Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

The apologies have been that Karen White specifically shouldn't have been admitted. What I am saying is that Karen White should never have even been considered for moving to the female ward, because people with penises should not be allowed in the female ward, regardless of how they identify.

That's odd because we seemed to have reached a tentative agreement on something different.

Do you honestly believe that say a transwoman who has lived as a female since puberty who commits a crime... let's say it was hate speech against transmen just for fun.... at age 50 should be sent to a male prison because they have a penis?

That seems unnecessarily cruel and serves no purpose.

 

[LondonJohn]

You are incorrect.

You are putting forth an analogy based on the aspects of two situations that you consider to be similar. But those similarities do not exist in isolation. The flaw in the analogy is that the two movements ask for different things:

1) The African American civil rights movement was asking for an end to segregation as part of the quest for fair and equal treatment.

2) Trans rights movement is not asking for an end to segregation. They are asking for continued segregation with a slightly different dividing line. There is no argument that the reasons for segregation are invalid or should otherwise be overturned.

3) You are not comparing these items, you are comparing a similar perceived consequence that could have been used as an argument against both positions.

4) The analogy is flawed because the goals are dissimilar enough that the application of arguments for and against have to be evaluated within the specific context. In other words, the conclusions on one side of the analogy don't necessarily translate to the other side because of dissimilarity.

You're not understanding the principle driving the analogy.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

As far as I can tell, the lesson supposedly learned from the Karen White incident was basically:

"Self-ID is a totally valid reason to transfer males to a women's prison, but we're making a post-hoc exception to that rule, for Karen White."

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to remove breach of rule 12

The whole Karen White case has become for the drooling anti-trans movement exactly equivalent to the Rotherham grooming gangs for the drooling anti-Muslim movement.

 

[LondonJohn]

So far, the IOC is still deadnaming Caitlyn Jenner, and misgendering her by implication:

https://www.olympic.org/bruce-jenner

Nope.

Caitlyn Jenner's Olympics record was compiled when she was a man named Bruce Jenner. And it's entirely correct therefore that her historic achievements are listed under her gender and name at the time they were achieved.*

A few months ago, by way of example, I saw an interview with a transgender author (man to woman). Some of her books were published before her transition, and others were published post her transition. The ones published prior to transition were published - and continue to be published, and continue to be listed by the publisher - under her former identity and gender. And she herself referrred readily to the pre-transition books with her former name and gender.


Your (mis)understanding on this point does lead me to wonder about your overall comprehension of the wider subject.



ETA: * However, if the IOC were, for example, to invite this person next year to a dinner celebrating past Olympians, they would invite her as a woman: Caitlyn Jenner. And they would then, in the programme for the dinner, list her as Caitlyn Jenner but - in the part of each listing which recounted each dinner guest's Olympic achievements - they would need to say (possibly in brackets) "competed as Bruce Jenner in the men's decathlon" or likewise.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't know. Care to do the work?

I think you are probably right though, it's not the same. It's probably less. But neither of us know.

And in any case, the comparative severity of the danger is wholly irrelevant to the efficacy of the analogy.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's entirely relevant to me. The nature and degree of risk is directly related to the remedies and sacrifices I'm willing to consider to mitigate that risk.

If you can show that the risk posed to women in a women's shelter, by a cismale pretending to be trans in order to gain access, is the same as the risk posed to a white woman on a bus by a black man on the same bus, I'd be willing to consider applying a similar remedy in each case.

It's not relevant for the sake of the analogy. At all.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Regarding my previous reply, it suffers from a common problem that it is something of a piecemeal reply, so it isn't very coherent when reading from end to end. Let me try a very short summary.

Since people want different things, someone is going to lose. The loss by the women when transwomen use their space is loss of privacy and/or increased fear, and possibly actual safety. The loss by the transwomen if they are not allowed to use women's space is.....something AGG will have to fill in. AGG discounts the significance of fear. I discount the significance of whatever it is that transwomen are getting, which I think is probably an affirmation of their womanhood by society, but again I'll let AGG fill in.

A solution which solves all the problems except whatever it is that the transwomen want would be to remove from the women's space anyone capable of raping them. That doesn't make the trans-activists happy, which is a bad thing, but weighing the down side of each possible approach, my personal judgement is that the benefit to women, in terms of safety, privacy, and related fear or anxiety, outweighs the concerns of the transwomen, at least in the case where a private facility for the small number of transwomen is available.

That weighing of benefits is not something that can be "proved". We can prove what each side has to give up in each scenario, but we can't prove which is more important, because that is a value judgement, not an objective measure.

Thanks for both your posts. (and for the peanut gallery I am unclear on your genitals and don't think it's relevant) I was going to do a piecemeal reply to your long post but it might not be helpful. So i'll just ping a few thoughts out.

I think we need to tease a couple of things apart. Are we saying that the justification for excluding transpeople is ACTUAL risk, or are we saying that the justification is PERCEIVED risk and discomfort. Because I think it matters and you seem to be flip-flopping between the two basically saying that it's not just discomfort because men are actually a danger but even if they aren't then it doesn't matter because the discomfort is still real.

Let me be clear on something. I do not believe that a woman saying 'i don't feel comfortable around a transwoman in a changing room' is saying anything more real or more valuable or more in need of acting upon than a man saying 'i don't feel comfortable around gay guys in the locker room' or 'i don't feel comfortable around black guys in the locker room'. I just don't. I acknowledge all of these emotional responses are real emotional responses and I think the best answer to that is to provide private spaces for people who have discomfort issues where practical. And where it's not practical there is going to have be an element of 'suck it up'

If the issue is actual risk then we need to look at what the risk is, where it is, what causes it and how it can be mitigated. Which is why I'm quite happy to say that in prisons for example it's probably not OK to transfer a convicted sex offender who at age 45 out of the blue decides he was always female really to a women's prison but that it wouldn't be fair to impose the same rules on someone who has been a transwoman since they were 14. But then again maybe if they are convicted of raping a woman then special steps still need to be taken to separate them.

There are cases of real risk and cases where the risk is largely imaginary. I googled 'Department Store Toilet Rape' to see what came up and the only story I see is page after page of 2 guys raping a 14 year old boy in a Debenhams toilet. Not sure what that tells us necessarily but the rudimentary risk analyses I've seen so far couple with the 'but all men are just rapists waiting to go off' attitude doesn't convince me yet that for example transwomen need to be banned from department store toilets or gym changing rooms based on a risk analysis.

The third element seems to be a dismissal on your side that transwomen are losing anything if they are banned from women's spaces or worse still that you don't really care if they are losing something or not. Maybe we look at things in different ways. Your position seems to be that people don't gain rights/privileges until they prove they deserve them my position is that people don't get to deny you rights/privileges unless they have good reason to do so. I think where we differ is exemplified in your position that the problem is the presence of transwomen. I don't think that's the problem at all.

I don't really want to engage on the 'capable of raping them' line because it's going down a rabbit hole. But I would say not all men are capable of raping a woman and that women are also capable of rape and that men are capable of raping men. So I don't think capability is the issue. Risk has to be the issue.

 

[theprestige]

I don't know. Care to do the work?

I think you are probably right though, it's not the same. It's probably less. But neither of us know.

If you haven't measured the risk on both sides of your analogy, then what's the point? And obviously I reject the argument, with and without the analogy.

 

[theprestige]

Great. Except that wasn't the question that EC originally posed. Her assertion was that the civil rights movement for black people did not ask anyone to give up anything, but that the trans rights movement does.

The conversation seems to have moved on from that point.

By the way which jurisdiction are you referring to where "granting access to transwomen on their self-ID alone, to the point of making it a criminal offense to attempt any gatekeeping" is either the law or the proposed law?

The jurisdiction of this thread right here. We're discussing the proposal and debating whether it's a good one.

It's weird that you keep trying to evade this point, even though you've been corrected on it several times. What's going on?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It's weird that you keep trying to evade this point, even though you've been corrected on it several times. What's going on?

Because I'm not interested in discussing the world as imagined by people who imagine the worst things. I am interested in discussing reality as it actually is.

I'm unaware of anyone anywhere, not least of all on this thread, who has said that attempting to keep cismen out of women's spaces should be a crime. You just made it up, didn't you?

 

[Meadmaker]

Thanks for both your posts. (and for the peanut gallery I am unclear on your genitals and don't think it's relevant) I was going to do a piecemeal reply to your long post but it might not be helpful. So i'll just ping a few thoughts out.

I think we need to tease a couple of things apart. Are we saying that the justification for excluding transpeople is ACTUAL risk, or are we saying that the justification is PERCEIVED risk and discomfort.

Who might be included in "we" could be problematic. I'm speaking for myself, although I'm sure other people share some of my opinions, but I'll answer for myself.

The answer is both, and the two interact. I'll try to explain.

There is a real risk of rape in the world, obviously. I think that risk is increased if the number of situations where men and women interact when unclothed is increased. However, I don't have numbers to say by exactly how much.

Moreover, while the overall risk of rape may go up slightly, there are situations where the real risk is, for all practical purposes, zero. I often discuss high school transgirls using the girls' locker room. The actual risk of rape in that case is so close to zero that it can be ignored. There are too many witnesses and a group of girls could easily defend against a single, unarmed, attacker.

So this is where the perceived risk comes in. First, I want to say that the term "perceived risk" isn't a very good choice. It suggests that it's an error or mistake, and that is very definitely not what I'm getting at. It's not so much a perceived risk, but rather an instinctive fear. It is a quite natural feeling. We call it "modesty" or "privacy" or "fear" or perhaps some other term, but the discomfort, anxiety, or fear is very real, and it is not irrational. It might be non-rational in some cases, but that's different.

I have suggested, without proof, that the origin of that fear or anxiety is the very real risk, generally, of sexual assault, but it isn't terribly important if I am right about that origin or not. The anxiety is still real, and still a negative, and it can't be erased simply by declaring that the person, who has all the equipment necessary for rape is really a woman. If you prefer to take rape out of the picture entirely, you could say that the person with all the equipment that men have. In other words, if it is perfectly natural to experience anxiety when disrobed in the presence of a man, it is just as natural to experience anxiety when disrobed in the presence of a transwoman, because in fact from the perspective of the disrobed person, the two situations are completely indistinguishable.

Because I think it matters and you seem to be flip-flopping between the two basically saying that it's not just discomfort because men are actually a danger but even if they aren't then it doesn't matter because the discomfort is still real.

So, yes. That's correct, or nearly so. See above.

Let me be clear on something. I do not believe that a woman saying 'i don't feel comfortable around a transwoman in a changing room' is saying anything more real or more valuable or more in need of acting upon than a man saying 'i don't feel comfortable around gay guys in the locker room' or 'i don't feel comfortable around black guys in the locker room'. I just don't.

I know. I think that's daft, and I think you consistently ignore all of the reasons presented to you why the situations aren't comparable, but so it goes.

I acknowledge all of these emotional responses are real emotional responses and I think the best answer to that is to provide private spaces for people who have discomfort issues where practical. And where it's not practical there is going to have be an element of 'suck it up'

I agree. I think those spaces are called "women's locker rooms".

The third element seems to be a dismissal on your side that transwomen are losing anything if they are banned from women's spaces or worse still that you don't really care if they are losing something or not.

That's close to correct.

In my last post I said that you need to provide a description of what the transwoman is losing if she isn't allowed to use the women's locker room. I note you haven't done so. I don't want to be in the situation where I am saying what's important to them. That's where straw men are born. So, you are advocating for access. What do you think they are losing if they don't get it?

I am specifically referring in this instance to a situation where there is a separate facility available that the transperson chooses to not use. In that case, they aren't losing privacy. They aren't losing access to the pool. They aren't losing safety. So, tell me what they are losing, and I'll tell you whether or not I dismiss it. If I understand the situation, I very likely will, but I want to be sure I understand what I'm dismissing before I dismiss it.

 

[theprestige]

Because I'm not interested in discussing the world as imagined by people who imagine the worst things. I am interested in discussing reality as it actually is.

I'm unaware of anyone anywhere, not least of all on this thread, who has said that attempting to keep cismen out of women's spaces should be a crime. You just made it up, didn't you?

I - and others - predict that it would follow directly from a policy of self-ID being sufficient to claim a right to access women's safe spaces. If the government says that's all that's needed, attempting to impose other criteria would be a violation of the person's civil rights.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Who might be included in "we" could be problematic. I'm speaking for myself, although I'm sure other people share some of my opinions, but I'll answer for myself.

The answer is both, and the two interact. I'll try to explain.

There is a real risk of rape in the world, obviously. I think that risk is increased if the number of situations where men and women interact when unclothed is increased. However, I don't have numbers to say by exactly how much.

Moreover, while the overall risk of rape may go up slightly, there are situations where the real risk is, for all practical purposes, zero. I often discuss high school transgirls using the girls' locker room. The actual risk of rape in that case is so close to zero that it can be ignored. There are too many witnesses and a group of girls could easily defend against a single, unarmed, attacker.

So this is where the perceived risk comes in. First, I want to say that the term "perceived risk" isn't a very good choice. It suggests that it's an error or mistake, and that is very definitely not what I'm getting at. It's not so much a perceived risk, but rather an instinctive fear. It is a quite natural feeling. We call it "modesty" or "privacy" or "fear" or perhaps some other term, but the discomfort, anxiety, or fear is very real, and it is not irrational. It might be non-rational in some cases, but that's different.

I have suggested, without proof, that the origin of that fear or anxiety is the very real risk, generally, of sexual assault, but it isn't terribly important if I am right about that origin or not. The anxiety is still real, and still a negative, and it can't be erased simply by declaring that the person, who has all the equipment necessary for rape is really a woman. If you prefer to take rape out of the picture entirely, you could say that the person with all the equipment that men have. In other words, if it is perfectly natural to experience anxiety when disrobed in the presence of a man, it is just as natural to experience anxiety when disrobed in the presence of a transwoman, because in fact from the perspective of the disrobed person, the two situations are completely indistinguishable.



So, yes. That's correct, or nearly so. See above.


I know. I think that's daft, and I think you consistently ignore all of the reasons presented to you why the situations aren't comparable, but so it goes.

I don't ignore the reasons ... mainly because the majority of the reasons are just assertions that it is different without any explanation as to why it's different.

It's a completely circular argument at the minute...

You: We need to avoid the real risk of rape
Me: But there might not be an increased risk of rape
You: It doesn't matter if there is or isn't a real increased risk, women still feel uncomfortable
Me: yeah but lots of people can argue things make them uncomfortable like gay guys in the locker room
You: But it's different because there is a real risk of rape!

Can you see why this gets nowhere

I agree. I think those spaces are called "women's locker rooms".

Locker rooms are not private spaces.

That's close to correct.

In my last post I said that you need to provide a description of what the transwoman is losing if she isn't allowed to use the women's locker room. I note you haven't done so. I don't want to be in the situation where I am saying what's important to them. That's where straw men are born. So, you are advocating for access. What do you think they are losing if they don't get it?

I am specifically referring in this instance to a situation where there is a separate facility available that the transperson chooses to not use. In that case, they aren't losing privacy. They aren't losing access to the pool. They aren't losing safety. So, tell me what they are losing, and I'll tell you whether or not I dismiss it. If I understand the situation, I very likely will, but I want to be sure I understand what I'm dismissing before I dismiss it.

Transwomen are losing the ability to be recognised as the gender they identify as. You might not think that should matter but it matters to them every bit as much as modesty matters to a woman for whom modesty matters.

If you don't think it should matter then think of an example where a shy, softly spoken boy was told 'you need to go change with the girls, you aren't a real man' or a 'tomboy type' girl was told 'you need to go change with the boys you aren't a real girl' - I'm pretty sure that in both of those cases we would say they are being bullied and suffering harm. It's no different in the case of transwomen.

And if you think the answer to either case is 'well if the girls/boys don't want you to change with them then you can just have your own special space here in the broom closet' then you don't understand human beings.

And please also note that in general transwomen would not be being provided a special 3rd place but rather being forced to change with the guys. Personally I think if a 3rd space exists its far more equitable to put the people who are being dicks in there which in this case are the people calling for exclusion.

 

[Meadmaker]

I don't ignore the reasons ... mainly because the majority of the reasons are just assertions that it is different without any explanation as to why it's different.

It's a completely circular argument at the minute...

You: We need to avoid the real risk of rape
Me: But there might not be an increased risk of rape
You: It doesn't matter if there is or isn't a real increased risk, women still feel uncomfortable
Me: yeah but lots of people can argue things make them uncomfortable like gay guys in the locker room
You: But it's different because there is a real risk of rape!

Can you see why this gets nowhere

I can certainly see why it gets us nowhere, but if I tried to explain it, we might disagree on the explanations.

What it comes down to for me is whether the discomfort is not merely real, but also instinctive or natural. Is it something that is part of our human condition or is it an artifact imposed by society?

I think the aversion a Southern white person felt to sharing a swimming pool with a black person was very real, but imposed by society. I think there is ample evidence that if children were not taught to segregate and to view skin tone as an important characteristic, they wouldn't feel that way. In such cases, I see no reason to perpetuate that teaching to the next generation, and I would encourage destroying those barriers. They cause harm.

I see reluctance to disrobe in the presence of the opposite sex as something different. I think that's instinctive feeling. I think the expression of that feeling can be shaped and transformed by society, but I think it's a very real thing, inborn in humans. If it were completely societally imposed, I think the obvious solution would be to simply do away with segregation of locker rooms entirely. While that suggestion is occasionally made, it never gets anywhere. People, especially women, don't want that.

Once you recognize that, then you have to acknowledge that this sense of invasion of privacy is very real, and ordinary, but then you have to explain why it ought to be honored by refusing to allow one male into a locker room, but allowing a different male into the locker room. Good luck with that. Frankly, I haven't even seen you make an attempt to address the issue. Your perspective is always based on the feelings of the transpeople who are excluded, never on the other people who are sharing the space.

For what it's worth, I do see some sort of parallel between discomfort about a man undressing in front of a gay guy and a woman undressing in front of a trans-woman. The fact is that the person is undressing in front of a male where there is a certain degree of sexual significance, and that can create perfectly natural discomfort in both cases. i.e. it is perfectly natural that a man might feel uncomfortable taking off his clothes knowing that the man next to him is gay.

However, the extent of the discomfort is much smaller, because there probably isn't as much fear. for several reasons. I haven't spent my life interacing with sexually aggressive males, there's no physical disparity, and I can't get pregnant if he attacks me. When all is said and done, I don't see a practical alternative. We can go into more detail if it seems worthwhile. For now, I just don't want to hear, "See, there's no difference, therefore......" There's a gigantic difference.

Transwomen are losing the ability to be recognised as the gender they identify as.

That's what I thought, and you are right. I'm dismissing it.

If you accept the modern linguistic distinction between sex and gender, it isn't even true. She can still wear nylon underwear and binge watch "Gilmore Girls" and do all the societally imposed things that we are told constitute "gender", while segregating the locker rooms based on biological sex.

And if you think the answer to either case is 'well if the girls/boys don't want you to change with them then you can just have your own special space here in the broom closet' then you don't understand human beings.

In school settings, the "special place" is usually a facility normally reserved for faculty. Doesn't seem like a downgrade.

Where that "special place" might be in other settings varies depending on lots of factors.

 

[Aber]

It seems that there are 2 main positions in this thread:

"Transwomen are not women, but should be treated as such when required by law, and also when it is polite/convenient/safer to do so"

and

"Transwomen are women, and should be treated as such at all times"

Allowing for some elasticity in definition, both positions are internally coherent but incompatible.

 

[theprestige]

It seems that there are 2 main positions in this thread:

"Transwomen are not women, but should be treated as such when required by law, and also when it is polite/convenient/safer to do so"

I think this position is actually more like,

"Transwomen are not women, but should be treated as such when it is polite/convenient/safer to do so, and also we should carefully consider what prescriptions we should put into law for this, for reasons of safety and women's rights."

 

[caveman1917]

It seems that there are 2 main positions in this thread:

"Transwomen are not women, but should be treated as such when required by law, and also when it is polite/convenient/safer to do so"

and

"Transwomen are women, and should be treated as such at all times"

Allowing for some elasticity in definition, both positions are internally coherent but incompatible.

The statement "transwomen are women" has not been shown internally coherent, and can be shown to be internally incoherent under the standard definitions of the terms used.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Never claimed Seani is "really truly a woman".

What is it that you think you claimed? You said it would be more accurate to say that she is pretending to be a man. That necessarily implies that she is not a man, she is actually a woman.

Regardless, let's simplify this: How do you determine whether Seani is a man or a woman?

 

[Emily's Cat]

That's odd because we seemed to have reached a tentative agreement on something different.

Do you honestly believe that say a transwoman who has lived as a female since puberty who commits a crime... let's say it was hate speech against transmen just for fun.... at age 50 should be sent to a male prison because they have a penis?

That seems unnecessarily cruel and serves no purpose.

I would say that the general rule should be that yes, that person be put in the male prison. I'm willing to allow exceptions to occur on a limited case-by-case basis. But the default starting point should be that penises go to the male prison and vaginas go to the female prison.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You're not understanding the principle driving the analogy.

It looks like he understands it fairly well, but does not agree.

Are you one of those people who feel that a lack of agreement is only possible due to a lack of understanding?