Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

[Cain]

I think that would be cheating unless that sort of thing is allowed in bodybuilding, unlike other competitive sports.

Bodybuilding is more pageantry than sport. Steroid abuse is an accepted norm in untested competitions.

I think it would also lead to side effects like growing a beard and possibly baldness in extreme cases.

I think that's the tip of the iceberg. For women, there's a storm of unpleasant side effects in the form of secondary (male) sex characteristics.

 

[Puppycow]

Bodybuilding is more pageantry than sport. Steroid abuse is an accepted norm in untested competitions.

Fair point. We can think of it as a sort of beauty pageant for men (and women who want to look like men).

I think that's the tip of the iceberg. For women, there's a storm of unpleasant side effects in the form of secondary (male) sex characteristics.

Yeah, it's a strange world. There's also fitness competitions, and those women at least still look like women.

 

[Meadmaker]

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the question about harm in the Wi Spa case went unanswered. There's no "on script" answer available.

At first, it looked like there was one. There was no harm done to the ciswomen. This was a bunch of TERFs harassing a transwoman. Their complaints were just hatred toward a woman who had every right to be there, penis and all. The harm done was the harassment suffered by the transwoman. Easy peasy.

It only got complicated when we found out that the transwoman was named Darren and had a criminal record. In his* most recent statement to the press, he still claimed to be a transwoman, but the LAPD was looking for him for pretending to be a transwoman.

Now what? Do we say that doesn't change anything? If we say there's no harm done, it kind of sounds like we are saying that women shouldn't be concerned about an incident where someone who might be a man was walking around a bunch of naked women, and exposing his junk. That's a bit awkward. But, he still claims to be a transwoman, so if it turns out he really is, do we go back to the TERF/hatred narrative? If we say that the harm exists based on the ability to determine sincerity of transgender status claims, we're placing a lot of burden on the observer.

As of the last time I looked, Darren was still at large, considered a fugitive.

One of my pet peeves is people demanding answers to questions that they themselves will not answer, so I had better give my answer to my question. I think harm was done, on the day of the incident. I think that the anxiety that women feel when they are disrobed and in the presence of an unknown and untrusted naked male is normal. You could say that modesty ia valid lived condition. Causing that anxiety constitutes harm.


*I will be using male pronouns, because all the media stories I have seen since Darren's name was published have used male pronouns.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

SCOTUS declines to take up appeal by Catholic run hospital that discriminated against a trans patient seeking a hysterectomy.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a bid by a Catholic hospital in California to avoid a lawsuit over its refusal to let its facilities be used to perform a hysterectomy on a transgender patient who sought the procedure as a part of gender transition from female to male.

The justices turned away an appeal by Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Sacramento-area hospital owned by Dignity Health, and let stand a lower court ruling that revived Evan Minton's lawsuit accusing it of intentionally discriminating against him in violation of California law because he is transgender.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-spurns-catholic-hospital-appeal-over-transgender-patient-2021-11-01/

Not exactly clear, but with this SCOTUS appeal failing, it sounds like the case will continue in a California state court.

An important battle as about 1/6th of all hospitals are either owned or affiliated with the Catholic church and operate under their guidance.

 

[d4m10n]

SCOTUS declines to take up appeal by Catholic run hospital that discriminated against a trans patient seeking a hysterectomy.

Catholic hospitals are (at present) legally permitted to refuse all sorts of reproductive health care:

ERDs prohibit a wide range of common reproductive health services, including all birth control methods, sterilization, abortion, some miscarriage management techniques, the least invasive treatments for ectopic pregnancies, and infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). The ERDs also limit the treatment options to prevent pregnancy as a result of sexual assault, such as oral emergency contraception pills.

Source: https://healthlaw.org/resource/the-...8-update-means-for-catholic-hospital-mergers/

This is ********, of course, but with a Catholic majority on SCOTUS, I'd bet against intervention.

 

[llwyd]

This is a complex, delicate question about a true medical condition and a true and horribly procecuted minority. I hate the relentless polarization around it - I hate the demonizing of the "TERFs" who mostly actually are genuine feminists worried about the position of biological women (not exactly a privileged group even in Western societies), but I also totally hate disparaging, marginalizing and persecuting of a very vulnerable minority group. Not to talk about horrendous violence that still going on even in the West.

And still, this said, mere self-identification will not be enough in a few complicated areas of human activity. I am sorry but there it is.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

This is a complex, delicate question about a true medical condition and a true and horribly procecuted minority. I hate the relentless polarization around it - I hate the demonizing of the "TERFs" who mostly actually are genuine feminists worried about the position of biological women (not exactly a privileged group even in Western societies), but I also totally hate disparaging, marginalizing and persecuting of a very vulnerable minority group. Not to talk about horrendous violence that still going on even in the West.

And still, this said, mere self-identification will not be enough in a few complicated areas of human activities. I am sorry but there it is.

I'm curious how TERFs handle such a ruling. On one hand, "religious exemption" has long been the mechanism by which sexist medical policy has been legalized, particularly around denying women access to reproductive medicine. On the other hand, some trans person stands to have their rights vindicated, and that's a direct threat to their trans-exclusionary worldview. It's one of the many instances where trans rights is clearly embedded within a broader struggle for LGBT and/or women's rights, which must be awfully inconvenient for trans-exclusionary groups like LGB alliance and other TERFs.

I imagine they'll just ignore this legal battle entirely.

 

[Meadmaker]

Just in case there are people who don't understand the SCOTUS case being discussed, the issue is that the Catholic hospital has a policy against performing any elective sterilizations.

 

[TomB]

This is a complex, delicate question about a true medical condition and a true and horribly procecuted minority. I hate the relentless polarization around it - I hate the demonizing of the "TERFs" who mostly actually are genuine feminists worried about the position of biological women (not exactly a privileged group even in Western societies), but I also totally hate disparaging, marginalizing and persecuting of a very vulnerable minority group. Not to talk about horrendous violence that still going on even in the West.

And still, this said, mere self-identification will not be enough in a few complicated areas of human activity. I am sorry but there it is.

I think with the "TERF" thing, for at least some of the people/groups for which the term is used to slur, there is not so much an animus against trans people as a frustration with mission redirection.

Someone who gives to the Susan G. Komen foundation, which was founded specifically to fight breast cancer, might be unhappy if the foundation decided to expend resources on research aimed at testicular cancer instead. Not because they don't think that research into testicular cancer should be done, but because they joined/contributed in order to advance breast cancer research specifically.

Similarly, someone who has been a member of NOW in order to promote the classic set of women's issues (what would now be called female issues) might not want the groups resources and/or focus to move in another direction when they feel that those resources are still needed for the original set of issues.

Same with people concerned with LGB issues concerned about the diversion of resources to T issues.

It's easy, through mistake, laziness or dishonesty, to lump all of these people (and resulting splinter groups) as being anti-whatever as opposed to simply having different resource priorities without examining the actual positions of the individuals.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's possible to be supportive of trans-rights while thinking that fighting for those rights is outside the mission scope of NOW (or whatever organization).

 

[Olmstead]

I'm curious how TERFs handle such a ruling. On one hand, "religious exemption" has long been the mechanism by which sexist medical policy has been legalized, particularly around denying women access to reproductive medicine. On the other hand, some trans person stands to have their rights vindicated, and that's a direct threat to their trans-exclusionary worldview. It's one of the many instances where trans rights is clearly embedded within a broader struggle for LGBT and/or women's rights, which must be awfully inconvenient for trans-exclusionary groups like LGB alliance and other TERFs.

I imagine they'll just ignore this legal battle entirely.

Thankfully, none of them think there's anything wrong with a transmen getting a hysterectomy, so I don't see why it would be inconvenient.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You may recall Lily Cade as one of the featured women in the BBC's recent anti-trans piece:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385

She has since posted a long blog screed calling explicitly for trans people to be lynched.

I won't link it directly, as it also contains pornographic materials (Cade is an actor in the pornography business)

if it were left up to me, I'd execute every last one of them personally

enough is enough. Lynch Kaitlyn! Lynch the 'sisters' Wachowski! Lynch Laurel Hubbard. Lynch Fallon Fox!

https://twitter.com/christapeterso/status/1455574098717913096

Reads more like a mass shooter's manifesto than anything else. Hats off to the BBC for fine journalism...

ETA: She also seems to pine for "chomos" (slang for child molesters which she seems to use assume all trans women are) to "get the rope". I'm not familiar with anyone but explicit fascists using such language, which is derivative of the racist "Turner Diaries" calling for a day of mass executions of race traitors via hanging:

https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/day-of-the-rope

 

[Emily's Cat]

Cracking article* in the Daily Mail!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...limate-fear-BBC-stories-race-transgender.html


I mean**, what's the world coming to when you can't even call black people by a word that's been used for centuries, and state the obvious - that they're thick and lazy***?? Now they're coming after us for saying that transwomen are just men in drag****!!! Is there no such thing as free speech and a free media any more*****?!! What the hell is the world coming to, eh******??!!

And unsurprisingly, the vast majority of those posting online comments are in hearty agreement.....

That is a dramatic and egregious mischaracterization of what the article says.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because she forcefully and repeatedly expressed views which upset and angered a great deal of the union's members? And because she turned that into a crusade rather than making even the slightest attempt to ameliorate the situation?

Just a guess, mind.......

When people get upset and angered over someone expressing the fact that sex is real and that it matters, and that females should retain the current exiting right to sex-based services and spaces... I'm not sure how to "ameliorate" that.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I am frequently surprised by which questions are completely ignored.

I'm not.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ah sorry, I wasn't aware of any editorial change or anything.

re "being a woman"?
I've stated my position numerous times in this thread already.
Gender is a variable, if people want to be a woman then they are literally fitting in to a stereotype. What are you on about?

Can a male horse identify as a mare? Can a female mallard identify as a drake?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yeah this is where the disagreement is for me,
you are mixing women and female together in a sentence as if they are equivalent. I don't think that works. Gender and sex aren't in the same category. Sex is a constant and gender is....not?

Gender is a set of social stereotypes and expectations based on sex.

"Woman" isn't the word of a gender, despite the attempts to redefine it and force everyone to adopt that term. "Woman" is the word for a sexually mature female human. "Man" is the term for a sexually mature male human.

Woman is the human equivalent of the terms cow, mare, queen, bitch, hen. Man is the human equivalent of the terms bull, stallion, tom, dog, rooster.

The attempt to forcibly rebrand the terms "man" and "woman" to encapsulate social stereotypes, roles, and behavioral expectations, then define a person's identity on how well they conform to those stereotypes is incredibly regressive. It reinforces social separation of the sexes... it just gives it a fancy cover story.

Instead of forcing males to behave in stereotypical "man" fashion, and forcing females to behave in stereotypical "woman" fashion on pain of social ostracism and censure... Now instead the trend is to play fast and loose and say that if a male doesn't conform to those stereotypes, they might actually be a "woman" and imply that they are feminine or have some innate non-biological female essence that is more important than their actual observable sex.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Does it bother or discomfit you to know that mainstream medical thinking, and legislation in progressive nations, disagrees with your assessment? Does it give you pause for thought at all? Does it make you even in the slightest question a) your own point of view, and/or b) your capacity to form a properly-informed point of view?


(Because if it were me in that position, I'd say yes to all of the above. That's just me though, obviously. You do you.)

Does it bother you at all that you are just making this up as you go along? Does it give you even an iota of discomfort to realize that you cannot produce any actual support for medical definition of "woman" or "man" that fits your ideology?

Does it make you even in the slightest question your poorly-informed point of view to realize that you have repeated failed to support any of your assertions of what "mainstream medical" and "clinical experts" believe, and that you have repeatedly been shown to be wrong with respect to your baseless assumptions on how things "must have" happened?

 

[Emily's Cat]

The problem isn't that "woman" was originally defined as "adult human female" and people want to redefine it in some way. The problem is that the new definition is both useless and incoherent.

That too.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Also, this isn't really a question of language changing over time. It's more a question of a group of activists trying to achieve a change in thought by forcing a change in meanings of words. It's more like propaganda or thought policing than natural language drift.

(Obviously language is also going to drift, and has been drifting, as society has deprecated traditional gender stereotypes and become more tolerant and inclusive of people who present counter to those stereotypes. But we're also exploring the space beyond mere drift, where what words we use and what thoughts we have about those words are being prescribed to us.)

Newspeak hampers the ability to engage in wrongthink.

 

[Earthborn]

then define a person's identity on how well they conform to those stereotypes is incredibly regressive.

A person's gender identity is not defined by how well they conform to gender stereotypes.

Does it give you even an iota of discomfort to realize that you cannot produce any actual support for medical definition of "woman" or "man" that fits your ideology?

Being a "woman" or a "man" is not a medical condition.