Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[theprestige]

It's true. I became a woman because I feel like and see myself as a woman. And so I made my external body better match my internal mind.

And your *only* reference for womanhood is internal to your mind? Even if you'd never seen a woman before, you'd still know that was what you felt like? You'd still know what your external body needed to look like to match that internal feeling?

 

[Venom]

And your *only* reference for womanhood is internal to your mind? Even if you'd never seen a woman before, you'd still know that was what you felt like? You'd still know what your external body needed to look like to match that internal feeling?

I think most transsexuals are born with a brain of the opposite sex, though I could be out of the loop on this.

 

[Boudicca90]

And your *only* reference for womanhood is internal to your mind? Even if you'd never seen a woman before, you'd still know that was what you felt like? You'd still know what your external body needed to look like to match that internal feeling?

I think if I was raised in a society without women, I would still feel like and see myself as a woman, but wouldn't have a reference for how I felt and why I was different from all the other men. That is a situation I probably wouldn't transition specifically to a woman if I didn't even know what one was, but I still wouldn't remain male if I had a choice.

Much like how I felt as a child, knowing I wasn't like everyone else but not knowing why.

 

[Lithrael]

That’s like asking if a fish could swim if it was raised without water. AKA a lot of words to say it bugs you that humans are social animals made of ad hoc wiring and social instincts that typically work right around the top of the bell curve of behaviors and traits that allow the species to be very successful but occasionally get into unusual outliers.

ETA: it’s a lot like any other socially unusual condition where you grow up not realizing you aren’t the only one like that. People without a sex drive often know they super do not fit in, for example.

 

[Rolfe]

I think most transsexuals are born with a brain of the opposite sex, though I could be out of the loop on this.

You're out of the loop. There are no consistent differences between male and female brains that allow them to be distinguished, other than the chromosomes in the nuclei of the brain cells.

Transwomen have brains with 46XY chromosomes, just like the rest of them, and their brains have been under the influence of testosterone since before they were born. There is no such thing as a female brain in a male body, or vice versa.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It's normal for adolescent girls to hate their bodies, and to hate the attention they're attracting from men as they develop. It takes sensitivity to help them through this stage. Some retreat into anorexia to try to retain or regain their androgynous pre-puberty appearance, and now another possibility has been opened to them.

This is one of my concerns with puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors that is becoming more popular. Puberty has a lot of physical changes, but it also has a *lot* of mental changes. There are major psychological developments that occur as a result of puberty, and that emotional and mental maturity really doesn't happen without it. I worry about the long-term effects.

 

[Paul2]

About the first half of this seems right. But I personally have not met any trans folks that go by the second half as their reason to be trans.

1. Is it an internal feeling, then? If not

1a. Then what?

If so, then

2. Is it an internal feeling without reference to how society defines gender?

If not (but does reference how society defines gender), then it *does* reduce to my previous A, B, C, D.

If so, then

3. How does this internal feeling correlate to being a woman? Without the biology of a woman, and without the societal definition of the gender of women, how does a person conclude that this feeling concerns sex or gender at all?

My intent here is not to challenge, but to learn. I'm trying to separate out issues so I can understand things better.

 

[Paul2]

I think if I was raised in a society without women, I would still feel like and see myself as a woman, but wouldn't have a reference for how I felt and why I was different from all the other men. That is a situation I probably wouldn't transition specifically to a woman if I didn't even know what one was, but I still wouldn't remain male if I had a choice.

Much like how I felt as a child, knowing I wasn't like everyone else but not knowing why.

I can understand how you would still feel the way you feel, but to label that as how a *woman* feels seems impossible, as you would need to know about women in order to match that knowledge with what you felt internally, but the scenario is one without women.

Can you resolve that for me? I could understand that you'd see yourself *different from other men,* as you'd have an idea of what being a man was like because there are other men in that scenario.

 

[theprestige]

That’s like asking if a fish could swim if it was raised without water.

Begs the question that we're actually talking about a fish, and not about a bird that's never seen fish, or water.

So yeah, in the sense that it's begging the question, the two scenarios are kind of similar.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The TERF viewpoints that Rolfe, MisAndreG, and others in this thread put forward do not represent all women, or even a majority of women, as they are outnumbered by women who are fine with us and don't see us as threats.

This is a bit of a strawman, Boudicca. I don't think most of us see transwomen as an entire group as a "threat" in the way you seem to be implying. But we do see a subset of transwomen - Jessica Yaniv, Long Chu, Veronica Ivy, and a collection of other people on the internet - as threats. There've already been cases of physically intact transwomen being transferred to the women's prison (because they're legally women, right?) and then raping other inmates with their female penises. There've already been cases of transwomen gaining entrance to women's domestic violence and rape shelters (because they're legally women) and then masturbating over sleeping women with their female penises.

I know, all of us here know, that these people aren't representative of *all* transwomen. We know that a lot of transwomen are very nice, very caring people, who have a rough time of it, and who deserve equitable humane treatment. That's not our objection at all.

Our objection is that the Activist Movement associated with transwomen is looking to normalize and validate the people mentioned above. Even if you agree that they are creepy bad misogynistic people... the laws that TRAs are seeking to get passed remove the ability of women to exclude them from our spaces. The laws that TRAs are seeking *increase* the danger to women, and they remove our ability to protect ourselves from them.

You might say "oh it's not happening" but it *is*. You might say "it's not happening in great numbers" but it's happening *enough*. We already have the high school and children's swim teams taking turns changing in a very small locker room, because the law sided with the 45 year old transwoman who didn't see a need to cover her adult penis when around those children. The law says she is a woman, therefore she has a right to be in the locker room while naked and around children of the opposite sex.

This is a very real reduction in the safety, security, and privacy of women. And we're not even getting into issues around sports, scholarships and grants, and recognition for women. Or things like male-bodied people counting as women for the purpose of affirmative action.

We need to be able to find a reasonable solution that allows decent and considerate people like you to have the protections and dignity that you should have... while NOT increasing the risk to women from people like those mentioned above. Making laws that say transwomen are women in every single sense of the word, and have a right to everything women do... that's not a good solution. It's a fine solution for you - it gives you everything you want. But it's a real and material detriment to natal women. It's not a compromise, it's a dictate.

 

[Boudicca90]

I can understand how you would still feel the way you feel, but to label that as how a *woman* feels seems impossible, as you would need to know about women in order to match that knowledge with what you felt internally, but the scenario is one without women.

Can you resolve that for me? I could understand that you'd see yourself *different from other men,* as you'd have an idea of what being a man was like because there are other men in that scenario.

You are right that I wouldn't have an idea of what a woman is to compare myself to, so I wouldn't use that label for myself and would try to find some way of distinguishing my gender from everyone else.

I don't know what I would do in that kind of scenario, most likely if I couldn't find some way to express myself in how I truly was, it wouldn't end well for me. If they forced me to conform to being a man like everyone else, I would probably end up killing myself.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to remove moderated content

It's a topic that is unarguably relevant to her.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Preference falsification is a concept that a lot of TRAs need to get familiar with.

I needed to go look that up.

 

[Boudicca90]

This is a bit of a strawman, Boudicca. I don't think most of us see transwomen as an entire group as a "threat" in the way you seem to be implying. But we do see a subset of transwomen - Jessica Yaniv, Long Chu, Veronica Ivy, and a collection of other people on the internet - as threats. There've already been cases of physically intact transwomen being transferred to the women's prison (because they're legally women, right?) and then raping other inmates with their female penises. There've already been cases of transwomen gaining entrance to women's domestic violence and rape shelters (because they're legally women) and then masturbating over sleeping women with their female penises.

I know, all of us here know, that these people aren't representative of *all* transwomen. We know that a lot of transwomen are very nice, very caring people, who have a rough time of it, and who deserve equitable humane treatment. That's not our objection at all.

Our objection is that the Activist Movement associated with transwomen is looking to normalize and validate the people mentioned above. Even if you agree that they are creepy bad misogynistic people... the laws that TRAs are seeking to get passed remove the ability of women to exclude them from our spaces. The laws that TRAs are seeking *increase* the danger to women, and they remove our ability to protect ourselves from them.

You might say "oh it's not happening" but it *is*. You might say "it's not happening in great numbers" but it's happening *enough*. We already have the high school and children's swim teams taking turns changing in a very small locker room, because the law sided with the 45 year old transwoman who didn't see a need to cover her adult penis when around those children. The law says she is a woman, therefore she has a right to be in the locker room while naked and around children of the opposite sex.

This is a very real reduction in the safety, security, and privacy of women. And we're not even getting into issues around sports, scholarships and grants, and recognition for women. Or things like male-bodied people counting as women for the purpose of affirmative action.

We need to be able to find a reasonable solution that allows decent and considerate people like you to have the protections and dignity that you should have... while NOT increasing the risk to women from people like those mentioned above. Making laws that say transwomen are women in every single sense of the word, and have a right to everything women do... that's not a good solution. It's a fine solution for you - it gives you everything you want. But it's a real and material detriment to natal women. It's not a compromise, it's a dictate.

I don't mean to dismiss your concerns, but I really do think they are overblown. Instances of bad actors taking advantage of the system are few and far between. And not justification enough to limit our rights. The positions taken by "trans activists" are generally taken by most trans people, so I don't even know what you define as an activist in this sense.

We aren't exactly the same as cisgender people, and I recognize when that needs to be taken into consideration and I thought my compromises were reasonable and adequate to both protect our both of our rights. Like the case of that woman, she belongs in there but she should have the sense and respect for others to cover herself up. But even I seem to be too extreme for many people here when I've never thought of myself as so.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Well dude, I've now done this several times. I'm sorry that it's so hard for you to understand. But I'll say it again: in a gender-identity context, trans men and cis men share the "man" gender identity, which is a lived experience and an internal perception; the externalities of "man" include traditional societal/social assignments and expectations of the "man" gender, including perceptions around the concept of "masculinity".

I have a couple of different comments on this, not necessarily related to each other.

First, what I think is the obvious one: this definition of gender is one of socially defined gender roles. Defining gender in this fashion, while affirmative for transgender people, is very regressive for cisgender people - especially women whose social gender roles are a very real and material barrier to progress. It reinforces and codifies negative stereotypes of men and women.

Secondly, a bit more complex. You refer to the 'lived experience' element of men and women, and you seem to be assuming that it applies equally to transmen and transwomen as well. But this isn't true. The lived experience of a transwoman is that of a man. The lived experience of a transman is that of a woman. The lived experience of a gender is a combination of biological effects, social norms, and gender roles foisted upon us. At the end of the day, each person has the lived experience of their own actual body and how society perceives them. A transgender person does not have the lived experience of the gender they identify as, no more than a white person can have the lived experience of a black person, and no more than a heterosexual person can have the lived experience of a homosexual person.

 

[Emily's Cat]

That case appears to be about whether it's legally/lawfully-permissible to treat adolescents with gender reassignment therapies - including medicinal/hormonal treatments and reassignment surgery.

Personally, I believe that there should be a much tighter medico-legal framework concerning the whole issue of adolescents and gender reassignment. I don't think it should be permissible to treat adolescents with anything other than general psychotherapy (ie not aimed at gender reassignment per se). There appears little doubt that adolescents can develop genuine, authentic gender identity issues - but I believe that these people should be, as it were, "kept on hold" - by bringing them into the protective and affirmative environment of therapy, but at the same time refraining from administering targeted therapy, medical or surgical intervention until the person reaches either the age of 18 or the age of 21.

The case linked to above is, it appears, a convincing example of the dangers of treating gender-confused adolescents with therapies/medicines/surgeries which are partially or wholly irreversible.

Hey - welcome to TERFhood, my friend!

 

[JoeMorgue]

I’m baffled by this sentiment. “Want to be something” and “inherently feel like you are something” read as miles apart to me. How can you want to become something you already feel like you are?

What reads as a meaningful pair of statements to me would be “inherently feel like you are something” and “want others to see you as something.”

Put literally any other physical characteristics in it.

"I want to be taller."
"I inherently feel like someone taller."

"I want to have red hair."
"I inherently feel like someone with red hair."

I'm still the same height either way. My hair is still the same color either way.

Again sex/gender is only different because we're defining a distinction without difference into it AND because we have thousands of years of baggage put on the sexes we're trying to double-speak our way out of.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I really don't understand what you're saying here.

Let's take things right out of the human experience for a moment, to try to make this easier to understand.

We'll consider lions. And we'll say that the (biological) males of the species are terms "lion", and the females of the species are named "lioness".

Now we'll introduce gender (in the context of gender identity). We will call one gender "lionish", and the other gender "lionessish".

Our starting point is that, in general, a lion has the lionish gender, and a lioness has the lionessish gender.

Now, in nature, the lionessish gender's main attribute is that they are the ones who do the hunting of prey, at night. They hunt and kill the prey, and then (if successful) they either drag their prey back to the pride or they summon the pride to the prey.

By contrast, in nature, the lionish gender's main attribute is that they remain with the pride while the lionessish gender hunt prey.

Now imagine that there is a lion who has gender identity issues: this lion feels strongly that their identity is such that they want to go out and hunt prey at night - in other words, they identify with the lionessish gender.


(This is obviously a simplified and simplistic analogy - for example, the gender attributes of these animals are of course much more complex and detailed. It's being used merely as an attempt to illustrate the concept of "gender vs sex" in a different way)

Hmm. Interestingly... coalitions of (usually adolescent) male lions, who have not been accepted by a pride of lionesses *will* hunt at night and share prey with other members of their coalition. Similarly, if a pride of lionesses does not have a current male in their group, at least one lioness will remain behind to protect the cubs and the territory.

Are those coalitions transgender, because they don't conform to the gender roles of a sexually dimorphic species? Or are they simply adapting to variations in their social groupings, while still being lions? Are those lion-less prides transgender?

 

[Paul2]

. . . . I became a woman because I feel like and see myself as a woman. And so I made my external body better match my internal mind.

And your *only* reference for womanhood is internal to your mind? Even if you'd never seen a woman before, you'd still know that was what you felt like? You'd still know what your external body needed to look like to match that internal feeling?

I think if I was raised in a society without women, I would still feel like and see myself as a woman . . . .

I can understand how you would still feel the way you feel, but to label that as how a *woman* feels seems impossible, as you would need to know about women in order to match that knowledge with what you felt internally, but the scenario is one without women.

You are right that I wouldn't have an idea of what a woman is to compare myself to, so I wouldn't use that label for myself and would try to find some way of distinguishing my gender from everyone else.

Boudicca90, do you think you would feel a mis-match between your body and you internal feelings in this scenario without cis women? I guess the issue is whether the mis-match *depends* in some fashion on how gender is defined, or whether the mis-match would occur even if society didn't even define what a woman is (in the scenario in which there are no women).

 

[Emily's Cat]

They are many and various. And I don't feel like writing a wall of text. I'll help you search for the relevant literature though, if you're serious about educating yourself in this area.

That's the sort of dodge that gets frustrating in this discussion. "There are many" isn't an answer. The definition that you supplied has no utility and no real meaning. You're effectively saying "People of group A have the experience of A and perceive themselves as A". It gives no information whatsoever about what A means.