Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[Myriad]

Edited by Agatha: 

Removed reference to derail excised to AAH

Fair enough. Did you find this connection made by Boudiccca90:

I think it's possible to SAY that, but it's a lie. People who say things like that only tend to support equal rights for us up to a certain point. Since anybody who believes we are less of a woman than cisgender women will naturally place a limit to how far they will support us.

Either they are fine with us in women's restrooms, but not in locker rooms. Or they are fine with both, and don't support us competing with other women. Or they are fine with all that, but don't support us in prisons. And on and on...

Everyone seems to draw a different line in the sand. And they can do so because we aren't considered women by certain people.

...equally baffling?

 

[Olmstead]

I'm a man who identifies as a deep one that identifies as a man, hence I should be allowed to compete in men's swimming with swimfins.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I don't really know if I buy that sports is the tail that has to wag society's dog.

No offense if we can all come to some agreement where the only unsatisfied party is sports... I might be able to live with that.

And besides sports is fundamentally different because unfairness is built into the system for the purpose of competition; everything from weight classes the pro/amateur distinction to league levels. Life is not that.

 

[jeremyp]

Er, shouldn't you be asking this question to the person who claimed that professional sports has a fair and level field and this fair and level field is somehow in danger?

Sorry, I'm a bit late to this thread. Which person claimed that?

The fair and level playing field is more of an aspiration than a reality, but it is an aspiration and I think even adult human females should be allowed to compete on one.

 

[RedStapler]

Sorry, I'm a bit late to this thread. Which person claimed that?

Sorry, but do the work and read the thread. Work backwards and you will soon find the claim.

The fair and level playing field is more of an aspiration than a reality, but it is an aspiration and I think even adult human females should be allowed to compete on one.

LOL. 100 people compete in a bike race, 1 is doped to the max, wins the event but I guess the other 99 are more than happy to compete in what is an illusion of a fair event.

 

[Matthew Best]

Sorry, but do the work and read the thread. Work backwards and you will soon find the claim.

Yeah, that claim has not been made.

LOL. 100 people compete in a bike race, 1 is doped to the max, wins the event but I guess the other 99 are more than happy to compete in what is an illusion of a fair event.

LOL. It's more like 100 people compete in a bike race, 100 are doped to the max, one wins.

 

[jeremyp]

I don't really know if I buy that sports is the tail that has to wag society's dog.

No offense if we can all come to some agreement where the only unsatisfied party is sports... I might be able to live with that.

And besides sports is fundamentally different because unfairness is built into the system for the purpose of competition; everything from weight classes the pro/amateur distinction to league levels. Life is not that.

Why does the tail have to be connected to the dog at all? Why does there have to be one agreement for the whole of society? Just because we decree that trans women cannot compete in women's sporting competitions doesn't mean we need similar decrees in other areas of life. In fact, you don't even need the same rule across all sports. Even now there are some sports that are not segregated at all.

 

[theprestige]

It's possible to support a person's right to identify as a woman, and still understand that she's not a woman.

LondonJohn seems to be conflating a few different things. I fully support someone's right to identify as a woman, as a matter of their right to self-expression. But the right to self-expression does not confer an entitlement to recognition, nor an entitlement to privilege.

Emperor Norton wasn't entitled to imperial power and authority just because he expressed himself thus and people humored him.

And a man isn't entitled to enter women's spaces just because he's expressed himself that way and people humor him in other less contentious contexts.

Supporting someone who struggles with neuro-atypical delusions does not necessarily mean catering to those delusions.

 

[jeremyp]

Sorry, but do the work and read the thread. Work backwards and you will soon find the claim.

No I won't. I was being sarcastic. Nobody claimed it. It's a straw man that you have created.

LOL. 100 people compete in a bike race, 1 is doped to the max, wins the event but I guess the other 99 are more than happy to compete in what is an illusion of a fair event.

LOL. I guess Lance Armstrong is a bit annoyed that we took all his titles away from him. LOL LOL LOL

You seem to be under the impression that everybody is ok with cheating. We are not.

 

[theprestige]

Apparently women view these spaces differently than men. I see the bathroom as a place to pee and a locker room as a place to change clothes and/or shower after a workout. Women regard these as safe spaces where there are no men. Why do they want a space free of men? Read through any feminism page. See the complaints about men? Those. All of them. Not just the possibility of sexual assault, but all the other stuff too. They can let their guard down and relax. It's a refuge. They can take care of personal hygiene matters which outside that room are referred to in whispers or euphemisms.

Trans women do not in and of themselves change this. That's why they generally don't seem to have a problem with the Blaire Whites or Boudicca's sharing their spaces. But when they see someone that they perceive as male in these spaces it breaks the sense of comfort and safety from us men. Again, I'm not just talking physical safety.

Now, they have, as Rolfe pointed out in these threads months ago, accepted trans women into their spaces for years by informal agreement. Codifying self-id breaks that. In the past (current?) system the possibility of consequences, social and legal, did a fair job of keeping males out. This aided the perception of trans-women who came into their spaces as being sincere. (It also encouraged discretion.)

Self-ID creates a loophole. And yes, that loophole is probably rarely exploited. But its existence reduces the sense of those spaces being safe spaces because it changes the perception of who they might be in the room with.

This is probably the best summary of the issue I've seen in the thread lately. Thanks for posting it!

 

[TurkeysGhost]

A new book penned by JK Rowling finds her private detective protagonist, Cormoran Strike, investigating a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman to kill his cis female victims, according to an early write-up.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/14/jk-rowling-new-book-cormoran-strike-troubled-blood-killer-dresses-woman/

Almost as subtle as when novelist Michael Crichton wrote one of his critics into his book as a child rapist with a tiny dick.

 

[MisAndreG]

It's possible to support a person's right to identify as a woman, and still understand that she's not a woman.



Of course it is.

Here is my question is it possible to support a man’s right to express himself however he wants to without being obliged to play along with his expression? I mean what rights do trans women, who are men, lack that other men have? They can do anything a man can do.

This whole damn argument resolves to men (or women) who are self-evidently suffering from psychological distress attempting to relieve that distress by adopting opposite-sex identity, obliging others to affirm their identity, and others saying “Do what you want but don’t expect anything from me.”

 

[Roboramma]

Er, shouldn't you be asking this question to the person who claimed that professional sports has a fair and level field and this fair and level field is somehow in danger?

Professional sports doesn't have a perfectly fair and level playing field. Enforcement of rules against cheating makes it more fair than non-enforcement of those rules, or in the case of some rules, than abolishing those rules.

 

[theprestige]

Almost as subtle as when novelist Michael Crichton wrote one of his critics into his book as a child rapist with a tiny dick.

To be fair, it's probably a fitting end for a literary critic.

 

[RedStapler]

Yeah, that claim has not been made.

Oh, looks like I responded to a ghost.

LOL. It's more like 100 people compete in a bike race, 100 are doped to the max, one wins.

What's the problem then?

 

[LondonJohn]

As an interesting aside, it appears from some media reports that JK Rowling's upcoming new book is about a cis man who dresses as a woman to murder cis women:

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/09/...n-strike-troubled-blood-killer-dresses-woman/


Hmmm. Interesting choice of antagonist there, JK.

(But obviously such a choice of character is entirely independent of any beliefs Rowling may or may not hold wrt transgender issues. Obviously.)

 

[JoeMorgue]

"JK Rowling is being petty and vindictive" isn't proof of anything being discussed though.

Being petty and vindictive against your critics doesn't make your critics factually correct.

You can't squeeze intellectual proof out of a moral victory no matter how hard you try.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't believe that trans women should be permitted to compete in high- or medium-level sports (strictly speaking, those sports in which anatomy and/or physiology play an advantageous role).

Furthermore, I don't believe that trans women will ever be allowed to compete in those competitions/sports as described above.

And pursuant to that, I think that all moderate transgender people or moderate trans-activists will accept this as a reasonable push-back point.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

"JK Rowling is being petty and vindictive" isn't proof of anything being discussed though.

Being petty and vindictive against your critics doesn't make your critics factually correct.

You can squeeze intellectual proof out of a moral victory no matter how hard you try.

Agreed. I only brought it up as a tangential amusement. It's bizarre how Rowling has turned crapping on trans people into her hobby horse.

Rowling has enough money to do pretty much anything she imagines, and she spends a shocking amount of her idle time getting into anti-trans slap fights on social media. Now it's creeping into her real work.

I hope she's at least enjoying herself, it strikes me as a bit pathetic.

 

[LondonJohn]

"JK Rowling is being petty and vindictive" isn't proof of anything being discussed though.

Being petty and vindictive against your critics doesn't make your critics factually correct.

You can squeeze intellectual proof out of a moral victory no matter how hard you try.

Who said anything about being "factually correct"? Not I, certainly. I think that may actually have been a wholesale invention of yours, based on your own (ahem) *interpretation* of what I wrote and what that article says.

I just considered it an interesting story, in the context of other things Rowling has written about transgender issues. Nothing more or less than that.

(It seems that quite a lot of other people are also currently finding it interesting, and for those reasons)