Public Restrooms in the USA and Transgenderism and Ethical Concerns

[mikekle]

I would think that forcing the Catholic Church to hold gay marriages would be against the Constitution of this country. But, it appears that no one understands the Constitution or the concept of "Separation OF Church and State. To me neither the Church nor the States seem to understand the Constitution and this particular rule.

They seem to find ways around other aspects of the constitution in todays world in order to get laws they want in place. This will be no different imo.

Ive already seen a few news stories on gay people who claim they are catholics and I assume they attend mass, its only a matter of time before a couple wishes to be married in a catholic church and have a traditional ‘large wedding’, laws are being passed to protect gays in other aspects, so I truly believe it is only a matter of time before this becomes an issue.

I can see the Govt claiming catholic churches are in the US and must obey all laws therein, even now, to even speak publicly against homosexuality is slowly becoming ‘hate’ speech, it wont be long before laws are put in place giving them the exact same rights as a traditional man and woman. Within 15-20 yrs would be my guess.

 

[BelovedApostle]

Mostly forgotten in this conversation have been those who are confused, and believe themselves transgendered. They currently don’t feel comfortable in any public bathrooms, likely enough. I think this is enough to, at the very least, make it sensible to require future public accommodations to have at least one personal/unisex bathroom.

Just because we believe their life-choices are sinful does not mean we need to make them feel excluded and uncomfortable.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Of course, it is not the same thing, but it is a step in a particular direction, a direction weve been headed for a long time. God knows where it will lead.

You can speculate on where we are headed. But if the Church squanders its public respect by weighing in on issues like public restrooms, how do you expect society to take us seriously when we speak of serious issues, like abortion? They will just say “there go those silly Catholics again, complaining about everything!”

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I’m trying to understand, what threat does a transgendered person in a public restroom pose?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

IMHO, no more of a threat than any other person.

 

[Cricket2]

I’m trying to understand, what threat does a transgendered person in a public restroom pose?

I don’t think a transgendered person poses any threat. Personally, unless someone is trying to make it obvious that they are gay or homosexual, I can’t tell what their “preferences” are. However, I like a lot of women would leave a restroom immediately if there appeared to be a man in it, unless that person was someone like a nurse aid or assistant to a handicapped person.

How do I know that this person is not there for the sole purpose of rape or robbery. Maybe all we can do is leave, report that there is a "suspicious person or activity going on in the said restroom, and leave. If I am uneasy about anyone in the public john I head out. Maybe this is the part where we all have to learn or rely on our instincts as far as detecting what I call a “predator.” They can be male or female.

Let’s go for “female,” “male,” and “unisex” facilities. Those who declare they are transgendered, gay or homosexual can use the unisex if they wish. Also, lets put up privacy booths in all of them, including the mans. I have had occasion to assist handicapped men due to my work, and I have never understood urinals. I find it awful that anyone thinks men need no privacy in this regard.

I have never stayed in a public toilet any longer than necessary. Some folks seem to use them as a meeting area. Get in…get out. That’s my practice.

 

[mommamaree]

Mostly forgotten in this conversation have been those who are confused, and believe themselves transgendered. They currently don’t feel comfortable in any public bathrooms, likely enough. I think this is enough to, at the very least, make it sensible to require future public accommodations to have at least one personal/unisex bathroom.

Just because we believe their life-choices are sinful does not mean we need to make them feel excluded and uncomfortable.

No, these people are most certainly NOT forgotten in this conversation. In my OP, I specifically asked how we as Catholics should respond in a sane and * compassionate* manner to this problem. There are people who are depraved, of whom women have always had to be wary, and who now find that laws are providing them a new arena for harassment of women. And then there are people who experience gender identity disorder, note that it is a disorder, who carry a heavy burden and who need compassion and acceptance, even while Catholics reaffirm the natural and moral law about sexual behavior. There is no way for a women to know which type of man it is that she finds in the locker room or the rest room, and now that several states legally permit biological men to be in such places, a woman had the choice to either dismiss her own modesty or safety concerns, and those of her daughter, or she must avoid using any public facilities. As a mother of girls, I am now realizing that I am not able to permit my eldest to use the bathroom in any public place, unless I bring all of her siblings in there to supervise. I see no other way to fix this problem. Privacy had gotten so passee, that recently I had the experience of walking into a restroom at a rest stop and came face-to-face with a man. I was with my daughters. I was very concerned. It turns out that the man was fixing a sink, so he had good reason to be there. It used to be that a bathroom would be closed briefly for such cleaning and repairs, because people had an understanding of women desiring to attend to their private needs privately. I noticed a dozen women going in and out of the bathroom, using the facilities without being an eye at the presence of a male. I thought how much the world has changed! I must be old-fashioned, because I still have the sensibility of a women’s restroom being a retreat where a woman could privately attend to the needs of her female intimate area without intrusion by someone of the opposite sex. Apparently a barely enclosed cubicle is all I can expect now, with its see-thru sides and its broken locks. I know public restrooms are yucky in general, but now apparently, we don’t have any sense of propriety with regards to handling separation of the sexes. If this is the world in which we live and I just need to deal with it, fine. But I also know that I will be wary of dressing rooms, locker rooms, and restrooms and will not allow even my eldest out of my sight to go in to bathroom, whereas I previously would have waited just outside the door with her little siblings.

 

[Litcrit]

I don’t even understand the need for gendered bathrooms - why not have big unisex bathrooms with no urinals and lots of privacy booths? Is there an issue about a man and a woman washing their hands in the same room?

 

[Cricket2]

Oh no. Not a good idea. There is no need for men and women to be in the same public restroom. There are just too many things that can go wrong, and way too much risk for the predators of the world to take advantage of having access to their desired victims.

It is not about washing hands, it is about safety and a respectable amount of privacy. It is not a social event, it is a place were nature needs taken care of in a safe and private fashion. My dad and brother don’t enter the bathroom at home, when my sister or I are in there. I don’t expect them to do so with strangers in a public john.

 

[pnewton]

I’m trying to understand, what threat does a transgendered person in a public restroom pose?

Children use public restrooms. Allowing men to use women’s restroom opens them to the danger of being molested. There will also be the more common, but less severe, issue of women who lose their sense of dignity having to use the restroom with men.

I personally do not have a problem with it as I will deal with it on a case by case basis to prevent any of my family, or woman in need of help, from having to be exposed to this garbage.

 

[pnewton]

I don’t even understand the need for gendered bathrooms - why not have big unisex bathrooms with no urinals and lots of privacy booths? Is there an issue about a man and a woman washing their hands in the same room?

If one were to build an adequate degree of privacy, it would be much more expensive. But it might actually work if there were cameras in the common area.

On the other hand, what is wrong with the normal, traditional way of letting men use the men’s, the women’s use the women’s. If this it too hard for the screwed up modern mind, then define the usage by genitalia. That should be a sufficiently objective criteria for even the most insane of liberals.

 

[ephesians4]

Hold on a minute! Let’s not put public restroom policy on the same level as abortion and gay marriage policy. I am glad the Church is not getting into such a petty argument as who is allowed to pee where.

I feel the same about this from a morality standpoint - let’s not over-blow it.

It’s more the practical boundary/safety issues: at the point where men, potentially any men who would quite like to, are allowed to intrude into the areas of life where women and girls are alone and at their most vulnerable because of what they say is going on in their head, you can’t help noticing the obvious practical problems with that.

Re: the case mentioned, I know this is going to sound mad by today’s standards, but there should no possibility of young girls finding a man hanging about in the ladies’ toilet with impunity in the first place - they are the ones put in danger by that rapist’s dream of a situation and are probably quite right to tell him where to go, forcefully, or better still, go off and find another toilet where they can feel safe.

None of this is to say for a moment that men who think they are women should be persecuted or hated or treated unkindly, it’s just our minds do not trump other people’s safety and boundaries - eg: even if I believe with all my heart I should be allowed to sit in the corner of your shower room while you wash, you would question that, right?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Let’s go for “female,” “male,” and “unisex” facilities. Those who declare they are transgendered, gay or homosexual can use the unisex if they wish.

Sounds Great! I am on the Microsoft campus today for a meeting and at one of the breaks I noticed they had male/female/unisex restrooms. During one of the breaks the males restroom was at capacity and had a bit of a line. But no one was using the unisex restroom. (And I admit to taking advantage of the 0 wait time for that restroom).

Also, lets put up privacy booths in all of them, including the mans. I have had occasion to assist handicapped men due to my work, and I have never understood urinals. I find it awful that anyone thinks men need no privacy in this regard.

I can’t say that I’ve ever found the “openess” of the urinals to be a big deal. I’ve seen more open, especially outside the use. The most open I’ve ever seen looked like a really long sink that had a perforated pipe above it continuously running water into the sink like thing. Guys just walk up to an unoccupied section, relieve themselves, and go on their way. While it was in a males restroom there was no door. So anyone that came close enough could see what was going on.

Going back well more than 2 decades though when I was in elementary school the boys bathrooms had no doors on the toilets. I had been told this was for safety concerns so that if some adult wanted to do something inappropriate to a boy there would be no privacy in which to do it. So for boys it didn’t matter if you were using a urinal or a toilet, it was open for anyone to see. It wasn’t until I got to middle school that I was able to use a toilet with a door at school.

 

[mikekle]

Oh no. Not a good idea. There is no need for men and women to be in the same public restroom. There are just too many things that can go wrong, and way too much risk for the predators of the world to take advantage of having access to their desired victims.

It is not about washing hands, it is about safety and a respectable amount of privacy. It is not a social event, it is a place were nature needs taken care of in a safe and private fashion. My dad and brother don’t enter the bathroom at home, when my sister or I are in there. I don’t expect them to do so with strangers in a public john.

I dont think our society will ever reach a point when unisex public restrooms are the norm, but to suggest not to do because of child molesters makes no sense, How many child molesters are out there today…? Im guessing the percentage is very small, maybe around .0005% or less, it would be foolish for such a small percentage to even effect any type of policy in this regard, the larger percentage must be the priority.

An example, The people in charge know the internet has created a perfect world for those wanting to do harm to children, but they are not actively trying to ban the internet as a result, they have to consider the larger percentage of people first, and just live with the fact that a certain number of these incidents will always take place and is just ‘cost of doing business’ in a sense.

 

[rae317]

But in at least one well-publicized incident recently, teen girls at a public school were threatened with being charged with a hate crime when they complained of a transgender male-to-female (no surgery) using their restroom, when he was making comments that made them feel threatened in the restroom. I am concerned about the protected class status of transgender people with regards to restrooms and locker rooms in public places, and how that clashes with the rights of females to protect their dignity, modesty, and safety.
In concrete terms, what should we as Catholics be doing, as these laws sweep across our nation? How can we stay sane and compassionate and safe? Any thoughts?

Hi!

Yes I have a few thoughts.

First - the fear of trans women using the women’s room is unwarranted. If you consider there are about 700,000 transgender people in the US (based on williams institute study) and about half of those people are trans women then there are at least 350,000 trans women in the US. For the sake of discussion, suppose on average each of them uses a public women’s room only three times a year then there are well over a million instances of trans women using the bathroom with other women every year (and that is a very low conservative guess on how often they use public women’s rooms) Yet, despite all these instances of trans women using the bathroom, how many times are other women harassed or attacked by trans women? Its pretty much unheard of. If they were in there doing what you fear they are doing you would hear about it all the time. The reality is that the threat is very miniscule, if it exists at all!

Second – in the case that you are referencing about the girls being harassed by a trans girl, I would invite you to go the Pacific Justice Institutes website and watch the very dramatic video they put out in which the victim’s of the said trans girl tell in their own words what happened – which was nothing! They did not even talk to her. A trans girl used the bathroom and that upsets them (or their parents). This was a very traumatic experience for them evidently, even though nothing happened! The rights that they are being denied is the right to harass, intimidate, or deny another girl access to the bathroom. The trans girl in question has been transitioned for over two years, if you find pictures of her on the net (easy to find along with her name thanks to the victims, their parents, and PJI) she looks like any other girl. Since this trans girl has been targeted by PJI and singled out at her school, and in addition the media attention, she has been on suicide watch……when she did nothing wrong to warrant the accusations against her.

On this site, catholic.com, there was disccusion about this story recently. I was deeply saddened by some of the responses – for example the trans girl should go to prison to learn about real harassment. Again, she did not do anything to anyone but people get carried away by their fear and say things I pray they don’t really mean.

On the flip side of your fear is MY fear of people, like you, having a problem with me using the bathroom when I am not doing anything wrong. If you manage to figure out I am trans while I am in a public restroom with you, I would really appreciate you not calling the cops on me. It has happened to quite a few of my friends. One of them was even beat up for it – which was kind of a interesting story really. She used the bathroom, another woman thought she was a man and told her boyfriend who was upset by this. So they waited in the parking lot for her to come out and then proceeded to beat her up. The ironic part about it was that she is not trans! Just a very masculine looking woman. Whoops! So sorry!

 

[Elizium23]

I don’t think anyone is professing a fear of attacks from trans people, what we are saying is that this is part of the forced acceptance prong of the attack that makes it a crime to doubt. We are at the point where all that is required to identify as trans is to claim it. Boys are getting into Girl Scout troops because they feel like it. There is no proof, no process, no evidence required with new laws. Anyone who feels uncomfortable with these boundary violations is shamed and bullied, sued, put out of business, attacked, whatever. There is no question that people with authentic gender dysphoria suffer. But their suffering should be addressed through moral means, rather than deconstructing the idea of sexual complementarity and handing the suffering on to another group of people.

 

[mommamaree]

Rae317,
You fear people like me? Really?
You mean the concerned mother who wants to be compassionate and sane, but also protective of my daughters and myself?

To speak to your concern directly, if you appear to be a male, despite your attire, and I happened to see you in the ladies room or locker room, I absolutely would report you immediately, as well as inform other females of the presence of a male in the ladies room and remove my daughters and leave. Now, if you do not appear as a male, how would I possibly know. But the appearance of a male in the ladies is going to be seen as a threat, no matter what the biological male believes is true about his gender. However, you would never need fear violence from me, unless you actually threatened me or my daughters. I would never hurt anyone unless I was defending an innocent person.

 

[ephesians4]

I dont think our society will ever reach a point when unisex public restrooms are the norm, but to suggest not to do because of child molesters makes no sense, How many child molesters are out there today…? Im guessing the percentage is very small, maybe around .0005% or less,

That’s a curiously small number even for child abuse, and frankly sexual offenders of all varieties is more the question here.

It may or may not surprise people to know, probably every woman you know has encountered perverts of one sort or another, and to find pretty much any man able to stroll in when you are at your most vulnerable and/or in a state of undress, perhaps choosing to do so when there’s nobody else around, not a good idea. It’s really not about disliking actual transsexuals themselves, but about the practical upshots.

There are times when a woman or girl is entitled to some reasonable hard limits for their own safety and privacy. A problematic man (rather than picking on transsexuals) should probably not be able to wander around changing rooms, shower facilities, toilets etc. because he has donned a frock.

it would be foolish for such a small percentage to even effect any type of policy in this regard, the larger percentage must be the priority.

A larger percentage means nothing in terms of the immediate boundaries of vulnerable people. You wouldn’t let a group of strangers sleep in your child’s bedroom because there were ten of them.

As a matter of fact, the same can be said about what you believe you are. If grown men are to be allowed (on the basis of what they say they think they are) to wander around the toilets where we send our little girls and stand respectfully outside, well we’d better start having unisex toilets or something.

Really, if the feelings of transsexuals are so staggeringly, earth-shatteringly, unprecedentedly paramount that they start to override things like the privacy and safety of others whilst they go to the toilet, it would probably be kinder to everyone to have unisex bathrooms, anyway.

 

[mommamaree]

That’s a curiously small number even for child abuse, and frankly sexual offenders of all varieties is more the question here.

It may or may not surprise people to know, probably every woman you know has encountered perverts of one sort or another, and to find pretty much any man able to stroll in when you are at your most vulnerable and/or in a state of undress, perhaps choosing to do so when there’s nobody else around, not a good idea. It’s really not about disliking actual transsexuals themselves, but about the practical upshots.

There are times when a woman or girl is entitled to some reasonable hard limits for their own safety and privacy. A problematic man (rather than picking on transsexuals) should probably not be able to wander around changing rooms, shower facilities, toilets etc. because he has donned a frock.

A larger percentage means nothing in terms of the immediate boundaries of vulnerable people. You wouldn’t let a group of strangers sleep in your child’s bedroom because there were ten of them.

As a matter of fact, the same can be said about what you believe you are. If grown men are to be allowed (on the basis of what they say they think they are) to wander around the toilets where we send our little girls and stand respectfully outside, well we’d better start having unisex toilets or something.

Really, if the feelings of transsexuals are so staggeringly, earth-shatteringly, unprecedentedly paramount that they start to override things like the privacy and safety of others whilst they go to the toilet, it would probably be kinder to everyone to have unisex bathrooms, anyway.

You have expressed my concerns very well. Thank you so much for responding.

 

[Cricket2]

I dont think our society will ever reach a point when unisex public restrooms are the norm, but to suggest not to do because of child molesters makes no sense, How many child molesters are out there today…? Im guessing the percentage is very small, maybe around .0005% or less, it would be foolish for such a small percentage to even effect any type of policy in this regard, the larger percentage must be the priority.

An example, The people in charge know the internet has created a perfect world for those wanting to do harm to children, but they are not actively trying to ban the internet as a result, they have to consider the larger percentage of people first, and just live with the fact that a certain number of these incidents will always take place and is just ‘cost of doing business’ in a sense.

Unfortunately child molesters are more plentiful than one might think, and a good many of them start with their own children. As I have stated elsewhere, incest occurs in 33% of all families. That’s the reported cases. If we consider those cases that are not reported I can estimate that it is around 50%. That is a shocking number.

The number of registered sex offenders within .5 miles of my home is 6-10 at any given time. We are 6 blocks from an elementary school. I don’t want to believe that there are that many predators put there, but there are. It has long been known that at least 25% of all women have been raped. Again, this is reported cases. I would imagine it is also more like 50%, and the number of sexually assaulted men is probably the same, and they report less often than women.

The next time your at Church look at the folks in the pews and remember those numbers. It is a sad, often hidden reality that at least half of the people and children sitting out there have been victims of sexual assault at some level. And all too often the predator is sitting right next to them.

This is a terrible sin against God. Having a respectable amount of privacy is in line with being able to practice and maintain modesty and safety.