Cont: Trans Women are not Women II: The Bath Of Khan

[Ziggurat]

First of all you seem to just be redefining female to mean 'the person of a biology which normally produces ova'.

Re-defining? No, that's the standard definition.

You are assuming your conclusion here. If a transwoman is female then the definition holds true. And by the definition then a transwoman is female. So it is internally consistent.

You still haven't given us a definition. Yes, if you define A as B, then A is B, by definition. But what is B? You won't say.

It's as useless or useful as any other definition for most if not all purposes. it's only a problem for you because you are trying to layer on an old definition of female and seeing you get different answers. That's only to be expected if you use a different definition. Again you are just assuming your conclusion circularly. You 'know' what a woman is and don't like definitions that lead you any other answer.

You haven't actually presented any alternative definition.

Isn't that how most things in life work actually?

No.

I mean take race. Is Barack Obama black? If he told you he identified as black are you going to correct him? If he told you he identified as white are you going to correct him? There is a degree of subjectivity about pretty much all groupings and generally I would prefer to err on the side of what people tell me they identify as rather than allow other people to act as gatekeepers.

Race is different than most categories, for a number of reasons. One is that mixture is possible. That isn't the case with many categories. An animal can't be part cat and part dog. When one is a mixture of categories, we have come to largely accept that one may identify more strongly with one of those categories than another.

But plenty of people are fine with not accepting Rachel Dolezal's self-identification as black.

A woman is whoever we say is a woman. It's as simple as that. And the same for a man. The same for a Muslim. The same for a black person. They are just words we made up. Like all words.

Religion is fundamentally different from race and sex. It has no biological basis. It is purely mental. And no, a Muslim is NOT whoever we say is a Muslim. A Muslim is anyone who professes themselves to be a muslim. But again, that's because religion has no biological basis.

"Woman" and "man" have a biological basis. You seem to want to remove that biological basis from the word, but it is unjustified. The biology of sex has profound effects on how people interact with each other. You cannot wish away those effects in the vain hope that this will magically eliminate prejudice. Language reflects the reality that sexes are different and the differences matter. Redefining words won't make that reality go away. Even if you succeed in redefining words to eliminate the distinctions, all you will have done is cripple people's ability to communicate. That will never improve the world.

 

[Strawberry]

So where's the evidence then? Not anecdote. Not scare mongering. Actual evidence.

Nobody should be behaving inappropriately in any place and if they are they should be removed.

You need evidence of what exactly? That the vast majority of sexual offences are committed by males? That transwomen have the same crime stats as a group as the general male population?

And its a bit late to act after someone has behaved inappropriately. Some poor woman or girl has been subjected to something at that stage. Much more sensible to keep general safeguarding in place by segregating certain areas on the grounds of biological sex.

 

[Belz...]

A Muslim is anyone who professes themselves to be a muslim.

I have to disagree there. Someone who claims to be a Muslim but doesn't believe in God and drinks and eats pork regularily would justifiably be dismissed as not the thing he'd claim to be. There are still objective/observable characteristic to even those categories.

 

[Ziggurat]

I have to disagree there. Someone who claims to be a Muslim but doesn't believe in God and drinks and eats pork regularily would justifiably be dismissed as not the thing he'd claim to be.

We cannot externally test what someone really believes in. As for the drinking and eating pork, that just means they're a bad Muslim, not that they aren't a Muslim.

 

[Belz...]

We cannot externally test what someone really believes in. As for the drinking and eating pork, that just means they're a bad Muslim, not that they aren't a Muslim.

You don't think the "not believe in God" part kind of disqualifies him?

 

[Ziggurat]

You don't think the "not believe in God" part kind of disqualifies him?

It would. But how can I know if he doesn't believe in God?

If someone tells me they don't believe in God, I will default to believing them, and that would preclude them being a Muslim. But if someone tells me that he doesn't believe in God, and that he's a Muslim, then those are two contradictory statements, and they can't both be true. One or both must be a lie. But I don't know which.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

If you want her to start going into the men's room I would have to seriously question your judgement as a parent.

I want her to go where she feels is best for her. Your casting of aspersions on my parenting is fairly pathetic. Let's see if all the 'you are just trying to shut down debate' crew object to someone saying 'if you disagree with me you are a bad dad'.

 

[Belz...]

It would. But how can I know if he doesn't believe in God?

If someone tells me they don't believe in God, I will default to believing them, and that would preclude them being a Muslim.

What I'm saying, and I don't want to get into a derail here, is that if he tells you that he's a Muslim, and he also tells you he doesn't believe in God, then his self-identification will be dismissed by you, quite justifiably. Identification is not the only criterion.

But if someone tells me that he doesn't believe in God, and that he's a Muslim, then those are two contradictory statements, and they can't both be true. One or both must be a lie. But I don't know which.

You say you don't know which, but clearly the "I don't believe in God" is a more definitive statement than one of identification to a group that precludes this.

 

[Ziggurat]

I want her to go where she feels is best for her.

And if she felt uncomforable getting naked next to a naked adult with a penis and testicles, would you consider her transphobic for that?

 

[Strawberry]

I want her to go where she feels is best for her. Your casting of aspersions on my parenting is fairly pathetic. Let's see if all the 'you are just trying to shut down debate' crew object to someone saying 'if you disagree with me you are a bad dad'.

And I want her to go where is objectively safest for her, ie the ladies room. The facts of human biology don't change just because someone takes cross sex hormones and has their breasts chopped off, so that objective reality would still be the case regardless of how she feels.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Re-defining? No, that's the standard definition.

You still haven't given us a definition. Yes, if you define A as B, then A is B, by definition. But what is B? You won't say.

You haven't actually presented any alternative definition.

I did actually. I gave 2 possible internally consistent definitions. And pointed out why the whole thing is a red herring

Race is different than most categories, for a number of reasons. One is that mixture is possible. That isn't the case with many categories. An animal can't be part cat and part dog. When one is a mixture of categories, we have come to largely accept that one may identify more strongly with one of those categories than another.

But plenty of people are fine with not accepting Rachel Dolezal's self-identification as black.

Well actually no, when you look carefully at most things you see similar effects. Species is a biologically defined category but when you look at it closely you see that it is flawed and 'not as simple as that' in a number of ways.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...hy-is-it-so-important-to-us-neanderthal-human

And that's the problem that people are having. While biology may be objective the labels we put on those biologies are not.

Religion is fundamentally different from race and sex. It has no biological basis. It is purely mental. And no, a Muslim is NOT whoever we say is a Muslim. A Muslim is anyone who professes themselves to be a muslim. But again, that's because religion has no biological basis.

No that is how we have defined Muslim. If we had defined a Muslim to be something different then that is what it would be.

"Woman" and "man" have a biological basis. You seem to want to remove that biological basis from the word, but it is unjustified. The biology of sex has profound effects on how people interact with each other. You cannot wish away those effects in the vain hope that this will magically eliminate prejudice. Language reflects the reality that sexes are different and the differences matter. Redefining words won't make that reality go away. Even if you succeed in redefining words to eliminate the distinctions, all you will have done is cripple people's ability to communicate. That will never improve the world.

Race has a biological basis as well but that doesn't mean that the English words we apply to those races are biological objective facts about reality.

Rather than cling to definitions of words, why not re-examine whether those definitions are creating problems for people for no good reason rather than simply falling back on those definitions as justifications for perpetuating them?

We should also examine whether claims of wishing to have clear communication can be taken seriously when accompanied by claims that the word 'ciswoman' is grossly offensive for example.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

And if she felt uncomforable getting naked next to a naked adult with a penis and testicles, would you consider her transphobic for that?

Probably. I would hope she had been raised better than that.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

And I want her to go where is objectively safest for her, ie the ladies room.

What do you mean by objectively safest? Because if the ladies room is safer than the men's room I'd like my son to be able to go there too. Because it would be objectively safer for him too.

The facts of human biology don't change just because someone takes cross sex hormones and has their breasts chopped off, so that objective reality would still be the case regardless of how she feels.

The facts maybe don't change but you haven't shown any facts yet. By definition some facts of a persons biology must change by having these treatments otherwise the treatments would be pointless and wouldn't be done.

 

[Belz...]

Probably. I would hope she had been raised better than that.

Raised better than what? Being uncomfortable around naked males?

 

[Strawberry]

Probably. I would hope she had been raised better than that.

Have you raised her to think she has no right to set her own boundaries around the opposite sex?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

What I'm saying, and I don't want to get into a derail here, is that if he tells you that he's a Muslim, and he also tells you he doesn't believe in God, then his self-identification will be dismissed by you, quite justifiably. Identification is not the only criterion.



You say you don't know which, but clearly the "I don't believe in God" is a more definitive statement than one of identification to a group that precludes this.

There are Jewish atheists, in that case I don't see why there couldn't be Muslim atheists in theory. Isn't that how definitions work normally? We update and adjust them. So we say that a Jew is someone who believes in the God of the Torah and lives by its teachings, and then we also accept that there are some Jews who don't believe in God and that's OK.

And then there are going to be people who are like 'BUT YOU EAT PORK!!! YOU AREN'T A JEW BY DEFINITION!!' and we all look at them a bit funny and get on with our lives.

 

[Rolfe]

I really don't think we should be dragging Archie's daughter into this, even hypothetically. I only mentioned her existence because it seems to be relatively unusual for men who are the fathers of daughters to be so insensitive to the concerns of women and girls.

 

[Strawberry]

What do you mean by objectively safest? Because if the ladies room is safer than the men's room I'd like my son to be able to go there too. Because it would be objectively safer for him too.

The ladies room is objectively safer for women because it is a female only space.

The facts maybe don't change but you haven't shown any facts yet. By definition some facts of a persons biology must change by having these treatments otherwise the treatments would be pointless and wouldn't be done.

The relevant fact of a person's biological sex doesn't change with any amount of hormones and surgery.

 

[Ziggurat]

I did actually. I gave 2 possible internally consistent definitions.

Give me one definition. Give me the definition you want people to use.

And pointed out why the whole thing is a red herring

But it isn't. It's at the heart of all of this.

Well actually no, when you look carefully at most things you see similar effects. Species is a biologically defined category but when you look at it closely you see that it is flawed and 'not as simple as that' in a number of ways.

I chose cat and dog, not tiger and lion or any of a number of other pairings, for a reason. Yes, there's some fuzziness around some of the edges between some categories. But not between most of them. Half cats, half dogs don't exist.

Biological sex is a real thing too. There's a bit of fuzziness in rare cases of intersex individuals, but almost all transgender people are not intersex. That isn't what's driving this debate.

Rather than cling to definitions of words, why not re-examine whether those definitions are creating problems for people for no good reason

But you haven't done that. You've simply assumed that it's for no good reason. But that's manifestly not true. Basing definitions of words like "man" and "woman" on biological differences is VERY useful.

You're a textbook case of someone who wants to knock down Chesterton's fence.

We should also examine whether claims of wishing to have clear communication can be taken seriously when accompanied by claims that the word 'ciswoman' is grossly offensive for example.

I've never made that claim.

Probably. I would hope she had been raised better than that.

Does she know this about you? Will you tell her?

 

[Belz...]

There are Jewish atheists, in that case I don't see why there couldn't be Muslim atheists in theory.

That's because you're confusing two definitions of "Jewish". There's no such thing as an ethnic Muslim.