Family Fist exploiting transphobia for political moralistic point scoring is far more destructive than transgender toilet use
PLEASE NOTE: I realise that transgender issues are a minefield which a stupid cis-male like me can blunder into and cause harm. That’s not my intention and please accept my apologies if I do.
Call me old fashioned folks, but I kinda think the way a human being identifies gender wise is as an intrinsic human right as one’s sexual orientation or one’s race. The whole point of being free individuals in a free society is that you not only have the right to be who you are, but you have the freedom to be who you are.
If we acknowledge that our species is a spectrum within a spectrum, within a spectrum, then the idea that some men would identify as women and some women identify as men and some identify as neither and some identify as both is as uncontroversial as the range of eye and hair colour amongst the human race.
Of course there is a spectrum within gender and those who choose to identify beyond a binary view of it should not only be free to pursue that identity, they should have the same autonomy within society that anyone of us has to pursue that identity.
That’s why I find a religious pressure group like Family First proclaiming to champion women’s rights by producing a video of a young female student voicing her fear and discomfort at having a transgender student use the girl’s bathroom at her school so fucking disingenuous.
Firstly, I call them Family First because any group who wants to legalise a parents right to bash their children needs to have that violence identified with the group right up front.
Secondly, this weird fixation far right religious types have towards transgender people using the bathroom they identify with seems like the sort of fatalistic ignorance that made witch burning such a popular sport in the medieval centuries.
This is fear, hate and superstition, it isn’t reasoned rational thought.
The young woman who spoke out is free to speak out, that’s not an issue. She has the right to an opinion and the right to voice it.
The issue is the level of her complaint which seems to be on par with freaking out over catching gay germs.
Now you have the right to freak out about catching gay germs, and you have the right to articulate that freak out, but you don’t have the right to force the rest of us to conduct ourselves under your delusion.
This is a young woman who seems to be in desperate need of an education on the history of bullying and violence transgender students face instead of being a willing pawn in the religious rights latest culture war.
If a man identifying as a woman wishes to use the womens toilet, they should be free to.
If a woman identifying as a man wishes to use the mans toilet, they should be free to.
If a non gender binary person wishes to use whatever bloody toilet they feel comfortable in, they bloody well should be allowed to.
Who the fuck is going cubical to cubical to check genders? Are these religious fanatics honestly suggesting a toilet police who carry out spot checks?
In Bog we trust?
This isn’t a moral or ethical issue, it is simply about a human beings right to express and feel comfortable with the gender identity that they are.
To allow ourselves to enter this debate with religious fundamentalists gives these sad clowns oxygen.
I can’t personally believe we are even allowing this petty bullshit to be news, we’ve got a planet melting, a fully fledged lunatic in the White House and appalling inequality impacting quarter of a million kids in this country. Why the fuck are we letting religious fundamentalists distract us about who uses the bloody toilet?
Build more unisex toilets, take a bloody compassion pill, and move the fuck along. We have waaaaaaaay more important shit to be getting on with, and hating on transgender folk ain’t one of them.
I have known a number of people making gender transitions. They are people with feelings, just like the rest of us, and they need compassion and solidarity just like anyone else making a major change in their lives. I think it’s sad that their personal circumstances have become so politicized and so polarized. They certainly aren’t helped by the Family Fist “right”, but I’m not convinced that having the intersectional “left” screaming abuse at sheltered, conservative people on their behalf helps them much either. Is there a way to offer practical support to trans people, without demonizing people who don’t understand them (or just lack basic compassion)?
The synic in me would put the entrance to the female toilet and the male toilet inside the unisex toilet at the back
The toilet cubicles shown are little rooms – people can’t be observed in any way while toileting. So what is the problem actually?
That they might see the “guy” washing his hands? That he* might see them putting on make-up or talking trash about other girls.
It’s so incredibly sad that Family First would spend so much money on trying to make this their big issue when it probably only effects two or three schools – that this is the issue they should import from America to try and win NZers over to their cause.
They just look incredibly cruel to make some poor person the subject of a nationwide campaign when he obviously has enough issues on his plate.
(* I am not sure what pronoun he is using so I’ll just go with the “guy” convention used in the promo.)
St Matthew’s Collegiate in Masterton has just completed the refurbishment of a school block including new toilets. They consciously made them transgender simply by having floor to ceiling doors in the cubicals. Issue solved that easily, at least practically.
Just had a conversation about toilet doors in schools after the coroners report on the tragedy of the young boy stuck in the school toilet who died after trying to escape via the window.
I always thought the school toilets were specifically designed with the ability to egress under the door if the lock was jammed, and never experienced any issues with people looking under them. But most of the others at the table remembered – with some disgust – the occurences at school where this did happen.
All sit-down toilet facilities should be transgender which would solve the problem.
In Bog we trust?
There is a brilliant irony in that Martyn;
‘Bog’ is the Russian word for ‘God’! 🙂
If we can’t resolve LGBT/trans issues in a 21st century liberal democracy then I fear for our species.
Family Fist is everything that we should have left way behind in the 1800s.
Men or women using either bathroom has always been a non-issue for me. I don’t understand why anyone remotely cares given that there are individual stalls in nigh on all bathrooms because people don’t like to be seen taking a dump with others watching regardless of gender. The problem, as I understand it, is when a transgender is in the girl’s communal school SHOWER (after PE, for example) and gets an involuntary erection (which, let’s face it, happens) – is that appropriate for your young daughter to be exposed to? It’s a question that needs to be addressed imo.
“is that appropriate for your young daughter to be exposed to?”
If she has a kid brother and helps mum change nappies – she’s already seen it.
If she didn’t live in a clothed society – she’d have already seen it. If she lived in Europe she’d have already seen it.
If she goes to the swimming pool on a cold day – she’d have already seen it.
It’s not mysterious.
But, if you’re worried, think about all the girls with oddities who would be so glad not to have to share the horror of a ‘communal shower’. (Flat chest. Further advanced in puberty. Plump. Short. Scrawny. Hairiness… all those start points for ‘bully her to death’ attacks.)
And they’re the cis-ones.
He doesn’t like to publicise it much, but I have it on good authority that Bob McCoskrie of Family Fi(r)st is a huge fisting enthusiast. The boys down at the sauna have a lot trouble finding objects large enough to shove up his over-stretched rectum apparently. This has the unfortunate side-effect of making copious amounts of shit spew out of his mouth…
Don’t care – so long as they don’t pee on the seat (or worse), and actually flush after.
There are some fems who fail to behave as civilised beings once they reach the sanctuary of a loo. Can’t imagine that a dual gender person could be any worse than that vile minority.
Meh. If we’re going to have things called girls’ schools and girls’ toilets, it’s reasonable for the users of those facilities to assume fellow users will be girls, not “girls, and also boys who wish they were girls.” If it’s to be otherwise, stop putting “girls” in the name.