Should Trans People be allowed to use opposite sex bathrooms?

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Lori and George Schappell, the world’s oldest living conjoined twins, have died.

The twins passed away on April 7 of undisclosed causes, according to joint obituaries published by Leibensperger Funeral Homes in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

The Schappell twins were born in Pennsylvania on Sept. 18, 1961. The pair, who were 62 years and 202 days old, held the record for the oldest living conjoined twins, according to the Guinness World Records website.

Prior to George Schappell’s coming out as transgender later in 2007, the twins also held the record for oldest female conjoined twins ever. After George Schappell came out, they became the first set of same-sex conjoined twins to identify as different genders, the site explained.

The Schappell twins were craniopagus twins, meaning they lived with partially fused skulls. The pair shared vital blood vessels and 30% of their brains, according to Guinness. They were the rarest form of conjoined twinning, representing only 2-6% of cases.

The twins were conjoined by the forehead facing in opposite directions and were unable to see each other, according to a 2005 profile about the Schappell siblings in New York.

Surgeries to separate conjoined twins like themselves were not possible when the Schappells were born, not that they ever wanted to be separated.

“I don’t believe in separation,” Lori Schappell told the Los Angeles Times in 2002. “I think you are messing with God’s work.”

Despite their physical togetherness, the twins lived very different lives.

Lori Schappell was able to walk while her brother, who was four inches shorter, had been diagnosed with spina bifida and couldn’t walk on his own, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2002. So, Lori Schappell pushed her sibling around on a movable stool wherever they went.

George Schappell worked for years as a professional country singer, even booking gigs overseas. Lori Schappell earned a college degree and worked in a hospital. While Lori Schappell packed medical instruments, George would sit quietly with a book, the pair told the Los Angeles Times.


As they grew up together, the pair figured out creative ways to accommodate each other. While Lori Schappell liked to shower in the evening, her brother preferred to shower at the start of each day. They came up with a technique that allowed one twin to bathe while the other stayed dry.

“Normal is whatever you make of it, but we’re very happy,” Lori Schappelltold the Los Angeles Times. “It all comes down to compromise. If more people in life did that, the world would be a better place.”

The twins lived the first 24 years of their lives in an institution for mentally disabled people after their “frightened and confused parents” placed them there, according to the New York magazine profile.

They were able to leave the institution only after the wife of former Pennsylvania governor Richard Thornburgh helped prove to state officials that they did not suffer intellectual disabilities, the magazine reported.

The twins later moved into a high-rise apartment designed for the elderly in Reading, Pennsylvania, where they lived on their own.

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More than 40 Planet Fitness locations across the country have received bomb threats after a conservative movement against the gym’s trans-inclusive locker room policy went viral online.
In the weeks since the backlash against the gym chain started in March, at least 43 locations in Connecticut, Florida, Alabama and other states have received bomb threats

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U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle’s decision invalidates much of a 2023 law and rules approved by state boards prohibiting children from accessing medical treatments for gender dysphoria, such as puberty blockers and hormones.

“Florida has adopted a statute and rules that ban gender-affirming care for minors even when medically appropriate,” Hinkle wrote in his 105-page order. “The ban is unconstitutional.”
Attorneys who represented the transgender plaintiffs argued that the law signed by DeSantis was an act of discrimination and “animus” against transgender people. The state said it was targeting the treatments, not transgender people themselves.

In his ruling, Hinkle said that it was “clear that anti-transgender animus” motivated bill sponsors and some legislators who approved the law.

“Transgender opponents are of course free to hold their beliefs,” Hinkle wrote. “But they are not free to discriminate against transgender individuals just for being transgender. In time, discrimination against transgender individuals will diminish, just as racism and misogyny have diminished. To paraphrase a civil-rights advocate from an earlier time, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Along with striking down the rules banning kids with gender dysphoria from accessing medical treatment, Hinkle also struck down rules that required transgender adults to only get medical treatment from physicians, instead of from other kinds of health providers.

Hinkle last year also struck down Florida’s ban on Medicaid covering treatments for gender dysphoria. The state is appealing that ruling, and is likely to appeal Hinkle’s latest order as well.

Quote: Riverjordan

When I was growing up, if you had a vulva/vagina, you were a girl/woman. If you had a penis and testicles, you were a boy/man. Nowadays, people can have a vulva/vagina and call themselves a boy/man . Nowadays people can have a penis/testicles and call themselves a girl/woman. It's all topsy turvy IMPO.

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Under rules established in 2022, World Aquatics banned transgender women who have been through male puberty from competing in women’s races. It also created an “open” category for which transgender athletes would be eligible.

Quote: rxwine

Lia Thomas loses case to compete to qualify in Olympics. Frankly, there isn't an answer that I know of that would make everyone happy

They have tried to establish a middle ground. I don't know what else they can do. Transgender women are likely to dominate if they compete without some restriction in place.



The above is at least a better option than outright refusal to allow them to compete at all.