More weird sex stuff at Jesuit-run Fordham University

Why is it that when really weird things occur or bad ideas surface you can almost always find a Jesuit involved?

I received this note from the Cardinal Newman Society this morning.

So Fordham has approved the creation of “gender neutral” bathrooms in one of its buildings. The student activists who lobbied for were inspired by Fordham president Fr. McShane, who reportedly said to prospective students: “Fordham is a place where you may find that you are awoken to the world. You might be disturbed. I hope you are. I hope you end up a little disturbed.”

The student activists are hoping for more neutral bathrooms on campus. Would you be interested to share our article?  [OKAY!]

Fordham Changes Restroom Signs as Part of ‘Gender Inclusive’ Campaign

Check out the Cardinal Newman Society’s feed on my sidebar.  They keep tabs on what is going on in Catholic higher… sometimes lower, actually… education.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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40 Comments

  1. Alanmac says:

    The Jesuits are guilty of this as they want to be seen as the most avant garde, most with it religious group. The homosexualists, and now transgenderists, see them as a useful tool for advancement and advocacy for their true goal, removal of ages of consent.
    I think it was Stalin who called people cooperating willfully, without the knowledge of the end game “useful idiots”.

  2. Patti Day says:

    Fr. McShane speaks like Pope Francis. He could be saying students should be disturbed because the world isn’t yet welcoming enough to every type of gender self-identification. On the other hand, he could be saying students should be disturbed over the increasing weirdness they will encounter in the world. Um…Nah.

  3. monknoah says:

    Yeah, this has become really trendy in recent years. They had this where I did my undergrad work. It was less weird than I thought it would be. The “gender neutral” bathroom had a sink area, no urinals, and rows of private stalls. By “private stalls,” I mean stalls with floor-to-ceiling walls and floor-to-ceiling doors (with effective locks). Men and women could wash their hands next to each other, but all of the actual bathroom stuff occurred under conditions of total privacy.

  4. Adaquano says:

    Out of curiosity, are there many options for faithful students to practice their faith at these more liberal colleges? I know a priestly recently started a website for such students at Notre Dame (from which I hear he is no longer able to make recommendations), but do some of these schools have stron campus groups that adhere to Church teaching or protest such policies?

  5. benedetta says:

    I find the lack of acknowledgement by so many in academe of the loss of tens of millions of our children of the next generations in order to serve greed and legal fiction established by empowered elites greatly disturbing.

  6. frjim4321 says:

    I applaud Joe McShane for recognizing that the mystery of human sexuality and gender is somewhat more profound than basic commercial and physiological plumbing. I really don’t get the fundamentalists’ fascination with excretion facilities.

  7. Jonathan says:

    These are single stall restrooms. Meaning only one occupant in the restroom at a time. So while I understand the anxiety over this story because of incrementalism (at some point it surely will be all restrooms), I don’t see a problem with just naming it a restroom and whoever needs to use it can as needed.

  8. tgarcia2 says:

    While it does not surprise me that Fr. Jim would be in support of this “effort”, what is worrying is that how more profound can it be that a man is a man and a woman is a woman. It is not the fascination of “excretion facilities” as it is, why would you let a man in a woman’s restroom when he has no place being there?

    This “argument” is one of the new atheism (in my honest opinion), since it’s premise is that he/she is in the “wrong body”. God does not make mistakes, God is perfect, to presume that God made a mistake is heretical at best.

  9. On the one hand, one sees single-sex (and hence automatically “gender-neutral”) restrooms in ancient buildings on European campuses, and no one thinks anything about them, because they have no ideological implications.

    On the other hand, current activists campaigns for new gender-neutral restrooms are not motivated by plumbing considerations, and have nothing but ideological implications. These activitists are pushing sexual agenda, not merely efficient plumbing.

    One can only wonder why left-wing activists feel compelled to express their ideological objectives in terms of personal plumbing needs. Fixation on excretion issues, dating perhaps from early toilet-training difficulties?

  10. frjim4321 says:

    “One can only wonder why left-wing activists feel compelled to express their ideological objectives in terms of personal plumbing needs. Fixation on excretion issues, dating perhaps from early toilet-training difficulties?”

    Funny, Ed, but I think both progressive and regressive types can be found at every stage of the Freudian continuum.

  11. frjim4321 says:

    Oops, Henry.

    Which is, in my estimation, and wonderful and underused name.

  12. The Masked Chicken says:

    A bathroom that both males and females can use? This sounds like the bathroom in the house in which I grew up. So, where’s my dinner?

    The Chicken

  13. Clinton R. says:

    Fr. Zuhlsdorf says: “Why is it that when really weird things occur or bad ideas surface you can almost always find a Jesuit involved?”

    Since March, 2013, we have seen really bad ideas surface and weird things occur with a Jesuit involved. I can only imagine the sorrow of St. Ignatius of Loyola. How far his order has fallen. How willing they are to be with the world.

  14. frjim4321 says:

    “Since March, 2013, we have seen really bad ideas surface and weird things occur with a Jesuit involved.”

    Seems like sour grapes but I know how I felt for many years previously.

  15. Kerry says:

    The “most neutral” bathroom (sic.) in the world is a slit trench. Bring your own shovel.

  16. benedetta says:

    Wouldn’t it work better to just keep the two restroom areas and add like a third “whatever” for anyone who wishes to cover all shades of gender continuum?

    Anyway they are still way behind if they treat mothers like dirt and are on the “aborting is good” bandwagon. Women will never be respected at the rate we are going when fanaticists insist on attaching women’s rights to annhilating the next generation in utero. There are ways to instill respect for women and encouraging women’s dignity, and, the “of course we’re for choice” thing that so many academic campuses are into has only harmed the cause of women’s rights. Maybe now that they have the bathroom thing settled they can get on to things that matter deeply to innocent lives to the tune of tens of millions? Let’s hope. And pray.

  17. Viva Cristo Rey says:

    Hahahahaha

  18. Viva Cristo Rey says:

    It’s one thing to use the same restroom as my brother whom I know and trust….. It’s quite another to watch teenage daughter / niece be followed into these neutral facilities by a grown man! Folks are bereft of logic!

  19. frjim4321 says:

    At the gym there is a guy who brings his 4ish-year old daughter in with him and they both go about unclothed (I’m talking about the men’s locker room) and I must say that I’m not comfortable being unclothed in that situation. I can see the he considers there to be nothing wrong with it, but I’d rather he not.

    With VCR I think the more problematic issue is mingling ages rather than sexes … and the public school here the staff and students have separate restrooms, for example…

  20. Grumpy Beggar says:

    The Masked Chicken says:
    “A bathroom that both males and females can use? This sounds like the bathroom in the house in which I grew up. So, where’s my dinner?”

    The Chicken

    FOCL
    Coming from a family where the siblings were almost exclusively boys and having dated a woman earlier who had 3 sisters, I thought a “gender neutral/gender inclusive” bathroom was probably one in which the toilet seat would automatically raise or lower itself.

    __________________

    The notion being promoted really does border on the ridiculous: To this excerpt from the article

    “The Positive’s student leader, who identifies as a transgender male (a woman living as a man), told the Observer, ‘Having a restroom I could use without fear was definitely something I wanted.’
    But the student readily noted that ‘this was never about bathrooms … this was always about more than that.’ “

    from the perspective of practicality, I would just like to say – OH PULEEEEEEEZE , try to keep it real. All of us would like having a restroom we could use without fear. I was once using a restroom years ago in a nightclub our band was playing in when a drunken man much larger than me burst into the stall I was using – breaking the lock in the process.(I had to keep repeating to myself in my haste to get out -“Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not kill. . . “)

    In the large palliative/long-term care institution where I serve in my pastoral apostolate, at one entrance to the building , there is a restroom just inside showing both the sign for man & woman. The restroom door remains ajar and there are three stalls inside which are not totally private (according to the terms which monknoah’s post describes). On one occasion when I went into the restroom and subsequently a stall , a female attendant who watched me go in, decided that would be the opportune time for her to come in as well, and spend a good 2 minutes washing her hands. I can’t say I felt comfortable in that situation (no matter how clean her hands might have been).

    On another occasion a friend of mine who is a private companion to one of the patients went into that same restroom one evening when a man who had been watching from just outside the door suddenly decided to go in too and enter the adjoining stall . Something weird transpired where I actually had to intervene (sorry guys – can’t offer you any more details on this one , except) my friend got out of it okay, but she felt anything but safe during that particular episode.

    Benedetta’s post nails it :“legal fiction” , as does tgarcia2’s question: Why would you let a man in a woman’s restroom when he has no place being there?”

    Incidentally , Oxford Dictionaries online says there is no exact match in British and World English for excretion facilities , although they do list a definition for (Monty Python anyone ?) naughty bits .

    Before political correctness creates a permanent state of metabolic dormancy in us all, I would like to thank Father Z for posting all those yummy pics from his various protein intake coordinates – both the commercial facilities and those reflecting a definite fascination towards the more refectoral orientation. As satisfaction-deprived as my financially challenged state may render me, I still don’t anticipate being nutrient deprived to the point of becoming metabolically challenged.

    Gee, I wonder what the politically correct equivalent for “Go to Confession” would be . . . I mean, while we’re out here in left field anyway ?

  21. The Masked Chicken says:

    Can’t anybody just say, “No,” anymore to these sorts of things? No, is not an uncharitable word.

    The Chicken

  22. acardnal says:

    I don’t want to be in the locker room showers with someone from the opposite sex. Just one more reason for me not to go the the gym . . . I can stay home and have a martini instead.

  23. The Cobbler says:

    With all due respect and no offense intended, I think I might need to read What Did Father Jim Really Say…

  24. Kathleen10 says:

    This is one of those current events where simple logic and reason are just nowhere to be found in some quarters. Must every single thing the oddball “progressivists” come up with be run up the flagpole and saluted by kooky leftist droids? Really? Even when it just makes no sense whatsoever?
    We already have bathrooms for two sexes. (I may never use the term “gender” again.) They are in place. Why do trans people get all the consideration, and nobody else gets any?
    Number one, this is an absolute peril for children. frjim, I pity that poor child you mentioned. Her father is a clod and she will pay the price for his lack of parental judgment.
    But on to the potty issue.
    We already know there are sexual assaults and perverts-a-plenty out there in the world. We have a veritable surplus of those. Does anyone not yet know this? So to even put men and women in the same facilities where they are in various states of undress and um…vulnerable…makes it sheer idiocy to combine them. Women will get the worst of this, since men are rarely raped or forcefully sexually molested against their will. That feminists think this is a good thing shows that the loudest voices often demonstrate the poorest thinking skills.
    But it’s children who will get the worst of it. Parenting isn’t what it used to be, frjim’s example a fine one. Children are so often left to wander about on their own, part of the “free range” movement that pedophiles are so fond of. Innocent children, without parent in sight, wandering into bathrooms and pulling down their pants. What opportunity. It just defies reality, logic, crime statistics, and what we all know anecdotally. But let’s not let that stop anybody!
    Besides all this, I’ve never met a woman who didn’t prefer a bathroom of her own, or at least just used by other females. No offense, but there are vastly different sensibilities. I’ll say no more.

  25. Stephanus83 says:

    “Why is it that when really weird things occur or bad ideas surface you can almost always find a Jesuit involved?”

    It’s pretty common to see the initials “SJ” beside the name of someone with a weird idea. On the other hand, you almost never see the initials “OP” attached to anything stupid. Thank God that many religious orders continue to preach the truth to the Catholic faithful. My parish is a Dominican parish and I thank God everyday for those men.

  26. ChesterFrank says:

    I read about yoga in the chapel at the Jesuit post, but I don’t know if that’s weird.
    https://thejesuitpost.org/2015/11/when-yoga-and-ignatian-spirituality-meet/
    Is it as weird as liturgical dance? I don’t know.

  27. zama202 says:

    I remember when I was a freshmen at Fordham in ’80-’81. The classrooms had crucifixes in my first semester, but at the end of the second semester they were all removed. We were told the classrooms would be painted that summer. They were painted – but the crucifixes never returned.

    My alma mater bills itself as “the Jesuit University of New York City”. I wish it was a Catholic university.

    Charles

  28. LeoXIII says:

    Ah, the Jesuits. Always the theological Mavericks… Makes me think of a joke I heard awhile back: “What are the only two things that never change at a Jesuit’s mass? The bread and the wine.”

  29. Michelle F says:

    Quote: “The Positive’s student leader, who identifies as a transgender male (a woman living as a man), told the Observer, Having a restroom I could use without fear was definitely something I wanted.’”

    Really??? This woman is afraid of toilets that already are marked “either/or”???

    Quote: “But the student readily noted that ‘this was never about bathrooms … this was always about more than that.’”

    Oops! The cat has exited the bag!

    It’s true that this problem isn’t about toilets, just as homosexual pseudo-marriage isn’t about “equality.” I read most of After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen when it came out, and I can assure all of you that this is part of a staged plan to suppress heterosexuals as ‘inferior breeders.’

    Yes, heterosexuals are considered “inferior” by many homosexual activists because they are viewed as “breeders,” likened to animals who do nothing but eat, sleep, and breed. Homosexuals are “superior” because they value people for something more/better than “breeding.” You will find this line of thinking in this book and in other books and magazines from the 1970s – 1980s (at least) which were written for a primarily homosexual audience.

    I didn’t read the entire book because I found everything it put forward to bounce back and forth between absurdity and obnoxiousness. I didn’t think homosexuals could exercise enough self-control to present themselves as “harmless,” and I didn’t think heterosexuals would ever be so stupid as to buy into the charade. But … here we are … 20+ years later, and the plan is coming to fruition.

  30. WYMiriam says:

    “. . . Fordham president Fr. McShane […] reportedly said to prospective students: “[….] You might be disturbed. I hope you are. I hope you end up a little disturbed.” What, “disturbed”, as in mentally ill?? You reportedly really hope that, Fr. McShane?

    Fr. Jim, “basic commercial and physiological plumbing” has little to do with this issue of “gender-neutral bathrooms”. What does have to do with it is a possible, indeed, probable, increase in male-on-female sexual abuse (such as the father you mentioned with the 4-year-old daughter — he’s either culpably ignorant or incredibly stupid, or, even worse, already a perp, since his sort of behavior makes the “INCEST!” warning alarm go off in my brain).

    Let me put it this way. Next time the progressive legislature where I live — never let it be said that Wyoming is a “conservative” state!!!!! — tries to ram through “gender-neutral” public restrooms, I will be there to object, on this basis: UNLESS every single public restroom goes “gender-neutral”, THEN just exactly who is going to be using which restrooms? We will most definitely see men, perhaps of all ages, going into the ladies’ restrooms, but how many women will ever actually use a men’s restroom? Maybe once for kicks or on a dare, but I doubt anything like on a regular basis.

    Perhaps a brother-in-law of mine has the most equally-offensive-to-everyone suggestion: make the doors of all the stalls of restrooms open onto a corridor, where the sinks will be. That should prevent most of the sexual assault problems such as those The Grumpy Beggar described.

    Also, Fr. Jim, perhaps you might “get the fundamentalists’ fascination with excretion facilities” at the same time that you “get” the homosexualists’ fascination with shoving their sexual activities in our faces.

    Masked Chicken, I think your mash is out in the pan in the henhouse. . . Back to the subject at hand. . . Family members use the bathroom one at a time(certain baths excepted). In other words, a family’s bathroom is single-stall, single-use.

    And I agree with you, M. Chicken, that “no” is an acceptable and not an uncharitable word. It’s also a complete sentence.

    Benedetta, I think that adding a third “whatever” restroom would result in its being another men’s room. I don’t think women want to use a restroom that men are free to use (unless, as The Chicken pointed out, it’s a family bathroom).

    To be fair, the un-sexed signs for gender-neutral restrooms at Fordham are (for the present) posted only on single-stall restrooms. But those who want multi-stall restrooms to be gender-neutral will eventually get that, too.

    “The Positive’s student leader, who identifies as a transgender male (a woman living as a man), told the Observer, “Having a restroom I could use without fear was definitely something I wanted.”” There seems to be a serious disconnect here. She’s a woman, but fearful of using a women’s restroom, but she’s “living as a man”, and she’s fearful of using a men’s restroom? What, then, does she want in terms of public restrooms? Single-stall restrooms everywhere there’s a multi-stall restroom? Perhaps, instead of forcing institutions to go to the expense of installing a private toilet she can use “without fear”, she could learn some form of martial arts — or live where she can conceal carry in order to protect herself from potential attackers.

    Michelle F: “I read most of After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen when it came out” ROFL!

  31. Militans says:

    monknoah says:
    “Yeah, this has become really trendy in recent years. They had this where I did my undergrad work. It was less weird than I thought it would be. The “gender neutral” bathroom had a sink area, no urinals, and rows of private stalls. By “private stalls,” I mean stalls with floor-to-ceiling walls and floor-to-ceiling doors (with effective locks). Men and women could wash their hands next to each other, but all of the actual bathroom stuff occurred under conditions of total privacy”

    A lot of this was initially pushed by feminists complaining that women took longer in the bathroom (and stalls are not as space efficient as urinals) – and queues built up, therefore even if women’s bathrooms have the same floorspace as men’s there is a time disparity and that is unequal.

    http://time.com/3653871/womens-bathroom-lines-sexist-potty-parity/

    http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=bglj

  32. KAS says:

    This is only going to work if the women are all armed concealed with three or four hidden knives as well as some self defense training. Campus’ are bad enough as rape risk locations without HELPING the predators.

    Sheesh! The Catholic Church used to defend the virtue of women, now schools like this lead the way in destroying innocence and virtue together. Who was it that said hell was paved with Bishop’s mitres? I guess it is wallpapered with the degrees of academics who push virtue destructive politics.

  33. Supertradmum says:

    References to the pope above without clear quotations and references are slander and sinful.

    It is about time for Catholics to grow up and realize that the media hates the Church, especially the Italian media, run mostly by Marxists, for decades. Those who pope-bash bring the tone of this blog down to a scandalous, and to be honest, silly, level.

    Like children with incomplete and slanted knowlegdge, seeing some things but not able to understand the whole picture of God’s permissive, and, yes, even perfect will in our times, some commentators lower the rather high standard of this venerable blog.

    I stand with St. Catherine of Siena on this point. No one has a right to criticize any clergyman without also praying daily for him. Period.

  34. Supertradmum says:

    PS . Other countries have had same-sex loos for decades, even in universities. One can surmise this movement at Fordham has to do with gender equality, or maybe it is just plain stupidity, or cost-cutting factors.

  35. Supertradmum says:

    excuse typos–typing in a hotel lobby hardly leads to perfection in my editing

  36. Mary Jane says:

    Viva Cristo Rey said “It’s one thing to use the same restroom as my brother whom I know and trust….. It’s quite another to watch teenage daughter / niece be followed into these neutral facilities by a grown man! Folks are bereft of logic!”

    YES! The City of Dallas just passed (in secret, behind closed doors) an ordinance that allows men and women to use each other’s bathrooms in stores, restaurants, etc. They say it’s not a safety issue (?!), it’s a tolerance issue (?!). It’s painfully obvious to everyone (except the LGBT community and the city council members) that this will make women’s bathrooms unsafe – for women and for children. Anyone who lives in the Dallas city limits – please contact the mayor and city council members and ask them to repeal the ordinance…we have to stand up and fight against stuff like this!

  37. Marissa says:

    “I applaud Joe McShane for recognizing that the mystery of human sexuality and gender is somewhat more profound than basic commercial and physiological plumbing. I really don’t get the fundamentalists’ fascination with excretion facilities.”

    What you “really don’t get” is how scary it is to be nude from the waist down and in a helpless position when you are outweighed and outmatched by those mere feet away from you. I can’t imagine you know anything about the female experience or have any desire to do so, but one thing is certain, and that is that there’s no “mystery” or “profundity” to the real threat of sexual assault.

  38. Mary Jane says:

    frjim4321, as far as public bathrooms are concerned, which door you go in depends on only one thing – whether you have the body of a man or of a woman. Don’t drag this off topic into some lame rabbit hole.

  39. SKAY says:

    According to the article they are changing the signs only on single stall restrooms in just one building so far. The students pushing this want to have this done on every other single stall restroom on campus. Fordham is researching what other peer Jesuit institutions are doing concerning gender inclusive restrooms.

    “Gender inclusive housing” seems to be the next step. I am not surprised that it is starting in San Francisco.
    “The University of San Francisco also recently implemented “gender-inclusive housing” for the 2015-16 school year. – ”

    “Students may apply for the gender-inclusive housing for a variety of reasons, including if they “identify as transgender, do not wish to be identified by any sex or gender identity, [or] prefer to live with a roommate of a different gender.”
    Gee–What could possibly go wrong?

  40. The Masked Chicken says:

    “I stand with St. Catherine of Siena on this point. No one has a right to criticize any clergyman without also praying daily for him. Period.”

    We should be praying for all clergy, daily, and our local clergy even more fervently. That being said, that statement is a little too broad. One should not criticize a clergyman as a clergyman, without also praying for him, because, by the grace of his office he is entitled to that respect, and if he should err in matters of Faith and Morals, it is more significant than a laymen who errs. However, if a clergyman should add up a column of numbers, unrelated to matters of religion or persons, then he has no more status in that area than a laymen. In other words, had George LaMaitre made a mistake in his calculations of Big Bang cosmology, he is, as I understand it, entitled to no more nor less respect in this matter than any other astronomer. Any criticism leveled at him for this does not touch in his ordination. Becoming a priest does not, suddenly, make one a better cook, skater, or scientist and one does not operate in persona Christi while cooking, skating, or doing science (usually). Criticisms in these areas are not a slight against ordination or Christ. I don’t know why a priest would need more prayer than anybody else – in fact, I see little obligation to pray for them – if we were to criticize them if they failed to add, say, enough lemons to the lemonade.

    The Chicken

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