Unisex restrooms

The use the bathroom of your choice movement (pun intended) has taken on a life of its own. Yet there are two things which strike me which are so obvious that I cannot fathom anyone not understanding and accepting their truth.

The main idea for gender neutral services appears to pivot on how people identify themselves. The presumption is that you are who you think you are no matter the real facts. I will say bluntly and emphatically that this is wrong. A guy is a guy no matter what he believes, as is a woman. I am not, nor is the larger society, obliged to feed the delusion of those who are wrong about who they are. It is not charity to acquiesce in delusion anyway. Charity is trying to help such folk rid themselves of their error, as compassionately as circumstances allow. So no, people confused as to who they are have no right to use the facilities of their choice.

The other major argument for allowing unisex restrooms is that hey, bathrooms in private homes are unisex. This is as true as it is obvious. But it is intellectual dishonesty to take the point further than propriety allows and argue that all bathrooms everywhere must (or ought to be) unisex. A bathroom in a private home is single service: only one person at a time uses it, unless that person chooses to let someone else in while they're there. Public services, even those with stalls, by their nature do not afford that same degree of privacy.

I am willing to argue it is axiomatic that propriety demands that public facilities be gender specific: when dealing with private functions in public areas there is simply nothing wrong with keeping genders separate. To do otherwise is to feed delusion. Or, worse, perversion.

This is not a difficult issue. Yet it is being made difficult by those who will not see reason. It is a prime example of the tyranny of the individual. It is as bad, and arguably worse, than the tyranny of the state.

Right is Right. Wrong isn't

There are times where you just don't know where to start. When dealing with something so obviously wrong that everyone, every single one of us, should see what is wrong yet a good many of us insist is still somehow right, whaddya say to those who support the errant view? What can you do besides shake your head while trying to clear the errant thoughts, besides shaking your head trying to understand how otherwise rational human beings can support the insipid if not downright stupid? What can you say but ask, 'How can you think that?'.

The whole Bruce (we will not call him by any other name) Jenner plane crash illustrates this conundrum. You're a guy, Bruce. Science says so. And it's the same science which Christians are told every single day should guide their beliefs. Your DNA says you're a guy. Cut, snip, alter, and take all the meds you want. You're still a guy, Bruce. Science says so, and quite definitively. Accept that, if science is your god.

Yet he, and perhaps more interestingly those libertarian libertines who support him, solely because he fits their bill of individual rights, say the individual is who he or she says he or she is. When the person wants what is eminently stupid, well, that's on him. Or her, lest we offend those who personally select their feminine gender without regard for biological (read that scientific) truth. Well, maybe that's on him (or her). But if it is, then we must wonder how truly sentient and rational he (or she) is.

The rest of us, let's rest on our reason. We will be crucified. But at least we'll be in good company.

Bruce Jenner is a Man

Bruce Jenner, the former Olympic athlete, has come out and said something which surprises no one. He has announced to the world that, for all intents and purposes, he is a woman.

We beg to differ with Mr. Jenner. For more than any intent or purpose, you are a man.

This is not a philosophic point. It is based on hard and certain science. Science tells us whether we're male or female. In fact, that's one of the easiest things science can tell us, based on our DNA. Your DNA tells us that you're a man or woman. Nothing else determines your gender. You can have whatever surgeries you want and take whatever pills are available and you will still genetically be (outside of rare cases of which Jenner does not fit) what you were born being. Period.

Yet he feels like a woman and feels he can help other guys who feel like women. But what good is that? How can it possibly be helpful for anyone to encourage them to be what they are not? How can denying physical reality actually help anyone in becoming what they are unless we accept that physical is reality is the most obvious determinant of what we are? And we will say here without reservation that it isn't bravery to chalk things up to how we happen to feel. Folks have 'felt' wrong things to be right for all of history. Simply put, feelings and yearnings cannot make a given position right. That position must right on its own merit.

This doesn't mean that we should not have compassion for those who struggle with so-called gender identity issues. Why they feel as they do may be the result of many things, from a psychological issue to a deep seated delusion. We say delusion as nothing more than an observation rather than an insult; aren't we all at times delusional over this or that, especially when we may want something patently untrue to in fact be true? Why ought the Bruce Jenners of the world not be subject to that same scrutiny so long as it's done within an honest and charitable framework?

The world wants us to believe in science. That is, until science dictates something which we don't like. In this case, it tells us emphatically that we are either male or female. Denying that will help no one's mental health. Accepting it more likely will.