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

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The Atheist said:
It's the "radical" part that makes it a pejorative.

As you alluded to earlier, virtuously throwing "TERF" around doesn't seem to fit very well with the idea of allegedly protecting someone else's rights.

It's quite Trumpian to denigrate one group to try to advantage another.
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Back when I was in college, "radical" was a term used almost exclusively as a self description. "I am a radical feminist" was a form of emphasis, not an insult.


Of course, Jimmy Carter was president when I went to college, so things might have changed a little bit since then.
 
Is there any evidence that the "transwoman" demographic is predictive of sexual assault in prison? We're dealing with small numbers, so false trends are easy to establish.

General reporting shows that sexual offenders are the most likely to commit sexual assaults in prison, followed by various violent offenders. Is being trans a predictive factor, or is it simply that these examples of trans inmates have been sexual offenders, the most likely demographic likely to commit sexual offenses while in prison? Karen White, for example, was a repeat sexual and violent offender before entering prison. Exactly the kind of person that might commit further sexual or violent crimes while in prison. Was she dangerous because she was trans, or was she dangerous because she was a unrepentant sexual offender?

I would fully support a reasonable policy to protect inmates from known sexual offenders.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
Is there any evidence that the "transwoman" demographic is predictive of sexual assault in prison? We're dealing with small numbers, so false trends are easy to establish.
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It seems highly predictive of sexual assault in the female estate, even with the relatively small numbers, yes. For obvious reasons too, I'd think. I suppose in the male estate it's the inverse, that the "trans-woman" demographic is more predictive of being a victim of sexual assault rather than a perpetrator.
 
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caveman1917 said:
It seems highly predictive of sexual assault in the female estate, even with the relatively small numbers, yes. For obvious reasons too, I'd think. I suppose in the male estate it's the inverse, that the "trans-woman" demographic is more predictive of being a victim of sexual assault rather than a perpetrator.
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Is transwoman more predictive of sexual assault than previous sexual or violent convictions?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Is transwoman more predictive of sexual assault than previous sexual or violent convictions?
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For that we'd need to know the how many imprisoned cis-women with previous sexual or violent convictions go on to commit sexual assault in prison. And we'd need the same data for trans-women.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
Is transwoman more predictive of sexual assault than previous sexual or violent convictions?
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A quick google search couldn't find the data. The real question though would rather be: how predictive is transwoman after accounting for previous sexual or violent convictions? Either way, without at least some data there's no way to tell.
 
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I may have missed it, but are there statistics as to how many trans women In prison are assaulted when placed within the general cis men population?

There are trans women who will end up in prison. And trans men. So the real question is how to house them so as to best protect everyone. Not to mention how to protect cis-men from cis-men and cis women from cis-women.

For that matter what are the statistics for cis-men sexually assaulting cis-men? Not that I am suggesting that could justify trans woman on women assaults. I just want to know the overall magnitude of the problems.
 
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I understand the idea of these per capita calculations is to somehow calculate how “dangerous” trans women are to other women prisoners versus cis-women. But in thinking about it I’m not certain the “per capita” adjustment is all that important in practice. The issue is how to best protect everyone. Given there are so few trans women in prison, and therefore so few assaults committed by them, it should be easier to work out safe guards fair for all compared to the much larger problem of cis-men/cis-men assaults.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I think you might have missed her point, Zig, In particular, her first line:


I believe she is saying that she didn't refer to herself as a feminist, because there was no need for it - she believed that equality had existed, that battle had been won. I am fairly cure that her examples were intended to be in the manner of "don't be a poor winner".
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Possibly, but since every example given was an example of a lack of equality, if that was the intended message, it's conveyed very badly.
 
Giordano said:
But in thinking about it I’m not certain the “per capita” adjustment is all that important in practice.
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Would you be willing to share a cell with a psychotic serial killer because, even though he has a high "per capita" risk of killing you, that shouldn't matter in practice as there just happen to be so few serial killers in prison?
 
Giordano said:
I may have missed it, but are there statistics as to how many trans women In prison are assaulted when placed within the general cis men population?

There are trans women who will end up in prison. And trans men. So the real question is how to house them so as to best protect everyone. Not to mention how to protect cis-men from cis-men and cis women from cis-women.

For that matter what are the statistics for cis-men sexually assaulting cis-men? Not that I am suggesting that could justify trans woman on women assaults. I just want to know the overall magnitude of the problems.
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I think this is a good approach to the problem. The issue isn't to minimize rape of cis-women by cis-men, or cis-women by trans-women or cis-men by cis-men, or any other subset. Of course we want to minimize all of those, but the thing we want to minimize is the total amount of rape.

In transferring trans-women to women's prisons we put them in a situation where they are less at risk of rape. On the other hand, they are also more likely to perpetrate rape in that circumstance.

In that case the question is, which of those things changes more. In other words, do total rapes go up or down, on average, after a trans-woman is transferred to a woman's prison.
 
d4m10n said:
Maybe Rowling is indeed bigoted, but (AFAICT) she is bigoted against biological males as a group.

She seems to honestly believe human males are dangerous and that human females deserve safe spaces wherein we males are not permitted.

I'm not convinced that it's okay to stereotype males in this way, but the practice appears to be accepted by wider society.
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I said that Rowling has history of being a TERF. I base that on her history of saying anti-trans things couched in feminism. I wasn't "demean[ing]" her, I was describing her behaviour, any more than I would be demeaning Steve Bannon by saying he had a history of being a racist and judging a current statement of his in that context. And I didn't say that about her because I disagree with her, but because she has a history of saying anti-trans things couched in feminism.

Even if all that weren't true, I think if you were being honest even you'd have to agree that there's a difference between "on one occasion described someone as a TERF" and "uses TERF to demean people who disagree with him".
 
Emily's Cat said:
:rolleyes: I feel like you're tap-dancing around here Squeegee. Of course the behaviors aren't shared by 100% of women. But expected behaviors do actually exist, and those expected behaviors are actually a material barrier to women when it comes to executive and leadership roles, including politics. There most certainly exists a "template" of model feminine behavior, and of course not all women fit the template exactly. I certainly don't. But you seem to be implying that there is no persistent difference in clothing standards and styles for women as opposed to men, that there's no difference in hair styles, make-up, and other visible forms of presentation, that there's no difference in behavior and comport between feminine and masculine.

I notice you've also, once again, failed to provide any answer to my question.

The initiating comment was to the effect that "some transwomen don't want to pass as women".

You seem to think that makes sense, so please go ahead and educate me. I've already admitted that this is something I don't understand. So if there's some explanation for this that you think is meaningful, that allows a person born male to identify as a woman while still continuing the lived experience of a man... please fill me in. I can't wrap my head around it as a concept at all. If you understand it better than I, please share that knowledge.
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There's a lot of stuff here which is irrelevant to anything I've said, and then a false dichotomy.

Consider the fact that not every trans woman will be able to pass as a cis woman. Consider the fact that some trans women have facial surgery in order to appear more feminine, and that not all trans women will want to do that.

Then consider the fact that it's possible for a trans woman to be perfectly content looking like a trans woman, without feeling the need for every random stranger to believe them to be a cis woman.

That's your answer.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
I don't think this is completely true though. It operates on a policy of perception, not self-identification. Generally speaking, if a person shows up who looks like a woman, even a somewhat masculine woman, they'll generally be granted access. But that's not the same as self-identification. Self-identification allows anyone who claims to be a woman to have access, even if they are unequivocally male in body and form. Someone can show up with a full beard, and clearly masculine physique... and self-identification would grant those people access where they currently would likely be denied access.
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The link I posted which had interviews with many people who run women's shelters said that they used self-identification, although they did also concede that they may have sheltered women who they didn't know were trans.

Basically, if you show up and say "I'm an abused woman" they will assess your case on an individual basis like they do every case, rather than asking for a cheek swap or if they can check to see whether or not you have a penis. They also have policies in place and staff training to ensure that they can give trans women care that is as effective as the care they give to other people.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I agree. Which is why I oppose either of the one-size solutions, and why I think the position that Squeegee and Suburban Turkey seem to support is bollocks. I don't think that allowing self-identifying transwomen to transfer to the female unit on the basis of their claim alone is a good solution to transwomen being assaulted by men in the male units. I definitely think a separate wing or a common sense case-by-case solution is a much, much better idea.
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Sure, you can straw man me and then say that you disagree with the straw man version of my opinion that you've invented, but it's not really conducive to productive or honest conversation is it?

Still, at least this time you're not saying that I don't care about women being raped, I suppose. I guess we could call that progress of a kind.
 
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