Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

[Meadmaker]

Plenty of rights didn't exist until they did.

Arguably, all of them.

But that particular "right" doesn't make sense. You can't legislate someone's perception.

You could have a right to be treated as the sex you prefer, but not to be perceived that way.

 

[Louden Wilde]

The right to be perceived as something? I don’t think that right exists. Bur you’re probably right, that’s indeed what’s being demanded here.

Yes. those of us who've been following this for a bit have seen TW demand not only entrance to female only domestic shelters, prisons ( & note - apparently the majority of women in prison were sexually abused prior to their crimes), sports, slots reserved for female representation, but also things like OB/Gyn appointments, pregnancy/lactation FB groups, etc.

 

[d4m10n]

You can't legislate someone's perception.

You can require national health / private health insurance providers to pay for surgeries, though.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Completely agree. I definitely found (teaching- both in class and to grad students) that one of the concepts that was tough to get across was that evolution isn't necessarily leading to something intrinsically 'better' (just something better adapted to current conditions, including pathogen presence) and that we don't use primitive pejoratively the way it's used when talking about culture.

relevant to this thread: I do sometimes wonder whether the TW "lesbians" (AKA heterosexual males) are (subconsciously) adopting an alternative strategy to pass on their genes....

Waaaaaayyyyy out of my zone of expertise, but I've wondered if homosexuality is an evolutionary adaptation to overcrowding. Some kid of epigenetic trigger in response to environmental conditions. OF course, that's assuming that my half-assed pop-sci understanding of what the heck epigenetics are is even halfway close to reality.

 

[Emily's Cat]

1/2 of 1 percent? In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin?

No one is going to tell a pollster that trans issues were there number one priority, but I think this is the sort of issue that makes people who had always voted Democrat to decide that these people (i.e. Democratic politicians) have just lost their minds.

I don't think there's any way to prove it. It's just a sense I got from listening to right wing sources, especially radio.

It's a possibility, I suppose. I just don't recall transgender anything being a big topic in politics in 2016. I could be wrong, it could just be that I wasn't paying attention.

ETA: The very first installation of this thread was in December of 2017. That is the first time I recall it really being a serious subject of discussion here... and well... I tend to think people on ISF, particularly the progressive folks, are more in tune with what's going on in the world than the everyday person on the street.

 

[Emily's Cat]

As for modesty - including how it pertains to male/female nudity - now that for certain is a social construct. In nature, no male animals exhibit prudish behaviour around naked females, and vice versa.

It might be worth considering that humans don't have an estrus cycle. Human females don't go into heat, and human males don't have a good way of knowing when we're ovulating. For other animals, there's no 'modesty' because 1) they don't wear clothes, and 2) visible genitals aren't a signal of sexual receptivity.

Whether you like it or not, humans have essentially evolved so that nudity, especially of genitals, is an generally indicator of sexual receptivity outside of very clear situations.

I'll also point out that in nature, no male animal exhibits prudish behavior... well, pretty much at all. But some females do, especially in species where a female will avoid or attack an unwanted suitor.

Ferinstance... I would say that female mallard ducks exhibit their version of "prudishness"... which might be why the evolved mating strategy is for mallard drakes to literally rape the females.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I match what you describe in your ETA. I'm independent, but registered Democrat for the 2020 primary. I'm not committed to either party. However I won't jump to the "red" side of the ledger until or unless Republicans come to their senses regarding Trump and other issues unrelated to this thread.

I've lurked in this thread for quite a while. Sometimes saying "good point" or "I hadn't thought of that". Sometimes my head has exploded from what I just read and the eponymous cat and I have to hide under the bed for a while.

I'm a white cis-woman. Like Emily's Cat, I to not present as a very stereotypical woman (engineering, piloting a plane, skydiving, riding motorcycles, computer programming, hate to shop, think 2 or 3 pairs of shoes and handbags are plenty, and don't wear makeup). I was happily married to a man until his death a few years ago. Yet nobody, including me, has any problem identifying me as a woman.

Transgender and transsexual are different terms (I didn't know that), but both covered by the umbrella of trans rights. I don't think that people posting here have any problem with transsexual people with the exception of some sports, in which having a male body gives them an advantage.

Posters have tried to explain why transgender people feel like they are the opposite sex from the body they were born with and feel more like the other sex. That has been a hard thing for most other people to understand. However, those feeling can't be the entire story, as references here to a pregnant transman (aren't pregnancy, birth, and lactation the most female things that someone can do?) and transwomen who rape (something that is engaged in nearly exclusively by men).

So, the answer to that seems to be "well, they feel more identity with the other gender" - they feel like the stereotype of the other gender rather than the sex that they are. Seriously, stereotypes?

I honestly don't get what people who don't have a diagnosed psychological disorder mean when they self-identify. If someone can post or refer to an understandable explanation, I'd like to see it.

Most of the time, treating transpeople as they want to be treated works just fine. A transman magician, OK. A transwoman receptionist, fine.

The most contention seems to be over transwomen and what rights they have related to cis-women.

While women have been historically restricted in what they are allowed to do, in the U.S., that is mostly gone (at least legally). There are now laws helping women to catch up. Counting transwomen as women dilutes the intent and effect of those laws.

Comparisons with past injustices against POC and gays are not valid. The gay rights movement didn't decree that straight people must have sex with gay people. Yet the trans movement is making a big deal out of lesbians not being interested in transwomen. Women of color are not any different from white women, except for the color of their skin.

But (not sure how to write this - men who self id as women, but do nothing besides possibly changing their driver's license) are very different from ciswomen.

Men are taller, weigh more, and are stronger, than women. And are more prone to violence. That's true, regardless of what they declare themselves to be. Women don't want to be in vulnerable positions, such as a common changing area, with such people. Most men are not monsters or rapists, but the ones who are don't come with labels for women to identify them by. Women avoid situations where they are put in possible danger.

The trans activists here either completely ignore this aspect of women's lives or downplay the importance. Cis-men seem to understand.

Most sports favor the male body type. The fastest person on earth is a man. The best golfer is a man. The reason women's sports has become a thing, is that women can compete against other women like them, and not against men. Taking testosterone-reducing drugs does very little to erase the male advantage.

And finally, does the trans movement mangle other languages as badly as it does English?

I do not read or post as often as the frequent contributors, so a conversation may move faster than I can keep up with. I'll try to answer any questions or comments made directly to me. As a proxy, Emily's Cat often says what I intend to post.

Sorry this post has gotten so long. I just wanted to explain my position as a generally liberal but not aware of the full trans situation voter.

I have no disagreements with this at all. It's virtually identical to my own positions.

Of particular import is, as you say, the bad guys don't come with labels.

 

[Paul2]

As for modesty - including how it pertains to male/female nudity - now that for certain is a social construct. In nature, no male animals exhibit prudish behaviour around naked females, and vice versa.

I don't think it's true that, because no other animals exhibits some behavior, that when humans exhibit that behavior, it means that it is socially constructed. Couldn't it be true that an animal has some instinctive behavior that no other animal has, even if the animal with the instinctive behavior has culture as well?

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

I disagree with this. I think it's perfectly acceptable to have fair inclusion policies in some situations and not in others. And I'll give you an example.

Fairness says that physical disabilities can be excluded from sports. But it would be considered completely unjust discrimination to exclude a person with a physical disability from a job they are otherwise qualified for, like anyone else.

I'm epileptic. There are LOTS of things that I cannot do (because I have a brain in my head and know better), and there are things I'm excluded from doing. I would be excluded from getting a pilot's license, were I so inclined. But I am perfectly capable of doing my job, and if I were declined a position solely for being epileptic, where that medical condition has no bearing on the job, I would definitely see that as unfair.

I think this is the same situation. I see absolutely no justification for excluding a transgender person from a job on the basis of them being transgender, with the exception of jobs where sex is directly applicable and relevant. For example, I could see a strip club featuring female dancers and catering predominantly to males clientele refusing to hire a non-passing or non-op transwoman. But for something like computer programming, or retail, or food service, or any other job where sex is supposed to be irrelevant, I would view it as unjustly discriminatory to refuse employment to transgender people on the basis of their gender identity.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You can require national health / private health insurance providers to pay for surgeries, though.

Are we talking sexual reassignment surgery?

 

[Paul2]

I disagree with this. I think it's perfectly acceptable to have fair inclusion policies in some situations and not in others. And I'll give you an example.

Fairness says that physical disabilities can be excluded from sports. But it would be considered completely unjust discrimination to exclude a person with a physical disability from a job they are otherwise qualified for, like anyone else.

I'm epileptic. There are LOTS of things that I cannot do (because I have a brain in my head and know better), and there are things I'm excluded from doing. I would be excluded from getting a pilot's license, were I so inclined. But I am perfectly capable of doing my job, and if I were declined a position solely for being epileptic, where that medical condition has no bearing on the job, I would definitely see that as unfair.

I think this is the same situation. I see absolutely no justification for excluding a transgender person from a job on the basis of them being transgender, with the exception of jobs where sex is directly applicable and relevant. For example, I could see a strip club featuring female dancers and catering predominantly to males clientele refusing to hire a non-passing or non-op transwoman. But for something like computer programming, or retail, or food service, or any other job where sex is supposed to be irrelevant, I would view it as unjustly discriminatory to refuse employment to transgender people on the basis of their gender identity.

Somehow, we agree, so it must be that communication is not happening.

 

[Meadmaker]

It's a possibility, I suppose. I just don't recall transgender anything being a big topic in politics in 2016. I could be wrong, it could just be that I wasn't paying attention.

The North Carolina "bathroom bill.". I remember Hugh Hewitt on the morning of election day imploring people to get out and vote. One of his slogans was, "come on, north Carolina. Are you going to let the NCAA tell you how to run your state?"

 

[JoeMorgue]

If a job doesn't have... sexual (not sexual in the act I mean sexual as in sexual dimorphism... oh whatever) aspect to it what are we even talking about? How would discrimination even work?

Again I keep coming back to this. If you don't treat the sexes differently outside of pure biology what does "acknowledge the transgender" even functionally mean?

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

What legislation is it that has been pushed through in the UK? The GRA reform did not go through, and the school and prison policies developed by Stonewall (not the government) are being challenged and revised as we speak.

That said, Scotland is doing its own thing, against strong opposition from lots of females. And Ireland did recently pass some law or other, though I'm not entirely sure what it was.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

What was it I said about straight white men using black people and gay people as some sort of gotcha? What did I say about trying to paint females as evil oppressors for not giving other men whatever the **** they want?

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Wish away. I would prefer, however, that you don't attempt to force your wish on me. I don't happen to see that as a utopia.

 

[Emily's Cat]

We need a new word, and I'm going to make it up right now.

The word is "neo-Godwinism". Here's the etymology.

In online forums, it used to be very common to have comparisons to Hitler. If someone took any position, someone else would come along and declare that that position was just like Adolf Hitler's position. It was so common that somewhere along the line, someone made a short, user friendly term for the practice and called it "Godwin's Law".

After Godwin's Law became well known, almost any reference to Hitler would be dismissed as an instance of Godwin's Law. Not wishing their posts to be ignored, people stopped using Hitler comparisons. When they did use a Hitler reference, they usually included language to indicate that it was not really a case of Godwin's Law, and begged people to take their message seriously despite the Hitler reference.

So, comparing things to Hitler became practically taboo, and yet people still had a compulsion to demonize "the other side" by comparing them to some truly awful folks, regardless of whether the comparison was sound. So, they started comparing people to the KKK, to segregationists, or to some other universally recognized source of evil, but who wasn't Hitler.

Such a reference is what I call a "neo-Godwinism".

I would encourage users to be careful before applying a neo-Godwinism. It might cause people to not take your post seriously. I think when doing so, you need to be mindful that that could happen and, as when using a comparison of anything to Hitler, include language that indicates that you are aware of frequent spurious comparisons, and you want the reader to look past the fact that comparisons to Klansmen are tired and the result of lazy thinking, and that this particular point is really worth making, and can't be made without such a reference.

Otherwise, the post might just be dismissed as yet another neo-Godwinism.

In this thread...

"Females are totally just like Hitler for not letting prostate-havers strip naked in front of them!"

 

[d4m10n]

Are we talking sexual reassignment surgery?

I used the example of top surgery^WP at #2535.

ETA: Another example would be facial feminization surgery^WP.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The right to be perceived and treated as the sex with which they identify, in situations where sex matters.

ETA: One may find other answers to your question on this hashtag, this week.

https://twitter.com/aeon_blu/status/1460232945101324293

I suspect you're not taking that position as your own, but passing it along for the purpose of discussion.

That said... NOBODY has a right to be PERCEIVED in any way whatsoever. Perception is something in another person's mind, and nobody can compel that.

That leaves "right to be treated as the sex with which they identify, in situations where sex matters."

And I will note that NOBODY else has that right, it is not a right at all. It's a special privilege above and beyond what other people have.

Other people don't "identify as a sex", they ARE a sex. And they are treated in accordance with the sex that they actually are. This "right" is a demand to be granted exception from how everyone else is treated, and to have special rules apply only to transgender people. That makes it an entitlement or a privilege, not a right.

For example... a person with dwarfism could start a movement to treat small people as the height with which they identify. And in most cases, that's fine, it makes no difference, and if it pleases them to be treated as if they were taller, I'm okay with that. I'm even happy to make some accommodations to assist them in that endeavor - just as I am happy to make some accommodations for transgender people. On the other hand, just because small person who is 4'2" tall identifies as 5'7" tall doesn't mean that they actually get to ride the big roller-coaster that has a 4'10" minimum height requirement.


ETA: Okay. I clicked on the twitter link. And I am confused. I do not understand what the enormous pile of furry pictures has to do with trans anything?

 

[d4m10n]

I suspect you're not taking that position as your own, but passing it along for the purpose of discussion.

Perhaps a more zealous advocate will yet rise to the challenge posed at #2531.

NOBODY has a right to be PERCEIVED in any way whatsoever.

They might well have a right to medical body modification which alters other-perception as well as self-perception.

And I will note that NOBODY else has that right, it is not a right at all.

Citizens who've obtained GRC in the UK enjoy the legal right to be treated as the sex with which they identify in a number of situations.