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Cont: Transwomen are not women part XII (also merged)

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mumblethrax said:
I don't know east Asian culture well enough to comment on that. From my point of view, it's just their version of astrology.
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Not really selling me on your point here dude. I've already jokingly dismissed transgenderism as basically a horoscope and you're kind of making my argument for me.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Not really selling me on your point here dude. I've already jokingly dismissed transgenderism as basically a horoscope and you're kind of making my argument for me.
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You were imagining there were no cultural attachments to blood type. I pointed out that, as it happens, there are.

I'm not saying the cultural attachments are good. That has to be independently evaluated.

And there are always cultural attachments to sex. Always. There has never been a genderless society in the history of the world.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Is "immutable" just "it's a spectrum, no I will not elaborate" 2.0?
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I honestly don't know. I thought it was pretty well established that humans aren't clownfish, nor are we snails. But, welp, there you go.

The strangest part of all this is that mumblethrax acknowledges that there are only two gamete types, and only two evolutionary pathways that support those gametes - not just among humans, but among all mammals and birds as well as the overwhelming majority of vertebrates... but we still keep ending up with snails and clownfish wedged into the discussion.

I truly don't know what mumblethrax's position is on this topic, or what various points they're attempting to make. I'm very confused.
 
mumblethrax said:
I answered this.
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No you didn't, you gave me the 2nd variable again.

I'm also not accepting "Okay but there might be other physical difference we haven't discovered yet." I'm not doing "Sex/Gender of the Gaps."

I WILL make you tell me what gender the invisible dragon in my garage is. Don't make me do it.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Let's step half a step back and think about this, particularly the net impact.

First off, let's make the sweeping assumption (for argument's sake) that both transmen and transwomen are asking primarily for inclusion. Abd let's assume that they're asking in equal numbers.

What would be the outcome of that ask?

Remember that even if the argument is from the perspective of inclusion, sports are still competitive. Not everyone makes the cut. Among females in female sports, not every female on the planet is going to be good enough to qualify. Similarly, of all the males who might wish to compete against other males, not all of them will qualify.

So there's an athletic barrier to entry in both cases. Not all people who want to participate will be able to participate, because a minimum level of athletic competitiveness is required.

So let's extend that into your scenario. Let's say that transmen are asking to play on the male teams in the name of inclusion - they want to be included. Well, in most cases they're already not excluded. While we think of them as male and female leagues, in most cases they're actually Open and Female leagues. If a female is good enough to pass the bar and compete against males, in most cases, they will be allowed to do so.

The real question comes back to one of athletic ability. No matter how much a transman wants to compete on a male team in the name of inclusion, virtually none of them will be athletically capable of doing so. Because at the end of the day, they're still female. And females aren't competitive against males.

Going the other direction however, the transwomen get an easy in when they play the inclusion card. Because fundamentally, regardless of how they identify, they remain male. And males are more athletically capable than females.

So even if the main impetus is inclusion, we're still going to see males gaining access to female sports, but we will not see females gaining access to male sports.
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I don't see that. Are they even trying? Is the question to ask. You've got levels and levels of participation in every sport, after all.

So if there's a transman with a liking for sports, a talent, a skill, then where are they seeking to compete? Are they almost always going back to the women's category as they might have in their pre-transition days; or are they now, post their transition, competing against cismen? If the latter, then the inclusion argument is at least honest.

---

As I see it, there have been three arguments put forward for/against this thing, the sports thing. One, inclusion. Two, fairness. Three, what sells, what people will pay to watch. This addresses only the inclusion argument, not the other two. And even then, this does not necessarily address the merit of the argument --- that is a separate matter, a more multi-dimensional matter, when you think about it --- but this does make for an easy way to determine if the inclusion argument is being put forward sincerely and honestly or not, or if it was never meant as anything other than a smokescreen for basically grabbing prize money by playing on easy mode.
 
mumblethrax said:
You were imagining there were no cultural attachments to blood type. I pointed out that, as it happens, there are.

I'm not saying the cultural attachments are good.
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I feel like you're not getting that you can't make an argument for transgenderism and another different one for our hypothetical trans-bloodism.

You might not be saying the cultural attachments are good, but you're saying we have to kowtow to them so...
 
Emily's Cat said:
To be fair, your posts are kind of difficult to parse. It's really hard to tell where you stand on the issue.
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Oh, really? Agreed, my position is somewhat ...heh, nuanced! But still, I thought I'd spelled out what I was saying clearly enough. Still, since you say it, I take that feedback on board, absolutely. If there's anything I've said to you, for instance, that isn't clear, then I'm happy to try to explain more clearly.

But I don't see how any but a completely cross-eyed reading can get someone to speak out that comedic bilge about the prison thing, not once but twice within that single post, given that immediately prior I'd spelt out to him, in so many words, categorically, that I wasn't referring to prisons at all, but only to sports. I don't see how a child of ten could possibly misunderstand that part, at any rate.
 
JoeMorgue said:
No you didn't, you gave me the 2nd variable again.
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What? "Neuroanatomical differences that aren't well understood yet and that you definitely can argue for or against" was a direct answer to your "third variable".

I'm also not accepting "Okay but there might be other physical difference we haven't discovered yet." I'm not doing "Sex/Gender of the Gaps."
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"We already have evidence, it's not yet conclusive" is miles away from the god of the gaps. If you want to understand it, you'll have to attend to the gap between your ears.

Your basic attitude here is "I refuse to learn anything about it, therefore it doesn't exist!"
 
JoeMorgue said:
I feel like you're not getting that you can't make an argument for transgenderism and another different one for our hypothetical trans-bloodism.

You might not be saying the cultural attachments are good, but you're saying we have to kowtow to them so...
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No, I'm not saying that at all. What do you think "independently evaluated" means?
 
Chanakya said:
I don't see that. Are they even trying? Is the question to ask. You've got levels and levels of participation in every sport, after all.

So if there's a transman with a liking for sports, a talent, a skill, then where are they seeking to compete? Are they almost always going back to the women's category as they might have in their pre-transition days; or are they now, post their transition, competing against cismen? If the latter, then the inclusion argument is at least honest.

---

As I see it, there have been three arguments put forward for/against this thing, the sports thing. One, inclusion. Two, fairness. Three, what sells, what people will pay to watch. This addresses only the inclusion argument, not the other two. And even then, this does not necessarily address the merit of the argument --- that is a separate matter, a more multi-dimensional matter, when you think about it --- but this does make for an easy way to determine if the inclusion argument is being put forward sincerely and honestly or not, or if it was never meant as anything other than a smokescreen for basically grabbing prize money by playing on easy mode.
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For the vast majority of transwomen who want to compete in female sports, it has nothing to do with insisting on exercising their rights as transwomen... that's just a cover for what they really want... to win. They aren't good enough to win as men, but they only need to be of average ability to be a world beater among women.

A great example is mountain biker Kate Weatherly. As Anton Weatherly, he was no more than an average, middle of the field men's downhill mountain bike competitor. Now as Kate, a transwoman, Weatherly absolutely dominates the female division here. In a sport where the first half-dozen competitors are usually only separated by a few seconds across the whole half-dozen, Weatherley wins by half a minute or more. As a sport, female mountain biking has been losing numbers, and that is hardly surprising - who wants to participate when they best they can ever hope to achieve is a distant second.

If sports organizations continue to allow transgender women to compete in female sports, those sports WILL become dominated by transgender athletes, and actual biological women will effectively be shut out of their own sports. Fortunately, some sports women and sports organizations are beginning to push back on this insanity.

If you don't believe its all about winning, I will point out that there are many dozens of trans-women trying to become competitors in female divisions, and the numbers are on the increase. On the other side, there are almost no trans-men vying to participate in male divisions... Gee, now I wonder why that is?
 
Chanakya said:
I don't see that. Are they even trying? Is the question to ask. You've got levels and levels of participation in every sport, after all.

So if there's a transman with a liking for sports, a talent, a skill, then where are they seeking to compete? Are they almost always going back to the women's category as they might have in their pre-transition days; or are they now, post their transition, competing against cismen? If the latter, then the inclusion argument is at least honest.
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Perhaps I didn't make my point well. So I'll be more clear: We will never be able to tell if transmen with a liking for sport are seeking to compete.

We won't be able to tell, because even if they are seeking to compete, they won't be competitive - they won't make the cut. Because they are female. They can seek to compete and try out as much as they want to... but they won't be successful.


Time for another attempt at a bad analogy, to try to demonstrate the dynamic I'm trying to highlight.

Let's talk about competitive can stacking! Let's say there are two leagues - one for people under 5'5", and the other for people over 5'5". The Under 5.5 league stacks on the second shelf of the grocery store. The Over 5.5 League stacks on the third shelf of the grocery store, which is a foot and a half higher than the second shelf.

Now, both of those categories contain people who are very competitive against each other, as well as people who are not competitive. The non-competitive people don't make it past try-outs, and we never see them again. But both groups also contain a handful of people who identify as a member of the other category. In colorful language, there are some transshort people and some transtall people.

Now, let's assume that the transheight people argue that the leagues should be inclusive of everyone's height identities, and should allow transheight people to compete on the team that aligns with their height identity. So the governing body for competitive can stacking thinks about it and says "Yeah, okay, we think inclusivity is a good idea, let's give this a shot, what could go wrong?"

Now let's put it into play. We've got trials coming up for each team, and each team can have 10 stackers. There are 25 cisheight people and 5 transheight people trying out for each of the two leagues.

Let's first look at the Under 5.5 tryouts. For that, there are 25 cisshort people and 5 transshort people. All of them, can reach the second shelf, where the stacking takes place. So for the Under 5.5 league, there are essentially 30 people trying out for 10 spots. Each of the transshort people has a 1 in 6 chance of making the team.

Now let's look at the Over 5.5 tryouts. There are 25 cistall people and 5 transtall people trying out. But here's where reality interferes with the noble ideal of inclusivity: The 5 transtall people cannot reach the third shelf. That means that none of the transtall people will make the team, even though they tried out in numbers equal to the transshort people.

At the end of the day, we're going to see an Over 5.5 League that is comprised only of people whose objective measurements are over 5'5" tall. But for the Under 5.5 League, we could end up seeing two people on the team whose objective measurement is 5'10 and 6'2.

Do you get where I'm coming from? Even if the impetus is for inclusivity, we will never be able to tell from the outcome. Because no matter how they identify, no matter how tall they envision themselves to be, the 5'2" tall people cannot reach the third shelf.

No matter how strongly a female might identify as a "man", they are still fundamentally female. They aren't going to make the cut to join a male team.

We will never be able to tell whether argument from inclusivity is genuine or not.

Chanakya said:
As I see it, there have been three arguments put forward for/against this thing, the sports thing. One, inclusion. Two, fairness. Three, what sells, what people will pay to watch. This addresses only the inclusion argument, not the other two. And even then, this does not necessarily address the merit of the argument --- that is a separate matter, a more multi-dimensional matter, when you think about it --- but this does make for an easy way to determine if the inclusion argument is being put forward sincerely and honestly or not, or if it was never meant as anything other than a smokescreen for basically grabbing prize money by playing on easy mode.
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It doesn't though - we cannot tell whether the inclusion argument was initially meant sincerely or not. It very well may have been intended with completely honesty and sincerity... but the outcome makes it impossible to determine.

And when it comes to athletics, males and females are NOT athletically equivalent. It's not a complete parallel to the transshort people who can reach the second shelf easily, but have no inherent stacking advantage. When it comes to sex, males DO have a material physicals advantage over females.

And we've seen the result of this disparity multiple times. We've repeatedly seen middle-aged males who are not in top shape, and who were mediocre or non-competitive against other males... come in as top-placing winners when they compete against females. We've seen it in weightlifting. We've seen it in swimming. We've seen it several times in cycling. Laurel Hubbard, Lia Thomas, Rachel McKinnon, Austin Killips, Emily Bridges, nd several others I can't remember right now. All of them were mediocre or completely uncompetitive against males. And all of them took winning spots from females who were at their physical peak.
 
smartcooky said:
If you don't believe its all about winning, I will point out that there are many dozens of trans-women trying to become competitors in female divisions, and the numbers are on the increase. On the other side, there are almost no trans-men vying to participate in male divisions... Gee, now I wonder why that is?
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Thing is that there very well could be hordes of transmen vying to take part male divisions... but because they will never qualify, we're never going to see them actually participating.

That said, my personal belief is that transmen are NOT trying to participate on male teams, because all professions of gender identity aside, they're all aware that they are fundamentally female, and are thus not competitive against males.

Side notes on cultural conditioning...

In developed countries, even when we all make an attempt to treat males and females equally in the eyes of the law, we still have a LOT of very strong childhood conditioning. Even though we might recognize them as regressive and confining, it is still true that as children, males and females are treated very differently.

As toddlers, males are rewarded for standing their ground, for speaking their desires and needs, for being active and loud, for arguing their point. Females are rewarded for being calm and quiet, for being compliant and following direction, for not complaining or expressing their wants. The rewards aren't always obvious or blatant, but they're pervasive. When a male toddler runs through the house yelling and knocks something over, their parents might still be angry that something got broken - but they're also likely to view it as "boys will be boys". Adults present are likely to comment in an approbative fashion "oh he's so exuberant, he's so strong, he's so imaginative, he's so active". Those are all views that reinforce the child's belief that they should be loud and active. If it's a little female that runs through the house and breaks things, the parents will still be angry that something got broken, but they're also more likely to express anger at the female and to characterize their actions as misbehavior. Adults present are likely to comment in a disparaging fashion that "she's so loud, she just won't sit still, she's uncontrollable, she needs a time out" and similar. Those views all condition a little female that they are expected to be calm and quiet and that high activity is frowned upon.

As children, males tend to get complimented on what they do. Females get complimented on how they look. "Oh aren't you such a smart boy, look how you solved that puzzle" versus "Oh aren't you such a pretty princess, look how nice your dress is". Males are given positive attention and support when they display independence, curiosity, and courage. Females are given positive attention and support when they display passivity, quietness, and compliance.

All of this adds up to a lifetime of conditioning. And at the end of the day, it's fairly easy to observe that most (not all) transwomen behave like males, with the same conditioned responses as males have. And most (not all) transmen behave like females, with the same conditioned behaviors that females have. Transwomen feel entitled to have their desires met, and to be the center of attention, and to take up space as their right. Transmen still tend to take up less space, avoid putting themselves in the direct attention of males, and to withhold their opinion on any number of topics.
 
Brainster said:
PRRI did a huge (5000 people) poll of Americans on the question, "Are there only two genders?" and compared it to a 2021 poll of the same question. The result? In virtually every demographic the % of Americans saying yes to the question increased.
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Finally got around to looking at this one, and I have to say I am a bit stumped by the choice of question.

The number of genders recognized in any given society is an anthropological question:
Most cultures use a gender binary, having two genders (boys/men and girls/women). In cultures with a third or fourth gender, these genders may represent very different things. To Native Hawaiians and Tahitians, Māhū is an intermediate state between man and woman known as "gender liminality". Some traditional Diné Native Americans of the Southwestern US acknowledge a spectrum of four genders: feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, and masculine man. The term "third gender" has also been used to describe the hijras of South Asia who have gained legal identity, fa'afafine of Polynesia, and Balkan sworn virgins. A culture recognizing a third gender does not in itself mean that they were valued by that culture, and often is the result of explicit devaluation of women in that culture.
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Wikipedia entry on Third GenderWP

I have to assume that the respondents were not asking themselves whether the society they live in recognizes third/fourth/fifth genders (Western societies lack a third gender role unless you count the emergent idea of non-binary individual to whom no gendered norms apply) but rather whether they want a third category added to the existing sets of social norms associated with masculinity and femininity.
 
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