Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[TragicMonkey]

What about women so ugly they look like men? Should we address them as male?

 

[Ziggurat]

Can we assume this is some sort of elaborate troll?

Can't tell from that alone. Certainly a possibility. Godfrey Elfwick comes to mind, along with Jarvis Dupont. I think the former got banned, the latter is still active on Twitter. A number of "her" (and Titania McGrath's) posts are relevant to this thread.

 

[d4m10n]

If that person is a woman, then the word "woman" has no meaning.

Aye, there's the rub. If someone whom we call a woman has never had the appearance of a woman or the social experience of a woman or the distinct biological features of a woman, then we are forced to posit some (borderline metaphysical) subjective sense of self which all cis women and trans women have in common—but which all men lack—in order to have some distinct quality which makes one a woman.

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[The Atheist]

Harnam Kaur, anyone?

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/eng...ss-world-records-as-youngest-woman-with-beard

 

[Emily's Cat]

It's cases like this one that make me wonder about "for the sake of courtesy".


When a person looks like that, and has no intention to transition, but insists on being called a woman, is it courteous to indulge that? Is it courteous of him....or...her...or......something......to expect it.

If that person is a woman, then the word "woman" has no meaning.

As bizarre as it is, I end up feeling like part of my identity, as a woman, is being redefined so that I'm no longer part of it. At least I'm straight and have been married for a long time. I honestly don't know how young lesbians deal with this right now.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Harnam Kaur, anyone?

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/eng...ss-world-records-as-youngest-woman-with-beard

Not sure what you're angling for here? Kaur has a beard, but all of her other features are pretty easily identifiable as female. Hirsutism has always been a thing, even if rare.

 

[theprestige]

It's cases like this one that make me wonder about "for the sake of courtesy".


When a person looks like that, and has no intention to transition, but insists on being called a woman, is it courteous to indulge that? Is it courteous of him....or...her...or......something......to expect it.

If that person is a woman, then the word "woman" has no meaning.

Welcome to the world of attack helicopter identification.

 

[Meadmaker]

What about women so ugly they look like men? Should we address them as male?

No.

But you knew that.

 

[TragicMonkey]

No.

But you knew that.

Why not? The argument seems to be "if someone looks like a man treat them like a man". How would you carve out an exception for mannish-looking people? To do so you'd have to allow factors outside appearance to count, wouldn't you?

 

[theprestige]

And isn't "treat them like a man" all kinds of problematic anyway? Every time a transsexual asks to be treated like a man or woman, they're asking us to buy into and perpetuate oppressive gender stereotypes.

If we get rid of gender stereotypes, what will we do to treat gender dysphoria? Or will it just go away? Pretty soon there's going to be a science fiction story where little Jony takes off his educational VR goggles and says, "mommy, I think I'm really a girl." And mommy replies, "hush, dear, there's no such thing as boys and girls anymore."

 

[d4m10n]

Why not? The argument seems to be "if someone looks like a man treat them like a man". How would you carve out an exception for mannish-looking people?

Surely you must mean mannish-looking women?

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[Emily's Cat]

I think I've said this before, but it's probably worth saying again.

1) Sex is what your body is.
2) Gender is what other people perceive your sex to be
3) Gender identity is what you want other people to perceive your sex to be

None of these is chiseled in stone and immutable, and none of them are based on a single element.

Let's take a moment and talk about item 2 above: the perception of another person's sex.

Humans are very good pattern finders. Often we're too good and find patterns where none exist. But even with those false positives, we're surprisingly good at it. When it comes to sex (what a person's body is) we rarely get to see their genitalia, and outside of a few laboratories, none of us are looking at a person's chromosomes.

But sex has a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of non-genital indicators that almost everyone is very, very good at picking up on. The perception of sex includes some social constructs, such as:
- Style of dress
- Hair styles
- Make-up
- Jewelry

But those aren't the only elements that influence the perception of sex. Many of them are prompted by puberty such as:
- Ratio of shoulder breadth to hip width
- Facial hair
- Breasts
- Height
- Distribution of fat over the body

And some of them exist regardless of puberty:
- Shape and prominence of the brow ridge
- Size of feet and hands (with respect to age)
- Shape of chin and jaw line
- Tilt and shape of pelvic bone
- Attachment points for muscles and ligaments, particularly around the hip and shoulder regions

That's a lot of indicators. Each of them has a range of potential values, and most of them have different means and deviations for male versus female, even when there is overlap. Any given person is highly unlikely to fall at the mean of every one of those elements. But almost everyone is highly likely to fall within a standard deviation of the mean on all of them. It's very common for any given person to have one of those characteristics that visually falls within a couple of standard deviations of the mean for the opposite gender. It's very, very uncommon for any person to have all of those characteristics visually fall within a couple of standard deviations of the opposite gender's mean.

So any given male person might have a very soft jaw line and a chin that isn't very prominent. But that same male is highly unlikely to also be shorter, with hands that are close in size to a female, and small feet, and no notable adam's apple, and a female gait, and carry more of their fat deposits on their hips and thighs than on their stomach and chest, and have narrow shoulders with wide hips, and have breasts, and have no facial hair.

Most people are going to have somewhere around 90% or more of their non-social visual features fall into the same category as their sex. Some people might have more like 80% of them fall into the same category as their sex. And incredibly few people, almost negligibly few people, fall anywhere close to a 50%/50% split or are truly visually androgynous.

This is a long way of getting around to saying:
An ugly woman still looks mostly like a woman - beauty has only a small amount to do with the perception of sex.
Kaur is still visually a woman, even with a beard - her face shape, brow ridge, body shape - everything about her looks like a female.

If you take an average looking male, even a relatively small statured male, give them a clean shave, toss on some lipstick and eye shadow, and put them in a dress and heels... most people will have no problem at all identifying that person as highly likely to be a male.

 

[The Atheist]

Not sure what you're angling for here?

That we need to be more like Samoa and have a third gender.

Good piece here from a fa'afafine soccer player: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/aug/29/jaiyah-saelua-transgender-footballer-interview

Kaur has a beard, but all of her other features are pretty easily identifiable as female.

Feminine/masculine features aren't necessarily a guide, as Andre Pejic showed long before his transition.

 

[Meadmaker]

Why not? The argument seems to be "if someone looks like a man treat them like a man". How would you carve out an exception for mannish-looking people? To do so you'd have to allow factors outside appearance to count, wouldn't you?

You know the answer to that.


Other people have already expressed what the argument actually is. d4m10n said it pretty well. Emily's cat addressed a different facet when she said, "As bizarre as it is, I end up feeling like part of my identity, as a woman, is being redefined so that I'm no longer part of it." So, there's no need to talk about what "seems" to be the argument. You can just go with what the argument is.

That person has no traits other than self identification that would identify him as a woman. There is no definition of "woman" that you could possibly give that puts him inside of it. Or her. Or whatever. it doesn't mean anything anyway.

 

[TragicMonkey]

You know the answer to that.

Unless you're applying for the MDC in mind-reading you need to stop claiming you know what I'm thinking.

Other people have already expressed what the argument actually is. d4m10n said it pretty well. Emily's cat addressed a different facet when she said, "As bizarre as it is, I end up feeling like part of my identity, as a woman, is being redefined so that I'm no longer part of it." So, there's no need to talk about what "seems" to be the argument. You can just go with what the argument is.

That person has no traits other than self identification that would identify him as a woman. There is no definition of "woman" that you could possibly give that puts him inside of it. Or her. Or whatever. it doesn't mean anything anyway.

The argument presented by the post I was referring to was "look at this obvious guy claiming to be a woman LOL, I can totally see that he's not!" Which is very much summed up entirely as "if a person looks like a man, they should be treated as a man regardless of anything else outside their appearance".

How then could that make an exception for women who look mannish?

Two people are present, X and Y. X looks like a man. Y looks like a man. We can only determine how to treat them based on their appearance. And somehow you're telling me everyone "knows" that X is a man and should be treated as such and Y is a woman and should be treated as such?

Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you do, if you rely on outside unspecified divine inspiration to determine someone's sex.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Surely you must mean mannish-looking women?

How would you distinguish between a man who looks like a man and a woman who looks like a man, without any other information apart from appearance?

 

[Emily's Cat]

That we need to be more like Samoa and have a third gender.

Good piece here from a fa'afafine soccer player: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/aug/29/jaiyah-saelua-transgender-footballer-interview



Feminine/masculine features aren't necessarily a guide, as Andre Pejic showed long before his transition.

In 99.9999% of cases, features are a pretty good guide.

ETA: It gets more challenging when the person is severely anorexic or severely obese.

 

[d4m10n]

How would you distinguish between a man who looks like a man and a woman who looks like a man, without any other information apart from appearance?

I'm going to need you to define the key terms here.

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[Emily's Cat]

How would you distinguish between a man who looks like a man and a woman who looks like a man, without any other information apart from appearance?

Public pantsing!

 

[TragicMonkey]

I'm going to need you to define the key terms here.

You are the one claiming to be able to accurately judge between two categories, by appearance alone. I think the burden of defining those categories falls upon you. It's your claim that they exist, and you can distinguish between them.