Trans Women are not Women

[theprestige]

This. Yes, very much this.

TM's post very much misunderstands the nature and point of Joe's argument. Please don't double up that misunderstanding.

 

[Belz...]

That doesn't sound quite right. The need is access to bathrooms. Their desire is to have access to the bathrooms designated for particular sexes.

Seems like, under this specific wording, the solution would be for people to go into the restrooms that fit their biological setup.

 

[d4m10n]

Yes, but the renovation needed to emulate the bank of portapotties is not to build new bathrooms, as Tragic Monkey suggests, but to make the stalls more private and the common area more public. Shouldn't really be that expensive, but it's an idea that's been rejected by at least one of the sides in this thread.

And that despite well-designed examples of the concept in practice.

The bathroom cubicles shown in post 1833 and further upthread at post 1623 have fully private individual toilet stalls with secure locks, and a unisex common area for washing up.

I hear there was also a really cool unisex bathroom at Fabric (nightclub) in London but photos are difficult to come by.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Seems like, under this specific wording, the solution would be for people to go into the restrooms that fit their biological setup.

Read again. The point of that passage is to contrast "need" and "desire", not to suggest they are the same thing and can fulfilled the same way.

 

[Roboramma]

A hierarchy is a social arrangement in an organization of multiple individuals. I am suggesting the purpose of that arrangement is the division of labor. Which includes mating in social organizations like that of bees, elephant seals, and lions.

Outside of the context of a social group what could a hierarchy even be?

When we have division of labour such that you farm and I build plows and you trade food for my plow, that makes sense. How does division of labour work with respect to reproduction? You can't trade your children with me and you having children doesn't do me any good.

In the case of bees the analogy works, but as someone else said it doesn't work in mammals because your reproduction isn't my good.

 

[TragicMonkey]

When we have division of labour such that you farm and I build plows and you trade food for my plow, that makes sense. How does division of labour work with respect to reproduction? You can't trade your children with me and you having children doesn't do me any good.

In the case of bees the analogy works, but as someone else said it doesn't work in mammals because your reproduction isn't my good.

Again, I also I mentioned lions and elephant seals. Are those not mammals? And I only brought it up because someone wanted to talk about non-human animals. I thought it was pretty clear I wasn't referring to human social arrangements, but some animal ones.

 

[Puppycow]

Buddhism. I can't claim credit. Also the Cynics of classical Greece.

I think you mean the Stoics.

 

[Puppycow]

We are willing to spend twice the cost of a bathroom to accommodate a social need. If there is a social need that justifies a third bathroom then is the objection to the cost the only thing preventing implementation? If so, what is the cut off on cost where it becomes unacceptable? If X is the cost of one bathroom and we currently have two it means 2X is acceptable. But if 3X is too much, then where's the line? 2.5X? Have third bathrooms but not as frequently as having just two?

For new buildings, yeah. For pre-existing buildings that were built with only two bathrooms, the cost of adding an extra one that wasn't considered at the original design stage could be prohibitive. Most of our buildings are still going to be older buildings.

 

[Puppycow]

The SKERFS are at it again.

Something about that video bothered me. I think it's the bit about replacing "men" or perhaps "trans women" with "serial killers" to show how ridiculous the whole trans thing is.

Of course, nobody would be making this argument if the subject were serial killers.

 

[caveman1917]

You've even lost track of what it is YOU claimed.

No. The only way to conclude that only testosterone levels relative to the average for your sex matters is to conclude that testosterone is the only relevant variable.

Obviously not. Just because testosterone levels relative to the average for your sex matters doesn't mean that testosterone is the only relevant variable.

Some of them are. That's a logical requirement if biology affects behavior.

No it isn't. If in culture A high testosterone leads to aggression and in culture B high testosterone leads to sociability then biology affects behavior yet its behavioral effect is not invariant across cultures (aggression in culture A and sociability in culture B).

But it leads rather naturally to behavioral differences. Across cultures. For rather obvious reasons. A strong person is more likely to pick a fight with a weak person than a weak person is to pick a fight with a strong person. That observation doesn't depend on culture. Hell, it doesn't even depend on species.

Nope, even in one of our closest relatives, Bonobos, the females are smaller and less strong yet it's the females who engage in physical aggression and not the males. For someone who calls others clueless you sure are clueless. ETA: And this actually provides a nice example of the importance of social organization mediating biological differences to lead to different behaviors, the way female bonobos are able to do this is because they have "cliques" whereas the males don't, so they gang up on a single male together.

Of course testosterone affects men differently than women, because the level of testosterone makes a difference to the effect, and the levels in men and women are different. How is that not obvious to you? And again, the effects are cross-cultural. They show up even in early infancy. They show up even when the person is socialized from birth believing they are the opposite gender AND sex (which is different than being trans, where they think their gender doesn't match their sex).

Then how come there are cultures where men are less aggressive than women? It's almost as if the effects of testosterone are modulated by culture, you know, as I've been arguing for a couple of pages now;

 

[caveman1917]

No, it really does.

No, it really doesn't.

You're the one trying to simplify the issue to the point of ridiculousness.

No that would be you and Zig.

Yes, women with more testosterone than other women will be more aggressive in general than other women. It does not change the fact that men have more testosterones and are more aggressive in general than women. So we've just proven that biology is an important behavioural factor. Thanks.

I'll ask you the same question: Then why are there cultures where women are more aggressive than men? You don't know what the term "prove" means, do you?

I don't see how my "logic" would lead to this. Do those low-T men have less T than high-T women, or more? What's the relationship with other hormones, etc.

As I have told you multiple times already, the low-T men have more T than the high-T women. So by your simplistic argument (ie where aggressiveness is a simple linear relation to absolute T levels across the sexes) the low-T men should be more aggressive than the high-T women yet they aren't.

 

[caveman1917]

Rather little, from what I've read about them. It is difficult to imagine a human society with fewer hierarchical, territorial, patriarchal, and (frankly) brutal features. There remains some degree of sex specialization, however, e.g. who does the blow-pipe hunting. I’m guessing they have other gendered roles as well, apart from the obvious (childbirth and nursing).

Division of labor isn't necessarily hierarchical though. If you and I started a cooperative business together and we make all the decisions based on consensus (ie neither of us is the "boss") then we have a non-hierarchical organization even though we each still may have our specialized job within it.

As a general rule that's how decision making works in hunter-gatherer groups. Individuals suggests things to do and the group makes the decisions on what to do based on consensus. The individual who suggested it then becomes the organizer for said task but he or she is not a "leader" in the sense that they have no authority, everyone is free to walk away again and do something else instead. So they do have a division of labor of sorts, in the sense that there is an individual organizer for some task, but it's not hierarchical since said individual doesn't have authority.

And again, that's just a general rule, there is enormous variety among groups in how they do things. A variety which has been mostly lost ever since colonialism homogenized socio-cultural structures along the globe which then in turn leads to people such as Zig drawing all sorts of unsupported conclusions about culturally invariant aspects to human behavior because of being under the impression that studying different parts of the modern world captures the variety in human social structures whereas it really only captures a tiny bit of that variety due to having been forcefully homogenized through colonialism.

 

[caveman1917]

When we have division of labour such that you farm and I build plows and you trade food for my plow, that makes sense. How does division of labour work with respect to reproduction? You can't trade your children with me and you having children doesn't do me any good.

In the case of bees the analogy works, but as someone else said it doesn't work in mammals because your reproduction isn't my good.

Not going to look it up who said this first so I'll respond to you saying it. But in some mammals it does work, meerkats for example have a single matriarch who is the only one allowed to procreate and who kills the offspring of other females in the group. Indeed, plenty of mammals have such arrangements. ETA: And the alpha female in Bonobo groups does actually sometimes "steal" the offspring of other females.

 

[caveman1917]

Something about that video bothered me. I think it's the bit about replacing "men" or perhaps "trans women" with "serial killers" to show how ridiculous the whole trans thing is.

Of course, nobody would be making this argument if the subject were serial killers.

The guy has an entire blog (mostly just copy-paste from his tumblr). Personally I think it's hilarious.

 

[caveman1917]

"Uncategorized" isn't really a "third category". The "win" is that everyone who wants access to a bathroom can have it.

IIRC it was actually already suggested that trans-women could use the disabled's bathroom, but this was rejected because it didn't validate their identity as women.

 

[Roboramma]

Again, I also I mentioned lions and elephant seals. Are those not mammals? And I only brought it up because someone wanted to talk about non-human animals. I thought it was pretty clear I wasn't referring to human social arrangements, but some animal ones.

Yes, I'm saying that you were wrong about Lions and Elephant seals. Their mating system isn't akin to division of labour. It's simply competition for scarce resources.

 

[Roboramma]

Not going to look it up who said this first so I'll respond to you saying it. But in some mammals it does work, meerkats for example have a single matriarch who is the only one allowed to procreate and who kills the offspring of other females in the group. Indeed, plenty of mammals have such arrangements. ETA: And the alpha female in Bonobo groups does actually sometimes "steal" the offspring of other females.

I'm not sure about the case of either meerkats or bonobos, but in wolves I think the analogy is valid. But in general in mammals some individuals monopolising reproduction aren't simply making the group more efficient by division of labour: they are the winners in a competition for mates.

In some cases (like wolves) there may be elements of both.

 

[caveman1917]

I'm not sure about the case of either meerkats or bonobos, but in wolves I think the analogy is valid. But in general in mammals some individuals monopolising reproduction aren't simply making the group more efficient by division of labour: they are the winners in a competition for mates.

It is the case for meerkats where the alpha female tends to kill the offspring of the other females, even Wikipedia notes this. The theory is that they do this so there's only a single litter at a time to take care for, so it is in some sense a way to maintain efficieny. In Bonobos the offspring isn't killed but the alpha female sometimes steals offspring from the other females. Indeed, the most well-known Bonobo Kanzi (known for a remarkable ability to learn language) was stolen by the alpha female from his actual mother.

 

[Roboramma]

It is the case for meerkats where the alpha female tends to kill the offspring of the other females, even Wikipedia notes this. The theory is that they do this so there's only a single litter at a time to take care for, so it is in some sense a way to maintain efficieny. In Bonobos the offspring isn't killed but the alpha female sometimes steals offspring from the other females. Indeed, the most well-known Bonobo Kanzi (known for a remarkable ability to learn language) was stolen by the alpha female from his actual mother.

But I'm not seeing how that's analogous to division of labour. If I understood the analogy some meerkats are saying "You go do the reproduction while I will thus be freed of the need to reproduce and can thus collect more food. I'll share this food with you (and your offspring) and thus we'll end up with more total offspring and more food than if we both had to do both". But that's not the deal that's being struck and the other females don't care that the first one can have more offspring this way (nor does the reproductive female get anything in return from the other females). In ants, however, this is the deal that's struck. The queen does all the reproducing and the workers feed her.

I'm not saying that you're wrong that reproduction is monopolised by a few individuals, I'm saying it's not analogous to division of labour.

 

[caveman1917]

But I'm not seeing how that's analogous to division of labour. If I understood the analogy some meerkats are saying "You go do the reproduction while I will thus be freed of the need to reproduce and can thus collect more food. I'll share this food with you (and your offspring) and thus we'll end up with more total offspring and more food than if we both had to do both". But that's not the deal that's being struck and the other females don't care that the first one can have more offspring this way (nor does the reproductive female get anything in return from the other females). In ants, however, this is the deal that's struck. The queen does all the reproducing and the workers feed her.

I'm not saying that you're wrong that reproduction is monopolised by a few individuals, I'm saying it's not analogous to division of labour.

Ah yes, I misunderstood what you were saying then. I agree that it doesn't amount to a division of labour.