Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[Emily's Cat]

I mean, that does happen. I was once memorably asked not to use the phrase "female genitalia" because "I'm male, so my vagina is male." He was polite enough about it. But do I think that's crazy? I do.

FWIW, I think most rational people think it's crazy. Some just feel that it's best to play along for whatever reason.

Let's imagine there's a third twin...er, triplet. He's born with cloacal exstrophy, and has an inadequate penis as a result. Doctors, after repairing his gut, advise the parents he'll be better off as a female, as he won't have a satisfactory sex life as a man. He's given a "sex change", and the parents are told it's vital to his development that they never reveal what has happened. As he grows up, his favorite activities are hunting, fishing and wrestling. At the age of 7, he spontaneously declares that he is a boy, not a girl, even as his parents resist that declaration.

Does he believe in "gender ideology?" Or is he just a boy, who somehow knows that he's a boy?

This gets into two specific topics. One of them is congenital conditions of sexual development (CCSDs, also called disorders/differences of sexual development or DSDs). First off, CCSDs are completely irrelevant to the discussion of transgender identity. They are genuine medical conditions that need genuine medical care for the physical health of the patient. They are complex conditions with serious deleterious effects. And, to top it off... the overwhelming majority of people with CCSDs have repeatedly asked that they be left out of the trans debate altogether. Using their conditions as pawns in what is essentially a political debate is incredibly insulting and abusive. That said, there is a lot of information in the several volumes of this thread that provides a lot of information about CCSDs. There's even an entire separate thread about Intersex Conditions.

The second topic, more applicable here, is one that gets a lot of people upset. That has to do with the underlying root cause of sex dysphoria. Dysphoria is, in many cases, an expression of an underlying mental health issue. In some cases - quite rare cases - it is associated with a neurological dissociation with ones body. For these few people, their brain genuinely has an expectation of their sexed body being one of the opposite sex. I've heard descriptions of it from transsexual people, and somewhere in a prior volume I posted research looking at fMRIs of this phenomenon. This disconnect resides in the same part of the brain as other body dysmorphias like anorexia and bulimia, as well as Body Integrity Identity Disorder. So for some rare people, this is a real problem.

But, and this is also very important, dysphoria is much more often associated with OTHER root causes. There's an extremely high overlap in the current crop of young people with dysphoria who have autism spectrum disorder. There's also a very high correlation with homosexuality. It's also correlated with childhood sex abuse. And in many cases, it's simply correlated with the natural onset of puberty and a changing body. What you might see in those last three is a pattern of dysphoria being associated with discomfort/fear/guilt associated with a maturing sexed body.

As a final note, dysphoria is also closely associated with a specific sexual paraphilia: Autogynephilia (AGP). I'm sure you'll run across people insisting that it doesn't exist, it's made up, it's a boogeyman invented by evil feminists. But in truth, it has long been and still remains a diagnosis under Transvestic Paraphilic Disorder. Males with AGP are sexually aroused by the idea of themselves as a woman. They get turned on by wearing female clothing, presenting as a female, and being in female-only spaces. To them, entering female spaces is an inherently sexual act... and making females uncomfortable is part of their arousal. Granting males with AGP access to female-only spaces makes female unconsenting participants in their sex play.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I see that Mumblethrax already replied to you on this point. But I think I'll respond as well.

...

I don't like using this analogy, but I think it's one that might be illustrative. One can be critical of reckless behavior that leads to contracting an easily preventable disease without being against treatment for the disease.

Good analogy, and yes, Mumblethrax already responded, and yes, it's a fair point.

 

[Elaedith]

Doesn't this just beg the question by assuming that there's nothing to the idea of gender identity? I could just as easily claim that the difference lies in the fact that the first believes in the SSSM, while the second doesn't.

I don't think the first position assumes any belief in the SSSM. It is independent of any assumption that people are blank slates or that all sex differences are socially constructed. Even if we assume that there are innate average differences between males and females that contribute to what are considered masculine or feminine traits and roles, it is obvious that some people are gender non-conforming or gender atypical. The first position does not rely on anything that is unfalsifiable - sex, personality traits and gender expression all exist in material reality and are observable.

But lets just assume for the sake of argument that both positions are ideological. People should then be allowed to debate them and choose which they consider more convincing or socially desirable. People who take the latter position should be able to defend it with argument. But that hasn't happened. Questioning gender identity theory is framed as 'denying the existence of trans people' and equated to racism or homophobia - even though in the example above, there is no material difference between the person who identifies as trans and the person who doesn't and they both exist. Therefore simply rejecting an ideological position is framed as bigotry.

Let's imagine there's a third twin...er, triplet. He's born with cloacal exstrophy, and has an inadequate penis as a result. Doctors, after repairing his gut, advise the parents he'll be better off as a female, as he won't have a satisfactory sex life as a man. He's given a "sex change", and the parents are told it's vital to his development that they never reveal what has happened. As he grows up, his favorite activities are hunting, fishing and wrestling. At the age of 7, he spontaneously declares that he is a boy, not a girl, even as his parents resist that declaration.

Does he believe in "gender ideology?" Or is he just a boy, who somehow knows that he's a boy?

If we have some kind of sense of our sex that is partially innate, that would be a 'sex identity', not a gender identity (likewise unhappiness with one's sex should be termed 'sex dysphoria', not 'gender dysphoria'). It is impossible to tell from the above example whether he actually has some type of 'sex identity' that arises from say, the influence of pre-natal sex hormones on the brain, or whether he just compared his personality and preferences to boys and girls and concluded that he is more like a boy. We do know that most cases of cross-sex identity (not really the case here because sex was correctly identified) and gender dysphoria in pre-pubescent children go away during or after puberty if children are not socially transitioned. Therefore identity appears to be quite malleable before puberty in most cases.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Therefore identity appears to be quite malleable before puberty in most cases.

Identity in every other sense is absolutely malleable in children. A big element of puberty is the solidification of identity from a psychological perspective. Teens "try on" different personalities and identities during puberty. It's a natural part of maturation. I don't know why any rational person would argue that the aspects of identity associated with social express of sex roles and behaviors would be exempt from that altogether normal process.

 

[Aber]

New UK survey out

Story
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/16/britons-not-bitterly-polarised-over-trans-equality-research-finds

Report
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/our-work/research/

Don't have time to post key graphs but headlines:
Majority for transwomen are women
Transwomen in female spaces - big swing dependent on surgery status
Large opposition to transwomen in female sports
Majority for medical intervention limited to over 18s

 

[Aber]

Graphs attached

Datatables link

https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/media/p5uln04a/britons-and-gender-identity-data-tables.pdf

Results are probably not a surprise; transwomen are women, except when they are not.

 

[p0lka]

Identity in every other sense is absolutely malleable in children. A big element of puberty is the solidification of identity from a psychological perspective. Teens "try on" different personalities and identities during puberty. It's a natural part of maturation. I don't know why any rational person would argue that the aspects of identity associated with social express of sex roles and behaviors would be exempt from that altogether normal process.

I agree, It's why I'm against puberty blockers as I said in #294

 

[d4m10n]

Datatables link

Check out the breakout by respondent sex in table 15.B

 

[LondonJohn]

Midol refers to its customers as "menstruators"
Tampax celebrating "people who bleed"
CNN refers to "people with cervixes"
Medical Journal The Lancet writes about "bodies with vaginas" but they still refer to men as men.
Harvard medical school talks about "black birthing bodies" and "gestational parents"
BBC News writing about "people with a vagina"
Period tracking app Clue has a whole paper on what language to use instead of women, including uterus-haver, people with uteruses, and people who menstruate
Discussion of whether or not the word "woman" should be used in a medical setting in a medical journal
Period product company Yoppie advertises to "bleeders"

There's more, but I assume that's enough to start with? Enough to acknowledge that this is something that female humans aren't "hysterical" about when we find such dehumanizing language insulting?


Yes, rape in prison is already a problem. We've actually addressed this multiple times throughout this thread. It's a problem already for female inmates, and it's also a problem for male inmates. My point, which I think is quite valid, is that INCREASING the risk to females by placing males in the same cells as them is NOT a way to mitigate the current risk of rape. So let's NOT do that. And placing males with females as a result of their self-declaration of gender identity is a policy adopted by legislators as a result of lobbying groups.


No, you're not required to have a position from the outset. It's true that this thread can get "passionate". Some of that is simply because this is volume 9 and well, many of us have gone through all of this multiple times already, so it feels like we're having to start all over again for no good reason. This is exacerbated by the fact that a few regular posters who have definitely been through these discussions keep trying to fringe reset the whole thing and it's exhausting. I know it's a lot to read through, but it might be worthwhile for you to go skim through the prior volumes. They contain some very good information, from people on both sides of this discussion.

And to be brutally honest, some of my frustration is due to having been repeatedly told - by males - that this isn't that big of a deal, and that females are just overreacting. I can't tell you how many times in this thread the message has essentially been "males know better than you, you silly little female, so just shoosh and let us tell you what to do". Not in exactly those words, but sometimes not that far off. I'm tired of being told that the concerns of females don't matter, and that we're evil bigoted fascist nazi-adjacent transphobes if we object to having penises in our showers without our express consent. Sometimes, I'm just not in the mood to have to "be kind" to another male who seems to think it's not a big deal for me.

Females are conditioned to "be kind", and to sublimate our own needs to support the feelings of males. It sucks for males right now, but many of us are completely fed up with it, and being kind doesn't work for us.

I suspect this exists - whether in the extreme paraphrase you provide, or for that matter in any form even remotely approaching it - purely in your imagination (for reasons I can't begin to think of....). But I'm of course open to being proved wrong with actual examples.

ETA: Oh, and the same applies to your next sentence as well....

 

[LondonJohn]

PS It bears repeating, once again, that in the actual real world (ie not this tawdry, self-selecting little thread on a sceptics' (ahahahaha) forum) policy decisions regarding transwomen and transmen are being taken by governments and legislatures that typically have a healthy representative proportion of females.

But of course that doesn't seem either to occur or to matter to those within this thread who persist with this ludicrous "I'm sick of men telling women what to do" line, does it?

 

[LondonJohn]

I dunno: do the female "women won't wheesht*" "gender-critical" crowd in Scotland think that the likes of Nicola Sturgeon (First Minister), Maree Todd (Minister for Public Health & Women's Health) or all the other female members of the Scottish Government - 13 out of 27 govt members are female - are all either a) somehow being browbeaten into silence and complicity in the males' evil machinations, or b) actually males in disguise?


* For those requiring a translation: "wheesht" roughly translates to "ahh will ye shut up" - something apparently that unreconstructed Scottish men used to shout at their female partners as an order to stop them from complaining etc....

 

[LondonJohn]

Is your claim that because it was right to capitulate to certain activists at certain times, they should do so for all activists at all times? That wouldn't make any sense. If not, then you still need to argue on the basis of the actual merits for these activists, without trying to borrow the virtue of past activists.

But you also seem to object to me even accurately describing what's happening, regardless of whether or not you think it's a good thing. It's quite odd.

No. I object to you misinterpreting what's happening.

I take an incredibly jaded view of our current elite. They are the most incompetent and out of touch group of elite we as a nation have ever had.

Well that's a shame. Democracy, huh? Who needs it?!

You guarantee that?

You aren't in a position to guarantee that. Hell, I doubt you're even in a position to know that.

Yes. Because I've worked with several national governments and I know how they work. You seemingly do not.

And this is incredibly naive. Laws are only passed on the basis of scientific evidence when there are no strong special interests lobbying on the topic. Otherwise, laws get passed mostly on the basis of what politicians think will get them votes. Which may or may not have some connection to scientific evidence, but it's never the same thing as scientific evidence.

LOL Irony much?! Remind me, the naive one, how (for example) progressive state and federal governments in the US passed Black civil rights laws when assuredly they were not net vote-winners at the time? Or how many progressive governments around the world passed gay rights legislation when there was still a very significant anti-gay animus among the general population? Do you think all those governments were adversely influenced by this ludicrously-named "policy capture" activism? Naive? Ahahahahaha!

Were the trans bathroom bans not unduly influenced by anti-trans activists? Was that really decided on the basis of scientific expertise? You don't even believe your own rhetoric.

"My own rhetoric"? LOL. But in answer to your question: no, they were unduly influenced by the makeup and nature - including latent prejudices - of the relevant legislators and regulators (otherwise they'd have listened to the concerns and taken appropriate actions, but not acted in the sweeping prejudicial way they did). Just as earlier refusals to grant civil rights to (eg) gay people and black people were unduly influenced by the latent prejudices of the legislators of the time. You do realise that (eg) black people and gay people were lobbying strongly for their civil rights for a very long time before they were actually granted, don't you?

When our legislators gradually get replaced - as societies and electorates gradually progress - there comes a point where the proportion of legislators with inbuilt prejudices reduces to a level where it can no longer unduly influence policy and legislation. You know, for example, that Lyndon Johnson was significantly more progressive, enlightened and prejudice-free than Ike Eisenhower, right? Or that Tony Blair was significantly more progressive, enlightened and prejudice-free then Harold MacMillan? That's kind of how it works, you see. And that's how/why progressive prejudice-free governments and legislatures pass progressive and fair laws.

 

[LondonJohn]

Roy Wood Jr from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah did an extended piece with 2 transgendered young people. It was excellent if you have 50 minutes to watch it. They mention the issues with sports but say that really is only a small issue overall. The GOP using trans people in their campaign fear mongering is a serious threat in states like TX and FL.

Indeed. If only more people would actually engage properly and with an open-mind on this issue. Reports such as this are a valuable part of that learning and understanding exercise.

But hey: who needs education, compassion, accommodation and proportionate reaction, when knee-jerk shouty hyperbole is just so much quicker and easier?

 

[Rolfe]

* For those requiring a translation: "wheesht" roughly translates to "ahh will ye shut up" - something apparently that unreconstructed Scottish men used to shout at their female partners as an order to stop them from complaining etc....

It's better not to opine about things you know nothing about.

"Wheesht" is a Scots word, and in no way "unreconstructed". It literally means "hush". The derivation is from Gaelic, where the word for "hush" is "ist".

 

[LondonJohn]

Here is the top hit on Google for "birthing persons nhs".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-56007728
It's an NHS trust changing their language to be trans-inclusive in their maternity services. They were moving to "chest feeding" and "birthing parent".

It's not hard to find examples.

Sigh.

To take that example: it's a (reasonable and kind) attempt to ensure that their staff are trans-inclusionary when transacting with patients in maternity & obstetrics units. It's effectively telling them that a) they cannot now assume that every pregnant person who enters the unit identifies as a woman, and that therefore b) they should take care to understand how each patient identifies, and c) offer those who identify either as transmen or nonbinary the facility of using gender-appropriate language while they are in the care of the unit.

Now...... many of the media (from the BBC on down) totally misinterpreted and misreported what was actually going on here - and of course as a result, "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" got a green light to go on his/her soapbox with angry opposition to "this ridiculous woke nonsense".

In reality, every pregnant ciswoman who was a patient in that hospital's units would - as ever - always be personally addressed with woman-appropriate terminology and language (eg "breast feeding", "vagina", and so on). It would only ever be the (tiny proportion of) pregnant transmen/nonbinary patients who'd have even been offered the option of using language and terminology that might have "woman" connotations. Some pregnant transmen/nonbinary patients would welcome and accept the offer. I suspect that some pregnant transmen/nonbinary patients would actually not feel particularly offended by terms such as "breastfeeding" and so on. But they'd have been offered the option.


So what was intended as a totally reasonable guide to remembering the potential for pregnant transmen/nonbinary to be patients of the hospitals' units, and to then respecting those people's wishes regarding terminology and vocabulary.... was chewed up and spat out by the media as something radically different: to a dystopian woke nightmare where ciswomen were going to be addressed with all this odd, inappropriate language. Plus ca change.....

 

[LondonJohn]

It's better not to opine about things you know nothing about.

"Wheesht" is a Scots word, and in no way "unreconstructed". It literally means "hush". The derivation is from Gaelic, where the word for "hush" is "ist".

So, in the context in which it's being used by "gender-critical" activists, it means what I said it means. I wasn't offering a literal translation, but a contextual definition. And the context clearly implies that this is about men telling women what to do, and telling them to shut up while they do so.

Or would you like to take issue with that translation/definition as well.

(As I just said: plus ca change)


ETA: And you managed to misread/misinterpret part of my (relatively unimportant in terms of the actual body of my post) footnote in any case: the word "unreconstructed" referred clearly to the men who use(d) it to silence what they considere(d) whingeing and unnecessary/unimportant "noise" from their female partners. Which is - as you obviously know - the very genesis of/reason behind the phrase "women won't wheesht". The word "unreconstructed" did not refer to the word "wheesht" itself (which I imagine might still be used regularly, not only in the context behind "women won't wheesht", but also perhaps by parents to their children for example).

 

[LondonJohn]

(Oh and how are you feeling about those 13/27 female members of the Scottish Government? Have they all been "policy captured" or have they been told "wheest" by the 14/27 male members of the Government? I'm intrigued - but not surprised - that you chose to pick up on an asterisked footnote in my post, while ignoring the substance of the post itself. But there you* go, I guess.)


* "You" meaning "one" - just for the avoidance of doubt, y'know.

 

[Rolfe]

So, in the context in which it's being used by "gender-critical" activists, it means what I said it means. I wasn't offering a literal translation, but a contextual definition. And the context clearly implies that this is about men telling women what to do, and telling them to shut up while they do so.

Or would you like to take issue with that translation/definition as well.

(As I just said: plus ca change)

You were offering a sneering and derogatory definition. The word is in normal everyday use by people who are Scots speakers, and by people who speak Scots English. It has a much softer connotation than "shut up". Your proffered example was simply insulting, and intentionally so.

How I feel about the Scottish government would go seriously off-topic in a microsecond and lead to the sort of mega-thread in Politics that I don't read.

 

[LondonJohn]

Sure...



https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/only-pro-trans-lobby-groups-25850103

Hmmmm, interesting. Do you think the Catholic Church should have been consulted about the introduction of gay rights legislation?

 

[Cain]

Here's an unlocked article in the NYTimes Magazine about debates in the medical community regarding transgender care for young people.

It's long:

Over the eight months I reported on this story, I talked to more than 60 clinicians, researchers, activists and historians, as well as more than two dozen young people and about the same number of parents. WPATH [World Professional Association for Transgender Health] gave me exclusive access to the final SOC8 [Standards of Card, 8th edition] (which is divided into 18 chapters, most of which address treatment for transgender adults) and lifted some of the confidentiality agreements the authors signed. Now the final version of the new Standards of Care is scheduled to come out this summer — in the midst of a raging political battle.