Gender again. Sorry!
- Thread starter theclaud
- Start date
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Ian H
Legendary Member
Just two heaps of variously gendered clothing.
AuroraSaab
Squire
The idea that 'gender identity' even existed is a relatively modern idea. So is the conflation of gender with biological sex. You can't seriously be saying that when the first English women's toilets opened in 1899 they were meant for anybody who identified as women as opposed to biological women. 'Ladies' and 'Gentlemen' is just a polite way of saying men and women.
And until very recently we all knew perfectly well what those words meant.
The toilet issue is the most easily solvable but you can't even seem to acknowledge that there are sound reasons why women need single sex spaces, so, unsurprisingly, just as with prisons and sport, once again you have nothing to say which offers a way forward on the issues.
Bromptonaut
Rohan Man
- Location
- Bugbrooke, Northants
While the term 'gender identity' is recent the idea or women living as men and vice versa goes back at least as far as Shakespeare and probably the Romans too. There are, I think you will find, reasonably sound accounts of people living in a gender they were not born into in Victorian times. Did they have 'penis police' peeping under cubicle doors?
AuroraSaab
Squire
In the numbers we are seeing now? Bear in mind that the largest cohort referred to UK gender clinics is adolescent girls.
If you're talking about males playing female roles on the Elizabethan stage, surely that's because women weren't allowed to act. And they didn't seem to need genital inspections to know who was banned from the stage and who wasn't. Shakespeare writing As You Like It, where characters pretend to be the opposite sex for comic effect, isn't exactly evidence of the existence of a trans community either. The jokes rely on the audience knowing the characters aren't the sex they pretend to be, just like in Some Like It Hot. Otherwise it wouldn't be funny.
I don't doubt that there have people throughout history who have 'lived' as the opposite sex. When it's been women though it's questionable as to whether that indicates gender dysphoria as we term it today or simply adopting a male persona in order to do stuff that you couldn't do as a woman, like have certain careers, or live in a relationship with another woman. Without an individual's own words to confirm it, I think it's erasing women's achievements to retrospectively call them transgender simply because they were gender non conforming or displayed 'masculine' qualities like bravery and leadership, eg Joan of Arc.
Two interesting historical figures in this respect that have been debated about:
https://blog.epicchq.com/herstory-irelands-epic-women-dr-james-barry
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tipton
(There's a much better account of Billy Tipton's life than the Wiki page but I can't find it at the moment).
Historically, they didn't need to look under bathroom doors to decide who couldn't vote. Or who was to be subjected to female genital mutilation, or thrown on a funeral pyre, or forced into child marriage. This idea that all of a sudden none of us know what sex is really is a bit odd.
If you're talking about males playing female roles on the Elizabethan stage, surely that's because women weren't allowed to act. And they didn't seem to need genital inspections to know who was banned from the stage and who wasn't. Shakespeare writing As You Like It, where characters pretend to be the opposite sex for comic effect, isn't exactly evidence of the existence of a trans community either. The jokes rely on the audience knowing the characters aren't the sex they pretend to be, just like in Some Like It Hot. Otherwise it wouldn't be funny.
I don't doubt that there have people throughout history who have 'lived' as the opposite sex. When it's been women though it's questionable as to whether that indicates gender dysphoria as we term it today or simply adopting a male persona in order to do stuff that you couldn't do as a woman, like have certain careers, or live in a relationship with another woman. Without an individual's own words to confirm it, I think it's erasing women's achievements to retrospectively call them transgender simply because they were gender non conforming or displayed 'masculine' qualities like bravery and leadership, eg Joan of Arc.
Two interesting historical figures in this respect that have been debated about:
https://blog.epicchq.com/herstory-irelands-epic-women-dr-james-barry
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Tipton
(There's a much better account of Billy Tipton's life than the Wiki page but I can't find it at the moment).
Historically, they didn't need to look under bathroom doors to decide who couldn't vote. Or who was to be subjected to female genital mutilation, or thrown on a funeral pyre, or forced into child marriage. This idea that all of a sudden none of us know what sex is really is a bit odd.
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Rusty Nails
Country Member
Did they even have public toilets or cubicles for women in Victorian times?
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-Britain/
classic33
Me
Anne Lister, probably better known to many as "Gentleman Jack" lived the greater part of her life as a man. Not caring for what other people thought of her way of life.
She wasn't backwards in being forward. She'd numerous fallouts with neighbouring landowners who felt she shouldn't be doing what she was. She also owned the local brothel, a casino and hotel. She was a member at a local lodge, and a member of the local theological and philosophical association. Dressed as a man for most of her life. And she had the vote.
Things not portrayed in either the books or TV series "about her life".
And the first women's only toilets in England were opend in London's west end in 1884. The first ones opened where you'd to pay to use came along later. They cost a penny to access*, had 67 women, or one women with poor bladder control, use them on the day they opened.
Maybe we can leave the toilet argument behind, and hope that the Dutch idea of female urinals never see much use over here. All urinals placed in the same area, male/female/men/women.
Whatever happened to those people that looked after the public toilets?
*It's where the phrase "Spend a penny/Going to spend a penny came from.
She wasn't backwards in being forward. She'd numerous fallouts with neighbouring landowners who felt she shouldn't be doing what she was. She also owned the local brothel, a casino and hotel. She was a member at a local lodge, and a member of the local theological and philosophical association. Dressed as a man for most of her life. And she had the vote.
Things not portrayed in either the books or TV series "about her life".
And the first women's only toilets in England were opend in London's west end in 1884. The first ones opened where you'd to pay to use came along later. They cost a penny to access*, had 67 women, or one women with poor bladder control, use them on the day they opened.
Maybe we can leave the toilet argument behind, and hope that the Dutch idea of female urinals never see much use over here. All urinals placed in the same area, male/female/men/women.
Whatever happened to those people that looked after the public toilets?
*It's where the phrase "Spend a penny/Going to spend a penny came from.
AuroraSaab
Squire
Turn of the century, after much campaigning and 40 years after the first men's public toilets. It's known as the 'urinary leash' - because women could only go as far as they could hold their bladder. It's why bicycles are important in the history of feminism. Cycling allowed women to travel further without needing a wee. Bikes brought a measure of independence to women. Only to the middle classes initially though as they were pretty expensive at first.
https://amazingwomeninhistory.com/the-new-woman-and-her-bicycle/
https://amazingwomeninhistory.com/the-new-woman-and-her-bicycle/
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multitool
Pharaoh
It's mentioned in 3000 year old Hindu scriptures.
Clearly, it's only suddenly now a problem.
monkers
Legendary Member
Finally now that the world is moving on from the 'born in the wrong body' explainer that was much less than ideal to a term that more accurately explains the self-knowledge of people of their incongruence. Bigots believe this is some fresh ideology that must be resisted using chicken and egg type paradoxes. I mean what entitles people to be able to express who they are in words that actually explain it?
newfhouse
pleb
“Forcing it down our throats.”
Mr Celine
Well-Known Member
If women wanted to travel further why didn't they take the train?
Trains didn't have toilets until the end of the nineteenth century but stations did, you can see them shown above in the ladies waiting rooms. This station opened 1849, the plan is an ordnance survey town plan dated 1856. In a town whose residents are still sometimes referred to as pailmerks* due to Galashiels being the last Border town to install mains drainage.
* 'pail' is a Scots word for bucket. If you sit on a bucket you'll get indentations on your bottom, or pail merks on your arse.
fozy tornip
At the controls of my private jet.
Thanks for that!
fozy tornip
At the controls of my private jet.
And if the trans community could palate "Ladies 2nd Class" as descriptive of trans women, you may very well have smashed it out of the park!
AuroraSaab
Squire
'Let them eat cake'. Money possibly, seeing as many women and girls didn't have independent funds in the 1850's. Not being allowed to travel on their own by their husbands or family. Lack of safety on public transport for women and girls travelling on their own without men.
Perhaps that's why they needed the single sex spaces that your plan shows.
The Irritating Gentleman, 1874, Bertholt Woltze.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/01/13/national/antigroping-campaign-trains-exams/
https://japantoday.com/category/cri...olgirls-on-day-of-japan’s-most-important-test
