Sellars M
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Posts posted by Sellars M
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That's clearly false. TS men go to the men's room, TS women go the the women's room. Once they change, they switch. If everybody gets to declare their own set of special "rights" and everybody gets to demand protection of those contradictory "rights" against everybody else's claims to "rights", then "rights" become meaningless as a recognition of what is necessary for man's survival qua man. Pay attention to the fact that in the above case, a customer asserted his rights, which the restaurant owner upheld, and then the government steps in and say that their rights are inferior to that of a whingeing minority. It’s important to know that only certain people have rights.
I disagree, many people especially conservatives love to look down at transgenders as a whingeing minority, the word minority because they don't idefinity as the majority so to speak.
However, many conservatives fail to realize that opinions may not be in their favor, polls are showing that the majority of america while not homosexuals are now supportive of same-sex marriage, that may leave conservatives in a "whengeing" minority? Everybody is not the same, so "a minority" may be the person who thinks they are the "majority".
Disabled americans, people in wheelchairs, blacks and hispanics, or rather let's say seniors, those with high blood pressure, or heart disease, they may be a "minority" , if most of the population in a given country is not senior or disabled.
However, the "majority" have an opinion giving them rights, which means that this leaves opinion of people towards transgenders, homosexuals,etc in doubt when they talk about special rights given to a whinegering minority, or "rights"
of conservatives, many americans could care less but often have knee-jerk reactions when conservatives use propaganda about how allong transgenders to use the restroom in peace is a license for predators , when it does not give
somebody a right to commit a crime such as in the case or rape, assualt,or vouyerism.
People are entitled to their own religious beliefts and opinions, but does that may also make them a minority, that a majority may respect most of the time.
Objectivism surely at its best
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AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Human Rights Commission decided Monday that a transgender woman was discriminated against at a Denny’s restaurant in Auburn when management would not let her use the ladies room until she had sex reassignment surgery.
While the lawyer representing the Denny’s owners said that the 3-2 decision could have far-reaching, negative consequences for all Maine businesses with shared restroom facilities, it was hailed as a civil rights victory by the Maine Civil Liberties Union and advocacy organization Equality Maine.
“It’s important to know that people have rights, including transgender [people], and that businesses are not free to discriminate,” said Zachary Heiden, the legal director of the MCLU.
Heiden said that many people make the faulty assumption that being transgender is mostly about genitals.
“That’s a part of it, but the essence of who they are is not what their genitals look like,” he said.
The incident in question happened on Oct. 25, 2007, when Brianna Freeman of Lewiston — formerly known as Bruce — used a locked stall in the ladies room while “dressed clearly” as a woman, according to the investigator’s report. Efforts to reach Freeman were unsuccessful.
Another customer complained to the manager about sharing a public restroom with a man, said attorney Chad Cloutier, who represents the Rockport company Realty Resources Hospitality LLC. The company owns and operates six Denny’s family restaurants, Cloutier said.
“The customer was very upset, was irate, had threatened to call police,” he said. “A few days later, management decided that it would be in the best interest of Denny’s to ask the customer to use the men’s room until sex reassignment surgery.”
Freeman was a regular customer of the restaurant. After being banned from the ladies room, Freeman filed a complaint with the commission on April 17, 2008.
Cloutier argued to the commission that a discrimination decision would require that Maine businesses essentially decide whether a person is transgender or if they might want to use a particular restroom or locker room for purposes of “sexual perversion.” Making this accommodation is a violation of a woman’s right to privacy, he said in a press release, as well as a “significant risk to the health and safety of [the restaurant’s] customers, particularly children.”
“It’s almost an untenable position for businesses,” he said. “It really is a slippery slope. This claimant may be perfectly safe and use the bathroom in a perfectly normal way, but what’s to prevent a person of some devious intent ... the right not to share a bathroom?”
Betsy Smith, executive director of Equality Maine, strongly disagreed.
“How does it pose a risk to children that someone uses the bathroom? That assumes that that person somehow harms children,” she said. “It’s so outrageously discriminatory.”
Smith said that forcing a transgender woman to use a men’s room is not safe.
“This company needs diversity training to understand what it means to be gender-nonconforming,” she said. Kevin LaBree, the vice president and director of operations for Realty Resources Hospitality, said that he was just concerned about the comfort and care of his guests.
“Denny’s is a family restaurant chain,” he said. “I am going to do what’s in the best interest of my customers.”
Take a look at the comments and you'll see how silly many people sound about threats to fear and safety, but its a democracy and I love the fact that a civic debate took place with over 300 comments. Also, transgender people may/do have rights in many jurisdictions although they don't on the federal level and in many states, its changing but rights don't spread calmly primarly due to religious folks who want to impose their beliefs or agenda on others or "perceived alarm or discomfort".
5/30/09 | 102 comments
Transgender woman reveals difficulties
By Abigail Curtis
BDN Staff
LEWISTON, Maine — Brianna Freeman, a transgender woman who lived the first four decades of her life as a man, said she knows firsthand about the pain caused by discrimination.
And when management at an Auburn Denny’s restaurant wouldn’t allow her to use the women’s restroom until she had sex reassignment surgery, she felt compelled to file a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission.
“I understand the safety concerns, but not in a case like mine, or for people like me,” Freeman, 44, said Thursday in a telephone interview.
“We don’t want any problems for anyone else,” she said. “We just want to live the lives we feel we should be living.”
The Maine Human Rights Commission decided May 20 in Freeman’s favor, saying that Freeman was discriminated against after a 2007 incident when she used a locked stall in the women’s restroom while dressed as a woman, according to the investigator’s report. Another customer complained to management, which decided to disallow Freeman from using the women’s restroom until she had completed surgery.
“Denny’s is a family restaurant chain,” Kevin LaBree, the vice president and director of operations for Realty Resources Hospitality, told the Bangor Daily News earlier this month. “I am going to do what’s in the best interest of my customers.”
But Freeman said that she’s a customer, too.
“Of the thousands of people who go through this place every day, only one person complained to the management,” she said. “I go to a lot of other places and I’m accepted as a female. It makes me feel more complete.”
She said that safety, too, was a very real concern of hers. She knows a cross-dressing man who was attacked while inside a public men’s restroom, and that’s a worry.
“It’s even more of a dangerous situation,” she said. “I’m being put at more of a risk.”
Identification issue
Maine driver’s licenses now have identification categories of male and female, but why not add a third category — T for transgender, Freeman suggested. That way restaurants wouldn’t have to wonder whether, for example, a biological man who wants to use the women’s restroom has licit or illicit purposes in mind.
“This law doesn’t give a blanket right to every person out there to don the clothes of the opposite sex and just check people out,” Freeman said.
Angel Loredo, the associate dean of students at the University of Maine, said the campus has made efforts to create more single-stalled, gender-neutral restrooms for transgender students.
“We have really tried to help and be on track with opening doors to individuals as they come to campus,” Loredo said. “I think that in an educational institution, it’s important that students have the opportunity to express what they feel ... We’ve been accommodating to them, so that this would not be a hindrance to their educational endeavors.”
Freeman said that her case might help people to understand more about transgender people.
“Right now, I’m living in a community that’s very adverse to diversity,” she said. “There are some people who know me and are cool with it, but I have to protect myself.”
A long journey
Brianna Freeman, who was raised as Bruce Freeman in Presque Isle, said she has been working hard to make her life feel more, not less, safe.
“I’ve worked hard to come as far as I have,” she said.
She said she spent 40 years as a man, essentially trying to please her traditional parents, and making them proud of her. In 2001 her “life came crumbling down.”
The traumatic events of Sept. 11 hit her hard, and other tough times ensued. By 2003 Freeman, who still was known as Bruce, had become homeless, had split up with a girlfriend, and was hitting bottom.
“I thought about taking my own life. What are people worth, when they have nothing?” she asked.
But she had resources — people who cared about her and made her feel worthwhile. She started the first phase of her quest to become a woman in January 2004. That first phase was a discovery period when Freeman worked on who she was, and what help might be available to her. The second phase involves living the role of the opposite sex, Freeman said, and that is where she is now.
She has spent a year and a half in hormone treatment, and her next step is laser hair removal. When asked whether she would get gender reassignment surgery, she said yes, unequivocally.
“Surgery is in the works,” she said.
Recently, Freeman has been keeping busy with the activities of her new life. She started playing competitive pool in 2006, and has been helping other people who are dealing with gender identity disorder.
“No one should have to go through this alone,” she said. “It’s very taxing on the psyche. I’m fighting back. I’m getting the help I need.”
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In the case of private property, the offended patron might (note the verb) have a cause against the owner. The primary limit on toilet ingress is via the owner's right to control who goes where (it's his property), so he could have a cause of action against the trespasser; but if the owner makes false representations about his toilets then a customer could have a cause of action against the owner. That's pretty remote, of course.Unfortunately all private property is, in fact, subject to confiscation and regulation by the state, even your home. So we're only talking about ought's, not is's -- all Objectivists recognize that there are tons of improper laws. The person who set this TS subthread off implied that there were questions of criminality and "presumption of innocence" at stake; but he/she/it never showed that that is actually so, and I'm not aware of any specific Ohio state statutes regulating who can and cannot use the men's room. There should be no statutes governing private toilets. The only proper government involvement should be stating a rational policy for toilet usage in government facilities.I am asserting that businesses are private property; also, that regardless of the fact of being private property, ones property rights are nevertheless not respected by the state. The government has absolutely no right to regulate business.No, don't. Read up on the purpose of the forum.
Sounds familiar as an argument, I am not sure how if an owner makes "false assumptions about a toilet" then a patron would have a claim of action, if a bathroom is marked man or woman and an opposite sex person enters , I still don't see how the other use of the bathroom would have a claim of action against the owners private property, unless the owner tried to eject him/her or confuse the patron as to what he/she is/was allowed to do which is remote.
As for regulatin businesses, many people they should be regulated, but many people that regulation should be more limited in scope and limited to situations where the owner clearly does a lot of wrongdoing and is intentionally disobey laws and standards. For instance many businesses with great reputations and stellar records may get hit with buracracy and fines while large businesses don't really suffer such the case in california where many businesses decided to pack up and leave.
However, many people believe in regulation, as for discrimination such a racism, or health and safety laws, the idea being that is not as a home and its a place where other people , are a business open to general public interact, engage, and do commerce.
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What an ignorant post. You might try reading some of the relevant posts to see what the argument actually is. FYI, it is that it is not a violation of anyone's rights to have sex-separated government-owned toilets. Toilet issues on private property are not properly the subject of statutory law, and at most a property owner would have a cause of action based on trespass or breach of contract. Of course that assumes a country where property rights are somewhat respected, as opposed to Europe. There is no "right to use the toilet", even if Europe claims there is such a right, much less a right to do so without different "genitllia" being around. You might have noticed that if you had read some of the recent posts.
However, one cannot be neutral on the question, and decision has to be made for government toilets. As long as there are sex-segregated government toilets (and they are abundant in Europe), the determinant of where you go to pee is whether or not you're swinging pipe. Violators should be ticketed.
Dave although its not against to law to have different restrooms marked man and woman, what your post sounded as if a customer or a patron of the opposite-sex would have a cause of action if somebody else entered the restroom.
Toilet issues are private property are not subject to statutory law? Well how are you defining private property dave, if you said somebodys home then its a different story, but you sounded as if you were referring to a business , then you are incorrect if thats what you were implying, they are subject to statutory law in a lot of cases, whether you and I don't like it. The government has every right and does regulate private businesses.
I will post an attachment and new post to debunk this.
Dave although its not against to law to have different restrooms marked man and woman, what your post sounded as if a customer or a patron of the opposite-sex would have a cause of action if somebody else entered the restroom.Toilet issues are private property are not subject to statutory law? Well how are you defining private property dave, if you said somebodys home then its a different story, but you sounded as if you were referring to a business , then you are incorrect if thats what you were implying, they are subject to statutory law in a lot of cases, whether you and I don't like it. The government has every right and does regulate private businesses.
I will post an attachment and new post to debunk this.
Be advised, that I was also posting in reference to other comments on the website, such as claim that "woman have the right" or "men have the right" to use the bathroom without any opposite sex genitals being present, there are no such "rights" as in legal terms.
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And since there is no "right for a transsexual to use the women's room", that pretty much should end the discussion. You ought to be arguing for a general elimination of gender-segregated toilets on government property. And yet you're not, for some reason.
Maybe, but there is no supposed "right to privacy" or remedy for no opposite-sex gentials in a public restroom. Its a bit of a gray area as some cities have antiquated statues that have laws preventing this.
Men's and women's restrooms are more of a social custom, restrooms marked women are without urinals because women don't use them and are not designed to use them although they can buy a device to use them.
The "men's" and "women's" restrooms don't really exist becaues the language is a possessive form, kinda of like "Michael"'s or David's bathroom possessive. They are simply marked that way, of course
a few cities have statues which ban opposite-sex people from using bathrooms usually older-antiquated statues, some people or police try to use the "tresspass" laws, however do be aware its usually within the context of some person fooling around or breaking the law by voueyering . As for people who don't there is very little case law or decisions on the books, maybe a few decisions in trial courts where a person plead guilty to trespassing but not much established case law or decisions.
By the way genitllia is not used to define men and women , the law defines it in various raise, similary one can say an adopted child is not really a child biologially but the law says so which negates dave's point of law so to speak , of course people are entitled to their opinion and religious views so if he implied that than that's a different subject.
Similary, his comments on miscellanous , and man made terms being biased show that he may have a moral opinion which people are entitled to, but its certainly not man made and miscellanous means other terminilogies not listed as above, and the six-toilets is an exaggeration , you wouldn't even have homosexual toilets because you have the same problem as "supposed" of gays being attracted to eachother anyways, stalls are private too. I really don't see how how people are mixing up things and creating exaggerations are hyped based on non-established facts or supposed biases.
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By "public property" (which exists), we mean "government-owned property", which clarifies that it is owned, not unowned. With government-owned property, yes, there simply is no issue of the individual property-owner's rights being dispositive for deciding policy questions about who gets to use the john. The rules have to be rationally and objectively justified. Then what should be the rule regarding toilets in the courthouse?This could justify entirely eliminating the distinction between men's rooms and women's rooms in government toilets, but it could not justify any policy regarding transsexuals as contrasted to normal men and women. The question is whether there is a rational foundation for having segregated toilets. First, is it the case that the government may have sex-segregated toilets? The answer is, clearly yes. Doing so violates nobody's rights -- everybody gets to pee, and no person has a right to pee in the same room as members of the opposite sex. Second, is it the case that the government must have sex-segregated toilets? The answer is, no: in fact, it is not even necessary that the government have toilets at all. Now here's a third question: is it absolutely necessary that there be closable doors on the stalls of government toilets? No, not absolutely; but it is very hard to imagine a situation where it would be necessary to have doorless stalls. Perhaps if there is some serious issue regarding crimes being committed in the stalls.
But should government toilets generally have stalls with doors that close? Yes, because even though it's physically possible to do your business in front of society, most people feel pretty uncomfortable doing so, and it does not serve any legitimate government interest to generally deprive people of this bit of privacy. In other words, the cultural fact that we want some privacy when doing our private business is a fact that the government may consider in establishing a general toilet policy.
One specific instance of that general interest in privacy is that men typically feel uncomfortable going to the bathroom with women hanging around outside the stall, and women feel the same way. If you don't like that fact, I suggest that you engage in some kind of educational program to widen the appeal of unisex johns. If the idea had merit, you could persuade private concerns to adopt unisex johns on their property. If this is actually an appealing idea to people and it catches on, then the cultural discomfort issue would be moot, and their would be no rational reason to have sex-segregated toilets just on government property.In the current context, that is certainly so. You have very good reason to believe that the person has some bad thing in mind (maybe just harassment and not rape).That reasoning only refers to the standards for criminal conviction. Toilet-invasion is closer to a civil dispute, where a woman's right to pee without men lurking outside the stall must also be considered.The issue then would be, did the accused violate a law, in which case the burden of proof argument would be relevant. There would have to be proof that the man did enter a women's room unlawfully. The issue is not whether he should be convicted for attempted rape, should he be convicted of cross-gender toilet invasion.Yes, but as I've pointed out, this transgender issue is a total red herring. It would be highly irrational and unjust to allow only transsexual men to enter the women's room.
What a Lously reply, the author does not know anything about law and he is saying that a person who has different gentillia has more in a matter of a civil lawsuit. This is untrue and false, there is no civil lawsuits about this that would be accepted by the courts. I do know one that was thrown out because a man had sued because woman were using the same bathrooms as him due to another bathroom being unusable after a music event. Most states don't even have statues regarding the topic, of course there are a few cities that have ordinances about different genders using bathrooms mostly antiquated , but a civil lawsuit and a person's right to use the toilet without different genitllia being around means that the author ought to do some legal consulting or homework before replying.
In Europe, we have unisex bathrooms, locker rooms, and spas no problem in countries such as finland ,netherlands, and Germany and for the record stalls themselves are private and while its true that somebody can peek over and voyer that is illegal because stalls are places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, not bathrooms again that is the proper reading of the law.
Panel backs transgender woman in restroom case
in Miscellaneous Topics
Posted
Its easy to say are make a quote about minorities having no special rights, actually they want equal rights not special rights some may aruge
Do you really suppose a business is going to check genitilia of a patron who uses the bathroom? Many forum readers say thats the standard businesses should use, I am not sure what opinion people have,
should bald haired woman/women such as khadjiah farmer be kicked out of the bathroom who herself was a lesbian, I'm curious as to the opinon of people on the forum on that issue.
So, lets suppose Catholics are a minority in this country, or protestants become a minority or whites became a minorty in the next 20-30 years, would you argue that they should allowed to be discriminated
against, perhaps.
Let me be clear, people are entitled to their own viewpoints, and I was pointing out different scenarios that may arise in the future and am using though provoking questions.
An opinion or suggestion by me for a topic doesn't necessarily mean that I agree or disagree with the forum readers.
Say I own a dance club, or a resturant should I be allowed in your view to exclude blacks or anybody who isn't light skinned for the club, what about hispanics, its a place of busineses so one may view
it as private property, what about housing discrimination, again there are people who will love to discriminate not necessarily because they are racist but because they don't like that particular person or
maybe racists at times in a sense that they don't judge people by race, but tend to socialize with certain ethnic groups who share their cultural viewpoints and such.
Somebody may then argue this, if we allow business owners, landlords, companies who hire, tc to discriminate at will , then we could have a big schism or divide and people may then argue against that
argument and want regulation or ownership by the government, similary the government could tax busineeses that engage in certain things it doesn't like in a lower-profile way such as taxes and regulations on a case-by-case basis, but with a bias.
By the way this is interesting , objectivism, so I welcome civilized and factual debate or opinions on this matter, not just about bathrooms and transgenders.
or rather say that the government should own all businesses, landlords, employers