• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

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

Status
Not open for further replies.
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
No, it was nothing to do with what Colin said it was a direct question to you reharding the fact that Meadmake had said explicitly in his post 2 or 3 before it 'transwomen are not women' and I was genuinely asking where that fit into your perception that this thread is mostly reasonable people not being transphobic in the least?

Given that you have explicitly said you think the title of this thread is inappropriate and given that Meadmaker has unprompted repeated it as their own view can we agree that is a transphobic statement from them?
Click to expand...

Oh, well, in my view it is, yes.

I don't feel quite the same about the statement "trans women are not female," because I see it as referring to bio sex, but I would still find it an impolite statement to have as a title. I know that unnecessarily calling attention to their bio sex can cause them great distress.

I know there will be probably people who respond to this saying "so what if it causes them distress, it's reality," etc. I don't agree. It isn't always acceptable or productive to point out aspects of "reality," and everyone understands that. You don't run up to unattractive people and call them ugly, and you don't waltz in and tell trans people they have whatever bits they have and would prefer not to have.

Maybe I actually mean that I see "trans women are not women" as a "trans-negative" statement as opposed to "transphobic," though, on closer thought - because I don't think such a statement HAS to be made with fear or malice. Some people simply can't accept the gender/sex separation, even just in principle.

But whatever specific adjective you want to use, I do see the statement "trans women are not women" as hurtful and alienating to many or most trans people.
 
Joe Random said:
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.
Click to expand...
Which is why arguments for self-ID with no process and no available method of verification is effectively advocating for unisex facilities, even if the arguers don't see it that way.
 
Archie Gemmill Goal said:
No, you aren't right. I googled discrimination and that was the first definition.

Sometimes things are just as they appear and other times they aren't. Nuance. Who'd a thunk it might matter?

ETA I'm not going to ask you for an apology but it will be interesting to see if one comes.
Click to expand...

I see. I used "discriminate" instead of "discrimination".

So, I apologize for the accusation.

(The noun form that corresponds to my definiion of "discriminate" is definition number 2 under "discrimination".)

Anyway, the point is that if you treat people differently, it is not necessarily, using your definition, discrimination. It isn't necessarily "unjust or prejudicial treatment".

If you tell cis-women that they can't go into locker room A and transwomen that they can't go into locker room B, that isn't automatically "unjust or prejudicial treatment". It might be


dis·crim·i·na·tion
/dəˌskriməˈnāSH(ə)n
noun
1...
2.recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another.
"discrimination between right and wrong"



If people really are different, and if the differences matter, then it is not unjust treatment to treat them differently.


But that's what the argument is all about. Are transwomen women? Are the differences between transwomen and ciswomen substantial enough to justify different treatment?

You know my answer and you know my reasoning.
 
Collin237 said:
[*]Use guidelines for public restrooms, including in public schools
No legally enforced guidelines. Return to the status quo from before bathroom bills were proposed, except mandate an additional single-user unisex restroom.

[*]Use guidelines for restrooms on private property, including in employment
Default to individual right of property holder.

[*]Use guidelines for public showers and locker rooms where nudity sometimes occurs, including in public schools
Only guidelines for minimizing the occurrence of nudity.

[*]Use guidelines for showers and locker rooms on private property
Default to individual right of property holder.

[*]Sex versus gender identity with respect to employment that is limited by sex, including as caregivers in intimate settings
Please be more specific.

[*]Right to deny intimate services to a person on the basis of their sex versus their gender identity, such as genital waxing services offered for females and denied to physically intact transwomen
Yes.

[*]Appropriate housing in prison populations on the basis of gender identity
Separate housing for trans people.

[*]Eligibility for sex-based positions, scholarships, grants, and short-lists in organizations that have defined objectives for sex equality and representation
Separate tallies for trans people.

[*]Honorifics based on gender identity rather than sex such as "woman of the year" or "most highly paid woman CEO"
Gender recognition for purposes of publicity. Separate tallies for trans people in technical contexts.

[*]Access to sex-segregated services for high vulnerability populations such as rape shelters and domestic violence refuges
Separate housing for trans people.

[*]Access to subsidized health care for gender transition treatment, including surgeries, as a right rather than as cosmetic procedures (such as breast augmentations, genital surgery, facial and tracheal shaving, hair removal)
Only by official diagnosis.

[*]Eligibility for participation in sex-segregated sports including middle and high school sports where the affect of testosterone has a material impact on athleticism
Yes, on the condition of freely provided hormone therapy to mitigate the advantage.

[*]Access of minors to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgical procedures without parental consent
No.
Click to expand...

:D You and I are in fairly close agreement on all of these!

RE: the one you asked for more info...
[*]Sex versus gender identity with respect to employment that is limited by sex, including as caregivers in intimate settings
Please be more specific.
Click to expand...

So female caregivers for disabled or incapacitated female patients as an example, where there is a need for the caregiver to clean the genitalia of the patient who cannot do so for themselves. Same would go for male patients, of course. Alternatively, strippers in a club. :)
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Successfully dealing with her, you should say.

Her tactics have resulted in resounding failure for her, including having to pay damages to the victims of her frivolous litigation.

Vexatious litigation is a problem universal in scope, not just on the trans rights issue.
Click to expand...

Well... there's also the creeping on young girls in the restroom and on line under the guise of being a woman so they didn't know they were getting their sexual jollies thinking about their periods, and the sexual harassment of a colleague, and the gynecologists they have hassled and brought frivolous suits against who lost time and money dealing with them, and the numerous women with small waxing businesses who didn't have the resources to fight their harassment and ended up going out of business.

Oh... and they're still walking free in the world after all of that, because well... I dunno, somehow it's horrible transphobic bigotry to point out that this person is an outright predator who belongs behind bars.

But sure... "successful"
 
Rolfe said:
The two do not necessarily, or even all that frequently, go together. Autogynaephilia as such is not a reprehensible condition.
Click to expand...

Agreed. If it's recognized as such it's no more of a problem than any other fetish. It need not represent a danger to anyone.

The conflation of autogynephilia with gender dysphoria in order to push self-id however, does present a risk to women.

If there were a good way to distinguish the two... say by having robust diagnostic criteria and not allowing self-declaration (crazy I know)... I'd be much more willing to make more accommodations for transsexual people. But as it stands right now, I don't think that males with a paraphilia for femininity should gain access to female-segregated spaces on the basis of their desire to be there.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Agreed. If it's recognized as such it's no more of a problem than any other fetish. It need not represent a danger to anyone.

The conflation of autogynephilia with gender dysphoria in order to push self-id however, does present a risk to women.

If there were a good way to distinguish the two... say by having robust diagnostic criteria and not allowing self-declaration (crazy I know)... I'd be much more willing to make more accommodations for transsexual people. But as it stands right now, I don't think that males with a paraphilia for femininity should gain access to female-segregated spaces on the basis of their desire to be there.
Click to expand...

I still need to do some reading up on this when I get time, but my current understanding is that autogynephilia is not necessarily proposed as an alternative to gender dysphoria, but as an alternative mechanism driving dysphoria.

One of the problems with distinguishing different underlying mechanisms driving dysphoria in diagnosis is that the DSM is atheoretical by intent (it is supposed to avoid theoretical explanations of observed symptoms and to be based on purely descriptive and statistical methods).
 
Last edited:
Elaedith said:
I still need to do some reading up on this when I get time, but my current understanding is that autogynephilia is not necessarily proposed as an alternative to gender dysphoria, but as an alternative mechanism driving dysphoria.

One of the problems with distinguishing different underlying mechanisms driving dysphoria in diagnosis is that the DSM is atheoretical by intent (it is supposed to avoid theoretical explanations of observed symptoms and to be based on purely descriptive and statistical methods).
Click to expand...

I think you're right with respect to it being one of the mechanisms. I just don't have a good term to distinguish the transgender people who are NOT getting their rocks off by gaining access to female spaces and who are NOT feeding their paraphilia from their appropriation of womanhood.

That sounds harsh... I genuinely don't care about people's kinks as long as they aren't hurting anyone else who doesn't want to be hurt. I don't however, want to be the object of a person's sexual kink and the source of their mental porn without my consent.
 
Emily's Cat said:
:D You and I are in fairly close agreement on all of these!

RE: the one you asked for more info...


So female caregivers for disabled or incapacitated female patients as an example, where there is a need for the caregiver to clean the genitalia of the patient who cannot do so for themselves. Same would go for male patients, of course. Alternatively, strippers in a club. :)
Click to expand...

Definitely sex-based, of course!
 
Collin237 said:
Definitely sex-based, of course!
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: :D

So... well... Welcome to the world of being a transphobe I guess?

Your view is essentially identical to that held by Meadmaker, Ziggurat, The Atheist, cullennz, Jihad Jane, Butter!, Louden Wilde, Aber, Elaedith, Matthew Best, TomB, theprestige, and several others I'm sure I've forgotten.

Rolfe's position isn't actually super far off on most things... but she's been dealing with a lot of really crazy TRA stuff on the other side of the Atlantic, and I think for longer than me, so she's got a lot less tolerance and is a bit more of the "give a mouse a cookie" view. I can't really fault her for that though.
 
Last edited:
Emily's Cat said:
No, we cannot agree on that. Under the current and historical definition of "woman" transwomen are not women - they are not adult human females.

If you can provide a non-tautological definition of "woman" that includes both ciswomen and transwoman, but excludes both cismen and transmen, I anxiously await the opportunity to change my mind.
Click to expand...

I think the whole definition thing is a meaningless waste of time, and I know the question wasn't directed at me, but how about this:

Female: of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.

Male: of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.
(https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=female+definition#dobs=female)

Woman: A person whose internal self-image is that of being female regardless of their physical phenotype.

Man: A person whose internal self-image is that of being female regardless of their physical phenotype.

I know the next question is going to be something along the lines of: "But in what way is this feeling of being a woman the same as the feeling of womanhood that Rolfe and Emily have?" The answer is that it may not be. But then, Rolfe and Emily may not actually feel being a woman in the same way either. I don't know and, if honest, neither do they. Just like I don't know how my feeling of manhood lines up with Meadmaker's feeling of manhood. They are amorphous concepts that can't readily be described, let alone measured or compared.

And that's why I think it's a waste of time to chase them.

And yes, yes, the historical meanings...

The concept of a self-image separate from sex was developed and inconveniently termed gender, which was already used. And as an extension man/women were redefined to refer to gender classifications. There is no way to reconcile the old and new definitions, and it's useless to try.

But a rose by any other name is still a rose. Somehow the particular words used have become more important than the concepts they describe. So the new "woman" is a group that includes the women (historical definition, less trans-men) and trans-women. And we're still fighting about defining the indefinable five threads later.
 
Emily's Cat said:
So... well... Welcome to the world of being a transphobe I guess?
Click to expand...

I still count myself against all those people. Phobia isn't a policy position. It's a style of argumentation.

Similarly, I hate the BDS campaign for being antisemitic. But I also hate Netanyahu and the Likud party and I support Palestinian rights. I see no contradiction.
 
Collin237 said:
What I don't get is: I'm liberal, centrist, universalist, etc.. You're a TERF. And yet we agree. How's that possible?
Click to expand...

And I'm an unreconstructed reactionary conservative. And yet here we all are, on the same page.

My guess is that trans rights activism is just that toxic.

Either that, or it's a maturity thing. If you're not a TRA by 20 you have no heart. If you're not a TERF by 40 you have no brain.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom