What are your thoughts on the video where the police forcibly remove a person, who claimed to be a lesbian who presented as a male, from the women's bathroom?

This is what boggles my mind about the bathroom law. How are we going to enforce it? Androgynous people exist. Are we going to have to hire people to stand by the bathrooms to check ID? People in the free world should not have to show ID to use a bathroom. Besides, in some states trans people can get ID that identifies them as their post-transition gender.

So what would you suggest? If a man actually does go in the women’s restroom, we just let it slide? (Also, I edited the question. See the last paragraph.)

I suggest we stop giving a fuck about who goes into what bathroom.

Listen, I’m a 100 pound woman with barely any muscle, and I spend probably 10x as much time in public bathrooms as average women do because of my Crohn’s disease. If there was anything to fear from being assaulted in a public bathroom, I’d be the person who should be the most afraid. And yet I do not see this law helping me in any way.

It’s already illegal to peep. It’s already illegal to assault somebody. If somebody tries to do that to me in a public restroom, they’re already breaking a law. I don’t need a law that makes it illegal for them to be in the room with me. I can scream to get the attention I need. I don’t need somebody outside the door looking down each prospective entrant’s pants to make sure they have a vagina before they come in.

OK.

As @Mariah has indirectly pointed out, laws against bad behavior do not “prevent” bad behavior. Didn’t we all learn this by first grade? They merely provide the legal sanctions – punishment – for violations of what should be norms of behavior.

I also wonder the same as she did: Who keeps track of whether a person is in violation of the law or not? Who carries a birth certificate (since “ID alone” won’t usually suffice) for a trip to the bathroom?

First the women’s room, then the spotlight!

@Dutchess_III She doesn’t “present” as a man, she dressed like half the women in San Francisco in jeans and a t-shirt! This was a blatantly anti-LGBTQ act.

Those police should be fired. They have demonstrated they have no judgment.

I’m just going by what the article said, that she presented as male.

It definitely has the feel of a set up, which is fine by me, as these things should get attention for the ridiculous situation that it is. And as @zenvelo says, she doesn’t “present” as a man at all, the only(very slightly) gender “indicator” might be the hat. Might be.

I think public bathrooms should ONLY have separate stalls. Meaning that in each cubicle it contains the toilet pot, sink, mirror, hand dryer (or towel on a roll). So that whatever you have to do, is done in privacy.

One should not need ID to take a piss. It’s outrageous.

When I first saw that video what came to my mind was why did the cops wind up in the bathroom asking for ID? I got the impression she was possibly loitering and not behaving well to begin with. If that was the case then the cops have a reason to question what is going on or ask her to leave. Everyone who is age of majority should have ID on them at all times. She purposely escalated things in my opinion.

I am not in favor of any of these laws against transgender, just to be clear. I don’t feel laws are necessary to govern bathrooms. It’s ridiculous. However, if she was causing trouble or making people feel uneasy or unsafe because of her behavior then she needs to check herself.

We, I believe, don’t know the whole story.

@NerdyKeith I would agree except the cost would be exorbitant.

@JLeslie The cops were called because someone supposedly complained that there was a man in the women’s bathroom.
I agree that things were escalated. I also wonder if it was a set up. I mean, from the time the cops are called to the time it takes to get there can be a long time.

@NerdyKeith It would. However, it would be more cost effective then building a third bathroom (gender neutral bathroom). I think making all bathrooms gender neutral would be more cost effective and space effective.

If a cop addressed me I wouldn’t be talking back and acting all gangsta.

That’s kind of what’s behind a few of the questions I’ve asked recently. Shouldn’t anyone be able to use any bathroom they want?

Right @JLeslie!

It’s not cheaper to make all existing bathrooms gender neutral. It costs money to make new signs. I don’t think urinals should be in full view if a bathroom is unisex, so that has to be changed, which costs money.

Whatever goes down will cost money. The question is, which will cost the least amount of money. I think making all bathrooms gender neutral is fine, but I too would like to have some sort of partition between the urinals and the stalls. There is really no reason for me feeling this way, except for that’s how I was raised, and society enforces it. OMG Penis!!

@JLeslie What I am saying is that in comparison to making a third bathroom, having one single unisex bathroom is a better option. Plus if this was to happen, there would be no urinal at all. You would have to use a separate stall. Essentially, they would be designed very similar to disabled toilets.

Nobody sees anything. Its all closed off. Also the lobby areas of the bathrooms would have to be a lot smaller.

I think men like their urinals. Why couldn’t you put one beside the toilets in the stalls like they do in porta potties? I don’t think it would take up that much more space. And…what is a “lobby area” in a bathroom? What are you referring to? The sinks and mirrors?

Yes I am referring to the sinks and mirror area of the bathrooms as the lobby area.

I think that butch lesbians everywhere should flock down to NC and occupy bathrooms in support of all gender-nonconforming/transgender people everywhere. This would be in the grand tradition of what was done in the civil rights movement where people occupied lunch counters, boycotted buses, marched in the streets, etc to protest against ridiculous dehumanizing laws.

The police should not be blamed here. They didn’t create this ridiculous legislation but it is unfortunately their job to enforce. Refusal to do so could cost them their job.

But, can you imagine what it would be like all over NC if they were fielding complaints 24/7 everytime a “mannish-looking” lesbian entered a NC bathroom and refused to show ID until after their arrest has been processed and held a press conference about it?

Or perhaps, if well organized enough, they could do one major NC city one week with everyone showing up there and then a different city the following week. This would simply overwhelm the Police force and the media.

If enough lesbians got behind this it wouldn’t be too long before NC people just get tired of the whole thing and realize what a laughingstock their state had become.

And if this incident in question was a setup, I hope it sets a precedent for many many more to come.

@Buttonstc “The police should not be blamed here. They didn’t create this ridiculous legislation but it is unfortunately their job to enforce. Refusal to do so could cost them their job.” Thank you for clarifying what I couldn’t seem to put into words.

However, if it was a set up, what does that mean? That she could have gone in and out with no problem otherwise?

Do you mean setup by her or by others?

I’m not clear about what you’re asking, sorry.

And had nobody complained or she was in a different state, she certainly could have gone in and out with no problem.

Well, if it was a set up, and I’m not saying it was, but if it was it would have been by her and the people she was with. And it’s possible that the person who “complained” was part of it, and the person complained hard enough that whomever felt that the cops had to be called. Maybe the complainer insisted that they be called.

The thing that makes me think it could have been a set up is the apparent speed with which the cops got there, or the possibility that they waited for them. It just takes a couple of minutes to use the bathroom and go on. When I lived in Wichita, and called the cops, they never got here in under an hour. In the tiny town I’m in now they get here within 10 minutes or so, but still, I’d have been long gone out of that bathroom in 10 minutes.

It’s just a bit of musing guys. Don’t freak out.

Here’s a bit more from Snopes. It happened, but Snopes said it probably wasn’t in NC.

@Dutchess_III

I can assume you that men are not nearly as hung up about urinals as some women seem to be. Remove them all and replace them with toilets in stalls. None of us, aside from a few knuckle-dragging neanderthals and MRA morons, will care.

LOL! I think you answered in the wrong question, but your contribution is welcome. I guess I figured that if they preferred some privacy they’d use the stalls, but the answers on the other questions show that the majority don’t use the stalls, not for just urination. I don’t know what the reason is for not using the stalls.
But if the solution is to get rid of the urinals, and nobody would care, go for it!

OK. Snopes said it first appeared on the net back in Dec. long before the passage of the NC law so that’s that.

However, I’m still hoping that in the future butch lesbians descend upon NC en masse to protest. I think it could be hilarious watching authorities in NC chase their tails trying to enforce the unenforceable.

Protest what, @Buttonstc? I thought the original issue was for transgendered people, but do we now we have others jumping on the bandwagon?

To protest the new “bathroom law” in NC, of course.

What if this kept happening over and over again in NC?

Just because this particular video didn’t necessarily take place there, doesnt mean it couldn’t in the future.

I just posted a Q in social with this scenario outlined.

Suppose hundreds of women who didn’t look feminine enough to suit them began getting ejected from restrooms all over NC?

You’re supposed to use the bathroom of what’s on your birth certificate. Says nothing about how you look. Why not teach the bastards down there a lesson they won’t forget?

@Buttonstc Seriously. I don’t even think the woman in the video looks like a man. I feel like we’re going down a rabbit hole with this bathroom law. Watch, next we’ll have some kind of crazy law dictating that you have to dress in a way that makes your gender obvious so that they can enforce their ridiculous bathroom law.

@Mariah

You’re right. I thought the same thing when I watched the video.

But unless it’s a total hoax, somebody thought she did.

But it got me to thinking about the possibilities….

:D

@Mariah hopefully the law will be overturned before it gets to that point

It’s unsustainable. It has to be overturned. Or just so poorly enforced that it may as well not exist.

@Buttonstc

Funny, that reminds me of a time I was in Chicago’s Union Station, waiting in the Amtrak lounge (after dropping money on a business class ticket), and needed to use the bathroom. I, being male, naturally used the bathroom assigned to my gender. At the time I had long hair and usually kept it pulled back. Well as I’m walking into the bathroom this female employee there catches one little glimpse of me from behind and begins to follow me into the men’s room saying “ma’am, ma’mm, you can’t go in there!”. I ignored her and went about my business, but I wonder what would have happened if I had offered proof of my gender. No doubt I would have been arrested and charged as a sex offender.

@Darth_Algar

That’s funny.

However, you were lucky that it was a woman who noticed you. Had it been some homophobic ass hole guy, you might have been fighting for your life.

So the next video that pops up (staged or not) will be of a man, who wears make up and dresses like a woman, and has a face that could pass as a woman’s (Prince comes to mind, who, I think, is incredibly good looking, as is Johnny Depp who could also pass as a woman if he choose,) getting thrown out of the men’s room because people think he’s a female, which will bring us full circle to my question, why can’t any person can use any bathroom they want?

And then it devolved into urinals. Which seems to be the biggest hurdle in this idea.

How are urinals the biggest hurdle in this issue? I’m really not understanding the fixation here.

The police have the right to ask for ID and citizen have the obligation to comply. Why didn’t she show her ID? That sounds suspicious. An innocent citizen should have no problem to do so.

Regarding this issue, the victim needs to be given a right to sue the one who reported her and the police themselves. She didn’t do anything other than pee inside ladies’ bathroom so there’s no reason to take her as a threat. Not only their action will taint her reputation, this will also serve as an excuse to prank the police just because someone doesn’t fit the description of a woman.

I imagine if a woman wear a black hijab and enter a bank she’ll be arrested and accused for suicide-bombing. Really, people tend to judge based on appearance, not action.

The video is before the law.

I really don’t see how anyone doesn’t question how that girl was behaving and realize her behavior that brought the cops there in the first place isn’t on the video.

@Unofficial_Member “The police have the right to ask for ID and citizen have the obligation to comply.”

Nowhere is this written into law.

@Darth_Algar @Unofficial_Member One is not obligated to carry ID, but one is obligated to identify oneself if asked by a police officer.

@Darth_Algar In other questions about anyone using any bathroom they want, concerns about little girls seeing penises “flapping about” was a concern that was brought up. We were trying to determine if that would really be harmful to a child in some way, or if it was just an aversion we’ve been raised with, but we never came to a consensus.

@Unofficial_Member I’m with @JLeslie. Her attitude was bad. So were the attitudes of her friends. We don’t know what she was doing before the video started running. How do you know all she wanted to do was pee? And even if that was true, how was it that she was still in the bathroom by the time the cops got there? (Unless it was staged.)

As for the cops being sued….they were just doing their job. They didn’t initiate it. Some citizen supposedly did.

@Dutchess_III

The solution is simple: stalls. I believe that was stated in previous questions, but for some reason you keep bringing up urinals.

…I was just answering your question! It’s just a couple of posts up, where you asked, ”How are urinals the biggest hurdle in this issue? I’m really not understanding the fixation here.” You asked, I answered.
It’s not a fixation. It’s part of an ongoing discussion. Do a search for “urinals” in this question, then you will understand that.
Myself, personally, I don’t really care if I see some guy’s back when he’s taking a leak. Others had concerns.

You brought up urinals here in the first place, hence where I said you keep bringing it up. It’s “part of an ongoing discussion” because you keep injecting it into these threads. Others concerns have been answered: stalls.

No thoughts other than she really looked like a guy in the clip I saw.

@Darth_Algar Stalls wouldn’t help if the girl was loitering or being a nuisance. It was a stall bathroom.

@Darth_Algar nope. @JLeslie brought it up first. I agreed with her.