There is a dispute going between TRAs (Trans Rights Activists) versus GCRFs (Gender Critical Radical Feminists). Some Greens are upset about it.
Basicly, trans activists say that Trans Women Are Women (TWAW). Therefore, trans women deserve to be treated exactly like cis women in all ways and there must not be any discrimination of any sort.
Meanwhile, some radical feminists say that Trans Women Are Men (TWAM) and actual women deserve some privacy from them.
There is a short list of intractible practical concerns where this matters, that are hard to resolve. The obvious example is public restrooms. If trans women are men then they should not use women's restrooms, but they may not be safe in men's restrooms and there are not enough single-user restrooms. We cannot immediately build millions of new restrooms, so we must decide the issue based on morality. If TWAW then no one can be allowed to object to them using women's restrooms, and anyway "separate but equal" is morally wrong. If TWAM then it's wrong to let them into women's restrooms to ogle the women.
So people argue the moral issue, and get angry. The TRAs appear to be in the majority in the Green Party or at least they are louder. Their most vocal advocates insist that GCRFs must be censored and thrown out of the party. Because GCRFs are evil homophobes who hate trans people. GCRFs insist that they should be allowed to speak, and that TRAs are evil misogynists who hate women.
Is there a logical way out of this impasse? Do our Green key values give us a clue?
I say yes. Greens value equal rights for all. Women have traditionally been oppressed, and the oppressive society has given them some minor perquisites and benefits to make up for it in small ways. Things like their own restrooms. Trans women are also oppressed. Do they deserve exactly the same special benefits? No. In principle neither deserve special privileges. It is a trap to spend our time arguing about who deserves which special privileges to make up for past oppression. We can never balance all that out.
Greens value equal rights for all. We do not recommend special privileges for anybody. Equal rights for all. If anybody is being oppressed, we intend to end the oppression. We do not end oppression by bestowing special rights. That is not how it's done. We cannot give everyone equal rights by handing out percs and bennies to some people and not others.
Does that mean we should only allow unisex restrooms? No. Greens value cultural diversity. We don't want to make everybody behave the same.
But if we don't make every subculture in the USA act the same, how can we make sure that nobody is ever oppressed? Probably we can't do that. We aren't gods. We can try to make it easy for people to leave places they are being oppressed and make a new start in a different subculture. We can try to build communities that people would be happy to escape to.
We value decentralization, grassroots democracy, and community economics.
So how do we decide the restroom issue? This is not about fundamental human rights. It's a cultural issue. Decide it on a local level. We don't want to legislate that every subculture has to arrange its culture the same way.
And the censorship? Don't throw people out of the party when they agree with our key values. Don't prevent people from speaking. AND we can have times and places where we want to focus on particular discussions. If we are working out details about how to create renewable energy, it's crass to interrupt at length about Palestine or animal rights. Everyone should have the opportunity to join your discussion. You annoy them if you try to force them to listen.
Does this make sense?
I am transgender (MtF). So I will chime in to some degree...
I am on the side of TWAW. I see myself as a female, and pass as female. I am what they call "Stealth" meaning unless I told you I was transgender, you wouldn't know. I would look *way* out of place if I were forced to use the male bathrooms.
I have also lived in multiple states in the country. I came out as trans in Mississippi, not exactly friendly territory.
I don't feel safe going into the male bathroom and never have since coming out. In regards to bathroom access, there are already laws on the books protecting females (cis or trans) in bathrooms. Laws about sexual abuse, peeping toms, voyeurism, etc. All of those acts are already illegal.
Further, there have not been any legal cases (as to my knowledge), where a transgender individual has violated the rights or liberties of a cisgender in the bathroom.
Science does back up the statement that TWAW. There are MRI Scans showing that the brains of a MtF are the same as a female. Vice versa for FtM transgender scans, they are the same as Males.
Thank you!
My personal opinion is that if you can use a women's restroom without causing a disturbance, then no one should be concerned about you doing just that. If there is a problem there, you are not part of it.
TWAW is not a scientific question. It is a cultural one. The important question is what rights everybody should have. The Green Party's position is that everybody deserves equal rights. So I say the Green Party does not need to decide what trans women are, any more than we need to decide what nonbinary people are. Any more than we need an official Green Party position on what status Mary Mother of God has in Heaven.
There is virtually no cases in which a transgender individual has assaulted someone in the ladies bathroom.
As a Satanist and a member of The Temple of Satan, my viewpoints are based upon science. As one of their key tenets is just that.
"if you can use a women's restroom without causing a disturbance, then no one should be concerned about you doing just that." This opens up lots of issues... Who determines who passes enough to use what bathroom? This goes against the decentralization key values...
However, one could argue that if a cisgender female is afraid of using the bathroom for fear of being assaulted, they also have the option to not use the public bathroom. Just like we have the option to as well.
What I think is the best thing would be to mandate that all new construction consists of gender-neutral only facilities. And by that I don't mean family single occupancy bathrooms. There are archeological designs that are out there for dual-gender bathrooms. In doing so, it would allow not only transgender access, but also non-binary access.
History is rife with examples where a minority was oppressed, or forced to do something because another party feared something.
"There is virtually no cases in which a transgender individual has assaulted someone in the ladies bathroom."
There aren't very many where males have asssaulted transgender individuals in men's restrooms either. If the attack rate is low, that says this isn't as urgent an issue as if it was high.
""if you can use a women's restroom without causing a disturbance, then no one should be concerned about you doing just that." This opens up lots of issues... Who determines who passes enough to use what bathroom? This goes against the decentralization key values..."
I agree with you about scence. I try to fit my own choices with science as best I know it. But we have a grassroots democracy key value. People who don't care about science get a vote. We all have a right to be wrong. And so to a large extent, whatever cultural values are predominant will trump science and reason etc. We have to live with that until we can persuade the majority.
"What I think is the best thing would be to mandate that all new construction consists of gender-neutral only facilities."
I think that is a good long-run solution, depending. If we're talking about unisex restrooms that men and women use together, that depends on cultural values. Some places it's OK, some places not. I've read that men attack women in those somewhat more than they do in restrooms they aren't allowed in, BUT I haven't seen anything about whether the total number of attacks goes up. If the attacks are just spread out more, and maybe not as many total, that wouldn't say that unisex restrooms are bad.
Single-user and family restrooms are acceptable everywhere. There definitely should be more of those. They aren't that much more expensive, you need some extra walls, and if the sinks etc are included then you might have the same number of sinks as toilets, while I think generally now there are less, often 2/3 as many.
"In doing so, it would allow not only transgender access, but also non-binary access."
The whole argument about cis women and trans women ignores nonbinaries. It's two bunches of binaries arguing.
I figure that since we have to cater to public opinion and cultural values, whatever laws we want to pass should be at the lowest practical level. In line with grassroots democracy and decentralization. The smaller the area, the less likely that a local majority will feel oppressed by laws from elsewhere. The more different examples we get, the more likely somebody will come up with a good solution. Places where cis and trans women get along, don't have to be burdened with federal laws created in hostility.
It doesn't solve the problem, but it helps us live with not having the problem solved in the short run.