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

[Emily's Cat]

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

Gender nonconformity is not synonymous with a non-binary gender identity.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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?

First off, you're assuming that every employee would be perfectly well behaved, and that it would be impossible for any of them to break the rules and sneak a peek at the naked ladies. I'm not convinced that's a reasonable assumption to make.

Secondly, you're also assuming that hackers don't exist or would never ever be able to hack into those cameras. Which I also find to be a naïve assumption.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

People with penises should use the penis-havers changing room. People with vulvas should use the vulva-havers changing room.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Just a minor anecdote:

I have a friend, he's a guy. Born male/cis, straight, the whole nine yards. He's a little on the portly side but otherwise quite unmistakable as a man - if you're looking at him directly. Thing is, his voice is a bit on the high side, and he happens to like his hair longish, as some guys do.

But this causes some problems when people talk to him after having seen him only peripherally. I've been with him out at stores a handful of times, and once the library, and witnessed some person who hasn't looked at him directly address him as "ma'am" after he asks a question.

Every time I've witnessed this so far, invariably the employee turns around or looks up, sees him more directly, and immediately corrects themselves - but, more than that, they've always apologized rather forcefully for the mistake - in a couple of cases, I'm talking profusely. They are "omg, SO sorry!" One time I overheard a phone call he was making where he said "mister" quite clearly to correct someone, and then laughed and said "don't worry about it" because the person on the other end was obviously apologizing.

It's an anecdote, I know. But that is my observation: a whole lot of people seem to confidently assume that a man expects to be recognized and addressed as a man and would be quite upset or offended by accidentally being misgendered as female and called "ma'am" - and at least a goodly number of people are empathetic enough that they are embarrassed and almost overbearingly contrite when they carelessly make that mistake, even when the "recipient" indicates they didn't take offense.

It is incongruous, IMO, with how many people I've seen treat the idea of transgendered individuals asking to be called by the pronouns they prefer as a silly joke.

I don't think that last statement is accurate. Most people don't have a problem referring to transgender individuals by either the opposite pronoun or a gender neutral one, as a matter of courtesy.

The objection comes in when it is mandated to do so, or when everyone is required to provide pronouns.

Consider an illustrative example of a person who is hearing impaired. They might ask that you speak more loudly and face them directly in order to accommodate them - and most people who aren't brats are going to happily comply. But when some higher authority sends out a dictate that every is required on pain of punishment to speak more loudly and face Jim directly... that gets a bit more sticky. And when that authority demands that everyone must speak loudly to everyone else all the time and face everyone directly when speaking all the time, that starts getting a bit over the line.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

Well I think it's a lot more complicated than that. Yes, of course you're correct to talk about limits of authority and so on. But the point is that bodies such as governments, legislatures and judiciaries rely to a large extent upon guidance and recommendations from the relevant scientific bodies, and this forms a major driver of new legislation and judicial landscape (and/or modifications of existing legislation etc). So, in an indirect but very real sense, the opinions of psychiatrists etc actually carries a significant amount of real-world authority.

I also think you're wrong to state that the main (or is it the only?) reason why psychiatrists (and psychologists and sociologists and medics) have decided that transwomen should be considered women is "because that promises the best outcome of their mental health".

After all, if that were the case, then they'd probably be of the opinion that (eg) somebody who considered himself to be a reincarnation of Alfred the Great should just be allowed to consider himself as such. But they don't, of course: they consider that sort of thing to be a mental health disorder. There are lots of complex psychiatric/psychological/sociological/medical reasons why they consider transwomen to be women. And "because that promises the best outcome of their mental health" is pretty low down on the list.

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.

First, see above for (IMO) a more appropriate example to use as a valid comparator.

Secondly, yes: scientific (including medical) and legal opinions change over time. Usually they evolve in just one direction, but occasionally they reverse themselves.

However, society cannot work properly in areas such as these unless we all accept that current thinking is the correct basis for taking policy decisions etc. Nothing would - or could - ever change in this area if people (let alone govts, parliaments, courts etc) were permitted to say either things like "I realise the experts say it's a valid condition, but I think it is not" or "I realise the experts now say it's a valid condition, but I prefer their previous stance and/or I'll wait to see if they ever change their stance back to the previous one".

Personally, I very, very much doubt that, in the comparator you've used (transablism and auto-injury etc), psychiatrists and so on will ever consider such behaviour as anything other than a mental health disorder. But if, at some point in the future, their combined expertise and experience leads them to a change in their belief to the effect that they no longer consider such behaviour to be a mental health disorder.... well, I'd expect governments, legislatures, judiciaries and so on to alter their stance on this.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

Well..... I disagree with pretty much every single part of this. Among many other things, I take issue with your claim that people (eg customers of a gym) might be unable to be "convinced" that a) such a system could/would ever work in the first place, and b) that (for some reason) the terms and conditions might change to their disadvantage on a near-daily basis.

I dunno: maybe it's that I have a different outlook to taking what I'm told about things like this, in an official capacity, as a reasonable default position; and that I'd want to see actual evidence that it wasn't working as described before I questioned that default position. And maybe I have a different outlook towards people accepting that the huge potential benefits to their personal safety (coupled with their desire to use (eg) a gym) rather strongly outweigh any (unsubstantiated) preconceptions about the risk of such a system not working entirely as described.

 

[Darat]

Removing moderated status. Play nice or don’t play.

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

 

[Aber]

I'd have thought that women would be strongly in favour of such measures,

Well you would, wouldn't you.

Have actually asked any women what they want?

 

[Aber]

Further developments in the UK on prescribing puberty blockers to under 16s:

The case of AB v Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, funded by Good Law Project’s Trans Defence Fund, was heard earlier this month, and the High Court’s ruling released today (26 March) states that parents are able to give consent on behalf of their children to take puberty blockers.

In the ruling, Justice Nathalie Lieven said that while the Bell case found it was unlikely that children could be found competent enough to consent to the gender-affirming care, “the key difference from Bell is that parents are, in general, in a position to understand and weigh up these matters and consider what is in the long and short term best interests of their child”.

She continued: “They are adults with full capacity and as the people who know their child best, and care for them the most, will be in a position to reach a fully informed decision… I agree with the view expressed that judges do not necessarily know best, and that judges should be slow to displace the decision making role of committed and loving parents.

 

[LondonJohn]

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

Hmmm. You describe the invective-fuelled hyperbole from radical feminists as "concerns", do you?

I beg to differ.

 

[LondonJohn]

People with penises should use the penis-havers changing room. People with vulvas should use the vulva-havers changing room.

I know it's your opinion that transwomen should be made to use the men's changing rooms (and that transmen should be made to use the women's changing rooms). But I was asking Sarge what his/her opinion is.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well you would, wouldn't you.

Have actually asked any women what they want?

It's not my job to ask women what they want. I'm just expressing my opinion on an internet forum.

It's the job of governments and legislators to ask women what they want. And to ask transgender people what they want. And to ask experts what they think. And to take a balanced view. And then to implement policies and legislation accordingly.


(Incidentally, if I asked 100 people on my local high street who were in salaried employment whether there should be four additional public holidays per year, I am confident that the clear majority would be for "yes". Just food for thought....)

 

[LondonJohn]

First off, you're assuming that every employee would be perfectly well behaved, and that it would be impossible for any of them to break the rules and sneak a peek at the naked ladies. I'm not convinced that's a reasonable assumption to make.

Secondly, you're also assuming that hackers don't exist or would never ever be able to hack into those cameras. Which I also find to be a naïve assumption.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm proposing things as possibilities. Very obviously, they'd have to be a) properly-scoped, b) designed, c) trialled and tested, and d) consulted upon, before they ever even made it as far as widespread roll-out.

And my overarching point remains the same: the thing to do in situations such as this is not to back away from granting transgender people reasonable human rights. The thing to do is to examine all reasonable ways to remove risk to females. And only if it proves impossible to do so should the other side of the equation even be considered.

 

[sarge]

I know it's your opinion that transwomen should be made to use the men's changing rooms (and that transmen should be made to use the women's changing rooms). But I was asking Sarge what his/her opinion is.

It is my opinion that there is no harm to requiring someone with a penis to change in front of other people with a penis and potentially significant harm to requiring someone wit a vulva to get nude in front of someone with a penis against their will.

To be perfectly honest, I hold that position so firmly that I really don’t believe there is anyone that believes it is okay to force women to be nude around nude males against their will.

So far as I have had reason to evaluate my opinion on the greater trans rights issue, I don’t believe trans people should be discriminated against in any way and I favor laws specific prohibiting such discrimination because I believe they are necessary.

Being required to use the facilities that match your sex isn’t discrimination.

 

[d4m10n]

People with vulvas should use the vulva-havers changing room.

Here are a few people w/ vulvas:

https://images.app.goo.gl/iVvC7YHghPNn9UVj9

https://images.app.goo.gl/2graDy3AKwdSUEzF9

https://images.app.goo.gl/f7eEHktoSqJ3nBaa9

Are you confident women would feel (or be) safer with dudes like this in the ladies' changing room?

 

[xjx388]

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.

Yeah, it’s laughable.

I don’t care what assurances you give, what security certificates you have, how “closed” the system is, etc... I cannot imagine any gym or spa anywhere that is dumb enough to put cameras in a changing room. There might be some people that don’t care, but I’d bet most people do care, a lot.

All I know is that if such a system were ever put in place, get ready for a proliferation of changing room videos on the internet.

 

[Belz...]

Might as well continue this here, then

So if someone claims to be an attack helicopter in their heart of hearts, you're under no obligation to humour them... same thing if they claim to be black, or Napoleon, or a fox. Why is gender different?

The claim to identify as an attack helicopter was a deliberate and malicious mockery of transgender identity, and it should be dismissed as such. The claim to be black is an artificial hypothetical that is deliberately chosen to be used as an argument against transgender identity. The claim to be Napoleon is a harmful stereotype of mental illness, and the claim to be a fox is really a claim of being therian/otherkin, about which see the thread I linked to earlier, and therefore is an outlier in this list as it isn't too different from gender at all.

I hope that explains why gender identity is different from those other things you mentioned.

Handwaving is not an explanation.

There HAVE been people claiming to be black that weren't, or Napoleon that weren't. I don't give a toss whether it's a harmful stereotype to you. It's still a genuine question and you can't just toss it away because it hurts someone's feelings.

And you somehow forgot to establish what's different about gender identity, which was my question. How could you possibly think not doing what I was asking would be doing what I was asking?

The crux of the discussion about gender is whether mere self-identification is enough. If you think it is, then attack helicopters, Napoleons and trans-blacks are absolutely something you should consider.

Unless, that is, you consider gender to be binary...

 

[Paul2]

Handwaving is not an explanation.

There HAVE been people claiming to be black that weren't, or Napoleon that weren't. I don't give a toss whether it's a harmful stereotype to you. It's still a genuine question and you can't just toss it away because it hurts someone's feelings.

And you somehow forgot to establish what's different about gender identity, which was my question. How could you possibly think not doing what I was asking would be doing what I was asking?

The crux of the discussion about gender is whether mere self-identification is enough. If you think it is, then attack helicopters, Napoleons and trans-blacks are absolutely something you should consider.

Unless, that is, you consider gender to be binary...

I can imagine a difference with gender identity compared to attack helicopter identity. The interaction between the brain and the body regarding sex is quite obviously complicated in any number of ways - developmentally before and after birth, mediations by culture and upbringing, etc. - so it's easy to imagine some particular configuration of the interplay between nature and nurture in which one's gender identity doesn't match one's sex.

It's vastly harder to imagine the same for attack helicopter identity.

 

[LondonJohn]

It is my opinion that there is no harm to requiring someone with a penis to change in front of other people with a penis and potentially significant harm to requiring someone wit a vulva to get nude in front of someone with a penis against their will.

To be perfectly honest, I hold that position so firmly that I really don’t believe there is anyone that believes it is okay to force women to be nude around nude males against their will.

So far as I have had reason to evaluate my opinion on the greater trans rights issue, I don’t believe trans people should be discriminated against in any way and I favor laws specific prohibiting such discrimination because I believe they are necessary.

Being required to use the facilities that match your sex isn’t discrimination.

So your answer to my question is this: your opinion is that transwomen should be made to use the men's changing rooms.

And you can't foresee any issues around that?

Also, to take the reverse situation, would I be correct in assuming your opinion to be that transmen should be made to use the women's changing rooms? (If not, why not?)

And if that's the case, it might be worth taking a look at post #1135 above...

 

[LondonJohn]

I can imagine a difference with gender identity compared to attack helicopter identity. The interaction between the brain and the body regarding sex is quite obviously complicated in any number of ways - developmentally before and after birth, mediations by culture and upbringing, etc. - so it's easy to imagine some particular configuration of the interplay between nature and nurture in which one's gender identity doesn't match one's sex.

It's vastly harder to imagine the same for attack helicopter identity.

You're entirely correct: it's a gigantically different matter.

And that's precisely why the World's actual experts in this area consider transgender identity to be a valid condition, while at the same time they hold "a person identifying as Napoleon" or "a person identifying as an attack helicopter" to be a mental disorder (or, more accurately, the product of a mental disorder)