Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[Meadmaker]

Let's perhaps try another analogy

Suppose you and all your friends are Chicago Bears fans. And let's say that the analogue of "sex" is "residence/birthplace", and the analogue of "gender" is "which football team you support".

So if someone (let's call him Bob) is born and raised in Chicago (= "sex"), the high likelihood is that this person will be a fan of the Chicago Bears (= "gender"). The person's birthright is a fixed, factual, immutable truth; while the fandom of the football team is a social condition, a lived experience, and so on.

Now let's take another person: Charlie. Charlie was born and raised in Baltimore. So the automatic presumption is that he will be a Baltimore Ravens fan (as are all of his friends). But Charlie doesn't feel like it's right for him to support the Ravens. He much prefers the football played by the Bears, to the extent that he identifies as a Bears fan.

So Charlie starts travelling to Bears games. He sits in the stands, among the other Bears fans - most of whom will have been born and raised in Chicago.

And the pertinent question is this: is Bob's lived experience of being a Bears fan in any way compromised/de-legitimised/diluted by the fact that sitting next to him in the stand, cheering for the Bears, is Charlie?

So, I think we can conclude that being a Detroit Lions fan is a mental disorder.


Or maybe I missed something.


Ok, somewhat more seriously. The definitive characteristic of being a Bears fan is rooting for the Bears. Therefore, there is no trouble at all with being a Ravens fan, and then being a Bears fan. There's no trouble at all with being born in Baltimore, but rooting for the Bears. While there might be a strong correlation between living in Chicago and being a Bears fan, living in Chicago is not a definitive characteristic of being a Bears fan.

Let's compare that to being a woman.

The definitive characteristic of being a woman is........uhh....right, then. This might be trickier than I thought.

 

[LondonJohn]

So, I think we can conclude that being a Detroit Lions fan is a mental disorder.


Or maybe I missed something.


Ok, somewhat more seriously. The definitive characteristic of being a Bears fan is rooting for the Bears. Therefore, there is no trouble at all with being a Ravens fan, and then being a Bears fan. There's no trouble at all with being born in Baltimore, but rooting for the Bears. While there might be a strong correlation between living in Chicago and being a Bears fan, living in Chicago is not a definitive characteristic of being a Bears fan.

Let's compare that to being a woman.

The definitive characteristic of being a woman is........uhh....right, then. This might be trickier than I thought.

You're still having problems separating gender identity from biological sex, I see.

There's plenty of good reading material around that could help you understand and delineate the difference.

 

[d4m10n]

The entire argument for the recognition and protection of transgender rights is predicated upon the fact that gender dysphoria is now considered (by the world's experts) to be a valid condition.

I'm not sure which "entire argument" you're citing here. Post numbers might help.

Anyhow, just because something is generally considered a disorder (e.g. ADHD) doesn't mean we don't take reasonable steps to accommodate those who suffer from it. In fact, this is often the best course of action.

 

[LondonJohn]

No, and here's where you're working from a premise that is unfounded. Your prior is not established as a valid assumption.

I accept that transgender people have gender dysphoria. I accept that transgender feel that their internal sense of self does not align with their physical bodies. I accept that transgender people believe that their internal feeling is that of a person of the opposite biological sex.

Accepting that they hold a particular belief, and that this belief causes distress and anxiety, does not imply that I agree that their belief is correct and a reflection of reality.

I accept that religious people believe that god exists. I accept that they feel deep in their hearts that god is real. I even feel that religious people should be treated with dignity and respect. But I don't accept that their belief is correct or that it is a reflection of reality.

I can accept that they believe in god, while simultaneously not accepting that god is real myself.

Thus, I accept that people with gender dysphoria experience actual anxiety and distress and that they believe their dysphoria is cased by their internal selves being of the opposite sex than their bodies are. I can accept their belief, and treat them with dignity and respect, while simultaneously not accepting their belief as correct or as a reflection of reality.

You've taken the position that to accept that another person believes something to be true is to accept that the thing they believe is actually really true. This is an unsound premise.

Again, you don't understand gender dysphoria - and the world's experts' assessment of it - properly.

Transgender identity is not a "belief". It's an identity. There's a vast, and critically important, difference.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It's about selectively picking bits and pieces from a discussion and declaring an "Gotcha!" moment.
.

No it really isn't. It's about showing how people's arguments are inconsistent and confused. It's an opportunity for those people to clarify if they choose to do so. Or even to say 'fair enough, I don't have an answer to that'

Or it's an opportunity to evade the point and demonstrate that you aren't actually arguing honestly.

If someone says both A and NOT A in the course of a thread then you cannot honestly say that you understand what they mean, and nor can I. If you can't challenge people on when they say A and NOT A in a thread then it's impossible to tease out anything about what they ACTUALLY think.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think I understand very well the position of certain posters within this thread.

I'm going to be generous and say that you really, really, really do NOT understand the positions of other posters in this thread.

Because if I don't make an effort to stay generous, my inference is that you hold rather misogynistic beliefs.

You might want to ask Emily's Cat, for example, why she claims on the one hand that self-ID is the only sticking point for her, but on the other hand she has a blanket refutation of the right of trans women who've had no surgery (ie with a penis) to (eg) use women's changing rooms - regardless of whether those trans women have been clinically assessed and diagnosed.....

Are you incapable of having more than one thought in your head at a time? Of considering broad context in whole? Rather than parsing individual statements here and there in a trite attempt to score internet points by manufacturing non-existent contradictions?

 

[Olmstead]

Well firstly, what is the "certain subset of black people" to whom you're referring here? And secondly, in any case, abolishing segregation for a certain subset of black people would have abolished racial segregation for that certain subset of black people.

1. Pick any. It doesn't really matter. I'm not arguing about historical reality here but about the fact that the analogy is silly.

2. It sure would. And then I would fight for segregation to be abolished in all other cases as well. Is that the endgame here? Because it doesn't feel the same.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And as I've now pointed out more than several times, "biological females" would have been heavily involved in the real-world policies and directives in respect of transgender identity/rights and gender dysphoria.

FFS no, biological females have not been involved in those policies and directives! Please, for the love of cthulu and FSM and whatever you hold dear, stop making these kinds of broad and baseless assumptions.

Go do some research on this. Or at least read the information that has been provided! The policies being made are being made by a small cadre of politicians (who are way disproportionately male) in conjunction with transgender activist lobbying organizations. They are being made WITHOUT input from female rights groups at all, they are being made WITHOUT input from the general public which is 50% biological female.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm not sure which "entire argument" you're citing here, TBH. Just because something is generally considered a disorder (e.g. ADHD) doesn't mean we don't take reasonable steps to accommodate those who suffer from it.

Oh brother.

There's a massive difference between a) accommodating people who have mental disorders (and that is indeed a noble endeavour in a civilised society), and b) granting people rights (and then protecting those rights) on the basis of a valid human condition.


Once again, homosexuality is a good comparator. In the antediluvial days, the prevailing belief was that homosexuality was a disorder (or, to some, it was a sin against God...). This resulted in homosexuals being largely shunned and dismissed - though there were a few "kindly" souls who believed in the doctrine of trying to understand and accommodate this "disorder" (usually, it has to be added, with the intention of trying to "cure" homosexuals of their disorder/deviancy).

But everything changed once the world's experts reassessed homosexuality and decided that it was a valid condition and identity. All of a sudden, homosexuals were not deviants in need of a cure or an accommodation. And every single piece of gay rights legislation and education stemmed directly and inexorably from the recategorisation of homosexuality by the world's experts. Not one bit of gay rights legislation would ever have been enacted had it not been for that recategorisation.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I often see it argued that having sex as a protected class is important and that gender wouldn't offer the same protections. But I am struggling to see why that should be the case, or think of specific examples of where the sex/gender distinction is vital. In any case I think that both sex and gender can sit alongside each other.

Gee. I can't imagine why a male might not see the importance of sex as a protected class. It couldn't possibly have anything at all to do with the risk of getting pregnant when a sperm-creator interacts with an ovarian, could it? It couldn't possibly have anything at all to do with a worldwide disparity in the rate of sexual violence (in fact, all violence) with respect to which sex is the victim and which sex is the perpetrator... and the incredibly different types of risks faced by victims and perpetrators on the basis of sex. It couldn't possibly have anything at all to do with one sex being larger, stronger, more aggressive, and more dominating than the other. It couldn't possible have anything to do with eons of oppression and discrimination on the basis of sex.

It couldn't possible have anything at all to do with the fact that social gender is not the same as biological sex, could it?

 

[Emily's Cat]

No idea, but I do know I'm not an extremist in regards to this topic.

Neither am I, so it's nice that we're in agreement!

 

[Emily's Cat]

I tend to agree. There's some edge cases where there's room for minor quibbling, but the core issue, whether trans-identity is valid and should be recognized and protected by law, is largely a binary choice.

Trans-identity should be protected by law. But trans-identity is not the same as sex, and should not replace the currently protected characteristic of sex, nor should it supplant the rights and protections granted on the basis of sex.

And it DEFINITELY should not do so on nothing more than the declaration of a person that they are trans.

 

[LondonJohn]

FFS no, biological females have not been involved in those policies and directives! Please, for the love of cthulu and FSM and whatever you hold dear, stop making these kinds of broad and baseless assumptions.

Go do some research on this. Or at least read the information that has been provided! The policies being made are being made by a small cadre of politicians (who are way disproportionately male) in conjunction with transgender activist lobbying organizations. They are being made WITHOUT input from female rights groups at all, they are being made WITHOUT input from the general public which is 50% biological female.

I'm sorry..... WHAT?!!

This is entering the realm of the truly risible.

Do you think DSM-5 was considered and compiled exclusively by the sort of evil cabal of males (which exists only in your imagination)?

Because DSM-5 was the explicit "starting gun" for all transgender rights legislation and regulation.

And your "small cadre of politicians (who are way disproportionately male)" is straight out of the conspiracy theory playbook. Do you really believe this sort of stuff?

(You also appear to have little or no idea about how legislation actually gets done, and how laws get made - because only full legislative assemblies (which we call "parliament" or "congress" mostly) can vote bills into law)

 

[Meadmaker]

Again, you don't understand gender dysphoria - and the world's expert's assessment of it - properly.

Transgender identity is not a "belief". It's an identity. There's a vast, and critically important, difference.

I don't think you will find that in the DSM-5.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It does seem to be a theme that supporting trans rights is misogyny.

Supporting trans rights is not misogyny.

Dismissing female rights as unimportant, framing the safety of females as exaggerated hysterical rantings of females, and insisting that females must give way and subordinate themselves to trans people is misogyny.

 

[LondonJohn]

1. Pick any. It doesn't really matter. I'm not arguing about historical reality here but about the fact that the analogy is silly.

2. It sure would. And then I would fight for segregation to be abolished in all other cases as well. Is that the endgame here? Because it doesn't feel the same.

No. You were the one who invented this "certain subset" stuff. And I have no idea what you meant by it, in terms of how you defined it and who was in it. So don't now shift the burden to me...

 

[TomB]

FFS no, biological females have not been involved in those policies and directives! Please, for the love of cthulu and FSM and whatever you hold dear, stop making these kinds of broad and baseless assumptions.

Go do some research on this. Or at least read the information that has been provided! The policies being made are being made by a small cadre of politicians (who are way disproportionately male) in conjunction with transgender activist lobbying organizations. They are being made WITHOUT input from female rights groups at all, they are being made WITHOUT input from the general public which is 50% biological female.

The biological females he is referring to, I believe, are the biological females in the government (legislatures, parliament, etc.) and the biological females among the experts he cites in regard to DSM-5. I suppose that could be extended to the general populace in the sense that women can vote and therefore get a say in who is elected to set policy.

Of course, that assumes something approaching proportional representation and agreement with the majority conclusions in the first two cases and single issue voting in the last, so it's not perfect.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

So a psychologist who is an authority on gender dysphoria is not necessarily an expert on how to address that in policy.

I don't think anyone has said they would be, just that you have to start from a position of accepting the best science we have on the matter BEFORE you discuss what policy should be.

A climate scientist is not the best person necessarily to decide what policy to enact to reduce emissions but I can tell you right now that someone that insists global warming is a hoax shouldn't be in the room when the discussions take place. And if the debate continually stays at the 'global warming is real/global warming is a hoax' level then policy never happens and we all die.

In the end the winning policy is going to be somewhere between 'hey let's innovate loads of new green technologies' 'let's do our best to reduce waste' and 'let's immediately bury everything that runs on carbon and never speak of it again' but it decidely ISN'T going to be 'let's just insist it's not a thing'

in the end the winning policy on trans rights is going to be some kind of compromise as well. It's going to be you can use the ladies room in the train station but you can't get surgery without speaking to a doctor, it's going to be you can change your gender on your passport, but not change to a woman's prison if you are a convicted sex offender, it's going to be you can compete in women's sports but not without some limits.

It's not going to be to shout at transgender people on the internet that they are not women and never will be women or to insist the whole thing is a misogynist plot.

 

[LondonJohn]

Supporting trans rights is not misogyny.

Dismissing female rights as unimportant, framing the safety of females as exaggerated hysterical rantings of females, and insisting that females must give way and subordinate themselves to trans people is misogyny.

Again (to counter your constant misrepresentation on this matter):

Who is dismissing female rights as unimportant - where, when, and in what way?

Who is framing the safety of females as exaggerated hysterical rantings of females - where, when, and in what way?

Who is insisting that females must give way and subordinate themselves to trans people - where, when, and in what way?

 

[LondonJohn]

The biological females he is referring to, I believe, are the biological females in the government (legislatures, parliament, etc.) and the biological females among the experts he cites in regard to DSM-5. I suppose that could be extended to the general populace in the sense that women can vote and therefore get a say in who is elected to set policy.

Of course, that assumes something approaching proportional representation and agreement with the majority conclusions in the first two cases and single issue voting in the last, so it's not perfect.

Correct and correct.

And you're entirely right to say that it's not a perfect system. But I'd argue that it's probably something close to the "least imperfect". And if one was to use the imperfection in the system as the basis for an argument.... well one could more or less choose to disregard every single law, together with the whole of mainstream medicine.