[ED] Discussion: Trans Women Are not Women (Part 6)

[LondonJohn]

Electronic surveillance in ladies changing rooms... what could go wrong?

I've already suggested that, wrt this matter, it would be entirely possible/feasible for electronic audiovisual surveillance to constantly record what was happening in changing rooms (in much the same way as an aircraft's CVR/FDR "black boxes" do), but that the recordings could only ever be accessed a) in the event of an allegation of improper or illegal acts being made, and b) solely by either someone authorised to do so, or by the police (in much the same way as an aircraft's CVR/FDR are).

Edited by Darat: 

Breach of moderated thread.

such a measure - combined with clear notices explaining it - a) would act as a very serious (and probably extremely effective) deterrent towards anyone who was in any way minded to offend, while b) protecting the privacy of anyone in the changing rooms to a sufficiently high extent.

Edited by Darat: 

Breach of moderated thread.

 

[LondonJohn]

My other question is specifically for LJ: Did you find the page in the DSM-5 which specifically references non-binary identity yet?

The bit where it states: “Gender non-conformity is not in itself a mental disorder.”

https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiat...onforming-patients/gender-dysphoria-diagnosis


(I have no idea whatsoever why you ever thought that DSM-5 would address only binary transgender identity but not non-binary gender identity,

Edited by Darat: 

Breach of Rule 12/0 - moderated thread.

 

[Olmstead]

That's just a different inequality.

I was talking about a 5ft7 male trying to compete against a 6ft5 male in high jump. Which is precisely the same type of inequality to your example.

There are, incidentally, plenty of occurrences in non-sports life where we already take it as read that a) there's an un-level playing field between males and females, and b) this results in males being either the only ones who participate, or forming the overwhelming majority of those who participate. For example, tunnel digging. Or high-rise steel construction. Or lumberjacking.


Please note, at the same time, that I personally am strongly in favour of elite-level sport preserving a sex-based separation (though at non-elite levels I am not in favour of that). And that's exactly what I think will end up being the case. But I am somewhat playing devil's advocate to point out that the male-female separation in sports is only an arbitrary construct, and that it's a construct which doesn't apply in many other real-world situations.

Human-cheetah is just as arbitrary though.

 

[sarge]

......... along the lines of "transwomen should clearly not be allowed to use women's changing rooms etc, because this will probably result in waves of rape, sexual assault, and all levels of sexual harassment on the part of the..uhhhh *penis havers*"

In the context of this thread, that is a straw man.

Some issues are not quite so complex as we try to make them.

1. Should trans people have all the same rights as non-trans people? Yes
2. Do non-trans males have the right to get nude in front of non-consenting females? No
3. Do non-trans males have a right to see non-consenting females nude? No
3. Should non-trans males have such rights? No.
4. Are trans-females that still have a penis ‘males’ for all of the above questions? Unequivocally yes

 

[theprestige]

This is why I always try to listen and understand what my trans friends are saying, so when I do kick that ball, I do so from a position of informed compassion.

Unless your trans friends are telling you what non-sex-related rights and entitlements they are being deprived of, after their transition, I don't think they have much to contribute to the present discussion, even by proxy.

 

[Louden Wilde]

People have been and continue to be subjugated/discriminated on the basis of both. Transwomen are not immune to the discrimination against women, and have to deal with the additional discrimination against trans-people.

No, they are not discriminated against in the same way females are. The 100 million missing females in Asia (due to sex-selective abortion and infanticide) were killed on the basis of their sex. Same for female-genital mutilation in Africa, sex-trafficking/sex slavery. In more developed countries, they are not asked at jobs about whether they are planning to get pregnant, nor do they have to worry about pregnancy resulting from rape.

Like that is ever going to happen. We'll have equal representation of men and women before we'll end discrimination of transwomen.

Hard disagree. Misogyny/sexism is still quite prevalent - even among those who consider themselves liberal/woke. & self-ID seems to be catching on, which will make abuse much easier

There is no such thing as "sex-based rights".

Many females - and I suspect many people - disagree.

You admit that there is discrimination against females based on their sex but don't think they should have any rights because of that?

You are against female-only spaces, sports, representation, access to contraception/abortion rights? Do you understand that even if you are opposed that there is legitimate concern among females about these issues?

 

[Earthborn]

Same for female-genital mutilation in Africa,

There is also male genital mutilation, and not just in Africa.

sex-trafficking/sex slavery.

Transwomen can also be victims of sex-trafficking/sex slavery.

In more developed countries, they are not asked at jobs about whether they are planning to get pregnant,

If their job knows they're trans, they may be asked at their job about whether they are planning to get surgery. Not exactly the same, but similar enough.

Many females - and I suspect many people - disagree.

Not if they have paid any attention to anti-discrimination law.

You admit that there is discrimination against females based on their sex but don't think they should have any rights because of that?

I am against discrimination, therefore I think they should have equal rights, including a right to be free from discrimination. Not "sex-based rights".

You are against female-only spaces, sports, representation, access to contraception/abortion rights?

I am against segregation, for sports organisations setting their own rules for their games, for equal representation and for equal access to healthcare based on need instead of sex. Do you disagree?

Do you understand that even if you are opposed that there is legitimate concern among females about these issues?

If anyone has any legimate concerns about their rights, it is probably because of a lack of equal rights. Having "sex based rights" is the opposite of equal rights.

 

[Darat]

Note as part of removing moderated status I’m allowing substantial posts with an edit for any material that is unsuitable i.e. breaches the MA. If you have a post allowed but edited please look at what has been edited out to help you understand your Membership Agreement. The most common reason for a post to not be approved or now approved but edited is a breach of Rule 12.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

 

[d4m10n]

My other question is specifically for LJ: Did you find the page in the DSM-5 which specifically references non-binary identity yet?

The bit where it states: “Gender non-conformity is not in itself a mental disorder.”

Good enough, thank you. Now, is there good reason to defer to the psychiatric establishment on conditions which are not being diagnosed and treated by psychiatrists?

 

[xjx388]

I've already suggested that, wrt this matter, it would be entirely possible/feasible for electronic audiovisual surveillance to constantly record what was happening in changing rooms (in much the same way as an aircraft's CVR/FDR "black boxes" do), but that the recordings could only ever be accessed a) in the event of an allegation of improper or illegal acts being made, and b) solely by either someone authorised to do so, or by the police (in much the same way as an aircraft's CVR/FDR are).

Edited by Darat: 

Breach of moderated thread.

such a measure - combined with clear notices explaining it - a) would act as a very serious (and probably extremely effective) deterrent towards anyone who was in any way minded to offend, while b) protecting the privacy of anyone in the changing rooms to a sufficiently high extent.

Edited by Darat: 

Breach of moderated thread.

You can't be serious . . . I mean you aren't wrong about point a) but point b) is laughable. And if there were conspicuous cameras in changing rooms, I think the problem is solved because no one would use them!

 

[LondonJohn]

You can't be serious . . . I mean you aren't wrong about point a) but point b) is laughable. And if there were conspicuous cameras in changing rooms, I think the problem is solved because no one would use them!

Why precisely is point (b) laughable?

Why would nobody use changing rooms with surveillance equipment installed, if it was made very clear that 1) the surveillance recordings would & could only ever be accessed in the event of a specific allegation of improper/criminal behaviour, 2) the recordings, when they were accessed under those circumstances, would/could only be viewed by specified personnel or police officers, and 3) the personal modesty of everyone in the changing rooms would be preserved if it were ever necessary to make any of the material public (eg if there was a criminal trial in which the surveillance recording was used in evidence).


I'd have thought that women would be strongly in favour of such measures, given the safeguards. After all, even taking transgender issues out of the equation, it's perfectly possible for any male - right now - to walk into places such as a women's changing room or women's bathroom and commit offences against women. Shows how much I know, huh?

 

[LondonJohn]

In the context of this thread, that is a straw man.

Some issues are not quite so complex as we try to make them.

1. Should trans people have all the same rights as non-trans people? Yes
2. Do non-trans males have the right to get nude in front of non-consenting females? No
3. Do non-trans males have a right to see non-consenting females nude? No
3. Should non-trans males have such rights? No.
4. Are trans-females that still have a penis ‘males’ for all of the above questions? Unequivocally yes

So your unequivocal position is that transwomen should not be allowed to use women's changing rooms, is it?

I see. So:

Where should transwomen go to get changed in a facility where there are "men's changing rooms" and "women's changing rooms"?

Do you think they should be made to use the men's changing rooms?

Do you think they should be made to use the disabled changing rooms?

Do you think they should be made to change in their cars or at home?

Do you think they should be banned from all such facilities altogether?

And how does any/all of the above sit with your answer to your Point (1) above?


Oh, and also there's this (unless you believe it's entirely irrelevant to any discussion about transgender rights):

1. Should trans people have all the same rights as non-trans people? Yes
2. Do non-trans females have the right to get nude in front of non-consenting males? No?
3. Do non-trans females have a right to see non-consenting males nude? No?
3. Should non-trans females have such rights? No?
4. Are trans-males men that still have a vagina ‘females’ for all of the above questions? Unequivocally yes.

 

[LondonJohn]

I haven't been posting in this thread, and that is deliberate. I've had one post moved here from another thread. I'm going to make an exception to my general rule to share this, which was shared with me by one of my trans friends. It's a Twitter thread by someone named Lilah Sturges, who is not someone I know, but I think this is important. I apologise if it is not consonant with the current trend of the thread oh wait no I don't.

https://twitter.com/LilahSturges/status/1374715926017359874

But.... but........ BUT!!!!!!!!!!

 

[LondonJohn]

Unless your trans friends are telling you what non-sex-related rights and entitlements they are being deprived of, after their transition, I don't think they have much to contribute to the present discussion, even by proxy.

1) In the very post to which you were replying here, Arthwollipot explicitly said this:

This is why I always try to listen and understand what my trans friends are saying, so when I do kick that ball, I do so from a position of informed compassion

The near-necessary inference from those words is precisely that he's been listening to his trans friends' concerns on the very issues to which you're referring. He's not telling you that he's trying to listen and understand what his trans friends are saying about (say) the current NASA mission to Mars....


2) In any event, it really doesn't take much time or effort to find out what even the most moderate transgender organisations or individuals think about this issue. So I feel confident that Arthwollipot - given that he has trans friends and he's sensitive to the position of transgender people - has informed himself sufficiently well.

 

[Ziggurat]

I've already suggested that, wrt this matter, it would be entirely possible/feasible for electronic audiovisual surveillance to constantly record what was happening in changing rooms (in much the same way as an aircraft's CVR/FDR "black boxes" do), but that the recordings could only ever be accessed a) in the event of an allegation of improper or illegal acts being made, and b) solely by either someone authorised to do so, or by the police (in much the same way as an aircraft's CVR/FDR are).

Yeah, no. This simply isn't going to fly. While it might be technically possible to set up such a secured surveillance system, there's simply no way that a typical customer can be convinced that a particular system is in fact secured in this manner. Seriously, think about it for a moment. You walk into a changing room, and you see a bunch of cameras. How the hell do you know what happens to those feeds? You really don't, because you can't just trust the managers at their word. And there's no effective and sufficiently efficient means of establishing trust in such a system. And it has to be an efficient means, because you have to establish that trust every single time someone wants to use that changing room. But again, there's no way of doing that. Even if you manage to convince me you set up this elaborate security system to maintain privacy on Monday, if I come back on Friday, you have to prove it all over again or I won't know if you changed in on Wednesday. And you can't even rely on third party expert inspectors to continually verify the security of the setup because that's prohibitively expensive.

So you cannot prove that the system is secure, and everyone is going to assume that the system isn't. Or tl;dr, xjx388 is right.

 

[d4m10n]

The bit where it states: “Gender non-conformity is not in itself a mental disorder.”

Good enough, thank you. Now, is there good reason to defer to the psychiatric establishment on conditions which are not being diagnosed and treated by psychiatrists?

Just for the sake of clarity, my last post was supposed to be formatted as a reply to LJ.

Apologies to all concerned.

As an addendum, now that we know non-binarism is not a disorder per se who are the relevant experts?

 

[Louden Wilde]

Unless your trans friends are telling you what non-sex-related rights and entitlements they are being deprived of, after their transition, I don't think they have much to contribute to the present discussion, even by proxy.

Agreed. In the pronouns discussion (starting here),
I pointed out what I think is a relevant issue - that being that pronouns are intrinsically associated with sex...

- the implication is that there should be no sex-based rights, spaces or representation - rather that these things should be based on gender. For example, a company that has pledged equal representation among men and women on its board can have five men and five males who ID as women and comply. Of course, there will be far worse abuses.

And I got a rejoinder that there are no sex-based rights (presumably meaning no rights to female only spaces, sports, representation, reproductive rights). I think this wrong based on the subjugation/discrimination that unfortunately is baked into our biology. However, I think the argument is also wrong and/or disingenuous in that is precisely those things (female-based rights that society has accepted) that many of the vocal trans-activists want TW to have access to.

 

[Olmstead]

The bit where it states: “Gender non-conformity is not in itself a mental disorder.”

Good enough, thank you. Now, is there good reason to defer to the psychiatric establishment on conditions which are not being diagnosed and treated by psychiatrists?

It's not like psychiatry has anything useful to say about whether transwomen are women anyway. Their purview is mental health and how to promote it, nothing more. It has been decided that transwomen should be treated as if they're women because that promises the best outcome for their mental health, and that's where the authority of psychiatry stops.

In a similar vein, it has also been decided that transabled people shouldn't be treated as if they're actually disabled, simply because purposefully chopping off limbs or breaking spines is itself considered a bad outcome that outweighs any improvements in mental health. The opinion on this might change.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What about the removing of consent from males for (transgender) females to be naked in front of them? Or is it only the consent of females that you're concerned about?

Do I really need to tediously include both directions of this equation every single time?

That said... when we hit the point where lots of women are peeping on nonconsenting men, taking pictures of them to post on the internet, sexually harassing them, copping feels with regularity, sexually assaulting them, and raping them... I'll express a lot more concern about males being subjected to naked females without their consent. As it stands, the likelihood of a naked females being able to force a random male into sex against his will is vanishingly small.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Exactly. It's a complex issue, and one in which there are always, to some extent, going to be "losers". It requires intelligence, balance and understanding to even attempt to provide solutions. And it will also require observation, feedback, monitoring, and - almost certainly - adjustment once the "first go" policy has been implemented.

But I (and, I suspect you) am 100% certain that the matter should not - and cannot - be addressed via hysterical, Reefer-Madness-style rhetoric along the lines of "transwomen should clearly not be allowed to use women's changing rooms etc, because this will probably result in waves of rape, sexual assault, and all levels of sexual harassment on the part of the..uhhhh *penis havers*"

Women do so love having their concerns dismissed as "hysterical".