Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

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LOL, you do realize that I am usually on the same side you are in these discussions, right?

theprestige said:
Okay, sure. Now translate this into your public policy recommendations for trans inclusion and accommodation.

Do you think a woman who perceives herself as a man should get diagnosed and treated for dysphoria?
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Yes. That treatment may or may not include transition.
To be clear, I'm against "conversion therapy," but I'm open to the possibility that a mental/physical mismatch (dysphoria) could be treated from either the mental or physical side depending on the patient. Forcing in either direction, I'm against.
Do you think a woman who perceives herself as a man should get her preferred pronouns?
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Yes. However:
  1. You can only expect people who don't know you to treat you in a manner based on their perception of you. They can't read minds.
  2. People who do know you and you have informed of your preference may slip up based on their perception, over which they have little control. This is especially true of people who may have known you for a long time pre-transition. It is hard to start thinking of your daughter as your son. Understand that people are human.
  3. Pick an existing pronoun. Words like Xi Xe etc. Don't feel organic to the language. (Just as many Hispanic people do not like Latinx as it's not spanish and it's hard to pronounce.)
  4. I anticipate gendered pronouns to evolve out of the language. One day we may use he/his for everyone.
Do you think a woman who claims to perceive herself as a man, but refuses to obtain a diagnosis of dysphoria should be accommodated "as a man" in any way?
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Socially, yes.

For this next part, I'll back away from saying a diagnosis of dysphoria and substitute a more generic gender identity disorder, though dysphoria is the only condition I'm familiar with.

I think if you want legal access to spaces that are set aside for a gender you need to legally be that gender. I would expect that that certification would require some sort of diagnosis. However, I also don't think it should be particularly onerous to get. How that's resolved...? I have no answers.

As for sports, I think the general rule is segregated by sex, with exceptions made for individual cases at the leagues discretion and based on the league's criteria. I do not support laws regulating this. (In general I'm opposed to laws as they take away the ability to make discretionary judgements.)
Do you think a woman who perceives herself as a man should be perceived as a man by anyone else?
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I think I have no control over how I perceive someone. And neither does anyone else.

I perceive Blaire White as a woman, but know her to be male.
I perceive Rose of Dawn as male, but know she identifies as a woman and would make a conscious choice to treat her as a woman. (If I actually met her.)

Let me clarify my point. My brains sees someone and immediately says male/female, man/woman. I have limited control of this. When I first saw Blaire White, I thought she was female. So I don't have to translate my perception of her to match additional information. When I first saw Rose of Dawn (trans-youtuber who holds positions similar to yours) I perceived a male who was obviously transitioned to female. I mentally translate her to gender.

I can't control my perception. I can control how I react to them given the combination of that perception and additional knowledge.

It get's harder in cases like the trans-woman who berated the Gamestop employee because she looked like a linebacker. (I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to both sides of that encounter.)

So no. You can't demand that someone perceives you a certain way. you can only try to stack the deck in such a way that you are perceived as you wish to be perceived.

And sexual organs are important in a sexual relationship. If someone is not bi-sexual, they probably have a strong preference for certain genitalia and acts that require those genetalia. It may be possible to function but, just as some gay people who repressed themselves and had heterosexual relationships, such a person will probably not be happy in the long term.
 
TomB said:
That is where things like pronouns come in. Or treating someone like a lady (or like a guy). What that means of course, varies.

JoeMorgue makes the excellent point that he doesn't treat men and women differently. If his male friend suddenly declared to be a trans-woman, he would treat them the same. And it would be treating her like a woman. For him, there is no behavior modification required.

But most people make assumptions:
You walk into a party and see a group of women and a group of men conversing. You can make a guess which conversation topics are going to be most entertaining to you. You might be wrong, but you might make some assumptions. If you have an extra ticket to a Rush concert, and two acquaintances you'd like to hang out with, you are likely to assume the man will be more interested. (Though you might ask the woman first out of hope.) Lifetime targets movies based on what they think women value. (Yes, there's sex, but it's mostly romance.)

And yes, those examples are pretty superficial. What I really think people mean about being treated as their gender socially has a lot to do with just accepting them and not labeling them as freaks because you perceive a male body in woman's clothes.


I think the problem is that gender is hard to define. We can give examples of gendered behaviors and gendered appearance but not gender itself. I think gender is an aspect of personality, which is itself difficult to directly quantify. (We can list behaviors and assign them to personality traits similar to gender.)

My brother (PhD Zoology) occasionally ribs his wife (M.S. Psychology or Social Work) about his being a hard science and hers a soft one. I'm a biologist, but I took enough Psychology to recognize important differences. Much less in psychology can be directly measured. You can't directly measure personality, intelligence, learning ability, or even mental disorders. I think you will find many different and conflicting definitions of intelligence. It's not firm. It's debatable. Asking for a firm definition of gender as a psychological thing is a difficult ask.

I'm not really sure it's as important as you think it is though, because you can't perceive or react to someone's gender. You can only perceive and react to someones actions, behavior, and presentation, which may or may not be reflective of their gender or some other aspect of their personality. I can't react to your self-image. I can only react to the image you show the outside world. you can only that someone in a way that matches with their presentation. (Which is something the pro-trans side needs to think about.)

That said, I think gender roles and eventually gendered presentation will evolve away. Clothing, hair, and makeup are becoming less gendered. (Or at least the means are moving closer together even if the extremes are not.) Careers and hobbies are overlapping more. And it's becoming more normal to have close non-romantic friendships between sexes. (Possibly because of less segregation of interests.) So I kind of see a gender-less future.

But we are not quite there yet. (Except for Joe.:))
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I'm all in for a genderless future. That doesn't equate to a sexless future though, and I don't think it negates sex-segregation in all situations. Hopefully it would negate disparities in opportunity on the basis of sex, allowing for more equal involvement in politics, business, etc. But for personal interactions, genderless is my north star.

With respect to the highlighted, in my neighborhood, the males talk mostly about politics, current world events, and economics. The females talk about children and church and clothing. I always hang out with the males; I have nothing in common with the females when it comes to socializing.

But I'm pretty sure that doesn't make me "a man" ;)
 
Reformed Offlian said:
But it is a case where the use of the term is rude and demeaning, which was the point at issue.
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You can tell from the context that is was rude and demeaning, just as I can tell from context that it's not rude or demeaning when my lesbian in-laws refer to their donor.

Reformed Offlian said:
Would you agree that it would be similarly rude to refer to men generally as "sperm donors", were somebody actually to do so?
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I'd need to see the context, but probably so.

A closer analogy would probably be "ejaculators" to refer to cis men and trans women who can ejaculate; I'd be chuffed to see Trojan(TM) give it a shot.
 
TomB said:
And if X actually happens it's an uncommon outlier.

Some of the arguments have been hyperbolic. But I fail to see why hyperbole is a problem, when used correctly. (I know this is a bit of a tangent from your post.)

South Park did an episode titled "Board Girls" that dealt with a male athlete (I think it was a parody of Macho Man Randy Savage) identifying as and competing as a woman. He (she?) completely dominated and humiliated the next closest competitor (Strong Woman). This of course created a crisis for Strong Woman and PC Principal (who lashed out) as they tried to reconcile their politics with the feeling of being cheated. (This led something something about "nuanced" positions.)

Now, obviously Randy Savage is not competing in "strongwoman" competitions. But it does illustrate the point that, without criteria, there is nothing that would stop him from doing so if he wanted. The point of the hyperbole was to pick something that obviously should not happen and illustrate that it could if there are no checks in place against it.

The point isn't that elite level males might declare themselves female to compete, but that it could happen at less extreme levels, and that it would still be unfair for the same reasons. It's a valid way to illustrate a point.

When I test programs I write, I don't leave in known bugs on the principal of "no one would do that" or "I'll fix it if it's a problem." Because whatever it is, someone will do it eventually. You address problems before they happen.
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Well said.

I don't write programs exactly, but I do build financial and economic models. I test them for bugs, and I also frequently stress-test them for outlier events and intentional errors, to make sure they don't provide misleading or absurd results. "That would never happen" is the sort of thing that ends up happening a lot more often than people think.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I'm all in for a genderless future. That doesn't equate to a sexless future though, and I don't think it negates sex-segregation in all situations. Hopefully it would negate disparities in opportunity on the basis of sex, allowing for more equal involvement in politics, business, etc. But for personal interactions, genderless is my north star.

With respect to the highlighted, in my neighborhood, the males talk mostly about politics, current world events, and economics. The females talk about children and church and clothing. I always hang out with the males; I have nothing in common with the females when it comes to socializing.

But I'm pretty sure that doesn't make me "a man" ;)
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Never said it did.

But even you noted that there are, in general, differences. As long as those exist and can be observed, we have not reached a gender-less state.
 
TomB said:
A definition of gender:




https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender

I think this is a workable definition. (Note the reference to psychology.) My paraphrase would be on the line of how one's psychological and behavioral traits match up with cultural expectations.

I would comment that by this definition gender is an ephemeral concept in that it is dependent on differential cultural associations of characteristics between sexes. And those change over time and, in some possible futures, could disappear entirely. Yes, it's linked to sex. I don't consider it circular.

I consider it a personality trait, subject to the same debate and conjecture as other personality traits: heritable? nature vs. nurture? etc.
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The problem with that definition is two-fold.

The first, and what I think is the most obvious, is that if a person displays the "behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with the one sex", and that sex is NOT the sex that their body has, then they become transgendered by force, whether they desire so or not. To be more blunt: it means that a female who likes race cars, beer, and wrestling, who is loud and outspoken and aggressive, who is competitive, and who has a job as a welder... would end up classified as a "man". An effeminate male would be classified as a "woman".

The second problem is one that I consider more insidious and long-term dangerous. The definition you cite, if adopted as desired by activists, would reinforce those gender roles, and would punish people for failure to conform to the behavioral, cultural, and psychological traits that have been associated with their sex. Females would continue to be expected - and conditioned - to be delicate, soft-spoken, accommodating, and nice, to take on homemaking duties and childrearing as their birthright, to be relegated to nurses and caretakers rather than doctors and lawyers. Males would continue to be expected - and conditioned - to not cry, to show only aggressive emotions but never comforting ones, to be strong and loud, to be leaders, to be decision makers.

Adopting that definition of gender, and allowing it to be used to set both public and business policy, undoes the last century of progress toward equality of the sexes. It is a danger to both males and females.
 
TomB said:
:rolleyes:

This is where it gets complicated. If you drew a Venn diagram of traits there would be a massive overlap. A key portion psychologically is self-perception. Which is consistent with dysphoria.
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Can you elaborate on what traits fall in that overlap?

What does a transwoman have in common with human females, that they do NOT have in common with human males? What does a transman have in common with human males, that they do NOT have in common with human females?
 
Interesting news from the UK, it seems the Nolan Report episodes into the relationship between Stonewall and various government entities is beginning to bear fruit.


The BBC has withdrawn from a workplace equality scheme run by LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall.




The broadcaster said its participation in Stonewall's Diversity Champions scheme had raised questions about whether it could be impartial on issues that the charity was campaigning about.




A number of other bodies and government departments have previously pulled out.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59232736
 
TomB said:
No. It's not regressive. It's reflective of a particular cultural snapshot in time.

We are (and I'm supportive of) fighting against those stereotypes, but they still exist. A gender-free society may be a goal, but we are not there.

Let me be clear, as a biologist, I'm fairly confident that there is no "wears dresses and makeup" gene. If the cultural expectation for females to dye their skin green and wear capes, trans-women would dye their skin green and wear capes. That presentation is just an expression of where their head says they fit. (My guess is that's why a lot of the trans-women I've seen tend to go hyper-feminine in their dress. They don't want to be ambiguous. But that's just speculation.)
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Did anybody bother to ask the females whether they WANT to dye their skin green and wear capes? Do they LIKE dying their skin green and wearing capes? The cultural expectation in Afghanistan now is that females do not get educated, are covered from head to toe, and aren't allowed to talk to males who are unrelated to them. The cultural expectation of just a century ago was that females don't need to think for themselves, their husbands can make decisions for them, so there's no reason for females to be allowed to vote.

When you define gender by stereotypes and cultural expectations, and you define as a 'woman' any male who identifies with those stereotypes and expectations... you reinforce those stereotypes and expectations. You create a society where that expectation is affirmed and entrenched, where that treatment is considered the norm.

TomB said:
As gender roles and expectations...the stereotypes associated with each sex...are torn down and disappear, external signs of gender will also disappear. I'm not sure of the implications for trans people. Will it make transitioning unnecessary? Will it prevent their dysphoria from being triggered? Or will it make full surgical transition the only option?

At least on the surface, it does place trans-genderism (or at least trans-women) in an adversarial position with at least some strains of feminism.
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At this point, I'd like to discuss what exactly we consider "transgender" to actually be, and whether or not gender dysphoria is a requirement for it.

It is my opinion that a lot of the people who consider themselves to be transgender are exhibiting something that is NOT gender dysphoria. I think some of them are experiencing a social rejection of gender, and in doing so are choosing to identify as the opposite sex, no sex, or something in between. I think some of them are experiencing delayed emotional-sexual maturity, and are slow to develop romantic and sexual relationships, and are interpreting this delay as being evidence that they're not the 'right' sex. And, controversial as it may be, I also think that some are frauds with malicious intent toward females, and some are people with paraphilias and fetishes that are fed by cross dressing and invading the spaces of the opposite sex.

As the concept of gender as a set of behaviors and social expectations continues to erode, I think many of those cases will evaporate. The force that drives them will no longer be there.

But there will still be some people who experience gender dysphoria - the psychological separation of what their brain expects their body to be, and what it actually is. This is a condition that has been present in small numbers throughout almost all cultures and times that we know of. I don't see any reason that this would disappear.

Those people with severe gender dysphoria were previously called transsexuals, and I'll use that term for them. Those transsexuals will still occur, and if we revert to historical patterns, there will be more male transsexuals than female transsexuals. I think there's a pretty good likelihood that there's a biological driver of that, as there is with homosexuality. And I firmly believe that such people should be accommodated to the greatest extent reasonable.

This distinction, this difference between transgender and transsexual, the presence of long-term continuous, persistent, and pervasive dysphoria... is a big reason why I oppose self-id.

Self-id harms females. Socially, it will likely harm males. But it will unquestionably delay acceptance and accommodation for transsexuals.
 
theprestige said:
Would they? I'm not so sure. A lot of women reject society's gendered expectations, and flout them. A lot of transwomen do as well.

A hundred years ago, when the gender divide was much clearer, and the social expectations for women tended to reinforce their status as second-class citizens, it might have been different. We might have seen a faction of feminists fighting to abolish these harmful stereotypes. And a faction of transwomen fighting to uphold those stereotypes and assert their right to step down into second-class citizenship.

But the feminists have largely won their fight. The stereotypes are vestigial and deprecated - even by transwomen! All that's left to fight over are pronouns and an assortment of sex-segregation issues.
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I think you might be surprised by what an awful lot of transwomen seem to think womanhood and femininity is all about. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, go read some of the highly lauded works by Andrea Long Chu, Torey Peters, or Julia Serrano. If you have a masochistic bent, take a journey into the various trans forums on Reddit or Instagram or Tumblr.
 
TomB said:
For this next part, I'll back away from saying a diagnosis of dysphoria and substitute a more generic gender identity disorder, though dysphoria is the only condition I'm familiar with.
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Gender Dysphoria *is* Gender Identity Disorder. It was renamed in DSM-V and removed from the category for sexual disorders.

Contrary to the claims made by LondonJohn, the reasons for this are not because experts realized that it's a 'valid lived condition'. It's actually two-fold. One of the reasons was to reduce the stigma associated with the diagnosis.

The other reason was because dysphoria is not, in and of itself, a condition. It's a symptom, and it may be the expression of a great many underlying disorders. It can be an express of trauma, prior childhood abuse, discomfort with a changing pubertal body, delay in forming romantic and sexual bonds (common with both autism spectrum disorders and ADHD), and a host of other anxiety/depression disorders that are common in teenagers. It can also be an expression of the still-in-DSM-V Transvestic Disorder with Autogynephilia.
 
TomB said:
I perceive Blaire White as a woman, but know her to be male.
I perceive Rose of Dawn as male, but know she identifies as a woman and would make a conscious choice to treat her as a woman. (If I actually met her.)

Let me clarify my point. My brains sees someone and immediately says male/female, man/woman. I have limited control of this. When I first saw Blaire White, I thought she was female. So I don't have to translate my perception of her to match additional information. When I first saw Rose of Dawn (trans-youtuber who holds positions similar to yours) I perceived a male who was obviously transitioned to female. I mentally translate her to gender.

I can't control my perception. I can control how I react to them given the combination of that perception and additional knowledge.
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Slight side bar... but relevant overall to some of this thread.

We're evolved to categorize male/female. Eons of evolution have instilled in us the ability to identify "potential mate" from "potential competitor". I doubt that is ever going to change. Or if it does, it's likely to result in the extinction of our species.

Which leads me to another point. Blair White is quite convincing. As is Laverne Cox. Both of them have had extensive surgery - including facial feminization surgeries to remove masculine facial characteristics and make them appear more feminine. IIRC, they've both also had full vaginoplasties. They would be be considered transsexuals by prior understanding.
 
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