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Cont: Trans Women are not Women 4

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JoeMorgue said:
My apologies. I wrongly used you as an example of a broader argument. That was unfair of me and I retract it.

But to take it down to brass tacks is it fair that in general (and this is distinct from how much any one person is willing to compromise on it) is safe to say that a general disagreement both over "safety (and related concepts such as comfort)" versus "accessibility" as well as which should be the default and who gets to make that determination is a core part of this disagreement?
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I know it wasn't addressed to me, but I'm not sure "accessibility" is really the core issue. I think it's recognition. When a transwoman wants access to a female locker room, I think there are a couple of important goals. First, she wants to be safe, in that she might fear assault in a male locker room. Another thing that she might want is recognition that she truly is a woman.

For what it's worth, if I go back to when I first became of aware of the debate, 10-15 years ago, I was more sympathetic to the trans side, because I think the fear of assault was more legitimate. I think as a society, we have generally stopped accepting any level of the sort of casual violence that was much more common back when many of us were young,

I think the "recognition" aspect has become more prominent in recent years. The person seeking access to an opposite sex locker room, bathroom, or even athletic competition wants to be perceived as a person of the opposite sex They can race with the boys, or they can race with the girls. The fact that they can win against the girls may in some cases be part of an incentive, but I think that an even bigger part of that incentive is that if they are forced to race with the boys, it means that society doesn't truly accept them as a girl, and apparently that's important.

(And...they're right. Society doesn't truly accept them as girls.)
 
theprestige said:
In human society? I think they very much matter.


Okay, sure.


The biological essentialists rightly remind us that there is an essential biological component. I think the rest of your argument is a straw man against people who aren't even participating in this thread.
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It's biological essentialism because factors that follow a dichotomy are held up as essential, meanwhile biological factors that are far more nuanced and hard to define are dismissed as nonsense. Even suggesting these are important has lead EC to call for some academic's degree to be revoked.

Who decides what biological factors are essential and what factors are not, and why? Biological facts are just facts, society is what applies judgement and assigns significance.
 
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theprestige said:
Medicine and competitive sports don't matter? Experiences of discrimination and privilege don't matter?
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As we saw, complete with scientific documentation, competitive sports really don't matter to an awful lot of trans rights activists.
 
Meadmaker said:
I think you meant, "In every way that matters to me."
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Sure, who else would I speak for?

Presume that every opinion on here is me speaking for myself unless otherwise noted. It gets a bit tedious attaching "I think" to everything.

Are you in the habit of not speaking for yourself?
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
Sure, who else would I speak for?

Presume that every opinion on here is me speaking for myself unless otherwise noted. I gets a bit tedious attaching "I think" to everything.

Are you in the habit of not speaking for yourself?
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Fair enough.
 
Despite all the heated disagreement, I do also want to stress that Suburban Turkey is right. The whole "You didn't specifically say this was your opinions so therefore you are speaking for everyone" thing is the absolute last thing this discussion needs.

Let's strive for clarity without resorting to nitpicking.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Who decides what biological factors are essential and what factors are not, and why?
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Various governing bodies for international sport, for the sake of jointly maximizing fairness and fostering competition.

(Assuming we're being OP about what's OT. Otherwise, the answer varies based on context.)

No one complains when fighting leagues decide to create categories based on weight or height. Are bioavailable androgens less real and measurable than these criteria?
 
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I don't see sports as the game breaker (no pun) that others do.

We already have skill based sports demarcation. (AA, AAA, Pro or Varsity/JV or whatever).

Sports can just become skill based with gender ignored.

Hell you could probably gender neutral (yeah I'm using neutral as a verb, sue me) boxing just with weight classes and maintain a pretty fair level of both fairness and competition.

Tyson Fury is 6 foot 9 and about ~255 lbs. Most women shouldn't fight him just because there aren't "most women" that are that big.
 
I don't see sports as the game breaker (no pun) that others do.

We already have skill based sports demarcation. (AA, AAA, Pro or Varsity/JV or whatever).

Sports can just become skill based with gender ignored.

Hell you could probably gender neutral (yeah I'm using neutral as a verb, sue me) boxing just with weight classes and maintain a pretty fair level of both fairness and competition.

Tyson Fury is 6 foot 9 and about ~255 lbs. Most women shouldn't fight him just because there aren't "most women" that are that big.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Hell you could probably gender neutral (yeah I'm using neutral as a verb, sue me) boxing just with weight classes and maintain a pretty fair level of both fairness and competition.
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A well conditioned 140 pound man would be the snot out of a well conditioned 140 pound woman.


i.e. a male who trains, is in good shape, and who maxes out at 140 pounds has a whole bunch of lean muscle to generate a lot more explosive power than a woman who maxes out at the same weight.


You could indeed keep things gender neutral in sports, and partition based on skill, but that idea isn't very popular. It shoves very strong athletes who are women into competition with flabby guys. I wouldn't say it is "wrong" to do it that way, but it's not what people have expressed a preference for, and it seems very likely that fewer women would be willing to compete.
 
Meadmaker said:
A well conditioned 140 pound man would be the snot out of a well conditioned 140 pound woman.
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Well then the woman would then lose. She can deal with it.

Then she can have the onus of integrating this new information into her "women and men are equal" world view.

I don't care anymore.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
It's biological essentialism because factors that follow a dichotomy are held up as essential, meanwhile biological factors that are far more nuanced and hard to define are dismissed as nonsense. Even suggesting these are important has lead EC to call for some academic's degree to be revoked.

Who decides what biological factors are essential and what factors are not, and why? Biological facts are just facts, society is what applies judgement and assigns significance.
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It depends on the context. When it comes to medicine, those dichotomous factors are paramount. When it comes to sports, those dichotomous factors are essential for the safety, satisfaction, and entertainment of everyone involved. When it comes to pronouns, those factors don't matter at all.

There are other contexts we can and should also discuss, but I'd like to pause here for just a moment: Do you agree with me so far?
 
No one here denies the privileges that being male has brought to male members of society, and almost no one denies that a significant amount of that has come at the expense if female members.

Fast forward to 2020. Many steps have been taken to even the playing field . . . the recognition of trans-women as women reverses the trend of levelling. Now we have a subset of males taking up resources set aside for women. You have mediocre male athletes taking very precious resources from women's sports. Men who have self identified as women for a couple months winning women of the year honours and then feeling they have their hand on the pulse if all women. Men insisting the be allowed into female safe spaces. Etc.

I support everyone's need to be seen as they wish to be seen and support them self identifying as they wish but only to the point that it infringes on a more vulnerable group. At that point reality takes over.

Kaitlyn Jenner was never woman of the year, she was trans-woman of the year and as such she can speak to the needs of trans-women. She cannot be allowed to speak for women just as we don't allow men to speak for women anymore.
 
Meadmaker said:
Fair enough.
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To me it seems like a cop-out. If he's just speaking for himself, then there's no issue. All the people he disagrees with are also speaking for themselves. If he doesn't like they way they take care of their business, tough titties. He'll just have to deal.

But that's not what he's doing. He's advocating for public policy, for government impositions on people who disagree with him about how they should take care of their business. In that context, it's actively anti-social to say, "I don't care what you prefer or what you believe or what you think is important. I'm going to impose this policy on you without regard to your own opinions or ideas."
 
JoeMorgue said:
I don't see sports as the game breaker (no pun) that others do.

We already have skill based sports demarcation. (AA, AAA, Pro or Varsity/JV or whatever).

Sports can just become skill based with gender ignored.

Hell you could probably gender neutral (yeah I'm using neutral as a verb, sue me) boxing just with weight classes and maintain a pretty fair level of both fairness and competition.

Tyson Fury is 6 foot 9 and about ~255 lbs. Most women shouldn't fight him just because there aren't "most women" that are that big.
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Except for the slight glitch in the works which is that a woman the same height and weight as a half back in say the All Blacks, would probably be crippled for life in an international against, say, the Saffers, or Samoa.

Or any professional rugby game, or league, or the American version, or wrestling, or martial arts...….etc etc etc

I get some people don't get the differences between female and male athletes different advantages, but a bit of trying to get it would be good.

No dude is going to beat a female at rhythmic gymnastics, or synchronised swimming.

It just is what it is.

It is swings and round a bouts
 
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