Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[Steersman]

What, are you saying one can analogize Jews to carnivores??

Don't think you quite get the concept of analogies. Comparing the "target" to the "source" is only based on some similarities, not that both are identically equal:

Analogy (from Greek analogia, "proportion", from ana- "upon, according to" [also "against", "anew"] + logos "ratio" [also "word, speech, reckoning"][1][2]) is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject (the analog, or source) to another (the target)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy

You are seriously confused, Rolfe. I tend to agree with the statement that "sex is immutable and binary" but I don't think it is as black and white as you would like it to believe. I see a distinct difference for example between chromosomal 'anomalies' (XXXY, XXY etc...) and whether someone has 10 fingers or 11...there is a whole thread devoted to the topic and you'd think it would have ended after one day if it were so cut and dry.

Not sure which thread you're referring to, but, for anyone keeping score ... , this is at least one of them:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=361531

But that doesn't even begin to address the related subjects of sexual ambiguity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and how social policy deals with the same.

Maybe some merit in that point of view. Why I've periodically argued that "sex" itself is something of a red herring, and that the issue boils down into the presence or absence of different traits, primarily genitalia and karyotype.

That's a false dichotomy, and it still fails to address policy arguments. I've been waiting (and waiting...and waiting) for proof that changes in law will result in higher incidences of assault or whatever by trans individuals....still no evidence.

It's manifestly evident that some transwomen in women's prisons have sexually assaulted some actual women ("adult human 'females' ..."). Clear evidence that "changes in law" HAVE resulted in "higher incidences of assault" than would otherwise have been the case.

....

The idea of 'pretending' to be women is a red herring. I think if you told any trans individual they were 'pretending' to be the 'other' sex they might punch you in the face. And I might cheer them on.

And telling some Muslims that Muhammed (piss be upon his name) was a psychotic child molester would probably produce the same effects - if not worse. Would you also "cheer them on"?

But more than a few transwomen have, in effect, acknowledged that they were pretending, and that they subsequently rejected that pretense:

Yet she has come to reject the idea that she is truly female or that she ever will be.

https://slate.com/human-interest/20...e-apostates-of-the-trans-rights-movement.html

For about 13 years, I also masqueraded “as a woman,” taking medical measures which suggest, shall we say, that I was completely committed to that lifestyle. Most men would have recoiled from this, but in my estrogen-drug-soaked stupor it seemed like a good idea. In 2013 I stopped taking estrogen for health reasons and very rapidly came back to my senses. I ceased all effort to convey the impression that I was a woman and carried on with life.

https://4thwavenow.com/2018/12/19/t...idality-affirmation-and-transgender-identity/

 

[Elaedith]

Did you bother to read the article? He was 13 when he made that statement. I don't know about you But I didn't parrot 'suggestions' when I was 13...
ETA: he was talking about an incident when he was younger (9?) but he was talking from the perspective of being 13.

The incident referred to is 'realising he was a boy' because of not liking a 'pink and girly' birthday cake at the age of three. At the age of three most children think that superficial things like this are what make you a boy or a girl.

Gender activist groups push the idea that gender identity is 'fixed' by the age of three and is innate and immutable, analogous to a sexual orientation. There is not a shred of evidence to support this, and every available piece of evidence refutes it. Every longitudinal study ever conducted on children with gender dysphoria or cross-sex identification shows that with a neutral approach (i.e. no affirmation of cross-sex identity or social transition), the majority of children no longer want to transition after puberty. A high percentage will identify as same sex attracted (especially boys). A recent study showed that when children are socially transitioned, almost all persist with a cross-sex identity, exactly in line with what leading researchers such have Zucker predicted. In addition, if puberty is blocked, almost all go on to cross-sex hormones.

If you support social transitioning of children before puberty you are directly contributing to the likelihood that they will end up sterile, with sexual dysfunction, and medicated for life, with unknown long-term health risks including serious effects on brain development.

And what this child is stating at 13 is activist talking points.

 

[stanfr]

Nope. You do not get to claim that self-reported "hate crimes" which could well be someone being addressed as "sir" by a waiter, or murders that were in all probability motivated by all the usual things that motivate murders constitute a rise in criminality specifically directed at trans people.

I'll repeat, if you look at the actual murder statistics in this country, trans people are the safest demographic there is, on a per capita basis. Men are most likely to be murdered, then women, then trans people. Statistically, the best thing a man can do to avoid being murdered is to become a transwoman.

Given the very small number of homicides reported in the group, those statistics are suspect. Especially since the number of trans individuals varies by as much as 250% depending on what source you use, and the fact that it would be difficult to assess what reported deaths are associated with what sexual identity. It's just a very poor scientific conclusion.
Eg:
StatsforUK
By the same erroneous logic one could say that the best thing a man could do to get beat up would be to become a transwoman.

 

[Vixen]

n = 1

I asked for a proportion of the whole.

Violent sexual assaults committed by females 
_________________________________________

      Total violent sexual assaults

Did you miss my comment about crimes being geared towards men under the assumption women do not do such things? (For example, homosexuality was illegal for men but it has never been illegal for women.)

If a man touches a woman's arm he can be done for sexual assault but if a woman does it, is she put on a sex register?

So the crime figures are distorted by this Victorian assumption of female innocence.

 

[Vixen]

But is "she" really a female? Even by the structure-absent-function definitions of Emma Hilton and her merry gang of scientism-ists?

https://twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1207663359589527554

Or is "she" just deluding "herself" and expecting everyone else to play along? And not just "expecting", but "demanding" in no uncertain terms. Rather thuggish at best ...



"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned":

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned

Or even ones disabused of the rather risible notion that everyone, every member of every anisogamic species, has to have a sex ...

The same question can be asked of everyman. You wear trousers, shirt and tie and have a short haircut. People call you 'Mister' Some people call you, 'Sir'. You buy men's clothes. You went to a boy's school.

Who is anybody to come along and say that you are not male?

 

[stanfr]

This is true: Predators are independent of gender identification.

They are, however, almost exclusively MALE. I (and most of the other posters on the critical side of this discussion) genuinely do not care about someone's identity. We care about their sex - and our own. Because sex is real. It's observable. And it has significant impacts on our lives. And someone saying magic words out loud that they're the other "gender" is pretty much just wishes - it does not change their sex one bit.

The gender identification of predators is irrelevant, the fact that about 99% of predators are male is highly relevant, as is the fact that about 95% of their victims are female.

That's an outright lie.

 

[stanfr]

How far does your spouse think that making males with gender identity issues feel "included" should extend?

Does that "make them feel welcomed" extend to prisons? Should male inmates who have declared a gender identity of "woman" be housed with female inmates - without the consent of those females? Even if they've had no surgery at all and are fully intact and functional?

The thing I'd like to point out to your spouse - and you by the way - is that this is NOT about TRANS. It's about MALES in FEMALE only spaces. Not a single one of us here is "anti trans". Every single one of us supports the right of any individual to dress, present, and express themselves free from the restraints of gendered expectations and social roles.

But... and it's a very big but... SEX is still a real thing, and it matters. Being respectful and supportive of transgender people should not require us to all pretend that sex doesn't exist, or to ignore the reality of our sexual dimorphism. A person's internal and subjective sense of their affinity to one of society's restrictive gender roles shouldn't override sex in policy, law, or basic consideration.

I completely understand and respect all that. My point (and here's) is that trans women have been in women's spaces for decades and I am not convinced that will dramatically change as a result of new laws that are more self-id affirmative...or that the incidence of crime will rise as a result. I get that you and others disagree, I simply am not convinced this is a threat.

 

[stanfr]

Sure, sure, which is totally why as we've become more inclusive and more caring and more compassionate over the eons... the rate of rapes and the prevalence of male violence have dropped to near nothing...

This is a pacifist argument you're putting forth. And it only works if EVERYONE ELSE is also a pacifist. If every single person on the planet values empathy and would absolutely never ever harm another person, sure, it would work fine. But reality has psychopaths, sociopaths, people with anger management issues, and people who are just straight up opportunistically selfish and greedy and don't care about what might hurt another person.

Murders and thieves and rapists do actually exist. It's irrational to insist that "good people" must leave their doors unlocked with a hatchet just inside in order to "prove" how good they are.

yep, and some Mexicans are not rapists...I think I've heard all this before.

 

[stanfr]

What constitutes indecent exposure? Does that apply in a situation like WiSpa, where the customers tacitly consent to see the nudity of other people, with the expectation that those other people will be of the same sex?

The law in CA also says that a person's gender identity has to be viewed as being synonymous with sex - that if a male person claims a "women" gender identity, they must be treated as if they are female.

So... where does that leave us? It leaves us in a situation where a Korean spa - where customers are naked, and separated by sex - MUST allow a male who identifies as a "woman" to use the FEMALE side of the spa.

Is that indecent exposure? The females present certainly thought it was. But from a legal standpoint?

That's the problem with self-declared gender identity being allowed by policy and law to be viewed as synonymous with sex. It creates a situation in which a bad actor can LEGALLY act badly, it creates a gigantic gaping loophole that is visible from space, and which allows voyeurs and exhibitionists to behave in ways that would generally be considered unacceptable... and to do so under the auspices of legality simply make saying magic words.

Fair point...and given that the person in this case was criminally charged, seems like the law is going in the right direction.

 

[stanfr]

Why does a male being at risk of male violence in a male prison justify increasing the risk to females by placing males with them against their will?

Do you seriously think prisons are putting males with women "against their will"--inviting violence between the two?? Have you ever visited a prison? I used to be in them all the time for my first career--they go out of their way just to avoid that very situation.

 

[stanfr]

"Well, those chicks are already getting raped, what's a little more rape added to it? No big deal. I mean, it keeps a dude from getting hurt, who cares if some silly little chicks get hurt, they don't count"

I cannot adequately express how incredibly incensed your comment makes me. The complete lack of care for the safety and dignity of females makes me irate.

You solution would be to eliminate prisons or eliminate guards. My solution is to eliminate the bad actors. You make no distinction--all trans individuals are predators in your view.

 

[stanfr]

And I've FINALLY caught up in this thread! Took a 3 week vacation, and found myself needing another whole week to make to the end!

I sympathize, the 3 hours so far it has taken fro me to get caught up after a forced 3 day break is getting in the way of what I should be doing (my job to out food on the table)

 

[Steersman]

The same question can be asked of everyman. You wear trousers, shirt and tie and have a short haircut. People call you 'Mister' Some people call you, 'Sir'. You buy men's clothes. You went to a boy's school.

Who is anybody to come along and say that you are not male?

Don't think you quite get the concept of naming things, that there are no intrinsic meanings to any of the words we use or define. Moses didn't bring the first dictionary down from Mt. Sinai on tablets A through Z - we, as sort of a matter of social construction ..., stipulate that certain words mean certain things; it's a matter of convention. Like which side of the road is the "right" one to drive on.

And the fact of the matter is that, by convention, "male" and "female" denote those in possession of certain reproductive abilities - past, present, or future if one engages in scientism, present only if not. And the fact of the matter is also that transwomen most emphatically do not possess any of the reproductive abilities - past, present, or future - that are denoted by "female", ergo not females. Q.E.D.

Fairly decent if somewhat flawed essay by philosopher Michael Robillard that elaborates on that principle and the serious consequences of losing sight of it:

Truth matters. Words matter. What is objectively the case matters. And insofar as our words and concepts can be about the objective world at all, then the shared set of words and meanings that we collectively use and are permitted to use to describe, navigate, and refer to that objective world matters.

https://archive.ph/4e2n0

 

[stanfr]

Well there was the case of Anneli Auer, whose husband was bludgeoned by a mysterious intruder in black. She got off the murder rap as nobody could quite believe a woman could commit such a violent murder. She might well be innocent but the fact remains, police, courts and juries are reluctant to believe women are capable of cold blooded sadistic acts of violence. Biologically, testosterone does make the male of the species more naturally aggressive but it doesn't follow that transgender women are more prone to committing sexual assault.

Not to mention domestic violence! I defended domestic violence perps for 5 years a public defender in NY. The idea that the vast majority of domestic violence is male initiated is skewed. It is a majority, but most are not aware of the behind the scenes...I can't tell you how many times I saw men drop charges or refuse to testify because it reflected poorly on them (in their eyes) that they let their female partner beat the crap out of them.

 

[stanfr]

Don't think you quite get the concept of analogies. Comparing the "target" to the "source" is only based on some similarities, not that both are identically equal:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy



Not sure which thread you're referring to, but, for anyone keeping score ... , this is at least one of them:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=361531



Maybe some merit in that point of view. Why I've periodically argued that "sex" itself is something of a red herring, and that the issue boils down into the presence or absence of different traits, primarily genitalia and karyotype.



It's manifestly evident that some transwomen in women's prisons have sexually assaulted some actual women ("adult human 'females' ..."). Clear evidence that "changes in law" HAVE resulted in "higher incidences of assault" than would otherwise have been the case.


And telling some Muslims that Muhammed (piss be upon his name) was a psychotic child molester would probably produce the same effects - if not worse. Would you also "cheer them on"?
But more than a few transwomen have, in effect, acknowledged that they were pretending, and that they subsequently rejected that pretense:



https://slate.com/human-interest/20...e-apostates-of-the-trans-rights-movement.html



https://4thwavenow.com/2018/12/19/t...idality-affirmation-and-transgender-identity/

It's a poor analogy.
And the 'I found one example that proves a premise' argument is tired and disingenuous. Especially when it is used to deny rights to an historically discriminated against group.

The highlighted, on the other hand, is an excellent question. I tend to see Muhammed was either psychotic or a molestor or both, but I am not such an expert that I would confidently say that to any Muslim, and perhaps even if I were 100% certain of my characterization I probably would avoid using that language with any Muslim, out of basic politeness and decency. Which is why I might cheer on the Muslim for face-punching. I'm kind of a Vulcan in that respect, keep emotions out of it, stick to the facts!

 

[lionking]

Fair point...and given that the person in this case was criminally charged, seems like the law is going in the right direction.

And the “right way” is for women in women’s spas or change rooms to put up with seeing penises in their formerly safe spaces?

And before you say “they can complain about this”, Lia Thomas’ female teammates tried this and were threatened with exclusion from the team. Women’s complaints have been and will be ignored.

 

[crazycat]

This is primarily for stanfr and Vixen. This has been discussed time and time again here. (I rarely post, but I've been reading this for years)

Current laws in many places allow someone self-ID as trans. No doctor, no hormones, no dressing as the other gender, or even attempting to act as the other gender.

While that might make transition easier for the genuinely transgendered people, self ID allows bad actors to game the system for their own, sometimes perverted, ends.

It is those bad actors, and the legislation that allows them to misbehave, that are the problem.

Genuine transwomen may or may not be a threat in female safe spaces, but people who only call themselves transwomen ARE a threat. And there is often no way for the women in those formerly safe spaces to tell the genuine from the imposters. The imposters are there for a reason and the reason isn't good for the poor ciswomen involved.

I think the results of self-ID is what Rolfe and Emily's Cat are complaining about. They have said so upthread. They, and the men who are concerned for women's safety and dignity, are not anti-trans.

 

[lionking]

This is primarily for stanfr and Vixen. This has been discussed time and time again here. (I rarely post, but I've been reading this for years)

Current laws in many places allow someone self-ID as trans. No doctor, no hormones, no dressing as the other gender, or even attempting to act as the other gender.

While that might make transition easier for the genuinely transgendered people, self ID allows bad actors to game the system for their own, sometimes perverted, ends.

It is those bad actors, and the legislation that allows them to misbehave, that are the problem.

Genuine transwomen may or may not be a threat in female safe spaces, but people who only call themselves transwomen ARE a threat. And there is often no way for the women in those formerly safe spaces to tell the genuine from the imposters. The imposters are there for a reason and the reason isn't good for the poor ciswomen involved.

I think the results of self-ID is what Rolfe and Emily's Cat are complaining about. They have said so upthread. They, and the men who are concerned for women's safety and dignity, are not anti-trans.

Extremely well said. Post more crazycat.

 

[LondonJohn]

Nope. Gay rights did not revolve around making up pseudoscientific theories of sex and gender and enforcing them on everyone by framing opposition to them as bigotry.

The sexual orientation equivalent would be:

• stating that the definitions of 'man' and 'woman' don't refer to biological sex but are 'somebody attracted to women/men' respectively, so that gay men are not men and lesbians are not women since their orientation doesn't align with that assigned to them at birth on the basis of their sex
• replacing sex segregated spaces with sexual orientation segregated spaces to validate everyone's sexual orientation (everyone attracted to men go to one space and everyone attracted to women go to the other, and bisexual people choose based on which way they lean from day to day)
• promoting the idea that changing one's sexual characteristics to 'match' one's sexual orientation is 'sexual orientation affirming therapy'
• claiming that one's sexual orientation is part of one's sex, so that a gay man is less male than a straight man and a lesbian less female than a straight woman, and making up pseudoscientific theories of sex being a spectrum to 'explain' homosexuality as some kind of intersex condition
• defining therapy intended to help confused gay adolescents to accept and be happy with their biological sex as 'conversion therapy' for sexual orientation
• encouraging children perceived as gay onto an early medical pathway to change their sexual characteristics to 'match' their orientation

Fortunately, none of this happened.

Carry on though, it's entertaining.

I wonder how far you’d get if you emailed the APA, and/or literally every relevant mainstream clinical & medical field in progressive societies… and informed them, earnestly and with the full force of your conviction, that their views/approaches/policies/therapies related to people with transgender identity were nothing more or less than “made-up pseudoscientific theories”?

Now THAT would be entertaining, I grant you. Tell me: do you ever, ever pause to think that maybe it’s your views around transgender identity that are way outside mainstream medicine? Because whether you like to hear that or not - or whether you’re even capable of hearing it or not - that’s the truth.

‘Made-up pseudoscience” LMAO. Toxic indeed…..

 

[lionking]

I wonder how far you’d get if you emailed the APA, and/or literally every relevant mainstream clinical & medical field in progressive societies… and informed them, earnestly and with the full force of your conviction, that their views/approaches/policies/therapies related to people with transgender identity were nothing more or less than “made-up pseudoscientific theories”?

Now THAT would be entertaining, I grant you. Tell me: do you ever, ever pause to think that maybe it’s your views around transgender identity that are way outside mainstream medicine? Because whether you like to hear that or not - or whether you’re even capable of hearing it or not - that’s the truth.

‘Made-up pseudoscience” LMAO. Toxic indeed…..

Tavistock? A very reputable organisation not far back. Be honest. Was it one of your mainstream medical organisations? It certainly was for many