140 Comments
User's avatar
Joe King's avatar

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑚 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑢𝑝 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑎𝑙 𝑏𝑦 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑔𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑑.

“𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑'𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑐 𝑏𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑.”

No shit. What in the authoritarian dystopia fuck is this shit? Nevermind the bodily autonomy religious reasons for fighting this bathroom access policy. What about the health and safety of the students? Is a security guard going to yank a child off the toilet mid-shit? No matter how good the digital pass system is in theory for being aware of student locations, this bathroom restriction nonsense should be ended for all the students.

foofaraw & Chiquita(ARF!)'s avatar

Joe, I suspect this madness is mostly a sort of "controlling the narrative" goal.

The right wants children to grow ACCUSTOMED to giving up freedoms, small at first, larger as they grow older. Much like banning books with LGBTQIA characters allows parents to paint ugly, dehumanizing images of those demographics of actual HUMAN BEINGS.

But when that's the only picture a child sees.....

Joe King's avatar

They see the children as evil bundles of chaos to be broken down and molded into the narrow little boxes that fit their narrative. They don't see children as small humans with rights and the need to be guided gently toward a free and independent adulthood.

John Smith's avatar

To the Christian fascists children and women are PROPERTY, that doesn’t have rights or freedoms that must be moulded into “proper” Christian. (In other words a racist, sexist, homophonic, xenophobic Christian fascist asshole for the guys, and submissive, obedient, slave for the girls).

ericc's avatar
4hEdited

Ah I wouldn't be that conspiracy nut about it. This is a much more banal evil. Some adults got hold of the programming and put in a restrictive set of rules because (a) they simply didn't think about all the things that could go wrong and (b) hey the rules don't apply to them, so who cares if they're inconvenient in some cases?

Joan the Dork's avatar

That's where it starts, yeah; it may just be a case of staff convenience over student liberty and dignity 𝘯𝘰𝘸... but it will 𝘯𝘰𝘵 take long for this to be adapted into a new weapon for the culture war. We're talking about the people who spun a school district trying to give kids a way to relieve themselves during lockdowns into a national outrage shitstorm about furries and litterboxes. It's not unreasonable to theorize about worst-case scenarios when the worst-case scenario is literally what certain folks are determined to achieve.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

I'm with you, Joan, ESPECIALLY regarding the whole "no-bathroom-on-Mondays" business. I STILL want to hear a rational justification for that, and I'm dubious that one is forthcoming.

foofaraw & Chiquita(ARF!)'s avatar

"Conspiracy nut"

That's a first...

Linda's avatar
4hEdited

Really. Wtf is this militant surveillance and monitoring of using the bathroom!? So what if kids take too long or skip class. That’s what we did as kids. I hated school rules then (I was a punk-kid), but I can’t imagine learning in this environment. Absolutely not, no 😵

Joan the Dork's avatar

If I were a school-age kid in these times, I'd be 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 my parents to home-school me. Hands and knees and streaming tears and panic attacks, 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨. I honestly do not think I would have survived the kind of shit kids today have to put up with; I barely made it out of high school as things sat two decades and change ago.

Linda's avatar
3hEdited

💯 same

You could find me in the bathroom doing any of these things:

Smoking

Hiding from mean girls

Dropping acid

Putting on too much makeup

Skipping gym class

foofaraw & Chiquita(ARF!)'s avatar

I always felt some degree of safety because so many of the people to be wary of were driven by their "cravings" to spend much of each day....

In the Designated Smoking Area. (Yes, I'm old.)

(And if I really wanted to stretch the irony into an almost unrecognizable shape, many others of the "dangerous types" demographic were attending Bible Class.)

Troublesh00ter's avatar

And The Satanic Temple knocks one clear out of the park! I am damned impressed, and very pleased to see that ST got the break she clearly needed.

But ... she can't be the only girl in that school who needs access to a bathroom when her period shows up. Is Minga THAT inflexible, and just what is up with that system to begin with? We got a few unanswered questions that I think are in need of meaningful responses here!

Joe King's avatar

It looks like Minga is just a tracking system with a central database to apply school rules uniformly. A bit Big Brother-ish, but not necessarily as controlling as this school district's implementation. Know where the students are? Probably a good thing in general. Control their movements to the point of denying their bodily functions? Dystopian hellhole.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

To this engineer, it sounds OVER-engineered and seriously problematic, certainly as regards ordinary bodily functions. That ST had even ONE incident where she couldn't take care of herself (and she DID), I see that as unnecessarily intrusive, and I would LOVE to know the reason why bathroom access has to be THAT restricted.

Joe King's avatar

If all it did was keep track of student location while on school grounds, it would be perfectly fine. However, especially the way this school implemented it, it is being used to treat all the students as hardened criminals instead of children there to learn.

Message to school administrators: children are not the enemy.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Children MAY be the enemy when someone like ST outmaneuvers them! The reaction to the decision by the school faculty would be ... INTERESTING.

ericc's avatar
4hEdited

Well it's a digital hall pass system - bathroom breaks are just one possible application of it.

It makes total sense to me that you would design the generic system to have a 'request denied' capability in it. The problem here was some admin turning that denial system on in a waaay too restrictive setting. Minga supplied the thermostat, but it was some Scrooge that decided 50 degrees in the dead of winter is fine for the workers.

oraxx's avatar

This kind of surveillance is horrifying, and I don’t know why any parent would agree to it. I suspect the larger plan is to get kids accustomed to being under surveillance at all times. I don’t care how convenient the school system finds this system, it is a massive intrusion into the bodily autonomy of students.

Straw's avatar

And that makes me wonder how on earth using that spy system can be legal. I am sure it would illegal in most of Europa.

regmeyer's avatar

But we must get the little dears ready for the 1984 dystopian nightmare that they will be part of through out their lives.

NOGODZ20's avatar

Good! Use the NatCs tactics against them. A little legalistic jiu-jitsu.

Cindi Lynch's avatar

(As part of the agreement, ST’s parents have to sign a waiver saying the district will not be held accountable “for any consequences that may flow from ST’s unmonitored movement through the building.”)

Excuse me? Any consequences? What consequences are they forseeing? I know in some places, young women have to go to the bathroom in groups for safety reasons: going alone means risking being raped or attacked. What exactly does this school think might happen to her if she's "unmonitored" that they don't want to be held responsible for???

Len's avatar

Sadly I’m afraid that a bunch of super-christian kids will “happen” to her if she's otherwise alone in the hall.

Cindi Lynch's avatar

Certainly a possibility. And I can only imagine what the behavior of super-christians would be toward an avowed "Satanist."

Len's avatar

“ST’s parents have to sign a waiver saying the district will not be held accountable “for any consequences that may flow from ST’s unmonitored movement through the building.”)”

Do the parents of other (eg, Christian) children have to sign that same waiver?

NOGODZ20's avatar

Of course not. Christians are holy and perfect. :S

regmeyer's avatar

And would never have those bodily functions when out in the world.

Len's avatar

Ah yes, I forgot. Silly me 🙁

Lynn Veit's avatar

And if they're not, they have their "forgiven" cards to play.

Joan the Dork's avatar

This is what I get for letting myself be turned into a morning person for a few weeks. Two days in, and I already feel like I'm having cyberpunk dystopia fever dreams.

Look, I love technology. Technology offers many benefits to society at large, and to people as individuals. Some of those benefits are immense; others minute. Some of those benefits even involve bathrooms! Heck, bathrooms 𝘢𝘳𝘦 one of those benefits. Indoor plumbing might just be the single greatest thing technology has contributed to humanity since the invention of indoor spaces.

𝘕𝘰𝘯𝘦 of those benefits, however, include having a fucking app tell you when you're 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥 to use the bathroom.

And I can see the writing on the wall, here. It's in 30-foot neon flashing letters. Block print. All caps. Right-wing governments around the country are already building databases; it isn't difficult to see what this wretched potty policing software is going to be used for. "We want to keep schoolkids from abusing hall passes" is absolute horseshit; that's not the endgame here. The endgame is to have schools, government buildings, and ultimately private businesses track and report every time the 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 uses the 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮. The next line will be "we want to make sure our employees aren't taking excess break time" or something like that (though probably in mind-numbing corporate jargon). Sooner or later, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 will have to have this poopy peeper tracking app on their phone, for one reason or another. And then... down comes the other jackboot.

I can practically hear the culture warriors salivating over this shit. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 is the enforcement mechanism all those fucking anti-trans bathroom bills have been waiting for.

Juanita Herrell's avatar

Yes. This. All of this. And this software will always be called a poopy peeper tracking app for the rest of time.

Len's avatar

A pppp app?

(That’s pee pee pee pee of course)

Linda's avatar
1hEdited

And we already have those bathroom stalls with 2 feet of space at the bottom (12” 😂) all around to make you as uncomfortable as possible and not stay long. That’s corporate America’s doing. Obedient school children make good obedient workers. Europe has no such stall design (full height partitions).

Len's avatar

And no gaps between the door and the wall.

Lynn Veit's avatar

I think you're right on the nose and that thought is frightening.

Maltnothops's avatar

I could not tell if restroom access is limited to 3 people because that’s how big the restroom is or because We Said So. I suspect the latter.

Len Koz's avatar

If the school restroom can't handle more than 3 individuals at a time, that's an awful small school restroom. Is this "the little red schoolhouse"?

Troublesh00ter's avatar

DAMNED good question!

RegularJoe's avatar

They can't count, much less manage, more than three things at once.

One, two, three, many.......

ericc's avatar
4hEdited

𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑠𝑎𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑚 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒

Very much this. No going to the bathroom on Mondays? Are they insane? Fully agree with Joe King's comment about authoritarianism; this is absurd micromanagement by the system while at the same time an excuse for teachers to shirk a basic classroom management responsibility. Yes Hemant, while they may have a lot of things to do, knowing which of their students are in the class and which aren't is a basic, important, responsibility that should not be offloaded to an app.

These systems should have no authority to approve or deny anyone's movement. That is the teacher's responsibility. The system should be used for monitoring use/movement only. If a school administration thinks some kid is abusing the privilege of digital passes, that will become obvious in the statistics over time and they can do something about it after it's found, and restrict the privileges of just the students who abuse it.

Maybe to show the absurdity of the situation, the school should enforce app use on the teachers and administrators, including the "No bathroom Mondays" rule. Let's see how long it lasts when the Principal has to work under the same restrictions they're willing to force onto their students.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

The last I knew, bodily functions do NOT give a rotten dump about days of the week. Seriously, why single out ANY day of the week?

Something is very wrong, either with Minga, or how it has been implemented.

Joe King's avatar

Probably a bit of both. If it wasn't built with the capacity for crushing authoritarianism, the school district would not have been able to perform that crushing authoritarianism.

RegularJoe's avatar

What‽ This sword cuts 𝒃𝒐𝒕𝒉 𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔‽‽‽ ~ Xtians

Troublesh00ter's avatar

𝐴 𝑠𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑟 𝑓𝑜𝑒; 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑡.

-- me, A Garland for the Master

Vickie Dillon's avatar

I can’t tell you how this tickles me pink. They brought this on themselves by not letting her opt out.

Boreal's avatar

Oh noes, christians are being persecuted.

John Smith's avatar

It doesn’t take much for the goddamm jesusfuckers to scream persecution/I am being silenced!

Boreal's avatar

You know it won't take long for the shrieking jesus goblins to attack this decision.

Joe King's avatar
4hEdited

Surprisingly, there are several positive comments on the Christian Post article covering this. Of course, the goblins are out in force there too.

Maltnothops's avatar

There’s a small coterie of rationalist commenters there.

Lynn Veit's avatar

shrieking jesus goblins! Love it!

Ranks right up there with "Howler Monkeys for Jesus" as my favorite on-the-nose description of Xtians.

Old Man Shadow's avatar

[If Christians can get away with the religious accommodation excuse when it comes to reading challenging books or learning about sexuality in a health class, there’s no reason Satanists can’t apply the same logic when it comes to something sensible.]

Except we both know that the Christian Nationalists responsible for eroding the separation of church and state have zero intentions to extend equal accommodations to other religions or the non-religious.

If she identified as atheist, would she have won this case. (I know most Satanists are atheists, but you shouldn't have to identify as a religion to secure human rights.) If the district opted to appeal up the chain, would the Christian Nationalists on SCOTUS have ruled the same way?

Lynn Veit's avatar

(...but you shouldn't have to identify as a religion to secure human rights.)

👆👆 THIS ! ! 👆👆

wreck's avatar

I thought that they were against men in women's sports.

Lynn Veit's avatar

So I guess the Vile Orange Cretin will never be able to make good on his brag about winning against Riley Gaines in a swim meet.

Although I imagine that would take her down a peg or two if by some unforseen chance he *did* win. Would love to see the look on her white christian privileged face (assuming she identifies as christian) in that case.

Edited for typo

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Oh, GOOD GRIEF, Agnes! You almost can't see the team for all the IDIOTS in front!

NOGODZ20's avatar
3hEdited

Women to the back. So Republican.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Juvenile and disgusting ... and not one of those idiots could remotely see it the way we do.

Lynn Veit's avatar

I didn't even see the women at first glance and thought the wrong photo had been linked.

Who are all those asswipes in front of them anyway? I recognized the Vile Orange Cretin and Fucking Fleddy Cruz, but the others? Why the hell were they even IN the photo? At most the Prez and maybe the VP should be included. Standing off to the side and *applauding* not standing directly in front of any of the honorees.

RelentlessJo's avatar

I love seeing really cool people using the christo-fascist manipulation playbook. Thank you to the brave young gal and her family.

Lynn Veit's avatar

And you just know she's taking flack about it from the Mean Girls clique that is the bane of every school in the country.

Jan Doe's avatar

This digital shit needs to end right now. This is an insane, dystopian nightmare... digital monitoring to say how long kids can use a bathroom? Is this a joke? (I know it's not.) Talk about a nanny state! They are training these kids up to follow authoritarian rule and to accept constant surveillance, which is absolutely where this society is going now. That's the real problem here.

The fact that someone had to use a religious exemption to take care of their bodily needs is just absolutely insane. Without getting too gross, I had many 'bleed through' problems at school since my period was so heavy. It happened nearly every month, and that was WITH the ability to use the bathroom when I needed. I know the shame and humiliation.

I'm glad they won this suit but should not have needed to file it in the first place. I'm glad again that I am not a parent because no way would I have put up with this crap in any school my kid went to. Best to get them out of that hellhole.