Do the "rights" of the very very few outweigh the many?

[philip964]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2141255" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Planet Fitness has revoked the membership of a woman who complained too much about having to undress in front of a man, who looked like a man, dressed like a man, but identified as female.

Unfortunately my wife does not belong to Planet Fitness, so I can't complain too much as well.

[jmra]

Apparently these were House rules. Were these rules in place before the woman joined and did she agree to them as part of her membership? If so, I don't like the rule but she should have known going in.
The problem I have is that this only seems to work when liberal or "progressive thinking" rules are being enforced. If the owner is conservative and/or a person of faith and wishes to enforce conservative/moral rules at their private establishment the world comes unhinged.
So, to answer your question, apparently in today's world the rights of a few liberal progressive thinkers outweigh the rights of mainstream citizens.

[suthdj]

When I worked for a company we had a man going through his "Change" the men didn't want her in the men's bathroom and the women didn't want him either, so as a happy medium they made a special bathroom for him/her. In my personal opinion you are what your DNA says you are.

[tomtexan]

Seems as if they are sticking to their mission statement.

Planet Fitness Mission Statement
We at Planet Fitness are here to provide a unique environment in which anyone – and we mean anyone – can be comfortable. A diverse, Judgement Free Zone® where a lasting, active lifestyle can be built. Our product is a tool, a means to an end; not a brand name or a mold-maker, but a tool that can be used by anyone. In the end, it’s all about you. As we evolve and educate ourselves, we will seek to perfect this safe, energetic environment, where everyone feels accepted and respected. We are not here to kiss your butt, only to kick it if that’s what you need.

[Abraham]

Well, she was in a "Judgement Free Zone" according to the report and still complained.

Outrageous!

[philip964]

When I worked for a company we had a man going through his "Change" the men didn't want her in the men's bathroom and the women didn't want him either, so as a happy medium they made a special bathroom for him/her. In my personal opinion you are what your DNA says you are.

But you see that would be segregation, and therefore unequal.

[CleverNickname]

Well, I'd like to hear what lesbians say about this; they're all for equality/inclusion, right? So they shouldn't have any issues with someone who looks like a man and dresses like a man coming into the change-room with them, right?

http://theothermccain.com/2014/01/04/fe ... ood-derby/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://theothermccain.com/2014/01/14/th ... ueer-hate/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[maintenanceguy]

Last year, a court in CA decided that it's discrimination to keep high school boys who "identify" as female out of the girls locker room. If I knew that was all I had to do in high school to get access to the girls showers, I would have worn a skirt.

[puma guy]

So, I wonder, how often can one change their gender identity?

[mojo84]

In practicality, it's usually the rights of the loudest most obnoxious that ends up trumping others.

[philip964]

Well, I'd like to hear what lesbians say about this; they're all for equality/inclusion, right? So they shouldn't have any issues with someone who looks like a man and dresses like a man coming into the change-room with them, right?

http://theothermccain.com/2014/01/04/fe ... ood-derby/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://theothermccain.com/2014/01/14/th ... ueer-hate/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I read this. This is more mixed up than I imagined. Near as I can tell. Lesbians do not want to date transwomen. I think, it was really very confusing.

[Abraham]

A friend of mine told me of a law school male classmate who had the operation and then became a lesbian.

If that's not confusing, nothing is...

Oh yeah, he changed his name from Phil to Phyllis. Cute.

On the practical side: No operation/hormone ingestion/adams apple shaving/voice coaching/hair style change/choice of clothing is actually going to "change" someone into a woman if they were born a man and vice versa, but they can be butchered and medicated into a Frankenstein-ian approximation of what they're "attempting" to achieve...

Frankly, I find the so-called transgendered a failure to recognize mental illness and treat it as such.

If someone were to claim that since birth, they just knew they were actually a giraffe would surgeons be clamoring to make that a person as close an approximation to a giraffe as they could?

Not likely.

They would counsel that person to seek mental health treatment.

So-called "Pre-op transgendered" need the same counseling and mental health help, not butchery and all the rest of the Frankenstein treatment.

[The Annoyed Man]

In practicality, it's usually the rights of the loudest most obnoxious that ends up trumping others.

Exactly. What has changed under the post-modern doctrine of "inclusionism" is that the majority would rather see their own rights violated than to offend somebody. The Constitution protects the rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. What's different today is that, once SCOTUS justices began inventing "penumbras and emanations" to interpret the Constitution in ways not contained in its actual language, it became possible to invent all kinds of other penumbras and emanations to describe constitutional fictions — the primary one of these constitutional fictions being a right to not be offended.

The problem is this: almost anybody can be offended by almost anything, so there is no objective standard against which we can measure our own behaviors so as not to offend........assuming that not offending is even desirable (I can think of situations in which offending someone can be a useful tool toward making them see the absurdity of their position). Murder is murder, and the victim has been deprived of their life, regardless of their personal political or religious or sexual preferences. Imprisonment without the benefit of a trial is punishment without due process, and the victim has been unjustly deprived of their liberty regardless of their personal political or religious or sexual preferences. But what does not offend one person may offend another, and beyond overt physical or verbal assault of the other person, there is no way to know in advance what will offend, and what won't. Therefore, in a social offense, there really isn't a victim. No life has been lost. No liberty has been lost. Not even the pursuit of happiness has been lost, because it is spurious to claim that the offended person's pursuit of happiness has been blocked by the other person's offense......... not in a society in which the offended person is free to walk away, or to pursue happiness with some other person or in some other venue.

Elevating the status of a life free from offense from the status of a simple desire to the status of a God-given (or natural, if you prefer) RIGHT is merely an expression of the most selfish generations our nation has ever produced. The final analysis is this: the first party's rights end where the second party's begin....... and neither party can have any rational expectation or constitutional protection against being offended by the other's words.

It seems that everybody wants their particular sociopolitical subset to be considered as special and somehow deserving of extra concessions, when the ONLY truth is that a person is only special because they are human, and for no other reason. No one "brand" of human is anymore special than any other brand of human. An LGBT individual has no more right to freedom from offense by what others think of them than an evangelical Christian has a right to be free of cultural offense. Freedom from offense is an unattainable goal without the particular grievance group suppressing the rights of those outside of that group. Thus, the only achievable goal is to learn to live your life not particularly caring what others think of your "specialness".......AND to learn to accept that this cuts both ways. If you don't care what others think of you, then expect them to reciprocate in kind.

The fundamental question is this: Are our rights collective, or individual? The collectivist viewpoint seems to be predicated on the notion that the collective IS the individual, and individual humans are only parts of it; and that therefore a right is held collectively, while the individual only has access to a small increment of that collective right. My reply is: a collective right cannot even exist if it is not first an individual right.......because a collective is made up of individuals. Therefore the collective only has rights because the individual had them first. This is why I so often refer to the collective as "The Borg".

My message to people who cannot thrive outside the pampered hothouse of their own little grievance group is this: "Life is hard. Get over yourselves and get used to it. You will be happier when your happiness does not depend on other people making you happy."