Cont: [ED] Discussion: Trans Women are not Women (Part 5)

[angrysoba]

The transsexual sports debate has really forced advocates to confront the equivocation of I feel like a woman to I'm an actual real 100 percent genuine woman because I feel like a woman.

I think we should ask Shania Twain, "What does it mean to feel like a woman?"

She should be able to tell us. If she tries to obfuscate with some talk of qualia we would be able to pin her down and say, "Ah, but if qualia is your defence then how do you know that other women feel as you do?"

 

[Dismember]

Exactly. It doesn't surprise me that someone with such transphobic views would support conversion therapy for us to "fix" us.

You, and TRAs, are being disingenuous here with the term “conversion therapy”.

Spending some time with a neutral therapist for the purpose of exploring other possible reasons for dysphoria and considering if there are other, less invasive effective treatments before jumping straight to drugs and an operating table is NOT “conversion therapy”.

It bears zero resemblance to actual conversion therapy inflicted on the gay/lesbian population.

 

[qayak]

Because then you don't accept trans-women as "REAL WOMEN (Trademark, Patent Pending)" and that's a problem.

But again the more we discuss this the less I know what anyone involved actually wants.

Maybe you missed it. I don't and it's not a problem.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Maybe you missed it. I don't and it's not a problem.

Well then maybe you'll be nice enough to explain it to me then.

 

[qayak]

Well then maybe you'll be nice enough to explain it to me then.

Explain what?

 

[d4m10n]

It bears zero resemblance to actual conversion therapy inflicted on the gay/lesbian population.

If a therapist said to a lesbian "Have you considered trying to accept yourself just as you are at present?" that would be very nearly the precise opposite of conversion therapy.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk

 

[Aber]

I'm sorry if I sound a bit slow. I'm just trying to understand. I promise not to make this a huge derail.

Why would the 16-year-olds be in the same league as the women in this hypothetical? The whole idea of skill leagues would be to make things more fair. So if a transwoman comes along who is wiping the floor with the cis-women, she'd go in a different league. Maybe said league would wind up consisting mostly of transpeople? (I'm assuming that long-term estrogen usage would lessen a transwoman's innate male strength.)

If I'm way off in my understanding of this, I apologize.

Not a huge derail.

Tennis is probably the best example. The Williams sisters have practiced against men (and lost comprehensively) to men ranked 500+.

A "skills based" approach would see no females in the top tournaments at all, and maybe playing in 3rd or 4th tier events.

The male advantages come primarily from puberty and persist even if testosterone levels are later suppressed.

td;dr a skills based approach would exclude women from professional tennis completely. I don't think that would be a good idea for players or spectators. YVMV.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

That doesn’t actually follow from anything I said. Nice try, and thanks for proving you don’t actually have an argument.

It actually follows directly from what you said.

Transwomen don't have the experience of the threat of being involuntarily impregnated. You raised this as an important difference and a reason for not allowing them to represent women.

Infertile women lack exactly this same threat.

If the lack of this threat is reason to exclude a transwoman it is also reason to exclude an infertile woman.

Of course you don't like that idea so you pretend it doesn't. But that's only because you are prejudiced against transpeople. Which is evident from all of your posts here.

You don't actually have an argument all you have is 'I don't like it and I'm gonna keep moaning about it'

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Then transition is a decision many trans choose to make. Unlike what you posted before.

Thanks.

Transitioning is a decision many trans choose to make, being trans is not. Read the words (and the authors of the words) closely, think about them, then respond. That order makes things better for everyone.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

First, one quick note about the binary: anything outside of the binary of two different sexes based on the type of gamete isn't even the type of thing that we're talking about in this thread anyway. Your garden-variety trans person still has one of the two types of gametes in the bimodal distribution.

Discrimination: I think you have to mean unjust or immoral discrimination, correct? Because a neutral discrimination - that there exist in reality two different sexes, based on the type of gamete - is not unjust or immoral, it just is. Thinking otherwise is a category mistake. Given that, there is nothing unjust or immoral in acknowledging the reality of two different sexes based on the type of gamete. That some might use the fact of two sexes to discriminate lies with them, not with the fact.

I'm not sure what significance "biological reductionism" has, given the above, other than as a faint pejorative.

It's a separate question as to what we do with the fact of two sexes based on the type of gamete. All I've been trying to do here is to justify that two sexes based on gametes *is* a fact of biology, and an absolutely foundational one at that.

I think you may have missed my point. I'm not trying to challenge your binary. I'm not sure I accept it fully but I'll go with it for now.

What I am saying is that if your definition of biological sex is only about which gametes people produce then it has no relevance to anything outside of reproduction.

So unless you want to make offspring with someone then their status as trans or cis, male or female shouldn't be an issue.

So why on earth would you want to deny someone access to a bathroom based on their gametes?

The only justfications for these social exclusions are based on all the stuff you threw away in order to come up with a nice binary definition of biological sex.

Do you mean implicitly, explicitly, or both?

Both, I think. I'm not sure I'm fully understanding your question.

Let's take an example of workplace sexism... women not being listened to in meetings. Nothing to do with their gametes.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

She still wasn't though. You can't tell me that a woman who had been a man just 4 months earlier was one of the top 25 women of the year. I think the magazine that voted her one of the entertainers of the year got it right. E.N.T.E.R.T.A.I.N.E.R. That would exclude her role on KUWTK where she just wandered around in the background with nothing to do.

I fully support her decision to live her life as she wants, until it takes resources allotted women. I don't worry about celebrities like Elliot Page taking resources from men. We have plenty to go around.

She didn't take any resources allotted to women.

It was a freaking GLAMOUR magazine madey uppy title. Had they wanted to give another woman an award they could easily have made 26 of them.

Your opinion on whether she deserved the award is neither here nor there. Glamour Magazine felt she did.

Moaning about it just makes you seem silly.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

We know we can never reconcile the extremists, with that in mind I was thinking about what compromise we will end up with. I think it will be something like:

1) Official gender change will still require some form of a “Gender Recognition“ certificate
2) Someone who has officially changed their gender will be able to use facilities labelled “women only”. I expect there will still be some limitations on that, probably something like there having to be private cubicles.
3) Businesses that now can legally discriminate on the grounds of gender will be able to continue to do so but will need to honour gender recognition certificates. (This would still mean that a beauty parlour offering a waxing service wouldn’t be forced to wax male genitalia because that is not a service they offer regardless of official gender.)
4) Sport - will still be able to deny or allow participation regardless of official gender based on their own objective measures.
5) Under 16 years old will not be able to start physical medical treatments

Not sure on 5. I think puberty blockers would have to be given before puberty or are you not counting them as physical medical treatments?

Other than that isn't that pretty much what exists currently and would still exist with self-determination?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

What resources are allotted to straight men on the basis of them being straight? The only one I can think of is straight women as sexual partners, and I'm pretty sure gay men aren't taking those away from straight men.

So they are taking resources allotted to women in your opinion then?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Well yeah which, in my opinion, makes it (nearly) a totally separate issue from things like bathroom/locker room access, legal recognition, etc.

With sports the answer has to be "What people are willing to pay to watch to see" or this is all so much a trolley problem it's so detached from reality.

It seems to me that when it comes to professional sports, making sports fans happy seems to be the entire point of the exercise.

I'm going to put these two together as they seem to express a similar view.

I'm sympathetic to the view that there are specific issues related to sports that need to be considered but the responsibilities of sports goes beyond just what people want to see.

When Kaepernick was taking a knee sports had a responsibility to the players and society not to hang him out to dry regardless of whether paying fans wanted him lynched or sainted.

When we have soccer teams here in the UK and elsewhere who have fans singing about being up to their knees in Catholic blood and STILL making monkey noises and other racist chants at black players then no I am not prepared to allow them to be the sole arbiters of what is OK and what is not OK in terms of discrimination and bigotry.

Other commercial operations have to operate within a societally imposed framework of anti-discrimination legislation and sports should be no different.

Equally we need to be careful that policing women's sport doesn't simply become an exercise in people deciding who is sufficiently 'feminine' for their personal tastes. There has been more than 1 case of 100% no bones about it ciswomen being accused of being men simply because they don't meet someone's standard of femininity. That sort of crap is just flat out BS.

 

[Ziggurat]

So they are taking resources allotted to women in your opinion then?

That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact. You can have an opinion on whether that’s good or bad, but that it happens isn’t a matter of opinion.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

In spectator sports, you don't have competitions for "athletes that aren't good enough to be on the top pro teams." The closest anyone comes to that are baseball's minor leagues. They only exist as a training ground for potential major league players someday, and to provide casual, low cost entertainment. And to the best of my knowledge, no woman has every competed in the minor league baseball.

I don't know what the grassroots structures are for US sports in detail but can speak with certainty on soccer in most countries around the world absolutely having leagues and competitions for 'athletes that aren't good enough to be on the top pro teams'

Here's the English system for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_league_system

 

[Darat]

Not sure on 5. I think puberty blockers would have to be given before puberty or are you not counting them as physical medical treatments?

Other than that isn't that pretty much what exists currently and would still exist with self-determination?

I was neutral on puberty blockers until this thread (whilst there is no doubt the thread has been full of irrational and often hateful comments there has been some good discussion and information), we don’t have a good understanding of possible side effects, long term health issues and so on so I would say until someone can make their own decision regarding medical treatments they shouldn’t be prescribed. We will gain this information over time as they are used for other medical treatments so in a few years we may be able to say they can again be used for under 16s in regards to gender changing as we will better understand the risks.

In effect we already have self-determination, no one is assigned their gender (I am aware of outliers such as intersex), if you wish to change it you can. However there is no doubt that today it is still important to society what gender someone is. (Whether that should be the case is a different discussion even though it often is thrown in to, in my view, simply muddy the waters.) Therefore society saying that “A, B and C have to be done if you want to change your gender” is addressing the world as it is, not how some people may want it to be, it is a “reasonable” course of action. Now of course it could be used unfairly by making the criteria too difficult to meet - but I would assume it to be no more arduous than it is today.

I hadn’t thought about the potential problem in regards to sports being completely free to determine their own criteria. As they say it is astonishing that there are apparently no gay top tier football players, so perhaps some sports may not adopt fair and objective criteria. There may be some need to provide a framework for sporting organisations.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

The irrational behaviour is all on your side

Not even slightly and if you believe that you should take a step back and think again. And maybe dial back the aggression slightly?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I've brought up the point before, why not just put all trans-athletes in with men. The distribution will be much more even. You will have the Caitlyn Jenners (very few of them) still winning decathlons, .

Transwomen aren't men.

Caitlyn Jenner(s) would not be winning decathlons in male competitions.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact. You can have an opinion on whether that’s good or bad, but that it happens isn’t a matter of opinion.

'Gay men are taking resources allocated to women' is a fact?

You sure about that?