Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Ziggurat]

I can't stop giggling at this mis-type...

That's going to end up haunting me for years, isn't it?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Instead of getting bogged down trying to force your usage, why not abandon the term and make progress by using other more useful terms instead?

The term "TERF" adds a veneer of legitimacy that pretends to mask the inherent insult of calling people bigots for having reasonable differences of opinion.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I suspect the objection to the use of the term is not due to misunderstanding of definitions, but rather an attempt to launder ideological foundations.

And I suspect that your insistence on it is not do to an accurate assessment, but rather an attempt to well-poison instead of having to engage actual discussion.

 

[Emily's Cat]

That's going to end up haunting me for years, isn't it?

Not from me. I'll forget about it by monday. But it made my morning brighter!

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I'm curious, since the first time asked didn't get any traction, would substitution of "Gender critical feminists" for TERF resolve this problem for people objecting to the use of the term?

Or does the idea of creating any category for feminists that are trans exclusionary cause the objection? It seems plain to me that such an ideology exists, and having a shorthand for such ideas is pretty reasonable.

 

[Distracted1]

No. Many people just don’t like being (in their opinion) misidentified. The offense taken doesn’t have to have anything to do with being misidentified as something ‘worse’ or ‘better’. Though many people also don’t like being misidentified as a member of a group they consider lesser. It’s like the difference between a Chinese person being pissed that they’ve been called Japanese during one of their conflicts, versus any East Asian being annoyed that they’ve been misidentified as coming from one of the countries that they like just fine but just isn’t actually theirs.

Similarly if it’s an honest mistake it’s just annoying; if someone’s doing it intentionally and repeatedly it starts to feel very disrespectful.

Being mislabeled is only insulting if one takes offense at it. the only reason to take offense at it is if one feels superior to the (wrong) label being applied.

If someone mislabels me a "Canadian" the only way that is an insult is if they believe that I believe Canadians to be inferior to myself.
Otherwise it is just mislabeling.

If someone repeatedly refers to me as Canadian after I have corrected them, they are being disrespectful, and goading, but it still does not make the label "Canadian" an insult
unless they know that I believe Canadians to be inferior to myself (which I do not)

 

[Meadmaker]

I suspect the objection to the use of the term is not due to misunderstanding of definitions, but rather an attempt to launder ideological foundations.

There must be some thought behind your statement that I'm missing. The idea that you can't really be a woman if you happen to have functional male sex organs is not something that came from feminism, no matter how many or which adjectives you throw in.


The "ideological foundations" of the definition of man and woman were laid a long time before anyone ever used the term "feminism". I might add that they were laid many times by many different cultures. Those foundations don't really need to be laundered or disguised.

The actual objection to the use of the term is that it seems to not apply, but it seems like it's being used as a convenient way to ignore the actual ideological foundations of other people's position. My ideological foundation says that the physical reality of people's bodies actually matters. That isn't a feminist idea.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm curious, since the first time asked didn't get any traction, would substitution of "Gender critical feminists" for TERF resolve this problem for people objecting to the use of the term?

Or does the idea of creating any category for feminists that are trans exclusionary cause the objection? It seems plain to me that such an ideology exists, and having a shorthand for such ideas is pretty reasonable.

It would be helpful if perhaps you told me what was included in the ideology that you keep referring to. What do you mean by "gender critical"?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It would be helpful if perhaps you told me what was included in the ideology that you keep referring to. What do you mean by "gender critical"?

Those referred to with the word TERF typically reject the term or consider it a slur; some identify themselves as gender critical.[4]

It was used to describe a minority of feminists[10] who espouse sentiments that other feminists consider transphobic,[2][3][11][12] including the rejection of the view, predominant in feminist organizations, that trans women are women, opposition to transgender rights, and the exclusion of trans women in women's spaces and organizations.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF#Coinage_and_usage

 

[Emily's Cat]

Being mislabeled is only insulting if one takes offense at it. the only reason to take offense at it is if one feels superior to the (wrong) label being applied.

I'm not entirely sure that is as universally true as you're presenting it as. I think that is very likely one reason for taking offense, but I doubt it's the only reason for taking offense.

 

[Distracted1]

I'm not entirely sure that is as universally true as you're presenting it as. I think that is very likely one reason for taking offense, but I doubt it's the only reason for taking offense.

One is free to take offense at whatever one wishes to.
That doesn't make the thing one took offense to an insult.

 

[Emily's Cat]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF#Coinage_and_usage

Alright. Now, how does that apply to me? You've insinuated several times now that I am a TERF. Please justify how it applies to my views.

 

[sphenisc]

The humpty dumpty theory of language is that the speaker gets to define words however they want to.

And in case you're not getting the reference, it's from Alice in Wonderland.

Humpty identifies as a Through the Looking Glass character. Please try not to mislabel him again.

 

[Emily's Cat]

One is free to take offense at whatever one wishes to.
That doesn't make the thing one took offense to an insult.

Sure. But it also doesn't make it NOT an insult. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

 

[Rolfe]

Certain posters like to throw in the comment, "It's very telling how everybody forgets about transmen." That's what's happening now.

The position being referred to as gender critical isn't trans exclusionary at all. It's male exclusionary. It seeks to exclude males from female single-sex spaces, as I might remind posters has been the default position for a very long time. All males. Not because some of them are trans, but because all of them are male.

It does not exclude females who identify as trans. It is therefore not trans-exclusionary.

 

[Ziggurat]

Humpty identifies as a Through the Looking Glass character. Please try not to mislabel him again.

Damn it, I just keep screwing up.

 

[Distracted1]

Sure. But it also doesn't make it NOT an insult. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

Yes. If the mislabeler knows that the offended considers what they are being labeled as as something less than what they consider themself.

Otherwise its just a wrong label.

Calling me a janitor is only an insult if the person doing the calling thinks I look down upon janitors- or they do themselves.

 

[Meadmaker]

Being mislabeled is only insulting if one takes offense at it. the only reason to take offense at it is if one feels superior to the (wrong) label being applied.

If someone mislabels me a "Canadian" the only way that is an insult is if they believe that I believe Canadians to be inferior to myself.
Otherwise it is just mislabeling.

If someone repeatedly refers to me as Canadian after I have corrected them, they are being disrespectful, and goading, but it still does not make the label "Canadian" an insult
unless they know that I believe Canadians to be inferior to myself (which I do not)

I think that's the point. If someone prefers that I call him "he" when I know he would prefer "she", then I'm being disrespectful.


And, sometimes I am. If that Yaniv guy shows up, I'm calling him he, because I have no respect for him. That bearded GLT bloke with no intention to change to look more female? If he were actually participating in this conversation, I might switch to she. It would depend on whether I decided I respected......her.

Some would say that calling any transwoman "he" is disrespectful to all transwomen, even the ones I'm willing to call "she". In some sense they are right. I can live with that.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes. If the mislabeler knows that the offended considers what they are being labeled as as something less than what they consider themself.

Otherwise its just a wrong label.

Calling me a janitor is only an insult if the person doing the calling thinks I look down upon janitors- or they do themselves.

If, for example, someone were to call me a "spic", I would be offended. Not because I think I'm better than hispanics, but because the term itself is an intentionally derogatory slur.

 

[theprestige]

I'm curious, since the first time asked didn't get any traction, would substitution of "Gender critical feminists" for TERF resolve this problem for people objecting to the use of the term?

Or does the idea of creating any category for feminists that are trans exclusionary cause the objection? It seems plain to me that such an ideology exists, and having a shorthand for such ideas is pretty reasonable.

Only if everyone agrees on the shorthand. You substituting one shorthand for another doesn't resolve the problem at all, for me. I'd much rather you dispense with the shorthand, and use plain terms to convey your plain meaning.