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

[caveman1917]

The only source which you specifically named has a style guide which directly contradicts the claim that pronouns for human beings are strictly about sex.

I actually directly linked to two.

How many reputable style guides do I need to link here so as to demonstrate that common usage admits of pronouns which reference gender rather than sex?

None, obviously:

But sure, I'll grant you for the sake of argument that we define "he" to refer to "performing masculinity" - just get on with it already, you've got a rebuttal to address.

It would, indeed, not be necessary to demonstrate anything that is already granted anyway.

 

[Collin237]

Because it is a priori reasonable. Transwomen are about 0.3% of males, and about 3% of males have voyeuristic or exhibitionistic disorder, of which 95% is heterosexual. So out of a random group of 10 males wanting to have easy access to female public nudity spaces you'd expect 1 to be a transwoman and 9 to be pervs.

The volume of A, and the volume of B, do not give any information about the expected volume of A ∩ B.

 

[d4m10n]

It would, indeed, not be necessary to demonstrate anything that is already granted anyway.

Still not getting the sense that we're on the same page yet, but I'm happy to move forward on the understanding that you use pronouns to refer exclusively to sex (as with livestock) whereas I—along with the editors of the NYT, Wikipedia, various manuals of style—see pronouns as somewhat more complicated, especially when discussing transgender issues.

 

[theprestige]

The volume of A, and the volume of B, do not give any information about the expected volume of A ∩ B.

Keep in mind that caveman is looking specifically at men who want easy access to women's locker rooms.

The argument is that there are two kinds of men who want easy access to women's locker rooms: transwomen, and voy/exhibs. Since voy/exhibs are roughly ten times more common than transwomen, a random sampling of men who want easy access is likely to have many more voy/exhibs than transwomen.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't think that's the same question you asked before, which was clearly about sex rather than gender. To answer both questions, though, I perceive Izzard as a male who appears to be easing into the social role of womanhood in terms of gender presentation. If Izzard asked me for directions at the department store, I'd point to the section where they sell ladies' clothing rather than the part of the store where I shop for myself. If Izzard asked me which way to the loo (in a venue where they are widely spaced apart) I'd probably have to ask which one they personally prefer. If I had to throw an "Excuse me, ma'am/sir," I'd probably go with the former since the lipstick is on point.

Ok.

And if you see a person wearing steel-toed boots, with short hair, in dungarees and a t-shirt, with no make-up on... do you assume they want to be addressed as "sir" despite their obviously feminine morphology?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

As far as I know, the risk hasn't manifested yet. It may never manifest.

Right now, I'm just trying to get some agreement from you to stick to the actual topic, instead of trying to twist it around into an accusation of transphobia.

I don't mind being told I'm wrong about the increased risk from self-ID.

I do mind being told that I think transwomen are sex predators. If you're going to debunk my claims, fine. But debunk my actual claims. Don't lie about my arguments and look for excuses to insult me.

I trust you are aware of the long history of bigots drumming up baseless fears about trans people (and queer people generally) as a propaganda effort to deny these people their civil rights. While the claims about the trans bathroom menace may be total fiction, the damage done is not. Trans people trying to use a toilet and getting confronted or assaulted by reactionary freaks is a very real problem.

Claims about the unique dangers of queer people should be treated with heightened skepticism, given what we know of the history of demonization of these marginalized groups. Queer bashing is a very real problem for these communities, and we should not pretend the smears that motivate them have any validity.

I'm honestly curious. How much abuse of the self-ID system would be enough for you to consider it a failed policy? No policy is perfect, and you can practically guarantee that someone, somewhere will eventually attempt to game such a system for some illicit purpose.

How much gender ID fraud is enough to curtail the easy access to civil rights for trans people?

 

[caveman1917]

The volume of A, and the volume of B, do not give any information about the expected volume of A ∩ B.

Your point being? If you mean that I assumed that |A ∩ B| = 0 (ie that nobody is both a transwoman and a perv) then sure, that's true, and in reality there will of course be some transwomen who are also pervs. I don't see how it's a problem to make the literally best possible assumption for the other side (that not a single transwoman is a perv) though. How would it improve things to explicitly account for that even smaller group of people who are both transwomen and pervs?

 

[Emily's Cat]

If it was real, you wouldn't sit around ten days waiting for me to "realize" it.

Reviewing the website for IGLYO should more than suffice to demonstrate that it's not fake.

You spending ten days (or more or less) feeding your confirmation bias is what's in question.

 

[Emily's Cat]

https://www.iglyo.com/team/training-team/



Intersectionalists are the ultimate trolls. They ruin every movement.

So... you think the entire website is fake? Or is it that you think the concept of intersectionality is complete hogwash?

Where does that leave you with respect to whether or not their guide is fake or real? What are you looking for in order to determine whether it's real or fake?

 

[d4m10n]

...if you see a person wearing steel-toed boots, with short hair, in dungarees and a t-shirt, with no make-up on... do you assume they want to be addressed as "sir" despite their obviously feminine morphology?

Likely not. I've known women who dress like that and trans men who dress similarly. Need a few more cues (e.g. chin stubble) before I'd hazard a guess.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If you wanted me to learn anything about trans people, you'd have directed me to a scientific article on gender dysphoria research.

Um... we're not trying to get you to learn about trans people. You can do that on your own, I'm sure. We're trying to get you to learn about the activism, it's effects on policy, and what is happening in the real world as a result of that activism.

You started out saying that self-id was a fringe idea that would never gain ground in the real world. We showed you that is HAS gained ground in the real world, and is enacted in law in several places already.

You asserted that allowing people to gain access to hormone treatments and surgery without having a diagnosis of gender dysphoria was just something anti-trans people have made up to make trans people look bad. We showed you that this is actually how it is in several places, especially those places where self-id is the legal approach.

You claimed that lobbyist organizations working behind the scenes, with little public exposure, to push their agenda into practice and policy is a conspiracy theory. We showed you that it was literally the suggested approach used by a well-known trans-rights lobbyist group.

 

[caveman1917]

Still not getting the sense that we're on the same page yet, but I'm happy to move forward on the understanding that you use pronouns to refer exclusively to sex (as with livestock) whereas I—along with the editors of the NYT, Wikipedia, various manuals of style—see pronouns as somewhat more complicated, especially when discussing transgender issues.

Except that it's not complicated at all. More importantly, it's not particularly interesting either. So, about that rebuttal to your definition you were going to address?

 

[Meadmaker]

It should point out that predatory behavior is still absolutely something that can be policed, and there's no reason why any predatory woman, trans or cis, need be tolerated in sensitive spaces. If a lesbian cis woman were leering at women or trying to solicit casual sex in the locker room, the remedy remains the same.

Two things. First, I think you are overestimating the ability to distinguish between predatory and not so predatory behavior.

Second, are you sure that behavior is really the issue? If I go into a women's locker room, and I don't leer, and I don't solicit casual sex, and all I do it use the locker room as it is intended, I am in violation of societal standards, and, in many cases, laws.

The problem is not my behavior, it is my presence.

The issue hasn't changed since the thread title. Are transwomen women? Should they be treated like women, even if they are not? That's the issue, and the 15,000 or so posts that have occurred in these threads hasn't changed that issue. Several years ago, I decided that if a woman in a locker room perceived the person with a penis as a man, and as a result did not want that man in her locker room, I would take her side. I haven't seen any need to change my mind on that subject.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I saw something last year about a day of remembrance on 20+ trans women murdered. Most of them had a specific profile of being younger black MtF. Of those, there were just 2 of them who were not sex workers and one of those was a FtM victim of her brothers random shooting at a bar where many were killed and he likely didn't even know he/she was there.

A day of remembrance for all 20-ish of the murdered transwomen in the western world (of whom 18 are sex workers).

Nobody gives a crap about remembering the four women a day murdered in the US alone by their intimate partners though.

And for damned sure nobody seems to give a crap about the abhorrent rate of intimate partner killings and domestic violence faced by women of color in the US.

I guess we know what the priorities are.

 

[Emily's Cat]

They are not sincere about being TRAs. They're protean; they imitate every activist cause. They're not necessarily being malicious; it's just a game to them.

I disagree, but I'll let this slide for the moment.

What organizations do you consider to be Transgender Rights Organizations? Let's start with that, ones that you personally accept as being legitimate advocacy and lobbyist organizations with a focus on transgender rights.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I actually think Collin may be very young. Be kind, people.

That is my thought as well. I think Collin is probably a very caring person, and is in the unfortunate position of having some of his deeply held assumptions challenged.

 

[Meadmaker]

Slightly rephrasing my last post, I think the crux of my position is that "woman who doesn't want to undress in front of a random male" is a valid lived condition.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You didn't know that almost all trans murders are of sex workers? Most of them in Brazil? And that almost all the rest were victims of ordinary murders with no suggestion that their being trans had anything to do with it?

You didn't know that, paradoxically, trans people in Britain (I don't know about the USA) are actually murdered at a lower rate than either men or women, a spectacularly lower rate than men? It's been said that the best thing a man can do to avoid being murdered is to put on a dress.

In Britain we recently (on my actual birthday) had the slightly sick-making spectacle of politicians lining up to mark the trans day of remembrance, going on about these terrible murders and the tragic losses, when in fact there has not been a single trans murder victim in the country for more than two years. More trans people actually commit murders than are murdered.

Meanwhile women are murdered at the rate of about two a week. Sigh.

Yep

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm 49 years old.

I'm genuinely surprised.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Oh? You're a reactionary conservative? And you expect me to believe your fears about a liberal agenda?

We actually expect you to do some research and evaluate it with some critical thinking and an objective unbiased lens.

Most of us a liberal or independent. Some are extremely progressive. Some are conservative. Many are not from the US and have very diverse political positions. Many of us agree on a great many topics, and disagree on others.

We're not an echo chamber.