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Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

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stanfr said:
Sure if it were truly 'flat'
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Fair enough. It's "fiat", by the way, but I think you understand my meaning regardless.

There aren't hordes of people just arbitrarily deciding they want to change gender, for purely nefarious purposes. It just aint happening.
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Nobody here has claimed hordes, or arbitrary decisions. As for nefarious purposes, I think even a lot of autogynaephiliacs wouldn't understand what they're doing to be nefarious. I think you may be applying an unnecessary bias to my arguments.

If you ask a simple question, I'll give you a simple answer. But don't conjure up this image of a trans bogeyman sneaking into women's bathrooms.
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Again with the conjuring! Find another verb.

And we don't have to conjure up images. We have living examples, in the flesh. But already you're moving the goalposts. A moment ago, you were against fiat self-ID in principle. Now you seem inclined to tolerate it, as long as the resulting harm is sufficiently small.

Address my point to Rolfe--is that act, if passed, gonna lead to the dangers you fear? Proof? I don't see it.
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For now, let's stick with the original goalpost: Does the bill establish fiat self-ID as the legal requirement for transgender recognition in public policy? It's Rolfe's bill, I'll let her speak to it.

Meanwhile, here's California Senate Bill No. 179 (the Gender Recognition Act):

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB179

This bill explicitly deletes the extant requirement for a doctor's opinion, in order to change their gender identity for legal purposes. Here's a layman's summary of the bill's provisions, published by the Transgender Law Center. It confirms my interpretation of the bill's language:

https://transgenderlawcenter.org/resources/id/ca-sb179

I'll let you make your own determination of the TLC's bona fides.

Here's California's Assembly Bill No. 887 (the Gender Nondiscrimination Act):

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0851-0900/ab_887_bill_20111009_chaptered.pdf

This bill grants the legal right for a person to enter sex-segregated spaces based on their gender identity (which is established to be fiat self-ID by SB-179). Here's the TLC's FAQ for AB-887, confirming my interpretation of the bill's language, specifically with regard to sex-segregated restrooms and homeless shelters:

https://transgenderlawcenter.org/resources/know-your-rights/faq-the-gender-nondiscrimination-act

Both of these bills have been passed into law.

I think this more than satisfies the family of claims:

- Fiat self-ID is being advocated as public policy
- Advocates of fiat self-ID are changing and have changed public policy to establish fiat self-ID
- As a matter of California law, men may now enter (some) women's spaces in California on no other basis than because they say they want to.

I stipulate that you can reasonably quibble about whether a women's restroom or homeless shelter is gender-segregated or sex-segregated. And I stipulate that you can reasonably quibble that I have previously mentioned prisons and sports, but not cited them here in reference to these laws.

But I think that we can all agree that so far as fiat self-ID in public policy is concerned, it is in fact the case in California right now today.
 
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theprestige said:
But I think that we can all agree that so far as fiat self-ID in public policy is concerned, it is in fact the case in California right now today.
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As exemplified in the Wi Spa kerfuffle:
In a statement to Los Angeles [Magazine] about this weekend’s incident, Wi Spa points to California Civil Code 51 (b), which makes discriminating against trans and other gender non-conforming people in business establishments illegal in the state. “Like many other metropolitan areas, Los Angeles contains a transgender population, some of whom enjoy visiting a spa,” the statement goes on. “Wi Spa strives to meet the needs of all its customers.”
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This policy has lead to some striking results in places other than Wi Spa as well.
“[She] wouldn’t really use the spas, [she] just sat at the corner of the pool with [her] feet in the water and [her] legs spread or took front-facing showers,” the rep recalls. “People began to feel uncomfortable. It became very disruptive.” When the spa finally confronted her, she was adamant that the spa should attempt to normalize young girls and women viewing male genitalia.
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These are examples from the real world, not a bogeyman conjured up to frighten the aforementioned young girls and women.

It may be that one can make an argument from self-i.d. which doesn't end up in the normalization of exposing young girls and women to male genitalia without their consent. If so, I'd be delighted to hear how that can be successfully operationalized in real life.
 
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d4m10n said:
As exemplified in the Wi Spa kerfuffle:
This policy has lead to some striking results in places other than Wi Spa as well. These are examples from the real world, not a bogeyman conjured up to frighten the aforementioned young girls and women.

It may be that one can make an argument from self-i.d. which doesn't end up in the normalization of exposing young girls and women to male genitalia without their consent. If so, I'd be delighted to hear how that can be successfully operationalized in real life.
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This obviously makes it more difficult to identify exhibitionism, which is one of the most common types of sexual offence, and will make people more reluctant to report suspected cases, which can lead to an increase in sexual offending without an increase in recorded offences. This has been pointed out before, but those who keep demanding 'evidence that offending increases as a result of these policies' just ignore it.
 
Because of the realities of sexual dimorphism in humans, there are some special concerns about transwomen having access to sex-segregated spaces for women. If you're wondering why I don't mention men or transmen below, that's why.

stanfr, when this thread started, the difficulty I had in mind was this: How do we let transwomen use women's restrooms while still blocking access to bad actors.

I thought then, and still think now, that bad actors, while rare, are a real problem, and that responsible public policy must provide some kind of mechanism or social norm for screening them out. I thought then, and still think now, that an "open door" policy would enable an increase in bad actions.

But a lot of my other thinking has changed.

I thought we were talking about people who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, who were trying to make a more complete social transition to help ameliorate their distress. I thought wrong. It turns out that diagnosis is off the table. Sure, you can seek a diagnosis if you want, and there's still some things that are gated by diagnosis of dysphoria. But as far as mainstream trans-activism is concerned, diagnosis is unnecessary, and access to women's spaces must be on fiat self-ID alone.

I thought the main concern was, how to accommodate these people humanely, without demanding to see their doctor's note or other papers, affirming their condition and justifying their access. I thought wrong. The mainstream of trans-activism rejects the idea of "papers". No medical diagnosis is necessary. The only humane accommodation in trans-activism, is to allow entry to anyone who says they want in, simply because they say they want in. No surgery is needed. No hormone treatments. They don't have to pass, or try to pass. They don't even have to express a gender norm or stereotype. All they have to say is, "(today) I am a woman, let me in".

I thought the progressive critical thinkers on this board would have some idea of rational solution for allowing transwomen to access women's spaces in a way that still barred men, without having to resort to "papers please". I thought wrong. There is no progressive critical thinking on this board, in favor of trans-inclusion. There is no science. There is no pragmatism. Just a growing disrespect for women, and dismissal of women's concerns, any time they come into conflict with trans accommodation.

I thought that nobody apart from the bad actors themselves really wanted an increase in bad actions. I thought wrong. It turns out that mainstream trans-activists are willing to accept an increase in harm, if it means they get trans access by fiat self-ID.

I don't know where you're at with your thinking, but so far it kind of seems like you're about where I was at when this thread began.

It also kind of seems like you're operating from the assumption that mainstream trans-activism today is on the right side of history. That it's reasonably well backed by science and medicine and sociology. That the objections to it must be mostly knee-jerk, products of "unnecessary bias". That what whatever problems are being called out, they are either phantoms, or too small to concern us, or easily solved by assuming the cause is just and the solution will sooner or later appear.

I don't know for sure if that's what you're thinking, and that's what your assumptions are. But that's how it seems to me. And that's how I expect your end of the conversation to progress. I'll be pleasantly surprised if you acknowledge, without hedging, that fiat self-ID is being pursued, and is being enacted as public policy. That would be a nice change of pace, and a good start.
 
theprestige said:
If you're wondering why I don't mention men or transmen below, that's why.
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Check the title of the thread. The thread is not about transmen.

Many pro-trans posters come up with the "you're dishonest because you're ignoring transmen" line, like it's some sort of a gotcha. No, we're not mentioning transmen most of the time because the thread is not about transmen.

This is not a symmetrical situation. Another thing the pro-trans posters like to come up with is, but what about women who might sexually assault other women? But what about women who take used sanitary products from the bins in the toilet to satisfy their menstrual fetish? But what about lesbians who might ogle other women in sex-segregated spaces? What about women who are autogynaephiles?

What about transmen in men's intimate spaces?

None of these examples, even the ones that actually happen (women do not have menstrual fetishism, women do not display autogynaephilia, women sexually assault other women in the absence of a male co-offender practically never, and if lesbians are in the habit of ogling women in the Ladies' they are extremely discreet about it), has anything to do with the problem of men in women's intimate spaces.

The problem of women in men's intmate spaces is an entirely different one, and one I'm not really qualified to address. I gather, talking to male friends, that the presence of a woman in a space that contains urinals is something they find acutely embarrassing. However, whether a woman LARPing masculinity walking straight to a stall and walking out again (I gather it's "not done" for men to engage each other in conversation in the Gents' or even to make intentional eye contact) would bother them, I don't know. As a man LARPing femininity (without the over-sexualised Barbie effect some of them go to) could do the same in a Ladies and probably never be challenged, I suspect not.

Much of the trouble with transwomen is their desire to occupy women's intimate spaces in a "manspreading" sort of way. To impose their presence in the space. To posture and preen and take selfies and even masturbate, and make the women who are there acutely uncomfortable. I have never heard of a transman behaving like that in a male intimate space.
 
theprestige said:
I don't know where you're at with your thinking, but so far it kind of seems like you're about where I was at when this thread began.

It also kind of seems like you're operating from the assumption that mainstream trans-activism today is on the right side of history. That it's reasonably well backed by science and medicine and sociology. That the objections to it must be mostly knee-jerk, products of "unnecessary bias". That what whatever problems are being called out, they are either phantoms, or too small to concern us, or easily solved by assuming the cause is just and the solution will sooner or later appear.
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Is that what "being on the right side of history" means?

The idea that history has a direction and we know what that direction is has been an idea on the Left for what, 170 years now, arguably 250 years? History, and man are progressing towards some kind of greater transcendent perfection. There are views of history on the Right as well, of course. Many of them are cyclical.

Supposedly this direction was known "scientifically". It wasn't something you discovered iteratively as you went. Transactivists aren't on the right side of history because science has discovered the essence of woman and proved them right, or because it has been shown that all the risks can be mitigated, or anything else like that. Transactivists are on the right side of history because the direction of history is towards liberation from cultural and natural restrictions on the individual to act in accordance with his, or perhaps in this case her, desires. All of the objections you are raising will work themselves out because history will take care of it. That some women may get assaulted is unfortunate, but the wheels of history don't grease themselves, and in the long run it will all be worth it.

That, at least would I think be the classical radical progressive take. To what extent people here map on to this is harder to tell.
 
You know, Shuttit, it seems to me you're a bit guilty of that attitude yourself. You've repeatedly posted that in your opinion women are going to lose, with the implication that we shouldn't fight for our rights, and even that we're unjustified in trying to fight for our rights because we will lose, and then we won't have these rights any longer, so we're fighting for an illegitimate aim. You may not mean this, sometimes I don't know when your tongue is in your cheek and when it isn't, but that's how it comes over.

Nobody has a crystal ball. If we don't fight we will certainly lose. I do not regard "you're going to lose so you shouldn't be fighting" as a legitimate argument.

I also regard trying to figure out who is going to win, then joining that side in order to be on the winning side, as a contemptible position.
 
theprestige said:
when this thread started, the difficulty I had in mind was this: How do we let transwomen use women's restrooms while still blocking access to bad actors.

I thought then, and still think now, that bad actors, while rare, are a real problem, and that responsible public policy must provide some kind of mechanism or social norm for screening them out. I thought then, and still think now, that an "open door" policy would enable an increase in bad actions.

But a lot of my other thinking has changed.
[snip]
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That's close to my own journey as well. What amazed me also was the science-denial on the part of many of the self-described sceptics.

But I've also come to the conclusion that a significant proportion of the "woke" (for lack of a better term) are really people with a strong desire or need to be seen as righteous activists on the right side of history. A lot of their own identity appears to be tied up in being perceived that way. It's possible that they're not even aware of it themselves.

I first noticed with sort of thing with animal rights activists of the PETA-type. The insight I had was that many of them don't really seem to care about animals all that much or even at all. It was the righteous activism that motivated them, not the cause itself. It's a kind of narcissism.

Today, this seems apparent in the trans debate. The sheer science denial and
empty-headed rhetoric as well as the complete lack of empathy for natal women and girls indicates their activism is motivated by a desire to be seen as righteous and fighting the good fight.

Combine that with the fears of being cancelled or sacked by the silent majority, and it explains much of the stupidity of our times.

We'll see if it passes the same way as other waves of idiocy or if social media will keep it alive beyond it's natural arc of existence.

I'm just glad I'm retired and have no kids in school so I don't need to worry about it all.
 
Ron Obvious said:
But I've also come to the conclusion that a significant proportion of the "woke" (for lack of a better term) are really people with a strong desire or need to be seen as righteous activists on the right side of history. A lot of their own identity appears to be tied up in being perceived that way. It's possible that they're not even aware of it themselves.

I first noticed with sort of thing with animal rights activists of the PETA-type. The insight I had was that many of them don't really seem to care about animals all that much or even at all. It was the righteous activism that motivated them, not the cause itself. It's a kind of narcissism.

Today, this seems apparent in the trans debate. The sheer science denial and empty-headed rhetoric as well as the complete lack of empathy for natal women and girls indicates their activism is motivated by a desire to be seen as righteous and fighting the good fight.

Combine that with the fears of being cancelled or sacked by the silent majority, and it explains much of the stupidity of our times.

We'll see if it passes the same way as other waves of idiocy or if social media will keep it alive beyond its natural arc of existence.
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That's very perceptive and I will bear these insights in mind. As a vet, I totally know what you mean about the PETA-types.
 
Ron Obvious said:
That's close to my own journey as well. What amazed me also was the science-denial on the part of many of the self-described sceptics.

But I've also come to the conclusion that a significant proportion of the "woke" (for lack of a better term) are really people with a strong desire or need to be seen as righteous activists on the right side of history. A lot of their own identity appears to be tied up in being perceived that way. It's possible that they're not even aware of it themselves.

I first noticed with sort of thing with animal rights activists of the PETA-type. The insight I had was that many of them don't really seem to care about animals all that much or even at all. It was the righteous activism that motivated them, not the cause itself. It's a kind of narcissism.

Today, this seems apparent in the trans debate. The sheer science denial and
empty-headed rhetoric as well as the complete lack of empathy for natal women and girls indicates their activism is motivated by a desire to be seen as righteous and fighting the good fight.

Combine that with the fears of being cancelled or sacked by the silent majority, and it explains much of the stupidity of our times.

We'll see if it passes the same way as other waves of idiocy or if social media will keep it alive beyond it's natural arc of existence.

I'm just glad I'm retired and have no kids in school so I don't need to worry about it all.
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LMAO. Might want to look a little deeper into that one..... (Hint: holding reactionary and ignorant views isn't a particularly good look round here - or so I am led to believe :D)

I'm just glad your opinions have nothing whatsoever to do with the real-world and the medical & legislative policies that are supporting transgender people.
 
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