Canadian Politics Today

Maybe it's not about whether someone might be looking at you in a sexual sense.

That hasn't been my experience, but if establishments are updating their changing areas to provide more privacy, I think that would do a lot to put their patrons' discomfort to rest.

Ok, hang on... many people now accept the premise that some people are so fragile that we should avoid using the word "rayp" (I can't believe the forum censors that one too...), and do "jazz hands" or snap our fingers instead of clapping.  And yet we're also now proposing that women who hold to long-standing social norms regarding intersex group nudity have to just shut up and deal with it?

Do you have to be special in some way before your feelings merit some consideration?

And we're now at a point where some people support providing women-only swimming times at public pools, out of respect for Muslim customs. And yet the mood now appears that women ought to share not just the swimming pool but also their showers and changing room with biologically male patrons.  Don't you think there's a bit of a contradiction there?

If a Muslim member of BodyBlitz complained that having to change in the presence of a biologically male person was against her religious beliefs, would people support some sort of "reasonable accommodation" for her?

And, if so, then why shouldn't there likewise be an effort to make reasonable accommodation for people who are just not comfortable changing in front of some unfamiliar person with their dong hanging out?

If there's a male you don't know in the locker room, what's your first reaction?

Discrimination isn't necessarily illegal.  The very existence of female-only facilities is an example of a situation where it was decided that there was a reasonable justification for discrimination. 

Another fair reason for discrimination might be to preserve the patrons' sense of security and privacy.

Another fair reason for discrimination might be to avoid economic hardship-- which might be the result if patrons stop coming to the club because they find the locker-room situation to be uncomfortable or upsetting.

 -k

I brought up the lesbian comparison to say that logically, I would think that it be more unsettling to change in front of someone with similar anatomy who is looking at me sexually than someone with different anatomy who is completely oblivious to my sexual existence.

I say that to make a case for the fact that there is nothing logical about being uncomfortable around a transgender woman and that it's just a matter of unfamiliarity.  For example, I'm sure  50 years ago the number of women unwilling to change in front of lesbians was a lot more than now than lesbians are more accepted after decades of familiarity.

As for the last couple of paragraphs, as I said before, I do get the other side of the argument, but I think that sometimes the masses have to be forced out of their ignorance.  There was a lot of resistance to blacks drinking from the same fountains and gays being able to hold hands without getting killed. 

Both societal shifts took decades to happen and it all started with the few people who stood up for their rights. 

In other words, if some people wanted to boycott a restaurant back in the 50's that allowed blacks and whites to sit together, continuing segregation wasn't the answer. 

I'd like to be on the right side of history when inevitably the same shift happens with transgenders.