Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Belz...]

I don't think it's logically necessary that the existence of differences requires binary-ness.

Which is why I didn't say that.

How do you go from "seems to reinforce" to "logically necessary"?

 

[Belz...]

Moreover, the actual debates of how people ought to be treated in society concern, in almost every case, people whose reproductive anatomy is clear and obvious.

Yes, which is why bringing up intersex people is a red herring; a distraction.

 

[Belz...]

First I believe they should all be unisex

In that case you're being consistent.

I'm not sure I agree, however. Though I've floated the idea of all-unisex restrooms myself, I can't say I know enough about the related issues to know whether or not it would be a net positive. One thing seems certain: if we do that, we're doing that only for 0.3% of the population. Seems like a fairly major societal change for such a small number of people. Left-handed people are 10% of the population and they get essentially bugger all.

Finally how can one enforce a prohibition of trans people using only their birth sex restrooms? Does one ask each person entering a public restroom to strip before a bathroom cop?

That is one of the big problems with the discussion, actually. There's essentially no way to enforce either "segregated by sex" or "segregated by gender identity".

 

[JoeMorgue]

Yes, which is why bringing up intersex people is a red herring; a distraction.

Yep. We might as well have Diogones run through holding a plucked chicken for all it actually has to do with the discussion.

Transsgender people aren't intersexed. They are sexed but disagree with it.

This, fertility, are all besides the point, minor points of broader context at best.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Which is why I didn't say that.

How do you go from "seems to reinforce" to "logically necessary"?

Oh, okay, my bad. "Seems to reinforce" means "maybe it doesn't mean anything at all". With incisive observation like that I'm amazed this whole issue hasn't been resolved in just ten posts two threads ago.

 

[JoeMorgue]

That is one of the big problems with the discussion, actually. There's essentially no way to enforce either "segregated by sex" or "segregated by gender identity".

That and the idea that even if they are two seperate, distinct things why separating by sexual identity is the default.

Why not "Penis" and "Vagina" bathrooms? Why is a biological sex demarcation any less better, fairer, logical, consistent then a gender identity one?

It seems that "I'm not defined by my genitals!" could be countered with "Fine, but the bathrooms are."

 

[Belz...]

Well we are talking about relatively rare people if we are talking about sincere transsexuals.

I thought we were talking about transgender?

 

[Belz...]

This is a bit like asking a gay teenager how they can be so sure they're gay, when straight teenagers are never asked this question, and never have parents who tell each other that "it might just be a phase" when they bring home their first boy- or girlfriend of the opposite gender.

That might sound like a good argument on its face, but there's a pretty good reason why the conclusion that fits with 96% or 99.7% of the population is taken by default.

Everyone has a gender they identify as

********. I don't identify as any gender. I'm an adult human male; ergo I'm a man. My self-identification has taken up exactly zero percent of my thinking process over my lifespan.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Everyone has a gender identity, but by some amazing coincidence for the vast majority of us it just by pure chances lines up with our biological sex so we literally never have to think about it.

I agree with Belz on this one. No I do not have a "male gender identity" anymore than I have an O+ blood type identity or a blue eye identity. Those are just biological factors I was born with.

Sure they make up part of my identity just like... literally every other factor bet it biological, behavioral, environmental, or totally random, in my life, but there is no special "identity" status I apply to my having an outie genitalia and an XY chromosome structure.

 

[TragicMonkey]

As far as the "feeling like X" thing goes, how does anybody know how it feels to be anything? We only have one lifetime in one body each. I'm a dude, but I have no way to separate my experience of existing in general from the specific feeling of being male. I haven't been a female so I have no idea what it feels like. For all I know, every female who has ever lived feels exactly like I do all the time. They wouldn't know, and neither would I.

 

[Belz...]

Oh, okay, my bad. "Seems to reinforce" means "maybe it doesn't mean anything at all".

Why can't you offer an honest response to what I said? Why must you find a way to misrepresent what I said? It was very clear, but somehow you both take issue with it AND you don't want to actually address it. Why respond at all, then?

I'm saying that the arguments given in favour of the "sex is a spectrum" idea actually end up supporting the opposite position. The fact that the arguments are contradictory should indicate that the idea is untenable.

Do you have an actual response to this?

 

[Garb]

As far as the "feeling like X" thing goes, how does anybody know how it feels to be anything? We only have one lifetime in one body each. I'm a dude, but I have no way to separate my experience of existing in general from the specific feeling of being male. I haven't been a female so I have no idea what it feels like. For all I know, every female who has ever lived feels exactly like I do all the time. They wouldn't know, and neither would I.

Ask a trans person, maybe?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Why can't you offer an honest response to what I said? Why must you find a way to misrepresent what I said? It was very clear, but somehow you both take issue with it AND you don't want to actually address it. Why respond at all, then?

I'm saying that the arguments given in favour of the "sex is a spectrum" idea actually end up supporting the opposite position. The fact that the arguments are contradictory should indicate that the idea is untenable.

Do you have an actual response to this?

Oh, I don't care whether sex is a spectrum or not. I don't care what makes women women, why some people are X, or how many angels can dance on the head of a penis. I don't think any of that matters when the question is "how should we treat each other?" Kindly is the answer to that.

We managed to give equal rights (finally!) to gay people without having figured out the complete origin story of homosexuality, its causes and manifestations and nature and aspects and theories. I don't know why people insist they have to "understand" transexuality before they can just be nice to the people who trans. It's rather creepy because it implies that, given a theory that sounds good enough, people would be fine with treating anybody badly just as fast as they can justify it.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Ask a trans person, maybe?

But they'd only know how they feel, same as the rest of us. They might feel better at one time acting in one way, but they still can't know how other people feel the experience of being male or female. Until we develop the technology to network human brains together we're all isolated.

 

[Emily's Cat]

As far as the "feeling like X" thing goes, how does anybody know how it feels to be anything? We only have one lifetime in one body each. I'm a dude, but I have no way to separate my experience of existing in general from the specific feeling of being male. I haven't been a female so I have no idea what it feels like. For all I know, every female who has ever lived feels exactly like I do all the time. They wouldn't know, and neither would I.

Can you talk about aspects of your existence that are particular to being male? Start there.

I can talk about the parts of my existence and my experiences that are part of being a woman. Many of the aspects of my identity have nothing at all to do with being a woman, but some of them do, and I can speak to those elements. I can also talk about my experiences being epileptic, and how those are observed to be different than what non-epileptic people experience. I can talk about my experience of being short and what it's like to be short. I can talk about and describe the aspects of my identity and experience that are related to a particular item.

I can't, however, describe what someone else "feels like" with respect to experiences I have never had, and based on characteristics that I lack. '

For example, I can empathize with the screwed up justice system that black people deal with. I can observe the difference in how they're treated, and I can imagine how I might feel in a similar situation. That's how empathy works. I can accept and understand their recounting of their lived experience. What I can't do, however, is "feel like a black person". That feeling is entirely a result of their lived experience... which I have not myself experienced.

No more can I tell you what a paraplegic feels like, and any claim that I 'feel like a paraplegic' is inane.

 

[JoeMorgue]

We managed to give equal rights (finally!) to gay people without having figured out the complete origin story of homosexuality, its causes and manifestations and nature and aspects and theories. I don't know why people insist they have to "understand" transexuality before they can just be nice to the people who trans. It's rather creepy because it implies that, given a theory that sounds good enough, people would be fine with treating anybody badly just as fast as they can justify it.

Because equal rights for homosexuality were (mostly) based on actions. Getting rid of anti-sodemy laws, legalizing gay marriage, getting through that stupid "Okay you can get marriage but you have to call it civil unions so my marriage is still special" stage, formalizing and codifying legal protection for homosexuals, etc.

It wasn't "You have literally categorize and think of gay people in certain terms regardless of how you treat them."

Again, right back at square one. I don't care if someone with a clam instead of a hotdog is in the bathroom stall next to me. But I don't don't care based on some completely internal "identity" that person has or doesn't have, I just don't care.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ask a trans person, maybe?

I've tried. I don't really know many transpeople to start with, but I have tried to understand. My niece can't really give me much of a response. Her comments were along the lines of "I've just never felt like a boy or a man" and "I just really envision myself as a woman" and "I just don't feel comfortable in this body, I feel like it's the wrong one".

I've tried googling it and doing research... but to be honest, my google fu is failing these days. I actually think google's algorithm has met it's limit. There's too much noise on the internet, and the things with the highest hits aren't necessarily the most relevant. So I keep ending up with pages of "the experience of transpeople"... which doesn't actually address "how do you describe feeling like a woman?".

I did have a very open and candid discussion with a transwoman several years ago, which I found enlightening and helpful. I learned a lot about the barriers and challenges, the mistreatment, and the prejudice against transpeople from her. She definitely helped me develop more empathy and respect.

Unfortunately, she also started from a very open position of having gender dysphoria, which she considered to be a mental health disorder in the first place. To her, transitioning to female was a treatment for the symptoms of that disorder, which couldn't realistically be treated in any other fashion. I can 100% get behind that.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Can you talk about aspects of your existence that are particular to being male?

We were talking about how something feels, not how one is treated by external persons.

Describe how it feels to have a pancreas. Can you do that? Isolate how you feel in general, all your other feelings from every other experience of existing, to figure out just the feeling you have from having a pancreas?

Of course not. Only people who have a pancreas blow up or get removed can answer that. You may feel X, Y, and Z every moment of your life but you have no way of knowing that the feeling of Z is entirely due to having a pancreas.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Oh, I don't care whether sex is a spectrum or not. I don't care what makes women women, why some people are X, or how many angels can dance on the head of a penis. I don't think any of that matters when the question is "how should we treat each other?" Kindly is the answer to that.

We managed to give equal rights (finally!) to gay people without having figured out the complete origin story of homosexuality, its causes and manifestations and nature and aspects and theories. I don't know why people insist they have to "understand" transexuality before they can just be nice to the people who trans. It's rather creepy because it implies that, given a theory that sounds good enough, people would be fine with treating anybody badly just as fast as they can justify it.

I can be nice to transpeople whether I understand it or not. I AM nice to transpeople, and all people really.

It gets a bit stickier when there is a conflict between objectives or opportunities. And it gets a bit stickier when I'm being asked to accept as fact something that is contradictory to everything I can observe... and when failure to accept it as fact leaves me open to being labeled as a bigot.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Because equal rights for homosexuality were (mostly) based on actions. Getting rid of anti-sodemy laws, legalizing gay marriage, getting through that stupid "Okay you can get marriage but you have to call it civil unions so my marriage is still special" stage, formalizing and codifying legal protection for homosexuals, etc.

It wasn't "You have literally categorize and think of gay people in certain terms regardless of how you treat them."

Again, right back at square one. I don't care if someone with a clam instead of a hotdog is in the bathroom stall next to me. But I don't don't care based on some completely internal "identity" that person has or doesn't have, I just don't care.

And that's fine with me, because I don't care what anybody thinks in their own head about any subject at all. It's how they act that matters.