Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[shuttlt]

I'm not sure I followed all of that, but very interesting post, thank you.

 

[Emily's Cat]

We can not have progress without sacrifice. When we have built our New Jerusalem nobody is going to count the cost.

Males won't count the cost. It isn't a cost to males in aggregate.

Females will count the cost, because we are the ones who are paying it.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I believe there are reported links between autism and both transgenderism and autogynephilia. Isn't autism often described as some kind of extreme male brain, while cluster-B personality disorders are extreme female brain? I wonder why we would expect these things to appear at equivalent rates in equivalent forms in each sex.

You need to reevaluate this. There are links between autism and gender dysphoria, specifically with respect to rapid onset gender dysphoria.

There are links between autogynephila and gender dysphoria, which have been known for a long time. In fact, the autogynephilic root cause of dysphoria has previously been an exclusionary diagnosis, which would prevent individuals with that diagnosis from attaining *legal* acknowledgement of their target sex. Nothing has ever prevented them from getting surgeries and hormones on their own dime.

What hasn't been shown is a link between autism and autogynephilia. That's where you need to evaluate your position.

Consider: High fevers can cause seizures. Epilepsy can cause seizures. High fevers do not, however, cause epilepsy, nor does epilepsy cause high fevers.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yeah I agree it's vastly different perspectives. I do think one perspective is unfair.

In the wild, ball pythons kill mice a lot. Mice are one of their common sources of food, and they kill them frequently.

In the wild, a mouse will sometimes kill a ball python. It's uncommon, but it's been known to happen in rare circumstances.

Is it unfair to say that mice are at risk from ball pythons, and to disregard the risk to pythons from mice?

That's the situation here. So let's get some sticking points nailed down: Not all males are sexually predatory, not all males have paraphilias. Not all males are transgender. Not all transgender identified males are autogynephilic.

Now, let's use the term "Cross-Sex Self Attracted" to cover both autogeynephilia and autoandrophilia. We'll abbreviate it as CSSA.

CSSA has only been documented in males. It is hypothetically possible in females, but it hasn't been documented. To talk about the impact of CSSA on females is completely reasonable. To spend equivalent time talking about the impact of CSSA on males is irrational, given that it has never been documents and doesn't seem to be occurring in the real world.

 

[shuttlt]

Males won't count the cost. It isn't a cost to males in aggregate.

Females will count the cost, because we are the ones who are paying it.

This is everything wrong with the modern world. How on Earth does it benefit me as a man to undermine the class of women? Is that good for society? Is it good for my family? That doesn't seem good for my son any more than my daughter? What is wrong with people who look at the problems of the other sex and go "that's not my problem".

If women undermine men, or standby as men are undermined, women will pay for it just as surely as men will. If men undermine women, or standby as women are undermined, men will pay for it just as surely as women.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Let's rephrase the male brain/female brain thing then. Autism is much more commonly diagnosed in males vs females with the reverse being true of cluster-b personality disorder. There certainly are studies that claim a link between autism and these conditions, but it's too much work to try and unpick it all so I'm not just throwing a random study at you. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. It probably wasn't an important point anyway.

I'll also add in that medical research has been historically extremely one-sided. A huge amount of research gets done that only uses male subjects, and doesn't include females.

Autism has been more commonly diagnosed in males, but there's been a bit of a shift over the past couple of decades, since some doctors had the epiphany that hey, maybe they should include some females in their studies, isn't that a novel idea? Turns out that autism is a lot more common in females than previously believed, but it expresses in a different fashion. It also tends to be less extreme in females, so there is likely a biological component.

Cluster B disorders, on the other hand, tend to be diagnosed more in females because females who don't behave as expected are assumed to have something wrong with them. Doctors - of both sexes - are far more likely to see personality deviations in females as something that is indicative of a disorder, and should be tested. They are more likely to see personality deviations in males as 'normal variation' or as 'periodic' behaviors that have an explanation based on a specific short-term external cause.

Just like austism, cluster b disorders frequently express differently in males and females. And just like autism, they're only relatively recently taking sex-based differences in expression into consideration, and more males are now being diagnosed with those disorders than have been in the past.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't think it's relevant to the point the discussion is at at the moment, no. I don't think there's any particular tendency for autistic males to be AGP. There's a lot of evidence for autistic younsters being predisposed to ROGD, and this is particularly noticeable in autistic girls, possibly because most presentations of ROGD are in girls.

Yep. Teenage females are more subject to social contagion, on overage, than teenage males. And "gender dysphoria" as the panacea for interpersonal and social problems is something that ends up being extremely attractive to people with autism.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Females, not women.

I'm not inclined to allow you to appropriate the words I use for myself and other adult human females like me.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Every time a male-pattern behaviour that women don't want shoved in their faces or brought into their private spaces is mentioned, it's "But what about the women who do that? Why do you only want to exclude the men who do that?"

I find it frustrating that there are a whole lot of males who are very quick to jump on anyone who says "Not all Cops" or "White people experience that too" when the topic is racism... but those same males are inclined to say "not all men" and "what about the women who do that too" when the topic touches on sexism.

They recognize a material disproportion in one situation... and are willing to overlook a much more dramatic disproportion in the other.

 

[theprestige]

Lia Thomas's recent "victory" has made me realize there's a whole new context for that bit of dialog from As Good as It Gets.

Jackie: How do you write women so well?

Melvin Udall: I think of a man. And I take away reason and accountability.

ETA: I do not agree with Melvin's viewpoint. I do, however, think it is a good thumbnail sketch of men like Thomas who set out to compete and win against women.

 

[theprestige]

Females, not women.

Try that one on when you can give a coherent explanation of what exactly woman means as distinct from man, apart from sex-related distinctions.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It's weird how a 3000 year old story from another culture manages to capture things that feel real and true about men and women.... given that it's all socially defined and nowhere in the story is there a definition of what men and women or manly and womanly are.

There are a lot of people (in this case a lot of both males and females) who go to one end or the other - either behavioral differences between the sexes are completely created by society... or they're completely created by evolution.

Reality is that we're NOT blank slates, and there ARE differences in innate behavioral tendencies between males and females. It's reasonable that there should be, because we're a sexually dimorphic species where females bear almost the entire cost of reproduction due to the length of gestation and the length of immaturity in our offspring.

Males being bigger, faster, stronger, more violent, and more aggressive are all evolutionary adaptations which have historically served us well. Females being smaller, having higher fat content, being more collaborative and being more nurturing toward children are also evolutionary adaptations which have served us well.

But we're ALSO heavily influenced by social influences, and THOSE have a large impact as well.

Males being expected to have leadership skills, be decisive, and to not show emotional vulnerability is probably NOT an evolutionary result, but a social structure. Women being expected to be subservient, soft-spoken, and not to have strong opinions is also probably NOT an evolutionary result.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Cluster B is a group of personality disorders. Narcissistic and anti-social are diagnosed more in males and histrionic and borderline in females. It isn't entirely clear why.

I would speculate that it's a combination of a) those disorders being extreme amplifications of sex-differentiated behavioral tendencies and b) doctors not looking for them in the other sex very often.

 

[Rolfe]

You know how cops seem incapable of saying "a man" or "a woman"? They say "a male" or "a female" instead. Well, when dealing with obvious males who tell them "I'm a woman", they've taken to saying "a female".

 

[Emily's Cat]

What is being done to children right now will never be forgiven.

Yes to all you said.

I'll also add that I learned some things recently about "tucking". This is something that males do to minimize the visual impact of their penis and testicles in tight clothing, providing a "smooth front".

Silly me, I assumed this was just squashing their bits tight, or literally tucking them under (ala Silence of the Lambs). Nope. It's so much worse than I thought it was.

Tucking involves actually pushing the testicles up inside the body.

There are companies selling "tucking" panties for toddlers.

Roll that around in your head for a moment. This involves parents forcing their child's testicles up inside of their bodies, and the panties hold them inside. And this is considered "good parenting" for "trans" toddlers.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think part of what we are seeing is that journey towards liberation having been established as a universal and assumed good, and opposition to it established as a universal and assumed evil, to the point where the train has jumped the tracks.

I agree that this is part of the problem... although I don't think this is a problem with the organizations pushing for this extreme trans acceptance. I think this is a problem with humans, and this is what results in so many people who I would previously have considered good liberals now supporting such an obviously dangerous and damaging approach.

I think the monied interests and the leaders of the organizations involved know damned good and well that their ideology causes harm, damages children, and puts females at increased risk... and they do not care.

 

[Emily's Cat]

One final idea since we are in such heated agreement, that you might not have come across as I see it getting discussed in dissident right wing circles.

There is a theory going around that links global corporate capitalism with these left wing liberation struggles. If you've ever read any globalism 101 books, what you get is a lot of talk about smoothing out barriers to trade - legal, cultural, whatever.... Traditionally defined groups like "woman" with their non-materialistically defined properties form a sort of barrier to trade. Obviously women are used to market products, and are marketed to.... but nonetheless, "woman" is a category that existed before the global market. Womanhood isn't something you can buy your way in to.

There is something about what we are seeing, and I think what you are describing with AGP, that reduces everything down to some kind of cosplay where your identity is something that you can purchase, and that is made real by Facebook. Identity is almost a disposable product and we are all atomized consumers. The commodification of sex and gender.

I wonder if just as you can't really say why a man can't become a women and use the women's changing rooms if he wants to within the frame of liberation, you can't really say why it is wrong in the frame of global corporate capitalism either. The two things are strangely compatible.

I've seen arguments to this effect, and I think there may be a nugget of truth to it.

I think it's also fed by the frighteningly poor lack of knowledge that a surprising number of males have with respect to female bodies. Twitter has been eye-opening for me, as a reader. The sheer volume of people who seem to think that female body parts are "plug and play" is terrifying. I've even run across people who claim to be gynecologists who say there's no real difference between naturally occurring vaginal tissue and the tissue of a penis that has been inverted via vaginoplasty. People who claim to be biologists who seem to think that if we can transplant a uterus into a male body, they'll be able to gestate and carry a body. People who claim to be medical practitioners who adamantly insist that males taking estrogen experience period symptoms, just without the menstrual blood.

I end up a bit depressed at how very little so many people know about the complexity of our reproductive systems.

 

[theprestige]

We're probably less than a year away from someone prescribing increasing and decreasing hormonal doses on a monthly cycle, to produce a facsimile of menses, as a treatment for sex dysphoria.

 

[Rolfe]

Yes to all you said.

I'll also add that I learned some things recently about "tucking". This is something that males do to minimize the visual impact of their penis and testicles in tight clothing, providing a "smooth front".

Silly me, I assumed this was just squashing their bits tight, or literally tucking them under (ala Silence of the Lambs). Nope. It's so much worse than I thought it was.

Tucking involves actually pushing the testicles up inside the body.

There are companies selling "tucking" panties for toddlers.

Roll that around in your head for a moment. This involves parents forcing their child's testicles up inside of their bodies, and the panties hold them inside. And this is considered "good parenting" for "trans" toddlers.

How can anyone possibly imagine a toddler is "trans"? What must the child think when his parents are doing that to him?

One of the basic lies at the bottom of all this is that being trans is a good thing, or at least neutral, not a bad thing. One medical establishment that has recently been promoting psychotherapy and said that their goal was "100% desistance" (though doubtless that wouldn't ever be achieved) was roundly criticised by the trans activists for implying that being trans was in some way a bad outcome.

Well, it is a bad outcome. It carries bad stats for mental health, for happiness, for finding a compatible life partner, for employment, and for getting involved with medical and surgical procedures that are not good for anyone's body.

Some people are going to persist as trans despite all this, and should be given all the help they need (without trespassing on the rights of others). But to celebrate a condition with such bad outcomes is insane. For parents to imagine or encourage a child to be trans is utter madness. Suspecting that your child might be trans should be about as happy an event as suspecting your child might have type 1 diabetes. Of course you'll love your child and help them every way you can to deal with this lousy condition, but you're going to be upset and worried if you're sane, not celebrating it and actively taking steps to make it happen.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This is everything wrong with the modern world. How on Earth does it benefit me as a man to undermine the class of women? Is that good for society? Is it good for my family? That doesn't seem good for my son any more than my daughter? What is wrong with people who look at the problems of the other sex and go "that's not my problem".

If women undermine men, or standby as men are undermined, women will pay for it just as surely as men will. If men undermine women, or standby as women are undermined, men will pay for it just as surely as women.

I don't think it benefits males, but I also don't think it costs males.

Males won't be driven out of social participation for lack of a safe place to pee or to change clothes - females aren't a physical risk to males in general. Males are not going to lose sports scholarships and awards to females. Males aren't going to see their political representation evaporating as females get counted as males in those roles.

Evolutionarily it might be bad for us all... but the most immediate impacts are to females, and they're already showing up in females losing space, participation, and representation. Scotland in particular is already seeing large numbers of females who don't have reasonable access to rape shelters or domestic violence shelters because those are no longer single-sex safe spaces. Even though those spaces are technically still available to females... the females who have been traumatized by males are too frightened to use them.