Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Meadmaker]

Strawman all you like, but I simply pointed out that Rebel News is a fash outlet. Do you disagree?

I have no idea. Since you are calling them fascists, they are probably conservative, but I really don't know.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Strawman all you like, but I simply pointed out that Rebel News is a fash outlet. Do you disagree?
.

I disagree. They do not appear to be fascist.

I'm tired of people of reducing the cornucopia of authoritarianism to the yam of fascism.

 

[shuttlt]

I have no idea. Since you are calling them fascists, they are probably conservative, but I really don't know.

Canadian fascists! At least you know they are going to be polite in their fascism.

 

[Meadmaker]

Is this the one that published the article by Carol Tavris I linked to before?

https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/transgender-reality-i-didnt-know-there-was-another-side/

Yes. That's one of the articles.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yep. And a pity too. The Skokie case had a profound effect on my attitudes at the time, about the importance of free speech for everyone.

They seem to have gone in just the.opposite direction.

For a long time, I was a staunch supporter of ACLU. They did good things. They were clear about their mission.

But to be honest, since they've now relegated me to the half of the population that cannot be named, I'm a whole lot less inclined to be tolerant of them on any topic. Seriously, they've cast literally half of humanity as nothing more than a collection of random parts and functions. It's so insanely dehumanizing and denigrating.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Okay so I have a serious, legit, no-snark question because even after all this time I'm still trying to find a vein to really hit here.

Person A says. "I am a man/woman."

Give me a scenario where they are wrong. Something with a toe in reality would be nice, but even something purely conceptual as long as it's an actual answer would do.

Because if there isn't one, that's raises question.

When a person says "I am a man", but they have boobs and a vagina and they bleed out of their cervix once a month and then get knocked up and have a baby... I'm pretty sure they're not a man in any meaningful sense of the word "man".

When a person says "I am a woman", but they have a giant adam's apple, a prostate, a penis and testicles, and they regularly shoot out some sperm-filled goop... I'm pretty sure they're not a woman in any meaningful sense of the word "woman".

Despite your bellyaching over the topic, it's not actually that challenging, Joe. A person can claim to be whatever the **** they want. But they do not control your mind. So unless YOU perceive them to be what they claim to be, how they feel about themselves is pretty much irrelevant.

This isn't limited to sex or to socially contrived 'gender identity'. This extends to all elements of anybody's claimed identity. I've lost track of how many times I've told people on ISF that I'm not a conservative, I've never been a Trump supporter, and I'm neither trans-exclusionary nor a radical feminist... It doesn't stop other people from applying labels to me based on their perception. No matter how incorrect I think that perception is, I can't force them to perceive me differently.

Just because some people really, really, REALLY want to be perceived in a certain way doesn't mean that anyone else has any obligation to rewire their own brains to support that other person's self-concept.

 

[Emily's Cat]

In time I suspect the TERF label will become anachronistic. Any pretense of feminism is going to be difficult to reconcile with the decidedly anti-feminist nature of these extreme right movements they're cozying up with and will be dumped.

Such irreconcilable differences already exist in these red states that are simultaneously criminalizing trans people and abortion. TERFs have to decide if being anti-trans trumps being pro-reproductive rights, and it's pretty obvious to me which way they'll go.

Go on then, oh great and knowledgeable male person. Tell all us poor confused female people what is best for us, because obviously, we female people trying to protect and advance female people are confused and just can't figure it out. We need a male like you to give us direction so we do it right.

/dripping sarcasm

 

[Emily's Cat]

It strikes me as quite odd to think that anyone could be "debating" whether trans people deserve civil rights and that is not an inherently a political question.

Nobody disagrees that transgender identified people deserve civil rights, ST. That's a disingenuous ploy.

The disagreements are with respect to:

1) What constitutes a civil right in the first place. For example, is there actually a civil right that allows a subset of males to have open-access to naked females without the consent of those females? Should that be considered a "right" in any realistic sense? And why would that only apply to a subset of males, as opposed to all males?

2) What constitutes a transgender person in the first place. For example, if James has never exhibited or intimated anything remotely resembling dysphoria or a desire to be perceived as a female in their entire 26 year life... should anyone actually be obligated to believe their self-declaration of being a "transwoman" made AFTER they've been arrested for having attacked and raped a 10-year old female? If the term "transgender" is based only on a person's declaration, with absolutely no reasonable way to verify or validate that status, why is a person's self-declaration grounds for providing special privileges, entitlements, and protections?

3) To what extent should civil rights for one group (transgender people) extend, when those rights are in direct conflict with the existing rights of another group of people (females)? If the extension of rights to the proposed group of transgender people materially deprives females of their rights, or places females at undue risk of harm, where should we draw the line?

All of those are topics that SHOULD be discussed.

What I find "odd" is that you have repeatedly taken positions that completely dismiss out of hand any damage that is experienced by females. You ignore and wave away any conflict of rights, you ignore the risks of enshrining a person's subjective concept of themselves as a protected status, and you ignore the question of what constitutes a right.

And you go beyond that, and persistently attack and denigrate people who DO as those questions with nasty insulting labels. Granted, you maintain a considerably more civil and respectful mode of discourse when the people disagreeing with you happen to be male, which is an even "odder" thing in my opinion.

 

[Emily's Cat]

That very much depends on locality.

In red states in the US, that increasingly means the rights to medical freedom and freedom of speech without state retaliation. Just your average non-discrimination civil rights stuff.

FOR CHILDREN

Some states are denying CHILDREN the right to undergo permanently damaging medical procedures and treatments until they are adults.

That is not a right that ANY CHILD has ever had! It's not a right that CHILDREN ought to have, if one has any sense of safeguarding and care for children's well-being... rather than say... a desire to use children as a tool for the affirmation of adults.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Texas is threatening to arrest families that provide trans children medical care. Perhaps you can concede that civil rights are very much in play.

Replace that with "cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and surgical interventions". None of which have been shown to provide long-term benefits, and all of which HAVE been shown to produce harm.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Here is a piece in the Weekly Worker, arguing that there is 'common ground between the patriarchal right and some advocates of trans rights'.

Orthodoxy and its discontents

"But the debate is not just about trans rights - it is about what sex and gender actually are - which is relevant to all humanity. So, when we consider gender in relation to the whole of humanity, the picture flips around: trans rights orthodoxy has far more in common with socially conservative views than gender-critical feminism does."

Strangely, I linked to gender critical pieces in the Weekly Worker before, and I don't recall any well-poisoning.

Well. That certainly resonated with me.

In reality this is just the ‘same old, same old’ that we have been hearing for centuries. Some of us are not really women - in other words, we are not the right kind of women. Half the human race - the half that is currently happy to call themselves women - either get classified as subservient and subordinate, or are not really women at all, because we are not ‘doing woman right’. Just as familiar are the insults, bullying and sexualised threats that typify the abuse hurled at women who dare to disagree with the trans rights orthodoxy.

The entire article was well worth the read, but the part above really captures a lot of my rage and anger at this movement, and at the people who so zealously support it.

I also found this bit to be really well stated, and it cuts to one of the most salient elements of the discussion:

But the notion of ‘woman’ as ‘identity’ creates a difficulty in engaging with trans ideologists, because it is virtually impossible to get them to take on board the understanding that we are not talking about an identity. To them an identity translates as, roughly speaking, a sense of self - what is important to someone about themselves, the central pillar of how they think about themselves. So if you say, ‘I am a woman, and woman means adult human female’, what they hear is: ‘I think of myself as a walking reproductive system; my reproductive body parts are the most important things about who I am’ - when in fact all you are doing is identifying yourself as someone who is female, which can be important in a number of circumstances, for material reasons. It does not mean that you think it is the most important thing about yourself, or the only thing that people should know about you.

And some rather familiar language as a capstone:

One of the most potent methods of enforcing male dominance is for men to use their male bodies as threats to humiliate and assault us - but trans orthodoxy characterises women as hysterical pearl-clutchers when we collectively say no to nude male bodies in women’s changing rooms.

 

[Emily's Cat]

For what it's worth, I strongly oppose the manner in which Texas has done it, and that's a thing for me. I don't think it's enough to do the right thing. In order to have a reasonable government, you have to do it the right way. Their invocation of child abuse laws is ridiculous. Those sorts of policies should go through the legislative branch, not the executive or judiciary. There may even be another thread where I've talked about that lately.

STRONGLY AGREE!!!!!!

The ends do not justify the means.

 

[Emily's Cat]

At a very high level and admittedly poorly informed, their policy at least has the appearance of being rooted in good faith rather than rabid animus

Have you ever, even momentarily, attempted to consider that perhaps, maybe, the people you are arguing with are NOT motivated by "rabid animus"? Have you ever given thought to whether you are ascribing malice to those you disagree with in order to avoid having to consider the actual topic under discussion?

 

[Emily's Cat]

The fact that one horrible thing is being done to transpeople doesn't mean everything is being done to transpeople.

Your arguments for the last (I ain't even bothering counting anymore, make a number up at this point) threads have been a lot of "If I can find one example of anything being bad done to transpeople I win every part of the entire argument."

What I find incredibly frustrating is that when people on the other side of the argument bring up examples of something bad being done to females... ST dismisses it as "anecdote" and insinuates that it's a lie.

Texas's law is horrible. It is vile and wrong.

Yes. It certainly is.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't follow. I don't see how a bevy of anti-trans laws being passed after a prolonged and concerted campaign of anti-trans propaganda is by any stretch of the imagination "random".

What exactly do you mean by "anti-trans"? You use the term a lot, but you always just assume that your meaning is clearly implied. Please take a moment and define it for us all.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Dr. Erica Anderson, a trans woman, clinical psychologist and former member of WPATH has just been quoted in the Daily Mail.

"H.H.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Rachel Levine raised eyebrows last month by declaring that 'no argument' exists among medical professionals who care for adolescents 'regarding the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.'

That's just not true."

"Recently, the health authorities in Sweden and France have made the brave move to stop the routine use of some types of gender-affirming care treatments for youth under the age of 18."

But it's in the Daily Fail. Does that mean Dr Anderson is a fascist? Is that outweighed by being trans and having 30 years experience in trans health care? It must be so difficult to work out what is wrongthink when you have to do it all based on guilt by association and without actually looking at evidence.

I thought Dr. Anderson had a really good point here:

The biggest question today is not whether gender-affirming care is appropriate for transgender youth. The question is: Who is transgender and at what point should medicines be used?

 

[Meadmaker]

Okay so I have a serious, legit, no-snark question because even after all this time I'm still trying to find a vein to really hit here.

Person A says. "I am a man/woman."

Give me a scenario where they are wrong. Something with a toe in reality would be nice, but even something purely conceptual as long as it's an actual answer would do.

Because if there isn't one, that's raises question.

Not surprisingly, the only people who answered the question were people who were not exactly friendly to the "Trans women are women" side.

I can't truly answer from that side's perspective, but I will have to offer what I think their answer might be. Sometimes, it's easier to find someone to tell you that you are wrong than to answer a question, so I will provide them that opportunity.

Based on what I have read in these threads, I think the answer is no. They could, possibly, be lying. However, they are never wrong. If they think they are a man, they are a man. If they think they are a woman, they are a woman. There's no possibility of error, by definition. The identification creates the identity.

And as for lying, that's just a right wing bogeyman and no one every does that, except in very rare anecdotes. Anyone who even refreences the cases when it happens is revealing their true anti-trans animus.

 

[shuttlt]

Not surprisingly, the only people who answered the question were people who were not exactly friendly to the "Trans women are women" side.

I can't truly answer from that side's perspective, but I will have to offer what I think their answer might be. Sometimes, it's easier to find someone to tell you that you are wrong than to answer a question, so I will provide them that opportunity.

Based on what I have read in these threads, I think the answer is no. They could, possibly, be lying. However, they are never wrong. If they think they are a man, they are a man. If they think they are a woman, they are a woman. There's no possibility of error, by definition. The identification creates the identity.

And as for lying, that's just a right wing bogeyman and no one every does that, except in very rare anecdotes. Anyone who even refreences the cases when it happens is revealing their true anti-trans animus.

Isn't this all rather pointless though? It is just asserting definitions back and forth. Nobody misunderstands the othersides definition. One side wants the definition to serve one purpose, the other side another purpose. It's an odd debate because it comes so quickly to the nub beyond which no progress is possible.

 

[theprestige]

Texas is threatening to arrest families that provide trans children medical care.

I don't see why this is a problem for you.

Maybe if you could articulate an ethical course of trans-affirming medical treatment for prepubescent children, or cite a medically sound basis for diagnosing gender dysphoria in prepubescent children, I'd understand why you find the Texas policy objectionable.

 

[Paul2]

Have you ever, even momentarily, attempted to consider that perhaps, maybe, the people you are arguing with are NOT motivated by "rabid animus"? Have you ever given thought to whether you are ascribing malice to those you disagree with in order to avoid having to consider the actual topic under discussion?

The answer is unclear, but the moral foundation of not ascribing malice to those with whom you disagree with is still possible, even though it is seemingly incompatible with the most extreme disagreements on the most important questions and exercising power for political ends.

Along these lines, I just watched a movie that shows how reconciliation is possible even between to-the-death foes in war who will stop at nothing to exercise their power.

"The Railway Man" stars Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman and is the story of how Colin Firth's character was tortured by the Japanese in WWII and how he came to meet his torturer years later and reconcile with him; based on a true story. I highly recommend it.

Edited to remove a comment that will no doubt get moved to AAH given recent mod actions.