Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[lionking]

The catch is that you are supposed to fully embrace the mantra, "Trans women are women". If you don't buy into it 100%, if you have a nuanced position that, for example, is happy to treat people as they want to be treated, but doesn't accept biological impossibilities, then you are accused of being a TERF, and any attempt to explain your position is dismissed.

Exactly. I wear the TERF label with pride.....

 

[ponderingturtle]

That's exactly my point, but in some "studies" it was counted, amongst other things, and it of course inflated the numbers, which is where some claims of 1-in-3 came from.

And of course people who think that all unwanted and not consented to sex is rape, even when they failed to actively and loudly say no. Is it still rape if they never wanted it but were too scared/shocked to actually say no? Many will say of course not.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I would defer to people more knowledgeable, such as those running these shelters, as to whether it is even necessary to have such "official gender" IDs. This is a long thread, so perhaps I've missed it, but I haven't seen anything that would indicate that this is something shelters are asking for. I just see the collected panic-mongering anecdotes.

It's not. As things I've posted earlier in the thread demonstrate, and people keep conveniently ignoring: women's shelters - at least in the UK - have been using self-identification for years. The whole question of "would it be a problem if" misses out on the fact that it's not a hypothetical. It's what actually already happens.

It doesn't seem to be a significant problem.

 

[Ziggurat]

It's not. As things I've posted earlier in the thread demonstrate, and people keep conveniently ignoring: women's shelters - at least in the UK - have been using self-identification for years. The whole question of "would it be a problem if" misses out on the fact that it's not a hypothetical. It's what actually already happens.

It doesn't seem to be a significant problem.

Rolfe has argued that it is already a significant problem. You may disagree with her, but she certainly didn't ignore it.

 

[Rolfe]

There is an ongoing situation in a Canadian city where the single DV shelter which catered exclusively for women was defunded at the instigation of a transwoman politician (Morgane Oger) because of its lack of inclusivity. The shelter attempted to keep going funded solely by public subscription but it has been subjected to repeated attacks including having a dead rat nailed to its door.

Even though there are other shelters which accept transwomen, and there has been no suggestion of a shortage of capacity for transwomen in need of such a service, apparently the mere existence of one single facility which is female-only is regarded as such an outrage by the trans activists that it must be shut down at all costs.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

There is an ongoing situation in a Canadian city where the single DV shelter which catered exclusively for women was defunded at the instigation of a transwoman politician (Morgane Oger) because of its lack of inclusivity. The shelter attempted to keep going funded solely by public subscription but it has been subjected to repeated attacks including having a dead rat nailed to its door.

Even though there are other shelters which accept transwomen, and there has been no suggestion of a shortage of capacity for transwomen in need of such a service, apparently the mere existence of one single facility which is female-only is regarded as such an outrage by the trans activists that it must be shut down at all costs.

Gender expression is a protected characteristic in Canada. Why would the state fund a program that engages in unlawful discrimination?

Interesting choice to close the shelter rather than to abandon a discriminatory policy. I suppose ******** on trans people was more important than helping women.

 

[Ziggurat]

Gender expression is a protected characteristic in Canada. Why would the state fund a program that engages in unlawful discrimination?

Even supposing we accept that as proper, we're still left with attacks against the shelter. Do you agree that this is a problem?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Even supposing we accept that as proper, we're still left with attacks against the shelter. Do you agree that this is a problem?

Edit: I misread your response.

Mild vandalism, like nailing a rat to the door, is not good behavior. Whoever did that is a nasty piece of work, but the bad actions of some unknown vandal doesn't really speak to the wider issue.

I am not at all surprised that a shelter that espouses TERF ideology was unable to keep their doors open. It's quite the niche position that doesn't have broad appeal. I also think it's very telling that the shelter preferred closing and reducing the amount of services available to very desperate women rather than end a bigoted discrimination policy.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Rolfe has argued that it is already a significant problem. You may disagree with her, but she certainly didn't ignore it.

I will take the words of the people who run the shelters over someone so clearly agenda-driven.

 

[Ziggurat]

I am not at all surprised that a shelter that espouses TERF ideology was unable to keep their doors open. It's quite the niche position that doesn't have broad appeal.

Given that terms like TERF seem custom-designed to coerce people to falsify their preferences publicly, I'm not exactly convinced the position doesn't have broad appeal. How do you know you aren't just living in a bubble?

I also think it's very telling that the shelter preferred closing and reducing the amount of services available to very desperate women rather than end a bigoted discrimination policy.

Why didn't they just bend the knee?

Gee, I wonder.

 

[Ziggurat]

I will take the words of the people who run the shelters over someone so clearly agenda-driven.

What, you have polling data on them? Please, share with the class.

 

[Rolfe]

Gender expression is a protected characteristic in Canada. Why would the state fund a program that engages in unlawful discrimination?

Interesting choice to close the shelter rather than to abandon a discriminatory policy. I suppose ******** on trans people was more important than helping women.

I don't believe the shelter is closed. It's still trying to help women who need a space free from male bodies, but the trans lobby can't allow women to have that space.

There is sufficient provision for transwomen in other shelters. Why do you think the trans activists want to deny women a space where they can be free from the presence of male bodies?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I don't believe the shelter is closed. It's still trying to help women who need a space free from male bodies, but the trans lobby can't allow women to have that space.

There is sufficient provision for transwomen in other shelters. Why do you think the trans activists want to deny women a space where they can be free from the presence of male bodies?

I'm curious, would you support money going towards a shelter that explicitly excluded Indonesian women, even if Indonesians were a small minority and had plenty of other non-discriminatory options? Or would your recognize this as an improper funding of a racist institution?

Public money should not go towards organizations that aren't in compliance with Canadian civil rights law. Trans exclusion is an unlawful discrimination by the plain reading of the Canadian law.

 

[Ziggurat]

I'm curious, would you support money going towards a shelter that explicitly excluded Indonesian women, even if Indonesians were a small minority and had plenty of other non-discriminatory options? Or would your recognize this as an improper funding of a racist institution?

Public money should not go towards organizations that aren't in compliance with Canadian civil rights law. Trans exclusion is an unlawful discrimination by the plain reading of the Canadian law.

I like your attempt at a slight of hand here. Yes, public money should not go to organizations that aren't in compliance with Canadian law. Doing so would be malum in prohibitum. But is it malum in se? That would depend upon the law, wouldn't it?

Not all discrimination is equivalent. For example, blind people are not allowed to drive cars. That's discrimination, but it's justifiable.

You picked an example where there's almost universal agreement that the discrimination is wrong. You want it taken as a given that the discrimination under consideration in this case is similarly wrong. But you have done nothing to establish that it is, and whether it is or not is precisely the debate going on in this thread. But you don't want to actually have that debate, you want to simply pretend you already won it.

That's not going to work.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

What, you have polling data on them? Please, share with the class.

The link was provided back when Rowling was the topic of conversation. It was ignored. If you genuinely want to give it a read, then go back and find it. I'm not jumping through hoops for anybody in this thread.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I like your attempt at a slight of hand here. Yes, public money should not go to organizations that aren't in compliance with Canadian law. Doing so would be malum in prohibitum. But is it malum in se? That would depend upon the law, wouldn't it?

Not all discrimination is equivalent. For example, blind people are not allowed to drive cars. That's discrimination, but it's justifiable.

You picked an example where there's almost universal agreement that the discrimination is wrong. You want it taken as a given that the discrimination under consideration in this case is similarly wrong. But you have done nothing to establish that it is, and whether it is or not is precisely the debate going on in this thread. But you don't want to actually have that debate, you want to simply pretend you already won it.

That's not going to work.

Canada explicitly lists gender identity in their civil rights law as of 2017. I don't think the law allows for nearly as much wiggle room for honest debate as the law in other countries that don't explicitly list this. As far as Canadian law is concerned, transwomen are women.

Seems that, in Canada, the matter is largely settled. The trans exclusionists lost.

 

[Belz...]

I am not at all surprised that a shelter that espouses TERF ideology (snip)

We've been through this, ST. That's not what TERF means.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

We've been through this, ST. That's not what TERF means.

https://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/globalresistance/Second%20Wave%20Feminism

Probably could categorize the ideology of the group as radical feminists, which I don't consider a bad thing. The RF part of TERF isn't the objectionable part.

They are undoubtedly trans exclusionary. They wrote a letter in opposition to including "gender identity" in Canadian human rights law. You've quibbled with me using this term, but it would seem that the term TERF would be appropriate here.

Their website lists reading materials for second wave feminism, which is considered the vanguard of radical feminism according to wikipedia.

Such ideas are probably not really radical anymore, things have progressed since the 60's, but sometimes names stick even when no longer appropriate. "Modernism" is decades old. Names sometimes show their age in strange ways, and what was radical in the 60's is probably more mainstream today.

This group is like a poster child for the TERF ideology. They are transphobes who's bigotry towards trans people is rooted in a specific interpretation of feminism.

 

[Meadmaker]

It's not. As things I've posted earlier in the thread demonstrate, and people keep conveniently ignoring: women's shelters - at least in the UK - have been using self-identification for years. The whole question of "would it be a problem if" misses out on the fact that it's not a hypothetical. It's what actually already happens.

It doesn't seem to be a significant problem.

I think this is a misrepresentation of the actual facts.

I am fairly confident that, back in the day, and that day was no more than 10 years ago, maybe 15, many shelters in the UK would turn away a male bodied individual. Of course, in order to do so, they would have to know that the person was male bodied, so it was kind of a "Don't ask. Don't tell." situation.

More recently, I'm sure that shelter staffs were more accepting and more likely to accept a transwoman, but under the implicit or explicit instruction to maintain some sort of plausible attempt at passing.

And most people would be just fine leaving it to the discretion of the staff that way. I don't live in the UK, but going by what has been said in these threads the shelters are expected to accept anyone self declaring as a woman, regardless of whether they obviously are not, and regardless of whether they are making the least amount of effort to pass. Based on anecdotes in this thread, it would even be the case that some people are rather blatantly proud of being male bodied and want people around them to know about it. That behavior is consistent with some that I have seen in trans-friendly situations. The trans person does not want to actually pass as female. They go out of their way to make sure that people know that they are males who present as females.

And....whatever. The trans-friendly place where I encountered this behavior was a game convention. I would prefer that the transwoman not make it so obvious what was under her skirt, but as long as she doesn't actually show it off, and she rolls the dice when it's her turn, fine. Enjoy. However, in a women's shelter, that kind of behavior wouldn't be cool, and I think the staff should have discretion to eject those people.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

[...[I think the staff should have discretion to eject those people.

They do. They have the right to eject anybody who is harassing or abusing other people in the shelter. They also have the right - specifically enshrined in law - to eject or refuse to admit someone simply because they are transgender, if they feel or are told that it would or is causing discomfort to the other residents.

This, again, has already been discussed and I have substantiated it with citations. It just seems that we've reached the point of the fringe reset.

The whole argument that self-identification would be a problem in women's shelters is a red herring, because that's how they already operate. The argument that the people running the shelters should be allowed to eject trans people if they cause a problem is a red herring, because they already can.

Speaking only for the UK. I don't know about the US. But I see no immediate reason to suppose that similar policies and laws in the US would have drastically different results.