Cont: Transwomen are not women - part XI

[Samson]

By chance I have learned NZ is the most dangerous place outside America for children.
Second hand and true accounts.
Medication is rife.

 

[Samson]

Chest binders delivered to a Christchurch school by Rainbow Youth.
Student removed by mother to a private school because it could be afforded.

I am not making this stuff up because the narrator is right here before me.

 

[Ziggurat]

So my question to you is:
Do you believe that anyone who claims to be transgender has gender dysphoria? Diagnosed or not. And should be treated by society accordingly?

LJ has explicitly stated on multiple occassions that not all transgender people have gender dysphoria. Not that they haven't been diagnosed with it, but that they do not have it.

But before you dive into what that means, you should also know that LJ is working with a very non-standard definition of what gender dysphoria even is. In LJ's view, not having dysphoria doesn't say anything about trans identity not being real. The term he's invented for his own use is "valid lived identity".

I don't think you're going to make productive headway on this line of inquiry, just because he's not going to use words to mean the same thing you probably mean by them.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You do realise (or do you, or do you choose to ignore?) that your nonsense about "taking away the entire... concept of female" applies exactly equally to the concept of male (if one is to accept for a moment your nonsensical assertion)?

Sure, sure. Because males have had such a tough time being treated as equals in western society. It's been such an uphill climb for males to gain:

• The right to vote
• The right to own property
• The right to higher education
• The right to work outside the home
• The right to control their own finances independently
• The right to participate in politics
• The right to bodily autonomy
• The right to have beatings administered by their spouse recognized as assaults
• The right to have rapes committed by their spouse actually acknowledged as rape

And of course, males still continue to face:

• Highly disproportionate levels of sexual assaults which have less than a 1% conviction rate
• Lower pay for equal work
• Discrimination in career progression
• Material underrepresentation in politics
• High levels of human trafficking as sex slaves

Yep. It's totally clear that making the word "men" meaningless in law has such a big impact on males. Yep indeed.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Deconstructing gender would certainly change the nature of the debate. In fact, this was a project of feminism and post-feminism, before the AGPs and their fellow-travelers co-opted the LGBQ rights movement for their own perverse ends. So now we get womanface and the aggressive re-entrenching of gender stereotypes.

The term "gender" as separate from "sex" performed a useful role in debate for a very short period of time.

Then Judith Butler got hold of it, and it's all been downhill from there.

 

[d4m10n]

It's been such an uphill climb for males to gain:

• The right to vote
• The right to own property
• The right to higher education
• The right to work outside the home
• The right to control their own finances independently
• The right to participate in politics
• The right to bodily autonomy
• The right to have beatings administered by their spouse recognized as assaults
• The right to have rapes committed by their spouse actually acknowledged as rape

The solution in all of these cases (at least in the U.S.) has been to stop treating males and females differently in the eyes of the law. The only probable exception is the right to end a pregnancy, which I assume is subsumed under bodily autonomy.

 

[Graham2001]

According to an article in the latest issue of 'Scientific American', biological sex is not real...


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/

 

[lionking]

According to an article in the latest issue of 'Scientific American', biological sex is not real...


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/

Yet another opinion piece hopelessly confused between sex and gender.

And we know that some worms and fish are not binary.

A very sloppy piece of work.

 

[d4m10n]

According to an article in the latest issue of 'Scientific American', biological sex is not real...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/

"Gametes and gamete production physiology, by themselves, are only a part of the entirety of human lives."

Who was arguing that we need to reorient our lives around who produces which gametes? Fundamentalist Jews, Christians, & Muslims would likely be willing to make the argument for immutable sex roles handed down by Jehovah but most everyone else has moved on from this by now.

There is a case to be made that only one set of gamete producers requires access to safe and legal abortion, and another set of gamete producers requires access to vasectomies and the like, but family planning (while incredibly important) is also just a part of the entirety of human life.

I've read the article twice now, and it's unclear to me what policies the author is railing against. Evidently he is concerned with people "trying to restrict who counts as a full human in society," but he doesn't come out and say what that means. Was Lia Thomas less than a full human when competing exclusively against other athletes who enjoyed the advantages of male puberty? Was Ellen Page less than fully human back when she was winning Best Actress awards? Does anyone think of either of them as less than fully human now that they identify with the opposite of their birth sex?

Yet another opinion piece hopelessly confused between sex and gender.

I think it is even weirder than you describe. The author gets sex exactly right (Scientifically speaking, animals with the capacity to produce ova are generally called 'female' and sperm producers 'male.') but then goes on to mostly discuss other things such as "childcare capacity, homemaking tendencies, sexual attractions, interest in literature, engineering and math capabilities or tendencies towards gossip, violence, compassion," etc. Some of these behavioral aspects of human life are strongly correlated with birth sex (e.g. most males are sexually attracted primarily to females) but most are not.

 

[theprestige]

I kinda consider the option for males to represent themselves as females as a sort of reverse "gom jabbar" test of true humanity. All Lia Thomas has to do to prove he is fully human is to yank his hand out of the box. I.e., not compete as a woman.

And it seems that there are a depressing number of men who are representing themselves similarly as women in ways that are, if not inhuman, at least inhumane.

 

[Samson]

Another aggressively speaking man beats women.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/65456752

 

[lionking]

In a refreshing development, Australian PM Albanese answered the question so many UK politicians have had difficulty with “what is a woman?” with “adult female”.

https://www.news.com.au/national/po...s/news-story/1d65b9e8459f1a10be85add907301b28

Needless to say, he was on the receiving end from trans activists and even journos.

Trans activist and blogger Eleanor Evans said Mr Albanese used the question as an opportunity to “drop anti-trans dogwhistles while umming and ahhing about ‘respect’”.

“All through this he couldn’t even bring himself to say the word ‘trans’,” she tweeted.

Political reporter Amy Remeikis accused the PM of “legitimising” a “hateful question”.

I have not been a fan of Albanese, but good show for stating facts.

 

[d4m10n]

Interesting legal case coming up out of Oklahoma:
https://twitter.com/ACLUOK/status/1653553864564457473

I'd be willing to bet they will ultimately lose on their constitutional claims (Health Care Ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it discriminates against the Minor Plaintiffs on the basis of sex and transgender status by prohibiting any “health care provider” from “knowingly provid[ing] gender transition procedures to any child.”) because SCOTUS as currently constituted doesn't seem likely to expand on the rights settled in Bostock v. Clayton County^WP. Somewhat less sure of their other major contention, rooted in statutory antidiscrimination law at Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (42 U.S.C. § 18116) which calls back to the relevant language of title IX (20 U.S.C. § 1681).

Regardless of their prospects in the federal courts, it is interesting to note that even in deep red states we find people striving to provide treatment for
gender dysphoria, including access to the endocrine pathway. We happen to know people on both sides of the "v." (plaintiffs and defendants) because this town is actually relatively small if you are only looking at people with medical training.

The factual allegations starting on page 16 are a pretty handy summary of the state of the art in youth gender medicine: https://wp.api.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/002-Complaint.pdf#page=16

 

[crazycat]

LJ has explicitly stated on multiple occassions that not all transgender people have gender dysphoria. Not that they haven't been diagnosed with it, but that they do not have it.

But before you dive into what that means, you should also know that LJ is working with a very non-standard definition of what gender dysphoria even is. In LJ's view, not having dysphoria doesn't say anything about trans identity not being real. The term he's invented for his own use is "valid lived identity".

I don't think you're going to make productive headway on this line of inquiry, just because he's not going to use words to mean the same thing you probably mean by them.

You're probably right. I remember LJ saying that one need not be diagnosed as having gender dysphoria and claiming "valid lived identity", but I don't remember him saying that not all transgender people have gender dysphoria. He can clear that up if he cares to.

However his list of medical organizations agree on gender dysphoria being a real thing, not any other nebulous concept. He used those organizations to claim they supported transgender people.

If he thinks that not all transgender people have dysphoria, his list is meaningless.

A refinement of my original questions are: do you (LJ) think that the bad actors mentioned in my original post are really transwomen? (They certainly aren't dysphoric about their bodies) Can men use self-id to cheat their way into women's safe spaces and sports?

(My answers to my own questions are, not surprisingly: no, the bad actors are not really transwomen; and yes, some men use self id for their own perverted ends.)

 

[Ziggurat]

The factual allegations starting on page 16 are a pretty handy summary of the state of the art in youth gender medicine: https://wp.api.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/002-Complaint.pdf#page=16

Here's their first alleged fact:

Doctors in Oklahoma use evidence-based, well-researched, and widely accepted clinical practice and medical guidelines to assess, diagnose, and treat adolescents with gender dysphoria. Decades of clinical experience and a large body of research have demonstrated that these treatments are safe and effective at treating gender dysphoria in adolescents, and consequently inform how this care is provided.

So let's break this down. Is their treatment evidence based? No, not really. Is it well researched? Definitely not. Is it widely accepted clinical practice? Yeah, OK, I'll give them that one, but absent the first two, it's not really a point in their favor. Decades of clinical experience? In some cases, yes (though given the changing cohort, I question how well that experience serves them). A large body of research demonstrating safety and effectiveness? Nope.

OK, on to their second alleged fact:

Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of belonging to a particular gender. Everyone has a gender identity, and a person’s gender identity is durable and cannot be altered voluntarily or changed through medical intervention.

Defining gender identity in terms of gender doesn't do much good if you don't define gender, and I don't see that they have. They seem to want to pass this off as being equivalent to sex, but obviously it isn't, and the difference matters.

As far as the durability of gender identity, that's not clear at all. We know from detransitioners that gender identity may not be as durable as they claim. But again, this is where precise definitions matter. Either detransitioners are people whose gender identity changed, or they are people who were mistaken about what their gender identity is. The difference between those scenarios may well come down to exactly how you define gender identity. If it can change, that throws their entire argument into chaos. But if it cannot change, then we have to grapple with how people, both patients and providers, can be wrong about what their gender identity actually is. That too is a major problem for their position.

As for the inability to alter gender identity voluntarily, well, that too is a problem of definition. If you go with self-ID, then actually yes, you obviously can change your gender identity voluntarily, and gender identity is also obviously not durable. It doesn't look like they're directly endorsing self-ID, but it's something to keep in mind about their position.

A person’s gender identity usually matches the sex they were designated at birth based on their external genitalia.

I was expecting them to use the term "assigned" rather than "designated", since that's usually how the mantra goes. Not quite sure why the change. But that's still a bad way to describe what happens. Sex is observed at birth, and almost always accurately. Being an exception to that, ie, having a disorder of sexual development, doesn't make one trans, so while they only make passing reference to such conditions in the footnote, it's worth keeping in mind that the legislation in question has nothing to do with treating disorders of sexual development.

Most boys are designated male at birth based on their external genital anatomy, and most girls are designated female at birth based on their external genital anatomy. But transgender people have a gender identity that differs from the sex assigned to them at birth. A transgender boy is someone who was assigned a female sex at birth but has a male gender identity. A transgender girl is someone who was assigned a male sex at birth but has a female gender identity. A transgender boy cannot simply turn off his gender identity like a switch, just as a nontransgender (also known as “cisgender”) boy cannot turn off his gender identity. A person’s sexual orientation is a close analog. A person’s sexual orientation is an innate, immutable characteristic that, like a person’s gender identity, cannot be altered.

Noting again that we haven't really defined gender identity, this definition of transgender girl and transgender boy is otherwise fine. The statement that people cannot "turn of [their] gender identity like a switch" seems to be correct (assuming you don't buy into self-ID), but that does NOT mean that it's immutable. Again, the problem of detransitioners comes up. Either it is mutable, or people can be mistaken about what it is. In practical terms, there's no difference unless you can develop some sort of test to determine what it truly is independent of what people think it is. And that's not happening any time soon, if ever.

. The health and wellbeing of all people, including those who are transgender, depends on their ability to live in a manner consistent with their gender identity. For transgender people, the incongruence between their gender identity and sex assigned at birth can cause clinically significant distress and discomfort.

Not sure what "[living] in a manner consistent with their gender identity" really means in practical terms. The second part is basically a description of gender dysphoria, which they get to in the next statement. But "sex assigned at birth" is back. Always a sure sign that dogma will follow.

I'm not going to keep going point by point. What follows is largely a summary of the WPATH guidelines. There are two major problems I see with this. First, the WPATH guidelines have less clinical evidence for them than is claimed, particularly regarding long term (10+ years) effects. Second, while patients are always supposed to be informed of the risks, we know that this is frequently not happening, and that the problem is deep and systematic.

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the complaint.

 

[Emily's Cat]

According to an article in the latest issue of 'Scientific American', biological sex is not real...


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-why-human-sex-is-not-binary/

What fun. Another psuedo-scientific opinion piece by a person whose field of study does not include the evolution and fundamentals of sexual reproduction .

Agustín Fuentes is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. He is the author of Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being and Race, Monogamy and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature.

Oh, this is going to be FUN!

Off the top, Fuentes starts out by lumping all animals together. They set the stage for two arguments: 1) Some non-mammals are hermaphroditic or reproduce by cloning themselves therefore sex in humans isn't binary, and 2) sexually dimorphic traits in humans vary between individuals so sex in humans isn't binary.

Scientifically speaking, animals with the capacity to produce ova are generally called “female” and sperm producers “male.” While most animal species fall into the “two types of gametes produced by two versions of the reproductive tract” model, many don’t. Some worms produce both. Some fish start producing one kind and then switch to the other, and some switch back and forth throughout their lives. There are even lizards that have done away with one type all together. Among our fellow mammals, which are less freewheeling because of the twin constraints of lactation and live birth, there are varied connections between gametes and body fat, body size, muscles, metabolism, brain function and much more.

This person, however, does add in a bit of addition irrelevancy: In almost all species the bodies of females and males have more in common with each other than they have differences (no kidding, that would be part of why we're the same species) and that in some species child-care isn't exclusively limited to the female parent.

Fuentes makes reference to a "group of biologists" that agree with their premise that sex is not binary. The reference is to an article that has not been peer reviewed. Additionally, this begins by defining sex in terms that are specific to anisogamous species... then goes on to say that this anisogamous definition doesn't work because it doesn't apply to isogamous species, nor to species that don't sexually reproduce. I got some giggles out of that paper, because their "arguments" for redefining sex to be "mutivariate" comprising many things that are NOT sex falls into case studies of 1) birds where the male parent has egg duty a lot, 2) color patterns in lizards that aren't sex-specific but are sex-correlated, and 3) a strange "taxonomy" approach that references a couple species of birds that have genetic variations among each sex and where mating across those variances is required for the species to continue (which doesn't negate the anisogamous definition of sex at all) and... ants having multiple roles within a colony, including ones specific to non-reproductive males and females.

But I digress. Suffice it to say that the quality of Fuentes' Opinion Piece being dependent upon shoddy non-peer-reviewed work is merely one of the nails in this coffin.

Fuentes' opinion of what constitutes sex in humans includes this:

Producing ova or sperm does not tell us everything (or even most things) biologically or socially, about an individual’s childcare capacity, homemaking tendencies, sexual attractions, interest in literature, engineering and math capabilities or tendencies towards gossip, violence, compassion, sense of identity, or love of, and competence for, sports.

So apparently I'm less female because I am very skilled with math and despise gossip. Yay for stereotype reinforcement!

At the end of the day Fuentes' opinion is:

For humans, sex is dynamic, biological, cultural and enmeshed in feedback cycles with our environments, ecologies and multiple physiological and social processes.

Apparently... if the culture is just right, males will start delivering babies out of their penises.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Interesting legal case coming up out of Oklahoma:
https://twitter.com/ACLUOK/status/1653553864564457473

I'd be willing to bet they will ultimately lose on their constitutional claims (Health Care Ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it discriminates against the Minor Plaintiffs on the basis of sex and transgender status by prohibiting any “health care provider” from “knowingly provid[ing] gender transition procedures to any child.”) because SCOTUS as currently constituted doesn't seem likely to expand on the rights settled in Bostock v. Clayton County^WP. Somewhat less sure of their other major contention, rooted in statutory antidiscrimination law at Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (42 U.S.C. § 18116) which calls back to the relevant language of title IX (20 U.S.C. § 1681).

Regardless of their prospects in the federal courts, it is interesting to note that even in deep red states we find people striving to provide treatment for
gender dysphoria, including access to the endocrine pathway. We happen to know people on both sides of the "v." (plaintiffs and defendants) because this town is actually relatively small if you are only looking at people with medical training.

The factual allegations starting on page 16 are a pretty handy summary of the state of the art in youth gender medicine: https://wp.api.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/002-Complaint.pdf#page=16

I need a lawyer to normal person translation of this.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Here's their first alleged fact:



So let's break this down. Is their treatment evidence based? No, not really. Is it well researched? Definitely not. Is it widely accepted clinical practice? Yeah, OK, I'll give them that one, but absent the first two, it's not really a point in their favor. Decades of clinical experience? In some cases, yes (though given the changing cohort, I question how well that experience serves them). A large body of research demonstrating safety and effectiveness? Nope.

OK, on to their second alleged fact:



Defining gender identity in terms of gender doesn't do much good if you don't define gender, and I don't see that they have. They seem to want to pass this off as being equivalent to sex, but obviously it isn't, and the difference matters.

As far as the durability of gender identity, that's not clear at all. We know from detransitioners that gender identity may not be as durable as they claim. But again, this is where precise definitions matter. Either detransitioners are people whose gender identity changed, or they are people who were mistaken about what their gender identity is. The difference between those scenarios may well come down to exactly how you define gender identity. If it can change, that throws their entire argument into chaos. But if it cannot change, then we have to grapple with how people, both patients and providers, can be wrong about what their gender identity actually is. That too is a major problem for their position.

As for the inability to alter gender identity voluntarily, well, that too is a problem of definition. If you go with self-ID, then actually yes, you obviously can change your gender identity voluntarily, and gender identity is also obviously not durable. It doesn't look like they're directly endorsing self-ID, but it's something to keep in mind about their position.



I was expecting them to use the term "assigned" rather than "designated", since that's usually how the mantra goes. Not quite sure why the change. But that's still a bad way to describe what happens. Sex is observed at birth, and almost always accurately. Being an exception to that, ie, having a disorder of sexual development, doesn't make one trans, so while they only make passing reference to such conditions in the footnote, it's worth keeping in mind that the legislation in question has nothing to do with treating disorders of sexual development.



Noting again that we haven't really defined gender identity, this definition of transgender girl and transgender boy is otherwise fine. The statement that people cannot "turn of [their] gender identity like a switch" seems to be correct (assuming you don't buy into self-ID), but that does NOT mean that it's immutable. Again, the problem of detransitioners comes up. Either it is mutable, or people can be mistaken about what it is. In practical terms, there's no difference unless you can develop some sort of test to determine what it truly is independent of what people think it is. And that's not happening any time soon, if ever.



Not sure what "[living] in a manner consistent with their gender identity" really means in practical terms. The second part is basically a description of gender dysphoria, which they get to in the next statement. But "sex assigned at birth" is back. Always a sure sign that dogma will follow.

I'm not going to keep going point by point. What follows is largely a summary of the WPATH guidelines. There are two major problems I see with this. First, the WPATH guidelines have less clinical evidence for them than is claimed, particularly regarding long term (10+ years) effects. Second, while patients are always supposed to be informed of the risks, we know that this is frequently not happening, and that the problem is deep and systematic.

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the complaint.

Good run down of the situation!

I will add that I challenge their claim that everyone has a gender identity. I think it's complete baloney. I don't have a gender identity.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Good run down of the situation!

I will add that I challenge their claim that everyone has a gender identity. I think it's complete baloney. I don't have a gender identity.

I agree it was a good rundown by Zig, and also agree that I don't feel like I have a gender identity. I know I'm an adult human male (a man), but that's about as far as it goes.

Can you clarify what you said here:

The term "gender" as separate from "sex" performed a useful role in debate for a very short period of time.

What was that useful role.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Deconstructing gender would certainly change the nature of the debate.

I struggle to think of a good use for the concept of gender that can't just be discussed just as well or even better by using the word "sex". I believe it was one of your posts several transwomen are not women threads ago that got me thinking along these lines.