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

[theprestige]

I absolutely have an answer. I know why I'm a woman, but it may be different than what another person considers a woman a woman. The goal of a question like that is to argue that we aren't who we say we are.

The goal is to debate whether you're entitled to certain privileges and accommodations, as a matter of public policy, based on your idea of what a woman is.

As you say, your idea of why a woman is a woman may be different from why another person thinks a woman is a woman.

Whose idea should prevail? Not yours by default. Perhaps not yours at all. But the vast majority of people, me included, seem to be more than willing to meet you halfway. The question is, halfway to where?

I'm not giving anybody any ammunition against me.

Oh, that ship has already sailed.

So sorry, but find another way to dissect me.

I'm sorry you have to put this in personal terms. Nobody wants to dissect you. We are, however, interested in dissecting your public policy proposals and the basis for them.

 

[theprestige]

On a recreational level, sure. Who cares, they are all there to have fun, right? But planning a park district recreational program that served as many women as men would be a little challenging.

On a recreational level, there's still issues of safety and of player satisfaction.

 

[theprestige]

I've brought up the point before, why not just put all trans-athletes in with men.

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

As Joe says. The point of trans-athleticism is to solve for trans, not to solve for athleticism.

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

As far as I can tell, trans-activism sees sports as performative, rather than competitive. The transwoman athlete doesn't want to put her mind and body to the test against other people of similar capability, conditioning, and motivation. The transwoman athlete wants to perform sports as a woman.

 

[theprestige]

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

It's a problem in the sense of trying to find a public policy compromise that's acceptable to all parties. I don't think transwomen are women*, but I'm willing to compromise on a lot of policy points with people who do.

I agree with your idea, but as an actual solution to the problem of trans-athletes, it's probably going to be an unacceptable compromise for the trans-athletes.

 

[Ziggurat]

I absolutely have an answer. I know why I'm a woman, but it may be different than what another person considers a woman a woman.

Of course it's different than what some other people consider a woman. We all know that, that's not the point.

The goal of a question like that is to argue that we aren't who we say we are.

No, it isn't. You're a woman, for certain definitions of woman. You're not a woman, for certain other definitions of woman. We all know that too.

What we don't know is what your definition actually is.

I'm not giving anybody any ammunition against me.

Defining your terms only gives ammunition to others if your definition is bad. What you really want is a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. You want to be able to use a term but not define it, so that you alone can say whether or not it's being used correctly.

Why would anyone else want to accept those terms of debate?

 

[Darat]

It's a problem in the sense of trying to find a public policy compromise that's acceptable to all parties. ...snip....

You are not going to get one as the extremists’ goals are incompatible, they will continue to campaign no matter what. But that isn’t a problem, that’s just the way it is in a free(ish) society, and it’s the same for pretty much all public policy.

I actually think we aren’t far from what will settle down to be the “compromise” position in our (UK) public policies.

That will mean for example trans folk are protected from discrimination in housing, employment, education and so on. (Because those areas should be gender neutral anyway.)

The one area that I think we will struggle with is what are now “women only” services but only in specific areas - such as say a shelter for women seeking respite from abuse. Or in employment areas which can at the moment discriminate based on gender - religion, acting and so on. I suspect that even with some of these areas the generations that are youngsters today will grow up with very different attitude to gender than folk of my generation did and some of the problems we perceive won’t be seen as a problem by the time they are “in power”.

I think other areas aren’t an issue apart from silliness in threads such as this and the extremists of the extremists, so no gynaecological examinations for a trans-woman, no screening for prostrate cancer for a trans-man. Sport will remain as it is, I.e. sporting bodies will set the criteria for participation.

 

[Ziggurat]

I was going to give you answers to these questions but since they seem to confuse you I will try your tactic of just asking a tangentially related question as if it somehow matters.

Why do you think any human being is ALLOCATED to any other?

In a literal sense, no one is. In a figurative sense, that's how the analogy you drew works.

 

[Paul2]

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.

Yes.

Is anyone here willing to speak against a therapist or doctor exploring the pros and cons of all potential therapies and approaches for a patient, and then helping the patient find the right approach for that particular patient, which would include identifying the potential pros and cons with transitioning?

 

[Paul2]

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.

I'm not sure that we can isolate and wall off such a fundamental biological factor as sex so that it is only relevant to reproduction, as complex as human behavior is. The fact of sexual reproduction has innumerable ripple effects throughout human culture. That doesn't mean that biology determines culture, but it certainly influences it, so when a cultural or psychological question arises, you can't automatically dismiss the influence of a biological reality.

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?

Maybe I don't. But when discussions about bathrooms, and sports, and children transitioning, etc., arise, and people use in their arguments about those issues statements like "I am just as much of a woman as you are" (referring to biological women), the fact of sexual reproduction is now relevant.

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.

Explicitly, sure. But implicitly, of course it is. And it may also be due to things other than their gametes, too, like their gender. Things can have multiple causes.

 

[Lithrael]

Is anyone here willing to speak against a therapist or doctor exploring the pros and cons of all potential therapies and approaches for a patient, and then helping the patient find the right approach for that particular patient, which would include identifying the potential pros and cons with transitioning?

I should hope not. I don’t think it’s any mainstream groups’s opinion that it’s bad to have honest counseling to discuss a kid’s feelings and suss out details like, have you explored a couple of niches, it’s a big thing and you don’t want to fall into a transgender identity out of coincidence or convenience - and I know there’s nothing convenient about a trans identity but I DO know that a kid’s idea of conviction can have a lot to do with the first interesting box they see - so let’s explore how you feel about genders and gender expressions and orientations first, because for starters if you mostly feel ****** about how other people view your current gender, that’s a strong and easily misdirected peice of kid baggage.

But!

I can also see a mistrust there that ‘honest exploration’ isn’t what you’re going to get. That in practice sometimes what you get is the trans version of ‘so you want an abortion? Here’s your Mandatory Sonogram And Aren’t Babies Wonderful and Some People Say That’s Murder You Know, And That Would Kind Of Make You A Baby Murderer’ ********.

You don’t want people leaning on kids to get them to give up genuine convictions about their identity, but you also don’t want cis gay kids or low-esteem-tied-to-gender kids mistaking their quest for comfort in their corner of society for transgenderism. Or even just ‘Im not really dysphoric, I just don’t identify with my gender and I feel like life would be better for me as the other gender!’ kids not making thoroughly informed choices. And I know that’s not common or anything but there ARE kids like that.

But you don’t need to beat up on the psyche of kids who like, knew since age five that they really ought to be (gender).

So yeah, counseling good, but conversion therapy masquerading as counseling bad. Rubber-stamping probably also bad. How do we assure ourselves of which is going on?

 

[The Atheist]

If you can change your gender, there's surely no impediment to changing race.

https://eurweb.com/2020/06/25/transracial-german-model-adopts-kenyan-name-denounces-racism-video/

 

[qayak]

It's a problem in the sense of trying to find a public policy compromise that's acceptable to all parties. I don't think transwomen are women*, but I'm willing to compromise on a lot of policy points with people who do.

I agree with your idea, but as an actual solution to the problem of trans-athletes, it's probably going to be an unacceptable compromise for the trans-athletes.

Like anything else there is no compromising with rabid dogma. There are only 3 solutions; join the men, join the women, create another category. Two are fair, one is not. TRAs will not compromise, fairness doesn't matter to them.

 

[cullennz]

If you can change your gender, there's surely no impediment to changing race.

https://eurweb.com/2020/06/25/transracial-german-model-adopts-kenyan-name-denounces-racism-video/

Could only put up with watching the first few minutes and that was only by a slight interest in how low Captain Jacks career has dipped, but have to say that was weird.

Would be quite funny if the woman wasn't so obviously suffering from some serious mental issues.

 

[Meadmaker]

If you can change your gender, there's surely no impediment to changing race.

https://eurweb.com/2020/06/25/transracial-german-model-adopts-kenyan-name-denounces-racism-video/

I think this comparison, which is made frequently, is kind of funny.

Of course everyone agrees that it makes no sense to self identify as white, if you are clearly black, of substitute other races if you like. And yet, race has no underlying biological definition. It's a vague notion that is some combination of physical traits that suggest a certain ancestry, but it isn't purely defined. People can be "mixed race", and it really is a spectrum, to the extent it's defined at all. However, a black person who proclaims that they are white is ridiculed.

Sex, on the other hand, does have a biological definition, but people can claim to be of a sex they aren't, and this is accepted, at least by some, or perhaps they say that they are a different "gender", but not a different sex.

I wonder if the issue is that race is based on things one can see at all times, whereas it is generally impossible to see that thing that defines what sex you are.

 

[cullennz]

Like anything else there is no compromising with rabid dogma. There are only 3 solutions; join the men, join the women, create another category. Two are fair, one is not. TRAs will not compromise, fairness doesn't matter to them.

Forgive my "dim", but which two are fair to you?

 

[cullennz]

I think this comparison, which is made frequently, is kind of funny.

Of course everyone agrees that it makes no sense to self identify as white, if you are clearly black, of substitute other races if you like. And yet, race has no underlying biological definition. It's a vague notion that is some combination of physical traits that suggest a certain ancestry, but it isn't purely defined. People can be "mixed race", and it really is a spectrum, to the extent it's defined at all. However, a black person who proclaims that they are white is ridiculed.

Sex, on the other hand, does have a biological definition, but people can claim to be of a sex they aren't, and this is accepted, at least by some, or perhaps they say that they are a different "gender", but not a different sex.

I wonder if the issue is that race is based on things one can see at all times, whereas it is generally impossible to see that thing that defines what sex you are.

It is a bit of an odd one.

One of my mates growing up was Maori.

Palest dud you ever saw. Didn't make him not Maori. If you meet his dad you would wonder how they were related (Yes it was his actual dad biologically).

The mums genes must have just won the battle for his features.

His older brother was the complete opposite

 

[theprestige]

Like anything else there is no compromising with rabid dogma. There are only 3 solutions; join the men, join the women, create another category. Two are fair, one is not. TRAs will not compromise, fairness doesn't matter to them.

I tend to agree. But you did ask:

why not just put all trans-athletes in with men

And I guess the answer to "why not" comes down to "rabid dogma" dominating the policy discussion from the pro-trans side.

 

[Paul2]

I should hope not. I don’t think it’s any mainstream groups’s opinion that honest counseling to discuss a kid’s feelings and suss out details like, have you explored a couple of niches, it’s a big thing and you don’t want to fall into a transgender identity out of coincidence or convenience - and I know there’s nothing convenient about a trans identity but I DO know that a kid’s idea of conviction can have a lot to do with the first interesting box they see - so let’s explore how you feel about genders and gender expressions and orientations first, because for starters if you mostly feel ****** about how other people view your current gender, that’s a strong and easily misdirected peice of kid baggage.

But!

I can also see a mistrust there that ‘honest exploration’ isn’t what you’re going to get. That in practice sometimes what you get is the trans version of ‘so you want an abortion? Here’s your Mandatory Sonogram And Aren’t Babies Wonderful and Some People Say That’s Murder You Know, And That Would Kind Of Make You A Baby Murderer’ ********.

You don’t want people leaning on kids to get them to give up genuine convictions about their identity, but you also don’t want cis gay kids or low-esteem-tied-to-gender kids mistaking their quest for comfort in their corner of society for transgenderism. Or even just ‘Im not really dysphoric, I just don’t identify with my gender and I feel like life would be better for me as the other gender!’ kids not making thoroughly informed choices. And I know that’s not common or anything but there ARE kids like that.

But you don’t need to beat up on the psyche of kids who like, knew since age five that they really ought to be (gender).

So yeah, counseling good, but conversion therapy masquerading as counseling bad. Rubber-stamping probably also bad. How do we assure ourselves of which is going on?

Agreed, we have to have professionals act professionally. That's above my pay grade at the moment.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This feels a bit to me like trying to back into a definition of sex that IS binary so we can claim 'aha look it's binary and now we have a reason to discriminate against transpeople'

This biological reductionism tends to lead me down the road that ends with 'if that's really all that defines the difference then why should I even give a **** about biological sex at all?' I couldn't care less which gametes you produce unless I am trying to reproduce with you, could you?

Honestly if that is your definition of biological sex then it's only gender (which presumably must account for everything else) that really makes any difference socially

Do you even science?

Sex is dimorphic, as well as being binary. Secondary sex characteristics show great variety within each characteristic, but no overlap. There's great variety in size and shape of breasts... but the chests of males do no naturally have breasts at all, of any size or shape. There's great variety in size and shape of penises, but females do not have penises of any size or shape.

We already know that YOU don't care about sex. Your lack of care, however, promotes and reinforces sexism and misogyny. You pretend that thousands of years of oppression and discrimination aren't based on sex when you insist that it doesn't matter. That's tantamount to insisting that hundreds of years of slavery and oppression doesn't matter when the topic is black people, because YOU don't care about race.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Of course Caitlyn Jenner was never woman of the year. She was one of one magazine's Women of the Year. One of 25 I believe. Of course nobody remembers the other 24 because they didn't get a host of TERFs berating them and telling them they weren't really women.

That would be because the others were actually females, the sex formerly known as women.