Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Rolfe]

In the west, what is referred to as trans-activism is pretty much 100% AGP. Even the transing of children. Obviously children do not have AGP, but these adult men who decide their inner selves are their feminine fantasies wish very much that they had been able to transition as children. (In fact, one of the markers for AGP is not being interested in transitioning pre-puberty, most AGP transwomen were pretty standard boyish boys, but there's a lot of re-writing of history going on.)

So they see the push to transition children as giving the children what they couldn't have (and didn't want, at the time), but more chillingly, it seems that they find it validating in another way. Since children of that age can't be motivated by sexual, fetishistic impulses in their desire to be trans (they're mostly pre-homosexual boys escaping from homophobia into the "stunning and brave" trans camp), then the existence of these children "proves" thart the adults' desire to transition isn't sexually motivated. Which of course it absolutely is.

If transwomen were really women, they'd understand how other women feel and try to be accommodating and kind. Instead they're aggressive and entitled and take pleasure in upsetting women, making them embarrassed, and winning against them - whether it's in a race, or legally in achieving rights to occupy women's spaces.

They know what female bodies are. They're the ones that are trafficked and have their feet bound and their breasts ironed and are aborted and killed at birth and have their clitorises cut out. They're the ones we don't allow to vote or to be paid as much as men. They're the ones we talk over and sneer at when they try to assert their rights.

It's only when women have achieved sufficient rights to make a female life not entirely a downtrodden, oppressed existence, that men start deciding they want to be us. Then they want everything that is theirs and everything that is ours too.

 

[Elaedith]

I don't think anyone has linked to this article: by Carol Tavris 'Trans Reality:“I Didn’t Know There Was Another Side. Tavris is a psychologist who has published interesting work on critical thinking and pseudoscience. I've used some of her work in teaching.

"The fundamental problem, a sure sign that we are in the midst of a social contagion based on pseudoscience and not the emergence of a science-driven medical advance, is that researchers and professionals who want to raise any questions or concerns have been silenced with vehement and often ugly accusations of transphobia and bigotry, their work shut down, some of them fired. Many gender professionals have marginalized, bullied, and tormented their colleagues who disagree. Politically organized “transactivists” protest that any research on, say, factors contributing to the rise of cases of gender transition, the potentially negative consequences of transitioning, or the importance of counseling and treatment before transitioning are indications of the unacceptable idea that gender transition is a pathological problem or disorder. Their second silencing tactic is to conflate psychological interventions with “conversion therapy,” a long-discredited effort to “cure” gay people and turn them straight"

The failure of large parts of the sceptic movement on this issue is depressing. I don't know what goes on in the head of somebody who claims to be a 'critical thinker' and pretends that 'all experts agree' while simultaneously applauding the silencing and punishment of those who don't.

 

[Meadmaker]

He's also deliberately throwing races.

Which, alone, ought to be enough to disqualify her/him. I suppose it's difficult to prove, but I think you're right.

 

[Meadmaker]

Someone who is keen on sports but also has AGP.

I note that Lia Thomas is sexually attracted to females.


I mentioned before that I used duckduckgo more often these days. One day I used duckduckgo instead of google, and found out the above. I had seen stories saying that Thomas' teammates didn't like that "she" was winning and had an advantage, but on duckduckgo I also found stories complaining about having to share the locker room, especially since they knew that Thomas was sexually attracted to women.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but I did find it curious that there were different hits that showed up in the search engines. After I saw the articles on duckduckgo I used some more specific terms and dug deeper, and did find them on google, but I had to look harder.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't think anyone has linked to this article: by Carol Tavris 'Trans Reality:“I Didn’t Know There Was Another Side. Tavris is a psychologist who has published interesting work on critical thinking and pseudoscience. I've used some of her work in teaching.

"The fundamental problem, a sure sign that we are in the midst of a social contagion based on pseudoscience and not the emergence of a science-driven medical advance, is that researchers and professionals who want to raise any questions or concerns have been silenced with vehement and often ugly accusations of transphobia and bigotry, their work shut down, some of them fired. Many gender professionals have marginalized, bullied, and tormented their colleagues who disagree. Politically organized “transactivists” protest that any research on, say, factors contributing to the rise of cases of gender transition, the potentially negative consequences of transitioning, or the importance of counseling and treatment before transitioning are indications of the unacceptable idea that gender transition is a pathological problem or disorder. Their second silencing tactic is to conflate psychological interventions with “conversion therapy,” a long-discredited effort to “cure” gay people and turn them straight"

The failure of large parts of the sceptic movement on this issue is depressing. I don't know what goes on in the head of somebody who claims to be a 'critical thinker' and pretends that 'all experts agree' while simultaneously applauding the silencing and punishment of those who don't.

That looks interesting, I'll have a read tomorrow.

I saw some pics today taken at a stall some women had set up in the town centre in Aberdeen to publicise the Scottish government's imminent intention to open all women's spaces, categories and protections to any man who declares he feels like a woman. It was besieged by transactivist protestors, all male as far as I could see. As a veteran of many a political street stall I have never experienced this, people from an opposing point of view actively turning up in an organised group and shouting you down. But this is what's happening.

Someone suggested that what they needed next time was some finger-pointing signs reading "See what I mean" or "This guy is proving my point exactly."

 

[Rolfe]

Which, alone, ought to be enough to disqualify her/him. I suppose it's difficult to prove, but I think you're right.

Well, I haven't made a detailed study so I'm open to correction, but as I understand it he began by winning by absolutely insane margins. He was maybe a bit slower than he had been in the men's events (where he was only a moderate performer), but he was embarrasingly far ahead of the leading woman. I can't remember the times for sure now, but I couldn't actually believe what I was reading, that the winner would come in and practically be showered and changed before the next swimmer finished.

Then things changed and he seemed to have a strategy of coasting along in second place before putting on a spurt and getting to the line just ahead of the woman he'd been shadowing. There was also a race involving a transman which I'm told was clearly rigged to let the female beat him. I think there have been other events that looked like ammunition for a plea of "Hey, I don't always win!"

This one is different because Thomas is the same age as his female competition, and has a background of training for the sport and performing not too badly as a male. Hubbard was twice the age of his female opponents and flabby and unfit. Much the same can be said of McKinnon, who is clearly flabby round the middle and not in great shape, besides being older. McKinnon doesn't always win even when he's probably trying (he's insanely competitive, really desperate to get the better of these women), because he's older and unfit and pretty new to cycling compared to the women who have been training for years to shave seconds off their times.

I don't think Thomas realised at first just how much faster he is than the girls, and had a rethink when he did.

Yes, he's obviously AGP and the girls know it. One of the people on the podcast I listened to was the mother of one of the girls in the team giving her daughter's perspective, anonymously, as she would be thrown out of the team if her feelings were known. She was concerned about changing rooms and relieved when Thomas changed in a separate room. But she expressed concern to her mother that in some away meets everyone changes in one room, and then what? She told her mother she thought she wouldn't have a choice and was wondering how many large towels she'd need to take. Her mother told her she always had a choice not to take off her clothes in front of a man, but how can she avoid it?

The mother said she originally thought the sports authorities would sort it out, but when she went to put the point of view of the girls to the [ACLU?] she was told, "We will never support a cis-woman against a woman." Which really shocked her. These organisations have been completely captured, and most of the time (not always) it seems to be men who are simply unconcerned about any destruction of women's rights.

Maybe you can see why a lot of us consider "cis-woman" to be an offensive term.

 

[Rolfe]

The failure of large parts of the sceptic movement on this issue is depressing. I don't know what goes on in the head of somebody who claims to be a 'critical thinker' and pretends that 'all experts agree' while simultaneously applauding the silencing and punishment of those who don't.

You don't have to be a critical thinker to post here, or even to declare that's what you are. I gave up on the belief that the people posting here were mainly critical thinkers some time ago, realising that many if not most members tend to pick up on what they believe is the mainstream view and shore that up, right or wrong. Of course when you're talking about homoeopathy or chemtrails or the moon hoax or Bigfoot, that will see you on the right side of sense.

However it became increasingly clear, when I moved into looking at apparent mistarriages of justice, that the main mindset for many posters here is appeal to authority. The judge or the jury came to this verdict so I will defend it to my dying breath, irrespective of what evidence or rational argument you may present that might indicate otherwise. In fact, even if I know bugger-all about the case I'll just come into the thread and abuse you as a mad conspiracy theorist if you appear to doubt a court's verdict.

This is more of the same, compounded by the stranglehold the trans activists have gained on public discourse on the issue before most of us knew any more than that some men had had surgery to remove their genitals and they were poor souls and we should be sorry for them and try not to upset them.

 

[Lithrael]

Yeah I’m not wading into this bit but back over at sport I think Mead’s idea of something like ‘you can play but you can’t place’ is as close to a functional compromise as I can see for the moment. It’d still be a bit fraught for what to do with team sport but it would fix the records problem pretty handily. It’s not perfect but perfect isn’t really achievable on this one.

Some kind of handicap system could be workable too, that would add that flexibility for treating someone who transitioned at three years old differently from someone who transitioned last year while still having consistent rules

I mean if you end up getting outcomes across the board where trans women are dominating you can either say fine, working as intended, in which case you have basically made cis women a disadvantaged class in women’s sport; or you can say oh, nobody wanted that to happen, so you sit down and come up with ways for cis women to remain fully competetive in womens’ sport.

 

[Ziggurat]

If transwomen were really women, they'd understand how other women feel and try to be accommodating and kind. Instead they're aggressive and entitled and take pleasure in upsetting women, making them embarrassed, and winning against them - whether it's in a race, or legally in achieving rights to occupy women's spaces.

If it makes you feel any better, they can also be aggressive to men.



For someone who is trying to convince people that they're really a woman, this was extremely prototypically male aggression. Plus, ambulances don't take you home.

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah I’m not wading into this bit but back over at sport I think Mead’s idea of something like ‘you can play but you can’t place’ is as close to a functional compromise as I can see for the moment. It’d still be a bit fraught for what to do with team sport but it would fix the records problem pretty handily. It’s not perfect but perfect isn’t really achievable on this one.

Some kind of handicap system could be workable too, that would add that flexibility for treating someone who transitioned at three years old differently from someone who transitioned last year while still having consistent rules

I mean if you end up getting outcomes across the board where trans women are dominating you can either say fine, working as intended, in which case you have basically made cis women a disadvantaged class in women’s sport; or you can say oh, nobody wanted that to happen, so you sit down and come up with ways for cis women to remain fully competetive in womens’ sport.

Perfect isn't achievable? Why?

I think the reason you say this is that you are still wedded to the idea that some way must be found to allow males to compete in all-female events. Why is that? Why do you think some way has to be found? Why is the preference of these males accorded absolute priority over anything the females might want, or what might benefit the females?

Imagine the death of the soul for the best females, constantly seeing males beat them even if the males' times are disallowed for medals. Imagine the heartbreak of training with these males. Imagine constantly having it shoved in your face that no matter what you do you can't actually come first, even if you get the gold medal.

Handicapping? That isn't going to be any better. The objective of a handicapper is to achieve a complete dead heat at the end of a race. The idea that some competitors are handicapped while others stand outside the handicapping system is bizarre. The arguments, the challenges, the days in court, I can barely imagine. (Not least, the lawsuits from the males who insist that they are really, truly, actually female in their souls and that it's discrimination to treat them differently in any way at all.) You want to run "female" events on the basis of two starting lines, one for females and one for males, and hope that the female group and the male group can arrive at the finish line together? In the name of the all-holy FSM, why?

The idea that we can just give this a go and see what happens, and then decide whether we like the result is insane. What about the women and girls whose athletics careers will be completely wrecked in the time it takes to make this decision? Why this obsession with putting female sports at risk to find some way where you still let males compete in female events? What is the thinking behind this? Oh yes, more "the males must have what they want and to hell with the females." You are doing the equivalent of giving in to the owner of a very slightly modified F1 car who wants to compete in F3 races, thinking, well how do we accommodate this, rather than saying no, that's against the rules, go away.

And please stop using this term cis-women. It's grossly, grossly offensive to many women. We are women. The word is taken. Men can't have it. We are not a subset of ourselves. We are women.

Leaving aside the small number of genuine DSD conundrums (I'm mainly thinking CAIS here, where the competitor is genuinely a woman but has a definite but slight edge due to her SRY chromosome - Semenya is simply male and that should have been recognised and addressed long ago) the perfect solution is simply to exclude genetically male people (and any female who has ever taken exogenous testosterone) from female events.

Women's athletics (like rape crisis centres, prisons, schoolgirl summer camps and yes, sanitary facilities) are not a validation mechanism for males with identity issues, and they should never have been allowed to become so. If there is some sort of problem with males competing in the male classes, then find another solution. I personally don't see what the problem is other than educating males that there are many many ways to be a male and to be a man and that excluding people because they don't perform masculinity in the usually accepted way is discriminatory and phobic.

Funny how it's the women who want to retain their female-only spaces who are constantly traduced as "transphobic", but the men whose behaviour (allegedly) makes it impossible for transwomen to use male facilities get a free pass. Oh, sorry, not funny. Entirely predictable.

 

[Rolfe]

If it makes you feel any better, they can also be aggressive to men.


For someone who is trying to convince people that they're really a woman, this was extremely prototypically male aggression. Plus, ambulances don't take you home.

Oh wow. Talk about the mask slipping!

The wider take-home message from that altercation was the trans lobby's constant tactic of insisting on "polite" pronouns and shouting over anyone who won't comply so that they cannot make the point they are trying to make.

It's very effective. It's why I left the thread months ago, because I was told that it was a sanctionable offence to refer to a male as "he" and that I must go against all my perceptions and my normal use of English grammar and refer to him as "she". That is compelled speech, not courtesy. It's also very effective, because when one side can force its opponent to use language that presupposes its own basic premise it has essentially won.

Language is important. It should be unacceptable in any critical thinking discourse to compel one side of the debate to use language that pre-supposes that the other sides basic premise, which is contested, is right. But that's what was going on here, and it's what was being tried in that clip. In the end, a threat of violence was made to try to exact compliance from a man. This has to be resisted.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

ST's consistent approach to this has been to deny that it's a problem, or that there needs to be any discussion about public policy to prevent the problem, or even elucidate any justification for letting it happen at all, as long as it's a small problem. As long as it's just Lia Thomas, ST seems to think he doesn't have to have an opinion about whether it should be even Lia Thomas, or whether the same "privilege" should be extended to anyone else.

News to me, thanks for informing me of my own opinions.

I think I've been pretty consistent that I think the specific issue of sports competition is one that remains difficult to solve.

It's also quite clear that overt bigots hope to use this sticky problem as a wedge issue to drum up animus generally towards trans people. You can see that throughout this thread, where the transphobes can't help but let their masks slip in expressing their hatred for trans people.

Recent news about the escalating state persecution of trans people in the US makes this tactic quite transparent.

ETA: I find it interesting that the usual here would rather relitigate the same old "trans athlete" stories rather than engage with the more recent news of state repression of trans people here in the US. It's not like this result was unexpected given the demonization campaign against trans people. Have the courage of your convictions people, be a proud bigot or don't be a bigot at all.

 

[Lithrael]

Imagine the death of the soul for the best females, constantly seeing males beat them even if the males' times are disallowed for medals. Imagine the heartbreak of training with these males. Imagine constantly having it shoved in your face that no matter what you do you can't actually come first, even if you get the gold medal.

If this effect was as insidious as you suggest then women in most sports should already be demoralized out of their skulls by the existence of men. I mean, read that paragraph of yours outside of the trans context and that is life.

 

[Paul2]

It should be unacceptable in any critical thinking discourse to compel one side of the debate to use language that pre-supposes that the other sides basic premise, which is contested, is right.

Sounds right to me, but I like the stronger-trans-rights side to weigh in with an example from another realm or topic in which the above would *not* be true (although I'm not responsible for the inevitable replies if you use a racial analogy ).

 

[Meadmaker]

As persecution goes, the persecution of trans people in the US seems pretty mild to me. Having to race against all the other people with penises doesn't seem so bad to me. Then there's the inability to allow fourteen year olds to make medical decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. That's a little bit closer to persecution, but it doesn't seem quite so bad as say, living in Ukraine right now. And of course, as that recent video shows, there are people in the US who will consistently use the wrong pronouns, and the only thing that happens to those misgendering bastards is that some of them might lose their jobs. Where is the justice?

 

[Meadmaker]

Speaking of Ukraine, 18-60 year old men are not allowed to leave the country right now. and are expected to fight against the invaders, and yet not a peep out of the media about the blatant sexism or how this affects the transgender community.


It's almost as if men and women are different, and issues like who is really a man don't seem very significant when the Russian army is on the way.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Speaking of Ukraine, 18-60 year old men are not allowed to leave the country right now. and are expected to fight against the invaders, and yet not a peep out of the media about the blatant sexism or how this affects the transgender community.


It's almost as if men and women are different, and issues like who is really a man don't seem very significant when the Russian army is on the way.

And yet other countries, including countries with mandatory conscription, require women to serve. Increasingly women are allowed to serve in combat roles.

I'm not sure what point you think you're making here.

Women can make fine guerrillas.

ETA: Do you think the average 25 year old Ukrainian woman is less combat effective than the average 60 year old Ukrainian man? Perhaps there's more than pragmatism at work in such decisions.

 

[Rolfe]

If this effect was as insidious as you suggest then women in most sports should already be demoralized out of their skulls by the existence of men. I mean, read that paragraph of yours outside of the trans context and that is life.

It's an entirely different thing simply knowing that men are faster, seeing their times in their events and watching them in these events, and actually having them compete in the same races as you are in.

Yes it irks me to have to ask a man to open a tight screw-top, or (slightly) to see a man effortlessly pick up my suitcase in one hand and then my friend's in the other and march up the hotel stairs, when we ourselves can barely carry our own cases alone. But as you say, that's life. Suitcase-carrying isn't a competition, and if it were, we wouldn't expect men to compete against women.

In normal life we know the sexes are different and it's unreasonable to get upset because you can't do what a man can do, physically. There are also things we can do that men can't. Organised sports are something else.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

As persecution goes, the persecution of trans people in the US seems pretty mild to me. Having to race against all the other people with penises doesn't seem so bad to me. Then there's the inability to allow fourteen year olds to make medical decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. That's a little bit closer to persecution, but it doesn't seem quite so bad as say, living in Ukraine right now. And of course, as that recent video shows, there are people in the US who will consistently use the wrong pronouns, and the only thing that happens to those misgendering bastards is that some of them might lose their jobs. Where is the justice?

If you say so.

BREAKING: Texas has begun investigating parents of transgender children for possible child abuse for providing them with gender-affirming care.

Among the first is the family of 16-year-old whose mother works for the state agency responsible for such investigations

The employee, who works on the review of reports of abuse, was put on leave last week, according to a suit filed today. An investigator came to the house on Friday.

The state is seeking medical records related to the child. The parents have refused to hand them over.

https://twitter.com/jdavidgoodman/status/1498710608958611460?cxt=HHwWiICzwffWvswpAAAA

ACLU is suing on their behalf:

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of an employee of DFPS with a transgender child, her husband, and the teen herself. According to the complaint, this family has had an investigator already arrive at their house. The family has filed the lawsuit anonymously. Dr. Megan Mooney, a licensed psychologist who is considered a mandatory reporter under Texas law and cannot comply with the governor’s directive without harming her clients and violating her ethical obligations, is also a plaintiff in the suit.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-lambda-legal-sue-block-texas-investigating-parents-who-support-their-transgender

 

[Rolfe]

As persecution goes, the persecution of trans people in the US seems pretty mild to me. Having to race against all the other people with penises doesn't seem so bad to me. Then there's the inability to allow fourteen year olds to make medical decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. That's a little bit closer to persecution, but it doesn't seem quite so bad as say, living in Ukraine right now. And of course, as that recent video shows, there are people in the US who will consistently use the wrong pronouns, and the only thing that happens to those misgendering bastards is that some of them might lose their jobs. Where is the justice?

I agree. What "state repression" of trans people "here in the US" is ST talking about? I am not in the US so I wouldn't necessarily know. Are trans people being fired merely because they are trans? Or evicted? Or denied normal service? Somehow I doubt it.

It's typical of the pro-trans zealots to present reasonable legislation such as that protecting minors from potentially dangerous medical treatment, or enforcing sex segregation in sports, as "state repression". This is the same group of people who see using the correct pronouns for people as "literal violence" and "hate speech". It seems to me that most if not all the alleged wave of "violence" and "hate" against trans people is snowflakes getting their panties in a twist because someone said "he" instead of "they".

And as you so rightly point out, it's the people who know that there are only two sexes, that you can't change the one you were conceived as, and that it matters which you are, who are being hounded out of their jobs for wrongthink.