‘’Transgender Bathrooms are the Selma of My Generation!’ – Reader Mail
I must admit that I have only ever read just one article on transgender bathrooms – it seemed like such a minor issue that I didn’t see the need to follow it. There are only so many hours in the day, and I prefer to report on anti-imperialist and pro-socialist issues.
It certainly seems like a fair assumption that many other journalists and activists in the West are covering the transgender bathroom issue quite extensively, no? So it’s not as if my involvement is essential.
I assumed that my stance as a leftist – someone who necessarily opposes all forms of prejudice – would make my ignorance regarding the transgender bathroom situation permissible.
Not so, according to an email I received….In the interest of balance, I would like to reprint it here:
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Date: November 5, 2017
Dear Mr. Mazaheri, (Or Ms. Mazaheri, if that is what you secretly prefer to be called.)
I am a militant in the transgender bathroom underground.
I have read and watched your reports, and for someone claiming to be a leftist I notice that you have never reported on transgender bathroom issues?
Therefore, I insist that you publish this letter to rectify this telling omission. If not, you can expect protests and public disruptions against your work, which may begin as soon as the next time you go to the bathroom.
What you fail to realize (despite your alleged leftism) is that this issue is obviously the apex of cultural Marxism, which is the most modern and therefore the highest form of Marxism. We American Marxists were right to remove all the economic aspects.
All I can say in your favor is: at least you haven’t done reports which deride our bathroom movements as “identity politics”?
I will get to the point: Transgender bathrooms are the Selma of my generation!
Someday they will make an Oscar-winning movie about our struggle, and what could be a better representation of the American dream than to watch freedom finally flow in the bathroom? And on the big screen no less! Just as African-Americans faced down on water hoses, our water hoses will no longer be switched on in non-transgender-denominated bathrooms!
Stop wasting the human resources of the transgendered! We demand that billions of dollars taxes immediately be re-routed from less worthy programs in order to install gender-neutral bathrooms everywhere.
And we insist on high-class commodes! We want bathrooms with toilets and urinals, like they have in Europe, the classiest place on earth ever. Nothing says “class’ more than going to the bathroom with someone of the opposite sex two feet away and at the same time.
Do you really think that transgenders care more about the price of health insurance, university education, child care, senior care and other such nonsense when they are not perfectly pleased with the state and condition of public restrooms? You, Mr. (or Ms.) Mazaheri, are quite, quite naïve….
Nakba or three, no?
The kingdom of the porcelain throne is a reactionary monarchy! End the bathroom apartheid! No defecation without desegregation!
Every time we hear the “whoosh” of a toilet flushing, to us it is the clarion call of unfettered freedom! Cast off your shackles and leave the bathroom lighter in body and spirit!
Mr. (or Ms.) Mazaheri, I can prove the absolute primacy of our struggle with a joke taken from your own Iranian people:
Clearly, there is a world of truth in this joke from an ancient people whose abilities in the bathroom would have been legendary had bathroom politics had not been so cruelly oppressed….
Ultimately, the oppression of our people means that we have no choice: we will soon declare a transgender homeland.
In fact, the Transgendered must no longer be afraid declare openly our physical, intellectual and moral superiority. We are the true 1% destined to rule!
This has a historical basis: eunuchs, after all, were some of the most influential politicians in the ancient world. Hermaphrodites were presumed to have mystical spiritual powers. We must return to the wisdom of our ancestors, and we should start in the bathroom!
I think we know it when we see it, but until we see transgender bathrooms everywhere…we would be looking for meaning in vain.
Mr. (or Ms.) Mazaheri, your silence on transgender bathrooms is appalling, and I hereby denounce you as a fake-leftist and a bathroom supremacist.
Sincerely,
Mark Rube Lin-Terwilligerwicz
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To be honest, this email raised as many questions for me as it did answers….
I’m still not sure if the goal is to add a third bathroom everywhere, or if all bathrooms are supposed to become unisex? I don’t understand how this is going to be regulated – bathroom monitors? What exactly are they going to monitor, and am I going to be monitored? Frankly, I would assume that the old “honor system” worked well enough when it came to trusting if people really needed to use the bathroom for humane, apolitical purposes.
Finally, I don’t even recall the last time someone even asked my permission to go to the bathroom? And I certainly didn’t say “No, you can’t.”
But I guess I have a lot of learning to do? I would have thought that after so many years of going to the bathroom I would’ve figured it out by now….
About the authorRAMIN MAZAHERI, Senior Correspondent & Contributing Editor, Dispatch from ParisRamin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.
RAMIN MAZAHERI—I’m still not sure if the goal is to add a third bathroom everywhere, or if all bathrooms are supposed to become unisex? I don’t understand how this is going to be regulated – bathroom monitors? What exactly are they going to monitor, and am I going to be monitored? Frankly, I would assume that the old “honor system” worked well enough when it came to trusting if people really needed to use the bathroom for humane, apolitical purposes.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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