Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[cullennz]

Since joining in this thread, I've been talking to all of my female friends and family. We have diverse views on all sorts of topics. Some are extremely progressive and politically active, some are deeply religious and socially conservative. I've got a bit family and a fair number of friends.



What has become clear through these conversations is a staggering lack of knowledge of what's going on with respect to transgender activism. Out of about 20 females I've talked to, all but one started from a position of "Yes, transwomen should be treated as women, and yes, I support them having equal rights".



But none of them were aware that most transwomen still have male genitalia, and that many of them have no intention of every getting GRS. None of them were aware that a not-insignificant number of transwomen have no intention of undertaking HRT or GRS at all. All of them were appalled to learn that Canada, Scotland, Ireland, California, and Nevada have all moved to a "Self-ID" approach to legal gender reporting, which does not require any medical consultation, therapy, or diagnosis at all. All of them were floored and concerned to find that some countries as well as California are now taking the default position that transwomen should be housed in female prisons, on their self-declaration of being women, regardless of whether they have male genitalia at all.



These are significant changes to our starting assumptions of how the world works, and how transwomen fit into that world. And a large amount of it is happening without our knowledge or our consent.

Not that surprising really.

I think a lot of people probably think trans woman means have had our bits removed.

In fact if we are going to go full on identity politics, there should probably be different categories of trans women to those that have and haven't

I mean is a trans woman who hasn't had them removed truely a woman?

Edit: by our I mean as a bloke btw

 

[LondonJohn]

Not that surprising really.

I think a lot of people probably think trans woman means have had our bits removed.

In fact if we are going to go full on identity politics, there should probably be different categories of trans women to those that have and haven't

Well no, because this is all about gender identity as a mental construct - and not as a physiological construct.

And this is one of the things which has been long known by mainstream medical experts: the whole issue of gender dysmorphia (and any consequent identification as a gender which is different from the one you were assigned at birth and which generally maps onto your biological sex at birth) is a psyche-based one. It's nothing at all to do with any desire to alter your genitals (or your physical body in any way, for that matter), in and of itself.

Some people with genuine gender dysmorphia, who identify as a different gender from their birth gender, do want to undergo medical and surgical procedures to alter their physical characteristics. But other people with genuine gender dysmorphia and different gender identity may wish to have no medical or surgical alterations.

But both of these groups are transgender, and this should be their only categorisation.

I mean is a trans woman who hasn't had them removed truely a woman?

Yes, they are - see above. (Though I realise that your question here was rhetorical, and was linked to your previous paragraph)

 

[Emily's Cat]

Lithrael made a comment way back in Volume 1 that I think is worth reiterating:

Because it seems like one of the teething problems we’ve got right now is that a few people who are acting like weirdos and exhibitionists get away with it by claiming people are unreasonably oppressing their group in general instead of having a reasonable problem with their behavior in particular.

I think this is an accurate assessment, and one I'll try to keep in mind. I think it's complicated by the knee-jerk support that some of those weirdos and exhibitionists seem to receive from others in their group, via their claim that the problem is with the entire group.

As an example... we've had links to posts made by self-declared transwomen, who engage in some very vicious, anti female, and violent rhetoric - comments that seem shocking and that I don't think anyone would find acceptable or defensible if made by a cisman at all. Those who make such comments present themselves as if they are speaking for all transwomen, and take shelter behind a claim of bigotry for those who are offended by their violent and inciting comments.

I can certainly tell myself that such behavior is fringe, and is not representative. That view is challenged, however, when many otherwise nice and decent transwomen support their views as being "blowing off steam" or "understandable", or excuse them as "really only targeting TERFs" and similar such views that implicitly support and allow that behavior as representing transwomen as a whole.

 

[theprestige]

Worms actually are hermaphrodite.

Their sex is hermaphrodite. Their gender identity is whatever they want it to be.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's hardly unknown for moderate elements with a marginalised group campaigning for civil rights.... to find it difficult to condemn publicly the actions of extremist elements within that same marginalised group.

I mean, exactly this was notably seen in things like the women's suffrage movement in the UK around the early 1900s, the black civil rights groups in the US in the 1950s/60s, the anti-apartheid groups in South Africa in the 1960s-1990s, the Irish Republican movement of the 1960s-1990s, or most environmental campaigns. In all those examples, the leaders of moderate campaigns found it difficult or (in some cases) blanket-impossible to condemn the actions of extremist campaigners - who were, in all of the above examples, committing far more heinous acts than trans rights extremists have been doing.

And it's not too hard to understand why this should be so.

 

[d4m10n]

It's hardly unknown for moderate elements with a marginalised group campaigning for civil rights.... to find it difficult to condemn publicly the actions of extremist elements within that same marginalised group.

At some point it would be helpful if you took the trouble to say which specific "civil rights" are at issue here.

Some of them are no doubt uncontroversial, e.g. the right not to get sacked from a job b/c of your gender identity.

Some of them are probably highly controversial, e.g. the right to play NCAA women's basketball on account of self-i.d. alone.

 

[Lithrael]

But none of them were aware that most transwomen still have male genitalia, and that many of them have no intention of every getting GRS.

Funny enough learning this was one of the things that made me much *more* comfortable with the whole transgender concept. It’s a whole lot easier for me to understand just wanting to live like and be treated as the opposite gender, maybe with top surgery, than it is for me to understand trying to mess with genitals, which may be the wrong ones for you, but at least work. I mean if that if someone’s jam, more power to them I guess, but I’d never be satisfied so it’s hard for me to sympathize.

All of them were appalled to learn that Canada, Scotland, Ireland, California, and Nevada have all moved to a "Self-ID" approach to legal gender reporting, which does not require any medical consultation, therapy, or diagnosis at all.

Well I don’t know about the others but if we’re talking about the US, requiring the ticking of various medical ticky boxes is pretty obviously way too high of a time and money hurdle to be anything like fair to the poor and working class population.

 

[LondonJohn]

At some point it would be helpful if you took the trouble to say which specific "civil rights" are at issue here.

Some of them are no doubt uncontroversial, e.g. the right not to get sacked from a job b/c of your gender identity.

Some of them are probably highly controversial, e.g. the right to play NCAA women's basketball on account of self-i.d. alone.

What difference does it make to my point here?

(None)

 

[LondonJohn]

Funny enough learning this was one of the things that made me much *more* comfortable with the whole transgender concept. It’s a whole lot easier for me to understand just wanting to live like and be treated as the opposite gender, maybe with top surgery, than it is for me to understand trying to mess with genitals, which may be the wrong ones for you, but at least work. I mean if that if someone’s jam, more power to them I guess, but I’d never be satisfied so it’s hard for me to sympathize.



Well I don’t know about the others but if we’re talking about the US, requiring the ticking of various medical ticky boxes is pretty obviously way too high of a time and money hurdle to be anything like fair to the poor and working class population.

And I'd reiterate that no country proposing self-identification is proposing anything like what the man in the street might consider self-identification to consist of (i.e. "You mean I, Steve, could walk into a place, simply declare myself to be a woman, and demand to be treated as a woman?")

The proposals in Scotland, for example, require a formal application to a supervisory board (including a statement that the person undertakes to live permanently in their trans gender identity, and that they've already lived under their trans gender identity for at least the previous three months (though not officially, obv, so no rights accrue). And this supervisory board will automatically wait three months before granting the necessory official recognition.


So even in self-ID situations, there'll be a simple way to police things such as women's changing rooms in gyms: everyone either stating that they're transgender (or who appears to be a different gender than their name would suggest) would need to present official documentation before being allowed to use the trans gender changing rooms.

So, for example, if I lived in Scotland, had gender dysphoria, wanted to identify as female......and was a regular member of my local gym, I'd need to:

1) Stop going to the gym for three months (during which time I'd be living under a woman identity);

2) Apply to the Scottish Gender Recognition Panel for an official change in my identity, in which I'd have to state my intention to live as a woman permanently from then on);

3) Wait a further three months before my official trans status was granted.


So it would be effectively 6 (SIX) months between a) the moment I transitioned to being a woman, and b) the moment I possessed the relevant official documentation, such that I could present it on demand in places such as sports centres etc.



And I'm going to go out on a limb, and suggest that heterosexual males are not going to go through a process like that in order to enable them (eventually, many months later) to enter women's changing rooms with nefarious purposes. Perhaps some radical feminsts think otherwise though....

 

[LondonJohn]

And I make that point about what self-ID really is, because there are obviously many who wish that phrase to be interpreted in a certain way - a way that's related to the idea that all it takes in a self-ID jurisdiction is for (eg) a male to declare themselves a woman (maybe even just for the day) in order to access women's facilities and so on.

I wonder if there are any reliable data which show what the general public - in those places where self-ID is being discussed - believe is meant by "self-ID" in this context. That'd make interesting reading, I imagine.

 

[d4m10n]

What difference does it make to my point here?

Everyone here agrees with the idea of promoting "civil rights" so it's a form of reverse well poisoning to say that your position counts as such.

Put up or shut up, IMO.

 

[cullennz]

Well no, because this is all about gender identity as a mental construct - and not as a physiological construct.

And this is one of the things which has been long known by mainstream medical experts: the whole issue of gender dysmorphia (and any consequent identification as a gender which is different from the one you were assigned at birth and which generally maps onto your biological sex at birth) is a psyche-based one. It's nothing at all to do with any desire to alter your genitals (or your physical body in any way, for that matter), in and of itself.

Some people with genuine gender dysmorphia, who identify as a different gender from their birth gender, do want to undergo medical and surgical procedures to alter their physical characteristics. But other people with genuine gender dysmorphia and different gender identity may wish to have no medical or surgical alterations.

But both of these groups are transgender, and this should be their only categorisation.






Yes, they are - see above. (Though I realise that your question here was rhetorical, and was linked to your previous paragraph)

I realise this LJ

My post said "a lot of people probably"

Not everyone posts on here or know what it is

 

[Aber]

Lawyers base their views on matters medical upon the views of doctors*.

Do some research on where that quote comes from and the reaction to it.

 

[Aber]

So, for example, if I lived in Scotland, had gender dysphoria, wanted to identify as female......and was a regular member of my local gym, I'd need to:

1) Stop going to the gym for three months (during which time I'd be living under a woman identity);

2) Apply to the Scottish Gender Recognition Panel for an official change in my identity, in which I'd have to state my intention to live as a woman permanently from then on);

3) Wait a further three months before my official trans status was granted.


So it would be effectively 6 (SIX) months between a) the moment I transitioned to being a woman, and b) the moment I possessed the relevant official documentation, such that I could present it on demand in places such as sports centres etc.

Alternatively, on the evidence that you have presented:

Put in the paperwork - a declaration in front of a notary
Wait 3 months
Start going to two local gyms using your male driving licence in one, and the GRC at the other

On the other hand, why bother:

Of the 1,160 self-selected trans people from Scotland who responded to the UK National LGBT Survey in 2017, 3.7% said that they owned a GRC

 

[Boudicca90]

Boudicca90...

I think we were finding some common ground a couple of days ago. Can we circle back to that?





I'm particularly interested in your view on the bolded question.

I just have skepticism about her claim due to her presenting as male. Plus the fact that I can't seem to find any other info except for her pics on her Instagram, which all show her as presenting as male. That would ultimately be the problem here, regardless of how she identifies.

If she is truly female, she needs to make some attempt to show it. I would be just as uncomfortable as you if she walked into a women's restroom looking as she does.

Since joining in this thread, I've been talking to all of my female friends and family. We have diverse views on all sorts of topics. Some are extremely progressive and politically active, some are deeply religious and socially conservative. I've got a bit family and a fair number of friends.

What has become clear through these conversations is a staggering lack of knowledge of what's going on with respect to transgender activism. Out of about 20 females I've talked to, all but one started from a position of "Yes, transwomen should be treated as women, and yes, I support them having equal rights".

But none of them were aware that most transwomen still have male genitalia, and that many of them have no intention of every getting GRS. None of them were aware that a not-insignificant number of transwomen have no intention of undertaking HRT or GRS at all. All of them were appalled to learn that Canada, Scotland, Ireland, California, and Nevada have all moved to a "Self-ID" approach to legal gender reporting, which does not require any medical consultation, therapy, or diagnosis at all. All of them were floored and concerned to find that some countries as well as California are now taking the default position that transwomen should be housed in female prisons, on their self-declaration of being women, regardless of whether they have male genitalia at all.

These are significant changes to our starting assumptions of how the world works, and how transwomen fit into that world. And a large amount of it is happening without our knowledge or our consent.

It is true there have been a number of changes over the years, for the better. Back 20 years ago when I first realized I was transgender and really female, the medical and psychiatric communities were still working off Gender Identity Disorder and the Harry Benjamin/WPATH SOC, which were very restrictive compared to how things are today.

I remember having a lot of problems with the old "transsexual" way of looking at us because while I had gender dysphoria, I never had a lot of dysphoria about my penis and didn't feel it was necessary to risk going through a potentially dangerous surgery just to become a woman. It made me question myself for a long time if I was really trans if I didn't want to go all the way. After a close friend almost died from complications from her GRS, it has made me even more wary of having that kind of surgery.

With our current understanding of transgenderism we realize that we don't have to go through potentially risky medical and surgical options if we don't feel we have to. This helps me and a lot of other transgender people who don't want to alter our bodies if we don't feel it is necessary. I shouldn't have to risk my life to get rid of my penis just to be female.

 

[Boudicca90]

Funny enough learning this was one of the things that made me much *more* comfortable with the whole transgender concept. It’s a whole lot easier for me to understand just wanting to live like and be treated as the opposite gender, maybe with top surgery, than it is for me to understand trying to mess with genitals, which may be the wrong ones for you, but at least work. I mean if that if someone’s jam, more power to them I guess, but I’d never be satisfied so it’s hard for me to sympathize.



Well I don’t know about the others but if we’re talking about the US, requiring the ticking of various medical ticky boxes is pretty obviously way too high of a time and money hurdle to be anything like fair to the poor and working class population.

And that's how we generally see it. It used to be there was a certain model we should attain for, regardless of how we feel, so we would sometimes make choices we wouldn't necessarily make in order to fit all the criteria put upon us to make us the ideal man or woman. And that's even if we had the money and insurance to cover anything, since we tend to be poorer than the general population.

I was almost denied hormones based on a potential blood clotting issue and I had to fight for even that. If I was denied hormones, I would still have transitioned the best I could, but that should also not prevent me from being recognized as a woman. Luckily I had Medicaid as well as VA care, so I could threaten to go elsewhere. Other trans vets unfortunately didn't have that option and had to deal with very strict gatekeeping.

 

[Darat]

It's hardly unknown for moderate elements with a marginalised group campaigning for civil rights.... to find it difficult to condemn publicly the actions of extremist elements within that same marginalised group.

I mean, exactly this was notably seen in things like the women's suffrage movement in the UK around the early 1900s, the black civil rights groups in the US in the 1950s/60s, the anti-apartheid groups in South Africa in the 1960s-1990s, the Irish Republican movement of the 1960s-1990s, or most environmental campaigns. In all those examples, the leaders of moderate campaigns found it difficult or (in some cases) blanket-impossible to condemn the actions of extremist campaigners - who were, in all of the above examples, committing far more heinous acts than trans rights extremists have been doing.

And it's not too hard to understand why this should be so.

The "best" example of that is the likes of PIE back in the 1970s, looking back it seems sheer insanity that such organisations existed never mind used civil rights movements to promote their pedophilia.

It caused immense harm to various civil rights groups, harm that lasted decades.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

And I'd reiterate that no country proposing self-identification is proposing anything like what the man in the street might consider self-identification to consist of (i.e. "You mean I, Steve, could walk into a place, simply declare myself to be a woman, and demand to be treated as a woman?")

The proposals in Scotland, for example, require a formal application to a supervisory board (including a statement that the person undertakes to live permanently in their trans gender identity, and that they've already lived under their trans gender identity for at least the previous three months (though not officially, obv, so no rights accrue). And this supervisory board will automatically wait three months before granting the necessory official recognition.


So even in self-ID situations, there'll be a simple way to police things such as women's changing rooms in gyms: everyone either stating that they're transgender (or who appears to be a different gender than their name would suggest) would need to present official documentation before being allowed to use the trans gender changing rooms.

So, for example, if I lived in Scotland, had gender dysphoria, wanted to identify as female......and was a regular member of my local gym, I'd need to:

1) Stop going to the gym for three months (during which time I'd be living under a woman identity);

2) Apply to the Scottish Gender Recognition Panel for an official change in my identity, in which I'd have to state my intention to live as a woman permanently from then on);

3) Wait a further three months before my official trans status was granted.


So it would be effectively 6 (SIX) months between a) the moment I transitioned to being a woman, and b) the moment I possessed the relevant official documentation, such that I could present it on demand in places such as sports centres etc.



And I'm going to go out on a limb, and suggest that heterosexual males are not going to go through a process like that in order to enable them (eventually, many months later) to enter women's changing rooms with nefarious purposes. Perhaps some radical feminsts think otherwise though....

My understanding is different to this. My understanding is that in fact the person would go to the gym and use the women's facilities. And that they have that right currently, and that Self-ID would not change it.

Because I don't believe you need a GRC to go into women's locker rooms right now. Anti-discrimination laws do not require a legal gender change in order for your gender identity to be recognised.

In other words, the nightmare scenario that Self-ID would allow if implemented is simply the current case.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

This mis-represents that position. One can focus on what biology leads to without reducing women to mere biology. Focusing on something is not reducing the issue to what is focused on.

If you have a link that supports what you're saying, I'm all ears.

But I think there is a difference between 'biology' and 'what biology leads to' and I think the 'what biology leads to' is in reality much closer to, if not synonymous with, 'what gender leads to'

And to whatever extent there is a share sisterhood of experiences among women that is going to be based on 'what gender leads to' rather than 'what biology leads to'

In other words if a tranwoman was truly accepted as and treated as equivalent in every way to a ciswoman then the biological differences would lead to experiences that were no more different than two different ciswomen might experience.

 

[LondonJohn]

My understanding is different to this. My understanding is that in fact the person would go to the gym and use the women's facilities. And that they have that right currently, and that Self-ID would not change it.

Because I don't believe you need a GRC to go into women's locker rooms right now. Anti-discrimination laws do not require a legal gender change in order for your gender identity to be recognised.

In other words, the nightmare scenario that Self-ID would allow if implemented is simply the current case.

Yes absolutely, it is the current case.

But I personally think that once these sorts of things are addressed more formally, in-depth, and with consultations, a reasonable compromise - and one which would help to safeguard cis women - would be for anyone who does not present visually as a woman would be required to produce proof of gender.

I know this sort of approach would draw protests from many trans-activists, but I just believe that it's one of the prices worth paying. If trans-activists look at this sort of situation pragmatically, sensitively, and from all perspectives, I think that the carrying of some form of official recognition of gender (it might even take the form of a credit-card-sized plastic document) to be presented upon request (by staff, not by women....) would be a reasonable compromise in order to minimise the chances of a heterosexual cis male masquerading as a trans woman in order to commit criminal acts within the women's changing rooms.