Slashdot Mirror
Porn Giant xHamster Blocks North Carolina Users Who Support Anti-LGBT Law (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Due to the state's law preventing cities from banning discrimination against the LGBT community, popular porn site xHamster.com is blocking some North Carolinians' access to its material. xHamster tweeted on Monday that is was "blacking out access for North Carolina" because of newly passed House Bill 2, which also dictates which public restrooms transgender men and women can use. North Carolina users will be asked if they support the anti-LGBT law. If they support it, their IP address will be blocked from the site. "We blacked out the access to our website because we want to draw the attention of millions of people to patterns of human rights violations," xHamster Cheif Marketing Officer, Alexander D. Hawkins said. He added the company plans to stand their ground in the "fight for equality." xHamster may be one of the most recent businesses to publicly oppose North Carolina's House Bill 2, but they're not alone. PayPal canceled plans to open a global operations center in Charlotte, North Carolina and Bruce Springsteen canceled a scheduled show in North Carolina as well.
I'm sure the legislators would have already blocked the site if they could. I bet they will view this as a two birds one stone solution.
Gender is a biological fact, not a matter of personal opinion. People may privately pretend to be a man, woman, dog, batman or whatever, but forcibly imposing their imaginary identity on other people isn't right.
is being hyped up to try to make people think this is a good thing (because it protects those poor hapless ciswomens from the scary dangerous perverted transwomen they would have to share bathrooms with).
Sadly on the last thread about this there were a bunch of people who were terrified of dangerous perverted transwomen. It is unfortunately impossible to reason with someone whose brain is taken over with fear.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I am not against anyone's lifestyle choice, and there should be laws to protect people
who engage in activities and/or relationships that are not harmful to other people.
Love and self should not be legislated.
However, the bathroom situation is out of control; use the restroom that matches
your biological fact, not what your lifestyle choice dictates.
And thus we reach the heart of the matter! Keeping the populous fearful and therefore unreasoning is the true purpose of these sorts of laws.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The "right not to associate" is not some sort of absolute principle. The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 have already created that precedent. You can't defend refusing to serve black clientele at your business by proclaiming "That's my right to freedom of association". What is happening now is LGBT individuals are being afforded the same rights and protections as other minorities. And what's your problem with that?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Did you ask him nicely to stop? If so, then it wasn't a problem of him being a 'gay guy' but being 'an arsehole'. Arseholes come in many, many alignments and persuasions and permeate our culture. Lets ban THEM from using any bathroom, because the last thing you want to see, in a bathroom, is an arsehole...
...
I'm conflicted by this action, and other recent actions in the news.
On the one hand, I'm four-square in favor of human rights, and against these sorts of laws. (So don't bother explaining the situation to me.)
On the other hand, I don't like going outside the process to overturn a result you don't like.
So for contrast and comparison, how is this different from people asking Amazon to drop Trump-branded merchandise, because they want to stop him from running for president?
How is this different from Visa and MasterCard blocking payments to Wikileaks, which seriously crippled them?
How is this different from credit reporting companies putting "terrorist" on their credit reports for certain people? (As mentioned by John Oliver last Sunday.)
In all cases, it's having a powerful entity hurt someone or some group because they don't like what they stand for, and without oversight or judicial reason.
I was also a little uncomfortable with overturning proposition 8 in California. I could 'kinda justify negating it because it tended to favor *less* control of one set of people by another. It shouldn't be up to one group to dictate what another group can do, so long as they're not hurting anyone.
Is that the answer here as well?
So... I'm just a little conflicted.
Can someone lend me a machete to help me through my mental thicket?
And your experience differs in what respect from some guy continually flirting with a girl in his college class, despite a clear lack of interest on her part? Is unwanted flirting more tolerable because the flirter and flirtee are of different genders? If the behavior crosses the line, harassment laws would apply equally to a same-sex harasser as to a harasser of a different sex.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Instead of reading it with the spin and bias someone told you to have, check other laws at the State and Federal level. The majority of State laws are written to have authority over lower levels of Government. Federal laws are similarly written to supersede State laws on the same subject matter. If you are supposed to have a power structure from the bottom up, how do you suppose the upper levels have any power when lower levels could usurp their laws?
I'm guessing like many you never bothered to read the law you are claiming is somehow bad. It states right in the preamble what that wording is for. Now check every other State law and see if there is similarity.
I wish people would actually read the 5 pages and use their noggins a bit. The law is intended to protect girls and women from perverted men. If you want to convince me otherwise, show me some court cases where a woman is arrested for being in a mens room taking pictures of men's genitals. I can find literally hundreds of cases where men are caught doing that to women, many of which include the men dressing as women to gain entry.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
There are simply men and women. If, despite having been born with distinctive genitalia, someone considers himself to be of the opposite sex, then they suffer from a delusion:
My recent argument with one such person ended, when I asked him to define terms: what is the definition of the term "man"?
If you choose to reply to this, be sure to include your definition. And, no, do not try to imply some difference between "sex" and "gender" — they are synonyms (except when talking about grammar rules).
And, no, contrasting what you are vs. how you identify is bullshit too — unless you are prepared to treat this human as a cat, and this White woman as Black.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The science is showing us that the relationships between sex, gender, psychological identity, and physical nature are very complicated. That's why there is a push to abandon the 2 bathrooms for 2 genders thing, it's way oversimplified.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
If you were found dead and dismembered in a ditch or more appropriate several ditches, how would science classify you sex in attempts to identify you. .
Distorting the details indeed.
"Not being able to use the restroom I identify with makes me uncomfortable"
No, not exactly. Were I forced to use the men's room, I'd be at severe risk of harassment, assault or worse. The law is supposed to protect our safety. It doesn't guarantee our comfort. Which is why in this case, transgender people's right to safety trumps other people's wish not to be made uncomfortable.
So a woman who is concerned about sharing a bathroom with someone with a penis has a brain taken over by fear? How about, for example, middle school girls? That's an age where they are very mixed up about a lot of things and can be quit frail. Are they supposed to share the locker room shower with a penis because otherwise they are closed minded bigots?
I do not support the NC law, but those arguing against it are ignoring the rights of too many people in their zeal. To put it simply, your rights end where they stomp on my rights. The transgender bathroom situation is definitely entering into some tricky territory.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Anyhow, would you force this person to use a mens room? http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-... http://www4.pictures.zimbio.co...
Yes. Does she have a dick? Because then double yes.
No - she's had the complete changeover She has no tallywhacker.
Putting that aside, they could walk into a ladies room and no one would care unless they told them, but they've had enough work that it wouldn't cause a problem because they're not obviously men jammed into a dress. That's not, however, even close to the norm and you know it. If that was the average man who is trying to look like a woman, then I doubt anyone would care. That's not the case. You don't make the law for the ones who manage to get reconstructed into reasonable looking facsimiles of females.
But dear sir, I'm not making the argument, the people who are moritifed and believe that men are suddenly going to go harass women in bathrooms and then claim they identify as women is what they and probably you are so fearful of.
And as for getting beat up in bathrooms, and your horror, just imagine what gays and transgenders go through. I doubt they'd have much sympathy for the stramen of the fearful.
MOck might be killed for going into a men's room, and you brush it off like so what? Welcome to not only being consumed by fear, but pray thet you never have a gay child of grandchild who is subjected to the special treat the fearful might perform on him or her.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Ever seen what happens when a trans-women walks into the bathroom "equipped for people with dicks" ?
They tend to end up bleeding... or dead.
The single biggest reason not to force them to do that is because it kills them. There's no reason to fear them in the other bathroom but THEY have every reason to fear going into the one you want to force on them.
The fear that drives this is utterly unfounded as well - there has literally never, ever been a single case of a man raping a woman who dressed as woman - it is borderline impossible for it to happen. The kind of men who rape women, would consider it demeaning to look like one. Male-on-female rape is largely an act of sexual dominance driven by a desperate desire to prove a fragile masculinity... putting on a dress would defy the very purpose of the crime. It's never happened and probably will never happen.
And even if you're telling the truth about yourself, that was the reasoning of most people who supported this: to protect people from a non-existent threat by taking one of the most vulnerable and highest-risk-of-assault-and-murder groups and putting them at greater risk.
A person's choice should not be limited between "get arrested" or "get killed".
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I've seen women in the men's room (for its intended purpose), and men go into the women's room, and I, a man, have gone into the women's room as well. It's a courtesy separation, not a prohibition against "I need to shit or piss somewhere -- now." Every reasonable person understands this. They might not like it, they be incensed, they may flee the scene, but at the end of the day, they understand.
People determined to invade someone's privacy, or sexually harass, assault, or rape someone else will not be deterred by a law prohibiting their presence in a bathroom. It doesn't even begin to hold up to simple scrutiny, even if it were reasonably enforceable, which it is not, and it punishes people who actually need to use, you know, the bathroom. It's the most ridiculous fucking idea I've ever heard, or will hear this year, unless someone starts a campaign to prohibit some other bodily function that can't always be regulated, like hiccuping in public because children might be scared by the noise. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with us?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere