Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Caster Semenya is a male with the CCSD of 5-ARD. It's extremely likely that at birth and through childhood they had exterior genitals that appeared to be female. During puberty, they would have developed secondary features more commonly seen in males, as a result of the high testosterone levels. 5-ARD sometimes leads to the descent of the testes and elongation of the penis during puberty, although it is also common for genitals to remain ambiguous in look. But people with 5-ARD do not have uteruses or ovaries, and frequently don't have vaginal tracts.

That said, Semenya's GENUINE MEDICAL CONDITION is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Transgender is not a CCSD, and the use of people with CCSDs as pawns in this game is incredibly insulting and offensive.

 

[shuttlt]

Says a male who is not at all affected by this.

On the other hand... the females forced to share prison cells with males with fully functional penises seem to think it's a pretty real problem. So do the female athletes losing positions to males with male anatomy and male physical advantages. Not to mention the female patient on a female-only ward who was raped by a male patient, then gaslit for a YEAR by doctors who insisted that there were no "men" on the ward even though it was caught on tape. Or the entire female middle school swim team in Oregon who now take turns using the staff changing room because there's a physically intact male who uses the female showers at the same time as them. Or the female victim who was raped AT A RAPE SHELTER by a male who was allowed in because of their 'gender identity'.

This isn't being done as some kind of empirical process, or incremental attempt to increase the sum of human happiness. In utopia people will able to be, and be accepted as, what ever they want to be. If there are problems, it is because people are letting the utopia down. The problem is with the people, not the utopia. It is the people who must be changed, not utopia. All we need to do is teach men not to rape, and teach women to regard as women anybody who says they are a woman. That is the thought process. To view it otherwise is to accept that the utopia is impossible.

Somehow, when it really only affects females, it's always 'blown out of proportion' in the eyes of many males.

The commonality is that, when something stands in the way of some utopian dream of progress, complaints about downsides always fall on deaf ears. Did feminism or any other such movement listen to concerns about unintended consequences, or did it assume that everything could be worked out during implementation? Has any progressive movement ever taken concerns like yours seriously?

I was reading some Hobsbawm recently, so this quote about him is on my mind about his defence of Stalinism.

“What that comes down to is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss of fifteen, twenty million people might have been justified?” Without hesitation Hobsbawm replied, “Yes.”

https://newcriterion.com/issues/2003/1/eric-hobsbawm-lying-to-the-credulous

The price you are being asked to pay is really very small compared to the price intellectuals and activists have been quite willing in the past for other people to pay to chase their utopia. It is in the nature of progressive movements that they will think such things are worthwhile.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Paternalism again.

I'm pretty sure women understand the implications of transwomen using the ladies' room, but there's a big gulf between men and women there, too.

Actually, no, a whole lot of females do NOT understand the implication. There's been research presented here multiple times that demonstrates that when it is made clear to females that the majority of transwomen still have a twig and giggle berries, they do NOT approve of males in their single-sex spaces, regardless of how they identify.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And so a Ricky Gervais joke turned into a prophecy.

It was never a prophecy, it was a pretty straightforward reporting of what activists had already been saying well before Gervais got on stage. Which is what made the outrage so spectacularly funny. Nothing Gervais said was made-up or even an exaggeration. It was literally the same things that activists had been saying on twitter for several years now.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Typically polling shows you a couple of things on these kinds of questions. First that women have more generically liberal/progressive view than men. Secondly you often see that women are the most strident at both ends of the debate. On this forum, for example... I'd say Rolfe and Emily's Cat are the two posters who are most invested in protecting women's spaces from trans-activist encroachment.

There are several other female posters who share our views. But at some point, we all get tired of having to constantly guard our rights and safety against people (in this case predominantly male) who seem to think it's an intellectual exercise as to whether or not females should be able to refuse consent to having naked males in their presence or not.

Which makes me all the more appreciative of those tenacious male supporters in this thread.

 

[theprestige]

The ethical justification is that sex is a morally irrelevant characteristic in the first place, which is why we no longer tolerate sex discrimination.

We absolutely do tolerate sex discrimination. Women's restrooms. Women's sports. Women's shelters. Women's prisons. Women's representation in commerce and politics.

There are plenty of places where it absolutely makes sense to discriminate between men and women, and to segregate men from women.

Your claim is that it's ethically, morally necessary to allow Lia Thomas transcend sex segregation. Why? Do you believe that the two sexes are so similar that no segregation should ever be necessary in any circumstances?

 

[shuttlt]

There are several other female posters who share our views. But at some point, we all get tired of having to constantly guard our rights and safety against people (in this case predominantly male) who seem to think it's an intellectual exercise as to whether or not females should be able to refuse consent to having naked males in their presence or not.

Which makes me all the more appreciative of those tenacious male supporters in this thread.

I read something recently about women getting the vote. The claim was that that initially had very little impact. The reason was that since men and women spent most of their lives in families, they shared a common interest and hence mostly voted the same, and didn't really form separate interest groups. As marriage, children and so on has become less the norm, and pushed later into life, since the 60s, that common interest has been replaced by competing interests. For society to function, men and women need to have a common interest. What drives either sex away from that common interest hurts both sexes, and any attempt to deconstruct one sex can't but hurt the other.

 

[mumblethrax]

Somehow, when it really only affects females, it's always 'blown out of proportion' in the eyes of many males.

Well, this is completely disingenuous, as you've taken a quote out of context and are now imagining that it means I'm unconcerned with rape.

The tactic here is similar to that employed by nationalists. If someone gets murdered, well that's just murder. But if someone gets murdered by an immigrant, that's a murder that happened due to immigration policy. Rape is epidemic in women's prisons, incarcerated women are 30 times more likely to be raped than incarcerated men. It gets the most attention when perpetrated by male guards, but inmate-on-inmate sexual assault is still three times more frequent than in male prisons. Your attention is focused in exactly the wrong place.

mumblethrax, remember when you wondered where on earth I got the idea you weren't particularly concerned about women and their interests?

Well...

Q.E.D.

I'm not sure how Emily's Cat's disingenuous nonsense Ds much of anything beyond her disingenuousness.

 

[mumblethrax]

Actually, no, a whole lot of females do NOT understand the implication. There's been research presented here multiple times that demonstrates that when it is made clear to females that the majority of transwomen still have a twig and giggle berries, they do NOT approve of males in their single-sex spaces, regardless of how they identify.

How does that drop in approval compare to the drop among male respondents when similar clarifications are made? Keep in mind that the claim here is that women are more supportive of trans rights then men, not that women are majority supportive in every category.

 

[mumblethrax]

We absolutely do tolerate sex discrimination. Women's restrooms. Women's sports. Women's shelters. Women's prisons. Women's representation in commerce and politics.

We make exceptions where there are good reason to do so, yes, but the neutral position is that sex discrimination is impermissible.

Your claim is that it's ethically, morally necessary to allow Lia Thomas transcend sex segregation. Why? Do you believe that the two sexes are so similar that no segregation should ever be necessary in any circumstances?

That is not my claim. I've made that very, very clear.

 

[Ziggurat]

We absolutely do tolerate sex discrimination. Women's restrooms. Women's sports. Women's shelters. Women's prisons. Women's representation in commerce and politics.

Trans activists don't want to eliminate sex discrimination. They just want trans people to be able to pick which side of the line they are on. But the whole point is to have that line, otherwise what's the point in crossing it?

 

[Aber]

Those advantages accrue as a result of having undergone male puberty, so this is the thing we should be discriminating on.

Given that it is impossible to go through the puberty of the opposite sex, are you advocating preventing puberty completely, as that has huge health and development issues?

And I see no reason at all not to allow anyone who wants to to compete in the higher performance division.

And do you see a reason to ban individuals from the female performance division?

 

[mumblethrax]

Given that it is impossible to go through the puberty of the opposite sex, are you advocating preventing puberty completely, as that has huge health and development issues?

No. What?

And do you see a reason to ban individuals from the female performance division?

Obviously.

 

[Aber]

No. What?

Obviously.

So we get back to the position that it is reasonable to ban males from female sports.

 

[mumblethrax]

So we get back to the position that it is reasonable to ban males from female sports.

No. We get back to the claim that it’s reasonable to ban those who have undergone male puberty. Which is exactly where we started.

 

[shuttlt]

No. We get back to the claim that it’s reasonable to ban those who have undergone male puberty. Which is exactly where we started.

This is the reasoning equivalent of a caged bird plucking out it's own feathers. No category system can exist that isn't unfair to somebody. Some people will have been through male puberty, but it will have had relatively little impact on them... why must such people be excluded? If we change the criteria so that those people can be counted as women then, if we choose, we'll be able to come up with another group whose inclusion, or exclusion, we can view as unfair.

The search for "fairness" is like the search for "equality". It is unending. The purpose of sport is not to achieve some level of cosmic fairness.

 

[mumblethrax]

Some people will have been through male puberty, but it will have had relatively little impact on them... why must such people be excluded?

Fundamentally, because once someone has gone through male puberty it is typically impossible to answer questions like "How much of this competitive advantage is due to having gone through male puberty, and how much is due to individual variation?" I can't tell you how much of my height is due to being male, either.

The search for "fairness" is like the search for "equality". It is unending. The purpose of sport is not to achieve some level of cosmic fairness.

The epistemic limits on fairness are not a reason not to improve matters when we can do so relatively easily, particularly when there are other principles/legal obligations at play. Grumble about the unending nature of such work all you want, it will still need to be done.

 

[shuttlt]

Fundamentally, because once someone has gone through male puberty it is typically impossible to answer questions like "How much of this competitive advantage is due to having gone through male puberty, and how much is due to individual variation?" I can't tell you how much of my height is due to being male, either.

Sure, but lots of things give competitive advantage. Good genes give competitive advantage. The hormone levels you are exposed to in the womb gives competitive advantage. Competitive advantage, in and of itself isn't a problem. Competitive advantage is what sport celebrates. The category of women's sports exists because, culturally, "women's sports" is meaningful, and "women and eunuchs sports" is not.

The epistemic limits on fairness are not a reason not to improve matters when we can do so relatively easily, particularly when there are other principles/legal obligations at play. Grumble about the unending nature of such work all you want, it will still need to be done.

Sport is not about "fairness" in the way that you are using the word. Sport is a celebration of cosmic unfairness. Kenyans and Ethiopians have huge advantages in marathon running, for example. Different people have different advantages. Women's sports exists because "women" is a culturally meaningful category, not because we are trying to erase the unfairness of some people having no chance of winning.

Including non-women in women's sports is undermining of the category "women" regardless of who wins.

 

[d4m10n]

The category of women's sports exists because, culturally, "women's sports" is meaningful, and "women and eunuchs sports" is not.

I don't see any problem with drafting inclusion criteria around male puberty, though.

ETA: It's already been done by World Rugby.

 

[Rolfe]

I can see a wiggle of a couple of problems. How far into puberty before a boy started puberty blockers would count? Although I think this is probably hypothetical as a boy who has taken puberty blockers ain't likely to be competitive even in women's events.

Second, taking testosterone doesn't put a girl through male puberty, she remains an androgenised female. She will continue to take exogenous testosterone. (She will not be competitive against males either.) But if they decide to call this "male puberty", that would let people taking a banned substance compete in the men's events. Testosterone is an anabolic steroid that isn't allowed in the men's events either. If they start letting women who are taking it compete in the men's events, why should the men be forbidden from taking it?

Fun arguments all round.