“Bathroom bills”, explicitly either allowing or forbidding trans people to use public toilet facilities matching the gender they now identify as, appear to break down cleanly as follows: ones proposed and sponsored by conservatives forbid, ones proposed and sponsored by progressives permit.
Would you support or oppose a bill explicitly allowing cis males to use female public toilets?
I mean, if you have a good reason against that, you should consider the possibility that the bill allowing trans people to use any bathroom will be abused by some people, because “what you identify as” is difficult to verify.
Canada’s “Bill C-16”… added gender identity to the list of things that can be considered possible targets for “hate speech” and “hate crimes”.
Note that if I am the hypothetical asshole cis male who trolls people by using female public toilets, and you call me out, that could in Canada qualify as hate speech, depending on how convincingly I make my case. Okay, if I am a known troll, I would probably lose. But if I am a pervert pretending to be trans...
I guess, it depends on what is more frequent in real life: actual trans people, or perverts willing to pretend to be trans if it allows them to sneak into female toilets. Probably the trans people, but I wish I could be more sure about this.
One more question: Suppose I now decide to troll you, and declare that I am a trans woman, and insist that you call me “she”. And it is perfectly obvious to you that I am just lying and being an asshole to you, to prove some stupid political point. Would you obey my wish regardless?
(Separate reply for last paragraph, which is about something entirely different from the rest of your comment.)
If you declare that you’re a trans woman and demand to be called “she”, then I expect I’ll call you “she”. If (as I think is actually the case) you’re a cis man, I don’t see that you’re going to get much satisfaction from being referred to that way.
I am not generally in favour of laws that would require me to do that, even if you are in fact not a troll or an asshole but simply a trans woman. Or indeed a cis woman. In my view, misgendering someone is an asshole move of roughly the same magnitude as saying “fuck you” to them or repeatedly calling them stupid. Those things are not generally illegal, and I think misgendering generally shouldn’t be either. My (outsider’s) understanding of C-16 in Canada is that despite Jordan Peterson’s complaints it does not in fact make misgendering people generally illegal.
(“Generally” because I’m not certain there aren’t any situations in which misgendering someone might be, or contribute to, either “fighting words” (considered in law a deliberate provocation of violence) or slander.)
I have not claimed that “allowing bathroom bills” are a good thing on balance, or that “forbidding bathroom bills” are a bad thing on balance; only that the former are good for trans people and the latter are bad for trans people.
However, I do on the whole think that FBBs are a bad thing overall and (less confidently) that ABBs are a good thing overall, so let me address your question. What I would actually prefer is for all public toilets to be unisex, and designed in such a way that no one using them need care much who else is using them. Failing that, I would not favour a bill allowing cis men to use female public toilets, for one thing because it doesn’t make any sense: if cis men are allowed to use them, then in what possible sense are they “female public toilets”?
So, shouldn’t I be concerned about male predators lurking in female public toilets and then defending themselves if challenged by saying “oh, but I’m a trans woman”? Not very concerned, I think, because if I try to imagine the actual concrete course of events I have trouble seeing genuinely-probable things to worry about.
(Content warning: anyone likely to be badly disturbed by thinking about male predators in women’s toilets might want to stop reading now.)
I mean, imagine a (cis male) predator wanting to lurk in women’s toilets for some nefarious purpose. What nefarious purpose, and what exactly is he doing? I don’t think it can just be for ogling, because there’s not much ogling to do in women’s toilets—the only undressing happens inside the cubicles. So presumably the idea is some kind of physical violence; the predator is waiting (let’s say) for the only other person there to be a vulnerable-looking woman, whom he will kidnap or rape or murder or whatever other appalling thing he has in mind. Now there are two cases. (1) Maybe he’s hiding in a cubicle so as not to be seen. In this case, I think things go exactly the same way whatever the law says about trans people and public toilets. (2) Maybe he’s hanging out by the washbasins—that way he gets a better view of the situation, but is more likely to be spotted. And now the case that matters is where someone sees him there and says “Oi, you’re not meant to be in here”.
If there is in force what I’ve been calling an “allowing bathroom bill”, then he can respond “Oh yes I am; I’m a trans woman”. OK, so far so good. But now he’s been spotted; he’s not going to get away with continuing to hang out by the washbasins; everyone’s going to be suspicious. Realistically, our predator’s best option at this point is to go and lurk in a different women’s toilet and hope not to get caught this time.
At the other extreme, if there is a “forbidding bathroom bill” in force, he definitely can’t say that and hope it’ll help. But he can still e.g. say “Oh shit, is this a women’s toilet? I must have misread the signs” and realistically no one is likely to be calling the police. So the actual outcome is the same either way.
Will an “allowing bathroom bill” make people more reluctant to confront our predator? It could. But there are already actual unambiguously cis women who look very male, and confronting one of them in a women’s toilet would be just as much a faux pas in the present world (or even one with a “forbidding bathroom bill”) as confronting a trans woman in a world with an “allowing bathroom bill”. I’m not convinced the social pressures are that much different either way.
Or suppose our predator, confronted by the washbasins in a world with a “forbidding bathroom bill”, doesn’t say “I’m a trans woman”; he just says “I’m a woman—it’s not my fault if I’m not feminine-enough looking for you”. Are his accusers really going to rip his clothes off and check his genitals, or take a blood sample and do some sort of genetic test? Of course not.
I think our hypothetical predator has, realistically, pretty much the same options available, with pretty much the same chances of success, regardless of what the law says about trans women in women’s toilets.
And now consider: there are trans men too. If you say that trans women have to use the men’s toilets, then it seems trans men have to use the women’s toilets. Guess what? Trans men tend to look like men. So, actually, our hypothetical predator has an extra defensive option when confronted. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m a trans man and the law says I have to use these bathrooms.”
No comment on your link, but by “perverts” in this context I specifically meant guys who get turned on by being in a public toilet with (other) women. The idea is that being an object of such desire might make the women quite uncomfortable, and yet there is nothing they can do about it without risking to be accused of transphobia.
Would you support or oppose a bill explicitly allowing cis males to use female public toilets?
I mean, if you have a good reason against that, you should consider the possibility that the bill allowing trans people to use any bathroom will be abused by some people, because “what you identify as” is difficult to verify.
Note that if I am the hypothetical asshole cis male who trolls people by using female public toilets, and you call me out, that could in Canada qualify as hate speech, depending on how convincingly I make my case. Okay, if I am a known troll, I would probably lose. But if I am a pervert pretending to be trans...
I guess, it depends on what is more frequent in real life: actual trans people, or perverts willing to pretend to be trans if it allows them to sneak into female toilets. Probably the trans people, but I wish I could be more sure about this.
One more question: Suppose I now decide to troll you, and declare that I am a trans woman, and insist that you call me “she”. And it is perfectly obvious to you that I am just lying and being an asshole to you, to prove some stupid political point. Would you obey my wish regardless?
(Separate reply for last paragraph, which is about something entirely different from the rest of your comment.)
If you declare that you’re a trans woman and demand to be called “she”, then I expect I’ll call you “she”. If (as I think is actually the case) you’re a cis man, I don’t see that you’re going to get much satisfaction from being referred to that way.
I am not generally in favour of laws that would require me to do that, even if you are in fact not a troll or an asshole but simply a trans woman. Or indeed a cis woman. In my view, misgendering someone is an asshole move of roughly the same magnitude as saying “fuck you” to them or repeatedly calling them stupid. Those things are not generally illegal, and I think misgendering generally shouldn’t be either. My (outsider’s) understanding of C-16 in Canada is that despite Jordan Peterson’s complaints it does not in fact make misgendering people generally illegal.
(“Generally” because I’m not certain there aren’t any situations in which misgendering someone might be, or contribute to, either “fighting words” (considered in law a deliberate provocation of violence) or slander.)
I have not claimed that “allowing bathroom bills” are a good thing on balance, or that “forbidding bathroom bills” are a bad thing on balance; only that the former are good for trans people and the latter are bad for trans people.
However, I do on the whole think that FBBs are a bad thing overall and (less confidently) that ABBs are a good thing overall, so let me address your question. What I would actually prefer is for all public toilets to be unisex, and designed in such a way that no one using them need care much who else is using them. Failing that, I would not favour a bill allowing cis men to use female public toilets, for one thing because it doesn’t make any sense: if cis men are allowed to use them, then in what possible sense are they “female public toilets”?
So, shouldn’t I be concerned about male predators lurking in female public toilets and then defending themselves if challenged by saying “oh, but I’m a trans woman”? Not very concerned, I think, because if I try to imagine the actual concrete course of events I have trouble seeing genuinely-probable things to worry about.
(Content warning: anyone likely to be badly disturbed by thinking about male predators in women’s toilets might want to stop reading now.)
I mean, imagine a (cis male) predator wanting to lurk in women’s toilets for some nefarious purpose. What nefarious purpose, and what exactly is he doing? I don’t think it can just be for ogling, because there’s not much ogling to do in women’s toilets—the only undressing happens inside the cubicles. So presumably the idea is some kind of physical violence; the predator is waiting (let’s say) for the only other person there to be a vulnerable-looking woman, whom he will kidnap or rape or murder or whatever other appalling thing he has in mind. Now there are two cases. (1) Maybe he’s hiding in a cubicle so as not to be seen. In this case, I think things go exactly the same way whatever the law says about trans people and public toilets. (2) Maybe he’s hanging out by the washbasins—that way he gets a better view of the situation, but is more likely to be spotted. And now the case that matters is where someone sees him there and says “Oi, you’re not meant to be in here”.
If there is in force what I’ve been calling an “allowing bathroom bill”, then he can respond “Oh yes I am; I’m a trans woman”. OK, so far so good. But now he’s been spotted; he’s not going to get away with continuing to hang out by the washbasins; everyone’s going to be suspicious. Realistically, our predator’s best option at this point is to go and lurk in a different women’s toilet and hope not to get caught this time.
At the other extreme, if there is a “forbidding bathroom bill” in force, he definitely can’t say that and hope it’ll help. But he can still e.g. say “Oh shit, is this a women’s toilet? I must have misread the signs” and realistically no one is likely to be calling the police. So the actual outcome is the same either way.
Will an “allowing bathroom bill” make people more reluctant to confront our predator? It could. But there are already actual unambiguously cis women who look very male, and confronting one of them in a women’s toilet would be just as much a faux pas in the present world (or even one with a “forbidding bathroom bill”) as confronting a trans woman in a world with an “allowing bathroom bill”. I’m not convinced the social pressures are that much different either way.
Or suppose our predator, confronted by the washbasins in a world with a “forbidding bathroom bill”, doesn’t say “I’m a trans woman”; he just says “I’m a woman—it’s not my fault if I’m not feminine-enough looking for you”. Are his accusers really going to rip his clothes off and check his genitals, or take a blood sample and do some sort of genetic test? Of course not.
I think our hypothetical predator has, realistically, pretty much the same options available, with pretty much the same chances of success, regardless of what the law says about trans women in women’s toilets.
And now consider: there are trans men too. If you say that trans women have to use the men’s toilets, then it seems trans men have to use the women’s toilets. Guess what? Trans men tend to look like men. So, actually, our hypothetical predator has an extra defensive option when confronted. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m a trans man and the law says I have to use these bathrooms.”
It gets worse: if the dominant root cause of late-onset gender dysphoria in males is actually a paraphilic sexual orientation, this is a false dichotomy! (It’s not “pretending” if you sincerely believe it.)
No comment on your link, but by “perverts” in this context I specifically meant guys who get turned on by being in a public toilet with (other) women. The idea is that being an object of such desire might make the women quite uncomfortable, and yet there is nothing they can do about it without risking to be accused of transphobia.