Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[lionking]

Because the American Civil Liberties Union is a well known civil rights advocacy and legal aid non-profit organization, with extensive experience litigating civil rights cases throughout the US, and an established reputation in that field.

You're getting the opinion of one of the top civil rights law firms in the country.

I’m fascinated that you seem to place so much weight on the opinion of a civil rights group. Personally, I would like to see cases like the one in question tested in the court.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because the American Civil Liberties Union is a well known civil rights advocacy and legal aid non-profit organization, with extensive experience litigating civil rights cases throughout the US, and an established reputation in that field.

You're getting the opinion of one of the top civil rights law firms in the country.

Yep, exactly that.

 

[theprestige]

I’m fascinated that you seem to place so much weight on the opinion of a civil rights group. Personally, I would like to see cases like the one in question tested in the court.

I think the seeming weight is in your imagination. I value the ACLU's legal expertise, when trying to understand civil rights laws and likely legal results if a matter goes to court.

Obviously anyone looking to risk legal action will be well advised to pay for formal legal counsel. And obviously an actual court case establishing legal precedent is the gold standard.

But short of that, the opinion of the ACLU has historically been a good analysis of what the laws say, and how a court case is likely to go.

Nobody is claiming the ACLU's volunteered opinion is as good as a court ruling.

 

[Elaedith]

I sort of hate to be openly pedantic, but everything that exists does so in material reality. This includes subjective mental states, I'm afraid.

Well there is probably a philosophical debate about qualia, but ok. Being pedantic, 'observable reality' is probably a better term (I expect there are ways of being pedantic about that too, of course).

 

[d4m10n]

I’m fascinated that you seem to place so much weight on the opinion of a civil rights group. Personally, I would like to see cases like the one in question tested in the court.

Something like that nearly happened in Lawless v. LPGA:
https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/golfer-lana-lawless-takes-a-swing-at-the-lpga/

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think someone posted this a few days back, but I ony just got around to reading it:

Americans’ Support For LGBTQ Rights Often Stops With Transgender Rights

The author spends a fair amount of time pondering the confusing results of the survey, discussing the "opposing views" that so many people seem to hold.

Yet in that same survey from PRRI, we found that a considerable share of Americans held seemingly opposing views. Forty-six percent of Americans, for instance, said they both supported general nondiscrimination protections and opposed allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports. Meanwhile, 37 percent supported nondiscrimination protections and opposed allowing transgender boys to participate in boys’ sports. Finally, 36 percent supported nondiscrimination protections and supported bathroom bills requiring transgender people to use the bathroom of their sex assigned at birth.

Who are these Americans with mixed views?

This article makes a fundamental error: it fails to distinguish between gender identity and sex. The "counterpressure" that they focus on is not at all confusing. The vast majority of people support non-discrimination in employment, housing, and law for transgender people. We support the right of transgender people to dress and present in congruence with their gender identity.

But a very large number of Americans ALSO recognize that gender identity does not subsume sex, and that sex-based accommodations are important and necessary to ensure the full participation of females in society, politics, and the economy.

The majority of people who oppose transgender people using intimate spaces in accordance with their gender identity are not at all "anti-trans". The opposition is simply because those spaces are SEX segregated, not gender segregated. In spaces where people are likely to be naked or particularly vulnerable, there is a strong desire to keep male-bodied people separate from female-bodied people, regardless of how they identify. The same is true for sports, where the physical differences between male and female athletic performance is significant.

What should be crystal clear from that survey is that Americans, on the whole, support the right of people to express themselves however they please, and support non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity... But that Americans ALSO understand that gender identity does not negate or replace sex in real life.

 

[theprestige]

I think someone posted this a few days back, but I ony just got around to reading it:

Americans’ Support For LGBTQ Rights Often Stops With Transgender Rights

The author spends a fair amount of time pondering the confusing results of the survey, discussing the "opposing views" that so many people seem to hold.


This article makes a fundamental error: it fails to distinguish between gender identity and sex.

It's also interesting that the author clearly believes that transwomen competing as women in sports is a human right.

 

[LondonJohn]

I think someone posted this a few days back, but I ony just got around to reading it:

Americans’ Support For LGBTQ Rights Often Stops With Transgender Rights

The author spends a fair amount of time pondering the confusing results of the survey, discussing the "opposing views" that so many people seem to hold.


This article makes a fundamental error: it fails to distinguish between gender identity and sex. The "counterpressure" that they focus on is not at all confusing. The vast majority of people support non-discrimination in employment, housing, and law for transgender people. We support the right of transgender people to dress and present in congruence with their gender identity.
But a very large number of Americans ALSO recognize that gender identity does not subsume sex, and that sex-based accommodations are important and necessary to ensure the full participation of females in society, politics, and the economy.

The majority of people who oppose transgender people using intimate spaces in accordance with their gender identity are not at all "anti-trans". The opposition is simply because those spaces are SEX segregated, not gender segregated. In spaces where people are likely to be naked or particularly vulnerable, there is a strong desire to keep male-bodied people separate from female-bodied people, regardless of how they identify. The same is true for sports, where the physical differences between male and female athletic performance is significant.

What should be crystal clear from that survey is that Americans, on the whole, support the right of people to express themselves however they please, and support non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity... But that Americans ALSO understand that gender identity does not negate or replace sex in real life.

This "we" to whom you refer: is this the same "we" who previously implied that a biological female identifying as the (trans) gender "man" was on a par with a biological female identifying as "attack helicopter"? Because the "we" I remember from those days frequently openly derided the very concept of transgender identity. Have "we" changed "our" view on this now then?

 

[LondonJohn]

It's also interesting that the author clearly believes that transwomen competing as women in sports is a human right.

And so it should be. But not at an elite (and probably also sub-elite) level.

 

[Brainster]

Here's another incident of that thing that never happens happening twice:

A transgender inmate who impregnated two women while incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women has been moved to a new facility, according to the Department of Corrections.

Oh, and yes, this is all thanks to the ACLU:

It also cast a spotlight on New Jersey’s transgender prisoner policy established following a settlement agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey in June 2021. The policy stipulated that the DOC house transgender prisoners according to their gender identity. The settlement agreement mandated that the policy remains in place for at least a year. The year ended last month.

 

[llwyd]

I sort of hate to be openly pedantic, but everything that exists does so in material reality. This includes subjective mental states, I'm afraid.

What, about, say mathematics? Do mathematics only exist as people's mental states? Or say the 17th century concept of divine right? The only way this category of things could exist in the material reality would have to be as states in individual people's brains which, I don't know, does not seem a fruitful way at all.

Anyway, ot, this discussion should go to the philosophy section I guess.

 

[Rolfe]

And so it should be. But not at an elite (and probably also sub-elite) level.

Where do you think girls who progress to élite status begin? How many do you think will progress in an environment where they are constantly beaten by boys who want their gender feelz stroked?

 

[theprestige]

And so it should be.

Who do you believe should qualify for this right?

But not at an elite (and probably also sub-elite) level.

Why not?

 

[theprestige]

What, about, say mathematics? Do mathematics only exist as people's mental states? Or say the 17th century concept of divine right? The only way this category of things could exist in the material reality would have to be as states in individual people's brains which, I don't know, does not seem a fruitful way at all.

Anyway, ot, this discussion should go to the philosophy section I guess.

We could try to keep it in the real of public policy. Like so: Say womanhood, like mathematics, is an entirely abstract concept. Abstract, but nevertheless intrinsically true. Anyone who professes knowledge of womanhood, we call a woman, just as anyone who professes knowledge of mathematics, we call a mathematician.

This would then lead to an interesting development in gender as a social norm. Self-professed women would compete with each other to discover ever yet more elegant and esoteric proofs of essential womanhood, and debate them heatedly in ever more baroque and incomprehensible terms. Seemingly arbitrary rules of womanhood would be proven internally consistent and therefore incontrovertibly true.

Meanwhile the rest of us would content ourselves with being merely woman enough to bake a pie, clean a home, and sell real estate.

 

[Matthew Best]

Who do you believe should qualify for this right?

Surely, any human right should extend to all humans. If it doesn't, then can it really be called a human right? The idea of a human right that only applies to some humans is confusing to me.

 

[theprestige]

Surely, any human right should extend to all humans. If it doesn't, then can it really be called a human right? The idea of a human right that only applies to some humans is confusing to me.

Are you asserting a human right to compete in women's sports? If you are, and you're willing to discuss the implications of this assertion for public policy, let me know.

If you're not asserting such a right, or just want to assert it and run away without addressing the implications, then I see no point in answering your question.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Surely, any human right should extend to all humans. If it doesn't, then can it really be called a human right? The idea of a human right that only applies to some humans is confusing to me.

That would work if all humans agreed on what qualifies one to be considered human, with all the rights humans are entitled to.

If it matters, I'm of the opinion that any rights, are the ones you have the ability to secure for yourself.

 

[Matthew Best]

Are you asserting a human right to compete in women's sports?

No, of course not. I really don't understand how you came to that conclusion.

If you are, and you're willing to discuss the implications of this assertion for public policy, let me know.

I'm not.

If you're not asserting such a right, or just want to assert it and run away without addressing the implications, then I see no point in answering your question.

I'm not asserting such a right, therefore there's no need for you to answer if you don't want to.

But perhaps LondonJohn might want to explain how he came the idea that transwomen competing in women's sports is a human right, that only applies to certain levels of women's sport.

 

[d4m10n]

Surely, any human right should extend to all humans.

This is a bit OT, but the short answer is no. Most societies have felt morally justified in depriving at least some people of any and every conceivable human right under certain specified conditions.

But perhaps LondonJohn might want to explain how he came the idea that transwomen competing in women's sports is a human right, that only applies to certain levels of women's sport.

Human rights are a social construct. Each of us are entitled to the rights which we can motivate others to recognize, whether by moral suasion or by amoral force.

 

[Matthew Best]

This is a bit OT, but the short answer is no. Most societies have felt morally justified in depriving at least some people of any and every conceivable human right under certain specified conditions.

Then presumably they didn't consider those particular rights to be "human rights".