Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[p0lka]

It is called female only. Apparently it uses face recognition AI to verify sex.

Ah, in which case an easy case to throw out, you aint a female get out.

Rolfes interpretation made it more wishy washy with using gender terms instead of biological terms.

 

[shuttlt]

Ah, in which case an easy case to throw out, you aint a female get out.

I don't know about that. Going back to a previous hypothetical.... I don't think you could get past civil rights law by excluding people based on nose shape and hair curliness rather than race. I think the same might apply here, at least to the extent that the choice of words isn't magical legal protection.

 

[Rolfe]

Ah, in which case an easy case to throw out, you aint a female get out.

Rolfes interpretation made it more wishy washy with using gender terms instead of biological terms.

You need to improve your reading comprehension. I explained in my post that the app used facial recognition to verify sex, as well as actual human beings vetting the applicants. It is as clear as it possibly can be that the app is for biological, female women only (there is no other kind of woman, but let's be tautologically clear about this). That is exactly what the trans activists are challenging in the human rights court. They do not believe that biological, female women should have any space or category at all that is closed to them.

There's another mess going on at the moment, related to this. There is a charity that supports women who have suffered pregnancy loss due to domestic abuse and/or forced abortion by a controlling partner. The woman who heads this is currently under enormous pressure because she won't "open the service" to transwomen. I'm not making this up. If she insists that only women will be helped by her charity she is an evil transphobe and they will get her closed down.

My feeling about all this is that we're looking at a mass psychosis coming near to its natural end-point. A bunch of over-confident, aggressive men have over-reached themselves, and the essential nudity of rhe emperor is becoming clearer to more people by the day. They thought it they could get men accepted in women's prisons they would win, because they thought that was the ultimate invasion. However it turns out that most people don't care so much about prisons as they do about sport - or many it's just that the prison rapes aren't being shown live on TV but the girls and women being beaten by men are.

It's not going to go away overnight, but the first signs of the tide turning are already showing.

 

[Roboramma]

You can test for male or female, how are they getting around that?

The same way you got around "man" and "woman", by changing the meaning of the word.

 

[Meadmaker]

Rolfe was replying my post below

where I clearly make a distinction between gender terms and biological terms.

Rolfe isn't much into "gender terms".

And I can't say that I blame her. To be completely fair, "gender terms" were biological terms until a few people started saying they weren't. "Woman" was an adult human female. Those are biological terms.

Now woman is......something, according to some people. We aren't really sure what, but it has a female..feminine gender, whatever that means.

 

[Roboramma]

This keeps happening, I have no interest in get-outs and gotchas or anything else that people keep projecting on to me,
it's not a competition or a war or any other combative thing, it's a discussion to try to get to the truth of the matter.

Rolfe has told your repeatedly that "woman" = "adult human female".

Even if you reject that definition of the word, it's still very clear that when Rolfe uses the word that's what she means. If you're having trouble understanding her posts, just change every incidence of "woman" to "adult human female", and you'll better understand what she's saying.

Thanks.

 

[Rolfe]

Rolfe was replying my post below

where I clearly make a distinction between gender terms and biological terms.

I don't accept your rewriting of the dictionary. Woman has meant "adult female of the human species" since the language emerged from Anglo-Saxon, and I am not playing that game where you get to re-define a fundamental term in such a way as to control the debate.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ah, the good old days.

Gotta confess, I never thought the trans lobby would be the reason the clock got turned back 100 years on women's rights.

The trans lobby on one hand, and the traditionalists on the other.

Females have no political home. It's quite disturbing.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The only reason this debate about definitions is happening is because something is insane at the heart of enlightenment rationalism.

The "confusion" around what is a woman and what is a man is NOT a product of enlightenment rationalism. It's a produce of post-modernism and critical theory.

It specifically relies on *destroying* rational definitions and categories, and intentionally obfuscating reality in favor of fantasy. That is not at all based in enlightenment reasoning.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Well, there's this. The alarm has been sounded, who’s going to respond?

And this. Lia Thomas and the slow death of women’s sports

What really gets me about both of those situations (as well as several others that have resulted in me peaking and tossing "be kind" right out the window) is that it's blatantly obvious that these both have serious risks and downsides for females.

And the volume of people willing to PRETEND that those downsides don't exist is astonishing, and frankly frightening. The willingness of people - both male and female - to sacrifice the safety and well-being of females in order to make males feel better about themselves is really disturbing.

 

[Emily's Cat]

No. It's a fact that we teach children to wear clothes. We do not know what children would do in the absence of any instruction, or if modesty might manifest without an example. It would be unethical, if not impossible, to find out. Seriously, think what kind of experiment would be required to test this hypothesis, and then think about what an IRB would say to its proposal.

But it's also probably irrelevant. Let's suppose that clothing is socially indoctrinated. So what? That doesn't make it arbitrary or useless. As I said before, I think clothing is necessary for mixed sex strangers to be able to interact with little social friction. If I am correct, then even if clothing is a complete social construct, then it's still a necessary one in modern society, and we should not try to get rid of it.

Considering that all recorded history, as well as all anthropological information going back to the stone age indicates that males and females at minimum covered their genitals, even in hot climates, is rather strongly suggestive.

 

[shuttlt]

A lot of very smart people also fervently believe in a cosmic jewish zombie who is simultaneously their own father as well as an incorporeal being.

A lot of very smart people believe in Scientology.

A lot of very smart people believed that the Earth was flat and that it was the center of the universe.

"Lots of smart people believe this" isn't a particularly good argument.

Well, it's maybe an argument for not reducing whole epochs of thought down to a dismissive caricature. I wasn't really making an argument that because they were smart they had something to say. It's more that, even though I disagree with them profoundly, I read quite a number of them and came to the view that they had interesting things to say. Partly, I think that is because marxism was an idea that took possession of a great number of very smart people, so it happened to be the vehicle through which they said insightful things. Partly it is because they inspired people who came after them who have had an impact on the world.

There is no question in my mind that there is a pretty direct lineage of thought from the current trans-activists, through French intellectuals of the 60s to marxist intellectuals in the 20s. That isn't to say that the trans-activists have any kind of deep well reasoned argument, but these are the origins of their world view.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The role this plays in the transgender debate is where modesty is concerned. A very common response to a complaint that girls and women do not want to be seen disrobed by males is that this is just some silly social convention and we should modify it to be more rational in the modern world. I think that's wrong. I think that tendency is hard wired, and while the instinct can be overcome by social conditioning, i.e. girls can be told that it shouldn't bother them, and they can be made to agree with that, and even match the behavior to that conditioning, I think there will always be an element of underlying anxiety.

I have a less generous interpretation of the argument. I believe that a not insignificant element of the argument is to break down language and reason, so that males with sexual fetishes can violate female physical and sexual boundaries without consequences to the males.

If males are allowed to be naked in a female-only space... that means that females have lost their sexual boundaries with respect to exhibitionism. A female can no longer withhold consent to view a naked male's genitals against the female's will - that consent no longer even exists. It is now the *right* of the male to exhibit their male genitals to unwilling females.

If males are allowed to be in the presence of naked females in a female-only space... that means that females have lost their sexual boundaries with respect to voyeurism. A female can no longer withhold consent to be viewed while naked by a male against the female's will - that consent no longer even exists. It is now the *right* of the male to view naked females regardless of their unwillingness.

It erodes female consent by recasting common male fetishes as "rights". And both voyeurism and exhibitionism in males tend to escalate to more severe sexual offenses over time.

 

[Rolfe]

Considering that all recorded history, as well as all anthropological information going back to the stone age indicates that males and females at minimum covered their genitals, even in hot climates, is rather strongly suggestive.

All that stuff in Genesis about how, before the fall, Adam and Eve "were naked and they were not ashamed", and then after the fateful fruit had been consumed, they saw that they were naked and were ashamed and made themselves skirts out of leaves, is wildly interesting in this context.

And God didn't say "don't be silly, I made you as you are, why would you be ashamed?" he said "who told you that you were naked?"

 

[Emily's Cat]

That will get you accused of transphobia on its own.

Right now, in Australia (or maybe it's NZ?), a woman who runs a social media app for women only, which uses personal approval and face-recognition software to ensure that only women can join, is currently being pursued for a human rights breach for not allowing "transwomen" to join. The very aggressive complaint demands that she should be re-educated, should immediately open up her app to all self-identified "women" and should police women's posts to eliminate anything that might cause hurty-feelings in the male "women".

It might well be chucked out as a nonsense, one would hope so, but who knows these days. Even if it is though, it's costing her a lot of money and a lot of stress right now.

Australia - It's "Giggle", owned and operated by Sall Grover. And it's not marketed or referred to as for "women" only, it's very specifically and intentionally referred to as being for females only.

And the current legal shenanigans against Grover make me very, very angry.

 

[Rolfe]

Australia - It's "Giggle", owned and operated by Sall Grover. And it's not marketed or referred to as for "women" only, it's very specifically and intentionally referred to as being for females only.

And the current legal shenanigans against Grover make me very, very angry.

Female human beings, we presume, because female animals and plants aren't known for their interest in social media. So, women.

At the same time we see trans people insisting on their right to spaces, organisations and so on for trans people only. I'm fine with that, actually, but it's one hell of a double standanrd.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It's a mess. They're not only losing out on team places and prizes, they're being gaslit to accept these men as equally entitled to be in the events as they are, and celebrate them as "stunning and brave". The officials have been completely captured. One woman official was quoted (possibly in the Thomas case?) as saying "I will never support a cis-woman against a woman." The girls are being vilified as transphobes for being uncomfortable with it all.

And people are surprised when we point out that "cis-woman" is offensive?

It wasn't "a woman". it was the goddamned ******* ACLU.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You can test for male or female, how are they getting around that?

By trying to redefine what "female" means in the first place, and trying to cast it as a "cluster" of a whole bunch of different characteristics, including karyotype, phenotype, and hormones. Then they pretend that since some of those things aren't "strictly binary", then sex isn't strictly binary either... and therefore, if a male person has enough estrogen in their system, and has grown some boobs, they're "female" by their postmodern solipsist definition.

It's straight up wrong, completely wrong... but that's the approach.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Stop caring about the transactivists, activists of any sort are annoying as hell as they're really active......so annoying. Too emotional, the burden of us all, well most of us.

I MUST care about the transactivists - they are forming political and legal policies. Policies that affect me and every other female.

 

[shuttlt]

It's not at all Freudian. It's an observation that you - a male - feels entitled to tell me - a female - what the consequences of my beliefs are,

Why do you feel entitled to say what the consequences of your beliefs are?

without consideration to the consequences of your own.

Not at all. You are absolutely free to disagree with me on the consequences of my beliefs, just as I am free to disagree with you about the consequences of yours. I don't have to defer to you on the consequences of feminism in terms of its objective consequences just because you have a vagina any more than you have to defer to me on any objective topic under the sun just because I have a penis.

I defer to you on what it feels like to be you. The further we drift away from that, say to what it is like being a woman in 2022, or what it was like being a woman in 1270, the less I defer to you. One reason for not deferring to you is that there are clearly other women who disagree with you. There are women who articulate positions not unlike those I have put forward in the thread. Feminism no more represents the female perspective than white nationalism represents the anglo-saxon perspective.

That last point does actually link back to the main topic since I think its highly questionable that trans-activists actually speak for trans-people. The difficulty is that governments have become used to looking for representatives of identity groups to negotiate and liaise with those communities. That allows small organized minorities to co-opt these groups very easily. There is a saying in elite theory that goes something like - an organized minority will always dominate a disorganized majority.

It's an observation of the blatant male privilege involved.

No it isn't. You read far too much through the feminist frame. I disagree with you, but I find you interesting and am not trying to overpower you or win by some display of masculine power.

You are at a disadvantage because, I think, these issues cut much closer to your heart than they do to mine. I haven't been trying to pick a fight with you, so I'm sorry if it felt that way.