Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

[Boudicca90]

Are you saying Shupe's identity is up for debate?

Based on what he said, yep. He doesn't seem to be transgender or non-binary, but rather just a fetishist who wants some kind of reasoning behind it.

And then he was led down the 'gender-critical' sewage pipe by Blanchard and other frauds and now uses it as an excuse to try to delegitimize transgender identities as a whole.

I have some sympathy due to his apparent psychological issues, but he seems content to trying to harm the rest of us, and for that he can go to hell.

 

[lionking]

No. No it's not.

The analogy with astronomy/astrology would be if the world's expert astronomers revisited their opinion on astrology and now declared it to be a valid scientific pursuit in its own right, and that astrologers should now be considered members of the scientific community.


(It's a mixture of amusing and alarming that so many of the zealots in this thread are still pontificating as if transgender identity is some sort of fringe lunatic issue that has no support within the medical/scientific communities*. Or from major governments* and legislatures* in industrialised nations.)


* And yes, it bears repeating that for anyone making these ridiculous pronouncements about "men telling women what they think and what to do", all of these medial bodies & major governments and legislatures - y'know, the ones who are instigating the reforms you so despise and consider illegitimate - contain easily their fair share of females (and, to ward off more sophistry there might be claiming that the male scientists/politicians were themselves riding roughshod over the opinions of all their female colleagues.... well I don't remember any more than a couple of militant anti-trans female politicians complaining about the progressive laws that were/are being passed in ever-increasing numbers...)




ETA: edited on account of an embarrassing typing mistake on my part - writing ".... world's expert astrologers" when I meant to write "....astronomers". Now corrected - I apologise.

I do wish you would stop alluding to governments as bodies which listen to all expert opinion before coming up with rational and flawless legislation. Governments first priority is to get re-elected. It’s why Texas has banned abortion and the UK withdrew from Europe. They were populist decisions bereft of wisdom and expert opinion and I believe these pieces of legislation are wrong.

Governments can and often do get legislation wrong.

 

[d4m10n]

Privately vs. publicly.

People can (privately and publicly) think of themselves as cisgender, and then they can (privately and publicly) decide they need to transition their gender, and they can even (privately and publicly) decide to detransition somewhat later in life. There is no law of the universe which ensures that our subjective sense of identity remains stable throughout our lives.

 

[Louden Wilde]

No. No it's not.

The analogy with astronomy/astrology would be if the world's expert astronomers revisited their opinion on astrology and now declared it to be a valid scientific pursuit in its own right, and that astrologers should now be considered members of the scientific community.


(It's a mixture of amusing and alarming that so many of the zealots in this thread are still pontificating as if transgender identity is some sort of fringe lunatic issue that has no support within the medical/scientific communities*. Or from major governments* and legislatures* in industrialised nations.)





ETA: edited on account of an embarrassing typing mistake on my part - writing ".... world's expert astrologers" when I meant to write "....astronomers". Now corrected - I apologise.

It's a nascent field that seems filled with limited, preliminary studies and not particularly good model systems. It provides little evidence that gender is anything but a social construct, and no evidence that people can change sex, that there are more than two sexes, that gender is more important than sex, an alternate definition of sex, or that one can know what the other sex (or any other person) "feels like" - that's "woo"- as they say here.


Some of those experts also support the notion of autogynephilia. I haven't seen anything that disqualifies those studies and indeed some TW claiming that label.

Note I was particularly responding there to Boudicca's claim to be female and what defines the sexes.

If I am assessing a couple's ability to produce offspring, are you claiming I should go by their feelings rather than their reproductive tracts?

 

[Boudicca90]

People can (privately and publicly) think of themselves as cisgender, and then they can (privately and publicly) decide they need to transition their gender, and they can even (privately and publicly) decide to detransition somewhat later in life. There is no law of the universe which ensures that our subjective sense of identity remains stable throughout our lives.

I agree. A person's gender and sexual identity can fluctuate over time. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[d4m10n]

A person's gender and sexual identity can fluctuate over time. Nothing wrong with that.

Agreed, but how can it make sense to say "X was always a (wo)man" when you know someone's personal sense of self can change over time? If (e.g.) Bruce Jenner had exactly one day in 1974 during which he felt totally comfortable as a man, that falsifies your claim.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Regardless of the fact that she previously identified as a cisman transvestite, Eddie Izzard now identifies as nonbinary transgender, and prefers the pronouns "she"/"her".

Just as Elliot Page previously identified as a ciswoman, but now identifies as a transman.

In both cases, all that matters is how they identify presently. And to afford them the same rights and privileges (and restrictions) within society as anyone else. Which includes allowing (with caveats) Izzard to use the women's changing rooms and Page to use the men's changing rooms.

It does kind of challenge the assertion that Izzard was always a woman and is just now open about it, and Page was always a man and is just now open about it.

It also makes detransitioners a bit of a sticky wicket.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I assume you meant to say 'world's expert astronomers', because many astrologers already declare their pursuits to be valid.

And if the world's leading expert astronomers all declared astrology to be a 'valid scientific pursuit' then they would all be wrong.

'sTruth

 

[Emily's Cat]

Into which bin are you sorting genetically male, phenotypically female individuals with CAIS, no external genitalia, and internal testes?

As has been covered previously, the definition of sex bases don gametes is a universal definition applied to all mammals, and all species that reproduce using two sexes. But the actual species-specific definitions vary from one species to another.

For humans, it's a two-part definition. To be classified as male an individual needs to have both a chromosomal designation that is associated with the normal development of sperm-producing gonads... AND also must have a functional SRY receptor gene.

CAIS doesn't have the second, so they get classified as female. CAIS individuals retain their embryonic female characteristics. They are completely unable to be virilized in utero.

 

[Boudicca90]

Agreed, but how can it make sense to say "X was always a (wo)man" when you know someone's personal sense of self can change over time? If (e.g.) Bruce Jenner had exactly one day in 1974 during which he felt totally comfortable as a man, that falsifies your claim.

By Caitlyn's own admission, she dealt with gender dysphoria from a young age, even though that wasn't understood at the time. And not understanding what was 'wrong' with her and not being able to get any answers left her in a kind of limbo. And when she found out what gender identity and dysphoria was, she understood who she had always been (I thought that was when she was with Kris, I forgot she was married before). Although she was still afraid to transition for a long time.

All that is very similar to my own experiences.

 

[Emily's Cat]

See, as recently as 18 hours ago, Emily's Cat opined that there's no difference between Izzard (who, to reiterate, presently identifies as a nonbinary transgender person taking the pronouns "she"/"her").... and a "straight man who cross-dresses".

What objective difference is there?

Let's assume an objective and indifferent observer, who has two individuals placed in front of them. One of them is a straight cis-male transvestite. The other is a non-op, non-HRT transwoman. How does that observer distinguish between the two?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Uhh yes, I did mean "astronomers". Apologies.

It doesn't make it better though.

If all the pharmacists got together and decided that homeopathy was medicine, that wouldn't make homeopathy any more effective than it is. It wouldn't turn it from woo into science. It would just make all of those pharmacists wrong.

 

[theprestige]

So the last few pages have been the same questions and answers, the same roundy round, the same acrimony. Nothing really new has been offered. Even the latest news on the activism is just another installment of the now familiar litany. Does anyone have anything truly novel to contribute, anything that moves the needle one way or the other, for anyone?

 

[Emily's Cat]

The only thing that makes me sad about this person's story is that they were brainwashed with pseudoscience and anti-trans ideas from people like Blanchard.

In the end they were certainly a pawn, used to justify the false concept of 'autogynephilia' among trans women.

So... it is your conclusion that they're wrong about their current gender identity?

 

[Boudicca90]

So the last few pages have been the same questions and answers, the same roundy round, the same acrimony. Nothing really new has been offered. Even the latest news on the activism is just another installment of the now familiar litany. Does anyone have anything truly novel to contribute, anything that moves the needle one way or the other, for anyone?

Nope. That pretty much describes this entire thread from the very beginning.

The title predicted the dumpster fire to come.

 

[Elaedith]

I do wish you would stop alluding to governments as bodies which listen to all expert opinion before coming up with rational and flawless legislation. Governments first priority is to get re-elected. It’s why Texas has banned abortion and the UK withdrew from Europe. They were populist decisions bereft of wisdom and expert opinion and I believe these pieces of legislation are wrong.

Governments can and often do get legislation wrong.

Indeed. Although Brexit isn't the best example as the government didn't actually want to withdraw and banked on the referendum result going the other way.

This is an interesting analysis in The Political Quarterly of the recent debacle over the ONS and the sex question in the census (that saw the ONS having to change their policy at the last minute and pay legal costs)

Sex and the Office for National Statistics: A Case Study in Policy Capture

"Rather than consulting primarily with ‘data users’, the ONS prioritised the views of non-data users who had a particular political viewpoint. The ONS referred to all the parties it consulted with as ‘data users’, but, alongside actual data users, two additional groups were consulted. One group consisted of lobbyists such as Stonewall. It could be argued that it is reasonable to consult such groups if they represent the views of particular groups of respondents. Nevertheless, at the very least, one would expect the ONS to be able to distinguish between the needs of data users and the potential sensitivities of respondents, and to consider the implications of consulting disproportionately with lobbyists who claim to represent one particular small population group, and who in fact represent a political perspective not universally shared, even within that group. The second group of non-data users were academics from disciplines outside the quantitative social sciences including, for example, theology, and who shared a view of sex shaped by postmodernism and queer theory. This group appeared to represent a sort of academic window-dressing, allowing the ONS to claim it had ‘experts’ in its camp, without acknowledging the irrelevance of the expertise represented by the credentials of the academics in question."

 

[Emily's Cat]

Based on what he said, yep. He doesn't seem to be transgender or non-binary, but rather just a fetishist who wants some kind of reasoning behind it.

And then he was led down the 'gender-critical' sewage pipe by Blanchard and other frauds and now uses it as an excuse to try to delegitimize transgender identities as a whole.

I have some sympathy due to his apparent psychological issues, but he seems content to trying to harm the rest of us, and for that he can go to hell.

Did you actually read the whole thing? Shupe most definitely did NOT try to delegitmize all transgender identities. What Shupe did, however, was to acknowledge that their own dysphoria is not the result of an immutable internal characteristic, a special "female brain" or "female soul", but rather is a manifestation of a paraphilia.

Shupe in no way denigrates or says anything uncivil about *all* transgender identities, in fact they seem fairly supportive of the category of gender dysphoria that you have.

A large portion of Shupe's view is based on the fact that the medical care he received at the very beginning was inappropriate and wrong and harmful to them, as well as to other people who are like him. They were not treated for the condition they actually have, they were treated for a condition that is en vogue at the moment. And that treatment did not help them, it made them worse.

Shupe was misdiagnosed as being transgender from the get-go. As was Keira Bell. And all of the other people who have detransitioned.

Are they all brainwashed? Are all of their identities up for debate? Is the harm done to them and to their bodies, is the lack of appropriate clinical care, something you think is just fine?

Look, Boudicca, I have compassion and sympathy for you. But I ask you to take just half a step back, and try not to take this discussion as personal. I accept that your gender identity is appropriate for you, and that you have gender dysphoria and that transitioning is the appropriate treatment for you.

I ask that you step away from your personal journey and ask yourself whether transition might, just maybe, NOT be the appropriate treatment for everyone. Is it perhaps possible that some people are being misdiagnosed?

Autogynephilia is an actual diagnosis in DSM-5, by the way. It's one of the sub-set disorders under transvestic disorder, which is classified as a paraphilia. People with transvestic disorders ought to be able to access appropriate clinical care and treatment for their conditions. Being tracked onto the incorrect diagnosis of gender dysphoria, with a direct lane to medicalization, is probably not the appropriate treatment for them.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I agree. A person's gender and sexual identity can fluctuate over time. Nothing wrong with that.

Wouldn't that imply that perhaps Izzard and Page were NOT *always* what they identify as today?

 

[d4m10n]

By Caitlyn's own admission, she dealt with gender dysphoria from a young age, even though that wasn't understood at the time.

You seem to be claiming that Jenner consistently experienced dysphoria, never once accepting themselves as male. That may be true, but I've seen no reason to accept it yet.

 

[Emily's Cat]

So the last few pages have been the same questions and answers, the same roundy round, the same acrimony. Nothing really new has been offered. Even the latest news on the activism is just another installment of the now familiar litany. Does anyone have anything truly novel to contribute, anything that moves the needle one way or the other, for anyone?

ACLU rewrote one of Ruth Bader-Ginsberg's most powerful quotes in order to be more inclusive.

They removed every reference to 'woman' from the entire quote, then they threw it up on twitter as

The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person's] life, to [their] well-being and dignity...

When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices.

The broad brush "people" is fairly insulting. "People" don't have babies, females do. Males cannot bear children.

And beyond that, the sheer arrogance of editing one of the most powerful pro-women statements ever made to push an ideology is breath taking.