Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Emily's Cat]

According to the dictionary

Women - an adult female human being

Female - belonging or relating to women, or the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs:

I'm fine with that definition. But that is a definition that has been explicitly rejected by TRAs, and substituted with some nebulous concept that cannot be communicated.

Apparently womanhood is the Tao.

 

[theprestige]

Boudicca has stated that she does not think any medical diagnosis of any sort, nor any action to present as the identified gender, should be required. The "proof of dedication" she has referenced is the person applying to change their sex on their drivers license (or similar legal document)... with no other requirements at all.

Not only that, but you're not even allowed to ask for that proof before granting access to gendered spaces, as that would out the person as transgender.

 

[theprestige]

I'm fine with that definition. But that is a definition that has been explicitly rejected by TRAs, and substituted with some nebulous concept that cannot be communicated.

Apparently womanhood is the Tao.

"If you meet the womanhood on the road, kill the womanhood."

 

[Emily's Cat]

And the problem with that was that it was wrong.

You are right that I think trans women are not women. If I'm wrong about that, then the problem is the fact that I'm wrong, not some analogy to homosexuality.

You also haven't addressed the point that homosexuality has nothing to do with what one wishes to be attracted to. You tried to make an analogy between trans women wishing to be women and homosexual men wishing to be attracted to the opposite sex, only while it is true of the former, it's not necessarily true of the latter and certainly not a defining feature of homosexuality. That's the error that I, and others, have been pointing out.

Whether or not I'm wrong about other things (for instance the topic of discussion in this thread), doesn't impact on whether or not your analogy made sense.

I suspect that John's premise is that a transwoman is by definition a woman, and that this is an immutable and objective fact that can be directly observed as incontrovertibly true. It seems to be based on some nebulous belief that the DSM-V changing the name of the condition means that it's a real, material, measurable thing somehow.

It's a very nice, supportive, and caring perspective to have toward transwomen. Unfortunately, it's also a view that pretty much erases the entire concept of "woman" and sets female progress back quite a bit. So... I guess yay for the 0.5% of the population with this condition... and screw the 50% of the population that are affected by it?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I suggest not waiting too long. There are a lot of still unsolvable philosophical questions of the form "what exactly defines the thing we call X"

Still waiting on a definition of Life, Justice, Science, Religion, Politics... that is not tautological or just someone's personal philosophy that excludes a lot things that are generally considered part of those concepts.

Call me a Post-Modernist if you want but perhaps language is inherently imprecise and words often don't have exact definitions.

If that logic holds, then anyone who wants to identify as black can do so, because there's no meaningful concept of "blackness" that can be referred to. Thus, anything related to or commonly understood to refer to black people can be applied to all people. So scholarships for black kids are available to anyone who makes the claim of identifying as black.

 

[theprestige]

If that logic holds, then anyone who wants to identify as black can do so, because there's no meaningful concept of "blackness" that can be referred to. Thus, anything related to or commonly understood to refer to black people can be applied to all people. So scholarships for black kids are available to anyone who makes the claim of identifying as black.

Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug have entered the chat.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I can provide a non-circular definition. It's a little tortuous, and I don't think it really addresses the deeper problems, but I think this is what it basically comes down to for transwomen:

"A woman is a person whose brain possesses certain intrinsic biological elements which make that person more comfortable in a human body that developed without the influences of an SRY gene than a body that was influenced by the SRY gene."

Please don't accuse me of a strawman. That is literally my understanding of what being a woman means for transwomen, and anyone is welcome to alter that definition if they see fit.

I appreciate the genuine attempt here, it's nice to see a real try at it

That said... I think you need to put several "assumed to be" clauses in there.

A woman is a person whose brain is assumed to possess certain niological elements that are assumed to be intrinsic, and which are assumed to make that person more comfortable in a body without the influences of an SRY gene.

Occam's razor version: A woman is a person who has a mystical essence of womenhood as part of their mind, and such a mystical essence is entirely independent of their body.

 

[Emily's Cat]

One huge problem with this thread is that it lacks any transsexuals who can explain what "man" and "woman" mean to them.

Trying to parse this... Are you saying there are no transsexuals/transgender in the thread? Or are you saying that the transsexual/transgender in the thread can't (or won't) explain what it means?

 

[Emily's Cat]

All this semantic back-flipping to avoid talking about autogynaephilia.

It's such a shame that autogynaephilia, and indeed fetishism in general, is socially regarded as shameful. No man can help being an autogynaephile. No man has chosen it, and no man can simply decide not to be one. What is important is how he behaves. No man should be criticised or made to feel ashamed of being autogynaephilic, what he should be criticised for, and indeed should be ashamed of, is behaving badly towards other people as a result of this. If indeed he does behave badly, this is not a given.

But such is the societal disapproval of autogynaephilia that men who have the condition will dream up any fantasy, adopt any surreal explanation for their condition, deny realty itself, rather than acknowledge it. This has the unfortunate effect of also introducing excuses and justification for behaving badly towards other people. Maybe that's a feature rather than a bug from the point of view of the people doing it.

Oversharing warning...

When I was a late-teen, and into my early twenties, I would fantasize about having a penis and sticking it in things. I would occasionally do things like grab a dildo, stick it in my skivvies, and rub up against things while imagining what it might be like to be an aroused man. Very sexual, very private... and very imaginary. In no way, however, did the desire for this fantasy every make me think that I was *actually* a man in any way, shape, or form. I just got off on pretending to have a penis, it was kinky.

 

[Emily's Cat]

My understanding of the definition is that the only way to test it would be to transplant the consciousness into a body that had never had the SRY gene.

And even that would have problems. How much of the consciousness was influenced by the SRY body before transfer? How much of the SRY body's development is affected by the lack of a guiding consciousness prior to the transfer? I think testing this hypothesis falls entirely in the realm of trans-humanist science fiction.

"I believe I'm Napoleon. I would be happier if you treated me as if I am Napoleon."

"You'd probably be even happier if you no longer believed you were Napoleon."

"I'd probably be even happier than that if I actually occupied Napoleon's body."

The only thing that makes the Napoleon proposition more absurd than the transsexual proposition is that the Napoleon proposition requires time travel (or necromancy) in addition to consciousness transfer.

Oh, I dunno. If the person underwent irreversible and highly invasive surgery, died their hair and had it cut in a Napoleonic style, and dressed like Napoleon, then they could ask that every around them call them Napoleon and treat them as if they were actually Napoleon, and insist that they be recognized as actually genuinely being Napoleon...

 

[Emily's Cat]

Similarly I don't need to take a bite out of every apple I see before I call it an apple. This means I may sometimes see a plastic apple and think it's a piece of fruit, and even call it by that name. That's just me making a mistake. My everyday use of the word apple still refers to the fruit, even if I don't have a perfectly accurate test that I use to identify that fruit every time I use the word.

The nice thing about the plastic apple analogy is that it works on three relevant levels:

You can call it an apple because you mistake it for a real apple.

You can call it an apple because it makes sense in context. If there's a bowl of plastic apples, you can say, "hand me one of those apples". You don't have to say, "hand me one of those plastic apples from that bowl of plastic apples."

And you don't have to run around calling all apples "real apples" to avoid confusion with plastic apples, just because plastic apples also exist. You can just call the real ones "apples".

I really like that analogy.

Add in there that for many different situations, it also makes no difference whatsoever to most people whether it's a plastic apple or a real apple. There are only a few situations where it is material... and in those situations it would be reasonable to expect that an apple is a real apple, not a plastic apple... and it would be reasonable to stipulate that plastic apples be excluded.

 

[Emily's Cat]

For discussion:

Cultural appropriation is a horrible bad thing that merits shaming.
Gender appropriation is a right.

 

[Boudicca90]

Boudicca has stated that she does not think any medical diagnosis of any sort, nor any action to present as the identified gender, should be required. The "proof of dedication" she has referenced is the person applying to change their sex on their drivers license (or similar legal document)... with no other requirements at all.

That is exactly self-id alone.

And yes, Boudicca has expressed that this claim of being a woman, in the absence of any diagnosis or therapy or anything at all, should confer upon that male person the entirety of the identity of "woman", and give them unfettered access to all female things, including private spaces, and access to female scholarships, and obligate everyone else to refer to them with female pronouns. But she does require a very low level of testosterone to participate in female sports.

This is a pretty good summation of my views.

I support Self ID. I don't believe you need to medically or surgically transition to be transgender, since having that requirement forces people into a box where they feel they have to have make drastic changes to their bodies when they might not want to. Or it forces people into a gender binary they may not feel they fit into.

There are situations where differences in biology between cis and trans people do come into play, and reasonable accommodations should be followed in those cases. Like making it more equitable for us to compete with cis women by monitoring hormone levels, or covering up our genitals if they don't match the ones around us.

Self ID has been the law here in California for the past few years with no problems, so looks like it works pretty well.

Trying to parse this... Are you saying there are no transsexuals/transgender in the thread? Or are you saying that the transsexual/transgender in the thread can't (or won't) explain what it means?

I think he means I refuse to answer it, since everyone has their own interpretations that they think are factual and I feel like it's always a trap. And i'm not going to get bogged down in a debate about definitions, like so many people like to do here.

 

[d4m10n]

"Woman" is a lived identity; it is typically the lived identity of females, but with the proviso that a) some females have a lived identity of "man" (and we call these people trans men, and b) some males have a lived identity of "woman" (and we call these people trans women).

My aunt (by blood) has a nephew (by marriage) who used to be her niece. Knowing only that I'm a cis man and he a trans man, which aspects of "lived identity" would you be willing to bet we have in common?

Cultural appropriation is a horrible bad thing that merits shaming.
Gender appropriation is a right.

It is indeed curious that many people appear to hold these seemingly incompatible views both deeply and sincerely, though they'd probably avoid expressing the second proposition in that particular way.

 

[theprestige]

Oh, I dunno. If the person underwent irreversible and highly invasive surgery, died their hair and had it cut in a Napoleonic style, and dressed like Napoleon, then they could ask that every around them call them Napoleon and treat them as if they were actually Napoleon, and insist that they be recognized as actually genuinely being Napoleon...

Yeah, but are they allowed into the bunkers where the French high command plan their strategies?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think he means I refuse to answer it, since everyone has their own interpretations that they think are factual and I feel like it's always a trap. And i'm not going to get bogged down in a debate about definitions, like so many people like to do here.

I can see where you might feel defensive about it. On the other hand, though, it makes it incredibly hard to have any kind of discussion at all, because I cannot find any common ground about what "woman" means to you. What "woman" means to me, and to the natal women I've talked to, is completely incorporated into biology and lived experience - neither of which you have. So it follows that "woman" must mean something different to you, especially since you are pretty clear about dismissing the definitions and descriptions provided by natal women as being acceptable.

That leaves me scratching my head, because what natal women think women is is something that you outright reject, while you claim to be as much of a woman as any natal woman... all while refusing to provide any attempt at explaining what you mean.

It's downright religious. You are in effect claiming that you, a male, has a better knowledge of what womanhood is than females do, but that we just need to take it on faith that your meaning is correct and ours is wrong.

 

[lionking]

I de-lurked a couple of pages ago for a slightly longer explanation of what I find confusing and puzzling in this debate, and I’m de-lurking again to ask another question of posters like LondonJohn and Boudicca and anyone else who is behind the simple unqualified “trans women are women” position. For example LondonJohn stating earlier “You don't seem to realise that, for example, a trans woman is not a man.”
I just can’t get over the idea that not only do a significant proportion of trans women retain their biologically male genitalia, a significant proportion of them continue using their male genitalia to have penetrative sex with partners (including about 30% with female partners if i’m understanding Wikipedia correctly not counting those who are bisexual). How is a person born a man, with functioning male sex organs, and continuing to use their male sexual organs like a man, not a man? Does this fact not make you at all concede that in some significant way at least, those individuals are still male/men? To me, it’s about the least woman-like characteristics I can think of, frankly.

I’m quoting this because I’d really like to hear answers to these questions.

 

[Earthborn]

All this semantic back-flipping to avoid talking about autogynaephilia.

Ah yes, autogynaephilia. Now there is a concept that needs a rigorous definition.

 

[theprestige]

For discussion:

Cultural appropriation is a horrible bad thing that merits shaming.
Gender appropriation is a right.

Counterpoint:

Cultural appropriation is an imaginary offense invented by people who were running out of things to be offended about.

Gender appropriation is a real thing.

 

[Paul2]

While not disagreeing with you in principle, the problem with this again is that it doesn't account for the edge-cases that will be invoked (usually much against their will) by the trans-activists.

It's quite disturbing to see the trans-activists' responses when actual people with DSD conditions enter ths discussion, usually objecting to their very real and sometimes very distressing medical conditions being invoked in support of a delusional mental condition. It's as if they'd never imagined people with CAIS or Turner's syndrome, or Swyer's syndrome, or Klinefelter's syndrome as being actual people called Clare or Mary or Peter. People with opinions of their own and identities of their own, actually there on Twitter ir wherever.

Once woman with CAIS has "not a clownfish" in her twitter biography. Of course she never has and never will produce gametes, either small or large. It's extremely upsetting for her when her condition, which has caused her a lot of distress over the years, is held up in the abstract to prove that men can become women. And although she has XY chromosomes, nobody meeting her could ever seriously claim she's not a woman.

I think I agree with you agreeing with me in principle.