Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

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Shouting doesn't help. Even if this were true, which it isn't, your math is still wrong.

For example, a girl being sexually abused by her uncle, doctor, priest or whatever, as awful as it is, does not speak to the risk of a woman being sexually abused in a toilet. And it certainly does not speak to the increased risk of allowing transwomen to access female toilets (whether or not you insist on factoring in cismen or not).

You need to look at the actual situation and the actual maths if you want to have a genuine appreciation of risk.

If you are looking to find a justification to discriminate then broad brush data is great. If you actually want to make informed decisions, then not so much.

I'm already regretting writing this because i know it's not going to make a jot of difference, in fact, it'll probably make things worse, but what the hell.

I'm at a loss. You seem to be taking the position that there is no difference in the rate of sexual assaults committed by males compared to females. You seem to be insisting that I go prove this to you... despite a plethora of information on this being widely available. You're just running with the assumption that there's no risk at all.
 
Here? No. I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion.

Ah actually, do you mean do I think cismen are being discriminated against by not being allowed to access women's spaces?

If so my answer is no, because there is nothing of any value being denied to cismen. Segregation does not always mean discrimination.

You can maybe argue that perverts are being discriminated against, but I think it's ok to discriminate against perverts.

If you're after value, even a cis-man with completely innocent intentions would probably feel safer in a women's prison.

And what value is being denied to transwomen in this case?
 
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Should women have any spaces?
Why or why not?

If there is no danger or issues with 'penis having' persons, I see no reason to segregate just based on being a 'woman', and anyone can self-ID they are either a woman or man. We should honor each persons individual opinion about their identity.

Other than medical things related to having a uterus and birthing all the humans on the planet, there should be nothing special.
Sports should be just height and weight. Scholarships by pure ability only. Prisons, dorms, school, all mixed!!
No discrimination!

That way when a male decides he wants to be a woman, but then switches back, there is no coercion either way. The sports team 'she' is on is fine either way. Fluidity is possible. Neutral sexuality is possible. Even the asexuals, non-sexuals, or the ones who identify an non-human aliens are fine in this system.

The weird thing, I suspect, is that the trans women dont actually want things neutral. Their psychological validation and feeling of 'belonging' come from being in a distinctively 'woman' space.
So how to correct for that?
 
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Why are men and women segregated?

What changes when a man becomes a transwoman?

I would really like to hear two consistent answers to these questions.

I'll give it a go.

Men and women are segregated in general because it has been socially convenient to do so. You can probably find a myriad of reasons why it's been socially convenient. Gender stereotypes abound of course - women being modest, women getting the vapours if they see a penis, men not being able to control themselves, etc etc. Once you have segregation in place it's also self-reinforcing because the males who would enter or try to enter the women's space would be assumed to be there for nefarious reasons and hence women need to be protected from nefarious men. So it stuck. And since nobody was really disadvantaged by the situation there was no reason to change.

Enter transpeople. What changes when a man becomes a transwoman? Well first of all a transwoman is and always was a transwoman. They didn't change from being a man. But put that aside, and i'll answer your question.
What changes is you now have someone who has a desire to enter the women's space for non-nefarious reasons, who has a justification for doing so and who claims a harm is being done to them by denying it. You have someone who feels they belong there and they don't belong in male spaces. And to whatever extent a risk exists of being in the bathroom with someone of the opposite gender transwomen probably have the rougher end of the stick by being forced to use a men's room.

So now you have a social issue that needs to be resolved rather than a social convention that everybody just goes along with.

Do you consider that to be consistent?
 
I'm at a loss. You seem to be taking the position that there is no difference in the rate of sexual assaults committed by males compared to females..

I have never said this or even hinted at it.

What I am saying is that sexual assaults don't happen at random so top level data doesn't tell you much about situational risk.
 
No, my problem is NOT with anti-discrimination legislation.

Why don't you try actually listening to what I'm telling you my problem is? What makes you think you're in a position to somehow know better than me what my problem is?

That you don't know what you are talking about is not my issue. The legislation that allows transpeople access to women's spaces based on being transgender is anti-discrimination legislation. If you have a problem with that happening then it's to do with anti-discrimination legislation.

So... you don't care about it, therefore it isn't a big deal. For the record, this is the same dismissal that females have been hearing from males for thousands of years. If it's not important to males, then it just isn't important at all. The fact that it's important to females is irrelevant to males.

You asked ME what I thought and used that as a justification. I don't speak for all males anymore than you speak for all women. Even though you think you do.

It would work for me. No go convince the other transallies and activists to go along with it.

I think that's pretty much what the law is right now. And i'm not aware of anything specific proposed that would change it. I'm not aware of any mainstream groups of transallies or activists actively pushing for anything significantly different. Nor do I have a specific platform to engage with them on the topic.


Which "some"? Are any of those "some" natal women?

Probably. There are going to be some areas of experience where yes they can speak for natal women and others where they won't. Equally there will be some areas of life where cismen can speak for transwomen and others where they won't. That's why we value diversity in the first place. To try to suggest that there is one definitive 'natal woman' experience that is shared by all is nonsense. I would recommend that we only have transwomen on the panel.
 
I have never said this or even hinted at it.

What I am saying is that sexual assaults don't happen at random so top level data doesn't tell you much about situational risk.


That is strange.
Males...men...'penis having' people are BY FAR the greatest assault threat to women. The difference is SO great that I wonder what your angle will be to say otherwise?

Of course, most men are a-ok. But, of the people that are physically dangerous to women, 98% of them have a penis (or were born with one).

You may as well argue that all crime is 'no big deal' because it is not random.
 
I'll give it a go.

Men and women are segregated in general because it has been socially convenient to do so. You can probably find a myriad of reasons why it's been socially convenient. Gender stereotypes abound of course - women being modest, women getting the vapours if they see a penis, men not being able to control themselves, etc etc. Once you have segregation in place it's also self-reinforcing because the males who would enter or try to enter the women's space would be assumed to be there for nefarious reasons and hence women need to be protected from nefarious men. So it stuck. And since nobody was really disadvantaged by the situation there was no reason to change.

Enter transpeople. What changes when a man becomes a transwoman? Well first of all a transwoman is and always was a transwoman. They didn't change from being a man. But put that aside, and i'll answer your question.
What changes is you now have someone who has a desire to enter the women's space for non-nefarious reasons, who has a justification for doing so and who claims a harm is being done to them by denying it. You have someone who feels they belong there and they don't belong in male spaces. And to whatever extent a risk exists of being in the bathroom with someone of the opposite gender transwomen probably have the rougher end of the stick by being forced to use a men's room.

So now you have a social issue that needs to be resolved rather than a social convention that everybody just goes along with.

Do you consider that to be consistent?

My bad about the phrasing. You're right: "... when a biological male is a transwoman ..."

But anyway, I think you're skirting the issue of women safety. Let's ignore locker rooms, as I think that problem is overstated, and focus on prisons. Do you really think the segregation there is just social? Because in my opinion prisons are segregated to protect women prisoners, specifically from sexual assault, so the segregation is completely practical.
 
I don't think I said that trans discrimination is rational or not.
My point is that the irrationality is not about statistics, it's about whether there is something essential - causal - in black people that make them criminals. There is not, so acting on that basis is irrational. That's what makes it unfair to segregate, claiming that it's just a matter of safety.

The problem is thinking that there is something about being black that predisposes one to crime, whereas, in reality, its due to other factors, even if there is a correlation. Being black may be correlated with lots of things, but the thing that makes discrimination irrational is that it assumes that being black is a *cause.*

There are *all* sorts of correlations one could find and use to discriminate. I just went to https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations and I see a great one: drowning by falling into a pool is correlated with Nick Cage films. We should *not* conclude that we should reduce Nick Cage films (at least, on that basis).

I can imagine, faintly, that there is a response to this position. But I'll throw it out here and I reserve the right to retract or modify it if necessary.

Racists would disagree and they would point to the statistics to justify it. Just as people can point to statistics to show that men are a danger to women.

I think we are in agreement here that what matters is whether there is a genuine causal intrinsic difference that justifies the discrimination. Maybe people are confused and think i have argued something different?

From my perspective the analogy is closer than people give it credit for because I see a LOT of the same arguments being made in both cases.
 
Racists would disagree and they would point to the statistics to justify it. Just as people can point to statistics to show that men are a danger to women.
Sure, but making a point about statistics ignores what I said about statistics (and correlation).
I think we are in agreement here that what matters is whether there is a genuine causal intrinsic difference that justifies the discrimination. Maybe people are confused and think i have argued something different?
I agree that we agree. Agreed?

The next step is to apply the conclusions about racial civil rights and a causal intrinsic different to trans civil rights. That won't be me right now, anyone else is welcome to take a shot.
 
That is strange.
Males...men...'penis having' people are BY FAR the greatest assault threat to women. The difference is SO great that I wonder what your angle will be to say otherwise?

It's strange that you are wondering what my angle is to say something I haven't actually said.

Of course, most men are a-ok. But, of the people that are physically dangerous to women, 98% of them have a penis (or were born with one).

You may as well argue that all crime is 'no big deal' because it is not random.

Again, I'm at a loss as to how you have got to here from there.
 
While I don't think it's an entirely inappropriate analogy, I actually did address this several pages ago in post 227:



No - the analogy has nothing at all to do with any comparison of segregation.

The analogy is concerned solely with this concept:

Laws/rules aimed at giving a certain group civil rights had - as one direct consequence - the effect of putting another group into a position of potentially increased danger.


In the black civil rights analogy, it was white girls/women who - as a direct consequence of black civil rights reforms - were placed into a position of potentially increased danger (eg black men, post the civil rights reforms, had the right to sit right up against white girls/women on small 2-person bench seats on public buses).

And in the case of transgender rights reforms, it may be cis women who - as a direct consequence of that transgender rights reforms - are placed into a position of potentially increased danger (eg trans women, post rights reforms, have the right to enter and use women's public changing rooms).
 
Statement of the analogy:
blacks are to whites
as
trans are to cis

In both cases, one oppressed group gains a civil right, the other group loses something.

So if whites lost a segregated society so that blacks could gain civil rights (desegregation), it is appropriate that cis people might have to lose something so that trans folk can gain civil rights due them.

However, what whites lost - a segregated society - was something that they were not legitimately due. Segregation is based on stereotypes and racism. Yes, whites lost something, but they lost something that wasn’t really theirs legitimately to begin with. And that is the reason why whites losing a segregated society was appropriate.

Analogously, are females claiming something that isn’t really theirs legitimately when they want to be defined and treated separately - segregated (maybe physically?) - from trans women?



No, this is not what the analogy is about at all. See my previous post for (yet) a(nother) reiteration of the specific description of the analogy being used here.
 
Men and women are segregated in general because it has been socially convenient to do so.
Have you talked to any real life females about your perception on this?

Enter transpeople. What changes when a man becomes a transwoman? Well first of all a transwoman is and always was a transwoman. They didn't change from being a man. But put that aside, and i'll answer your question.
:boggled: You're just going to wedge that in there as if it's patently true, with no support... and then just dictate that it be "put aside"?

What changes is you now have someone who has a desire to enter the women's space for non-nefarious reasons, who has a justification for doing so and who claims a harm is being done to them by denying it.
Why wouldn't this same argument hold for a cisman? If a cisman has a desire to enter the women's space for non-nefarious reasons, and who claims a harm is being done to them by denying it... why would their demand not be viewed as justification?

What is the justification that a transwoman provides that allows them access to a female space, where a cisman would not be allowed?

So now you have a social issue that needs to be resolved rather than a social convention that everybody just goes along with.

Do you consider that to be consistent?
I consider that answer to be one that eliminates sex as a protected class.
 
Should women have any spaces?
Why or why not?

If there is a genuine need for a space then sure people should have them. Should men have spaces? Should black people have spaces? Should Muslims have spaces? It's all the same mish-mash really isn't it? Generally I feel we should accommodate people's wants and needs as best we can't provided it doesn't hurt anyone else. Equally we should try to be generous to others with what we have been given provided they aren't causing us any harm.

If there is no danger or issues with 'penis having' persons, I see no reason to segregate just based on being a 'woman', and anyone can self-ID they are either a woman or man. We should honor each persons individual opinion about their identity.

Other than medical things related to having a uterus and birthing all the humans on the planet, there should be nothing special.
Sports should be just height and weight. Scholarships by pure ability only. Prisons, dorms, school, all mixed!!
No discrimination!

That way when a male decides he wants to be a woman, but then switches back, there is no coercion either way. The sports team 'she' is on is fine either way. Fluidity is possible. Neutral sexuality is possible. Even the asexuals, non-sexuals, or the ones who identify an non-human aliens are fine in this system.

If that system 'worked' for everyone it would be cool wouldn't it? But it probably wouldn't. We're certainly far away from achieving that.

The weird thing, I suspect, is that the trans women dont actually want things neutral. Their psychological validation and feeling of 'belonging' come from being in a distinctively 'woman' space.
So how to correct for that?

Possibly. I don't know. I'm not sure how they could get a sense of belonging in a distinctively 'woman' space if those spaces didn't exist. Of course 'neutral' doesn't mean the same. Even if all races, genders, identities were truly equal I don't think we would all tend towards a homogenous mass. Maybe I'm wrong but I think we would still find our differentiators and different identities - they just may not be based on genitals or skin colour or whatever.

Of course we are where we are now. I don't think the idea of gender is going anywhere for a while.
 
It's strange that you are wondering what my angle is to say something I haven't actually said.

Again, I'm at a loss as to how you have got to here from there.

Maybe I included too many steps.

Men are the sex most violent to others, including women, by a far margin in society.
The same is NOT true for natal females.

Perhaps you can agree these simple factual statements. It isnt clear that you do (you might!)
 
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I think that's pretty much what the law is right now. And i'm not aware of anything specific proposed that would change it. I'm not aware of any mainstream groups of transallies or activists actively pushing for anything significantly different. Nor do I have a specific platform to engage with them on the topic.

I don't know what you think is mainstream... but self-declaration, with no diagnosis and no medical transition is exactly what was used to transfer Karen White - a physically male person who had been convicted of rape but claimed to be a transwoman - transferred to the female ward.

So clearly, that's not what the law is right now. And there are a lot of people who disagree with your very reasonable request to have some gatekeeping involved. Some of those people have been in this very thread.
 
I speak how I am spoken to. If someone engages on the topic and presents arguments I will engage with them.

Promises, promises.

Here is my explanation of the logic of why I think private spaces and sports should be segregated by biological sex, and not based on any behavior associated with gender or declarations of gender identity.

Before I begin, a reminder of why this post exists. Archie Gemmel Goal made a comment saying that facts and logic were unpersuasive to many, and I suggested that there really wasn't a whole lot of logic being employed by him and people on "his side". I followed that up asking what parts of my arguments were illogical. AGG noted, correctly, that my post contained no logic, so I'm providing that logic here.

The actual argument spans several paragraphs. I'm going to put it in a spoiler, leaving the summary easily read.

Regarding private spaces where people are normally disrobed, partially or fully, but more so than they would normally be in a public space.

The primary consideration is privacy rights. People tend to want control over who sees them naked, or who sees them in minimal clothing or in clothing that is normally not meant to be seen. (Do I have to spell this out? Just in case, yes. Women don't normally walk around with just a pair of panties covering up their private parts.) This is particularly true if the observers are of the opposite sex. Being exposed, especially to the opposite sex, creates anxiety. (Obvious exceptions apply, but people want to be very careful about when to use those exceptions, and with whom.) This feeling of anxiety is generally more severe among women.

This feeling associated with being unclothed, especially in the presence of men, is sometimes termed "modesty", and it is a deeply rooted psychological reaction. I do not believe that it is fully created by society. I believe it is rooted in instinctual behavior. It is shaped, molded, and intensified by society, but I believe it is a natural phenomenon deeply rooted in the human psyche, related to ways in which sexual signaling is performed by human beings.

Part of this, but not all of it, is related to a legitimate fear of sexual assault. Men are generally bigger and stronger, and capable of rape. From time immemorial, rape actually happens to women. Once again, I believe this fear is not something created by society, nor is it an objectively rational evaluation of actual risk. There is an instinctive fear created by disrobing in the presence of someone who is capable of rape. That fear can be controlled, modified, or intensified by societal pressure or by conscious effort on the part of the person affected, but it perfectly normal and understandable. If a woman feels anxiety disrobing in the presence of a man, this is not a failure on her part. It is perfectly normal, and it is actually wise of women to pay attention to that anxiety, and not try and minimize it, because the threat of rape is very real, and women ought to be aware of that possibility at all times where it exists.

Note that I am talking about anxiety related to the fear of assault, and I am saying that this anxiety is natural, and should not be dismissed, even in cases where some sort of measures make assault extremely unlikely. For example, it seems almost impossible to think that a single, unarmed, young man, would rape a woman in a high school locker room when several young women are present and observing. Even in that situation though, a women would naturally feel uneasy disrobing in the presence of the man, and those feelings should not be dismissed or ignored.

To protect women both from a legitimate risk of rape, or from the anxiety that has its roots in a fear of assault, even if the actual risk is minimal in the specific circumstances present, areas where people are disrobed are segregated so that the disrobed women are only observed by other women.

If a male is allowed into those spaces, he will be perceived as a man, and those anxieties will be triggered. It does not matter what the internal state of mind of the male is. It is his presence as a male that causes the anxiety. If the person is bigger and stronger than the woman, and has the sexual equipment necessary to penetrate and/or impregnate a woman, then all of the elements are present to create a reasonable fear of disrobing in the presence of that male. Therefore, segregation by "gender" is inadequate to protect women. To the extent that the vulnerability to actual assault exists in those places, it can be perpetrated by a transwomen as easily as by a man. Likewise, even if the actual risk of assault is minimized by whatever means available, the associated anxiety is still triggered, just as if an "actual" man were present.

In other words, all arguments for excluding men from female spaces apply equally to trans-women.


Fear of sexual assault, whether an instinctive fear or an objective assessment of risk is not the only element involved in the desire to avoid disrobing in the presence of the opposite sex. Other elements involved are an anxiety about body judgement, and presence of concerns about attempts to engage people in erotic activity, i.e. flirting, being "hit on", or being "checked out". In the interests of brevity, I won't elaborate on those at this time. I'll just reserve comments until later. These issues can affect both men and women, but differently.

Finally, it may also be said that the transwoman may experience anxiety if required to use all male facilities. This can be avoided by providing a separate facility that can be accessed by the small number of transpeople who use those facilities. That solution is often rejected on the grounds that it is somehow unfair to treat transwomen differently than cis-women. In the interests of the reader's time, I won't give a lengthy argument about that at this time, but I will be succinct to the point of bluntness. I don't care. I care about safety, privacy, and access to facilities, but that's about the limit of my interests. If desired, I can elaborate and explain why, logically, I don't think I ought to care, but I will leave that for another time.

Also, I will be brief in commenting about sport. Sports have two important functions in society, which are entertainment and inspiration. People enjoy watching them, and they serve to promote healthy athleticism among spectators and competitors. In order to best fulfill those functions, the competitions must be among the best, most athletic, participants. A highly athletic well conditioned and well trained woman will generally lose to a much less athletic male. The presence of transwomen in women's sports means that the participants are not the most athletic or healthy competitors possible, and thus detract from enjoyment and inspirational value of both spectators and participants.

To summarize the logic:

Segregated locker rooms exist in order to avoid triggering fear of sexual assault among women. That fear is triggered by the physical characteristics of men, not by their internal thoughts. Therefore, segregation must be based on those physical characteristics, i.e. by biological sex, in order to achieve the objectives of the segregation.

I will add that completely private facilities for each individual would solve all of these concerns , but might present practical problems, i.e. cost, that prevent their implementation. I can elaborate further if desired.

Other considerations also exist, and those can affect both men and women, but I haven't elaborated on them.
 
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