Jordan Peterson interview on C4

markodaly wrote: »

Are 17 year old girls stupid for feeling uncomfortable sharing hospital wards with strange 60+ year old men?

Nobody is stupid for feeling uncomfortable having to share a space with strangers. Get that out of the way first of all. Now the thing is, in the example you gave, the circumstances of that case were that the male assailant wasn’t even trying to pass themselves off as a woman. There is no reason to suspect or suggest that people who are transgender are more likely than anyone who is not transgender, to commit assault in a shared space. The spaces are shared precisely because there is a resourcing issue, so the idea of a third set of facilities for people who are transgender (technically speaking it would really require a third and fourth set of facilities) at a time when overcrowding in hospitals is already an issue, is something of a non-starter. Such a suggestion would also require an inordinate amount of supervision to ensure the dignity and safety of every individual, and essentially if everyone were to be accommodated, they would require their own individual rooms and facilities. Government has been unable to address the issue of the rising number of patients on trolleys in corridors, so what do you imagine are the chances of them acceding to every individuals particular whims? They’re currently accommodating patients as best they can with what resources they have, and unfortunately that means patients having to share a space with people they otherwise wouldn’t feel comfortable with.

As for the idea of separate public bathroom spaces, again it’s simply a question of resources and balancing that with a responsibility for people’s wishes for complete safety and privacy and so on. I don’t think anyone is in any position to demand that employers and proprietors make any accommodations which are considered unreasonable and they can argue are simply unreasonable based on the fact that the bathrooms are unlikely to be used, given that we know up to this point the majority of people who are transgender have been using public bathrooms without incident, and in only a small minority of cases there have been assaults on women and girls by men who weren’t even claiming to be transgender - they didn’t even have to wear a dress or any of that other nonsense. In that case it can easily be argued that there is no correlation between people who are transgender using public facilities, and the number of assaults on women and girls. We do know that people who are of a mind to assault women and girls will either find or make opportunities for themselves to assault women and girls, but there is no reason to assume that simply because a person is transgender, they are more likely than someone who isn’t transgender, to assault women and girls. Therefore placing restrictions on a minority in society for nothing other than what it is claimed they might do, reasons which are based entirely upon prejudice, is simply unreasonable, unfair, unworkable and unethical.

The public facilities isssue is such a non-starter as far as I am concerned in relation to the much wider discussion of accommodating everyone in society that it simply is hardly worth talking about. People are simply going to use whatever bathroom they’re most comfortable with and that is undoubtedly going to make some people uncomfortable. but given the lack of resources and the lack of public support for the idea of separate spaces at a time when the idea of eliminating single-sex schools and introducing unisex bathrooms in schools is happening, I think it’s far more likely that people who want to be accommodated in single sex spaces are going to feel like they’re losing out. There are still men today who feel as though they are losing out to women in employment and being denied opportunities as a result of measures to promote equality for women in employment. They have no legitimate reason to object, simply based upon their prejudices against women which are completely unfounded. I don’t see why anyone should be denied equal opportunities as anyone else simply on the basis that there is an assumption that they are more likely to commit wrongdoing on the basis of characteristic traits which are protected by anti-discrimination laws. The same anti-discrimination laws already allow for exceptions in circumstances which are determined to be intended to achieve a legitimate aim.

It was long argued for example that Section 37 of the Employment Equally Act allowed for religious organisations to maintain their ethos by discriminating against people on the basis of their sex or gender, until that clause was removed because it was determined to be no longer a legitimate reason to allow religious organisations to discriminate against people on that basis -

Dáil passes Bill to make it illegal to discriminate against LGBT teachers

And if there were a legitimate argument could be made to ensure discrimination against people on an arbitrary basis such as one of the protected characteristics, I might consider supporting it, as I have done in cases previously such as Yanniv and so on. But to arbitrarily discriminate against people as a whole and deny them equal opportunities and call that fair, or suggest that’s more like “equality of outcome”, when circumstances are unequal in the first place? I don’t see attempting to appeal to people’s prejudices and fears as a legitimate reason to place what I consider to be unfair restrictions on anyone.