Trans Bathroom Debate - Gender Identity

How much is gender identity instinctive and how much is conditioned?  And to what extent is the gender one identifies with, tied with to one's sexuality and one's sexual preferences?   I find it easier to accept differences in sexual preferences than I do people who feel that they're of the wrong gender to the point that they insist on trying to act and look like what the culture defines the other gender is supposed to look like and act like.  Worse yet, to the point of using hormones and having gender reassignment surgery. 

As social nudists, we have a different perspective on this issue. But it's not that different.  As anyone who wasn't deliberately conditioned otherwise, we don't see the difference in the anatomies of the different genders as being that big a deal.  We'd accept either, both, or neither as being people who should be accepted simply as they are.  But that doesn't change the fact that we realize that culturally, and yes, physically, there are reasons why women want to be with their own kind when they're using the toilet facilities (excuse me if I don't use our idiotic American term, "rest room").

Let's face it, biologically assigned women are on average smaller, weaker, less aggressive, and have more to lose if a man assaults them, then the other way around.  While using the facilities they're a lot more vulnerable and isolated than they would be in public.  So why not give them their own space where they're more likely to be left alone?   If a guy is so far enough along to pass himself off as a woman that no one would notice what their biological gender is, have at it.  But if there's a unisex or family facility available, for the comfort of others who might suspect otherwise, please use those facilities instead.  We don't need rigid laws.  Our culture can take care of itself, thank you.

Last year I went to see Jake Owens at the end of his concert tour, back in his home town of Vero Beach at the baseball stadium where the Dodger's spring training team used to play.  Pure magic.  From playing the local bars and restaurants there, to making it big time, Jake is a local boy who we were all happy for.

During the breaks, the facilities were overtaxed and the women's facilities were totally overwhelmed, so the women lined up with the men to use their facilities.

They waited their turn going into the stalls, joking about the guys using the urinals next to them.  The point is, we where their boyfriends, husbands, fathers, and yes, grandfathers of many of those women and anyone who was going to give them a hard time wasn't going to be happy with the result.  I was impressed.  Wow!  Real adults!

Meanwhile, in nudist clubs and resorts, it's a mixed bag.  Many of them are converted "textile" facilities inheriting men and women's facilities.  But many of them have opened them up to "men and couples", or "women and couples".

Huh?  Let's face it.  In closed and often isolated facilities in our culture, women have more of a need to feel "safe" with their own kind, or at least with those that care about them, than being forced to intermix.

While at the same time, nudists easily shower together in the open, where everyone can see us and nobody can get away with being disrespectful of others.

So what should we do?  First, respect the culture, even if you don't agree with it.  Contribute to changing it, but respect it never the less.  Second, don't pass laws that "presume" what the culture will tolerate.  That's none of their damn business.  And please stop creating these distractions when we have so many more important things that the government should be worried about!

Body Modification

I'm a live and let live kind of guy and if other people want to mark their bodies up with tattoos, insert foreign objects into themselves for decoration or sexual reasons, or have their bodies modified surgically to change how they look, I'm fine with that.  It's a more personal and permanent way of expressing yourself than just by what you wear.

It's just not my thing.  I have no tattoos, no piercings, and the only marks on my body are a few scars from injuries and surgeries that I needed for medical reasons. And I was circumscribed as an infant because my parents chose that for me.  My body's unique in many more ways than that.  Its size, color, shape, body and head hair patterns.  A few freckles and moles here and there, but nothing that stands out.  Short hair, closely trimmed beard. medium even allover tan. 

I look like me and have no desire to look any other way.  Your tattoos, piercings, boob jobs, liposuction, and other modifications don't impress me.  You look like you want to be, not as you simply were.  I would have been fine with you being just being as you were.  But OK, I'll accept you as you are now.

The Unkindest Cut

I had a very close relationship with my mother.  She had a way of spontaneously starting and causally handling what would have been awkward conversations, making them easy.  I don't remember how it happened, but I was pretty young when somehow the subject of circumcision came up.  Likely, she out of the blue just brought it up so she could get it off her chest and explain why they did that to me.  The reason, and only reason, they did it was so that I'd look like the other boys.

OK, warm up the time machine and let's go back to the 60's and let's see how that worked.  At face value, she was right.   Back then, boys grew up seeing each other naked almost every day using open locker rooms and showers associated with PE.  We didn't give it much thought and my friends and I easily changed in front of each other and we even skinny-dipped together a few times without it being a big deal.  We did that even as we developed while playing high school sports and as young adults at gyms.

Until high school, the schools I went to were mostly white.  But there was a wide ethnic variety which only expanded when the schools were integrated and our high school became almost 50/50 white to black overnight.  Even so, most boys were circumcised for the same reason I was.  I only knew a couple of Jewish boys and I never put two plus two together there.

I never gave any thought to it until I met my best friend at the time who had just immigrated from Australia.  Until then, I must have assumed it was a natural variation what went with other kids being different because they were of a different race.  My friend and I were around 7 or 8, and other than that one thing, he looked just like me.  It wasn't until my mother had that talk with me that I realized that, what the hell, I had been surgically altered just so I could look like the majority of other boys who had been surgically altered for no other reason than that.

That was entirely unnecessary.  We were different enough from each other anyway, that it didn't make any difference to us that we were altered in the same way so the one part of us would look more alike. Even though today's youth hardly ever see each other naked, let's stop doing that to our kids.

Are we what we wear?

I'm never at ease about my choices about what I wear.  I get up in the morning and chose from a fairly narrow selection of "work clothes", pausing a bit to consider if who I might be meeting with that day and what the weather will like.  Most of the time I'm only working with co-workers and most of the time it's warm or hot here, so the choice is usually khakis, a short sleeve shirt, and dress shoes.  I downgrade to a golf shirt, jeans, and sneakers on "Casual Fridays", though to me wearing anything isn't casual enough.

Only very rarely if I'm meeting with a customer's upper management will I wear a tie and jacket or a full business suit.  God I hate that clown outfit!  It's literally a middle ages business uniform that looks absolutely ridiculous.  Ties? What the heck!  They're hideously uncomfortable around one's neck and what's with the vertical stripe of color down a light colored shirt, deep V'ed in by a thin and otherwise useless jacket?  How uncool is that?  All this so everyone knows what to look like in front of each other, even if everyone looks pretty silly.

The lab I work in makes everyone wear the same blue smocks to protect against electrostatic discharges.  Worn over anything, everyone looks just about the same wearing them, creating an inadvertent "work uniform".  In a way, it's a relief.  Police officers, nurses, and many other professionals and blue collar workers wear uniforms to people identify them with their profession.  At least they don't have to think much or care what we're wearing to work, and I don't have to care much if I'm going to be in the lab all day.

Then there's the trap of what to wear when going out with friends or to social events.  How dress up is it?  What are other people wearing?  My wife's fashion sense is even worse then mine.  Not that she doesn't dress well herself, but she often underestimates how dressed up I should be.

I shouldn't care, but I'm still very conditioned to care.  And maybe that's a big reason I like being naked whenever I can be.  It's the uniform God issued  us.  That's what people look like.  That's me.  I'm more than happy for other people to look like themselves instead of being weirdly decorated.  It's a tremendous relief not to have to care anymore when I and others are nude.