Straw-man: Perverts in the Bathroom
I thought I would clarify some of the arguments being used by bathroom alarmists.
We start with the guidance letter sent by the Dept. of Justice and Education that was sent to schools all over the country answering questions about trans* students and how to comply with Title IX.
U.S. Departments of Justice and Education Release Joint Guidance to Help Schools Ensure the Civil Rights of Transgender Students
The U.S. Departments of Justice and Education released joint guidance today to help provide educators the information they need to ensure that all students, including transgender students, can attend school in an environment free from discrimination based on sex.
Recently, questions have arisen from school districts, colleges and universities, and others about transgender students and how to best ensure these students, and non-transgender students, can all enjoy a safe and discrimination-free environment.
Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, schools receiving federal money may not discriminate based on a student’s sex, including a student’s transgender status. The guidance makes clear that both federal agencies treat a student’s gender identity as the student’s sex for purposes of enforcing Title IX.
“There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex,” said Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. “This guidance gives administrators, teachers and parents the tools they need to protect transgender students from peer harassment and to identify and address unjust school policies. I look forward to continuing our work with the Department of Education — and with schools across the country — to create classroom environments that are safe, nurturing, and inclusive for all of our young people.” — https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-departments-justice-and-education-release-joint-guidance-help-schools-ensure-civil-rights
You can read the rest of the letter in the link provided, but I want you to notice how the letter does not say anything about a mandate from Obama or about letting men in the ladies room to do whatever.
Taken from the Nizkor Project:
Description of Straw Man
The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:
Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This was the response to the letter.
President Obama ordered all schools to make all bathrooms transgender or face a loss of federal funding. — http://www.snopes.com/obama-transgender-bathrooms/
Typical straw man arguments usually look like this. Dept. of Justice and Education issue a guidance, a couple of cities pass anti-discrimination ordinances, and it’s, “OMG! They are letting men use the ladies’ room! What is this, some horrible social experiment! Perverts will come for your women and children! Obama passes an edict to make all restrooms transgender! Oh the humanity!”
Some people are rather sly in their wording and have specious arguments down to a fine art from.
There was one guy on Medium trolling The Nib publication. He was good at making specious and fallacious arguments. He misused a study to say there were only 20,000 to 30,000 trans* folks in the entire US. The study only counted those who already opted for surgical transition. There was another study which said trans* folk makeup about 0.3% or 700,000 people, which is more likely still not accurate. He guesses since there are more perverts than trans* people, perverts will take advantage of being trans* to assault or stalk women in the restroom. Of course, he said he had no idea how many perverts there are in the US, and he also did not seem interested in the fact there have been zero instances of people assuming an alternate gender identity to assault women.
When I countered his argument, he changed his story to the threat of voyeurism and used those same numbers to describe 20,000 to 30,000 perverts watching women in the locker room.
He invented another imaginary scenario where he walks into the Curve’s women’s locker room with a white T-shirt and jeans. If anyone stops him, he will just tell them he’s post-gender.
All of these arguments were examples of the “perverts in the bathroom” straw man. They were imaginary scenarios which had nothing to do with the real reason for all this very recent “moral outrage.” These arguments were also similar to the slippery slope argument, which is if trans* people were given protections under the law, then a flood of male perverts will invade women’s restrooms under some imaginary amnesty granted by gender identity. These were arguments that appealed to fear, e.g. women and children might be molested or raped, which was another fallacy.
Another fallacy floating around is the false dilemma. The false dilemma is trans* people should either get their own separate-but-equal facilities, or all restrooms should be assigned to one’s birth certificate and not gender. The real solution should be to let trans* people use the facilities according to their gender identity, as they did before this became a manufactured national outrage.
There is still another which is not readily known called the genetic fallacy.
Description of Genetic Fallacy
A Genetic Fallacy is a line of “reasoning” in which a perceived defect in the origin of a claim or thing is taken to be evidence that discredits the claim or thing itself. It is also a line of reasoning in which the origin of a claim or thing is taken to be evidence for the claim or thing. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:
The origin of a claim or thing is presented.
The claim is true(or false) or the thing is supported (or discredited).
It is clear that sort of “reasoning” is fallacious. For example: “Bill claims that 1+1=2. However, my parents brought me up to believe that 1+1=254, so Bill must be wrong.”
It should be noted that there are some cases in which the origin of a claim is relevant to the truth or falsity of the claim. For example, a claim that comes from a reliable expert is likely to be true (provided it is in her area of expertise).
An example of the genetic fallacy would be the excuse the religious often trot out concerning things of natural proper order in their Bible. They say their Bible tells them the difference between man and woman, that homosexuality is a sin, and that people are naturally prone to sin and perversion. There are those who are not particularly religious but still make the same sort of claims.
They claim they were taught in grade school or high school the superficial differences in men and women and something about chromosomes, but the education just stops there, and now, they are experts in human biology and psycho-biology, and psychology.
The historical reason for segregating restrooms was nothing so banal nor was it rooted in any scientific reason. It was due to something called the “separate spheres ideology” or just good ole fashioned sexism.
Below is a presentation from the American Academy of Pediatrics from September 2015:
The truth is that there is a biological component to being trans*. It is a biological innate sense of self very similar to what most people experience. There are even rare exceptions where some trans* people are physically intersexed, even partially.
There was nothing in the guidance letter or the new bathroom policies which would make any of those above scary scenarios a legal possibility. There were already laws in place to protect people in the public restrooms and locker rooms, and private businesses have provisions as well.
If you encounter arguments like these and feel the need to counter them, remember what I wrote. Some people do not mean to be intentionally dishonest. They fall for these arguments due to their appearance as rational discourse. There are some, though, who do indeed mean to deceive people, and it needs to stop. Hopefully, the tools I provided here will help.
