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

[Collin237]

Collin, honestly.

This is what endlessly frustrates me about this discussion. Why can't we (we as in all of us) just have a good faith exchange?

One doesn't need to be anti-trans in order to see the potential for problems with prison housing, and one definitely does not need to exclude ALL trans people in a hardline way in order to mitigate some of those risks.

 

[Ziggurat]

If someone born male wants to have their body surgically altered to become female (or vice versa), that's nobody else's business.

It's not like they're forcing anyone else to undergo the op.

In some cases, they are trying to force other people to pay for the op, which does make it their business.

 

[Sherkeu]

.

I was asked what my opinion was on how a local case should have been handled. If Title IX doesn't allow local opinion, what was the question for?

They need to work within that law to be fair and equitable to trans students. You actually do have creativity in implementation but a local govt generally doesnt decide the overarching law without penalty.
But you must also make sure the females are treated equal and fair- but as of now, you should pivot to the trans side or suffer the wrath. But how to also accommodate the female students?

You could have many bake sales and car washes to raise money I suppose- but you'd get pilloried on social media for not towing the line (you rebel!)

What you need to do is make sure any female gender identity is treated equal and fair and gets safe access to spaces. So now you decide how you do that within your circumstances and budget as a public provider of education There is no one way to do it.

It might be difficult to manage with competing interests.
If the federal government knew exactly how to do it, they'd give more funding for it.

For most high schools there may not be an issue but in this situation you need to decide.

For me?

I might outsource the entire female sports program and then rent back the high school space, as needed. But only if there was an issue and only until some common sense policies prevailed.

 

[Rolfe]

Fortunately, your wish was prevented when Trump lost reelection.

What goes on in the USA is literally of no interest or relevance to me. Whoever your president is, he has no say over my life, or anything that happens in my country.

 

[Rolfe]

Unless it's been fact-checked from multiple sources with a fine tooth comb, an online article is inherently unreliable.

He's going to be reading that a lot from now on I think....

 

[Rolfe]

Cis women raping other cis women. Nobody knows how often it happens, because all the reports are bought up by spam-porn.

I wonder how much of this anti trans stuff is just women not wanting to admit the possibility.

Since the legal definition of rape is the insertion of a penis into a body orifice without consent, certainly where I live, it's factually impossible for a woman to commit rape other than in the most bizarre circumstances. (Women have been convicted as accessories when they helped a man to rape someone though.)

Even the woman who was pretending to be a man and had unconsenting sex with another woman using an artificial dildo was convicted of "assault by penetration" which carries exactly the same sentence but is the offence when there isn't an actual penis involved.

But hey, carry on, to whatever your personal definition of rape, show us the evidence that women do whatever that is on all but the most rare occasions.

 

[Meadmaker]

Yeah, but Collin was suggesting it would be done before high school started. Those kids are only 13/14....or younger.

I see. Yes, I think you are right. That seems to be what he meant. I don't think HRT is done at that age in the US.

 

[Meadmaker]

If someone born male wants to have their body surgically altered to become female (or vice versa), that's nobody else's business.

It's not like they're forcing anyone else to undergo the op.

When I first started participating in threads on this subject, I didn't understand the difference between the old word "transsexual" and the new word "transgender". I assumed they were the same thing.

Nope. Just in case you don't understand the modern usage of the term, no operation is necessary to become female if you were "assigned male at birth". You simply declare that you are female.

At that point, according to the modern narrative pushed by activists, you are completely and totally female, and should be treated that way in every circcumstance. Sometimes the terminology gets tricky. A lot of people would say that you do not become female, but you do become a girl/woman.

 

[Meadmaker]

Ultimately, what access she gets depends on civil deliberation throughout the school. Not a logical formula someone would drop as if from heaven; but not a contest between mobs either.

Ok. So, the answer is evasion. Ignore the question. Refuse to actually address the situation.

 

[Collin237]

Since the legal definition of rape is the insertion of a penis into a body orifice without consent, ...

In that case, the entire argument is based on a sexist premise.

 

[Collin237]

Ok. So, the answer is evasion. Ignore the question. Refuse to actually address the situation.

Yes, the answer is evasion, better known as not making dictatorial judgments about a private issue between children and a school. Since when is that a bad thing?

As I said, because of my post-structuralist tendency, I do not represent the party. Evading a question such as yours is IMHO a perfectly reasonable application of post-structuralism.

 

[Sherkeu]

In that case, the entire argument is based on a sexist premise.

Not really. It is a penis or object into a 'sexual' body orifice without consent.
You choose the sex and body part and it qualifies if it fits.

As a matter of course, it is almost always a man as perpetrator and female as victim, but can technically be any combo.

 

[Sherkeu]

Yes, the answer is evasion, better known as not making dictatorial judgments about a private issue between children and a school. Since when is that a bad thing?

As I said, because of my post-structuralist tendency, I do not represent the party. Evading a question such as yours is IMHO a perfectly reasonable application of post-structuralism.

He asked you for a practical execution of fair 'gender in sports' policy, enacted by public servants for a publicly funded education system for children.

Nothing about it is dictatorial nor private.
And what party are you talking about?

Please tell me what crap book from 50 years ago you are reading right now so I can tell you to put it down.

 

[Rolfe]

If women were regularly at risk from other women, we would not be arguing for our spaces. We know how often it happens, because we have been women sharing personal space with other women for a very long time.

This.

 

[Rolfe]

The biggest problem I see here is how did she get to high school age without free services to help her feminize? If she was sure of her female gender but her body was still completely masculine, it was mainly her own right to autonomy that was being abridged.

Was the school too prudish?
Were her parents too prudish?
Was there no reputable gender specialist available?

Whatever it was, it should have been included with the locker room issue in the same litigation.

He was autogynaephilic. That doesn't manifest until puberty. Males who are AGP are normal boyish boys without a thought of dressing up in a tutu.

 

[Ziggurat]

Cis women raping other cis women. Nobody knows how often it happens, because all the reports are bought up by spam-porn.

I wonder how much of this anti trans stuff is just women not wanting to admit the possibility.

My understanding was most women-on-women sexual abuse happens within the context of lesbian relationships. That's a problem, but it's not really relevant to the issue of access to public sex segregated spaces, because it mostly happens in private spaces (meaning homes, etc).

 

[Ziggurat]

Emily, please read this article. It changes everything.

I messed up. I was thinking your "everything" was meant in a broader sense, rather than about that specific individual. So... go ahead and ignore this post.

 

[Louden Wilde]

Sociological expectations about what? Societal preconceptions about what?

Every non-biological expectation and preconception about women that I can think of is a stereotype. Many (most? all?) of them should be de-normalized. None of them should be required of women. They should absolutely not be the basis of any public policy.

Can you give at least a partial list of sociological and societal expectations and preconceptions you think transwomen should conform to?

I concur with this. One thing that disturbs me (& many females) about many of the Trans-activists is their doubling down on the stereotypes.

Generally the deeper dive I've done on this, the more I have had issues with the ideology. I've seen charts put out by TAs for the gender scale that suggest that having more muscles, bigger penis makes you essentially "more of a man". Not to mention that questioning any of it makes you a "transphobe"

 

[Louden Wilde]

Thinking about Tom's definition.

I asked for a non-circular definition of "woman" that includes cis-women and transwomen, and excludes transmen.

Tom's definition works. I think.

Earlier attempts included variations on "feminine gender roles", and my objection to those were that they were either circular, because "femnine" gender roles were the ones expected for women or, if not circular, they literally defined women by their behavior, thus saying that women who were insufficiently feminine for society's taste weren't really women at all.

Tom's definition has a different problem. It defines "woman" as an internal state, frequently corresponding to, but not identical with, an external, measureable, reality known as "female". If you expect people to treat you in accordance with your self image, and that image doesn't match reality, then you are delusional. When it comes to women's private spaces, and women's participation on sports teams, what really and truly matters is that external, measureable, reality. Females really are athletically disadvantaged when compared to males. Females really experience sex and pregnancy differently than males. Those are the issues that matter. Tom's definition is either equivalent to "A woman is anyone who thinks she is a woman", which is circular, or it asks us to respect a delusion, or it is of no value. Having defined "woman" according to Tom's definition, we would then take down the signs over the locker rooms that say "men" and "women" and replace them with "male" and "female".

While I realize you're not actually advocating for it, I would hope any change is agreed upon by those it defines. Meaning, I suspect most adult human females would like to retain "women" as referring to them, rather than a vague internal state. The old definition has functionality as a biological descriptor, and I can see why people (e.g. feminists in the health care industry) are getting annoyed with phrases like "Cervix-owners should get screened for cervical cancer". "Women should get screened..." uses a more widely known word.

 

[Ziggurat]

Not really. It is a penis or object into a 'sexual' body orifice without consent.
You choose the sex and body part and it qualifies if it fits.

As a matter of course, it is almost always a man as perpetrator and female as victim, but can technically be any combo.

Legal definitions vary considerably. In some jurisdiction, penetration by objects without consent is sodomy, not rape. In some jurisdictions, penetration must be by a penis, but only men can rape (the reverse is a different crime). In some jurisdictions, it's penetration by a penis but a woman forcing a man to penetrate her is still rape.

I don't think which word gets used really matters that much in the end, so long as they're all treated as equally serious crimes. And it's no consolation to a victim if the word "rape" gets used but the crime isn't treated seriously.