Category: DB7

A passage that had me thinking came from Bitch Media which stated, “That email came from Cathy Brennan, an attorney, radical feminist, and lesbian activist who is well known for her beliefs that transgender women should be considered men.” Because of the use of the word men, that got me questioning what exactly they mean by that.

I enjoin reading “Transgender people And Bathroom Access” because there’s a absurd debate about it. They believe that transgender’s meant not feel comfortable or safe using public restroom. Since in this world individuals do get bully one way or the other. So they decided to create rights for transgender individuals. The con side about having transgender using a private restroom is the message non-transgender people will receive, some how you telling them that transgender individual are evil and they should be kept separate from others.

An additional conflict I want to add is the view of social. In today’s world women ae suppose to look a certain and men are suppose to look a certain way. If somehow you are enable to do that many individual will judge you and that’s just facts. Well according to “Toilet Training” an individual name Dan share her story on how she got arrested for using the bathroom. Dean identifies as a trans individual, but because she used the man restroom he got arrested.

According to the video, there are a lot of problematic issues of trans gender people. Generally, everyone is equal before God, but unfortunately society can not recognize this fact. There we can see that trans gender people are under the press. Society is not ready for communication and cohabitation with trans people. In the video, I have seen one important problem that was toilet. I can say that it is a very important problem because people are confused about trans. They have not enough knowledge; because of this they do not know how treat them. At this time, trans people are oppressed. They are victim of bulling and violence. They are human, citizens and persons whom have rights but no one try to protect they. For example: If he/she wants to go in toile, he/she will have a problem. People can not get they. There was a one place where have solved toilet problem. They created “All-Gender bathroom”. Everyone can use this kind of bathroom. They try to training and educating society. I think that the best way to solve this problem is educating people. I live in Georgia and number of trans are killed. I am interested about what is happening in other countries where old traditions have a huge role in the community.

In the video I have seen other problems. There was a guy who was dropped out from the school, because of his orientation. I have seen women who have a problems in job.

Time is gone, but problem is still caustic. Trans gender people are still rejected.

When reading the article ” Transgender people and bathroom access” I found out a lot of information and also making connections based off of the information I gathered from the article.

I found out that many transgender women that uses the bathroom based on what gender they prefer to be gets assaulted by people in the bathroom because of what they choose to be. I know that a lot of people don’t accept transgenders but to physically assault them because they feel like using the bathroom they feel to use is truly wrong. Another thing that I have read in the article was that they wanted transgenders to use their own private bathrooms because some people feel that are a threat and feel uncomfortable around them in bathroom.

A connection that I have with this article is when I had sociology and we were discussing transgenders having equal opportunities. A student in my class was saying that how they shouldn’t share a bathroom with us because she feels uncomfortable, and I said I don’t think that’s fair because at the end of the day they are human and they have feelings, they should share the same opportunities as us ,in my opinion.

I was incredibly shocked how hateful people could be. Not the type of shock that is found when you don’t understand or are confused. It was a shock that say, “how is this possible?” I cannot wrap my head around the fact that people are so hateful against other beings. First of all, everyone has the right to just exist, to just be. The topic of this week is focused around trans rights and inequalities. It is almost as similar to racism; these aren’t subjecting that individuals are born with. Life experiences and caretakers have played a big role in to why they view the world in the way that they do. The first reading by Vasquez, “It’s Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women” shows how there are women that are so opposed to the idea that trans women have rights and should be treated with such respect as any other individual. What stood out to me what when Brennan would feel so “threatened” by the fact that she would be mocked with her retrograded ideas and would be called out for what she stood for. That she would go the step ahead to make her stalker move on whoever called her out by outing them to their workplace and home environment. I think she is disgusting even though we live in a country of free speech I think hate speech should be banned. It is disgusting that groups of women are trans-exclusionary feminist; how can you be a feminist and not want equal rights for every individual? It just seems absurd to me. The slides show that other individuals, like certain men fight for that justice to happen for everyone to be considered the way they feel comfortable in.

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As the professor said the findings are being carefully viewed to see if there are any cases to prove that cis men will just portray themselves as women in order to create harm, the numbers do not prove that is the case. In the article Transgender People and Bathroom Access having trans inclusiveness is not just an aesthetic it is necessary! Being able to use the bathroom in which they identify as such should not be stressful. Transgender individuals should feel protected. Having bathrooms that are “exclusively” for transgender individuals is not the solution as said in the article. Why should transgender individuals have to “suffer” the consequences of society’s lack of understanding. Having that in effect will definitely be an inconvenience to the community, they will feel insecure to use it. It will definitely raise flags in difficult environments because CIS gender individuals can target those restrooms and attack those who occupy those restrooms. Hence theNYC Executive Order 16 which addresses the importance of having legality involved, if this community is discriminated there will be consequences in the city of New York.

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Chase Strangio makes points against the discrimination towards trans athletes in the Edge of Sports Podcast, Chase Strangio on Countering Attacks on Trans Athletes. How is it fair for his two clients who are African American trans athletes to face more discrimination? The white supremacy is already at work and this comes along, it is definitely detrimental towards trans individuals. Each state has its own terms and conditions, laws. And when federal opinions bounce around there is such an inconsistency. I agree with Strangio, politicians sometimes just want to gain something for their personal agenda that they do not take in mind how much pain they are creating for others.

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I also wanted to add that the slides and youtube video combined made it easier for me to focus! It worked great no glitches or any problem, I hope you continue to do this format!

The National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTGE) touches on the topic of “Transgender People and Bathroom Access”. I do believe that this topic needs to be spoken about because many people on both sides of the spectrum are uncomfortable with it which is understanding. What is not understanding is how transgender people and allies must address their well-being and safety because they have become targeted due individuals that dislike change and/or are uncomfortable with differences.

“Forcing transgender people to use private or separate bathrooms is not the solution” (NCTGE). I do believe that this is not a solution but I am all for having a third bathroom dedicated to any gender and possibly towards handicap as well. I don’t see a problem in adding an extra bathroom, even if it was just one. I believe that it can be consider inconvenient to have access to but at least it is still there and it shows that the public is willing to let transgender people in and say “hey we hear you and we want to help you feel as comfortable as you can be”. Those that do feel uncomfortable or unsafe to use their genetic sex can have the option to use the non-gendered bathroom. A non-gendered bathroom is also not new, there are many public restrooms that have these because they cannot afford to have two (male and female) bathrooms so this should not be a problem at all.

This week’s material tied in with a lot of what I’ve been learning in readings and research for my Human Health and Sexuality course on the ongoing social, philosophical, political and scientific debate regarding gender and trans rights.

Gender is complex, and research is being done all the time that helps us better understand how cultural gender norms and our biology intertwine to define aspects of our gender identity and expression. We are learning there is a much more accurate way of describing gender than binary norms, which is on a spectrum.   

In many ways there has been deliberate societal erasure of the natural state of the gender spectrum, which has been more readily recognized in different cultures for centuries, but concepts of social control have relied in some cases on an oversimplification of very narrow and binary gender roles that can exist in many forms on a scale, both in terms of the biological/hormonal structure of an individual, and either separately or in conjunction, the gender identity of the individual in terms of how they fit into these limiting binary terms of Male/Female that we are assigned at birth, and the roles and baggage that come with those expectations.

Our trans and non-binary siblings face so much difficulty in this world, where to exist is to defy this limited and oppressive view of gender, facing pushback from those afraid of parting from the social norms that they are used to, if not comfortable with. It is even more disheartening and gross coming from TERFs, because those unenlightened feminists fail to see outside of their own oppression to see that we are sisters/siblings with our transfems, and all trans folk too, who all suffer oppression from a paternalizing patriarchal binary structure. This discrimination against them is unacceptable, harmful, and unproductive too. When we could accept and talk about our differences and become better for our empathy towards one another, we see how we can work together to dismantle the systems that do us all harm. Especially when cis women hold relative power over trans people, it is abhorrent to further marginalize them rather than extending a hand, an ear, a voice.

Our trans sisters are much like real life sisters, you might not always see eye to eye about each others lived experience, but, we are here to hear and support each other and we have more in common than not. We might face different flavors of oppression, but the unique struggle of cis fems doesn’t have to be untold just because we uplift the oppression specific to our trans sisters. This could be a “yes and” conversation, much in the same way we have been discussing the importance of acknowledging difference in class and race within feminism. To give others who are traditionally silenced a voice doesn’t mean you need to silence yourself, it means you need to share the platform you’ve been hogging, and listen twice as much as you speak, but still speak.

As far as bathrooms and sports are concerned, if we can recognize the jury is still out on what the heck gender even is, can we also begin to rethink why we have sex separation in sports and bathrooms in the first place?

As far as sports are concerned, this scrutiny of trans athletes does more to shine a light on the tradition of scrutiny over women’s bodies as discussed by Chase Strangio in that illuminating podcast, and the fact that gender is not binary. It is on a spectrum which is impacted by many factors. It would be interesting to see sports shift to build some teams in more scientifically measured levels (kinda like wrestling has weight categories) than such a binary men/women divide in the future. After all, differences in hormones, weight and muscle mass can vary wildly within the gender binary, sports have so much more to do with physical structure, muscle mass and density, power generated, and other factors than strictly gender alone.

I think we can benefit from de-mystifying and de-segregating ourselves based solely on gender with more all-gender bathrooms, which I have used many of and liked. Yes, men can assault women in shared bathrooms, but men who will assault women in the bathroom tend not to care so much about the gendered sign on the door, I promise you that, and these men are not confined to bathrooms either. Sexual assault and how our society deals with that should remain a whole other conversation that exists about all spaces, not just bathrooms.

Moreover, trans persons can be and are harassed assaulted in bathrooms. We should be more worried about that very real and all too frequent reality. Most importantly, when you gotta go you gotta go, and it is a cruel and horrible abuse of human rights to deny anyone the right to use of a bathroom they feel safe to use. To say you need to look or dress a certain way to use a certain bathroom is ultimately ridiculous, and makes people feel like they can’t even participate in society at work or school when they have to worry about whether they can use the bathroom while being a human doing their thing in the world. It’s so harmful, and it needs to stop.

A form of Feminism that aspires to the goal of sexual equality, whether by formal rights, control of resources or personal power. In society we still see how there is not equality in many ways. Many people treat others depending on who they are or what they look like. I know that many trans* do not feel safe in society or comfortable, but it is time to understand that everyone is able and free to choose what they want to be or do. Social media is one of the main ways to harass others. Too many people are uncomfortable and unsafe when they do not feel part of the society.