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

[Emily's Cat]

School sports are a whole different can of worms. Unlike professional sports, which is competition solely for the sake of competition, school sports are ostensibly about education. As such, there are lots of requirements to ensure that school sports are reasonably accessible to all students, and discrimination on the basis of protected classes is explicitly illegal.

It's a huge mess of competing interests, including what's best for students, what's best for schools, the money making potential of popular sports, what fans and local communities want, federal law, and so on. It's a real mess.

I'm not sure that's accurate. PE is for education. High school sports are generally for competition, with the objective being participation at lower levels as well. But if you think high school sports are NOT about competition, I have to wonder whether you've been to high school.

High school sports aren't reasonably accessible to all students. They're actually accessible to a very small number of students who have the athletic capability as well as the time and dedication required. What you're asking for here isn't reasonable access - you're asking for a special entitlement that lets some male students compete against female students on the basis of their internal sense of self.

You're asking that a person's internal, unverifiable, subjective sense of gender override objective sex.

Why aren't you asking to allow people who identify as muscular to compete in wrestling, even if they're objectively fat and slow? Why is it only in this case - when it is females who are significantly disadvantaged - that a person's feelings and desire to be affirmed in their gender is raised above objective reality?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

And what gives you standing to critique a female perspective of sexual assault?

I have about as much standing to critique here as cis women have to critique the concerns that trans people have about their own safety and well being. Strange that in all these conversations about the uniquely high risk that women face, there's no mention of the overwhelming data that shows trans people face even more sexual violence, relationship abuse, social stigma, and mental health problems. I guess only some victims matter.

 

[Louden Wilde]

No. You're not assessing risk in a proper manner.

And indeed the actual statistics bear this out well. Simply put, just as our Japanese individual should be far more afraid about dying in a tsunami than in a nuclear explosion, so a ciswoman prisoner in E&W should be far more afraid about being sexually assaulted by another ciswoman prisoner than by a transwoman prisoner.

But 0% chance of impregnating them. All assaults are not equal. We've kept males out of female prisons and other spaces for reasons. The available data suggests that trans-identifying males (AKA TW) are just just as dangerous as other males. In some cases more so - they are the ones desperate to gain access to female only spaces, which could be seen as a red flag.

This whole ideology is built on nonsense - e.g. that a group of self-appointed males pose no threat to females, that one can change sex or that sex is a spectrum (or a social construct) , that gender/roles are more important than sex, that TW should be considered women in the same sense as black women (which is pretty much an impossibility).

 

[TurkeysGhost]

But 0% chance of impregnating them. All assaults are not equal. We've kept males out of female prisons and other spaces for reasons. The available data suggests that trans-identifying males (AKA TW) are just just as dangerous as other males. In some cases more so - they are the ones desperate to gain access to female only spaces, which could be seen as a red flag.

This whole ideology is built on nonsense - e.g. that a group of self-appointed males pose no threat to females, that one can change sex or that sex is a spectrum (or a social construct) , that gender/roles are more important than sex, that TW should be considered women in the same sense as black women (which is pretty much an impossibility).

So a sterile woman has less reason to be upset than a fertile one if she is forcibly raped?

Please break down to me which sexual assaults matter more than others. I am intrigued.

ETA: Here I was thinking affronts to bodily autonomy were inherently bad, but I guess I didn't realize a woman's reproductive capacity has a lot to do with to what extent she counts as a victim.

 

[LondonJohn]

LondonJohn - direct question here.

Do you believe that a declaration of transgender identity turns a male person into a female person?

I missed this one initially, but here you go:

Before I answer, I need to point out that terminology in this area is slightly complex and ambiguous, owing almost entirely to two factors:

1) historically (up until, say, 70 years ago) there was never any need even to distinguish between gender and biological sex, since the two were inviolably linked in a one-to-one mapping (ie all males were men, and all females were women).

2) Even today, the majority of the population continue to regard (1) as true - this has important ramifications in the way in which such things as policy, legislation and law enforcement can be communicated.


So, having pointed that out, I'll next state that I personally use the definitions and distinctions which are typically used in the areas of medical science* and primary legislation (I've stated my position before in this thread, alongside examples of how/where these definitions & distinctions are used by such official bodies.


Now onto my definitions/distinctions (which, as I say, correspond to the definitions/distinctions used by those official public bodies). I use the terms "male" and "female" to refer to the immutable biological sex of a person. And I use "man" and "woman" to refer to the gender identity of a person. This therefore means that (for example) it's possible for someone to be a female who's a man; or for someone to be a male who's neither a man nor a woman.


So finally, to answer your question: under my definitions/distinctions, a declaration of transgender identity does not turn a female person into a male person (yes, transmen actually exist too - though anyone reading this thread might be forgiven for thinking they didn't.....).


Now, as I said at the start, the complications of historical understanding and current colloquial understanding mean that, when it comes to areas such as the framing of certain legislation and court guidelines, there is actually a genuine requirement to continue conflating "female" with "woman" (and "male" with "man"). And this means that it's a confusing minefield wrt these pieces of terminology. Which is why, for instance, it's just as much of a crime in progressive jurisdictions to knowingly mislabel a transman as "female" as it is to knowingly mislabel a transwoman as "man".


* Indeed, these are the definitions/distinctions that are employed in DSM5, whose recategorisation of transgender identity serves as the de facto and de jure foundation for legislation and public policy in ever-increasing numbers of progressive liberal democracies.

 

[Louden Wilde]

So a sterile woman has less reason to be upset than a fertile one if she is forcibly raped?

Please break down to me which sexual assaults matter more than others. I am intrigued.

You're not intrigued, you just don't care about female rights/or think sexism is not real or perhaps unimportant.

Males as a class can impregnate females. You know this. Moreover, they are physically much stronger. Females are often afraid of males as well (and rightly so), but I don't think you care about that either. I am baffled as to why you participate in this thread, in that you don't seem interested in discussion, and you deliberately try to antagonize people (e.g. by using the term TERF, which many females find offensive ).

If you have an argument that gender/self ID is more important than sex, we've yet to hear it.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Zero understanding of how youth athletics works.

High school sports is the training ground for future collegiate athletes. If young girls think it's a waste of time to compete in a sport because they allow anyone, regardless of biology, that avenue is now closed for them.

I have a feeling you understand this and are just being willfully obtuse. Women's athletics have grown immensely in my lifetime, and what you advocate for will send them back to obscurity.

A whole lot of the demands of trans activists set females back. Allowing male people who declare themselves to be women to be counted as female in political representation will further erode female representation in politics. Allowing male people who declare themselves to be women to be counted as female in business will erode female participation in the economy. Allowing male people who declare themselves to be female to have unquestioned access to female locker rooms is quite likely to make many females uncomfortable and prevent them from using those services altogether, which reduces female participation in society.

And that's all before we even consider the impact on victims and survivors of sexual assault, rape, and domestic violence who no longer have reasonable access to female-only services and female-only caregivers.

 

[theprestige]

So a sterile woman has less reason to be upset than a fertile one if she is forcibly raped?

She doesn't have reason to be upset about the risk of unwanted pregnancy, obviously. Does that answer your question?

 

[Louden Wilde]

She doesn't have reason to be upset about the risk of unwanted pregnancy, obviously. Does that answer your question?

Also note that many women don't know they are infertile until it comes to actively trying to get pregnant.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

She doesn't have reason to be upset about the risk of unwanted pregnancy, obviously. Does that answer your question?

Does that make the horrible violation of a rape any less traumatic?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You're not intrigued, you just don't care about female rights/or think sexism is not real or perhaps unimportant.

Males as a class can impregnate females. You know this. Moreover, they are physically much stronger. Females are often afraid of males as well (and rightly so), but I don't think you care about that either. I am baffled as to why you participate in this thread, in that you don't seem interested in discussion, and you deliberately try to antagonize people (e.g. by using the term TERF, which many females find offensive ).

If you have an argument that gender/self ID is more important than sex, we've yet to hear it.

Also note that many women don't know they are infertile until it comes to actively trying to get pregnant.

Dodge noted.

The biological essentialism that drips from this is frankly disgusting.

Edited by xjx388: 

<SNIP> Rule 12

 

[Meadmaker]

I am intrigued.

I doubt that.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You know what, maybe TERF is inappropriate.

I can't see how anyone that ranks a woman's rape trauma contingent on their fertility is any kind of feminist.

 

[theprestige]

Does that make the horrible violation of a rape any less traumatic?

Dodge noted.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Dodge noted.

I'm more of a Ford guy. HEMI's overrrated.

 

[theprestige]

I'm more of a Ford guy. HEMI's overrrated.

Dodge noted again.

 

[Meadmaker]

ST,

Your repeated attempts to nitpick and present questions asking women to compare various forms of sexual assault are in very bad taste.

This most recent diversion was born out of attempt to deny that men are a greater threat to women than vice versa, and they are also a greater threat than other women. This isn't a controversial statement.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Dodge noted again.

If you really want an answer, I can't see how fertility makes much of a difference at all in determining how much of a violation a forcible rape is.

Seems to me the primary damage of sexual assault is psychological, the violation of bodily autonomy and the forcing of unwanted vulnerability. It is no less heinous to forcibly rape a woman who's had a hysterectomy (or a trans person, or a man) than a person who could become pregnant.

I suppose people who see women as little more than walking reproductive parts might see it differently.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Well - and yes, I know this whole area is something of a hot potato - there logically can be no such thing as transgender identity (assuming one believes that this is a valid condition) without at least a small amount of gender dysphoria.

After all, if (eg) a person assigned "man" at birth comes to realise in their 20s that they are actually "woman", it's functionally impossible in practice for them not to experience at least some small level of gender dysphoria. There can be no transgender people whatsoever who a) have come to the discovery that their internalised gender is different from that which was assigned them at birth... who b) aren't in the slightest bothered by that rather fundamental dichotomy - irrespective of how they decide to proceed.

https://transequality.org/issues/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-transgender-people

Not all transgender people have gender dysphoria.

https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2019/1/18/do-you-need-gender-dysphoria-be-trans

However, as awareness about the trans community has grown, so too has the number of people who identify as transgender. Yet, as the community grows, more and more people who identity with the label of transgender have also found they haven’t ever felt any dysphoria at all. Instead they learned they were trans for a variety of political to social to emotional reasons.

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/is-suffering-from-gender-dysphoria-necessary-to-be-transgender-c6de811f89c

Being transgender is not defined by how traumatizing our gender and sex misalignment is, so it also should not be defined by whether we suffer from gender dysphoria either. Being transgender is simply having that incongruence between gender identity and biological sex. Therefore, you need not suffer from gender dysphoria to be transgender.

https://www.transhub.org.au/dysphoria

Am I still trans if I don’t get dysphoria?
The short answer: yes! While many trans people experience dysphoria, not all trans people do.

The trans community and their allies seem to disagree with you.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It is a principle widely agreed upon that competition for limited prizes should be fair.

Earlier you alluded to transwomen causing unfair competition in sports (you suggested maybe validating their identity was a more important goal for sports than fairness).

I think we can agree that losing out in a fair competition is substantially different from losing out in an unfair competition.

What we're missing from you is an explanation of why unfair competition in this case would be a better thing than fair competition.

It's better for the transperson, silly billy.

Whether or not it's better or worse for females is irrelevant. It matters only that it's better for the transgirl.

That's a fairly common theme in this discussion: What is good for the transperson, regardless of the negative effects on other people, or the magnitude of those effects.

Do females lose out be having their participation in athletics, politics, economics, and social life eroded? Irrelevant - it's good for the transwomen, that's all that matters.
Do gay and lesbian people lose out by having their participation in communities with the same orientation be eroded? Do they face increased harassment and vilification for not making themselves available to heterosexual partners for heterosexual sex? Who cares! It's good for the trans people to redefine sexual orientation to be "gender identity" orientation!