LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

Should bathrooms in churches/schools be gender-neutral in respect to people's identities? Why or why not?

Edited by FOFD on Nov 15th 2023 at 8:56:46 AM

I believe it would be good to have them.

Here's the thing that always gets me about the bathroom debacle. A lot of the people outraged by the mere idea forget any setting where there is only one bathroom to begin with, such as small establishments or train carriages or planes or similar. Hell even if you have just one bathroom designated "staff" or "disabled", it's the same. Those are gender neutral by default. And nobody bats an eye.

If they can accept it there, they should be able to grasp the concept elsewhere, you'd think, but apparently they can't.

It's a fair point but those toilets tend to be self contained single occupancy which are suitable in some cases but take up more space and more expensive and less efficient than stalls and sinks. Are we talking about changing bathrooms to the former?

I just meant to say, if they can accept those without question, having a separate neutral bathroom next to the ladies' and gents' should be acceptable too but they can't seem to be able to make the connection.

Is this really a religion thing? We have threads for LGBT issues in general.

The debate opener post specifies churches so *shrugs* Maybe it counts?

They also said schools. Last time I checked, most schools in the USA at least are not religious.

The Church of England backs plans for blessing same-sex weddings.

Which is a step forward.

There's been a definite disconnect in the Anglican church - it has prominent LGBTQ+ clergy, it's trying very hard to be inclusive (small i, as Inclusive Church is a specific organisation in the UK)... but any change to blessings, services and policies has enraged some parts of the African church and threatened a schism.

I think it's now reached the point where the conservatives who object are really not compromising, so we may see the rest of the church shrug and move on without them.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 16th 2023 at 9:49:04 AM

This post required the Mod hat?

No, it didn't - sorry!

There was going to be a mod post on thread scope and off-topic, but posted this instead and forgot to change settings.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 16th 2023 at 9:51:07 AM

Re: Catholic Church allowing trans people to be baptised and godparents...

...I'm getting the feeling that Francis is deliberately punting it to a "diocese's option" level with that caveat.

I’ve never encountered a gendered toilet in a Church, they’re always single occupancy disabled toilets.

That may be because I’m a Church of England person, I’m pretty sure that most of the churches I’ve attended predate indoor plumbing.

Yeah, I think a lot of Church of England buildings are old and, in many cases, didn't actually have indoor toilets until a single one was installed centuries after the building was built.

Additionally, accessible toilets and baby changing are priorities for most UK churches - congregations include lots of small kids and the elderly, seen as some of the people most likely to need the facilities during a service. So space for that is normally built in, which leads to unisex one-person toilets, not restrooms with cubicles.

Which makes the question about gendered toilets pretty hypothetical.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 16th 2023 at 7:55:12 PM

You guys have toilets in churches?

(seriously, this is pretty much an alien concept here — that said, most of our churches are old)

The Church of England started a project in the ‘90s/‘00s to add toilets to churches, latest data I can find shows that they’ve managed to add them to around a third, but that data is a few years old and probably includes churches not in active use.

Our churches will be of similar age, they’re generally medieval to Georgian structures so predate modern plumbing.

Nearly all of the churches where I'm from (Oregon) have bathrooms, usually with the typical gender divide.

Why would a church not have toilets???

Remember that a ton of European church will be old. My village church looks to be 700-800 years old, the three main churches in town are from 500 years old (which is actually a rebuild of an older church) to 900 years old.

I wouldn’t even call them particularly old churches.

Edited by Silasw on Nov 16th 2023 at 12:16:05 PM

> Why would a church not have toilets???

The last thing anybody wants to do is to take a crap in God's house!

fredhot16: Two hundred miles are long distance (and different for every region, sometimes 3x - 4x. For this reason, we use kilometers), but two hundred years is short time, especially for buildings. When Europeans say church, they ussually thing something was build before thing you call toilet was invented. Build from stone, commonly. Add toilet into this can be banned for destroying historical herritage, absurdly expensive or technically imposible. And people, who get used to churchs without toilet, can think that toilets are unworthy for holy place.

Yes, European churches are old. Honestly, all churches build during existence of your country are "new churches" in Europe. Because buildings three, four, five or more hundred years are really common. And some chrches are older than thousand yaers. Oh gods, a few churches are rebuid ancient pagan temples and they are older than christianity. And I think, that you know it, on intelectual level, but it is easy forgot or dont notify it, becouse you only heart it, not live around it.

Hey does anyone know of any fiction with religious LGBTQ characters who aren't angsty about it? I'm struggling to think of any off the top of my head, but it'd be nice to see more works that defy the "all LGBTQ people are non-religious or struggle with their religion/all believers are homophobes" stereotypes.

The webcomic Dumbing of Age has the character Becky, who is a lesbian but still very much a christian, and secure in the knowledge that God loves her. It's mostly her family giving her grief over it.

Edited by Kayeka on Dec 30th 2023 at 11:40:47 AM

You know, the latter gives me a very good idea for an OC that I definitely would use if I was a good enough writer. A straight passing gay man or lesbian who's hated by homophobic Christians for their sexuality, but also assumed to be homophobic by LGBT+ people who assume they're straight.

Or even better, an OC who has same-sex parents, and enters a straight relationship with a Christian. Then they get shunned by their in-laws for having same-sex parents AND by their own parents for dating a religious person, showing discrimination from both sides of the coin.

Edited by CosmosAndChaos on Jan 3rd 2024 at 5:13:44 PM

By the way, what should I do if I browse an LGBT-themed community who can and will shun you if you're religious? I'm asking because someone there said a very positive message to a man about how "may God give you and your husband a lot of good things in 2024 and give a lot of light to your deceased mother so she can find peace." and it got replies like "🙄" or "signed: ([a Bible-thumping figure from my country, apparently])". I'm afraid of the possibility of them finding out I believe in God.

Fair enough.

Edited by CosmosAndChaos on Jan 3rd 2024 at 9:43:56 AM

Don't import drama from other parts of the internet. Don't use OTC to complain about other online forums.