Trans women are not women (Part 8)

[Thermal]

I reread the wiki page for non-binary gender^WP and now it is perfectly clear to me what's going on. If you don't identify solely with the class of people who produce sperm and you don't identify solely with the class of people who were born with ova, then you may consider yourself non-binary, regardless of whether you personally produce sperm or ova, whether you consider yourself transgender, and whether you accept the idea of gender identity in the first place. It's all perfectly straightforward, so long as you understand what it means to identify oneself.

There it is. See, "identify" is invariably the term used. Why do you suppose that might be?

Because it doesn't mean anything. In context, it literally means less than nothing. A vague, wishy-washy term that sounds all proper and official.

When the rubber hits the road, what other traits does one get to choose to identify with? Can I be a black woman? An irrisistable hottie? Short? Tall? Thin? Muscular? Older? Younger?

It means nothing. And that's what causes the frustration and mocking. Not at the idea of a gay or trans person, but this vague subjective feeling that is supposed to make things clearer and inarguable "unless you are some kind of intolerant bigot".

Then we prance on to the slippery term "gender", which gets equivocated all over the map to mean something or nothing or whatever someone makes up for convenience. Again, in practical terms, it has little to no meaning. "What society thinks someone of a given sex is like" is empty rhetoric. Literally everyone swerved a little side to side away from what the "societal gender role" is.

By the way: who determines exactly what that role is, or is it *gritting teeth again* another one of those vague subjective feelings?

If you have some sort of gender dysphoria, that's a thing. If you have gender dysphoria, but don't like the connotation so you just reword it to something that sounds more palatable, that's a cop out.

 

[Meadmaker]

Thinking more about it.

Unless......there were people actively changing or showering at the beginning of the drill. In that case, "Go to the nearest locker room" would be a bad idea. And if the student didn't normally use either locker room, then it could make sense, sort of. It's one of those things that you would think that someone in the administration and/or the faculty might think of in advance?

I also didn't check the date. It was four years ago.

 

[porch]

My workplace has recently changed its standard application form for job competitions. It used to provide you with a checklist of minority identities that you could claim. Now it has become an open ended question, asking what identity/identities you have that may be relevant. I was thinking of claiming psychosexual, now I'm leaning towards transigent. Not as an attack helicopter kind of political statement, I just find the whole thing humorous. An opportunity for humour, and a chance to baffle bureaucrats?

 

[Matthew Best]

https://www.theguardian.com/society...t-have-to-accommodate-childrens-gender-wishes

The attorney-general, Suella Braverman, has declared that schools do not have to accommodate children who want to change gender under current legislation.

“Under-18s cannot get a gender recognition certificate, under-18s cannot legally change sex. So again, in the context of schools, I think it’s even clearer. A male child who says in a school that they are a trans girl, that they want to be female, is legally still a boy or a male. And schools have a right to treat them as such under the law.

“They don’t have to say, ‘OK, we’re going to let you change your pronoun or let you wear a skirt or call yourself a girl’s name.’”

 

[Paul2]

I'll leave this here with no further comment:

"If it is true that men are superior at sports, why is it that transgender athletes tend to win more medals after they transition to female?"

 

[LondonJohn]

His job is to be funny. He succeeds.

A lot of people in 70s/80s Britain would similarly have said that Bernard Manning's job was "to be funny", and those people would have said that "he succeeded" in that. I am in no doubt whatsoever that there were plenty of people who not only genuinely found Manning's material hilarious, but who were also of the opinion that "thank god somebody's got the guts to come out and say what we all think" and so on.

I'm not surprised you can't (or won't) draw the parallel though......

 

[LondonJohn]

I watched the Ricky Gervais show.

Not bad. Funny in spots.

When it comes to the trans bits, the early part, previously quoted, was my favorite, because it wasn't actually making fun of trans people. It was making fun of TRAs.

No. That's a bogus anti-trans misinterpretation of what was happening. It was lampooning/mocking trans people and the very notion of transgender identity. Again, I'm unsurprised (by now) that you can't - or won't - see this for exactly what it really is.

Shall I tell you what my "favourite" bit was.....?

 

[Ziggurat]

I'll leave this here with no further comment:

"If it is true that men are superior at sports, why is it that transgender athletes tend to win more medals after they transition to female?"

I believe that's a Titania McGrath quote. I think I've referenced her before.

 

[LondonJohn]

That was one of the things about that last Chapelle special. When he was talking about his trans friend, it was pretty god damn clear that Dave really cared about her, and his description of her was, on balance, a pretty complimentary one. You really don't need to be hostile to trans people, as people, in order to draw the ire of trans "advocates".

So you think material along the lines of "Not those old-fashioned women with wombs.... those new women with beards and cocks".... *cue ribald audience laughter, having been given permission by the performer to laugh*....

..... comes from a position of genuine care about the rights of transwomen, and/or a genuine care about the way in which the general public perception of transwomen might be affected by what he said?

I see. You don't see.

 

[LondonJohn]

I'll leave this here with no further comment:

"If it is true that men are superior at sports, why is it that transgender athletes tend to win more medals after they transition to female?"

Thanks for "leaving this here".

Your point is....?


(FWIW, the world's sporting administration bodies are - quite correctly - seeking to make evidence-based decisions in this whole area*, so as to make a proportionate and properly-balanced decision. My own view is that within a few years, there will be sufficient evidential data in almost all sports to show that transwomen do indeed, in general, hold an unfair advantage over ciswomen in all power, strength or endurance sports. As such, I expect - and will welcome - a ban on transwomen competing in most sports at elite- and sub-elite-level. Outside of that, however, I expect progressive societies to accept that transmen are men and vice-versa, and for that acceptance to be protected in law.)


* Just as, for example, they sought to do in cases such as that of Caster Semanya

 

[Ziggurat]

So you think material along the lines of "Not those old-fashioned women with wombs.... those new women with beards and cocks".... *cue ribald audience laughter, having been given permission by the performer to laugh*....

..... comes from a position of genuine care about the rights of transwomen, and/or a genuine care about the way in which the general public perception of transwomen might be affected by what he said?

I see. You don't see.

The "caring" part was in reference to Chappelle, not Gervais. I'm not making the argument that Gervais was displaying caring. I was responding to Meadmaker's point that Gervais' target wasn't transpeople but TRA's with another example where a comedian's critics dishonestly represented what he was actually doing. I wasn't claiming that Gervais and Chappelle were doing the same thing.

The irony is that you've just demonstrated the common thread yourself: TRA's misrepresenting what their opponents are saying in order to try to make them sound like monsters. Very meta, well done.

ETA: Oh, and if you're a "transwoman" with a beard, I'm absolutely not going to take your claimed identity seriously.

 

[LondonJohn]

Incidentally, and with reference once again to Meadmaker's misguided "only when I learn that most girls would be fine with transgirls using the girls' bathrooms in schools will I support the concept", I just came across another relevant example from history that was written in another thread (though I suspect it will be within this thread rather soon...):

"Prior to the end of segregation in the US south, white women resisted integration of racially segregated women's bathrooms. There were labor strikes about it. The pretext was that they were afraid of catching venereal disease from black women, a fear probably slightly more realistic than the ones we hear in this (transgender) debate. White women outnumbered black women by a considerable margin, but I have a pretty good idea who should have ****** off in that case."

Per Meadmaker's misguided assessment, black women should/would never have been allowed to use white women's bathrooms if it was a matter of decision by way of polling white women. Guess that's where narrow-mindedness gets you, huh?

 

[LondonJohn]

The "caring" part was in reference to Chappelle, not Gervais. I'm not making the argument that Gervais was displaying caring. I was responding to Meadmaker's point that Gervais' target wasn't transpeople but TRA's with another example where a comedian's critics dishonestly represented what he was actually doing. I wasn't claiming that Gervais and Chappelle were doing the same thing.

The irony is that you've just demonstrated the common thread yourself: TRA's misrepresenting what their opponents are saying in order to try to make them sound like monsters. Very meta, well done.

But your post was referencing Meadmaker's comments about the Gervais show, and how (in Meadmaker's opinion) Gervais wasn't making fun of transgender people at all - merely making fun of TRA extremism. You were drawing a line of similarity (you certainly didn't say anything like "well that's the difference between the Gervais material and the Chappelle material". To me, it was fairly clear that you were reinforcing and supporting Meadmaker's contention by bringing in the Chapelle show as another similar example.

But yeah, you do you. Whatever. I'm glad that you're excited by making meta-analyses of it all - and even more happy that you chose to sign off with a little casual condescension

 

[Meadmaker]

No. That's a bogus anti-trans misinterpretation of what was happening. It was lampooning/mocking trans people and the very notion of transgender identity. Again, I'm unsurprised (by now) that you can't - or won't - see this for exactly what it really is.

You speak with such confidence.

Shall I tell you what my "favourite" bit was.....?

Sure.

 

[jimbob]

This seems to be a case of confused indecision rather than being "allegedly barred" from both locker rooms.

Indeed, but the effect would have been the same

 

[Meadmaker]

Incidentally, and with reference once again to Meadmaker's misguided "only when I learn that most girls would be fine with transgirls using the girls' bathrooms in schools will I support the concept", I just came across another relevant example from history that was written in another thread (though I suspect it will be within this thread rather soon...):

"Prior to the end of segregation in the US south, white women resisted integration of racially segregated women's bathrooms. There were labor strikes about it. The pretext was that they were afraid of catching venereal disease from black women, a fear probably slightly more realistic than the ones we hear in this (transgender) debate. White women outnumbered black women by a considerable margin, but I have a pretty good idea who should have ****** off in that case."

Per Meadmaker's misguided assessment, black women should/would never have been allowed to use white women's bathrooms if it was a matter of decision by way of polling white women. Guess that's where narrow-mindedness gets you, huh?

Yawn. See previous responses.


(For those who might be new enough not to recognize it. If we want to make an analogy to racial segregation of bathrooms, the analogous response today would be to end segregation, i.e. to end having women's versus men's bathrooms or changing rooms. LJ never acknowledges this point. He just drones on. Sometimes, people do propose ending bathroom or locker room segregation, and I have some respect for that position, even if I disagree with it.)

 

[LondonJohn]

Incidentally, in a similar vein, there have been two British comedy characters (in particular) over the past 50-60 years whose satire of extreme/unpleasant personas has led to extremely complex - and not entirely desirable - outcomes.

Those two characters were "Alf Garnett" and "The Pub Landlord". The former, played by Warren Mitchell (and written by Johnny Speight and Mitchell), and the latter, played and written by Al Murray, were both characters who personified "little Englander" bigotry - complete with casual racism and general intolerance of anyone who wasn't a white heterosexual English-speaker with a long family heritage in the country.

Now, both characters were explicitly created and brought to life in order to mock and lampoon the very traits of the characters themselves. Mitchell and Speight (in the case of Alf Garnett) and Murray (in the case of The Pub Landlord) are/were all liberal intelligentsia who are/were strongly in favour of equal rights/tolerance for all.

But when each character came into existence (some 50 years apart, incidentally), a fascinating phenomenon occurred in both instances: while some (maybe most) of the audience understood well that the characters were deliberate and knowing grotesques, a significant proportion of the audience - the bigoted proportion - actually took the characters at face value and felt that the performer was actually vindicating their own views and opinions. And this in turn ended up having unexpected and unwelcome repercussions. Some fairly well-researched academic material from the 1970s, for example, drew the link between the popularity of the Alf Garnett character (together with some other TV shows of the time which drew on casual racism and intolerance/bigotry) and the growth in extreme-right-wing nationalism (the National Front, and so on) and a deterioration in race relations and in the treatment of gay people. It's likely that The Pub Landlord has similarly emboldened or affirmed certain bigoted sections of British society in the 2000s.

So.... whether someone like Gervais really did believe he was being "knowing" and satirical in his transgender-related material (and personally I believe it was a deliberate attack of mockery and denialism in any case...), his words have meaning and they have impact in the real world. I believe his "hilarious" transgender material will end up having a strongly net-negative impact on the transgender community, especially the transwoman community. Something worth laughing about for some, I'm sure.

 

[LondonJohn]

You speak with such confidence.

And you made your own declaration with no confidence, I suppose?

Sure.

Shall I explain what a rhetorical question is?

 

[Elaedith]

Incidentally, and with reference once again to Meadmaker's misguided "only when I learn that most girls would be fine with transgirls using the girls' bathrooms in schools will I support the concept", I just came across another relevant example from history that was written in another thread (though I suspect it will be within this thread rather soon...):

"Prior to the end of segregation in the US south, white women resisted integration of racially segregated women's bathrooms. There were labor strikes about it. The pretext was that they were afraid of catching venereal disease from black women, a fear probably slightly more realistic than the ones we hear in this (transgender) debate. White women outnumbered black women by a considerable margin, but I have a pretty good idea who should have ****** off in that case."

Per Meadmaker's misguided assessment, black women should/would never have been allowed to use white women's bathrooms if it was a matter of decision by way of polling white women. Guess that's where narrow-mindedness gets you, huh?

As has been pointed out many times, this is a stupid analogy. The appropriate analogy is demanding that black males , not black females, be allowed to use women's rest rooms, then pretending that women's objections are racist, even though they also object to white males (of course adult human male means the same as 'man' if you are not a believer in gender essentialism). This is directly analogous to pretending that women who object to transwomen being in women's spaces object because they are trans, not because they are male. I actually find it hard to believe anyone is really stupid enough to believe this.

If you believe segregation of spaces by sex is the same as segregation by race then come right out and say that women should be happy stripping off with adult male strangers and if they aren't you are going to mock and bully them because they are just like racists objecting to desegregation.

Demanding that everyone conforms to your belief that gender identity trumps sex or gets punished is not a 'civil right', and is not analogous in any way shape or form to the idea that everyone should have equal rights regardless of majority opinion.

 

[LondonJohn]

Yawn. See previous responses.


(For those who might be new enough not to recognize it. If we want to make an analogy to racial segregation of bathrooms, the analogous response today would be to end segregation, i.e. to end having women's versus men's bathrooms or changing rooms. LJ never acknowledges this point. He just drones on. Sometimes, people do propose ending bathroom or locker room segregation, and I have some respect for that position, even if I disagree with it.)

I'm loving your "yawn" response! I remember it being one of Gore Vidal's favourite ripostes as well!

Anyhow, I am addressing your contention that the matter of transgirls in girls' bathrooms should be (more-or-less exclusively) condoned/opposed by reference to whether cisgirls would support the move or not. Do you remember making that claim? More than once? Are you maintaining that claim? And if so, can you really not see/understand the reality that if we applied your method to another related issue, it would be shown to be the preposterous (and self-serving) metric that it is?