the lawsuit suggests that some of these beliefs are being passed to the next generation.
I was part of a very small percentage of students who supported the transgender students that attended my High School, so it's not hard for me to believe that these prejudices will be passed down for many generations to come.
it’s evidence that a cultural truce over gender expression might not be possible.
I don't think people will ever really reach a truce on anything. As Tick says in "His & Hers", we are on the move towards a time where post-gender will affect our designs, but I think that some people themselves will never truly be able to give up their natural hatreds. In fact, it may also be that we never reach an ethnical truce, a racial truce, a religions truce, or any kind of truce. Not until our history is able to vanish or our minds augmented and uploaded will we be able to drop our biases.
If men—the putatively stronger, more powerful, and more physically intimidating sex—are allowed in women’s bathrooms, the argument goes, women will be in danger of sexual assault
I've personally never really understood this argument. If a man really wanted to go into a woman's bathroom to sexually assault them, he'd just do it anyway.
“All children must be protected and respected, and having common sense, reasonable boundaries in these private, intimate spaces is protected by law,”
There were only two transgender people in my graduating class, and they both had to go talk to the principle because of people complaining about them using the bathroom. After a month or two of parents constantly calling in to the school, complaining about the transgender students, and begging for them to be kicked out, things finally cooled down. However, the transgender students had to use the single stall bathrooms that were reserved for teachers for the rest of the year against their will. I've always thought that was extremely sad, and looking back "His & Hers", I'd argue that schools (at least in the south) still haven't caught up to the races in gender identities. They haven't even caught up to the workplace in my opinion.
Wisdom from the Bible can be brought to bear on any question, but on this issue, the ideas at stake are foundational.
This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that marriage has a biblical connotation.
with history neatly arcing toward acceptance
With regards to race, there still isn't really absolute equality, so will gender equality take as long as racial equality has to come about.
compared the legislation to Jim Crow
It's really hard for me to grasp the notion that this legislation is like the Jim Crowe laws. I'm not saying that they aren't the same, but it's just really scary and sad to think that laws like that are still in place.
But why did bathrooms come next?
In "His & Hers", Tick argues that the spacial design of the workplace will change very soon to fit different peoples sexual and gender related identities, and she says that it all starts with the bathrooms. I person is very vulnerable in a bathroom, and unless they can feel comfortable, they won't be able to work at that place.
“So long as it’s just been an institution that’s made up of a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, [marriage] has had a kind of stabilizing effect,
I think that the term "marriage" has a really religious connotation to it, which is maybe why its taken so long for same sex marriage to become a reality. In Christianity, homosexuality is considered absolute evil, and I think that the American definition of marriage is mostly associated with the Christian definition of marriage.
“men in women’s bathrooms”
I've definitely heard this phrase said a lot where I'm from and in my own family. Some people, especially in the south, just can't come to terms with the changing sexual landscape of the American culture.
America is experiencing a period of profound gender anxiety. Mainstream understandings of “gender” are changing,
In "His & Hers", Tick argues that we are on the horizon of this conflict being solved and of a post-gender world. Based on the changes that I've seen through out the past few years, I'd say that I agree with her.
Tick, Suzanne. “His & Hers: Designing for a Post-Gender Society - Metropolis Magazine - March 2015.” Accessed October 31, 2016. http://www.metropolismag.com/March-2015/His-or-Hers-Designing-for-a-Post-Gender-Society/
In this article, Tick argues that the world of design is falling behind in the changing landscape of gender identity. She then points to how design is still under the influence of modernism, which was a movement shaped by predominately male perspectives, and she says that it wasn't until quite recently that we started to see a more feminine design coming into the workplace with windows and softer colors. She then goes on to compare the workplace to other areas of design like fashion, which she says is one of the most forerunners in gender evolution because of its rapid movement. She ends the article by addressing the problem of the transgender people and bathrooms by stating that in the near future, we should start to see design in the workplace that accommodates to all sexual orientations.