I liked restroom equality before it was cool

In a law school class in the spring of 2013, I mentioned in passing that I thought that there shouldn't be gender-segregated restrooms. There was an understated gasp, and one classmate confronted me after class, suggesting that the notion was absurd. "Tell that to a sexual assault victim!" he declared. Ignoring his presumption that I was not one, I tried to respond by explaining that the specter of the sexual assault in the bathroom is a myth and the assumption that a gender-neutral mixed restroom will automatically lead to sexual assaults is grossly insulting to men. He brushed me off as though I'd suggested that Earth is flat, coming just short of actively mocking me, and I lost a little respect for him.

Conservative states continue to use dubious justification try to introduce legislation to keep penises and vaginas in separate restrooms, despite the fact that the number of assaults by trans women in women's restrooms remains at zero and the sky has not fallen in places like Colorado, which prohibits discrimination against trans people in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation.

I stand by my trans sisters and brothers in their continued effort to be able to pee in whichever segregated restroom matches their gender identity. Even more than that, though, I desperately want to get away from the notion that restrooms must be segregated into penis/male/masculine and vagina/female/feminine in the first place. Most discussions start with taking that notion for granted, and I refuse to accept it.

Many religions have strict mandates about behavior of men and women and whether and under what circumstances they can even be in the same space. It is not uncommon for progressives to criticize such rigid mandates regarding gender, while expecting tolerance of those who choose to practice such religious mandates and also being aware that "choice" is itself a loaded word that is meaningless in certain environments.

What does this have to do with piss and shit? I'm here to tell you that the thing that makes you cringe when thinking about a mixed-gender restroom is the same thing that drives religions and cultures of varying extremism to impose gender-based requirements and expectations on their members.

Heh. Members.

Look, it shouldn't even be controversial for a single-use restroom to be non-gender designated. Most of us have gender neutral restrooms in our homes. I bet more than half of randomly-selected responders would admit to having used an other-gender-designated single-use restroom because of a long line or an 'out of order' sign, or because they really really had to go.

I would very much like to understand what it is that opponents are really afraid of when I suggest that the default for a large restroom should be gender-neutral mixed use. Picture a restroom at a baseball stadium with fifteen or so stalls and a wall of urinals or a piss-trough. And I would also advocate a proportional number of single-use rooms to accommodate those with religious objections, PTSD, or people who just can't bring themselves to accept a mixed-use room.

Think of the porta-potty setup at your average music festival, where there is either one line or several, non-gender designated, and men and women use the same stalls. It would be exactly like that except in a room and with plumbing. When porta-potties are gross, it's usually not about the fact that there were men/women/other all using the same ones, but that you're not flushing and you have limited access to sinks.

The bathroom debate is only one symptom of the real problem, which is the fact that we are so OK with early and insistent grouping of "boys" and "girls" based on their genitalia and with a whole giant host of assumptions attached. Sure, if procreation is a consideration for a particular relationship, then the individuals in that relationship should talk about what is biologically possible, but that's really no different from what every relationship should do. It is my opinion that failure to communicate regarding a future with children is a huge reason that relationships end, but that's another blog.

I'm glad the dialogue is happening. The gender binary has frustrated me for a long time and I'm glad that my voice is finally in the discussion. I don't have much expectation of my vision occurring any time soon, but still, I feel vindicated.

My dog chews on the President-elect

I recall a news story that came out when I was in middle school or high school, during George Bush I's presidency. The news was that a group of protesters were burning George Bush in effigy. Why we say "burn in effigy" rather than "light cardboard cutouts on fire," I'm not sure. My father, no fan of Republicans, was horrified that anyone would burn the President of the United States in effigy. Though it's probably not something I would do/have done, I had no problem with people expressing themselves that way (but I'm not sure how effective it is).

Fast forward to the coinciding occurrences of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and the addition to our family of Sparkle, the best dog ever.

I had noticed the Trump chew toy, for sale at Farfel's Farm in Boulder, long before we adopted Sparkle, and since then I'd wished I'd had a dog for whom I could buy it. It was one of her very first purchases.

If it's wrong to burn a President in effigy, surely it's wrong to use a President-elect's image as a doggie chew toy. If it's not wrong to burn a President in effigy, it may still be wrong to use said President-elect's image for a doggie chew toy. I use the word "wrong" very loosely; more "an affront of common mores" than "a serious moral transgression." If someone wants to publish these thoughts elsewhere, I'll edit it and come up with a more precise word. I also consider the President-elect to have equal status to a sitting President, ignoring the technicality that Mr. Trump does not officially become President-elect until the electors vote.

Is it wrong to burn a President in effigy?

I acknowledge that there's a certain amount of decorum that accompanies an office, both on the part of the person holding the office and on the parts of The People perceiving that person (with extra consideration of The People's perception if the person holding the office is in a representative position).

When George I was in office, my father's position was that, as a fairly elected government official, he was owed a certain amount of respect. Though he did not think that the President was above criticism, he perceived an indignity to immolation that crossed the line of acceptable criticism.

There is an implicit dehumanization in setting someone on fire. Its most famous uses involved punishment of people who were indeed considered nonhuman in one way or another, for example witches and heretics.

But burning in effigy is not immolation. It's burning a non-sentient artistic representation of an individual as a protest. Whether it's a protest of the person themselves or of a concept that the person represents is debatable, and the moral implications clearly would follow one's interpretation of same. I would consider it "wrong" if the burning was being conducted as advocacy for setting the represented individual on fire.

The worst thing about burning in effigy is that uncontained fire is almost never a good idea. Fire is dangerous, and if a person sets one in public, they ought to be subject to whatever general public safety laws are in effect.

Is it wrong to use a President's likeness as a doggie chew toy?

It is certainly reasonable for a person who finds burning a President in effigy beyond the pale to object equally to using a President's likeness as a doggie chew toy. Another defensible position is that burning in effigy is abhorrent but the chew toy is not because the indignity of the immolation is unique.

I am here to explore a third position: that the chew toy is actually worse than the burning in effigy.

An important question is whether there is a distinction between a regular Presidential stuffed toy (or bobblehead or action figure) and one that is designed specifically for the purpose of being chewed by a dog. One argument could be that dogs are low in the social hierarchy and therefore a dog's chew toy is even lower. I don't subscribe to this view; I value dogs as autonomous beings as much as humans.

Similarly, we often use dog in one way or another to mean yucky. If a movie is a "dog" it sucks; something from a restaurant is so bad that you wouldn't even feed it to your dog. I don't care for that vernacular, either, because dogs are awesome.

There is a distinction however between a toy that is designed to be loved and a toy that is designed to be destroyed. A doggie chew toy falls into the latter category, and I acknowledge there is a lack of respect reflected in specifically selecting an individual's image for joyous canine destruction.

So we're back to the question of whether President of the United States is an office that commands a certain amount of respect and decorum.

Fortunately, we don't have to answer that question in the abstract.

Is it wrong to use this President's likeness as a doggie chew toy?

"How would you feel if it were an Obama chew toy?" 

I suppose, if I disregard the false equivalency, I would ask how your dog plays with the chew toy. Sparkle and I play "get the bigot" with the Trump toy. I am completely comfortable calling President-elect Trump a bigot. I call him a "misogynist bigot" too. 

And this is where I realized I was drawing the proverbial line in the sand. I have decided that even if there is an amount of respect presumptively owed to our nation's elected leader, Mr. Trump's own behavior has destroyed his entitlement to the presumption. His lack of basic character, which I really don't need to rehash here, speaks for itself. And not only has he made no effort to redeem himself, he's only dug himself in deeper.

I do not believe that President Obama has done anything to earn the level of scorn that I have for Mr. Trump. It may be that we value different things. It may be that those things are or are not important enough to affect our opinions of each other.

The sequence of events was undoubtedly unprecedented, regardless of whether you think the outcome was positive or negative. The standards for acceptability, then, are a bit looser. If the man himself is not following traditional social mores, why on Earth should he expect to benefit from them?

Epilogue

We bought Sparkle's chew toy in liberal Boulder. Recently, in Colorado Springs, we saw a Bernie Sanders chew toy at a local pet boutique. Touché.

Douchebag, Asshat, or plain ol' Jerk?

I object to the word "pussy" to mean weak while "balls" is a measure of strength, because those words are so gendered and their use implied that the described characteristic was emblematic of the (binary) gender that had them.

I overthink language generally, and one result of such overthink is my affection for the use of the word "douche" as an insult. Such use is relatively modern; furthermore, no one seems to know what it's supposed to mean.

The fact that it's an innocuous French word meaning "shower" is irrelevant. In American English, "douche" always carries its "feminine freshness" connotation. Therefore when "douche" is used as an insult, it's obvious to me what it means, and what it means is exactly what makes it a genius insult. It's a matter of medical consensus that douching is useless at best, and more likely harmful. So there you go. Next time you reflexively call someone a "douche," you might be surprised to find out how well the description of "useless at best, harmful at worst," applies to said person.

Furthermore, one has the option to more specifically insult someone as a "douche nozzle" and "douche bag,"

I Am Pro-Life

Image courtesy of Jonathan Fitch
at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It might surprise many who know me well to find this out. I'm the last name that would come out of your mouth when asked who your "pro-life" friends are. But I am, and I'm here to set the record straight.

August 31, 2016: The day I fully came on board with singular "they"

For several months, I have fully embraced singular "they" when others requested it. I also used it in certain writings where I specifically wished to avoid a gender-specific pronoun. You can see it in action in my article in Colorado Lawyer about transgender discrimination law.

I have long been aware that my queer/progressive/woke/anti-racist identity conflicts with my grammar nerd. I was always good with language, and my excellent grammar became a way for me to distinguish myself. As important to my identity as my social justice activist is my mastery of the white man's English.

Even now, while I recognize that a rigid, prescriptivist take on grammar is oppressive as fuck, I'm also not OK with language anarchy. I love language and I think it deserves respect - I've analogized the regular use of textspeak, for example, to using a designer dress as an apron. Or if “designer dress” has no meaning for you, just substitute a garment that you consider important and valuable. Perhaps a religious garment. Now imagine it being used solely to keep polenta spooge off someone's clothing. 

Developments in Federal Bathroom Law

Introduction and Disclaimer

Restrooms are only one part of the discussion. I believe the root of many of society’s problems is our obsession with genitalia; that is, in using genitalia to assign “male” and “female” and then assuming that those assignments are relevant and useful ways to socially classify people. This has been something that courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have assumed since their inception. The only change since then is to what extent we classify and regulate. We no longer tolerate “but she’s female” as a reason to deny women law licenses or prohibit them from working as bartenders; indeed, it seems ridiculous to do so in 2016. Yet it remains the case that it is typically taken for granted that a gender-inclusive educational facility requires separate living accommodations for men and women.

Against the binary: Athletics and Chris Mosier

The Olympics are on right now, and I am enjoying the hell out of them. Women’s rugby is in the Olympics for the first time ever; men’s for the first time since 1924. The athletes are so talented and their bodies are works of art. And gender has a spot in the phenomenon, in ways both celebrating how far we’ve come and exposing how much there is still left to do.

On the celebration side, we have Chris Mosier, the first openly trans athlete to make TeamUSA.