Week 3: Task sequence: types of sentence and how to connect them

Read the texts and do the following activities

TEXT 1

Queering bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality, and the Hygienic imagination by

Sheila L. Cavanagh

Tyler Totten
Published by Cambridge University Press
Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Volume 27, Number 2, 2012, pp. 270-272
(Review)

Just what happens in public bathrooms? Despite the fact that everyone uses
them at one point or another, Sheila Cavanagh argues in Queering Bathrooms,
academics have long underestimated the social complexity of public bathrooms
by assuming they are “out of scholarly bounds” (p.4). Given that much
homophobic and transphobic violence takes place in public lavatories, Queering
Bathrooms asks about the factors that have led to gender-segregated public
bathrooms and argues that the cultural logic behind that segregation may
provoke attacks on LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender, and intersex)
people. Using the personal testimonies of 100 LGBTI interviewees in Canada
and the United States, alongside insights from numerous critical perspectives,
Cavanagh demonstrates how LGBTI people “become shit” ( p. 50) in public
bathrooms.
Queering Bathrooms turns a critical eye on gender segregation in public
lavatories largely by employing insights from queer theory and trans studies.
The author also draws on critical disability and critical race studies as they
apply to the mediation of gender “by dis/ability, ‘race,’ and class” ( p. 26).
More ubiquitous than either of these critical perspectives is Cavanagh’s use of
psychoanalysis. The reader’s familiarity with psychoanalysis is never assumed,
however: Cavanagh often gives brief overviews of psychoanalytic concepts and
perspectives before employing them.
The central argument of Queering Bathrooms pivots on the claim that there
is a “hygienic imagination” and that “the bathroom—as a geography containing
stray fluids, sounds, and smells—is felt to upset gender and subject integrity” (
p. 48). In other words, when we perform urinary and excretory functions, we
have a sense of our bodies “falling apart.” In Cavanagh’s view, we often react
aggressively and violently to variant bodies in public bathrooms because they
do not conform to the sense of bodily integrity we desperately seek to maintain
in these spaces.
Despite what the title might suggest, Queering Bathrooms tends more
toward a trans studies perspective than toward what Cavanagh deems sexuality
studies or queer theory. While Cavanagh uses both queer theory and trans
studies to probe the cultural logic behind what constitutes the “whole” or
“normal” body, she actively differentiates these two approaches in her
introduction, noting the former’s emphasis on “desire and sexuality” and the
latter’s emphasis on “sexed embodiment and gender identity” ( p. 19).
Although insights from notable queer theorists appear throughout Queering
Bathrooms, the study of specifically queer experiences of public bathrooms is
largely limited to the text’s final chapter. On whole, Queering Bathrooms lays
out the ways in which public lavatories promote gender- based surveillance and
often highlight transgender-specific differences.
Despite this emphasis on gender, the text’s relationship with feminist per-
spectives is ambiguous. Feminist theorists may find interesting Cavanagh’s
argument on how “dimorphic urinary positions” ( p. 128) lead women to “feel
vulnerable in the stall, as men are expected to assume a potent and aggressive
stance before the urinal” ( p. 129). However, there is only a brief mention of
feminist concerns about the threat of sexual violence in bathroom settings.
Although Cavanagh acknowledges arguments that “women have legitimate
fears of assault” ( p. 73) in non-gender-segregated public bath- rooms, she
rebuts this claim with the suggestion that such discourse obscures—and may, in
fact, promote—the harassment and violence that trans people regularly face.
Queering Bathrooms counterpoints the dominant narrative of safety in
gender-segregated bathrooms by documenting the harassment and violence
numerous trans interviewees have experienced for being in the “wrong”
bathroom.
How the legal regulation of sex and gender may play into their cultural
regulation is never directly addressed in Queering Bathrooms. While Cavanagh
mentions high-profile cases involving public bathrooms and gender- or
sexuality-based violence ( pp. 3 – 4, 8 – 9), she also notes the surprising lack
of laws governing who can and cannot use a bathroom ( pp. 70 – 72)
and the over-vigilant policing of gay male “public indecency” in bathrooms (
pp. 195 – 98). Although explicit legal issues remain tangential to the arguments
made in the book, socio-legal scholars with an interest in the cultural logic of
gender segregation, homophobia, and transphobia will find Queering Bathrooms
an immensely thorough resource.
Queering Bathrooms sheds light on the dilemmas of gender-segregated
bathrooms without prescribing a resolution. Cavanagh allows her interviewees
to speak to the complexity of the issue. Some argue for gender-neutral lavatories
where they could escape heteronormative restrictions and transphobic violence;
others speak to a sense of refuge in women-only space or to the importance of
men-only space for gay male bathroom culture. Thus, readers will find
Queering Bathrooms a vast resource for facts and perspectives on LGBTI
experiences of exclusion in gender-segregated bathrooms, but will be left to
form their own opinions on how public bathrooms can better accommodate
different subjectivities.

Tyler Totten
Department of Law
Carleton University
Ottawa, ON Canada

1) Choose at least 3 words (total) which you’re not familiar with and make
a glossary. Jot them down with their corresponding definitions.
 testimonies: a declaration of truth or fact

assault: make a physical attack on.

harassment: aggressive pressure or intimidation.

2) Answer the following questions.

a) What’s the genre of the text?

Review

b) What’s the register used by the author?

Formal register because was published by Cambridge University Press

c) What type of public would be interested in Cavanagh’s book, according

to Totten?

scholars with an interest in the cultural logic of gender segragatiom,

homophobia etc

d) In your opinion, what type of audience does Totten write his text for?

Not just scholars but everyone that have interest to knowing more about
gender segregation

e) Considering the performative and social aspect of gender upon people

when they decide to enter a bathroom, what's the matter with public
bathrooms, according to the text?

We'll perform urinary and excretory functions, we have a sense of our bodies.
We react aggressively and violently to variant bodies in public bathrooms.

f) According to Cavanagh’s view, “we often react aggressively and

violently to variant bodies in public bathrooms because they do not
conform to the sense of bodily integrity we desperately seek to
maintain in these spaces”. Taking this passage into consideration,
explain in your own words “hygienic imagination” and how would be
possible a bathroom disturb gender and subject integrity.

Like exits a norm and the varient bodies trangresse this rule. Maybe
because public bathrooms are dirty and I'm out of my mind, we want to
try to control everything that we can't feel in a certain way, more
comfortably conscious or not.
 g) What is Totten criticizing in Cavanagh’s book? Why?
The author has a strong position about gender regulations. He's criticizing that
because he believes the book shines a light on the dilemmas of gender
segregated bathrooms without prescribing a resolution.

TEXT 2

All-gender restrooms and PL 5002/2013

Everybody has basic needs, including using a restroom. In Brazil, the

lack of existing protections on the basis of gender identity, may lead
transgender and gender nonconforming people to significant health problems
from having to avoid using public restrooms. They may come to experience
harassment, intimidation, refusal of access, and in some cases, violence, when
trying to use public restrooms and other gender-specific facilities consistent
with their gender identities.
All-gender restrooms are facilities that anyone can use regardless of
gender. They benefit many people, including transgender and gender diverse
individuals, people who require the assistance of a caregiver of a different
gender, and parents with children of a different gender.
In Brazil, The bill João W Nery, Gender Identity Law, PL 5002/2013 -
which has been filed since Jan/19- provides the gender identity right and
amends the article 58 of the law 6.015/1973. This bill brings out that everyone
has the right to be recognized by their gender identity, their internal and
individual experience. Although, this isn’t a law yet, some universities in Brazil
conscious of the importance of it, decided to support the fight for this right, and
included All-gender/unisex bathrooms on their campuses.

Source: https://www.camara.leg.br/proposicoesWeb/fichadetramitacao?idProposicao=565315

3) Classify the following sentences as simple, compound or complex

sentences. Write “SS” for simple sentences, “CP” for compound
sentences and “CX” for complex sentences.

___SS____ a) Unisex bathrooms are on the rise.

___CX____ b) Cavanagh allows her interviewees to speak to the complexity
 of the issue.
____CX___ c) Almost all the public restrooms, especially in Denmark and
Sweden, are unisex.
___CP____ d) When the first modern public toilets were introduced in
Victorian London, the assumption was that separate facilities for women
would not be needed since most women would be at home, or close to it.
__CP_____ e) Anxiety about gender variance is keenly felt in public
washrooms and often projected onto trans folk.
_CP______ f) It’s hard to find a gender-segregated restroom in Scandinavia,
but unisex facilities have their own drawbacks.
____SS__ g) Making toilets gender-neutral isn’t always the answer.
____CP___ i) Some argue for gender-neutral lavatories where they could
escape heteronormative restrictions and transphobic violence; others speak
to a sense of refuge in women-only space or to the importance of men-only
space for gay male bathroom culture.
____SS___ j) A person of any gender can use any bathroom.

4) Combine the sentences together into one sentence. You may add or
remove words.

a) All-gender restrooms benefit many people

All-gender restrooms aren’t always the solution.

Although all-gender restrooms benefit many people, they aren’t always

the solution.

b) In the future, all public bathrooms might follow this All-gender

concept.
It must be properly designed for all users.

In the future, all public bathrooms might follow this All-gender concept
because it must be properly designed for all users.
 c) All-gender bathroom is inclusive.
People of all bodies and genders may have full access.

d) PL 5002/2013 provides the gender identity right.

It has been filed since 2019.

PL 5002/2013 provides the gender identity right and has been filed since 2019.

e) PL 5002/2013 was inspired by an Argentinean Gender identity law

Former deputy Jean Wyllys co-created PL 5002/2013

PL 5002/2013 was inspired by an Argentinean Gender identity law for

former deputy Jean Wyllys co-created PL 5002/2013.