Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[Paul2]

You're begging the question of oppression.

In what way are transwomen being oppressed by feminists/feminism?

I was only using Shut's terminology and perspective; even on his terms, you could still articulate a feminism based on self-determination that could engage with trans rights and come to some accommodation, regardless of who may or may not have been oppressed or is now oppressing.

 

[shuttlt]

Surely there's a form of feminism rationally articulable, starting from self-determination, that can engage with trans rights in a way that doesn't require the formerly oppressed (early feminists) to now become the oppressors?

There are forms of feminism that are bound up in wiccanism. Categorising feminisms is like trying to make an exhaustive list of genders. The question though is what feminist ideas have power, where do they come from, and what are their implications?

Self-determination sounds to me like we are heading off towards libertarianism. Does that ever really work at scale? Probably there are libertarian feminists out there, you'd have a hell of an uphill battle for it become the dominant form though. In practice, this process of continually having to push the revolution forward and problematise things that the previous revolutionaries were OK with has been the pattern for quite a while now. Lots of these ideas go back 200 years+ and have repeatedly turned out this way. Maybe the revolution will stop here and trans-activism will be the high water mark? I doubt it though.

 

[shuttlt]

You're begging the question of oppression.

In what way are transwomen being oppressed by feminists/feminism?

The gender critical feminists stand in the way of the next step of the revolution. In the trans-activist utopia that will surely manifest once everybody gives in to them, trans-women will just be women, trans-men will just be men and everybody will be happy and there will be no side effects like a huge uptick in sexual assaults or an avalanche of young adults regretting damaging their bodies. Is it not oppression to keep them from this? What kind of monster would stand in the way of utopia?

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?

Every revolution has it's kulaks, it's reactionary elements, it's patriarchy, it's Goldstein who are the reason why the revolution fails to deliver utopia. For the transactivists, it is the gender critical feminists.

 

[Paul2]

There are forms of feminism that are bound up in wiccanism. Categorising feminisms is like trying to make an exhaustive list of genders.

I take that as a yes, then; there *is* an articulable form of feminism that can engage with trans rights without necessarily oppressing nor being oppressed. Who knows, maybe that might be useful?

The question though is what feminist ideas have power, where do they come from, and what are their implications?

That is *a* question, but not the only one. Another question is how precisely can we predict which feminists ideas might have power in the short term, medium term, or long term? Answer: probably not as much precision as we hope. Best to be humble.

Self-determination sounds to me like we are heading off towards libertarianism. . . .

For no necessary reason, though. One could just take self-determination to mean just that, self-determination.

 

[d4m10n]

I take that as a yes, then; there *is* an articulable form of feminism that can engage with trans rights without necessarily oppressing nor being oppressed.

Every form of feminism I've ever seen is about liberation from oppression; the only real question is whether the oppressor class is constituted based on sex (males) or gender (men).

 

[Paul2]

Every form of feminism I've ever seen is about liberation from oppression; the only real question is whether the oppressor class is constituted based on sex (males) or gender (men).

Neither oppressing trans not being oppressed by trans.

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

Just checking that you deny the very validity of transgender identity*, and place it on a par with someone identifying as an attack helicopter. Thanks for making it clear.


* And that from your point of view, this is not really about things like "should transgender people be allowed to compete in sports according to their trans gender?" or "should transgender people be allowed (with careful scrutiny and monitoring) to be housed in prisons congruent with their trans gender?" Rather, it's about "there's no such thing as valid transgender identity, so from my perspective it's about (eg) men competing in women's sports categories, and so on".

 

[Myriad]

Just checking that you deny the very validity of transgender identity*, and place it on a par with someone identifying as an attack helicopter. Thanks for making it clear.

The clarity of any such conclusion depends entirely on your definition of validity. Which is what, exactly?

 

[shuttlt]

Every form of feminism I've ever seen is about liberation from oppression; the only real question is whether the oppressor class is constituted based on sex (males) or gender (men).

Sounds very similar to the trans-activists, Marxists and NAMBLA.

 

[Rolfe]

Here we go again. "Just checking" that your position is what you have always declared it to be, but subtly recast to sound a bit intolerant.

Because that's appalling. No decent human being could possibly believe that, and this is so obvious I don't of course have to explain why. Are you really going to admit you're such a disgusting person?

This is not an argument. We've been round it all before, several times, and the loop isn't even all that long. You don't have any definition of "valid" in this context.

So let's try again. Someone who believes that they're something they aren't does not magically become that something, whether it's Napoleon, or an attack helicopter, or the Queen of Sheba, or the opposite sex. The belief may be sincere, and in that sense you might describe it as valid, but there is no realty to it.

That doesn't mean we can't be kind to people suffering from such conditions, and make reasonable provisions to make them feel comfortable. But they have no RIGHT to such provisions, and especially not if they're demanding provisions that impinge on the rights of other people.

So no, they don't get to be placed in prison cells with vulnerable women, or to compete in women's athletics events, or to claim awards and scholarships set aside for women, or to wash the genitals of an unconsenting disabled woman.

They are not women, so if that's what you mean by "valid", then no, they're not valid. Give it up already, because we're not going to change our minds on that.

There is a mindset here that consistently places the wants of men, often aggressive and fetishistic men playing the part of the oppressed snowflake, above everything, and women's comfort, safety and modesty nowhere. Own it.

 

[shuttlt]

I take that as a yes, then; there *is* an articulable form of feminism that can engage with trans rights without necessarily oppressing nor being oppressed.

Sure. There are lots of ideas out there that are no good for acquiring or utilising power. What is the point of discussing these ideas? They are science fair projects. I'm talking about the history of the ideas that were able to gain power. If you've got some perfect feminism that would work so long as everybody just accepted it and behaved differently to how humans throughout history have behaved, you've reinvented communism.

Who knows, maybe that might be useful?

This is just like libertarianism. The trick isn't coming up with some system for how society ought to run. The trick is 1. making it compatible with how humans actually are and 2. getting to power in order to implement it. The whole history of these ideas is one of constant refinement of ideas that are useful for seizing and holding power.

That is *a* question, but not the only one. Another question is how precisely can we predict which feminists ideas might have power in the short term, medium term, or long term? Answer: probably not as much precision as we hope. Best to be humble.
For no necessary reason, though. One could just take self-determination to mean just that, self-determination.

Aren't the people advocating the ideas making some kind of prediction about how their ideas will play out? Are the people pushing ideas the only ones who can legitimately make predictions? Is it only the people pushing particular ideas? Further, many of these ideas have had a long, long, long history and we have seen them play out many times before. I feel like we have slid a long way down a slope that people were saying was slippery at the top and as we pick up speed we keep being told, "there is no reason to suppose the rest of the slope is slippery, what does it matter if we slide another meter into this fog, visibility is only a few metres and, sure we've hit a bunch of rocks on the way down, but there is no reason to suppose there will be more". Given how impossible it is to say how these ideas will play out..... maybe pushing for these changes, whose outcome we can't possibly predict, across the whole of the western world simultaneously is kind of a high risk strategy? Let's at least talk about where we are going? It's not as if the people who came up with these ideas haven't been talking about where they thought their ideas were going for hundreds of years. Instead, we are always restricted to talking about the next metre ahead.

 

[shuttlt]

That doesn't mean we can't be kind to people suffering from such conditions, and make reasonable provisions to make them feel comfortable. But they have no RIGHT to such provisions, and especially not if they're demanding provisions that impinge on the rights of other people.

Who says they have no right? New rights are discovered all the time. The priests go into the temple and discover the new right. This is a well worn path. The ECHR has already taken some steps to recognize trans-rights and read into protections that don't mention gender identity such protections. The Dutch decided a case where they found it was discriminatory to exclude trans-women with penises from their changing rooms. I wouldn't like to bet against the trans-rights activists on this one.

 

[lionking]

Who says they have no right? New rights are discovered all the time. The priests go into the temple and discover the new right. This is a well worn path. The ECHR has already taken some steps to recognize trans-rights and read into protections that don't mention gender identity such protections. The Dutch decided a case where they found it was discriminatory to exclude trans-women with penises from their changing rooms. I wouldn't like to bet against the trans-rights activists on this one.

No mention of Sweden?

 

[Rolfe]

It's only a circumlocutory way of saying, we can do what we like, suck it up.

 

[shuttlt]

No mention of Sweden?

I did a bit of checking in some documents relating to the current position of the ECHR and the content of my post is what I found. Doubtless there are others, some holding the line, some moving the line forwards.

 

[shuttlt]

It's only a circumlocutory way of saying, we can do what we like, suck it up.

Well, yes. That's what modern rights are. You were the one that invoked them. In the social progress you liked, driven by people who shared your world view, you approved of this ability to discover new rights, and curtail old ones. Now that social progress is moving in a direction you don't like and the people in power seem to be drifting away from your world view you don't like it. There is no point looking to some notion of "rights" that sit outside of these cultural battles to save you, any notion of that was undermined long ago because it stood in the way of progress. Rights will turn out to have been on the side of who ever wins the cultural battle.

To have rights mean anything beyond "we can do what we like, suck it up" from the groups in power, they have to be seen as extremely difficult and borderline sacrilegious to change, and it has to be acceptable for them to stand in the way of implementing social change. That isn't how rights have functioned since at least the 1960s. Progressivism undermines rights as concepts outside of the cultural fray.

I'm not saying that it's a good thing that you have to suck it up, Rolfe. Who knows, maybe the tide will be turned and these lunatics will be pushed back? It won't be because of some politically neutral set of rights though. It will be because it turned out your side has the power and the trans-activists have to suck it up. Your victory can then be framed in rights based language, where the priests determine that your rights trumped the trans-activists demands and it is a great victory for rights. If you lose, the priests will determine that the trans-activists rights trump your concerns, and it will be a great victory for rights.

 

[Paul2]

Sure. There are lots of ideas out there that are no good for acquiring or utilising power. What is the point of discussing these ideas? They are science fair projects. I'm talking about the history of the ideas that were able to gain power. If you've got some perfect feminism that would work so long as everybody just accepted it and behaved differently to how humans throughout history have behaved, you've reinvented communism.

Highlight by highlight:
1. How did you determine which idea is no good for acquiring power, and at what margin of error? How do you determine which idea might be no good for acquiring power in the future?

2. Are you talking about the past, the present, or the future, or some combination?

3. Strawman.

4. When did the concept of self-determination begin?

5. How does basing feminism on self-determination necessarily lead to communism?

This is just like libertarianism. The trick isn't coming up with some system for how society ought to run. The trick is 1. making it compatible with how humans actually are and 2. getting to power in order to implement it. The whole history of these ideas is one of constant refinement of ideas that are useful for seizing and holding power.

1. You are implying that self-determination, at least for women, is incompatible with human nature. How do you know that, especially for the future?

2. At least we now know that your approach here is one of how to seize power.

3. Highlight addendum: You haven't even defined what you mean by "these ideas."

Interlude: Can I put you down as being against self-determination, at least for women? It seems like you're headed there, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Aren't the people advocating the ideas making some kind of prediction about how their ideas will play out?

I think by "ideas" you mean "self-determination." Correct me if I'm wrong. To answer your question, perhaps the first step is to establish what an ideal might be - like, self-determination - and then see how close we can get to that ideal at what cost.

Are the people pushing ideas the only ones who can legitimately make predictions? Is it only the people pushing particular ideas?

No.

Further, many of these ideas have had a long, long, long history and we have seen them play out many times before.

If you're talking about self-determination, then isn't that long history at least partially contradictory to the idea that they are incompatible with human nature, as you said above?

I feel like we have slid a long way down a slope that people were saying was slippery at the top and as we pick up speed we keep being told, "there is no reason to suppose the rest of the slope is slippery, what does it matter if we slide another meter into this fog, visibility is only a few metres and, sure we've hit a bunch of rocks on the way down, but there is no reason to suppose there will be more". Given how impossible it is to say how these ideas will play out..... maybe pushing for these changes, whose outcome we can't possibly predict, across the whole of the western world simultaneously is kind of a high risk strategy? Let's at least talk about where we are going? It's not as if the people who came up with these ideas haven't been talking about where they thought their ideas were going for hundreds of years. Instead, we are always restricted to talking about the next metre ahead.

Highlight: genetic fallacy. Also, I'm not restricting you to the next meter ahead.

 

[shuttlt]

Highlight by highlight:
1. How did you determine which idea is no good for acquiring power, and at what margin of error? How do you determine which idea might be no good for acquiring power in the future?

We look at what ideas have succeeded, and we build up theories about that. The modern left is built on exactly this kind of analysis.

2. Are you talking about the past, the present, or the future, or some combination?

We study the past, and make hypotheses about the future.

3. Strawman.

Come on. Hyperbole, not straw man. I am interested in the dominant ideas that actually have power and where they have come from. You want to talk about whether other ideas might not be possible, or be out there having little influence. You've got something like Darwinian selection going on on these ideas. Ideas about how to run a society have to be practical, they have to move people, they have to be politically useful to people in gaining power. The ideas about how society should be that don't come to dominate are, in some sense, failed ideas. Maybe they can be the inspiration for something new, but in terms of talking about where we are and where the current ideas are taking us, they are mainly useful as examples of failure.

4. When did the concept of self-determination begin?

Well, you have discussions of its shortcomings in Aristotle and Plato, so it's an old idea. It takes a radical shift though when the conception of liberty changes from involving mastery over oneself to being about lack of external constraint.

5. How does basing feminism on self-determination necessarily lead to communism?

I didn't mean to say it leads to communism. I might argue that, but I would need to think about it a lot harder. I meant that it's the same creation of a terrific way of organising society that is only let down by humans not being the appropriate members of the society.

1. You are implying that self-determination, at least for women, is incompatible with human nature. How do you know that, especially for the future?

Self determination is a hugely problematic idea, certainly in the modern mass society. Pretty much every anti-liberal/counter enlightenment thinker has written about this for the past few hundred years. I'm struggling to know where to begin to unpack it. Have you read any Hoppe?

2. At least we now know that your approach here is one of how to seize power.

I am certainly not engaged in seizing anything. It's not my approach. Any idea not capable of seizing power, if it is about how to organize a society, seems kind of useless. The ideas that drove the French Revolution, and Russian Revolutions were terrible for running a society and immediately went horribly wrong, but they were terrific for seizing power.

3. Highlight addendum: You haven't even defined what you mean by "these ideas."

I meant the sort of feminist ideas like "the patriarchy" and "standpoint theory", or deconstruction etc... that came out of early 20th century, or late 19th century Marxism.

Interlude: Can I put you down as being against self-determination, at least for women? It seems like you're headed there, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

This is one of the basic problems. The anti-liberal view is that these things don't really work as organising principles for a society. It's like being against building the structures in Escher pictures. The issue is that you can't build them. Different constraints apply to men and women. That isn't about one of them having self-determination and one not. Basing your society on self-determination is like basing your economy on the absence of scarcity. Are they actually good, practical, sustainable ideas, or are we building cloud castles?

I think by "ideas" you mean "self-determination." Correct me if I'm wrong. To answer your question, perhaps the first step is to establish what an ideal might be - like, self-determination - and then see how close we can get to that ideal at what cost.

I'm mainly talking about the ideas in trans-activism, and gender-critical feminism that came out of earlier Marxist forms going back to the 19th century. Self determination is typically the kind of thing that happens when the utopia is reached and the nature of Man is transformed rather than a fundamental good, as in the De Beauvoir quote.

If you're talking about self-determination, then isn't that long history at least partially contradictory to the idea that they are incompatible with human nature, as you said above?

I wasn't, but no it isn't. What you see is it appearing in strictly limited ways with lots of discussion about it's limitations and problems. The Founding Fathers of the US were aware of all this, and wrote about it. I'm really not interested in self determination though. As far as I'm concerned it is just a fig leaf. It may well be your average person in the street's view of what these things are delivering, but I don't think it is really driving anything.

Highlight: genetic fallacy.

No it isn't.

Also, I'm not restricting you to the next meter ahead.

You are criticising me for talking about the long term implications of these ideas.

 

[Paul2]

We look at what ideas have succeeded, and we build up theories about that. The modern left is built on exactly this kind of analysis.


We study the past, and make hypotheses about the future.


Come on. Hyperbole, not straw man. I am interested in the dominant ideas that actually have power and where they have come from. You want to talk about whether other ideas might not be possible, or be out there having little influence. You've got something like Darwinian selection going on on these ideas. Ideas about how to run a society have to be practical, they have to move people, they have to be politically useful to people in gaining power. The ideas about how society should be that don't come to dominate are, in some sense, failed ideas. Maybe they can be the inspiration for something new, but in terms of talking about where we are and where the current ideas are taking us, they are mainly useful as examples of failure.


Well, you have discussions of its shortcomings in Aristotle and Plato, so it's an old idea. It takes a radical shift though when the conception of liberty changes from involving mastery over oneself to being about lack of external constraint.


I didn't mean to say it leads to communism. I might argue that, but I would need to think about it a lot harder. I meant that it's the same creation of a terrific way of organising society that is only let down by humans not being the appropriate members of the society.


Self determination is a hugely problematic idea, certainly in the modern mass society. Pretty much every anti-liberal/counter enlightenment thinker has written about this for the past few hundred years. I'm struggling to know where to begin to unpack it. Have you read any Hoppe?


I am certainly not engaged in seizing anything. It's not my approach. Any idea not capable of seizing power, if it is about how to organize a society, seems kind of useless. The ideas that drove the French Revolution, and Russian Revolutions were terrible for running a society and immediately went horribly wrong, but they were terrific for seizing power.


I meant the sort of feminist ideas like "the patriarchy" and "standpoint theory", or deconstruction etc... that came out of early 20th century, or late 19th century Marxism.


This is one of the basic problems. The anti-liberal view is that these things don't really work as organising principles for a society. It's like being against building the structures in Escher pictures. The issue is that you can't build them. Different constraints apply to men and women. That isn't about one of them having self-determination and one not. Basing your society on self-determination is like basing your economy on the absence of scarcity. Are they actually good, practical, sustainable ideas, or are we building cloud castles?


I'm mainly talking about the ideas in trans-activism, and gender-critical feminism that came out of earlier Marxist forms going back to the 19th century. Self determination is typically the kind of thing that happens when the utopia is reached and the nature of Man is transformed rather than a fundamental good, as in the De Beauvoir quote.


I wasn't, but no it isn't. What you see is it appearing in strictly limited ways with lots of discussion about it's limitations and problems. The Founding Fathers of the US were aware of all this, and wrote about it. I'm really not interested in self determination though. As far as I'm concerned it is just a fig leaf. It may well be your average person in the street's view of what these things are delivering, but I don't think it is really driving anything.


No it isn't.


You are criticising me for talking about the long term implications of these ideas.

Our perspectives are so different that, as we see above, there's a whole lot to work through (and I basically started it this time by making so many replies to your one post). There would be a lot to learn for both of us to really dig into it, but, like before, it's just too much.

I'll reduce my reply to this: you conclude that self-determination has no part of a functioning society. That might be true, but I don't know how you can assert that with any degree of surety. It's not like history and politics is a science, there's no formula. Now, if you're saying that we *should* not have a society that includes self-determination, you could assert that fully without that lack of surety. You'd be stating an ought, but my issue is that stating an "is" in this case comes with a pretty wide margin of error.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Just checking that you deny the very validity of transgender identity*, and place it on a par with someone identifying as an attack helicopter. Thanks for making it clear.

Let me be even more clear, so maybe you'll stop acting like you've achieved some kind of gotcha.

I 100% categorically deny that a person with a gender identity disorder is literally the opposite sex.

A transman is figuratively a man, but they are literally a woman.


Now that we've got that settled... any chance in hell that you might actually answer some of the direct questions that I've asked you?