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Trans women are not women (Part 8)

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LondonJohn said:
b) transgender identity is now - importantly - viewed within the mainstream medical/scientific community to be a valid condition and not an affliction/disorder, ...
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I think what you are doing is something very much like what Sideroxylon was doing, in declaring that the identity is the prime issue, and that practical concerns are secondary, or maybe that the practical solutions are implied by the identity.


I absolutely agree that transwomen have a valid identity. They also have a valid penis. It's the penis that causes the heartburn for the "other" ladies in the locker room.

Now, you don't think that penis thingie should be considered important, apparently. You seem to think it's no more significant than skin color, or something. I happen to think that penises are very important. Mine has played an important role in my life, and also in the life of my wife and of my son, and even somewhat significant in the lives of a few women I knew before I met my wife. It's not something to be treated in such a cavalier manner.

Having a penis is a valid lived condition. As is modesty when in the presence of a penis. These are valid lived conditions that ought to be considered significant when drafting public policy.
 
By the way, JoeMorgue asked what I think was a very cogent question, and it hasn't been addressed by any trans rights supporters. I would genuinely like to see an answer from one or more of you.


If a person declares that they are a man or a woman, can they ever be wrong?
 
Meadmaker said:
By the way, JoeMorgue asked what I think was a very cogent question, and it hasn't been addressed by any trans rights supporters. I would genuinely like to see an answer from one or more of you.


If a person declares that they are a man or a woman, can they ever be wrong?
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The question assumes essentialist notions of gender that are present in the parody claim, “I identify as an attack helicopter.” Self identification with a gender social construct is by definition an internal existential position that you couldn’t be wrong about any more than you could about being happy. You could be deceptive about it - a fear expressed in the thread. A claim like “I feel like a woman” while not having the possibility of direct access to the phenomenological experiences of others can be questioned.

However science does offer growing incite into internal human experience through functional imaging or maybe more loosely from understandings of a person’s brain chemistry.
 
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Meadmaker said:
I think what you are doing is something very much like what Sideroxylon was doing, in declaring that the identity is the prime issue, and that practical concerns are secondary, or maybe that the practical solutions are implied by the identity.


I absolutely agree that transwomen have a valid identity. They also have a valid penis. It's the penis that causes the heartburn for the "other" ladies in the locker room.

Now, you don't think that penis thingie should be considered important, apparently. You seem to think it's no more significant than skin color, or something. I happen to think that penises are very important. Mine has played an important role in my life, and also in the life of my wife and of my son, and even somewhat significant in the lives of a few women I knew before I met my wife. It's not something to be treated in such a cavalier manner.

Having a penis is a valid lived condition. As is modesty when in the presence of a penis. These are valid lived conditions that ought to be considered significant when drafting public policy.
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The practical issues seem to be amenable to approaches that don’t require a theory of gender and exist outside of newer views of gender. Biological men and women are assaulted, made uncomfortable and made subject of unwanted attention in toilets. Is a transgender male more likely to perpetuate such abuse?
 
Sideroxylon said:
The question assumes essentialist notions of gender that are present in the parody claim, “I identify as an attack helicopter.” Self identification with a gender social construct is by definition an internal existential position that you couldn’t be wrong about any more than you could about being happy. You could be deceptive about it - a fear expressed in the thread. A claim like “I feel like a woman” while not having the possibility of direct access to the phenomenological experiences of others can be questioned.
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Thanks.

I think you just said "no".

Which is what I said that I thought.would be the trans rights activist position.
 
Meadmaker said:
I absolutely agree that transwomen have a valid identity. They also have a valid penis. It's the penis that causes the heartburn for the "other" ladies in the locker room.
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I have an observation. I wonder if it is shared or rejected...


I don't care if a person is scared or in fear. I care about actual risk. And my concern for actual risk doesn't change if others fear more less fearful about that risk than other risks.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I have an observation. I wonder if it is shared or rejected...


I don't care if a person is scared or in fear. I care about actual risk. And my concern for actual risk doesn't change if others fear more less fearful about that risk than other risks.
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100% agree, as long as there is no intention to scare - which there isn't in the case of transgender women.
also, nom'd
 
Sideroxylon said:
Biological men and women are assaulted, made uncomfortable and made subject of unwanted attention in toilets. Is a transgender male more likely to perpetuate such abuse?
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I don't have a complete knowledge of the data that would be necessary to answer the question, but from what I have seen posted in this thread, it appears that transgender males (i.e. transwomen) and cisgender males, commit sexual assaults at approximately equal rates.

Cisgender females and transgender females (i.e. transmen) also commit sexual assaults at roughly equal rates, and those rates are much, much, lower than the rates for males.

As I said, that data comes from what I have seen in this thread, so some might consider it suspect. I would be open to primary source data if anyone has it.
 
Sideroxylon said:
When you meet one of these activists report back.
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Yeah, it's kind of hard to come up with a term for people who seem to share your viewpoint.

Trans rights supporters isn't really correct, because lots of people support trans rights, just not all the ones that the trans rights lobby supports. For example, almost everyone who has posted in these threads support anti-discrimination in employment, but lots of us do not support the right to choose your own locker room.

I settled on TRA, not because it's entirely accurate, but just because everyone seems to understand what it means. I know you probably aren't an "activist" in any meaningful sense of the word, but I think you probably agree with the people who are. In other words, the trans rights activist position is shared by people who are not, themselves, activists.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I have an observation. I wonder if it is shared or rejected...


I don't care if a person is scared or in fear. I care about actual risk. And my concern for actual risk doesn't change if others fear more less fearful about that risk than other risks.
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Rejected.

I think certain fears are reasonable, and other fears, while not necessarily based in reason, are instinctive and unavoidable.

Example: If I, meaning me, specifically, decide to walk into the women's locker room at Planet Fitness tonight, I would know that the women in that locker room are in no danger at all. However, they do not know that. In fact, if they were to be scared, I would say that it is completely reasonable. They would see a male who, even at my age, is more physically powerful than most of them. (In my youth, it would have been all of them) I would also have demonstrated a disregard of social convention or of their feelings of modesty. i.e. It would be clear that I do not have much empathy or concern for the wishes of others.

All of these things would signal potential danger, and fear would be natural.

Beyond that, I have expressed in the past that I do not think that the feeling that we call "modesty" is created by society. I think it is instinctive. It is shaped and molded by society, certainly, but its apparent universality across all cultures suggests that it is a valid lived condition, and not some sort of disorder. Therefore, my mere presence among women who are undressed, even if it could be demonstrated that I pose no danger, would still be a source of anxiety for most human females. While that is not exactly the same as "fear", and certainly isn't "risk", it is still an important consideration.
 
Meadmaker said:
Yeah, it's kind of hard to come up with a term for people who seem to share your viewpoint.

Trans rights supporters isn't really correct, because lots of people support trans rights, just not all the ones that the trans rights lobby supports. For example, almost everyone who has posted in these threads support anti-discrimination in employment, but lots of us do not support the right to choose your own locker room.

I settled on TRA, not because it's entirely accurate, but just because everyone seems to understand what it means. I know you probably aren't an "activist" in any meaningful sense of the word, but I think you probably agree with the people who are. In other words, the trans rights activist position is shared by people who are not, themselves, activists.
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Where I stand apart is being suspicious of realist or essentialist notions of gender identity and beyond. That people experience gender dysphoria is a fact. That they actually have a deep need to embrace/construct a gender identity outside of that expected by social norms for the genitalia they were born with is something I cannot dispute. To deny their identity rooted in this social construct is to deny their dignity, which clashes with my personal liberal aesthetic. Nor do I see offering this dignity, respect and protection of same as a zero-sum position.
 
Transphobes wasted no opportunity, rapidly spreading the false rumor that the recent Texas shooting was perpetrated by a young trans person, sharing their name and picture.

Rep. Paul Gosar Spreads Lie About Texas Shooter In Hateful Since-Deleted Tweet


Extremist Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) deleted a disturbing and offensive tweet Tuesday that falsely claimed the gunman who killed more than 20 people at a Texas school was a “transsexual leftist illegal alien.”

The lawmaker wrote the message in response to a Twitter user who wondered if the shooter was a member of the far-right, “the kind of trash that” Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Gosar “travel to speak to?” before deleting their tweet.
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https://news.yahoo.com/rep-paul-gosar-spreads-lie-074356886.html

The vile smear traces its roots to 4chan (of course) and the person doesn't even live in Texas, is still very much alive (and defending themselves on social media), and obviously had nothing to do with the massacre.

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1529286598130532352?cxt=HHwWgICwld-Dj7kqAAAA
 
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BobTheCoward said:
I have an observation. I wonder if it is shared or rejected...


I don't care if a person is scared or in fear. I care about actual risk. And my concern for actual risk doesn't change if others fear more less fearful about that risk than other risks.
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This seems to be the opposite to the Schrodinger's Rapist idea that the forum used to be keen one. The idea that since women couldn't know what men were rapists, men should understand that they can't just ask a woman in a hotel lift for coffee.
 
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Ziggurat said:
I imagine that you can if they’re naked in a changing room.
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Meadmaker said:
Documentation.

(I know that's not a thing now, at least not everywhere.)
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I don't understand the first one. Are we going to insist that everyone strips off and displays what genitals they have before they're allowed to access the changing room? Or do we have to wait until we see the evidence of the swinging penis before we can ask for this person to be removed? And then of course there are intimate spaces where people are not going to get completely naked in public. Am I just supposed to assume that Big Senga with the bass voice and the five-o'clock shadow who is hanging around the communal area of the Ladies room has had the op?

Or to put it in the words of the transactivists, "you want to institute genital inspections for entry into women's spaces." No, actually, we don't. We know a man when we see one and we would like men to accept that they aren't welcome in our intimate spaces. We don't want to know what's under the skirt.

I suppose "papers please" is less invasive than "strip off and show me you haven't got a willie" but how does that work again? Does every woman have to have this documentation? Even little girls? Or only the ones who had to have a penis removed? Does someone stop these people and ask for the documentation, in an official capacity, before they're allowed in? Can women who see Big Senga start to take his clothes off be comfortable that Big Senga's documents have been checked at the door so he is genuinely post-op?

Actually, Big Senga is a problem either way. You're a bloke, we don't care what's under the skirt, stay out. It's astonishing the lengths to which men will go to find some reason to insist that at least some men should have the legal right to prance around in women's intimate spaces.
 
Meadmaker said:
I happen to think that penises are very important. Mine has played an important role in my life, and also in the life of my wife and of my son, and even somewhat significant in the lives of a few women I knew before I met my wife.
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It never ceases to amaze me how few people seem to realise the origin and meaning of the Scots saying, "we're all Jock Tamson's bairns."
 
Rolfe said:
I don't understand the first one. Are we going to insist that everyone strips off and displays what genitals they have before they're allowed to access the changing room? Or do we have to wait until we see the evidence of the swinging penis before we can ask for this person to be removed? And then of course there are intimate spaces where people are not going to get completely naked in public. Am I just supposed to assume that Big Senga with the bass voice and the five-o'clock shadow who is hanging around the communal area of the Ladies room has had the op?

Or to put it in the words of the transactivists, "you want to institute genital inspections for entry into women's spaces." No, actually, we don't. We know a man when we see one and we would like men to accept that they aren't welcome in our intimate spaces. We don't want to know what's under the skirt.

I suppose "papers please" is less invasive than "strip off and show me you haven't got a willie" but how does that work again? Does every woman have to have this documentation? Even little girls? Or only the ones who had to have a penis removed? Does someone stop these people and ask for the documentation, in an official capacity, before they're allowed in? Can women who see Big Senga start to take his clothes off be comfortable that Big Senga's documents have been checked at the door so he is genuinely post-op?

Actually, Big Senga is a problem either way. You're a bloke, we don't care what's under the skirt, stay out. It's astonishing the lengths to which men will go to find some reason to insist that at least some men should have the legal right to prance around in women's intimate spaces.
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Transphobes "girl radar" is a lot more faulty than you think. Given the small segment of the population that is trans, you can practically guarantee that insufficiently feminine presenting cis-women are going to be hassled by the penis inspectors more often than actual trans women.

I guess publicly embarrassing butch lesbians or women who are too tall or have too wide shoulders is a small price to pay to protect the dignity of women. My understanding is that women love being accused of being too mannish and won't at all react negatively to such inquiries. :rolleyes:
 
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