Thought or Rant of the day!!!

[*Wiro]

These kinds of gender-specific traits are invented by mankind to justify all kinds of stupidity.

...

Your husband just doesn't like grocery shopping and doesn't come out and say it. Which is weird because that's totally a thing women do. Right?

People have been obsessed with this gender stuff since ancient times. Did you know hysteria was derived from the Greek word for uterus?

[Snickie]

Dear World,

Bathrooms are for biological processes. Please don't turn them into a social thing. If you have male parts, use the bathroom equipped to deal with male parts. If you have female parts, use the bathroom equipped to deal with female parts. If for some reason you have both, then take your pick. End of story.

Love,
Snickie

[*Wiro]

Why are you even looking at other people's junk?

[Marian]

These kinds of gender-specific traits are invented by mankind to justify all kinds of stupidity.

...

Your husband just doesn't like grocery shopping and doesn't come out and say it. Which is weird because that's totally a thing women do. Right?

No, there really is something weird going on there. Every male in my family to some degree or another has some kind of bizarre difficulty with reading labels on food items, and polling among co-workers suggests this is more than just a fluke. I feel like there's a need for some kind of research paper on this.

e: Also entire sections of an aisle are sometimes invisible for no explainable reason.

People have been obsessed with this gender stuff since ancient times. Did you know hysteria was derived from the Greek word for uterus?

Yes, I've heard that one.

[Tiamo]

Marian, it's a disease. A disease of the mind, to be precise.
In your family, it seems, some males have passed it on to each other. It can be cured by a well-chosen stimulus-response programme (vision/reading fail in the grocery store? ==> their meals seem to miss some ingredients. Something like that).

[SekoETC]

Starting Sunday, I'll be cooking at a summer camp for 16 fifteen-year-olds, 7 camp staff, my assistant and myself. I've been busy planning ever since I found out about this gig. The kitchen is very badly equipped so I'll have to take a lot of stuff along. I also have to plan the menu and do the shopping for ingredients. We don't have a car but I found someone to give us a ride to the store Sunday. Most stuff will be ordered from a webstore. Naturally I won't have much time to play Cantr, if the Internet is even working there.

[Marian]

Starting Sunday, I'll be cooking at a summer camp for 16 fifteen-year-olds, 7 camp staff, my assistant and myself. I've been busy planning ever since I found out about this gig. The kitchen is very badly equipped so I'll have to take a lot of stuff along. I also have to plan the menu and do the shopping for ingredients. We don't have a car but I found someone to give us a ride to the store Sunday. Most stuff will be ordered from a webstore. Naturally I won't have much time to play Cantr, if the Internet is even working there.

Pfft. I cook three meals a day for 60-100 people, half of them who need special trays for their special diets, four days a week, weekends and holidays included. Assuming you have internet access you can always find time to play Cantr. I'm a big fan of the 'fake bathroom break' method, especially when in a place that technically doesn't allow cellphones.

[ObsessedWithCats]

Dear World,

Bathrooms are for biological processes. Please don't turn them into a social thing. If you have male parts, use the bathroom equipped to deal with male parts. If you have female parts, use the bathroom equipped to deal with female parts. If for some reason you have both, then take your pick. End of story.

Love,
Snickie

>_<

Toilets themselves work just fine however you're plumbed. Use whichever you feel safest and/or least wrong in.

[Marian]

Actually I think it would be hilarious for someone with lady parts to try to use a urinal.

I'm not really sure I'd be thrilled about a dude wandering around the ladies room no matter what he is on the inside though.

This probably makes me a hypocrite but in this situation I think I'm okay with that.

[Marian]

Seriously though I've always been of the opinion that this would be an issue where safety concerns outweigh social ones.

[*Wiro]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_bashing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia

I don't mean to be a dick by just posting a link, but it really is an excellent source of information on transgender violence. It's a very real issue, and not one that should be dismissed as "social", whatever that even means. It's also not an issue that can be adequately resolved by a brief forum post, because there are hundreds of factors to consider, not least of all violence against women.

I don't think online discussion is a good way to go about it (it never seems to be), because the information is there on the internet. I gained interest in the movement two years ago while watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix and looking up more information about trans actress Laverne Cox.

[Marian]

It's a very real issue, and not one that should be dismissed as "social", whatever that even means. It's also not an issue that can be adequately resolved by a brief forum post, because there are hundreds of factors to consider, not least of all violence against women.

Maybe 'social' isn't the right term, by what I mean by it is the transgender person's right to be recognized as the gender they choose... but in the case of public bathrooms and the like I'd think the very real risks to their safety would outweigh this. (And not to make light of the issue, but having a family member managing a movie theater near here, I can just imagine the nightmare they would have explaining to concerned parents every night that no don't worry, that man in the bathroom with your eight year old daughter is actually a woman, we don't need to call the police, no really... concerned parents can be a terrifying force to be reckoned with and already make her life hell in enough other ways as it is . )

And the first I really heard of the issue here was back when people were pushing to let highschool students share bathrooms and locker rooms... which really just send like a terrible idea on so many levels I hardly know where to start.

[Snickie]

I'm all for the system that some parts of Italy have where the overall restroom area is gender neutral and then the stalls are labelled with what kind of biological parts they're equipped to handle (I assume urinals in the men's or something). Unfortunately, Americans are idiots.

Also, lines/queues would probably be a nightmare because... well, I've seen the lines at the women's restroom after church service ends and how long they are and slowly they move and have compared them to what I can see of the men's lines (which isn't much but they do move a lot faster it seems.... almost worrying). I assume most women hog the mirrors to check their makeup 'n stuff, I dunno, and guys are just like "whatever" as long as they don't have toilet paper trailing from their shoe or something.

My friend works at the local bowling alley and has told me that when she cleans the bathrooms during closing:
1) the men's toilets are disgusting because they get drunk and can't aim, and you should never ever pour bleach on it without scrubbing it first because the ammonia (or is it ammonium? not sure) in the lingering urine combined with the bleach will create mustard gas and the bathroom will be uninhabitable for like 45 minutes depending on the ventilation and the size of the bathroom.
2) the counters in the women's bathroom are messy and wet and full of paper towels and there's no soap left in the dispensers. By comparison, the counters in the men's bathroom are nearly spotless and there's still plenty of soap in the dispensers. Um, ew.
Obviously these aren't America's best and brightest, but still.

[Marian]

I've been told that men don't have conversations with each other at all in a public bathroom and it would somehow be considered weird and creepy to attempt one, so I guess they just do their business and hustle out. (without washing hands, eeew...)

At any kind of event or place with big lines you've got women as the ones taking small children to the bathroom (boys and girls both) which always takes forever too. And as for babies, do men's rooms even have changing tables?

I don't know how common it is for guys to do this but it friggin infuriates me when the stalls in the women's room are all full and someone is clearly just sitting in there texting.

[Rebma]

The resort I stayed at in Cuba had just one bathroom for everyone. Half the stalls had urinals and half had toilets. It was actually pretty freeing not worrying about whether you're in the "right" bathroom.