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

[Emily's Cat]

Funny that civil rights don't work on your schedule.

Ready or not, trans acceptance is coming. It's already the law of the land in Canada, and TERF stronghold UK won't hold forever. Even the US is making slow but steady progress.

We, as a society, are going to have to figure out how to keep people safe from sexual violence, and that includes a seat at the table for trans people. Excluding them may be the preferred option for many, but luckily most civilized countries do not leave civil rights for the minority at the whim of the majority.

One of these days, sooner a later, a gavel is going to clap down and trans-exclusion will be made illegal. You should probably be prepared for that, because it's practically inevitable.

Hooray for forcing women back into the kitchen! That's going to be a great day for all the testicle-owners!

 

[LondonJohn]

No.

I've read and re-read that part of the document many times, to see if there's something I'm missing or forgetting.


The UK government defines gender as:

a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity; gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth

where an individual may see themselves as a man, a woman, as having no gender, or as having a non-binary gender – where people identify as somewhere on a spectrum between man and woman

None of that is a quote of the UK government definition. It's a claim about what that definition is. Nowhere in the paper is there any citation or reference to the actual UK government's actual definition.


If you recall, I actually did derive your definition from that passage. It was the same as the definition you subsequently provided. We tried discussing the implications of your definition, but you put the kibosh on that immediately.

Meanwhile, it still doesn't solve the problem that there's still no clear government or medical support for your definition. You keep saying there is, but you also keep refusing to support that claim with an actual cite. The ONS usage of the UK government's alleged definitions of sex and gender is as close as you've gotten.

Eh sorry.... what??

You're saying that a document from the UK Government's own Office for National Statistics, when it states "The UK Government defines xyz as"....

....you're saying that this is nothing more than a claim of what the UK Govt's definition is? That, in effect, such a claim would need to be verified before being taken as true??

Welcome to the looking glass.


(You did know that the Office for National Statistics is an official UK Government department? Didn't you?)

 

[theprestige]

Funny that civil rights don't work on your schedule.

Ready or not, trans acceptance is coming. It's already the law of the land in Canada, and TERF stronghold UK won't hold forever. Even the US is making slow but steady progress.

We, as a society, are going to have to figure out how to keep people safe from sexual violence, and that includes a seat at the table for trans people. Excluding them may be the preferred option for many, but luckily most civilized countries do not leave civil rights for the minority at the whim of the majority.

One of these days, sooner a later, a gavel is going to clap down and trans-exclusion will be made illegal. You should probably be prepared for that, because it's practically inevitable.

This is a stupid argument. Nothing about the steady progress of trans rights requires that we adopt a policy that increases sexual violence, just to hasten that progress along.

What did female inmates ever do, to deserve an increase in sexual violence in their situation, just to advance trans rights?

What is the medical necessity for increasing sexual violence in women's prisons, at this point history?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Please satisfy my intellectual curiosity: What other ways are there, to add males to a female prison population without increasing the amount of sexual violence that goes on?

See, that's not the point though. They're not worried about reducing the amount of sexual violence overall. It seems they're perfectly happy to keep it the same or even increase the amount of sexual violence... as long as it's a case of shifting that violence from penis-havers so that women are the victims instead...

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because treating trans women as men is increasingly and correctly seen as a barbaric violation of their civil rights and human dignity.

And increasing the risk of sexual assault, violence, voyeurism, and exhibitionism where women are the victims is somehow magically NOT a barbaric violation of the civil rights and human dignity of women.

The feelings of penis-havers are more important than the safety and dignity of women.

 

[Olmstead]

No.

But that's not the question. The question is: where should transgender women be imprisoned (or transgender men, for that matter)?

There are only two viable alternatives: men's prisons, or women's prisons.

If you believe that transwomen should be housed in men's prisons, well that's your call. But I think it's the wrong call. And I think that the authorities will agree that it's the wrong call.

Putting transwomen into women's prisons brings its own serious issues of course. But the answer to that is not to put transwomen into men's prisons. The answer is to put more measures in place to safeguard all the inmates in women's prisons - and governments need to be prepared to make the necessary expenditure to provide these appropriate levels of safeguards.

Effective safeguards aren't going to happen. I mean, they're just not. Most governments already do a shoddy job being compassioned towards their non-criminal population. The problem must be considered under the assumption that safeguards aren't possible.

Transmen make for an interesting opposite problem. Personally I would never force a pre-op transman into the men's prison.

 

[Sherkeu]

You must have missed the part of that document which said, very clearly (my bolding/highlighting):


The UK government defines gender as:

a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity; gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth

where an individual may see themselves as a man, a woman, as having no gender, or as having a non-binary gender – where people identify as somewhere on a spectrum between man and woman


And I'd say that, erm, most people would find it extremely easy to derive a definition of "woman" (in this specific context) from the above excerpt. But in case you cannot, I've done so for you already, a few days ago (do a search).

I can't see anyone's internal feelings of themselves. I do find it rather easy to tell a man from a woman and a person signaling they are a man or signalling they are a woman. If they are good enough at it, it might pass my instinctual filter.

But there is no way society can define man and woman on someone's internal experience. I can't see it, can you? And there is no way to know where on the continuum someone may be in their internal experience. So that 'woman' definition is sort of total crap that means nothing at all because anyone can feel like anything they want and be perceived as something totally different, or many different things, or just the thing they wanted, or ambiguous things.
And they can change it at will, inside and outside.

Gosh, I am confusing myself .

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Hooray for forcing women back into the kitchen! That's going to be a great day for all the testicle-owners!

I won't rest until they're all shoeless and illiterate too.

 

[Emily's Cat]

ETA: And by the way, it's abundantly clear from the two sections of that document which set out the UK Govt's definition of "sex" and of "gender" - since the "sex" section refers to "male" and "female", while the "gender" section refers to "man" and "woman" - that 1) The terms "male" and "female" relate to biological sex, while "man" and "woman" refer to gender; and 2) it is therefore indeed logically simple to derive how the UK Govt defines "woman". But, y'know.....

Okay, "woman" refers to gender.

What does "woman" actually mean? How does one distinguish between the gender of "woman" and the gender of "man"?

This is the thing that you repeatedly insist is well-established and agreed to by "all the experts". And yet, somehow, it's still a completely vague hand-wavey thing with no actual meaning behind it.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This inflammatory nonsense of "If you care about transgender rights and protections, you must therefore by definition care more about that than you care about the rights/safety of ciswomen". It seems to be a well-rehearsed mantra among the anti-trans-rights set. I guess they think it's both true and compelling...

Sure sure, it has nothing at all to do with the repeated and persistent tendency of a few of you to literally place the feelings of prostate-owners above the safety of women. Nothing at all to do with that. Nope.

 

[Ziggurat]

Have at it. This thread has become a rather nasty cesspit of thinly-veiled anti-trans (and not-so-thinly veiled misandrist) sentiment.

Oh, FFS.

No. This isn't misandry. Misandry is a real thing and it's a problem, but this isn't it. Not allowing males to compete against females in sex-segregated sports isn't hatred towards men, for example. And the arguments asserting fundamental rights don't actually manage to distinguish cisgender men from transwomen. Arguments which would distinguish between cisgender men and transwomen require something beyond self ID in order to make that distinction, but that's become verboten because reasons.

You aren't being picked on, you aren't oppressed. Stop trying to claim victimhood on behalf of other people.

 

[Olmstead]

Anyone using an appeal to authority without being able to effectively back that authority up should take a look into the past and consider what else they would've supported.

 

[theprestige]

Eh sorry.... what??

You're saying that a document from the UK Government's own Office for National Statistics, when it states "The UK Government defines xyz as"....

....you're saying that this is nothing more than a claim of what the UK Govt's definition is? That, in effect, such a claim would need to be verified before being taken as true??

Welcome to the looking glass.


(You did know that the Office for National Statistics is an official UK Government department? Didn't you?)

Is the UK ONS the official government department for defining sex and gender in law and policy? Do the other branches and agencies of the UK government properly get their definitions from the ONS?

Most branches and agencies of government take their legal definitions from a central government authority that has the proper standing to issue such definitions. In the US, that's primarily the legislature, with review and override authority in the judiciary. The executive branch is constrained to work within those definitions.

If the US Census Bureau were to say "the US government defines..." I'd want to know: What part of the government? How far does their authority reach? Is this an administrative definition created by the Census Bureau for internal use? Is it an Executive interpretation of law imposed by the President on all the agencies under his command? Is it the law itself, passed by Congress?

Same thing here. Where does the UK government actually define these things? Is it just on that ONS page? Are you saying that the ONS is the proper government authority for these definitions? Or are they getting their definition from a higher authority in the government hierarchy? If so, what's that authority, and where do they publish the definition that the ONS is using?

Is the ONS really the highest government authority you can find?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yep, that's why ultimately I don't really care if I'm successful in convincing some bigots on a forum to support our rights, because change is coming regardless. It will still take a while depending on the country, but the tides are already turning and future generations won't be as regressive.

Nope, they wont' be regressive at all. They'll just make sure that females don't have the right to prevent males from looking at them when they're naked... nor will females have any right to object if a male exposes their penis to a female. Females will certainly not have a right to compete in sports fairly. And of course, they won't have the right to fair representation in politics or to fully participate in the economy on equal footing. They won't even have the right to be reasonably protected from sexual assault in prison, because the won't have the right to expect that penises won't be present.

And in the future, it won't be so regressive. We'll be able to identify people's genders based on how well they conform to social stereotypes. If a person isn't wearing a dress, make-up, and high heels, they're obviously a man. Biology won't matter, it's completely irrelevant. What will be most important is that women like to cook and clean and do scrapbooking and take care of babies and they really just LOVE being a receptacle for male lust - that's really their highest calling in life. And if a person doesn't accept their role as home-maker or care-giver or object of lust... well, they won't deserve to be called a woman.

Yep. It won't be regressive at all.

 

[Paul2]

I'll tack on that I don't think LJ has ever seen a definition of "valid lived experience" either. Certainly not from "medical experts" as he claims.

For what it's worth, neither "man" nor "woman" appears in Harvard's online medical dictionary

 

[Emily's Cat]

This is a stupid argument. Nothing about the steady progress of trans rights requires that we adopt a policy that increases sexual violence, just to hasten that progress along.

What did female inmates ever do, to deserve an increase in sexual violence in their situation, just to advance trans rights feelings?

What is the medical necessity for increasing sexual violence in women's prisons, at this point history?

Let's be clear - we're not talking about actual rights. We're talking about affirming the feelings of transgender people. We're talking about taking steps to make them feel good and feel accepted as females, despite the fact that they are not.

That's what is being proposed. That women take on the burden of even more sexual assault and violence, so that transwomen's feelings aren't hurt.

 

[Elaedith]

Anyone using an appeal to authority without being able to effectively back that authority up should take a look into the past and consider what else they would've supported.

Well, obviously that homosexuality is a disorder, because the DSM says so. Haven't you read the DSM!

 

[Thermal]

For what it's worth, neither "man" nor "woman" appears in Harvard's online medical dictionary

Nor does male, female, or sex. The plot thckens.

 

[LondonJohn]

Is the UK ONS the official government department for defining sex and gender in law and policy? Do the other branches and agencies of the UK government properly get their definitions from the ONS?

Most branches and agencies of government take their legal definitions from a central government authority that has the proper standing to issue such definitions. In the US, that's primarily the legislature, with review and override authority in the judiciary. The executive branch is constrained to work within those definitions.

If the US Census Bureau were to say "the US government defines..." I'd want to know: What part of the government? How far does their authority reach? Is this an administrative definition created by the Census Bureau for internal use? Is it an Executive interpretation of law imposed by the President on all the agencies under his command? Is it the law itself, passed by Congress?

Same thing here. Where does the UK government actually define these things? Is it just on that ONS page? Are you saying that the ONS is the proper government authority for these definitions? Or are they getting their definition from a higher authority in the government hierarchy? If so, what's that authority, and where do they publish the definition that the ONS is using?

Is the ONS really the highest government authority you can find?

For not-a-real-god's sake.

If an official paper from the ONS states that "The UK Government defines xyz as abc" , then the UK Government does indeed define xyz as abc

It's a strawman of your own creation that the ONS is the originator (or repository) of such definitions. That's got nothing to do with it (as well as it being untrue). The point is this: the ONS can be considered a 100% reliable source of UK Govt policy directives in cases such as this, within an official document.

I'm sure you're not just being vexatious though, right?

 

[Louden Wilde]

For what it's worth, neither "man" nor "woman" appears in Harvard's online medical dictionary

There are some recent disturbing trends in that direction - especially in informal sources like that. But suppose you do a pubmed search on "gene expression differences between men and women". You can go through hundreds of papers and it's clear that the authors mean adult male females and males (i.e. not how the person identified).