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

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SuburbanTurkey said:
Sure, but it's largely an accurate description of an ideology. It's not a personal attack, it's a description of a viewpoint.

Calling someone a white supremacist isn't an insult if they espouse ideology that the white race is superior. Calling someone a creationist is not an insult if they believe in biblical creation.

Calling someone a TERF is not an insult if they espouse trans exclusion.
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The problem with this, as with many other debates, is that it becomes polarised when it's not a simple black and white issue. There are many nuances which could be discussed in a rational manner, but when it comes to social media, Twitter in particular but not exclusively, it becomes 'us and them' and broad brush terms and insults get thrown around.

"Trans exclusionary" is one such term. One person might want trans people to be treated the same as their birth sex for all purposes; another might feel they should be treated as the sex they see themselves for all but a few well-defined and entirely logical cases. Both are lumped together as "trans exclusionary". This stifles debate, because once you label someone like this, the tendency is to dismiss everything they say without actually examining it.
 
zooterkin said:
The problem with this, as with many other debates, is that it becomes polarised when it's not a simple black and white issue. There are many nuances which could be discussed in a rational manner, but when it comes to social media, Twitter in particular but not exclusively, it becomes 'us and them' and broad brush terms and insults get thrown around.

"Trans exclusionary" is one such term. One person might want trans people to be treated the same as their birth sex for all purposes; another might feel they should be treated as the sex they see themselves for all but a few well-defined and entirely logical cases. Both are lumped together as "trans exclusionary". This stifles debate, because once you label someone like this, the tendency is to dismiss everything they say without actually examining it.
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Where some see nuance, others see apologism.
 
The Atheist said:
Not often we agree on something, so you know it must be right.

Enormous comprehension error by the pair of them.
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I dunno. That's kind of close to the way I interpreted it. In fact, it is the way I interpreted it, but assuming a sort of tongue in cheek aspect.
 
Garb said:
What should be done with trans men? Which prison should they go to?
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Women's prison. They themselves are pretty clear about that. However despite the numerous examples of trans-identifying males in the prison systems of many countries, I'm not aware of any trans-identifying female actually in prison anywhere. I'm sure there must be some, somewhere, but for whatever reason they don't tend to make the headlines.
 
Rolfe said:
Being a woman has been redefined as someone who performs a particular set of sexist stereotypes, and is progressing to being defined as "anyone who says they are, whether they bother with the sexist stereotypes or not". The people who benefit from this are men, and it should come as no surprise to see men so enthusiastically supporting it.
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Not disagreeing with you in the least, but I'll just note that I, personally, don't feel like I'm getting any benefit at all from it.

I'm not even sure who is, but some people seem pretty wrapped up in it.

I thought the twitter comment that you posted was quite insightful.
 
Rolfe said:
This has all been well researched with links and evidence and statistics. However the source will be dismissed.
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I've seen this happen over and over. The only media sites that gather evidence and present it are "right wing". The main stream or overtly left wing won't touch it. Then, the people dismiss the information because it comes from "right wing" sources. (Or "TERF" or ....some other form of bad.)

Information is information. If only "one side" presents the evidence, it's still evidence, although it ought to raise the question of why other sources won't present the evidence.
 
zooterkin said:
One person might want trans people to be treated the same as their birth sex for all purposes; another might feel they should be treated as the sex they see themselves for all but a few well-defined and entirely logical cases.
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I'd be surprised to learn that anyone here doesn't hold the highlighted position as you've described it. No one thinks transmen require prostate exams or transwomen need pap smears, right? The question is how many well-defined cases one is willing to concede, in the face of social and ethical pressure to avoid such questions by affirming the approved mantra.
 
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So, let me say why I offered the challenge that I did - a few posters in response to the news that the UK is scrapping the proposed amendments to the Gender Recognition Act in order to allow for self-identification expressed the opinion that this was a good thing. I was hoping that someone who was of that opinion would be able to articulate a cogent reason for why it was a good thing. Similarly, the possible adoption of self-identification by Scotland was painted as a bad thing. I was hoping that someone who was of that opinion would be able to offer some cogent reasoning as to why that would be a bad thing.

This has mostly been ignored, and the closest that's been attempted is to bring up prisons, although in doing so confirming that prisons already use self-identification and therefore wouldn't be affected by such a law.

The question is - what would be affected by that law negatively? What harm would it cause? How would the country be worse off if that became law?

If your opinion is an informed and reasonable one, you should already understand the evidence and the reasoning that led you to your conclusion.
 
Rolfe said:
Sigh. The post was actually a paraphrase of a passage in an essay on feminism by Dorothy L. Sayers. The intent is to convey the point that when someone feels secure in their own position with no feelings of inferiority, they don't run around declaring "I'm as good as you are" to the people they don't feel disadvantaged in relation to.
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People also don't run around declaring "I'm as good as you are" to people they feel superior to. Rich people don't tell poor people "I'm as good as you." Rich people tell poor people, "I'm better than you."

Beautiful people tell ugly people, "I'm better than you." Geniuses tell morons "I'm better than you." And you tell men... ?

To be clear: You don't actually believe women are superior to men, you just phrased it that way because... Well, why did you phrase it that way?

I get it. The idea you had in mind was that women and men are on equal footing. The idea you actually expressed though is that women are superior to men, just as geniuses are superior to morons. This is such an obviously bad way to put it that I'm surprised you thought it would pass without objection.

(I can only assume that Sayers phrased it better, and in a context where an expression of superiority rather than equality made sense.)
 
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One thing that stuck out to me with the "Fair Play for Women" article regarding the number of trans women who were convicted of sexual assault:

https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-prisoners/
Some claim that the figure of 125 trans prisoners is too low, because the MoJ does not count prisoners on short sentences, people with a Gender Recognition certificate or people who do not declare they are trans. They say 60 sex offenders does not represent half of the trans population in prison, it’s a much smaller fraction.

However, based on official MoJ statistics we know that only 4% of male prisoners are on sentences of less than 6 months. Only 1% of the transgender population has legally transitioned with a GRC. Therefore the number of uncounted trans prisoners is only likely to represent an additional 5% increasing the total to 132. This has no meaningful impact on the overall conclusions.
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Why is the 4% and 1% coming from the 125 number? That math doesn't make sense.
 
I think a large part of the problem is listening.

Biological women see some potential issues that could arise from self-ID policies.

The responses they get are either being labeled as transphobic or being asked to require proof that it is a real problem. Both of these responses are dismissive and not conducive to resolving anything. (It's difficult to provide data for an anticipated problem.) In fact, they make issues worse and deepen the disagreement.

A better response would be something along the line of: "While I don't believe that would be an issue, I can see why it might concern you. Let's see if we can find a way to ensure that this potential problem doesn't become a real problem."

So, women are concerned that self-ID creates a loophole that can be exploited to allow cis-men with ill-intent access to female safe spaces due to the inability to set tangible criteria to determine who is female.

Does anyone have a solution that actually addresses this concern that also allows legitimate trans-women access?

If there is no solution, should such changes proceed or be halted? (Suck it up women! or Suck it up trans-people!)
 
TomB said:
A better response would be something along the line of: "While I don't believe that would be an issue, I can see why it might concern you. Let's see if we can find a way to ensure that this potential problem doesn't become a real problem."
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Ah, but you see, answering that means you're not 100% behind the idea, and are therefore a transphobe and bigot, and they don't want to get the label. They're very quick to use said label, and they know their ilk will denounce them if they stray from the One True Pathtm.
 
Belz... said:
Ah, but you see, answering that means you're not 100% behind the idea, and are therefore a transphobe and bigot, and they don't want to get the label. They're very quick to use said label, and they know their ilk will denounce them if they stray from the One True Pathtm.
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When it comes to people's civil rights, it's a high stakes matter. C'est la vie.
 
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