Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

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This whole thing is interesting from a sociological perspective. We are living through a radical change in culture. Old people are either dying or getting over "it" while we are still collectively deciding what it is. I don't remember if it was in an early iteration of this thread, or its own separate thread, but I remember talk of "peak trans". We are still defining the boundaries, but I felt a sea change when the CBC published this article a few days ago:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-trans-rights-radical-activism-1.6220106

The headline, for now, is "Trans rights? Yes. Toxic, in-your-face activism? No". Then there was an article in The Atlantic from today: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/pregnant-women-people-feminism-language/620468/

This one is by a woman who explains why she is down with "pregnant people" sometimes, but thinks that there are times when "pregnant women" is more appropriate. And other interesting points about gender identity and health. My point is that we have here a couple liberalish, mainstream, sometimes leftish outlets that are gently pushing back against the farthest reaches of trans activism. I am curious as to how it is all going to play out.
 
porch said:
This whole thing is interesting from a sociological perspective. We are living through a radical change in culture. Old people are either dying or getting over "it" while we are still collectively deciding what it is. I don't remember if it was in an early iteration of this thread, or its own separate thread, but I remember talk of "peak trans". We are still defining the boundaries, but I felt a sea change when the CBC published this article a few days ago:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-trans-rights-radical-activism-1.6220106

The headline, for now, is "Trans rights? Yes. Toxic, in-your-face activism? No".
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Does the CBC article actually explain what rights transsexuals are supposed to have, that they don't already have by virtue of being human and having human rights?
 
abaddon said:
I have a trans child. Should I beat seven shades out of him? And make a her out of him to turn him into a her by violence? Would that not be "right" in your view?
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... yeah, that really doesn't have any connection at all to anything Emily's Cat has ever written here.
 
theprestige said:
Does the CBC article actually explain what rights transsexuals are supposed to have, that they don't already have by virtue of being human and having human rights?
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Hmm, I would say no. It is more about an old school transwoman saying that the newer definition of transwoman, in particular via self-identification, has really complicated things, and that we ought to take a sober look at how this effects women. The last two paragraphs:

"Trans woman" no longer means what it did. It no longer refers exclusively to an individual who has gone through therapy, hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgeries. This presents a greater risk to women in certain areas and it is reasonable to discuss these issues and come up with solutions and safeguards to prevent abuses and minimize risks to women's safety and infringements on their rights.

Inclusion in women's spaces must be reasonable, rational and arrived at through good faith discussions and debate. Acceptance of limitations and exceptions to that inclusion is just being respectful of the differences in our lived experiences, physiological needs and the historical and ongoing oppression and inequality women face today.
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SuburbanTurkey said:
I surveyed 15 of my social media followers and 80% says they're lying. What now?

It's a trash statistic, no matter how you slice it. it serves no other function other than to confuse people who aren't savvy enough to realize that and imply that this supposed problem is more widespread than it likely is.
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"Likely" :rolleyes:

Because you don't want to believe it, and because you casually dismiss anything provided to you that demonstrates harm to females as a result of the ideology that you preach as being "anecdotes" and "outliers" and "hysterical right wing panic-mongering".

Why on earth do you think that your baseless assumptions about how something ought to be are more valid and meaningful than the experiences provided by the people at the receiving end of it?
 
Emily's Cat said:
"Likely" :rolleyes:

Because you don't want to believe it, and because you casually dismiss anything provided to you that demonstrates harm to females as a result of the ideology that you preach as being "anecdotes" and "outliers" and "hysterical right wing panic-mongering".

Why on earth do you think that your baseless assumptions about how something ought to be are more valid and meaningful than the experiences provided by the people at the receiving end of it?
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For all the scaremongering this article did, not a single piece of credible evidence to show how extensive this problem actually is.
 
Emily's Cat said:
What exactly do you think this is saying?
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Suggesting introspection is not the same as badgering people for sex.

A person that found all black people to be sexually repugnant might be well advised to examine that impulse. A black person demanding a sexual relationship would still be a massive overstep and gross.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
For all the scaremongering this article did, not a single piece of credible evidence to show how extensive this problem actually is.
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The CEO of Stonewall trying to normalize it is already extensive ene, and will only serve to further its extent over time.

But at least you agree with the rest of us, that it is a problem, and that it should be repudiated.

Actually, strike that. You think it should be minimized or ignored, not repudiated.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Suggesting introspection is not the same as badgering people for sex.

A person that found all black people to be sexually repugnant might be well advised to examine that impulse. A black person demanding a sexual relationship would still be a massive overstep and gross.
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No, the next step is to label any lesbian a bigot if she doesn't accede to the initial offer of a liaison. The point of the badgering isn't to get sex, it's to make it socially unacceptable to say no. Lesbians will be able to keep their sexual preference, but only at the cost becoming pariah.

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It's also worth noting that the trans activists are dishonestly stealing a base in this debate. Lesbians reject a whole group of people, men, and there's nothing wrong with that. But call those men women, and suddenly those same lesbians are bigoted transphobes, rejecting those same men. Because men they still are, in the only places that gender identity really matters: In the bedroom, in your partner's head.

The sad truth is that no matter what your ideals, lesbians put the lie to the claim that transwomen are women.
 
It's also kind of weird, ST's take on this. He's coming on like it's not happening, or not happening enough to matter. But if we accept the premise that transwomen are women, then it follows that it must happen. It should happen, not just a little, but a lot. Human rights activists everywhere should be coming down hard on lesbians who refuse to accept this truth.

ST is saying it's a bad thing but still too small to worry about. If he believes transwomen are women, shouldn't he be saying, good, love to see it, hope to see a lot more of it soon?
 
theprestige said:
Heh.
There is no 'right' way to be a lesbian, and only we can know who we're attracted to.

"Nobody should ever be pressured into dating, or pressured into dating people they aren't attracted to. But if you find that when dating, you are writing off entire groups of people, like people of colour, fat people, disabled people or trans people, then it's worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions.​

I'm not saying lesbians who write off entire groups of people, like men, are doing it wrong, but maybe society has made them into bigots, and not real lesbians.
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It seems that some people skipped right past that part.

How can this be "pressure" to date trans women?

As to the second part, "it's worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions", that would run counter to the idea that gays and lesbians were "born this way". Surely they aren't suggesting that sexuality is a lifestyle choice, are they? That you can choose who to be attracted to? Nah, that can't be what they're saying, can it?
 
Michelle Goldberg
had an interesting column recently that suggested the NYT might allow some essays critical of gender ideology.
At issue was the ACLU's recent quoting of the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices,”

Except the ACLU censored the word woman. :-|
Goldberg puts forward the case that they got it wrong: You can’t change the nature of reality through language alone. Trying to do so can seem, to employ a horribly overused word, like a form of gaslighting.

More interesting to me were the comments- particularly the readers picks (rather than the NYT staff), which further reveal that a lot of women across the political spectrum are upset by gender ideology - but often afraid to speak up about it. Many of them have picked up on the anti-female bias that seems (to many of us) to be baked into the movement.
 
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theprestige said:
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The sad truth is that no matter what your ideals, lesbians put the lie to the claim that transwomen are women.
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Straight men will as well - though it may be more subtle if gender ideology becomes more accepted. As surgeries get better, you will likely have more of them willing to have sex with TW, but when it comes time to settle down, there will always be a preference for females - for what I would think would be stunningly obvious reasons.
 
porch said:
The headline, for now, is "Trans rights? Yes. Toxic, in-your-face activism? No". Then there was an article in The Atlantic from today: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/pregnant-women-people-feminism-language/620468/

This one is by a woman who explains why she is down with "pregnant people" sometimes, but thinks that there are times when "pregnant women" is more appropriate. And other interesting points about gender identity and health. My point is that we have here a couple liberalish, mainstream, sometimes leftish outlets that are gently pushing back against the farthest reaches of trans activism. I am curious as to how it is all going to play out.
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I thought this quotation was pertinent:


In the past few years, I’ve become more open to talking about “pregnant people.” It’s not one of those pieces of avant-garde terminology that risks baffling readers who don’t have a Ph.D. in gender studies. Everyone understands what it means, and using it won’t confuse anyone about who is being discussed. I am, however, more skeptical of other ostensibly inclusive language suggestions related to female bodies, such as public-awareness campaigns targeting “people with cervixes.” As Britain’s recent unedifying debate on that subject showed, even senior politicians don’t know what a cervix is or who has one. The Labour Party’s justice spokesman, David Lammy, thought that “a cervix is something you can have following various procedures, hormone treatment, all the rest of it.” (It is not. It is a distinctive physiological structure that keeps the uterus sterile and supports a pregnancy, and it is not constructed as part of a vaginoplasty.) Again, language is not very inclusive if the majority of people don’t understand it. Imagine seeing a poster in a doctor’s office urging “anyone with a cervix” to get a cancer screening, and ask yourself: Might some patients not realize that the message applies to them?
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You have to wonder how the consequences of denying biological reality will play out.
 
abaddon said:
I have a trans child. Should I beat seven shades out of him? And make a her out of him to turn him into a her by violence? Would that not be "right" in your view?
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Imagine for a moment that somehow EC convinced you that she was right about the question in the thread title*, and your trans child was mistaken in some way.

So we enter an alternate reality where you think** your son is actually a female. In that alternate reality, would you find yourself motivated to "beat the seven shades out of him"? Why or why not?

Alternately, if this very hypothetical seems offensive to consider, we can try one further from home but that is influenced by the same issues: we can imagine that EC has a child, and that child is mistaken about some other question of fact. For instance, her child decides to convert to catholicism. Does her thinking her child is mistaken about the existence of god suggest that she should "beat seven shades out of him"? Why or why not?

*We can assume for the sake of argument that you're wrong to be convinced by her, but somehow it happened.
**Again, maybe this alternate reality version of you is mistaken about this.
 
Most detailed story I have seen about the Loudoun County sexual assault case.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...c037da-35cc-11ec-8be3-e14aaacfa8ac_story.html

Summary of high points.

The two teens agreed to meet in the girls' bathroom. This was not their first such meeting.
The assailant was indeed wearing a skirt. No other commentary about "gender fluid".
Defendant claims it was consensual.
The victim says he forced himself on her.
Defendant found guilty at trial yesterday

The trial only covered the first fo the two assaults. (Now that he has been found guilty of the first one, I think we can stop saying "alleged".)


It's not clear what, if any, role gender identity played in this case.
 
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Meadmaker said:
Most detailed story I have seen about the Loudoun County sexual assault case.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...c037da-35cc-11ec-8be3-e14aaacfa8ac_story.html

Summary of high points.

The two teens agreed to meet in the girls' bathroom. This was not their first such meeting.
The assailant was indeed wearing a skirt. No other commentary about "gender fluid".
Defendant claims it was consensual.
The victim says he forced himself on her.
Defendant found guilty at trial yesterday

The trial only covered the first fo the two assaults. (Now that he has been found guilty of the first one, I think we can stop saying "alleged".)


It's not clear what, if any, role gender identity played in this case.
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Imagine my shock.
 
theprestige said:
It's also kind of weird, ST's take on this. He's coming on like it's not happening, or not happening enough to matter. But if we accept the premise that transwomen are women, then it follows that it must happen. It should happen, not just a little, but a lot. Human rights activists everywhere should be coming down hard on lesbians who refuse to accept this truth.
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It's hard to know how frequently this kind of aggression occurs given the poor evidence that is routinely provided. The article cited, for example, is heavy on pathos and bereft of any meaningful data. Unless you read some other article that actually provides meaningful data, you also have no idea how frequently this occurs.

Given the context of the concerted effort in the UK to resist any improvement of legal rights for trans people, it's easy to assign nefarious motives to such shock stories.

ST is saying it's a bad thing but still too small to worry about. If he believes transwomen are women, shouldn't he be saying, good, love to see it, hope to see a lot more of it soon?
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How is this meaningfully different than running "black crime" stories? Trans people are people and some of them are ****** and do things that are rude or outright criminal. I don't see how this should lead to a sweeping rejection of the civil rights for an entire class of people, and let's not kid ourselves about the objectives of transphobic groups like the LGB alliance.
 
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