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Discussion: Transwomen are not women (Part 7)

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SuburbanTurkey said:
It's about an irreconcilable view of the issue. TERFs would have you believe this is a zero sum scenario, that improvement for trans people unavoidably means a decline for cis-women. I reject this view. In fact, an improvement for trans rights shores up the civil rights of others, including cis-women, leaving everyone better off than before.
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Which improvements in trans rights will improve the rights and situation of females?
 
Civil Rights is a zero sum game if we're talking safe spaces.

I can't make that not true just because it makes the discussion harder.

If one group is asking for safe spaces away from another group the difference between:

"You get the safe space and you get to define who gets in"

and

"You get the safe space and you don't get to define who gets in"

are very, very different and I wish people would stop pretending like it's not.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
It's about an irreconcilable view of the issue. TERFs would have you believe this is a zero sum scenario, that improvement for trans people unavoidably means a decline for cis-women. I reject this view. In fact, an improvement for trans rights shores up the civil rights of others, including cis-women, leaving everyone better off than before.
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I think you've described a lot of the motivation for the trans-rights activists. There's a feeling that an improvement for trans rights shores up the rights of others. Unfortunately, I don't think it's correct.

In society at large, where some people are driven by moralism and a feeling that trans people are committing some sort of sin against God, you are probably right. Getting rid of that view increases the civil rights of everyone. However, in this forum that viewpoint doesn't exist, and I don't think it's very common in society at large, either.

I think you're so wrapped up in combatting the "fascists" that you aren't looking at the practical consequences of the positions you support.

For people who are pretty libertarian when it comes to sexual behavior, including darned near everyone who participates in this forum, there are different issues. We look and see that there really is a conflict between trans rights and women's rights, or if you prefer, cis-women's rights. Terminology is so complicated. Either Terry Miller has a right to compete, in which case she will win, or Terry Miller does not have a right to compete, in which case Alana Smith will win. If transgirls are allowed to compete, cis-girls cannot win. There is only one spot on top of the podium, and it can be either taken by a transgirl or a cisgirl, based on a policy decision. I don't see any sense in which Terry Miller's right to participate made Alana Smith better off.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
It's a real shame the UK has a system where people's official gender recognition is not a reliable reflection of people's identity. Perhaps they should fix this.
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ETA: The quote above was in response to an argument by Emily's Cat regarding sexual assault statistics and how to classify trans-perpetrators. Upon rereading, the subject and how it relates to my post below is not clear from the text of the quote.

I think you (and possibly Emily as well, to an extent) miss the point of data collection and statistics.

Statistics are used to determine association between variables and track trends.

If gender and sex are different, we should not be collecting one or the other, but both. Collecting more data, both about perpetrators and about victims, gives researchers and statisticians more information and allows them to explore trends and relationships with multiple ways of sorting.

There is no one uber-statistic regarding sexual assault to look at. It's valid to develop and look at rates for gender and rates for sex. It's also valid to look at subsets, such as when both align as male, both align as female, non-alignment MF and non-alignment FM.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
You're missing (or handwaving away) the reason those separate awards exist in the first place.

There is no innate difference in acting ability on the basis of sex. But there IS a difference in the number of leading roles available on the basis of sex. There are still many more male leading roles than there are female. And the biggest grossing films are still those that feature a male lead.

Having an award for best actress encourages customers to view more films featuring female characters and also encourages writers and filmmaker to develop female roles to be more representative and less stereotyped.
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I actually have mixed feelings about this.

First, what category would you put Jamie Clayton in for her role as Nomi Marks in Sense8? (ETA: I just saw that Jamie Clayton plays Pinhead in the upcoming Hellraiser reboot.)

Or Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There? (Essentially playing Bob Dylan.)

Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry?

When you have categories you are going to have edge cases.

In principal I agree with Suburban Turkey that there is no inherent difference in acting ability between the sexes/genders so the categories are, in a sense, not needed.

But I also know that historically, the leads were usually men. I'm not positive that's true any more. At least not to the extent it was. That might depend on genre.

There are a few issues that are kind of (and I don't mean this in a bad way) affirmative action. Things like scholarships or set aside positions for under-represented groups are a good thing. But I think they are meant to be transitory--That is, the goal is to end the under-representation and once that goal is achieved they become anachronistic and should go away.

I'm not saying we are there yet, but at some point, hopefully, the number and quality of leading roles will be equal across the sexes/genders. At that point do we need two categories? Do we need separate categories for trans actors? Are there even enough roles to make a legitimate category?
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
It's about an irreconcilable view of the issue. TERFs would have you believe this is a zero sum scenario, that improvement for trans people unavoidably means a decline for cis-women. I reject this view. In fact, an improvement for trans rights shores up the civil rights of others, including cis-women, leaving everyone better off than before.
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Both sides see it as a zero sum scenario.

But there is another view which:
  1. Wants to include trans people.
  2. Recognizes that including trans people in some circumstances does, in fact negatively affect cis-women.
  3. Would like to find a way to address 1 while mitigating 2.
  4. Recognizes that on some issues there is no perfect answer.
 
TomB said:
ETA: The quote above was in response to an argument by Emily's Cat regarding sexual assault statistics and how to classify trans-perpetrators. Upon rereading, the subject and how it relates to my post below is not clear from the text of the quote.

I think you (and possibly Emily as well, to an extent) miss the point of data collection and statistics.

Statistics are used to determine association between variables and track trends.

If gender and sex are different, we should not be collecting one or the other, but both. Collecting more data, both about perpetrators and about victims, gives researchers and statisticians more information and allows them to explore trends and relationships with multiple ways of sorting.

There is no one uber-statistic regarding sexual assault to look at. It's valid to develop and look at rates for gender and rates for sex. It's also valid to look at subsets, such as when both align as male, both align as female, non-alignment MF and non-alignment FM.
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I have no objection to collecting both. My objection is to collecting gender identity instead of sex.
 
TomB said:
If gender and sex are different, we should not be collecting one or the other, but both.
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Exactly! [emoji817]

Collecting more data, both about perpetrators and about victims, gives researchers and statisticians more information and allows them to explore trends and relationships with multiple ways of sorting.
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It is possible that trans women strongly resemble cis women in various patterns of criminality, and that would be fairly useful information to have for those who hope to see the former group treated more like the latter in the criminal justice system.
 
TomB said:
I actually have mixed feelings about this.

First, what category would you put Jamie Clayton in for her role as Nomi Marks in Sense8? (ETA: I just saw that Jamie Clayton plays Pinhead in the upcoming Hellraiser reboot.)

Or Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There? (Essentially playing Bob Dylan.)

Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry?

When you have categories you are going to have edge cases.
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I would be inclined to base the categories on the sex of the actor, not the sex or gender identity of the character they are portraying. But I also don't feel particularly strongly about this - pick a schema and stick with it.

TomB said:
In principal I agree with Suburban Turkey that there is no inherent difference in acting ability between the sexes/genders so the categories are, in a sense, not needed.

But I also know that historically, the leads were usually men. I'm not positive that's true any more. At least not to the extent it was. That might depend on genre.

There are a few issues that are kind of (and I don't mean this in a bad way) affirmative action. Things like scholarships or set aside positions for under-represented groups are a good thing. But I think they are meant to be transitory--That is, the goal is to end the under-representation and once that goal is achieved they become anachronistic and should go away.

I'm not saying we are there yet, but at some point, hopefully, the number and quality of leading roles will be equal across the sexes/genders. At that point do we need two categories? Do we need separate categories for trans actors? Are there even enough roles to make a legitimate category?
Click to expand...

If we're at a point where the discriminatory variable is no longer discriminatory, then the need for affirmative action is removed. I think that's a bit more of a challenge with segregated awards though, compared to more traditional affirmative action.

If there's still an expectation that there will be reasonable representation after removal of the categories, then we would expect some sentinel effect. When the reason for removal is to accommodate the feelings of a very small number of people who identify as something else... I'm not so sure whether that sentinel effect would be useful in any way.
 
TomB said:
Both sides see it as a zero sum scenario.

But there is another view which:
  1. Wants to include trans people.
  2. Recognizes that including trans people in some circumstances does, in fact negatively affect cis-women.
  3. Would like to find a way to address 1 while mitigating 2.
  4. Recognizes that on some issues there is no perfect answer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that "other view" is pretty much the view of all the people in this thread, including me, who have been vilified as bigots and TERFs.
 
Paul2 said:
There are a whole lot sports fans who see it differently than you. The more they care about winning and losing, the more exciting it is. I know that's true for myself. Are you saying I shouldn't enjoy being a sports fan the way that I currently enjoy them?
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Without winning and losing, a race is just a bunch of people running laps. And shot put is just people throwing stuff for some reason.
 
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A bit more context on the most recent Scottish kerfuffle. Females are incapable of committing rape in Scotland, on account of the specificity of the relevant criminal law. When Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie talks about recording rapes committed by women, he is talking about something which has never happened before in Scottish law and history. Once the new law and policy are in place, Scotland will have two kinds of rapists: cisgender men and transgender women.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
It's about an irreconcilable view of the issue. TERFs would have you believe this is a zero sum scenario, that improvement for trans people unavoidably means a decline for cis-women.
Click to expand...

Absolutely true in sports based on physical performance (darts etc might be different).
 
Jon Ronson (who is a member of the forum) has had a series running on Radio 4 regarding many of current "culture wars" issues - today's programme had an interview with the person who came up with the term "TERF" and talks to many people with different views on the topics of this thread.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0012fs8

Don't know if that can be accessed outside the UK - may have to use a streaming service.
 
Story of how a parent psychologically battered their trans child into submission shared as a success story:

I went nuclear. I took the phone and stripped it of all social media—YouTube, Instagram, Discord, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter. I even blocked her ability to get to the internet. I deleted all of her contacts and changed her phone number.

I sat next to her while she “attended” school online via Zoom. I deleted YouTube from the smart TVs and locked up the remotes. I took every anime book from her room. I threw away all of her costumes. I banned any friend who was even the slightest bit unsavory.

I involved the police about the porn. I printed out the law and informed her that if anyone sent her porn, I would not hesitate to prosecute.

She hated me like an addict hates the person preventing her drug fix. I held my ground, despite the constant verbal abuse.

After going through seven mental health professionals, I found an out-of-state psychiatrist who was willing to examine the causality for my daughter’s sudden trans identity.

...

After a year and half of utter hell, my daughter is finally returning to her authentic self—a beautiful, artsy, kind and loving daughter.
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/12/13/what-ive-learned-rescuing-my-daughter-from-her-transgender-fantasy/

No way this is going to backfire in about 10 years.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
Story of how a parent psychologically battered their trans child into submission shared as a success story:



https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/12/13/what-ive-learned-rescuing-my-daughter-from-her-transgender-fantasy/

No way this is going to backfire in about 10 years.
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Have you considered the possibility that you're wrong?

There's an obvious caveat that we don't know how much of the author's story is true, we have nothing other than their word about any of what happened. In the absence of any confirmation or refutation, we pretty much have to either take it as true, or just disregard it entirely (if we don't trust them, then we can't even know the daughter even exists).

But as recounted, the child never showed any indication of having anything other than a gender identity matching their sexual identity until shortly before they tried to transition. That's in stark contrast to the usual narrative of trans people (including Boudicca90 in this thread) whose transitions have been stable long term. Furthermore, it shows all the hallmarks of social contagion. The probability that not one girl out of this group was cisgender heterosexual is pretty much zero. And regardless of your opinion of this girl's "true" gender identity, the sexual grooming and pornography is way beyond the pale, and absolutely had to be shut down, hard and fast.

I think it's much more likely that this girl dodged a bullet thanks to her parents, and that she will recognize that when she grows up.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Story of how a parent psychologically battered their trans child into submission shared as a success story:



https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/12/13/what-ive-learned-rescuing-my-daughter-from-her-transgender-fantasy/

No way this is going to backfire in about 10 years.
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Do you honestly think that the worst thing about this story is the mother's actions?

For heaven's sake, a pubescent girl was sent pornography and urged to prostitute pornographic pictures of herself for money. She was discussing taking life-altering drugs. All this at the urging of her so-called friends.

No decent parent would want that for their child, whatever their sex or gender.

If the child was not truly trans, she'll thank her mother.

If the child is trans, she should thank her mother for not allowing her to embarrass herself and possibly ruin her life while she was too young and naïve to understand what she was doing.
 
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