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

[Distracted1]

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.

I have a friend with whom we joke about being an "Atheist Jew" and an "Atheist Catholic".

My sister-in-law would unironically identify as an "Atheist Muslim".

To those who identify this way, the meaning is clear.

 

[Ziggurat]

Raised better than what? Being uncomfortable around naked males?

Ah, but having a penis and testicles doesn't make you male! According to Archie, anyways.

 

[Belz...]

I really don't think we should be dragging Archie's daughter into this, even hypothetically.

I agree. It's another argument that detracts from the substance of the discussion; in this case, an argument from emotion.

 

[Strawberry]

I agree. It's another argument that detracts from the substance of the discussion; in this case, an argument from emotion.

Yeah fair enough. It just struck me as such a basic failure of child safeguarding 101 to be teaching any child, (of either sex), that if they feel uncomfortable around someone in a situation where they are taking their clothes off, that they should dismiss those feelings as a phobia.

 

[Belz...]

Ah, but having a penis and testicles doesn't make you male! According to Archie, anyways.

Well you can get your genitals removed. Does that make you not a male? There. Check and mate!

 

[kellyb]

Let's just say that's a very unusual situation and I think you'll find it travels very badly.

It takes us back into the area where women are being expected to provide the asylum (refuge, if you like) for men who for some reason feel they are not safe in the men's room. Why should this be the case? If men are dangerous, then letting men into the ladies' room is not conducive to the safety of women, despite your perception. If men are in danger from men, I contend that this is a problem for men to address, not shove on to us.

Your difference in perspective on this is wild! "We" really and truly don't see transwomen as men here. The idea of them as part of the group "the guys" is totally crazy-sounding to me, for real. As crazy as I'm sure my perspective sounds to you.

Like, there's the Memphis Feminist Collective, and the question of transinclusivity was basically settled before it was asked, and not from SJW PC-ness, but because transwomen were always with us (in whatever manifestation, and probably partially because half the gay kids in the deep south Bible Belt who had to run away from home or got kicked out at 16 after being discovered as gay landed in Memphis) and part of the group "us, the girls" and definitely NOT the guys.

If you imagine a circular clock, and on the left, at 9:00, that's the vague concept of female, and 3:00, that's the vague concept of male, the transwomen are at 11:00, but outside of the clock's circle, in their own circle. I guess they do "feel" in my head like the woowoo concept of "third gender"/"two-spirit". Between me, an actual man, and a transwoman, this not two of one kind and one of the other, but a triangle, with the transwoman slightly closer to me than to the guy.

It is true that we born-female-women offer transwomen social safe harbor, but we're scared of the ACTUAL men, and transwomen more than return the favor by acting as bodyguards to us ciswomen when they can and are needed. And of course, normal friendship, too. And no, it's not some covert predatory thing.

Regarding this:

Your final paragraph confirms that this practice is causing women to self-exclude from their own spaces. I find it difficult to understand why you wouldn't see this as a problem.

I think you misunderstand. Let me try quoting myself but with emphasis, since I apparently didn't explain well without it:

People who are not comfortable with them just don't go into the city limits proper anyway, and avoid "the real core city" like the plague, because it's filled people of all kinds of freaky-to-many subcultures, as well as often being the city with the highest homicide rate in the country (and we're a rather violent country!) because of poverty-related gangs and drugs.

The women who are frightened by transwomen are of a totally different socioeconomic class, and even if every transwoman in the city left for New Orleans for forever, the Memphis suburbanites still wouldn't even take a shortcut into a different state through the city. They'd rather drive 2 hours out of their way to avoid the city. The city is mostly black, the suburbs are mostly white, and the Memphis metro area has the highest "economic segregation" (physical distance between the richest and the poorest) in the US.

So, no, nobody's self-excluding over transwomen! If anything, the rich suburb people fleeing the city allowed "space" for we remaining city dwellers to invite the drag queens into the women's bathrooms, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. lol

 

[Strawberry]

Your difference in perspective on this is wild! "We" really and truly don't see transwomen as men here. The idea of them as part of the group "the guys" is totally crazy-sounding to me, for real. As crazy as I'm sure my perspective sounds to you.

Like, there's the Memphis Feminist Collective, and the question of transinclusivity was basically settled before it was asked, and not from SJW PC-ness, but because transwomen were always with us (in whatever manifestation, and probably partially because half the gay kids in the deep south Bible Belt who had to run away from home or got kicked out at 16 after being discovered as gay landed in Memphis) and part of the group "us, the girls" and definitely NOT the guys.

If you imagine a circular clock, and on the left, at 9:00, that's the vague concept of female, and 3:00, that's the vague concept of male, the transwomen are at 11:00, but outside of the clock's circle, in their own circle. I guess they do "feel" in my head like the woowoo concept of "third gender"/"two-spirit". Between me, an actual man, and a transwoman, this not two of one kind and one of the other, but a triangle, with the transwoman slightly closer to me than to the guy.

It is true that we born-female-women offer transwomen social safe harbor, but we're scared of the ACTUAL men, and transwomen more than return the favor by acting as bodyguards to us ciswomen when they can and are needed. And of course, normal friendship, too. And no, it's not some covert predatory thing.

Regarding this:


I think you misunderstand. Let me try quoting myself but with emphasis, since I apparently didn't explain well without it:

People who are not comfortable with them just don't go into the city limits proper anyway, and avoid "the real core city" like the plague, because it's filled people of all kinds of freaky-to-many subcultures, as well as often being the city with the highest homicide rate in the country (and we're a rather violent country!) because of poverty-related gangs and drugs.

The women who are frightened by transwomen are of a totally different socioeconomic class, and even if every transwoman in the city left for New Orleans for forever, the Memphis suburbanites still wouldn't even take a shortcut into a different state through the city. They'd rather drive 2 hours out of their way to avoid the city. The city is mostly black, the suburbs are mostly white, and the Memphis metro area has the highest "economic segregation" (physical distance between the richest and the poorest) in the US.

So, no, nobody's self-excluding over transwomen! If anything, the rich suburb people fleeing the city allowed "space" for we remaining city dwellers to invite the drag queens into the women's bathrooms, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

You seem to be using transwomen and drag queens interchangeably, but those two things are not the same.

Is it just the case that female only spaces are open to any and every one in your city?

 

[Lithrael]

It is true that we born-female-women offer transwomen social safe harbor, but we're scared of the ACTUAL men, and transwomen more than return the favor by acting as bodyguards to us ciswomen when they can and are needed. And of course, normal friendship, too. And no, it's not some covert predatory thing.

This has also been my experience. The triangle visualization is tbh pretty much how it looks to me as well.

 

[Rolfe]

Your difference in perspective on this is wild! "We" really and truly don't see transwomen as men here. The idea of them as part of the group "the guys" is totally crazy-sounding to me, for real. As crazy as I'm sure my perspective sounds to you.

Like, there's the Memphis Feminist Collective, and the question of transinclusivity was basically settled before it was asked, and not from SJW PC-ness, but because transwomen were always with us (in whatever manifestation, and probably partially because half the gay kids in the deep south Bible Belt who had to run away from home or got kicked out at 16 after being discovered as gay landed in Memphis) and part of the group "us, the girls" and definitely NOT the guys.

If you imagine a circular clock, and on the left, at 9:00, that's the vague concept of female, and 3:00, that's the vague concept of male, the transwomen are at 11:00, but outside of the clock's circle, in their own circle. I guess they do "feel" in my head like the woowoo concept of "third gender"/"two-spirit". Between me, an actual man, and a transwoman, this not two of one kind and one of the other, but a triangle, with the transwoman slightly closer to me than to the guy.

It is true that we born-female-women offer transwomen social safe harbor, but we're scared of the ACTUAL men, and transwomen more than return the favor by acting as bodyguards to us ciswomen when they can and are needed. And of course, normal friendship, too. And no, it's not some covert predatory thing.

Regarding this:

I think you misunderstand. Let me try quoting myself but with emphasis, since I apparently didn't explain well without it:

People who are not comfortable with them just don't go into the city limits proper anyway, and avoid "the real core city" like the plague, because it's filled people of all kinds of freaky-to-many subcultures, as well as often being the city with the highest homicide rate in the country (and we're a rather violent country!) because of poverty-related gangs and drugs.

The women who are frightened by transwomen are of a totally different socioeconomic class, and even if every transwoman in the city left for New Orleans for forever, the Memphis suburbanites still wouldn't even take a shortcut into a different state through the city. They'd rather drive 2 hours out of their way to avoid the city. The city is mostly black, the suburbs are mostly white, and the Memphis metro area has the highest "economic segregation" (physical distance between the richest and the poorest) in the US.

So, no, nobody's self-excluding over transwomen! If anything, the rich suburb people fleeing the city allowed "space" for we remaining city dwellers to invite the drag queens into the women's bathrooms, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria. lol

In that case you're saying that the entire area is very atypical and that's why people with less atypical views avoid it. All the more evidence for the fact that this situation is unlikely to travel well.

 

[Rolfe]

This has also been my experience. The triangle visualization is tbh pretty much how it looks to me as well.

And if that is changing? If the friendly, protective transwomen are being joined by some much less savoury characters? What then?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

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

But there COULD be.

I'm not confusing any definitions. I am just showing that how these definitions are set out is up to us. We can change definitions if we want to. They aren't set in stone.

If we agreed as a society that there is such a thing as an ethnic Muslim then there could be. Nothing would be broken by that.

Equally if we as a society agree that a woman is something different than it has been traditionally then we can do that too.

 

[Rolfe]

I think those who claim there's no such thing as autgynaephilia should read this.

https://culturallyboundgender.wordp...nchard-and-trans-activists-both-get-it-wrong/

(I don't think the writer fully understand's Blanchard's hypothesis, because none of what she declares to be "wrong" about that is actually what he is saying.)

Now I don't want any of these creeps and perverts within spitting distance of any female single-sex space. Now if anyone wants to put forward a proposal as to how that could be achieved while at the same time allowing the friendly and protective transwomen access as of right, that would be interesting. But the current proposal for "anyone who says he is a woman is a woman" is absolutely insupportable and is in itself the cause of a backlash against transwomen who are of a more acceptable disposition.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Yeah fair enough. It just struck me as such a basic failure of child safeguarding 101 to be teaching any child, (of either sex), that if they feel uncomfortable around someone in a situation where they are taking their clothes off, that they should dismiss those feelings as a phobia.

I would rather teach her that if she feels someone is behaving inappropriately in any situation regardless of their genitalia then that is what she should be concerned about.

 

[Belz...]

But there COULD be.

No, there couldn't.

Seriously, stop playing with words.

 

[Lithrael]

As soon as I see the local counterculture kids bringing up any such thing, or see any hint of evidence that they’d just sit on their hands and let themselves be intimidated out of bitching about any little thing on their minds, I’ll get back to you.

In the meantime I’d say actual bullies or crossers of the boundaries of basic dignity should be dealt with on a case by case basis, like any other bad egg in any other group.

 

[Lithrael]

No, there couldn't.

Seriously, stop playing with words.

Really? What would you call someone who does all the social and custom stuff but just doesn’t actually believe the basics? Why should there not be people who are just culturally but not religiously Muslim? I thought that was a pretty common situation for a lot of mainstream religions these days. Or is this my problem with having too much sympathy with the Father Dougal bits again?

 

[d4m10n]

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

Not to mention in practice.

I've been around atheist groups for a couple decades now and I've noticed various emphases in which particular beliefs and/or practices people are walking away from, based on how they were raised in the first place. Protestant Atheists tend to emphasize splitting with their forebears on how the Bible should be understood (as literature and myth rather than revelation) because they were weaned on Sola Scriptura. Catholic Atheists tend to emphasize their split with the Church itself, as an institution which embodies the teachings of their former faith. Jewish Atheists seem by far the most comfortable w/ holding on to the cultural aspects of Judaism apart from the faith-based aspects, at least here in the States. Muslim Atheists, well, I'm still trying to understand where they are coming from but they are distinct from anything else in my experience.

p.s. I'd like to tie this back into the main topic re: walking away from masculinity but I lack the experience and understanding to do so.

 

[Belz...]

Really? What would you call someone who does all the social and custom stuff but just doesn’t actually believe the basics?

Not a Muslim. Just like I wouldn't call one a Christian.

Seriously, as I told Archie, you are conflating definitions. The word "Jewish" was two definition: one ethnic, the other religious. This isn't a technicality.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

And if that is changing? If the friendly, protective transwomen are being joined by some much less savoury characters? What then?

Look it should be like anywhere else.

If you behave yourself then you are fine, if you step out of line then you should get the weight of the law hammering down on you.

If you go into the toilet and **** and leave then I don't really care what's going on in your head or what kind of character you are, if you are trying to peek under the stalls, rifling through used sanitary products in the bins or acting inappropriately to 8 year old girls you can get locked up.

Sound fair?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

No, there couldn't.

Seriously, stop playing with words.

Are you able to understand the concept of hypotheticals? And that definitions of things can change?

If there can be ethnic Jews there can be ethnic Muslims. There may not be right now, but we could invent the concept. Just like we invented the concept of ethnic Jews. Or the entire concept of Jews and Muslims.

Seriously, what is it that you find inconceivable?