Trans Women are not Women

[d4m10n]

Well, you would think most voters in politics are well read about history, politics, economics, etc.... but they're not. And you can't expect everyone to be well read on all those topics to qualify to be able to vote for their President. Likewise, with this issue.

The emergence of political parties with well-defined platforms and stated values is an attempt to mitigate this problem. We don't (yet?) have clear partisan positions with respect to many of the various sex- and gender-related problems discussed upthread. (Maybe in the UK, dunno.)

What matters is: how many people want this, and how many people want that? The majority gets to decide.

Not always. The majority decided to ban birth control in Connecticut, interracial marriage in Virginia and homosexual coitus in Texas. On (admittedly rare) occasions, we systemically preserve the autonomy of minority groups against majority rule.

But if even a simple solution like subjecting it to voting can't be applied, then it's fair to conclude there is just no solution to this problem.

If we've learned anything from Brexit, it should be that a simple choice on paper may be actually incredibly complex in practice. There are many possible values of "LEAVE" and the new international relationships have to be negotiated at great length, but the voters were sold the idea of a simple dichotomy instead of a vast array of possible outcomes.

Which of the issues discussed above could be put to a simple vote?

 

[Butter!]

I'm saying that if my choices are between Rolfe screaming bigot at me with the scarred widdle woman routine, Arcade screaming bigot at me for misgendering the transgender person, or Ponderingturtle screaming bigot at the voices in his head and I can't please any of them because they hold contradictory position, I have no reason to please any one specific one of them.

Again the problem is it's unfair to expect someone to go "Oh well I'm a bigot I guess tra la la fiddle de dee." in today's environment.

It doesn't help that there are about 50 different arguments happening here, with regard to this issue, and somebody somewhere is likely to call you transphobic for having a question about any of them. This has definitely become one of those issues that people can't even talk about unless they want to stir up drama and umbrage. I don't like that, because there are definitely things that need discussing.

Now, as for bathrooms and changing rooms, I personally don't care. That's just how I am. A moose-man could be in there with me. I just don't give a ****, for whatever reason. But that is me. I'm less inclined now to glibly judge women who do have shyness or concerns. I admit to having been borderline cruel about it in the past. I basically had the attitude of, "If you're not a free spirit like me who doesn't give a toss about nudity, then you're a backwards prude and need to get over it." I now believe it was terrible of me to act that way. Why shouldn't some people feel funny about altering something so ingrained in them (gender-separated facilities)? It does NOT make a woman a bigot to feel funny changing in front of differently-bodied people, especially if that is all she has known her whole life. It wouldn't make a man a bigot either. Or a moose-man, or an intersexed person, or anything you like.

I'm not saying such people should necessarily get their way, but we have to stop acting like they're horrible, Sean Hannity bigots simply for hesitating at what seems to them a radical, disruptive proposition. Seriously.

I share your (JoeMorgue's) frustration about the language issue. I don't like that some activists and allies are trying to shut down any discussion of biology, especially female biology. That's actually what I was referring to with my earlier post, the one that said maybe alt-right trolls are responsible for some of this. I specifically meant the stuff we're seeing now, the "Don't say the word vagina, that's transphobic, call it a front-hole!" or "Stop talking about abortion because it's exclusionary, and stop using the word woman!" That stuff. That's the stuff that's so crazy to me, I have to wonder if it's actually real or if it's just trolls. I haven't been to a Planned Parenthood clinic at any recent time - is it really true that they're changing their literature to exclude words like "uterus," "vagina," "breastfeeding," etc.? If that really is true, then that is insane, and we need to talk about it.

In no way does me objecting to or questioning THAT sort of thing mean that I have any problem whatsoever with trans people, and the ever-present implication that it does is what makes this entire debate so stressful (and often unproductive) for everyone involved. "You're entirely with us or you are our mortal enemy!" is not a ******* practical stance for social change.

I hope that made sense.

 

[Rolfe]

The true test will be when these people are 70 or 80 and look back on their lives, will they think "if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing" or if they would want to not transition. I don't doubt that the people who are transitioning want it at the time, but there are at least a few who later regret the decision. I did watch that Swedish documentary "The Trans Train" which you posted earlier, about the two girls who took testosterone to transition and who later regretted it. I don't know how common this is, however. But it exists in at least some cases.

The people who work in this field say it's difficult to sort out young patients into "will-never-regret-it" and "transient-fad" groups, but I don't think this is a reason not to try a bit of counselling before setting off on a lifetime of medicalisation and mutilating surgery. People's lives are not going to be seriously ruined if they have to go through a few years of CBT and counselling before embarking on irreversible changes to their bodies, whereas believing that cross-sex hormones and a mastectomy is the answer to the age-old phenomenon of self-hating teenage angst may well result in exactly that.

It's not just groups like Mermaids though. From the Wikipedia article about puberty blockers, I found this, from (apparently) the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians and the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Human Rights Campaign. So it appears to have the imprimatur of serious medical professionals, not just advocacy groups.

https://assets2.hrc.org/files/documents/SupportingCaringforTransChildren.pdf

There is no mention of the side effects of these drugs, however.

I'm not sure how far these groups fit the description of "serious medical professionals". However, the medical profession has been one of the main targets of the trans lobby. Some medics genuinely agree that trans people should be given everything they want. An alarming number, especially in the USA, see trans medicine and surgery as extremely lucrative business. These two groups have more or less captured the agenda. And then there are the doctors quietly worrying themselves sick at the harm they're being instructed to perform by medical associations eager for woke cookies, and too afraid of being branded transphobic bigots to speak out.

I wonder though, if the above doesn't leave out some important questions. If a child takes this puberty-suppressing medication for years, delaying puberty, will that not affect things like, how tall they will become as an adult? (In the event that they decide to not transition after all)

Or does it all just happen as it would have, albeit a few years later?

We know what happens. Children who are not gender-questioning but are given the drugs to delay a very early puberty go on to have a normal puberty when they're withdrawn. However they lose a few IQ points and many report serious medical problems in later life which they attribute to these drugs.

Children who are gender-questioning who are put on the drugs to delay a normal-onset puberty simply don't come off them, or rather they do, but not to allow their normal puberty to progress but rather to start the hormones of the opposite sex. (And they lose a few IQ points and there's reason to believe they're at increased risk of future health problems too.) This is in contrast to up to 90% of gender-questioning children who go through puberty naturally then sorting themselves out and being content with the bodies they have.

These drugs are causing transgenderism in young people to persist into adulthood. They are providing a constant stream of patients for the lifelong hormone treatments and repeated surgeries that are proving to be so lucrative for the people prescribing the hormones.

This is going to end up as a scandal the like of which I don't think has occurred before.

 

[Rolfe]

I haven't been to a Planned Parenthood clinic at any recent time - is it really true that they're changing their literature to exclude words like "uterus," "vagina," "breastfeeding," etc.? If that really is true, then that is insane, and we need to talk about it.

Yes, it's true. I've seen some of the literature. Chest-feeding, birthing parent and so on. It causes huge offence to women, all to pander to the feelz of a tiny number of trans people.

I've seen transactivists tweet to organisations using normal language that this is "trans-exclusionary" and suggesting the most horrible, degrading alternatives. The really scary part is that the organisations tend to apologise humbly and start using the suggested terms rather than telling them to take a hike.

Recently the word "menstruators" has been proposed as a substitute for "women" (or perhaps "women of childbearing age" which was the previous usage). Some women objected, and the actual "women's and equalities officer" of my own actual political party tweeted back that this was all a bit new and the language was evolving and she thought maybe "menstruators" wasn't the best term and she favoured "people who menstruate".

You can perhaps imagine the row that ensued, including more than a few people peak-transing right there and then. I am currently figuring out how to get a vote at the October conference to help elect someone else to that post who is actually sane.

 

[Steve]

I think Steve was just making a joke.

A person cannot do that here. If you try someone is bound to bring up something marginally only connected in order to imply that you are not taking the overall topic seriously enough.

There are posters here that are way more connected to the many-gendered community than I will ever be. These posters describe, as common occurrences, things that I have never seen in my 65 years on this planet.
I have never seen a person harassed in a washroom for appearing to be the "wrong" gender. I have seen women use a men's room when the lineup to the women's is outrageous. Nobody seemed to care.
I have never seen a person in a men's public washroom just lounging around to look at....whatever. Men seem to just do their business and leave.
When my daughter was young I occasionally had to take her into public men's washrooms. I never has any concerns about her safety, or about what she might see or hear in there.
I have never been told by a woman the there was a man in the women's washroom, regardless of the clothes they were wearing, hanging out to watch the women.
I have never been approached for sex in a public washroom by a person of any gender - perhaps understandable based on my appearance .

I do not question the unsavory situations described, anecdotally and otherwise, in this thread. I just have no personal experience with these situations. They seem completely foreign to me. I do question, based on my own experience and the fact that friends and acquaintances have never told me any similar stories, how frequently these things actually occur. I have genuine empathy for the victims of the situations described. I am just not sure that there is ever going to be any concrete methods, regulations, etc., adopted that will effectively reduce these unpleasant and even criminal situations. The gender genie is out of the bottle and there are far too many gender descriptions accepted now for separate accommodations to be provided to all who think they deserve them.

Waste elimination is something that every person needs to do several times a day. It is probably the most common and natural thing that all people do. As long as it is done in a sanitary manner the facilities any individual uses, what they wear while doing it, and who is in the room with them should have no more relevance than they do when a person is eating. A reasonable amount of caution is necessary in any public situation. irrational fear is not.

 

[GlennB]

...
...
I hope that made sense.

It made perfect sense Cheers.

 

[The Atheist]

Yes, schoolgirls are risking damaging their health by not drinking anything all day so that they don't have to use "desegregated" toilets.

That's another parenting problem, not a trans issue.

Those kids almost certainly have a unisex bathroom at home and don't blink at using it. Only idiotic parents telling kids stories about predators cause them to behave like that.

Hey, this just resurfaced from the depths of the internet. I thought it had been expunged. This was an actual official organisational submission to a government consultation by the group "Edinburgh Action for Trans Health". It's a real doozy.

http://archive.is/rkh57

Haha!

Fits my sig perfectly.

 

[GlennB]

That's another parenting problem, not a trans issue.

Those kids almost certainly have a unisex bathroom at home and don't blink at using it. Only idiotic parents telling kids stories about predators cause them to behave like that.

Which is used one person at a time, ffs. School bathrooms, typically, are not; so no, it isn't a parenting issue at all.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I'm saying that if my choices are between Rolfe screaming bigot at me with the scarred widdle woman routine, Arcade screaming bigot at me for misgendering the transgender person, or Ponderingturtle screaming bigot at the voices in his head and I can't please any of them because they hold contradictory position, I have no reason to please any one specific one of them.

Again the problem is it's unfair to expect someone to go "Oh well I'm a bigot I guess tra la la fiddle de dee." in today's environment.

Well rather than caring about what people call you, why not simply decide whether the views you hold are causing harm for people?

You know, like, not actually BEING a bigot?

If you are cool that your views aren't harming anyone then why would you care? Of course of the people you have named above some are actually trying to harm other people and others aren't. So you can weight their opinions accordingly.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Which is used one person at a time, ffs. School bathrooms, typically, are not; so no, it isn't a parenting issue at all.

How many people use a cubicle in your (dream) world?

 

[Butter!]

Archie, you are pretty fired up about this issue. May I ask you what is your opinion on the part of it that's troubling me - that is, this new practice of not using terms like "vagina" or talking about menstruation or abortion because it's exclusionary?

I'll call people whatever they want, and I'll change next to or piss next to anyone, but I'll stop saying "vagina" when the heat death of the universe happens (maybe).


EDIT: This aspect of the debate is pretty new to me, and I'm still trying to determine how prevalent it actually is.

 

[GlennB]

How many people use a cubicle in your (dream) world?

One, in my real world. Then there's the tampon machine - among other things - in the communal area, which is a different matter.

The article about unisex loos in schools mentioned 'period shaming'. Take a typical adolescent boy witnessing a female classmate getting tampons from the dispenser (or the same situation in adult bathrooms beyond schools), or finding used ones in the bin in the cubicle. What are the odds he'll be all sophisticated and cool about it? Slim? What are odds he'll snigger about it among his male classmates? Fair.

 

[JoeMorgue]

If you are cool that your views aren't harming anyone then why would you care?

Oh come on you cannot be that naive.

Again "Oh well I guess I'm just a bigot then, fiddle de dee" is not a valid option in today's environment.

That's my point. I might as well be a hateful bigot actually hurting people if I'm a bigot, and bigot has no degree, for just not magically conceptualizing the world in a dozen different contradictory ways.

 

[p0lka]

Which is used one person at a time, ffs. School bathrooms, typically, are not; so no, it isn't a parenting issue at all.

I would disagree with the one person at a time at home,

when I was a child, if my dad was in the bathroom and I needed to pee, he would open the door so I could come in and pee. That's two people in a bathroom.

 

[p0lka]

One, in my real world. Then there's the tampon machine - among other things - in the communal area, which is a different matter.

The article about unisex loos in schools mentioned 'period shaming'. Take a typical adolescent boy witnessing a female classmate getting tampons from the dispenser (or the same situation in adult bathrooms beyond schools), or finding used ones in the bin in the cubicle. What are the odds he'll be all sophisticated and cool about it? Slim? What are odds he'll snigger about it among his male classmates? Fair.

Who's to blame for that behaviour?

Anyway, it shouldn't take long before the victims of 'period shaming' retaliate with jokes about hairless chickenbones little boy bodies etc,
they should and will give as good as they get.

 

[Francesca R]

Those kids almost certainly have a unisex bathroom at home and don't blink at using it. Only idiotic parents telling kids stories about predators cause them to behave like that.

Dunno how old you are but schoolgirls evidently understand the world much better than you in this domain.

24-carat male privilege.

 

[GlennB]

I would disagree with the one person at a time at home,

when I was a child, if my dad was in the bathroom and I needed to pee, he would open the door so I could come in and pee. That's two people in a bathroom.

Well ******** whoopee. One adult and their child in there together. Happened to me too except it was my 3-year old daughter wandering in and taking note of the procedure. But it really isn't what we're talking about here, is it? It's public bathrooms and changing rooms mostly occupied by adults, ffs.

 

[Rolfe]

It's almost as if the bathroom at home wasn't infested with hormonal adolescent boys intent on embarrassing the girls, and didn't have a communal washing and grooming area where this embarrassing could be accomplished.

(Actually, proper unisex bathrooms, which are generally fine, have the washing and grooming facilities in the same lockable space as the toilet. The problem is the "gender-neutral" facility which is actually illegal in Britain - not that that stops the woke contingent from promoting them - which has only partially-shielded stalls and a communal washing and grooming area. The correct terminology for this is "mixed sex" and as I said it's not actually legal.)

 

[Butter!]

Who's to blame for that behaviour?

Anyway, it shouldn't take long before the victims of 'period shaming' retaliate with jokes about hairless chickenbones little boy bodies etc,
they should and will give as good as they get.

I mean, I'm going to be completely honest - this sounds dystopian to me.

You cannot expect kids and teenagers to be okay with completely desegregated facilities. I'm not talking about trans kids in there, I'm talking about the kind of wild west environment you're describing. Maybe you're joking, but it truly sounds pants-on-head insane to me.

Is this really the solution people believe we should be reaching toward? Completely unisex multi-stall bathrooms, for everyone, including schoolchildren? I thought I was a bit of a radical, but y'all are making me feel like my parents.

Oh, but it's just a failure of parenting, I forgot. It has nothing to do with the fact that being a naked teenager is hard enough in front of your OWN gender (and those who identify with it, lest anyone somehow still think I am talking about trans people here, because I AM NOT).

I am so glad I don't have kids. The world is completely crazy now. It really is.

 

[GlennB]

Anyway, it shouldn't take long before the victims of 'period shaming' retaliate with jokes about hairless chickenbones little boy bodies etc,
they should and will give as good as they get.

Oh great. It becomes a 'shaming' battle and the war goes on. Good plan