South Dakota governor vetoes anti-transgender bathroom bill.

[Thana]

Not implying it, stating it outright. Of course sometimes you might be able to tell, but in the majority of cases you would have no idea. You have very like been in close contact with transgender individuals and had no idea. You may have even have used the bathroom with one with out knowing it.

So to ask the question one more time.

Imagine you see someone who to you looks like a man. Picture a man in you mind. Dressed like a man, walking like a man, sounding like a man, smelling like a man. Now imagine that this individual walks into a woman's bathroom. Would that make you feel uncomfortable?

In my experience, one would have to be quite ignorant not to be able to tell the difference. If you can't tell by face (Which about 79% of the time you can) then their shoulders, hips and legs should be able to tell you. And if you still can't tell then their hands and wrists should be enough. Honestly, unless you're born extremely androgynous then your body almost always reflects the sex you were born as.

But obviously you already know my answer for your hypothetical.

 

[fantome profane]

Which about 79% of the time you can

And about 86% of statistics are just made up on the spot. 93% of statistics experts will confirm that.

But all you really know from your "experience" is that every time you have seen someone you knew was a transsexual, you knew they were a transsexual. You have no idea how many times you have seen a transsexual and not known they were transsexual. Obviously you do not know how many times you did not know.
.
(where did you come up with "about 79%"? lol, not 80%, not 75%, but 79. A very exact approximation. Are you sure it's not 78.623%)

 

[Curious George]

And about 86% of statistics are just made up on the spot. 93% of statistics experts will confirm that.

But all you really know from your "experience" is that every time you have seen someone you knew was a transsexual, you knew they were a transsexual. You have no idea how many times you have seen a transsexual and not known they were transsexual. Obviously you do not know how many times you did not know.

That's all about to change now that I have ordered these xray glasses from the back of a comic book.

Joking aside, people really do feel uncomfortable around trans people of the opposite sex. Instead of pointing out how irrational that is (a pretty easy task) we ought to find a way to make that feeling go away. It is when the party feeling such irrational fears clams up and says "it's just how I feel" that we get to point out the irrationality and tell them this is why they shouldn't have their way. But, progress will not come from shutting them down like that. The idea that boys are out to rape and pillage is likely the source. It is truly sad.

Sad that so many women live in fear, sad that so many men are feared, sad that people who are trans and just want acceptance make simple appeals only to find more rejection. Sad on all accounts.

 

[fantome profane]

That's all about to change now that I have ordered these xray glasses from the back of a comic book.

Joking aside, people really do feel uncomfortable around trans people of the opposite sex. Instead of pointing out how irrational that is (a pretty easy task) we ought to find a way to make that feeling go away. It is when the party feeling such irrational fears clams up and says "it's just how I feel" that we get to point out the irrationality and tell them this is why they shouldn't have their way. But, progress will not come from shutting them down like that. The idea that boys are out to rape and pillage is likely the source. It is truly sad.

Sad that so many women live in fear, sad that so many men are feared, sad that people who are trans and just want acceptance make simple appeals only to find more rejection. Sad on all accounts.

I understand this, and I don't want to dismiss people's honest feelings. But in reality if we start making people who look like men use the women's bathroom's we are going to cause more trouble, more distress, more discomfort. All the way round.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The quote I gave you was literally from one of the links you just gave me. lol.

Yes, I know, but using it in such a manner is like the homosexuality thread where someone quoted the APA, but cut out very pertinent information that is highly relevant to the statement. And "thinking" has nothing to do with it. Much like with homosexuals, there have been many physiological/genetic features that have been discovered, and it's widely believed that gender identity is formed in utero. And, regardless, the brain of a transsexual looks far more like the brain of their identified sex, and the third link even shows there is enough of a difference that it can be detected during childhood.

You're implying that in general one cannot tell the difference between people who are and aren't transgender.

In many cases, you can't. Quite often those who are very confident of their ability to tell the difference end up embarrassing themselves.

In my experience, one would have to be quite ignorant not to be able to tell the difference. If you can't tell by face (Which about 79% of the time you can) then their shoulders, hips and legs should be able to tell you. And if you still can't tell then their hands and wrists should be enough. Honestly, unless you're born extremely androgynous then your body almost always reflects the sex you were born as.

There are times when even a forensic anthropologist will have difficulty telling someone's sex.

 

[Thana]

And about 86% of statistics are just made up on the spot. 93% of statistics experts will confirm that.

But all you really know from your "experience" is that every time you have seen someone you knew was a transsexual, you knew they were a transsexual. You have no idea how many times you have seen a transsexual and not known they were transsexual. Obviously you do not know how many times you did not know.
.
(where did you come up with "about 79%"? lol, not 80%, not 75%, but 79. A very exact approximation. Are you sure it's not 78.623%)

Yes, I guesstimated.

And of course I wouldn't know something I didn't know.
But we're not talking about the people we don't know, we're talking about the people we do.

 

[fantome profane]

But we're not talking about the people we don't know, we're talking about the people we do.

No, we are talking about people using public restrooms.

I don't know everyone I might encounter in a public restroom. I don't know the vast majority of people I might meet in a public restroom.

 

[Thana]

No, we are talking about people using public restrooms.

And why some people might be uncomfortable around people they know are not of the same sex.
That's pretty much it. Talking about not knowing they're not of the same sex is not the point and not really constructive.

 

[fantome profane]

And why some people might be uncomfortable around people they know are not of the same sex.
That's pretty much it. Talking about not knowing they're not of the same sex is not the point and not really constructive.

It is the point, and you are missing it.

 

[Thana]

Yes, I know, but using it in such a manner is like the homosexuality thread where someone quoted the APA, but cut out very pertinent information that is highly relevant to the statement. And "thinking" has nothing to do with it. Much like with homosexuals, there have been many physiological/genetic features that have been discovered, and it's widely believed that gender identity is formed in utero. And, regardless, the brain of a transsexual looks far more like the brain of their identified sex, and the third link even shows there is enough of a difference that it can be detected during childhood.

In many cases, you can't. Quite often those who are very confident of their ability to tell the difference end up embarrassing themselves.

There are times when even a forensic anthropologist will have difficulty telling someone's sex.

It is pertinent though, because the findings of that article are not what you claimed. And two of the three links you gave me were articles about the same study, in which again, they don't know anything for a fact. Not even if the differences they found in the brains are actually associated with gender.

 

[lostwanderingsoul]

Let's get away from the bathroom for a minute and go to the high school gym class. Can you imagine girls using the showers with people who call themselves girls but still have male anatomy or boys using showers with people who call themselves boys but have female anatomy? High school is hard enough for teens without this added problem. If you have male anatomy you should use male facilities regardless of what you call yourself. And the same for females.

 

[Curious George]

Let's get away from the bathroom for a minute and go to the high school gym class. Can you imagine girls using the showers with people who call themselves girls but still have male anatomy or boys using showers with people who call themselves boys but have female anatomy? High school is hard enough for teens without this added problem. If you have male anatomy you should use male facilities regardless of what you call yourself. And the same for females.

If your going to go down that track, and comfortability is your standard, if showers are necessary, then single stall showers should be implemented.

If a student feels has severe mental anguish from using the showers in one specific locker room, or even using the shower in general, then accomodations should be made. The school setting is a more personal environment and as such, the solutions ought to be more specific to the individuals involved.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It is pertinent though, because the findings of that article are not what you claimed. And two of the three links you gave me were articles about the same study, in which again, they don't know anything for a fact. Not even if the differences they found in the brains are actually associated with gender.

From my sources:

In 1995, a team of brain researchers in the Netherlands (J.M. Zhou, M.A. Hofman, L.J. Gooren and D.F. Swaab) dissected and compared the autopsied brains of a number of transsexual, homosexual heterosexual men & women. They found major differences between the Transsexual and non-Transsexual brains. The part of the brain that they studies was a region of the hypothalamus found at the base of the brain. It is called the ‘Central Subdivision of the Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis’. They found that this part of the normal brain is 50% larger than the normal femal brain. Furthermore, it is 60% larger than the MtF Transsexual brain. In other words, the male to female Transsexual brain was vastly different than the normal male brain and very much like the normal female brain. They suggested that this may be part of the reason why MtF transsexuals often describe themselves as a woman trapped in a men’s bodies.

Then in 1996 Arthur Arnold, a UCLA brain researcher confirmed the hormonal influences on human brain development. These findings corroborated the prior research done by Dr. Milton Diamond and Gunter Dorner in Germany and by Carl W. Bushong, Ph.D.

Antonio Guillamon‘s team at the National University of Distance Education in Madrid, Spain, think they have found a better way to spot a transsexual brain. In a study due to be published next month, the team ran MRI scans on the brains of 18 female-to-male transsexual people who’d had no treatment and compared them with those of 24 males and 19 females.

They found significant differences between male and female brains in four regions of white matter – and the female-to-male transsexual people had white matter in these regions that resembled a male brain (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006). “It’s the first time it has been shown that the brains of female-to-male transsexual people are masculinised,” Guillamon says.


In a separate study, the team used the same technique to compare white matter in 18 male-to-female transsexual people with that in 19 males and 19 females. Surprisingly, in each transsexual person’s brain the structure of the white matter in the four regions was halfway between that of the males and females (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.11.007). “Their brains are not completely masculinised and not completely feminised, but they still feel female,” says Guillamon.

In a study published in 2014, psychologist Sarah M. Burke of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam and biologist Julie Bakker of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience used functional MRI to examine how 39 prepubertal and 41 adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria responded to androstadienone, an odorous steroid with pheromonelike properties that is known to cause a different response in the hypothalamus of men versus women. They found that the adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria responded much like peers of their experienced gender. The results were less clear with the prepubertal children.

Their findings are exactly what I described, which is that the brain of a transsexual looks far more like the brain of their identified sex rather than their birth sex. This means Frank does not have the same understandings as you, just as I do not have the same understandings that a cis-gendered male does (even those I'm not out to know I'm a terrible source for getting a "guys perspective on things").

If a student feels has severe mental anguish from using the showers in one specific locker room, or even using the shower in general, then accomodations should be made. The school setting is a more personal environment and as such, the solutions ought to be more specific to the individuals involved.

At first, I thought my "wild animal" analogy was just a something I could quickly think of to try to explain the situation. The longer this thread continues, the more I see it as a very suitable analogy. Cis-gendered people are sometimes anxious around transgendered people, and the anxiety is mutual when it comes to transgendered people dealing with cis-gendered people in certain areas (such as the restroom or locker room). But there is no inherent risk or danger, both have the goal of just wanting to go about their day and lives, and while there is no "good" reason for this fear, it happens, and for transsexuals the fear and anxiety comes about from the cis-gendered people, who like wild animals, are prone to striking if we get too close.
Well, the analogy isn't perfect, but there is indeed much anxiety on both sides, one side due to a lack of understanding, and the other side due to harassment and sometimes violence.

 

[Thana]

From my sources:
Their findings are exactly what I described, which is that the brain of a transsexual looks far more like the brain of their identified sex rather than their birth sex. This means Frank does not have the same understandings as you, just as I do not have the same understandings that a cis-gendered male does (even those I'm not out to know I'm a terrible source for getting a "guys perspective on things").

In reading the entire articles and everything they've said, I have to disagree.

"Male and female brains are, on average, slightly different in structure, although there is tremendous individual variability.... It is simplistic to say that a female-to-male transgender person is a female trapped in a male body. It's not because they have a male brain but a transsexual brain..... Of course, behavior and experience shape brain anatomy, so it is impossible to say if these subtle differences are inborn........ But given the variety of transgender people and the variation in the brains of men and women generally, it will be a long time, if ever, before a doctor can do a brain scan on a child and say, “Yes, this child is trans.”.

Those words are directly from the article you linked.

Biological determinism is frequently insinuated in language used about transsexuality, mainly by the media, in ways that have become practically dishonest. Typically, a scientific study is quoted which suggests a correlation or link between transsexuality and hormones or brain structure etc. (The actual strength of the link is almost never mentioned.) This link is taken to show that transsexuality has “a biological basis”, or “is biological”, or “is genetic”, or “is due to hormones”. The implication then taken from this equivocal use of language is that the condition is biologically determined, whereas in all cases the evidence shows nothing of the kind and most of those with the physiological condition described do not become transsexual. Those conditions therefore are no more than minor influences. If they were major influences we would already understand unequivocally the origin of transsexuality in all cases. We don’t. More of these studies come out every year, get misreported, and the gap between what scientists really think and what the activist believes, becomes larger every year.


Usually transsexuals argue that studies have shown their brain microstructure is more feminine (Gorman, 1995; Zhou, Hofman, Gooren & Swaab, 1995). Such studies are notoriously poorly replicable, and provide a very shaky foundation for such a view. The most unequivocal evidence is that brain microstructures are produced by long-continued behaviour, rather than long-established brain structures causing the behaviour. The brain changes physically in response to our behaviour - London taxi drivers have an enlarged part of the brain dealing with navigation, violinists a larger area dealing with movement of the fingers of the left hand. There is no evidence that people are born with brain microstructures unalterable ever after - but there is strong experimental evidence that experience changes that microstructure. Transsexual brain differences would be more likely the result of transsexual behaviour than its cause.

 

[Valjean]

What makes toilets such fearsome places? Different sexes share busses, elevators, all sorts of spaces. If you're uncomfortable in mixed company, recognize that's your own hang-up. You might use the opportunity to work on getting over it.

Your great grandfather would probably have been uncomfortable at a beach or pool today. In some places people are uncomfortable around women not wearing a burqa or niqab. It's all what you're used to.

I wouldn't want my kids growing up with senseless hang-ups, even if I suffered with them myself. Mixed toilets? mixed showers in the locker room? Why not?

 

[Revoltingest]

What makes toilets such fearsome places?

You never know when the guy in the next stall might have a "wide stance".

What?
Too soon?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

In reading the entire articles and everything they've said, I have to disagree.

"Male and female brains are, on average, slightly different in structure, although there is tremendous individual variability.... It is simplistic to say that a female-to-male transgender person is a female trapped in a male body. It's not because they have a male brain but a transsexual brain..... Of course, behavior and experience shape brain anatomy, so it is impossible to say if these subtle differences are inborn........ But given the variety of transgender people and the variation in the brains of men and women generally, it will be a long time, if ever, before a doctor can do a brain scan on a child and say, “Yes, this child is trans.”.

Those words are directly from the article you linked.

Then why do they mention they have found differences in brain activity and structures? And you keep ignoring the parts such as:
the male to female Transsexual brain was vastly different than the normal male brain and very much like the normal female brain.

 

[Thana]

Then why do they mention they have found differences in brain activity and structures? And you keep ignoring the parts such as:
the male to female Transsexual brain was vastly different than the normal male brain and very much like the normal female brain.

Which is why I quoted this -

"Usually transsexuals argue that studies have shown their brain microstructure is more feminine (Gorman, 1995; Zhou, Hofman, Gooren & Swaab, 1995). Such studies are notoriously poorly replicable, and provide a very shaky foundation for such a view. The most unequivocal evidence is that brain microstructures are produced by long-continued behaviour, rather than long-established brain structures causing the behaviour. The brain changes physically in response to our behaviour - London taxi drivers have an enlarged part of the brain dealing with navigation, violinists a larger area dealing with movement of the fingers of the left hand. There is no evidence that people are born with brain microstructures unalterable ever after - but there is strong experimental evidence that experience changes that microstructure. Transsexual brain differences would be more likely the result of transsexual behaviour than its cause."

 

[esmith]

I have only one thing to say to this. 1961, ship pulls into Yoksuka Japan after leaving the States, first time in a foreign country (TJ doesn't count). Wide open public bathrooms with hole in floor to do your business, got talked into trying a Japanese style bath (didn't take much). So I see no problem with open public facilities whether they are toilet facilitates, baths or whatever. It just takes one a very little time to get used to it.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'm not talking about feeling threatened, I'm talking about feeling uncomfortable. Not because of sexuality, but because you're uncomfortable doing your business with people who don't have the same plumbing as you. Because they don't understand you like your own sex understands you. Like I said, an unconcious bond that makes you more comfortable. And using the bathroom with strangers is being vulnerable, so you prefer it with people who understand you and are like you.

And no, you're wrong. I just said it wasn't about appearance or demeanor, I don't care if Saint had a beard and a deep voice and yes I would feel more comfortable with him than you because as I said before, He and I share an understanding that you and I do not.

And I understand that the issues with transexuality are hard for those going through it, Which is why I'm trying to convey my feelings on the bathroom issue so that you know it's not always about prejudice, sometimes it's just a modesty/psychological thing.

I don't use women's restrooms. I don't see how the shape of someone's genitals matters since you're not going to see them in a restroom. I've never seen anyone's parts in a public restroom, male or female. You could've been in a restroom with a trans woman many times and never have known it.