Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[LondonJohn]

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

You don't think I will find what in DSM-5?

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

I couldn't agree more with all of this.

 

[theprestige]

duplicate post.

 

[theprestige]

You don't think I will find what in DSM-5?

If I correctly understand the way Meadmaker arranged a quotation of your post and his reply, he probably means this:

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

I hope this helps.

 

[Olmstead]

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...

Umm ... black people who like country music.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Boudicca's answer is that it depends on how sincere the transwoman is in committing to their gender identity. It's not clear exactly how much transitioning is necessary, or if other people are allowed to verify it, but that seems to be the gist of it.

That's more or less my answer too, but I see a lot of problems with it, that I don't know how to solve.

And mine.

This causes a dilemma, since transwomen are males, but do not want to be excluded like other males are excluded.

So it's not really a discussion about discomfort and risk. Those are actually taken for granted, here. Even Boudicca doesn't want males in female spaces. She just doesn't want to be counted as male when it comes to exclusion from those spaces.

The actual discussion is tossed on the horns of two dilemmas: Are transwomen women? Yes, but not always. Are transwomen female? No, but sometimes...

I would say that it doesn't even need to be that complex. I think it could be summed up as: In what circumstances and by what criteria should transwomen be treated as if they are biologically female?

There are some clear end points here, that we all seem to agree on.

At one end, we all agree that when it comes to clothing, expression, comportment, behavior, and other gender-based social structures transwomen should be treated as if they're biologically female. Everyone - regardless of whether they are male or female, man or women, trans, enby, or the reincarnations of cats - should be able to present and express themselves socially in whatever way they wish.

At the other end, we all (I hope) agree that biological differences between males and females do, in fact, exist, and that at a minimum, those differences are incredibly important in the field of medicine. When it comes to a large amount of medical treatment, people should be treated like the biological sex that they actually are, irrespective of how they present or express themselves.

In the middle of that, there is room for discussion on this topic.

I find it very frustrating that many people in this thread keep pretending that those they're interacting with are irrationally fire-walled and denying that those endpoints exist. It's especially frustrating when we already have a baseline level of agreement on some areas.

Or I suppose, more importantly to me, when the sole participating transgender person in this thread, and most of the biological females in this thread have some common points of agreement with respect to social expectations of behavior and the desire for male-free spaces.

The fact that people who are neither transgender nor biological females disagree with those of us who are actually affected by these policies... well, I would say it should be completely irrelevant. Unfortunately, this is where existing social biases based on sex do come into play, with the presumption that the voices of those people should count for more, and be heard above those of the people who are actually directly affected by this topic.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You know, I am wondering if we would make more headway, and come to better understanding, if the discussions on this policy were being held ONLY by transgender people (both transwomen and transmen) and ciswomen.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because this is to completely misunderstand/misrepresent gender dysphoria.

From whence stems your deep understanding of gender dysphoria? On what basis should we accept your authority on this topic?

 

[LondonJohn]

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

Nor is he/she required to be. That's the job of legislators. And the way it should work is this: the experts on gender dysphoria feed their work and their conclusions into the legislative process.

It's the job of legislators (eg Parliament in the UK, or Congress in the US) to collate and assess all the relevant evidence - of which, in the case of gender dysphoria, the views of the medical experts will form a very important component - and consequently to create legislation which represents the evidence correctly and cogently.


The climate change debate is a nice comparator here (as a.g.g. has already outlined). It is the settled view of the expert scientists in this field that global warming is both happening and accelerating. The only reason why legislators know this, and are now framing legislation around it, is because the expert scientists told them so.

Now replace "climate change" with "transgender identity", and follow the same logic through the process as outlined above.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And while I totally agree with your general premise above, I totally disagree with your (apparent) position that a) homosexuality is a valid human condition, but b) gender dysphoria is not.

You keep doing this. You keep forcing an artificial rhetorical narrative into this discussion. You keep trying to foist a hidden assumption on everyone, and you refuse to examine whether or not your starting point is valid in and of itself.

 

[d4m10n]

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.

The page that I linked above literally discusses legal rights granted to students with ADHD. There is no need for us to say whether it is "valid" (in the sense you are using that term) and I really don't see why that should matter.

 

[LondonJohn]

From whence stems your deep understanding of gender dysphoria? On what basis should we accept your authority on this topic?

It's not my authority - as I've stated many times (but possibly you didn't bother to notice).

It's the authority of the world's experts on the subject. And I am more than content to defer to their authority, seeing as the abstractions and specialisations required to make a fully-informed assessment on this sort of matter are really only possessed by those experts (much as only particle physicists have the skills and experience to examine and assess quantum mechanics).

So (and as I've also asked a number of times now), the more pertinent question is this:

On what basis should we accept your authority on this topic, especially seeing as it's in direct contradiction with the views of the actual experts?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Now,hear me out....

(Sorry, this is going to be long. One of the reasons I don't post a lot is that I tend to go long and over-explain and/or over-account for counters in the name of completeness.)

I'm a fan of WoTs. Please, continue to post long, well explained, comprehensive posts.

Trans activist: We are oppressed and want equal rights!
Feminists: We see you and support your struggle!
Trans activist: We should be treated the same as you!
Feminists: We can do that!
Trans activist: we want access to your spaces!
Feminists: Um, OK. As long as you meet X criteria and behave in manner Y.
Trans activist: We want full access! No restrictions.
Feminists: Now, wait a minute...
Trans activist: Full access! We are you! These are our spaces!
Feminists: Hold on now, these are women's spaces we have agreed to share with you...
Trans Activist: I am woman, hear me roar!
Feminists: Hey, that's our song!
(Felt a need for a Helen Reddy reference. Angie Baby was one of my favorite songs as a kid. RIP.)


Obviously, people with other viewpoints are going to see it differently. But that's the point. Instead of telling people they shouldn't see things differently, it is more productive to try and understand why they see it differently. And logic is the wrong tool for that.

One thing I'd like to point out is that the group of "Trans Activists" above, is frequently not a "we". It is very often comprised of people who are neither transgender nor female. Which, imo, clouds the issue.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

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

I've tried this line of reasoning before but I think there is a level of ... I don't know quite what, privilege? .... to the idea that there might be a single experience of being a woman which is somehow a tie that binds everyone with a vagina.

I'm pretty sure that overlap of experience between Anunziata Rees-Mogg, Sharbat Gula, and Brigid Kosgei is minimal.

But if there is some overarching lived experience of womanhood then I would argue it is at least as much, if not more, about how you are treated by others than by your biology. And that, how you are treated by others is the gender element.

Caster Semanya has been raised as a female, she has been treated as a woman. She has had that shared experience of womanhood (probably with some differences, i don't know the specifics of her biological functions) and then suddenly she's told she's not a woman anymore? Equally had they said at birth, that's a boy she would have had a different experience. But her biology wouldn't have changed. So what's going on there?

Equally for transpeople there are going to be many elements of 'womanhood' or 'manhood' that are shared and others that aren't. Transwomen aren't going to have periods, pregnancy or smear tests. OK, but many cis-women may not have all of those either.

And just because you accept transwomen into the fold it doesn't suddenly change the fact that women generally have to deal with periods, pregnancy and smear tests because of their biology and that we should makes sure that people that do have to deal with those things get a fair deal.

 

[Paul2]

But - as you say - that debate is predicated on the starting position of an understanding that gender dysphoria is a valid condition (and not a disorder or the product of a disorder), and that therefore transgender identity is also a valid condition (since it's a product of gender dysphoria).

I've been thinking about this point that you have made here and several times upthread, too. May I examine this point a bit?

If gender dysphoria *were* a disorder, what would change in the discussion about trans rights, and why? For instance, if homosexuality were a disorder, would that mean that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to marry? I'm not sure, for myself, that that would follow. Marriage rights are a matter of civil rights, it doesn't depend on medical evaluations, even if homosexuality were discovered to be a disorder.

Perhaps mental illness is a better example? We legally limit the civil rights of some mentally ill people in some circumstances, like the 72-hour hold for examination (at least in Calfornia, IIRC). But that is only in the case in which safety is an issue - it's not the mental illness per se, it's the safety of the person and those around the person that is what drives things.

Is there another example that illustrates why this distinction is important?

Or, is it a matter of societal recognition? If we say that gender dysphoria is not a disorder, is the functional part of that the acceptance of those people for who they are, and that they shouldn't be forced to change or be talked out of it, prohibited from accessing hormones or surgery, or even dressing as they choose, etc. - they can live as they want to. If that's the case, then we should do away with the disorder/not-disorder issue and just proclaim that it is a civil right that people can dress as they wish, have surgery (with a doctor's oversight), etc. (Now, some of those areas have no impact on rights or privileges that others currently have or enjoy, and if some areas do have such an impact, then how those competing interests are adjudicated is beyond my purposes in this post.)

It is valuable to say that gender dysphoria is not a disorder for the purpose of pushing back against people who say it is and who then seek to limit the civil rights of folk with gender dysphoria, but that's a tactical purpose, and I'm trying to look for the larger strategic purpose in working through these issues in and of themselves.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

It's not my authority - as I've stated many times (but possibly you didn't bother to notice).

It's the authority of the world's experts on the subject. And I am more than content to defer to their authority, seeing as the abstractions and specialisations required to make a fully-informed assessment on this sort of matter are really only possessed by those experts (much as only particle physicists have the skills and experience to examine and assess quantum mechanics).

So (and as I've also asked a number of times now), the more pertinent question is this:

On what basis should we accept your authority on this topic, especially seeing as it's in direct contradiction with the views of the actual experts?

I can feel a 'the world's experts have been corrupted by trans rights activists' coming on.....

I do notice a trend though. Whether it is denying evolution, denying climate change or denying transgenderism the tactic seems to be to move the debate away from trying to convince the experts and towards having a public debate. Which seems to be backwards if you are honestly trying to find the best answer.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

What do you think "valid condition" means in this context? What are the implications of that phrase with respect to this discussion? You keep bringing it up, but you've never explained what you assume it to mean.

 

[Emily's Cat]

But people (including me, and including the world's experts in this field, and including many of the world's major governments) are claiming stating that biological males who identify as women are experiencing a valid condition, and that as such they must be afforded the rights and protections which are conferred upon women.

Please provide support for your assertion that there is wide consensus from psychologists and government for BOTH parts of your following claim.

Agree - biological males who identify as women are experiencing the valid condition of gender dysphoria when they are diagnosed with that condition

Disagree that this follows as a necessary response. With that last clause, you are begging the question. That clause is exactly the point of the discussion: in what circumstances and by what criteria should biological males who identify as women be granted the rights and protections conferred upon females? Please note that I am referring to the rights and protections of females here, not women. The sex-based rights and protections under consideration are exactly that - sex-based. They are not gender-identity based.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Explain it then.

Also, I respectfully request that the right proper gentleman provide proof of his expertise in this area =, which which to claim authoritative knowledge and understanding of the condition in question.

 

[Meadmaker]

You don't think I will find what in DSM-5?

"Transgender identity is not a "belief". It's an identity."


You will find some of those words in DSM-5, but they use them precisely, and not in a way that fits with the way you've been throwing them around.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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)

What I think is that you're making a whole lot of a priori assumptions which are not supported by evidence or research or anything other than what you have decided makes the most sense to you. You have formed an internal belief that has no basis in reality, and from that belief, you make assumptions about what "must be true" in order for that belief to be reasonable. But you've never examined whether what you assume "must be true" is actually true or not.