Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Earthborn]

They can keep their insulting terminology out of common discourse then. Many people find it useful to refer to males as "he", but somehow that's not allowed because it might offend someone. But in other contexts it's allowed to use words that offend people? How does that work?

It is always a good idea to try to avoid offending anyone, and also to try to avoid being easily offended.

IMO People should try to infer whether a person intends to insult rather than focus on the specific words used. If someone refers to a transwoman as "he" because they didn't know she was a transwoman, or didn't know transwomen generally prefer to be referred to as "she" than that is at most a social faux pas. Someone who refers to a transwoman as "he" despite knowing it causes offense, that is clearly an insult and potentially harassment.

I've certainly heard terms as "ciswoman" and "cis" used in ways that were clearly meant to insult. I don't think the terms are inherently insulting; I see it more like attempts by racists to use politically correct words such as "African American" in intentionally sarcastic ways.

Of course some words have such a overwhelmingly negative connotation that they are better avoided entirely because there are practically no situations in which they can be used inoffensively. If you think some words fall into this category, ask the mods to add them to the autocensor and report the people who use them.

 

[Rolfe]

I just saw this blog post on the ideological capture of the journal Nature.

There's a lot of ideoogical, policy and agenda capture here. It has to be permissible to question and oppose this without being told "but the law says that" or "but the WHO says that". It boils down to no more than saying "my side has won and I'm not going to discuss it further."

 

[Rolfe]

It is always a good idea to try to avoid offending anyone, and also to try to avoid being easily offended.

IMO People should try to infer whether a person intends to insult rather than focus on the specific words used. If someone refers to a transwoman as "he" because they didn't know she was a transwoman, or didn't know transwomen generally prefer to be referred to as "she" than that is at most a social faux pas. Someone who refers to a transwoman as "he" despite knowing it causes offense, that is clearly an insult and potentially harassment.

I've certainly heard terms as "ciswoman" and "cis" used in ways that were clearly meant to insult. I don't think the terms are inherently insulting; I see it more like attempts by racists to use politically correct words such as "African American" in intentionally sarcastic ways.

Of course some words have such a overwhelmingly negative connotation that they are better avoided entirely because there are practically no situations in which they can be used inoffensively. If you think some words fall into this category, ask the mods to add them to the autocensor and report the people who use them.

If someone offends by mistake and is then informed that what they have said is offensive, but continues to speak in exactly the same way insisting that the words they use are merely utilitarian and the offended person should just shut up about it, that's pretty rude I think. It's happened time and time again in this thread.

There seems to be a subtext here of "I don't think the people I agree with should have to hear something that offends them, and I don't think the people I disagree with should be so easily offended."

 

[d4m10n]

That'a a completely pointless and useless diagram, not to mention contrived.

Well obviously it's contrived. It's also mislabeled, since it should be about attributes rather than individuals. The first label should say "attributes of trans women" and the second "attributes of cis women" and then the sine qua non would be found somewhere in the overlap, assuming that it doesn't also intersect with attributes of men. Apologies for any confusion.

What do women have in common with transwomen that they don't have in common with the human race as a whole?

That's precisely what I'm asking, yes.

Nothing that doesn't depend on regressive gender stereotypes.

This is the orthodox answer according to second wave feminism, to be sure, but I'm trying to get the intersectionalist perspective from someone who ought to know.

 

[Sherkeu]

I do find it strange to say 'cis-woman'
I dont refer to any other part of my human description this way.

No one has to say they are 'bipedal', or 'sighted', or '10-fingered'- even though there are humans that are not born with that criteria. Those persons with some rarer conditions do not get to redefine the description of the species as a whole. They are not 'lesser'...just anomalous to the norm.
We don't say 'melanated tigers' because some are born albino. We call them 'tigers' and the others 'white tigers'.
It is the ones with the rarer condition that get the extra description.

Language will get very tedious very fast if we go in that direction!

 

[Earthborn]

Consider the diagram below.

Not sure where you got the diagram from and what it is supposed to depict. Is the overlapping area non-binary people (supposedly being both trans and cis) or is the diagram supposed to depict the characteristics of trans and cis women and you are asking what is in the overlapping area (in which case the circles are incorrectly labelled).

Without getting recursive, what could that be?

Learn to embrace recursion. It is a superpower.

 

[d4m10n]

Is the overlapping area non-binary people (supposedly being both trans and cis) or is the diagram supposed to depict the characteristics of trans and cis women and you are asking what is in the overlapping area (in which case the circles are incorrectly labelled).

The latter, not the former. See #2184.

 

[zooterkin]

What is the sine qua non of womanhood which every trans woman and every cis woman have in common, though?

Consider the diagram below. Sometimes cis women and trans women have aspects of their bodies or minds in common (e.g. prefrontal lobes) sometimes they do not (e.g. ova). But there has to be something they all have in common which men lack, such that we could draw a larger circle around the entire thing. Without getting recursive, what could that be?
[qimg]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200905/fe96f16fa00dadb01230bdd05a7175f5.jpg[/qimg]

That's not how Venn diagrams work (though similar diagrams abound on Facebook). As labelled, it implies that there are some people who are both cis women and trans women, with the rest being one or the other, which is clearly nonsense.

 

[d4m10n]

That's not how Venn diagrams work. As labelled, it implies that there are some people who are both cis women and trans women, with the rest being one or the other, which is clearly nonsense.

Please see #2184.

 

[Cavemonster]

I do find it strange to say 'cis-woman'
I dont refer to any other part of my human description this way.

No one has to say they are 'bipedal', or 'sighted', or '10-fingered'
!

Not until the conversation you're having makes it useful to make those distinctions. and it's absolutely the same with "cis".

If you are talking about the experience of blind people, and making comparisons to the rest of the population, you'll find that people DO use "sighted" because the term is very useful to make that distinction.

No one is asking you to use "cis" in contexts where conveying that information is not a meaningful part of the sentence. No one is asking to replace ALL use of the word women with "trans women" or "cis women" the modifiers are ONLY for when you need to make the distinction. When you don't we can call them all women.

 

[Earthborn]

No one has to say they are 'bipedal', or 'sighted', or '10-fingered'- even though there are humans that are not born with that criteria. Those persons with some rarer conditions do not get to redefine the description of the species as a whole.

People without those rare conditions who hang out with a lot of people do, or who find themselves in situations where they need to clarify they don't have those rare conditions, do sometimes need to say such things.

If you don't find yourself in a situation where a term is useful or relevant, don't use it. It doesn't mean no one ever has a use for the term.

 

[Rolfe]

Well obviously it's contrived. It's also mislabeled, since it should be about attributes rather than individuals. The first label should say "attributes of trans women" and the second "attributes of cis women" and then the sine qua non would be found somewhere in the overlap, assuming that it doesn't also intersect with attributes of men. Apologies for any confusion.

That's precisely what I'm asking, yes.

This is the orthodox answer according to second wave feminism, to be sure, but I'm trying to get the intersectionalist perspective from someone who ought to know.

That you had to use "frontal lobe" was quite telling. You can't tell whether a brain is male or female from observing its frontal lobe and I will guarantee you that 99.99999999% of the population has no idea what size anyone's frontal lobe is, least of all their own. (It's very easy to tell the sex of any brain. Brain cells have nuclei and nuclei have chromosomes. Look at these.)

I was going to ask the poster who originally brought this up what attributes are shared by women and transwomen that are not also shared by men and I lazily assumed it would be simple enough to find something, but then anything I thought of was a gender stereotype.

So no, I don't see anything that women and transwomen fundamentally have in common that they don't have in common with the rest of the human race. Ocassionally wearing makeup or dresses doesn't exactly cut it. Some women never do these things, some men occasionally do.

I can't immediately think of a realistic context where one might want to lump women and transwomen together other than the contexts women are fighting against, that is access to single-sex provisions for women.

 

[Rolfe]

People without those rare conditions who hang out with a lot of people do, or who find themselves in situations where they need to clarify they don't have those rare conditions, do sometimes need to say such things.

If you don't find yourself in a situation where a term is useful or relevant, don't use it. It doesn't mean no one ever has a use for the term.

On the other hand, wilful use of the term when conversing with people you know find it offensive is pure bad manners.

 

[Sherkeu]

Not until the conversation you're having makes it useful to make those distinctions. and it's absolutely the same with "cis".

If you are talking about the experience of blind people, and making comparisons to the rest of the population, you'll find that people DO use "sighted" because the term is very useful to make that distinction.

No one is asking you to use "cis" in contexts where conveying that information is not a meaningful part of the sentence. No one is asking to replace ALL use of the word women with "trans women" or "cis women" the modifiers are ONLY for when you need to make the distinction. When you don't we can call them all women.

Agree.
I did not make my point very well. Of course you can make distinctions in certain circumstances, but in regular conversation to describe myself to the world at large, I do not need words to this effect.

It only works in certain circles. Cis-woman only works in circles where many are not 'cis'. I would not use it to describe myself in a general way. The word "woman" is enough to use without a qualifier.

Perhaps I am wrong that 'cis' is expected to become a normal part of descriptions?

 

[Earthborn]

The latter, not the former. See #2184.

Don't drink and diagram...

To answer your question what all transwomen and ciswomen have in common that they don't have in common with all other humans... It is something that isn't well understood what exactly it is and where it comes from, but we have a name for it: "gender identity".

 

[d4m10n]

I was going to ask the poster who originally brought this up what attributes are shared by women and transwomen that are not also shared by men and I lazily assumed it would be simple enough to find something, but then anything I thought of was a gender stereotype.

Same here, but I'm not commited to the view that there is some essence of womanhood which (trans) men lack and (trans) women have.

It is something that isn't well understood what exactly it is and where it comes from, but we have a name for it: "gender identity".

Fair enough, but I'd be quite surprised if everyone claims to actually have this as a mental property, even after some degree of introspection.

 

[Earthborn]

Perhaps I am wrong that 'cis' is expected to become a normal part of descriptions?

I can imagine it becoming a normal part of dating profiles... but other than that...

 

[Rolfe]

Same here, but I'm not commited to the view that there is some essence of womanhood which (trans) men lack and (trans) women have.

Fair enough, but I'd be quite surprised if everyone claims to actually have this as a mental property, even after some degree of introspection.

This thing that is labelled gender identity seems itself to resolve to nothing more than regressive gender stereotypes.

 

[Cavemonster]

Perhaps I am wrong that 'cis' is expected to become a normal part of descriptions?

I've never been asked or told to use the term "cis" except in contexts where I was conveying the distinction between cus and trans people. And I travel in pretty woke circles sometimes.

What gave you the impression that you were expected to use it outside of contexts where the distinction us being made?

 

[Sherkeu]

I've never been asked or told to use the term "cis" except in contexts where I was conveying the distinction between cus and trans people. And I travel in pretty woke circles sometimes.

What gave you the impression that you were expected to use it outside of contexts where the distinction us being made?

Just in reading the trans literature/articles/forums etc... As with many 'woke' things, I do not see it in my real life either. But these things start somewhere, right?