Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

[ponderingturtle]

I don't think that's the case at all. I think the bulk of the debate centers on ordinary women in situations where a male is sharing their private space, or competing against them in athletic events.

Nova Maday and Terry Miller are not extreme or hypothetical. Neither is Caster Semenya, who started this thread.

Of course Semenya is a cis woman unless we are using any reasonable dichotomy. But having unusual hormone levels disqualifies her for being female so why is limiting it to only fertile individuals so weird?

 

[Meadmaker]

Well, I originally objected on those basis to the following statement by The Atheist:

I use quotation marks, because beyond the very few intersex and other aberrations, the entire trans community is based on feelings rather than genetics or any physical condition. Or common sense, for that matter.

So, apart from some "aberrations" the entire transcommunity is based on those rather superficial things, and nor on "common sense". I suppose you heartily agree with the quoted text and don't think it's "dismissing" or "marginalizing" an entire population or community of very diverse people?

I wonder how a similar statement would sound in the context of gay and lesbian people? Or with some slight changes in formulation for the many various minorities...

The Atheist has a style which is at times deliberately confrontational, but he also has a body of work that makes it possible to judge his intent. He is very supportive and not at all dismissive of the very diverse transgender population, but not so much of the trans-activist community.

Also, I'll note that additions of such terms as "fleeting", "superficial", and "heartily" alters meaning. I agree with TA's statement. I wouldn't agree "heartily".

 

[ponderingturtle]

But an organism's sex is not determined by fertility. Their body is organized for a type of sexual reproduction. A person can be blind and still have eyes. The woman who had a hysterectomy has a body designed for female reproduction.

So what is the sex of XY women or XX men? Keeping it limited to the the fertile with a separate infertile category makes everything so much easier. If you want to go hard into biology go hard into biology and don't fart around.

 

[Meadmaker]

And for what it's worth, I cannot accept the mere self-identification as the only necessary criteria in some areas, especially is sports but also (with some qualifications) about changing rooms and other such facilities.

In other words, you're a bigot.


Seriously. The orthodox trans inclusive position is that self ID is the only requirement. LondonJohn? SuburbanTurkey? Am I misrepresenting something here? (Special note to LondonJohn: Llwyd is referring to all levels of sports, not just "elite level") I mean, perhaps you might not call him bigoted, at least at this time, but his position? Do your positions, and the positions of trans rights advocates in general, agree with Llwyd's position?

Lllwyd, your position is based on common sense. It doesn't fit with the party line, though. See previous post.

 

[theprestige]

Depends on the context. If you're communicating about menstruation products, it's quite literally the truth. Transmen might need a tampon where a post-menopausal ciswoman does not.

Why not just use "women" in that context? Everyone knows what you're talking about. Transmen aren't confused, assuming they're grown-ass adults who understand human biology and their own bodies.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In other words, you're a bigot.


Seriously. The orthodox trans inclusive position is that self ID is the only requirement. LondonJohn? SuburbanTurkey? Am I misrepresenting something here? (Special note to LondonJohn: Llwyd is referring to all levels of sports, not just "elite level") I mean, perhaps you might not call him bigoted, at least at this time, but his position? Do your positions, and the positions of trans rights advocates in general, agree with Llwyd's position?

Lllwyd, your position is based on common sense. It doesn't fit with the party line, though. See previous post.

Clearly there are women who don't really count as women for sports no matter that they always were identified as women and it said that on their original birth certificate. That was the whole Semenya is all about that, so woman for medical and social purposes and woman able to compete in sport are two different sets to start with.

There are clearly cis women and the subset of them who are allowed to compete in sports to start with before we even bring trans women into it.

Then there is the whole trans women competing in beauty pageants and the same people arguing they have unfair advantages in that arena too.

 

[Louden Wilde]

A profession is far less reductive than a bodily function. But even then, it’s use can be demeaning. Calling someone a janitor in a context where that isn’t relevant, for example, can be quite rude.



Possibly. But the exact reasons don’t actually matter much here, it suffices to note that such descriptors ARE demeaning, whatever the reason.

& tellingly - people have noted the same companies differing in their usage regarding females vs males, e.g. men need to get checked for prostate cancer, while 'cervix havers' need to get checked for cervical cancer. The latter can be detrimental is that are a fair amount of women (poll I saw was in the UK) who don't know what the cervix is (e.g. those for whom English is a second language).

 

[d4m10n]

Menstruater and ejaculater and defecater and demeaning terms. We agree on that, do we not?

We do not. Nearly every adult does at least one of these things, there's nothing shameful about them.

 

[theprestige]

This is precisely the claim of which I am skeptical.

Think of a few bodily functions which we don't find embarrassing: Walking, running, jumping, growing red hair. We've got words for people who do such things (e.g. redheads) and we don't find those words demeaning even though they reduce people to a single function.

None of those things are bodily functions. Running is a bodily activity, not a bodily function. Red hair is an appearance, not a function. Breathing is a bodily function, and I suppose you could argue that being called a breather isn't really insulting (just... odd). But it doesn't really matter.

Menstruater and ejaculater and defecater and demeaning terms. We agree on that, do we not? For the purposes of this thread, we don't actually need to figure out exactly why.

"Mouth breather" is absolutely pejorative.

I think in the case of women, a lot of the objection rises from a history of societies reducing women to second-class citizens, chattel, mere functions. People may or may not object to reductionist identification, depending on a number of circumstances.

Most people don't object too much to being described in terms of a career they chose, especially if it's a prestigious or respectable career. I'm not reducing myself to a mere "firefighter". I'm summing up the core of the self-identity I've built up over many years of effort (or that I aspire to build up, having just been accepted to the department). But even that can be grating, if people apply stereotypes, or forget I'm also a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a volunteer at the soup kitchen. Etc.

But I suspect very few women think of "menstruation" as a summary of their core self-identity. After centuries of being reduced, of being made less-than, women have good reason to say, "I'm more than just a body part or a function. I'm a fully-fledged human being. I have a career. I have a self-identity. I have equal standing with every other human being, whether they menstruate or not."

And the only reason women are now being reduced by society yet again, is because of transwomen. A tiny fraction of the population that suffers from gender dysphoria, saying, you can't say your products are for women, because that doesn't include us. Well, it doesn't include post-menopausal women, either. It doesn't include pregnant women. And yet you don't hear the AARP pitching a fit about period product advertising not being inclusive enough for their membership.

 

[llwyd]

In other words, you're a bigot.

That may well be - not that I much care - but I'm not a bigot in the sense of dismissing this issue or the community (or population) of trans people. It seems to be an absolutely genuine grievance which is probably why most or I guess all civilized governments all over the world are addressing and taking it seriously. Notwithstanding a small group of shrill and loud radical activists or the extreme cases where their logic has led or might conceivably lead.

 

[Louden Wilde]

Clearly there are women who don't really count as women for sports no matter that they always were identified as women and it said that on their original birth certificate. That was the whole Semenya is all about that, so woman for medical and social purposes and woman able to compete in sport are two different sets to start with.

There are clearly cis women and the subset of them who are allowed to compete in sports to start with before we even bring trans women into it.

Then there is the whole trans women competing in beauty pageants and the same people arguing they have unfair advantages in that arena too.

No. While Semenya's medical condition has not been publically released (to my knowledge), she's a male with a very rare DSD (almost certainly 5-alpha reductase deficiency). That's not what we're talking about here, nor does it provide any evidence that gender/ID is (generally) more important than sex.

 

[Louden Wilde]

We do not. Nearly every adult does at least one of these things, there's nothing shameful about them.

True, but it seems clear that many (I'm thinking most) women don't like the terms. & I ( & many others) strongly suspect that the folks/companies using the (female-related) terms are using that phrasing so they can not be accused of transphobia. Because if they say 'women', They'll get the protest that "not all women have cervixes!", but not it's not women who've had hysterectomies complaining...

 

[Meadmaker]

Also to Llwyd,

One of the things that makes conversation about this topic so difficult on this board is that when you ask a question like this:

Seriously. The orthodox trans inclusive position is that self ID is the only requirement. LondonJohn? SuburbanTurkey? Am I misrepresenting something here? (Special note to LondonJohn: Llwyd is referring to all levels of sports, not just "elite level") I mean, perhaps you might not call him bigoted, at least at this time, but his position? Do your positions, and the positions of trans rights advocates in general, agree with Llwyd's position?

You get an answer like this:

Clearly there are women who don't really count as women for sports no matter that they always were identified as women and it said that on their original birth certificate. That was the whole Semenya is all about that, so woman for medical and social purposes and woman able to compete in sport are two different sets to start with.

There are clearly cis women and the subset of them who are allowed to compete in sports to start with before we even bring trans women into it.

Then there is the whole trans women competing in beauty pageants and the same people arguing they have unfair advantages in that arena too.

Totally unresponsive. Diverting. It happens again and again.

For some reason a lot of people don't want to actually state their position, or honestly represent other people's position.



I'll just make a brief reference to the core of my position. Sports: Safety and fairness matter. Achieve those, and I don't care which chromosomes are in the race, but it isn't reasonable to have unaltered males, like Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, competing against females. Private spaces: Males with functional sex organs should not be allowed in female-only spaces. Surgically altered males should be allowed. For people in the middle, I don't have the medical expertise to say exactly when those people should be allowed to "switch", but they should be, at some point. However, if they can still get a woman pregnant, go to the boys' shower.

And, keep in mind, real legislation often goes on for pages, trying to get every last edge case defined. I'm not going to do that. Sometimes, that's used as an excuse to insult on these boards. Nice people would not do such a thing, but it takes all kinds to make a forum.

 

[Ziggurat]

We do not. Nearly every adult does at least one of these things, there's nothing shameful about them.

That's not the question or the issue. That we do these things, and that they are not shameful things in and of themselves, doesn't mean that using them to label people isn't insulting.

 

[llwyd]

Seems quite accurate in regards to gays and lesbians. What else is sexual orientation except a feeling? But it's obviously wrong in regards to ethnic minorities, which do constitute different genetic groups.

Well, I don't know if it's really the case that we are heterosexual or gay just because we "feel" that way. Unless you want to define the word in quite an unusual way. I would think that various conversion (or brainwashing and forceful conditioning) techniques would be much more effective if we were thinking of "feelings" as the concept is usually defined.

The analogy doesn't work directly for ethnic minorities, but if the analogue is with dismissing an entire category of people (apart from some "aberrations"), then it would be easy to find some other type of justifications for doing that, but this just as an aside.

 

[Meadmaker]

That may well be - not that I much care - but I'm not a bigot in the sense of dismissing this issue or the community (or population) of trans people. It seems to be an absolutely genuine grievance which is probably why most or I guess all civilized governments all over the world are addressing and taking it seriously. Notwithstanding a small group of shrill and loud radical activists or the extreme cases where their logic has led or might conceivably lead.

I'm not absolutely certain what you mean here, so I'll try to clarify it.

I think the "shrill and loud radical activists" are people who demand self id with no qualification as a criteria for access to female sports and female spaces.

Those "shrill and loud radical activists" are the ones who work at the Department of Education, and wrote policy for American high schools, as of January 20, 2021.

That's something that an awful lot of people have trouble wrapping their head around. Those activists are the ones driving policy. They really are saying that anyone who says they are a woman, is a woman. No hormones required. No psychologist required. No anything required. If you say you are a woman, you are a woman. Welcome to the Spa. You can take off your clothes in the locker room.

 

[llwyd]

Also to Llwyd,
Totally unresponsive. Diverting. It happens again and again.

Well, I can't answer for other people. (Though I would think that it's a very difficult position to defend and justify and that maybe is reflected with these wordy and unsatisfactory responses.) But for me selfidentification as the sole criteria in sports, changing rooms and toilets is rather a side issue of the broad political question of trans people rights and their identity in their everyday lifes. By far most of them take many, many more steps than merely just self-identify. And those are hard steps in very hostile circumstances.

 

[Meadmaker]

Well, I can't answer for other people. (Though I would think that it's a very difficult position to defend and justify and that maybe is reflected with these wordy and unsatisfactory responses.) But for me selfidentification as the sole criteria in sports, changing rooms and toilets is rather a side issue of the broad political question of trans people rights and their identity in their everyday lifes. By far most of them take many, many more steps than merely just self-identify. And those are hard steps in very hostile circumstances.

I wish it were a side issue.

I think it's actually the core issue.

 

[ponderingturtle]

No. While Semenya's medical condition has not been publically released (to my knowledge), she's a male with a very rare DSD (almost certainly 5-alpha reductase deficiency). That's not what we're talking about here, nor does it provide any evidence that gender/ID is (generally) more important than sex.

She was never assigned male sex, clearly she does not meet the physical criteria of a male being having a penis so she is a woman.

She is a woman by all the categories people here are demanding. All they have released is that her testosterone levels are unusually high, and to compete she would need to take drugs. That is the entirety of the justification. Two other runners were also banned from the Olympics for exactly that reason.

Though I guess you could label her freak and put her outside the categories of male and female.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'll just make a brief reference to the core of my position. Sports: Safety and fairness matter.

Exactly we need to drug all athletes to maintain fair levels of agility and prevent excessive natural talent. Oddly for some reason this only applies to women, no one cares about fairness in men's sports. Or they would be for banning sufficiently abnormal individuals like Michael Phelps. They clearly need to have some drugs to mitigate their unusual biological advantages, well if one cared about consistency in logic, something that repeatedly gets ignored.