’s Chief of Staff.
Lunar,
No offense, but if we’re spending over $500,000,000,000 a year to defend America, I’m not comforted by the operating assumption that nobody will actually try to attack us…
History is full of countries that assumed the same thing…and were unpleasantly surprised.
Gimme a link. Yer full of it.
Heck. Do you even know who the Army Chief of Staff is?
Monkyboy,
Big differance between an attempt to attack us, and an “invasion by conventional forces”.
o
Of course, precision of language isn’t exactly a hallmark of proggs…
Ok, monky granted we have enemies. I’ll give you that one.
But to suggest that a foreign conventential military force will set foot on our soil for the purpose of attacking us is really way, way, way out there.
If you think it’s possible, please elaborate. Seriously. I’m listening.
So tell me. What foreign force do you think will attack us on our own soil?
How much plainer do I have to say it, lee?
What’s the plan if the United States is invaded by a large conventional force?
The Army’s got about 38 combat brigades…over half of them are in Iraq and Afghanistan…and most of the ones here have no equipment or their equipment is “in the shop.”