Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[d4m10n]

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

I do not share your presumptions. For any given affirmation of "human rights" we will find laws which deprive people of those rights, with the possible exception of "due process," that is, the formal process by which people are stripped of their right to life, liberty, property, etc.

ETA: This is all a bit of a tangent, since no one believes competing in sports (any any level, sex, gender, weight class) is a human right.

 

[Matthew Best]

Speaking of which, the University of Pennsylvania has nominated Lia Thomas for the NCAA "Woman of the Year" award.

https://www.ncaa.org/news/2022/7/14...nations-for-2022-woman-of-the-year-award.aspx

 

[Matthew Best]

ETA: This is all a bit of a tangent, since no one believes competing in sports (any any level, sex, gender, weight class) is a human right.

No-one? What about the exchange that led us to this point?

the author clearly believes that transwomen competing as women in sports is a human right.

And so it should be.

Seems like that's two people who believe that competing in sport is - or should be - a human right.

 

[d4m10n]

Seems like that's two people who believe that competing in sport is - or should be - a human right.

Okay, I'll leave it to LJ to explain how it's a "human right" to engage in competitive sport, given that only a fraction of humans are the right age/size/shape to make the cut.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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?

No, I and those who share my views have not changed our minds on this. A female who identifies as a man IS on par with a human who identifies as an attack helicopter - Their belief may very well be absolute, but their belief does not change reality. A female who identifies as a man is still a female and does not actually become male, just as a human who identifies as an attack helicopter remains a human and does not actually become a helicopter.

A female who identifies as a man has my full support in dressing like and presenting as a man in society. A human who identifies as an attack helicopter has my full support in dressing like and behaving like a helicopter in society.

You persistently do this, LondonJohn - you conflate a person dressing and presenting in a certain way with them ACTUALLY FOR REALSIES being the thing they're dressed as.

Do you genuinely believe that if a person dresses and behaves like something, that makes them into whatever they're dressed as? Does that extend to all situations, or is it special pleading for the singular case of humans changing sex?

Not that I expect a response to my question, seeing as you have never managed to respond to any question I've asked.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

Why?

Why do you believe it should be a human right for a select group of people with a specific belief to be allowed to compete against people of the opposite sex?

 

[shuttlt]

Do you genuinely believe that if a person dresses and behaves like something, that makes them into whatever they're dressed as? Does that extend to all situations, or is it special pleading for the singular case of humans changing sex?

Once you take the Butler view that gender is performative, then eventually you are going to get to the logical endpoint of that that anybody enacting the performance of a particular gender is the gender they are performing. This has been at the heart of academic feminism since the 80s at least. It's really just an "and this applies to gender" copy and paste from older, more general, theories.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Except that's not actually true. There's a provisional acceptance of a person's professed expertise and knowledge when it doesn't matter, but when it DOES matter, we expect to find third-party validation of that knowledge.

If my neighbor says they're a mathematician when we're having a general discussion that doesn't actually rely on math, I'm not going to challenge them. It doesn't matter and it would be rude. On the other hand, if they're applying for a position teaching mathematics, or working on a supercollider, I expect they will provide their CV with appropriate degrees. Hell, I actually have the requisite degrees to call myself a mathematician... but given that I've forgotten most of what I learned, I don't refer to myself as one. I'm an actuary, who happens to have degrees in applied mathematics. And when my profession as an actuary is relevant - it can be verified by a third party.

People are NOT whatever they say they are. Some things require objective verification in order to be accepted.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

And only applies to a specific subset of male humans while excluding all other male humans.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Speaking of which, the University of Pennsylvania has nominated Lia Thomas for the NCAA "Woman of the Year" award.

https://www.ncaa.org/news/2022/7/14...nations-for-2022-woman-of-the-year-award.aspx

An enormous slap in the face to all female swimmers.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Once you take the Butler view that gender is performative, then eventually you are going to get to the logical endpoint of that that anybody enacting the performance of a particular gender is the gender they are performing. This has been at the heart of academic feminism since the 80s at least. It's really just an "and this applies to gender" copy and paste from older, more general, theories.

That's some really screwy logic. I have substantial disagreements with Butler's word salad in general, but the idea that gender roles are performative is moderately acceptable.

The leap beyond that, however, is highly irrational. Had it any basis in reason, one would be forced to accept that any actor performing the role of a space alien *is* a space alien.

 

[d4m10n]

Once you take the Butler view that gender is performative, then eventually you are going to get to the logical endpoint of that that anybody enacting the performance of a particular gender is the gender they are performing. This has been at the heart of academic feminism since the 80s at least.

Academic feminism used to have luminaries like Monique Wittig who advocated for the abolition of gender instead of the elevation of gender over sex.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm curious how our resident defenders of trans rights views this activism seeking to stop anthropologists and forensic scientists from identifying the sex of remains.

Gender activists push to bar anthropologists from identifying human remains as ‘male’ or ‘female’

Trans Doe Task Force

We propose a gender-expansive approach to human identification...

...

Through this presentation, we will challenge the audience to consider ways in which they can work within their own field to reduce harm to Transgender and gender-variant decedents to combat this crisis...

 

[theprestige]

"The body they found could be our beloved daughter, but there's no way to know for sure, since the forensic team simply cannot determine if the intact hip bone is female or male."

 

[shuttlt]

That's some really screwy logic. I have substantial disagreements with Butler's word salad in general, but the idea that gender roles are performative is moderately acceptable.

The leap beyond that, however, is highly irrational. Had it any basis in reason, one would be forced to accept that any actor performing the role of a space alien *is* a space alien.

My son having actually been a dinosaur, or an alien, when he was little is exactly the kind of nonsense that theory and rationality will get you to. You and I don't need such things to know that a man in a dress isn't a woman, or my son wasn't an alien. The problem is that these leaps absolutely are rational. It's what people who focus on rationality do constantly. A great many university departments would have to close if theory layered on top of theory integrated with theory supported by theory that produced results that most people would think were wrong if explained in plain terms was out of bounds. I was thinking earlier today that there may be a link between Hegel and similar philosophers being famously long winded and impenetrable, and them also being hugely influential with exactly these kind of word salad peddlers.

That the ideas probably aren't internally consistent, and make obviously wrong pronouncements about the world doesn't mean they aren't influential and that they don't have implications if followed through. I haven't read queer theory authors because I think they are correct. When I say that the current transactivist notion of gender is the obvious implication of Butler, I'm not endorsing Butler. She has been endorsed though, so her ideas become the foundations of what follows.

You've probably heard of deepity.... a word used to describe the pronouncements of Deepak Chopra. What he said would typically equivocate between two meanings, one obviously true but trivial and uninteresting, the other radical if true, but obviously false. All of these word salad authors ride the deepity line. Can you take a minimalist interpretation of Butler.... sure, elements of gender are a performance and are clearly socially defined. That is saying something pretty obvious, uncontentious and entirely uninteresting. It's the obviously false part of the claim that justifies rearranging society and why she is influential. Society then meets the obviously false claim half way and a new common sense forms, then the theory is extended again pushing out from the previously obviously false position. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.... except that the antithesis is the thesis from the previous cycle.

 

[Darat]

I'm curious how our resident defenders of trans rights views this activism seeking to stop anthropologists and forensic scientists from identifying the sex of remains.

Gender activists push to bar anthropologists from identifying human remains as ‘male’ or ‘female’

Trans Doe Task Force

The article quotes one person on twitter saying something…..

The TransDoe idea to me seems to have some validity - if as it says “…….We maintain our own database of missing and unidentified people who we have determined may be Transgender or gender-variant, as most current database systems do not permit comparison of missing to unidentified across different binary sex categories…….” And “… Approximately three out of four Transgender decedents are misgendered in initial police or media reports surrounding their death. Databases….” It would seem a good idea to be able to do searches across sex and gender for missing people when a corpse or skeleton is found, especially if only part of a corpse or skeleton is found.(If the pelvis is missing then it is very hard to determine sex of a skeleton with any accuracy.)

 

[shuttlt]

Academic feminism used to have luminaries like Monique Wittig who advocated for the abolition of gender instead of the elevation of gender over sex.

Thanks. I haven't read her. I'd been thinking about reading Firestone at some point. Crazy is as crazy does. I've heard it said that Psychology degrees attract people with something wrong with them looking for an answer. I get that sense from people like Wittig.

 

[theprestige]

The article quotes one person on twitter saying something…..

The TransDoe idea to me seems to have some validity - if as it says “…….We maintain our own database of missing and unidentified people who we have determined may be Transgender or gender-variant, as most current database systems do not permit comparison of missing to unidentified across different binary sex categories…….” And “… Approximately three out of four Transgender decedents are misgendered in initial police or media reports surrounding their death. Databases….” It would seem a good idea to be able to do searches across sex and gender for missing people when a corpse or skeleton is found, especially if only part of a corpse or skeleton is found.(If the pelvis is missing then it is very hard to determine sex of a skeleton with any accuracy.)

That doesn't seem like it has any validity at all. In that mishmash of equivocation and arrogance I see no coherent argument that gender is ever worth considering, when identifying a dead body or parts of a dead body.

Gender is, after all, a social construct, a performance of an identity. But the dead have no social norms, no performances, no self-identity. Only sex.

 

[d4m10n]

Against Transphobic "Moral Flounce" Behavior

Possibly of some interest here. An argument in favor of “impregnable people” in lieu of the outmoded "women and girls."

Want a word that refers to the class of all and only those who can currently get pregnant? I just used one: “impregnable.” Admittedly this word has two accepted meanings in English. But context will almost always suffice to distinguish them.

https://katemanne.substack.com/p/against-transphobic-moral-flounce

 

[Myriad]

Possibly of some interest here. An argument in favor of “impregnable people” in lieu of the outmoded "women and girls."

https://katemanne.substack.com/p/against-transphobic-moral-flounce

"I've made up a new and perfectly fair suitable non-judgmental term for people to use to refer to certain people who have a certain thing in common. Aren't I just the cleverest problem-solver?"

*blink of an eye passes*

"I'm responsible for coining a new slur? How could that be?"