Transgender rightsFollow

Whatever.

A property owner setting policy that works and doesn't need legislation to correct? You don't say. Exactly.

If universal bathrooms were seen to "work" (beyond in a single person setting), builders would be all over that. Costs less to run plumbing and fixtures to a single location (and you could probably have less fixtures as well). They don't because it's not what most people want.

The differences between general discrimination and negative discrimination are fairly clear. It's rarely a fine line scenario.

Offering women's and men's rest rooms and locker rooms is an attempt to afford people a safer space, from whatever they perceive as threatening about a mixed environment. The goal isn't a separate but equal environment, it's to produce separate environments tailored to suit the specific needs of the group utilizing it. It gives women a place where they're surrounded by women and, hopefully, free from prying eyes. It gives men a place where they can do their business surrounded only by men, which might be important depending on what their notions of modesty are (and, you know, urinals). It's the same reason why affirmative action policies aren't negative discrimination--they're an attempt to make things equal when they aren't.

Providing a separate trans bathroom, however, would be negative discrimination. It's the same thing as forcing a bullied kid eat lunch/have recess alone in the classroom while everyone else is in the cafeteria or outside. Yeah, it's better in the sense that he or she is not getting bullied during that period, but it robs the child of valuable social experiences. It targets him or her as the source of the bullying, not the actual bullies.

A separate trans bathroom means trans women/men/other have to sacrifice access to their own safe space where they can be surrounded by people with the same gender identity as them. A trans man and women may both be trans, but they aren't the same gender, and the point of having a gender identity is possessing a certain shared identity with the other people who possess it. Trans men feel like men. They don't feel like trans women.

Imo, the short term answer is letting trans people use the bathroom they're most comfortable with. I don't have a better answer to this than having it handled on a case-by-case basis, the same way everything else is handled right now. In the long term, I hope that trans protections are put into place, and trans peoples are able to establish a legal gender without needing court orders and sexual reassignment surgery. One would hope that this correlates with a social shift that offers inclusion for trans peoples into our society's framework.

As for the issue from the perspective of a builder who needs to actually design a building, I'd say Target's system is good enough for the moment: Male restrooms, female restrooms, and a unisex "family" restroom for people who don't feel comfortable in either of the others. Family restrooms are typically a toilet, sink, and changing table. If you service a population of trans peoples that would make the single occupancy room an issue, I imagine you aren't transphobic enough to bar a trans person from the restroom they choose. This is definitely only a temporary system though.

I don't know what system would be better. I'm not trans and can't speak for them.

With the current design of the toilet, I'd want to minimize men having to pee into the same public toilet that I have to sit down on. Two separate peeing set-ups is really convenient considering the anatomical differences and probably more hygienic. Which leads me to wonder why we even have toilet seats anymore. Why has no designed a toilet for the 21st century?

Individual isolated rooms would be the ideal, but impractical in many situations. No one seems to have problems deciding with porta-potty to line up at during crowded events.

I'm curious how legal gender status works. Obviously we're given a legal gender on our birth certificates. What's the process for changing that - is there physical criteria you have to meet, or can you change it just like changing your name?

That's not the case. So, what is your opinion on an immigrant who comes to the US, who associates him or herself as a "United States Citizen", and complains when treated like an immigrant?

This is fine by me (big sigh of relief from the transgen community, I know) and if there's ever a universal ability to change your legal gender by signing a card at the local library, I don't much care.

I don't, however, feel that individuals, businesses, organizations, local governments (inc. schools), etc should be accused of discrimination or bigotry for holding to the current standard or using current legal recognition as their benchmark. Be it for anything from which restroom to use to inclusion in gender-separated activities, housing assignments, gender based funding or whatever else.

Assuming you meant Kohlberg, he's dead so probably not

From what I gather from numerous anecdotal sources (those charged to clean them), women's toilets are much more disgusting than men's toilets. The general idea being that women seem to "hover" over the seat and make a mess. It's rare to see urine on the toilet seat in a men's stall. Probably cause we actually know how to raise/lower the seat as needed.

Or the female *****-replica attachment that they can carry in their purse to be able to aim.

The issue with your statement is that "arousal" isn't a prerequisite for sexuality, hence why I quoted the definition of sexuality.

is it just me, or does anyone else want to know what happened to the other 8 rachels?

Do you wonder that every time someone appends a number to their name?