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

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Collin237 said:
Could you please provide Aber with citations?
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Citations for what? As far as I know Aber isn't disputing any of my claims. As far as I know, he doesn't even care about my claims - he cares about yours.

Inventing spurious chores for me doesn't discharge your own responsibility to support your claims when asked. Stop worrying about what I owe to Aber, and focus on what you owe to Aber.
 
theprestige said:
Would it surprise you to learn that every TRA and TRK in this thread who's been pressed on this point has given almost exactly the same answer?
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If that's the case, then where does the claim that trans women should be on women's teams come from?
 
Collin237 said:
1. I'm not an activist.
2. I have no way of knowing whether this is a common occurrence.
3. I think sports are vastly overrated, so I don't much care.
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I don't want to be a dick (truly, I don't, I am more or less a nice person in real life, albeit a bit cranky and disturbed), but I'd really like you to consider - what if someone said in response to you, "Well, I think trans people's struggles and feelings are vastly overrated, so I don't much care." That certainly wouldn't be acceptable reasoning for supporting an anti-trans position.

I find sports to be the trickiest part of the debate to sort out, personally, as far as balancing everybody's rights goes. I also don't care a whit or a fig about sports in general. But I understand that this doesn't mean I get to dismiss them in this context. They are important to a lot of people (and they have economic value, too), just like trans rights and women's rights and so on are important to a lot of people. We can't just toss out the tricky parts of the debate because we don't personally care. It would make things easier, but it doesn't work.
 
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Collin237 said:
If that's the case, then where does the claim that trans women should be on women's teams come from?
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LOL. Read the thread.

But it comes from two places. One, obviously, is from transwomen who have actually gone out and joined women's sports leagues.

The other is from TRAs who don't care about sports as such but do care about transwomen being allowed to perform as women in any venue they want, without regard to the implications for that venue or the harm to the other people in that venue.

Sports don't matter, so it doesn't matter if transwomen ruin women's sports. But it does matter that transwomen be allowed to ruin women's sports, if that's how they want to express their womanhood. The argument is basically that we're losing something unimportant and gaining something very important.

My argument is that women's sports are important to a lot of women, and that we should take their concerns seriously, about transwomen ruining it. Your argument seems to be that because you don't care yourself, anybody else caring doesn't matter, and their concerns don't need to be taken seriously at all.
 
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theprestige said:
Citations for what? As far as I know Aber isn't disputing any of my claims. As far as I know, he doesn't even care about my claims - he cares about yours.

Inventing spurious chores for me doesn't discharge your own responsibility to support your claims when asked. Stop worrying about what I owe to Aber, and focus on what you owe to Aber.
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I said "Because in the case of gender, the evidence shows that surgery usually helps but mental therapy usually doesn't."

Aber said "citation needed".

I don't have citations. You said I was correct, so I assume you have citations. You offered to provide citations for anything I dispute. I do not dispute when you said "Thanks. I'm happy to stipulate for now that the best medical evidence really does show this." Why should I try to duplicate information that you already have? You're the one that tried to trick me into contradicting myself.
 
Rolfe said:
Gender is not important.
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I accept that it's not important to you, and perhaps there are cultures where it is not important to most people.

Rolfe said:
I can think of literally nothing that should be legally segregated by gender.
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Can you think of anything that should be socially segregated by gender? I think the example from upthread was women's clothiers as opposed to men's.
 
Butter! said:
This thread is like hell. It's Sisyphean. Every time we're on the verge of making some sort of advancement in the discussion, it gets bogged down or reset somehow. Some of the disputes about words and reality and meaning border on surreal, at least the way they are being worded. Read this thread stoned, I dare you. Your brain will explode. I don't know how anyone with ANY position can stand it at this point. I'm so frustrated, I feel like I want to go start a fight with the unmasked hordes at the nearby gas station, just to blow off some steam.
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Part of what happens is that when new blood comes along, they aren't familiar with all that came before, and how terms are used. That last one, especially, is problematic. It's not just a JREF problem, either. There's an awful lot of confusion in the world at large about just what we're talking about with these issues. A frequent example in this thread involved a survey where the majority of the UK women agreed with one position, until someone explained what the survey questions actually meant. A lot of the respondents thought the terms meant something else. I'm not sure if that's deliberate, but it's definitely exploited.

ETA: I just see it as part of the ongoing educational task. There will always be people unfamiliar with the issues or who haven't thought through dozens of examples and seen data presented and dissected from all angles. They'll need time to catch up.
 
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theprestige said:
That's not a fringe reset as I call it.

In skeptical debate, "fringe reset" refers to a common woo behavior, where a woo proponent is backed into a corner where they can no longer support their proposal. They react by resetting the debate back to an earlier point, where the objections have not yet been raised, and the failure to address those objections has not yet been manifest.

I have no idea why it's called a "fringe" reset. What I call a fringe reset is what you did upon entry into this thread: Ignore five installments of the debate, in which much has been discussed. Ideas have been proposed, rebuttals have been mooted, explanations have been asked for and not provided. So you've ignored all this discussion and tried to restart the conversation as if we haven't already covered this ground more than once.
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Is the term used outside of ISF? I got the feeling it started as a Jabba thing. Maybe it's older than that.
 
theprestige said:
My argument is that women's sports are important to a lot of women, and that we should take their concerns seriously, about transwomen ruining it. Your argument seems to be that because you don't care yourself, anybody else caring doesn't matter, and their concerns don't need to be taken seriously at all.
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My argument is that their concerns could be taken seriously if they were presented with civility. You say I'm just like every other TRK. Well, I got my concept of civility from my grandmother who was a philosopher in Lithuania. Is there anyone else on this thread who can make that claim?
 
Collin237 said:
My argument is that their concerns could be taken seriously if they were presented with civility. You say I'm just like every other TRK. Well, I got my concept of civility from my grandmother who was a philosopher in Lithuania. Is there anyone else on this thread who can make that claim?
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What is uncivil (or unclear) about women being defeated and even hurt by self identified, male bodied transwomen?
 
d4m10n said:
Can you think of anything that should be socially segregated by gender? I think the example from upthread was women's clothiers as opposed to men's.
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I don't know. I don't see why people shouldn't shop for clothes anywhere they like. Actual changing rooms should be legally segregated by sex.

We're discussing whether people should be legally barred from certain spaces and categories. I can't think of a single space or category that could or should be legally restricted by gender. Social norms and conventions are a few rungs below this.
 
Collin237 said:
If that's the case, then where does the claim that trans women should be on women's teams come from?
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Some common controversial examples include Rachel McKinnon, Andraya Yearwood, and Terry Miller. Google should be able to give you some quick summaries of the issues.

There are others, of course.
 
Collin237 said:
I said "Because in the case of gender, the evidence shows that surgery usually helps but mental therapy usually doesn't."

Aber said "citation needed".

I don't have citations. You said I was correct, so I assume you have citations. You offered to provide citations for anything I dispute. I do not dispute when you said "Thanks. I'm happy to stipulate for now that the best medical evidence really does show this." Why should I try to duplicate information that you already have? You're the one that tried to trick me into contradicting myself.
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That's not what a stipulation is. I didn't say you were correct. I said I was going to assume you were correct, and that you could produce citations if asked. I chose not to ask, since I didn't want to get bogged down in a slapfight about citations.

And I chose wisely. By trusting you to have citations, and moving forward from there, I got to what I was really interested in: Your stance on the criteria for transwomanhood.

So I'm happy. If Aber wants to question the validity of your sources, that's between you and him. I'm agnostic.

Is there a sound medical basis for your stance? I don't know. I haven't seen your citations. I haven't even asked for them. I certainly haven't endorsed them!

But if you now say you don't even have citations, then I guess that tells us something about the validity of your stance.
 
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Butter! said:
I don't want to be a dick (truly, I don't, I am more or less a nice person in real life, albeit a bit cranky and disturbed), but I'd really like you to consider - what if someone said in response to you, "Well, I think trans people's struggles and feelings are vastly overrated, so I don't much care." That certainly wouldn't be acceptable reasoning for supporting an anti-trans position.
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You're right. TBH it's a bias from my own life experience.

As to sports, I've always been bad at sports, so I guess I'm a bit of a sour grapes.

As to gender, I've never felt essentialist about being "masculine". And I've also suffered a temporary loss of physical gender because of a kidney stone. So I have a vague idea of where trans people's concerns are coming from.
 
Collin237 said:
I said "Because in the case of gender, the evidence shows that surgery usually helps but mental therapy usually doesn't."

Aber said "citation needed".
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It's a wikipedia reference. When there is a claim that might be disputed and it is not directly drawn from a clear source, there will be a note that "citation needed". It's used here s a shorthand for, "You've said something here that I really don't believe. Do you have any evidence it is actually true?"

Another common pattern is to have a one word reply:


Evidence?
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Depending on who does it and how, it can be a very appropriate question, or it can be an obnoxious way of ignoring what a poster says.
 
Collin237 said:
My argument is that their concerns could be taken seriously if they were presented with civility. You say I'm just like every other TRK. Well, I got my concept of civility from my grandmother who was a philosopher in Lithuania. Is there anyone else on this thread who can make that claim?
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Read the thread. The concerns have been presented with civility several times.

As for the rest of it... I have nothing against Lithuanians, but I have a rather low opinion of modern philosophy and its practitioners. Saying you learned your manners from a philosopher may be counter to your purpose here.
 
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