On the South Dakota front - Mike Rounds has promised to remove choice for all women - even if he is reelected. His opponent is pro choice and a great guy - Jack Billion.

Check out www.billionforgovernor.com to learn more.

It should be noted that Vanessa and Feministing are mentioned in the Baumgardner article!

But she is no mere player, DC or otherwise. People really love Cecile Richards, from former boss Jane Fonda to regular gals who have seen Richards speak, like "Vanessa," a young woman posting on the influential blog Feministing (the header: "Cecile Richards rocks my world!"). [Link]

Yes, thanks Matt! I love that "Vanessa" has no last name. ;)

The scare quotes are also weird, almost as if the author thinks it's a fake name. By the way, a trivial point: "A Seattle principle" should be "A Seattle principal."

I'm wary of online petitions...they tend to not work, but other than that I'm all in favor of the cause.

It seems like teh Seattle school petition has been closed.

What do you all think of the NYC MTA decision? Is the next step to admit transwomen to women's locker rooms?

As opposed to forcing transwomen to use the men's locker room? That sounds a hell of a lot like putting them in harm's way to me.

EG - I agree with you completely. I was simply wonderring how comfortable you and other women would be with men being allowed in these areas just because they identified themselves as women.

An aside: Do they have to wear traditionally feminine clothing? Plenty of women wear jeans and t-shirts. Can a guy in jeans and a t-shirt go to the ladies' room just by identifying as a woman?

I do see some practical problems here. I'm male but the argument could be made that I'm mildly genderqueer (BSRI 0.53; don't socialize very well with other heterosexual men in my age group; etc). I would never want to make women uncomfortable by using the women's restroom, but I can very easily see someone in my exact same situation--who doesn't dress like a woman, take hormonal supplements, plan to have gender reassignment surgery, or even shave regularly--falling under this new policy if they want to. The fact that I'm sexually attracted to women is also not insignificant. Uh, help?

And I'm not saying that the answer is to exclude transwomen. I honestly have no clue how we're going to address this. Our society is so gender-oriented that female firefighters can't change in the same locker room with the men, for God's sakes, where unisex bathrooms are extremely rare, and so forth. How can we possibly deal in a fair way with decent people who aren't backed up against either margin of the gender spectrum when there are some definitively indecent people who would take advantage of any loophole we create?

What we need to make this work is an end to male violence and the total victory of third-wave feminism. In other news, I'd like peace on Earth and the second coming of the Messiah. What are we going to do now to reduce people's suffering and exclusion as much as we can? Do any of y'all have any ideas? I hate anti-trans discrimination, but I honestly don't know how to address these concerns without making a higher number of women--trans and otherwise--more vulnerable to male violence.

Cheers,

TH

noname, I don't have a problem with it, because unlike the NY Daily News article, I don't think of transwomen as men who call themselves women. I think of transwomen as women--women who arrived at womanhood in a different way than I did, certainly, but women nonetheless. Plenty of transwomen do indeed wear "regular" jeans-and-t-shirt clothing, but I really really doubt that random men are going to start standing in line and claiming womanhood just to get in the women's bathroom; though that would be kind of funny in a send up of "I'm Spartacus" sort of way!

You know, Tom, I think this may be one of those rare moments when we part ways! From my reading of the article, there didn't seem any indication to me that men who don't "dress like a woman, take hormonal supplements, plan to have gender reassignment surgery, or even shave regularly" could or, more importantly would try to take advantage of the policy. I mean, generally, people self-enforce or self-select for bathroom use, anyway. Right now, there's nothing to prevent a bunch of men from rushing the women's room, or, for that matter, the occasional woman (say, me) walking into the men's room when the line at the women's room is ten hours long and the men's room is empty. It's just that we usually...don't. It feels funny. It feels wrong, somehow.

I mean, I'm attracted to women too. So are four of my closest friends, two lesbian couples. We can all use bathrooms and changing rooms with being driven mad by passion! (Because, really, is there anything less sexy than a public bathroom/changing room? An airplane, maybe. Or a sewer.)

I think we're all missing the real news story here: the MTA has public bathrooms? Since when? And where are they? Are they actually clean enough to use without barfing? Amazing.

EG writes:
You know, Tom, I think this may be one of those rare moments when we part ways! From my reading of the article, there didn't seem any indication to me that men who don't "dress like a woman, take hormonal supplements, plan to have gender reassignment surgery, or even shave regularly" could or, more importantly would try to take advantage of the policy.

{johncleese}

Oh. *pause* Well, I never actually read the article, you see. I was only...bluffing. Yes, bluffing, to see if you were paying attention. That is all.

{/johncleese}

Actually, to be honest, my concerns had absolutely nothing to do with the MTA and nothing to do with the specific policy in question. I just kind of saw the discussion and went off in my own direction, which I have a tendency to do if left unattended.

My personal feeling is that the best long-term solution is unisex bathrooms with individual privacy; that would accommodate everyone. (I already live into that principle in some respects by going into the stall to pee--I like to whip it out in front of random strangers as much as anybody, but I don't get this whole public-urination thing.) But I don't know how practical that would be in the short term, given the number of weird, predatory men running around.

Cheers,

TH

Are they actually clean enough to use without barfing?

Stop whining. People in 1850 had no trouble drinking water from cholera-infested wells. It's only those youngsters born in the 20th century who think they have some God-given right to have a water supply that's built around the interests of humans rather than bacteria and viruses.

A transwoman who's able to pass as male without worrying about it is almost certainly going to use the men's room when she can; being visibly gender variant in a space is horrifically uncomfortable. A transwoman who passes reliably as female will, of course, use the women's room, regardless of what the law says; expecting anything else is completely insane. All that's left to worry about is the space in between (which includes a whole bunch of other differently gendered people, too). Without some kind of official policy like this, someone in the middle is pretty much just screwed—try not to have to pee when you're in public. The women's room is probably slightly preferable, because a) it's where she'd probably rather be anyway, and b) she's got a lower chance of getting the shit kicked out of her. Is it likely to make some people uncomfortable? Yes. There's no answer here which won't.

Official statements like this are one of the most important forms of education; the expectation that this is normal and reasonable and should not be a cause for concern (and experience that matches that expectation) is the best thing for diffusing real world tension, better even in some ways than purely theoretical education.

if you have a vagina (naturally or otherwise) then you use the ladies room, if you have a penis you use the mens....i dont see anything other than that making much sense. why not just make a bathroom for "other"? how hard could that be?

or just go with unisex bathrooms...although im not too sure how well they work out in public places (hmm..probably not too good)

Home-brewed beer has long been an African tradition, a product produced mainly by women

Actually, NPR's food show had a very interesting segment last night: it was long a European tradition as well for home-brewed beer to be produced by women. A lot of our images of witches can be traced back to the garb (pointy hats) and paraphernalia (brooms) of brewers. I guess when "professional" male brewers decided to displace lady brewers, they launched a might successful advertising campaign to demonize their competition as "witches".

I wonder if these social changes resulting in the demonization of certain women as witches, essentially so that a group of upstarts ("professional" male brewers) could displace an established group (women home-brewers), albeit a group which was already oppressed, occured around the same time that Jewish craftsmen and merchants were being displaced by Christian guild-members and burghers, who also trafficked in stereotypes in order to get rid of the competition (in this case, spreading anti-Semitism rather than rumors of witch-craft).

The petition you mention is NOT in favor of including transwomen at events like the Michigan festival. On the contrary, the petition supports the exclusion of transwomen at events deemed to be “women born women.� Consider these quotes taken directly from the body of the petition (which appears under the list of signatures):

“We recognize, support and affirm those women whose separatism is part of a practice of woman (born woman) only spirituality and their right to practice woman (born woman) only spirituality in spaces set aside for that purpose.�

(snip)

“We reject the theory that underpins the idea and practice of trans, both transsexuality and transgender. We understand notions of trans or genderqueer to be mostly about gender enforcement, about purveying of gender stereotypes, and as such, we find them to be confining and disrespectful of women as women, rather than liberating.�

(snip)

“We agree and affirm that woman (born woman) only spaces, transwoman-only spaces, and spaces set aside for the global women's community cannot and should not be viewed as sites of societal and/or cultural power to which the disenfranchised must seek access, neither should they be understood as elitist or exclusive, but should instead be viewed as retreats and sanctuaries for the dispossessed and disenfranchised. We believe it is legitimate and necessary that we, as women, define our spaces in ways which meet our needs. We do not believe that doing so constitutes anything like bigotry or prejudice.�

Notice that the last quote is a very carefully worded way of saying, “women born women only spaces are not expressions of prejudice or bigotry because everyone has a right to their own separate spaces.�

I might also point out that one of the petition writers, Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, is otherwise known as Heart and runs a blog called Women’s Space. She is staunchly anti-trans inclusion. See this post for example:
http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2006/08/28/woman-only-space/

Interestingly, some of the petition writers are also transwomen. Indeed, some transpeople are OK with excluding transwomen from women-only events. That saddens and angers me, but indeed, transpeople embrace a wide diversity of belief systems, just like any other group of people.

While I'll agree that SOME trans people are gender-enforcers, I fail to see why sex enforcing is any better.

Yup, some cisgender women are gender-enforces, too. Take the women of the religious right, for instance. Good ole Phyllis Schlafly is a well known example.

Just as some transfolk have pink and blue glasses on at all times, some transpeople smirk at conservative notions of gender and resist them in countless number of ways.

No group of people is a monolith.

The IUD article is actually a press release from the company that makes the product. Yay good journalism!!!

i dont see anything other than that making much sense. why not just make a bathroom for "other"? how hard could that be?

In pre-existing buildings? Very, very difficult.

There's an additional problem with making a bathroom for "other" -- first, it denies important and real differences between transpeople (one major one is that there are both MTF and FTM transgendered persons... do we just lump them all together because it's easier for those of us who more or less fit better within our assigned genders?). Also, anytime we have to call someone "other" I get my hackles raised a little. It's way too easy to just sweep people under the rug so we're not bothered by them and their different-ness... note that this is precisely the sort of attitude that enforces the taboo surrounding menstruation. Whenever you define someone as "other" you add a layer of discrimination and heirarchy. Why are they "other" and not the rest of us? Why do we define the "norm"?

I don't usually engage in the ad hominem personal attack, but Phyllis Schlafly is just nuts.

That petition is very confusing. Some parts sound pro-inclusion and then there are other parts that don't.

I think its worth not signing because you really don't know what your signing for.

Agreed. That goes for both of you, actually.

As far as "other" bathrooms go: Gotta say I'm against that idea. I really think unisex bathrooms, with plenty of space for privacy, are where we're headed; segregating by gender made sense only when the cultural assumption was that (a) everyone fits neatly into universally accepted male and female categories, and (b) people of the same gender would be attracted to people of other genders, so any discomfort related to sexual attraction would be minimized by having single-sex bathrooms. (a) and (b) are false and have always been false, and now that we're more conscious of that, it's approaching time to scrap the old paradigm.

The only worry I have about unisexes is the possibility that predatory men might use them as home base. I'm not quite sure how realistic that concern is, or how it should be resolved if it is.

Cheers,

TH

The Italian parlament is dealing with the bathroom issue right now.

http://tinyurl.com/u7ynj