Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Emily's Cat]

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.

I read that yesterday, it's a really good article.

 

[Rolfe]

I found it interesting when I started reading more and interacting on this topic outside of ISF - there ARE quite a few dysphoric males who are aware and comfortable with the fact that they are males, and they tend to identify "with" females, rather than "as" females. And most of those, despite being dysphoric, and many living as females as much as possible... are ALSO quite strongly gender critical.

The behavioral differences between HSTS and AGP males is markedly different.

Where it gets iffy are the young people currently identifying as "trans" who are autistic, and are neither HSTS nor AGP. They aren't even truly dysphoric. They just have trouble making connections and have been sold a bill of goods that if they "transition" to the opposite sex it will fix all of their problems. It's makes me quite sad.

A lot of these trans-identifying males who seem reasonable and sympathetic to women's rights are problematic in themselves. They're nearly all AGP too, but not quite so narcissistic as far as I can see. They have however found a neat trick - come out on the gender-critical side and these idiot women who have been raised to be kind will lionise you and platform you and accept you into their space. Which is of course exactly what you want. Don't fall for it.

The young people you're talking about are nearly all ROGD.

The three presentations of trans - HSTS, AGP and ROGD - are being conflated and they should not be. We should also be very clear that none of them are benign. HSTS, once past puberty, is as sexualised as AGP, just in a different way - trying to be the ideal submissive "female" for their man. AGP, though, is what's driving all this and when it comes with a large dose of narcissistic personality disorder, as it often does, is absolutely inimical to women's rights.

ROGD is what is experienced by confused adolescents, often autistic, usually girls, but they can also be wildly manilpulative and self-centred. (There's one girl who seriously posted about her jealousy about her mother getting "top surgery" before her - well OK she has cancer, but hey, I'm the trans one around here!)

While it's obviously right that women's groups should welcome and platform young women who once thought they could turn into men, before realising what a terrible mistake they'd been led into, welcoming and platforming AGP men (like Hayton and Harrison) because they say the right things, is seriously problematic.

 

[Elaedith]

The arguments about puberty blockers really make my head spin. That drug was originally used to chemically castrate prisoners, but was discontinued because the side effects were considered cruel and unusual punishment. Then they started using it on females to treat endometriosis... and there's now a large class action law suit because of the side effects.

But they still keep singing the propaganda that the same drug is "safe and reversible" for pubescent kids.

A while back there was discussion of the Science-Based Medicine fiasco. One of the issues with the pieces written by the activist 'experts' was the number of links to 'evidence' that didn't support or outright contradicted what was claimed. One of the most blatant examples was in this article which stated:

'Studies on brain development have found no significant differences in youth on blockers.'

The statement links to this article which is actually about assembling a panel of experts to establish consensus on the best method for assessing long-term neurodevelopmental effects of puberty suppression, because there is currently no existing evidence. As the article states:

"Taken as a whole, the existing knowledge about puberty and the brain raises the possibility that suppressing sex hormone production during this period could alter neurodevelopment in complex ways—not all of which may be beneficial."

"It is important to note that there has been only one longitudinal report of adult outcomes, and questions remain regarding the potential for both positive and disruptive effects of pubertal suppression on neurodevelopment" and "pubertal suppression may prevent key aspects of development during a sensitive period of brain organization. Neurodevelopmental impacts might emerge over time, akin to the “late effects” cognitive findings associated with certain oncology treatments. The goal of this study was to develop a framework in which these questions could be asked, and ultimately answered".

I pointed this out this misrepresentation in the comments section and nothing was done to correct it.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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."

Needs more dinosaurs too.

 

[Rolfe]

A while back there was discussion of the Science-Based Medicine fiasco. One of the issues with the pieces written by the activist 'experts' was the number of links to 'evidence' that didn't support or outright contradicted what was claimed. One of the most blatant examples was in this article which stated:

'Studies on brain development have found no significant differences in youth on blockers.'

The statement links to this article which is actually about assembling a panel of experts to establish consensus on the best method for assessing long-term neurodevelopmental effects of puberty suppression, because there is currently no existing evidence. As the article states:

"Taken as a whole, the existing knowledge about puberty and the brain raises the possibility that suppressing sex hormone production during this period could alter neurodevelopment in complex ways—not all of which may be beneficial."

"It is important to note that there has been only one longitudinal report of adult outcomes, and questions remain regarding the potential for both positive and disruptive effects of pubertal suppression on neurodevelopment" and "pubertal suppression may prevent key aspects of development during a sensitive period of brain organization. Neurodevelopmental impacts might emerge over time, akin to the “late effects” cognitive findings associated with certain oncology treatments. The goal of this study was to develop a framework in which these questions could be asked, and ultimately answered".

I pointed this out this misrepresentation in the comments section and nothing was done to correct it.

A colleague of mine (whom I'm not personally acquainted with) did some work on adolescent sheep. He got them trained in simple tasks then put one group on puberty blockers and left the rest as controls. The ones on the puberty blockers exhibitied significant loss of short and long-term memory and a deterioration in mental capacity for learning new tasks.

This was predictably shouted down as "What does a vet know about this? You are not seriously listening to a vet??!!"

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

ACLU has so completely lost the plot at this point that it's quite sickening. When I read of that response, combined with several of the public responses they've made on social media platforms I was so angry.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Fairly compelling proof that "when someone tells you who they are" you *shouldn't* always believe them!

 

[Rolfe]

ACLU has so completely lost the plot at this point that it's quite sickening. When I read of that response, combined with several of the public responses they've made on social media platforms I was so angry.

This is what's been happening. Trans activists have infiltrated every aspect of public life (including the church I belong to, so much for the "Christian right") in advance of Joe (and Josephine) Public realising what's going on. The people in positions of power have been expertly trained to block and shout down anything they've been taight is "transphobia". There's even an article somewhere that got leaked giving the strategy and specifically saying the aim was to change laws and codes of practice so that anyone wising up was faced with a fait accompli.

And no, I still don't know why so many people went along with it.

 

[theprestige]

I've come to the conclusion that there's two parts to "social transition". One part is either absolutely sexist and regressive, or else entirely meaningless in a modern social context.

The other part is actually sexual social transition: Passing as the opposite sex to a degree that it arouses sexual attraction in people not otherwise attracted to that sex, and no longer attracted to the transsexual once they see through the ruse.

Social transition is not about wearing a dress because one feels like one fits into society better by wearing a dress. It's about wearing a dress to exploit conventional social signals to help trigger a subconscious sexual response that is at odds with the signaler's actual sex.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

The problem I have with this approach is that it costs females. It's fairly obvious that it will cost females, it will harm females within their own sports leagues. But your approach is essentially "well, it depends on how much those females' sports are hurt by males, we'll evaluate later and see if it's enough to bother with".

You're happily sacrificing the accomplishments of females in order to affirm the feelings of some dysphoric males.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Amen.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Why do you think feminist organizations are still in existence, and why so many feminists are pretty regularly displeased at how society operates?

Many of us however, don't get "demoralized"... we get angry.

 

[Rolfe]

The problem I have with this approach is that it costs females. It's fairly obvious that it will cost females, it will harm females within their own sports leagues. But your approach is essentially "well, it depends on how much those females' sports are hurt by males, we'll evaluate later and see if it's enough to bother with".

You're happily sacrificing the accomplishments of females in order to affirm the feelings of some dysphoric males.

This is the mind-set that has to be challenged, as I said in an earlier post.

There is a perfectly fair way to do this, that is not exclusionary at all, and that is that everyone competes against the people who have bodies of the same sex as they have, as defined at conception. (We can worry about CAIS separately.) Everybody has a competition to enter, nobody is excluded.

The lengths some people are going to because they can't shake the conviction that we must find some way to allow certain male people (but not all of them) to compete in the female divisions are ridiculous. Why, in the name of the sacred FSM?

The feelings of a tiny number of males are being placed as absolutely top priority, over the feelings, safety and fairness to women. Somehow we're in the position where saying, no, males go in the men's events, is unspeakable. Why is that?

Why is it the women who are trying to defend their rights who are being monstered as transphobic, and not the men who are allegedly such a danger to the poor wee trans lassies that they can't possibly go in the men's room or the men's races or the men's prison? I think we all know the answer to that.

Men need to step up and accept their non-gender-conforming brothers in situations where sex is the defining criterion. Women's spaces, protections and categories are not a validation mechanism for male fetish, and they're not an escape route from (alleged, but never really demonstrated) transphobia in male spaces.

 

[Meadmaker]

What does "wrong" body even mean? I'm in the "wrong" universe because I should be in one of the one's in which I'm a multi-millionaire with no mortgage, a perfect physique and can run a sub 6-minute mile.

One of my New Year's resolutions for this year was to be able to do a pull-up by next year, which is something I can't do right now. I'm actively working on it. I could do it if I had lats like.....Lia Thomas.

I could try becoming trans-aged, but just identifying as a 30 year old wouldn't actually make me into one.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

AKTCHOOALLEEEEE

There have been quite a few tiktok and instagram and twitter bits about how incredibly unfair it is to persecuted self-declared Ukrainian gender dysphoric males that the government won't let them leave the country.

On the other hand, 17% of the Ukrainian forces are female, many of them volunteers as of the beginning of the invasion. So... more females are involved than gender dysphoric people even exist in the country.

 

[Rolfe]

AKTCHOOALLEEEEE

There have been quite a few tiktok and instagram and twitter bits about how incredibly unfair it is to persecuted self-declared Ukrainian gender dysphoric males that the government won't let them leave the country.

I hadn't seen these. Why am I not surprised?

Welcome to the real world, snowflakes, the real world where read tragedy happens. In that world everyone knows who is male and who is female. The males get conscripted and the females get raped.

The real world where "you can't possibly know what sex anyone is unless they tell you" reveals itself as the nonsense it always was.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Texas has gone way overboard on the topic. They've made it illegal to provide puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, or dysphoria-related surgeries to children under the age of 18. But then they got a Texas-sized dose of dumb and decided that they're going to prosecute parents for child abuse if it happens. And they're going after the parents of kids who are already in treatment.

It's a ridiculous over-reaction. And it's one that gender critical feminists largely think is stupid.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

At least we all know red states heavily fund their social services. It's not like cases of real abuse or neglect are going to slip through the cracks while Abbott and Paxton use DFPS in a political stunt to shore up their right flank during primary season.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think Texas might have the right idea. Children's lives are being ruined by this cult. I do not consider legislation designed to protect children from sterilisation and major disfiguring surgery to be "state repression".

I agree that such "treatments" should be avoided... but I have fairly substantial objections to it being state-imposed prohibitions. I also think that charging the parents with child abuse is a truly horrendous idea. There are a lot of parents out there who are completely ignorant of the risks and side effect, and they've been snowed by "gender professionals" telling them that if they don't support their kids getting these treatments, they'll commit suicide. A lot of the parents feel like they don't have any choice except to support the treatment.

 

[Rolfe]

Texas has gone way overboard on the topic. They've made it illegal to provide puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, or dysphoria-related surgeries to children under the age of 18. But then they got a Texas-sized dose of dumb and decided that they're going to prosecute parents for child abuse if it happens. And they're going after the parents of kids who are already in treatment.

It's a ridiculous over-reaction. And it's one that gender critical feminists largely think is stupid.

Actually I do not disagree with that in principle. I don't think any of that should be allowed. However, I know that people who agree with me, who understand the legalities of what Texas has done, believe they've gone about it in a stupid way.

But tell me, in principle, why on earth would you be in favour of allowing puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones or elective genital surgery to be carried out on anyone under eighteen? Because I can't see it. It is child abuse.

What you do about children who have already started such treatment I don't know, but preventing any more from going on that path has to be a good objective, if it's gone about the right way.