State laws that affect transgender adults and how does this play out?

[Dmmetler]

4 hours ago, Ginevra said:

I have a tangential question. I know that, in my state, one can go to court and have the sex of one’s birth certificate officially, legally changed. It is the very same form that is used for a name change. 
 

Is this true in states that have bathroom laws? 

Not in mine (it has never been legal here), and in fact they have rolled back laws that allowed changes on driver's licenses. What this means is that someone could have transitioned before puberty and have had bottom surgery, but in states where the bathroom laws are based on sex markers on birth certificate (and most are), they still would have to use the facilities of that sex marker. 

 

Not only that, it puts people who are potentially likely to be challenged in the position of having to carry their birth certificate, particularly if they have an out of state driver's license from a state where gender marker changes ARE allowed, and it puts these states in a position of not accepting US passports, which DO allow gender marker changes, as valid. 

 

The combination of not allowing birth certificate amendments for trans people AND laws that tie facility use to birth certificates, to me, shows that these bills aren't being written with the comfort of women who aren't comfortable with penises in mind. Rather the exception of "if you've had bottom surgery and your birth certificate amended" is to forestall legal challenges. Because, see, it's not a ban on trans people. Only on people who haven't bothered to jump all the hoops and therefore aren't "truly trans". Except that the other laws make it impossible for anyone born in that state to be "truly trans". 

Edited January 27 by Dmmetler

[Farrar]

Yes, it's true in some of the states that you can legally change your sex on your birth certificate, but not others, making it even more confusing. And let's say you changed it on your birth certificate and then go to a state where that doesn't matter, it's assigned sex at birth period. My understanding is that this whole thing has become a major legal quandary. There are people who are legally now barred from using the bathroom period in places because they can't meet all the bathroom criteria for any bathroom. Or it changes from place to place.

My impression from talking to people though is that while bathroom bills get the big attention because it impacts lots of cis folks, it's the healthcare fears -- and not just the gender affirming care, but just access to healthcare period -- this is really driving both migration and fear of travel right now.

[Scarlett]

4 hours ago, Ginevra said:

I have a tangential question. I know that, in my state, one can go to court and have the sex of one’s birth certificate officially, legally changed. It is the very same form that is used for a name change. 
 

Is this true in states that have bathroom laws? 

I just saw some info on line indicating it is possible in OK.   🤷🏻‍♀️ That surprises me.

[Dmmetler]

1 minute ago, Farrar said:

Yes, it's true in some of the states that you can legally change your sex on your birth certificate, but not others, making it even more confusing. And let's say you changed it on your birth certificate and then go to a state where that doesn't matter, it's assigned sex at birth period. My understanding is that this whole thing has become a major legal quandary. There are people who are legally now barred from using the bathroom period in places because they can't meet all the bathroom criteria for any bathroom. Or it changes from place to place.

My impression from talking to people though is that while bathroom bills get the big attention because it impacts lots of cis folks, it's the healthcare fears -- and not just the gender affirming care, but just access to healthcare period -- this is really driving both migration and fear of travel right now.

I would agree with that. But at the same time, bathroom bills and trans sports bills (are proving to be the camel's nose in the tent, where states that passed these first are now passing medical care bans-and while last year almost all the bills filed focused on children below 18, this year more and more are being filed which attack adult care. Add that to the fact that the same states that have "personal belief exceptions" for medical care tend to be the ones with the bans in place and, yeah, it leads to a long list of states where, if you have a choice, you'd prefer not to live. 

 

[Amira]

My favorite trans person was able to change her birth certificate in a state working toward bathroom laws.  We fly through that state often.  The way that proposed laws are written, I'm pretty sure she won't be able to legally use the bathroom in the airport unless she finds a single stall bathroom that isn't gender designated. 

It doesn't seem so very different from when I lived in Saudi Arabia and I was banned from eating in a large number of restaurants because they didn't have a family section - they mostly catered to men and it was too expensive to create a section for women.  I was constantly aware of not being welcome in many spaces, and now she is experiencing that in the US.

[livetoread]

I'm not sure it's half the population, but I do think a very sizable (maybe a third or more) of people in the US do want trans people to not exist. They don't want to take them out back and shoot them, but if trans people somehow magically just disappeared, they'd be happy about that. They don't necessarily want to purposefully cause trans people pain, but they don't care too much if they do. They don't think it's a real thing and the whole concept makes them uncomfortable when they think about it. They want trans people to be invisible because it makes their own life more pleasant. True about gay/lesbian people as well, but with a smaller percentage. 

I have had so many conversations with loved ones, acquaintances, and strangers on the topic and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if it is half. (I have those conversations a lot because I have a non-binary kid, so whenever anyone asks me about my kids, the whole pronoun thing happens.)

Edited January 27 by livetoread

[maize]

2 hours ago, livetoread said:

They don't think it's a real thing and the whole concept makes them uncomfortable when they think about it.

This is similar to other subjectively experienced and understood truths. 

From my perspective, trans identity probably needs to be treated similarly to the way we treat religions. We try to make room for people to live in accordance with their internally experienced realities and beliefs, without demanding that everyone else recognize and accept those beliefs as absolute reality.

That will require compromise. Interacting across belief boundaries always involves compromise. 

It has to somehow be OK for a person's subjective experience and belief to be real and valid to them, and for it to be not real or valid to others who don't share that subjective experience or belief. Respect and understanding need to be extended on both sides.

[Pam in CT]

re collective/societal "interaction across belief boundaries"

On 1/27/2024 at 3:12 PM, maize said:

This is similar to other subjectively experienced and understood truths. 

From my perspective, trans identity probably needs to be treated similarly to the way we treat religions. We try to make room for people to live in accordance with their internally experienced realities and beliefs, without demanding that everyone else recognize and accept those beliefs as absolute reality.

That will require compromise. Interacting across belief boundaries always involves compromise. 

It has to somehow be OK for a person's subjective experience and belief to be real and valid to them, and for it to be not real or valid to others who don't share that subjective experience or belief. Respect and understanding need to be extended on both sides.

That is a really helpful analogy to use to think about this.

 

[mulling...]

There are limits to the "room" we (and other societies that are less religious and/or more communitarian-minded and/or more culturally comfortable with difference than ours) afford across differences of internally experienced realities and beliefs shaped by religion (ie, as a legal matter in this country today, we don't permit individuals polygamy whether or not people believe it is religiously sanctioned; as a cultural matter we don't accept female genital cutting whether or not people believe it is religiously sanctioned).

But there are also, critically, protections within the "room" that we do manage to afford across differences shaped by religion, even if in actual practice such protections are more often/ more successfully invoked by the majority religion than by minorities.

The *ideal* in the analogy of making-space-for-different-religious-worldviews though is that the "compromising" does not simply devolve down to Might Makes Right/ tyranny of the majority, but that there are meaningful rights and protections for the few-in-numbers as well as for the more-in-numbers.

Edited January 28 by Pam in CT
better word

[livetoread]

We might create space for religious beliefs in that we don't throw people in jail for having them, but if those beliefs are viewed as harmful to others, they still aren't protected from criticism. I know some religious people have views about gender roles that I believe to be harmful to women. They can have those beliefs, but I'm going to argue against them and work to minimize the effect those beliefs might have in the public space. Live and let live is much easier when the beliefs are benign. Of course it is much easier to see the harm in the other side's beliefs!

[maize]

1 minute ago, livetoread said:

We might create space for religious beliefs in that we don't throw people in jail for having them, but if those beliefs are viewed as harmful to others, they still aren't protected from criticism. I know some religious people have views about gender roles that I believe to be harmful to women. They can have those beliefs, but I'm going to argue against them and work to minimize the effect those beliefs might have in the public space. Live and let live is much easier when the beliefs are benign. Of course it is much easier to see the harm in the other side's beliefs!

We can't protect beliefs from criticism without completely doing away with freedom of speech,  and we don't want to do that.

As for harmfulness--that's the rub, isn't it? In so many cases, people on each side of a belief divide see the other side as actively harmful.

 

[Pam in CT]

re affording legal space for [____] vs insulating [_____] from any and all criticism

6 minutes ago, livetoread said:

We might create space for religious beliefs in that we don't throw people in jail for having them, but if those beliefs are viewed as harmful to others, they still aren't protected from criticism. I know some religious people have views about gender roles that I believe to be harmful to women. They can have those beliefs, but I'm going to argue against them and work to minimize the effect those beliefs might have in the public space. ...

Right.  This goes right to the tension our society has around "expression" generally.  We're having an extended moment when a whole lot of Americans simultaneously cherish and insist upon Muh Right to express MuhSelf, but at the same time are pretty quick to cry Canceled! or Not Allowed To Say if anyone critiques or pushes back in any manner.

 

on Theory of Mind

6 minutes ago, livetoread said:

... Live and let live is much easier when the beliefs are benign. Of course it is much easier to see the harm in the other side's beliefs!

This.

[Terabith]

My non binary kid was born in Texas. Not only were we not able to change gender marker, the name change on the birth certificate includes old name.  But the fact that the conflicting requirements for birth certificates and matching genitalia make it so my friend from college cannot legally use any bathroom in the states with bathroom bills.  I truly believe the goal of these laws is to make it illegal for trans people to exist in public in these places.  I also believe that somewhere between a third and a half of the population really does want trans people to disappear.  Most of those don’t want to kill them themselves.  They just want them to go away. But I have personally heard many, MANY people talk about how personally disgusted they are by trans folks and how they do, in fact, want to do physical violence to them.  I have heard so many people express that opinion that I really do stand by my belief that half the population wants them to not exist and probably one in ten are willing to take action to facilitate that, especially to trans women.  It’s not that I’m unwilling to listen to conservatives. I have spent a huge percentage of my life listening to them.  I have been a member of their churches. I have engaged them in genuine conversation.  I’m not demonizing a group I don’t know.  I am saying that my stance of “half the population wants trans people to not exist” comes about precisely because of the time I have spent in genuine dialogue with them. When my own child came out as nonbinary, I walked away from that life because I knew those people so well, and I was terrified.  
 

It is not hyperbole when you have helped tend the wounds of trans friends who have been beaten by people in your community. 

[Dmmetler]

It's hard for me to see a trans woman using a public restroom as the same order of harm as my co-worker being unable to do so without having security called, or my nephew being legally unable to use a restroom at school. But the former is illegal. The latter is encouraged. 

 

It's hard to see a kid calling themselves Aerith vs Anthony is the same order of harm as telling a kid that they don't even have control of their life to the point of being allowed to pick their own name, because the state has outlawed it. But the former is illegal, the latter is required. 

 

It's hard for me to see a book with an LGBT character in the school library as the same order of harm as schools pulling every single book that a parent could possibly object to because of fears of a lawsuit. But the  former is being used to cause the latter. 
 

It's hard for me to see a trans 12 yr old (or a 12 yr old boyl for that matter) who isn't a great player but loves the sport playing on a middle school girl's volleyball team as the same order of harm as there being no place for the kid to play volleyball at all because Volleyball is a girl's sport. Or, for that matter, aeeing a girl be unable to play football even though she loves it and is good at it because football is a boy's sport, and the anti-trans laws killed that option. But guess what's happening? 

 

 

I agree 100% with @Terabith and @livetoread. I don't know if it's half of the general population who want trans folks to just vanish from the public eye. But I do know it's well over half of the folks who are empowered to pass laws in my state and more than a few others, and that they seem to believe it's going to go over well with their constituents to do so, even when public testimony against said bills FAR outnumbers the other side. 

 

 

 

 

[livetoread]

Just to say a little more, I think part of the conflict comes from sides trying to shape what public spaces are going to look like. Are we going to be a society that is comfortable with gay men holding hands in front of children, or do we want to discourage that (and why?) Do we want trans people to be comfortable existing in plain sight in churches and elementary schools and government, or do we want them to be less visible? Do we want non-binary people to hear their college professors supporting them or telling them they aren't really real?

Culture wars are at least partly about shaping what we want the majority of our society to value and what is okay versus not in public. We mostly agree that people can privately think, for example, that certain minority races are not as intelligent, but we don't tolerate hearing such things in our public spaces and there are negative consequences for voicing such opinions. So the rub comes from there being consequences both for voicing anti-lgbtq beliefs and for being lgbtq. What do we want those consequences to be and for whom? Who is going to be the dominant voice and who is going to be marginalized?

Right now the dominant voice in most of the country does not want trans people to be comfortable existing in plain sight. That voice doesn't want children to even know trans people exist.

[Melissa in Australia]

On 1/27/2024 at 11:46 AM, Scarlett said:

Another thought I have had is that men who share bathrooms with women are cleaner than men who use mens only bathrooms. I mentioned this theory/ observation to a male co worker one time and he was like, um of course.  
 

I think this is probably accurate.  

It is not accurate at all. Here they are ripping out all gendered public toilets. And what we are left with is supposedly unisex toilets . I have posted about them before. There is no seat at all just the bowl. And the men just urinate all over it.  You can't get even close enough to hover. They absolutely stink and now if I go out I have to not drink any liquids or hope there is a bush.

If you have a child there is no way at all they can use the toilet as there is nothing to sit on. 

But as long as we aren't making people feel uncomfortable about their gender who cares if females can't use the toilets

 

Edited January 28 by Melissa in Australia

[Corraleno]

34 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

It is not accurate at all. Here they are ripping out all gendered public toilets. And what we are left with is supposedly unisex toilets . I have posted about them before. There is no seat at all just the bowl. And the men just urinate all over it.  You can't get even close enough to hover. They absolutely stink and now if I go out I have to not drink any liquids or hope there is a bush.

If you have a child there is no way at all they can use the toilet as there is nothing to sit on. 

But as long as we aren't making people feel uncomfortable about their gender who cares if females can't use the toilets

 

Removing the seats is bizarre. We had single stall unisex bathrooms where I worked 30 years ago, and they were just regular bathrooms and it worked fine. Every Starbucks I've been to in the past 15 years has had single stall unisex toilets, and the toilets always have seats. 

[Dmmetler]

I still think the answer is MORE public toilets, so you can have men's, women's, and ones open to all that allow privacy. Not fewer, and not forcing people who aren't comfortable sharing into a shared space-OR forcing people out of any space at all.

 

And yeah, toilets need seats if anyone is going to sit on them, ever. And given the number of times the seat in a women's room is wet due to people hovering and not aiming well, I can well imagine that a toilet without a seat would be a stinky mess! 

[Heartstrings]

53 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

It is not accurate at all. Here they are ripping out all gendered public toilets. And what we are left with is supposedly unisex toilets . I have posted about them before. There is no seat at all just the bowl. And the men just urinate all over it.  You can't get even close enough to hover. They absolutely stink and now if I go out I have to not drink any liquids or hope there is a bush.

If you have a child there is no way at all they can use the toilet as there is nothing to sit on. 

But as long as we aren't making people feel uncomfortable about their gender who cares if females can't use the toilets

 

That sounds like how most road side rest areas are in the states.  So cold, stainless steel and no real seat.  
 

They aren’t the only uni sex option though.   Unisex can be done well or poorly but the fact that it’s unisex does not require that it be done poorly or that it not be cleaned properly or regularly.  
 

I can see people of either gender treating it poorly if they disagree with the concept.  People in general have no end of disrespect.  
 

I refuse to accept that men just can’t help acting like animals.  

Edited January 28 by Heartstrings

[Heartstrings]

10 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

nd yeah, toilets need seats if anyone is going to sit on them, ever. And given the number of times the seat in a women's room is wet due to people hovering and not aiming well, I can well imagine that a toilet without a seat would be a stinky mess! 

As much as people talk about women’s restrooms being so much cleaner, I don’t really get it.  Seats covered in pee from hovering, un flushed toilets, period products and blood around, I don’t actually think they are.   “The public” are gross.  

[prairiewindmomma]

We bumped into seatless toilets in Rome as well—in gendered bathrooms. My understanding is that they are being removed due to vandalism and because it is easier to clean when seatless. Even plastic seats tend to be made of a more porous plastic prone to trapping stains and smells. 
 

So, I dont think seats are being removed because of mixed sharing. They are being removed because in your area, like elsewhere, providers are sick of replacing seats and cleaning under nasty rims.

[Ginevra]

11 hours ago, livetoread said:

Culture wars are at least partly about shaping what we want the majority of our society to value and what is okay versus not in public. We mostly agree that people can privately think, for example, that certain minority races are not as intelligent, but we don't tolerate hearing such things in our public spaces and there are negative consequences for voicing such opinions. So the rub comes from there being consequences both for voicing anti-lgbtq beliefs and for being lgbtq. What do we want those consequences to be and for whom? Who is going to be the dominant voice and who is going to be marginalized?

I do agree with this (the whole post but snipped for brevity), but I see the motivation as not *always* negative. While I’m absolutely certain *some* people supporting such laws feel hatred and disgust for people being different, I am also absolutely certain that *some* people do care about the question “what do we want society to be like” for altruistic reasons; for reasons in support of a mentally and physically healthy population. 
 

Due to research and data, we know that many, many more kids and young people are changing their bodies and hormonal makeup than in the past. There are YouTubers who talk about persuading parents to “get you T” (testosterone), making it seem like just another way the younger population can differentiate itself from older generations. Parents who do not want their kids to rush into physically or chemically altering their body are shamed by others for not being supportive. 
 

I *do* understand the concern from the standpoint of parents who hope and pray their kid will not go down this path. I mean, my generation of parents delayed giving our kids vaccines. Vaccines!! Far, far less likely to have a permanent negative outcome than physical transitioning; far, far less likely to have outcomes of permanent harm. I do understand - from seeing it happen close-up with family members and friends - how hard a spot a person is put in when their fourteen-year old rejects their birth gender, name and way of appearing and starts pushing to change their body, fertility and physical hormonal makeup permanently. 
 

As a society, we don’t know what will happen to the millions of people whose bodies, hormones and social culture have been changed artificially. There is at least a *portion* of the population whose concerns are these and not wanting trans people to disappear. (eta: clarification on last sentence - there are people who’s motives have nothing to do with disappearing trans people.) 

Edited January 28 by Ginevra

[Drama Llama]

1 hour ago, Ginevra said:

As a society, we don’t know what will happen to the millions of people whose bodies, hormones and social culture have been changed artificially. There is at least a *portion* of the population whose concerns are these and not wanting trans people to disappear. (eta: clarification on last sentence - there are people who’s motives have nothing to do with disappearing trans people.) 

I don't think it's close to "millions" unless maybe you mix in people who only socially transition. 

But I think that laws like bathroom laws, or laws that prohibit teachers from using kids' preferred names, or laws that allow medical providers to refuse care wouldn't appeal to someone whose motivation was to prevent people from using hormones or altering bodies.  

I live in a very blue area, where there are lots of protections for people who are trans.  There are bathroom options, and schools will call kids whatever they want to be called.  From where I sit, and my experience with trans kids, all of these things seem to reduce the pressure on kids to physically transition.  I don't see how knowing that someone can have you arrested if they figure out you are trans, doesn't feel like pressure to use hormones to perfect the physical transition.  I don't see how making it really hard for someone to socially transition without medical intervention, doesn't push them towards that medical intervention.  I don't see how making someone jump through a million hoops to use the name they want to use, isn't going to make them hesitate to undo that if they consider detransitioning down the road.  

So, while I do understand the concerns about medical transition, particularly for minors, I would think that people who share that transition would be in the front lines of the fight against bathroom bills, because they'd want social transition without medical intervention to be a safe option.  

[QueenCat]

12 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

That sounds like how most road side rest areas are in the states.  So cold, stainless steel and no real seat.  
 

 

I've never seen this type of thing in any rest area in the U.S. I've seen real toilets. Mostly in the south, mid-Atlantic, Ohio, and Texas. 

[Heartstrings]

16 minutes ago, QueenCat said:

I've never seen this type of thing in any rest area in the U.S. I've seen real toilets. Mostly in the south, mid-Atlantic, Ohio, and Texas. 

 

Most of the ones in Arkansas look like this, I’m trying to remember, I feel like Tennessee has these too, at least in some places.  I’m drawing a blank on Virginia.    I only know Arkansas for sure has them because I’ve been making frequent trips around the state lately and have a couple of rest areas that I’ve been seeing frequently. 

 

I can guarantee you in Arkansas it has absolutely nothing to do with unisex anything.  These are in the gender segregated bathrooms.  It’s all about being cheap and easy to clean.  
 

Having frequented bathrooms with this design I can say that they’ve never been gross or nasty, they do not smell, I have never considered using a bush as an alternative. There are cleaning crews there frequently. The choice of toilet design does not necessarily have to mean it’s disgusting.  If that’s the case it is a conscious choice against cleanliness that is being made somewhere.    

My tiny daughter also has no trouble using these, even if they are a bit uncomfortable. She can still use them, without help and only finds them a bit awkward, but less awkward than bushes on the side of the road.  

 

Edited January 28 by Heartstrings

[maize]

1 hour ago, Drama Llama said:

I don't think it's close to "millions" unless maybe you mix in people who only socially transition. 

But I think that laws like bathroom laws, or laws that prohibit teachers from using kids' preferred names, or laws that allow medical providers to refuse care wouldn't appeal to someone whose motivation was to prevent people from using hormones or altering bodies.  

I live in a very blue area, where there are lots of protections for people who are trans.  There are bathroom options, and schools will call kids whatever they want to be called.  From where I sit, and my experience with trans kids, all of these things seem to reduce the pressure on kids to physically transition.  I don't see how knowing that someone can have you arrested if they figure out you are trans, doesn't feel like pressure to use hormones to perfect the physical transition.  I don't see how making it really hard for someone to socially transition without medical intervention, doesn't push them towards that medical intervention.  I don't see how making someone jump through a million hoops to use the name they want to use, isn't going to make them hesitate to undo that if they consider detransitioning down the road.  

So, while I do understand the concerns about medical transition, particularly for minors, I would think that people who share that transition would be in the front lines of the fight against bathroom bills, because they'd want social transition without medical intervention to be a safe option.  

I think this assumes way more thinking-through and rationality than most people put into their decision-making process.

It also ignores the fact that we're stuck in a two-party political system. If one side is actively promoting things like drag story time and school curricula that teach first graders that anyone can grow up to be a man or a woman or a neither with zero correlation to biological sex, people who don't want those things will tend to support the party that isn't promoting them. 

Bathroom bills represent a "look, we did something!" opportunity for that party.

[Terabith]

3 hours ago, Ginevra said:

I do agree with this (the whole post but snipped for brevity), but I see the motivation as not *always* negative. While I’m absolutely certain *some* people supporting such laws feel hatred and disgust for people being different, I am also absolutely certain that *some* people do care about the question “what do we want society to be like” for altruistic reasons; for reasons in support of a mentally and physically healthy population. 
 

Due to research and data, we know that many, many more kids and young people are changing their bodies and hormonal makeup than in the past. There are YouTubers who talk about persuading parents to “get you T” (testosterone), making it seem like just another way the younger population can differentiate itself from older generations. Parents who do not want their kids to rush into physically or chemically altering their body are shamed by others for not being supportive. 
 

I *do* understand the concern from the standpoint of parents who hope and pray their kid will not go down this path. I mean, my generation of parents delayed giving our kids vaccines. Vaccines!! Far, far less likely to have a permanent negative outcome than physical transitioning; far, far less likely to have outcomes of permanent harm. I do understand - from seeing it happen close-up with family members and friends - how hard a spot a person is put in when their fourteen-year old rejects their birth gender, name and way of appearing and starts pushing to change their body, fertility and physical hormonal makeup permanently. 
 

As a society, we don’t know what will happen to the millions of people whose bodies, hormones and social culture have been changed artificially. There is at least a *portion* of the population whose concerns are these and not wanting trans people to disappear. (eta: clarification on last sentence - there are people who’s motives have nothing to do with disappearing trans people.) 

I truly, TRULY understand this concern, but I both fully agree with @Drama Llama’s eloquent post above and also think this is a completely different issue than bathroom bills and bills that target adults.  

[livetoread]

3 hours ago, Ginevra said:

As a society, we don’t know what will happen to the millions of people whose bodies, hormones and social culture have been changed artificially. There is at least a *portion* of the population whose concerns are these and not wanting trans people to disappear. (eta: clarification on last sentence - there are people who’s motives have nothing to do with disappearing trans people.) 

Oh, I understand this all too well as a parent who is living it, though my kid is not a minor. I'm pretty liberal and open-minded about gender stuff, and I still struggle with my own biases, believe me. 

There are ways to slow things down for minors while still not demonizing trans people, but we as a society are choosing differently. 

[Terabith]

From their own words.  

 

[Dmmetler]

1 hour ago, Drama Llama said:

I don't think it's close to "millions" unless maybe you mix in people who only socially transition. 

But I think that laws like bathroom laws, or laws that prohibit teachers from using kids' preferred names, or laws that allow medical providers to refuse care wouldn't appeal to someone whose motivation was to prevent people from using hormones or altering bodies.  

I live in a very blue area, where there are lots of protections for people who are trans.  There are bathroom options, and schools will call kids whatever they want to be called.  From where I sit, and my experience with trans kids, all of these things seem to reduce the pressure on kids to physically transition.  I don't see how knowing that someone can have you arrested if they figure out you are trans, doesn't feel like pressure to use hormones to perfect the physical transition.  I don't see how making it really hard for someone to socially transition without medical intervention, doesn't push them towards that medical intervention.  I don't see how making someone jump through a million hoops to use the name they want to use, isn't going to make them hesitate to undo that if they consider detransitioning down the road.  

So, while I do understand the concerns about medical transition, particularly for minors, I would think that people who share that transition would be in the front lines of the fight against bathroom bills, because they'd want social transition without medical intervention to be a safe option.  

I think @Drama Llamais right on here. 

Banning my nephew from the bathroom at school didn't make him detransition. It did, however, cause his two older sisters to declare that they were NB as well and to START using the men's restroom with him when they were out at the mall or whatever. 

 

I know several teens  who, when sitting chatting over lunch  or a snack, have said that they'll be going on HRT as soon as they turn 18, because "no one can claim I'm not a guy when I have a beard", and are trying to talk their parents into signing off on legal name changes because it's the only way they can have what they want to be called respected at school. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ginevra]

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

 

Most of the ones in Arkansas look like this, I’m trying to remember, I feel like Tennessee has these too, at least in some places.  I’m drawing a blank on Virginia.    I only know Arkansas for sure has them because I’ve been making frequent trips around the state lately and have a couple of rest areas that I’ve been seeing frequently. 

 

I can guarantee you in Arkansas it has absolutely nothing to do with unisex anything.  These are in the gender segregated bathrooms.  It’s all about being cheap and easy to clean.  
 

Having frequented bathrooms with this design I can say that they’ve never been gross or nasty, they do not smell, I have never considered using a bush as an alternative. There are cleaning crews there frequently. The choice of toilet design does not necessarily have to mean it’s disgusting.  If that’s the case it is a conscious choice against cleanliness that is being made somewhere.    

My tiny daughter also has no trouble using these, even if they are a bit uncomfortable. She can still use them, without help and only finds them a bit awkward, but less awkward than bushes on the side of the road.  

 

I’ve seen those. Literally just used one at a trailhead park. I’m sure they’re not good for kids or some adults but this kind of toilet is fine as far as I’m concerned. 

[QueenCat]

2 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

Most of the ones in Arkansas look like this, I’m trying to remember, I feel like Tennessee has these too, at least in some places.  I’m drawing a blank on Virginia.    I only know Arkansas for sure has them because I’ve been making frequent trips around the state lately and have a couple of rest areas that I’ve been seeing frequently. 

 

I can guarantee you in Arkansas it has absolutely nothing to do with unisex anything.  These are in the gender segregated bathrooms.  It’s all about being cheap and easy to clean.  
 

Having frequented bathrooms with this design I can say that they’ve never been gross or nasty, they do not smell, I have never considered using a bush as an alternative. There are cleaning crews there frequently. The choice of toilet design does not necessarily have to mean it’s disgusting.  If that’s the case it is a conscious choice against cleanliness that is being made somewhere.    

My tiny daughter also has no trouble using these, even if they are a bit uncomfortable. She can still use them, without help and only finds them a bit awkward, but less awkward than bushes on the side of the road.  

 

I've not seen those. We used to live in TN and would drive through from Nashville to Chatty. I don't object to them. I've just not seen them. Thanks for sharing the pic!

[Halftime Hope]

On 1/25/2024 at 11:03 PM, maize said:

I've said it before: the simplest,  least expensive, easiest to implement resolution to bathroom concerns that both allows females a reserved space where they can feel safe and ensures bathroom availability for everyone (while simultaneously mitigating the perennial problem of long lines for women's restrooms) is to have designated female bathrooms and unisex bathrooms. Anyone and everyone can use the unisex restrooms without raising eyebrows, and women who need a female-only space to feel safe and comfortable have access to one. Doesn't require significant new infrastructure. 

Many men have zero desire to stand in front of a urinal while a woman walks past him. Re-plumbing a bathroom is not an easy thing to do.

[Ginevra]

2 hours ago, Drama Llama said:

I live in a very blue area, where there are lots of protections for people who are trans.  There are bathroom options, and schools will call kids whatever they want to be called.  From where I sit, and my experience with trans kids, all of these things seem to reduce the pressure on kids to physically transition.  I don't see how knowing that someone can have you arrested if they figure out you are trans, doesn't feel like pressure to use hormones to perfect the physical transition.  I don't see how making it really hard for someone to socially transition without medical intervention, doesn't push them towards that medical intervention.  I don't see how making someone jump through a million hoops to use the name they want to use, isn't going to make them hesitate to undo that if they consider detransitioning down the road.  

My perspective on this is different; permit me to illustrate why. 
 

If a minor transitions only socially, this will not erase the disadvantages of not hormonally and medically transitioning. Let’s say a biological  female of 14 yo presents as male and socially transitions. The school will call them whatever they want; mom and dad, aunts and uncles will say “he” and use the preferred name. But. This person still has a uterus, a period, breasts. Lacks facial hair, has no penis. The longer they do not have medical intervention, the more they will look like a female and the harder it becomes to stick with social-only transition. 
 

If they have their period, it’s complicated to deal with the bathroom at all, even if the state is progressive. For their optimum privacy and safety, it’s best if they are in a single-stall, unisex, locking private space. 
 

If they are interested in another person romantically, this is also an issue. The safest bet is to stick to the queer people in your social circle, people who are out as not-hereto and/or non-binary. These people, you can assume, won’t flip out to learn that, although they thought you were a guy since they met you, you don’t have male body parts down below. 
 

I think these issues are much more likely to make a person yearn for medical transition. Because don’t we know that simply being in a state that does not regulate against trans people does not mean you won’t encounter rejection or even assault for not being “really” a man or “really” a woman? 
 

I read an article written by a fully-transitioned trans man. There was very detailed information about phalloplasty. The author stated that part of the goal for him was to pee standing up like a natal male. Even made a joke about how, when he got looked at askance in a men’s bathroom, he said, “I’m a guy; wanna see my d*ck?” I mean, it was a joke and I’m not sure they literally said that, but my point is that this is a motivation. It’s not necessarily that, without a d*ck that can be shown, there’s a fear of arrest. It’s that there is a motivation to be “completely” the transitioned gender. 
 

In my very small sample size of people I know well IRL, being permitted 100% to socially transition did not stave off medical intervention for very long. It had nothing to do with legislative concerns; it was because social ramifications exist even if legislative concerns are not a factor. 
 

Last little point, then I swear I’ll be quiet for a while: human nature is consistency bias. Teens are more likely to change things about themselves without concern for consistency than older adults are but there is still a human tendency towards consistency. I can’t imagine there are many people eager to detransition, because it goes against consistency bias and it feels a bit humiliating. I think one reason for not letting kids socially transition only at school is because it’s building a house of cards that’s going to really suck when it inevitably crashes down. This is going to be true whether the parents are nice people or total nut jobs. There’s nothing new about kids thinking their parents “just don’t understand” and this has less to do with how reasonable the parents actually are and more to do with the immature communication skills involved. 

[KSera]

1 hour ago, Ginevra said:

I read an article written by a fully-transitioned trans man. There was very detailed information about phalloplasty.

It's a very definite minority of transmen who are seeking phalloplasty these days. The complication rate is sky high and the need for revision surgeries is as well. Even with transwomen, who tend to get better surgical results (though still with a high rate of need for surgical revision), the trend seems to very much be that the majority want to keep their "bottom parts" and just do hormones. Trans men tend to mostly want top surgery in addition to hormones.

All that to say, I tend toward @Drama Llama's way of thinking about this, that requiring bottom surgery when it has such a high rate of complication definitely doesn't give me the idea that people implementing that rule are doing so because they are trying to decide in the best interest of transpeople. I think that specific rule is in part stemming from total ignorance, with people who made the rules assuming that "real trans people" would all be getting bottom surgery. That used to be a requirement to change gender markers in some places, so people were more likely to do it when that was the case. The less we push people toward "treatments" that make their health worse rather than improving it, the better.

Doing away with urinals out in the open would have many benefits. I'll stop there lest we veer into the sitting/standing debate.

[Ginevra]

Phalloplasty is one matter, and I agree it’s a minority seeking it currently. But hysterectomies and mastectomies in young people do not seem to me to be rare at all. (I have no data to support that belief; only anecdata.)  These are not without health risks, too. In society, we have largely ceased removing the reproductive organs of older women willy-nilly, as it was for our moms/gmoms. We realized that there are many important things that estrogen does, say, and that it’s best only to remove these organs if they are diseased.  I don’t see much, if any, social pushback against removing these hormonally important organs in young transitioners. I don’t think that’s an inconsequential health aspect for many young people. 

[KSera]

27 minutes ago, Ginevra said:

Phalloplasty is one matter, and I agree it’s a minority seeking it currently. But hysterectomies and mastectomies in young people do not seem to me to be rare at all. (I have no data to support that belief; only anecdata.)  These are not without health risks, too. In society, we have largely ceased removing the reproductive organs of older women willy-nilly, as it was for our moms/gmoms. We realized that there are many important things that estrogen does, say, and that it’s best only to remove these organs if they are diseased.  I don’t see much, if any, social pushback against removing these hormonally important organs in young transitioners. I don’t think that’s an inconsequential health aspect for many young people. 

I was actually thinking shortly ago that I needed to come back and clarify that hysterectomies are still widely sought by trans men. They’re very commonly done as ovary sparing hysterectomies though. I don’t know current figures on what percentage are choosing to keep their ovaries and which ones aren’t, but I know that locally the advice has been for trans men to keep their ovaries. The risk is too great if you’re not able to take testosterone for whatever reason – they don’t want to have a situation where they have no sex hormones on board at all. That’s clearly not a good idea for someone doing this so early in life. I wasn’t thinking of hysterectomies though, since that’s not something that would be included in the kind of legislation we’re talking about.

[Pam in CT]

re unknown long range health risks with procedures without a lot of good long term data

29 minutes ago, Ginevra said:

Phalloplasty is one matter, and I agree it’s a minority seeking it currently. But hysterectomies and mastectomies in young people do not seem to me to be rare at all. (I have no data to support that belief; only anecdata.)  These are not without health risks, too. In society, we have largely ceased removing the reproductive organs of older women willy-nilly, as it was for our moms/gmoms. We realized that there are many important things that estrogen does, say, and that it’s best only to remove these organs if they are diseased.  I don’t see much, if any, social pushback against removing these hormonally important organs in young transitioners. I don’t think that’s an inconsequential health aspect for many young people. 

Agreed,

and

that's true as well of a very great number of other emergent treatments (ever expanding behavioral health medications and other emergent treatments like ketamine; medication and surgical treatments supporting weight loss; COVID treatment, etc).

As a society, we mostly come down (legally and culturally) on the Individual's autonomy and ability to weigh the cost/benefit of various medical treatments (once they've cleared scientific efficacy / not undue **short term** side effects by the FDA). As a society, we don't generally peer over the shoulders of individual patients contemplating a particular new surgery or new-to-the-market asthma medication second-guessing their ability to weigh the risk/ benefit calculus.  *

 

It also seems (?) to be a different question than where you began the thread, which was very explicitly around adults and seemed (?) to focus around the dangers of Walking While Trans in states with hostile legislation such as bathroom bans.

On 1/24/2024 at 5:52 PM, Ginevra said:

I’m asking because I have heard of many hypothetical scenarios but what I’m curious about are actual laws in some states that affect transgender adults. 
 

So the first part of my question is: are there any states that have a ratified law in place right now that stipulates bathroom/locker room use for trans adults? And if yes, what is the wording? And if yes, what actually happens if someone is presumed to be breaking this law? I’m wondering who polices the bathroom and would accost a person going in/out based on a presumption of that person’s gender. Is that happening in any state; I.e, in Texas? In Florida?

I am wondering what the true risk level is for trans adults if they go to a state that has a reputation for being “anti-trans.” Defining risk level as likelihood of being arrested and having to obtain defense counsel. 

****My intentions in asking this are pure. I had a debate/intense discussion today with an attorney and I don’t have enough information to know if points he made are valid or not. The individual who brought this issue to the fore is fearful of going certain places and I’m trying to understand the true risk. I live in a liberal state and have never lived in the states where this sentiment is at issue; I don’t know what it is like. As a simple example, I have no factual knowledge of how frequently all-gender bathrooms are available, so I don’t know how often a trans person must choose between the male or female bathroom.****
 

***I am intentionally trying to stay out of the weeds of laws affecting trans minors. I have mixed feelings about those and it wasn’t part of the discussion prompting this post. The individual is an adult. So I am wondering what the threat of legal repercussions is in an adult transgender person.***

(I totally get that threads morph, just trying to understand where you're coming from)

On the dangers of adults Walking While Trans... a number of pp spoke to the issue of how hostile bathroom legislation does not merely impose a direct risk of arrest / defense counsel costs (the risks you first considered in the OP), but also empowers busybodies to make invasive demands / gives implicit cover to vigilantes to enact violence. That empowers medical professionals to turn folks away for treatment of broken bones or asthma attacks.

Such hostile legislation sends a very.clear.signal that trans people cannot expect law enforcement to come down on their side. 

"Law and Order" in the sense that "law is meant to sustain the existing order. Not for thee."

I think we've seen that film before.

 

 

 

 

* Arguably women's contraception is an exception, where there IS a fair degree of paternalistic societal "but for their own good, the potential health risks!!" second-guessing and desire to override individual decisionmaking.  And.

 

[Ginevra]

27 minutes ago, KSera said:

I was actually thinking shortly ago that I needed to come back and clarify that hysterectomies are still widely sought by trans men. They’re very commonly done as ovary sparing hysterectomies though. I don’t know current figures on what percentage are choosing to keep their ovaries and which ones aren’t, but I know that locally the advice has been for trans men to keep their ovaries. The risk is too great if you’re not able to take testosterone for whatever reason – they don’t want to have a situation where they have no sex hormones on board at all. That’s clearly not a good idea for someone doing this so early in life. I wasn’t thinking of hysterectomies though, since that’s not something that would be included in the kind of legislation we’re talking about.

You don’t think hysterectomy is a factor, though? I would think it would be because of periods. If you are concerned about your safety (whether from legislation or from bad-actor busybodies) in bathrooms, trying to manage your period seems very fraught. 

[Terabith]

Look, I do get that threads morph, but this feels like the bar is moving constantly in this thread.  And yes, managing periods is an issue, but every trans person is different, and most of the people I have known who got hysterectomies didn't do it until more than 20 years after social and other physical transition.  And I have never heard of ovaries being removed as well.  And it really feels like a solution that the individual comes up with a solution to rather than one that legislation should cover.  

Also, I get that it's weird how many trans people that I know well.  Especially since I've known most of them since the 90s.  It really is kinda odd, but I was really grateful when my own kid came out as non binary and as counterpoint to my upbringing and churches I've been involved in in much of my adult life.  

Edited January 28 by Terabith

[Ginevra]

4 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

It also seems (?) to be a different question than where you began the thread, which was very explicitly around adults and seemed (?) to focus around the dangers of Walking While Trans in states with hostile legislation such as bathroom bans.

It is a different question, and we are now in the very weeds I spoke about staying out of. But, as you said, threads morph. My initial question did not seem especially interesting to the board. There does not appear to be much to talk about regarding what an adult could face, strictly from a legal perspective, if they were sent through the employing body to trans-restrictive locations. Early in the thread, that was answered: low risk of being literally arrested or having to retain counsel to defend oneself for the bathroom they used. 
 

I think the Hive does not find that question to be very interesting, hence the thread moves to the more interesting details. So here we are. 

[KSera]

13 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

that's true as well of a very great number of other emergent treatments (ever expanding behavioral health medications and other emergent treatments like ketamine; medication and surgical treatments supporting weight loss; COVID treatment, etc).

As a society, we mostly come down (legally and culturally) on the Individual's autonomy and ability to weigh the cost/benefit of various medical treatments (once they've cleared scientific efficacy / not undue **short term** side effects by the FDA). As a society, we don't generally peer over the shoulders of individual patients contemplating a particular new surgery or new-to-the-market asthma medication second-guessing their ability to weigh the risk/ benefit calculus.

Agreed. I have pretty significant concerns about the physical and mental health implications of much of the current medical approach in this sphere as it really is still largely emergent given that the predominant transgender presentation is now so different than it used to be, and my reading of the literature is not at all comforting (over and over "not much is known about...." "the evidence is weak for...." "more research needs to be done on..." "no long term studies have been done..." but I don't think legislation is where these uncertainties should be hashed out, and I think if busybodies and politicians would get out of it, medicine might actually have the ability to explore these issues without bias rather than operating in the current landmine political landscape. As it is, everyone has staked their sides on political bases, and honest discussions can't even be had in most spaces.

[Terabith]

I would just like to say that the idea of this topic being about interest and entertainment is pretty deeply hurtful and exhausting for some of us.  These are painful conversations and to say that it's about interest just, well, honestly, it really hurts.  

[Farrar]

7 hours ago, Drama Llama said:

I don't think it's close to "millions" unless maybe you mix in people who only socially transition. 

But I think that laws like bathroom laws, or laws that prohibit teachers from using kids' preferred names, or laws that allow medical providers to refuse care wouldn't appeal to someone whose motivation was to prevent people from using hormones or altering bodies.  

I live in a very blue area, where there are lots of protections for people who are trans.  There are bathroom options, and schools will call kids whatever they want to be called.  From where I sit, and my experience with trans kids, all of these things seem to reduce the pressure on kids to physically transition.  I don't see how knowing that someone can have you arrested if they figure out you are trans, doesn't feel like pressure to use hormones to perfect the physical transition.  I don't see how making it really hard for someone to socially transition without medical intervention, doesn't push them towards that medical intervention.  I don't see how making someone jump through a million hoops to use the name they want to use, isn't going to make them hesitate to undo that if they consider detransitioning down the road.  

So, while I do understand the concerns about medical transition, particularly for minors, I would think that people who share that transition would be in the front lines of the fight against bathroom bills, because they'd want social transition without medical intervention to be a safe option.  

I just want to second that this is exactly what I see in my blue bubble as well. The attitude around it is very chill around the young people I know. There's no drama, no pressure. And there's a lot less discussion of medical transitions. Also, there is a more free flowing attitude. I have known multiple young folks who have changed back and forth in terms of social gender presentation, pronouns, etc. If you want it to be less entrenched and let young people grow and change and feel less pressure and not feel like they "must" have medical interventions, then that's what I see among the blue bubble kids. I think what happens in some cases in areas where there's a lot of anti-trans sentiment, is that people feel like they have no room to explore and figure things out. Everything has to be a big, all or nothing declaration. And the more pressure, the more entrenched feelings like dysphoria become.

But the goal I see politically isn't to actually support young people or ease off medical transition options for most young people. It's to punish people for being different and to scaremonger.

I also get that the thread has evolved and some people are trying to learn, but honestly, the discussion by cis folk of peoples medical choices around surgery, genitals, etc. etc. just feels invasively ick in the context of deciding what they "should" and "should not" do.

[Amira]

I do not think that setting the bar at being literally arrested or having to retain counsel is a reasonable representation of harm. I mean, going back to my Saudi Arabia example, I didn't particularly worry that I would be arrested if I went entered a men-only space.  When I did do that, usually someone politely told me that I was in the wrong place and was supposed to leave.  Sounds like not a big deal, right?  But the more it happened, the more I self-regulated until I wasn't even trying to do a lot of things I would normally have done in any other country because simply existing as female in Saudi (even a foreign, white woman) meant that I had to watch my actions in so many ways that men did not.  It wasn't just about where I could eat. And it's not just about arrest.  It's so much more than that.  

I get that women want to feel safe in the bathroom.  I do too, and I have to pay attention to that in different ways. Women and public bathrooms have a long and complicated history everywhere in the world.  Keeping people from using public bathrooms, whether it's through social pressure or fear of arrest, severely limits people.  

[Pam in CT]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

I would just like to say that the idea of this topic being about interest and entertainment is pretty deeply hurtful and exhausting for some of us.  These are painful conversations and to say that it's about interest just, well, honestly, it really hurts.  

Terabith, I dunno if this includes my own comment upthread that I found @maize 's lens of using different lived experiences across *religious differences* as "interesting."  I will go back now and change my wording to "helpful."  I apologize.

[Ginevra]

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

I would just like to say that the idea of this topic being about interest and entertainment is pretty deeply hurtful and exhausting for some of us.  These are painful conversations and to say that it's about interest just, well, honestly, it really hurts.  

I don’t see it as “interest” as in entertainment. It’s interest in understanding something we don’t all have complete knowledge of. We talk about plenty of difficult things here in an effort to gain new insights and expand our understanding. 
 

I do not want anyone to feel hurt in here, but - said with no snark at all - nobody is forced to participate in any thread that bothers them. That old internet board thread advice applies; we are all free to scroll on by. 

[Ginevra]

42 minutes ago, Amira said:

do not think that setting the bar at being literally arrested or having to retain counsel is a reasonable representation of harm

The question I was asked was about that, though. The person wanted to know what happens to their job if they get arrested in a state that dictates where they can go to the bathroom. It’s not *my* definition of harm; it’s the definition of harm used by the person asking the question. Just to clarify…

[Terabith]

20 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

Terabith, I dunno if this includes my own comment upthread that I found @maize 's lens of using different lived experiences across *religious differences* as "interesting."  I will go back now and change my wording to "helpful."  I apologize.

Not even a little bit. I thought yours was excellent and helpful!

[Dmmetler]

23 minutes ago, Ginevra said:

I don’t see it as “interest” as in entertainment. It’s interest in understanding something we don’t all have complete knowledge of. We talk about plenty of difficult things here in an effort to gain new insights and expand our understanding. 
 

I do not want anyone to feel hurt in here, but - said with no snark at all - nobody is forced to participate in any thread that bothers them. That old internet board thread advice applies; we are all free to scroll on by. 

Our trans family members and friends cannot "scroll on by" and avoid the situations discussed. 

Edited January 28 by Dmmetler

[Ginevra]

4 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

Our trans family members and friends cannot "scroll on by" and avoid the situations discussed. 

I understand that and am in sympathy to it. Is that not why it’s important to discuss these things? So we can understand better. That’s why I have stayed in this thread, though it has morphed beyond discussing the legal element, which does not to be much of a concern for most people.