U.S. Directs Public Schools to Allow Transgender Access to Restrooms

[Anthony '58]

Quote:Oh look, another bigot jumps on the "trans-men are pedophiles" bandwagon.

If FDR was a bigot for ignoring Jim Crow and not letting the St. Louis land here, then I am a bigot too.

[Odin]

Five myths on being transgender

Quote:Over the past few years, transgender issues have moved into the spotlight in a big way. Caitlin Jenner came out on prime-time TV. Laverne Cox was featured on the cover of Time. The White House appointed its first openly trans employee. These cultural changes, though, have led to an ugly backlash. States including North Carolina and Kansas have passed or are considering legislation that limits the rights of transgender people. And the political debates around these issues have perpetuated many myths.

1. Transgender people pose a threat in public bathrooms.

This is the central argument by supporters of “bathroom bills,” which make it illegal for transgender people to use restrooms that conform to their gender identity. “The danger is real from sexual predators in women’s restrooms,” Christian author Frank Turek wrote at Townhall. “I think any child or young adult has a right to have their privacy protected when they’re in various stages of undress,” Kansas state Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook argued. North Carolina legislators defended their own measure by saying that it provides for the “protection of the women and children of our state.”

This is flat-out wrong. Many transgender people already use the bathrooms that fit their gender identity. The state of Maryland, hundreds of cities and dozens of schools ban bathroom discrimination. And there have been no reported cases of such laws leading to harassment.

In truth, “bathroom bills” might endanger one group: transgender people. According to one study, 70 percent of trans respondents had been harassed, assaulted or denied access when attempting to use a public bathroom. More than half reported suffering physical ailments, such as dehydration or kidney problems, because they were afraid to use the restroom while out.

2. A 5-year-old doesn’t know enough about gender to be transgender.

Every so often, a media outlet will publish a profile of a child who believes he or she is transgender, and the story will prompt disbelief. “Kids that age can only wear what you put on them, sport the haircut you assign them, play with the toys you give them, and mostly believe what you tell them they should believe,” conservative blogger Matt Walsh wrote about a case in San Diego. “Ryland, the 5 year old girl who ‘transitioned’ into a boy, isn’t transgender, she’s confused,” Joshua Riddle, founder of the Young Conservatives site, declared about the same story.

On the contrary, children as young as 2 can present with gender incongruence. According to the American Psychiatric Association, cross-gender behaviors often start between 2 and 4 years old. One study by the TransYouth Project found that kids as young as 5 respond to psychological gender-association tests, which evaluate how people understand their gender roles. Researchers have also found no relationship between gender incongruence and parenting styles. Transgender children appear in the homes of parents who are Republicans or Democrats, in the military or in civilian life, and regardless of racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds.

3. Being transgender is relatively new.

Much of the coverage of recent transgender debates describes the condition as nascent. LGBTQ Nation dates the movement’s start to the 1980s. Christianity Today calls it a recent “phenomenon.”

Certainly, transgender politics have shifted. But gender-bending has been around a long time. Ancient Greek mythology references feminine souls in male bodies. In “Metamorphoses,” the Roman poet Ovid wrote about a man, Tiresias, who became a woman when he struck two copulating snakes. The Chevalier d’Eon, an 18th-century French politician, spent the second half of her life as a woman. (“Eonism,” a term for cross-gendered behavior, refers to the diplomat.)

In the United States and Europe, doctors have written about transgender patients since at least the 19th century. By the middle of the 20th, physicians had concluded that a transgender person’s gender identity was deeply felt, unresponsive to efforts to change the person’s mind and not necessarily accompanied by psychiatric problems.

4. Transgender people often come to regret transitioning.

One of the most common and misleading tropes about transgender people is that many regret making their transitions. There are websites, YouTube channels and even books dedicated to the topic. One writer, Walt Heyer (who regrets his own transition), claims that 20 percent of transgender people regret transitioning, 41 percent attempt suicide and at least 60 percent suffer from some kind of mental illness. “Suicide and regret,” he writes, “remain the dark side of transgender life.”

These statistics and misstatements are based on outdated research. More recent studies suggest that less than 4 percent of people who get gender-reassignment surgery regret it. Researchers have also found that the surgery dramatically reduces suicide rates among trans people. That makes sense — the surgery can improve self-esteem, body image and general life satisfaction. This is why the international standard of care for adolescents and adults in many countries is to offer transition services.

Of course, some people regret transitioning. A handful may even transition back. But the vast majority do not.

5. Male-to-female transgender athletes have a competitive advantage.

In January, the International Olympic Committee announced that trans athletes can compete as the gender they identify with, whether or not they’ve undergone gender-reassignment surgery. Columnist Janice Turner wrote sarcastically that the new policy was “great news — unless you are a woman athlete.” Trans athletes themselves have faced similar blowback. When mixed martial arts fighter Fallon Fox came out in 2013, competitors complained that she should be barred because of her “advantage.”

These critics argue that transgender women have all the biological strengths — more muscle mass, greater lung capacity — of male athletes. But in reality, most of that dominance is pegged to hormones such as testosterone, not sex organs. Hormone therapy for trans women involves taking a testosterone-blocking drug along with an estrogen supplement. This usually leads to a decrease in muscle mass and bone density, as well as an increase in fat storage. “Together,” one trans runner and researcher wrote in The Washington Post, “these changes lead to a loss of speed, strength and endurance — all key components of athleticism.” To date, trans athletes have not won a disproportionate number of races.

[Kinser79]

Oh look at the libtard posting an opinion propaganda piece as if it were facts. Of course to normalize a mental disorder.

Not an Opinion Piece from a respected Psychological Journal

It's times like these I miss Rani.

[Odin]

(05-22-2016, 12:57 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Oh look at the libtard posting an opinion propaganda piece as if it were facts.  Of course to normalize a mental disorder.

Not an Opinion Piece from a respected Psychological Journal

It's times like these I miss Rani.

You know that gender realignment surgery and hormone therapy IS the primary treatment for gender dysphoria, right?

Also, you seem to be implying that because it is in the DSM that gender dysphoria is somehow a delusional disorder that needs to be "cured", as if it were Schizophrenia. All that is going to do is make the person hate themselves even more and make them more likely to kill themselves, just like when they used to "treat" gay people back when it was considered a mental illness.

[Kinser79]

(05-22-2016, 03:16 PM)Odin Wrote:

(05-22-2016, 12:57 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Oh look at the libtard posting an opinion propaganda piece as if it were facts.  Of course to normalize a mental disorder.

Not an Opinion Piece from a respected Psychological Journal

It's times like these I miss Rani.

You know that gender realignment surgery and hormone therapy IS the primary treatment for gender dysphoria, right?

Yes and in the 1940s lobotomy supposedly cured every psychological disorder. Do you not think it pretty arrogant to assume that there is only one possible treatment, and that treatment must be the most invasive and radical treatment available?

And yet when one researches the statistics on post op transgenders one finds their suicide rates are still extremely high. On par with only one other group. Jews in Nazi Concentration camps so apparently that "primary treatment" is either ineffective or does not address the underlying co-morbid disorders.

http://www.sexchangeregret.com/research

Quote:Also, you seem to be implying that because it is in the DSM that gender dysphoria is somehow a delusional disorder that needs to be "cured", as if it were Schizophrenia.

That is because it is a delusion. Some people seem to also think that they really should be amputees but the main medical intervention is not amputation of otherwise healthy tissue. Rather the treatment is counciling and addressing the other co-morbid disorders that also present themselves.

Quote:All that is going to do is make the person hate themselves even more and make them more likely to kill themselves, just like when they used to "treat" gay people back when it was considered a mental illness.

Not at all. Male sexuality in particular is more or less fixed. Female sexuality is more plastic but more or less fixed. Gender Dysphoria however is a mental illness because Gender itself is a biological construct. Men are men because they have a penis, they have a male brain and they have a sense of themselves as being male. Women are women because they have a vagina, they have a female brain and they have a sense of themselves of being female.

When the sense of one's self does not match their brain and genitals it is the psychology that is the problem. It is pretty cut and dry if you follow the logical biological definitions. Otherwise all you're left with is feels and normalizing a mental illness which is itself treatable through counseling and in extreme cases drugs.

I'm sorry if this hurts your feels Odin, but I have no desire to normalize this mental disorder than I would want to normalize self-harm or schizophrenia. If anything the most compassionate thing to do is to get these people the help they desperately need, and maybe, just maybe they can have a normal life and not kill themselves.

ETA: It should be noted that Gender Dysphoria does not apply to intersex individuals. As Per the DSMV

[Anthony '58]

Once upon a time, we had Bleeding Kansas.

And now - Bleeding Brooklyn?

http://pix11.com/2016/05/22/police-searc...ark-slope/

[Odin]

Trans exploitation in Texas: The right’s flimsy panic sure is conveniently timed for the election. This conservative freakout is a lot like the same-sex marriage panic of '04: A gambit to shore up the GOP in 2016.

Quote:Wednesday, Texas, along with many other red states, filed a lawsuit against the federal government for sending out a letter reminding schools that adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws requires respecting transgender students and letting them have equal access to facilities.

As Zack Ford of Think Progress explains, the premise of the lawsuit is flimsy even by the low standards of right-wing hysterics. It’s based on two premises that are flat-out false: That the federal government is requiring schools to “open all school bathrooms to people of both sexes” and an implicit denial that transgender people even exist.

The lawsuit is strange and flimsy, but that might be beside the point. Transgender people have been around since forever and plenty of state and local governments have been practicing non-discrimination with nary a peep of a problem. And yet, seemingly overnight, all of a sudden every Christian conservative in the nation decided, out of the blue, that the threat of trans people in the bathrooms was our country’s greatest crisis.

The likeliest explanation for what’s going on, then, is that this panic about transgender students is a transparent election year stunt designed to rile up evangelical voters and get them to the polls in November.

With Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, fears that many conservative voters might not even bother to get to the polls this year are sky high. Already some polls are showing that Trump could  have a negative impact on down ticket races for Republicans. Desperate conservative bloggers are begging their people to suck up their distaste for Trump and vote anyway, to preserve the power of congressional, state, and local Republicans.

Under the circumstances, a little sex-and-gender panic starts to feel like just the ticket to get Christian conservatives to hold their nose and vote this year. The whole implication of this panic is that Barack Obama, and therefore Hillary Clinton, are going to turn your kids into a bunch of queers and weirdoes and the only way to stop them is voting Republican. The fact that the Democratic candidate has a shot at being the first female president only makes the issue of people supposedly doing the “wrong” thing for their gender all the more salient to conservatives.

If this theory sounds paranoid, consider that this is exactly the strategy that Republicans used in 2004 to push George W. Bush over the top in a close race with John Kerry.

In 2004, Republicans came out hard against same-sex marriage. Under Karl Rove’s guidance, Republicans from the White House down made opposition to gay marriage a centerpiece of the campaign. Eleven states had ballot measures passing constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

Most notable among these was Ohio, a swing state where presidential polls were nail-biters until the very end, when the state tipped red, handing the election to Bush with 130,000 vote lead. Post-election analysis showed that same-sex marriage was the tie-breaker in the state. The fear of having to see the “wrong” kinds of couples get married got out the evangelical vote. Without the hysteria over gay marriage, we almost certainly would have had a President Kerry. Which would, in turn, mean that instead of John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court, we would have two more liberals, creating a majority.

After you recover from crying over what might have been, consider how quickly the issue of same-sex marriage turned around after that. After the initial “ick” reaction drove people to the polls to vote against it, the nation quickly began to realize that, upon second thought, it is not a big deal if two dudes want to marry each other. Within 11 years, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, with one of the conservatives voting for it.

But it didn’t really matter to the right, because the stupid panic over same-sex marriage had done its dirty work, preserving conservative hold on power for another decade and handing control of the courts to the right.

Which is why, I suspect, they are running the same script on transgender people and bathrooms. It has all the same markers of the opposition to same-sex marriage: Half-baked arguments, squabbling over definitions (conservatives would often flatly declare that marriage, by definition, has to be man-woman marriage), feigned concern for “the children” and, above all other things, trying to override people’s logical faculties by speaking in hyperbolic terms designed to elicit disgust reactions.

This lawsuit is almost hilariously flimsy, or would be, if it weren’t so hateful. The claim that the feds are demanding an end to sex-segregated bathrooms is laughably easy to disprove. As the letter sent by the Department of Education clearly lays out, “Title IX’s implementing regulations permit a school to provide sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, housing, and athletic teams, as well as single-sex classes under certain circumstances.”

No one is saying, in other words, that boys should be allowed in the girls room. The DOE is simply saying that all girls, both trans and cis, should be allowed in the girls room. This is not as confusing as conservatives pretend it is.

In order to get around this problem, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided to pretend that transgender people don’t exist. He never uses the term “transgender” once, except when quoting others, in the suit. During the press conference, when he was asked if he accepted that trans people exist, he dodged. It’s clear that Paxton is playing off right-wing bigots who claim that trans people are just play-acting as the opposite gender.

But that claim doesn’t pass even a moment’s muster. Consider how Mike Huckabee tried to frame this issue last year, saying, “Now I wish somebody had told me when I was in high school, that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in P.E. I’m pretty sure I would’ve found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’”

So Huckabee and the state of Texas  are seriously trying to argue that young men, in high school of all places, are going to get up in front of a roomful of their peers and claim that they are “actually” female, just to get a peek at some boobies? Have they met any teenagers? They sure as hell don’t remember being teenagers, if they think there’s a cisgender boy alive who would endure the teasing he would get for pretending to be female because he’s so hard up on the dating market (and apparently devoid of an internet connection) that he has no hope of seeing boobies naked otherwise.

Just as with the same-sex marriage issue, once people have a chance to really think this through and learn a little more about the issue, they’ll realize that accepting trans people in bathrooms and locker rooms is really no big deal. In fact, most of us have already done so, whether we knew it or not, because most of us don’t exactly go out of our way to either show off our naked bodies or gape at others in those spaces.

But to Republicans, it hardly matters that they will lose on this issue. The only thing that matters is stoking a short-lived panic that will carry them through this election and blunt the impact of a Trump run on their polls. If the whole thing falls apart like the same-sex marriage thing did, so be it. It served its purpose. And that trans kids, actual living people who need support, are suffering because of this, clearly doesn’t matter one bit to them.

[Kinser79]

(05-28-2016, 10:03 AM)Odin Wrote: Trans exploitation in Texas: The right’s flimsy panic sure is conveniently timed for the election. This conservative freakout is a lot like the same-sex marriage panic of '04: A gambit to shore up the GOP in 2016.

Quote:Wednesday, Texas, along with many other red states, filed a lawsuit against the federal government for sending out a letter reminding schools that adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws requires respecting transgender students and letting them have equal access to facilities.

As Zack Ford of Think Progress explains, the premise of the lawsuit is flimsy even by the low standards of right-wing hysterics. It’s based on two premises that are flat-out false: That the federal government is requiring schools to “open all school bathrooms to people of both sexes” and an implicit denial that transgender people even exist.

The lawsuit is strange and flimsy, but that might be beside the point. Transgender people have been around since forever and plenty of state and local governments have been practicing non-discrimination with nary a peep of a problem. And yet, seemingly overnight, all of a sudden every Christian conservative in the nation decided, out of the blue, that the threat of trans people in the bathrooms was our country’s greatest crisis.

The likeliest explanation for what’s going on, then, is that this panic about transgender students is a transparent election year stunt designed to rile up evangelical voters and get them to the polls in November.

With Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, fears that many conservative voters might not even bother to get to the polls this year are sky high. Already some polls are showing that Trump could  have a negative impact on down ticket races for Republicans. Desperate conservative bloggers are begging their people to suck up their distaste for Trump and vote anyway, to preserve the power of congressional, state, and local Republicans.

Under the circumstances, a little sex-and-gender panic starts to feel like just the ticket to get Christian conservatives to hold their nose and vote this year. The whole implication of this panic is that Barack Obama, and therefore Hillary Clinton, are going to turn your kids into a bunch of queers and weirdoes and the only way to stop them is voting Republican. The fact that the Democratic candidate has a shot at being the first female president only makes the issue of people supposedly doing the “wrong” thing for their gender all the more salient to conservatives.

If this theory sounds paranoid, consider that this is exactly the strategy that Republicans used in 2004 to push George W. Bush over the top in a close race with John Kerry.

In 2004, Republicans came out hard against same-sex marriage. Under Karl Rove’s guidance, Republicans from the White House down made opposition to gay marriage a centerpiece of the campaign. Eleven states had ballot measures passing constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

Most notable among these was Ohio, a swing state where presidential polls were nail-biters until the very end, when the state tipped red, handing the election to Bush with 130,000 vote lead. Post-election analysis showed that same-sex marriage was the tie-breaker in the state. The fear of having to see the “wrong” kinds of couples get married got out the evangelical vote. Without the hysteria over gay marriage, we almost certainly would have had a President Kerry. Which would, in turn, mean that instead of John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court, we would have two more liberals, creating a majority.

After you recover from crying over what might have been, consider how quickly the issue of same-sex marriage turned around after that. After the initial “ick” reaction drove people to the polls to vote against it, the nation quickly began to realize that, upon second thought, it is not a big deal if two dudes want to marry each other. Within 11 years, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, with one of the conservatives voting for it.

But it didn’t really matter to the right, because the stupid panic over same-sex marriage had done its dirty work, preserving conservative hold on power for another decade and handing control of the courts to the right.

Which is why, I suspect, they are running the same script on transgender people and bathrooms. It has all the same markers of the opposition to same-sex marriage: Half-baked arguments, squabbling over definitions (conservatives would often flatly declare that marriage, by definition, has to be man-woman marriage), feigned concern for “the children” and, above all other things, trying to override people’s logical faculties by speaking in hyperbolic terms designed to elicit disgust reactions.

This lawsuit is almost hilariously flimsy, or would be, if it weren’t so hateful. The claim that the feds are demanding an end to sex-segregated bathrooms is laughably easy to disprove. As the letter sent by the Department of Education clearly lays out, “Title IX’s implementing regulations permit a school to provide sex-segregated restrooms, locker rooms, shower facilities, housing, and athletic teams, as well as single-sex classes under certain circumstances.”

No one is saying, in other words, that boys should be allowed in the girls room. The DOE is simply saying that all girls, both trans and cis, should be allowed in the girls room. This is not as confusing as conservatives pretend it is.

In order to get around this problem, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided to pretend that transgender people don’t exist. He never uses the term “transgender” once, except when quoting others, in the suit. During the press conference, when he was asked if he accepted that trans people exist, he dodged. It’s clear that Paxton is playing off right-wing bigots who claim that trans people are just play-acting as the opposite gender.

But that claim doesn’t pass even a moment’s muster. Consider how Mike Huckabee tried to frame this issue last year, saying, “Now I wish somebody had told me when I was in high school, that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in P.E. I’m pretty sure I would’ve found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.’”

So Huckabee and the state of Texas  are seriously trying to argue that young men, in high school of all places, are going to get up in front of a roomful of their peers and claim that they are “actually” female, just to get a peek at some boobies? Have they met any teenagers? They sure as hell don’t remember being teenagers, if they think there’s a cisgender boy alive who would endure the teasing he would get for pretending to be female because he’s so hard up on the dating market (and apparently devoid of an internet connection) that he has no hope of seeing boobies naked otherwise.

Just as with the same-sex marriage issue, once people have a chance to really think this through and learn a little more about the issue, they’ll realize that accepting trans people in bathrooms and locker rooms is really no big deal. In fact, most of us have already done so, whether we knew it or not, because most of us don’t exactly go out of our way to either show off our naked bodies or gape at others in those spaces.

But to Republicans, it hardly matters that they will lose on this issue. The only thing that matters is stoking a short-lived panic that will carry them through this election and blunt the impact of a Trump run on their polls. If the whole thing falls apart like the same-sex marriage thing did, so be it. It served its purpose. And that trans kids, actual living people who need support, are suffering because of this, clearly doesn’t matter one bit to them.

Given the source is Salon it is dubious at best. However, it is fascinating that even if this article is remotely not just pure propaganda it all could have been avoided by Obama waiting until after the election to wreck the Nation's restrooms. Hum could he be actually sabotaging Clinton? I mean literally giving people an excuse--even a poor one cause there are certainly better ones to vote Republican this round--only serves the interests of Trump as he will be the GOP's nominee.

[Odin]

(05-28-2016, 10:53 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Given the source is Salon it is dubious at best.

Says a guy who thinks Breitbart and alt-right YouTubers are reasonable sources...

If I was using HuffPo or Counterpunch as a source you might have a point.

[Kinser79]

(05-28-2016, 05:40 PM)Odin Wrote:

(05-28-2016, 10:53 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Given the source is Salon it is dubious at best.

Says a guy who thinks Breitbart and alt-right YouTubers are reasonable sources...

If I was using HuffPo or Counterpunch as a source you might have a point.

Actually Britbart is more reliable than Salon. They don't publish stories trying to normalize pedophilia and other disgusting disorders. Or did you forget this little gem? I haven't.

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/21/im_a_ped...a_monster/

That said HuffPo and Counterpunch are just as bad.

As for alt-right youtubers, Stefan Molyneux provides his sources in the description. Sargon of Akkad isn't even on the Alt Right but is rather a classical liberal. As for Gavin McInnis I usually use him to lighten the mood. I find the man funny because I often know exactly where he's coming from. He defected from what passes as a left these days as well.

Methinks you suffer from source envy Odin.

[Odin]

Study Suggests Anti-Trans Parents May Literally Be Killing Their Kids

[Kinser79]

(06-01-2016, 07:14 PM)Odin Wrote: Study Suggests Anti-Trans Parents May Literally Be Killing Their Kids

Bullshit. You know what is killing these confused people? Gender Dysphoria combined with co-morbid psychological issues. Add in drug abuse problems (self-medicating perhaps?) which was glaringly obvious from this same study. And the picture becomes clear. These "trans-genders" have a myriad of psychological disorders and naturally some of them attempt a permanent solution to an otherwise temporary problem.

[Ragnarök_62]

Hmmmm.... Lots of discussion about toilet habits and who accesses a collection of potties. Here's a blast from past that will fix this mess once and for all!



Notice, no male/female/whatever here folks. All are welcome to use outhouses.

[Mikebert]

This issue shows a good example of why we cannot deal with our core economic problem.  This policy is a small step towards addressing our economic inequality problem has been under public discussion for at least a decade. OTOH transgender bathroom use is is a very new issue that has just come to public attention in the last year Overtime rules is something that should have been done a long time ago, but only got done last month.  The transgender issue that affects way fewer people, that gets acted on right away. This says something about Democratic priorities in the age of Obama, who ran on a change platform. 

It's nothing new.  After they ran on an economic change platform in 1992 and what was the first thing the Clinton administration took up?  Gays in the military!  I remember thinking WTF?  Then he made a full court press to get NAFTA approved by the Democratic Congress over the strenuous objection of Labor.  And this after seeing a third party candidate getting 20% of the vote in a campaign in which opposition to NAFTA was a central issue.

Perot's success suggested that Clinton could have wooed Reagan Democrats (who still existed then) by embracing the Perot anti-free trade and balance the budget economic platform rather than tough-on-crime laws and ending welfare as we know it.  That is he could have made his crime and welfare campaign promises just campaign blather while pursuing economically liberal issues as the real policy.  That is, sort of an inverse Republican style.

Instead they decided the solution to the 1980's Democratic electoral problems was to move to the right economically in areas the Republicans were not yet competitive, but keep their socially-liberal stances, and small-scale professionally-designed programs to address social problems that appealed to educated whites.  For their part, the GOP also offers a menu of economic polices that appeal to the same demographic as well as to the rich.

The result has been two parties who have nothing economically to offer the 40% of the population that falls into in the class between the unemployed poor and the middle classes.  And this explains the Trump/Sanders phenomena.

Obama's prioritization of the needs of the transgendered  as more urgent than those of the working class demonstrates the same sort of 1990's "New Democrat" economic priorities.  Since Clinton's wife is running for president, rational observers can rightly conclude that it is business as usual.

[Anthony '58]

What everybody - at least, almost everybody - doesn't get is that cultural conservatism is being redefined: No longer does it mean wanting to crack down on fornication, promiscuity, homosexuality etc.; instead it now means - or is very soon about to mean - preserving the Anglo-American character of the culture, by restricting, totally banning, or even reversing immigration, and demanding total assimilation from those immigrants who are permitted to come here, or to stay.

Toward this end, look for the "Trumpites" to push for the passage of a law making English the sole official language of the United States.  Good legal arguments can be offered either way as to whether such a bill, passed by Congress and signed by a President Trump, would pass constitutional muster - but the judicial branch, ultimately a SCOTUS that includes at least one Trump appointee, will decide that issue; and if the decision goes against the "Trumpites," they will no doubt proceed with a constitutional amendment.

Against this backdrop, the Transgender Wars will be the last battle of its kind - to be decided, rather obviously, in favor of the gender-benders.

[pbrower2a]

(06-06-2016, 03:26 PM)Anthony Wrote: What everybody - at least, almost everybody - doesn't get is that cultural conservatism is being redefined: No longer does it mean wanting to crack down on fornication, promiscuity, homosexuality etc.; instead it now means - or is very soon about to mean - preserving the Anglo-American character of the culture, by restricting, totally banning, or even reversing immigration, and demanding total assimilation from those immigrants who are permitted to come here, or to stay.

Toward this end, look for the "Trumpites" to push for the passage of a law making English the sole official language of the United States.  Good legal arguments can be offered either way as to whether such a bill, passed by Congress and signed by a President Trump, would pass constitutional muster - but the judicial branch, ultimately a SCOTUS that includes at least one Trump appointee, will decide that issue; and if the decision goes against the "Trumpites," they will no doubt proceed with a constitutional amendment.

Against this backdrop, the Transgender Wars will be the last battle of its kind - to be decided, rather obviously, in favor of the gender-benders.

Tough. The assimilation has gone the other way, too. I'm not giving up my lasagna, teriyaki seasoning, fajitas, bagels, or hamburgers (the latter are a German introduction).

What is wrong with some Scandinavian-American kid swinging a stick in an effort to break a pinata? What is wrong with me listening heavily to German and Austrian classical music? What is wrong with an appreciation of Russian literature?

"Official English"? We never needed it. Indeed one of the best ways to hide status as an illegal immigrant is to speak unexceptionable English. (So many Americans speak bad English that they are practically handicapped in getting along in America -- and they are born and raised in this country and may even have ancestors who came over in colonial times. No, they are not Hispanics living in California, Colorado, New Mexico, or Florida. They aren't Cajuns in Louisiana, either.

I can't imagine anyone choosing to be transgender. Gays and lesbians usually know what they are and don't have a problem with identity -- only with acceptance by the last dolts who judge them for homosexuality.

[Bronco80]

(06-01-2016, 10:03 PM)taramarie Wrote: In other words what i have been saying...unisex toilets. We use them already.

Exactly.  We had unisex toilets in college and no one gave a shit.  Well, figuratively, that is.  Literally, many shits were given in them!

[Anthony '58]

But back narrowly on topic:

Under British common law - which forms the basis for the penal codes in every U.S. state except Louisiana - the crime of burglary entails entering upon a premises on which a person has no legal right to be, with the intention of committing a crime.  Picking a lock, smashing a window, etc., is not necessary.

With the foregoing in mind, if it is illegal for a biologically-born male to be in a women's rest room, if that male commits even a relatively minor "sex crime," i.e., peeping or flashing, it becomes a felony - burglary.  But, as a practical matter, no transgender would ever be arrested for merely being in the ladies' room, unless one of the ladies commits the crime of peeping herself; otherwise, how would she know that someone was not a "real" woman?  And since taking a piss or a crap in a facility designed for same is (obviously) not a crime, the intention-of-committing-a-crime criterion for burglary is not met if that is all the transgender does in there.

So what's the fuss - unless the libs don't want to see bathroom pervs charged with burglary, which might very well provide an added deterrent to such activity?

[pbrower2a]

(06-10-2016, 06:35 AM)Anthony Wrote: But back narrowly on topic:

Under British common law - which forms the basis for the penal codes in every U.S. state except Louisiana - the crime of burglary entails entering upon a premises on which a person has no legal right to be, with the intention of committing a crime.  Picking a lock, smashing a window, etc., is not necessary.

Inserting oneself or something connected to oneself where one is unlikely to be welcome is burglary. Thus wandering into a non-common area of a store to take stuff (a store room) is a burglary. Sticking around after closing time and then helping oneself to items in the business is burglary. Accidents might not be burglary; thus if one is stuck in the building while drunk one might not be a burglar.

I can imagine a suitable treatment for computer viruses and hacking: digital bits that can only be harmful would be burglary just as would be using a magnet or a rod and reel to grab stuff and deprive it from the owner. Prosecution of those who break into a computer to get credit card data as burglars? That would be a novel, but perhaps defensible interpretation of common law.

Quote:With the foregoing in mind, if it is illegal for a biologically-born male to be in a women's rest room, if that male commits even a relatively minor "sex crime," i.e., peeping or flashing, it becomes a felony - burglary.  But, as a practical matter, no transgender would ever be arrested for merely being in the ladies' room, unless one of the ladies commits the crime of peeping herself; otherwise, how would she know that someone was not a "real" woman?  And since taking a piss or a crap in a facility designed for same is (obviously) not a crime, the intention-of-committing-a-crime criterion for burglary is not met if that is all the transgender does in there.

Going into an occupied restroom and doing an unwelcome, sexually-charged deed would be some violation. Wandering into the wrong restroom happens.  So one respects the privacy of anyone. Remove the urinal from a "men's room", and one has a unisex restroom.

Quote:So what's the fuss - unless the libs don't want to see bathroom pervs charged with burglary, which might very well provide an added deterrent to such activity?

[/quote]

Indecent exposure. Child abuse if it involves children. Disorderly conduct.

By the way -- installing a camera into a restroom to get images of people's genitals would be a burglary. One would never be invited to a business or a public office to do so.

[Anthony '58]

Actually Dan should close this thread - since now, on the religious right, LGBTs are the apple of G-d's eye because of the Orlando shooting (none other than Tim Tebow has essentially said so) - just like the Jewish people became the apple of G-d's eye on the religious right because of 9/11.

So let the joyous news be spread: The sex-based Culture Wars at last are dead!