theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Who's to say it doesn't?
Trans women are not women (Part 8)
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Who's to say it doesn't?
Rolfe
Adult human female
Lots of people asking if Wallis will now start using the Ladies toilets in the Palace of Westminster. None of those people are journalists, of course.
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How does anybody know which is the ladies toilet? There is a door with a figure wearing trousers and a door with a figure in a dress... how are we supposed to tell how those figures identify or what sex they were assigned when they were printed?
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I kind of thought he answered that pretty clearly. He said that he will, for now, continue to present as male and use he/him pronouns. I take that as:
- He has been diagnosed with dysphoria.
- The treatment that he feels would be best is to transition.
- He has not started transitioning yet. (Possibly due to the complications of being in public life, but that's speculation.)
- Since he has not yet transitioned, he is not yet "trans" (which is why he says " or want to be") and therefore does not expect to have access to women's facilities or be referred to as a woman.
- He will transition later. Probably after his term of service is up. (Again, speculation.)
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Then why even announce it?
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Perhaps he felt the need to explain his recent erratic behaviour.
Meadmaker
Unregistered
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Who knows?
People in the public eye often announce medical or psychological conditions, some of which would not be apparent otherwise. Sometimes for activism/awareness, sometimes for attention, and sometimes to preempt leaks or scandals.
His statement mentions blackmail in which pictures were sent to his father and family. He also mentions the perpetrator being sentenced to 2 years and 9 months. It would appear that there is some documentation of this out there.
Given that, it may be that he made the statement in order to get ahead of it. It would be better, perception and image wise, to announce it himself rather than let it come out as some sort of scandal in the media. Doing so takes any leverage away from future blackmailers and blunts the blows that can be inflicted by the tabloids.
I think that was why he mentioned the rape and PTSD. He didn't seem to tie his behavior to his dysphoria as much as to his PTSD from the rape.
I'm guessing the trans issue was probably something that he thought would be unearthed along with the rest.
Rolfe
Adult human female
British Cycling have pulled the man from the women's event this weekend, but only because the international body intervened and said he was not eligible to compete. I don't know the precise details of the ineligibility. It's notable that British Cycling is still banging on in woolly terms about inclusion, without once mentioning the word "woman", and seems more intent on finding a way to pander to the man than to be fair to women.
Of course the fact that the man would pretty much have been guaranteed to win big internationally couldn't possibly explain that attitude, could it? I mean, the national body couldn't have been seduced by the twin lures of woke brownie points for pandering to the man's feelz and the medals he was likely to bring home, could it?
Of course the fact that the man would pretty much have been guaranteed to win big internationally couldn't possibly explain that attitude, could it? I mean, the national body couldn't have been seduced by the twin lures of woke brownie points for pandering to the man's feelz and the medals he was likely to bring home, could it?
p0lka
Illuminator
ok you know my position then, thx for letting me know as I wasn't sure, my fault.
I think the gender terms man and women as they continue to be written into laws are going to be treated separately from biological sex as time goes on. Insisting that woman equals female even when laws change seems like a stuck in the past mentality.
p0lka
Illuminator
I think some people cannot accept being gay. To the point they go the gender dysphoria route just so they're not gay. Doesn't make sense.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Usually objecting to bad laws is considered a good thing. Trying to change bad laws is also usually considered a good thing.
Bet you're not criticizing opponents of Texas' new "anti-trans" law for having a stuck in the past mentality.
Rolfe
Adult human female
We already have ST posting as if American politics is all that matters in this debate. Don't you start.
There is a lot of very questionable legal drafting around this issue, and some correction has begun. The fact that you think bad, badly-worded laws will continue to be written doesn't impress me. I do not accept your attempt to change the meaning of fundamental words in the English language.
TurkeysGhost
Penultimate Amazing
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That's very unfair, I regularly make a point to mock the insanity of TERF island.
I have no problem with a term that includes both cis and trans women and another that includes both cis and trans men. (Yes, I know some object to cis, but I think I need to use it here to bridge audience definitions.)
But here's a bit of a problem. The terms that have been selected for the above are not new terms that were never used before. They had meanings previously that were not gender terms. Further, laws have been written using those terms. When those laws were written, they were not gender terms. They were sex terms.
When you read a law that was written in, say, 2000 and it uses the term "women" what group of people does it refer to? At the time, it meant "adult human females." A law written today may mean "cis women or trans women," but that is a different group of people from what was referred to in the law.
If you say that previous laws that contain the word women are now to be interpreted by the new definition, you aren't updating language, you are changing the law without passing legislation to do so. Do you think it should be acceptable to change laws without passing legislation?
When you say the sign on the women's room now refers to gender and not sex, that's also retroactively changing meanings. To reflect the change in language without changing meanings you would have to replace every use of the word "woman" with the word "female."
Now, arguably, there are some instances where the group referred to should be gender based. But there are also instances where the group referred to should be sex based.
It doesn't work to just say "This word has a new meaning" and automatically apply that new meaning in every usage. And one should be careful doing so even with future usage as the older meaning has not yet been removed from common usage."
p0lka
Illuminator
Objecting to and trying to change laws you don't agree with is what people should do, definitely.
I was saying where I think it's going. I shouldn't have said stuck in the past mentality though.
Thx theprestige, according to what I said they do have a stuck in the past mentality too.
Which shows that it serves no purpose, I shouldn't have said it. I take it back and apologise for saying it.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Can anyone think of a significant, legal, situation where women and men LARPing femininity should be treated as a single group? Ditto men and women LARPing masculinity?
It's back to the unanswered question from many pages ago. What do women and men LARPing femininity have in common that either women and (all) men don't have in common, or that doesn't rely on idiotic stereotyping about lipstick and heels? Why would you want to consider the two groups together for anything other than utterly trivial reasons?
It's back to the unanswered question from many pages ago. What do women and men LARPing femininity have in common that either women and (all) men don't have in common, or that doesn't rely on idiotic stereotyping about lipstick and heels? Why would you want to consider the two groups together for anything other than utterly trivial reasons?
p0lka
Illuminator
I'm not American thank ****, my mum's Scottish and my dads Irish and I'm in england.
I was thinking about UK law, where it's already in law that you can change your gender after hoops have been jumped through.
Gender is already treated differently than biological sex in UK law.
Treating gender and biological sex differently seems to be the simplest solution to issues society has at this time.
Starting when?
Unlike some, I don't have a problem with treating gender and sex differently.
But can you recognize that using terminology for gender that until recently referred to sex might cause problems? Especially when those terms still refer to sex in common usage by a wide swath of the population?
What if instead of inventing the new term "centimeter" the designers of the metric system had instead decided that an "inch" now meant 10mm? (They kind of did that with temperature, actually.)
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