South Western’s elected school board is making some strange decisions.
For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bathrooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — ending up with five different types of bathrooms.
After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serving as the board’s most vocal bomb-thrower, pointed to Red Lion’s discriminatory policies as something to aspire to.
Now, upon the advice of that law firm — the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center — the board approved spending $8,700 to cut windows so passersby can look into the so-called “gender-identity” student bathrooms.
That’s weird as hell.
You’ve always got to show up for those school board elections now. Every. Single. Time.
Or live in Houston and the governor can just strip your School Board of power, then install an unelected bureaucrat to loot the school treasury.
Mmmmm Texasy
Texussy
Just say Texas Pussy
Your generation and the reluctance to say Pussy is abhorring.
Bussy = Butt Pussy. Clussy = Clown Pussy. Its real easy, barely even saves letters to shorten it in the first place, and it works for other short words with vowels too: roof pussy, cow pussy, rent pussy, trans pussy, truck pussy.
You fuckinussy.
Tread on me, daddy.
Yeah we’re the freest state in the union as long as your chosen freedom conforms with the Republican agenda.
Do all these weirdos have gendered bathrooms in their homes? Just install single person non gendered bathrooms or floor to ceiling stalls and non connected sinks and be done with it.
I point out that communal bathrooms are the problem every time this type of nonsense shows up
I think the problem is the bigotry, personally.
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Does $9,000 seem a bit low for the cost of adding windows to all the relevant restrooms in a school district?
It looks like the district has 6 schools, not sure how many of these bathrooms are in each school, but I’m going to assume they’re probably only adding one of each gender identity bathroom per school, or 2 each, 3 if we count the unisex bathrooms.
I have no real frame of reference for what kind of windows they’re installing, so I’m not sure how much they cost, and of course windows can get as expensive as you care to spend. But after perusing home Depots website, let’s just say $500 a pop for materials.
Depending on how competent their district maintenance personnel are, they may be able to install it themselves and not need to bring in contractors, pay for overtime, etc so esentially free installation.
6 schools × 3 bathrooms × $500 per window does come out too $9000 on the dot.
Don’t know how accurate my estimates and assumptions are, but it’s potentially within the realm of possibility
Eh. Sawzall through cinder-block, pre-built window and frame, some caulk. Sure.
some caulk.
Better not be any of that in the GIRL’S bathroom!!
not completely on topic but here you go:
These are really fucking weird and dangerous people.
“Guys, guys… If we just hurt these kids enough, it will force them back into the closet and we’ll get to pretend LGBTQ+ kids don’t exist!” - These assholes, probably
That’s the plan. Ostracize to literal death and pretend it’s an unfortunate side-effect that following a god (more specifically, their god) will fix.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s not the substance of the issue that matters at all, it’s the taboo. Accepting these kids diminishes their kink, they’re not being naughty if it’s socially acceptable and wheres the fun in that.
the windows help “[add] privacy in the toilet facility”
???
I don’t think these school board members have enough privacy in their homes.
I understand it now!
The window looks over the sink area where you would wash your hands after ensuring you are dressed and decent upon leaving the private stall.
The idea is by having the window in the wash area, students will be hyperconscious that this is not a private space, and they will be mindful to move into the truly private stall before starting their private business.
I think it’s purely to avoid the following example;
The number of times I’ve stepped into a public restroom because I needed to fix something privately - my stockings are rolling down, a bandaid on my upper thigh needs replacing, my bra strap is coming loose. These are things that are private but not as private as using the toilet, so often I’ll just fix these things up while I’m at the sink area, I don’t need a stall.
But if someone walks in while I’m fixing my stockings, well they didn’t consent to seeing so much of my upper thigh when they turned the corner, and while I personally don’t care that they saw me, I can see how a teenage girl might be deeply upset if this happened because she absent mindedly forgot that the sink area is not truly private.
Spooky I think it’s to constahtkt remind the students that onky the stalls are truly private.
It’s a misguided, and potentially harmful way to do this though…
Right, Windows never added privacy.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, Republican bullshit is still Republican bullshit.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
These are the people who continually call everyone on the left “groomers” and taking an unhealthy interest in kids? The same people cutting peepholes into school bathrooms?
Anyone who shows up to a school board meeting to complain about bathrooms should automatically have the police sent to look at their hard drive. If you’re that concerned about the bathroom habits of young children, the cops really need to look at your internet history and the contents of your hard drive.
Drag wants to complain about bathrooms at schools. If we segregate the bathrooms at schools, we’re teaching kids that segregation is okay. We should be preparing the next generation to have less hangups and weird behaviour than we do. The kids already all have mixed gender bathrooms at home. They won’t think anything of desegregating bathrooms, and it’ll create a less sexist society.
If you’re gonna talk about desegregating bathrooms I think it’s important to talk about designing bathrooms for greater privacy as well. Ideally you don’t want a bunch of urinals lined up across from the sink / common area with no dividers in a desegregated bathroom. It’s a bad idea to just remove the signs on existing public bathroom designs and say anything goes.
Also, why do you keep referring to yourself in the 3rd person?
Drag isn’t referring to dragself in the third person. Drag has person independent pronouns. Most people have first, second, and third person pronouns for subject, object, and possessive. That’s 9 pronouns. Drag just has one. Much simpler and easier to remember.
For most people what’s familiar is easier to remember than what’s simpler. Personally I find drag’s comments difficult to parse. I’ll respect drag’s wishes regarding how drag wants to be referred to, but I expect drag’s going to have a lot of friction even with very tolerant and accepting people if drag insists on that pronoun choice.
This video might be helpful for drag. I know the title is a bit clickbaity but I promise the person in the video is also tolerant and accepting.
Edit: I went through and replaced all instances of you/your with drag. I think this is illustrative of the problem with drag’s approach. If everyone has to expend great effort simply to interact with drag in a respectful manner then that will lead to people becoming frustrated with drag. While drag’s identity is entirely drag’s business and no one else’s, drag’s insistence on a difficult/unfamiliar pronoun is a choice, and drag could make drag’s life easier by loosening up.
Drag is 9 minutes into the video and Jones is saying that using neopronouns is easier than people make it out to be. Drag agrees and drag told you so. Drag also already knew what a pronoun is. Drag has yet to encounter new information, apart from Zulu’s 16 grammatical genders
If drag keeps watching the next point he makes is the exact inverse, namely that neopronouns are also harder than many people make them out to be. Specifically when he talks about the processing cost that is incurred by using even standard/traditional pronouns in certain ways. The parts of the video I thought would be most helpful are in his conclusion, so I do recommend watching to the end.
The part I believe is helpful starts at 15:10
Drag will watch the video, but drag wonders why the title uses a right wing name for the right wing, and a right wing name for the left wing. The video could use each side’s name for themselves, or each side’s name for the other side. But only using right wing terms makes it seem like the video has a right wing bias. Drag will still watch, but drag will do so with critical thinking.
I noticed that too when I first came across the video, but after becoming more familiar with this person’s content I saw that they lean progressive/inclusive and the title is like that probably just for the sake of clickbait or because they’re coming from a more centrist/liberal perspective and aren’t as familiar with leftist terminology.
I still think their perspective as a linguist is worth hearing.
Drag finished watching the video pretty much. 3 minutes left and it seemed like she was winding down. Drag was already familiar with all the main content Jones covered. Drag thinks she’s probably underestimating the knowledge of linguistics literacy on the left because she’s from a more right leaning culture, where the “left wing” people local to that area are who would be considered moderates in other places. She used a right wing name for the left wing, so drag thinks she hasn’t actually immersed herself in left wing political culture enough to understand it.
With regard to the argument that using new pronouns is hard, drag understands and already knew her arguments. But drag thinks Jones neglected to consider the impact of neuroplasticity. Adapting to neopronouns is a skill. People with lots of practice get it faster and with less effort. Drag’s presence on Lemmy is challenging people and causing them to learn. Expanding minds. Just like the linguist with the N word pronouns. Drag picked new pronouns for this account as an experiment. Drag likes the new pronouns. Drag made revisions when an idea didn’t work, and now drag sometimes uses drag/dragself pronouns in conversation with drag’s friends and family off of Lemmy. They make drag feel dragony.
Drag’s identity is a conversation.
EDIT: Also, drag just remembered Jones’ point about misgendering trans people in conversation with people who know less. Well, drag has been in that situation. Drag was out to everyone and presenting full time, and even though drag’s mother struggled with drag’s pronouns, drag felt like she was finally getting it and understanding. She hadn’t misgendered drag in nearly a year. Well, then drag overheard drag’s mother in the next room he/him-ing drag to drag’s elderly grandfather. And drag felt like shit. Drag’s grandfather is in his 90s and he’s an asshole. He’s never going to accept drag. And drag had accepted that, and decided to just ignore him until he died. But when drag’s mother, who had been making all that progress, he/him-ed drag to the grandfather, drag suddenly realised that drag didn’t know if she had been misgendering drag behind drag’s back all the time. Drag realised that drag would never be able to trust that she was actually making an effort to respect drag, or if she was just appeasing drag to drag’s face. So drag moved out of home and cut contact with her. And drag is going to ignore her until she dies too. That’s not the only reason for our bad relationship, but it was a point where everything crystallised and drag decided to stop making excuses for her.
I appreciate that drag took the time to watch the whole video and I think drag is probably right about Jones’ cultural background, as it is similar to mine. I only meant to help make drag’s life easier if that’s something drag was having trouble with, but I respect that drag already understood the friction that drag’s neopronoun creates and made an informed choice to use it on lemmy.
Also, nice Steven Universe clip. That’s a show that helped me understand people like drag and is why I have the patience to engage with drag despite the very conservative cultural context I live in.
Who is this “Drag” that you keep referring to?
Drag would appreciate it if you used drag’s second person neopronouns instead of saying “you”. Drag only has one pronoun, so it’s very simple to use and easy to remember, and drag’s pronoun is in drag’s display name.
Oh, I see you’re just trolling. Carry on.
Yep, the people whose entire personality is combating the “woke liberal left”.
You know, the people they portray is foaming at the mouth woke crusaders. When in actuality, 95% of left voters consist of people who don’t give a shit about all this besides listening to the oppressed minorities problems and proposed solutions, and showing the smallest amount of empathy.
“Oh damn, I didn’t realize you dealt with that shit. Yeah, ok, gender neutral bathrooms are cool. Whatever you need, doesn’t bother me.”
Right: “screeeeeeeee!!!”
Every accusation is an admission. Never forget it.
Seriously though, what the actual goddamned fuck.
In case anyone else was wondering how they came up with 5 types of bathroom:
bathrooms for males assigned as male at birth, females assigned as female at birth, males based on gender identity, females based on gender identity, and private, single-use bathrooms for all students to use.
…those don’t even remotely work to serve all genders.
I still wouldn’t technically be able to pee anywhere if I was a student at that school (other than the single stall room…why not just have a bunch like that?)
the fact they have the space for all of that means they have the space to eliminate communal bathrooms altogether
It sounded like that’s their current “problem.”. Since it’s the adults with agendas that are doing the only complaining, the kids are just using whatever bathroom is most convenient, so CIS kids are using the Identify as X bathroom because they don’t care, they just need to use a damn bathroom. I took it as that’s why they want the windows in the non CIS bathrooms.
I feel stupider for having to try to explain this like it makes any sense. Just have single, unisex bathrooms already like everyone has at home!
Looking at Children Pee is NOT what Pedophiles do! Pedophiles are the ones NOT Looking at Children’s Genitals!
They are out of their minds
I’d love to invite a board member to urinate into a jar in the middle of a meeting since that should be perfectly acceptable.
I’m sure they’ll all run to the jar like some halfwit version of political saw…
From a local station.
"Our students should not consider the space outside of our stalls as private within the multiuser restrooms. Our current policy states ‘In any facility in a District school that is for use based on Gender Identity, in which a person may be in a state of undress in the presence of others, school personnel shall provide private changing areas for use.’ Areas between our stalls and sinks in multiuser restrooms are not private changing areas under that policy.
Just fucking WOW. I guess we should check their assholes next.
Ok, I’ll explain that a little better: the place where you take a shit is a private space. The place where you wash your hands is a public space.
In a normal restroom, it is permissible to be partially undressed outside of the stalls, but within the hand washing area of the restroom, as that can be considered a changing area, like a locker room.
With the addition of the window, there is no longer a place that can be considered a “changing area” outside the stalls. If they built proper walls and used proper doors for the “stalls”, they just made some private restrooms next to some public sinks.
The discourse around this is very confusing, especially as a non American who has never been in an American school bathroom.
What you’re describing sounds like a normal public toilet set up in my country
There’s a hallway or doorway into an open space with mirrors sinks and hand dryers, sometimes that hallway has a door to it, but often it’s just an open door frame. Sometimes they’ll put a 90 degree turn in the hall to obscure looking straight in, but not always.
Behind the sinks are private stalls. At more expensive locations they’ll have semiambulant stalls, some will even have their own sink inside the stall so that the full access toilet and wash room can be available to those who can’t ambulate.
(full access toilets and wash rooms are entirely seperate from the sink and stalls)
The sink area is often still segregated by gender at older establishments, but anyone walking past could glimpse in and see /shock fully dressed people washing their hands!
What you’re describing sounds like a normal public toilet set up in my country
From the school restrooms I’ve seen depicted in various British TV shows, there isn’t much physical difference. The only practical difference is that males, females, and various other genders might be washing hands in the same room at the same time. Now with a window to remind everyone that the sink area is a public space, and isn’t to be used as a changing area.
This is to alienate or ostracize a certain group. They don’t care that someone might change in that area. They want it to fail.
Since you only have a reference from tv about other places outside the US, Germany has unisex bathrooms. It is a place to shit and piss. If you want to change, knock yourself out. However in the US we have tiny doors that you can easily see around. Privacy is not high on our list.
The Republicans do, indeed, want to get rid of these bathrooms, and revert them to boys rooms. If they controlled the board, that is exactly what they would have. The fact that they have 5 different types of restrooms tells me the Republicans aren’t the ones making the decisions; the board is accommodating the students.
The Republicans are using a law prohibiting coed changing rooms. They are claiming the area outside the stalls qualifies as a changing area, and they have precedence to support that designation. If it is a changing area, the gender inclusive restroom violates the law. They do, indeed, want it to fail, which it will do if the issue goes to court while that law is in place.
Unless they can prove that the area outside the stalls is not a changing area. Changing areas don’t have public-facing windows. It can’t be an illegal, coed changing area if it has a public-facing window.
Germany has unisex bathrooms.
That is exactly what they made here. Each stall is now considered a unisex bathroom, and the hand washing area is no longer a “changing area”.
It is a place to shit and piss. If you want to change, knock yourself out. However in the US we have tiny doors that you can easily see around.
Does this particular room use typical semi-private partitions, or have they switched to some sort of wall or full partition that offers actual privacy? The photo shows only the window; it does not provide a good view of the stalls.
You are missing the major point. They are only doing it to one group (singling out). Imagine if they cut a window into the female’s bathroom and determined the outside was not considered private? How about they cut windows to all the bathrooms and make all as just bathrooms. Like you do at your house, unless you have a men’s and women’s bathrooms.
Not all communal restrooms have stall partitions suitable for that plan. Nor do they need them if the area outside the stalls is a changing area. The school does need to provide changing areas. Eliminating one unnecessarily doesn’t make sense.
