Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 December 22

= December 22 =

Private property owners, particular bathrooms / sex-segregated facilities, and discrimination laws - actual case law?
POV, just to get a hot issue out of the way: I think the "transgender bathroom laws" being proposed by some conservative politicians in the U.S. are idiotic, if not moronic. Not discriminatory, just pointless and stupid. LGBTI advocates, take my advice if you want to fight these laws: DO NOT cry "discrimination!". Instead, mock, mock, mock, you'll get a lot further! Note that my local jurisdiction has no explicit law prohibiting a man, openly dressed as a man, from using a womens' bathroom, or vice versa - never been a need for it. Of course if you do this on private property, you'll likely be asked to leave, but in a public bathroom, it would be no crime.

Anyways, rant over, here's the actual question: In those jurisdictions where "gender identity" is protected under anti-discrimination law. A transgender "man in a dress" (who genuinely identified and strives to live as a woman, but you can see is in fact biologically a man. Note only genuine gender identity is protected - transvestites are not, at least according to my local judge) comes into a pub, and asks to use the bathroom. The publican says "sorry, I can't have you using the womens, you'll make them uncomfortable - please use the unisex disabled cubicle instead". Or imagine he said "please use the mens", for that matter. The transgender individual is deeply offended, and brings a discrimination claim in court.

Now, note this: The publican has not refused the transgender individual what they have in one sense asked for - a place to empty their bowel and bladder. They have simply refused to treat them as a member of the gender with which they identify.

Bathrooms are not the only example. The same issue could arise in any area where we accept segregation of the sexes (something which is itself generally illegal under anti-discrimination law barring good reason) - change rooms, homeless shelters, hospitals in areas with sex-segregated wards, and probably others. Issue is, the transgender individual is still getting served on otherwise equal terms - just not as a member of their non-biological gender with which they identify. (And the property owner may have understandable reasons for this - a biological woman would feel understandably uncomfortable in seeing a penis in a change room, but the owner still understands the need to provide the transgender individual somewhere to change).

Is there any actual case law in any jurisdiction which addresses this specific question? I understand that laws can vary dramatically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, so I won't take this as legal advice - just want to hear what the courts have actually said in ruling on such cases - and what rules they have laid down in interpreting their local anti-discrimination law. I assume in at least some cases, this issue has in fact come before the courts? Eliyohub (talk) 07:45, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear, you are only interested in cases related to private accommodations, rather than public facilities (e.g. GG v. Gloucester County School Board)? Dragons flight (talk) 08:04, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I suppose this issue could arise in either - is the law different? I note in the article you linked that the DOJ requiring that individuals be "permit(ted) all students to participate in sex-segregated activities and use sex-segregated facilities (including bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight accommodations) in accordance with their gender identity" is no doubt part of the backlash we are now seeing from the conservatives. My personal experience with actual transgender individuals is that they aren't so picky over the issue - they're more concerned with their human rights than "gender identification rights". It doesn't really matter which bathroom they're told to use, as long as they are treated with human dignity. Eliyohub (talk) 08:22, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, to confine my question, let's stick to privately owned facilities which are generally open to public clientele e.g. the example I gave was a pub, but there are countless others. Eliyohub (talk) 09:22, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * has some discussion of the situation in the US and Australia regarding bathrooms. It notes the case mentioned above, but not any other case. If you look at the author's other postings, they seemed to be generally well versed in the case law of the developed anglosphere, which makes me think there's a fair chance there's no other significant case, although this obviously isn't definite evidence. (Notably if it was a minor case which no one appealed, it may not be well known.) Nil Einne (talk) 00:14, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * In the United States, federal law does not prevent public accommodations, such as a pub, from discriminating on the basis of sex, although state or local laws may outlaw such sex discrimination or even clarify that transgender discrimination is unlawful. Lists of such laws at the state level are available from the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Institute of Real Estate Management. Some specific case law is discussed by the Transgender Law and Policy Institute. The EEOC has a good discussion of case law under the federal law forbidding sex discrimination in employment. John M Baker (talk) 13:56, 25 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Our articles Public toilet and Urinary segregation have references that may help. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 23:33, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

victimisation rate - domestic violence, and child molestation
I'm sort-of combining two questions in one, but I don't think it will be an issue in this case.

Which countries are believed to have the lowest victimisation rate (NOT "reported" or "prosecuted" crime rate) for the two crimes I am interested in - 1. Child Molestation, and 2. Domestic violence? In other words, in which country or countries is one least likely to fall victim to these crimes?

(police statistics are often useless in these two crimes, as in many countries, you wouldn't bother reporting them. I suspect domestic violence often goes unreported even in the most pro-feminist countries, albeit somewhat less so. And victims of child molestation, even in countries where this crime is taken very seriously, often cannot stomach the court process and the fallout in their own community, so never report the abuse, even after reaching adulthood).

Have there been any international Victim studies which have attempted to answer this question? Have any criminologists expressed educated guesses? Eliyohub (talk) 08:19, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * It depends what qualifies as a country. Do micronations, like the Principality of Sealand, count? &#40;&#40;&#40;The Quixotic Potato&#41;&#41;&#41; (talk) 09:12, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * For the purposes of my question, no, as I doubt any criminologist of note has done a study on Sealand's victimisation rate. Stick to countries with a large enough sample size that you don't end up with statistical oddities for lack of survey candidates or potential victims. Eliyohub (talk) 09:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Does Vatican City qualify? They might not have any children with citizenship or residency, and it might've been so many decades or centuries since their last domestic violence incident that you could call it provisionally extinct. Wifebeating must be very rare among the typically celibate citizenry. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:30, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * None of this answers my actual question, obviously, where I clearly asked to exclude small non-representative nations with inadequate sample sizes.. Vatican City may not have much child molestation occurring on its territory, but I daresay its residents and affiliates are directly responsible over the decades (and perhaps centuries) for enabling the molestation of more children than almost any nation on earth. . Eliyohub (talk) 14:17, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I couldn't find any high-quality international studies on domestic violence that are not mentioned at Epidemiology_of_domestic_violence. It is probably quite difficult to get good data about this subject. &#40;&#40;&#40;The Quixotic Potato&#41;&#41;&#41; (talk) 17:45, 25 December 2016 (UTC)


 * One place to direct your enquiry is UN Women. Another might be an international charity such as Womankind. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 23:43, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Gänserndorf
Gänserndorf District says that "Towns (Städte) are indicated in boldface; market towns (Marktgemeinden) in italics". But there are no such designations in the following list of municipalities. Does this mean that there are no towns or market towns in the list, or is there an error? --Viennese Waltz 10:02, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The de:WP states that the district contains 4 townships (Stadt-Gemeinden) and 24 market-municipalities (Markt-Gemeinden). The rest are just smallish municipalities.  It seems that the list in the en:WP is improperly formatted.  from Cookatoo (sorry I forgot my password).  --193.81.225.218 (talk) 10:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Cookatoo, I posted on your userpage as well (which I guess you can see even without password). --Viennese Waltz 10:44, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Revolutions
What are some examples of revolutions by wide leftist coalitions, with a range of ideologies? Benjamin (talk) 17:27, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Define "wise". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:55, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, meant "wide". Benjamin (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2016 (UTC)


 * You'd also have to define "leftist". μηδείς (talk) 01:30, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * So what's a "wide" leftist? Someone built like Orson Welles? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:48, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Perhaps read popular front? Neutralitytalk 03:24, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The Russian revolution contained the more moderate Mensheviks and the radical Bolsheviks. Unfortunately, the radicals wiped out the moderates.  Also see Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks.  StuRat (talk) 03:40, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Prolly not what the OP means, but the French revolution, too, was accomplished by a "wide left-wing" (pre-Marxist) coalition. btw, the sentence "France rapidly transformed into a democratic and secular society with freedom of religion, legalisation of divorce, decriminalisation of same-sex relationships, and civil rights for Jews and black people.[6]" (what, all 3 of them?) reads wildly America-centric and anachronistic. And that "democratic society" was nothing the SJW who wrote that would recognize as such (no suffrage, for example.) Asmrulz (talk) 06:30, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I pretty much agree with Asmrulz's post. The problem is that we are looking at republican versus monarchical revolutions in the French and Russian case which fairly quickly devolved from monarchism vs. republicanism to republicanism vs. dictatorship > authoritarianism. Most of the velvet revolution type developments in 1989 could easily be seen as the leftist overthrow of rightist regimes, depending on the definition of such terms. I think using such term as if they were universal laws of physics, rather than epitherts of convenience is a major fail epistemologically. μηδείς (talk) 03:56, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

China, ca. 1945-49.DOR (HK) (talk) 15:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)