Why on earth do we even need separate sex bathrooms?? Good grief, we're stuck in the '50s here!

“persons patronizing or employed at Caliente have the right to use the bathroom facilities consistent with their gender identity and expression.�

Gender identity and expression? Who judges expression? Didn’t this whole mess start because a waiter made judgments based on their perception of the client’s gender expression?

alikatze, i totally agree. that's what i didn't mention in the post, how i think we need to seriously reconsider our need for single sex bathrooms.

and noname, i think the idea is that it's whatever the individual decides is their identity and/or expression, which is the only way to do it i think.

So what was a male staff person doing bursting into the women's restroom?

Holla on the win! Way to go Khadijah on pressing this, and good work, Transgender Legal Education and Defense Fund!

Maddy,

I would like to ask the same thing.

I can only think of two reasons.

1.) The bouncer saw who he truly believed was a man go into a woman's bathroom and was fearful of the women therein being accosted. (Highly unlikely, because he then probably would have stopped the person from even entering the bathroom first. Also, they don't mention whether or not the bathroom was multi-stall or single, so that makes me really curious. There also makes no mention of whether or not there were other women in the restroom at the time, and if there were, if they felt all threatened by Farmer's presence).

2.) He saw what he figured to be a butch lesbian and thought he's put her in her place for not acting enough "like a woman".

DINGDINGDING! I think we have a winner! It's made ever clearer that he still tossed her out even after seeing her legal ID said "female".

I've often been given weird looks when going into a woman's bathroom (being less than feminine myself) but never once had someone yell at me or try to throw me out. But there are still people who feel the need to police people's gender. In Female Masculinity Judith Halberstam refers to it as "the bathroom situation".

I'm so satisfied by the outcome of this case.

I'm all for desegregating bathrooms. In SF, women's bathrooms are often considerably nicer with lounges, floor to ceiling doors and architectural details that are nonexistent in men's rooms.

“and noname, i think the idea is that it's whatever the individual decides is their identity and/or expression, which is the only way to do it i think.� - Miriam Perez

OK, but it doesn’t say “and/or�, it says “and�. I am thinking about identity in this case as how a person sees themselves (for 1st person judgement) and expression in this case as how the present themselves (for second/third person judgement). Am I misunderstanding the terms? I would have thought they would want to make it all about identity, and not at all about expression (which would basically mean that bathrooms were optional gendered).

" she was a legal woman (and a biological woman in this case as well)"

"woman" is a socio-legal category. presumably you mean she was cis-gendered. She could be physically female, but that applies to post-op transsexual women too.

Seems that you're implying cisgendered women have more right to use the woman gendered bathrooms than trans - even if both have exactly the same legal status?

Oh, btw - is the correct american for these places now bathroom, not restroom?

"Seems that you're implying cisgendered women have more right to use the woman gendered bathrooms than trans - even if both have exactly the same legal status?"

Either that or implying that ciswomen too can be targeted by some of the bigotry transwomen face?

This case reminds me of an earlier comment on another post here:

http://feministing.com/archives/008954.html#comment-144453

"OTOH, what about when one's anatomical gender and mental gender do match (like what makes me cisgender) and one's anatomical gender and socially assigned gender don't match (like when bullies assumed I was somehow part male)?

"That doens't make you trans. It just means you get beat up by the same people."

Posted by: Elise | April 10, 2008 07:57 AM

"Oh, btw - is the correct american for these places now bathroom, not restroom?"

They both seem to be correct.

Um, if the bathroom is set up for more than one person to use at a time, I WANT single-sex bathrooms. If I'm in a vulnerable position with my undies around my ankles I do NOT want to wonder at the gender of whoever's coming into the bathroom or what their intentions might be. OK, some guy might decide to run into the women's bathroom on a lark anyway, but at least it wouldn't be legal.

If y'all don't want anti-feminists to be able to say that feminists want women to be the same as men (NOT the same thing as being equal to men), try not to make statements that sound like that's what you want the movement to accomplish. I LIKE having some spaces that men can't enter. I don't even mind men having spaces that we can't enter, as long as not having access to those spaces doesn't consign us to second-class status. I don't know about you, but I've never yet had a problem getting anywhere in life just because I couldn't go into a room with a bunch of urinals along one wall.

Umm, whoever said they want to share bathrooms with the opposite sex...

...that's fine, just don't make me do it. I just assess the probability of being sexually assaulted as somewhat lower in single-sex bathrooms, and I believe a lot of women do. So humor us, won't you?

I think the best solution out there is to have male, female, and family bathrooms.

I think the best solution out there is to have male, female, and family bathrooms.

What exactly is a family bathroom?

"The family that shits together, fits together" ?

If y'all don't want anti-feminists to be able to say that feminists want women to be the same as men (NOT the same thing as being equal to men), try not to make statements that sound like that's what you want the movement to accomplish.

Well, that's what I'd like to accomplish. Separate-but-equal inevitably isn't.

"'I think the best solution out there is to have male, female, and family bathrooms.'

"What exactly is a family bathroom?

"'The family that shits together, fits together' ?"

I thought the idea behind those was basically having a unisex bathroom for kids who are too young to go alone and whose adult supervision isn't the same gender. For example, if a 5-year-old girl's at the mall with her dad then if she has to go she wouldn't need to use the men's room and he wouldn't need to be by the women's room's sinks while she's in a stall there.

Yeah, a family bathroom is for an adult with a little kid. They have family changing rooms at my local gym because kids over 5 or so can't go into the opposite-sex locker rooms.