Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Sideroxylon]

Carl Pilkington: “I went to the toilet and there was a gay fella in there.”

 

[shuttlt]

We need males legally excluded in order to be able to exclude the ones who are undesirable. If that ends up by excluding all but the ones that look like Blaire White (and I understand even he gets what-the-hell looks in real life as opposed to the carefully-curated YouTube appearance) then so be it. Men need to stop being so mean to gender-nonconforming men and accept them in the male spaces where they belong.

This is where we disagree, Rolfe. For one thing, in these spaces, men generally don't interact with one another. I'm struggling to think of an interaction I've had with a stranger in a public toilet, or changing room. I'm sure I have had such interactions, but it would have been functional and minimal. School changing rooms are a special case. Are gender non-conforming men going to the women's changing rooms because they are being driven away by men?

Beyond that, I think men have been feminised enough. Women don't get to tone police mens toilets and changing rooms.

 

[shuttlt]

Carl Pilkington: “I went to the toilet and there was a gay fella in there.”

Everytime Carl Pilkington goes to the toilet, there is a gay fella in there.

 

[Rolfe]

This is where we disagree, Rolfe. For one thing, in these spaces, men generally don't interact with one another. I'm struggling to think of an interaction I've had with a stranger in a public toilet, or changing room. I'm sure I have had such interactions, but it would have been functional and minimal. School changing rooms are a special case. Are gender non-conforming men going to the women's changing rooms because they are being driven away by men?

Beyond that, I think men have been feminised enough. Women don't get to tone police mens toilets and changing rooms.

I think we may be at cross-purposes here. I have been informed that men don't interact with each other in public toilets and I have no intention of trying to suggest they should. (I have also heard that transmen make fools of themselves quite often by trying to be blokey and communicative. They're women of course, and they've been brought up to be chatty and communicative in public toilets.)

I am talking about the most common reason trans-identifying men give for insisting that they have to invade women's privacy and make women uncomfortable. "We can't use the Gents because we'd be assaulted. We'd be beaten up! So we need laws that allow any man to come into the Ladies so that we can be safe!" (This isn't the killer logic they think it is.)

Well, men, if you're assaulting and beating up gender nonconforming men in public toilets, and that is the reason these men want to invade women's intimate spaces, I see an easy solution for everyone. Just stop doing that.

 

[Sideroxylon]

I think we may be at cross-purposes here. I have been informed that men don't interact with each other in public toilets and I have no intention of trying to suggest they should. (I have also heard that transmen make fools of themselves quite often by trying to be blokey and communicative. They're women of course, and they've been brought up to be chatty and communicative in public toilets.)

I am talking about the most common reason trans-identifying men give for insisting that they have to invade women's privacy and make women uncomfortable. "We can't use the Gents because we'd be assaulted. We'd be beaten up! So we need laws that allow any man to come into the Ladies so that we can be safe!" (This isn't the killer logic they think it is.)

Well, men, if you're assaulting and beating up gender nonconforming men in public toilets, and that is the reason these men want to invade women's intimate spaces, I see an easy solution for everyone. Just stop doing that.

High passing, post op, trans women would be fine though?

 

[shuttlt]

I think we may be at cross-purposes here.

No problem, I guess I misunderstood.

I am talking about the most common reason trans-identifying men give for insisting that they have to invade women's privacy and make women uncomfortable. "We can't use the Gents because we'd be assaulted. We'd be beaten up! So we need laws that allow any man to come into the Ladies so that we can be safe!" (This isn't the killer logic they think it is.)

This is probably going to reveal my homophobia, but I wonder what public toilets they are hanging about in and what they have been doing in those public toilets. It reminds me of an old Lenny Bruce bit about Jewish mothers not realising their sons were gay. He's got the mother telling her friend about what a pity it is that her son hasn't found the right girl yet. And he's such a good kind boy, every evening he brings a sailor home whose got nowhere to sleep, but they just beat him up and take his money.

Well, men, if you're assaulting and beating up gender nonconforming men in public toilets, and that is the reason these men want to invade women's intimate spaces, I see an easy solution for everyone. Just stop doing that.

There should be training courses that all men have to go on, like those university courses that explain that raping women is bad. We may have the problem solved.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The problem is that the only "sides" that get heard on either side are the radicals. Meanwhile the non-radical people on the other side get curb-stomped by one side reacting to the other side's radicals and then curb-stomped again by those radicals who claim to be on their side for not being "pure" enough and willing to compromise.

Put simply, the radicals on both sides are hurting the reasonable people in the middle. It's my opinion that there are many more people in the middle ground than there are on the extremes. Most of them just aren't as loud. And both sides feel free to kick them if they speak up.

There has been no election deciding who gets to represent and express the views of trans people. And I've read a lot of writing and watched a lot of videos from trans people that are generally much closer to your position than to Suburban Turkey's position. (They just don't get the headlines because...well...reasonable never does.) These people do understand and respect your concerns and would like to find a way to address their issues without compromising yours. Their voices aren't heard because the radicals...the absolutists...are too busy shouting at each other to pay attention.

Which are the radicals on the gender critical side of this? And where are the transgender people that they're curb-stomping?

I say this, because my side - the reasonable GC side - is packed full of intelligent caring females, lesbians, gay males, trans widows, detransitioners, people with CCSDs, people with legitimate gender dysphoria, and a not-so-small cohort of actual transsexual people.

I'm having trouble finding the "extremists" on my side. I certainly haven't found any GC "radicals" on ISF.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The thing I always think about those sort of "but Finland" arguments is.... Finland is a different culture. You can't just pick one element that makes sense in Finnish culture, transplant it to Scotland and expect it to fit. It's like taking a puzzle piece from a different puzzle with differently shaped pieces and trying to force it into your puzzle.... it's not going to quite fit, so you are going to have to move a few more pieces across.... Also, how easy is it to just bring across the bits of the culture you want without bringing the bits you don't want?

Also, it really overstates the amount of mixed-sex amenities in Finland. There are spas and saunas that are mixed-sex and are expected to be nude. But toilets and most changing rooms for gyms and schools are still separated by sex.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Funnily enough, I do not feel that the concept of "transmen are men" (and the associated concept of some men having been assigned female sex at birth) somehow robs me - a cisman - of the ability to discuss my own life, my experiences, my sex, and my body. Nor does it reduce me to an object comprised of a collection of parts and function. Nor is it degrading and dehumanizing.

The word "man" isn't being removed from legislation, advertising, and discussion either. Notices for prostate exams are still aimed at "men", they aren't being re-written to address "prostate havers". I have yet to see an organization or marketing effort refer to your sex as "sperm makers" or "ejaculators" or "penis owners" in an effort to be "inclusive". I have yet to see males be castigated and shouted down by gender dysphoric females because the use of the word "men" excludes them, or by gender dysphoric males because the use of the word "men" includes them when they don't consider themselves one of you.

The word "man" hasn't become a dirty word that you're not allowed to use.

It's a complete mystery why males get to retain the word that describes their half of the species, but females are forced to relinquish ours. Truly a mystery.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Indeed. Likewise, I seem to recall the likes of MLK and John Lewis not being all that genteel when addressing those who did not want black people in the USA to have decent and proportionate civil rights. Strange, huh?

Yes, we're all quite familiar with how often King and Lewis issued threats of violence to white people, and harassed white people out of their jobs. Yep. That's totally what happened.

 

[Emily's Cat]

1) There had been a general claim that words with accepted and embedded meanings/definitions cannot (or should not) subsequently change those meanings/definitions in any material way. I was showing how wrong that was.

2) You seem to be somewhat unaware of how we've got to where we are with transgender rights. The only reason why clinicians, together with progressive governments and regulators, are now seeking to grant transgender people rights and protections (including the right of a transman to be considered a man, and vice-versa)... is that a) such people demonstrably exist, b) transgender identity is now - importantly - viewed within the mainstream medical/scientific community to be a valid condition and not an affliction/disorder, and c) such people therefore deserve a proportionate level of rights and protections. Your attempt to paint this as a "top-down effort at social engineering" is to entirely disregard the transgender communities that actually exist. Or do you think they're just "pretending" or something like that?

This is Sophisticated Theology. It's not an argument, it's speculation that there *must* be a *really good reason*, you just can't actually provide those reasons. You merely insinuate that anyone who doesn't accept those *really good reasons that must exist* must of course be ignorant or evil.

Only apostates don't accept that god is all powerful.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Heaven help all those "policy-captured" rolleyes psychiatrists/psychologists*, executive governments**, legislatures**, judiciaries**, regulators**, local authorities**.....

....when they find out that in fact they're tantamount to "religious zealots", that they're "the problem", that they're on the opposite side to the "rational sane side". I mean: surely they'll have no option but to resign en masse, right?


* You know: the people who are actually expert in this area, and who - not incidentally - comprise a healthy proportion of women among their number

** All of whom - not incidentally - comprise a healthy proportion of women among their number

More sophisticated theology, along with an appeal to an assumed authority.

On the other hand... Sweden, Finland, France, NHS.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And after all, who's going to protect teenage boys in the men's communal changing rooms from the occasional (rare) predatory stacked gay gym-bunny who eyes them up as they get naked, and might even try to hit on them? Should all gay men be banned from the men's changing rooms, in order to eliminate the (very slight) possibility of offending behaviour towards naked younger men?

The logic is astonishing. "well, some young males get harmed by males too... so let's put males in with the females!"

That's not a solution to anyone's problem. Well, I take that back. It's a solution to the problem of predators not currently having easy access to females. So, I guess it's good for the predators.

Someone recently made the comment on twitter: It's not that transgender people are sex offenders; it's that sex offenders are identifying as transgender.

 

[shuttlt]

The word "man" isn't being removed from legislation, advertising, and discussion either. Notices for prostate exams are still aimed at "men", they aren't being re-written to address "prostate havers". I have yet to see an organization or marketing effort refer to your sex as "sperm makers" or "ejaculators" or "penis owners" in an effort to be "inclusive". I have yet to see males be castigated and shouted down by gender dysphoric females because the use of the word "men" excludes them, or by gender dysphoric males because the use of the word "men" includes them when they don't consider themselves one of you.

The word "man" hasn't become a dirty word that you're not allowed to use.

It's a complete mystery why males get to retain the word that describes their half of the species, but females are forced to relinquish ours. Truly a mystery.

There are also billions of dollars aimed at promoting women's issues and charities, and NGOs who control where that money goes. There are mercenary reasons for targeting women rather than men. The prize if they aim at men is access to men's spaces. The prize if they target women is control of that massive pot of money and the political machine that feminism built. Afterall, they outrank women on the privilege stack. If they can get in, they be taking over feminism.

 

[Rolfe]

High passing, post op, trans women would be fine though?

We have no way of knowing whether a man is castrated and has had his penis removed, you know. They still look the same in all other ways.

It's about behaviour. Part of the behaviour that would be considered "discreet" is not presenting with an appearance that is blatantly male, such as a beard or a business suit. Making the effort to fit in visually is one way to indicate a desire not to cause discomfort.

The rest is go in and get out as quickly as is reasonably possible, don't try to interact with a woman, and if anyone looks disconcerted or a feminine incident starts to happen, leave immediately.

One of my transwomen friends, who transitioned ages ago (and who doesn't have a GRC because "what's that, there was nothing like that available in my day") has told me that's what he was trained to do during the transition process. Only after a lot of effort (and surgery, he told me that part) was he "cleared" to enter women's spaces. He was given a letter to show if there was any trouble and someone called the authorities, but the instruction was, in and out without interacting with anyone, and if you deliberately do anything to cause a woman discomfort that letter will be revoked.

A lot of women are quite angry about this, because the people who were giving transwomen these letters were male psychologists who didn't at any point tell women what they were doing or inquire if this was acceptable. It just happened, and then we were told to "be kind". But it worked not too badly if the transwomen kept their side of the bargain (not that that stops me from running a mile if a certain other transwoman of my acquaintance looks as if he's coming into a bathroom I'm in, because I know too much about that one).

All bets are frankly off now. If someone like Lesley (the first transwoman I spoke about) comes in and out and doesn't do anything to call any attention to himself, I won't be calling security. But there are too many people like Alex Drummond and Jonathan Yaniv and even men who dress and present male-typical but call themselves non-binary who are demanding access as of legal right, and this has screwed it for everyone.

 

[Meadmaker]

Carl Pilkington: “I went to the toilet and there was a gay fella in there.”

I didn't watch the video, but I think you just messed up the battlefield.




I would love to debate someone one on one about this subject, to prevent the 13 different perspectives all spilling out at once, but the forum doesn't allow for that sort of thing, and my attempt to introduce it has met with nearly universal disdain.

 

[Meadmaker]

High passing, post op, trans women would be fine though?

People obviously are not unanimous on the subject, but for my part, I think post-op transpeople should be treated as their adopted sex in almost every situation.

I don't want to go into exactly which cases they shouldn't be treated that way, because they would all be kind of fringe, edge cases, and it might take a long time to list them.

 

[Rolfe]

How can you tell they're post-op? I can't.

 

[Ziggurat]

How can you tell they're post-op? I can't.

I imagine that you can if they’re naked in a changing room.

 

[Ziggurat]

transgender identity is now - importantly - viewed within the mainstream medical/scientific community to be a valid condition and not an affliction/disorder

“Valid condition” doesn’t mean anything. It’s nonsense masquerading as a technical term, the gender debate version of a turbo encabulator.

such people therefore deserve a proportionate level of rights and protections.

This is, quite frankly, bigoted and ignorant on your part. You are saying that people who have afflictions or disorders don’t deserve rights and protections, and that is morally repugnant.