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

[theprestige]

Honestly the most interesting thing about this is LJ's tacit agreement that his pro-trans position is necessarily misogynistic.

 

[d4m10n]

I'm not sure this does remove the 'hassle of being subjected to either masculine or feminine social norms'.

IRL, probably not, since people apply them reflexively (perhaps unconsciously) based on perceived sex. Online, though...?

Changing one's appearance (and name, pronoun) to the extent that it is difficult for people to work out what sex one is might make it impossible for people to impose social norms, but seems rather drastic.

Truly ambiguous androgyny is indeed quite a difficult trick; I've seen it done a few times by animators, but almost never IRL.

Declaring oneself to be another gender and making one's pronoun match one's 'identity' without changing presentation won't really affect the fact that people tend to react differently based on the perceived sex of an individual. To the extent that it is claimed to do so, it is implying that one somehow it is ok to assume conformity to norms, but based on self-declared gender rather than sex.

Not sure if there are any norms specific to non-binary identity, but otherwise why wouldn't that be okay?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Nobody is suggesting that "gender affirmation, in the medical sense, does mean "give puberty blockers and/or do surgery.""

Rather, their position is that puberty blockers and/or surgery ought not to be categorically & definitively ruled out. That these things ought at least to be part of the metaphorical "tool-kit" available for clinicians.


NB: as I've stated before within this thread, I personally advocate extremely careful employment of these treatments on under-16s for certain (and under-18s most probably). But if competent clinicians - with (importantly) proper safeguards and checks & balances - do* find that the best course of action is indeed to administer them, they should be available.

I think what we've seen in the UK recently is the (thankful) exposure of the insufficiency of those safeguards and checks & balances. But I also think everyone (including lawmakers and regulatory bodies) needs to remember that this is still a relatively recent area of medicine, and it was always a near-certainty that a) mistakes would be made, and b) there would have to be an open culture of learning from those mistakes and optimising the care on offer to young people with this condition.


* Perhaps one example of this - at the extreme end - might be an instance where clinicians believe that the young person in question is giving credible evidence to indicate that they'd commit suicide if they weren't allowed to undergo some form of medical or surgical transition.

One of the problems I have with the highlighted bit is that the mistakes cause irreversible and irrevocable harm to the patients - harm that didn't *need* to occur in the first place. Doctors prescribed off-label use of drugs in untested ways, with virtually no safeguards to ensure that they were following and monitoring the progress, without consideration to the harm that could occur to children who were otherwise physically healthy. They performed completely unnecessary surgery to remove perfectly healthy and functional organs and flesh. And they did those things in preference to spending the time needed to ascertain that the dysphoria could not be alleviated in a different, non-invasive way.

The mistakes came from doctors using children as guinea pigs in ways that left them permanently medicalized and in many cases sterile.

I personally think that there's a difference between 'unavoidable mistakes' and 'negligent malpractice'. What do you, as a lawyer, think?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ah, so you've gone on record here stating that, in your belief, transgender people already have all the civil rights they deserve.

I see.

Why don't you answer the question instead of just plopping down condescending snark?

You've actually been asked this question, in many varieties of phrasing, repeatedly... and you have not answered it that I can find. You always just come back with some insinuation of bigotry steeped in arrogance.

So... In an effort to foster good-faith discussion: Can you please provide some examples of the civil rights that you believe transgender people do not currently have?

 

[d4m10n]

You'd better convey this to an increasing number of national governments, who appear...to be under the impression that gender segregation is the appropriate way to go.

Just out of curiosity, have any European governments actually come out and said it like this? As in, "We used to segregate by sex but henceforth we will segregate by gender identity instead." I'd be interested to see such a frank admission, it such exists.

 

[LondonJohn]

The crux of all human rights is what toilet one is allowed to use then?

If I am not allowed to use the toilet of my choice- my human rights do not exist?

Interesting take.

Firstly, it sounds like you're still unaware that transgender people don't actually have a choice about their identity.

Secondly, I'm not sure what you intend to convey with the hyperbole of "The crux of all human rights is what toilet one is allowed to use then?" Nobody is suggesting that transgender people currently* have no human rights; and nor is anyone suggesting that if transgender people were denied access to the changing rooms which correlate with their (trans)gender, their human rights would "cease to exist".

What trans-rights campaigners are saying is that there's currently a fairly wide human rights deficit between transgender and cisgender people, and that governments/parliaments/regulators should introduce legislation to close that gap; and they're also saying that transgender people currently face significantly more discrimination and oppression than cisgender people, and the authorities should do more to protect transgender people.


Perhaps therefore it would be more useful - and appropriate - to consider this as a generalised statement of aims:

Transgender people a) should have civil rights which are as close to equality as possible with cisgender people; and b) should be provided with adequate protection against discrimination (over a wide spectrum).


* or, more accurately, formerly - since legislatures are now thankfully starting to pass laws to enshrine and protect transgender rights.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You keep saying this kind of stuff and it keeps being false.

It is not an anti-trans position to argue that trans people should use the privacy facilities that match their sex. There is not and there should be no such ‘right’. Advocates for this are suggesting that the 99%+ surrender a right in order to create one (that should not exist) for the <1%

I don't even think it's that. They're suggesting that the 99%+ surrender basic dignity and privacy in order to provide a privilege to <1%. It's not even a right, it's a privilege that is being asked for - one that other people do not get.

 

[LondonJohn]

You might attempt to grok that neither form of segregation is "anti" anyone.
Or,
As you seem to prefer. They both are.

*sigh*

No. One is discrimination; the other is not.

 

[Emily's Cat]

If we substitute in what the author actually means by "being anti-woman"

Oh, please, please do enlighten me on what I "actually mean" by what I actually said! Because clearly you understand me so much better than I understand myself, and so much better than those with whom I have good interpersonal relationships on this board! In fact, your mind-reading skills are downright astonishing! Too bad that $1M prize isn't up for grabs anymore - you'd've been a shoo-in!

 

[sarge]

You keep saying this kind of stuff and it keeps being false.

Of course it isn’t. There really is not (and should not be) a right to get naked in front of people of the opposite sex that do not want to be naked in front of you.

What you wish is that it be established that any person may insist on showering with any other person without the consent of the other person.

There is no test for gender. There is a test for sex......look down. It is 100% accurate. You argue for inventing a right that does not exist and has never existed and that would inarguably deny the vast majority of people an actual, existing, basic right.

That is the sum of our disagreement. My position on this is not anti-trans. It is pro-human rights. Your position is anti-rights and pro-entitlement.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Going by some of their explanations of what trans can mean, I could easily consider myself transgender. I bet you can too!

I'm pretty gender non-conforming myself, and always have been. I think gender stereotypes are downright dumb, and I feel no obligation to conform to them. I don't currently have any dysphoria with regard to my physical body... but I certain have a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness with how society treats me as a result of how they expect me to behave based on a sex that I didn't choose.

As far as I can tell, I'm pretty sure I fully qualify 100% as non-binary.

 

[Emily's Cat]

No.

The point of principle which wholly underpins everything is this:

It is actually fundamentally impossible for a person a) to consider themselves to be pro-trans-rights, while simultaneously b) taking an unequivocal & absolute position that transmen should not be allowed to use the men's changing rooms

If the entirety of your concept of rights is that a subset of the population that speaks the magic words gets the privilege to *choose* which services they want whenever they want, and the rest of us don't... I think your entire concept of "rights" is fundamentally flawed.

I'll also reiterate again...

Changing rooms are the least of my concerns.

Do you care to address any of the other issues that I've raised? Or do you want to continue harping on this one non-right that you wish to grant as a special entitlement to a subset of intersectionally privileged people?

 

[Emily's Cat]

You've just grafted on the postulate that these sorts of binary-selected communal changing rooms must be segregated on a biological sex basis, rather than a gender basis.

You know, call me crazy, but it really does seem like segregation, where it is warranted, should be based on an objective fact of existence, rather than on a personal perception that is unverifiable and cannot be challenged in any way.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Honestly the most interesting thing about this is LJ's tacit agreement that his pro-trans position is necessarily misogynistic.

Depends. If one considers transwomen to be meaningfully women, then being pro-trans-woman might be lawyered into being "not misogynistic" by dint of completely ignoring the reality of biological sex.

Of course, that's up there with claiming that women in Iran are subjugated because of their personal, internal ;identity' as 'women' instead of on the basis of their biology, and that a massive number of fetuses were aborted in China as a result of their parents being able to infer their gender identities while they were in the room, and that the young girls in Africa being mutilated by having their clitorises removed and their vaginal openings sewn shut are only being subjected to that because of how they present themselves...

 

[Emily's Cat]

Transgender people a) should have civil rights which are as close to equality as possible with cisgender people; and b) should be provided with adequate protection against discrimination (over a wide spectrum).

What you seem to be arguing for is the the desires of some people should override the consent of others.

 

[theprestige]

If we substitute in what the author actually means

Any argument that depends on man explaining to a woman that he knows better than she does what she means is an automatic, bigoted, fail.

 

[d4m10n]

One is discrimination; the other is not.

Both approaches require discriminating between two groups of people.

 

[Collin237]

This particular bill* includes legislative findings that there are substantial medical risks associated with transitioning minors, and then concludes from this that the state should prohibit the practice. Absent in the bill is any discussion of mitigating factors or exceptions where the expected benefit outweighs the risk. I guess that counts as "cherry picking"?

Regardless, the way I see it, the burden is on LJ, ST, and other trans-activists to:
- either acknowledge the risks or debunk them; and
- if acknowledging the risks, provide credible scientific support for the existence of exceptions where the procedures should be carried out in spite of the risks.

Obviously if the risks are debunked, then the bill should be scrapped.

On the other hand, if the risks are real, then the bill should probably be amended to provide for legal exceptions where medically necessary (assuming such medical necessity actually exists).

---
*PDF linked on previous page of this thread; let me know if you want me to link it again.

The U.S. Republican Party has no credibility in scientific issues, and is well-known for providing fake science to support its claims. We do not have to jump through hoops to explain why we reject their claim to have a bill based on science. If anything in the bill makes sense, we'll believe it when we hear it from an accredited source.

Skeptics would expect no less from a bill about other topics that rattle the GOP, such as climate mitigation or paleontology textbooks.

 

[Collin237]

If the entirety of your concept of rights is that a subset of the population that speaks the magic words gets the privilege to *choose* which services they want whenever they want, and the rest of us don't... I think your entire concept of "rights" is fundamentally flawed.

I'll also reiterate again...

Changing rooms are the least of my concerns.

Do you care to address any of the other issues that I've raised? Or do you want to continue harping on this one non-right that you wish to grant as a special entitlement to a subset of intersectionally privileged people?

If you're non-binary, and you're really concerned about trans people abusing women, then you have to deal with these issues from the inside. That means getting rid of your oikophobia and accepting who you are.

 

[theprestige]

The U.S. Republican Party has no credibility in scientific issues, and is well-known for providing fake science to support its claims. We do not have to jump through hoops to explain why we reject their claim to have a bill based on science. If anything in the bill makes sense, we'll believe it when we hear it from an accredited source.

Skeptics would expect no less from a bill about other topics that rattle the GOP, such as climate mitigation or paleontology textbooks.

Ad hominem is a logical fallacy. Find a better excuse.