Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

[Meadmaker]

I also found you resolutely not answering the questions I'd raised, from which I inferred that you were unwilling to go further down this derail.

I don't know which questions you are talking about, but I either thought they were rhetorical or were a side issue. If they were part of the "good parenting" side issue, I didn't want to go there.

But that leaves unaddressed the inconsistency, the apparently unreasonable special pleading that I'd highlighed. But like I said, no big deal if you don't wish to take this further.

You're doing cartwheels to try and find something wrong with something. EC said "permanent addition to the family", and you are turning that into something other than what it is. It's a euphemism for being pregnant, a condition which, when undesired, is bad. That's it. You don't need to go farther with it. You don't have to find some deeper meaning. If I note that sex can result in babies, there's really no need to raise an objection that there is some pre or post-coital medical procedure that can prevent that. We all know that.

Being pregnant is still a bummer if you don't want to be pregnant, but I think everyone knows that.

 

[Chanakya]

Unwanted pregnancies are a bummer, sure. But so's an addiction. So's getting radicalized. So's falling in with young hoodlums. So's a habit of thieving.

All of these unwanted things can be addressed to a degree, but clearly not infallibly, clearly not beyond all doubt, with good parenting. And all of these issues, if left unaddressed, can be permanent in their effects; and all of these, while painful, probably traumatic, needn't be permanent in their effects if addressed.

So, why single the pregnancy issue for policing, and not the others? That was the inconsistency. That was the question.

It's a simple question. Not a rhetorical point, because I've no need to score points. No skin in the game; not even some decided position on the trans issue, that I know little enough about.

I saw an inconsistency leap out at me in what was said here, so I thought to explore it further. Antagonizing people over what, to me at least, is a total non-issue, over something that took my casual interest but that I'm not invested in at all, wasn't my intention at all. Since that's what seems to have been the result of my comment(s), perhaps I'd best go back to lurking.

 

[Paul2]

I'm referring to just how long that one issue had been being discussed (and, incidentally, how it had morphed into a discussion about separating male and female adolescents to lower the risk of pregnancy...).

I don't see a problem with some issue morphing into another one. Happens all the time.

I didn't say the matter was irrelevant.

You characterized the issue of teen sleepovers as

. . . charging off down a blind alley

and

ludicrously hyper-specific

Sheesh. Am I ever glad I drew back.

Now, you are always welcome to draw back, assuming that means that you're not interested in discussing it.

But I still don't know what you meant by the blind alley comment, and I think it was Meadmaker who wrote how your hyper-specific comment doesn't make sense.

So I still don't know what you're on about with discussing how teen sleepovers might affect trans folk. It seems like a *perfectly* legitimate topic for this thread.

 

[Paul2]

Not yours.

But every time I read any of this thread (which is rarely, these days), I simply cannot help but map certain positions here across to, for example, the "debate" about homosexuality in the 1960s/70s. I write "debate" in inverted commas because there - as here - there is no actual debate about the legitimacy of homosexuality (unless one is a nutcase extremist religion-freak, of course). And there's no debate (now) about the legitimacy of gender dysphoria: the only thing which needs to be addressed and debated is how - and to what extent - transgender rights should be enacted/enforced and protected. But when I see (just for example) people writing things like "a man who wants to be a woman".......

The problem with that mapping is that it can lead to confirmation bias: one sees some mapping, and then stops, but because analogies are not necessarily proofs, that mapping about homosexuality doesn't necessarily demonstrate that certain critiques or limits to trans rights are ill-founded or bigoted like some were with homosexuality (unless you assume that any critique or limit to trans rights are automatically bigoted, in which case the analogy adds nothing, and the argument becomes circular because you've already adopted what you're ostensibly trying to get the analogy to show. I believe I've seen that here, but I can't quote you chapter and verse.)

 

[Meadmaker]

Unwanted pregnancies are a bummer, sure. But so's an addiction. So's getting radicalized. So's falling in with young hoodlums. So's a habit of thieving.

All of these unwanted things can be addressed to a degree, but clearly not infallibly, clearly not beyond all doubt, with good parenting. And all of these issues, if left unaddressed, can be permanent in their effects; and all of these, while painful, probably traumatic, needn't be permanent in their effects if addressed.

So, why single the pregnancy issue for policing, and not the others? That was the inconsistency. That was the question.

It's a simple question. Not a rhetorical point, because I've no need to score points. No skin in the game; not even some decided position on the trans issue, that I know little enough about.

I saw an inconsistency leap out at me in what was said here, so I thought to explore it further. Antagonizing people over what, to me at least, is a total non-issue, over something that took my casual interest but that I'm not invested in at all, wasn't my intention at all. Since that's what seems to have been the result of my comment(s), perhaps I'd best go back to lurking.

Let's just say that the path toward unwanted pregnancy seems a little bit more direct and obvious than the path toward radicalization by religious extremists.


I would love to be a fly on the wall for this conversation. Picture the coaches of an all girls Robotics team getting ready for the upcoming regional competition to be held in the neighboring state. The coach and assistant coach are making final preps.

AC: Everything looks ready. Julie says she needs to tweak the software in the pits to see if she can get a bit more accuracy with the shooter. Anushri says the chains in the drive train need to be retensioned to get a bit more speed, so she'll do that as soon as we unpack. I got some rooms reserved, but what are we going to do about Sharon?

C: Sharon?

AC: Where shall we put her?

C: Oh, yeah. I guess some of the other girls might be a bit uneasy about sleeping in the same room as someone who has a dick, and, do we know if she likes boys or girls? I mean, what if.....

AC: We could get her her own room.

C: I don't know. If we did that, she would be all alone, but she could go on the internet and might be recruited by ISIS...

 

[theprestige]

Talk about charging off down a blind alley on the ludicrously hyper-specific issue of what to do with transgender adolescents on school trips where overnight stays in shared rooms are required.

Sheesh. Am I ever glad I drew back. And there are some lovely antediluvian attitudes being showcased again - to no surprise.

Public policy and social norms for managing large groups of adolescents - including transgender adolescents! - doesn't seem like a blind alley to me. It seems like a pretty important topic of debate, actually.

 

[theprestige]

Let's just say that the path toward unwanted pregnancy seems a little bit more direct and obvious than the path toward radicalization by religious extremists.


I would love to be a fly on the wall for this conversation. Picture the coaches of an all girls Robotics team getting ready for the upcoming regional competition to be held in the neighboring state. The coach and assistant coach are making final preps.

AC: Everything looks ready. Julie says she needs to tweak the software in the pits to see if she can get a bit more accuracy with the shooter. Anushri says the chains in the drive train need to be retensioned to get a bit more speed, so she'll do that as soon as we unpack. I got some rooms reserved, but what are we going to do about Sharon?

C: Sharon?

AC: Where shall we put her?

C: Oh, yeah. I guess some of the other girls might be a bit uneasy about sleeping in the same room as someone who has a dick, and, do we know if she likes boys or girls? I mean, what if.....

AC: We could get her her own room.

C: I don't know. If we did that, she would be all alone, but she could go on the internet and might be recruited by ISIS...

C: She would be all alone, and then all the other girls would want private rooms too.

AC: "Other girls"? If Sharon is just another girl, why is she getting a private room?

 

[Chanakya]

...Er, not quite. (Your #2685, Meadmaker.) [eta] Sorry, was multitasking! The name I mean. My bad. [/eta]

I keep saying I won't fuel this derail further, that I'll go back to lurking, yet I keep returning for one more post. Which is kind of embarrassing. Okay, final one.

Your hypothetical conversation, while entertaining, is loaded to make one side of it look comical.

The committe, coach and proctor and warden or whoever, sit down to decide on:
(1) Ensure none of these kids get alone-time, lest they start with needles and snorting.
(2) Ensure no one goes online over connections that are unmonitored, lest they get radicalized or whatever.
(3) Ensure no one gets to go out unchaperoned, in case they fall in with those nutjob cult people in the town nearby.
(4) That trans kid, where do we put her? With the boys? She won't like that? Alone? That'd be singling her out, the others all bunk down with roomies. So, with some girl or girls, singular or plural, depending on how many in a room? Can we trust the trans girl, and/or the other girl/s in that room, not to jump on one another the moment they're alone, and do the act without protection, and emerge from the trip pregnant?


To go all heavy handed on just #4, and be all trusting as far as the rest, seems special pleading, inconsistent.

I'd think, in your place, the best option would be to keep her with other girl/s, but after first gently 'Talking' with the trans girl, and also 'Talking' with her room mate/s (and also, I suppose, seeing that the latter, after being sensitized and Talked to gently, still don't object).

Which of course leaves the question unanswered about what to do if all the other girls, despite the Talk, are virulently against the idea of having the trans girl in their room. That derail-within-the-derail I'll leave unaddressed. (To be honest I can't think o a good answer there. Not a good answer in favor of the girls sharing, nor a good answer against. I'll leave that question-within-the-question be. )



eta:
I'm going to cheat, like really really shamelessly, and get around not making yet another post in response to your following post, by simply editing this post again!!


While I'd probably agree with your decision, as you present it in the subsequent post, or at least not disagree (that is, remain undecided), the key there, for me, would not be the biology per se (for reasons already spelt out), but the fact that, as you say, the other girls objected to this. I'd not be comfortable steamrolling over their wishes and sensitivities.

But that, my take, is kinda diufferent from yours. Very different. I'd already said, before you posted, I'm undecided should the other girls disagree. But in all other events -- should they readily agree, or should they agree after being Talked to -- I'd keep her with the other girls (after Talking to, or having someone better informed and better equipped than me Talk to, all the girls there, the trans girl included).

What is key here is not the pregnancy thing, that everyone had been discussing exclusively here. (These last few pages I mean. I don't know how the discussion may have gone when you'd first brought it up in past thread/s.) What we're focusing on -- I am, at any rate -- is the others' disagreement, that you bring up in that post below. Which, depending, may well apply in case of some issue which has nothing to do with pregnancy. Like having a girl who'd killed someone for some reason, spent time in some psych ward, and was released out again, and sent to this trip cos she's so bright. Or whatever.

I mean, I DON'T see pregnancy -- and therefore the trans question in this instance -- as this EXCEPTIONAL, EXTRAORDINARY issue that some you seem to think it.

 

[Meadmaker]

In the actual case being discussed, it's a community team which means they have some liberty to look at the actual people involved, including the parents of the team members, and use their judgement to do something that makes the best of the situation.

Most school-related events are a little different, in that they are actually schools and have to follow policies of the school, which might be set a state or even national Department of Education guidelines, all of which were written to cover a generic case, rather than the specific circumstances of this one specific trip for this one specific team. That causes problems.

When i first encountered the trans issue some years back, I was uncertain how I thought about it, or what the policies ought to be. At some point, though, I decided that the feelings of the girls who did not want to be exposed to a male-bodied person were just as legitimate as anyone else's feelings, and, closely connected with that, was the reality that the biology hasn't changed, and I wouldn't pretend that the biology was different just because it makes people feel better.

 

[d4m10n]

Most school-related events are a little different, in that they are actually schools and have to follow policies of the school, which might be set a state or even national Department of Education guidelines, all of which were written to cover a generic case, rather than the specific circumstances of this one specific trip for this one specific team.

It's possible that things have changed, but last I checked secondary schools and even many colleges have a general policy of keeping the males and females apart when it comes to overnight accommodations. I assume this is at least in part because of the foreseeable consequences of having large numbers of students bunking together, but it may also be about modesty and tradition to some extent.

 

[theprestige]

It's probably also in part because you need a simple rule that's easy enough for staff to apply without a lot of effort and without a lot of risk.

 

[Meadmaker]

It's possible that things have changed, but last I checked secondary schools and even many colleges have a general policy of keeping the males and females apart when it comes to overnight accommodations. I assume this is at least in part because of the foreseeable consequences of having large numbers of students bunking together, but it may also be about modesty and tradition to some extent.

I doubt that any secondary school has a long standing policy of keeping males and females apart.

I think they had a policy of keeping boys and girls apart. They probably didn't foresee circumstances where someone would say those were two different things.

And yes, "modesty" was a large part of it. It's all related, though. When it comes to sleeping quarters, it's easy enough to stay covered while sharing a room, but everyone knows that sleeping arrangements create a lot of familiarity, and familiarity leads to romance......and sooner or later to babies, and the people in charge want that to be later rather than sooner.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Wait wait wait. You guys aren't part of the anti-abortion crew, are you?

...

Why on earth would a pregnancy have to be any more "permanent" than a drug addiction, or a radicalization by religious/political weirdos, or affiliation into a cult, or falling in with a dangerous violent crowd?

I'm pro-choice, as is most of my extended family. And being pro-choice doesn't mean that people only choose abortions. Sometimes, quite often actually, people choose not to abort.

In that respect... if your kid has been doing drugs long enough to run straight past experimentation and all the way to addiction without you intervening, then you're a bad parent. If your child runs straight past getting interested in a religion or political viewpoint and goes all the way to cult before you can be bothered to step in, you're a bad parent. All of those things you mention take time to develop, and a parent who is not complete crap will see the warning signs and step in before the child reaches the level of extremism.

Sex on the other hand, can result in pregnancy in a remarkably short time.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I was just trying to make the point that gatekeepers may be necessary for some things like hormones and surgery, but not to validate anybody's identities. So as long as the girl thinks of herself as female and lives as such, she is a girl.

What does "living as a girl" mean to you?

 

[d4m10n]

I doubt that any secondary school has a long standing policy of keeping males and females apart. I think they had a policy of keeping boys and girls apart. They probably didn't foresee circumstances where someone would say those were two different things.

Fair enough, but I'm reasonably confident that their underlying rationale for putting the boys and girls in different rooms (insofar as anyone could articulate it) would have more to do with sex than gender.

 

[Meadmaker]

Fair enough, but I'm reasonably confident that their underlying rationale for putting the boys and girls in different rooms (insofar as anyone could articulate it) would have more to do with sex than gender.

Absolutely.

 

[Paul2]

What does "living as a girl" mean to you?

I, for one, am *very* interested in the answer to this question.

 

[theprestige]

I'll write a whole long post about this if anyone wants, but in short it boils down to one thing:

Access to women-only spaces.

Everything else is either a side effect of this, or entirely in the transwoman's own head.

 

[Meadmaker]

I'll write a whole long post about this if anyone wants, but in short it boils down to one thing:

Access to women-only spaces.

Everything else is either a side effect of this, or entirely in the transwoman's own head.

That's not what "living as a girl" means, but I'll let Boudicca answer the question before I give my answer.

 

[d4m10n]

I'll write a whole long post about this if anyone wants, but in short it boils down to one thing:

Access to women-only spaces.

It's been many months since I've accessed any spaces built exclusively for men (IIRC) probably since the first COVID shutdowns went into effect. I've been teleworking full time, skipping the gym in favor of outdoor workouts, and avoiding the interior of restaurants. To make matters worse I've been doing stereotypically womanly tasks such as keeping house and homeschooling children. Where should I report to turn in my man card?