First of all, the business about going to the restroom of your birth sex is just wrong. Moms have been bringing little boys into the women’s room for a long time, partly due to convenience, and partly due to their unwillingness to send them into the men’s room on their own. Duly noted that there are family bathrooms in some localities, but that is not always the case.
Ah, and why would mothers be reluctant to send little boys into the men’s room unattended?
Some mothers get around this problem by finding a kind-looking man and asking them to accompany their son into the bathroom. While that may seem like a workable solution, it has the potential to backfire. After all, every creeper isn’t missing teeth and has questionable hygiene. That is, they can’t be spotted a mile away.
There are approximately over 800,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, and this does not include the ones who haven’t been caught, or the ones who haven’t started but are looking for the right opportunity to get their feet wet. Who can blame a mother who would like to make sure her son is safe from incidental molestation or worse?
Bathrooms—especially highway rest stops—are not necessarily the safest of places, for females or males. The story that shadowed my youth was the murder of one Jane Snow at a highway pit stop outside of Gaylord, Michigan. She was traveling with her young sons, who did not accompany her into the women’s room (and likely were in the men’s room; and according to another news report went outside to run around), and when she did not emerge, one of the boys went into check, to find her body which was determined to have been stabbed 22 times. The boy had the presence of mind to alert a fellow traveler. This is a horrifying story, and my classmates and I found it even more horrifying because we had all been in that bathroom. We all knew that rest stop, and shuddered to think how vulnerable we were.
The simple fact that law preventing males from entering a restroom contrary to their birth sex would not have stopped the crime. To my knowledge, the murderer is still at large, and were such a silly law been effect, the charge could have been added to felony manslaughter.
Speaking of little boys, in 1998, little Matthew Cecchi was murdered while his aunt was waiting for him outside a public restroom. The man who was convicted of the killed committed suicide at the San Quentin State Prison in 2011. The adult in charge did everything right. She sent in the 9-year-old into the men’s room and waited for him outside. At no time was he more than a few feet from her, but the little boy still met a brutal, senseless end. Nine may be a little old for going into the ladies’ room with your aunt, but it could have saved his life.
What is missing in this debate is an acknowledgement of common sense and safety. It makes sense for little boys to accompany their mothers and aunts to the women’s room if dad or uncle isn’t around. Parents and guardians need be able keep boys and girls safe from harm, and the law should not prevent them from doing so.
Men kitted out with under-the-stall or other cameras with the intention of photographing unsuspecting bathroom users should not be allowed in women’s rooms. Period. Existing laws can be used to prosecute lurking in the women’s room with a camera.
As for bathroom access for (non-camera carrying) transgendered folks—if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then the duck can go in the women’s room. But the duck shouldn’t expect to find a urinal there.
Amazing that one can look at a law aimed at letting adult males into women’s restrooms, teenage boys into girls locker rooms and see it as protecting children. Boggles the mind.
“There are approximately over 800,000 registered sex offenders in the United States”
The vast majority of them harmless. Teens who go hit with a statutory rape charge for a consensual relationship with another teen. Men caught urinating in public.
The of course, there are men on the list for assaulting adult women.
Probably less than 10% of registered sex offenders are pedophiles / child rapists, and the majority of those were related to their victims. Even once you pare the list down to pedophiles, only 1 or 2 percent have victims that were neither related to them or known by them well before the offense.
There are valid reasons for people to be uncomfortable going to the bathroom in the presence of people of the opposite gender. Fear of sexual assault in the bathroom generally isn’t one of them.
“Cross-Dressers” (whichever part of “LGBT” that is I don’t care) have been frequenting the opposite-gender bathroom for decades…and few or nobody notices. Some things like that ought not be, and given the history need not be, enshrined in/protected by any law.
On a broader, more fundamental issue the N. Carolina law that includes the bathroom topic also covers a lot of other things, many substantive, that, however well-intentioned, do permit/legalize a variety of other forms of discrimination to an extent everybody ought to be concerned.
So much focus on the bathroom portion is understandable to a point, the near-total-neglect of debate about the rest of the law is a bit disconcerting. As noted above, the number of people affected by the bathroom portion is tiny (for many this will in practice equate to exactly zero effect and for those affected, the vast majority won’t be aware of the effect even while it is occurring). The other discriminatory allowances the law enables may affect everybody…yet “everybody” [for the most part] is ignoring that.
The reason is undoubtedly predominantly to entirely driven by difficulty & effort — its easy to see the bathroom portion & weigh in on that. But its hard to actually review the law, gain an understanding of the broader discriminatory features, then intelligently discuss those. I.E., people are basically lazy, even when the only work involved is reading & thinking…
The drive to open the ladies room to men and vice versa is not to bring about any kind of justice or fairness. The purpose is to create contention, resentment and fear. It is to fragment the culture and set every man’s hand against his neighbor. This is the purpose of all such movements. This one is just a single skirmish in overall war for the souls of men.
To Brian in the desert:
Hallelujah.
http://thevarsity.ca/2015/10/05/voyeurism-threatens-whitney-hall-stirs-gender-debate/
http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/23/a-rape-survivor-speaks-out-about-transgender-bathrooms/
Of course it’s foolish and silly to care in the least about the women who were raped—they probably had it coming anyway, right? And what’s wrong with a few naked videos taken by a guy with a cell phone (or a girl—women can video men in restrooms too—it’s actually a better video…..). These are just annoyances on our way to complete equality.
I would also note that when I was young, there was a murder in a state park that was a huge deal. By the “logic” presented in this post, state parks should have armed patrols everywhere so that very uncommon incident won’t ever happen again. (It’s okay to terrorize raped women though—they should just get over it.)
Matt S: You are absolutely correct. The myth that mostly strangers assault children is just that—a myth. Yet people continue to warn their children about the “creepy guy” down the street while the clean-cut kid down the street who mows their lawn is raping their daughter on a regular basis. That or cousin Earl that they leave to babysit their toddler.
Oh where or where have my comments all gone, oh where or where can they be?
Are links not allowed any more?
Sheri,
Links are allowed. After 4 (5 or more) the comment is put into moderation. Or should be. Yours only had two links and should have been fine. I’ll look into this.
In Ohio, men and women can use any bathroom, just no cameras, assaults, etc. It’s been that way for years. And I have heard no complaints, at least until the recent Target decision.
So what is driving this latest crisis? It could just be that the whole NC issue is nothing but political theater or a version of political Hegelianism — all done with an alterior motive.
Of course, property owners should decide how their bathrooms are used. However, property rights began to vanish 100 years ago, when both the Left and Right progressives began collectivizing property.
Thanks for getting the comment through!
Common sense is outlawed.
Responsibility is outlawed.
Every moment of our life must be legislated.
It is one thing to say that men shouldn’t use the lady’s room. It is another to make it a crime.
We already have the statutes on the books to cover various sex crimes.
Meanwhile, a women in North Carolina was arrested for using the girls bathroom because she was dress like a tomboy and had no paper to prove she was in fact a girl.
American are the laughing stock of the world.
While women can take little boys into the ladies bathroom, it is not generally appropriate to take little girls into the gents bathroom, although I have done that when out with my daughter. It isn’t always convenient to find a woman to accompany her into the ladies. The best option is to use the disabled bathroom, which is unisex and fortunately common in Australia.
What’s all this stuff about “bathrooms”? Hardly anyone these days uses a public facility to shower or otherwise wash themselves… except maybe at a gym, or beach, or public swimming pool.
Although lavatory is apparently derived from the Latin “lavabo”… “to wash” it doesn’t seem to have much relevance to what we know as toilets; that is, a facility applied purposely to allow and deal with the universal need of people to urinate and defecate. Such public facilities are sometimes euphemistically called “public conveniences” or simply “conveniences” or, in this country, a “dunny”… fair enough! but a BATHROOM???
Anyhow, there’s not much doubt that there are perverts who titillate themselves by lurking in and around such public conveniences; whether or not their “proclivity” will end in rape or murder.
Perhaps the “solution” could be the old Parisian “custom” of having public dunnies as non-gender street side cubicles that can be seen to be occupied because the partial door is shut and feet are visible under the door. No problem for Mum or Dad or friend to keep an eye on who goes in or out or who’s lurking.
North Carolina,
1) told to leave not the same as arrest
2) cop wouldn’t have been there if no one had complained
3) if not a girl would expulsion have been OK?
oldavid: In public, they are restrooms. The fact the press and some Americans does not know this is typical. In homes, they are bathrooms because there generally are baths in the room. Locker rooms exist in gyms and swimming pools. There are public showers at truck stops (where presumably going into the women’s room when you’re male could have interesting outcomes). Language has been diluted so things don’t make sense. Why argue over “bathroom” when Fred is wearing a dress and swearing he’s Melinda while still packing the things that made him Fred. Really, how silly of you.
Transgender as now used is a psychotic belief. There’s no surgery, nothing. It is not “changing sexes” in any way except one’s name and clothing. (You remember, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It won’t eat the sheep because it believes it’s a sheep, right?) It used to be called “cross-dressing” and it was a neurotic but harmless behaviour. Now it’s full-blown psychosis and it’s called normal.
Proving your biological sex in a state that still lives in the real world is easy—drop your drawers. No amount of laws can change the physical reality of male and female. Since “gender” involves psychotic thinking that believing makes things true, no proof of anything is required. Say, that sounds like a sermon—no proof is needed to believe in God, no proof is needed that George is “Georgette” and not just in the locker room oggling teenage girls. The Church of Gender Indentity where everything is taken on faith!
Ah! yes! the “restroom”.
That reminds me of one of my Mum’s jokes for small children.
A man opened his refrigerator and found a rabbit sitting in it.
Man: “what are you doing in my ‘fridge?”
Rabbit: “isn’t this a Westinghouse?”
Man: “yes”
Rabbit: “well, I’m westing!”
I don’t know the North Carolina legislators, but my guess is they would have been happy not to legislate about this and not to disturb the status quo ante. As the head post said, the status quo ante is that individuals at the site made common-sense accommodations, mostly with no fuss at all, or occasionally with a passing bit of awkwardness. (I admit to being uncomfortable when someone brought his pre-school-age daughter into the locker room where I was dressing after my shower.)
But the Charlotte City Council was not happy with that status quo; they wanted to impose their cultural change on all and sundry:
“The bill was passed after the Charlotte City Council voted to impose a regulation requiring businesses to allow a man into a women’s restroom, shower, or locker room if they choose. This ordinance would have eliminated the basic expectations of privacy people have when using the rest room by allowing people to use the restroom of their choice. This new local regulation brought up serious privacy concerns by parents, businesses and others across the state, as well as safety concerns that this new local rule could be used by people who would take advantage of this to do harm to others.”
It was to this situation that North Carolina responded. As Brian in the desert astutely perceived, “The drive to open the ladies room to men and vice versa is not to bring about any kind of justice or fairness. The purpose is to create contention, resentment and fear.”
People on the ground had always voluntarily made common-sense accommodations. Nothing was broken until the Charlotte City Council decided to fix it.
Fderol,
Should this individual be allowed in the ladies room?
http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/npr/styles/x_large/nprshared/201504/400829593.jpg
Yet in North Carolina he could be arrested if he didn’t.
Sylvain,
So posting for you is just a soap box? I’ll keep that in mind.
The whole issue is not about bathrooms – they are just the symbol. This is about progressive culture warriors finding another absurdity that they require all of us to accept as reality. The purpose of this series of mini campaigns is power, achieved by forcing normal people into a state of cognitive dissonance and meek public submission.
Not very bright fellow travelers, like the Charlotte City Council folks, have to communicate their virtue by joining this crusade however they can – in this case by legislating the insanity.
That transgenders would be the next cause after gay “marriage” was predictable.
I have not seen a good prediction for what comes next. An article in a British paper was very favorable towards incest, so that’s a possibility. Polyandry might be a cause, although polygamy is likely to collide with radical feminism.
But, rest assured, the culture warriors will find something, sex related, that we all take for granted, and turn opposition to it into the worst sort of political incorrectness.
John,
Which British paper was favourable to incest?
That is a lie.
On a broader, more fundamental issue the N. Carolina law that includes the bathroom topic also covers a lot of other things, many substantive, that, however well-intentioned, do permit/legalize a variety of other forms of discrimination to an extent everybody ought to be concerned.
I’m old-fashioned enough to subscribe to the notion that the only legitimate function of government is to secure my God-given rights. If I have a God-given right to force someone else to do business with me or indulge my delusions, it is not self-evident.
Joy, Google can be your friend, and I suggest you use it before calling me a liar.
Not only was the article favorable towards it, it also had a name for it: “genetic sexual attraction” or GSA.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/disgusted-by-incest-genetic-sexual-attraction-is-real-and-on-the/
John, Lie was a very strong,, sorry. I think you exaggerate. and therefore misrepresent.
“No one had their confetti ready though.
Across the internet, West and her toy boy lover were treated as circus freaks, called “sick on every level”. Some even demanded that West be sectioned and now it’s emerged they’ve gone into hiding fearing a jail sentence.”
So that is the reality. They are WANTED. Quite right too.
The “British Newspaper” that was ‘favourable” consisted of a writer in a never heard of rag who ‘hopes’ they will be treated as victims of an affliction. Why? because incest is unnatural and wrong. She feels sorry for them.
This is far from looking favourably on incest. The article outlines a theory of why this type of thing happens often in cases of reunion after separation as an infant. Another ‘study that shows’ from a London university. The same one that “proved with statistics” that immigration was a net benefit.
Of course incest has always existed and always will. If someone writes about it they had better have their fire and brimstone out ready? Disgust is the normal response but why does that need saying? Just to satisfy the lust for disgust?
There are puerile Jerry Springer style shock stories everywhere . Some people just like to live in the dustbin.
And, having a name for it doesn’t alter anything. The distinction is that incest is the act of sexual intercourse between members of the family. The name refers to the theorised process which they believe is causing a higher incidence amongst a certain group.
Joy,
This article is typical of the sort that appear on the leading edges of a wave of some new sexual “identity” which then demands that society accommodate it, celebrate it, and treat it as wonderful.
An affliction can be a paraphilia not acted on. Acting on it changes it to a moral choice. Transforming a bad moral choice into an affliction is the earliest stage of “normalizing” such behavior. Creating an acronym for the affliction is part of the practice.
As for the “never heard of” rag – I run into it all the time.
And, I didn’t say that this *would* be the next new sexual outrage perpetrated by the sexual PC police, just that it might be.
John I do see your point but these threats, which is what they are, in a way, once I recognise a threat I file it under ‘threat’.
On first glance of that mag I’d expect more of the same from them. If that writer didn’t say something controversial, we wouldn’t be talking about it and it’d be a dull story about a case of incest. We’re all over such topics because we’ve been desensitised to them. There is a limit though. People aren’t going to start developing sickening proclivities. The media, know exactly what they do. I don’t give them the satisfaction. It’s mind control. Something to which I am completely immune.
Jeremy Strohmeyer (born October 11, 1978) is a Long Beach, California man who murdered 7-year-old South Los Angeles elementary school student Sherrice Iverson (October 20, 1989 – May 25, 1997)[1] at Primadonna Resort and Casino in Primm, Nevada, on May 25, 1997.
The case drew national attention by focusing on the safety of children in casinos and on the revelation that Strohmeyer’s friend, David Cash Jr., said he saw the crime in progress but did not stop it.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Strohmeyer