Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Olmstead]

Not what I'm talking about at all.

?

Let me ask you this:

What makes a horse a horse? What is the essence of a horse's "horsiness"?

And what makes a cow a cow? How is a cow different from a horse?

(And consider these questions without reference to genomes, but rather base them on observed behaviours and attributes)

[bolding mine]

I, a rather competent mad scientist, have turned the cow into an entity that has the observed behaviours and attributes of a horse. I assume that it now displays "horsiness" to everyone. Does that make this particular cow a horse?

 

[Lithrael]

I’m team internal perception, and view internally perceived gender a lot like religion; you can’t tell someone else what religion they really are even if you think they are wrong.

However societal perception is also a thing, and most of the rules and constructs we have for how to treat people that society identifies as whatever gender, are based on enforcing or sometimes attempting to mitigate societal assumptions about people pigeonholed in gender groups.

So for example a rule meant to encourage hiring women in an underrepresented field is meant to mitigate the way the people in a system tend to view people *they see as women,* and the internal perception of gender of the candidates doesn’t have much to do with it.

So the corollary of my rule where if a manly looking person feels like a woman then sure, they are a woman, is that if the hiring manager looked at the resume and assumed they are a man, they don’t count for hiring targets for women. Because they are not part of the class that has some degree of hiring handicap from societal perception: people typically perceived by others as women.

And if the hiring manager looks at someone’s resume and assumes they are a woman, they should count for hiring targets for women. Because they are part of the class that has some degree of hiring handicap from societal perception: people typically perceived by others as women.

Just my opinion of course.

Also I don’t mind ‘cis’ and equate the idea that it’s insulting on its face with the idea that ‘goy’ is insulting on its face.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The problem is were aren't having a "Some people are using definition X and some people are using definition Y" problem.

We're having a "Some people are using definition X and some people are refusing to explain what definition they are using" problem.

Discourse is full of "How many legs does a dog have if you call a leg a tail" and "Do we have five fingers on each hand or four fingers and a thumb?" style disagreements. That's not what this is.

At a certain point going "I have literally every defining characteristic of Y but I identity as X" stops making sense and going "Okay if you write, pitch, shoot, catch, and open doors with your right hand you can't 'Identify as left handed' in anyway that makes sense" stops being hateful, -phobic, mis-handing someone, or denying their identity.

Outside of constant pleadings back to the completely internal concept of "identity" I understand what differentiates this from a that less and less the more we talk about it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I’m team internal perception, and view internally perceived gender a lot like religion; you can’t tell someone else what religion they really are even if you think they are wrong.

"Tell them wrong" mayhaps not but as I said if someone uses their right hand for literally everything, that is meets all the objective definitions of a "Right Handed" person them going "Okay but I still identify as Left Handed"... how are we to parse that?

 

[Lithrael]

Yeah but that’s what it is. A completely internal concept. And one of the confounding factors is some people don’t care about making that match more closely with others’ expectations of what that means, and some people care a lot (and everything in between). Another confounding factor is that everyone has their own feelings about what that means in the first place.

As for your handedness analogy, consider Messianic Jews. I think they’re just Christians by any meaningful criteria. They consider themselves to be Jewish, and in most ways they appear to be. It’s religion, ‘who is really more correct though’ doesn’t really enter into it. Gender identity seems much the same to me.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is a level of distinction without difference that I can't imagine anyone caring about, much less obsessing over.

At this point what's even being argued? "There's some 2 dimensional polygons out there who have four equal sides, four right angles, but still identify as triangles."

Seriously what's the point of "I agree I meet every defining characteristics of X, but I define as Y?"

At a certain point asking "Okay so what's the point of such a massive and important discussion that makes so little difference?" stops being a crazy, rude, or hateful question to ask.

 

[theprestige]

?



[bolding mine]

I, a rather competent mad scientist, have turned the cow into an entity that has the observed behaviours and attributes of a horse. I assume that it now displays "horsiness" to everyone. Does that make this particular cow a horse?

Observed attributes of a horse? Does that include things like horse skeletal structure and musculature, and horse DNA?

---

I, a rather competent fairy godmother, have turned a pumpkin into a coach-and-four. Does that make this particular pumpkin a coach and four?

Yes, because magic.

---

I, a rather competent six year old, have taped cardboard "wheels" to a pumpkin and hitched it to a brace of My Little Ponies with some pipe cleaners. Does that make this particular pumpkin a coach and four?

Yes, because imagination. But also no, because imagination is not magic.

---

I actually like the horse analogy, though. When it comes to horses, it seems like biological reality is by far the most important factor in the social construct of what it means to be a horse.

 

[Paul2]

Let me ask you this:

What makes a horse a horse? What is the essence of a horse's "horsiness"?

And what makes a cow a cow? How is a cow different from a horse?

(And consider these questions without reference to genomes, but rather base them on observed behaviours and attributes)

In this case, the observed behaviors and attributes are mostly directly tied to and are the result of the genome, so while we might distinguish between horses and cows based on observed behaviors and attributes, they reduce to the effect of the genome (unless I'm ignorant of horse culture and cow culture).

 

[Earthborn]

In general terms, I am very uneasy about any practice of offering young adolescents therapy which validates a trans lived identity.

The only therapy which validates a trans lived identity young transkids receive is being allowed to dress the way they want and being having regular talks (often without parents to prevent parents' wishes and expectations to influence the outcome) to see how their gender identity develops. Only if they persist in their transgender identity for years before puberty, might they get medication to postpone their puberty to give them more time to find out whether they want full medical transition.

In my view, the prudent and sensible approach - while still trying to respect and show sensitivity to the person concerned - would be to engage young adolescents with gender dysphoria in "holding" therapy: therapy which acknowledges and respects their condition, but which countenances reaching full adulthood before more active/affirmative approaches are offered.

That's pretty much how it works. Full hormone therapy happens pretty much only when someone is at least a young adult, and surgery usually has to wait until the person involved is no longer a minor.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This analogy would work if we had to account for people screaming at us that we have to keep the cows and horses separate so one doesn't rape the other so "Well it's not super important that we define the cows and horses all that clearly" would fly.

As it stand it doesn't.

 

[Earthborn]

When the treatment you advocate is employed a very large majority of these children become comfortable with their natal sex after going through puberty.

I have to see some evidence that it is a large majority and that it is puberty that causes this, but yes it is well known and understood that kids sometimes experiment with their gender identity, and gender identity doesn't always persist. Which is why their care is not as you claimed "a pathway that attempts to turn them into a facsimile of a girl, because they wanted to dress up in a sparkly princess costume when they were three with no realistic possibility of reconsidering."

However this approach is now being outlawed as "conversion therapy" thanks to the representations of the trans lobby.

Where is this standard treatment protocol being outlawed?

 

[LondonJohn]

This analogy would work if we had to account for people screaming at us that we have to keep the cows and horses separate so one doesn't rape the other so "Well it's not super important that we define the cows and horses all that clearly" would fly.

As it stand it doesn't.

One more time:

It was not meant as an analogy in the sense of "cow/horse" vs "man/woman".

It was meant as an examination of what qualities, behaviours, appearances, traits, etc define (for us) a "horse", or a "cow" (and what is it that makes us able to differentiate between them).


I might just as easily have chosen "cow" and "suitcase". The objects themselves were unimportant. It was "what is it that makes them what they are?" that was important.

 

[JoeMorgue]

One more time:

It was not meant as an analogy in the sense of "cow/horse" vs "man/woman".

It was meant as an examination of what qualities, behaviours, appearances, traits, etc define (for us) a "horse", or a "cow" (and what is it that makes us able to differentiate between them).


I might just as easily have chosen "cow" and "suitcase". The objects themselves were unimportant. It was "what is it that makes them what they are?" that was important.

We aren't expected to account for self identify in your examples, or indeed any other examples of anything.

Even things like religion still are generally expected to fall under some concept of actually meeting a defining characteristic of some sort.

 

[caveman1917]

So maybe it's the other way around: Without gendered social roles, being transgender is meaningless, at least as far as society is concerned.

This seems somewhat supported by Native American societies. Some of those societies were highly patriarchal with strict gender roles and they also had so-called two-spirit people (somewhat similar to what would now be called transgenderism) whereas the egalitarian societies with barely any gender roles did not have two-spirit people.

 

[RedStapler]

One more time:

It was not meant as an analogy in the sense of "cow/horse" vs "man/woman".

It was meant as an examination of what qualities, behaviours, appearances, traits, etc define (for us) a "horse", or a "cow" (and what is it that makes us able to differentiate between them).


I might just as easily have chosen "cow" and "suitcase". The objects themselves were unimportant. It was "what is it that makes them what they are?" that was important.

Do you have a problem with a human being saying "My body is male, but all my life I felt like a woman?"

I mean, it's obvious that some people in here claim that they only do it for attention, or to compete in sports where they are clearly at an advantage.

Are you one of these people? (I could not be bothered to go through all your *Sigh* posts)

 

[LondonJohn]

We aren't expected to account for self identify in your examples, or indeed any other examples of anything.

Even things like religion still are generally expected to fall under some concept of actually meeting a defining characteristic of some sort.

I know. It was exactly this which I was addressing.


(Specifically, it was the introduction of counter-examples in order to address claims within this thread that, for example, it was reductive and circular to describe/define "woman" as the set of attributes/behaviours/societal expectations which are generally attached by society to women....

....so, for example, "cow" is the set of attributes/behaviours/societal expectations which are generally attached by society to cows)

 

[JoeMorgue]

So maybe it's the other way around: Without gendered social roles, being transgender is meaningless, at least as far as society is concerned.

That's what I've been saying for 3 threads now. It's like saying "I identify as a Lord instead of a Serf" when you don't live in a Feudal Society.

"You can't identify as something if the distinction is meaningless" is something I didn't think would become a controversial opinion.

 

[LondonJohn]

Do you have a problem with a human being saying "My body is male, but all my life I felt like a woman?"

I mean, it's obvious that some people in here claim that they only do it for attention, or to compete in sports where they are clearly at an advantage.

Are you one of these people? (I could not be bothered to go through all your *Sigh* posts)

How strange: to come into the thread and impute what you (apparently) have merely guessed to be my beliefs/opinions on this issue.

Breathtaking contribution, really. And pretty obnoxious. Especially in light of what I actually believe.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I know. It was exactly this which I was addressing.


(Specifically, it was the introduction of counter-examples in order to address claims within this thread that, for example, it was reductive and circular to describe/define "woman" as the set of attributes/behaviours/societal expectations which are generally attached by society to women....

....so, for example, "cow" is the set of attributes/behaviours/societal expectations which are generally attached by society to cows)

You're mistaking socially attached attributes for definitions and vice versa.

"If you've got four right angles and four equal sides you're a square" isn't "societal expectations we put on squares." It's the definition of a square.

"Women have vaginas, ovaries, and a certain chromosome structure" and "Women need to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making me a sammich" are not the same thing. One is absolutely a B.S. societal expectation, the other is a simple working definition.

 

[LondonJohn]

That's what I've been saying for 3 threads now. It's like saying "I identify as a Lord instead of a Serf" when you don't live in a Feudal Society.

"You can't identify as something if the distinction is meaningless" is something I didn't think would become a controversial opinion.

It's not controversial at all.

But it's also not applicable to the debate. Because the whole reason why the debate has these frames of reference is precisely because of the expectation that there is now, and will be for the forseeable future, a society in which the overwhelming majority of the "woman" gender is inhabited by (biological) females, and the overwhelming majority of the "man" gender is inhabited by (biological) males.

There's a distinction between the genders now. And I don't think that anyone in the debate (the global debate) has any doubt that the distinction between the genders will remain for our lifetimes and well beyond (as a minimum).