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

[TomB]

I'm awed again and again how confident you feel speaking for all cis women.

But do you admit or deny that there a significant proportion of cis-women share Emily's concerns?

She may not speak for all women, but it seems obvious that her views are representative of a significant proportion.

 

[Lithrael]

There are people who upset about being excluded from various segregated places or activities. There are attached debates and fact-finding missions about figuring out how to deal (or not deal) with each situation.

These would be different HOW if we didn’t raise a giant fuss over whether to call them real women or not, first?

 

[theprestige]

But do you admit or deny that there a significant proportion of cis-women share Emily's concerns?

She may not speak for all women, but it seems obvious that her views are representative of a significant proportion.

Even if they're just EC's concerns, by the same token Boudicca's concerns are just Boudicca's concerns. Both should carry equal weight.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Pretty much every poll has shown that women are more likely than men to support trans rights, as did surveying showing women more likely to support gay and lesbian rights than men. A credit to their gender, this trend towards greater respect for individual rights.

Every poll has shown that women support transrights WHEN THEY THINK THOSE RIGHTS ARE BEING GRANTED TO PEOPLE WITH A CLINICAL DIAGNOSIS WHO HAVE UNDERGONE COMPLETE TRANSITION SURGERY.

It makes me quite angry that you continue to bring up polls with incomplete context, and just pretend that they support whatever you want them to.

And your tendency toward shaming and deriding women who want to protect their existing hard-won rights is also quite annoying.

I've asked before, I'll ask again:

How much rape should females be expected to experience in order to affirm the feelings of transwomen in prisons?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

But do you admit or deny that there a significant proportion of cis-women share Emily's concerns?

She may not speak for all women, but it seems obvious that her views are representative of a significant proportion.

Women hold a variety of views, and it's wildly unskeptical to make broad assumptions about such a huge group.

 

[TomB]

Curious if you'd expand on "taking over female spaces", specifically how you think it's possible.

Trans people are an extremely small minority of the population. They can't "take over" anything without significant support from cis people.

Is it still "taking over" female spaces if trans women receive support from cis women, as is often the case in real examples? Do the cis-women supporting trans women and trans rights simply not count to your eye? Or are they self-hating women participating in their own oppression?

Or is it some plot by penis havers, trans women and cis men plotting together to infiltrate and dominate female spaces?

It seems pretty notable to me that many of the most strident voices opposing transphobes are feminist women. I imagine it irks them quite a bit for TERFs to paint trans rights and women's rights as being in irreconcilable opposition.

Pretty much every poll has shown that women are more likely than men to support trans rights, as did surveying showing women more likely to support gay and lesbian rights than men. A credit to their gender, this trend towards greater respect for individual rights.

Instead of dismissing concerns and labeling people who have them as transphobes, why not actually try to develop a policy that addresses those concerns while at the same time helping trans-people?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Every poll has shown that women support transrights WHEN THEY THINK THOSE RIGHTS ARE BEING GRANTED TO PEOPLE WITH A CLINICAL DIAGNOSIS WHO HAVE UNDERGONE COMPLETE TRANSITION SURGERY.

It makes me quite angry that you continue to bring up polls with incomplete context, and just pretend that they support whatever you want them to.

And your tendency toward shaming and deriding women who want to protect their existing hard-won rights is also quite annoying.

I've asked before, I'll ask again:

How much rape should females be expected to experience in order to affirm the feelings of transwomen in prisons?

Type it bigger, I can't read such small print.

 

[Emily's Cat]

But do you admit or deny that there a significant proportion of cis-women share Emily's concerns?

She may not speak for all women, but it seems obvious that her views are representative of a significant proportion.

I also didn't claim to speak for all women. I referenced "many" in my post.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Instead of dismissing concerns and labeling people who have them as transphobes, why not actually try to develop a policy that addresses those concerns while at the same time helping trans-people?

No point in retreading the same old ground. It's all been said before and will be said again, the thread that never ends.


I'm sure we'll go through the same rigmarole whenever the Biden administrators come out with their guidance in regards to his EO to respect trans rights in accordance with the Bostock decision. No point in speculating about policy when a fresh battlefield will soon be handed to us.

 

[Louden Wilde]

I am much less sympathetic towards the use of imprecise language in order to avoid unpleasant truths or to gain unearned privileges.

Well put. It's also another reason to keep the traditional definition of "woman"- it's more precise than any other offered.

 

[Louden Wilde]

I'm awed again and again how confident you feel speaking for all cis women.

I'm awed that you liken groups of (adult human females) wanting female-based rights to the KKK, neo-Nazis and religious fundamentalists.

 

[theprestige]

Well put. It's also another reason to keep the traditional definition of "woman"- it's more precise than any other offered.

"Adult human female"? Sure. But I'd actually be okay with -

- transwomen should be accepted and treated as women in almost all circumstances, as long as -

- "adult human female" prevails wherever the biological differences are important -

- transwomen don't count as women for statistical purposes, and -

- it is (almost) never a crime to point out that transwomen are adult human males.

 

[Boudicca90]

Are there literally zero opportunities which ought to be reserved for people born female? Not even, say, a weekend clinic providing free cervical smears? (Not a hypothetical ad hoc example, I've long known clinicians who managed and worked at one.) Not even the WNBA? Not even a private club for gender-critical political lesbians^WP?

Cervical smears no, since some forms of vaginoplasty create a cervix. WNBA no, since we should have the right to play sports equally with our own gender. A private club on the other hand can discriminate, as SuburbanTurkey pointed out.

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[Louden Wilde]

"Adult human female"? Sure. But I'd actually be okay with -

- transwomen should be accepted and treated as women in almost all circumstances, as long as -

- "adult human female" prevails wherever the biological differences are important -

- transwomen don't count as women for statistical purposes, and -

- it is (almost) never a crime to point out that transwomen are adult human males.

A year ago, I would have agreed. But it seems clear that the ship has sailed. Or the underpants gnomes have already made their profit, Monkey's out of the bottle or (insert favorite analogy here). You can get kicked off twitter for saying only female get cervical cancer, that there should be female only spaces, etc. or lose your job for similar sentiments.....

 

[Boudicca90]

Ok. We'll try this. Without getting bogged down into a definition, let me see if you can provide an answer to a question. I'll try to avoid undefined terms by only talking about the cis/trans versions of the words. While some people don't like those words, I think we can at least agree on what they mean.



So, there is a cisgender woman. She wants to go swimming, but there is no private place to take off her clothes to change into a swimsuit, but she is willing to undress in front of other cisgender women. She is not willing to undress in front of cisgender men.

Now, suppose there is a physically untransitioned transgender woman. i.e. This person has functional male reproductive organs, but identifies as a woman. The cisgender woman says that she does not want to undress in front of that transgender woman, and believes that the transgender woman should be excluded from the locker room that the cisgender woman is using.

Can you provide a reason that the cisgender woman should be supported in her desire to exclude cisgender men from from the changing area she is using, but she should not be supported in her desire to exclude transgender women from that locker room.

Keep in mind that we don't want to get bogged down in definitions, here, so your answer shouldn't depend on how a certain word is defined, unless it is a word where everyone agrees on the definition.

ETA: I'm not sure if it really matters, but just for context I want to make sure people understand my personal stance on locker room access. Transwomen who have undergone full surgical transition ("bottom surgery") should be allowed to use women's locker rooms. Transwomen who have undergone no physical transition should not be allowed in women's only spaces, as a general rule. (i.e., individual businesses should be free to enact different policies. Planet Fitness can make its own rules.) People who have undergone some transition? I honestly don't know enough about the process, but at some point they should be allowed. I just don't know enough to say exactly when that point is. My own personal opinion isn't really necessary to answer the question I posed, but it might provide some context for the question I'm asking, so I decide to include it.

As a "physically untransitioned transgender woman" based on your criteria here, if a cisgender woman wanted to kick me out of such a place, she shouldn't be allowed to as I have the right to be in there as a woman.

In women's locker rooms and spas I've been in I try to keep to myself and don't get fully naked around anybody. But regardless if I did or not, it shouldn't be allowed for her to discriminate against me based on what genitals I have.

She is free to go elsewhere if she wants.

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[Emily's Cat]

Cervical smears no, since some forms of vaginoplasty create a cervix.

Do you have a link for this?

As far as I can tell, a neocervix created for aesthetics could potentially become cancerous, but it wouldn't be cervical cancer. That is, it wouldn't be the same squamous cell carcinoma or adenocarcinoma that a cervix is subject to. Screenings may still be appropriate, but I'm not sure that a gynecologist would be the one who does it. Especially depending on the type of vaginoplasty performed. If it were created from a bowel, for example, it would be a different type of cancer, and I don't know that a standard gynecological cervical screening would even test for the right things.

 

[Louden Wilde]

Cervical smears no, since some forms of vaginoplasty create a cervix. WNBA no, since we should have the right to play sports equally with our own gender. A private club on the other hand can discriminate, as SuburbanTurkey pointed out.

So- to be clear - you don't feel that there should be any female-based spaces/rights/representation that transwomen are not also entitled to?

If so, do you also feel that sex has played no role in the millennia-long discrimination against girls and women ?

 

[Emily's Cat]

As a "physically untransitioned transgender woman" based on your criteria here, if a cisgender woman wanted to kick me out of such a place, she shouldn't be allowed to as I have the right to be in there as a woman.

In women's locker rooms and spas I've been in I try to keep to myself and don't get fully naked around anybody. But regardless if I did or not, it shouldn't be allowed for her to discriminate against me based on what genitals I have.

She is free to go elsewhere if she wants.

Do you feel that females in a women's locker room would have the right to discriminate against cismen?

Do you believe that a cisman should have the right to undress and expose himself in front of young women?

 

[Boudicca90]

I will attempt to leave sex out of this post.



I will reiterate that those differences are irrelevant to you. Those differences are NOT irrelevant to ciswomen. Those differences are a substantial component of the experiences and lives of ciswomen. Those differences are an inextricable part of who we are, and of our identities... and an embedded element of how we are treated by society.



Those differences matter to a great many ciswomen.



I would like to be able to accept you as a woman. But in order to do so, I really need you to seek to understand the experiences of ciswomen, the sex-based bias we face, the sex-based conditioning that was imposed on us, the ever present risk that men present - even though it's a small number of men overall. I need to you understand the physical reality of ciswomen, the barriers we face.



I need you to understand why sex-segregated spaces are important to many women... and to help us find a way to assure that ciswomen are not placed at greater danger when we seek to support transwomen.



I really, really, really need you to NOT DISMISS the physical, biological, and social reality of ciswomen as "irrelevant".

As was pointed out, you do not speak for all cis women, or even a majority of you. And much of what you have listed also applies to us.

We have to deal with sex-based bias and the risk of dangerous men as well. And even sex-based conditioning, since much of my childhood and teen years were spent rejecting male conditioning since I felt it didn't apply to me. And embracing current female conditioning due to living fully as a woman.

We are not as different from you as you may think. We have similar barriers and sex-segregated spaces are important just as much for us.

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[Ziggurat]

As a "physically untransitioned transgender woman" based on your criteria here, if a cisgender woman wanted to kick me out of such a place, she shouldn't be allowed to as I have the right to be in there as a woman.

Do I have the right to be there as a man?

If not, why not?