THIS is what we are warning you all about!!

[Carrikature]

Yeah it is quite close because you refuse to apply your own logic. The logic you are using is baring men from using women's restrooms is assuming all men are predators. If we apply this logic consistently, baring people from any space would be assuming they are predators. Locks bar people from a space so therefore using a lock is assuming everybody is a predator. Not my fault that your logic leads to these silly conclusions.

As I've already stated, there is a difference between knowing there are predators and pointing to specific people as those predators.

FYI since these laws would also bar women from entering men's restrooms, it also would be assuming all women are predators too if we apply your logic consistently. Just so you are aware.

If anyone was making the argument that women should be banned from men's restrooms because they are potential predators, you would be right. No one is doing that. Which is, in fact, a big part of my point.

[Carrikature]

It's obvious to anyone paying attention that the laws are exploitable. That is what we are talking about. A competent risk assessment shows that these "nondiscrimination laws" are very exploitable and the cost/benefit of allowing the risk is not acceptable. Ample evidence exists that shows what the end result of a successful exploit is. Making it more difficult to exploit by creepers at the expense of a very few people who just want to be vocal about their particular hang-up is a positive risk evaluation. On one side, you have someone whose feelings are hurt that they *gasp* have to use the toilet of their actual plumbing and on the other, you have more difficult access to a potential rape victim. It disgusts us that you guys think feelings matter more than actual safety.

A lot of laws are exploitable. That doesn't mean the risk is real. The voter ID law uproar ran aground of the same problem: claims of exploitation that didn't exist. That's why 'ample evidence' here is incorrect. Ample evidence shows what already happens. That does not automatically translate into increased risk.

The 'you guys' bit here is a total miss. I'm not in favor of the laws. I'm not in favor of making bad arguments to defeat the law, either. So far, that's all I've seen.

It's not about "every opportunity". It's about making it that much harder to exploit.

By your own OP, 'that much harder to exploit' isn't demonstrable. The irony of this entire thread is that you provided the bullet to put down your argument in the very attempt at making the argument.

[Carrikature]

Maybe it'll help to step through what currently happens.

A smart predator keeps an eye on the bathroom to make sure it's empty. Once they know it is, they enter the restroom and hide in a stall. An average intelligence predator just walks into the bathroom. If someone is in there, they say "Oops", turn around, and walk out. The person in the bathroom think it's weird but no big deal because people make mistakes sometimes. A really dumb predator doesn't say "Oops" but just stands there all creepy until leaving or until the people in there leave. The people in there may or may not report it because that's what people do. Either way, the predator is going to try again or just be dumb and hide in a stall. Once the predator is in the stall, they wait for the time to be right. They wait for an individual to be alone in the room with them. Then they pounce.

The majority of restroom areas have no security cameras. Of those that do, the majority are not actively monitored. No one knows who is in which bathroom unless they explicitly see it. So, most of the time, there's no active prevention for any of the above.


So what's there to exploit? The only thing that changes with specific laws about who is in which bathroom is that "Oops" may no longer be required. That's it. The threat hasn't changed. The methods don't have to change. The monitoring doesn't change. The reporting probably doesn't change given that anyone reporting a creepy person in the restroom is probably going to report them regardless.

In the case of locker rooms and the like, it's pretty trivial to put a policy in place where one has to demonstrate transgender whatever in order to use a different facility. This is particularly trivial in schools where requiring doctor notes is already a normal thing. That mostly stops people from just coming in to gawk and/or taking pictures. I've already mentioned that some places have policies prohibiting cellphone use in and around changing areas. Again, that's pretty trivial to implement.

[Tassman]

This is both inaccurate and uncalled for.

With reference to my, admittedly gratuitous, comment "he just enjoys being contrary" I remind you of your self assessment from your own TWeb Biography: "I'm a lot better at poking holes in things than filling them back in."

[seer]

Except there is no real evidence that rape would undermine social cohesion to any great degree, it certainly doesn't with higher primates. And since reproduction, not necessarily social cohesion, it the ultimate goal of evolution, rape may in fact be largely advantageous. And if social cohesion is the goal what better glue would there be than a common religion?

[seer]

In the case of locker rooms and the like, it's pretty trivial to put a policy in place where one has to demonstrate transgender whatever in order to use a different facility. This is particularly trivial in schools where requiring doctor notes is already a normal thing. That mostly stops people from just coming in to gawk and/or taking pictures. I've already mentioned that some places have policies prohibiting cellphone use in and around changing areas. Again, that's pretty trivial to implement.

Really so how do you do that? How does someone going to a YMCA in gym clothes "prove" that he/she is transgender? And why should women and young girls be exposed to strange naked men if that makes them uncomfortable and embarrassed? I mean that whole argument is, in the end, about the comfort level of a few trans, what about the comfort level of the rest of us?

[Psychic Missile]

I mean that whole argument is, in the end, about the comfort level of a few trans, what about the comfort level of the rest of us?

That's not how rights work, seer. There were plenty of people made uncomfortable by the end of racial segregation. There are plenty of people made uncomfortable when someone expresses unpopular opinions. Should we have not ended segregation? Should we end the right to free speech?

[Leonhard]

How does someone going to a YMCA in gym clothes "prove" that he/she is transgender?

Do you have to do that in the first place? I'm not aware of any place that has security guards at those bathrooms, or any other public bathroom I've been to, except a very small number of exclusive places, in which case I was never asked what my gender was before going to a bathroom.

The context of the law is more along the lines of preventing overly zealous security guards from manhandling someone out of the mens and womens room. Or for principals to punish transsexual students, who choose to go to another bathroom, or to build gender neutral bathrooms, or make all the bathrooms gender neutral. Which is what it seems you want seer.

In the case of predation I don't think a 'I'm actually a woman, even though I always wear mens clothes, have no known history of being a transexual, have made no attempt to identity myself as anything other than male, etc...' will hold up in court.'.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what these bathrooms bills are trying accomplish that's worth anything. The Republicans want control over who goes where, and want to prevent people from making alternatives, and the Democrats want to force people to do it in a new way. Its all more, unnescessary, control over people.

[Leonhard]

From the US conversatives in this forum I get the feeling that they expect a virtual tidal wave of predators going into the bathrooms. Is there any evidence of a risk like this. Real evidence. Not a barely plausible storyline or two.

[seer]

That's not how rights work, seer. There were plenty of people made uncomfortable by the end of racial segregation. There are plenty of people made uncomfortable when someone expresses unpopular opinions. Should we have not ended segregation? Should we end the right to free speech?

Really? Tell me why is it a right to use the shower or locker of your choice? Do I have that same right?

[seer]

From the US conversatives in this forum I get the feeling that they expect a virtual tidal wave of predators going into the bathrooms. Is there any evidence of a risk like this. Real evidence. Not a barely plausible storyline or two.

Except in schools, I don't think the bathroom thing is much of an issue. It is the shower and locker room thing that is the problem. I'm sorry, women and young girls should not be exposed to naked "MEN."

[Sparko]

I will not defend "self-identify". I don't support it, either. Regardless, claiming it's no longer about transgender issues is false. The simplest answer, in my opinion, would be for people to stop bullying others. That seems too much to ask. We shouldn't (and arguably don't) need a law on this topic either way.

OK so you have a woman who has transgendered into a man, the hormones, the operation, all. S/He goes into a man's bathroom, dressed like a man, with man parts. How is anyone going to know or say anything to "him"? It is a problem that doesn't exist. It needs no "law" one way or another.

The problem is when someone "identifies" as the opposite sex, but appears and IS physically the other sex to what they identify as. You have men (maybe dressed as women, maybe not) who are physically men with men parts going into women's bathrooms. Making THAT "normal" opens a huge door for criminals to misuse that to attack women and children with nobody batting an eye.

[Leonhard]

As for the yet-another-shout-match between Tassman and seer, on whether social cohesion provides an adequate account for whether homosexual behavoir is good. I've followed it here, and in other threads vaguely. I'm still not sure what exactly is the evidence that Tassman thinks backs him up, except that homosexual behaviour is currently respected and deemed culturally normal in our society. For the majority of human history is hasn't, and the world has been very divided in this.

When a single phrase like 'social cohesion' is thrown around like a magic word, it indicates to me that there's not much more to the argument than flapping your arms (speaking to Tassman).

At most, it seems to me, we can argue that homosexual behaviour is not directly detrimental to the wellbeing of a society. At such there's no reason, as per keeping peace and order, and other desirable qualities, to have laws that prohibit this behaviour. While I would argue that we could still have moral reasons for doing so, at most then a 'social cohesion' account would only explain why homosexual behaviour is not regulated in all countries. That's about it. There would be no evolutionary psychological account of homosexual behaviour in animals. In general, I find all accounts like that purporting to explain one or several psychological features via the theory of evolution to be bordering on pseudoscience. Usually very little real evidence is presented, and a few just-so stories are told.

Homosexual behaviour likely has no single or simple explanation for why its here. The only evolutionary argument for its existence that I can even think of, is if the same genes that causes men to be homosexual, also causes women to be more fertile, and that the increased rate of reproduction outweighs the number of males not participating in it. In that case these genes would be selected for by the evolutionary process. As for how homosexual males integrate into the culture, I don't think that's important at all. "I would die for two of my brothers, or for eight of my nephews." As J.B.S Haldane said it about the selection effect on kins.

Its likely just randomness really. Some men or women are born with their sexual desires, accidentally ordered towards the same sex. And since the effect on societal reproduction is so negligible, natural selection just doesn't filter this behavior out. We have all sorts of weird genetic defects, causing all sorts of idiosyncratic behaviour in humans, some of which we find socially acceptable or not, depending on our culture.

And if you got such an account of how homosexual behaviour comes to be and stays in the human population. Well evidenced, and everything. What you'd have is just why things are the way they are, not whether they should be the way they are.

You can't base an entire philosophy of morality and ethics, on whether a certain behaviour promotes, negates or is indifferent to whether we stay together in a working relationship. Homosexuality falls awkwardly into the third category, with some overlap of the two others. Even if you argue that social cohesion is a good thing, which I think is the real challenge for you, and probably more problematic than you think, since I don't see how you'd avoid a narrowminded concept of conformancy, even then I think using that to argue that homosexual behaviour is good would be a stretch.

I have much more respect for those who simple argue that homosexual partnerships are not wrong, because they harm no one, and its something people want. At least here there's some definite concrete truthes to deal with and argue about.

And as for whether its natural. I don't know who you're targetting. Ordinary people arguing against homosexual behaviour on account of it being "unnatural"? In that case fine. I'll agree with you right out of the gate, such arguments are horrible bad. However natural law philosophers, can't be targetted with the same argument. We don't argue that homosexual behaviour is immoral because its not found in nature, we argue that its immoral because its against the natural telos of human nature. You might not agree with those arguments, but I'd much rather you respond to that stuff, rather than you repeating the same nonsense ad nauseum ad seer.

[Sparko]

It's going to extend to any place where a transgender can be exposed and therefore bullied. That's the root of the issue, after all.

Why all this concern from society to prevent "bullying" to a very, very, very minor segment of our population, yet not giving a damn about the bullying or attacking of women and children that is enabled by this idiotic idea?

[Sparko]

You've already been challenged to do more than just insist the danger exists. You've thus far failed to do so.




There's a step between biological facts about physiology and claiming those facts will be exploited at every opportunity. You have made that step.

Therefore the "bullying" of all of these transgenders by society is a non-issue.