Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

[The Atheist]

Someone was asking about the gender types and and orientation, when I jokingly suggested it would be like the hurricane centre and might run out of letters.

Maybe not such a joke after all.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211101-why-demisexuality-is-as-real-as-any-sexual-orientation

 

[d4m10n]

I'm saying it's impossible to challenge someone sneaking into a bathroom for a clandestine liaison if nobody sees them doing so.

Going to assume I've correctly stated your preferred policy outcome regarding gender nonconforming students, since you've dodged the question yet again.

Once your preferred policy is implemented, girls will no longer be allowed to challenge boys in skirts (such as the one in this particular incident) when they enter spaces hitherto reserved for females. This will mean greater opportunity for opposite-sex liaisons in those spaces, some of which will become non-consensual as the stronger party refuses to take no for an answer.

Some parents of girls will find this situation unbearable, and demand a return to the old ways, that is, segregation of members of the stronger and more sexually aggressive sex from the class of people who may become pregnant against their will.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Once your preferred policy is implemented, girls will no longer be allowed to challenge boys in skirts (such as the one in this particular incident) when they enter spaces hitherto reserved for females. This will mean greater opportunity for opposite-sex liaisons in those spaces, some of which will become non-consensual as the stronger party refuses to take no for an answer.

Was he?

I've seen reports that this person occasionally wore skirts. You seem pretty sure that was the case during the attack.

Isn't the more obvious explanation that bathrooms are often empty and provide personal stalls for privacy, making them excellent places to do things you're not supposed to? I don't think bathroom policy makes one iota of difference, because people using bathrooms for illicit purposes are intentionally avoiding the prying eyes of others.

Pretty obvious once you consider the same person's later attack, that took place in a vacant classroom. Obviously the little "womens" sign on the bathroom door is not a factor.

Do you think an explicit policy of not allowing this person in that bathroom would have made any difference?

 

[Myriad]

Someone was asking about the gender types and and orientation, when I jokingly suggested it would be like the hurricane centre and might run out of letters.

Maybe not such a joke after all.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211101-why-demisexuality-is-as-real-as-any-sexual-orientation

Demi is part of the asexuality or gray-ace "umbrella" (further complicated by a separate romantic/aromantic variable). So any acronym that includes an A (usually the next letter added after Q, as in LGBTQA+) covers it.

When I learned the term years ago (it came up in discussion of a fictional webcomic character, LT in "Go Get a Roomie"), the main revelation was that there was a term for what I obviously always had been. It didn't tell me anything new about myself, but it helped clarify how others were different—for instance, that non-demi (it looks like the complementary term is now "allosexual" but that's new to me) people, even when (or especially when) partnered, really do live in a constant state of temptation and distraction if not outright looking-for-something-better, and aren't just making that up. Or that typical porn for straight men takes the form it does because they like it that way, not just because the pornographers have zero creativity and a high tolerance for boredom.

It's not a joke, but at the same time the doesn't seem to be much reason to wave a flag, and not much in the way of past persecution to redress. There is the possibility (shared among all aces) of being mistaken for a closeted gay or lesbian just because one rejects advances or is e.g. unpartnered and still a virgin in adulthood. But that's less of an issue today, at least in the West.

 

[d4m10n]

Was he?

Was he ever challenged for being in the wrong room? I'm guessing not—given prevailing social norms—but who knows?

You seem pretty sure that was the case during the attack.

A knee-length skirt, to be specific.

Isn't the more obvious explanation that bathrooms are often empty and provide personal stalls for privacy, making them excellent places to do things you're not supposed to?

If you're skipping class, yes. Between classes, not so much.

I don't think bathroom policy makes one iota of difference, because people using bathrooms for illicit purposes are intentionally avoiding the prying eyes of others.

Why would there be a need to avoid prying eyes if he's allowed in the room as a GNC student?

Do you think an explicit policy of not allowing this person in that bathroom would have made any difference?

It depends on whether the couple in question was indeed careful to check for empty bathrooms beforehand (as you've hypothesized) or if they just assumed no one would question his presence in the room (as I've hypothesized).

 

[theprestige]

The US Surgeon General goes on Twitter to celebrate the first female four-star officer to serve in the US Public Health Service.

For those of you who think transgenderism isn't really transsexualism. Who think that transgenderism isn't literal misogyny. Who think that "transwoman" isn't synonymous with "anything a woman can do, a man can do better, including being a woman", I give you Dr. Vivek Murthy.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This probably isn't the thread, but I definitely wouldn't go that far. Some gender stereotypes (e.g. men are generally less sexually discriminating and more into random hookups) strike me as mostly the result of actual sex differences which may be accounted for in evolutionary terms.

Splitting hair. I would say those are sex-based differences, and aren't part of gender at all. My view is that "blank slate" theory is massively flawed - we definitely have instincts and evolutionarily derived behaviors, some of which vary by sex. On the other hand, however, there is absolutely no "gendered soul" and the idea that gender identity is a real thing that can be made real by saying it out loud is just as religious in nature as believing that one's soul can be saved by saying three hail mary's and eating a flavorless wafer.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Asexual people are often treated as if they don't exist or there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

For the life of me, I don't know why anyone would. It genuinely seems like it should be a non-issue all around.

And yet you have argued in favour of segregating people based how well they fit gender stereotypes.

I absolutely have NOT done so. Not even a little bit.

Your agender/"gender atheist" position would be a lot more believable if it meant you argued against gender segregation.

I DO argue against gender segregation.

I guess with "any resonance with the opposite sex" you mean "fit in with the stereotype you have of the opposite sex".

No, I mean exhibit compassion, care, and and understanding of the perspective and experience of the opposite sex. I quite assuredly do NOT mean fitting a stereotype. The stereotypes are BAD and REGRESSIVE.

 

[Emily's Cat]

How is that relevant? Did anyone "spot" this perpetrator?

https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-driver-dressed-woman-filmed-girls-shopping-center-bathroom-police-1640572

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because it's the optimal, "least bad" option..

Least bad for whom?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Perhaps you should clarify that you're making a hypothetical, because the events you're describing does not seem to have happened. Considering wild speculation about trans perpetrators and bathroom policies are core to this incident, it would be wise to clarify.

"Challenging" people who appear to be using toilets for their intended function sounds a lot more likely to cause harm than prevent. The data around the bathroom panic demonstrates this pretty convincingly.

Two people entering the same stall strikes me as much more suspicious than speculating about people's genitalia. Maybe they can "spot" that.

It Never Happens

https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1169574507696349184?lang=en

 

[Emily's Cat]

Indeed.

Some sections of society obviously haven't learned anything about fake moral panic. These people probably ought to watch (or re-watch) "Reefer Madness" to remind themselves about the unjustly invidious nature of this sort of phoney hyperbole.

Phony Hyperbole

https://terfisaslur.com/

 

[Emily's Cat]

Cue "TERFY transphobic hyperbolic hysteria" in 3... 2... 1...

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It depends on whether the couple in question was indeed careful to check for empty bathrooms beforehand (as you've hypothesized) or if they just assumed no one would question his presence in the room (as I've hypothesized).

So you're just pulling this factor out of your ass, if I'm reading your comment correctly. There is nothing reported so far that has indicated this was an issue.

ETA: Just wanted to be sure, we're no longer talking about an anecdote, but a hypothetical anecdote. This is the level of data you find compelling?

 

[d4m10n]

So you're just pulling this factor out of your ass, if I'm reading your comment correctly.

No, and no; you brought this factor into play, upthread.

 

[Sherkeu]

The US Surgeon General goes on Twitter to celebrate the first female four-star officer to serve in the US Public Health Service.

For those of you who think transgenderism isn't really transsexualism. Who think that transgenderism isn't literal misogyny. Who think that "transwoman" isn't synonymous with "anything a woman can do, a man can do better, including being a woman", I give you Dr. Vivek Murthy.

Well, Murthy, as Vice Admiral, technically now works for the newly minted Admiral Levine now so what else could he say? I am perplexed though by the deliberate use of the word female though. Ms. Levine certainly knows how to use the word woman which would be a more accurate word to use if advocating for trangender identity.

Follow the science? Or just re-imagine it?
Can a person really live and work as a male the first 54 years of life and 10 years later claim to be "the first female" in a role that leads US policy in health and science?

From her swearing in speech:

I am truly honored to join the ranks of men and women across this great nation who have committed to defend the United States against small and large threats, known and unknown. ....

I am honored to serve as the first female four-star officer of the US Public Health Service Commission Corps and the first openly transgender four-star officer to serve across any of the eight uniform services. This is momentous occasion, and I am honored to take this role for the impact that I can make and for the historic nature of what it symbolizes.

 

[theprestige]

From her swearing-in speech, I garner more support for my thesis that transgenderism is transsexuality, and transsexuality is misogyny.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, if we're not willing to make everything unisex without any alterations, we should analyse why that is, and then act accordingly.

Is it because women don't want to ses male genitals? In that case, either forbid the display of male genitals in women's changing rooms, or tell women that they are wrong and make everything unisex.

Personally I would simply make changing rooms and bathrooms unisex without any alterations, but then, I'm not a woman.

You mean you'd prefer an approach where gyms/pools/etc that currently have two changing/showering rooms with the signs "men" and "women" on the two doors.....

....unscrew those two signs and replace them with two identical signs both saying something like "unisex changing rooms"?

Because if that is your preference, I really don't think that this sort of approach would work. I think that unless & until these sorts of places invest in single/double/family lockable cubicles and shower stalls, the unisex approach will never gain any traction IMO.

In the meantime, we have to do what's best (or least bad) within the constraints of two communal changing/showering areas. And since there's zero evidence to validate any "Reefer Madness"-style predictions of hetero cismen masquerading as transwomen in order to offend against the women in the women's changing rooms, and since the percentage of transgender people in the general population is extremely low, the very high likelihood is that instances of transgender people needing to use the changing rooms matching their trans gender (ie transmen using men's changing rooms, transwomen using women's changing rooms) will be rare indeed.


(But of course certain constituencies with certain agendas would like to have people believe that allowing transwomen to use women's changing rooms will (almost) inevitably result in whole leagues of deviant hetero cismen exploiting the system to leer at/attack/make uncomfortable the females in the women's changing rooms....)

 

[LondonJohn]

Phony Hyperbole

https://terfisaslur.com/

That link in no way addresses the point I was actually making (that certain groups are seeking to induce moral panic around such things as the "heinous" (in their eyes) dangers of letting transgender people use the bathrooms corresponding to their trans gender).

That link (I'm guessing you've got it saved as a bookmark, right....?) reads to me like a small number of transgender people - who are sick and tired of being marginalised and abused - going way too far on social media in their visceral, nasty and unnecessary revenge statements.

Meanwhile, in the actual real world..... care to present any evidence of anti-transgender people being physically attacked by transgender people?


(Oh and you might be interested in the militant and shocking views expressed by black people against white people in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, during the battles for equal civil rights. I guess that in your eyes that would have served as a valid & important datum point in favour of not granting black people equal civil rights. Right?)

 

[LondonJohn]

Least bad for whom?

For everyone. Provided that proportionate safeguarding processes are put in place.

In the meantime, imagine the plight of the small, wiry 17-year-old boy being eyed up, and subjected to indecent exposure, by a 30-year-old musclebound predatory gay man. In the men's changing rooms.

What do you suggest the gym/pool/etc in question should do about that sort of situation? Should (in your view) all men known to be gay be banned from using the men's changing rooms, in order to reduce the likelihood of that sort of offending behaviour?