Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Meadmaker]

Haven't we been through this before?

Even outside of trans panic, the locker room "utility" is extremely poor. Students routinely refuse to use the communal showers unless they are compelled to do so. They are clearly expressing a strong preference for personal privacy, which schools in their supreme wisdom deny.



https://www.bakersfield.com/news/khsd-announces-new-private-changing-areas-to-address-locker-room-controversy/article_f9f5481a-642e-11ec-96ba-d7230fd12360.html

No denial of reality. Hell, you can probably even harness the efforts of anti-trans parents, once they realize that exclusion won't be legally possible, to make this happen.

I can see why the transphobes might insist as trying to force this as a zero-sum conflict of interests between trans and cis students, but that's simply not reality.

Check out the price tag on that Kern County story, and when you do, realize that price tag is one that only offers partial privacy, and reduces the number of people who can use the shower facilities, while increasing the time required,

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because in every other conceivable context (especially since he used the singular word "woman"), Blair's claim is ignorant and wrong.

No, it isn't. Males can present as women, Females can present as men, but ONLY WOMEN CAN GET PREGNANT. If a person is pregnant, that person is a WOMAN - and adult human female.

there is such a thing as a pregnant man.

There is no such thing as a pregnant man. There are females who present as men, who are pregnant. But they are not *actually* men, they are still females of the human species. As is evidenced by them being pregnant in the first ******* place.

(Oh and in the same interview, Blair also demonstrated further reactionary ignorance - which someone in his position simply shouldn't be doing - by parroting the fatuous nonsense that a situation now exists where "women can't talk about being women". Again: any questions?)

Yeah, I suspect that as a male, you're blissfully (or willfully) ignorant of the situation, but are you aware that females have been interviewed under caution, and subject to recording their communications as "non-crime hate incidents" for saying that only females can get pregnant and that males cannot be females and for defending their right to retain single-sex spaces?

For all intents and purposes, females are not allowed to talk about themselves as being "women", because males like you insist that "women" must by force include some males. In effect, even though not in law, advertisers and article writers cannot refer to the general population of human females as "women" without censure and harassment.

FFS, lesbians aren't even allowed to be females who are only sexually interested in females anymore! Now, the category of "lesbian" includes bepenised people in dresses who harass female lesbians for not being willing to have sex with their penises!

 

[Emily's Cat]

Rowling seems to enjoy a fair bit of support for her anti-trans positions as well, especially in the UK press. She seems fully aware of the controversial waters she's wading in. Surely you don't mean to strip her of her own agency in these matters.

None of Rowling's positions are anti-trans. Rather, they are pro-female as well as pro-biological-reality.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sorry, my kitty died early this morning, and i'm not in a good place today

My condolences. It hurts to lose a loved one.

 

[Elaedith]

None of Rowling's positions are anti-trans. Rather, they are pro-female as well as pro-biological-reality.

Or anti gender identity essentialism. Of course the only way that one can push this ideology is by smearing critics of it as 'anti-trans', because there is no way one would be able to successfully argue for it based on logic and evidence.

 

[Matthew Best]

Blair claims that "you can't use the term "pregnant women"

No, he doesn't.

He says "equal rights doesn’t mean you can’t use the phrase ‘pregnant woman’".

There's a double negative there, so he's saying you can use the phrase "pregnant women".

 

[Ziggurat]

No, it isn't. Males can present as women, Females can present as men, but ONLY WOMEN CAN GET PREGNANT. If a person is pregnant, that person is a WOMAN - and adult human female.

<pedant mode>There is an exception to this, which is girls. Post-pubescent but pre-adulthood girls can get pregnant.</pedant mode>

But LJ is obviously not talking about girls. Instead, he wants "man" and "woman" to mean something other than adult human male and female, respectively, but he doesn't want to have to argue that position.

 

[d4m10n]

If they'd asked white people in the southern US in the 50s/60s whether or not they wanted black people to be allowed to sit next to them on the small bench seats in public busses..... most of them would probably have said no.

I can think of at least three distinct reasons why this is a poor analogy.

1) Switching the oppressed group for the oppressor group. Women are analogous to African Americans inasmuch as they've historically been denied the franchise and other manifestations of equality, but you've analogized women to white people, an oppressor class.

2) Analogizing real differences to unreal ones. Sex entails actual measurable differences based in reproductive adaptation, race is an arbitrary ancestral line-drawing exercise at best.

3) Comparing safe spaces designed as an accommodation to segregated spaces designed to maintain an oppressive hierarchy.

 

[Ziggurat]

I can think of at least three distinct reasons why this is a poor analogy.

We've been through this countless times. But they keep coming back to it. Arguments from analogy are never persuasive, so why keep trying?

I suspect it's because the real parallel in his mind isn't women/transwomen <-> whites/blacks, but rather trans advocates <-> civil rights protesters. He imagines HIMSELF as the equivalent of a civil rights protester, so the cause he's advocating for must have similar validity. You will never shatter his self-image, and that's the true basis of comparison for the analogy in his mind. So no matter how many times we point out the problems with the analogy as argued, he's never going to let it go.

 

[Meadmaker]

We've been through this countless times. But they keep coming back to it. Arguments from analogy are never persuasive, so why keep trying?

I suspect it's because the real parallel in his mind isn't women/transwomen <-> whites/blacks, but rather trans advocates <-> civil rights protesters. He imagines HIMSELF as the equivalent of a civil rights protester, so the cause he's advocating for must have similar validity. You will never shatter his self-image, and that's the true basis of comparison for the analogy in his mind. So no matter how many times we point out the problems with the analogy as argued, he's never going to let it go.

100% agreed.

 

[lomiller]

We've been through this countless times. But they keep coming back to it. Arguments from analogy are never persuasive, so why keep trying?

I suspect it's because the real parallel in his mind isn't women/transwomen <-> whites/blacks, but rather trans advocates <-> civil rights protesters. He imagines HIMSELF as the equivalent of a civil rights protester, so the cause he's advocating for must have similar validity. You will never shatter his self-image, and that's the true basis of comparison for the analogy in his mind. So no matter how many times we point out the problems with the analogy as argued, he's never going to let it go.

This seems like an intellectually dishonest tactic. Unless you actually have some evidence for it, assuming someone is lying about why they are taking a particular position in order to avoid presenting your own counterargument just weakens your position.

Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who thinks that
a) separating gender from biological sex has left gender an ill defined concept that may not be all that useful
b) there are some things that were segregated for reasons related to biological sex that should remain segregated by biological sex whatever definition for gender we choose and whatever "genders" we assign to people.

IOW I don't even disagree with the position you are, I just think that is a terrible and disingenuous argument to make.

 

[Meadmaker]

This seems like an intellectually dishonest tactic. Unless you actually have some evidence for it, assuming someone is lying about why they are taking a particular position in order to avoid presenting your own counterargument just weakens your position.

It's not about lying. It's about subconscious motivation.

Psychologists make their living sorting out people's actual motivations from their stated motivations, and the people stating their motivations aren't lying, or at least are rarely lying. The tricky part of the psychologist's job is explaining other people's motivations to them, and convincing them that the real reason they are doing whatever it is that they are doing is not what they say it is.

The race<-->gender identity analogy for segregation is terrible. It doesn't even make sense. We've been over it so many times it's tedious. So why does it keep coming up?

On the other hand, the civil rights activists for blacks and the civil rights activists for transgenders analogy is pretty good. Each one sees himself as campaigning for a downtrodden element of society. Their roles are virtually identical, at least in the minds of the transgender rights activists.

 

[Aber]

ETA. I'll help you out though (even though this is something you could easily have done yourself if you were that invested in the (infinitesimally small) possibility that Blair was quoted out of context).

You're not going to like it when I show you the full quote, including the "before" and "after"

I had a copy of Saturday's Times next to me when posting.

It's fine for you to have opinions; it's just that you seem to jump in with both feet without having done the reading, and then have to scramble to try to defend your position.

 

[Aber]

It's not about lying. It's about subconscious motivation.

Or about "winning" the argument.

In a business setting I've had lawyers making truly stupid arguments to me eg "it's in your best interests that we don't pay you in full up front".

It's not that they think it is a good argument, but that it is simply the best argument that they have.

 

[Ziggurat]

This seems like an intellectually dishonest tactic. Unless you actually have some evidence for it, assuming someone is lying about why they are taking a particular position in order to avoid presenting your own counterargument just weakens your position.

Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who thinks that
a) separating gender from biological sex has left gender an ill defined concept that may not be all that useful
b) there are some things that were segregated for reasons related to biological sex that should remain segregated by biological sex whatever definition for gender we choose and whatever "genders" we assign to people.

IOW I don't even disagree with the position you are, I just think that is a terrible and disingenuous argument to make.

I see what you are saying, but disagree. The intellectually rigorous arguments about why the analogy is wrong have been made time and time again. There is no point to me repeating them. They are never refuted, only ignored, and he always comes back to the same analogy. So it’s worth pondering why he does so, and why the arguments against the analogy are never addressed and don’t seem to make any difference. I have come up with what I think is the best and most likely explanation. Furthermore, I think this explanation is useful for other posters to understand why continued engagement about flaws in the analogy has not worked and will not work.

I could be proven wrong, if LondonJohn were to honestly engage about the flaws in his analogy. But I think that is unlikely.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Check out the price tag on that Kern County story, and when you do, realize that price tag is one that only offers partial privacy, and reduces the number of people who can use the shower facilities, while increasing the time required,

Reduces the number that can use the facilities at any one time, but radically increases the chances that anyone will actually want to use them.

Honestly, if they're not going to build showers with personal stalls, they may as well not build them at all. In many cases, people are not using communal showers unless compelled to, which is increasingly a legally dicey thing for a school to require.

 

[Meadmaker]

Reduces the number that can use the facilities at any one time, but radically increases the chances that anyone will actually want to use them.

Honestly, if they're not going to build showers with personal stalls, they may as well not build them at all. In many cases, people are not using communal showers unless compelled to, which is increasingly a legally dicey thing for a school to require.

But you're still ignoring the big gorilla in the room.


You are right about communal showers. No one likes them. No one ever liked them. We grew up with them, but if we had been given a choice, we wouldn't have used them. (Although the coercion was pretty minimal. I can't recall anyone ever getting a detention for not showering. I know there were days when I didn't shower after gym class because I was running late or some variant. Exception: Badminton. If we played badminton, I was drenched with sweat and I wouldn't have cared if I was ten minutes late to my next class, where I had a test.)

But....unless you have individual stalls where you can dress and undress for gym class, and unless there is an enclosed space where you can take off all your clothes within the same enclosed space that holds the shower, but where the clothes remain dry, there is going to be circumstances where you are seen with less clothing than you would normally be seen in. You still have to walk to and from the shower. And forget the shower for a moment. You still have to change into gym clothes.

In the video that started the conversation where I said you were ignoring reality, there were no showers involved. In order to solve that problem with the "greater privacy" approach, you have to create individual changing stalls, quite independent of showering. And in that case, kids can't decide to opt out of showering, or opt out of changing clothes. You've moved the goalposts again. The video was of a girl describing her experiences changing clothes for gym class, and you switched over to showering.

The "greater privacy" option is no real option. It's either prohibitively expensive, or you lose a lot of time, or both. It's the "Let them eat cake" solution.

 

[Elaedith]

I see what you are saying, but disagree. The intellectually rigorous arguments about why the analogy is wrong have been made time and time again. There is no point to me repeating them. They are never refuted, only ignored, and he always comes back to the same analogy. So it’s worth pondering why he does so, and why the arguments against the analogy are never addressed and don’t seem to make any difference. I have come up with what I think is the best and most likely explanation. Furthermore, I think this explanation is useful for other posters to understand why continued engagement about flaws in the analogy has not worked and will not work.

I could be proven wrong, if LondonJohn were to honestly engage about the flaws in his analogy. But I think that is unlikely.

It’s the same for other analogies, especially the ‘having a transgender identity used to be seen as being a disorder, but then in DSM5 it was declassified as a disorder, which means it’s ‘valid’ just like homosexuality was declassified as being a disorder and that lead to gay rights and influenced governments to change legislation’ nonsense.

This has been debunked multiple times, including with quotations from the working group who wrote DSM5, and yet LJ keeps on trotting it out. I quoted directly from a paper by the DSM5 working group on the reasons for renaming ‘gender identity disorder’ to ‘gender dysphoria’ and moving it out of the psychosexual disorders section, as explained in this paper, and he effectively said ‘la la la I can’t hear you’ and repeated the same statements that contradicted what the DSM5 authors said.

These arguments are straight out of the activist playbook (there was an activist document floating around a while ago on twitter with instructions to keep making analogies with black and gay civil rights movements). The also push the lie that transgender identity in itself used to be seen as a disorder (when actually dysphoria was already required for a diagnosis of GID prior to DSM5) and everything changed with DSM5, both to draw false analogies with homosexuality and to declare entire bodies of research on desistance as 'discredited' due to being based on outdated versions of the DSM.

 

[Emily's Cat]

3) Comparing safe spaces designed as an accommodation to segregated spaces designed to maintain an oppressive hierarchy.

LJ approach to advocacy: Disabled parking spaces need to be made available to any able-bodied person who identifies as disabled. Those disabled people are just like the evil white people trying to keep black people from using their water fountains. Damned bigoted disabled people, they'll see, and won't they be embarrassed when they realize they're on the wrong side of history!

 

[theprestige]

This seems like an intellectually dishonest tactic. Unless you actually have some evidence for it, assuming someone is lying about why they are taking a particular position in order to avoid presenting your own counterargument just weakens your position.

Keep in mind that this is coming from someone who thinks that
a) separating gender from biological sex has left gender an ill defined concept that may not be all that useful
b) there are some things that were segregated for reasons related to biological sex that should remain segregated by biological sex whatever definition for gender we choose and whatever "genders" we assign to people.

IOW I don't even disagree with the position you are, I just think that is a terrible and disingenuous argument to make.

Couple things. First, as Ziggurat has pointed out, the flaws in the analogy and the reasons for rejecting it have been extensively discussed. Proponents of the analogy have ignored all that. Rather than addressing those objections, they just keep returning to the rejected analogy. Fringe resets happen one of two ways: Stupidity, or dishonesty.

Second, what's it to you? If you don't think the analogy works, why try to defend its honor? If you think it can work, why don't you try to make it work?