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

[Collin237]

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

I'm not really sure how I'd make precise an allegation of a fake website. Suspicious, yes. Disingenuous, yes. But nothing I can put my finger on. So I'm going with the latter. I definitely do consider intersectionality, as it's currently in vogue, to be hogwash, to put it mildly.

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?

It's mainly about that list you quoted from the guide. I still maintain that empirically, given only the list itself, it's the type of rhetoric that would serve the purpose of scaremongering, rather than actually giving anyone instructions. That gives me two questions, which TBH I have no basis to guess the answer to:

1. What was the purpose of including this list in the guide? Remember that this is an unencrypted and publicly accessible file. Anyone in the world can see that list and run helter skelter with their interpretation of it.

2. How did you find that list? You can answer that in PM if you wish.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This touches on a scenario I'd thrown out in one of the prior iterations of this thread. Assume self-ID only is the law for the following : I'm a solidly cis-het-male. Let's say I head into the ladies' locker room, disrobe, and hop into the shower to get ready for a swim. I don't do any sort of visual creeping on other occupants, nor do I try to flash my anatomy to anyone else. Head down, eyes front the whole time. How should the other occupants react to me vs a biologically intact transwomen? More importantly, how would they be expected to know the difference? I mean, I'm not waving anything around, nor am I trying to strike up conversation or sneak any surreptitious glances.

Yet still, there's a cock-jockey in the ladies'. Depending on an internal state of mind knowable only to me, an alarmed reaction on the part of others is either a sound defensive move or an act of naked (pun intended) bigotry.

I so enjoy your posts.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Which would be THEIR choice whether to do or not rather than yours or any of the TERFs we see posting here.

Their body, their choice? No?

But it's NOT the choice of the females in the room whether or not they want to see said penis? And it's not the choice of the females in the room whether or not they want said penis-bearer to see them?

Why is it that only the male-bodied transperson is granted choice as a preequisite, and females are forbidden the same level of agency?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

And yet... policies to curb that violence and those murders don't really seem to make any headway. On the other hand, policies that INCREASE the risk and danger faced by women ARE making headway. You know, things like placing self-declared transwomen with fully intact male biology into female prisons. But you're fine with that.


I have no more or less distaste for trans people than I have for vegans. Most are wonderful people, some are outright zealous jerks busy trying to beat people about the head and shoulders with their ideology and their belief that they are extra super special.

In either case, however, the state of being vegan doesn't mean that I am required to provide an entire meal which includes zero animal products if said vegan is invited to a dinner party at my house. I think it's perfectly reasonable to provide a couple of sides which are vegan, or to ask them to bring a dish of their own.

Same concept goes with trans people. Their being trans doesn't mean that females have to give over all of our sex-based rights to them. IT should be perfectly acceptable to make reasonable accommodations, and to ask them to seek an alternative solution in some cases.

How magnanimous of you to mete out a few crumbs of civil liberties to trans people.

Your analogy falls apart when you consider that society isn't your house and you aren't the host with final say about who gets what accommodation.

Trans people are as much citizens as us cis people in the majority, and it's not our place to deny them civil rights based purely on our own perceived self interests.

If trans people's civil rights come into conflict with our own, it must be resolved from the position of equal stakeholders, not as hosts deciding whether or not a guest can be accommodated.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Intersectionalists have occupied the mainstream of trans-rights activism, and are likely to drive future policy decisions along intersectionlist lines?

(This assumes that Log Cabin is outside the mainstream of trans-rights activism, and that the mainstream is represented by the progressive activists.)

I expected there to be at least one liberal organization that hadn't lost it's head to intersectionality. I definitely wasn't expecting a republican organization of any sort to be the headline pick though.

 

[theprestige]

Apologies. While I generally stand by what I say in that quoted material above, looking back I can see that it isn't really fair to apply this to you specifically.

I very much stand by the idea that these boogieman fears are drummed up by transphobes to whip up animus towards trans people just trying to live their lives in peace, but it is wrong to smear you with this.

While there are clearly people in this thread I do not apologize for treating with open contempt, I should be more careful how I sling around such insulting insinuations.

I think you should spend less time insinuating contempt for the persons making the arguments, and more time addressing the arguments directly. Your embarassment could have been entirely avoided if you'd stuck to what I was actually saying, and not tried to shoehorn in a rant about evil transphobes.

I trust that's an adequate commitment.

It's working so far.

I'm legitimately interested in your response to that question.

In the interim, Emily's Cat has given a cromulent response. I think there's probably more to be said, and I'll probably end up saying some of it. But for now I think EC's answer is enough to keep the ball rolling. Feel free to address her points as if they were mine, and we can take it from there.

 

[Ziggurat]

How magnanimous of you to mete out a few crumbs of civil liberties to trans people.

You're begging the question of what constitutes a civil liberty. You aren't demanding cismen be given access to women's bathrooms and changing rooms, so segregation of these areas on some basis is acceptable to you and doesn't violate what you consider to be civil liberties.

So why does it qualify as a civil liberty for trans people? And which trans people? Does Zuby count?

You're pretending that the argument is already won, but you haven't even really made it.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I think you should spend less time insinuating contempt for the persons making the arguments, and more time addressing the arguments directly. Your embarassment could have been entirely avoided if you'd stuck to what I was actually saying, and not tried to shoehorn in a rant about evil transphobes.


It's working so far.


In the interim, Emily's Cat has given a cromulent response. I think there's probably more to be said, and I'll probably end up saying some of it. But for now I think EC's answer is enough to keep the ball rolling. Feel free to address her points as if they were mine, and we can take it from there.

I await your response.

 

[theprestige]

Which would be THEIR choice whether to do or not rather than yours or any of the TERFs we see posting here.

Their body, their choice? No?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that NOBODY has the right to out themselves by exposing their genitals without audience consent.

GOOD: "I've been living a lie for too long, and it's time to be honest to myself and the world. I identify as a woman. It's such a relief to finally be able to say this. A few of you already knew, and I want to thank you for your support and discretion as I came to this place. I love you all. Thank you so much!"

BAD: "What's this? My penis? In a woman's locker room? I guess now you know I'm transsexual, huh?!"

 

[Collin237]

Intersectionalists have occupied the mainstream of trans-rights activism, and are likely to drive future policy decisions along intersectionlist lines?

Yes, that seems to be what's happening. I'd have expected that ISF would be a place where independently enlightened policies would arise, but my hopes for that have been dashed.

 

[d4m10n]

Except that it's not complicated at all.

Style guides evidently disagree. For that matter, human resources may well disagree if you happen to work for one of those progressive corporations where you're generally expected not to misgender coworkers.

More importantly, it's not particularly interesting either.

Here we must simply disagree.

So, about that rebuttal to your definition you were going to address?

First off, let's be clear that I'm not asking you to adopt the definitions which I intend to use herein this thread. Some people seem to think that everyone should restrict their pronoun usage strictly to denotation of biological sex, but I'm not nearly so evangelical as all that.

...by this definition, we would have to know whether transwomen are "generally expected" to perform masculinity or femininity before we can use this definition to determine the truth-value of the claim that transwomen are women.

I don't believe anyone claimed my definitions would make it easy to "determine the truth-value of the claim that transwomen are women." Indeed, the truth value of the claim "trans women are generally subjected to the cultural expectations typically associated with femininity" can safely be assumed to vary from place to place, time to time, and perhaps even individual to individual. We can probably safely assume trans women living stealth are indeed subjected to the usual gendered expectations, to include she/her/ma'am and all that.

 

[theprestige]

I await your response.

No.

Your "commitment" didn't even last for one ******* post. That is not adequate at all.

How magnanimous of you to mete out a few crumbs of civil liberties to trans people.

Here you are once again insinuating contempt for the person making the argument.

As for the rest of it, Ziggurat has already given an answer good enough to go on.

 

[Collin237]

I expected there to be at least one liberal organization that hadn't lost it's head to intersectionality.

On the subject of trans rights? I expect so too. But I have no idea how to find one.

I think that Rev. Barber's group is non-intersectional, but they don't seem to even bring up anything controversial.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

No.

Your "commitment" didn't even last for one ******* post. That is not adequate at all.



Here you are once again insinuating contempt for the person making the argument.

As for the rest of it, Ziggurat has already given an answer good enough to go on.

I by no means meant to imply universal politeness. I was hoping for an answer from you. I am unapologetic in my contempt for much of what is said in this thread.

I have very little interest in engaging with several people in this thread beyond antagonizing them and gloating whenever the transphobes take another policy loss or some reactionary freak gets thrown out of polite society. It's nice to have a hobby, don't you think?

I take your response to mean you won't be replying.

I'll rephrase my question another way. Does an argument from adverse consequences have any part to play in the question of expanding civil rights?

 

[Collin237]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that NOBODY has the right to out themselves by exposing their genitals without audience consent.

GOOD: "I've been living a lie for too long, and it's time to be honest to myself and the world. I identify as a woman. It's such a relief to finally be able to say this. A few of you already knew, and I want to thank you for your support and discretion as I came to this place. I love you all. Thank you so much!"

BAD: "What's this? My penis? In a woman's locker room? I guess now you know I'm transsexual, huh?!"

That just goes back to what I said, that nobody should be exposing themselves in a locker room. Therefore private stalls need to be built.

 

[Ziggurat]

I by no means meant to imply universal politeness. I was hoping for an answer from you. I am unapologetic in my contempt for much of what is said in this thread.

I have very little interest in engaging with several people in this thread beyond antagonizing them and gloating whenever the transphobes take another policy loss.

I can understand a refusal to engage with people who aren't civil. But I've been civil. Your refusal to engage is not exactly a good sign about your confidence in your position. But even more damningly than your refusal to engage with certain posters is your refusal to engage with certain ideas.

 

[The Atheist]

It would be, but nobody has suggested this. It looks to me like you're deliberately misunderstanding what Rolfe is saying for some reason.

That happened in this thread?

I'm shocked.

How much abuse of females are you willing to sacrifice in order to affirm the feelings of transwoman?

All of it.

One thing about this thread - it really does emphasise male privilege.

Even when the males think they're women.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

For certain values of Z, discrimination is indeed fine.

The "against" part is not accurate.

The against part is part and parcel of discrimination. But nice that you admit its OK to discriminate against trans people in your worldview.

No.

So transpeople don't have a choice about who when and where they declare their identity. You want to make that choice for them.And you aren't transphobic at all, right.

 

[The Atheist]

But nice that you admit its OK to discriminate against trans people in your worldview.

With so many strawmen about you, I'd be concerned they might spontaneously combust.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

With so many strawmen about you, I'd be concerned they might spontaneously combust.

Sorry for taking people at their word. I guess i should imagine they said something else like you seem to do.