I totally get that transgender individuals need a place to use a bathroom or change clothes. That's not my problem. My problem is that, with how the laws are currently written, there is no way to know who is genuinely a transgender individual who simply wants to use the bathroom or locker room and who is actually a peeping tom who wants to look at naked women, teens, or little girls. I believe, and I could be wrong, that the law forbids people from asking WHY a man is using the womens' bathroom or locker room. It's, apparently, supposed to be ASSUMED by everybody that the reason he's in there is because that's the gender he identifies as. If that is truly the case, it baffles my mind that politicians can't see the problems that will inevitably invite.
Instead of train-spotting, the new fad could be to guess who will go in or come out of the trans facilities - in certain areas I think this is a dangerous precedent - stupid, ridiculous notion that it is.
It never ceases to fascinate me what people are willing to stick their necks out to "fight" and "stand" for, since evidently the world has no bigger problems than who can pee and poop in what bathrooms ...
I was at a symphony event years and years ago, and the line out of the women's restroom was probably 100 deep. I was in the men's room, standing at a urinal, staring at the grout in the tile in front of me (as all real men are instructed to do by their father's early in life), when I hear this women's voice behind me say... "Fellas, I'm sorry, but if I don't go now, I'm going to pee my pants." A deep voice said, "Hang on, ma'am, I'm finished in here" from the first stall. A man came out, she dashed in, and no one was bothered in the least. I've been in places that had multiple stall/urinal set ups with unisex use. I'm sure I've had more homosexuals try to take a peak in restrooms over the years than transgender persons could ever in the rest of my lifetime. Again, this is not about biological elimination processes, but about a demand that extreme minority sectors that may or may not be accepted by the majority not only accept their right to exist but to somehow societally declare them "normal."
Oh, and with access to the john comes the right to get the crud kicked out of them and left in a flushing urinal if some perv tries to do more than stare at the tile. It's a risk you take in a men's bathroom. Always.
The best solution as far as I can see would be to do away with segregation completely. If you're in a cubicle (a proper cubicle, not the stupid things in US bathrooms where you can stand next to them and look over the wall) then it doesn't matter who is in the next cubicle. We could do away with having a men's room and a women's room completely and just have a single big bathroom. You go into the bathroom, pick an empty cubicle, do what you need to do, and leave. However you self-identify, whatever you have between your legs, whoever you choose to share a bed with, ceases to be relevant. You just pick a cubicle and do your business. You don't need to worry about who is in the next cubicle because you can't see them or what they are doing. Likewise where changing rooms are concerned you can have a single big changing room where you go in, pick a cubicle, do what you need to do, and leave. Not only does it address the issue of transgendered people (who are a pretty small minority) but also caters for people like fathers with daughters, mothers with sons, people with disabled partners or parents, families and so on. If you're a parent with a child of the opposite sex who is really too old to be in the "wrong" changing room but too young to be left on their own, you just go into the common changing area and choose a larger cubicle. When my wife and I swam at a local gym they had just that arrangement. She and I used one changing room, which also meant we could get away with one gym bag and use one locker. Had she been my girlfriend, boyfriend, parent, child, whatever, we'd still take one changing room. It seems the most obvious solution, that means everybody can just get on with their lives and nobody needs to constantly fuss over who is doing what and with whom.
My previous post covered a lot of this, but there does seem to be a more basic question which is why we consider it acceptable to expect people to strip off in front of total strangers just because they share some arbitrary characteristic. I've wondered for years why we are so obsessed with segregating men and women (presumably to avoid sexual attraction issues) while not also segregating gay men and lesbians. If a woman doesn't want me (as a man) being able to watch her undress why should she be any more comfortable with a lesbian being able to watch her? ... which of course goes back to the idea of communal areas with individual cubicles.
Best solution imo is to keep things as they are. Government doesn't need to get involved, laws don't need to be passed. If you can pass as the opposite sex then no one is going to care / notice; if you can't and you get clocked, then deal with whatever happens, that's life. I'm pretty sure everyday people can manage the situation collectively better than whatever the government will try to enforce.
Generally what governments seem to do best is to take a bad situation and make it worse. There's really no need for government intervention, more a sense that individual businesses can figure there's no need to provide totally different rooms for men and women as long as cubicles aren't built with looking into them in mind. In the UK there were a few gyms that figured people could use a cubicle to change regardless of who was in the adjacent cubicle and at least a couple of restaurants that provided unisex bathrooms. One other thing that would be really nice (and this is a general comment, not directed at anyone in particular) is if discussions could focus on actual concerns rather than strawmen. It seems many people would rather focus on the vanishingly small number of sex assaults committed by actual transgender people and not the concern that people have that when rules are too liberal anyone can claim to be transgender and just stroll on in.
Same situation at the gym where we go: shared locker rooms with everything cubicled. Shared bathrooms, etc. People seem to manage. Agreed
I personally don't think sexual assaults by actual transgendered people are very common. I think many more will be perpetrated by people posing as transgendered folks. And those scenarios will likely be quite few in comparison to the "mere" ogling and leering that is going to occur with perverts taking advantage of these stupid laws in place. As I've mentioned, the laws are written in such a way that all one has to do in order to enter the restroom or locker room of the opposite sex is to simply say they are "identifying" as that gender. That's it.
If someone is truly transgendered then, as Kierkegaard said earlier, the chances are their sex drive is all but non-existent anyway. But as you say the greater threat is posed by a legal freedom for any man to simply claim to identify as female and walk unhindered into the ladies changing rooms. But it all goes back to the ultimate solution being to introduce individual cubicles so people just go into a cubicle and do what they need to do. That would solve so many problems at once, and would also mean people could stop fussing over who else was in the changing room with them and what that other person was doing.
On the surface, that seems like a sensible solution, but I don't know that it would work in America, for a couple of reasons. One, most women in a public locker room, while nude, would be uncomfortable with knowing some guy next door in a cubicle could also be totally nude. It creates an awkwardness, particularly if the women are married. Of course, there's the occasional woman who might kind of get off on the idea of being around strange naked men, but that's besides the point. Two, I think most women, and men, would not be ok with knowing their nude teenage, or younger, daughter is a mere few feet away from some older nude man in a cubicle, particularly if they are concerned the man might be engaging in lewd conduct in the cubicle (if you catch my drift) due to being sexually aroused at the idea their daughter is nude and only a few feet away.
The rest of the world seems to manage with what Tango has mentioned, so why not the US? Just imagine Finnish sauna culture if you want something to blush at.
Naked men and women in very close proximity (though men and women will sauna separately... mind you they still share a lake), from young girls and boys to old men and women. If the thought of being in a stall beside a stranger in another stall puts you off, try sitting in a room with a bunch of naked strangers.
Well, I sort of went into detail about why it wouldn't work in the United States. Is the rest of the world much less conservative about sexuality and everything is ok to look at and everything is ok to do? If it feels good, do it? That's the impression I get. I mean, are European parents ok with knowing some perv in a cubicle could be sexually excited about being next to their naked daughter, even though she's in a separate cubicle, and...umm...pleasuring himself because it? What else goes on in Finnish sauna culture that would make me blush? Lots of leering and public sex acts or something? ???
You invented some worst case scenario, but you didn't say anything about why it wouldn't work. And where have you gotten that impression from? European gym change rooms are filled with stalls, therefore Europeans think everything is okay to do and look at? Ludicrous. European parents would introduce such a person to the floor tiling, if the police haven't already removed him (or her). What do you mean 'what else'? You're painting a terrible picture of cubicle change rooms, and I've upped you with sauna culture where (1) everyone is naked and (2) there are no walls. So tell me, is Finland constantly in the news because of an epidemic of public perverts?