Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[lionking]

Still big on the conscious, repeated, deliberate misgendering, huh? Nice stuff. And remind me again how you reconcile this with the idea that you don't have a general animus against transgender people (or is it just to do specifically with transwomen? Are transmen ok to be called "he" and "him" or do they get no further than "they"/"them" with you as well?)

I do not know Lia Thomas and do not feel obliged to use certain pronouns. I do know that Lia has a penis and a girlfriend though.

 

[theprestige]

"Pronouns are irrelevant theater. Let's talk about the hard problem of sex segregation."

"But what about the pronouns?!"

 

[LondonJohn]

I'm not saying "in any given race." I'm imagining there's some way to measure performance more generally. In Thomas' case, looking at his record in the men's division would be informative.

But of course you're probably not on the men's team at all if you can't beat the performance of women in most sports, and that's not an option where someone has no record in the men's division.

Glad this isn't my job.

Yes.

And ain't it interesting how much blame and - frankly - offensiveness is being directed at Thomas personally by the usual cast of characters on this toxic little thread?

Rather than taking a step back, for example, and applying their fierce intellect along the following kinds of lines:

1) Most of the world's sports administration/organisation bodies have only extremely recent experience of transgender participation, and they have until recently (and even now in most instances) little or no actual empirical evidence upon which to take policy decisions in this area.

2) In the absence of proper, robust, empirical evidence, most sports administration bodies have, up until recently, been obliged to err on the side of allowing transgender people to participate in sports under their trans gender (unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that the health and safety of other competitors might be at risk) - this is a function of anti-discrimination laws and general transgender rights/recognitions/protections already enshrined in law in many progressive jurisdictions.

Therefore

3) In this period of transition (no pun intended), it's always been near-inevitable that transgender people will have been permitted to compete under their trans gender.

However

4) As the prior tiny trickle of high-performance sportspeople starts to grow into the tens and then the hundreds, there will - by definition - be an ever-improving dataset of empirical evidence as to the inherent relative advantages etc of transgender people (specifically, of course, transwomen* in most instances).

This will

5) Allow sports administrators/organisers to use that empirical evidence (not just "guesswork" and "well it stands to reason that...") to frame the issue correctly, accurately and justly.

And in my personal opinion, this will

6) Lead, within just the next few years or so, to transwomen in particular being (justly) excluded - on a proper, evidence-based analysis - from pretty much all sports at an elite and sub-elite level** where a performance advantage may be gained from superior musculoskeletal physique and/or a strong cardiovascular system.

7) Therefore (in my humble opinion alone, of course), what sensible, rational people should be doing right now is a) absolutely being vociferous if there are situations of genuine risk to the safety of any competitors; b) making sure that the relevant sports administration bodies are taking all reasonable steps to obtain robust empirical evidence in as timely a manner as possible, regarding performance deficit/advantages; c) making sure that those sports administrations take proportionate and fair decisions based upon that evidence, and that they are properly held to account for their decisions (and their decision-making processes); and d) being less disgustingly unpleasant and vindictive towards transgender athletes themselves in the meantime. Y'know. A mixture of logic, reason, and basic human decency/kindness. In my opinion. Only. Of course.



* Although (and I imagine it's not something that goes through the minds of many anti-transgender folk...) it's fairly easy to conceive of a situation where a transman is prevented from playing in the front row of a men's rugby union team, owing to the potential danger to his safety arising from his relatively weaker musculoskeletal physique and cardiovascular system.

** Note though that I believe transgender people (transwomen in particular) will in the long run be allowed to compete in their trans gender category in all sports at levels below elite and sub-elite levels (eg high-school teams, local district teams/clubs). And I believe that this too will be just and fair, and proportionate. The caveat is still that exceptions will need to be made where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the health and safety of any competitors might consequently be put at risk.

 

[shuttlt]

"Pronouns are irrelevant theater. Let's talk about the hard problem of sex segregation."

"But what about the pronouns?!"

I thought this video might be of interest:


He's got quite a few videos on these issues. Many of them digging into the specific judgements of regulatory bodies, the Castor Semenya case and so on. Might be up your street.

 

[LondonJohn]

"Pronouns are irrelevant theater. Let's talk about the hard problem of sex segregation."

"But what about the pronouns?!"

So.... do you think that the deliberate, repeated, pointed misgendering of a transgender person is:

a) fair game?

b) entirely unimportant and irrelevant in the context of any discussion about transgender people, their rights and protections within a fair society?

c) in no way indicative of a rejection of the very notion of transgender identity (rather than, say, a pretence that this is purely about women's sport)?

d) all of the above?

e) none of the above?

 

[shuttlt]

I do not know Lia Thomas and do not feel obliged to use certain pronouns. I do know that Lia has a penis and a girlfriend though.

Look, just because she has a penis and Castor Semenya has testes and male testosterone levels in no way made them anything other than women who should compete against other women.

 

[shuttlt]

So.... do you think that the deliberate, repeated, pointed misgendering of a transgender person is:

a) fair game?

b) entirely unimportant and irrelevant in the context of any discussion about transgender people, their rights and protections within a fair society?

c) in no way indicative of a rejection of the very notion of transgender identity (rather than, say, a pretence that this is purely about women's sport)?

d) all of the above?

e) none of the above?

It's probably not crazy relevant to a discussion about whether "trans women are not women".

 

[theprestige]

I thought this video might be of interest:


He's got quite a few videos on these issues. Many of them digging into the specific judgements of regulatory bodies, the Castor Semenya case and so on. Might be up your street.

I'll tell you right now, the Caster Semenya case is so not up my street, it's not even in the same major metro area. The sooner the trans inclusionists stop trying to gaslight us into thinking the Caster Semenya case has anything at all to do with the problem posed by Lia Thomas and her ilk, the happier I'll be. The sooner the rest of us stop falling for it and playing along with it, the better.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's probably not crazy relevant to a discussion about whether "trans women are not women".

But it's probably a little more germane to a position framed in the following way: "Well, if people say they identify as a gender which is opposite to that which they were assigned at birth, then I'm perfectly ok with them living their lives that way, and I will respect their identity.... my only issue is where it comes to women's safe spaces and women's sports".

Wouldn't you say? Or were you being deliberately coy when you rolled out the thread title and tried to present it as the be-all-and-end-all of this nasty little thread?

 

[LondonJohn]

I'll tell you right now, the Caster Semenya case is so not up my street, it's not even in the same major metro area. The sooner the trans inclusionists stop trying to gaslight us into thinking the Caster Semenya case has anything at all to do with the problem posed by Lia Thomas and her ilk, the happier I'll be. The sooner the rest of us stop falling for it and playing along with it, the better.

"us"

LMAO

 

[LondonJohn]

Look, just because she has a penis and Castor Semenya has testes and male testosterone levels in no way made them anything other than women who should compete against other women.

I hope you hated on Semanya as well then. The bitch. Or dog. Or something.

(I suppose you second-guessed the IoC and IAAF on the incredibly difficult and sensitive decision they had to make about Semanya as well. I bet you "knew" she should have been arbitrarily banned before her elite career even started because......well, she just didn't seem RIGHT, y'know. Proper evidence? Nahhh, we don't need that! Burn the witch! Sorry: wizard.)

 

[theprestige]

"us"

LMAO

Heh. It was not my intention to include you in "us". If you want to play along with the canard that Caster Semenya's case has anything to do with the hard problem of trans inclusion in sex segregated sports, be my guest.

ETA: And there it is.

 

[shuttlt]

I'll tell you right now, the Caster Semenya case is so not up my street, it's not even in the same major metro area. The sooner the trans inclusionists stop trying to gaslight us into thinking the Caster Semenya case has anything at all to do with the problem posed by Lia Thomas and her ilk, the happier I'll be. The sooner the rest of us stop falling for it and playing along with it, the better.

Sure, I agree it's different in a sense. Equally, from the perspective of "what really is a woman?", "what really does male mean?" it's important. You've got the same idea that categories shouldn't have edge cases, which is obviously false. Honestly, I think you would like that channel. Noel Plum is a firefighter from the North of England. He used to be an atheism YouTuber back in the day. I think he's in to cycling, and is coming at it from the perspective of somebody who is in to sports.

This video seemed particularly interesting to me, because it's challenging the idea that these categories are about fairness. His argument is that the point is to make the competition meaningful. If Lea Thomas dropped her testosterone levels down to a level where her races were close, would that apples and oranges comparison be meaningful? Maybe 14 year old sprinters and 60 year old sprinters would have close races, but would some kind of under-14s, over 60s sprint category be meaningful? If the under 14s beat the over 60s is it because they were better in some sense, or because it should have been under 13s vs over 60s? Is women, and men taking drugs to supress their performance, a meaningful category?

 

[p0lka]

Puberty blockers should not be a thing unless absolutely necessary.

Anecdotally I know examples of pre puberty kids learning about puberty blockers from the internet and insisting they need them because of gender issues.
They were told no.

Now they are post puberty and content. Seems the gender issues were really about being scared of puberty and being attracted to the same sex.

 

[LondonJohn]

Heh. It was not my intention to include you in "us". If you want to play along with the canard that Caster Semenya's case has anything to do with the hard problem of trans inclusion in sex segregated sports, be my guest.

Oh, I knew you weren't including me - how sweet of you to think otherwise!

No: I was merely making an observation about your use of "us" with your implied sense that your PoV was both correct and mainstream (I mean, it is in this disgusting little thread of course, but this thread is fortunately not the real world of civilised societies, progressive lawmakers and enlightened clinicians).

And no, I also was in no way linking Semanya's situation to transwoman athletes. Why on earth did you think I was? See: what I was doing there was observing to ShuttIt that since he/she (I do not know ShuttIt's gender....) was apparently conflating the two, I was wondering out loud if he/she believed that the two situations - and the sportspeople themselves - should be treated in a similar fashion.

Always happy to help clarify if required. Please let me know if there's anything else I can help with.


ETA: Oh, or is it Shuttlt (with a lower-case L rather than a capital I in the penultimate position)? If so, I apologise - I've always read the name as "Shut it"......

 

[LondonJohn]

Puberty blockers should not be a thing unless absolutely necessary.

Anecdotally I know examples of pre puberty kids learning about puberty blockers from the internet and insisting they need them because of gender issues.
They were told no.

Now they are post puberty and content. Seems the gender issues were really about being scared of puberty and being attracted to the same sex.

I most assuredly agree that there is a lot of work to be done in trying to understand the psychology (and group psychology/peer pressure/other externalised and internalised pressure) of pre-pubescent children and even pubescent children/adolescents in this respect.

Mistakes have been made. More will be made. Some good things have been done and will be done. As the medical community learns more about it - and there is urgency around getting more robust evidence and learning in this area - there will be an continual increase in beneficial outcomes from decisions, interventions and treatments, and a continual decrease in adverse outcomes. This is one area where it's incredibly hard to get it right from something close to a standing start. But aside from a very small number of overinvested bad apples, the clerical, legislative and judicial communities are all genuinely doing all they can to advance thinking and practice here.

 

[theprestige]

Sure, I agree it's different in a sense. Equally, from the perspective of "what really is a woman?", "what really does male mean?" it's important. You've got the same idea that categories shouldn't have edge cases, which is obviously false. Honestly, I think you would like that channel. Noel Plum is a firefighter from the North of England. He used to be an atheism YouTuber back in the day. I think he's in to cycling, and is coming at it from the perspective of somebody who is in to sports.

This video seemed particularly interesting to me, because it's challenging the idea that these categories are about fairness. His argument is that the point is to make the competition meaningful. If Lea Thomas dropped her testosterone levels down to a level where her races were close, would that apples and oranges comparison be meaningful? Maybe 14 year old sprinters and 60 year old sprinters would have close races, but would some kind of under-14s, over 60s sprint category be meaningful? If the under 14s beat the over 60s is it because they were better in some sense, or because it should have been under 13s vs over 60s? Is women, and men taking drugs to supress their performance, a meaningful category?

I don't have a problem with edge cases that defy easy categorization.

My problem is with fiat self-id scumbags who demand privileges, and then try to gaslight us into believing their demands are reasonable because edge cases exist.

More practically: Caster Semenya isn't relevant to my concerns or my arguments. Unless you're ready and willing to make a very detailed, very comprehensive argument for why her (his?) case informs my assessment of Lia Thomas, you're better off putting your effort into some other line of reasoning.

 

[lionking]

I most assuredly agree that there is a lot of work to be done in trying to understand the psychology (and group psychology/peer pressure/other externalised and internalised pressure) of pre-pubescent children and even pubescent children/adolescents in this respect.

Mistakes have been made. More will be made. Some good things have been done and will be done. As the medical community learns more about it - and there is urgency around getting more robust evidence and learning in this area - there will be an continual increase in beneficial outcomes from decisions, interventions and treatments, and a continual decrease in adverse outcomes. This is one area where it's incredibly hard to get it right from something close to a standing start. But aside from a very small number of overinvested bad apples, the clerical, legislative and judicial communities are all genuinely doing all they can to advance thinking and practice here.

You can say that again. By your lionised “enlightened” legislative and judicial communities. Sweden has seen the error of its ways and has banned certain treatments supported by trans activists for under 18s. As law suits by children who were given puberty blockers and other “gender affirmative” treatments pile up, other nations will move from automatic support for all trans activist demands.

 

[mumblethrax]

Is it disproportionately female? My experience in this thread indicates otherwise. This board may not be a representative sample, but where are you getting your info from?

Polling data. For every question pertaining to trans rights, in every US poll I've ever seen, women have been more supportive than men. Usually by a big margin.

For example, this poll: https://news.gallup.com/poll/350174/mixed-views-among-americans-transgender-issues.aspx

It's also generally true that Americans are quite pro trans rights overall, but that athletics is one of the area's where there's relatively little support. There's also little support for legislation to ban trans participation in athletics.

Not only does this board skew much older than the population at large (I'll qualify for AARP membership in a few months, and this place makes me feel like a spring chicken), but this thread skews hostile, which probably turns off a lot of women. I volunteer at a women's clinic, the volunteer group is almost all women, and they made it very clear during training that the services of those who were not supportive of trans rights were not required. Of course, they're not exactly representative, either.

I would also be curious about the breakdown between females in general vs females who compete athletically. In terms of what counts as "their own interests", females who do not compete athletically may not view athletic competition rules as directly affecting their interests, because it kind of doesn't.

That would be nice to know, but I'm not aware of any such data. Interestingly, the athletics question is the one area where the younger crowd does not skew towards greater acceptance, and that's where most athletes live. Collegiate athletics probably shifts them a bit towards acceptance due to the politics of college students, the realities of having to compete against trans women, I'm going to guess that skews them back a bit.

Thomas appears to have a small band of six or seven supporters on her team, and I think the anonymous letter opposing her participation had fifteen signatures, for whatever that's worth.

 

[theprestige]

It's because women believe it's about hacking gender, something that benefits them in a historically sexist society. Once they realize it's about hacking sex, putting them in the same room as male prisoners and male athletes, they'll change their tune.

Better obfuscate that as long as possible! What are a few hundred thousand rapes, if we can ensure that transexual males are female, am I right?