Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[LondonJohn]

Thank you for telling me what I believe. It's nice to have my own mind put in its place by a male person every now and then. Wouldn't want that darned thing thinking it had a mind of its own or anything.

But your position does rather put one in mind of things like:

"I've got nothing against gay men, but I don't want any of them in my army"

or

"I've got nothing against black people, but I wouldn't want black families moving into the houses either side of mine".


(And I note that yet again you're reaching for the "men oppressing women in some form or other" toolbox. If you told me how you perceived that my opinions categorised me, would I be similarly justified in saying "It's nice to have my own mind put in its place by a female person now and again..."?)

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sorry I can't help you. Stop talking to me.

I should know better, shouldn't I? It's really up to males to determine what's best for females. Females shouldn't really try to butt into the arena of males making decisions on our behalf.

 

[Emily's Cat]

But your position does rather put one in mind of things like:

"I've got nothing against gay men, but I don't want any of them in my army"

or

"I've got nothing against black people, but I wouldn't want black families moving into the houses either side of mine".

Surely at this point in the thread, you are capable of providing a synopsis of what my position is. Please do so now.

 

[LondonJohn]

That's how you've framed it, sure. But the original position was that increasing civil rights for one disadvantaged group should not be accomplished by reducing the rights, safety, and privacy of another disadvantaged group.

The penultimate word of that sentence has nothing empirically to do with the matter at hand.

That aside, what you've written there is a direct rephrasing of what I'd written. So where you've written above "...should not be accomplished by...", I've provided a counterexample of a comparable situation where "...was accomplished by..." was the outcome.


(But in any case, the white girls/women in the analogy were - in the Southern US states of the 1950s/60s - comparatively a more "disadvantaged" group than the cis women of the 2020s.....)

 

[LondonJohn]

Surely at this point in the thread, you are capable of providing a synopsis of what my position is. Please do so now.

Well, to put it tritely:

"I support transgender rights and I've got nothing against trans women, but I don't want to share facilities such as public changing rooms with any of them".


("Please do so now" LOL)

 

[LondonJohn]

I should know better, shouldn't I? It's really up to males to determine what's best for females. Females shouldn't really try to butt into the arena of males making decisions on our behalf.

If this is how you (continue to) try to frame the debate - and, it would appear, not only the debate within this forum, but also the debate among clinical experts, law makers and global NGOs - then I doubt that there's ever any hope of making reasonable progress.

 

[Meadmaker]

You might have pre-empted this but the objection I am going to have here is that the people who opposed rights for black people would make the same arguments. That there is something intrinsic about being scared of another race. And I don't think you have shown there is a real difference. If people had grown up changing in front of people of both genders there wouldn't be a societal issue with changing in front of both genders. It's instinctive to fear other races... but it's not right. It's instinctive to fear other genitals.. but it's not right. Could be?

Certainly fear of other races is extremely common, and may very well be instinctive. That's a complicated issue. In my opinion, and I suspect in yours as well, society is not well served to pander to those instincts, or to enshrine them into law.

When it comes to the fear of other genders, I personally think it is not only instinctive, but rational, for all the reasons stated over and over again. I think that there is a reason that we do not change in front of both genders, except in very controlled circumstances, and I don't think it is just societal influence that causes it. However, be that as it may, that isn't the actual issue involved here. Once again, if you want to argue that there should be no segregation of changing facilities, or come to think of it why should there be changing facilities at all? Why would we go behind a door to change clothes? If that's what you want to propose, then the problem is solved.

However, if you want to maintain a locker room for men and a locker room for women, that's a different story. That's what we have here. I can't understand any way that you can logically assert that I, a cis-man, should be excluded from the women's locker room, while some other male bodied person who declares himself to be a transwoman should be allowed, unless you are willing to simply ignore the wishes of the cis-women who object.

You have to use the women's locker rooms then cos you're a bitch boy cuck. You don't mind do you. I mean you can still watch Rambo and wear pants.

Please Bre'r Fox, don't throw me into the briar patch........but in this case I think the people sharing the locker room would object.



Oh....and....I see you've descended into illogical name calling, emotional appeals, and the stuff the makes for lofty rhetoric, but not actual meaningful dialog. By all means, demand freedom and rights for everyone! Privacy rights aren't real rights anyway.

 

[Boudicca90]

Thank you for telling me what I believe. It's nice to have my own mind put in its place by a male person every now and then. Wouldn't want that darned thing thinking it had a mind of its own or anything.

Then how about a transgender woman agreeing with him that you are anti-trans? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm a "man" too so I don't count...

Once more from the top: Transwomen are women. I am a woman. I deserve to be treated the same as you in every way possible. And I am not going to back down until we are equal to ciswomen.

 

[d4m10n]

Because we have an objection to penises in our spaces.

In before someone makes an analogy between African ancestry and having a penis, as if both of these conditions are uniquely dangerous somehow.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Well, to put it tritely:

"I support transgender rights and I've got nothing against trans women, but I don't want to share facilities such as public changing rooms with any of them".

Your trite summation of my position is incorrect.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The penultimate word of that sentence has nothing empirically to do with the matter at hand.

How can it not? The entire premise of civil rights is to address inequities and disadvantages, is it not? How can that disadvantage be of paramount importance to one group, and irrelevant for the group that is being sacrificed for the "greater good"?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Then how about a transgender woman agreeing with him that you are anti-trans? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm a "man" too so I don't count...

Once more from the top: Transwomen are women. I am a woman. I deserve to be treated the same as you in every way possible. And I am not going to back down until we are equal to ciswomen.

ALright. You deserve to get annual pelvic exams for the uterus and vagina that you don't have. You deserve to have a speculum inserted into your non-existent cervix in order to take a pap smear that you don't need. And, since you want to be treated as a woman in every possible way, you should probably start taking birth control pills so you don't accidentally grow a fetus in your nonexistent womb. You should certainly have access to sanitary pads and tampons, just in case you start an impossible period. And people should start dismissing your anger because it's clearly "your nonexistent time of the month". We'll give you a paycut while we're at it, because you're a woman and all. And of course, you should definitely see slower career growth and fewer promotions - you might take time off to have a baby, right? And since you're a woman in every single way that I am, you should totally be able to compete on women's teams, and fight in MMA as a woman, you're definitely not at all male and there's nothing male about your physique, no difference in bone density or musculature at all. We should also make sure that you get sexually harassed as much as females do. And you know, while we're at it, we should probably start an intensive conditioning regimen so that you can get all of those childhood experiences of what a "girl" is supposed to be like, and how a "good little girl" is supposed to behave.

We've got a lot of work to do here. I mean, there's an entire gamut of physical and biological realities that we've got to make sure apply to you, and you've got a whole lifetime of lived experience that we've got to make sure you're subjected to.

Because obviously, the term "woman": only has to do with some indescribable and unobservable feeling in your mind. It clearly has nothing at all to do with either the objective fact of sex or with the experience of actually being treated as a female and discriminated against as a female and being disadvantaged as a female. Nothing at all to do with femaleness at all.

Right?

 

[Boudicca90]

ALright. You deserve to get annual pelvic exams for the uterus and vagina that you don't have. You deserve to have a speculum inserted into your non-existent cervix in order to take a pap smear that you don't need. And, since you want to be treated as a woman in every possible way, you should probably start taking birth control pills so you don't accidentally grow a fetus in your nonexistent womb. You should certainly have access to sanitary pads and tampons, just in case you start an impossible period. And people should start dismissing your anger because it's clearly "your nonexistent time of the month". We'll give you a paycut while we're at it, because you're a woman and all. And of course, you should definitely see slower career growth and fewer promotions - you might take time off to have a baby, right? And since you're a woman in every single way that I am, you should totally be able to compete on women's teams, and fight in MMA as a woman, you're definitely not at all male and there's nothing male about your physique, no difference in bone density or musculature at all. We should also make sure that you get sexually harassed as much as females do. And you know, while we're at it, we should probably start an intensive conditioning regimen so that you can get all of those childhood experiences of what a "girl" is supposed to be like, and how a "good little girl" is supposed to behave.

We've got a lot of work to do here. I mean, there's an entire gamut of physical and biological realities that we've got to make sure apply to you, and you've got a whole lifetime of lived experience that we've got to make sure you're subjected to.

Because obviously, the term "woman": only has to do with some indescribable and unobservable feeling in your mind. It clearly has nothing at all to do with either the objective fact of sex or with the experience of actually being treated as a female and discriminated against as a female and being disadvantaged as a female. Nothing at all to do with femaleness at all.

Right?

And I'm sure it makes you feel so goddamn superior, doesn't it? To be able to gatekeep womanhood like that? And that's why I don't give a damn about how you feel.

We will continue to gain rights and be as equal to ciswomen as possible, and your irrational and hysterical views will be drowned out as people become more accepting of us and reject your biological determinist mindset. I don't care if you consider us threats or not, because just like every other civil rights movement, we will be victorious in the end.

 

[Roboramma]

You are anti trans.

And don't say you aren't because your self-identification doesn't matter ... it's what other people say you are that matters.

What matters is what's actually true. Based on Emily's Cat's actual views, she's clearly not anti-trans.

 

[Roboramma]

Well, to put it tritely:

"I support transgender rights and I've got nothing against trans women, but I don't want to share facilities such as public changing rooms with any of them".


("Please do so now" LOL)

Nothing contradictory about that: "I support women's rights, but I don't want to share male changing rooms with them" isn't contradictory either.

 

[lionking]

And I'm sure it makes you feel so goddamn superior, doesn't it? To be able to gatekeep womanhood like that? And that's why I don't give a damn about how you feel.

We will continue to gain rights and be as equal to ciswomen as possible, and your irrational and hysterical views will be drowned out as people become more accepting of us and reject your biological determinist mindset. I don't care if you consider us threats or not, because just like every other civil rights movement, we will be victorious in the end.

Do you think this is an appropriate description of a woman in the context of this thread?

ETA, do you think you are going to get support of more people with offensive attacks like this? And I also include posts of yours which refer to others as TERFs and bigots.

 

[d4m10n]

"I support transgender rights and I've got nothing against trans women, but I don't want to share facilities such as public changing rooms with any of them".

I support women's rights but I'd rather not share a changing room with them.

I support the rights of those who choose to worship Jesus on Wednesday evenings, but I'd rather not sing hymns with them.

I support the rights of those who are not ambulatory without prosthetics or wheelchairs, but I'm not trying to join their basketball league.

I support the rights of those who practice polyamory, but I'm never going to give it a shot myself.

Just because you support someone doesn't mean you ought to join them.

 

[Meadmaker]

What matters is what's actually true. Based on Emily's Cat's actual views, she's clearly not anti-trans.

To be fair, it's not like people are either "pro-trans" or "anti-trans" as a binary choice. She could be a little bit pro and a little bit anti. Labels are so restrictive.

What is clear to me from reading her posts is that she makes no moral judgements about trans people, and she supports their rights to a far greater degree than some in our society. However, she does not support every single item on the wish list of the trans-rights activists, and she doesn't recognize them as "really" being ......let's see if I can get this both politically and grammatically correct.....an actual member of the sex that is most commonly associated with their gender identity. Actually, even that won't work, because in the trans rights world, you can be a "real woman" without being a member of the female sex. Oh, fiddlesticks. It's impossible I think, but that isn't all that surprising when circular defintions are employed.

Back to the question, though, what I would say is if you alienate someone as liberal about the subject as Emily's Cat is, you have no hope with people who hold actual mainstream views on the subject. EC is on the left of the spectrum on this issue.

 

[Boudicca90]

Do you think this is an appropriate description of a woman in the context of this thread?

ETA, do you think you are going to get support of more people with offensive attacks like this? And I also include posts of yours which refer to others as TERFs and bigots.

Plenty of people in this thread have said more offensive things about us trans women, so I'm not going to be lectured by anyone for defending myself.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited to remove breach of rule 12

 

[Meadmaker]

Here's an interesting story:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/54233946

Summary, born female, recently came out as transgender male. Plays on Canadian national women's Soccer team and intends to be at the Tokyo Olympics next year. (I so hope that happens, the "Olympics next year" part.)

The person in question prefers the pronoun "them". I won't do it. I'll go with he. I just don't like "them", for one person. Way too awkward.

It ought to surprise no one that I have no problem with that. If he's not taking any substance that is banned for women's sports, then go for it. Do what you want. Go for the gold.

But I do wonder if the more vocal trans-rights supporters, and especially those who think that Quinn is "really" a man, whatever that means, will object. I honestly have no clue if they would or not, but in their world, this would clearly be a case of a man competing in women's sports. Wouldn't that be taboo?

I, of course, think this is a woman competing in women's sports. The transman thing is a social nicety. He doesn't have any biological advantage over the other women, no matter what pronouns he uses, so it's all good. But....does everyone see it that way?