Baby On Board

Do you suddenly become more cautious on the road when you see the “baby on board” in the window of a car nearby? Do you pay a bit more attention to how closely you’re following? Do you make the conscious decision to not whip around them even though they’re going slow and you’re in a hurry?

Yes? 

Why?

I’ve posed this question to several people. They all said yes, and explained that it’s because there’s a baby in the car. 

When did a baby’s life become more important than an adult’s? I know a baby is innocent and can’t make decisions for themselves, but all those adults have people in their lives depending on them to get where they’re going. Work, home, dinner, it just doesn’t matter. 

I have that little yellow sign in my window. Like everyone else, I do encounter a few jerks on the road from time to time. It’s unavoidable. What makes me crazy, though, is that it seems like every time I ride in my husband’s car (no sign), we run across multiple people with no regard for our lives. They don’t know my son is in the car. But should it matter?

Why do you drive more safely for that sign? Why do you treat the lives of adults with such disregard? Are you assuming that every adult must deserve to be treated like they don’t matter? 

I wish I had the power to know exactly what everyone has coming to them. But since I don’t, I choose to treat every person I come across as if they have something to contribute to the world. I hope everyone out there chooses to do the same. 

Toilet Talk: Beyond the Cooler

There is a whole new issue that has been gaining a lot of media attention lately. And writing about it myself could get me some major backlash. I just don’t care. You came here to read what I think, and that’s what you will get. 

For those of you who haven’t been living in a hole, you’ve probably seen a few stories about transgendered people and bathroom use. Schools, offices, and gyms tend to be at the forefront of this controversy. 

A month ago I was asked for my opinion on the matter. I knew I needed more information, but at face value my answer was that a person should use the facility that match their anatomy. Oh how dumb I was. 

I actually had the wrong definitions in my head. I’m hoping that everyone who is causing a ruckus over this is in the same boat. 

I spoke with my brother-in-law to gain some insight on this issue. He is a gay man with at least one transgender friend. When I asked for his opinion, he asked me to clarify if I was talking about transgendered or transsexual individuals. That’s where my education began. I mistakenly thought transgender was often a hermaphrodite who had been forced into the wrong sex and that a transgendered person was actually a transsexual. 

So let’s get a vocabulary lesson going here to clear up a few things. A hermaphrodite is a person who is born with both male and female sexual organs. This can be visible on the outside or undetected on the inside. When the condition is known, most families are pressured to choose what their child will be and a surgery performed to make it so. This will always cause problems later in that child’s life. It can also cause problems if the outer anatomy and the inner organs and hormones butt heads. 

Transgender refers to people who were born one sex and are in transition to the other. This often involves a very lengthy and expensive process with hormone therapy and a total life transformation. Many friends and even family members are lost along the way. I have had only a single experience with seeing the before and after of a transition. My brother-in-law’s friend, Alex transitioned. However, as a kid, I knew Alex as Lexi. Looking at him today, you wouldn’t have the slightest idea of his past appearance. Everything about him is a man…except for one thing you would never see. 

A transsexual is simply a person who has completed the entire process and has had the sexual reassignment surgery. Their anatomy now matches the appearance they so desperately wanted and needed to feel normal. 

So what does this mean for bathroom usage? Well, if we forced usage based on anatomy, our bathrooms would look like people of the opposite sex were coming in simply because they haven’t achieved full reassignment yet. 

I mistakenly thought this issue could allow predators to falsely claim to identify as the opposite sex to gain access to an area where their prey would be more vulnerable. This simply isn’t the case and my opinion has changed. 

If I were walking down the street looking at people, I would assume their sex/gender based on their appearance when fully clothed. What sits between their legs wouldn’t even register because it can’t be seen. Bathroom should operate in the same way. 

If a person has gone through the whole process to change their entire physical appearance, their anatomy means nothing to me. So you’ve spent the last…however long (see, I still need further education) changing from a man to a woman inuding long naturally grown hair and breasts but you still have a penis tucked into your skirt? Grab a stall, honey. When nature calls we need a toilet. If that person went into the men’s restroom, assault would be much more likely to occur (if that’s your argument on this issue). 

The true answer to this issue is so simple though. But no one will want to shell out the money to make it happen. We need to go European on this nonsense and have unisex bathrooms. 

There is a movie theater here in my city with the coolest ladies rooms. In your stall (which has a full sized door), you get a toilet, a chair, a sink, and a hand dryer. This stall is really not much larger than your typical handicap stall, but it provides what is needed for every step of the process. If every bathroom looked like this, there would be no need to assign anyone to a different area. The trouble is that is would be a very costly transition. Urinals would need to be removed (let’s face it, they’re nasty, unhygienic, and often misused anyway), stalls would need to be renovated, and plumbing would likely need major modification. And let’s not forget resetting our entire nation when it comes to mindset. 

I won’t lie. I would be fairly apprehensive to use this type of facility right now. The reason for that, though, has nothing to do with trans-anything. It’s about the assholes in the country who would use the setup as a place to prey upon others. And I don’t see it being a safe environment with cameras being installed and monitored in every facility until we live in a time when separate facilities are a distant memory. 

The solution is there, but may never be achieved. I hope most of you have gained at least one piece of know she here. 

I end this blog by saying right on, Planet Fitness! You guys know what’s up.