@Fullminator, LVader:

You are entirely right that not everythingnneeds to be blamed on bullying - but when a kid is kicked out if their home by their parents, it is no surprise if their life goes downhill. When a young adult doesn't feel comfortable around their parents, that has a negative effect. I know, i have two transfriend who ha e fundamentalist christians for parents.

The fact that they are not just made uncomfortable by society, but also already have problems feeling comfortable in their own skin, does i'm sure contribute somewhat to the suicide rate (and i'm not saying that maybe 2% of the suicides are because of body-disphoria and 98% are because of bullying - what i am saying is that bullying and body disphoria and rejection by one's family, all contribute)

So yeah, it is not all due to bullying. But bullying, and institutional victimisation, and laws which specifically targdt trans people, are the things we as a society have control over.

We can't make parents accept their kids, and we can offer the best medical help available for people who feel body disphoria; but bullyi g is something which should be stopped without question.

@"I don't see the need to identify as one. (Although I guess I play diplomacy......... er never mind.) If there is no difference between gender, why is it so important for some people to identify as the other one."

This is a typical attitude demonstrating your cis-priviledge. I know because i held it for a long time aswell; it was only through getting to know trans people and hearing their stories that i came to see the difference.

Being trans does not meaning wanting/needing to have sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) but not identifying as your assigned sex at birth and wanting to present your identified gender to the world should be acceptable.

Whether that means wearing makeup, or dressing ambigiously (i know a number of people who like to appear as androgynous as possible)

The issue then becomes what do you do when attempting to use a public toilet? And someone who presents as female may be attacked for using the 'wro g' toilet (as certain laws in the US are now demanding)

If you watched the video i posted, the stories you hear are of trans people being assaulted because someone else feels they are in the wrong toilet. Trans people being the victims of violence and rape. There are a lot of politicinas talking about potential threats to women's toilet safety. But i can't think of any actual news stories.

@"Since a clear majority wants their facilities separated by sex, that's how it should be."

Do you have any evidence of this claim? I doubt a clear majority gives a shit about this issue at all.

It is possible that a majority of women have safety issues and want to be able to pee in peace. (though that is also the case for all trans people) but i really do not think the majority want seperate facilities.

I'd say the majority didn't get a say in the matter and accepted the outcome as 'not worth fighting over' - now trans people are a minority, and they believe it is worth fighting over. Again, like black people sitting at the front of the bus.

The civil rights movement was a good thing. And the trans rights movement is the same. it is a fight for equality.

I frankly disagree with you on the relevance of having a penis in a women's bathroom. Or a vagina in a men's bathroom.

If a person present as male/female, and is accepted in day to day life as male/female. They should not be forced to use the opposite bathroom every time they want to pee. Especially in a public which may be threatening to their lives. Particularily when a very masculine and muscley trans-man would make all the women in the women's restroom uncomfortable. (and there are ample photos taken by trans-men in just this situation )

Your genitals have fuck all to do with it. And they want to be equal, the fact that you can't see why this is an issue for trans people... I don't know what that says about your empathy.

I love when you ask for evidence of claims that are self-evident. Almost very building that's open to the public, whether government-owned or privately-owned, has separate facilities for men and women. That's either because of local building code, meaning that each town and county has decided on the same policy, or because of the preference of those building them, which means that all of these business-owners have decided on the same policy. This isn't something cooked up by Congress and the President so that one law blankets the land, there are literally thousands of local governments who have all come to the same conclusion. And in areas where codes are not specific, thousands of builders have made that conclusion as well. Also, judging by people's reactions when the wrong facilities are used, they do have an expectation of privacy from those of another sex when inside their facilities.

I disagree with your disagreement that sexual organs (and secondary organs such as female breasts) are irrelevant. They are more relevant in a changing room, which was the focus of the OP, but they are relevant in bathrooms as well. This is a custom which is not followed in all parts of the world, but it is custom here and whether you can understand the reasons is frankly irrelevant; society as a whole has accepted it and it causes no harm to anyone to follow it.

Again, they are equal. The fight for "rights" is imaginary because they have the same rights as everyone else. They don't have more rights, and that seems to be the fundamental issue here.

@orathaic
Yaleunc gave the stats from a survey conducted. It's on page 4.

maybe we need a separate trans wash/change room?

if we really do separate rooms based on gender, seems morally plausible; though not really financially plausible

and the American media would throw SUCH a temper tantrum

@orathaic
"Your genitals have fuck all to do with it. And they want to be equal, the fact that you can't see why this is an issue for trans people... I don't know what that says about your empathy."
Going off of this, I'm sure the following will be highly offensive, but whatever. I've already expressed this view elsewhere, and no one who knows me will be surprised by it.

Under the current setup, Lila should not be permitted to use the girls' locker room. If it is unduly harsh on her to use the boys' locker room, then letting her use the "neutral" room is a sufficient alternative. (Okay, that's maybe not ENTIRELY offensive, but stick with me.)

My reason is that transgendered insistence such as Lila's (as opposed to transgender tendencies or feelings or deep-seated mental and emotional attachments, which give rise to insistence but are not co-extensive with it) is a case of both deceit and hubris. God created humans as males and females, and for most people, He provides clear genetic (and consequent physiological) evidence of which category they fall into. (There are, of course, exceptions, but they are not at issue here.) Assuming a gender identity that differs from one's biological sex contradicts this testimony and suggests to everyone else that God's assignment of sex is irrelevant (which is a deceitful claim) and that our experience of gender identity, however arrived at, is superior to His assignment of biological sex (which is a hubristic claim). I cannot fathom why hubris and deceit would be worthy traits to be encouraged.

I must distinguish this from intensely-personal and powerfully-experienced tendencies toward transgender identity that nevertheless are not developed and manifested. These tendencies, however much they may be kept under wraps, often have very deep roots and are intertwined with the very fiber of our minds and lives. They are also not a cause for condemnation. But they are temptations toward the hubris and deceit of insisting on living out a trans life, and as with all other temptations (deeply-felt and otherwise), we're supposed to resist them and fight back against them, not give in to them and embrace them. And that may be a lifelong fight that is never completely won, and we should encourage and help and pray with and weep with those who are fighting that fight. But what we shouldn't do is just encourage them to give that fight up.

I won't deny that most of us Christians have completely missed the boat on this and done exactly what you are doing -- conflating core tendencies toward transgendered identity with insistence on actualizing that identity -- and the result is that we often summarily condemn any boys who even think they might be girls, or we think that they can only be "healed" if the very tendencies themselves are eliminated. But the solution is not to affirm those boys as girls, nor, mutatis mutandis, girls as boys.

You can accuse me of being cis-privileged all you want. I really don't care. No, I'm not afflicted -- and yes, I will use that word -- with transgender tendencies. I have plenty of other temptations that I enjoy surrendering to instead. The fact that they are by and large more culturally respectable does not make them any more genuinely acceptable, nor does it necessarily make my fight against them much easier.

My empathy lies with all those who are fighting an excruciating, daily, rending fight against themselves -- they absolutely NEED help and aid and comfort, not blithe or angry dismissal. My empathy does not lie with those like Lila who are fighting an excruciating, daily, rending fight against society so that the rest of us will affirm (and in this case, become complicit in) their surrender and their forays into hubris and deceit. You're welcome accuse me of victim-blaming, or to claim that telling someone to give up their identity and go against who they really are is itself an unacceptable thing, but you'll need take that up with Jesus (He can hear you), since one of the things that He said seems quite on point here: "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." And of course, any one of us who doesn't wish to come after Him has rather more serious terrors to face than those spawned from a society that isn't open-handed enough to affirm our gender identities.

"This is a custom which is not followed in all parts of the world, but it is custom here and whether you can understand the reasons is frankly irrelevant; society as a whole has accepted it and it causes no harm to anyone to follow it."

Your argument about laws is irrelevant, because your point about this being the custom is correct. Nobody on all those city councils cared because they weren't trans. So any laws which were passed were not objected to - hence my claim that most people don't care - they just follow the custom without really thinking about it.

When you have visitors in your home, do you segregrate the toilet facilities? Is it a problem if men and women share your private toilet? And if so, then this custom is obviously fine and works perfectly well for private homes everywhere.

"is a case of both deceit and hubris. God created humans as males and females, and for most people, He provides clear genetic (and consequent physiological) evidence of which category they fall into. "

You don't think god also assigns gender identity? Yeah, i'm pretty sure i smell hubris here, and it is your self-appointed capacity to determine Gods will and actions.

My battery is dying, or i would reply to more, will look at stats on page 4. Thx yoyo

So why do we not have trans-only games and threads around here? From everything I read from the lgbt supporters around here demanding they have equal access to everything (in principle I agree with this...) What I ALSO READ from these same super-bigots is that LGBT people are all emotional wrecks, and that they are much more easily disturbed, insulted, offended, etc.

Ironic, once again the people screaming the loudest that everyone needs to be treated equally do so on the basis of singling out a group of people with special needs BECAUSE YOU CLAIM THEY ARE INFERIOR in some way (emotionally unstable, for her example).

Freaking leftist bigots.

@ Krellin: "So why do we not have trans-only games and threads around here?"

Probably because we have very few trans players. If there were 7 trans people on webDip, and they wanted to create a passworded game just for the 7 of them, would you really come out and claim they should be stopped from doing so?

@ora Regarding the claim that most people don't care: I can see your point. I don't necessarily agree with you, but I can see your point. Sometimes decisions are probably reached and laws are passed just because it's the way things have always been. However, as yoyo pointed out, someone has already linked a survey which shows that many people do care, so it seems that my original point that people definitely care was correct. My follow-up was that since a majority of people do care, everyone who disagrees needs to live by the rule of the majority since they are not being harmed by it.

I'm a little confused by your discussion of private homes and toilets, for a few reasons. For one thing, members of the opposite sex usually don't use them at the same time, unless they are romantically attached or siblings. Obviously these students are neither of those things. I don't think anyone here is objecting to a setup where there is a private room that could be used by men and women, one at a time. The issue is concurrent use. And anyway, anyone can do essentially anything they want in their private homes, and it doesn't bother me. The students in the article are being threatened with having to allow someone of another sex into the locker room that they have to use. That's very different than voluntarily going into someone's home who would require them to change clothes in front of others.

I always look at policies for public areas such as government buildings and commons (and even more so for schools because attendance is compulsory) with a much more critical eye than I would policies for private businesses, and I really don't care about anyone's policy in their own home at all.

orathaic:

If I may ask, what do you think the purpose of separating the bathrooms based on gender would be? If done by biological sex, it makes sense that it would be to make the members of each sex more comfortable, knowing that they all have the same "setup" so no one would have to look at male genitalia if they were female and vice versa. With it being determined by gender, which is a relatively new concept compared to how long bathrooms were separated so I doubt that was even the original intention, it doesn't make much sense.

@yoyo That's a great question. It speaks to the illogic of the entire modern left. They are so worried about hurting or offending someone that it's not possible to have any structure anymore. They can't propose a structure that works with their twisted perceptions of morality, so they just continue to hold up "victims" to tear down what structure remains.

Just try to get a liberal to admit that anyone is responsible for their own actions and should be held accountable if you want to see what I mean. By the time they're done talking, the criminal is the victim, the victim is the instigator, and it's society's fault that any of it happened in the first place. Ask them how to fix it and they'll just tell you to tax the rich.

I'm a liberal though. I'm just not that far left.

@yoyo Dare I suggest that you're a libertarian? It seems like you believe people can be whoever they want to be and do whatever they want to do, until it imposes on others...

I've fancied with the titled, but I'm not 100% libertarian. But yes, I agree with that sentiment.

Any statement that generalizes any political side is just that, a generalization. I know plenty on both sides that would do what you say a liberal would do, and plenty on both sides that wouldn't.

Everyone is responsible for their own actions and should be held accountable.The term criminal and victim are ones that can never be concrete, but instead must be constantly reevaluated to keep up with the times.

Taxing the rich is part of a possible solution. Sadly the only real solution would likely involve societal programming, which neither side would likely go for, and which doesn't show any signs that it would work at all, plus should it be possible to enact at all, anyone who went against it could ruin the entire thing, plus it requires 3 generations to even work.

Ohh, most problems are the fault of society for failure to change at the right times.

Jamie, you ate an INSENSITIVE BITCH!

How DARE you demands that the teams members need to single themselves out I'd they need a game to themselves!

And... I notice you ignore the entire rest of my post. I guess it was true, and you can't refute my points?

And... Further... "If there are only 7 here...." They don't need special accommodations, says Jamie....

.... And yet when ONE trans in a school WAS given special accommodations, that is insufficient for Jamie.

Anyone else see the bigoted hypocrisy?

I see...we ate all for requiring special accommodations.... Until it affects OUR fun...

Trans people, according to the Left, are clearly less emotionally stable than "normal" people --- that is why offending ALL the normal girls in a school is better than offending ONE trans BOY, right?

But, creating a special provision for trans people to create their own games here (so ad to not be traumitized by press from people like me...) Would be too much of a burden.

I don't get it. Either y'all think the trannies need special treatment, or you don't? Someone help me here....

Now you're just trolling as usual, Krelly.

Not trolling at all.

I'm asking a serious question. You find it too difficult to answer... And therefore declare I'm trolling so as to not have to answer.

The tyrannies are now offended by you're lack of compassion in that you won't defend them and their needs...

Tsk tsk...

Trolling. Lol. Idiotic excuse for nor answering.

IF your argument is based in SOUND RATIONAL LOGIC... then it can answer "legitimate" questioning and "trolling" alike.

If you are afraid to answer the first reasonable question asked of you... You probably have no legitimate argument to attend upon.

What exactly is your serious question then? I can't hear it for all the bitching and capslock.

You refuse to hear it, hypocrite

It is absurd of you to call anyone else a hypocrite.

That's the pathetic answer of a hypocrite with no answer to my question

What question?

It's quite funny to mute krellin then go back and read the conversation.

I advise everyone do it once in a while.

Or mute everyone else in the thread and read only krellin.