Analytics

From its founding in 1861 until February of 2026, Kansas had exactly the laissez faire policy that I propose. I've looked for evidence that it wasn't working. I came up empty. I asked you to provide evidence that it wasn't working. You couldn't provide anything, either. Here is my reasoning, with candor. My "policy preference would not result in the obliteration of sex-segregated bathrooms" because my policy preferences worked perfectly fine from 1861 until 2026. With candor, why do you think sex-segregated bathrooms survived in Kansas until February of 2026 without laws that said who can and cannot use various restrooms?

Let's look at a recent, real-world example. Three months ago, Kris Ripper was pulled over in Johnson County Kansas for not turning on her headlights when it started to rain. The officer told her her drivers license was invalid because it contained false information: the officer explained that Kris was observably, obviously a woman, but that her DL said she was Male. That was false information, making the drivers license invalid and making her guilty of driving without a valid license. She explained to the officer the private information that she would rather keep hidden: despite how she looked to everyone around her, her birth certificate said "Male" on it. One would think this private information is irrelevant to cashing a check, voting, or receiving a traffic citation. But the law requires that she disclose it whenever she needs to present ID. After Kris Ripper explained to the officer the law and what was on her birth certificate and why her license said she was a male, the cop still didn't believe she was a male, and cited her for driving with an invalid license. https://www.kwch.com/2026/07/01/transgender-kansan-speaks-out-after-facing-charge-amid-license-law-confusion/ Thank you! That is exactly my point. That is why the description on your driver license is supposed to describe what you look like. I had my KS license renewed a few weeks ago. They took a new photo as they do every five years, because people's appearance changes over time. They asked me if my weight had changed, because that changes too. Over the long haul, people's height changes and when it does, that information is updated. That's the point: in order to facilitate an officer to confirm the person presenting the license is the same person who was issued it, it should match what the person looks like. The new Kansas law that you say you support goes against this time-honored purpose. Rather than describing the individual with the license, it now reflects something on an old vital record, even if that record is objectively wrong (e.g. Emily Quinn), and even if that results in an inaccurate description of the appearance of the holder (e.g. Kris Reaper). Two points. First, the Kansas law you support does not make any allowances for any exceptions, full stop. That is why I think it is a bad law. I agree that historically our society has made exceptions for this kind of thing, but right-wing Christians want a black-and-white world without exceptions, thus are radically changing the laws to take away the ability of exceptions of any kind to be handled as exceptions. Second, I don't understand your position. Emily Quinn, is objectively a biological male. You are now telling me that in some situations such as "his", we can perhaps put objectively false information on a driver license? Are you also going to tell me that we should sometimes let objectively biological males such as Emily Quinn use the female restroom? Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of having sex-distinct restrooms? You've been emphasizing forever that sex is strictly binary, and that an extremely clear and sharp line must be drawn right there, no exceptions. But now you are agreeing with the liberals that there are exceptions? If this were the Church, the First Presidency would reserve the authority to make exceptions. But in the real world, who would you grant with the authority to allow males to have female driver licenses and go into female spaces? And if you are willing to allow Emily Quinn, who is objectively a male, to use the female restroom, would you be willing to consider allowing Marquise Vilsón (below) to use the men's room, or do you think "she" must be required to use the female restroom because "she" is objectively a woman? You seem to be conceding that for purposes of choosing restrooms or identifying yourself on a driver license there are exceptions to the correlation between those things and the male/female biological binary. If you really are conceding that there are exceptions, where and how do you draw the line? p.s. In today's news, I presume that you're happy that Kansas has a "Compliance Crew" to make sure that men don't go into women's restrooms: https://kansaspublicradio.org/statehouse-news/2026-08-20/transgender-men-in-kansas-compliance-crew-use-womens-bathrooms-to-protest-state-law

That is the opposite of what I said. I said people should only go into the bathroom that is most appropriate.

There are longstanding laws against voyeuristic conduct and sexual exhibitionism that can apply in locker rooms. The fact that someone has a right to be in the locker room does not give them a right to engage in otherwise illegal conduct once they are there. In Kansas, for example, exposing yourself to a nonconsenting person is criminal if it is done with the intent to arouse or gratify sexual desire; merely being naked while changing or showering obviously isn't enough. Kansas also criminalizes certain invasions of privacy, including surreptitiously observing someone in circumstances where that person is entitled to privacy. (Kansas Secretary of State) Of course there are fuzzy cases. Incidental looking isn't voyeurism, and incidental nudity isn't exhibitionism. Someone might even get sexual gratification from looking or being looked at and never cross the line into provably criminal conduct. That's an inherent feature of communal locker rooms, not something created by allowing transgender people to use them. But when the line is crossed, these offenses do not suddenly become unprosecutable merely because the defendant was entitled to enter the locker room. The larger point is that I'm criticizing a Kansas law that went into effect less than six months ago. I've looked for examples in Kansas where a victim or police said that someone was engaging in sexually inappropriate conduct in a restroom or locker room but could not be stopped or prosecuted because Kansas lacked this new sex-at-birth-based entry restriction. I haven't found one, and nobody I've asked has produced one either. No law will prevent every bad act or make every difficult case provable. The relevant policy question is whether this new law solves a demonstrated problem—and whether the problems it creates outweigh whatever benefit it provides.

I certainly don't want to tell people to disregard real threats or potential assaults. While I believe people have the right to choose which restroom to use, I also think they also have a responsibility to take other people's sensibilities into consideration. I think a "reasonable person" test can be applied here, and the right to choose the most appropriate space for a urinary emergency isn't a license to assault or intimidate others.

I've done some research on this, and going back to 1926, a federal law that standardizes drivers license doesn't say that "sex" needs to be shown on it. Rather, it says "Every such license shall bear thereon the distinguishing number assigned to the licensee and shall contain the name, age, residence address and a brief description of the licensee for the purpose of identification, also a space for the signature of the licensee." That is the real purpose: to help a police officer ascertain that the person who presents the license in fact the same person who was licensed to drive. A group of doctors never said the most important piece of information on a medical alert bracelet is the sex listed on your original birth certificate, and therefore that needs to be displayed on everyone's ID. A group of vital records registrars never got together and said that vital record information needs to be placed on a drivers license and carried around with people. And you don't need a drivers license to use public restrooms. Yes, it does. Actually, it defeats the original purpose. The NYT article that was too long to read tells the story of somebody who was pulled over and the cop was quite confident the drivers license was invalid because it said "Female" with the driver was obviously "Male." The real purpose is to help cops verify that the driver that presents the license is the one licensed. It isn't a vital record. That's why it doesn't show weight at birth, name at birth, place of birth, and have a baby photo. Insisting that the licence contain biological sex rather than an accurate description of what the person looks like is a radical departure from the explicit original purpose. If that were the case, then you should oppose the Kansas Law. Emily Quinn is, objectively, a male. She he has testicles and XY chromosomes. When she he was born, her his doctor incorrectly put "female" on the birth certificate, not knowing she he is really a male with androgen insensitivity syndrome. But now in Kansas, it is against the law for Emily Quinn--a biological man--to use the men's restroom because of a mistake made by a doctor about 35 years ago. I've tried to illustrate with photos why the place where you want to draw the line is in fact defective, and why drawing the line there creates more problems than it solves. We have to weirdly agree to disagree about whether the people I've shown belong in the men's room or the women's room. My point in this post and the last is about Constitutional scrutiny. If "sex" is defined as biological sex or the sex assigned at birth (things that aren't necessarily the same), it is a violation of privacy to put that personal medical information on a document that needs to be shown to others every time you vote or cash a check. I'm arguing that regularly requiring this disclosure to others in contexts that are totally unrelated to bathrooms is a violation of the individual's personal autonomy. That doesn't mean the state doesn't have an interest in putting birth certificate information on a driver's license, but it does mean that this need needs to withstand strict Constitutional scrutiny. You don't put birth length, birth weight, and baby photos on a driver's license. That is because the purpose of the drivers license isn't to summarize vital records about an individual. The purpose is to help police officers ascertain that the person presenting the license is the person who is in fact licensed to drive. Again, "sex" is on drivers licenses to help an officer ascertain that the person presenting the license is the person licensed to drive. The Federal 1926 law I linked to above says it is intended to be a "description of the licensee for the purpose of identification." If we are going to meet that explicit, original purpose, an accurate description of this person is a man, not a woman.

In a locker room situation, it is definitely a blurry line. As something that is obviously over the line, a few months ago at the Kansas City Airport, somebody saw the corner of a phone peeking around the bottom of a bathroom stall. They reported it to airport security, and were able to track down the perp, who was a worker at an airport vender. He was charged with felony invasion of privacy. For behavior that is closer to the line, what's the person doing? If somebody goes into the locker room, changes, works out, takes a shower, changes and goes home, give him the benefit of the doubt. If he is hanging out in the locker room more than he needs to, that gets suspicious. Creepy behavior is creepy regardless of their sex or gender. I would suggest that if you are worried about a homosexual glancing at your naked body in the locker room and getting a kick out of it, you have a choice: either get over it or don't use that locker room any more and change at home. Ditto someone who is transgender.

There are two issues in this same legislation: the legal definition of one’s sex, and sex-segregated bathrooms. The way I see it, there are perhaps 20,000 transgender adults in the state of Kansas, the vast majority of whom act like, dress like, and look like their chosen gender. To me, the idea of personal autonomy extends to your gender expression, and part of that gender expression is the sex that appears on the ID you are required to present every time you interact with law enforcement, want to vote, buy alcohol, enter a club, or cash a check. If you are transgender, the state doesn’t have the right to out you whenever you do these things. Because of that, I think the plaintiffs will have a strong case on having their official sex on government ID match their chosen gender. I have no problem with the state saying only “women" can use the women’s restroom. But I do have a problem with the state insisting that for purposes of mandating which bathroom must be used, this is a woman:

No, about the contents of the Kansas State Constitution and the sensibilities of our State Supreme Court. The law didn't come about because a coalition of police officers, district attorneys, psychologists etc. explained that this law was necessary in order to better protect the vulnerable people of our society. It came about because the religious right watches Fox News and related hate-filled "news" sources and decided this was something to be angry about. Rather than having a full open debate on the issue that involved experts weighing in on the implications of the matter, they snuck it into law through a "gut and go" procedure. I totally agree. The Kansas legislature hates the Kansas Supreme Court and is always trying to do things like this to undermine it. That is your opinion. I asked the same question to ChatGPT and it said: My best prediction: strict scrutiny, under the Kansas Constitution. Hodes holds that infringements of the fundamental right of personal autonomy protected by §1 receive strict scrutiny. SB 244 directly dictates which intimate spaces individuals may use based on sex at birth and imposes penalties. If the Court treated it only as sex discrimination, intermediate scrutiny would be the conventional test. But given Hodes, I think the stronger Kansas constitutional analysis is personal autonomy → strict scrutiny. The State’s privacy interest is substantial, but the law’s categorical means-ends fit looks vulnerable. Note that "Hodes" is an abortion case. I didn't do anything to prompt GPT to relate this to abortion. GPT saw the same connection I did. When this goes to trial, the ACLU will show a huge number of real people who are harmed in specific ways because of this law, not the least of which State Representative Abi Boatman, who will explain how the law interferes with her ability to fulfill her responsibilities as a state representative. From the TL/DR article you didn't read, "One time there was a call of the House, a parliamentary procedure used to create a quorum. Boatman didn’t hear the call because she was on a different floor, awaiting her turn in the bathroom. Later, a fellow legislator called her out for having been absent. “I was using the only bathroom this Legislature has said I can use,” she said." In contrast, whoever is defending this law is going to have a hard time explaining why it furthers an important state interest.

My thoughts. First, mortality tables are a model, and George Box’s warning about models applies: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” When actuaries develop mortality tables, we look at a giant population of people, some of whom we have labeled as “male”, and some of whom we have labeled as “female”. We then look at how many people are alive at various ages, how many people die at each age, and calculate mortality rates. Then we’ll do some smoothing, and a mortality table results. Companies might then adjust industry tables based on their own data under the belief that their own population of insured individuals isn’t homogenous with the industry as a whole. Regarding regulations, there are non-discriminatory laws, but in general U.S. companies are free to ask people their birth sex or their chosen gender, and according to industry surveys, it’s about 50-50 on companies choosing one or the other. There is a study entitled "A long-term follow-up study of mortality in transsexuals receiving treatment with cross-sex hormones” that indicates that such people have a 50% higher mortality rate. Putting that into perspective, a 43-year old female non-smoker has a life expectancy of 44.5 years. Increase her mortality rate by 50%, and her life expectancy drops to 41.0 years. For a life insurance policy, that might mean the premium for the transexual with a 50% higher mortality rate would need a 20% higher premium. So if we assume 1% of an insured block is transgender and is paying a premium that is 20% too low, that would mean that in aggregate, the premium for the entire block is 0.2% too low. However, that is probably overstating it, because the base mortality rate probably already includes 1% transgender people with their higher mortality rate, which would mean the 1% who is getting a 20% discount is offset by the 99% who are paying, on average, 0.2% too much. Can you see how this gets very complicated and is marginal? There is also a study that says the difference of mortality between men and women is 20% biology, and 80% lifestyle. That is why I think most actuaries would agree with what Jonah von der Embse, FSA, CERA, MAAA said in an award-winning essay. He first explained, from a statistical point of view “Gender and sex are far from “binary, objectively determinable” characteristics, and there will never be a clean-cut way to sort them into two buckets.” He concluded that the most fair way to price insurance might be to just use unisex rates, he then said: “If actuaries (and regulators) decide to continue using sex or gender to assess risk, the next step would be to settle on consistent use – should actuaries use sex, gender, or sex assigned at birth? Gender expression would appear to be the most client friendly option, especially for transgender individuals. However, in a ‘male/female’ world, this option would not work for non-binary individuals. Sex assigned at birth is another logical option, but this may be a challenging data point to collect from a privacy standpoint, and it may be hard to justify, for example, the use of male rates for a fully transitioned transgender female.” Again, mortality differences between men and women are 20% biology and 80% lifestyle. Men are about 4 times more likely to be hit by lightening. That isn’t because XY chromosomes have subtle electromagnetic properties that attract lightening. It’s because men are 4 times more likely to be in places where lightening strikes: fishing, boating, swimming, the golf course, the construction site, etc.

On these legal issues, I'll give some background on Kansas. Under the Kansas state Constitution, women here still have a Constitutional right to abortions. The religious right has been fighting this furiously. The Kansas legislature had basically outlawed second-term abortions, and this was successfully challenged in court and ruled unconstitutional under the state Constitution. In Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt (2019) the Kansas Supreme Court ruled 6–1 that this language protects a fundamental right of personal autonomy including bodily integrity, self-determination, and decisions concerning one's body, health and family life. The court concluded that deciding whether to continue a pregnancy falls within that protected sphere. This was reaffirmed in 2024. The religious right continues to fight against this by trying to change the Constitution and most recently by changing how supreme court judges are selected, but they continue to fail. Given how the citizens of Kansas enjoy an outsized fundamental right to personal autonomy, bodily integrity, self-determination, decisions about your own body, health, and family life, I'm guessing this will be a strict scrutiny case in Kansas, and that the big-government Christians will lose again. We'll see if their luck finally changes.

Requiring this person to use the women's restroom doesn't promote privacy and dignity. Requiring this person to use the women's restroom doesn't promote anybody's physical safety. Requiring this person to use the women's bathroom has nothing to do with fairness in sports. You had also said on Friday that as far as you could tell, I didn't care about the integrity of data. In fact I do. As you know, I'm an actuary, and sex is an important factor in mortality and morbidity. I'll simply note that it wasn't doctors, actuaries, and demographers who passed the Kansas legislation in a rushed, procedurally truncated process that bypassed the normal opportunity for public hearings and development of an evidentiary record. Rather, it was done by the religious right. I trust doctors to look at the full, nuanced medical history of their patients, which has nothing to do with whether a drivers license has an M or an F on it. And I can tell you as an actuary who makes decisions with money on the line regarding these things, calling the person pictured in this post a "Female" doesn't enhance the data. Furthermore, these issues have nothing to do with whether this person is legally required to use the women's restroom. Women's shelters and prisons should be allowed to make the best decisions possible on a case-by-case basis, and shouldn't be required to admit this person as a woman just because the birth certificate has an F on it: That has nothing to do with whether we should allow this person to use the male bathroom (as I want), or whether they should be required to use the female bathroom (as you want). Using common sense and good judgement on a case-by-case basis is neither arbitrary nor incoherent. I'd love to hear a professional psychologist explain why requiring this individual to use women's restroom would be psychologically beneficial to women and girls. It's interesting that the only woman participating in this conversation (and who also happens to be a psychologist) disagrees with you. Surveys show that most women agree with me on this issue. I may be wrong, but I really don't think most women and girls want this type of person to share their bathrooms and locker rooms with them: Actually, I'm fine with sex-segregated spaces. My problem is with your definition of how the line should be drawn and who makes the final decision in edge cases. To illustrate the problem, consider which of these two individuals you think is a woman and which you think is a man. Your definition indicates this is a woman: Your definition indicates this is a man: This is my proof about how defective your definition is. That doesn't mean woman and girls want to go to the bathroom in the same room as these people: And if you are a republican, you don't wait for anybody to put a litter box in a school bathroom before creating laws that outlaw it. Sexual assault, voyeurism, spying, exhibitionism, etc., are all awful and are prosecuted aggressively, as they should be. You haven't established how requiring people like this to use the woman's bathroom somehow causes malum in se crime to go down: Surely you aren't claiming those surveys say women and girls don't have a reduced willingness to use facilities if this person is there, because according to you, "she" is a woman and they are comfortable with women. Do sex-distinct facilities have value? Sure. Nobody is arguing against that. The question is whether your criteria for the "limiting principle" is the right one. The photographs I've shown here prove that you are drawing the line in the wrong place. When women say they would prefer to pee in women-only spaces, they are not saying they want to pee in places where the "women" I've shown here are required to pee, too. You are imposing your defective definition of "woman" on them. If you showed these two photographs to a woman and asked her which one she'd feel more comfortable with in the bathroom, how many are going to say, "I can't answer that based on their photos. I need to see their birth certificates!"

Here is my closing argument on this thread. I'm not trying to legislate anything, from the margins or otherwise. You are the one who wants new laws requiring people like this to use the men's restroom: And requiring people like this to use the women's restroom: And you have failed to make the case for why such a law is necessary. I'm simply taking the extremely practical position that it isn't a problem for the top person to use the women's room and the bottom person to use the men's. You think it is a sufficiently serious problem to merit a legislative response. I'm arguing that the new laws you support create more problems than they solve. That isn't legislating from the margins. It is looking at the actual people affected by the laws you support and asking a very practical question: What problem are these laws solving, and is that problem serious enough to justify them? You haven't convinced me that it is. Somebody going into a bathroom to pee doesn't hurt anyone. Even on the relatively unusual occasion when someone looks as though they might not belong there, momentary discomfort is not the same thing as harm. On two occasions, I've seen women use the men's room. Both happened in Kansas City, Missouri, at crowded events where the line for the women's restroom was much longer than the line for the men's. On the first occasion, a feminine, cis-gender looking woman simply got in line with the guys, waited her turn, walked past the men at the urinals, and went into a stall. The men noticed her, but everyone ignored it and went about their business. She used the restroom and left. Nothing happened. On the second occasion, I was next in line when a feminine, apparently cisgender woman came up to me and said she had to pee very badly and couldn't possibly survive the women's line. I jokingly told her she could go ahead of me, but first she had to identify as a man. She played along, I stepped aside, and she went in. Again, the guys noticed her but went about their business. She peed, washed her hands, and left. Nobody was harmed. That's the practical point I'm making. The primary purpose of a public restroom is to provide people with a place to use the bathroom—not to provide them with a place where they are guaranteed to encounter only people of their own biological sex. If someone enters a restroom for the ordinary purpose of using the toilet, the relevant question should be what that person does, not whether everyone else agrees with the category that person belongs in. Harassment, voyeurism, assault, and other misconduct can and should be prohibited regardless of who commits them. So if a transgender woman is simply going into the women's restroom to pee, I don't see a sufficient reason for the government to make that illegal. Her presence might make a few people uncomfortable on some occasions. But discomfort is not the same thing as harm—and before we start passing laws restricting people's behavior, there ought to be some evidence of an actual problem those laws are intended to solve.

Have you ever taken one of those personality tests that tries to give you insights into why you are the way you are? If you are interested in that, here is a version that compares you and me, based upon my position and yours (as I understand it). Prompt: Two people are having a debate about the use of public restrooms: Person L believes the issue should be framed around the purpose of public restrooms: they exist because society needs places for people to use the bathroom when they are out and about. According to this person, going to the bathroom is a basic human need, and when a person needs to use a restroom and must choose which of the available bathrooms is most appropriate, that person should generally have the right to make that choice. Person L believes this is largely how restroom use has worked in practice in our society, and that it has worked well. While it is true that some people may feel uncomfortable with other people using a public bathroom because of their body, race, national origin, gender expression, religious expression, health status, age, disability, or other characteristics, Person L believes the right of a person to use the restroom that is most appropriate for them generally outweighs the interest of others in being free from discomfort caused simply by the diversity of people using a public place. Person C believes that public restrooms are specific instances of "men's spaces" and "women's spaces," and that society needs rules based on clear "limiting principles" governing who is allowed into one space or the other. This person believes that the only coherent definition of being a "man" or a "woman" for this purpose is biological sex, and thus only biological males should be legally entitled to enter men's spaces, and only biological females should be legally entitled to enter women's spaces. Person C therefore believes that transgender people should be required to use the restroom corresponding to their biological sex rather than their gender identity or gender expression. The rationale is that biological sex is an objective fact, and that the purpose of sex-separated spaces includes privacy, safety, and dignity interests that are best protected by maintaining a clear, sex-based boundary. Based on the arguments as presented, what reasonable inferences, if any, might be drawn about the two individuals’ respective personalities, cognitive styles, moral intuitions, emotional dispositions, and broader psychological tendencies? In particular, what differences in how they process ambiguity, risk, rules, categories, evidence, and competing values might help explain why they approach the issue so differently? Keep answer to less than about 600 words, in a style that is easily copied into a message board. ChatGPT

You make a fair point about Title IX. But otherwise, I don't really care. If a league wants to do drug testing, do drug testing. If they want to have a strict rule about 285 pounds, I'm quite happy to let the committees that make such rules make such rules. They know the sport better than I do. What I'd point out, though, is regardless of where you draw the line, sports are inherently unfair. Assuming 6'2" with a 6'4" wingspan is the ideal proportions to maximize a swimmers speed, is it fair for people with different body sizes to swim against people with ideal body sizes? Of course it's unfair. But is it worth while to create different classes based on such dimensions so it can be more "fair"? I doubt it, but the people who make swimming rules can figure it out--I don't know enough about it to have an opinion worth sharing. If you don't have the idea body type for swimming or basketball or anything else, don't complain about how unfair it is (or do. It's your life. Get the rules changed). Or do what most people do: do the best you can, or choose a different sport.

The Constitutionality of the law itself matters, too. This particular law puts the "women"(your definition) below in an impossible situation. If they go into the women's restroom as they are legally required to do, they'll predictably need to explain to terrified women and cops that they are "women" who are there because they are legally required to use those facilities. Over and over and over. And if they use the men's room, they'll be in violation of the law and in fear of being sued by anti-transgender activists and anybody else who would like $1,000. What type of "training" do you think would fix this? Post their photos in every women's restroom with a sign that says, "Don't worry--these people are women and have the right to use this facility"? I think this is a bad law and won't hold up as Constitutional under the Kansas State Constitution. https://www.aclukansas.org/press-releases/aclu-of-kansas-statement-on-bill-undermining-transgender-kansans-privacy-and-safety-at-the-dmv-and-in-bathrooms/

You need to to a better job of vetting your sources. For example, Dawn Ennis was never "caught" in a women's bathroom. Rather, she was covering a swim meet in her role as a journalist. A full-time, professional anti-transgender activist flew across the ocean in order to do her activism at that same swim meet. While there, the professional activist saw Ennis was walking down a hallway, minding her own business. Ennis wasn't in a bathroom. She wasn't seen walking out of a bathroom. She was just walking down a public hallway, minding her own business. The activist knew who she was and decided to confront her and start a fight with loaded questions. That is not "catching somebody in a public bathroom." And I already explained that to you. If you are going to make up your own facts and cling to them even when corrected, I don't see the point of this discussion. Also, you might want to double check what "under the color of law" means. I don't think it means what you think it does.

ID’s are central to the law. Part of the law immediately and without warning or grace period revoked all driver licenses that didn’t match original birth certificates.

Thanks to the magic of Google image search, we can get the full context on these photos. It isn't surprising that @smac97 chose to take the photos out of context, because, unsurprisingly, the full context doesn't support the point he is trying to make. In May of 2025, Lily Tino went to Disney World to make a series of videos ranking the Disney World's restrooms. That seems quite tacky to me, but social media. The behavior that is objectionable here is that in some of the videos, she captured videos of people in the background inside the restroom. That is what's objectionable here--not whether the person's birth certificate has an F or an M in the box. This is an image of Paul Bixler. "Bixler has had a decades-long, illustrious career in public education, ranging from teacher to administrator to principal. She decided to come out of retirement in 2020 to run for an open school board seat at Liberty Elementary after seeing turnover and turmoil around the pandemic, hoping to help." Paul was a genuine asset to her community, and was embraced by everyone around her. But she became the target of a hate campaign not because of her work for the community, but because right wing politicians and their tools thought she was a useful target. Her story can be read here: 12News: 'This is not a choice. I do not choose to be transgender': West Valley school board member becomes target of harassment This individual claims to be inter-sex. In the first video, she went into a public restroom in a public building, peed, and left. Nicole Gillis, the chair of a right-wing student organization saw this. Rather than calling the cops out of any belief in a possible crime or danger, she took out her phone to record a video of her confrontation with the person as they left. When she left, Nicole shoved a camera in her face and said, "Excuse me, what were you doing in the women's bathroom?" She replies, "I'm sorry?" "What were you doing in the women's bathroom?" "I was peeing." In the second video." she went into the bathroom at McDonald's, with permission from that establishment. She peed, and washed her hands and left. She was the only one in the restroom. There was no allegations of peeping into stalls, exposing, photographing anyone, molesting anyone, or targeting children. While she was peeing, an angry Christian man decided to set up a video camera so he could record the confrontation he was planning when she walked out. As she was leaving, the Christian soldier angrily confronts her in the most judgmental and anti-Christian tone imaginable. The Christian triumphantly tells her, "God will take care of you in the end!" For the sin of peeing in a toilet that this other guy disagrees with. Yea. That sounds like what Jesus would say. The amount of hate this stirs up in people is fascinating, and this is a great example of what's really going on here. If you made a list of problems in the world, an inter-sex individual who identifies as a woman using the toilet in the women's restroom rather than the men's is a tiny issue. At best. It is so clear that the point of this is to distract and manipulate voters. On the left is Dawn Ennis, a successful journalist is who famous for being fired by ABC in 2013 for coming out as Transgender. She was on assignment from Forbes and the Los Angeles Blade to cover a swim meet at the McAuley Aquatic Center at Georgia Tech. On the right is Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, a full-time professional anti-transgender activist. Keen-Minshull flew from England to Atlanta to protest an NCAA swimming event. The only evidence we have that Dawn Ennis has ever used a lady's restroom is the fact that people like Kellie-Jay confront her in public and ask the loaded question, "I want to ask you for the safety of women and girls, do you use women's spaces?" As if which toilet she uses has anything to do with "the safety of women and girls." The photo above is from Kellie-Jay stopping Dawn Ennis in a hallway at a swim event to ask that question and hopefully get a viral video out of it. If you'd like to help Kellie-Jay make more money by harassing transgender people than she already does, you can donate here: https://www.letwomenspeak.org/ You can read the full story of this interaction here: https://www.losangelesblade.com/2022/03/20/terfs-challenge-reporters-gender-at-ncaa-womens-championship/ Let's expand the examples of transgender hate to Peru. In the dress on the right is 42-year old Walter Solís Calero. Walter dressed up as a school girl and snuck into the girls restroom at a school for perverted purposes. A girl saw him and screamed. The Assistant principal called the cops and the rest is history. Walter isn't transgender and never claimed to be a woman, nor claimed to have the right to be in the girl's bathroom. He was a male pervert pretending to be a girl so that he could sneak into the restroom for voyeuristic purposes. A heterosexual pervert sneaking into the girls room to see girls is categorically different than a transexual going into the restroom to pee. It seems Smac's fear is that a pervert could play the I'm-really-a-woman-and-I-have-the-right-to-be-here card, but there have been zero examples of that happening. Anywhere. Ever. This is Brandon Awogboro, a convicted Level 2 sex offender. He was caught hiding in a woman's bathroom and spying on a woman in another stall. Brandon never claimed to "be a woman" or otherwise having a legitimate right to be in the restroom. Again, a male, heterosexual pervert hiding in a bathroom stall is categorically different than a transgender individual going to the restroom to pee. This is Anthony Roy Adams. He was drunk and found himself at a WalMart in a town that was different than where he thought he was. In his drunken stupor, he stumbled into the women's restroom, not knowing what he was. While he was arrested "in the women's bathroom", the charge was public drunkenness. Again, Adams never claimed to be a woman or claimed to have some sort of entitlement to be in the women's room. There is no evidence that he was spying, exposing himself, or otherwise assaulting anybody. Again, this is categorically different than a transgender individual needing to pee and making his or her own decision about which public toilet would be most appropriate. This one is genuinely funny. It was posted on Instagram by comedian DeStorm Power on February 23, 2024. Here is what happens. A man takes out his phone and video tapes his daughter walking into a restroom at a park. He says "You make sure nobody's in there!" He pokes his head in and starts videotaping into the women's restroom. He yells out "Hello!" Right on cue, the man in the headphones pictured above walks out from around the corner, smiling. DeStorm says, "See! There's a man in there!" The guy in the headphone dries his hands and walks away smiling while the man recording the video says, "Hey! That's the women's bathroom!" Then, the man with the camera walks all the way into the woman's bathroom, still recording, and pushes open all of the stalls, recording what he finds inside. He says, "You got to go in with your kids, make sure there ain't no man in the damn bathroom!" It boggles my mind that not everybody sees how this was obviously staged and is satire. And I think this is the perfect metaphor for this whole conversation. It isn't serious. Here is my summary of the videos: The one transgender person who did anything actually wrong in the restroom was the first one, who videotaped herself in the restroom and caught other people in the background. That was wrong, but the wrongness was their stupidity trying to be an influencer and had nothing to do with being transgender. Other than that, the transgender people were just going about their lives and were being pretty viciously attacked by judgemental Christians for which toilet they used, without even any accusations of doing anything wrong beyond that. Other than the one exception above, the people who did actual things that were wrong were all heterosexual, cis men who never pretended to be transgender and never asserted any right to be in the lady's room. In context, Smac's own photographs show how this is a non-issue. Nobody is getting away with anything that is threatening or otherwise posing a danger by saying, "I have a right to be here because I say so!" Smac still hasn't provided a single example of a bad actor trying to harm someone under the guise of having a right to be in the restroom. Other than the cis-men Smac tries to associate with transgender people, if there is anything dangerous going on, it is by so-called Christians trying to stir hate against and provoke fights with people they don't approve of. The limiting principle should be this: if you need to go to the bathroom, go in to the one you think is most appropriate, take care of your business, and leave. That is what civilized people have been doing since sex-distinct bathrooms have existed, and there is no evidence that this is no longer working.

Let me make sure I understand what you are saying. For reasons of persistent differences in strength, patterns of sexual offense, and the reasonable expectation of privacy from the opposite sex, women want people who like Andreja Pejić (pictured below) to be forbidden from going to the women's bathroom, because they are big scary men: In contrast, you want people like Marquise Vilsón (pictured below) not only to have a license to be able to use the women's room because they are really women, but to actually also to be required to use it because it is against the law for them to use the men's room. To be clear, I'm not attacking the general concept of gender-distinct spaces. I'm merely saying that if you are serious about the stated objectives of such spaces, you should be in favor of Marquise Vilsón using the men's room and Andreja Pejić using the lady's room. Laws that disallow such things are, as Calm correctly pointed out, insane.

The way I see things, for the purposes of using the restroom, the following individuals should choose the women's restroom. @smac97 doesn't believe these people should be allowed to use the women's restroom because to him, they "are" men, and as such, when they go to sex-distinct spaces they should go to the men's room. No exceptions. Full stop. The Kansas law that Smac supports has a bounty provision. Now, going to the bathroom isn't merely about going to pee. It's also about an opportunity to make some money; if you go to the bathroom and you suspect somebody's birth certificate doesn't match the sign on the bathroom door, you can sue them for $1,000. What an amazing victory for privacy, dignity, and safety!

Do these alleged women and girls really want the following people in women spaces? Why?

Nobody needs to compete in the 500-yard freestyle. But everybody needs to pee. The Kansas Law only effects the edge cases. If we really care about privacy, dignity, safety, etc., having a law that requires Kaleb Hobson-Garcia (photo below) to use the lady's room would be the opposite of what we need. But that is exactly what you support. As Calm said above, "I find the law that requires apparently fully transitioned individuals to use the restrooms of their biological sex insane."

You haven't been able to provide a single example of somebody in Kansas merely alleging that a person claimed a "right to entry" into a women's-only space for an improper purpose. Not one. You've provided zero evidence--not even a single mere anecdote--that it was anything less that perfectly adequate. The only people affected by the new law are the "awkward edge cases."

I'm not sure. I don't think issues like this energize the liberal base like they do for conservatives. For my part, I have very little sympathy for people like Laurel Hubbard or Lia Thomas insisting they have some sort of Constitutional right to compete as women in elite sporting events. If they want to present themselves to the world as women, then go for it. And if they swim or lift weights, then swim or lift weights. But don't try to compete at an elite level--that is like a grown man playing basketball with ten-year olds. Not cool. I don't think I'm out of the mainstream on this.