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

[Distracted1]

Basically, identifying as some gender other than the one 'assigned' to you on the basis of your sex.

It used to be that if you rejected gender roles associated with your sex and stereotypes of masculine or feminine traits, you were just gender nonconforming. If you had persistent gender dysphoria you might transition (socially and/or medically) to cope with it. Otherwise you were just gender nonconforming and expressing this helped to break down the rigidity of stereotypes and sex roles.

Now if you are female, describe yourself as a woman, and use female pronouns, you are stating that you identify as feminine (and since gender is often defined as socially constructed roles, that you accept the feminine role). This return to saying that women who are not feminine are not women and men who are not masculine are not men is apparently 'progressive'.

That is edifying, but not the crux of the question.
Although, I am heartened to see "masculine" and "feminine" being re-introduced into the discussion, as they seem to be the words that many seem to be substituting "men, female, woman, and male" for.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I'm very grateful for you and Rolfe's insights. As I said, being a male and having grown up and worked in a partiularily liberal and moderate environment, my experiences seem very different from what you and others describe, particularily in the US.

The above really hit me. I've often said that trans activists are rarely trans and that they are speaking for a group of people who may not even agree with their views. But I had not considered it from the female perspective. Now that you say that, it really does seem like two groups of men arguing over the fate of women while often ignoring them entirely.

The vast majority of anyone speaking on the issue is not actually trans, given they are such a small portion of the population. Considering the last openly trans contributor was met with a torrent of personal attacks and MA breaking behavior, I trust you understand why some may be reticent to expose themselves to the slings and barbs of overt hostility of bigotry.

 

[Meadmaker]

Meadmaker, you really need to add a couple of "/s" bits in there. I'm not sure that Distracted1 will catch that you're not serious. It's too close to the actual serious arguments that have been made in this thread.

But I am serious.

Let me clarify.

I am using the vocabulary that has been declared to be "correct", for the modern world. Gender exists independently of sex. Male and female describe sex. Masculine, feminine, man, woman, boy, and girl, are associated with gender.

Based on that vocabulary, I think that men's and women's sports leagues should be renamed "male" and "female" sports leagues, and I think it is clear and obvious that it should be so.

The same is true for male and female locker rooms, but it isn't quite as clear and obvious, and I haven't given my own lengthy explanation as to why it should be so. Someday.

As everyone who has followed these threads knows, I'm not all that keen on actually using the vocabulary, and I certainly don't use it in the real world, but that's the vocabulary, and I'm using it here, at least for now.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It is essentialism to observe that the process sexual reproduction involves two distinct types of sex cells?

Nobody denies this. The biological essentialism is when people assume the observable reality of sexual dichotomy must have profound societal and political implications overriding all other concerns.

 

[Meadmaker]

I find it hard to believe that kind of deliberate and obvious obfuscation is not an attempt to cover an attempt to pull an Orwell.

Newspeak.

 

[Meadmaker]

Well I never thought about this issue.

https://fox40.com/news/local-news/l...s-pushback-from-female-correctional-officers/

This is the kind of thing Emily's Cat has been talking about, but from a different perspective.


Summary: If males are being housed in female prisons, who performs strip searches on inmates?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Exactly. Your way or the highway.

Well, there's always the option of the overtly bigoted route, such as those that seem to be ascendant politically right now. Something tells me the pearl clutching "moderates" are much closer to the reactionary right than anything close to recognizing the dignity and civil rights of trans people.

Scratch a liberal and a reactionary bleeds.

 

[Paul2]

I'm a damn jar solutioner! My mother back in the day and now my wife regularily ask me to open these things. They'll struggle forever while making no headway, and ask me, a weak man with serious wrist issues, to help out, and then I usually just pop the top off without any problem, much to their frustration. Sometimes I just muse that they actually did much of the work but gave up before they'd have succeeded.

Can't resist this derail: open up the pickle jar before you put it in the fridge, it'll make opening it a lot easier. Then close it back up again. The factory closing of the lid is tougher than how you close it back up.

 

[Elaedith]

I'd say the crucial part of what you wrote is the word, "should." That's different from *is* (not there); that is, it's different from saying the arm is not there, which is clearly a delusion. Saying the arm shouldn't be there is a statement about preference.

Perhaps you could re-phrase your point about "the arm should not be there" to take care of this objection, but I'll wait and not put words in your mouth.

People can have conditions where they can see an arm is there, but think that it shouldn't be (or that it doesn't belong to them). There is most likely a neurological explanation for this (it can occur with brain damage). It is still regarded as a delusion, but not associated with mental illness (often called a monothematic delusion).

Regarding gender dysphoria where there is dislike of one's genitals or other features associated with biological sex (which is not a requirement for diagnosis), I think there is still a very poor understanding of this. It could be a secondary consequence of the desire to be treated as the other sex in some cases, but it is also possible that there could be some additional factor that distinguishes it from dysphoria without bodily symptoms.

 

[p0lka]

I'm pretty sure that as long as there's a biological difference between the two sexes, there's going to be social constructs of gender based on those differences.

I'm hoping that the future historians would disagree.

 

[theprestige]

Well, first you have to make sure that you distinguish between gender and sex. I have adopted the official newspeak terminology, in which sex is about reproductive biology, and is described with the terms "male" and "female".

Gender, on the other hand, is a social construct related to masculine and feminine. I could look up the exact wording from a site LondonJohn posted some time back, but not everyone uses the exact same definition. However, it's a social construct, statistically correlated with biology, but not necessarily always matching in the same person.

"Gender identity" is an individuals own deeply held belief that that individual is of a specific gender. A "man" is an adult human that has a masculine gender identity.

That's why I could refer to a "male girl" and a "female girl". A "male girl" is a young person who has male reproductive biology, but has a feminine gender identity.



So, keeping in mind the previous definitions, a transgender identity is the identity of someone who has a feminine gender (i.e. is a girl or a woman), but has male reproductive biology, or who has a masculine gender (i.e. is a boy or a man), but has female reproductive biology.

I reject that newspeak.
For the purposes of my question, A "Man" is an adult human male, and a "Woman" an adult human female. A "Transman" is an woman "identifying" as a man, and a "transwoman" is a man identifying as a woman.

These terms are accepted, codified, understandable, and proper. Changing terms does not change reality- and conceding to changes in definitions only leads to ridiculous contortions that go nowhere- as the person asserting the change of definition is often actually asserting that the reality is what is different in a bait-and-switch.

That said.
When on is accused of "denying trans identity" are they being accused of denying that a transwoman is a woman? Or are they being accused of denying that a transwoman actually believes himself to be one?

Or can it be either?

I reject this entire line of discussion. We've been over this repeatedly. We all know where we stand. We all know that it's a trivial problem to overcome, for anyone actually interested in moving the discussion forward. Nobody is confused about what you're trying to say unless they want to be confused. Nobody is getting blocked by this unless they want to be blocked by this.

As far as I'm concerned, the only real question(s) left are the most important ones: What rights, for who, and why?

Half the reason we can't have a productive discussion is because ST, LJ, et al. refuse to discuss these few remaining questions.

The other half of the reason is, quite frankly, silly buggers. xjx just has to say "not all penises" every. single. time. EC just has to re-defend her shorthand every. single. time. You and Distracted have to re-hash this same tired point every couple days.

You want to have a productive discussion? Move on. Both LJ and ST have said they think there's productive discussion to be had about rights. So hold them to it. Press them, not each other, to discuss something substantive. Please. I'm begging you. Up your game.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Of course they are. Probably intersex, though, rather than male or female. (Assuming castrati remain relatively rare these days.)

Even intersex people are either male or female. They aren't "neither", nor are they "in between" or a "third sex". All mammals are either male or female. They might be infertile male or female, but still only one of the two.

 

[xjx388]

A delusion would be thinking that one is actually a woman (in the case of having male genitals), or that one is actually a baby when one is far past age or 4 or whatever, pick a number. That situation is not necessary for gender dysphoria (which, I apologize for, was implicit in my earlier post to which you replied, but I didn't make that explicit, so I am now). One can merely have the feeling - inextricable though it may be - that one's internal sense of gender doens't match one's genitalia without claiming that one is a woman, including having female genitals. In fact, the lack of a delusion is nearly required for gender dysphoria, because it relies on the realistic and non-delusional appraisal of what one's genitals are. Then the mismatch to one's internal sense of gender is recognized.

If a trans person says, "I am a trans woman which means I *am* a woman" and means it literally, not rhetorically, then what I said above may not apply, but I'm not prepared to get into that argument.

I'd say the crucial part of what you wrote is the word, "should." That's different from *is* (not there); that is, it's different from saying the arm is not there, which is clearly a delusion. Saying the arm shouldn't be there is a statement about preference.

Perhaps you could re-phrase your point about "the arm should not be there" to take care of this objection, but I'll wait and not put words in your mouth.

How about they either believe that their arm is not actually theirs, that they should have been born without an arm, that they should have been born paraplegic.

This is no different from saying, “I should have been born in a female body. This penis shouldn’t be here.”

I’m a little confused as to whether or not Trans people think their identity makes them actually the sex they think they are. Boudicca seems to think that she has a female penis.

So if Sam thinks she has a female penis, would you say Sam is delusional?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Basically, identifying as some gender other than the one 'assigned' to you on the basis of your sex.

It used to be that if you rejected gender roles associated with your sex and stereotypes of masculine or feminine traits, you were just gender nonconforming. If you had persistent gender dysphoria you might transition (socially and/or medically) to cope with it. Otherwise you were just gender nonconforming and expressing this helped to break down the rigidity of stereotypes and sex roles.

Now if you are female, describe yourself as a woman, and use female pronouns, you are stating that you identify as feminine (and since gender is often defined as socially constructed roles, that you accept the feminine role). This return to saying that women who are not feminine are not women and men who are not masculine are not men is apparently 'progressive'.

Sherkeu posted some "transgender umbrella" things a couple of days ago that really makes this point pretty clearly. At least one of the "These are all transgender" images included "feminine males" and "masculine females" as being transgender. It's regressive as all get out.

 

[d4m10n]

Some of us established back in Volume 1 that the entire concept is circular beyond all reason.

I am highly skeptical of this claim. There is a set of characteristics, mannerisms, and other forms of self-presentation which are expected of females, and another distinctly different set expected of males. (There is a much larger set expected of both males and females, but let's put that to one side for now.) To call one set "masculine" and another "feminine" is to simply put labels on what we've observed in the world.

Even intersex people are either male or female. They aren't "neither", nor are they "in between" or a "third sex". All mammals are either male or female. They might be infertile male or female, but still only one of the two.

I disagree. A friend of mine has the condition known as complete androgen insensitivity syndrome^WP which means she has always been perceived as phenotypically female despite having a handful of male characteristics (including genotype). There is no easy way to say she is either male or female, IMO.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The vast majority of anyone speaking on the issue is not actually trans, given they are such a small portion of the population. Considering the last openly trans contributor was met with a torrent of personal attacks and MA breaking behavior, I trust you understand why some may be reticent to expose themselves to the slings and barbs of overt hostility of bigotry.

No, they weren't met with a torrent of personal attacks and MA breaking behavior. There were only a couple of posts to or about them that got carded, and those were at the very end of several volumes, and only after they started insisting that they were biologically female. Which is just flat out false.

On the other hand, many of the female posters in this thread have been met with extremely uncivil behavior, insinuations of bigotry, called hysterical, and had our positions dismissed out of hand. We've been labeled, mocked, condescended to, and basically treated like crap. But somehow, that doesn't seem to rise to the level of "personal attacks" or rule breaking. That's just fine.

Using a pronoun that someone doesn't like, well that's unforgivable and literal violence. Calling female humans "birthing parents" and "bleeders" and "breeders" and "menstruators" and "cervix havers" and "people with uteruses"... that's not dehumanizing and insulting at all, right?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Nobody denies this. The biological essentialism is when people assume the observable reality of sexual dichotomy must have profound societal and political implications overriding all other concerns.

What the hell planet are you from? That sexual dichotomy DOES have profound social and political implications!

Or have you decided that females in Iran aren't allowed to physically touch males who aren't related to them, because of how they "identify"? And young female humans in Africa have their clitorises viciously removed and their vaginal openings sewn shut because that's how they "feel on the inside"? Do you think the young female humans who are abducted and literally sold into sexual slavery are only abducted because that's their "gender identity"?

FFS, sexual biology doesn't override everything all the time, but it's incensing that you repeatedly pretend like it doesn't have any affect at all. It's flagrant disregard for half the ******* population!

 

[xjx388]

I am highly skeptical of this claim. There is a set of characteristics, mannerisms, and other forms of self-presentation which are expected of females, and another distinctly different set expected of males. (There is a much larger set expected of both males and females, but let's put that to one side for now.) To call one set "masculine" and another "feminine" is to simply put labels on what we've observed in the world.

Stereotypes do have some basis in observation -speaking as a Mexican-American: yes, we do kinda like rice beans and piñatas- but it’s when we take the stereotypes as universal truths that they become problematic.

The big question is: is a behavior masculine or feminine because there’s some innate sexual component to behavior or because the society and cultural expectations shape behavior?

ETA: Take the child of a long line of Mexicans and have them raised in a Japanese household without any exposure to Mexican culture and I doubt the kid would have indescribable cravings for tortillas, beans and hitting piñatas.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Well I never thought about this issue.

https://fox40.com/news/local-news/l...s-pushback-from-female-correctional-officers/

This is the kind of thing Emily's Cat has been talking about, but from a different perspective.


Summary: If males are being housed in female prisons, who performs strip searches on inmates?

Yeah, that too.

There's a lot of the advocacy that is probably well-intentioned... but the net effect is to completely override female boundaries and remove our consent from situations.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Well, there's always the option of the overtly bigoted route, such as those that seem to be ascendant politically right now. Something tells me the pearl clutching "moderates" are much closer to the reactionary right than anything close to recognizing the dignity and civil rights of trans people.

Scratch a liberal and a reactionary bleeds.

Something tells me that your "something" is willful blindness to what other people actually say. The Arkansas bill is a bad bill, especially because it doesn't allow for reasonable exceptions. The other one (I forgot which state) is even worse. That is gross overreach of the government, and is not a reasonable response to the situation.

You seem inclined to "not see" the actual moderate responses and views, and rather you "assume" malicious intent and extremist views on your fellow posters. It's tiresome, and insulting.