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

[Emily's Cat]

Because my post was a reminder that there would have been a healthy representation of both males and females on all the bodies involved in a) making scientific determinations and recommendations re transgender identity, and b) making governmental, legislative and judicial determinations related to the issue.

Prove it. Don't just assert it, don't just make a baseless claim. Provide evidence.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The big problem here in the US is that we have a right wing that is genuinely hostile to trans-people as a whole. They're pursuing the sports angle perhaps because it's a rare case where science/reality is on their side. Unfortunately, this fact is really hindering discussions here, because bringing up sex-segregated sports brings up the (IMO intellectually lazy) defense of lumping you with the folks who have been actively trying to overthrow our democracy (AKA Trump supporters, enablers) and are truly anti-trans (i.e. would exclude trans people from jobs, wish them physical harm).

It's s very real problem. The right-wing is anti-woman with respect to reproductive rights. The left-wing is anti-woman with respect to sports, equal representation, and getting our voices heard.

At the moment, there is no party for women in the US. To be honest, it doesn't really look like there's a party for women in the UK either. Nor in Canada.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Dr Ken Zucker recently reposted an earlier tweet from 2006 which compared 'ethnic identity disorder' with 'gender identity disorder' (as it was then).
The retweet was in response to Prof. Ibram Kendi posting a tweet denounced as transphobic, about being horrified that his daughter had said she wanted to be a boy. Of course, Kendi's statement had nothing to do with being transgender.

Zucker appears to draw a parallel between encouraging a child to accept their biological sex and encouraging a child to accept their skin colour.

@LondonJohn, Zucker is actually one of the experts in this field.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because race is, first and foremost, a physical construct (yes, clearly there is a big intangible "lived" construct layered on top of that, but it ultimately all leads back to physical presentation).

On the other hand, gender is in no way a physical construct. It's entirely a psychiatric lived condition.

How so? What is the psychiatric condition of "being a woman"? How can one recognize the condition of psychiatrically "being a woman"?

To take another example: someone who is leg-disabled faces challenges in life which are not faced by people whose legs function fully. And leg disability is a physical condition.

Now suppose I - who has two functional legs - decided to identify as someone who was leg-disabled. I'd confine myself to a wheelchair and ask to be considered/treated as someone who was leg-disabled.

Clearly (I'd hope), in this instance my identification as a leg-disabled person would be considered a) invalid, and b) the product of a mental disorder.


Now, to go back to race.....

If a white person were to define something along the lines of "the lived experience of black people within my environment", and chose to identify with that lived experience, that would be the closest thing to, say, a female choosing to identify as the "man" gender. But a white person identifying as a black person would be very different.

In what way are those two things different?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Hmmm.

My note of caution would primarily be around a pre-pubescent person's ability to make properly-informed decisions. After all, in the jurisdictions of pretty much every liberal democracy, people of that age are not able to vote, nor to consent to most significant medical interventions, nor to be involved in sexual relationships... and so on.

I'd be wanting safeguards to be in place to try to ensure that a) a person of this age was not putting themselves on a road map which they might subsequently find it difficult - whether emotionally or physically - to arrest or reverse, and b) a person of this age was not undergoing extreme medical or surgical procedures which might become effectively irreversible.

Note that I'm not saying I'm automatically against it in principle. I'm saying that I believe there should be caution and safeguards.

Hey, welcome to the TERF club, John! Your position on this makes you a transphobe, dontcha know?

 

[theprestige]

Because race is, first and foremost, a physical construct (yes, clearly there is a big intangible "lived" construct layered on top of that, but it ultimately all leads back to physical presentation).

So it's pretty much exactly like gender, then. Except that race really is a spectrum, not a binary.

 

[d4m10n]

If a random person walks into the room looking masculine, I'm probably going to become pretty aware. If they drop their pants and they've got a vulva, I would no longer be concerned at all (although I might very well be quite curious)...

Okay, so, I don't spend that much time in changing rooms these days but I'd say that when I do, only around 1/50 people actually drop their drawers right when I'm looking. That is to say, 49/50 vulvæ could be stealthily sneaking through. Seems weird to expect that you'd get the chance to *know* what kind of bits people are packing, even in the changing room context. I assume you'd make the usual inferences if a full transitioned FTM individual shows up with a towel on...so what happens next?

 

[Emily's Cat]

(By the way, it would have been interesting perhaps if at least one of the females within this thread had even dipped their toe into thinking about whether there might be any way in which transgender people would be able to use the changing rooms correlating to their gender, while addressing potential safety or privacy issues related to this. But.... not one peep. Instead: nothing but total obstructionism. That's certainly food for thought.)

*Grumble* This is more a case of you either not reading, or not comprehending, a good chunk of the discussion.

For example... in general locker rooms and changing rooms, I have previously suggested that people should use whichever rooms other people are most likely to assume they should be in, regardless of actual sex or gender identity. But that requires a fair bit of self-awareness. So if you're a very petite transman who has taken no hormones at all, you need to be aware enough of that to use the women's room. And if you're a very masculine hairy transwoman who hasn't shaved in two days, use the men's. This is in accordance with the approach employed by a particular transgender poster, who expressed that they had chosen to use the men's room early on until the hormones had kicked in enough for them to feel like they wouldn't stand out in the ladies' room.

But that also comes with the courtesy of keeping your lower half covered. It means that a transman who is passing, but still has a vulva, would keep themselves covered when in the presence of penis-havers, so as not to make them uncomfortable and draw attention to the difference in sex. Similarly, a transwoman who is passing, but still has a penis, would keep themselves covered when in the presence of vulva-havers, so as not to make them uncomfortable and draw attention to the difference in sex.

Alternatively, if that isn't a reasonable compromise for some reason (say open showers or similar), then the transgender person should have access to a private room that prevents discomfort on the part of anyone.

But this suggestion got me called a transphobe and a TERF... so... ?

What I haven't yet seen is an explanation of why you want to consider it a "civil right" that a subset of males should be privileged to be in the presences of naked females without the consent of those females, or why a subset of males should be privileged to expose their genitalia to females without the consent of those females.

What I haven't seen is a good argument for *why* asking a transgender person to use the rooms that accord with their sex is a horrible thing.

 

[Emily's Cat]

To LJ's credit, I can totally see governments deciding these things based on the reasoning and evidence he's presented so far.

Sadly, so can I.

 

[Elaedith]

"Gender nonconformity" is not innate, as it has to do with conforming to socially constructed gender norms. There is no such thing as an innate wearing of skirts.

You could substitute 'gender atypical', but I was referring to the fact that having behavoiural and psychological traits that don't fit with the gender expectations associated with one's sex may be innate (as innate predispositions underpin human personality and behavioural traits). It doesn't actually matter in respect to this whether gender norms are entirely socially constructed or partly reflect innate predispositions that differ statistically between males and females. One can be more conforming/typical or less conforming/atypical either way.

Defining being a man or a woman (or neither) in terms of conformity with gender expectations rather than biological sex is entirely socially constructed and ideological (and reactionary).

Except apparently the studies you link to;

All of the studies linked to showed a majority of children desisted.

the biggest and most recent studies mentioned in that list haven't studied what happens "without affirmation" but with children actively being treated for their GID, some of whom with affirmation of their cross-gender identity, and some of them while socially transitioning.

Most of these studies were conducted when 'watchful waiting' was the standard treatment. The later ones included some with affirmation or social transition.

You can't support the claim "if you don't do anything, most of them will grow out of it" by pointing to studies in which the ones most likely not to grow out of it are actively being treated.

Firstly, I didn't say 'if you don't do anything' - I said 'if not affirmed' the majority of children do not remain dysphoric. This could include watchful waiting along with psychotherapy to address any distress.

Secondly, your point makes no sense. Cantor reported the outcome for the entire sample in each case. In some of the later studies (e.g. Steensma et al., 2013), some children were clearly being given a social role transition, so were in fact being affirmed. The affirmation of these children was found to be associated with increased persistence of gender dysphoria (ie. children socially transitioned are more likely to continue to remain dysphoric and go on to medically transition). Therefore, the inclusion of children receiving affirmation of their cross-sex identity in the sample would act to increase persistence in the sample. Any biasing effect would result in underestimating the percentage that would desist without affirmation.

Incidentally, the finding that childhood transition predicted persistence is not simply a confound of children who were more gender atypical being selected for transition. Transition independently predicted persistence in a multivariate regression where the ratings of gender atypicality and gender variant behaviours were also predictors (hence controlled for statistically). In fact, these measures were no long significant predictors when entered into the regression, while transition remained a significant predictor of persistence.

Quote from the article's conclusion:Rather than "debunking" it is confirming what trans-activists already knew....

No, trans activists have pronounced the desistance rate to be a myth and mentioning it to be transphobic and equivalent to denying the existence of trans children, declaring trans children to be deviant, insane, literally killing them etc. As Cantor stated, they managed to get a documentary on this pulled in Canada for being 'transphobic'. The (politically expedient) narrative is that trans identity is analogous to sexual orientation, and failure to affirm in every case is equivalent to rejecting a child for being gay.

If they bother to produce anything resembling an argument at all, it is typically that the studies all used the DSM IV (when what is now gender dysphoria was gender identity disorder) and have claimed that the children would not have qualified for diagnosis under DSM5. Some have also claimed the children in the samples were 'not really trans' (which is often a No true Scotsman argument) and that they were subthreshold for clinical diagnosis.

The claims have been refuted. In relation to the DSM version issue, Zucker (2018) states "It is my clinical opinion that the similarities across the various iterations of the DSM are far greater than the differences" (p234). In regards to the subthreshold issue, an re-analysis combining several studies and separating children who only met the strictest diagnostic criteria from the subthreshold cases showed that both groups had similar rates of persistence (Table 1, p234).

except following them for a while to see whether they persist.

Following them 'for a while' is not sufficient. Puberty is associated with resolution of dysphoria in most children. There are many reasons to suppose that the process of undergoing puberty is responsible for this. Social transition before puberty increases the distress and dysphoria associated with the onset of puberty, and blocking puberty is associated with almost 100% persistence and progression to medical transition.

 

[Emily's Cat]

"Gender nonconformity" is not innate, as it has to do with conforming to socially constructed gender norms. There is no such thing as an innate wearing of skirts.

Mmm... Not certain of this. Yes, you're correct - there is no innate conformity to fashion. And a whole lot of the gender expectations, roles, and stereotypes are socially constructed. The largest bulk of them certainly are.

But to that same extent, a child who is gender nonconforming is one that does not conform to those social constructs, as evidenced by their preferences for behaviors and presentations that are socially associated with the opposite sex. To that extent, I think the predisposition to like certain things, to prefer certain interactions, etc. is probably innate.

I was gender nonconforming as a kid. I disliked dresses and frills of any sort until I hit puberty and became interested in being "attractive" to the opposite sex. I preferred (and still strongly prefer) trousers, flat shoes, and no make-up. As kid I had barbies, but I was far more likely to pretend they were spies or warriors and take them out to fight against the boy's GI Joes. I preferred building blocks, legos, lincoln logs, tinker toys, and hot wheels. I climbed trees, hated (still hate) pink, and preferred to play with boys.

All of those inclinations are gender non-conforming, and I would say that they were innate. I'd also say that I am certainly not transgender... but that if I were a child today, I would have a high likelihood of someone telling me that I was, simply because I don't conform to what I have always thought were idiotic stereotypes.

 

[Emily's Cat]

There are tricks to hide one's genitals even when disrobing in the view of others cannot be avoided. Transgender individuals who wouldn't raise an eyebrow when entering, very likely have mastered that art. Which is why the suggestion by some that transmen should use the women's changing room is so unhelpful; no one will ever notice that they are not (biological) men.

Sure. And for those who have mastered that art, I don't have any real complaint in public areas.

On the other hand, there is a not insignificant, and growing, group of transgender people who feel entitled to share their genitals with the other people in the room, and who feel it is their right to expose themselves in such a way.

 

[xjx388]

Let’s put aside attack helicopters or being any specific person or being an animal.

Being black or any other race is a valid lived human condition. The only real difference amongst the races, biologically, are insignificant physical characteristics. There is no difference in the basic humanity of a black, brown or any other color human.

But hold on!

We are told that a person with white skin cannot validly identify as a black person or vice versa.

SO: Explain like I’m 5 how a male can validly identify as a female when the biological difference between male and female is much more significant than between white and black.

 

[Emily's Cat]

From this morning's NYT, "a culture clash that seems to have come out of nowhere."

What I gather is that the "news" hasn't been watching the news for the last half a decade.

 

[Elaedith]

The largest follow-up study to date of boys with GID just published yesterday.

At follow-up, 122/139 desisted (87.8%).

Zucker tweets a thread about this and comments it may be the last follow-up from an era before treatment included social transition.

 

[xjx388]

Mmm... Not certain of this. Yes, you're correct - there is no innate conformity to fashion. And a whole lot of the gender expectations, roles, and stereotypes are socially constructed. The largest bulk of them certainly are.

But to that same extent, a child who is gender nonconforming is one that does not conform to those social constructs, as evidenced by their preferences for behaviors and presentations that are socially associated with the opposite sex. To that extent, I think the predisposition to like certain things, to prefer certain interactions, etc. is probably innate.

I was gender nonconforming as a kid. I disliked dresses and frills of any sort until I hit puberty and became interested in being "attractive" to the opposite sex. I preferred (and still strongly prefer) trousers, flat shoes, and no make-up. As kid I had barbies, but I was far more likely to pretend they were spies or warriors and take them out to fight against the boy's GI Joes. I preferred building blocks, legos, lincoln logs, tinker toys, and hot wheels. I climbed trees, hated (still hate) pink, and preferred to play with boys.

All of those inclinations are gender non-conforming, and I would say that they were innate. I'd also say that I am certainly not transgender... but that if I were a child today, I would have a high likelihood of someone telling me that I was, simply because I don't conform to what I have always thought were idiotic stereotypes.

This is such an important point.

The studies Elaedith posted before suggests that a big factor in all of this is whether or not the non-conformity is affirmed in young children. Which would suggest that another big factor -just as an educated guess, but it follows- is whether or not the non-conformity is actively fought against. IOW, the intensity of any conflict is probably a factor in whether or not one will identify as trans gender.

You and I have similar experiences, yet we seem to have ended up without gender dysphoria. I’d wager that neither one of our parents either encouraged or discouraged us- they just let us be us.

I solved it! It just bad parenting!

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm not convinced that there are any "anti-trans" people on this thread, mind you. I think we're basically in agreement on the more pressing issues and questions. It's when definitions lead to absurdities (real or imagined) or in more marginal cases (sports, etc.) that there are disagreements. Disagreement on one part of the issue does not imply disagreement on all of it. We're just not spending any time debating the stuff we agree on.

There are other issues on which there's disagreement... but they're much more impactful issues. They've been brought up multiple times. Somehow, though, the argument keeps getting pulled back to bathrooms, and maybe some thought for locker rooms and showers.

Realistically, those are the least of my concerns. I have reservations, but I generally think that a common sense and courteous approach is all that's needed.

On the other hand:

• Self-declaration of prisoners is now getting male-bodied inmates transferred and housed in shared cells with females. In multiple cases, those male-bodied self-declared transwoman have sexually assaulted and raped the female prisoners with whom they were housed.
• Self-declaration of gender identity is allowing male-raised people, with the experiences of a male in society, to take women's positions in business and politics, and to "speak for" women for the purpose of equality.
• Rape and Domestic Violence shelters that are single-sex spaces are losing funding because they don't allow transwomen as a right, but only on a case-by-case basis. Some shelters are losing funding even though they do allow transwomen, but they don't offer "enough" services for transwomen and for men... even though the people who use (and need) those shelters are overwhelmingly female.
• Male-born people, with male-raise experiences, are receiving awards and recognitions for women... honors that are intended to increase the equality of women in the world and address existing disadvantages.

But the majority of the "activist" side of this argument doesn't want to talk about these issues. They actively avoid them, and always pull it back to bathrooms.

In addition to those issues, there's an overarching question of social equity that also gets ignored. There are a few other subsets of the trans activist cohort that I think are very problematic, and which just get hand-waved away by the posters in this thread.

One of those is the group who engage in harassment, intimidation, doxxing, and silencing of women. They deplatform women who wish to discuss the items above, or who want to understand how proposed changes to law and policy will affect them as women. And in response, they are subjected to death threats, told to suck "ladydick", rape is wished upon them, those women are treated as if they've committed hate-crimes. These are the "Punch a TERF" and "Have you Killed a TERF Today?" And "TERFs aren't human" brigade. And while I am well aware that they do not represent all transgender people by any means, they are exceedingly vocal and have a very large social media presence... and they are being tolerated by the trans movement in general. All in all, there is a very loud, vocal, and active portion of the trans movement that are transparently misogynistic and anti-woman.

Another is the group of male-bodied transwomen who consider themselves to be lesbians and who harass female lesbians as bigots or transphobes for not being will to let them put their "lady penises" into lesbian's vaginas. They even coined a term - the "Cotton Ceiling" to represent the panty gussets that transwomen's penises can't break through. All in all, it's an exceedingly rapey behavior. It's not limited to lesbians anymore either, there's been an increasing number of vagina-having transmen berating gay men for not wanting to have sex with their "front holes" as well. There's even a transwoman competing for "Mr. Gay England"... who in their own words says

“The people who take issue with me being visible in this space will tell you exactly how I am shaking things up. I am a trans man. I am also mixed-black African. I am not on hormones and I have no intention of getting any procedures done that may impact my WAP,” he says.

“I am extremely femme and I don’t play into this ‘masc for masc’ bulls***. I have a period once a month and I have no qualms openly talking about how my pussy bleeds and how difficult that makes navigating spaces as a gay man.

“I am not actively trying to be a controversial man. I am just existing, and through said existence I notice that only cis people have won this competition every year. I think the fact that I am here to challenge that is punk as *******!”

Frankly, I find the entire concept of a transgender person who is fully genitally intact invading the spaces of homosexuals, and insisting that they are themselves homosexual to be incredibly offensive, insulting, and downright homophobic.

The last category that I have problems with is the subset of fetishists. A lot of people, transgender and ally alike, wish to pretend they don't exist. They deny that a subset of transwomen (almost exclusively transwomen, by the way) are made up. But there is ample evidence of them. There are entire gamuts of porn targeting them: sissification, bimbofication, sissyhypno, forced feminization, and similar genre. These are approaches that fetishize womanhood... by framing it as a turn-on to be degraded, made subservient, to be raped, used by men, and to be seen as a slut and a dumb bimbo. There are published books out there that have received acclaim, that frame womanhood and femaleness as being, at heart, a receptacle for semen. It is incredibly offensive and degrading to women in general. It reinforces the very worst and most harmful stereotypes of women I've ever run across. It makes the struggles of women to win equality and fair treatment into a cosplay exercise for their erotic fantasies.

As a woman, who has lived through sexual assault and attempted rape, and has had to battle for my professional position, and who still faces subconscious sexism in the workplace and society, those three groups appall me. As someone with many lesbian and gay relatives and friends, I feel fear and empathy for women in society right now.

I understand full well that these do not represent all transgender people. But they are vocal, they are real, and, most importantly - they are not being addressed. They are being accepted as "just like every other trans person", and more and more they are the ones driving social interactions and pushing for policy.

But sure. Let's talk about locker rooms.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This is such an important point.

The studies Elaedith posted before suggests that a big factor in all of this is whether or not the non-conformity is affirmed in young children. Which would suggest that another big factor -just as an educated guess, but it follows- is whether or not the non-conformity is actively fought against. IOW, the intensity of any conflict is probably a factor in whether or not one will identify as trans gender.

You and I have similar experiences, yet we seem to have ended up without gender dysphoria. I’d wager that neither one of our parents either encouraged or discouraged us- they just let us be us.

I solved it! It just bad parenting!

Very true. My mom was a feminist in the late 60s, and was always a big proponent of me doing my own thing, and not being forced into a box. My step-father was a black man in the military, who also wasn't inclined to force any stereotypes on his kids, for what I assume are obvious reasons. So unless it was likely to get me hurt or break a law, I was pretty much allowed to just be me.

 

[Collin237]

If the definitions are meaningless, which I (in most contexts) 100% agree they are, then this "It is vitally important that I get to define my side of it and you have to accept it" becomes even more pointless.

That really does seem to be where people think we have to land and pretend it makes sense.

"Gender doesn't mean anything, but it is still vitally important that we nod and agree with no resistance whenever anyone says what gender they are."

I don't buy it. People are not fighting this hard for recognition of a "meaningless" definitional distinctional.

They're fighting for recognition of their own existence. And they're fighting on two fronts: against society, and against parts of themselves. Nobody gives them real support. All they're told is "call yourself the other sex and you'll feel better". And eventually they accept it.

 

[Collin237]

Why is it important for transpeople to override that sex-segregation?

Because that's what they've been told they need.