Ahh pinkwashing, combined with the strange need to make everything into monopoly. One day I bet there will be monopoly monopoly where each square is a different monopoly set and whoever wins that game of monopoly buys the square.
Their changes are amusing, it appears to be women get +400 at the start and +40 past go. The start bonus is helpful, the go money a bit less, although any additional money into the game lengthens the game, hence socialism parking space monopoly takes forever.
Oh and you don’t buy property you invest in girl power inventions. This change I like because it brings back the ‘capitalism is shit’ aspect of the game. The basic strategy to win is to mortgage everything once you make your first monopoly to then invest in houses, so in this new game, you throw away a bunch of amazing women inventors the second you hit your first cash cow. Ah good ol vulture capitalism.
"gender is 100% biological and not performative and also you better not perform your gender wrong or society will collapse!!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Existential Comics
Amazing how the people who are most adamant that gender is biological and not socially constructed are also the most freaked out when a man like...wears a dress or something. These ideas are not compatible.
That's not what "people are saying." That's an equivocation of language to make it appear that "people are saying" something that they are not. The tweeter has confounded sex and gender, as if they are the same. They are not.
If anything, "people are saying" that sex, not gender, is biological. Gender *is* a social construct.
Most people don't care if a man wears a dress. He's not "performing his gender wrong." He can perform any gender he wants, though why he should want to perform any gender at all is a mystery to me. If he does, however, it's nobody's business but his own. SEX is not performative, whereas "gender" is. It's that whole social construct of what people "expect" males or females to be like. It has nothing to do with actual sex.
When a man wears a dress, by and large, nobody cares. He is taking the gender stereotypes assigned to women and adopting them, for whatever reason he wants. That's all. However, his biological sex remains the same: he is still a man.
Any alleged "freaking out" happens when he insists that the performance of gender stereotypes imposed on females, e.g., wearing a dress, somehow turns him into a woman, and that his actual biological sex is changed. That's nuts. Making a performance of gender stereotypes doesn't change anybody's sex. Besides, it's not "freaking out" to state that that's not true; "freaking out" is an unnecessarily pejorative way of saying it, and that's not really what's going on. A man performing the gender stereotypes socially assigned to women doesn't change his sex; he flatly can't change his sex, no matter what he does. That's not "freaking out," that's just stating a fact.
He can just be himself by wearing whatever he wants. I don't know why that's not good enough.
For myself, I reject "gender" entirely. As far as I'm concerned, I have no gender. Internally, I feel like a person, a human being. My body has a sex, though, and there's nothing I can do about that. I refuse to be pushed into the gender box.
That's what feminism is for: to allow women to break out of and reject the social stereotypes that have been imposed on them. Let people just be people, and do what they want, wear what they want. A side effect of feminism is also that any man should be able to wear a dress if that's what he wants and that's what he's comfortable with. No one should have to comply with gender stereotypes, either for women or for men. That shouldn't be a problem.
Their changes are amusing, it appears to be women get +400 at the start and +40 past go. The start bonus is helpful, the go money a bit less, although any additional money into the game lengthens the game, hence socialism parking space monopoly takes forever.
Oh and you don’t buy property you invest in girl power inventions. This change I like because it brings back the ‘capitalism is shit’ aspect of the game. The basic strategy to win is to mortgage everything once you make your first monopoly to then invest in houses, so in this new game, you throw away a bunch of amazing women inventors the second you hit your first cash cow. Ah good ol vulture capitalism.
So much like the original Monopoly captured the dystopian reality of early 20th century capitalism, this new Monopoly captures the zeitgeist of our time?
Random thought: Transphobia is rooted in the notion that women are property. Property can't opt out and it's nonsense to want to be property when you're not.
Can you explain that to me?
First, what is "transphobia"?
If it means not wanting trans people to have the right to employment, housing, fair treatment in public accommodations without discrimination (same as other groups who suffer discrimination based on group characteristics),
As I understand it, all you mentioned there and in addition, dismissal of the existence of trans people, or violence against trans people.
Yes, people should be protected in law from violence based on group characteristics, like race, religion, or sex, for example. No one that I know supports violence against trans people.
As to "dismissal of the existence of trans people," what does that mean? It's a plain fact that trans people exist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Second, what in transgender theory says that "women are property"?
What do you mean, "property can't opt out," and it's "nonsense to want to be property when you're not"? I don't think any transgender people or advocates want transgender people to be property. I also don't think anyone who is not trans wants anyone, trans or not, to be property.
Maybe I was unclear, I'm trying to say that transphobes, and I think I see where my problem lies. You get to it here:
You're trying to say that "transphobes" ... what? What is a "transphobe"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Feminism is the notion that women are people, not property, and that women do, indeed "opt out" of being property. It's been a long, hard fight, and it's not won yet. Women can't "opt out" of being women, that I know of. That comes with a certain amount of baggage, as there are still large strands of culture that treat women as either property or, slightly more enlightenedly, as second class, at best. But the struggle for women's rights is to put women on an equal footing with men, as human beings endowed with dignity and fair treatment. There have been a great number of improvements over the last decades.
Ok, I see this as: regarding women as property can be -a- root of transphobia but definitely isn't the only one.
I still don't see what you are trying to get at. The propertarian view of women is something that feminism is fighting against. Neither trans people nor non-trans people want anyone to be treated as property.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
There are feminists who are also transphobes ...
Again, what's the definition of a "transphobe"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
... and I've seen some real knock down and drag out arguments about whether transwomen even exist or are merely a form of fetishist trying to peep on women in the bathroom.
Who says transwomen don't exist? Of course they exist, big as life. That being said, it doesn't mean that they get to use the women's bathroom. They are transwomen, i.e., men. They belong in the men's bathroom. Stay in their lane, no problem. Doing away with sex-segregated bathrooms and other spaces does nobody any favors, most especially women. It's not safe or dignified for women; that's the reason spaces are sex-segregated to begin with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
I'm sure they do not regard themselves as property, though.
Right, so I don't get why anyone thinks anyone wants to be thought of as property. I don't know why that even came up in your original thought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
*takes the initial thought back to the workshop to tinker with it or trash it
maddog, are you saying that transphobia is not a thing that's reasonably well defined and a genuine problem?
And more, are you saying it's not a thing because no one you know is a transphobe or would support violence against trans people? An argument from personal incredulity.
It sounds to me like that's what you're saying and I don't believe for a minute that's the kind of thing you would say. Confused.
Yes, I am saying that "transphobia" is ill-defined.
What one person means by that word is not what other people mean when they say "transphobia." It needs to be properly defined, and not bandied about loosely.
Of course there is a genuine problem to be addressed by anti-discrimination laws, but terms frequently get conflated (e.g., "sex" and "gender") when they shouldn't be.
In my experience, people are accused of transphobia when they are not transphobic in the sense suggested by the accusers. But, once the accusation is made, the epithet "transphobe" is used to dismiss out of hand anything that the accused says, thus preventing genuine dialog.
I have no doubt that some people have a prejudice against transgender people, and that such prejudice is part of why transgender people are subjected to violence. The violent acts that happen should be analyzed to determine what the animus actually is, with a view to preventing such violence. Many times, the wrong people are accused of "violence," because the term "violence" becomes so broad as to be meaningless.
There are serious discussions to be had with respect to protecting transgender people from discrimination, including alarming incidents of discrimination in the form of violence. One of the real underlying issues is male pattern violence. Transgender people who are murdered are almost always killed by men. It's the same pattern in any class of targeted victims. Most crimes against men are committed by men. Most crimes against women are committed by men. N.B., that's not to say that most men are violent; they're not. But most people who are violent are men.
there is a genuine problem to be addressed by anti-discrimination laws
terms frequently get conflated (e.g., "sex" and "gender") when they shouldn't be
One of the real underlying issues is male pattern violence.
I agree with the above.
I think my confusion is that I thought Kam had given a definition, albeit not with citations and etymology, and that I wasn't seeing conflation of sex and gender in the posts here (although it most definitely happens among people I would regard as right-wing religious zealot transphobes).
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
[Transwomen] are transwomen, i.e., men.
I don't get this though. In my limited understanding, transwomen, maybe most of them, can be genetically XY; pre-op transwomen may be biologically male. But gender rather than biology defines social roles and interactions (as do many things apart from gender or biology of course), and transwomen are women as in of female gender - isn't that the point?
Anyway, I will await the results of Kam's and everyone's tinkering in workshops
I have a lot of thoughts and questions on this topic because I have one nephew who is dating a transwoman and another (nephew?) who identifies as non-binary, but if Twitter has taught me anything it's that anything I think is intrinsically invalid and likely offensive because I am a cisgendered, heterosexual man. Tbh I don't even know if I disagree.
I do find the whole issue of transgender perplexing. Putting aside people who are born with ambiguous sex characteristics, I understand 'transgender' to be the preferred term for someone who was born with the anatomy of one sex now identifying fully as the other biological sex. Whereas 'transsexual' has become offensive.
In my experience, people who identify as transgender don't call themselves 'transmen/women', but 'men/women'. I have seen many examples of women being pilloried on Twitter for comments like maddog's above. I have absolutely no doubt that she would be branded either or both of a TERF or transphobe (more likely both) and torn to shreds for the suggestion that a 'transwoman' is not in fact 100%, biologically, a woman. I completely get not subscribing to gender roles, I don't get not subscribing to biology.
I saw an episode of Real Time w/ Bill Maher* last year (ep 500) where a Dr. Deborah Soh was talking about having been run out of academia for daring to question the notion that biological sex is arbitrary. I don't know anything else about her or the story (and of course might not even have that much right, it having been a year ago and all) but it didn't sound completely implausible. I have seen people on Twitter organizing to destroy people's careers for being 'TERFs' or 'Transphobes' and it's legitimately unnerving.
*I had to stop watching Bill Maher because I got so sick of him giving a platform to nutjobs. I don't mean that people like Milo, Killer Mike, and Jordan Peterson shouldn't be allowed to share their views, I'm all about free speech. I just got sick of him doing such a piss-poor job of challenging the misinformation they spewed.
there is a genuine problem to be addressed by anti-discrimination laws
terms frequently get conflated (e.g., "sex" and "gender") when they shouldn't be
One of the real underlying issues is male pattern violence.
I agree with the above.
I think my confusion is that I thought Kam had given a definition, albeit not with citations and etymology, and that I wasn't seeing conflation of sex and gender in the posts here (although it most definitely happens among people I would regard as right-wing religious zealot transphobes).
No, Kam did not really give a definition of "transphobe" such that people can agree on what it means, and on what counts as "transphobia." Some of her comments (e.g., about "feminists" who are "transphobic" for having arguments about what transgenderism is or means) are indicative of the definitional problem in familiar discourse these days, that paints women as "against" transgender people, when in reality most women/feminists don't have any issue with (and are in favor of) protections for transgender people as a class, in the same way that other classes are protected: protection against violence, against discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, etc.
vm hit on this when he observes, quite rightly, that in many circles, I would be (and am) labeled "TERF" and "transphobic" simply for stating that sex is a biological fact, whereas gender is a cultural, social construct or idea, with no necessary basis in fact, nor any necessary connection to biological sex.
So, people (like me) who fully advocate for anti-discrimination protections for transgender people, who are as appalled as anyone by violence against transgender people, and who fully believe people are entitled to live however they want, are nonetheless cast as enemies of transgender people, and are directly blamed for violence against transgender people, when they favor anti-discrimination protections commensurate with those afforded to other groups, and when they have committed no such violence.
The issues need much further delineation and definition and explanation and analysis and discussion, so that the proper changes can be made to ensure anti-discrimination protections are put in place for transgender people. For example, the "Equality Act" presently before the US Congress proposes to make statutory changes by making specific amendments to the provisions for SEX-discrimination protections, rather than creating a separate category of protection for gender-non-conforming people. The amendments propose to change the actual definition of "sex" to INCLUDE two things that are not "sex": both sexual orientation AND "gender identity." I think that this is a serious mistake. This is the conflation at the heart of the matter, because sex and gender are entirely distinct. Once "sex" (reproductive biology of a person) becomes defined AS "gender" -- an idea or notion in someone's head -- then protections for people on account of actual biological SEX disappear. That means that all the gains of feminism in the last 50 or 60 years are wiped out at a single stroke. These ideas need to be kept separate, and not conflated together.
Women, as a sex class, are discriminated against by means of gendered stereotypes. That's why many women want to do away with gender altogether. There is nothing in style, or dress, or talents, or occupations, or interests, or skills, or any other assumptions of "gender," that belongs exclusively to one sex or the other. The only thing that belongs to one sex and not the other IS sex. Either a human being is in the class of biological reproduction that can produce small gametes to fertilize large gametes (male) or the human being is in the class of biological reproduction that can produce large gametes and gestate a fertilized cell(s) into a new human being (female). Sex is: which biological reproduction function does your body have? 99% of all human beings are clearly of one type or the other.
Women, members of the gestational class, have suffered for millennia because of the assumptions made and restrictions imposed on account of "gender," which is ideas about their sex, and not biological facts about their sex. Gender stereotypes for women have been part and parcel of cultural patriarchy that keeps women oppressed. The patriarchal model has been dominant in most cultures for most of history. The aim of feminism is to center the problems of women (the sex) in such societies, and to overcome the stereotypes of gender.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeP
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
[Transwomen] are transwomen, i.e., men.
I don't get this though. In my limited understanding, transwomen, maybe most of them, can be genetically XY; pre-op transwomen may be biologically male. But gender rather than biology defines social roles and interactions (as do many things apart from gender or biology of course), and transwomen are women as in of female gender - isn't that the point?
The conflation of sex and gender is the source of this confusion. Virtually all transwomen are XY, and are in the small-gamete-producing-body class, who have gonads and secrete hormones that form significant parts the reproductive system of biological males. They may have surgery to alter their male body to appear more like a female body. They may take cross-sex hormones to alter their male body to appear more like a female body. They may do one, both, or neither. Personally, I don't believe ANYONE should be required to do anything to themselves in order to live how they want, wear what they want, do what they want, etc. Most transwomen, in fact, do not undergo surgery, and they continue to retain their male genitals. That's their business, and no one else's. They shouldn't be discriminated against or beat up or killed for any of the gender choices they make for themselves.
In terms of biology, pre-op or post-op makes no difference. A male born male has the reproductive system of a male, and the reproductive organs of a male, and the sex-chromosomes of a male. If he wants to have surgery to amputate his male sex organs, he can. That doesn't make him not a male. He cannot change his biological sex. He can amputate his male sex organs, he can have breast enhancement surgery, he can take female hormones to increase the femininity of his appearance, he can have plastic surgery on his face, there are any number of things he can to to feminize his body, if he wants to. He can make himself look more feminine, if he wants to (not required to). But nothing in the treatments available to him will ever change his biological sex from male to female.
You may think that "gender rather than biology defines social roles and interactions (as do many things apart from gender or biology of course)," and that is true to some extent, but (1) it is rather a self-fulfilling prophecy, given the prevalence of gendered stereotypes (something that women have been trying to break down since forever), and (2) those stereotypes arose, and the restrictive "feminine" ones are externally forced on the sex-class, women, because they are women, i.e., because of their sex, and NOT because of their gender. If an idea in someone's head (and not biological sex) were determinative, women should have been able to opt out of feminized gender expectations long ago, but that has not been the case. There is still a wage gap. There is still a disparity in domestic unpaid labor. Every single time women have sought, as a sex, to undo the social restrictions placed on them, the women have been fought tooth and nail. Within living memory, women could not get their own credit. Women have only had the franchise in the USA for 100 years. Women could not enter into their own contracts. All the restrictions imposed and deprivations visited upon women in a patriarchal society are on account of women's sex, not their gender.
Sex precedes gender in concept. Sex is biological and immutable. There is nothing necessary in gender. Indeed, gender itself is really unnecessary in order for people to like what they like, and be how they want.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeP
... gender rather than biology defines social roles and interactions ..., and transwomen are women as in of female gender - isn't that the point?
I would say that transwomen are of the male sex, but they prefer a feminine gender. Not "female gender." Female is a sex; feminine is a gender. Things considered "feminine" are absolutely NOT what makes anyone "female" or a "woman." There's nothing inherent in the sex (woman/female) that entails that they should wear dresses, or wear makeup, or wear certain kinds of crippling shoes, or have long hair, or wear certain kinds of jewelry, or paint their nails, or any of the other cultural signs/signals/artifacts that society has decided are "feminine," and believed (incorrectly) to be more appropriate for women. Men can be feminine if they want to; women can be masculine if they want to.
Much of what society regards as "feminine," and imposed on women because of their sex, is meant to keep women in a vulnerable, subordinate social position. Women's footwear in many cultures are just so many variations on foot-binding: crippling to women, to keep them subjugated, dependent, and unable to protect or defend themselves. Women fought very hard for a very long time for the freedom to wear trousers instead of dresses or skirts. Much of (male-designed) fashion for women is created for the male gaze (woman primarily as sex object for men). Some skirts are so confining that a woman couldn't run in them to save her life. Insistence on slender-waisted and tight garments constricts women's breathing and freedom of movement. A dress or skirt is also, on the other hand, socially vulnerable, as any girl knows who has ever had her skirt flipped up to expose her. Long hair is easy to grab; people with long hair styles (as have long been favored and prescribed for women) are more vulnerable to attack. Women have many, many reasons to reject the "feminine" stereotypes assigned to and enforced on them. The genesis of these stereotypes is the subordination of women as a sex class, to men as the sex class endowed with the power and freedom. The patriarchal and propertarian view of women is what a lot of particular "feminine" stereotypes were invented for.
Of course, anybody, male or female, should be able to like whatever they like. There is no accounting for taste. People should have the liberty to make themselves happy in how they present themselves, how they like to dress, what they like to do, what feels comfortable for them, whatever. There's nothing inherently "masculine" or "feminine" in any style, any emotion, any personality, any mode of dress, any presentation, any avocation, any activity, any employment, any likes or dislikes about anything whatever. Nobody has to change themselves to be who they are or like what they like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeP
Anyway, I will await the results of Kam's and everyone's tinkering in workshops
A major key to understanding any biology is that biology is messy. If there’s no obvious reason for a hard line, it’s often best to presume it’s partly or totally human invented. So when it comes right down to it, the biological hard line for sex is to produce and then combine gametes into a new organism. So long as one randomized set of dna and another randomized set of dna can moosh together in a manner that produces an on average flat or growing population, everything else is window dressing and it’s up to organisms to get creative.
We see this like crazy in the natural world, where some species have absurd sexual dimorphisms and others none at all. Since humans are looking for other human mates our sense of sexual difference is heightened but we’re pretty similar. Remove society signifiers and we’re a few things enlarged or shrunk a bit, with a slight average size difference. I’ve used this example before but it’s always amusing to ask guys what they think the seam down their scrotum is for. It’s where what might have been their labia got a signal to fuse together. But I said biology was messy, so you can bet there’s plenty of variance, with some children not developing a proper scrotum with dropped testicles, other children developing a fused labia, and just for completeness other children might develop a fused penis to their scrotum because the fusing command went a bit wild. So even at the seemingly important and binary point of developing sex organs, it’s already not a binary on/off thing but a subtle application of hormones to the right areas.
Someone’s sex can loosely be described as the application of hormone ratios at specific times to tissue, to grow, shrink or change the tissues development. Some periods of development are more important than others, like say in the womb or during puberty but it’s an ongoing thing. Just like your body ‘chooses’ (quotes as there’s no mental choice) to metabolize, absorbing food and integrating it while burning older calories, your body is low key choosing your sex each day by the current stable applications of hormones.
For most of humans, everything lines up well enough that we don’t really notice, but not for everyone and not always the same way every time. Even then it might seem easy enough to just say XX is one, XY another, but that quickly creates a billion and one edge cases. As sometimes seen in sports where a woman can develop in the womb as a woman but later naturally develop increased testosterone levels, building muscle like a man, who could now take above her weight in the male division being but is still put against other women. Puberty can be thought of as an adjustment and increase in hormones, causing greater sexual changes in still modeling and easily changeable areas and only happens once because men write the books, I bet if you asked many women they would laugh and say at least two or three times. Sudden increases in hormones can start changes all up again, and in a very noticeable way, people on testosterone will quickly get a more angular face and grow coarse facial hair.
Since that’s a lot of talking and I haven’t even gotten to any social issues yet, or really answered any questions on the topic I’m going to cut it there for now.
IMO terf gets thrown around on arguing sites like twitter in part because like any other human made group, trans groups have their own serious exclusion and policing issues they would rather not face. There are some trans people and groups that are as big gender police as conservatives, where gender bending is verboten. You are either on your way to fully transitioning, or fully transitioned, otherwise you aren’t really trans. There’s a whole subgroup of genderqueer folk shunned by the more main stream binary trans.
ETA: I know I kind of glossed over it, in part as I don’t want to go looking up all the right terms at the moment, but the genetic details of ‘why can’t you just use xx and xy as a delineator‘ goes down a wild rabbit hole really fast, and I need to look a few things up before I feel any hope of giving a decent explanation.
I do find the whole issue of transgender perplexing.
I find it perplexing too, though perhaps for different reasons or in different ways.
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
Putting aside people who are born with ambiguous sex characteristics,
That's an important aside, as DSD's, or disorders of sexual development, have almost zero to do with transgender people. I don't think any of the most prominent transgender activists are so-called "intersex." Many transgender advocates point to the existence of intersex people, or people with DSD's, and go from there to the notion that "sex is more complicated than just XX and XY" (a true statement), and then extrapolate the conclusion that "therefore sex is a spectrum." It is not.
Human beings are sexually dimorphic: the only available means of reproduction is through the male and female sexual systems. The disorders of sexual development are anomalies in the development of male bodies, or in the development of female bodies. That's it. Intersex conditions, or DSD's, happen to male people or female people. People with DSD's are not some reproductively viable sex other than male or female. DSD's occur when normal chromosomes are duplicated or absent, or when some other developmental processes have occurred that are different from most men or most women.
Intersex people's concerns overlap somewhat with transgender advocates perhaps in feeling that something is wrong with their bodies. Until recently, intersex conditions that result in, for example, ambiguous genitalia, were treated as "problems" to be solved by surgical intervention. The surgery would make the appearance of the child's genitals more masculine or more feminine, and the parents were advised to rear the child as if it were the sex assigned. These birth interventions in DSD cases are the real "assigned ___ at birth" cases. The surgeries were done without necessarily a full genetic or chromosomal analysis or a full examination of gonadal tissues. Some intersex people were, therefore, brought up as girls when they had male gonads (undescended testicles or the like), or brought up as boys when they actually had female reproductive organs. These surgical interventions often ended up unsatisfactorily; the victims sensed or knew that their body was wrong or didn't fit, and they were right. Males brought up as girls (and vice versa) "knew" that something was wrong. I think that people with DSD's today advocate to wait for further development before undertaking any surgical "assignment" to a possibly erroneous determination of sex.
Transgender people and intersex people may have in common the feeling that something is wrong with their bodies or their sexual development. The difference is that transgender people are, by and large, perfectly normal specimens of the sex that they actually are. The genitalia are not ambiguous. The gonads are clearly either male or female. Their chromosomes are normal XY or normal XX. Without interventions, their biological reproductive systems are healthy and normal. There is no medical reason for any intervention. Rather, the problem is a psychological one. Dysphoria is real, I have no doubt. I have experienced life-long body dysphoria myself. That may not be exactly the same as what many transgender people say they experience. And I do not know whether "gender dysphoria" is necessary or sufficient for someone to be transgender. I wouldn't put a roadblock in someone's way of saying they had to get a certain diagnosis in order call themselves transgender. I would imagine that not all transgender people experience "gender dysphoria." I don't see any reason why they should have to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
I understand 'transgender' to be the preferred term for someone who was born with the anatomy of one sex now identifying fully as the other biological sex. Whereas 'transsexual' has become offensive.
I think that is generally true as to the usage of "transgender" versus "transsexual."
I have sometimes seen "transsexual" used to describe people who dress according to the gender stereotypes for the opposite sex without any surgical or hormonal alteration, and perhaps without any intention to portray oneself as the opposite sex in all contexts. For example, I think some gay men who dress in drag use the term transsexual, to make clear that they are not transgender. By contrast, "transgender" would refer to people who have had surgical or other alterations to appear like the opposite sex, with the intention to do so in all contexts of life.
But I think you are generally right. I think transgender people regard "transsexual" as a disfavored term, and as pejorative, when directed at them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
In my experience, people who identify as transgender don't call themselves 'transmen/women', but 'men/women'.
Yes. Trans men (biological women) refer to themselves as "men." Trans women (biological men) refer to themselves as "women." People can refer to themselves however they want to. They have full control over themselves. Other people (non-trans people) have exactly the same right. Non-trans people can refer to themselves by whatever term they like. People do not have the right to control what other people say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
I have seen many examples of women being pilloried on Twitter for comments like maddog's above. I have absolutely no doubt that she would be branded either or both of a TERF or transphobe (more likely both) and torn to shreds for the suggestion that a 'transwoman' is not in fact 100%, biologically, a woman. I completely get not subscribing to gender roles, I don't get not subscribing to biology.
That's exactly why these discussions are so important. There is a great deal at stake. There are a number of stakeholders whose interests need to be understood and provided for. The immediate leap to vilification sheds more heat than light. I think there is common ground to be found.
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
I saw an episode of Real Time w/ Bill Maher* last year (ep 500) where a Dr. Deborah Soh was talking about having been run out of academia for daring to question the notion that biological sex is arbitrary. I don't know anything else about her or the story (and of course might not even have that much right, it having been a year ago and all) but it didn't sound completely implausible. I have seen people on Twitter organizing to destroy people's careers for being 'TERFs' or 'Transphobes' and it's legitimately unnerving.
That's why it's important to set out the actual meaning of "transphobe" so that its reach isn't overbroad. That needs to be done so we can have the conversations that need to happen to protect all the various interests that are affected.
tbh it seems like some people are tiptoeing in their responses. If Jerome or some other rando came here to say some of this stuff, I doubt they'd get such a subdued reaction.
Most notably: that transwomen are not women, transmen are not men, that transwomen should use the men's restroom, that their pronouns should not be recognized, that recognizing trans people in anti-discrimination law (apparently in the "wrong way") would somehow destroy all the gains of feminism, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Quote:
Originally Posted by Existential Comics
"gender is 100% biological and not performative and also you better not perform your gender wrong or society will collapse!!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Existential Comics
Amazing how the people who are most adamant that gender is biological and not socially constructed are also the most freaked out when a man like...wears a dress or something. These ideas are not compatible.
That's not what "people are saying." That's an equivocation of language to make it appear that "people are saying" something that they are not. The tweeter has confounded sex and gender, as if they are the same. They are not.
If anything, "people are saying" that sex, not gender, is biological. Gender *is* a social construct.
The tweeter is mocking precisely the people who would claim that gender is not a social construct and that there is no distinction between sex and gender.
Quote:
Most people don't care if a man wears a dress.
Citation needed. It's true that men can wear a dress with little repercussion in certain situations, in many (most?) places in the world - for a movie or TV show, or Halloween, or whatever. A man who wears a dress casually on the street or to work or whatever is another matter.
Quote:
Any alleged "freaking out" happens when he insists that the performance of gender stereotypes imposed on females, e.g., wearing a dress, somehow turns him into a woman, and that his actual biological sex is changed.
This is a roundabout way of saying what bothers you is being asked to refer to a transwoman as a woman. It's not 100% clear whether you further have a problem referring to a transwoman as female or with feminine pronouns, etc., but based on you referring to a transwomen later consistently with "he" it seems that you do. I don't know why you don't just come out and say that's what bothers you.
Quote:
For myself, I reject "gender" entirely. As far as I'm concerned, I have no gender. Internally, I feel like a person, a human being. My body has a sex, though, and there's nothing I can do about that. I refuse to be pushed into the gender box.
Perhaps in modern parlance you'd be agender or non-binary. It seems to me that you're basing your views about how "meaningless" gender is somewhat on your own experience of gender though, which is atypical.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
First, what is "transphobia"?
If it means not wanting trans people to have the right to employment, housing, fair treatment in public accommodations without discrimination (same as other groups who suffer discrimination based on group characteristics),
As I understand it, all you mentioned there and in addition, dismissal of the existence of trans people, or violence against trans people.
Yes, people should be protected in law from violence based on group characteristics, like race, religion, or sex, for example. No one that I know supports violence against trans people.
I don't see the relevance of your personal knowledge of people who support violence against trans people has. That there are people who are violent against trans people and support violence against them is plainly true. I don't personally know people who hold quite a lot of vile beliefs that I know exist in the world (or, I don't know that some people I know hold those beliefs). What is the relevance?
Quote:
As to "dismissal of the existence of trans people," what does that mean? It's a plain fact that trans people exist.
Yes, and some people would claim that a transwoman is just a confused man, or is possessed by demons, or any number of things, and that therefore there isn't really any such thing as a transwoman. Like, transphobia is a thing that conservative Christians do, it isn't all about you and your social circle where these sorts of beliefs don't exist.
I'm not sure why you're acting so confused. Have you not read much about the subject?
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
... and I've seen some real knock down and drag out arguments about whether transwomen even exist or are merely a form of fetishist trying to peep on women in the bathroom.
Who says transwomen don't exist? Of course they exist, big as life. That being said, it doesn't mean that they get to use the women's bathroom. They are transwomen, i.e., men. They belong in the men's bathroom. Stay in their lane, no problem. Doing away with sex-segregated bathrooms and other spaces does nobody any favors, most especially women. It's not safe or dignified for women; that's the reason spaces are sex-segregated to begin with.
You're saying a lot of shit here without really explaining why it is the case.
My sister should use the men's room? Because if she used the men's room, that would be "doing away with sex-segregated bathrooms"? Her presence in the women's room is not safe or dignified for you? On the basis of fucking what? You provide absolutely no support for these claims, and they are, frankly, unsubstantiated bullshit.
Meanwhile, I suppose you think her using to the men's room is safe for her? Like, have you even given a second's thought to that question? Or does it just not matter to you?
(To clarify, my sister is trans, specifically a transwoman.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
I do find the whole issue of transgender perplexing. Putting aside people who are born with ambiguous sex characteristics, I understand 'transgender' to be the preferred term for someone who was born with the anatomy of one sex now identifying fully as the other biological sex. Whereas 'transsexual' has become offensive.
I don't think that its the case that transsexual is considered offensive. It's probably the case that transgender is the more commonly used term because transgender is the broader term, and activism nowadays is not generally focused on protections for transsexual people without including transgender people.
Additionally, transsexual status may be considered to require surgery and so forth and knowledge of that sort of thing isn't necessarily considered information they want to or should have to reveal.
Quote:
torn to shreds for the suggestion that a 'transwoman' is not in fact 100%, biologically, a woman
I don't think that talking about being "100% biologically a woman" is considered a particularly relevant factor. It's more that the focus on whether someone is "100% biologically a man/woman" would be considered a red flag.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Some of her comments (e.g., about "feminists" who are "transphobic" for having arguments about what transgenderism is or means) are indicative of the definitional problem in familiar discourse these days, that paints women as "against" transgender people, when in reality most women/feminists don't have any issue with (and are in favor of) protections for transgender people as a class, in the same way that other classes are protected: protection against violence, against discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, etc.
Meanwhile, you seem to be conflating feminists who hold your views on transgenderism with feminists or even women generally. Who is painting "women" as against transgender people?
Quite a lot of women and feminists do not agree with your views, and also quite a lot of them would include transwomen in the category of women - this is, of course, your point of contention.
Your game here is, of course, defining the things you advocate for as not being discrimination and being protection. Transwomen should use the men's restroom. They should, presumably, by the natural extension of what you've said, be housed in the men's prison, or men's dormitories (in residential schools or other sex-segregated housing situations). But the evidence is that this very much does not protect trans people. Saying that you're opposed to the abuse and violence that transwomen would face under your preferred policies doesn't change the fact that you are opposed to the simplest solution to that problem: treating them as women and placing them with other women, instead of with men.
The fact is that you have conservative allies who would agree that transwomen should be placed in those dangerous situations, but would disagree with your goals of making those situations safe. Practically speaking, advocating for transwomen to be placed with men is advocating for them to be placed into abusive environments.
You think women need protection from men, and therefore to be segregated away from them. But then you turn around and claim that you don't wish to deny transwomen any protections while advocating for them to be placed in precisely the the situation that's too dangerous for you. And which honestly, may be more dangerous for them than for you.
Quote:
So, people (like me) who fully advocate for anti-discrimination protections for transgender people, who are as appalled as anyone by violence against transgender people, and who fully believe people are entitled to live however they want, are nonetheless cast as enemies of transgender people, and are directly blamed for violence against transgender people, when they favor anti-discrimination protections commensurate with those afforded to other groups, and when they have committed no such violence.
Well, it's because you're appalled by violence against transgender people, but not so appalled that you would accept policies that reduce it because of how they supposedly are a danger to you - a danger that you don't bother to substantiate.
Quote:
The issues need much further delineation and definition and explanation and analysis and discussion, so that the proper changes can be made to ensure anti-discrimination protections are put in place for transgender people. For example, the "Equality Act" presently before the US Congress proposes to make statutory changes by making specific amendments to the provisions for SEX-discrimination protections, rather than creating a separate category of protection for gender-non-conforming people. The amendments propose to change the actual definition of "sex" to INCLUDE two things that are not "sex": both sexual orientation AND "gender identity." I think that this is a serious mistake. This is the conflation at the heart of the matter, because sex and gender are entirely distinct. Once "sex" (reproductive biology of a person) becomes defined AS "gender" -- an idea or notion in someone's head -- then protections for people on account of actual biological SEX disappear. That means that all the gains of feminism in the last 50 or 60 years are wiped out at a single stroke. These ideas need to be kept separate, and not conflated together.
This is, without any concrete examples or evidence, nothing more than a slippery slope argument. How will this Equality Act undo "all the gains of feminism" of the past half-century, specifically? Can you show any examples?
There are jurisdictions which already provide anti-discrimination protections to trangender and non-binary people, etc. How have such laws in those jurisdictions undone all of second- and third-wave feminism?
It seems to me that much of your complaints are this sort of unsubstantiated hyperbole.
Quote:
Sex is: which biological reproduction function does your body have? 99% of all human beings are clearly of one type or the other.
[...]
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
Putting aside people who are born with ambiguous sex characteristics,
That's an important aside, as DSD's, or disorders of sexual development, have almost zero to do with transgender people.
I don't see any evidence for your claim here.
What reason is there to suppose that biological sex characteristics don't include neurological characteristics? Studies have found differences in the brain structure of men and women, and between trans men and women compared to cis men and women, with studies finding that, for example, certain structures in trans women's brains are more similar to those of cis women's than cis men's, and likewise for trans men's brains resembling cis men's. And other "biological" differences (acting as if there's a hard distinction between biology and psychology is of course a big basis for your claims, and it's a rather dubious basis) as well.
You say that 99% of people are clearly of one type or the other (that specific number is obviously just one you made up, rather than one based on scientific investigation, but some number in the mid- to high-90s is probably right based on the prevalence of transgenderism and intersexuality). It seems to me that you then assume that trans people are all in that 90-something% who are clearly one or the other, rather than potentially another manifestation of an ambiguity in the expression of sex.
Quote:
I don't think any of the most prominent transgender activists are so-called "intersex." Many transgender advocates point to the existence of intersex people, or people with DSD's, and go from there to the notion that "sex is more complicated than just XX and XY" (a true statement), and then extrapolate the conclusion that "therefore sex is a spectrum." It is not.
Human beings are sexually dimorphic: the only available means of reproduction is through the male and female sexual systems. The disorders of sexual development are anomalies in the development of male bodies, or in the development of female bodies. That's it.
This is mostly just assertion.
Maybe sex isn't a spectrum in the sense of being a one-dimensional spectrum where you go from 100% male to 100% female. Various intersex conditions can't necessarily be placed along a line from one end to the other, although some conditions maybe could be. But just because you say you can place almost every variation into one binary category or another doesn't prove that that binary is any more objective than a different categorization.
Quote:
Intersex conditions, or DSD's, happen to male people or female people.
This just assumes your conclusion. You can't refute the idea that intersex people might not be completely male or female by saying that they simply are completely male or female people with "conditions".
Quote:
Some intersex people were, therefore, brought up as girls when they had male gonads (undescended testicles or the like), or brought up as boys when they actually had female reproductive organs. These surgical interventions often ended up unsatisfactorily; the victims sensed or knew that their body was wrong or didn't fit, and they were right. Males brought up as girls (and vice versa) "knew" that something was wrong. I think that people with DSD's today advocate to wait for further development before undertaking any surgical "assignment" to a possibly erroneous determination of sex.
Not all intersex people identify as male or female as you say. A fair number don't identify with either sex. How are you deciding which sex they "really" are?
You keep asking "what is transphobia". Given how much you go on about how clear sex is, you'd think you might define it at some point.
Quote:
Transgender people and intersex people may have in common the feeling that something is wrong with their bodies or their sexual development. The difference is that transgender people are, by and large, perfectly normal specimens of the sex that they actually are. The genitalia are not ambiguous. The gonads are clearly either male or female. Their chromosomes are normal XY or normal XX.
The brain is also an organ which demonstrates differences between men and women, and cis vs. trans people. It seems like you're completely unaware of this given how you think it's the end of the story when you talk about chromosomes and genitalia as the only biological differences.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
I understand 'transgender' to be the preferred term for someone who was born with the anatomy of one sex now identifying fully as the other biological sex. Whereas 'transsexual' has become offensive.
I think that is generally true as to the usage of "transgender" versus "transsexual."
I have sometimes seen "transsexual" used to describe people who dress according to the gender stereotypes for the opposite sex without any surgical or hormonal alteration, and perhaps without any intention to portray oneself as the opposite sex in all contexts. For example, I think some gay men who dress in drag use the term transsexual, to make clear that they are not transgender. By contrast, "transgender" would refer to people who have had surgical or other alterations to appear like the opposite sex, with the intention to do so in all contexts of life.
You have pretty much reversed the terms.
I don't claim to be someone who hangs out with drag queens, but I am gay, and my sister is trans, and I am unaware of drag queens commonly calling themselves transsexual. Most would not even call themselves transgender.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
In my experience, people who identify as transgender don't call themselves 'transmen/women', but 'men/women'.
Yes. Trans men (biological women) refer to themselves as "men." Trans women (biological men) refer to themselves as "women." People can refer to themselves however they want to. They have full control over themselves. Other people (non-trans people) have exactly the same right. Non-trans people can refer to themselves by whatever term they like. People do not have the right to control what other people say.
I don't know what you mean by "control" exactly.
Do black people have the right to "control" what other people call them? Is that what's going on if someone loses their job because they called someone black by a slur? Could you lose your job by consistently referring to a cisgender person by the wrong gender and using the wrong pronouns, etc.? Is that "controlling" people, or violating their freedom of speech? If you prefer to be referred to with a title, or with a certain nickname (or by no nickname, insisting on the full form of your name), etc. and someone consistently refuses to do so, do you consider that disrespectful?
Nobody is taking away your first amendment rights here, but you basically want to be disrespectful to trans people, while simultaneously chiding people who call out your behavior as disrespectful as "controlling" you. Unfortunately, we don't all get to say whatever we want to say at all times. Yet I'm sure you don't complain as much about the other ways you have to watch what you say.
Well yeah of course! I don’t know much about maddog but they clearly have enough social credit to be seen as making conversation over just hunting for a rise.
So I certainly haven’t forgotten some of the things that seem odd to me, but have taken more time to understand where they are coming from. Like I’ve heard the “XY = Man, XX = Woman, and that’s basically that”, argument most often from older generations in a way that makes it clear it was pushed heavily at one point in schools, and so for many it feels just like the fact of the matter but there’s a lot of catching up to do with the complexities, since the devils in the details.
Right, I just saw some responses as sort of nodding along and ignoring several statements I saw as wrong about pretty basic stuff.
And like, there were a lot of words used to say what are pretty basic anti-trans positions, and nobody called it out:
-trans men/women are not men/women (respectively)
-I shouldn't have to call them by their preferred gender or pronouns
-they should have to use the restroom and other facilities corresponding to their gender assigned at birth
-because, by implication, trans women are dangerous
-legislation recognizing trans rights will undo feminism
Not saying maddog should be blasted as a troll, but people were just kinda ignoring that she was complaining about being called a TERF while basically staking out textbook TERF positions. From Wikipedia, TERFs espouse positions such as "the rejection of the assertion that trans women are women, the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces, and opposition to transgender rights legislation" - here we've got check, check and check. I mean, if people feel that it's pejorative, then maybe she (I assume maddog prefers female pronouns given her other opinions) is bothered by being called it.
But just as she considers it just a "biological fact" that transwomen are men and should be called 'he', it's even more "just a fact" that her positions meet the common definition of a TERF.
tbh it seems like some people are tiptoeing in their responses. If Jerome or some other rando came here to say some of this stuff, I doubt they'd get such a subdued reaction.
tbh it seems like some people are tiptoeing in their responses. If Jerome or some other rando came here to say some of this stuff, I doubt they'd get such a subdued reaction.
Yeah, probably, I like maddog a lot and I am loathe to pick up this particular gauntlet after Diana defriended me for arguing against her support of Jordan Peterson(which was of course largely about alleged transgender culture wars)
Frankly, I’m not great at being nice when I argue.
I do agree with most/all substantive points that you have made.
tbh it seems like some people are tiptoeing in their responses. If Jerome or some other rando came here to say some of this stuff, I doubt they'd get such a subdued reaction.
Most notably: that transwomen are not women, transmen are not men, that transwomen should use the men's restroom, that their pronouns should not be recognized, that recognizing trans people in anti-discrimination law (apparently in the "wrong way") would somehow destroy all the gains of feminism, etc.
I think these are issues that deserve full discussion, exploration, and treatment. Don't you? Nobody has to tiptoe; they just have to engage. Reasonable people may differ about such issues. Why can't we have a discussion?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Quote:
Originally Posted by Existential Comics
"gender is 100% biological and not performative and also you better not perform your gender wrong or society will collapse!!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Existential Comics
Amazing how the people who are most adamant that gender is biological and not socially constructed are also the most freaked out when a man like...wears a dress or something. These ideas are not compatible.
That's not what "people are saying." That's an equivocation of language to make it appear that "people are saying" something that they are not. The tweeter has confounded sex and gender, as if they are the same. They are not.
If anything, "people are saying" that sex, not gender, is biological. Gender *is* a social construct.
The tweeter is mocking precisely the people who would claim that gender is not a social construct and that there is no distinction between sex and gender.
Okay, maybe I misunderstood what the person wrote. I don't know who takes the view that the tweeter is criticizing, so I guess I got confused.
But it seems to me that the people who are conflating sex and gender are the people who say that conforming to gender stereotypes constitutes the essence of or actual changes in biological sex. I don't think that's true. I think that gender and sex are distinct. Sex is a biological characteristic, whereas gender is socially constructed ideas about what each sex "should" be like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Most people don't care if a man wears a dress.
Citation needed. It's true that men can wear a dress with little repercussion in certain situations, in many (most?) places in the world - for a movie or TV show, or Halloween, or whatever. A man who wears a dress casually on the street or to work or whatever is another matter.
Not yet, perhaps, but I think that's one of the things transgender people are fighting for: the right to wear what they want in most general contexts. I think that people absolutely should be able to wear what they want. If there are dress codes that are gender-based for work or school, then as long as what the person wears is work-appropriate for men, or for women, they should be able to wear whichever one they choose. It's *becoming* more socially acceptable for men to wear what has been traditionally feminine clothing. Women have been able to get away with cross-dressing, to an extent, for a bit longer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Any alleged "freaking out" happens when he insists that the performance of gender stereotypes imposed on females, e.g., wearing a dress, somehow turns him into a woman, and that his actual biological sex is changed.
This is a roundabout way of saying what bothers you is being asked to refer to a transwoman as a woman. It's not 100% clear whether you further have a problem referring to a transwoman as female or with feminine pronouns, etc., but based on you referring to a transwomen later consistently with "he" it seems that you do. I don't know why you don't just come out and say that's what bothers you.
No, it's a direct way of saying that transwomen are men, and transmen are women. The gender (transwoman/transman) is not the same thing as the person's biological sex. What "bothers me" is having so many people say things that aren't true, and being pressured to agree that false statements are true. I "have a problem" with saying things that aren't true. It simply isn't true that "transwomen are women" or that "transmen are men."
The words "woman" or "man" refers to the sex of a person, not to gender. Transwomen are men; otherwise they wouldn't and couldn't be "trans" women. "Trans" means something. It indicates a difference from actual biological sex.
That doesn't mean that transgender people don't exist. Of course they do. They legitimately feel the way they feel. They have every right to like the things they like or dress how they want. Gender is important to them in a way that it isn't important to me; that deserves protection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
For myself, I reject "gender" entirely. As far as I'm concerned, I have no gender. Internally, I feel like a person, a human being. My body has a sex, though, and there's nothing I can do about that. I refuse to be pushed into the gender box.
"Agender," perhaps. That's not a gender, though. It's no gender at all. Like atheism isn't a variety of religion; it's no religion at all.
I don't know what people mean when they say "non-binary." That's another term that needs explication.
Sex *is* a binary. I can't help that I am part of a sexually binary (dimorphic) species. I can't deny that my sex is one of either of two human sexes. I can't be "non-binary" with respect to sex. Neither can anyone else.
"Gender," on the other hand, can be anything that anybody wants. If there is a "spectrum" of anything, it's which gender norms people can choose to conform to if they want. They may even "identify" with some kind of gender. All "genders" are "non-binary" in the sense that people can claim as many "genders" as they want, and there are far more than two.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
It seems to me that you're basing your views about how "meaningless" gender is somewhat on your own experience of gender though, which is atypical.
I don't know that it is "atypical" for female people to reject the gender norms imposed on them. The struggle of feminism has been to throw off the chains of socially-imposed restrictions on women. There is nothing necessary about the particular gender norms assigned to women. Women can do things that are not feminine. Also, men can do things that *are* feminine. There is no reason most gender notions are applied to men or women. Gender ideas about how women must be or how men must be are not facts; they are opinions.
I don't think it is at all "atypical" for women or men to chafe against gender stereotypes and to want to overthrow them. The gains of feminism in the last 60 years have established that there is nothing necessary in women being dependent, or having no credit of their own, or being closed out of certain careers, or being leaders, or any of the various doors that gender notions had previously closed to women. I think that is sufficient to demonstrate that notions of gender are not necessary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
First, what is "transphobia"?
If it means not wanting trans people to have the right to employment, housing, fair treatment in public accommodations without discrimination (same as other groups who suffer discrimination based on group characteristics),
As I understand it, all you mentioned there and in addition, dismissal of the existence of trans people, or violence against trans people.
Yes, people should be protected in law from violence based on group characteristics, like race, religion, or sex, for example. No one that I know supports violence against trans people.
I don't see the relevance of your personal knowledge of people who support violence against trans people has. That there are people who are violent against trans people and support violence against them is plainly true. I don't personally know people who hold quite a lot of vile beliefs that I know exist in the world (or, I don't know that some people I know hold those beliefs). What is the relevance?
In the TERF wars, when women do not agree that men can be women, they are charged with committing "literal violence" against transgender people, and with supporting the violence that is committed against transgender people. That's not true. It is not violence to state a fact. Women do not commit, participate in, or condone violence against transgender people. In point of fact, the murders of transgender women are part of a larger pattern of male violence. The people who commit violence against transgender women are men. According to transgender dogma, it's women who get blamed for the violence against trans people, but women are not the ones committing the crimes, and women don't want transgender people to be hurt. Many, many, many women are accused of supporting violence against transgender people, but not one of them supports such violence. The wrong people are being blamed.
Men commit violence against transgender people, and they do so for largely the same reason -- misogyny -- that they commit violence against women. Gender stereotypes for men favor aggressiveness, dominance, and violence, and these uber-macho characteristics (what might be termed toxic masculinity) abhor anything of the feminine. Domestic violence is overwhelmingly committed by men against women. The feminine is weak, sissy, girly, submissive, docile, obedient, subservient. Men "teach women a lesson" all the time if they get uppity or demanding or try to assert any independence. Trans women (men) are targets of the same toxic masculinity. How dare any man be feminine (weak, sissy, girly, etc.), and give up his God-given male privilege of dominance. Trans women are traitors to their sex. Trans men (women) are uppity women who dare to try to enter into the masculinity club. It's misogyny all the way down that accounts for violence against both transgender people and women.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
As to "dismissal of the existence of trans people," what does that mean? It's a plain fact that trans people exist.
Yes, and some people would claim that a transwoman is just a confused man, or is possessed by demons, or any number of things, and that therefore there isn't really any such thing as a transwoman. Like, transphobia is a thing that conservative Christians do, it isn't all about you and your social circle where these sorts of beliefs don't exist.
I'm not sure why you're acting so confused. Have you not read much about the subject?
I've read a great deal.
Transgender advocates are seldom able to give a coherent definition of the terms they use. It makes discussion very difficult.
If some people claim that trans women are (confused) men, so what? Trans women are men, confused or not. That doesn't mean they don't exist or that they don't have the right to be how they want without discrimination. There is such a thing as a trans woman; there just isn't any such thing as a trans woman who is a biological woman.
"Transphobia" may or may not be "something that conservative Christians do." WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY "TRANSPHOBIA"? Please define your terms. This is the nth request, and you still haven't explained what you mean by that term.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann
... and I've seen some real knock down and drag out arguments about whether transwomen even exist or are merely a form of fetishist trying to peep on women in the bathroom.
Who says transwomen don't exist? Of course they exist, big as life. That being said, it doesn't mean that they get to use the women's bathroom. They are transwomen, i.e., men. They belong in the men's bathroom. Stay in their lane, no problem. Doing away with sex-segregated bathrooms and other spaces does nobody any favors, most especially women. It's not safe or dignified for women; that's the reason spaces are sex-segregated to begin with.
You're saying a lot of shit here without really explaining why it is the case.
It's not shit.
Why are there sex-segregated facilities in the first place? You know why: to protect women against the predations of men, when women are in states of undress and vulnerability, to protect women's privacy and dignity away from men.
Don't come back with "not all men." We know that it's not all men. The difficulty is, you can't tell by looking, which men are dangerous and which ones are not.
The transgender plea to take over women's spaces in favor of trans women believes exactly the same thing: They assert that the men's room is dangerous for trans women. Suppose that is true. What does that mean? It means that trans women are attacked by violent men for not being manly enough, in the same way that violent men attack women for not being men at all.
That "there will be violence against insufficiently masculine men" in the men's room is not something that could happen solely to trans women. It happens to gay men who are attacked by the predators for not being masculine enough. It even happens to heterosexual men that the predatory men look down upon for not being tough enough or masculine enough or for being "girly-men," as Arnold Schwarzeneggar once famously called someone. Yet, never before has it been the answer to let the girly-men into the women's bathroom, or to let the gay men into the women's bathroom. It's a problem for the men. If men attack other men for wearing dresses or whatever, that is a problem for the men. It is not the women's place to have to solve all the problems of toxic masculinity, that cause predatory men to attack other men. In general, the men's room may not be the safest place in the world for any non-predatory men. But whatever the solution is to male pattern violence, the solution should not come at the expense of women. It's not the burden of the women to have to solve it. It's the men's problem to solve. Have the men do a little work on undoing the gender norms ascribed to men. Make it socially okay for men to be however they want, and not be attacked for it.
The mantra that "trans women are women" and that therefore trans women should be entitled to use women's bathrooms, women's locker rooms, and other spaces sex-segregated for women, brings up a serious definitional problem: What is a "trans woman"? Is there a coherent definition?
As far as I can tell, the dogmatic definition, and the one that is being pushed for in legislation, amounts to the proposition that a trans woman is any man who says he is trans. That definition is useless. Any man can, at any time, declare himself to be trans, and, according to the "rights" being demanded, enter women's spaces. There are no particular criteria of surgery, or hormone treatment, or body sculpting, or dress, or anything else, that can reliably distinguish between a "trans woman" and any other man.
How can anyone tell if any person is "trans" or not? There are no objective, observable criteria at all. It's a feeling in someone's head, that no one else is privy to. There is no way for anyone to establish which men are "true" or "genuine" or "sincere" trans women, and which men are just pretending for their own purposes. Once you make it unlawful to object to men in the women's room, then no woman can raise any objection to any man in the women's room or the women's locker room. There is no way to tell who is and who isn't "trans." Fully bearded men, with intact genitalia and no surgery, who wear traditionally masculine dress, such as a suit and tie, claim to be trans women. If no one can challenge a decidedly male-looking man in the women's room, then women have lost any privacy and dignity in spaces of their own, for their own sex.
The proposed rule that trans women should be able to use the women's private spaces places the interests of a very small percentage of people (trans identified males) over the interests of half the human population (women). Why should that be the case?
Explain to me how open admission of any man who wants to go in is not the consequence of allowing "trans women" into the women's room. Like, have you even given a second's thought to that problem? Or does it just not matter to you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
My sister should use the men's room?
As a male-bodied person, yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Because if she used the [wo]men's room, that would be "doing away with sex-segregated bathrooms"?
Assuming you mean to say the women's room, then yes. The presence of males in the women's room does away with sex-segregated bathrooms. By definition. How can it not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Her presence in the women's room is not safe or dignified for you?
The presence of ANY men in the women's room diminishes the safety and dignity and privacy of women, yes. One particular person may not pose a threat, but on what basis could any man be excluded? There is no objective basis on which any man could be prevented from accessing women's private spaces. Given the license, men who want to predate on women will avail themselves of the opportunity. There have already been numerous cases of men putting cameras in women's bathrooms, locker rooms, and change/dressing rooms to spy on women in private and vulnerable moments. Some do it for their own gratification, but others have made women involuntary performers in pornography posted on the internet. How many women being raped will it take to make it not-okay to have men in the women's rooms? Male prisoners accessing women's prisons by claiming to be transgender have already raped women inmates. Have you even given a second's thought to that, or does it just not matter to you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
On the basis of fucking what? You provide absolutely no support for these claims, and they are, frankly, unsubstantiated bullshit.
On the basis of a lot of things. Here are some links I collected over time, with the approximate dates I saved them.
Sept 15, 2019
There was an item about a transgender woman (natal male, and still intact male genitalia) boasting about walking around a women's shelter with an erection. He took a nude selfie in the bathroom, showing off. How safe do you think the actual women in that shelter feel, having to share sleeping quarters and bathrooms with this man?
The London Times reports on new advice for schools respecting the rights of transgender students. Notice: (1) There are no objective criteria for telling who is transgender and who isn't. (2) Any boy who wants to can just go into the girls' locker room. Who is shoved aside? The GIRLS. They are told to find a "private" changing area. The girls' locker room WAS the changing area that was private for girls. Now it doesn't exist any more. Where are the girls going to find this mythical "private changing area"? If all the girls decamp to their own private area, what then? Will trans identified boys take that over, too? https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/t...irls-3ckz6h739
(In some areas, this new "schools advice" has recently been withdrawn.)
Sep 20, 2019
Here is an article about an art exhibit staged by the San Francisco Public Library last year, by the "Degenderettes," a transgender community group. The ideology is promoted primarily by men supporting trans women's (i.e., men's) "rights." The exhibit contained violent imagery and rhetoric against women. If "gender identity" is a protected anti discrimination class, supplanting the definition of sex as biological sex, then women lose their sex-based rights.
Sep 21, 2019
Charlotte (ne Charles) Clymer is a transgender woman. Here is a link to a Twitter thread about Clymer, including a photograph of Clymer, and something he recently said.
Look at the photo. Clymer may be (by self-declaration alone) something that could be called a "transgender woman," but that is not the same thing as being an adult human female. He is not "a woman, full stop." He can't be. He can dress unmasculinely, he can wear long hair, he can put on makeup, but those are not the essential, or identifying, or definitional characteristics of the word "woman." That is a male-bodied person in that photo. Look at his posture. He is much larger than the woman in the photograph, and he is in a dominant posture toward her.
Now look at what Clymer is saying: "Before, I used to get a lot of women accusing me of 'mansplaining' stuff to them, but if they say that to me now I can get them fired." He relishes talking over and condescending to actual women, just like males have done for centuries, and using his transgender status/claim to get women fired if they object to what would be ordinary sexist treatment if done by any other man. Clymer explicitly wants to use transgender "rights" as a weapon to punish women who don't yield to him.
Sep 22, 2019
Canada has stopped keeping statistical records of the sex of criminal offenders. Rather, law enforcement agencies simply record an offender's personal statement of "gender identity" instead of their actual sex. As a result, a number of violent crimes are now being attributed to women, by males who simply say they are women. (Sex differences in crime - Wikipedia .)
It will no longer be possible to make accurate studies of many topics, such as the relative frequency or probability of crime commission by sex, if statistical data are false/falsified. And women will be blamed for crimes committed by biological men.
Aug 20, 2019
If I have done this right, it is a link to a PDF brief in a case pending in the US Supreme Court concerning the displacement of sex-based rights protection by "gender identity." (A consequence of defining "sex" to INCLUDE "gender identity.") Gmail
Oct 13, 2019
Women who say we need to have a serious conversation about trans ideology are routinely threatened with rape, violence, and death by the mostly male advocates of transgender ideology.
It's not fair that a man's feelings should be given more deference and more attention than actual women when it comes to women's privacy, women's safety, women's shelters, women's scholarships, women's sports, women's rights.
Oct 28, 2019
THIS is the man who wants to take away the women's seat in NY Democratic party representation. He longs to violently sexually assault women who disagree with him. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...uru-story.html
Feb 25, 2020
The link below is a commentary by a member of the House of Lords, and points out the realities for women, half the world's population, of destroying their safe spaces, for the benefit of merely a tiny fraction of people. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...07488452924027
Meanwhile, I suppose you think her using to the men's room is safe for her? Like, have you even given a second's thought to that question? Or does it just not matter to you?
(To clarify, my sister is trans, specifically a transwoman.)
You should know me much better than that. This is what I am arguing against: the assumption that people who do not believe that men can become women are automatically monsters who hate or don't care about transgender people. That's simply not true.
Of course your sister's safety matters. It's a difficult problem.
One note about the vocabulary of thinking of trans women as women: You seem to be assuming that, like natal women, the trans woman is very likely to be smaller and weaker than the men who might predate on her in the men's room. That's not necessarily the case. There is nothing to prevent the largest, strongest man from being transgender.
Because, under transgender ideology, there are no spaces that are single-sex for women, women are subjected to the danger of predation from any man who wants to enter. Between transgender women, who are male, and women, who are female, who is statistically better able to defend themselves from a male attacker? It's not going to be the woman.
Either transgender women, who are male, or women, who are female, could be seriously sexually assaulted by violent men. Women, however, are subject to a consequence that will never happen to a transgender woman: a woman who is sexually assaulted can be impregnated. That's a specific injury that happens only to women, and it is a reason to prevent any men from having access to women's spaces.
Perhaps the only solution for the dangers to trans women is to provide space for transgender women in their own separate locker rooms or prisons or bathrooms. I don't know, and it certainly could be considered. Transgender women inmates should definitely be protected from assault by male prisoners. They should not be subjected to assault by other male prisoners. The system might need to make entirely separate facilities or units for transgender women where they do not come into contact with the general male prison population. However, it is no part of a woman prisoner's sentence to be subjected to assault by male-bodied inmates. The solution is NOT to move male prisoners to the women's prison.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
I do find the whole issue of transgender perplexing. Putting aside people who are born with ambiguous sex characteristics, I understand 'transgender' to be the preferred term for someone who was born with the anatomy of one sex now identifying fully as the other biological sex. Whereas 'transsexual' has become offensive.
I don't think that it's the case that transsexual is considered offensive. It's probably the case that transgender is the more commonly used term because transgender is the broader term, and activism nowadays is not generally focused on protections for transsexual people without including transgender people.
Additionally, transsexual status may be considered to require surgery and so forth and knowledge of that sort of thing isn't necessarily considered information they want to or should have to reveal.
I see what you mean now, about "transgender" being the broader term. And, I think I do remember that, yes: "Transsexual" used to be the term for surgical transition. I think that was what was said about Renee Richards, the tennis player, and was the term used when Scandinavian clinics were the cutting edge of treatment some years ago. "Transgender" is still something that needs more precise definition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
torn to shreds for the suggestion that a 'transwoman' is not in fact 100%, biologically, a woman
I don't think that talking about being "100% biologically a woman" is considered a particularly relevant factor. It's more that the focus on whether someone is "100% biologically a man/woman" would be considered a red flag.
A "red flag" for what? A person who is biologically a man or biologically a woman cannot change their sex. The transgender claim that "trans women are women" or that "trans men are men," suggests that they believe they have changed their actual biological sex. It can't be done, though. By going through transition surgery, they don't change their actual sex. They are not then partially (e.g., 50%) the opposite sex. If they were male before surgery, they remain male after surgery. If they take hormones, that doesn't make them partially (e.g., 25%) the opposite sex. If they were female before taking hormone therapy, they remain female afterward. If they make no medical interventions of any kind, and just change their mode of dress to that of the opposite sex, that doesn't make them partially (e.g., 10%) the opposite sex. Whatever sex they were, they remain, no matter how they dress. If the person does no medical interventions at all and does not adopt the dress conventions for the opposite sex, declaring themselves transgender does not make them partially the opposite sex. They remain the same sex as they already are. That leaves open the question of what "transgender" even means, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Some of her comments (e.g., about "feminists" who are "transphobic" for having arguments about what transgenderism is or means) are indicative of the definitional problem in familiar discourse these days, that paints women as "against" transgender people, when in reality most women/feminists don't have any issue with (and are in favor of) protections for transgender people as a class, in the same way that other classes are protected: protection against violence, against discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, etc.
Meanwhile, you seem to be conflating feminists who hold your views on transgenderism with feminists or even women generally. Who is painting "women" as against transgender people?
People who insist that any woman who doesn't agree with transgender dogma is a TERF or a FART, to be discounted, deplatformed, and threatened with rape and death. With respect to violence against transgender people, most especially transgender women (men), transgender advocates are expending little to no energy on the problem of male pattern violence. The people who are constantly accused of promoting and being responsible for such violence are the women who disagree with them, instead of the men who actually commit the actual violent crimes. It is never recognized that women who disagree that men can become women DO NOT thereby want anyone to be hurt or killed for being transgender.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quite a lot of women and feminists do not agree with your views, and also quite a lot of them would include transwomen in the category of women - this is, of course, your point of contention.
I am well aware that many women do not agree with me. They are part of the demographic that has bought the transgender narrative. Women are conditioned from birth to be kind and nurturing to others, especially the vulnerable or downtrodden. Women are therefore predisposed and preconditioned to empathize with the plight of transgender people. The transgender lobby has successfully ridden on the coattails of the gay/lesbian/bisexual movement, but transgenderism is not the same kind of thing as a sexual orientation. Sexual orientation has to do with sex; transgenderism has to do with gender. They are not in the same category.
That the transgender project is different from the gay, lesbian, and bisexual civil rights movement is clear, in that many of the things they are asking for are well beyond what any other civil rights group has asked for. Gay and lesbian and bisexual people asked for protections in employment, in housing, in civil legal benefits available to all other couples, in public accommodations. That is, the right to be protected from job discrimination (refusal to hire, firing, for being LGB), from discrimination in housing (refusal to rent or sell, eviction, for being LGB), from discrimination in public accommodations (refusal of service for being LGB), and from discrimination in legal treatment (refusal to recognize LG relationships as eligible for the same bundle of rights as any other marriage). Transgender advocates seek much more than this. They seek the "right" to access sex-segregated facilities, benefits, resources, programs, etc., for the sex that they are not. This is quite a different thing.
For a number of years, I agreed with the transgender advocacy, without questioning. For about three years, I wore a safety pin necklace as a symbol that I would be a "safe" person for vulnerable people. For example, if a person were being bullied on account of religion, like that Muslim woman who was bullied on the bus a few years ago (her protectors were attacked by the bullies), they could come to me and ask me to pretend to be with them, or they could sit with me to have someone safe to talk to, or whatever, the safety pin was an external signal that a person could apply to me for help. Another example would be that a transgender person (trans girl or woman) could apply to me as a "safe" person to escort them to the bathroom if they felt timid or threatened in doing so.
Over a long period of time, I began to learn the consequences to women of putting transgender demands into law, and I reconsidered my position.
Yes, many women count transgender women in the category of "women." That is one of the main points that is under debate. It is counterfactual, however. Transgender women are men, physically, biologically. They want to be regarded socially as women, and some have adopted the social trappings of femininity: long hair, makeup, painted nails, dresses, high-heel shoes, etc. Some may even have had surgery to make their body or face mimic the shape of a female body or face, and may have taken voice lessons to modulate their pitch into a more feminine range. They may practice walking differently.
I don't find anything wrong with liking such things or wanting to present in a certain way, although I personally don't think it is either necessary or healthy to hate your body so much that you want surgery to alter or amputate perfectly healthy body parts. However that may be, nothing that a man does to his body will make him a biological woman, no matter how much he wants to be one. He can make himself into a feminized man, but he cannot make himself into a woman.
What that may entail in terms of "rights" is the subject of the discussion, a discussion that it has been very difficult to have. No one is allowed to question the assertions of transgender advocates without being accused of hatred and bigotry. That does not permit discussion, it shuts discussion down. A number of women have been deplatformed, disinvited, and otherwise prevented from speaking on these issues, issues that profoundly affect women.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Your game here is, of course, defining the things you advocate for as not being discrimination and being protection.
No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that the protections afforded in law to transgender people should be the same as those afforded to other civil rights groups: freedom from discrimination in employment (can't be refused employment or be fired for being transgender), in housing (can't be refused rental or sale of residence for being transgender, can't be evicted for being transgender), and in public accommodations (can't be refused service for being transgender).
Transgender advocates seek "rights" that no other group has. No one has the "right" to be something that they are not. It is not "discrimination" to treat someone as the actual sex that they are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Transwomen should use the men's restroom. They should, presumably, by the natural extension of what you've said, be housed in the men's prison, or men's dormitories (in residential schools or other sex-segregated housing situations).
Yes. These facilities are sex-segregated, not gender-segregated. They are sex-segregated for reasons having to do with sex, not gender.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
But the evidence is that this very much does not protect trans people.
That's correct. Insufficiently masculine men are bullied by other men, men who subscribe to the most toxic gender norms associated with maleness. There need to be policies put in place to protect transgender people from such bullying.
I didn't say that trans women using the facilities for their sex was "protection" for trans people. Manifestly, it is not. I said it was for the protection of *women.*
The problem of male pattern violence is a common cause for women and transgender people. We need to transform society so that it is okay for men to wear dresses if they want and not be attacked for it. We need to transform society so that it is okay for men to be gay or women to be lesbians, and not be attacked for it. We need to transform society so that it is okay for men to have different personalities and styles, not only macho, and not be attacked for it. We need to transform society so it is okay for men to be black and not be attacked for it.
If male pattern violence is a problem in men's facilities, then that is a problem for men to solve. The problem of male pattern violence in prisons doesn't affect only trans women prisoners, however. Aggressive and violent male prisoners can attack any other men. It is likely that gay men are attacked in the same way, and even that heterosexual male prisoners are subject to aggressive violence. It should be no part of any man's sentence to be subjected to prison brutality from other prisoners. Perhaps the aggressive and violent prisoners can be segregated from contact with any other male prisoners. Perhaps the best protection for trans women prisoners in a male prison is to have a separate prison, or a separate block or wing. Maybe the same could be done for gay male prisoners, or for other populations that are vulnerable to attack.
In sex-segregated sleeping areas, there should be protections for vulnerable boys or men from aggressive boys or men. If anybody is to be ejected, it should be those perpetrating the violence, not the victims. There should be separate provision for vulnerable men, perhaps. There should be adequate supervision so that violence doesn't occur. The boys or men should be taught that it isn't okay to taunt or bully or mistreat the boys or men who are different from themselves. The same principles apply in locker rooms and bathrooms.
In one of the linked articles I posted above, a school allowed any boy who wanted to, to use the girls' locker room. If any girl felt uncomfortable, she was advised to seek a private place to change. Why isn't the same advice applicable to males with other males? Any male who feels threatened by the other boys or men could seek out a private place to change, or a private toilet stall. Why is sauce for the goose not sauce for the gander as well? Why is that the advice transgender advocates give to girls and women, but not advice that they give to themselves?
In the last century, men have learned to tolerate and accept black men into men's spaces. They have learned that there are many ways of being men, and that macho aggression isn't the only acceptable style. Men should know the rules of proper behavior, and that bullying is not okay. Most men do know this already. This is another instance of "not all men." And the problem is the same as it is for women: you can't tell, just by looking, which men are going to be violently misogynistic enough to attack others for being different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Saying that you're opposed to the abuse and violence that transwomen would face under your preferred policies doesn't change the fact that you are opposed to the simplest solution to that problem: treating them as women and placing them with other women, instead of with men.
That is possibly the simplest solution FOR THE MEN. It is NOT the simplest solution, or really any solution at all, FOR THE WOMEN. If that is "the simplest solution," why not let gay men in the women's room too? Why not let any man, who feels threatened by male pattern violence, into the women's room too? The idea is that vulnerable men are safer from aggressive men in the women's room, because women are socialized to be tolerant, accepting, nurturing, nonviolent, accommodating of other people's needs. That's taking unfair advantage of the women, and the gender norms imposed on women. It unfairly puts the WOMEN in a vulnerable position to men who can now freely enter any women's space if they want or demand to.
The truth may be that there is no "simple solution." There seldom are "simple solutions" to complex problems. Insufficient thought has been given to the proper measures that would protect both vulnerable men and vulnerable women.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
The fact is that you have conservative allies who would agree that transwomen should be placed in those dangerous situations, but would disagree with your goals of making those situations safe.
I don't know whether that's true, whether, when push comes to shove, conservative people want transgender people to be hurt or don't care whether they are hurt. I think there is such a thing as a compassionate conservative, who would want men to be housed with men, but who would agree that men in those positions should be safe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Practically speaking, advocating for transwomen to be placed with men is advocating for them to be placed into abusive environments.
No, it's not, if the real problem is addressed: why are those male environments abusive for some of the men?
On the other hand, advocating for transwomen to be placed with women is, practically speaking advocating for all women's environments to be abusive toward women.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
You think women need protection from men, and therefore to be segregated away from them.
Yes. Up until now, that's precisely why there are sex-segregated facilities for women.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
But then you turn around and claim that you don't wish to deny transwomen any protections while advocating for them to be placed in precisely the the situation that's too dangerous for you. And which honestly, may be more dangerous for them than for you.
Yes, transwomen have the right to personal integrity, not to be violated by other men. If current circumstances, rules, laws, and social norms are insufficiently protective of transwomen, then the problem to address is violence against transgender women.
It may be dangerous for some men to be in spaces with other men. Gay men have been brutally attacked and even murdered. I have no doubt that transgender women are also vulnerable to attack or even murder. Given, however, the manifest dangers to women posed by men, and the numbers of women routinely murdered by men, honestly, it couldn't possibly be *more* dangerous for men to be with aggressive men than for women to be with aggressive men. For one thing, male victims of aggressive men are men themselves. They are on average bigger and stronger than women, and have a better chance of defending themselves than women, on average.
[
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
So, people (like me) who fully advocate for anti-discrimination protections for transgender people, who are as appalled as anyone by violence against transgender people, and who fully believe people are entitled to live however they want, are nonetheless cast as enemies of transgender people, and are directly blamed for violence against transgender people, when they favor anti-discrimination protections commensurate with those afforded to other groups, and when they have committed no such violence.
Well, it's because you're appalled by violence against transgender people, but not so appalled that you would accept policies that reduce it because of how they supposedly are a danger to you
Why are you appalled by violence against women, but not so appalled that you would oppose policies that increase the dangers for women?
And I don't accept policies that reduce violence against transwomen at the expense of increasing violence against women. The policy of allowing any man who says he's a woman into women's spaces doesn't ONLY reduce violence against those men. It also INCREASES violence against women. That never seems to enter into the calculation, however. I wonder why not. Perhaps it's because it's only women who are affected.
I say that society should be looking for solutions to male violence against transgender women, that don't come at someone else's expense. No such solutions are on offer from the transgender community. I think that is a problem that everyone should be concerned about and work on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
- a danger that you don't bother to substantiate.
You're kidding, right? The single most dangerous people to women are men. Men's violence against women is well documented and beyond question.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
The issues need much further delineation and definition and explanation and analysis and discussion, so that the proper changes can be made to ensure anti-discrimination protections are put in place for transgender people. For example, the "Equality Act" presently before the US Congress proposes to make statutory changes by making specific amendments to the provisions for SEX-discrimination protections, rather than creating a separate category of protection for gender-non-conforming people. The amendments propose to change the actual definition of "sex" to INCLUDE two things that are not "sex": both sexual orientation AND "gender identity." I think that this is a serious mistake. This is the conflation at the heart of the matter, because sex and gender are entirely distinct. Once "sex" (reproductive biology of a person) becomes defined AS "gender" -- an idea or notion in someone's head -- then protections for people on account of actual biological SEX disappear. That means that all the gains of feminism in the last 50 or 60 years are wiped out at a single stroke. These ideas need to be kept separate, and not conflated together.
This is, without any concrete examples or evidence, nothing more than a slippery slope argument. How will this Equality Act undo "all the gains of feminism" of the past half-century, specifically? Can you show any examples?
Yes. I will reserve this for another post, as I have several other arguments of yours here to address, and my answer will require some research.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
There are jurisdictions which already provide anti-discrimination protections to trangender and non-binary people, etc. How have such laws in those jurisdictions undone all of second- and third-wave feminism?
It seems to me that much of your complaints are this sort of unsubstantiated hyperbole.
see above; I will address this in a separate post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Sex is: which biological reproduction function does your body have? 99% of all human beings are clearly of one type or the other.
[...]
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
Putting aside people who are born with ambiguous sex characteristics,
That's an important aside, as DSD's, or disorders of sexual development, have almost zero to do with transgender people.
I don't see any evidence for your claim here.
The evidence is the prominent transgender advocates, both male and female.
To all appearances, they were normal boys or girls, who developed into normal men and women, before they became transgender. I am not aware of any that say they have intersex conditions. The prominent advocates are not the totality of the transgender population, to be sure, but in all of the news related items about transgender people, very few, if any, say anything about DSD's as a precursor or a factor or a fact about the person's transgender identity. Transgender people like to point to people with DSD's, as if it means something for their arguments, but they don't generally claim to have DSD's themselves.
The only outlier that I am aware of is Caster Semenya, who has a genuine intersex condition. I do not know whether Semenya is self-identified as transgender; I haven't seen that claim, so I am not certain that Semenya's case is even relevant to transgender issues. Semenya was born with female-appearing genitalia, but had undescended male testicles. No biological investigation was made to discover that information. It was not Semenya's fault that she was initially identified as female, and grew up and was treated by the family as female. It was not an ostensible problem for Semenya to run in girls' track events. At puberty, however, Semenya's male gonads secreted the hormones normal for male gonads, and Semenya developed a body consistent with having undergone male puberty. Semenya's body has male reproductive organs -- whatever the body's initial appearance -- and has now developed as a male. It is no longer justifiable to treat Semenya as a female, eligible to compete in women's races.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
What reason is there to suppose that biological sex characteristics don't include neurological characteristics? Studies have found differences in the brain structure of men and women, and between trans men and women compared to cis men and women, with studies finding that, for example, certain structures in trans women's brains are more similar to those of cis women's than cis men's, and likewise for trans men's brains resembling cis men's.
I don't agree that the studies prove what they claim to demonstrate.
In this study: A Review of the Status of Brain Structure Research in Transsexualism
observations of the size of certain brain structures were made between, on the one hand, male and female controls, and, on the other hand, mostly homosexual identifed transsexuals, that is, males who were male-attracted, who then transitioned MtF, and females who were female-attracted, who then transitioned FtM.
Some sizes of some of the brain physical structures (such as cortical thickness, the numbers of neuronal connections in certain areas of white or gray brain matter) differed between the control male brains and female brains. Some of the structures measured in the brains of MtF's were more like some of the structures in the control female brains, but not exactly the same. And, before hormonal treatment with cross-sex hormones, the MtF homosexuals' brains were about the same as the control male brains. Similar findings were made with respect to the FtM brains: some structures were bigger than the control females' brains, more like the control males' brains.
The abstract reported: "Falling within the aegis of the neurohormonal theory of sex differences, we hypothesize that cortical differences between homosexual MtFs and FtMs and male and female controls are due to differently timed cortical thinning in different regions for each group. Cross-sex hormone studies have reported marked effects of the treatment on MtF and FtM brains. Their results are used to discuss the early postmortem histological studies of the MtF brain."
The effects of gonadal hormones on the development of brain structures appears to account for the difference in sizes of different regions of the brain in normal development. When embryos are degonadized, the development patterns align more with the female-consistent structures, suggesting that gonadal testosterone is the difference-maker in these size differences in normal mammals. The introduction of cross-sex hormones appears to have measurable effects on the transsexual subjects' brains.
The author remarked on other studies that had used a less accurate method of measuring cortical volume. Those studies indicated that untreated homosexual MtFs [non-transitioned and without cross-sex hormones] and female controls had less gray matter volume in the left somatosensory and primary motor cortices as well as the posterior cingulate and calcarine gyri and the precuneus than male controls and FtMs. These findings suggest that homosexual MtFs have a feminine cortical pattern. However, the results should be taken cautiously because of the small sample size and the brain statistical maps showing significance were at an uncorrected level (p < .001)."
It's not at all clear to me what the difference is between the brain structures of homosexual men who transition MtF and the brain structures of homosexual men who are not transsexual.
"Overall, in vivo MRI studies indicate that the main morphological parameters of the brain (ICV, GM, WM, and CSF) are congruent with their natal sex in untreated homosexual MtFs. However, some cortical regions show feminine volume and thickness and it should be underscored that CTh presents an F > M morphological pattern. Nevertheless, with respect to CTh, this feminine cortical pattern is not the same as the one shown by control females (compare Fig. 2a and b). On the other hand, the main white matter fascicles in MtFs are demasculinized, while others are still masculine (Fig. 3a). Moreover, most of the differences appear to be located in the right hemisphere. So far, the studies on the white matter, like those above on gray matter, strongly suggest that MtFs have their own brain phenotype that mainly affects the right hemisphere."
Homosexual MtF's may have their own brain phenotype, different from both male controls and female controls. Non-homosexual MtF's, however, "present[] morphological peculiarities in regions in which male and female controls do not differ."
There's a lot more there, having to do with administering cross-sex hormones, and brain weight, and analyses of studies of other brain measurements besides the cortical structures. There are plenty of cautions included about things like the possibility that the deleterious effects cross-sex hormones (all the post-mortem studies were performed on MtF's who had received cross-sex hormones) accounted for the "feminization" of the structures in those subjects' brains.
The Wikipedia article to which you have linked has a number of interesting comments, such as those concerning studies of gynephilic trans women. "While MRI taken on gynephilic male-to-female transsexuals have likewise shown differences in the brain from non-transsexuals, no feminization of the brain's structure have been identified. There is also the issue of psychological roots and effects of transsexualism. Wikipedia states, for example, that "Autogynephilia is common among late-onset transgender women. A study on autogynephilic men found that they were more gender dysphoric than non-autogynephilic men."
I'm not at all certain what the conclusion should be from the fact, if it is one, that MtF transgender women have some physical brain structures that are similar in size to control group women, or that FtM transgender men have some brain structures that are similar in size to control group men. I don't see why any of that should have more meaning and effect in law than other male/female body structures having to do with sexual reproduction. I'm not sure how any of that shows that males with certain brain structures of a particular size are no longer male. I don't know why that should have any effect on policies that protect women from predations by men.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
And other "biological" differences (acting as if there's a hard distinction between biology and psychology is of course a big basis for your claims, and it's a rather dubious basis) as well.
Such as what? What psychology is uniquely applicable only to women or only to men?
And the "hard distinction" is not biology vs. psychology. The hard distinction is between biologically objectively observable facts, vs. an idea in someone's head (or merely a verbal statement made, without belief in the idea), that can't be tested, falsified, verified, observed, or detected in any reliable or meaningful way.
What's dubious is the claim that "I feel like a woman" is more meaningful, more powerful, more deserving of enshrinement and deference, more real, than the actual biological condition of being a woman.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
You say that 99% of people are clearly of one type or the other (that specific number is obviously just one you made up, rather than one based on scientific investigation, but some number in the mid- to high-90s is probably right based on the prevalence of transgenderism and intersexuality). It seems to me that you then assume that trans people are all in that 90-something% who are clearly one or the other, rather than potentially another manifestation of an ambiguity in the expression of sex.
Quote:
I don't think any of the most prominent transgender activists are so-called "intersex." Many transgender advocates point to the existence of intersex people, or people with DSD's, and go from there to the notion that "sex is more complicated than just XX and XY" (a true statement), and then extrapolate the conclusion that "therefore sex is a spectrum." It is not.
Human beings are sexually dimorphic: the only available means of reproduction is through the male and female sexual systems. The disorders of sexual development are anomalies in the development of male bodies, or in the development of female bodies. That's it.
This is mostly just assertion.
Show me any way of reproducing a human being that doesn't rely on male and female sex cells, produced by male and female sex organs. What other sexes can there possibly be? There can be dysfunctional reproductive systems in males or in females, but there is no other actual sex to be that has any reproductive functionality.
All the biology textbooks on human sexuality, and all the medical schools, agree that human reproductive biology is by sex, and that human sex is dimorphic. Yes, DSD conditions exist. Those are developmental anomalies that happen in male sexual development or female sexual development.
This Wikipedia article has a list. The only listed conditions that is not either male or female is true hermaphroditism, in which the individual has both testicular and ovarian tissues. That is both male and female, but it isn't something that is neither male nor female.
"47,XXY females - There are case reports of 47,XXY females; in some cases SRY or androgen receptor abnormalities are detected.[12] 47,XXY males - see Klinefelter syndrome below 48, XXXX (also known as tetrasomy X, quadruple X, and XXXX syndrome) - A condition that describes a female with two extra female chromosomes. It is considered a variation of Triple X syndrome. Women with 48, XXXX may or may not have issues associated with the condition though most are developmentally delayed and only about 50% undergo puberty normally. 48, XXYY (also known as XXYY syndrome) - A condition that describes a male with one extra female chromosome and one extra male chromosome. It occurs in 1 in 18,000 to 40,000 male births.[13] 48, XXYY may result in infertility, low testosterone, and neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD or autism but some men have no issues. 49, XXXXX (also known as pentasomy X and XXXXX syndrome) - A condition that describes a female with three extra female chromosomes. It is considered a variant of Triple X syndrome. Women with 49, XXXXX usually suffer from numerous health issues such as patent ductus arteriosus, scoliosis, kidney hypoplasia, and abnormal lobulation of the lungs. Physical deformities include microcephaly, micrognathia, and webbing of the neck. 49, XXXXY - A condition that describes a male with three extra female chromosomes. It is rare, occurring in 1 in 85,000 to 100,000 males.[14][15] It is considered a variation of Klinefelter syndrome. Men with 49, XXXXY syndrome often suffer from mental retardation. 5α-reductase deficiency (also known as 5-ARD) - An autosomal recessive condition caused by a mutation of the 5-alpha reductase type 2 gene. It only affects people with Y chromosomes, namely genetic males. People with this condition are fertile, with the ability to father children, but may be raised as females due to ambiguous or feminized genitalia. 17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency - A condition characterized by impaired androgen and estrogen synthesis in males and females, respectively. Results in pseudohermaphroditism/undervirilization in males and in excessive virilization of adult females. Androgen insensitivity syndrome (also known as AIS) - A condition which affects a genetic male's virilization. A person with androgen insensitivity syndrome produces androgens and testosterone but their body does not recognize it, either partially or completely. Mild androgen insensitivity syndrome generally causes no developmental issues and people with this form are raised as males. Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome results in ambiguous genitalia and there is no consensus regarding whether to raise a child with this form as male or female. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome causes a genetic male to have a vagina (often incompletely developed, nearly always blind-ending), breasts, and a clitoris and people with this form are raised as females. Aphallia - A rare occurrence where a male is born without a penis or where a female is born without a clitoris. As of 2005, only 75 cases of aphallia have been documented.[16] It should not be confused with intentional or accidental amputation of the genitalia. Aposthia - A congenital defect where a male is born without a foreskin. Aromatase deficiency - A disorder in which, in females, is characterized by androgen excess and estrogen deficiency, and can result in inappropriate virilization, though without pseudohermaphroditism (i.e., genitals are phenotypically appropriate) (with the exception of the possible incidence of clitoromegaly). Aromatase deficiency can also be caused by mutations in P450 oxidoreductase gene [17]. Aromatase excess syndrome (also known as familial hyperestrogenism) - A condition that causes excessive estrogen production, resulting in feminization without pseudohermaphroditism (i.e., male genitalia at birth and female secondary sexual characteristics at puberty) in males and hyperfeminization in females. Clitoromegaly - A clitoris that is considered larger than average. While clitoromegaly may be a symptom of an intersex condition, it may also be considered a normal variation in clitoris size. Clitoromegaly causes no health issues. Surgical reduction of the clitoris or its complete removal may be performed to normalize the appearance of the genitalia. While female genital mutilation is outlawed in many countries, reduction or the removal of the clitoris in cases of clitoromegaly are generally exempt, despite the fact that it is a nontherapeutic and sexually damaging surgery. Clitoromegaly may also be caused by females using testosterone or anabolic steroids for purposes related to female to male gender transition or bodybuilding. Combined 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency - A condition in which presents as a combination of the symptoms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia and isolated 17,20-lyase deficiency. See those two conditions for more information. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (also known as CAIS) - A condition which completely affects a genetic male's ability to recognize androgens. It is considered a form of androgen insensitivity syndrome and is the most severe form. People with complete androgen insensitivity are raised as females and usually do not discover they are genetic males until they experience amenorrhoea in their late teens or they need medical intervention due to a hernia caused by their undescended testes. Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome results in a genetic male having a vagina, clitoris, and breasts which are capable of breastfeeding. However, they will not have ovaries or a uterus. Because they do not have ovaries or sufficiently developed testicles, people with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome are infertile. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (also known as CAH) - A condition that causes excessive androgen production, which causes excessive virilization. It is most problematic in genetic females, where severe virilization can result in her having vaginal agenesis (absence of vagina) and a functional penis which is capable of penetrative intercourse. Females with this condition are usually fertile, with the ability to become pregnant and give birth. The salt-wasting variety of this condition is fatal in infants if left untreated. Diphallia (also known as penile duplication, diphallic terata, and diphallasparatus) - A condition where a male is born with two penises. It's extremely rare, with only 100 cases being recorded since 1609 and an occurrence rate of 1 in 5,500,000 in the United States. The penises may be side by side or one on top of the other, being of equal size or with one penis being distinctively larger than the other, and both penises may be suitable for urination and intercourse. Men with diphallia may be sterile. Estrogen insensitivity syndrome (EIS) - The estrogen counterpart to androgen insensitivity syndrome. Extremely rare, with only one verified case having been reported; a biological male presented with tall stature, a heightened risk of osteoporosis, and sterility. Gonadal Dysgenesis - is any congenital developmental disorder of the reproductive system characterized by a progressive loss of primordial germ cells on the developing gonads of an embryo. Isolated 17,20-lyase deficiency - A condition that is characterized by either partial or complete inability to produce androgens and estrogens. Results in partial or complete feminization and undervirilization in males and in a delayed, reduced, or absent puberty in both sexes, in turn causing sexual infantilism and infertility, among other symptoms. Klinefelter syndrome (also known as 47, XXY and XXY syndrome) - A condition that describes a male born with at least one extra female chromosome. Though the most common variation is 47, XXY, a man may also be 48, XXXY or 49, XXXXY. It is a common occurrence, affecting 1 in 500 to 1,000 men.[18] While some men may have no issues related to the syndrome, some may experience gynecomastia, micropenis, cognitive difficulties, hypogonadism, reduced fertility/infertility, and/or little or no facial hair. Testosterone therapy may be pursued by men who desire a more masculine appearance and those with gynecomastia may opt to undergo a reduction mammoplasty. Men who wish to father children may be able to do so with the help of IVF.[19] Leydig cell hypoplasia - A condition solely affecting biological males which is characterized by partial or complete inactivation of the luteinizing hormone receptor, resulting in stymied androgen production. Patients may present at birth with a fully female phenotype, ambiguous genitalia, or only mild genital defects such as micropenis and hypospadias. Upon puberty, sexual development is either impaired or fully absent. Micropenis (also known as microphallus) - A penis that measures 3 inches (7.62 centimeters) or less in length when erect. It is a common condition, occurring in 1 in 200 men.[20] Micropenis may be the result of undervirilization during fetal development or may be caused by an underlying intersex condition, such as mild androgen insensitivity syndrome, partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, or Klinefelter syndrome. It may also be considered a natural variation of penis size. While the majority of men have no issues with having a micropenis, some may opt to use a prosthetic penis or undergo penile enlargement to increase the size of their penis. Lipoid congenital adrenal hyperplasia - An endocrine disorder that arises from defects in the earliest stages of steroid hormone synthesis: the transport of cholesterol into the mitochondria and the conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone—the first step in the synthesis of all steroid hormones. Mild androgen insensitivity syndrome (also known as MAIS) - A condition which mildly affects a genetic male's ability to recognize androgens. It is considered a form of androgen insensitivity syndrome and is considered the least severe form. While men generally do not need any specialized medical care related to this form, mild androgen insensitivity syndrome may result in gynecomastia and hypospadias. Neither gynecomastia nor hypospadias require surgical intervention or adversely affect a man's health though some men may opt to undergo surgery to remove their breasts and/or repair their hypospadias. Men with mild androgen insensitivity syndrome may have reduced fertility. Mixed gonadal dysgenesis - is a condition of unusual and asymmetrical gonadal development leading to an unassigned sex differentiation. A number of differences have been reported in the karyotype, most commonly a mosaicism 45,X/ 46, XY. Ovotesticular disorder (also called true hermaphroditism) - A condition where a individual has both testicular and ovary tissue. Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (also known as PAIS) - A condition which partially affects a genetic male's ability to recognize androgens. It is considered a form of androgen insensitivity syndrome and while it is not as severe as complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, it is more severe than mild androgen insensitivity syndrome. Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome causes major problems with gender assignment because it causes ambiguous genitalia such as a micropenis or clitoromegaly in addition to breast development. People with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome who are assigned as males may undergo testosterone therapy to virilize their body while those who are assigned as females may undergo a surgical reduction of the clitoris and/ or estrogen therapy. Penoscrotal transposition
Persistent Müllerian duct syndrome A condition where Fallopian tubes, uterus, or the upper part of the vagina are present in an otherwise normal male. Pseudovaginal perineoscrotal hypospadias (also known as PPSH) - A form of ambiguous genitalia which results in a phallic structure that is smaller than a penis but larger than a clitoris, a chordee, hypospadias, and a shallow vagina. Swyer Syndrome (Also known as Pure Gonadal Dysgenesis or XY gonadal dysgenesis) is a type of hypogonadism in a person whose karyotype is 46,XY. The person is externally female with streak gonads, and left untreated, will not experience puberty. Such gonads are typically surgically removed (as they have a significant risk of developing tumors) and a typical medical treatment would include hormone replacement therapy with female hormones. Triple X syndrome - A condition that describes a female born with an extra female chromosome, making her karotype 47, XXX. It is a common occurrence, affecting 1 in 1,000 females.[21] It generally causes no health issues or abnormal development. Turner syndrome (also known as Ullrich-Turner syndrome and gonadal dysgenesis) - A condition that describes a female born without a female chromosome or with an abnormal female chromosome, making her karotype 45, XO. It occurs in 1 in 2,000 to 5,000 females. Turner syndrome causes numerous health and development problems, including but not limited to short stature, lymphedema, infertility, webbed neck, coarctation of the aorta, ADHD, amenorrhoea, and obesity. Uterus didelphys (also known as double uterus) - A condition where a female is born with two uteri. It is often accompanied by two vaginas. It is generally not considered a health issue and women with uterus didelphys usually have normal sex lives and pregnancies.[22] Müllerian agenesis (also known as MRKH or Vaginal Agenesis) - A condition that causes the uterus and other reproductive organs in a 46,XX female to be small or absent, as well as the vaginal canal itself. It affects 1 out of 4,500 to 5,000 females and can also come with skeletal or endocrine system issues at conception."
You're right that I made up the 99% number hyperbolically, but the general incidence of people with DSD's is relatively small.
You agree that at least 90+% of human beings are normal male or normal female people, without any DSD ambiguities. Wikipedia, on "sex assignment," says "The number of births where the baby does not fit into strict definitions of male and female amount to roughly 1.7%, of which 0.02% are due to visibly ambiguous genitals."
However, the existence of transgender people does not affect the sexual dimorphism of human beings. In the research studies analyzed in the article I examined, above, nothing indicates that any of the transsexual subjects in any of the studies were anything other than normal males or normal females (prior to transition, at any rate).
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Maybe sex isn't a spectrum in the sense of being a one-dimensional spectrum where you go from 100% male to 100% female. Various intersex conditions can't necessarily be placed along a line from one end to the other, although some conditions maybe could be. But just because you say you can place almost every variation into one binary category or another doesn't prove that that binary is any more objective than a different categorization.
As the list of DSD conditions above states, according to medical classifications, these conditions happen to people who are male or who are female. What categorization do you suggest would be more objective, with respect to sex, than reproductive structures and functionality?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Intersex conditions, or DSD's, happen to male people or female people.
This just assumes your conclusion. You can't refute the idea that intersex people might not be completely male or female by saying that they simply are completely male or female people with "conditions".
Those are the medical classifications, as I understand it. I didn't just pull it out of my hat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Some intersex people were, therefore, brought up as girls when they had male gonads (undescended testicles or the like), or brought up as boys when they actually had female reproductive organs. These surgical interventions often ended up unsatisfactorily; the victims sensed or knew that their body was wrong or didn't fit, and they were right. Males brought up as girls (and vice versa) "knew" that something was wrong. I think that people with DSD's today advocate to wait for further development before undertaking any surgical "assignment" to a possibly erroneous determination of sex.
Not all intersex people identify as male or female as you say. A fair number don't identify with either sex. How are you deciding which sex they "really" are?
Biological and medical diagnosis. When babies are born, the external markers of the infant's sex are normally observable to an accurate degree. In a few cases, the external markers will be misleading and the wrong sex will be recorded. In others, the ambiguity is obvious, and further investigation is needed. That further investigation could include chromosomal analysis, tissue typing, and investigation of the gonadal tissues or other bodily organs and structures (e.g., presence of uterus, shape of bones) to make the determination.
People don't have to "identify as" anything. I definitely don't "identify as" female. I'd far rather be treated as an equal human being. However, I have a sexed body, and I can't help that. My sexed body does things that I don't have control over. I can't help what organs I have, or what biological processes those organs perform.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
You keep asking "what is transphobia". Given how much you go on about how clear sex is, you'd think you might define it at some point.
Sex [def.]: either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.
But you knew that already.
So okay. Now will someone who accuses others of "transphobia" please provide a coherent definition of that term?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Transgender people and intersex people may have in common the feeling that something is wrong with their bodies or their sexual development. The difference is that transgender people are, by and large, perfectly normal specimens of the sex that they actually are. The genitalia are not ambiguous. The gonads are clearly either male or female. Their chromosomes are normal XY or normal XX.
The brain is also an organ which demonstrates differences between men and women, and cis vs. trans people. It seems like you're completely unaware of this given how you think it's the end of the story when you talk about chromosomes and genitalia as the only biological differences.
I didn't say that DNA and chromosomes and skeletal structure and gonadal tissues and external genitalia and internal reproductive organs are the only biological differences between men and women. They are the differences which determine sex, i.e., which reproductive category a human being is in.
Male reproductive organs are what impregnate women. What's in the man's brain, whether the size of the cortex or other structures match up with typical men or are different from typical men because the person is transgender, doesn't matter to the woman who is impregnated by the male reproductive organs. That men are generally bigger and stronger than women, because of their sexual development, is what matters when a woman wants to be protected from male predation. What the size of the cortex and other brain structures are doesn't matter.
The differences in brain characteristics, i.e., the size of some of the structures in the brain, may be different between heteronormative males and females. As I understand the testing of transsexual individuals, the development of their brain structures is affected both by which gonads and hormones they have naturally, and by which hormones they take artificially.
The hormones in cases of MtF or FtM can affect the developmental sizes of particular structures of the brain differently still from the norms for control male and female groups. In all the cases, the hormones affect the brain structure developmental processes slightly differently in males, females, MtF's and FtM's.
What are the consequences of these brain differences? THAT the structures are different is something that can be measured, but what do those differences actually DO?
Why is the size of a man's brain cortex relevant to whether he should be permitted access to women's spaces?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
I understand 'transgender' to be the preferred term for someone who was born with the anatomy of one sex now identifying fully as the other biological sex. Whereas 'transsexual' has become offensive.
I think that is generally true as to the usage of "transgender" versus "transsexual."
I have sometimes seen "transsexual" used to describe people who dress according to the gender stereotypes for the opposite sex without any surgical or hormonal alteration, and perhaps without any intention to portray oneself as the opposite sex in all contexts. For example, I think some gay men who dress in drag use the term transsexual, to make clear that they are not transgender. By contrast, "transgender" would refer to people who have had surgical or other alterations to appear like the opposite sex, with the intention to do so in all contexts of life.
You have pretty much reversed the terms.
Fair enough. I stand corrected. I may have been thinking of some other word.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
I don't claim to be someone who hangs out with drag queens, but I am gay, and my sister is trans, and I am unaware of drag queens commonly calling themselves transsexual. Most would not even call themselves transgender.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by viscousmemories
In my experience, people who identify as transgender don't call themselves 'transmen/women', but 'men/women'.
Yes. Trans men (biological women) refer to themselves as "men." Trans women (biological men) refer to themselves as "women." People can refer to themselves however they want to. They have full control over themselves. Other people (non-trans people) have exactly the same right. Non-trans people can refer to themselves by whatever term they like. People do not have the right to control what other people say.
I don't know what you mean by "control" exactly.
Do black people have the right to "control" what other people call them? Is that what's going on if someone loses their job because they called someone black by a slur?
There are possibly workplace protections, yes. Using slurs against a Black person in the course of refusing them service or refusing a housing application, for example, would be evidence of racial animus as the basis for the discrimination, and actionable in law. If someone calls a Black person by a slur, on the street, or in any context not involving employment, housing, access to public accommodations, and the like, is not actionable. "Hate speech" against racial groups is not a stand-alone offense. Such hate speech can be evidence of motivation for a criminal offense (making a crime and instance of "hate crime"), for example, and can be relevant in criminal court proceedings against someone who has victimized a person on account of race.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Could you lose your job by consistently referring to a cisgender person by the wrong gender and using the wrong pronouns, etc.? Is that "controlling" people, or violating their freedom of speech?
Preliminarily, I note that "cisgender" is a nonsense word, a backformation from "transgender" to try to genderize people who are not transgender. Typically, the transgender lobby's definition for "transgender" is something along the lines of:
"Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their sex assigned at birth."
Therefore, "cisgender" becomes: "a term for people whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth. For example, someone who identifies as a woman and was assigned female at birth is a cisgender woman. The term cisgender is the opposite of the word transgender."
The term "cis" is imposed on people who don't claim to be transgender, without regard to the actual definition, i.e., whether the non-trans person "identifies as" some gender, or whether they have a "gender identity" at all. It's imprecise and inaccurate.
As to the substance of your question, if you, on the job, refer to a male coworker to a third party as "she," or a woman colleague as "he," that isn't calling them by the wrong gender. That's calling them by the wrong sex. That's using the wrong pronouns for their sex. It's saying something that is not true.
I'm not certain whether someone could or should be fired for that in itself. If, however, someone consistently and deliberately calls a male colleague "she" to other people, or calls a female colleague "he" to other people, the colleague might have a valid claim for harassment on the basis of sex. If you get fired for that, I wouldn't consider it an improper burden on free speech. You said something untrue about people, and you did to harass and annoy.
On the other hand, if people want to talk about other people using pronouns of the opposite sex, in general conversation and not at work, I don't think that is actionable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
If you prefer to be referred to with a title, or with a certain nickname (or by no nickname, insisting on the full form of your name), etc. and someone consistently refuses to do so, do you consider that disrespectful?
I can see that it could be disrespectful, yes. You are talking here about preferences, not mandates, however. Should such preferences have the force of law? I'm not certain that they should. DJT disrespectfully calls other people denigrating nicknames all the time. He's free to do that, and he can't be legally punished for it, even though it is discourteous and mean-spirited in the extreme. He does it deliberately to hurt other people. As far as I can see, there is no law against it, as long as it's not defamatory/untrue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Nobody is taking away your first amendment rights here, but you basically want to be disrespectful to trans people, while simultaneously chiding people who call out your behavior as disrespectful as "controlling" you. Unfortunately, we don't all get to say whatever we want to say at all times.
Transgender people may certainly feel disrespected by being treated as the sex they actually are. Is that reasonable? That's a question to be explored, in my opinion, and isn't a given in either direction. What's a reasonable response to or remedy for the person's feelings? That is also an issue for discussion and a matter of opinion. The answer isn't clear, and that unclarity
also applies in both directions.
Anyone can take offense and feel disrespected for any reason they choose. Are all feelings of being "disrespected" worthy of legal protection? I would say no. The parameters of what limits of "respect" or "disrespect" ought to be legally mandated, and in what contexts, is not obvious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Yet I'm sure you don't complain as much about the other ways you have to watch what you say.
Zing, I guess.
I don't have to "watch what I say" to not use racial slurs. I don't have to "watch what I say" to not call men "pricks" or "dicks" or other gendered slurs. I don't have to "watch what I say" to not call women cunts, or feminazis, or pussies, or bitches, or whores, or sluts, or any of the myriad other epithets that men routinely hurl at women who displease them.
It might take some time to learn to call someone by a different name.
EVERYONE, however, must "watch what they say" to accommodate transgender demands.
Here is a link to an article entitled "Pronouns are Rohypnol," if you want another perspective on what is being asked of people, to affirm propositions that are not true.
The people demanding concessions are mostly men, and a tiny percentage of men, at that. The people that they are asking for the concessions from are primarily women, half the population.
Can you go back through those articles and tell us which ones talked to trans folk, quoted trans folks, or otherwise are written from a trans perspective?
Cause a lot of those either sound like or are just outright scare mongering bunk. It’s the same as the right wing hate mongers who point to out of context stories about Muslims to prove they are as evil as we have known all along. It kinda feels like you saved a bunch of articles that justify your fear and concern.
Like that “it’s not about peeing” article was just bunk, utter bunk, I feel quite safe speaking for my trans-friends (of which I have more than a few) that that was a shit article.
It’s almost the trans equivalent of a white writer quoting other white writers about how black guys go to college to rape innocent white women. I could almost hear the author clutch her pearls when she literally said “think about the children!”
ETA: That article specifically so annoys me, I’ll tear it apart later.
Right, I just saw some responses as sort of nodding along and ignoring several statements I saw as wrong about pretty basic stuff.
And like, there were a lot of words used to say what are pretty basic anti-trans positions, and nobody called it out:
-trans men/women are not men/women (respectively)
-I shouldn't have to call them by their preferred gender or pronouns
-they should have to use the restroom and other facilities corresponding to their gender assigned at birth
-because, by implication, trans women are dangerous
-legislation recognizing trans rights will undo feminism
The issues are more subtle, I think, than you have laid out here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
pretty basic anti-trans positions:
(1) -trans men/women are not men/women (respectively)
That's simply true. Trans women are men. Trans men are women.
The term "transgender woman" refers to a person's gender and their internal feelings of identity. There is nothing wrong with that. "Woman" refers to a human being's sex. The mantra, "trans women are women" says "gender = sex," and that's simply not true. Gender and sex are distinct and should not be conflated. It is not "anti-trans" to say so; it's the truth. It has nothing to do with whether people ARE transgender (a gender identity) or not. Of course they are. They have every right to be. It is not "anti-trans" to say that "trans women are trans women" and that "they have every right to be however they want to that is comfortable for them." How is that in any way "anti-trans"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
pretty basic anti-trans positions:
(2)-I shouldn't have to call them by their preferred gender or pronouns
I generally call people by their name, and even their preferred name.
People can have a preferred gender if they want to; that doesn't change their actual sex. Pronoun use in language refers to perceived sex. Sex is generally, though not always, reliably perceived by visual appearance and other cues.
People can prefer to be referred to by the pronouns appropriate to the opposite sex, and people may accommodate that preference. Nothing wrong with that for people who want to do it. However, I should not be compelled under force of law to make statements that are factually untrue.
That may or may not be "anti-trans," depending on what you mean by that. Maybe, being in favor of legal protections for transgender people counts as "anti-trans," if the only thing that really matters is complying with pronoun demands.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
pretty basic anti-trans positions:
(3) -they should have to use the restroom and other facilities corresponding to their gender assigned at birth
"Gender" is not "assigned at birth." Sex is observed when a baby is born. It is observed and recorded. It's not "assigned," as if the observer/recorder can whimsically choose whatever they want. That's sloppy vocabulary that slants the argument without actually making an argument. The infant's body is the determiner of its sex. In a very few cases, initial observation isn't accurate, or initial observation is ambiguous. Even in such cases, further investigation can reveal the infant's biological sex. Again, the sex is determined by the body. Only in cases of real ambiguity, or perhaps genital mutilation, is a sex "assigned." It's simply wrong to say that sex is generally "assigned" at birth. It's not.
Yes, my view is that transgender people should use the sex-segregated facilities that are appropriate to their sex. That's what sex-segregation means. Sex-segregated facilities for women are there largely for the protection of women. If men are admitted to facilities set aside for the safety of women, then women lose all protection that the sex-segregated facilities are meant to provide. Women fought hard for their own spaces. Historically, and even in some places in the world today, the "urinary leash" keeps women from participating in public life. Where there are no separate sanitary facilities available to women, they can be in public only as long as they can do so without needing to use a toilet. 100 Women: How the 'urinary leash' keeps women at home - BBC News
Women are also the ones who created domestic violence shelters for women fleeing abuse. Transgender activists have not bent their efforts toward creating shelters for transgender victims of violence. Instead, transgender women have sought the right to enter women's domestic violence shelters. They have sued for the right to be employed as counselors to battered women. They have campaigned to defund women's shelters that serve women only and don't open their doors to men. When they didn't succeed in closing one facility, they nailed a dead rat to the door of the noncompliant (uppity) women's shelter. How does a woman raped by a man feel when forced to share a room with an intact male person who calls himself a woman? Or be forced to deal with a male-bodied shelter counselor? I think a woman traumatized by a man has every right to want -- and need -- sex-specific counselors and sex-segregated shelter facilities. When men claiming to be trans women to gain entry into women's shelters, they don't just shut up and get on with their own trauma and treatment. No, as in a link I posted previously, at least some of them crow about their victory over the women, prancing about in the women's bathrooms and taking selfies of themselves and their erections. They are turned on by defeating women.
It's not "anti-trans" to want women's shelters, women's bathrooms, women's locker rooms, women's private spaces for women only. The fact is that, no matter how many people say it how many times, trans women are not women. They are men.
It's not "anti-trans" to want transgender women to be protected from violence. But why should the only solution to protect transgender women -- non-gender-conforming men -- be at the expense of the protection of women? Surely, there are other solutions that don't end up hurting women, the majority demographic, in favor of a small minority of men.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
pretty basic anti-trans positions:
(4) -because, by implication, trans women are dangerous
No, that's not it. The problem is much broader than that. It's because men are dangerous to women. It's because there is no way to tell who is a trans woman and who isn't. It's also because there is no way to tell the difference between men who are dangerous and men who are not.
What is a trans woman? How does anyone know? How can anyone verify the claim? Or falsify the claim? As far as anyone can demonstrate, a trans woman is any man who says he is one. A man claiming to be a trans woman can be any age. He can look any way he wants to. There is no necessary standard of dress, or body features, by which one can be identified. Saying "trans women can use the women's bathroom" is an open invitation for any and every man to enter the women's bathroom. Who can stop them? On what grounds? by what criteria? No one, and none. Then what you have is the men's room, where women don't go because it isn't safe, and the mixed sex men's/women's room, where women are afraid to go because it isn't safe. The men get two bathrooms, in effect, and the women get none, at least none in which they can be safe from prying and predatory men.
Trans women might argue that men who simply take advantage of the rule in favor of trans women using the women's bathroom aren't "true trans." What are the analytical criteria by which anyone can determine who is "true trans" and who is not? If women aren't allowed to object to any man, of any appearance, entering the (formerly) women's room, what method can they use to determine which of the men entering are "true trans" and which are mere opportunists?
I have a friend who works in a male-dominated industry, in a shop where she is the only woman. The employer decided, without legislative mandate, to get ahead of the curve, and declare that the women's bathroom should be open to transgender employees (there were none). Immediately, the men took over the former women's room, as well as the men's room, and my friend had no place where she could perform her intimate functions privately from the men.
Wanting women to have a private space away from any men is not "anti-trans." After all, some women are transgender too. The real impetus is "anti-violence-against-women." If wanting women to be safe from male pattern violence is inherently "anti-trans," then "pro-trans" is inherently "anti-woman."
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
pretty basic anti-trans positions:
(5)-legislation recognizing trans rights will undo feminism
No, that's inaccurate. There should be legislation to protect transgender people from discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and so on, in the same way and to the same extent that anti-discrimination laws protect people from discrimination of the basis of race, creed, color, age, religion, and sex (and sexual orientation where those protections exist). Sex is NOT the same thing as "gender" or "gender identity." Therefore, it does not make sense to define "sex" as the same thing as "gender identity." They are not the same. Whatever statutes are enacted for civil rights protections for transgender people, they should not be piggybacked onto a different civil rights law, transmogrifying the definition of "sex" into something wholly unrecognizable and wholly unable to protect people (primarily women) from discrimination on the basis of sex.
For another thing, "gender identity" is a concept that is difficult to define in any objective or measurable way. Legislation would require a definition that makes sense and is coherent. That's a topic that has been entirely glossed over. It deserves careful consideration and testing, debate and discussion, so that possibly inaccurate or problematic "definitions" are not rushed into the statute books.
It might make more sense, for example, to define the protections for non-gender-conforming people in terms of gender presentation. That is something that can be objectively observed and detected, at least as long as there are any gender norms for dress and presentation.
There should be no prohibition against transgender people serving in the military, as an example where anti-discrimination law could be tailored to gender presentation, rather than dependent on "gender identity." There are at present separate uniform regulations for "male" uniforms and "female" uniforms, with respect to some of the uniforms of each service. (Some uniforms are more unisex.) It shouldn't matter whether any service member wears either the male uniform or the female uniform, as long as they comply with the regulations specific to that uniform. Any "inspection ready" uniform should do. That doesn't mean, however, that transgender people change their sex. Men who want to wear the women's uniform stay in the men's barracks and latrines; women who want to wear the men's uniform stay in the women's barracks and latrines. They shouldn't be harassed or punished or mistreated or discharged for choosing which uniform they prefer.
Nobody changes their actual sex by wearing a different uniform. That's simply a matter of presentation. Anyone can present how they want by wearing whichever uniform they choose, as long as they wear it correctly. There should therefore be no impediment to any transgender person, or gender-nonconforming person, or any person, serving in the military because of which uniform they wear.
I can see a possible exception for transgender people whose medical regime would prevent them from being able to be deployed into service theaters, where there might not be access to the medical care that they need. That's a valid reason to disqualify anyone from service: if they have a medical condition that would prevent them from fulfilling a deployment assignment.
What will undo women's rights (not "undo feminism" itself, except in the sense that feminism, centering the rights and interests of women, is what gained women most of the legally protected rights they now enjoy) is defining "sex" and "gender" as the same thing, when they manifestly are not. When "sex" is defined as the same thing as "gender identity," what basis is there to uphold laws prohibiting discrimination against women? "Women" is redefined to mean, "women, plus men who say they are women." What rights then belong to women as a sex class? None.
Suppose there are federal set-asides for women-owned businesses. That protection is to remedy historical discrimination against women and the absence of opportunities for women to succeed. When "women-owned businesses" includes "businesses owned by women" AND "businesses owned by men who say they are women," the opportunities carved out for women can be taken by men.
Suppose there is a scholarship for women. Its purpose is to provide educational opportunities for women that they were formerly foreclosed from obtaining. When a "scholarship for women" means "women AND men who say they are women," then some number of the scholarships for women will go to men instead.
Suppose there is a political organization that has a parity clause in its rules and bylaws, providing that equal numbers of offices in the organization must be held by men and by women. The purpose of the provision is to allow women to gain experience and leadership qualifications; traditionally-run political organizations have historically been dominated by men. When the clause is changed to provide that offices should be divided by two different "gender identities," then the opportunities for women can be lost. The offices that men have dominated continue to go to men, and the offices formerly reserved for women can be held instead by men who say they are women.
Women's sports is another arena of tension. For millennia, there were no sports divisions for women athletes. No consideration was given to women's participation in sport. Only in the last hundred years or so has there been ANY provision for sports for girls or women. There was little parity in the numbers and kinds of events or activities open to women. Until very recently, women were considered "too delicate" to play full-court basketball. Where men had an athletic decathlon, women were eventually afforded a pentathlon and then a heptathlon, on the view that women aren't strong enough to compete in a full decathlon. In living memory, women were barred from entering marathons, on the idiotic notion that women didn't have the ability to run a marathon. Subsequent events have proved all these assumptions about women to be incorrect. Women CAN perform well in all kinds of sports and athletic events.
That doesn't mean, however, that women can compete head-to-head with men in a single division open to all comers. They can't. An article in the Duke Law Center for Sports Law and Policy explains why there are different competition divisions for men and for women.
"If you know sport, you know this beyond a reasonable doubt: there is an average 10-12% performance gap between elite males and elite females. The gap is smaller between elite females and non-elite males, but it’s still insurmountable and that’s ultimately what matters. Translating these statistics into real world results, we see, for example, that:
Just in the single year 2017, Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Tori Bowie's 100 meters lifetime best of 10.78 was beaten 15,000 times by men and boys. (Yes, that’s the right number of zeros.)
The same is true of Olympic, World, and U.S. Champion Allyson Felix’s 400 meters lifetime best of 49.26. Just in the single year 2017, men and boys around the world outperformed her more than 15,000 times.
This differential isn’t the result of boys and men having a male identity, more resources, better training, or superior discipline. It’s because they have an androgenized body."
"The number of men and boys beating the world’s best women in the 100 and 400 meters is far from the exception. It’s the rule."
"The results make clear that sex determines win share. Female athletes – here defined as athletes with ovaries instead of testes and testosterone (T) levels capable of being produced by the female non-androgenized body – are not competitive for the win against males—here defined as athletes with testes and T levels in the male range. The lowest end of the male range is three times higher than the highest end of the female range. Consistent with females’ far lower T levels, the female range is also very narrow, while the male range is broad.
These biological differences explain the male and female secondary sex characteristics which develop during puberty and have lifelong effects, including those most important for success in sport: categorically different strength, speed, and endurance. There is no other physical, cultural, or socioeconomic trait as important as testes for sports purposes."
There are sports divisions set aside for the female sex, and those divisions are sex-based for a reason. Male athletic performance beats female athletic performance, hands down. It isn't just a matter of testosterone, either.
There is cardiovascular fitness: an athlete's capacity to transport and use oxygen during exercise. Women have lower hemoglobin levels, and men have a larger body size (more hemoglobin and bigger lung capacity).
Bones and ligaments: Male athletes have longer and larger bones, which provide a clear mechanical advantage over female athletes.
Strength: Male athletes have a higher ratio of muscle mass to body weight, which allows for greater speed and acceleration. The cross-section of men's muscles is larger than women's.
Endurance: Endurance is largely determined by a body's efficiency when converting calories into energy. Female athletes are more efficient than male athletes at converting glycogen to energy.
Another article:
"Traditionally, sport has been split into male and female categories. This is based on biological sex differences and not necessarily what could be interpreted as gender. Competition has thus played out within these categories, with relatively large differences in outcome being observed between men and women [table omitted]. Far from being products of socialisation and environment, these [sex] differences have been recorded across sports, cultures and generations."
"within male competition, the world’s best performances by different individuals often fall within 1 percent of each other, sometimes even within 0.1 percent. The same is true of female competition. These results are also mirrored across other sports, such as within cycling and swimming. This clearly demonstrates that there is not a continuum of performance results between the biological sexes, rather the results are bimodal, and the average female and the average male differ substantially. [T]his is . . . simply a review of the empirical evidence and a rationale for why the different [sex-segregated] categories exist."
"One of the major contributors [to differential athletic performance between the sexes] is the difference in muscular strength. Many studies across large samples f[ro]m different cultures have found men to have 30–40 percent more muscle mass than females. The cross-sectional area of a muscle is highly correlated to the performance of physical tasks, since strength is a prerequisite physical quality."
"In addition to this, in skeletal muscle, the material (or muscle fibres) do actually differ. What we find is that males have a higher proportion of type II fibres, which are able to contract quicker and produce more force than their counterparts."
"Men and women also vary in the size and structure of the skeleton. Men have longer and thicker bones, with bone density being related to the ability to apply force and withstand injury. The corresponding shape of the skeleton and resulting biomechanics also mean that the female body is set up to produce less force in running, jumping and throwing."
"And, it is also not just with regards to strength and power that we see sex differences. Men have larger lung capacity, greater cardiac output, and show greater resistance to injury." (Fns. omitted.)
The "trans girls" who took the prizes in the Connecticut track and field state championships in the girls division, are clearly pubertal males. They have, and will retain for the rest of their lives, all the advantages of male pubertal development, including the features mentioned above: larger body, stronger bones, more powerful geometry of bone structure, stronger muscles, greater lung capacity, more fast-twitch muscles, etc. These are advantages they have solely because they have biologically male bodies. They are not females, no matter how much they "identify as girls," whatever that may mean. Natal girls will never have these advantages.
Every place in every sports competition for girls or women, that is taken by a boy or a man, is a lost opportunity for girls or women to compete in their own division. Every prize won by a natal male is a loss for natal females. Records set in the women's division by natal males are out-of-reach for natal women athletes. Every time a male athlete advances in the girls' or women's competition, it is a deprivation of advancement for a girl or woman athlete. The girl or woman athlete will not have the exposure, will not be scouted, whenever a natal male takes a place reserved for women. Every place on every team for girls or women that is taken by a boy or man is a loss for a girl or woman who would otherwise have been entitled to play in her own sport and division. Every scholarship mandated by Title IX for girls or women is no longer a scholarship for girls or women if it can be awarded to a boy or a man. Every championship, every podium place, taken by a natal male in the women's division, cheats a woman athlete out of her place and her record.
Some transgender advocates state that there is a "right to participate in sport." That's a debatable proposition and not self-evident. I don't think there is any such fundamental "right." To the extent that health and enjoyment of life can be considered basic human rights and needs, there is no requirement that the "right" must take any particular form, such as participation in sport. The framing by transgender women, that they should be "included" in women's sports because there is a "right to participate in sport," is disingenuous, because transgender women already have a perfectly good division open to them to "participate in sport," if such participation is a "right." They were and are always eligible to participate in the men's division. The question is not, "should transgender women be allowed to participate in sport?" The question is, rather, "should males be allowed to compete in women's/girls' sports?" That's the real point. Sex and gender are not the same thing. Treating them as if they are hurts women.
When natal males can take anything and everything designated for "women," what sex-based rights do women even have? None that I can see.
Why is it necessarily "anti-trans" to want to protect rights, resources, facilities, opportunities, etc., set aside specifically for women as a sex? Why is it impossible for transgender people to have their own protections, rather than coopting everything set aside for women? Why isn't that "anti-woman"?
Setting aside things for women as a sex class is not the same thing as saying that transgender people don't deserve opportunities of their own. But opportunities for transgender people, what are called "transgender rights," seem to come exclusively at the expense of women.
Why must women's rights take a back seat to the feelings of men?
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
Not saying maddog should be blasted as a troll,
Well, that's a relief, because I never troll. I believe in reasoned discourse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
but people were just kinda ignoring that she was complaining about being called a TERF while basically staking out textbook TERF positions. From Wikipedia, TERFs espouse positions such as "the rejection of the assertion that trans women are women, the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces, and opposition to transgender rights legislation" - here we've got check, check and check. I mean, if people feel that it's pejorative, then maybe she (I assume maddog prefers female pronouns given her other opinions) is bothered by being called it.
It's not quite "check, check, and check."
Women deeply concerned about women's rights, often called TERFs, "reject the assertion that trans women are women." Check. That's because trans women are NOT women. They are biological men. That is observable fact. That's a "check," but that's not a bad thing. It's simply stating something objectively true.
TERFs espouse "the exclusion of trans women from women's spaces." Half-a-check. It's not "trans women" who should be excluded from women's spaces. It's men who should be excluded from women's spaces. If men are not excluded from women's spaces, then those spaces are no longer women's spaces. It's not just that "trans women" should be excluded from women's spaces, it's also that there is no coherent definition or description by which "trans women" and ONLY "trans women" will be the men who are admitted to women's spaces. Nobody can reliably say or determine who is a trans woman and who is not. So, admission of "trans women" to women's spaces does not place any limitation whatsoever on which men can enter women's spaces. It's open season on women's spaces for any man.
And TERFs supposedly are "opposed to transgender rights legislation."
False. No check. Many women slurred as TERFs favor, and do not oppose, transgender rights legislation. But TERFs do oppose transgender "rights" legislation that does away with women's rights. In addition, some of the things being demanded as "transgender rights" are not rights. No one has the "right" to do the impossible. People cannot change their biological sex. There is no "right" to claim that you can. There is no "right" for men to take things that belong to women. There is no "right" to lie on official vital statistics records.
There are rights to fair housing, fair employment, fair access to and treatment in public accommodations. The same rights belong to every protected civil rights class. People who call themselves "transgender" are equally entitled to the same rights. That's not "opposed to transgender rights legislation." That's the exact opposite of "opposed to transgender rights legislation."
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
But just as she considers it just a "biological fact" that transwomen are men and should be called 'he', it's even more "just a fact" that her positions meet the common definition of a TERF.
The TERF-slurrers are a bit sloppy on the positions ascribed to TERFs. The positions I argue are quite a bit more nuanced than the TERF appellation gives credit for. Calling someone a TERF is simply a way to stop discussion by ad hominem attack, rather than engaging in reasoned discussion or argument.
I think the issues are important and require a lot more thought and work and discussion than the usual mantras and name-calling.
So often writers write about trans topics like it’s some far off exotic people that maybe they read about once, or in 4th grade someone came in and talked to them about it, and like a old European bestiary they remember them having three horns and spit fire or other nonsense. On the other side of things, I have trans friends, who I’ve played video games with and have seen naked in certain circumstances. While I’ve been in support of trans and queer causes there are many I know because they’re just on earth, like normal humans. They’re sometimes amazing, sometimes assholes and not all of them are still around.
So I wonder maddog, how many trans people have you met, been friends with, buried? Cause there’s a lot of talk like we’re discussing dog breeds or the ancient aztecs.
I said before some of these views seem to be generational and I wonder if it’s in part due to experiencing times like the 60’s or 70s when debasing and making women feel constantly unsafe was just a common aspect of comedy, and life.
When you get right down to the heart a lot of this comes down to, “because many men are violent abusive shitheads in a society that allows them to get away with it.” Women who have been constantly nagged and negged at every moment have to look at everything suspiciously, and reasonably so, since assholes will try any angle they can think of.
Ultimately this is about the physical and psychological damage done by misogyny and the coping mechanisms developed to survive in a patriarchal world. So in that regard, many of the things maddog has said might be factually incorrect or unsupported, they are still valid in that context and why straight up calling everything that’s incorrect, bullshit, and telling them off isn’t always that useful. Yes it fucking sucks men are misogynistic assholes.
However be fully aware that seen from the other side, from my friends view, what you’re saying is that a general sense of personal safety is more important than their actual safety. Since I don’t know where this weird idea that trans people aren’t attacked by men (and occasionally women) came from but every trans person I know has been accosted either physically or verbally, a few in the bathroom you would send them into out of panic over violent misogyny. Many trans people often act quite aggressively to this panic because it’s in essence throwing them to the lions first in hopes they won’t be hungry enough to eat you.
This panic can lead to terf views being a secret weapon of the patriarchy, as what really is the “stay in your sex lane” but a way to single out to the patriarchy which men are traitors to their sex and which women think of themselves better than they are. You can just see how many men spoke up in support of bathroom panic, and look what happened, at least a few incidents of men doing fucking skirt checks at womens restrooms.
Unfortunately so long as the patriarchy can keep up the panic they divide two sides that otherwise would agree to fuck the patriarchy.
I'll cop to being long-winded, but this is on another level. So I'll only be responding to a portion for the time being. And not to claim authority by my meager credentials, but I will mention that I minored in women's studies, which is just to say, yes, I have read some feminist theory* and am more acquainted with these things than typical, so like, I don't need to be told about how not all women want to conform to gender norms.
*I believe we have quite a bit of an age difference, so I will also note that at the time I was in college, there were some trans authors included in our readings. I get the impression that you wouldn't have read any.
I will note that a very large portion of your points are circular and/or playing semantics relying on the fact that you simply define trans women as men, and then make a statement about men, as if you saying that they are men means it's valid to apply that statement to trans women. But it makes about as much sense as saying that since many men rape women, that many gay men also rape women.
Like saying you're not a TERF because you want to exclude men from women's restrooms, and transwomen are men, so it's not about transwomen. This is the same level of bullshit as anti-gay politicians saying that gay people already have equal rights because both gay people and straight people are free to marry the opposite sex. And you're not opposed to trans rights, you're just opposed to trans rights bills but they're not really trans rights because according to your definitions, they're not entitled to those rights. Who gives a shit? Playing games with language like this is incredibly weaselly. You're a TERF, and trying to get around it by saying that "trans activists are wrong to demand certain rights, therefore I don't actually oppose them" is pathetic bullshit. You can just admit that you are a TERF, and you simply think that the TERF position is correct. You're just mad that they gave you a label.
Another move you're trying is defining TERF only as the most extreme version. There are probably some TERFs out there who think that trans people shouldn't be afforded any protections whatsoever, so they may be fired from jobs, kicked out of stores and restaurants, they shouldn't have any hormone treatments or surgeries covered by insurance companies, maybe sex reassignment surgery should be banned altogether, etc. etc. But that is not the typical TERF position, that sort of thing is more typical of religious conservatives who hate all LGBT people. But nobody claims that that is what is necessary to be a TERF, except, it seems, TERFs who are mad about being called TERFs.
And frankly, this definition of sex is woefully inadequate:
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Sex [def.]: either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions.
But you knew that already.
You claim that "sex" and "man" and "woman" strictly refer to reproductive biology, but you provide no evidence that this is, in fact, the usual definition of the terms. I think that most people, in fact, use "man" and "woman" based primarily on presentation but usually with an assumption that certain things, i.e. genitalia or reproductive organs, match that presentation. But it's that area where there is disagreement - many people would not agree with you that sexual organs enter into it at all, others would say that sexual organs matter but that in fact surgically altering your organs does change you from man to woman or vice versa (this view is held by many who aren't necessarily that "woke" or into gender theory or what have you), while people like you, as well as many religious conservatives, would say that surgery cannot change it. But simply insisting that your usage is the only objective or logical usage is not only oversimplified, it's also linguistically bullshit because you don't get to define the word based on your personal preference of what you'd like it to mean. If you'd like to concede that you use a definition that many people do not, and which it seems, is shrinking in terms of how many people use it that way and refuse to use it in the sense that relies more on gender.
If you think that when a trans woman is said to be a woman, that this is meant to assert that she has XX genes and/or a functional uterus and ovaries, you can say that, but it will be a ridiculous straw man, because I don't know any trans person who would say that that is what is meant.
But either way, almost nobody would say that a woman who is XY with androgen insensitivity syndrome is a man because she was born without a uterus or ovaries. But neither can you say that she has a female reproductive function. Some might say that such a woman is actually a man, but I would only assume it's because they want to maintain a simplistic definition of sex in order to insist that trans women are not women or something like that.
So already your definition of sex has failed. Obviously, the point is that you need to include other things to deal with these edge cases, otherwise you have to endorse positions that strongly disagree with people's normal intuitions. It's easy enough for you to always say "well, obviously these various conditions would go in one box or the other" without ever having to deal with explaining how it is you can so easily and objectively do so and what criteria you use to distinguish those cases that other people find less obvious than you. You need more criteria than "reproductive functions".
Either that, or the term "reproductive functions" has a complicated and unintuitive definition that you need to provide. Either way, your definition is inadequate to the task. "But you knew that already"
Did I really seem to know so little about intersex conditions and so forth that I had failed to consider such a simple definition and would have no response as to why it wasn't good enough?
Quote:
No, it's a direct way of saying that transwomen are men, and transmen are women. The gender (transwoman/transman) is not the same thing as the person's biological sex. What "bothers me" is having so many people say things that aren't true, and being pressured to agree that false statements are true.
But you first have to demonstrate that it is true or not.
And tbh, I don't think you can because unless you just mean to say that "transwomen are not uterus-and-ovary-havers" or some other such technical thing, there is no way to prove it, because all it amounts to is you insisting that the word "woman" can't mean what it obviously is being used to mean by millions upon millions of English speakers, which is a silly complaint.
Your complaint is a bit like homophobic types complaining about how "gay people aren't gay, gay means 'happy' and many of them aren't happy, so it isn't true to say that homosexuals are gay! I won't be pressured to say false things!"
Nobody gives a shit that you think the word "woman" should mean only "uterus-and-ovary havers" or whatever definition you'll come back with now that it's been pointed out that such simplistic definitions aren't adequate. If you need to translate in your head "man" and "woman" as "person who identifies as male" and "person who identifies as female", go right ahead, nobody gives a shit if you're secretly reassuring yourself that a transwoman doesn't have a uterus every time you call her "she".
Quote:
The words "woman" or "man" refers to the sex of a person, not to gender. Transwomen are men; otherwise they wouldn't and couldn't be "trans" women. "Trans" means something. It indicates a difference from actual biological sex.
It indicating a difference from sex at birth or the like doesn't imply all the other things you want it to imply, namely:
-that sex can't change
-that trans people don't have biological characteristics that are in between those of a typical male and typical female
-that woman means only someone who has a "female reproductive function"
You keep saying these basic things like "men are men" like they prove all the other shit you're asserting, but they don't imply any of those things.
Quote:
Sex *is* a binary. I can't help that I am part of a sexually binary (dimorphic) species. I can't deny that my sex is one of either of two human sexes. I can't be "non-binary" with respect to sex. Neither can anyone else.
Your simplistic definition could be seen to imply that a person with XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity syndrome is neither male nor female, since they lack both reproductive functions from birth.
Either that, or you must insist they're simply sterile men, which I think is ridiculous.
Or you have to admit that it's more complicated than your original claim.
There are sexual characteristics beyond the reproductive organs. The secondary sexual characteristics are still sexual characteristics. There are also neurological differences and so forth. If you have a penis and XY chromosomes, but every other characteristic matches a typical female, you want to say that the penis overrides everything else. Why that should be the case, you don't provide any compelling argument for.
Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by erimir
It seems to me that you're basing your views about how "meaningless" gender is somewhat on your own experience of gender though, which is atypical.
I don't know that it is "atypical" for female people to reject the gender norms imposed on them.
I know that I didn't make any claim about accepting or rejecting gender norms when I said that you're atypical in your feelings about gender.
Gender identity is important to most people, how they feel about gender norms isn't the same thing.
Quote:
There is nothing necessary about the particular gender norms assigned to women.
The use of the term "necessary" does a lot of work here. What you seem to want be claiming is that there's no connection whatsoever between biological sex differences and gender norms.
Because that claim would work far better in your arguments about trans people than the far weaker claim that particular gender norms aren't necessary. Because connections between what you think of as biological sex and psychology, even if they are merely a set of tendencies, will undermine the claim that a trans person's psychology is irrelevant to their sex.
But that stronger claim is not one that I think you can prove.
Quote:
I don't think it is at all "atypical" for women or men to chafe against gender stereotypes and to want to overthrow them. The gains of feminism in the last 60 years have established that there is nothing necessary in women being dependent, or having no credit of their own, or being closed out of certain careers, or being leaders, or any of the various doors that gender notions had previously closed to women.
I'm just going to reiterate how irrelevant this is to anything I said. I said nothing that disagrees with any of this (and indeed, I agree).
Quote:
I think that is sufficient to demonstrate that notions of gender are not necessary.
I don't think that follows at all. Those particular things you mentioned don't prove that all other gender norms are unnecessary (and of course, you would also need to specify "necessary for what?" in the first place).
Quote:
In the TERF wars, when women do not agree that men can be women, they are charged with committing "literal violence" against transgender people, and with supporting the violence that is committed against transgender people. That's not true.
Ok, but nobody on here was equating what you said with "literal violence."
I would say that you support policies that will put trans people in danger though.
Ok, one more point, since it has a great visual aid:
Quote:
Originally Posted by maddog
Explain to me how open admission of any man who wants to go in is not the consequence of allowing "trans women" into the women's room.
It's too late, because hormone treatments exist. Your position is that this man not only is allowed to use the women's restroom, but that he should be forced to do so:
Because he is a trans man, you would say that he is a woman, and therefore should use the women's restroom. How is your policy going to prevent the open admission of cisgender men who simply claim to be trans men who are obligated to use the women's restroom?
If you want to exclude Buck Angel from the women's room, you're going to need to drop your "strictly-biological-sex" segregation. But if you don't exclude him from the women's room, then cisgender men who are physically indistinguishable when clothed will be able to enter.
Will you be verifying their genitals and/or chromosomes at the door?
Quote:
Like, have you even given a second's thought to that problem? Or does it just not matter to you?
Yes, because I have heard the arguments from you and conservatives who pass anti-trans laws and I have a trans sister and responding to this bullshit is something that trans people have to do.
Your collection of anecdata, I didn't get to, but it is that: anecdata. You could compare it to, for example, Trump collecting incidents of crime by undocumented immigrants to "demonstrate" that they are dangerous to Americans, when statistically, they are actually less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens. Which is why statistics are better than anecdotes. I may give a more detailed response later.
Gender is mostly an experiential thing to me. It's physical stuff and how I was socialized and how other people treat me. So I kind of don't get sometimes how you'd feel like a different gender without those experiences. But that's far from the only human experience I don't relate to, so I've gotten pretty used to just accepting the notion that I don't need to fully understand things to accept what people say.
And I do believe the vast majority of people who say they're trans, and that transwomen are women. But it would be absurd to think that there aren't fakers out there too. Plenty of predatory men have said that they'd pretend to be trans so they could get into women's locker rooms, and of course some have done it. I don't think it's common at all, and I don't think that is grounds to preemptively doubt or exclude transwomen or deny legal protections, but we need to accept that it's a possibility and take it seriously when it inevitably happens rather than immediately writing it off as transphobia when someone says a trans person is making them uncomfortable.
Maybe the person is uncomfortable because of transphobia. Maybe it's a predatory man claiming to be trans to access those spaces. Maybe it's a transwoman who was socialized as male and is unknowingly behaving in ways that make women uncomfortable. Maybe it's something else, and you'll never know if you dismiss every complaint out of hand.
The default initial position should be to believe people when they tell you something, whether they're telling you their gender or they're telling you someone's a predator, and don't just dismiss them unless and until you have reason to.
Re: Return to Gender 101
Linear Mode
