Considering the proportion of the population that is gay, any locker room for either gender likely already has several people in it who would be sexually attracted to the other people in it. Should we ban gay people from locker rooms? Force them to use the other one?
I think it's important to not conflate two different issues here. One is whether this particular transsexual should be allowed in the locker room or bathroom. The other is what is motivating those who oppose it. Your reply to me addresses point 1 but doesn't address point 2. Point 2 was the main focus of my post in reply to DCal. DCal had compared the issue to segregation of schools in the south prior to the success of the civil rights movement, clearly implying that bigotry is the reason for the opposition. You more than implied this yourself with your first post in the thread about "rural Missouri." This is principally what my post was about.
All I'm saying is that we don't need bigotry as an explanation when body shame, a frame of mind to which we are all heavily indoctrinated, is a perfectly sufficient explanation. In the south, they opposed blacks going to the same school, eating in the same cafeteria, drinking from the same fountains, using the same playgrounds, etc etc. The fact that this particular protest involves only bathrooms and locker rooms should clue any reasonable person that generic bigotry against transsexuals isn't a necessary explanation.
Do you honestly think that a teenage girl who doesn't want someone with a penis seeing them undressing must be presumed to harbor animus toward transsexuals? You and DCal seemed to be suggesting that such animus was the only possible explanation when in fact you have another explanation which is wholly sufficient in and of itself. Sure, bigotry might play a role for some of those in opposition here, but we can't just assert it, in knee-jerk fashion, as the only explanation when another quite obvious and sufficient motive is in play.
As to whether this particular transsexual should be allowed in the locker or bathroom, you have a decent point. These issues often involve weighing and balancing the interests of the individual in being free from discrimination against people who may have an objection not necessarily founded on bigotry. With gays, you're talking about excluding them from facilities they have used their entire lives because they have always identified with whatever gender they were biologically born to. Suddenly excluding them because they may have come out as gay at say age 15 is a greater harm to them than not permitting someone to switch to facilities they never used before. This transsexual used male facilities before and is obviously comfortable with them. She can use those facilities or gender neutral facilities. While this isn't a perfect argument or perfect solution, it's the best we can do to balance competing interests here.
My own position is that the bathroom should probably be OK because female bathrooms have people doing their business exclusively in closed stalls, but locker-rooms, with open showers and undressing, should not be OK. That's the best I can come up with in addressing this difficult issue.
The bottom line is that we as a society have indoctrinated our children with shame over their naked bodies, especially girls even more so than boys. It's not right to impose that upon them then say they must cast it aside in the name of tolerance, and if they have trouble casting it aside because it is so ingrained, we assume it's because they're intolerant instead of just embarrassed. Yet we know they are embarrassed because we've been
telling them to be embarrassed their entire lives.
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