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

[Collin237]

A person is a woman if her permanent internal perception of her body indicates that she has a female body. It's that simple.

Nobody is going to explain, on a blog, what it's like to be unaware of what their own genitalia is shaped like. That's too personal to put into words. So they find ways to avoid the question.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Obviously that's what the extremists claim in order to make fun of the idea. Do you have evidence of any actual liberal saying such a thing?

No True Scotsman^WP

This has been said by several people in this thread, repeatedly. It has been said by a great many transgender people. If you define them all as being "extremists", then it might be worthwhile to consider the policies being put forth in government at this time, and determine where you stand on that.

For example, several states in the US have already adopted self-id alone as the basis for a person to legally change their gender. Canada has this in place across the board. The UK just barely avoided passing self-id in late 2020. IT's on the docket in several locations, and it's the perspective that is actively being pushed by several large, well-funded lobbyist organizations.

If you believe this to be an "extremist" position, then it seems that the extremists are driving the bus. That merits speaking out against, rather than just hand-waving it away.

 

[Rolfe]

A person is a woman if her permanent internal perception of her body indicates that she has a female body. It's that simple.

Nobody is going to explain, on a blog, what it's like to be unaware of what their own genitalia is shaped like. That's too personal to put into words. So they find ways to avoid the question.

That's one of the most ridiculous statements I have heard this year. A person is a woman if at her conception she did not receive a functional SRY gene, or (very rarely) did not receive the genes for functional androgen receptors, and she has reached the age recognised by society as adulthood. It's that simple.

Perception has absolutely nothing to do with it. And you know what? People are extremely good at sexing other (adult) people without any reference at all to genitals. We do it every day and very seldom make a mistake.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Meadmaker:

Rolfe said "And don't come the "oh but what about the poor marginalised dysphoric darlings, would you make them pee and sleep in men's spaces?" I don't care. Find another solution for these remarkably indulged and accommodated marginalised (narcissistic, aggressive, demanding) individuals."

That most certainly is hate speech. I don't get why that isn't obvious?

It's not hate speech. It's mocking and ridicule, certainly. And someone certainly might feel offended by it. But it's not hate speech.

Unless you think anything that hurts a person's feelings is hate speech? In which case, I and many other females in this thread have been subjected to a crap-ton of hate speech over the five volumes of this discussion.

 

[Ron Obvious]

A person is a woman if her permanent internal perception of her body indicates that she has a female body. It's that simple.

Simple and completely useless.

A person is Napoleon if his internal sense of himself indicates that he really is the Emperor Napoleon.

C'mon, we're sceptics! Don't be so afraid of being called a bigot that you'd deny reality.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I will admit that among regular participants here, Rolfe is the most adamant in her opinions on the side of those opposed to trans rights activists. I think there;s a bit of context missing, and that context covers some years of discussion.

My recollection in brief is that Rolfe started out much more tolerant years ago. But as the trans activists have become increasingly aggressive and violent in their approaches, and as the agenda has mutated from "stop firing us for how we identity" to "we're just as much a female as any biological female and we should have the right to go wherever we want" her view has shifted to be less tolerant.

I believe that's happened with several of the female posters in this thread. For me, I started out a lot more tolerant, looking for common ground, understanding, and a reasonable path forward. What I've found, however, is rather blatant misogyny being expressed by a LOT of trans activists, policies that increase the risk of harm to females and reduce our rights, and a very clear indication that *some* transwomen aren't transsexual in the way we had previously understood, but are actually acting on a sexual paraphilia. That has resulted in me pulling back on my support, and being more critical of the consequences of the policies proposed.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Are you implying that gender certificates would entail a language police? Jordan Peterson already sailed that ship, and the answer is it won't.

Lobbyist organizations are pushing policy to make misgendering and deadnaming constitute hate-speech, and therefore be subject to legal action and viewed as a crime.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If you go out and look for accusations against liberals, I'm sure you'll find whatever you're looking for on propaganda sites. So if you haven't already seen it, and all you have to offer is a promise to go searching for it, I probably won't be convinced.

If it happens, it'll be all over the news. It won't depend on someone "finding" it for me.

No, it doesn't end up all over the news. It flies under the radar, due to institutional capture.

For example, this is reality already.

https://transequality.org/documents/state/nevada

Nevada Birth Certificate Laws
Nevada Vital Records will issue a new birth certificate with a corrected gender of male, female, or X upon receipt of two affidavits reflecting an individual's gender. NAC 440.030.

To apply for an amended birth certificate the applicant should submit:

An Affidavit from the individual, their parent or guardian, or legal representative, stating the gender that should be on the birth certificate and why.
A Supplemental Affidavit from someone else who knows them confirming the facts in their affidavit. The second affidavit can be from anyone who has personal knowledge of the applicant’s gender, meaning anyone who knows the applicant’s gender firsthand through a personal, familial, medical, or professional relationship. The affidavit should confirm the individual’s gender identity and the gender they intend to maintain. A written statement on letterhead from a licensed healthcare professional or a court order confirming gender change can be submitted instead of the Supplemental Affidavit.
A copy of the original birth certificate, if available.
$40 fee, that includes one certified copy of the amended certificate. Additional copies are $20 each.

There is no requirement for a diagnosis, no requirement for any kind of transition at all. All it requires is an legal statement from someone claiming the gender they wish to identify as, and a supporting document from someone else saying the same thing. It is entirely 100% based on a subjective claim, with zero objective evaluation of it.

 

[d4m10n]

A woman is a person who is expected to behave in conformance with the cultural expectations of humans born with ova.

Close enough. I'd say generally expected since there are those who heroically attempt to avoid putting gendered expectations on other people.

I'm not seeing how that works for classification.

Well, it's usually quite easy in practice. Just look to see if someone is wearing clothes which are cut and styled for ladies, along with other common indicators of femininity within your own cultural context, e.g. shaved legs, eye makeup, willingness to listen rather than talking over others, etc.

At least, not unless all people born with ova are expected by society to behave in a certain way...

I cannot speak for all people born with ova (obviously) but the ones I have spoken to so far have complained about cultural expectations of femininity at some point or another; this is true even for the ones which excel at being feminine and enjoy it much of the time.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm implying that legally binding gender certificates would entail the literal police.

You try to get into a women's locker room. Someone blocks you. You present your certificate. They reject it. You call the police. Because you have the law on your side via legally-binding gender certificates.

You try to get into a women's locker room. Someone blocks you. You have no certificate. They call the police. Because they have the law on their side via legally-binding gender certificates.

Earlier in this thread, there was the case of the transwoman in Oregon that stands to be recapped. The transwoman was genitally intact, and habitually used the showers and locker rooms at the community college at the same time that the local middle-school and children's swim teams used the pool.

One of the young girls saw the transwoman, and saw her exposed penis. The girl complained to her coach (I believe) who contacted the school board. Several parents complained.

When the police were involved, it was determined that because the transwoman had legally changed her gender, she had a right to use the facility, and that the female minors who used that facility had no right to change in a space that contained no penises. The girls of the swim teams were told that if they were uncomfortable changing in the presence of a biologically intact adult male, they must use a different, significantly smaller changing room that is usually reserved for staff. Now, the swim team takes turns using the small shower in order to avoid being naked in front of an adult male.

These female minors have been repeatedly treated as "transphobes" and "hateful", and the law came down on the side of the be-penised person rather than on the side of protecting the safety and the dignity of females.

 

[Rolfe]

Exactly. Women have been kicking out against being expected to behave in a stereotypical "feminine" way for generations. Now we're being told that the definition of a woman is either behaving in such a way, or being expected to behave in such a way?

No way. No way at all.

 

[Distracted1]

I know Boudicca has elected to not participate in this thread, but rather to take her invective to other threads where people won't directly challenge her assertions because it's off topic. But I'm going to respond anyway.

Not a single one of the people in this thread who as challenged the trans agenda and the overriding of female sex-based rights has suggested that violence against transgender people is acceptable in ANY fashion. Every one of us is fully supportive of transgender people being protected from violence on the basis of their gender. In contrast, however, trans activists feel that it is acceptable and appropriate to advocate for violence against females.

Sorry to quibble, but not Me.
I am in favor of trans-gender people being protected from violence on the basis of their humanity.
Or, if your sentence is meant to mean that "on the basis of their gender" is the particular form of violence that they are to be protected from, I would claim that the basis of the violence is irrelavent to a humans right to be protected from it.

Sorry.

 

[theprestige]

How the **** should I know? I'm not a lawyer!

This is a cop-out. You're a citizen in a democracy. You have a responsibility to form your own opinions about public policy, and vote according to your own opinions.

Do you normally defer all policy questions to the lawyers and politicians, and blindly vote for whatever they suggest, because they know better and you don't? Of course not. So why are you running away from your responsibility on this one topic?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think there should be some set of criteria, but I have no basis for setting up a list of my own. As to where such a list could be drawn from, I believe it would have to be a legal theory, not a social-political theory.

Is there any jurisdiction, anywhere in the world, where self-ID is in operation? If so, find out how it's implemented there. If not, it's just idle speculation.

Are you seriously jumping in with both feet here without knowing what is actually for realsies happening in the world?

Arguments from ignorance and arguments from incredulity are fallacious arguments. Please attain some facts.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ideally. I guess I was thinking of someone he/she agreed with perhaps having a well-thought out viewpoint on policies that could anchor the conversation.
It's a hard to plainly follow what is even being argued.

At the moment, I'm not sure that Collin HAS any references to draw on. I could be wrong, but it seems to be driven wholly from personally subjective ideas, perhaps informed by the twitter-verse.

 

[theprestige]

I am also confused by this exchange.

Self-ID law exists in Canada. It requires a filling out paperwork to have official IDs changed. As far as I can tell, the sky-falling prophesized by the transphobic panic-mongerers never happened.

You're getting ahead of yourself. Colin isn't disputing that these policies cause problems. He's disputing that anyone is even advocating these policies in the first place. The point of this exchange is to establish that not only are these policies being advocated, they've already been implemented in some places.

We can certainly debate whether these policies cause problem. But, contra Colin, I don't think we can debate that these policies have mainstream support from "actual liberals", to the point where they've actually been implemented.

 

[Olmstead]

[...]

ETA: Let me get it as close to your precise wording as I can.

A woman is a person who is expected to behave in conformance with the cultural expectations of humans born with ova.

I'm not seeing how that works for classification. At least, not unless all people born with ova are expected by society to behave in a certain way, in which case all people born with ova are women. That definition works for me, but I would prefer to eliminate the behavioral expectations.

It's like grammar vs. language. Grammar describes language, but in doing so, patterns emerge. These patterns are then used to prescribe language in a variety of contexts. Both language and grammar are in constant flux, but grammar is ultimately always dependent on language, and it is patently ridiculous to claim that a native English speaker doesn't use correct English.

Similarly, sex influences gender, i.e. the societal roles of the two sexes. There are clear patterns to these societal roles, but they change constantly and there are always people who do not conform to these patterns. A female person will always be a woman, no matter how much of an outlier she is, as gender is always defined by sex (e.g. the actions of females). But the patterns still exist and form the nebulous concept of gender. The more widespread a pattern is, the more it embodies a gender.

Where does this leave transgender people? I don't know. A male with gender dysphoria who conforms to the most central patterns of the female gender should technically still be part of the larger corpus forming the concept of the male gender. If, for whatever reason (aliens ... it's always aliens), every male suddenly developed gender dysphoria, that would be the new normal. Would all these people still be men or would we become a society of procreating lesbians?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Are you seriously jumping in with both feet here without knowing what is actually for realsies happening in the world?

Arguments from ignorance and arguments from incredulity are fallacious arguments. Please attain some facts.

Good point.

Canada made gender identity a protected civil right in June 2017. Self-ID is the law of the land.

I've been reassured that such a policy would open the floodgates of violence. Open season for sex perverts and scammers.

It's been over 3 years, surely there's some evidence now of the trans menace.

 

[theprestige]

I am not arguing that anything has actually been.

I AM A SCIENTIFIC REALIST!!!!! Do you know what that means?

IT IS AN EMPIRICAL QUESTION!!!!! Do you know what that means?

Why are you playing games with me?????

Self-ID actually has been implemented in Canada. I hope this puts to rest your (mistaken) claim that self-ID was an exaggeration by anti-trans extremists with no real support from "actual liberals".

 

[Emily's Cat]

How the **** should I know? I'm not a lawyer!

Nobody is asking for a legal opinion. We're asking for you personal view on the matter.

I assume that you DO have personal views? I base this inference on the fact that you've already attacked several posters in this thread, and insinuated that their statements are false and that their concerns are irrational. That suggests that, at a minimum, you hold some concept of what you personally think an acceptable approach should be.

Please share your personal thoughts on the subject.