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

[Emily's Cat]

It's nothing personal, I just don't answer that question at all.

It's been my experience that people trying to demand that we transpeople define what it is to be a "man" or "woman" just want to inevitably twist and turn it against us. It's a trap that I'm not stepping into.

There is no possible answer that satisfies anyone, so I just don't answer the question.

There's a reason that it doesn't satisfy people.

When a suburban white woman loudly proclaims "I'm just as much a black woman as you are" there's going to be some pushback. Especially if the suburban white woman is completely unwilling or unable to explain what the hell she means by "black" in the first place, and in what way it applies to her.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Okay. I officially self-identify as a man. I want you all to call me "Eric's Cat" from here on out. I know why I'm just as much a man as Meadmaker or Darat or Archie, but it may be different from what another person considers a man to be.

Prove me wrong.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I've longed dismissed arguments when they are either "How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg" arguments or "I say I have 8 fingers and two thumbs, you say we have 10 fingers" arguments.

I'll be good and goddamned if I'm going to be called a bigot because nobody will clarify "How many legs does a dog have if you call a thumb a finger?"

For all your whinging, it might be worth a second of your time to review the last three volumes of this thread and note that you haven't been called a bigot.

 

[Emily's Cat]

A bit like down here what americans call a chicken sandwich (chicken in a burger bun), we just call a chicken burger.

Now you could get all sensitive and say yanks are breadfillingacists or flourycistic against chicken, but it actually comes down to straight what is a burger.

The meaty bit or the bunny bit, or the whole thing.

Sorry, that was an odd post, my mind wondered

I always assumed "burger" applies to the meaty bit, and requires it to be ground meat. Thus, a round bun with a patty made of ground chicken in it would be a "chicken burger", but a round bun with a slab of steak in it would be a "sandwich".

But I can see either argument, and as long as we can define the terms in ways that we both understand, then a meaningful discussion about tasty-meat-things-in-bread-like-substances can commence!

 

[Darat]

...snip...

This is where I stand. No compromise on our rights here.

...snip...

We only have the rights that society gives us, you don’t have the rights you want, they will only become rights once society agrees.

You are not in the near future going to get everything you want, one would suggest (going from the many examples through history of campaigns for rights) you start with what you can get, then continue campaigning. But you need to be resigned to it being a combination of small steps with what will sometimes feel as 2 steps forward one step back.

 

[theprestige]

For all your whinging, it might be worth a second of your time to review the last three volumes of this thread and note that you haven't been called a bigot.

But don't you see that he identifies as a victim of an unfair stereotype, and that's what matters?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I wasn't that angry before, but I'm certainly getting that way when people like you won't listen to what I say.

Sweetheart, that would be because you're not saying anything that communicates a meaning. I get that you're angry - so am I. It happens. But if you want people to listen to what you say, you've really got to say something coherent that they can relate to.

You declaiming that you're "just as much a female as a biological female in any way that matters" is meaningless, because objectively, you aren't like a biological female in any of the ways that distinguishes biological females from biological males.

Decrying that you're just as much a woman as any natal woman is incoherent when females can identify and share the elements of their existence that they view as part of "woman" (ignoring the trite adult human female bit), and you cannot.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And realise people wouldn't be asking if they had no desire to understand your points.

Good point. ISF is not Twitter.

 

[Lithrael]

You do keep quoting gross explicit language from like literally a couple of Twitter posts from nobodies on the internet and speaking as though they represent mainstream TRAs. It would be really great if they didn’t say those things, and it would also be really great if you would stop quoting their explicit outbursts in here. I don’t go repeatedly quoting explicitly gross things people say about trans women and it’s not because nobody says anything explicitly gross about trans women on the internet.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

I want:

• Transgender people to be free from discrimination in employment, housing, and medicine
• Transgender people to have access to reasonably priced and accessible medical care specific to their unique needs
• Transgender people whose diagnosis of dysphoria cannot otherwise be alleviated to have a reasonable and unobstructed pathway to legal recognition of their necessary treatment to live and present as the other sex
• Protection of females from exposure to predatory males in areas where they are particularly vulnerable, such as changing rooms and showers, prisons, and rape & domestic violence shelters, and for the management of those venues to have the ability to make exceptions for individual transwomen on a case by case basis
• Transgender to be a separate recognized class when it comes to affirmative action, and short-lists and quotas to be set aside for transpeople that do NOT reduce representation of females in leadership and politics.
• The right for females to organize and petition for policies that support the equality of females in society and to reduce discrimination against females
• Reasonable restrictions for transwomen and transgirls who wish to compete against females in athletics, to ensure fairness and equitability, while also allowing transpeople the right to form their own leagues exclusive to rules they choose to implement
• Recognition that names and pronoun usage is a matter of courtesy, and should not be treated as a hate-crime issue

Some of us have told you what we want - and told everyone else for that matter.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes. It appears that in this thread (and in real life) there's this big "reefer madness"-style fear being spread around that straight cismen are going to start self-ID'ing as women in order to be able to infiltrate women-only spaces and (presumably) say or do things to harm the ciswomen within those spaces.

Holy cow, they already do. They already have.

FFS, stop pretending like it doesn't exist! We all get that you don't give a crap about the safety of females. Fine, but own your views man! Don't try to gaslight us with this rhetoric.

 

[p0lka]

Sweetheart

A wee bit sexist Eric's Dog.

That was exactly my point, and exactly my ask. Not a complete ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for kids, but a tightening of treatment, and a bit more therapy and waiting.

How much you want to be that you don't get called a TERF for having the same view though?

I think the UK has basically banned puberty blockers for under 16s at the moment. Which I do think is a good thing. They can decide gender after they have gone through puberty first. Social media has a lot to answer for.

 

[Emily's Cat]

*Looks to my left... looks to my right...*

Oh you're talking to me. I'm really confused because I've never said anything even resembling anything like that.

Sorry

It is my fault. This whole thread combined is getting a bit complicated.

Lol

In this thread, it's not that difficult. If the post is made by JoeMorgue, just mentally interpret it as "Oh woe is me, no matter what I do I end up the bad guy, and my needs should be centered here!"

Joe, I know that's a bit harsh, and it doesn't apply in any other topic. But you do seem to approach this topic from the perspective of how unfair the debate between transwomen and females is to you personally.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

True. And oddly enough, therapists are saying "since you're attracted to females, have you considered that you might be transgender? Here, let's start some puberty blockers while you think about it, and you should change your name and try on some boy clothes too."

Which somehow, magically, is NOT viewed as conversion therapy (and sterilization, btw) for homosexuals.

 

[The Atheist]

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

I completely fail to see the difference, so maybe the trans issue is really a mental illness issue after all?

I've asked several times how wanting to cut your dick off differs from people who want to cut their legs off and nobody's been able to give an answer.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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'

How about "you have a dick and are capable of raping someone"? Is that a good enough reason to exclude someone in certain circumstances?

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Have you heard of this crazy new theory called "Evolution"? Particularly, these really cool newfangled ideas about "survival of the fittest" and "sexual selection"? I think you might find them really interesting. Because it kind of touches on the whole concept of why someone with large immobile gametes who bears the entire cost of reproduction might want to exclude a person with small mobile gametes who bears no cost of reproduction (and who is also physically stronger and more aggressive) from areas where they might be vulnerable to... oh... let's euphemistically call it forced sexual selected upon.

Then there's that whole thing about sexual orientation being tightly tied to reproduction, enough so that a wash of hormones at a particular stage of fetal development ingrains the appropriate physical responses to the other sex that create receptiveness to reproduction and sexual attraction in the first place... and you know, how when that happens incompletely or at the wrong time, it produces sexual receptivity responses of the other sex, leading, essentially, to homosexuality.

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

I'm very curious to hear what you think sexism is due to.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What is clear is that the Bruce Jenner who won decathlons would not meet the criteria to legally self-ID as a woman and would legally be a man.

Which criteria are those?

 

[cullennz]

I completely fail to see the difference, so maybe the trans issue is really a mental illness issue after all?

I've asked several times how wanting to cut your dick off differs from people who want to cut their legs off and nobody's been able to give an answer.

Totally agree it is a mental issue, but as long as some people go on about humans magically changing sex, and it being some normal, "finding you inner self" **** rather than someone having a disorder, as it is a bit too touchy, you kind have to just roll with it.

 

[p0lka]

True. And oddly enough, therapists are saying "since you're attracted to females, have you considered that you might be transgender? Here, let's start some puberty blockers while you think about it, and you should change your name and try on some boy clothes too."

Which somehow, magically, is NOT viewed as conversion therapy (and sterilization, btw) for homosexuals.

As per my previous post, I think the relative authorities are realising that puberty blockers are a big no no, it's causing more problems because as the puberty blocker kids are hitting adulthood, they are actually feeling as if they were conned, some feel they would have been better off without.