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Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

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Meadmaker said:
Yikes. If this thread is head and shoulders above the rest of society, it's hard to imagine what the rest of the world is talking about. I think there's too much "terf" here. I admit that I do yell "woke" a bit, but I hope I have something else to go along with it.

But it does kind of relate to something I was going to say about LondonJohn's argument from the last election results, a variation of argument ad popularem. In America, I don't think people even understand what they are supporting. In particular, I think a lot of the more lukewarm* supporters of trans rights don't realize that "transgender" includes people who have no medical treatment or even diagnosis. They don't realize that the people who want self ID as the only criterion are not fringe weirdos. They are policy makers at the Department of Education, and on their school board. I think they believe that "transgender" means surgically or at least hormonally altered.

I watched Dave Chapelle's show, and I think that's what even he thinks, and he was in the center of it. He was talking about transgender, but he was describing transsexual.

When that realization dawns on people, some of them switch their vote. I think the governor-elect of Virginia owes his victory to that. I think Donald Trump in 2016 did, too. I think this was the issue that put him over the top.

Anyway, must go to meeting, but I think an argument based on election results is a house of cards.

*ETA: What I mean by that are people who really don't give the issue much thought, but if you ask them about it, they'll say trans people are just fine with them. I think that's most people on the "blue" side of the ledger. I think when they understand exactly what the policies advocated are, a lot of them stop being trans supporters, and some of them jump to the "red" side.
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???
I don't recall saying anything related to the "last election results". I don't even know what elections you're referring to here - I'd guess maybe Biden's election victory?

In any event, I've never (I think) tried to claim that transgender rights were an influential factor - either way - in how people vote for governments and legislatures. Nor (I think) did I ever try to argue that (eg) "Biden was elected US President, which goes to show that the majority view in the US is in favour of transgender rights".

What I have been claiming - well, stating really, because it's a factual truth - is that progressive governments and legislatures have consistently been proactive over the past decade or so in granting & protecting transgender rights.

And I think it's pretty obvious that those progressive governments/parliaments/congresses have fundamentally taken their lead from the revised view of transgender identity and gender dysphoria in DSM5. Just as, for example, when medical science was able to determine that homosexuality is not a disorder, defect or the product of a degenerate mind.

Incidentally, a point worth noting is that executives and legislatures of many differing political "colours" have been active in securing rights and protections for transgender people. While one might in a way expect Biden's centre-left US Federal Government to be pushing through these sorts of policies, in the UK the slightly-to-the-right-of-centre-right Conservative Government/Parliament under Boris Johnson has been enacting the very same types of legislation.

So I think it's very clear that one can't say the recognition and protection of transgender rights is a left-wing preserve. Rather, it's the preserve of progressive nations, irrespective of the political colour of their assemblies.
 
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crazycat said:
Thank you. What has gone into my viewpoint is mostly what I have read here and the outside references that people have provided. I know only 1 transperson IRL, but only very casually, and don't feel like I could discuss this with them.

I can understand (or think that I understand) other letters in the LGBTQ+ movements. I don't understand why someone would hate or reject their own body so much that they undergo hormone treatment and even surgery, but I accept that such people exist and really do have a problem.

But I can't understand people who claim to be the other gender than their sex, but do nothing about it, not even seeing a doctor for a diagnosis. And refuse to do anything about it other than maybe changing the gender on their driving license. And then expect everyone to treat them as their chosen gender.

If any of you have outside reading that will help me, I'd appreciate suggestions.

It really concerns me to see various organizations that had originally advocated for trans rights, pulling away from supporting the trans agenda. I think trans activists are managing to alienate everyone, including groups that were previously for trans rights. The trans movement seems to be ignoring cis-women's rights and concerns.
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Re your last sentence....

This claim is simply untrue (and mischievous). For lots of reasons.

Some way back in the thread, I made the comparison with black people on buses in the US South in the 50s. Public transport buses in those days had 2-person bench seats on either side of a central aisle. The prevailing laws of the time meant that if a white person boarded the bus and the only empty seats available were next to a black person on a 2-person bench, the black person had to give up his/her seat and stand - so that the white person wouldn't have to sit side-by-side with a black person on one of these (small in width) bench seats.

Well, the laws (eventually, and thankfully) changed - meaning that black people now had the right to sit alongside a white person on one of those 2-seat benches on buses. Now, one of the main reasons behind the old law was effectively predicated on the notion that black people were generally degenerate and primal compared with "civilised" white people. Therefore (the racist old law suggested) no white person should ever be placed in the situation where they're sitting tight up against a black person on one of these bus benches. The black person might try to pick the pocket of the white person. Worse, the black male in particular might succumb to his "animal instincts" and carry out some sort of lewd and disgusting act on a white woman or girl sitting tight up against him on the bus. This is why those laws were in place for so long.

So.... when the laws were eventually changed (Rosa Parks and all that), there were protests from the white community. The protests were along the lines of:

"It's all very well giving these sorts of rights to black people, but the impact of this upon the rights and concerns of white people seems to be being ignored! If we're now going to have to put up with black people sitting tight up against us on those bus bench seats, we're now, as a direct consequence, being exposed to the risk of deviant behaviour from those black bench-sharers (where there was no such danger under the old laws). Will nobody consider the danger that these changed laws will pose to, for example, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who may now find herself with a brawny black male farm worker pushed tight up against her on a bus bench seat? Why can't legislators and black civil rights activists recognise the increased danger to white people - especially white schoolgirls - that are a direct consequence of granting black people equal civil rights on buses??"

QED
 
Well, once out of nature, I shall not take any natural form etc. I truly wish for a techno utopia (like Culture in Iain M. Banks' scifi novels) where you really can change your biological sex almost at whim. Nature and biology are such crude, inelegant things.
 
LondonJohn said:
Re your last sentence....

This claim is simply untrue (and mischievous). For lots of reasons.

Some way back in the thread, I made the comparison with black people on buses in the US South in the 50s. Public transport buses in those days had 2-person bench seats on either side of a central aisle. The prevailing laws of the time meant that if a white person boarded the bus and the only empty seats available were next to a black person on a 2-person bench, the black person had to give up his/her seat and stand - so that the white person wouldn't have to sit side-by-side with a black person on one of these (small in width) bench seats.

Well, the laws (eventually, and thankfully) changed - meaning that black people now had the right to sit alongside a white person on one of those 2-seat benches on buses. Now, one of the main reasons behind the old law was effectively predicated on the notion that black people were generally degenerate and primal compared with "civilised" white people. Therefore (the racist old law suggested) no white person should ever be placed in the situation where they're sitting tight up against a black person on one of these bus benches. The black person might try to pick the pocket of the white person. Worse, the black male in particular might succumb to his "animal instincts" and carry out some sort of lewd and disgusting act on a white woman or girl sitting tight up against him on the bus. This is why those laws were in place for so long.

So.... when the laws were eventually changed (Rosa Parks and all that), there were protests from the white community. The protests were along the lines of:

"It's all very well giving these sorts of rights to black people, but the impact of this upon the rights and concerns of white people seems to be being ignored! If we're now going to have to put up with black people sitting tight up against us on those bus bench seats, we're now, as a direct consequence, being exposed to the risk of deviant behaviour from those black bench-sharers (where there was no such danger under the old laws). Will nobody consider the danger that these changed laws will pose to, for example, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who may now find herself with a brawny black male farm worker pushed tight up against her on a bus bench seat? Why can't legislators and black civil rights activists recognise the increased danger to white people - especially white schoolgirls - that are a direct consequence of granting black people equal civil rights on buses??"

QED
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Not QED. That analogy might work with people who consider transpeople perverted or evil, but that's not anyone who is posting in this forum.

What does racist white folks have to do with claiming that lesbians are TERFs for not wanting to have sex with people who have male bodies, for one example?

Why do YOU think organizations which originally supported trans rights are starting to back away from that support?
 
d4m10n said:
Imagine thinking that the two distinct biological sexes are so alike that they make be usefully compared to the arbitrary (and on occasion pseudoscientific) social construction of races. :rolleyes:
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And, what struck me, is the use of the tired old, "You're just like the segregationists." tripe in response to that particular post. I just can't imagine the mindset that would read that particular post, i.e. crazycat's post, her second in this four year old thread, and think, "I had better explain that girls who don't want to take off their clothes in front of someone who is male are really just like the folks who told Rosa Parks to move to the back of the bus."

And to end it all with "QED". That was awesome.
 
d4m10n said:
I don't think we can settle anything with mantras like "trans women are women."
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Obviously. This whole mess started because trans activists are trying to settle things with that and other blanket mantras.

"Transwomen are sometimes women" is a concept we can work with.

"Transwomen are women" just leads to "not always", which ultimately leads to "not ever".
 
Paul2 said:
But it's those same criteria that allow, enable, and provide for "all of the other previously-resolved public policy and social acceptance issues." Introduction of those criteria do the exact opposite of what you say they do. If the criteria of fairness says that transwomen who have undergone male puberty not be allowed to complete with females in sports (and whether it does or not is not the point right here), it makes no sense to say that fairness requires that we are allowed to not hire transwomen for some job for which they are otherwise qualified, like anyone else.
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Fairness because they're people, not because they're transpeople.
 
theprestige said:
"Transwomen are sometimes women" is a concept we can work with.
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Or we could just go around the semantic fencepost of womanhood entirely, e.g. "Some leagues are set aside for people who never experienced the virilizing effects of high testosterone levels during adolescence, such as greater muscle mass and bone density."
 
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LondonJohn said:
Re your last sentence....

This claim is simply untrue (and mischievous). For lots of reasons.

Some way back in the thread, I made the comparison with black people on buses in the US South in the 50s. Public transport buses in those days had 2-person bench seats on either side of a central aisle. The prevailing laws of the time meant that if a white person boarded the bus and the only empty seats available were next to a black person on a 2-person bench, the black person had to give up his/her seat and stand - so that the white person wouldn't have to sit side-by-side with a black person on one of these (small in width) bench seats.

Well, the laws (eventually, and thankfully) changed - meaning that black people now had the right to sit alongside a white person on one of those 2-seat benches on buses. Now, one of the main reasons behind the old law was effectively predicated on the notion that black people were generally degenerate and primal compared with "civilised" white people. Therefore (the racist old law suggested) no white person should ever be placed in the situation where they're sitting tight up against a black person on one of these bus benches. The black person might try to pick the pocket of the white person. Worse, the black male in particular might succumb to his "animal instincts" and carry out some sort of lewd and disgusting act on a white woman or girl sitting tight up against him on the bus. This is why those laws were in place for so long.

So.... when the laws were eventually changed (Rosa Parks and all that), there were protests from the white community. The protests were along the lines of:

"It's all very well giving these sorts of rights to black people, but the impact of this upon the rights and concerns of white people seems to be being ignored! If we're now going to have to put up with black people sitting tight up against us on those bus bench seats, we're now, as a direct consequence, being exposed to the risk of deviant behaviour from those black bench-sharers (where there was no such danger under the old laws). Will nobody consider the danger that these changed laws will pose to, for example, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who may now find herself with a brawny black male farm worker pushed tight up against her on a bus bench seat? Why can't legislators and black civil rights activists recognise the increased danger to white people - especially white schoolgirls - that are a direct consequence of granting black people equal civil rights on buses??"

QED
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Women's lib, civil rights, and gay rights were/are movements that are the same as the more recent trans rights movement in one way: Social recognition of historically marginalized groups as being fully human. The way that race, sex, and sexual orientation are clearly different from transness is that, on a policy level, for the first three, it is easy to see what equal treatment means. With transness, that is not so. I don't think there are any arguments in this thread about the first kind of liberation - recognition as humans with the right to dignity and respect. All of the arguments are about private and public policy, and where trans rights conflict with women's rights. So, it is all necessarily about a balancing of rights, not simple equality.
 
"Black people should be treated just like any other people."

Yes, of course.

"Gay people should be treated just like any other people."

Yes, of course.

"Women should be treated just like any other people."

Yes, of course.

Transwomen should be treated just like any other people."

Yes, of course.

Transwomen should be treated just like any other women."

Which is different from treating them like people how, exactly?

"Transphobe!"
 
porch said:
Women's lib, civil rights, and gay rights were/are movements that are the same as the more recent trans rights movement in one way: Social recognition of historically marginalized groups as being fully human. The way that race, sex, and sexual orientation are clearly different from transness is that, on a policy level, for the first three, it is easy to see what equal treatment means. With transness, that is not so. I don't think there are any arguments in this thread about the first kind of liberation - recognition as humans with the right to dignity and respect. All of the arguments are about private and public policy, and where trans rights conflict with women's rights. So, it is all necessarily about a balancing of rights, not simple equality.
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Yes!

There's also an intrinsic element to discrimination against females based on their biology (stemming from the fact that mammalian females make the limiting gamete and bear nearly all the costs of reproduction) that makes it different than homophobia and racism (though some of the latter is likely based on genetic differences).
 
Are transwomen allowed to vote? Yes.

Are transwomen allowed to buy houses and have jobs? Yes.

Are transwomen allowed to sit at the front of the bus? Yes.

Are transwomen allowed to get married? Yes. To other women? Yes. To other men? Yes.

Are transwomen allowed to use the same restrooms as white folks? Yes.

Are transwomen allowed to compete in the same sports leagues as white folks? Yes.

Are transwomen allowed to self-identify however they want? Yes.

Are transwomen allowed to use the same pronouns as everyone else? Yes. Are they allowed to use different pronouns if they want? Yes.

(Are ciswomen allowed to use gender-nonconforming pronouns? Good question!)

So what's missing? What human rights do black people and gay people enjoy, that transpeople do not?
 
Hevneren said:
The right to be perceived as something? I don’t think that right exists.
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Plenty of rights didn't exist until they did.

(Arguably, all of them, for those of us who don't subscribe to natural rightsWP.)

The right to have the taxpayers fund top surgery (to take just one example) is ultimately about perception, to include self-perception.
 
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