Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[shuttlt]

I'm not the greatest fan of psychiatry and psychology (I think they are still in their infancy as sciences but that is another discussion) but they do seem to consider that there are trans men and trans women, would you say those are expert opinions?

No. What you get in these fields is that somebody invents a new definition and overloads the language. To turn it into a psychiatric question, you have to change the question. "Woman" isn't a psychiatric condition unless you redefine it. Whether somebody is or isn't a "woman" isn't a psychiatric question.

 

[Myriad]

I'm not the greatest fan of psychiatry and psychology (I think they are still in their infancy as sciences but that is another discussion) but they do seem to consider that there are trans men and trans women, would you say those are expert opinions?

What expertise is required to observe the objective fact that some male humans claim to be women and some female humans claim to be men?

Or do they have some other criteria by which to make their expert determinations; and if so, what might those be?

 

[shuttlt]

I'm not the greatest fan of psychiatry and psychology (I think they are still in their infancy as sciences but that is another discussion) but they do seem to consider that there are trans men and trans women, would you say those are expert opinions?

Darat, these are domain specific terms. All they have to do to discover transmen and women is to come up with a definition of it and start diagnosing people. This is like the new definition of racism. That isn't a discovery, that is somebody inventing a new meaning for a word. "Woman" isn't a psychiatric condition. Whether somebody with a penis is a woman, or somebody who used to have a penis is a woman, is not a psychiatric question. The only way any of these experts have expertise that allows them to hold forth on whether transwomen are women is by changing the question into one about their domain specific definition. If they are levering their expertise to answer the controversial question, then they are equivocating on their field having redefined the concepts at issue.

 

[Elaedith]

I can't remember if Allison Bailey's case was discussed much. This is a summary of her complaint. She has just won at least part of her case (the part against her employer rather than Stonewall) and has been awarded damages. This is her press statement.

Summary of the judgement here.

Full judgement here.

The finding includes that the belief that “gender theory as proselytised by [Stonewall] is severely detrimental to women” is part of protected gender critical belief.

 

[d4m10n]

My argument is that transmen are men, and transwomen are women.

This implies that cisgender men and transgender men have something (or some things) in common which lands them all in the same category: men.

What would you say that is, now that we've ruled out sex at birth?

 

[Rolfe]

I can't remember if Allison Bailey's case was discussed much. This is a summary of her complaint. She has just won at least part of her case (the part against her employer rather than Stonewall) and has been awarded damages. This is her press statement.

Summary of the judgement here.

Full judgement here.

The finding includes that the belief that “gender theory as proselytised by [Stonewall] is severely detrimental to women” is part of protected gender critical belief.

She won her case against Garden Court Chambers absolutely comprehensively to the point where they will have to pay punitive damages. That's the important part.

Garden Court Chambers treated Allison in such a detrimental manner as a result of taking advice given to them by Stonewall. For Allison to have a direct claim against Stonewall was always a difficult argument to make, but it was worth trying. It appears the court has decided that as a matter of law Allison cannot directly claim against Stonewall for the wrong advice they gave to her employer. It would seem that the correct course of action would now be for Garden Court Chambers to sue Stonewall for giving them that faulty advice that is now costing them not only a great deal of money but some very bad publicity.

I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Darat]

I can't remember if Allison Bailey's case was discussed much. This is a summary of her complaint. She has just won at least part of her case (the part against her employer rather than Stonewall) and has been awarded damages. This is her press statement.



Summary of the judgement here.



Full judgement here.



The finding includes that the belief that “gender theory as proselytised by [Stonewall] is severely detrimental to women” is part of protected gender critical belief.

I don't think this one was ever in doubt, sadly justice is slow but at least it will help (like the other such cases have) to set the boundaries on our rights so other people don't have to go through this nonsense.

 

[lionking]

I can't remember if Allison Bailey's case was discussed much. This is a summary of her complaint. She has just won at least part of her case (the part against her employer rather than Stonewall) and has been awarded damages. This is her press statement.

Summary of the judgement here.

Full judgement here.

The finding includes that the belief that “gender theory as proselytised by [Stonewall] is severely detrimental to women” is part of protected gender critical belief.

Wow. Stonewall is a very nasty piece of work.

 

[Rolfe]

Why do you keep invoking my name then misrepresenting my position? My stance on transwomen in women's sport is very well documented in this thread, and has been consistent ever since I first posted in the thread (probably about a year or so ago - I'm not sure).

And, incidentally, exactly what I argued should happen.... is happening: sports governing bodies are conducting bespoke investigations in order to garner relevant evidence, and they are then enacting policy based upon that evidence. And the first bodies that have concluded this process have indeed ruled in line with my argument. Funny, huh? It's almost as if I know what I'm talking about.

Your stance is well documented. As I noted, your stance is that sporting bodies ought to allow males to compete in the women's events the minute they say the magic words, and this must continue until such time as a full risk and impact analysis has been carried out, specific to that sport, and has conclusively proved that males have a significant athletic advantage over females.

I believe you are entirely wrong in this. I believe that males should have continued to be excluded from women's events at the very least until such time as it had been conclusively proved that males have no advantage, or that it is possible in some way to cripple these males to eliminate their advantage.

Of course it is self-evident that males have an athletic advangtage, the record books of virtually all sporting categories prove it. If should also have been trivially easy to show that it is impossible to cripple males in such a way as to eliminate this advantage, in particular the marked rseidual advantages of going through male puberty, but for some extraordinarily dishonest publications that were planted in advance to support the trans-activist claim that if we just take away some of their testosterone it will all be fine. This meant that additional work had to be done to disprove these British Journal of Homoeopathy-level papers.

Another point worth considering is the Rachel McKinnon position. He says that declaring that he is a woman should be enough to permit entry to women's events, and that it is discriminatory to compel him to degrade his performance in order to compete. Allowing these men to compete under (laughably inadequate) requirements for testosterone suppression would mean that pressure to eliminate these requirements would never go away.

 

[Rolfe]

Wow. Stonewall is a very nasty piece of work.

I thought this tweet summed it up rather well.

https://twitter.com/JustMisogyny/status/1552282140041175041

STONEWALL: We won.
EVERYONE: What about the employer?
STONEWALL: They were found guilty.

EVERYONE: What were they guilty of?

STONEWALL: Following our advice.

 

[Francesca R]

Anyone else changed their mind at all since the thread started?

The most relevant two posts I could find are somewhat brief:

Almost everything shakes down as left and right. I don’t know why. Desire to belong perhaps. But it does.

In this area it is typically the right who object to “trans activism” and the granting of privileges that abridge the rights of others (women) and it is the left that screams “transphobia”

Whichever side it is has little bearing on whether it is correct in my view since I tend to agree with a lot of typical right stuff and a lot of typical left stuff which frequently means I am disliked by both camps on a lot of issues (not that I care). In this case I agree with the right. Also FWIW ever since I came across the acronym LGBT[ . . . ] I have always recoiled from it. I am a B in that alphabet soup and never felt any particular connection with any of the other letters but (I suppose) particularly not the T or anything after that. No more of a connection than to anybody else anyway which isn’t much either

I have not made a comment on Caster Semenya and sports. I suspect I would conclude she should be excluded

I do not support sex self-ID being the basis to access single sex places and services. In my opinion the social cost is much greater than the social benefit. Of course these accrue to different folks which is difficult. But that's what usually happens,

Those were three and a bit years ago. I have also had long absences from this conversation, which is because I have long absences from the forum (rather than "because it is toxic" which seems a more common reason)

Anyway it seems I have not changed my views in respect of sports and sex segregated spaces. Of course people approximately never change their minds me included. (As an aside I can think of only one substantive mind change I have experienced in my time here and that is a greater agreement with the provision of universal state benefits whereas before I favoured means testing much more)

I am still intrigued by efforts to paint this as a left/right or progressive/conservative issue because it doesn't conform to that at all as I understand it. And it is pretty clear that at least one right of centre member here is pro selfID and more than one left of centre member is anti selfID. I can discern this because I am exactly in the centre of course.

I would not expect people to change their minds on a topic. I would expect to see less "two tribes" type behaviour than is the case on this subject though. I am reminded of an episode a few years ago in this thread chain, where someone linked a Twitter post by some anti trans user who had manipulated and curated another Twitter post from a trans woman to make it look as if they were entering women's changing rooms brandishing a sword to intimidate women. In fact it was deeply toxic transphobia in action. The interesting thing was that almost none of the (anti selfID) members of this forum who were initially taken in by it could bring themselves to acknowledge that they had been duped. That was off-puttingly tribal.

 

[Rolfe]

No it isn't my definition, it's merely one way I can think of identifying a distinct sub group of men.

This all came about as a matter of almost idle curiosity - about how many trans women would want to compete in female sporting competitions.

Then quite a while later Emily's Cat made a post I still can't understand as I can only read it to be a challenge to the idea that trans women are a subgroup of men (but later on she said that she considered that they were a sub group of men - very confusing)

The only pushback I would have thought I'd see in this thread would be about saying trans women are a subset of men rather than a subset of women. But apparently if I post they are a subset of men it seems for no other reason than it is me that has posted the statement it becomes some big thing. Rather peculiar.

All I can think of at this point is to observe that "transwomen" are certainly men, therefore since all men are not transwomen, they must represent a subset of men. So far so logical.

But then comes the clincher. How can this subset be identified? What defining characteristic(s) do they have that distinguish them from other men? The only possible answer seems to be a subjective one, that they claim to be transwomen. There is no objective test one can apply other than their own statements.

There is nothing that consistently distinguishes "transwomen" from other men other than their self-reported inner sense of... something.

There is no objective characteristic of "transwomen" that they have in common with women that all men do not have in common with women (as in, we're all human beings). Unless we decide again that their own self-reported inner sense of... something... is a characteristic.

Which brings us back to the original point, why should this self-reported sense of... something... be sufficient to grant these men any special privileges not granted to all men?

 

[Emily's Cat]

It's simply not credible or ethical ... to issue an evidence-free ban on transwomen competing in the women's category.

Why? Why would it be incredible or unethical to enforce the pre-existing criteria that no males are allowed to compete in female sports categories?

Transwomen are MALE. They are males that wish to circumvent existing limitations. Shouldn't it be expected that research needs to be conducted to support that subset of males being treated as an exception to an already in-place rule?

Seriously, if someone were to self-declare themselves to be transage, and identifies as age ten despite being chronologically 20, would you throw out the rule excluding adults from little league sport until there has been research done that proves adults have an advantage over children?

 

[Emily's Cat]

My argument is that transmen are men, and transwomen are women. I think that is the fair and appropriate position to take, especially now that the relevant experts mainstream medical/scientific community effectively endorse that view.

WHY do you think that is a fair and appropriate position? Fair TO WHOM?

WHICH EXPERTS are you basing your claim upon? WHICH medical practices? WHICH scientific fields?

You still have not supported your bald assertions; your arguments remain sophisticated theology, nothing more.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Again go back to where I first used the phrase - it made perfect sense, it was an observation.

Yes, it makes sense, yes it was an observation. It wasn't a useful observation.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm not the greatest fan of psychiatry and psychology (I think they are still in their infancy as sciences but that is another discussion) but they do seem to consider that there are trans men and trans women, would you say those are expert opinions?

Psychologists don't diagnose anyone as being a transman or a transwoman. They diagnose people as having the mental health condition of gender dysphoria, previously known as gender identity disorder.

 

[Manger Douse]

Wow. Stonewall is a very nasty piece of work.

Indeed: "The previous Chief Executive of Stonewall, who oversaw the genesis of the
self-ID agenda there, Ruth Hunt, is on record in the Observer (19/5/19) as
saying in response to women’s concerns about safeguarding with sex self-ID
that “men are always going to rape women.”

The kind of callousness I've seen from men (and only men) on this thread - yay equality

 

[Emily's Cat]

Indeed: "The previous Chief Executive of Stonewall, who oversaw the genesis of the
self-ID agenda there, Ruth Hunt, is on record in the Observer (19/5/19) as
saying in response to women’s concerns about safeguarding with sex self-ID
that “men are always going to rape women.”

The kind of callousness I've seen from men (and only men) on this thread - yay equality

True. Not all of us females are in agreement on this topic, and there are variations in the degree to which we are willing to accommodate. But even those few (one I think) females who fall squarely in the "trans advocate" camp are still considerate and respectful.

There are several males in this thread who are respectful and supportive, regardless of whether they agree or disagree.

The only people in this thread who have routinely been callous, dismissive, and denigrating have all been males.

Not all males, but only males.

 

[theprestige]

I'm not the greatest fan of psychiatry and psychology (I think they are still in their infancy as sciences but that is another discussion) but they do seem to consider that there are trans men and trans women, would you say those are expert opinions?

This conversation would have gone very differently if it were actually about a medically-recognized psychological condition, with an established and ethically-sound course of treatment accepted by mainstream medicine.

Coming back around to the question of public policy, which is the only question that really matters:

The public policy question is actually two related questions: What accommodations should we make in public policy, for transgender folks? And how should public policy determine who is eligible for/entitled to these accommodations?

At the start of this thread, I was strongly opposed to requiring an actual diagnosis, to be eligible for accommodations. "Papers please" seemed like a terrible idea. However, fiat self-ID seemed like it would open the door to abuse. At the start of this thread, I had hoped that among our critical thinkers here, someone would offer a solution to this conundrum.

Instead, I've seen the opposite: Further commitment to fiat self-ID, dismissal of the actual cases of abuse it enables, and vilification of anyone who expresses concern about this.

You yourself have offered no better basis for trans-identification than fiat self-ID. This is exactly the problem. This is the impasse at which we find ourselves, for several installments of this thread. Far from cutting the gordian knot*, you grasped the ends of the rope and drew it tighter.

Now you say you think it seems like psychologists recognize transwomen**. But what does that even mean? What objective criteria distinguish transwomen from other men? Oh, right: They claim to be transwomen. But you don't need a psychologist to recognize that tautology. Is it your proposal that public policy should be based on fiat self-ID?

Or do you propose that public policy should be based on some other, perhaps medical, criteria?

---
*Which I acknowledge you probably weren't trying to do; in fact I suspect it can't be done at all.

**For example.

 

[Darat]

…snip…

But then comes the clincher. How can this subset be identified? What defining characteristic(s) do they have that distinguish them from other men? The only possible answer seems to be a subjective one, that they claim to be transwomen. There is no objective test one can apply other than their own statements.

There is nothing that consistently distinguishes "transwomen" from other men other than their self-reported inner sense of... something.

…snip…

Does seem to be that way.

There is no objective characteristic of "transwomen" that they have in common with women that all men do not have in common with women (as in, we're all human beings). Unless we decide again that their own self-reported inner sense of... something... is a characteristic.

Which brings us back to the original point, why should this self-reported sense of... something... be sufficient to grant these men any special privileges not granted to all men?

I don’t think it should in the sense of an obligation, but I don’t see why we shouldn’t consider what this distinct sub group of men wants and where possible accommodate those wants.

But I do want to pick up on one thing: “…. There is no objective characteristic of "transwomen" that they have in common with women that all men do not have in common with women….” If research did find such a characteristic - say something like a region in the brain that was only found in women and in trans women would that change your mind as to whether they should be granted “special privileges”?