Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Joe Random]

Not all humans are born with two legs, so it's a fallacy to say we're a bipedal species. Rather, we exist on a spectrum of pedalness .

 

[Emily's Cat]

Given that they ultimately derive from the same organ, and since there are more than enough intersex variations of genitals, you can't maintain that kind of dichotomy.

Lungs and feet ultimately derive from the same stem cells... and mosaics and reabsorbed twins are thing, so I guess we can't maintain a dichotomy between lungs and feet either...

On a more serious note... a clitoris isn't attached to a vas deferns. Females do not pee out of their clitorises.

 

[Meadmaker]

Now you're talking! Cis-het sex slaves ftw!

Honestly, though, I don't think anyone wants to keep straight cis-men quarantined. At least nobody in this thread. Please don't mistake my bits of rant as being somehow anti-men. I'm a feminist who happens to love dudes, and who also thinks there's a lot in my society that is patently unfair to men as well.

Joe has been very vocal, in this thread and others, about how unfair it is that cis-males are all seen as being dangerous, or predatory, or variations thereof.


I get what he's saying, but I think he's exaggerating the problem. It's an old controversy. I remember talking about it back in college, during Jimmy Carter's presidency.

 

[d4m10n]

Not all humans are born with two legs, so it's a fallacy to say we're a bipedal species. Rather, we exist on a spectrum of pedalness .

This is high quality snark.

Lawyers have a well-known maxim on point.

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[Emily's Cat]

I think I've made my point clear enough, but this continued hijack serves no purpose.

I am uncomfortable with how easily straight cis-men are seen as inherently predatory, nothing more, nothing less

We'll just have to leave it at that.

I'm uncomfortable with it too, if that's any solace. And it's not "straight cis-men"... it's "men and people that look like men". And it's not a constant thing, it's not like I (or most women for that matter) think that all men are scary predators - far from it. It's an unfortunate reality that man are bigger, stronger, and more aggressive... and have the plumbing for rape. Whether that's something innate to men biologically or whether it's a reflection of social conditioning of some sort, I don't know. I'd certainly prefer it to be the latter, because that makes it much more likely to evolve as our social norms evolve.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I am proposing that what we think is based on the physical set up and chemistry of our brains. And that the specific thoughts people have when thinking of themselves as one gender or the other are based on these physical and chemical processes. What other possibly is there, a consciousness based on an incorporeal “mind?”

Obviously if I believe a cis male can think of themselves as female I am not proposing that males and females are born with different brains.

What do you think is the difference here? You say that you're not proposing that males and females have different brains... but you do propose that they have a different physical set up and chemistry? What is the distinction there?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I've often wondered about this myself. The best answer I've heard so far is basically a list of symptoms, but then again most cis women and cis men don't have any of these.

I dunno. As a kid my favorite toys were lincoln logs, legos, tinker toys, and match box cars. An occassional barbie doll to go with my Michael Jackson "action figure". And books. Lots of books. And I preferred playing with boys because they did things like climb trees and pretend to be indians and almost set the bleachers on fire by building a "campfire". I detest pink. I find vulva and vaginas to be frighteningly disgusting things, and would much rather look at a nice penis any day of the week. I hate shaving my legs and armpits, and I will wear pants unless I am required to wear a dress for strong social convention. I am firmly of the opinion that this whole "being a girl" thing is patent ******** and I want my money back.

All of my complaints are rooted in social gender roles and behavioral expectations for women as compared to boys.

Except for my dislike of menstruation. That's all about the cramps and the sore boobs.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sticking with the normal situation of XX vs XY chromosomes (ie, no chromosomal anomalies, no defective or misplaced genes), a chimeric person could have brain cells with XX but the rest of the body being XY. I am describing that as a female brain in a male body.

I can buy that.

Do you think there's any meaningful or material differentiation due to that?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Joe has been very vocal, in this thread and others, about how unfair it is that cis-males are all seen as being dangerous, or predatory, or variations thereof.

He's not wrong though. I wouldn't like it either were I a man. It's not fair and it probably sucks donkey balls for all the good guys out there.

As an actual tie-in to this topic... A while back I was reading some of the experiences of transpeople. There was one by a transman that was kind of heart-breaking. After he transitioned, he was walking home one evening behind a woman. She kept glancing over her shoulder, and she started speeding up. He was appalled and devastated to realize it was because he was a man and they were alone on a fairly isolated street. He had always been the vulnerable one prior to that, and having grown up with that reality, still thought of himself as the vulnerable one. He hadn't until that moment realized that to the rest of the world, he was now the dangerous one in that equation.

There was a similar story from a transman coming to grips with how he was expected to interact with children. He could no longer watch a toddler play without being viewed as a creep. He couldn't really speak to or touch someone else's child. Simply because he was a man.

Those kinds of gender stereotypes, those kinds of learned responses... they're harmful. Women aren't the only ones who get screwed over by socially defined gender roles.

 

[d4m10n]

Are XYs without sperm females by the definitions given upthread?

If an individual was not born with oocytes then they are quite probably male. Other considerations may be in play, though.

Are XXs without ova males?

Which particular syndrome have you in mind here?

Do you agree or disagree with having sperm or ova being the sole criterion to define sex? My argument is that it is not.

I'd say that people born with ova are female, people who produce sperm are male, and people who never carry either ova nor sperm (a tiny fraction of the population) need to be sorted based on other criteria, if they need be sorted all.

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[TragicMonkey]

I genuinely can't tell what you're poking fun at with this. Are you poking fun at disabled people? People with dwarfism and similar disorders? Females?

What is with people quoting a post to argue with it, but not reading the quoted post in that quoted post? Is there a movement of people who identify as not reading the whole thing?

 

[Meadmaker]

He's not wrong though. I wouldn't like it either were I a man. It's not fair and it probably sucks donkey balls for all the good guys out there.

It has never bothered me.

I think, for the most part, it's easy enough to prevent problems by following social conventions. Those are sort of the way that you signal "Not dangerous!"

If a woman tries to avoid me in the "walking alone at night" scenario, I just figure she's practicing common sense. If we are far enough away that we are not interacting, there's no real issue to me. If we are interacting, I can usually wave, or say something that signals "Not dangerous!"

As for the kid thing, I've just never encountered it as a problem. I probably have some pretty stereotypical male interactions with toddlers, though. i.e. I try not to interact with toddlers.

I do remember one time when I had to make sure that the parents understood I was not a creep. i was about 25. There was an eleven year old girl who was interested in me. I had to make sure to catch her mother's attention so that mom understood that I was not a pedophile and I was amused by her daughter's attentions, but not actually enjoying them. I didn't feel offended that she might think me a predator. I thought it kind of natural, and felt the onus was on me to assure her I was not. We were at a campground, and I had to make sure that there was never anything that could be viewed as suspicious.

 

[Belz...]

Not all humans are born with two legs, so it's a fallacy to say we're a bipedal species. Rather, we exist on a spectrum of pedalness .

More to the point about definitions, we are part of the tetrapod class of animals. But one person losing a limb does not make them suddenly not a tetrapod, nor does being born with only three limbs. Just because the definition is a certain way doesn't mean one can lawyer themselves out of it. As usual definitions are assumed to be understood by reasonable minds.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What is with people quoting a post to argue with it, but not reading the quoted post in that quoted post? Is there a movement of people who identify as not reading the whole thing?

I read it... I am just confused by it. I usually get your humor better than this.

 

[d4m10n]

All of my complaints are rooted in social gender roles and behavioral expectations for women as compared to boys.

Are women socially conditioned to find their own vulvae "to be frighteningly disgusting things" these days? If so, that's awful. You should be encouraged to play with yourselves like the rest of us.

 

[Arcade22]

On a more serious note... a clitoris isn't attached to a vas deferns. Females do not pee out of their clitorises.

Actually, due to how sexual differentiation in humans works Females can actually have functional penises that are not just capable of urination but also penetrative intercourse.

You should read up on intersex conditions before you make a fool out of yourself.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Are women socially conditioned to find their own vulvae "to be frighteningly disgusting things" these days? If so, that's awful. You should be encouraged to play with yourselves like the rest of us.

Fair point on that one. I don't think that's social conditioning. That's much more likely a result of me being quite heterosexual and not thinking that penises are innately scary all by themselves.

And don't get me wrong - I like how it feels... I just don't want to look at other women's vijayjays. They're... icky looking. It's that whole feeding a bulldog mayonnaise thing going on down there...

 

[Emily's Cat]

Actually, due to how sexual differentiation in humans works Females can actually have functional penises that are not just capable of urination but also penetrative intercourse.

You should read up on intersex conditions before you make a fool out of yourself.

Okay... and at that point, is it a clitoris? Or is it, as you term it, a penis?

ETA: Are we really genuinely at the point in the discussion where a couple of people are going to argue that there's no distinction between a penis and a clitoris? That they're the same thing and we're incapable of telling the difference between them?

I'd like to take a moment to remind you guys of the spectrum fallacy (aka heap fallacy if memory serves). I'll also point out that while light, as a whole, exists on a spectrum, it's remarkably easy to determine whether a given wavelength is blue or red.

 

[Ziggurat]

I can buy that.

Do you think there's any meaningful or material differentiation due to that?

I don’t know if there is, but there might be. I think it’s worth investigating, because if there is, we could learn a lot from such cases.

 

[Ziggurat]

Not all humans are born with two legs, so it's a fallacy to say we're a bipedal species. Rather, we exist on a spectrum of pedalness .

Which reminds me of my favorite grammar error in a movie title: “Eight Legged Freaks”. The movie is about giant spiders. But as written, without a hyphen between the first two words, the title actually means eight freaks who have some unspecified number of legs.