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

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theprestige said:
And I question the whole premise that we've recently discovered something objectively (scientifically) true about gender that was unknown to the ancients and changes everything we thought we knew about it.
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Chesterton's fence. They weren't stupid, they did things for a reason. Some of those reasons no longer apply, and some of those reasons were bad reasons. But it wasn't ignorance.
 
theprestige said:
I would say that modern feminist writing is drawing a conclusion about gender from the same basis of understanding as the ancients, though not necessarily the same conclusions they drew.
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Seems rather unlikely to me. Ancient societies did not have access to the same wealth of knowledge as we do today.

I don't know what you mean with "drawing a conclusion about gender".

I'm saying I wouldn't be surprised of their approach to the question was, as a society, functionally similar to ours, regardless of the terms they used.
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Which question?

And I question the whole premise that we've recently discovered something objectively (scientifically) true about gender that was unknown to the ancients and changes everything we thought we knew about it.
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Kind of the point is that there is nothing at all objectively (scientifically) true about gender, that it is entirely a social construct. I don't think many ancient societies -- many of which had very rigid gender roles -- appreciated that fact.

Modern "science" seems to be more concerned with denying the biological reality, or imagining that gender roles in society can and should be entirely decoupled from it.
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If some things cannot entirely be decoupled from biological reality, they are not "gender roles".

Up to and including gender roles that are entirely and directly based on that biological reality. Competitive sports leagues, for example.
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Men's and women's sports classes are not gender roles. They are directly based on (an incomplete and problematic) binary classification of biological reality.

Do you have any (non-wikipedia) citations of scientific literature that describes what rights transsexuals are entitled to, that they don't already enjoy?
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Scientific literature doesn't deal with moral rights. Just because someone has a right according to the letter of the law doesn't mean they enjoy that right equally to others. See post #3075.
 
Earthborn said:
I don't think people 4000 years ago had access to the feminist writing developed in the past few decades, so they do not have the same basis for understanding gender.
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"Understanding gender" isn't like "understanding black holes". If gender is a social construct then there's nothing to understand, as it's all a matter of definitions.
 
Earthborn said:
Seems rather unlikely to me. Ancient societies did not have access to the same wealth of knowledge as we do today.
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I think they had enough knowledge about sex and gender to think about them and make informed decisions about how their society should handle them.

I don't know what you mean with "drawing a conclusion about gender".
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Make an informed decision about how to construct gender in society.

Kind of the point is that there is nothing at all objectively (scientifically) true about gender, that it is entirely a social construct. I don't think many ancient societies -- many of which had very rigid gender roles -- appreciated that fact.
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I think they did appreciate true facts about sex and made decisions about gender roles based on their appreciation of the facts. Maybe not always the same decisions we would make, but that's a different matter.

If some things cannot entirely be decoupled from biological reality, they are not "gender roles".

Men's and women's sports classes are not gender roles.
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I disagree, but see no point in re-hashing this.

They are directly based on (an incomplete and problematic) binary classification of biological reality.
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And here I think you are being much less scientific than the ancients.

Scientific literature doesn't deal with moral rights. Just because someone has a right according to the letter of the law doesn't mean they enjoy that right equally to others. See post #3075.
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Fair enough. I retract the claim.

What specific rights do you think transgenders should enjoy, that they do not currently enjoy according to the letter of the law?

(I'm not asking what rights they enjoy under the law but are deprived of by bigots in reality.)
 
In the UK, YouGov did a poll asking whether people wanted gender neutral toilets. The vast majority of people wanted to retain sex-segregated bathrooms, although many were happy to have a gender neutral option alongside sex-segregated loos.

Only 4% of females support replacing sex-segregated restrooms with gender neutral ones, and only 9% of males.

It seems to be pretty clear: females don't want males in their restrooms, and males don't want females in theirs.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/philosophy/trackers/support-for-separate-toilets-for-men-and-women-and-gender-neutral-toilets-in-public-spaces
 
Belz... said:
"Understanding gender" isn't like "understanding black holes". If gender is a social construct then there's nothing to understand, as it's all a matter of definitions.
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Exactly.

I'd go one step further and say that if gender is a social construct, then the ancients are just as capable of understanding it and making informed decisions about it as the moderns.

I feel like this point bears repeating: The ancients are identical to the moderns. Humans four or five thousand years ago are not stupid. They are no more likely to be confused by effeminacy than we are, even if they construct a different social role for it than we might.

The *only* major difference in cognition between the ancients and the moderns is the body of scientific knowledge available from centuries of scientific inquiry into the physical world. So an ancient probably couldn't tell you sod all about black holes or positrons. But they'd be just as quick to grasp the ideas as any modern layman, once you started explaining them.

A Babylonian satrap isn't going to say, "I see what you mean about steam engines and electricity, but by Marduk! A man in drag makes no sense at all!"
 
theprestige said:
I think they had enough knowledge about sex and gender to think about them and make informed decisions about how their society should handle them.
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About the only really significant change in that regard is contraception. We've got technology now that they didn't have available then. But it's not like most of us know how to actually MAKE a birth control pill, we just buy it at the store. No pharmacy in 1000 BC, no birth control pill, even if you know one will eventually be invented.
 
Fascists and transphobes hold joint anti-trans rally outside of a Korean spa that has a policy of trans inclusion.

This has become a flashpoint after a transphobic woman made a video harassing the staff of the spa because they do not discriminate against trans individuals using the facilities.

Lots of violence as the fascists and transphobes clash with counterprotestors.

Here a proud boy sneaks up on a marked member of the press and beats him in the back of the head with a metal pipe. Fortunately he is wearing a helmet.

https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1411415154621771779?s=19

Reports that a transphobe also stabbed someone before the anti trans rally was dispersed.
 
I look at it as

male or female is the hardware, you are that thing.

gender is like software, it runs on top of the hardware, be whatever you want to be.

you're either amd or intel though when you check the hardware,
oh unless you're cyrix.
 
Case of friendly fire at the anti-trans rally in California.

A transphobe was stabbed in the arm by a Proud Boy when she attempted to help the man up from the ground during a fray with anti-fascist protestors. Fascists and transphobes were holding a rally outside a Korean spa that became famous after a woman made a video berating their staff about their trans-inclusive policies.

A metaphor that might be more broadly instructive.

https://twitter.com/VPS_Reports/status/1412225724862263298
 
Daughter of anti-gay, anti-trans ADF legal advocacy group gave testimoney last year about how unfair it was that her team lost a match against a team with a transwoman as a player in order to justify an anti-trans law.

Turns out it was just a ciswoman with short hair.

When pressed for details about the game, an ADF spokesperson said in an email, “The widespread understanding on the team – including the coach, parents, and players – was that the athlete was male.”

LaDrigue guesses the suspicion fell on the team’s catcher, his daughter, because she has short hair.
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https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/06/30/transgender-sports-bans-pushed-conservatives-citing-untrue-claims/5152134001/

TERFs must be kidding themselves if they think the anti-trans animus behind the current legislative push isn't going to have blowback on cis-women as well.

Penis inspection day, coming to a girl's locker room near you!
 
Emily's Cat said:
In the UK, YouGov did a poll asking whether people wanted gender neutral toilets. The vast majority of people wanted to retain sex-segregated bathrooms, although many were happy to have a gender neutral option alongside sex-segregated loos.

Only 4% of females support replacing sex-segregated restrooms with gender neutral ones, and only 9% of males.

It seems to be pretty clear: females don't want males in their restrooms, and males don't want females in theirs.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/philosophy/trackers/support-for-separate-toilets-for-men-and-women-and-gender-neutral-toilets-in-public-spaces
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The survey asked about women and men, not male and female.
Edited by Darat: 
Rule 12 removed.
 
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Imagine my shock, anti-trans panic built around a false incident.

Alleged Trans incident at upscale LA Spa may have been staged

There is increasing doubt among law enforcement and staff at the Wi Spa whether there was ever was a transgender person there to begin with. Anonymous sources within the LAPD tell the Blade they have been unable to find any corroborating evidence that there was a transgender person present on that day.
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https://www.losangelesblade.com/2021/07/07/alleged-trans-incident-at-upscale-la-spa-may-have-been-staged/
 
Emily's Cat said:
In the UK, YouGov did a poll asking whether people wanted gender neutral toilets. The vast majority of people wanted to retain sex-segregated bathrooms, although many were happy to have a gender neutral option alongside sex-segregated loos.

Only 4% of females support replacing sex-segregated restrooms with gender neutral ones, and only 9% of males.

It seems to be pretty clear: females don't want males in their restrooms, and males don't want females in theirs.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/philosophy/trackers/support-for-separate-toilets-for-men-and-women-and-gender-neutral-toilets-in-public-spaces
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There's the potential to run into trouble relying too much on opinion surveys in a case like this. There are times when majority opinion should decide an issue and times when it should not.

To make a hypothetical, I suspect if you asked the same two groups whether they want to share the restroom with trans women, you would get low percentages for both. Would that mean they belong in neither?
 
gnome said:
There's the potential to run into trouble relying too much on opinion surveys in a case like this. There are times when majority opinion should decide an issue and times when it should not.

To make a hypothetical, I suspect if you asked the same two groups whether they want to share the restroom with trans women, you would get low percentages for both. Would that mean they belong in neither?
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Surveys are indeed a bad way to decide these things, and not simply because of the problems of majority rule. There's also the problem of how the surveys are framed. For example, I think the question you posed, whether people want to share restrooms with trans women, is a badly framed one. I think there's a major difference between people's opinions of sharing a restroom with a transwoman with a penis, and a transwoman without a penis. If you really want to know what people think, you should make that distinction in your questions, because people care about it.

Plus, I also suspect you're wrong. I don't think most men really care about sharing a restroom with a transwoman, penis or not. And even to the extent that they might, I doubt they feel as strongly about it as women do about sharing a restroom with a transwoman with a penis. Which is another problem with your framing of the survey question.
 
I'll agree on those weaknesses in my hypothetical question.

I hope I can say that my point survives--that majority opinion of welcomeness is problematic as the main way to decide the rules. That opinion can be based on irrational or even completely unjust basis, an obvious case being racially segregated bathrooms of the past.

Before anyone argues that it's not the same thing, I agree it isn't--the analogy I make there is to point out that majority opinion can be just wrong.
 
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