Transfolk & The Principle of Least Astonishment

 General  No Responses »
Apr 022024
 

The interesting thing about the Trans Day of Visibility accidentally (to state the bloody obvious, Easter keeps moving around so such accidents are inevitable) colliding with Easter Sunday is that it has caused all the really fucking nasty shits to come out of their hutches spitting lettuce everywhere.

And yes you are really fucking nasty shits.

According to the last UK census only 0.5% of the population are transfolk; you could spend your entire life without encountering one. And transfolk are quite probably the most bullied minority there is – one report referenced by this guide suggests that 34% of young transfolk have attempted suicide. That’s probably higher than the suicide rate (one estimate puts it at 25%) amongst Nazi concentration camp inmates.

Now that is attempted suicides but it is still astonishingly high and points to a horrendous level of alienation and indeed bullying.

That needs fixing. And part of that fix is to tell the really fucking nasty shits to keep quiet.

One of the dumbest things that the nasty shits want is to force transfolk to use the public toilets marked for the gender they were born with. In other words they want people who to all appearances are women to use the mens facilities; and they want bearded blokes to use the ladies.

Now I don’t especially mind ladies (or transwomen if you insist) using the gents toilets although it does cause a double-take and a moment wondering if I’ve mistaken the sign on the door. Especially with those “fun” signs.

Oh and that “principle of least astonishment”? If you have gender segregated toilets, you expect to find those who look like men in the gents and those who look like women in the ladies.

But can you imagine the reaction if someone with all the appearance of a bearded bloke walks into a ladies? There have apparently already been women assaulted in toilets for looking too masculine by the ‘gender police’.

You don’t have to understand gender dysphoria to feel sympathy for transfolk – I don’t. It’s completely incomprehensible to me. And the really fucking nasty shits who criticise transfolk? Well they’re probably really fucking nasty shits in other ways too. So figuratively slap ’em down every time they raise they heads.

Because they deserve it.

JK Rowling Denying The Holocaust

 General  No Responses »
Mar 242024
 

There is currently a furore about JK Rowling having denied that the Nazis targeted transfolk with a comment specifically stating that the poster should “check their sources” which becomes amusing …

For the record, the historical suppression of the world’s first institute covering trans healthcare is a matter of record. And although I’m not going to chase down threads to verify this, there is very little doubt in my mind that transfolk would have been sent to concentration camps as homosexual men were.

Now the average person might be forgiven for being ignorant about the suppression of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft; after all those who aren’t interested in the subject will make an assumption that the “Holocaust” was just about the killing of the Jews.

It is true that non-Jewish victims are somewhat less publicised and that most groups weren’t targeted for annihilation as the Jews and Roma were, but being worked to death in a concentration camp with random and brutal punishment up to and including murder isn’t a kind fate. And certainly qualifies as repression.

Any public figure should be more careful about denying that something did or did not happen.

I have just seen a video claiming that JK Rowling isn’t a Holocaust denier because the word Holocaust refers specifically to Jewish victims. Well, there’s a discussion to be had about that – but it should be noted that the Jewish have a specific word for what happened to them (Shoah), which some people believe leaves the word “Holocaust” free to use in reference to all of the victims of the Nazis; it certainly works better than “Nazi crimes against humanity”.

B&W Picture of the entrance to Winchester's Great Hall
Entering The Great Hall

There Are Transgender People In Public Toilets!

 General, Politics, Religion  1 Response »
Apr 242016
 

The interwebs are vibrating with apoplexy at the issue of transgender people in public toilets – those who insist they should tie a knot in it and not use a toilet (or use some other toilet), and those who oppose them. North Carolina has recently passed a law requiring transgender people to use the toilet suited to the gender of their birth, and other states are set to follow. To USians who are puzzled by my use of the word “toilet” – in the UK it refers to both the room itself and the appliance.

In some ways I would more naturally fit into the first camp – I don’t understand transgender issues, and I don’t understand why anyone would want to go down the route of gender re-assignment. To me the gender of the meatspace body my mind wears is immutable.

But here’s the thing: if someone decides to go down the route of gender re-assignment, it’s none of my business. And this law is just plain stupid not to mention malicious.

And so to toilets. In IT there is a principle called the Principle of Least Astonishment which in a sense is quite relevant here. If I go to a public toilet, I normally expect to find myself alongside (figuratively and literally in the case of the urinal) people who look like men; if there’s someone in there who looks like a woman (and it has happened – women sometimes use the men’s facilities) then for a moment I wonder if I’ve wandered through the wrong door.

So it stands to reason that people who look like men should use the men’s toilets and people who look like women should use the women’s toilets. Nothing to do with right and wrong, it’s just simple logic and that principle I mentioned in the last paragraph. Of course it is also the right thing to do.

Now we all know there are perverts out there – there are male perverts, and female perverts, and it stands to reason that there are a few transgender perverts too, and yes some of them are interested in children too (but not all; most perverts are probably as horrified by paedophilia as normal people are). So? What does this have to do with toilets?

Unless what goes on in public women’s toilets is a good deal more exciting than what goes on in the men’s facilities, there’s really nothing for someone to get excited about (and men do share a urinal!).

And frankly even if perverts are weird enough to get excited in public toilets, there’s better strategies than picking on a minority group. Such as concentrating on making those doors and walls for toilet stalls floor to ceiling.

Now I’m going to go for a pee in peace.

(Obviously stolen from Sarah)