The left just gets weirder and weirder...
Under a new initiative to provide equitable services, student unions of at least two Canadian universities -- Concordia and Simon Fraser -- are in talks with their administrations about where to build special washrooms this fall for the transgender population on campus. And at McGill University, a gender-neutral washroom is being designed for the first floor of the student centre. Renovations to the building are expected to be completed by the end of the academic year.
Too much time, meet too much money...
"To many, access is narrowly defined as a wheelchair ramp and a wheelchair-accessible toilet within a gender-segregated washroom. This definition of access simply does not reflect the reality for many students on this campus," said Brianna Hersey, a vice-president at the Students’ Society of McGill University in Montreal.
I wouldn’t be talking about reality in this context if I were you...
Gone would be the pictogram on the door, replaced by the word "washroom." And instead of a handful of stalls, it would be a single-unit washroom. It’s rare, but not impossible to find single-room washrooms, in small restaurants, for example. But student unions say they have felt increased pressure from transgender students to build specific gender-neutral washrooms on university grounds. Being transgender is defined as having personal characteristics that go beyond traditional gender boundaries and sexual norms. Some transgender people may have undergone surgery to become a member of the opposite sex.
Just what kind of pressure can transvestites exert? Threaten to stop buying Canadian-made bras, stop playing dress-up?
| Ummmm... How many transgender stoodents are swarming these colleges? In the past fifty years, I've met precisely zero transgendered folk that I know of. |
"There’s enough of a need that we even have the Transgender Alliance, which is a group on our campus that does advocacy work, and runs workshops," said Brianna, who is a gender-variant student, not committed to a specific gender. The Transgender Alliance has about 15 members, Brianna said. (Some members of the transgender community choose not to use honorifics with their names.)
Honor and transgender is not a concept to be used in the same sentance
| Which specific gender is Brianna not committed to? Brianna's a feminine name, so does that imply he/she/it is not committed to the masculine? Or is he/she/it not committed to her feminine charms, wishing mightily that she had a pee bug and no bosom? At which point in building their strength to 15 did the transgendered folk achieve the influence necessary to co-opt the design and function of all the toidies on two campuses, which presumably are home to a thousand stoodents or more? At which point did they not have the influence? Below ten? If I get together 14 other men/women/others can I get machines installed in each bathroom to help me put my socks on? |
Younger people tend to embrace change,
| ... though usually not to the point of leaving their gender... |
and university campuses are usually where new ideas, such as gender-neutral washrooms, can take root, said Barbara Warren of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York. "I think it’s absolutely fabulous," she said. "They’re creating a safe place for trans-people."
| What, precisely, is unsafe about the existing facilities? Do the ceilings need raised? Do the thrones need widened? Help me out here... |
Given the college educuation system in the USA and Canada, it is more likely that once young people realize what pro-gay initiatives like this really mean, they would not ’embrace’ it quite so closely.
At McGill, the first-floor of the new student centre building will have a washroom for transgender students to use with "ease and dignity," Brianna said.
| "Hurrah!" Brianna said. "I can now poop with dignity! Isn't it grand?" |
It’s also for disabled students and parents with babies.
If they want dignity they can use the male, or female baffrooms. Oh wait, which one are we talking about? You are confusing me. Maybe this whole concept is confused.
The Transgender Alliance and Queer McGill were among the groups who appealed for these facilities.
Duh!!
At Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., one student complained to the student newspaper, The Peak, that gender-neutral washrooms are a waste of university funds, especially when tuition fees are going up significantly in the province.
| Lookidat! He's discovered cause and effect! |
"It is moronic ideas like that that raise tuition, ladies, gentleman and everything in between. The university has far better things to do with its money than make sure that transgender people have a warm and happy place to go . . ." the student wrote in a letter to the editor.
| When I was a tad, my Dad used to occasionally take me with him to the Silver Dollar Bar and Grille. This was, as should be such dens of iniquity, a seedy place, run by a lady with heavily waxed hair and lipstick on her teeth. There I would drink an unidentified cola while Dad renewed acquaintances with the friends of his disreputable youth, sometimes consuming as many as two beers in an afternoon. The sole facilities available for disposing of the cola drink consisted of a single, tiny room with a throne, a heavily stained sink, a sliver of Lava soap that never changed size, and a paper towel dispenser, all cunningly arranged so that when the door opened the entire establishment got to view whomever was occupying the throne. So it seems the hillbillies were ahead of the college-educated in this one. As a bonus, I should really warn them against replacing the paper towel rollers with those hot air machines that blow your hands dry, as happened in later years in the Silver Dollar. If you should meet an acquaintance in the parking lot and rearrange each other's features, the machines don't work nearly as well as the paper towel rollers for wiping the blood and the gravel from the remains of your face. Don't ask me how I know. |
The idea came about after a student asked where someone would go to the bathroom if they didn’t fit into either gender category. "We realized there was nowhere.
| "You'll just have to hold it 'til you get home!" |
SFU has the duty to accommodate undue hardship," said Louis, who said he feels uncomfortable using a gender-specific washroom.
Even if it is self-imposed hardship?
How large is the transgender population at Simon Fraser? "It doesn’t really matter," Louis said. "If there was one student this would be necessary. It’s a public service that should be provided to all students."
| Guess that answers my previous questions. The answer is fatuous and doesn't make any sense, but it answers the questions. |
I can provide a service to the ’trans’ population, called removing one’s head from one’s ass. It is available to all students, not just ’trans’, and it is free. |