Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[theprestige]

I think first of all, something is only 'mental illness' if it causes distress to the person suffering. So if it is a simple case of living the gender role of your choice then there wouldn't be any talk of gender dysphoria or need to seek a mental health solution.

The problem comes when society dictates that one is either male or female, and this is when people object or try to find solutions to the apparent unwanted identity being foisted on them. As an example, in a report at work, I referred to a client as 'Ms.'. My boss took a strong objection to this and made the secretary retype the whol thing, this time substitutu=ing 'Mrs.' for 'Ms.'

Some women are proud to take on their husband's name and call themself, 'Mrs John Smith', others don't care and yet others reason, 'Why do you need to know whether I am married or single?'. Yet others, violent object to the neutral, 'Ms.'


Multiple this type of resistance manifold in the case of a man identifying as female or vice versa. "Sorry, Madam you might claim to be female but you will not be allowed to use the women's changing room to try on that garment."

So you can see why some people are objecting to something that in their eyes is not rational and being forced on them against their will.

You really have no idea what's actually being discussed in this thread.

 

[Rolfe]

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, 'trans-people' and 'progressives' are by-and-large not the most formidable specimens, and yet we're supposed to believe this motley coalition has risen up and gained control of governing bodies and the media, in fact governments across the west.

Seriously?

Most of them couldn't organise a circle-jerk in a brothel, but they're being ever more protected and emboldened by authority.

What we're seeing is the result of top-down social engineering by very powerful interests, NOT bottom-up, "grassroots activism"- endlessly trying to debunk the bizarre "rationalising" by '[insert as applicable] rights activists' might be fun for some people but it's ultimately futile. Know your enemy.

I think there's a bit of both in there. A lot of these people are vulnerable and not very bright. They are however being used by the powerful interests, and a significant proportion of these powerful interests are also trans-identifying.

 

[Vixen]

This link is to a transcript of a speech by the Attorney General delivered a couple of weeks ago. I only just saw it, however I went off on holiday the day the speech was made and the transcript seems only just to have been published.

It holes "Stonewall Law" below the waterline. It reiterates everything in the Equality Act that the trans activists have been attempting to have removed from the statute book and have been telling bodies paying for their advice was not in fact lawful.




One swallow doesn't make a summer, but there have been positive flocks of the things flying around recently. It's not going to happen overnight, but in my opinion as more push-back against Stonewall Law occurs, more and more people will be emboldened to speak out.

I notice that the Attorney General uses XX and XY to denote female and male. I do not think this is unreasonable. She is speaking about people in general and sees no need to qualify her statement in terms of rare DSD conditions. I do not imagine for one second that she intends CAIS or Swyer's women to be excluded from female single-sex services, or that she intends XX males to be included.

It might be prudent when drafting legislation to add a rider about DSD conditions, simply listing the various DSD diagnoses and stating whether these people are biologically male or female, or something like that. I saw a nice wee poem in one of the replies to someone tweeting out the transcript.

Seriously, Rolfe? You believe far right fascist, Suellen Bravermann, has powers of reasoning?

Her first premise falls flat on its face for a start, 'single sex schools' supposedly proves the rule there is male and female and cannot be adjusted for. Well, I went to a co-educational school and boys and girls got along together just fine.

I cannot dignify anything Braverman has to say with a response.

Doesn't she belong to some weird cult where the cult leader was perving on the female devotees?

 

[Shalamar]

The thread has devolved into a circle jerk of hate and bigotry. I've tried to follow it, and even pointed out where the anti-trans activists are starting to effect women who 'Aren't feminine enough', and the response was 'Mistakes will happen, lol'.

Now it's with 'Libs and trans are teh weak and teh dumb'

Perhaps focus on ways to deal with the issues, rather than piling on hate for human beings?

 

[Rolfe]

Perhaps be a bit less free with your accusations of "hate".

I don't believe anyone has ever said "mistakes will happen lol" to a situation where women have been adversely affected.

Might also be good to revise the difference between "affect" and "effect". Does "effect" sound more learned or something, the way it gets used when "affect" is meant? Like people saying "infer" instead of "imply" or "disinterested" instead of "uninterested", thus making a nonsense of their statement?

 

[theprestige]

The thread has devolved into a circle jerk of hate and bigotry. I've tried to follow it, and even pointed out where the anti-trans activists are starting to effect women who 'Aren't feminine enough', and the response was 'Mistakes will happen, lol'.

Now it's with 'Libs and trans are teh weak and teh dumb'

Perhaps focus on ways to deal with the issues, rather than piling on hate for human beings?

Please don't attribute ITTL's unique take to the thread as a whole.

 

[Shalamar]

Perhaps be a bit less free with your accusations of "hate".

I don't believe anyone has ever said "mistakes will happen lol" to a situation where women have been adversely affected.

That's a lot of what I see here. More 'How can we stop trans' and less' how do we fix the issues'.

Might also be good to revise the difference between "affect" and "effect". Does "effect" sound more learned or something, the way it gets used when "affect" is meant? Like people saying "infer" instead of "imply" or "disinterested" instead of "uninterested", thus making a nonsense of their statement?

Damnit. I missed that. It's what I get for being distracted. yeah, I made a stupid mistake.

 

[Francesca R]

The thread has devolved into a circle jerk of hate and bigotry. I've tried to follow it [ . . . ]

Disagreed. I have followed it intermittently for years. It is a rare example of liberalism and rationality prevailing against a tide of radical censor/cancel culture that is tyrannical and authoritarian at its base.

On the contrary, the projection that you utter here seems to be the standard recoiling excuse of the misogynistic TRA cohort who have steadily regressed out of the thread over its life through lack of, and/or defeated arguments.

I am definitely surprised. Few discussions on this forum have progressed like this one has.

 

[Ziggurat]

The thread has devolved into a circle jerk of hate and bigotry. I've tried to follow it, and even pointed out where the anti-trans activists are starting to effect women who 'Aren't feminine enough', and the response was 'Mistakes will happen, lol'.

Now it's with 'Libs and trans are teh weak and teh dumb'

Perhaps focus on ways to deal with the issues, rather than piling on hate for human beings?

First, do you imagine that any response opposed to trans activists is hateful? Because it's not. And let me also point out that trans activists are not synonymous with trans people, it case that isn't obvious.

Second, you seem to be conflating opposition to trans activists as opposition to liberals. And that's a major mistake. While conservatives are largely opposed to trans activists, the main insult used by trans activists is TERF, an acronym aimed squarely at a group of hard-core leftists.

Third, what even is "the issue" you think we should be dealing with? Because I see a whole bunch of different issues. Many are related, but it's not just one, and solving one won't automatically solve any of the others. For example, there's the question of trans access to female spaces (which can be broken down into multiple issues as well). There's the question of medical transitioning for minors. There's the question of language. There's the question of self ID versus official diagnosis. And plenty of people are trying to deal with different parts of these different issues.

For you to say that people aren't dealing with "the issue" sounds to me like you're just complaining that people aren't focused on whatever it is you want to focus on, but you can't even be bothered to explain in any detail what it is you actually want to focus on. That's not going to persuade anyone.

 

[Francesca R]

Seriously, Rolfe? You believe far right fascist, Suellen Bravermann, has powers of reasoning?

IMO the conservatives are largely correct on these issues, and the left are more asleep at the wheel or all at sea.

If you are welded into an ad-hom mindset where if they're for it, I'm against it no matter what, well you're headed firmly down the road of irrational polarised and populist nonsense reasoning. Come back, it's not too late!

 

[Rolfe]

That speech was a model of clarity and sense. I'm not going to deny that just because of who uttered it. We are all finding surprising bedfellows in this debate.

And we are all, mostly, continuing to disagree strongly with much of what these bedfellows stand for on other issues. I can't be doing with this "everyone must espouse the entirety of someone else's political position, or else reject it all wholesale."

I mean, this comes down to the very essence of "ad hominem" arguing, which is a fallacy.

 

[Ziggurat]

So you can see why some people are objecting to something that in their eyes is not rational and being forced on them against their will.

Like having a person with a penis in a women's locker room?

 

[Shalamar]

Disagreed. I have followed it intermittently for years. It is a rare example of liberalism and rationality prevailing against a tide of radical censor/cancel culture that is tyrannical and authoritarian at its base.

On the contrary, the projection that you utter here seems to be the standard recoiling excuse of the misogynistic TRA cohort who have steadily regressed out of the thread over its life through lack of, and/or defeated arguments.

I am definitely surprised. Few discussions on this forum have progressed like this one has.

It is an interesting thread, and I actually agree with many of the issues raised.

I'm probably over-reacting to much of the negativity towards the Transgendered because I'm trying to overcome my own biases, because I simply do not understand the trans gendered. I want women to be safe in their own spaces, but I also feel that trans-women should also be supported, but I don't know where that balance should be.

Perhaps too many men are jumping on the 'today I'm a woman!' that others are blindly supporting and encouraging that is causing many issues?

 

[Francesca R]

I perceive negativity towards a tyrannical strain of activism. Not so much towards trans people.

I would concede that it can be damned hard to see the difference some times though. All kinds of people are or become startlingly polarised.

 

[shuttlt]

but I also feel that trans-women should also be supported, but I don't know where that balance should be.

Which trans-women? It's not as if all trans-women share the politics of trans-activists. There isn't necessarily a set of things "trans-women" as a class want. There is a set of things activists who have come to represent trans-women want. There is clearly no great shortage of trans-women who who feel appalled by this.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't see anyone here not wanting transwomen to be supported. However there are many different proposals for providing that support, including the creation of third, mixed-sex spaces that would cater for anyone who for whatever reason doesn't want to make use of the single-sex facilities for their sex, and the proposal that men should be more welcoming to non-gender-conforming males, rather than (as we're continually being told they do) beat them up if they see them in a men-only space.

The push-back from women is largely a reaction to being told that neither of these solutions is acceptable, that the only way to support transwomen is to allow them (and thus, in practice, any man) into women's single-sex spaces, that women's comfort and safety are way down the priority list in comparison to transwomen's wishes, and that anyone who disagrees is a bigot and a transphobe and a hater.

 

[Shalamar]

First, do you imagine that any response opposed to trans activists is hateful? Because it's not. And let me also point out that trans activists are not synonymous with trans people, it case that isn't obvious.

Perhaps it is. As I've said, I'm trying to overcome my own biases, and much of the problem is caused by the overtly-inclusive trans activists.

Second, you seem to be conflating opposition to trans activists as opposition to liberals. And that's a major mistake. While conservatives are largely opposed to trans activists, the main insult used by trans activists is TERF, an acronym aimed squarely at a group of hard-core leftists.

I did not. Another poster brought it up.

Third, what even is "the issue" you think we should be dealing with? Because I see a whole bunch of different issues. Many are related, but it's not just one, and solving one won't automatically solve any of the others.

I wonder if there are too many issues to be discussed easily.

For example, there's the question of trans access to female spaces (which can be broken down into multiple issues as well).

This one is the one that makes me uncomfortable. I do not feel that men should be allowed access. But Trans-women? Gets sticky. I don't know.

There's the question of medical transitioning for minors.

I don't like this one. No medical transitioning, but should have full counseling and psychiatric support until at the age of majority of which they can choose for themselves.

I'm coming around on puberty blockers, I don't know.

There's the question of language. There's the question of self ID versus official diagnosis. And plenty of people are trying to deal with different parts of these different issues.

ugh.

For you to say that people aren't dealing with "the issue" sounds to me like you're just complaining that people aren't focused on whatever it is you want to focus on, but you can't even be bothered to explain in any detail what it is you actually want to focus on. That's not going to persuade anyone.

I want to see less negativity and hate. Several posts seem to conflate trans-activism with the transgender.

Or many my own biases are fighting each other, and I'm having a hard time seperating the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Francesca R]

that women's comfort and safety are way down the priority list in comparison to transwomen's wishes

And it's not lost on more than a few observers that in this collective struggle against discrimination and oppression, one of those groups is male . . .

 

[Rolfe]

This one is the one that makes me uncomfortable. I do not feel that men should be allowed access. But Trans-women? Gets sticky. I don't know.

Transwomen are men. If you let transwomen in, you are letting a subset of men in. That is not hate, it is biological reality.

However, it goes further than that. While human beings are excellent at telling men from women, telling men from transwomen is well-nigh impossible. The vast majority of transwomen have had no sex reassignment surgery, and even those who have still look like men unless you see them undressed.

If transwomen are legally allowed to be in women's intimate spaces, in practice that means that any man at all who wants to be there is allowed, because nobody can tell the difference and we're all rather against "papers please" at the entrance (and papers can be forged). As the speech I linked to above correctly states, "It follows that it is not possible to admit a biological male to a single-sex service for women without destroying its intrinsic nature as such: once there are XY chromosome adults using it, however they define themselves personally, it becomes mixed-sex."

Well-meaning commentators often feel they would like to admit the "nice" transwomen to women's spaces, while excluding the fakes and the chancers. It's not possible. Fakes and chancers look exactly like nice people, that's how they operate.

As I've said before, a number of times, it's the consequences of granting any subset of men the legal right to be in women's spaces that are the problem. The granting of that right removes any possibility of policing these spaces to keep men out, including men who are there to perv or assault or generally creep women out. Challenge becomes impossible, because the man will simply claim a trans identity and accuse the challenger of transphobia and hate.

We did have a system where men were not legally permitted in women's intimate spaces, but women were prepared to turn a blind eye to a poorly-passing transwoman who seemed to be doing his best to fit in and simply went in and out as unobtrusively as possible. That could continue. Yes, such a person could be challenged, but it's not very likely, and if challenged all that's needed is for the transwoman to apologise and leave.

However, the demands for legal rights to invade women's spaces irrespective of how uncomfortable it makes women have really screwed this up.

 

[Rolfe]

And it's not lost on more than a few observers that in this collective struggle against discrimination and oppression, one of those groups is male . . .

Reading the tweets of someone I knew, but who has turned into an absolute handmaiden, I once remarked, "the thing I don't think I've really appreciated is that these people genuinely think transwomen are women." (Because she was saying that what she really hadn't appreciated was that for some unfathomable reason "terfs" didn't believe that transwomen are women.)

Someone who was further along her gender critical journey than I was replied, "No, they don't think that at all. You can tell that very easily by the way they treat transwomen - deferring to them and pandering to their every whim. If they really thought they were women they'd treat them the way they treat women - talking over them, telling them to "be kind" and putting their interests right at the bottom of the priority list."