Calm

I hope they are tracking the number of biological women that will be harrassed. I used to go out without my wallet all the time if not driving in Kansas. Now I would need an ID to be sure I could use the restrooms at the zoo and libraries and church (trying to remember what places I used the facilities when living in Wichita). I choose to wear men’s clothing, don’t wear makeup and have a man’s haircut at times and have been mistaken for a man from the back.

Nope, my view is practical. I don’t see how anything other than the past appearance based honor system, report the occasional problem to the police and let a judge decide if a bad actor, mistake that will be corrected in the future, or false report could feasibly work. IDs are useless without a system checking them. The number of passing transgender women that would be harrassed or assaulted if forced to use men’s restrooms are significantly higher in numbers than biological males taking advantage of transgenders being able to use the restroom that matches their outward appearance. Therefore, cost is higher with the first than the second just as cost is higher if obviously non passing transgendered individuals were allowed to use restrooms of choice and a large number of them chose to use their gender’s restroom rather than their sex….though from what I hear most are respectful of others’ trauma and fears and don’t, so perhaps I am wrong to just measure by numbers of assaulted and harassed women vs numbers of transgender women of all appearances.

Please no.

Using level of transitioning as the rule is not self identification, but appearance based. I am not against men using women’s restrooms when there’s a need. I was just making a list of biological males who might be accessing women’s toilets. And yet it worked for eons before….

Brilliant idea.

When did I say self identity should be the rule?

The ID in the purse or pocket was a stand-in for any type of legal restriction that ends up still being honor based and not with guards at the doors. Not conflating, wondering how the world such efforts are actually going to work and make any sort of significant difference in safety for biological women. Can you tell me what sort of restrictions will stop biological nontransitioned males from using women’s bathrooms if they are bad actors or who have too small of a bladder, drank too much, ignored the signals or whatever or who got hit with fluxus ventris (was looking for a Paraguayan dialect word because you know what it is as soon as you hear it…or should, lol, but couldn’t find it, so went with Latin) or just demand instant gratification with no instantly available men’s urinal in sight?

What was the way it was done back in 1950 or 60?

Only ones I have heard of were those who were transitioned enough to pass, bad actors, and men who couldn’t or wouldn’t wait to use the men’s. Not seeing why requiring one to have an id that says F in one’s pocket or purse would change the behaviour of the latter two.

Yes, the vast majority of the time, those who passed or were close enough to be ambiguous were the only ones attempting to use them…or we would have had this discussion long before it became a political rallying cry.

So tell me what males want to use the women’s bathrooms who could pass for women, but aren’t transgendered women? Since women’s restrooms have stalls, bottom surgery would not be required for using toilets. Would be needed for any locker room where exposure of penises could occur. I clarified later in the post.

The same way that happened a decade or two ago and was functioning relatively well (in the sense of with transgendered individuals and worked like tissue paper in stopping actual predators who weren’t bothered by social pressures to avoid such areas). I highly doubt any male who is willing to pretend they are a trans woman (not just labels, but appear to be transitioned) when they are not is going to be stopped by shaming in any fashion. Most likely it might get them a few feet closer to women, but I doubt that. If someone reads male, females will be alert. It would be easier, cheaper, and more believable for them to dress up like custodians and walk in like that. Laws then didn’t stop males dressed as males from entering to assault women and requiring id or banning all transwomen to enter isn’t going to change that unless you put guards on all the doors. Social standards and previous laws will work for those they worked for before and will continue not to work with actual predators. If the possibility of being challenged one was male before didn’t stop assaults, why would someone think it would work now?

I think I was pretty clear on what I meant with “fully transitioned”. If you can tell me what other males are willing to have surgery, hair removal, take meds, practice female mannerisms and invest in female clothing that may be costly as the usual sizes don’t fit them, please point actual examples out (not just hypotheticals) and I will consider them. Even if someone is obviously a transwoman and not someone I would need a dna test to figure out they were biologically male like the above pictures I quoted, if they have gone to the effort to make themselves look as much as a woman as possible, I think I would be okay with that…never had it happen that I know of, so can’t be sure. Have been comfortable in other situations. Living life as a woman typically requires much more effort than just an afternoon of dressing up because it takes time and effort to learn the skills of decent makeup, etc. There are also mannerisms that will likely get picked up overtime which would look odd or unnatural if just adopted for the purpose to invade women’s space aggressively. There is a pharmacist that I believe is biologically male, but only because of her voice. Her face and body are androgynous, so I could be wrong. Her style is definitely feminine. I would not feel the least uncomfortable if she happened to walk into the restroom if I was there, whether biomale or female. I am like MS where no thanks to seeing penises, but that’s not going to happen with normal use of women’s bathroom since there are always stalls. If a transwoman who hasn’t had bottom surgery, but otherwise has transitioned wants to use a locker room, hopefully there are curtained stalls for changing. I feel bad for the inconvenience if not, hopefully there is a partitioned off toilet area or private room available….there has been curtains or an individual space in every locker room I have been in, so hopefully not having one is uncommon. For the times there isn’t, given that our culture has resulted in a massive number of women being assaulted and seeing a penis other than one’s partner’s has become a trauma trigger for them and a panic trigger for many other women for very valid reasons, I think the costs are ultimately higher in this specific case (locker room where there is no way to ensure no glimpse of a penis while changing clothes) for biological women than trans women. However, I believe accommodations should be made if it’s a work or large public environment so ridiculous situations such as being fired for making an effort to find a bathroom that is acceptable for both the employer and the employee doesn’t happen. If any legal restriction is placed, there should a reasonable accommodation inclusion to cover the costs to the transgender individual for having to abide by it. If that doesn’t happen, I think the law is likely immoral.

And yet sometimes they are. I know myself, my daughter (who cannot now hold a job or even finish high school) and likely thousands of others (was on an email list where we educated ourselves so we could educate our doctors…many who ignored us from reports and my personal experience) who now have severe RLS because doctors refused to listen and gave antidepressants, the worst possible drug, rather than dealing with the actual symptom of sleep deprivation (I found out I, my dad, and at least my grandfather had RLS by myself in 97 iirc after two decades of asking doctors what the hell was going on and getting told I was depressed, which I wasn’t) by searching on the internet even though RLS was described back in the 1600’s and officially defined and named in the 1940’s or 50’s. One of the most common movement disorders (7-10% population of US has it)and yet ignored and virtually unknown by GPs until well into the 2000’s and likely only then because the pharmaceutical companies discovered drugs that appeared to be helpful for it. Unfortunately they made things worse longterm for a large percentage of RLS patients….another case of doctors needing to acknowledge where they made things worse not better even though accurate info on aggravation was just an internet search away, I even printed up the medical info for doctors from the RLS Foundation for my doctor, she refused to look at it throughout the appt and handed it back to me and then dropped me as a patient first excuse she had…I asked for a second opinion. —— Back to the Church issue… I do think the Church erred some when correlation pretty much took a one size fits all, ‘we will do the basic stuff and leave the rest to those interested’ approach. It could be just that my mother was so into personal study and my dad liking to know stuff (he often depended on mom to summarize her study, but I do remember him reading some stuff in my early years….may have read in bed before sleeping, but that may have disappeared when older with the family sleep disorder because he would crash at least by my teen years and anyone who dared disturb him got hellfire and damnation rained upon them, one of the very few things he would lose his temper over…I now understand thoroughly why). My impression is there was more discussion precorrelation…hearing conversations in the hallways and maybe at the dinner table after church. It’s vague, so I might be wrong about it being in the Church culture earlier. After all it’s just two wards and my parents and my dad’s parents I am pulling memories from (my mom’s dad was the most into it, but he died when I was 7 and we only visited their home a few times since they lived in the East and we were West). But the quality of the Church magazines became less educational and more devotional, that’s pretty easily demonstrated. I agree that leaders should not be automatically blamed for people’s lack of knowledge, etc., especially now given the amount of info online. It is not the Church’s mission to educate all its members on history, even its own. I am so grateful it is now investing on research and getting the info out there because individual members and even organizations like FARMS and FAIR can’t do it at the level the Church can with the JSPP and other projects. But when did the Gospel Topics Essays start putting good info on the Church’s website first appear so that people could learn from the a church itself there were issues rather than getting blindsided by antis? It was November 2013. JSPP was online in 2011. Before that you got to buy books, but even that started 2010 I believe. Saints 4 volumes as a wonderful project as well. Too many in my early marriage years assumed they were experts on church history with reading about the Storm family (I am only impressed when the author has decent footnotes and recommended reading lists included…Standing On the Promises is a thumbs up). I am not in the least condemning the Church for making the decision to correlate…it needed to given the speculation and hobbies that was being shared along with the good stuff. Just wish it provided a bit more varied than investigators and basic level materials. Preinternet it was difficult and costly for most members to access accurate information on a number of topics and even if they had access like some Utah members did (one of the best things about moving to Utah was the library section on Mormonism, they also had a great selection of Terry Prachett), why would they look if they were being told they had enough info already to know the truth unless they were curious or into history. The Sunday School manuals (and possibly others but don’t remember) were telling members, including teachers, there was no need to buy additional books to fulfill the goals of the class, the Spirit , scripture and provided materials would be enough. Didn’t say you shouldn’t buy books, etc, just strong reassurance it was not necessary, And in a world with school fees, mortgages or rent, necessities of life, it is nice to know one can depend on the Church to provide anything we actually need. Only it didn’t for some. Recognizing that is not accusing the Church of lying or hiding history. It is recognizing the Church cannot fill everyone’s needs…nor should it. Preinternet it would have been costly to ensure everyone was provided with sufficient material and the Church didn’t have the financial resources like it did now. I think choosing to take off the burden of needing to donate money to get a chapel built and maintained and dumping the number out fundraisers that were always happening to fund activities was a much better early investment than providing historical research for members who mostly weren’t and aren’t that interested. There were wards with libraries of donated books, but there was little in my experience promotion of such once correlation started (I do remember because I loved the Juvenile Instructor my parents got and my Saturday chores included dusting our library so I was very familiar with what books we were adding) and DB and Bookcraft books stopped being sold as fundraisers for Priesthood and other activities (I don’t know if that was church approved, the libraries were I am relatively certain as they were in every older ward building I attended). Plus there was no guidance on what were the useful books and what were personal speculation, etc. People could donate any book and as far as I know they weren’t vetted originally or even when the Church required it. Even though in the instructions for librarians in the late 90s when I was first a librarian, there was the restriction on only having Church Distribution materials plus a dictionary, globe, and stuff like papers, pens, etc, they never were vetted when I was ward librarian, but we weren’t adding books by then. Once I became head librarian I purged most of the not supposed to be there stuff (because I do read the fine print at least once), though not too many members were interested and stuff sat on the giveaway table for weeks. Given how booked the Church and society makes our lives, a lot of people didn’t have the time or mental energy (and still don’t even with the easy access) to find the books with the needed information. Before the internet there was no organized list or whatever telling people where to find the info. No recommendations from the Church on useful websites (FAIR is one of those listed on some topics, btw…have to do my occasional promo here, lol). It would be trial and error too unless you knew someone knowledgeable…and I didn’t when young, though I knew some out there hobbyists I wouldn’t trust now and was too leery of back then. Still too introverted to ask for help when older, though once a few got to know what I was into we started having conversations. City librarians might be helpful, might not (I used to work in a city library and have spent endless hours taking tons of books home with me). One of the most useful BYU English classes I took included how to do research where I learned the sources librarians checked when you asked them questions. That was in the late 70s and while much more useful knowing this stuff (I tracked down a favorite poem I had once read in a book in my high school library, went back to the school that summer with the book’s name and got a copy), still very limited in what one could do with it (I had to go back to my high school because BYU did not have a copy). You would definitely have to use interlibrary loan to get the vast majority of decent material…if it was available in the system your local library was connected to. Helpful if you lived in a university town and had hours or days to spend tracking stuff down. The internet is a wonderful blessing even with all the dangers it has added to our lives.

Seriously as a woman I do not want anyone who could so easily look way too intimidating in a space where we might be alone, especially if I am unclothed. I find the law that requires apparently fully transitioned individuals to use the restrooms of their biological sex insane. I think putting a transwoman in danger by having her use men only restrooms equally insane as forcing me and other women to use the restrooms in the presence of an apparent male (even if they aren’t actually biologically male). That is the same in my view as requiring me to use the men’s room in terms of danger. Why would I be willing to put someone else in that kind of danger when I wouldn’t accept it for myself. More examples of when it comes to law, common sense ain’t that common.

What if stats were to show women are more likely to be attacked by other biological women than trans women? For me perception of safety matters. Even if someone is physically safe, there is emotional safety that should be considered in places where one is most vulnerable making emotional costs especially high I suspect.

It is the same issue imo as whether one believes the inner voice is the Light of Christ or the ‘natural man’ when it comes to beliefs that contradict church teachings, scriptures, etc. How can you tell?

This is a good rule, imo. Unfortunately laws can backfire when it comes to protection and equal rights and access, so they need to be cautious with them. One of the prime examples are less female coaches now than before the law tried to ensure female sports in schools got equal financial support. Once the coaches for female sports got paid decently, men moved in to compete for the jobs and cultural bias that men are better at sports and the fact that male coaches tend to have stronger resumes because of the greater attention male sports got and gets ensured men were more likely to get the coaching jobs even for female sports. So more female athletes, but fewer of them can turn their passion into a career of coaching. https://appliedsportpsych.org/blog/2022/08/the-50th-anniversary-of-title-ix-comes-with-a-catch-fewer-women-coaches/

Can you use it in an example as I am going ‘huh?’

I enjoyed it. Would have loved to see more Emma Thompson as she was fun to watch. I got nit picky (because that’s what I do for fun) with some of the world-building around the sheep, but it’s not like it’s going to be turned into a series of films with multiple storylines, etc.

Many of those who have issues with history were from growing up preinternet. I am 65, grew up in California and Illinois and while my parents and grandparents had quite a few church books on their shelves and I read most of them (Journal of Discourse’s print was too annoying for me), there was a mass of church history I never had access to. My local libraries had few books on our faith, never histories, often antimormon texts. At BYU I got into FARMS and as soon as the Gospel Library came out on CD (we got our first computer, a Macintosh, in 1984 iirc, could have been 85), we got that, but given by then we had a kid and I babysat to earn money for my and my husband’s schooling, I didn’t have much time to spare for reading old church texts and FARMS articles. In 1995 we went to Russia, had a laptop and that became my nighttime reading while I waited to sleep (which gave me several hours a night usually). Even then, most history controversies I never knew about until I joined a message board much like this one in 2001. I was well aware of Joseph’s polygamy, that is one issue I find it difficult to understand how preinternet people missed given the heading in the D&C and mentions in LDS Institute texts from years before I went to BYU in ‘76. My husband grew up in Utah and was well aware of some details of the MMM and other atrocities as he was into the history of Utah, but earlier stuff not so familiar with even though he attended seminary (as did I). Access to information was a very different world preinternet and home computers. That is going to have a massive effect on anyone’s perception. It still shocks me what a different life it is with cellphones. Never being able to get ahold of anyone…and not expecting to once they left the house or work, not being able to know where one loved ones are if its outside of the daily school, work locations, it’s a very different mentality.

How old are you? And have you ever lived outside the Mormon corridor?

Not all of these Churches former members decide to join claim their leaders are currently receiving direct revelation from God. The title of Prophet, Seer, and Revelator sets up high expectations, especially if one has been taught a belief that is close to inerrancy for the Prophets. Many from what I read go to more liberal theologically speaking denominations that don’t create such difficulties for their leaders. It would be interesting to find out how many seek out churches that have some form of inerrancy of scripture or leadership in them.

Interesting. I wonder how he got there, revelation or reason or a combination. Added: he does say this not long after that quote: “I never told you I was perfect— 47 but there is no error in the revelations which I have taught—” But he’s ending his talk so it might be a presentation of his authority rather than an identification of everything he just said as revelation, like adding credentials. How Joseph himself typically viewed his teachings/comments is something I really should study more, going through his works over time, but that likely won’t these days (have too little dopamine it seems to be motivated much, I need a wife/mother/assistant to push me to do…)

While it can take effort to pay attention to one’s own writing, still there’s not much cost for most people in learning, I believe, to use “some of” rather than just speaking of a group as a whole, applying a few of the individuals’ attributes to the group as if it’s an inherent attribute. Significant precision when being critical is truly important if one wants to be fair and not unintentionally slander others, imo.