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

[Darat]

Do you want it based on official gender or not? If you don't want anyone checking people's official gender and want to deal with it the same way we do now, the answer is "not".

I want to try and find a way that gives trans people a way to change their official gender and find a way for a society still seemingly obsessed with the genitals people have to integrate those that have changed their gender. Now of course a trans person does not have to have surgery to change their gender but if they haven't and they still have their original genitals then they wouldn't have the right to be in areas segregated by sex. So a transman who still has genitals of a biological female wouldn't have a legal right to insist they should be able to enter and use a changing room designated for males and vice-a-versa.

And this idea does not represent what I personally would like to see happen in regards to trans folk and changing their gender. What I am trying to do is have a discussion about how we can come up with a pragmatic solution that works in the real world, not a theoretical world. My ideas may be stupid or not thought through enough and/or there may be some serious consequences that I've not realised that would renders "my" solution moot or unworkable. I'm happy to be educated about any failings of my ideas.

 

[Earthborn]

It would mean during the two years they wouldn't have the legal rights of those born as the gender they want to change to.

What in the UK are the legal rights that differ depending on gender? And if there are such discriminatory laws, isn't it high time the UK is hauled to the European Court for Human Rights?

This does of course mean they are in a grey "no person land" and will make some aspects of their lives difficult, but it is only for 2 years.

Could you make it sound any more sinister?

 

[Roboramma]

My bad. I was using "toilets" as shorthand for "women's locker rooms and similar traditional safe spaces where women could expose themselves in a communal setting segregated from the male gaze". Which I think includes most public restrooms to one degree or another, but that's not central to my argument.

I'd really like to get beyond this pointless bickering about terminology. I think we already agree that there are women's safe spaces that are currently protected by social and legal barriers against abusive men. And I think we also agree that lifting such barriers to accommodate transwomen necessarily opens those spaces to abusive men as well, to a greater degree than before. Who cares what we mean by "toilets"? What we mean by this discussion is those safe spaces, and the pros and cons of different policies for access to them.

Bringing up spaces other than those spaces just adds confusion where before there was clarity.

I think there really is a difference between toilets and changing rooms, and it's entirely reasonable to have different policies for one than the other.

Darat suggested one policy for toilets and another for changing rooms. You objected to the policy for toilets based on the effect it would have in changing rooms. That doesn't seem constructive to me.

 

[Ziggurat]

Well, I think the doctors will be okay. It can't be much of the general population that will hate a doctor just for following medical guidelines. It's going to be most doctors who follow the guidelines, and the ones who deviate from the standard of care will face the greater judgment.

If the guidelines are subjective, then how can you tell if the doctor followed them? And the general population will never care about the issue as much as the activists do, so they have an oversized influence.

 

[Meadmaker]

If the guidelines are subjective, then how can you tell if the doctor followed them? And the general population will never care about the issue as much as the activists do, so they have an oversized influence.

We can't write legislation here. If we could, we would have to expand all the guidelines to many pages. I think the basic principles are sound, though. If you jump through some fairly high hoops, you can pee where you want without blowing your cover. If you're acting dodgy, there's an opportunity to challenge creeps who are infiltrating or using the policies as cover.

If there is a policy like this, you can run it for a couple of years and tighten it if bad things are happening. It would get rid of the temptation to provide the all-sex facilities cited where the harassment is occuring. It would end the fiction that there is no meaningful difference between transwomen and biological women.

There's a lot to like here. No one will think it's perfect, but so be it. I think most people would be ok with it. If this law were in place I suspect most women would never encounter anyone they knew to be male in the restroom, and darned near none in a changing room.

 

[Darat]

What in the UK are the legal rights that differ depending on gender? And if there are such discriminatory laws, isn't it high time the UK is hauled to the European Court for Human Rights?Could you make it sound any more sinister?

Most are reinforcement of social and cultural norms, so for example changing rooms.

 

[Belz...]

How would what make things better?

Sorry, the trans-vs-restroom proposed changes.

Nope. The post was actually three paragraphs of discussion, including discussion that addressed the point you raised. That one snippet you replied to was far from the entirety of it.

Ok sorry wrong post, then. I know I was repeating something you said, but the gist of my comment was what followed:

The debate about whether transwomen are women? My position is that it's complicated, and that there are conflicting social goods at issue. I've gone into more detail in this thread previously. I'm not going to re-hash it here.

You can do bullet points if you want. You can acknowledge the existence of trans women, support them, treat them like anyone else, and work to find solutions to their unique issues without agreeing that they are, in fact, women.

 

[Belz...]

I cannot agree with this, though that may be more of a problem of phrasing than actual disagreement. One doesn't deserve to be treated in any particular way only because they wish it. But depending on what their wish is and how they themselves behave, they may well deserve to be treated as they wish.

Yes, I meant in and of itself. Obviously people can deserve anything, given the proper circumstances. I just don't assume that they do right off the bat.

 

[Belz...]

The point was that Rolfe consistently mistakes her own experience and views as universal.

Don't we all?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Don't we all?

Not all the time in all matters. I assume you don't assume the life experiences of a subsistence farmer in rural Pakistan are the same as your own.

 

[kellyb]

Not all the time in all matters. I assume you don't assume the life experiences of a subsistence farmer in rural Pakistan are the same as your own.

She doesn't do it all the time.

ETA: I've seen her argue about health care reform, where she thinks we in the US need to change, but she was able to argue taking into account the perspective of US members who are profiteering off the current system. She was really cautious and delicate about trying to get through to them.

 

[kellyb]

I don't like talking about members in a thread, like gossip, but right out in the open, kinda rubbing it in their faces. It's...not a nice thing to do. We should probably stop.

 

[caveman1917]

Now of course a trans person does not have to have surgery to change their gender but if they haven't and they still have their original genitals then they wouldn't have the right to be in areas segregated by sex. So a transman who still has genitals of a biological female wouldn't have a legal right to insist they should be able to enter and use a changing room designated for males and vice-a-versa.

They already have that right, a GRC gives you that right. What you are suggesting is a tightening of the current law (to put in surgery as a requirement) rather than the current self-ID proposal to widen the current law (to remove the psychological medical requirement). Not saying that your proposal is bad or anything, just pointing out where it stands in relation to both current law and the proposed self-ID change.

And this idea does not represent what I personally would like to see happen in regards to trans folk and changing their gender. What I am trying to do is have a discussion about how we can come up with a pragmatic solution that works in the real world, not a theoretical world. My ideas may be stupid or not thought through enough and/or there may be some serious consequences that I've not realised that would renders "my" solution moot or unworkable. I'm happy to be educated about any failings of my ideas.

As I understand it, that position would make you "truscum" (true scum, people who believe that transgenderism has a medical/neurological basis). It definitely makes you a "TERF" though.

 

[Belz...]

Not all the time in all matters. I assume you don't assume the life experiences of a subsistence farmer in rural Pakistan are the same as your own.

It's my fault for assuming that you'd understand the meaning and address that, rather than treat it literally in the worst possible way in order to make points. I should've known better.

 

[TragicMonkey]

It's my fault for assuming that you'd understand the meaning and address that, rather than treat it literally in the worst possible way in order to make points. I should've known better.

I didn't mean anything hostile in that at all. Or "point scoring". People's views are a result of their life experience. People who've had very different life experiences will naturally have different views. I wouldn't have thought that was a controversial notion. All I meant to do was point out that it's worth bearing in mind when having such discussions. In my view not everybody has been remembering it.

Are you disagreeing with the suggestion that different experiences form different views? Or are you objecting to my evaluation that not everybody posting in this thread is apparently aware of that?

 

[kellyb]

The new season of South Park was TOTALLY on the cis vs trans sports issue, by the way, in this episode, Board Girls, aired I think last week:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_Girls

 

[Belz...]

I didn't mean anything hostile in that at all.

Then I apologise.

People's views are a result of their life experience. People who've had very different life experiences will naturally have different views. I wouldn't have thought that was a controversial notion.

What I'm saying is that humans tend to take their own POV as being the correct/universal one. That's not controversial either.

 

[TragicMonkey]

What I'm saying is that humans tend to take their own POV as being the correct/universal one. That's not controversial either.

Do they? I wouldn't have thought so, but now the question has been raised I have no idea what the answer is. Is it an ironical thing where I assumed based on my own life experience formed view of not assuming my own views were universal that I made the mistake I didn't think I suffered from because it's a mistake about the mistake itself? That's dreadfully meta. I'm sure there's a name for that kind of paradox, but I think it's a self-limiting paradox in that the only application of the mistake is to itself.

I think I need a third cup of coffee.

 

[Rolfe]

What I'm saying is that humans tend to take their own POV as being the correct/universal one. That's not controversial either.

More to the point, it's pretty universal for people to describe their own point of view and their own experience to contribute to debate. To reject this on the grounds that "your experience is not universal" and so it has no value, is bad logic.

So far, this looks like a bunch of women trying to articulate why they and many people they know are upset by what is going on, and being rebuffed with "but not everybody feels like that". While at the same time reports of hurty feelz from a few trans people are elevated into some sort of universal truth that must be respected and legislated for regardless of any other perspective on the issues.

 

[Belz...]

Do they? I wouldn't have thought so, but now the question has been raised I have no idea what the answer is. Is it an ironical thing where I assumed based on my own life experience formed view of not assuming my own views were universal that I made the mistake I didn't think I suffered from because it's a mistake about the mistake itself? That's dreadfully meta. I'm sure there's a name for that kind of paradox, but I think it's a self-limiting paradox in that the only application of the mistake is to itself.

I think I need a third cup of coffee.

I'm really glad I never started drinking that.