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

[theprestige]

And, not to open this can of worms, but pro-segregationist were really big on white women being protected from black men so... there's a parallel there.

... Sort of. Segregationists were singling out black men for special treatment because of their race. Their justification was explicitly racist in nature. This is not parallel to segregating all men from all women to protect women from men. It's not parallel because race and sex are not parallel.

But really, this point has already been raised and addressed more than once. It's less about opening a can of worms, and more about catering to a fringe reset. We shouldn't cater to a fringe reset. We should call it out and move on.

 

[Meadmaker]

In the case of sports:

In the case of locker rooms:

In the case of bathrooms:

I want to add something to this post, but I don't want to use the usual ETA: form, because it is several posts old.


To repeat a previous point: A huge obstacle to discussion in these threads is that the phrase "transgender" is used to describe everyone from someone who thinks they are a specific gender today, but they are gender fluid so they might be a different gender tomorrow, all the way to someone who has undergone complete surgical transformation.

Most of us on the "anti-trans" side (which, none of us really are, but whatever), would treat those situations differently.

I'm not going to do it myself, but it would be interesting to have a thread where we discuss transsexual issues, rather than transgender issues, with some discussion in the thread around the question of exactly how much hormone treatment or intention to surgicallly transition should be required before being treated as someone of the opposite sex.

 

[JoeMorgue]

To repeat a previous point: A huge obstacle to discussion in these threads is that the phrase "transgender" is used to describe everyone from someone who thinks they are a specific gender today, but they are gender fluid so they might be a different gender tomorrow, all the way to someone who has undergone complete surgical transformation.

That's why the whole "It's yes or no" argument falls flat.

What being gay or black means is a LOT clearer than what being trans means.

 

[Elaedith]

No one is against denying trans people the same rights as other people.

In fact, whenever prompted, activists become VERY silent when they have to name rights that trans people don't have.

To be fair, that the gay marriage example does require a little more examination. The argument is that if everyone had the right to marry somebody of the opposite sex, regardless of their sexual orientation, then it appeared that everyone was being treated equally but in practice they were not. For gay people, this right was of little or no use to them, because if they could only marry someone of the sex they were not sexually/romantically attracted to, they could not participate on an equal basis in the institution of marriage in a way that meets the purpose for which it is generally intended and used in a modern Western society.

In using this as an analogy to the situation of people who identify as transgender being able to access facilities intended for the other biological sex, there are a few shortcomings. The key one is that where we consider it appropriate to segregate by sex, in no case is the purpose of that segregation to validate the gender identity of those using the facility (or engaging in the activity). Even more so when gender identity is meant to be on a spectrum between masculine and feminine, so any facility could contain people with varying gender identities. Therefore, having a particular gender identity does not inherently prevent anyone using a facility for its intended purpose.

Furthermore, allowing gay marriage does not in any way interfere with straight people being able to have an opposite sex marriage. In contrast, changing facilities from segregation by sex to segregation by self-declared gender changes those facilities for everyone. If the purpose of the segregation is to ensure safety and privacy from the opposite sex (especially important for women) then removing the right for women to object to the presence of males (who must be assumed to be women regardless of appearance) in changing rooms does interfere with women using these facilities for the purpose for which they are intended. Nobody has produced a rational argument as to why it is more important to restructure facilities to allow one group to use them for a purpose for which they were not intended, at the expense of another group being hindered in using them for their intended purpose. None of the so called analogies are actually analogous to this.

If a transgender person has medically transitioned or does not present as their biological sex, that is a stronger argument for saying they can’t be expected to use the facility for their biological sex (because they could be perceived as using the wrong facility, subjected to harassment etc). But that isn’t what the argument is about. It is not about making an accommodation for people with a rare characteristic. It’s about restructuring aspects of society to conform to an ideology (that subjective gender identity trumps biological sex). But nobody ever advances any rational evidence-based argument to support this, because there isn’t one.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

To be fair, that the gay marriage example does require a little more examination. The argument is that if everyone had the right to marry somebody of the opposite sex, regardless of their sexual orientation, then it appeared that everyone was being treated equally but in practice they were not. For gay people, this right was of little or no use to them, because if they could only marry someone of the sex they were not sexually/romantically attracted to, they could not participate on an equal basis in the institution of marriage in a way that meets the purpose for which it is generally intended and used in a modern Western society.

In using this as an analogy to the situation of people who identify as transgender being able to access facilities intended for the other biological sex, there are a few shortcomings. The key one is that where we consider it appropriate to segregate by sex, in no case is the purpose of that segregation to validate the gender identity of those using the facility (or engaging in the activity). Even more so when gender identity is meant to be on a spectrum between masculine and feminine, so any facility could contain people with varying gender identities. Therefore, having a particular gender identity does not inherently prevent anyone using a facility for its intended purpose.

Furthermore, allowing gay marriage does not in any way interfere with straight people being able to have an opposite sex marriage. In contrast, changing facilities from segregation by sex to segregation by self-declared gender changes those facilities for everyone. If the purpose of the segregation is to ensure safety and privacy from the opposite sex (especially important for women) then removing the right for women to object to the presence of males (who must be assumed to be women regardless of appearance) in changing rooms does interfere with women using these facilities for the purpose for which they are intended. Nobody has produced a rational argument as to why it is more important to restructure facilities to allow one group to use them for a purpose for which they were not intended, at the expense of another group being hindered in using them for their intended purpose. None of the so called analogies are actually analogous to this.

If a transgender person has medically transitioned or does not present as their biological sex, that is a stronger argument for saying they can’t be expected to use the facility for their biological sex (because they could be perceived as using the wrong facility, subjected to harassment etc). But that isn’t what the argument is about. It is not about making an accommodation for people with a rare characteristic. It’s about restructuring aspects of society to conform to an ideology (that subjective gender identity trumps biological sex). But nobody ever advances any rational evidence-based argument to support this, because there isn’t one.

Homophobes at the time absolutely claimed that allowing gay marriage to be lawful would cheapen the value of heterosexual marriage, thus causing direct loss for heterosexual people. The suggestion of "civil unions" was offered for exactly this reason, to keep the filthy gays from sullying the dignity of real marriage.

Similar intangibles are often cited by those opposing trans rights.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In using this as an analogy to the situation of people who identify as transgender being able to access facilities intended for the other biological sex, there are a few shortcomings. The key one is that where we consider it appropriate to segregate by sex, in no case is the purpose of that segregation to validate the gender identity of those using the facility (or engaging in the activity).

Hence why women shouldn't freak out if some bearded trans guy walks in, that is the place he is required to use after all.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Homophobes at the time absolutely claimed that allowing gay marriage to be lawful would cheapen the value of heterosexual marriage, thus causing direct loss for heterosexual people. The suggestion of "civil unions" was offered for exactly this reason, to keep the filthy gays from sullying the dignity of real marriage.

Similar intangibles are often cited by those opposing trans rights.

Yeah and nobody suggested only allowing a select group of special self identified gay people to get married.

You're picking and choosing which parts of the parallel to pay attention to maintain you're "I'm right because the flow of history is on my side" narrative.

 

[sarge]

Homophobes at the time absolutely claimed that allowing gay marriage to be lawful would cheapen the value of heterosexual marriage, thus causing direct loss for heterosexual people. The suggestion of "civil unions" was offered for exactly this reason, to keep the filthy gays from sullying the dignity of real marriage.

Similar intangibles are often cited by those opposing trans rights.

There is not one person in this thread opposing trans rights. You are making it up.

 

[ponderingturtle]

There is not one person in this thread opposing trans rights. You are making it up.

Merely using denigrating language and intentionally misgendering people of course is in no way anti trans in your view of course.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

There is not one person in this thread opposing trans rights. You are making it up.

I never claimed there were. Although, overt bigotry against trans people is very much on topic, as it clearly is the animating force behind much of the anti-trans legislation on the horizon in the US and in the UK, the TERF stronghold.

Even if I personally thought members of this forum were overt bigots, this is not an avenue of discussion that the MA really allows to proceed.

I would suggest you reconsider such broad statements considering the moderation history of this thread, which recently went through quite a spell of overtly hostile anti-trans sentiments that caused the thread to be locked. Yellow cards abounded.

 

[Olmstead]

Hence why women shouldn't freak out if some bearded trans guy walks in, that is the place he is required to use after all.

What about a bearded transwoman?

The only consistent position is that sex segregation is wrong.

 

[ponderingturtle]

What about a bearded transwoman?

The only consistent position is that sex segregation is wrong.

What about a bearded cis woman?

 

[JoeMorgue]

The only consistent position is that sex segregation is wrong.

Yeah but that denies women their safe spaces from men, so we're just trade transphobia for misogyny.

That's why the chest puffing "This is a civil rights issue and the side I represent is an oppressed minority so I'm right by default" routine is so pointless. The other side can do it to with exactly equal validity. I'm not scared or impressed.

 

[Olmstead]

What about a bearded cis woman?

Exactly, so sex segregation is wrong.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This is untrue. The transwoman was in a sauna, which was a secluded area off-limits to the group that was permitted to use the swimming facilities. The narrative peddled by the bigots at the ADF, that this trans woman was deliberately strutting about to show off her genitalia to children, is a total fiction meant only to drum up hatred against trans people.

It's not untrue. There was an exposed penis in the ladies' locker room, and teenage female humans saw said penis. Whether the allegation is that the penis was in a sauna where the teenage female humans weren't supposed to be is quite irrelevant. At the end of the day, there was a person with a penis in the ladies' shower room... and the LAW decided that teenage female humans do not have a right to refuse to consent to be exposed to a penis. There is - and continues to be - no requirement that Brenna keep their penis covered and out of sight. According to the legal interpretation in WA, it would be completely legal for Brenna to strut around exposing their penis to teenage female humans.

You perceive and frame this as if the only possible reason that teenage female humans and their parents could possibly object to having a penis in the room where they are naked is because of hatred. I think that's a very short-sighted and anti-female position. What you seem determined to pretend not to understand is that the law, in this case, has effectively made it LEGAL for a person with a penis to FLASH teenage female humans AGAINST THEIR WILL AND WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT... as long as said person with a penis has made a claim to be "a woman".

The fact that you continue to frame the entire teenage human female swim team as consisting of nothing but bigots demonstrates a complete disregard for the safety and dignity of females overall.

It should be known that the girls swim team was the guest of Evergreen college, meanwhile the transwoman being harassed was a student at the university. Seems pretty clear to me that a student of a college should get more accommodation than some unrelated swim club that rents time from the college.

Allowing these guests to use another locker room was a very measured solution from the college. Outright revoking the high school swim team's access, in response to a harassment campaign against a trans student of the university, would have been well within their rights.

I do find it rather interesting that you consider it a "harassment campaign" that teenage female humans did not want to be in the presence of a penis-bearing person without their express consent.

I also find it interesting that you have excused and dismissed intentional purposeful activity by transgender people and their allies taken against human females, which involve slandering said females, threatening them with rape and death, doxxing them, and following them around both in social media spaces and in real life as somehow not being "harassments" at all.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Transgender people identify as a different gender, not sex (the clue is in the name "transgender"). And it's now agreed by the experts that gender is different from sex.

Which experts? What are their qualifications and experience that make them relevant experts? Can you provide a quote from these experts saying explicitly what you are claiming?

In the view of the world's accredited experts in the relevant fields, and to paraphrase this thread's title: transwomen are women (and transmen are men)

Which experts, and what accreditations? Is their expertise relevant? Are their accreditations relevant? Can you provide a quote of these experts expressing the sentiment that you claim they hold?

 

[Olmstead]

We had this wonderful system with blue people on one side and pink people on the other, and everyone was fine with it. But then some blue people decided they were actually pink, and some pink people decided they were blue, and that just threw a spanner into everything. Now we have to confront uncomfortable questions, like why don't we imprison pink and blue people together. Because blue people will rape pink people. Well, bugger.

 

[Distracted1]

To be fair, that the gay marriage example does require a little more examination. The argument is that if everyone had the right to marry somebody of the opposite sex, regardless of their sexual orientation, then it appeared that everyone was being treated equally but in practice they were not. For gay people, this right was of little or no use to them, because if they could only marry someone of the sex they were not sexually/romantically attracted to, they could not participate on an equal basis in the institution of marriage in a way that meets the purpose for which it is generally intended and used in a modern Western society.

In using this as an analogy to the situation of people who identify as transgender being able to access facilities intended for the other biological sex, there are a few shortcomings. The key one is that where we consider it appropriate to segregate by sex, in no case is the purpose of that segregation to validate the gender identity of those using the facility (or engaging in the activity). Even more so when gender identity is meant to be on a spectrum between masculine and feminine, so any facility could contain people with varying gender identities. Therefore, having a particular gender identity does not inherently prevent anyone using a facility for its intended purpose.

Furthermore, allowing gay marriage does not in any way interfere with straight people being able to have an opposite sex marriage. In contrast, changing facilities from segregation by sex to segregation by self-declared gender changes those facilities for everyone. If the purpose of the segregation is to ensure safety and privacy from the opposite sex (especially important for women) then removing the right for women to object to the presence of males (who must be assumed to be women regardless of appearance) in changing rooms does interfere with women using these facilities for the purpose for which they are intended. Nobody has produced a rational argument as to why it is more important to restructure facilities to allow one group to use them for a purpose for which they were not intended, at the expense of another group being hindered in using them for their intended purpose. None of the so called analogies are actually analogous to this.

If a transgender person has medically transitioned or does not present as their biological sex, that is a stronger argument for saying they can’t be expected to use the facility for their biological sex (because they could be perceived as using the wrong facility, subjected to harassment etc). But that isn’t what the argument is about. It is not about making an accommodation for people with a rare characteristic. It’s about restructuring aspects of society to conform to an ideology (that subjective gender identity trumps biological sex). But nobody ever advances any rational evidence-based argument to support this, because there isn’t one.

Important point.

 

[JoeMorgue]

We had this wonderful system with blue people on one side and pink people on the other, and everyone was fine with it. But then some blue people decided they were actually pink, and some pink people decided they were blue, and that just threw a spanner into everything. Now we have to confront uncomfortable questions, like why don't we imprison pink and blue people together. Because blue people will rape pink people. Well, bugger.

This is the closest anyone's actually come to the whole "Explain it without using the words" thing I keep asking for.

I'd love (no snark, no ulterior motive) the... aggressively pro-trans and aggressively pro-female safe space sides to explain me their solutions to the problem using that language.

 

[ponderingturtle]

It's not untrue. There was an exposed penis in the ladies' locker room, and teenage female humans saw said penis. Whether the allegation is that the penis was in a sauna where the teenage female humans weren't supposed to be is quite irrelevant. At the end of the day, there was a person with a penis in the ladies' shower room... and the LAW decided that teenage female humans do not have a right to refuse to consent to be exposed to a penis. There is - and continues to be - no requirement that Brenna keep their penis covered and out of sight. According to the legal interpretation in WA, it would be completely legal for Brenna to strut around exposing their penis to teenage female humans.

Why isn't a penis, especially a gay penis the same kind of existential threat to teenage male humans? It is clearly very threatening but why is its threat so focused?