Peripherally, bathrooms again, but also gender, sex, and more
In a response to a comment to the first post, I said:
"When our older son was in high school (he graduated 7 years ago, so this was longer ago than that), the school librarian left on Friday as a man and returned on Monday as a woman, in gender presentation. Her name is Debra Davis. http://www.debradavis.org/gecpage/lavender.html
"One woman teacher went, not to put too fine a point on it, apeshit when Ms. Davis used the woman's restroom. Clearly there was no threat to the teacher's safety; Davis was no stranger, no unknown quantity, but a highly respected (at least by others) colleague."
Below, "gender" refers to presentation, "sex" refers to physical characteristics, and "sexual" refers to interpersonal activities.
That was, IIRC, my first exposure to the issue of transgender people and public restrooms. I think it strongly shaped my perception that there is something else going on here, something that has nothing to do with safety issues, and little to do with the "opposite sex." In this case, everyone in the school knew Davis; if as a man he had neither threatened the safety of nor made unwelcome sexual overtures to female colleagues, why on earth would they be afraid she would do so as a woman? No, there is something else there.
I think that some people who have a strong emotional investment in the gender or sex identity they were born with are extremely uncomfortable with the very concept of changing it. (In my own experience, they are even uncomfortable with people who don't have a strong emotional investment, neither a positive nor a negative one, in their own such identity, but that's another essay.) I think this is almost never conscious, never explored intellectually, but if it were, I think the reason would be something like, How can I be "me" if what I "am" can be changed?
I think also that people who strongly subscribe to gender roles often feel threatened by the idea that someone who has performed the socially expected roles of one gender might also be able to perform the socially expected roles of another gender. I can see that causing huge cognitive dissonance for some people, and especially if the person was, to outside observers, successful in the former gender role.
That's as far as I've gotten with this; comments welcome.
"When our older son was in high school (he graduated 7 years ago, so this was longer ago than that), the school librarian left on Friday as a man and returned on Monday as a woman, in gender presentation. Her name is Debra Davis. http://www.debradavis.org/gecpage/lavender.html
"One woman teacher went, not to put too fine a point on it, apeshit when Ms. Davis used the woman's restroom. Clearly there was no threat to the teacher's safety; Davis was no stranger, no unknown quantity, but a highly respected (at least by others) colleague."
Below, "gender" refers to presentation, "sex" refers to physical characteristics, and "sexual" refers to interpersonal activities.
That was, IIRC, my first exposure to the issue of transgender people and public restrooms. I think it strongly shaped my perception that there is something else going on here, something that has nothing to do with safety issues, and little to do with the "opposite sex." In this case, everyone in the school knew Davis; if as a man he had neither threatened the safety of nor made unwelcome sexual overtures to female colleagues, why on earth would they be afraid she would do so as a woman? No, there is something else there.
I think that some people who have a strong emotional investment in the gender or sex identity they were born with are extremely uncomfortable with the very concept of changing it. (In my own experience, they are even uncomfortable with people who don't have a strong emotional investment, neither a positive nor a negative one, in their own such identity, but that's another essay.) I think this is almost never conscious, never explored intellectually, but if it were, I think the reason would be something like, How can I be "me" if what I "am" can be changed?
I think also that people who strongly subscribe to gender roles often feel threatened by the idea that someone who has performed the socially expected roles of one gender might also be able to perform the socially expected roles of another gender. I can see that causing huge cognitive dissonance for some people, and especially if the person was, to outside observers, successful in the former gender role.
That's as far as I've gotten with this; comments welcome.