Dude you’re the Wallace
What’s the problem with this argument?
Representative Nancy Mace is proudly embracing her George Wallace moment. It’s time for dissent.
When Vivian Malone and James Hood enrolled at the University of Alabama in 1963, Governor Wallace traveled to Tuscaloosa to stand defiantly in the doorway of the Foster Auditorium. In tailored suit and tie, the white southern governor, whom Dr Martin Luther King once called “perhaps the most dangerous racist in America today”, prevented the two Black students from attending class.
Wallace’s Stand in the Schoolhouse Door upheld the impassioned promise he made while delivering his inaugural address: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”. Mace has clearly studied this history and chosen to side with its least savory character.
When Sarah McBride became the first out transgender woman elected to Congress this past November, Mace swiftly introduced a House resolution to ban McBride from using the bathroom. This legislation, which has far-reaching implications, might as well be known as Mace’s Stand in the Bathroom Door.
What’s wrong is that the two are not comparable. The fact that a door was involved in Wallace’s disgusting intervention does not make Nancy Mace’s resolution similar to Wallace’s racist aggression.
Men are already barred from women’s bathrooms, and they always have been, not because they were considered subordinate or inferior but rather the contrary: men have the power, physical and social, so women don’t feel safe taking their pants down with men in the room. Wallace stood (literally and figuratively) for white power and oppression; women are not the powerful oppressive sex. Men pretending to be women are not comparable to the civil rights activists of Wallace’s day.
When cruel injustice becomes enshrined in law by politicians fueled by hate the only conscionable response is to dissent.
It’s not “cruel injustice” to tell men to stay out of the women’s toilets, even if the men say they are women. The cruel injustice would be to let them barge into the women’s toilets, because damn few women actually want men in there. Actually I don’t think anyone wants any kind of people in there – I think we’d all much prefer individual locked rooms. There’s an upscale shopping center in Seattle that provides those and my god the feeling of luxury – it’s like a tiny vacation.
That is why, in a commitment to affirm the basic human dignity and respect all people deserve, I helped lead a group of trans women, non-binary people, and cis allies in holding a sit-in in a women’s bathroom in Congress.
See the man boast about invading a women’s toilet in Congress. Yeah, bro, the Nashville sit-ins you’re not.
Mace is just a garden variety asshole; this ain’t a civil rights fight.
Women don’t deserve civil rights‽
This makes it sound like McBride can’t use any washroom at all. If that were the case, that would indeed be cruel. But that’s not the case. Our reporter has carefully chosen to specify which bathroom McBride was barred from using, thereby avoiding the fact that this is not because he is “trans” but because he is male. Humans can’t change sex. McBride, whatever he wears, whatever “treatments” he’s had, remains a male That is why he’s barred from the women’s washroom. When it’s spelled out like this (which it should be at every possible opportunity), it doesn’t sound like the righteous crusade they’re pretending it is. It’s a much easier sell to claim that you’re fighting for so-called trans “rights” than it is to push male entitlement, which is what this actually is.
Exactly. Put them on the defensive.
And, once again, if you re-define the word “woman” to include people like McBride, you also re-define it to no longer include any biological female who fails to think/feel/identify/”perform” etc. in the required manner. As I keep saying, if the person formerly known as Ellen Page is a “man”, then I’m not. You cannot define that person in without defining me out (certainly not while insisting on a non-trivial difference between “men” and “women”). After all, you have just taken the only thing that made me a man out of the definition of “man”. There is no non-trivial definition of “man” that applies to both “Elliot” Page and me at the same time. Nor, for that matter, is there a non-trivial definition according to which I am a “man” while Eddie Izzard and William “Lia” Thomas are not. If your “men’s room” is reserved for people like “Elliot”, then, by definition, it’s not for people like me. Of course this also gives the lie to the claim that this is all about giving rights to trans people without taking anything away from anyone else. I still wish gender critical people would raise a much bigger stink on this issue.
Odd to find myself in agreement with MTG. She says that McBride has his own bathroom in his office.
So what’s the problem.
Well it would certainly still be a problem if, say, all non-white members of Congress had their own toiletrooms in their offices but were not allowed to use any outside their offices while white members of Congress were so allowed.
Mister Mcbride has his own office restroom and ALL the men’s restrooms and ANY single-user “gender neutral” restroom in the building to use. He has all kinds of choices outside his office. The problem is he wants to claim the trophy of the women’s restrooms and enjoy taking away the rights of women. He is just another predator, IMHO, not a civil rights campaigner.
Absolutely. I’m just clarifying the hypothetical.
It took 45 years from the first woman entering Congress for women to get their own restroom. In only 62 years, it appears they are about to lose it again. Sharing a restroom is not the same as sitting in the next desk over in the classroom, and it isn’t the same as sharing the same lunch counter. No one is any more vulnerable in those situations than anyone else. But restrooms are supposed to be private, and I find it difficult when there are women in there…if there was a man, I would not be able to stay long enough to do my business.
@6 Indeed, but he can use the men’s room. So if there were racially segregated restrooms of both types, then there would be options outside the office, hypothetically. Still a rough analogy though, I agree.
Men’s rooms have urinals for those biologically able to use such things comfortably. He should make use of them. I don’t know what kinds of men would object to a female impersonator in the men’s room, but not many I would think. Restrooms aren’t the place for confrontations of that sort, not in my opinion anyway. Men in women’s restrooms, yes, but men in men’s rooms, no.
The problem is that she introduced a policy to target one specific member of the House (and unless something’s changed the tranny at least claims to not intend to use the women’s restroom). This (and many other things) is why Mace is an arsehole. I also greatly prefer that the trannies to stick to their own restrooms (no matter the sex) but that’s just spiteful behaviour and was intended to be.
BNiSA:
McBride’s election was lauded far and wide as a symbolic victory for transpeople and the ideology which endorses the idea that they are, for all intents and purposes, members of the opposite sex (or both or neither or anything other than the sex they really are.) I think it’s therefore legitimate for people who don’t embrace the ideology to take the opportunity to make a symbolic stand against it. It’s not really about McBride, Mace, or whether offices have their own bathrooms and who was going to go where. Sometimes it really is about the principle of the thing.
Hmmm “spiteful.” Is it more spiteful than a member of the domineering sex pretending to be a member of the subordinated sex, and bullying members of the subordinated sex for not pretending along with him? Maybe men who pull this sadistic crap need some “spiteful” responses.
BKiSA, sounds a lot like you’re telling us we should ‘be nice’. Sorry, not gonna.
I heard Mace interviewed on this topic by a somewhat aggressive reporter on the street. I thought Mace was clear and articulate, and she had her facts straight. I may not agree with her on anything else, but I think she was right on this.
Kara Dansky has written about the difficulty of agreeing with Ted Cruz on this issue while detesting his policy positions and statements in nearly every other area. I’ve seen what Cruz has said, and he, too, had his facts straight, on this one issue.
I don’t think I’d say that Mace was targeting McBride. There are many laws and rules that might have been sensible long before they were proposed or enacted, but they were only enacted when it became an issue. McBride’s election makes this policy more pressing. Before this, people would have said, “But there are no transgender people in Congress, this rule has no effect, why are you doing this?”, just as they say, “But there are no transgender athletes in this district, this rule has no effect, why are you doing this?”.