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

[theprestige]

I don't deny it, i am mostly here to mock the hare-brained ideas that arise in this thread.

This discussion would be going a lot differently if that were true.

 

[d4m10n]

Isn't this the same lady that we were supposed to doubt was a TERF?

If you want to define TERF in a way which does not include adherence to the tenets of radical feminism, you are free to do so. Won't tell us anything about whether she is right or wrong in this specific case.

 

[Chanakya]

Or even what you're trying to say.

Then I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say with all this business about nuance in sports.

<snip>

Come on, man. Don't tell me you're now trying to paper over that transparent ...whatever-the-hell-that-was.

I say this to you:

The flattening of the very nuanced issue that is sports categories into the male-female binary is arbitrary. Not unreasonable, for that degree of flattening; but to fix on that degree of simplification is what is arbitrary.

Not sure why you're bringing in prisons and "certain other things". I made it very clear, I thought, that I was referring to sports and only to sports.

And, having heard me say categorically that I'm not referring to prisons at all, having heard me state categorically that this is about sports and nothing else, you respond with this:

I think you're trying to manufacture an arbitrary nuance of the gaps, hoping to find a gap into which you can wedge some idea of transwomen competing with women that is safe, fair, and interesting.But you're not there yet. And even if you do think you've got there, you're still not able to force women's prisons and women's shelters into whatever gap you imagine must exist for sports.
The fact is that transwomen are not women. There are some really important contexts in which this truth really matters. Sports is one of them. It's useful to our discussion because of the abundance of statistical data supporting sex segregation. Trying to devise some arbitrarily nuanced system whereby each transwoman is matched with the female athlete who most closely matches their arbitrarily decided athletic potential is not the answer.

Your real problem is that you cannot come up with an arbitrary system of weight classes and handicaps for putting a rapist in a women's prison, just because he says he'd prefer to be locked in a room with a woman.

After that, do you really expect me to believe that your intentions in "debating" this thing are honest? It was so blatant that that one time it was kind of funny, but one time's about enough, thanks.


(Heh, speaking of funny, look at this last gem, I think that's your best work. This: "Your real problem is that you cannot come up with an arbitrary system of weight classes and handicaps for putting a rapist in a women's prison, just because he says he'd prefer to be locked in a room with a woman." I mean, it doesn't even make sense. In what way would categories of sports end up putting rapists in women's prisons? What has the one to do with the other? And why talk to me about this, as if I've said these things, when I haven't, and further when I've clarified that I'm not referring to prisons at all? This is so ...completely comedic, no? I particularly like how brazen it is, it doesn't even pretend to make any kind of sense. Nice!)

 

[Ziggurat]

Personally, I'm not buying JKR's take here; it is not terribly difficult to define gender identity in terms which are verifiable or falsifiable. A cisgender person is anyone who feels no need to correct people when they are addressed or otherwise treated in accordance with their sex at birth.

One can do so. That doesn't mean she's wrong, though. Possible uses of words don't have to match how those words actually get used. To a significant degree, I think she's correct about how the word gets used. I supposed the objection would be she's not correct for all people using the word, which, fair enough.

 

[Pixel42]

Yeah, "cisgender" makes sense, in that context. "Cismale", "ciswoman", etc., not so much. Cismale is just male. Ciswoman is just woman. Unless you're trying to redefine words like "male" and "woman" so that you are automatically right without having to argue your case.

It occurs to me that introducing the word ciswomen begs the question this thread is about. If transwomen are women, and you want to refer solely to women who were born female, you need another word for that subset of women. If transwomen are not women you don't; women and transwomen are the only words needed. So anyone who uses the word ciswomen is implicitly accepting that transwomen are women.

 

[lobosrul5]

It occurs to me that introducing the word ciswomen begs the question this thread is about. If transwomen are women, and you want to refer solely to women who were born female, you need another word for that subset of women. If transwomen are not women you don't; women and transwomen are the only words needed. So anyone who uses the word ciswomen is implicitly accepting that transwomen are women.

Cis means gender is equal to sex per that individual person. Trans means gender does not equal sex per that individual.

Seems simple enough???

 

[theprestige]

Come on, man. Don't tell me you're now trying to paper over that transparent ...whatever-the-hell-that-was.

I say this to you:




And, having heard me say categorically that I'm not referring to prisons at all, having heard me state categorically that this is about sports and nothing else, you respond with this:




After that, do you really expect me to believe that your intentions in "debating" this thing are honest? It was so blatant that that one time it was kind of funny, but one time's about enough, thanks.

The discussion we're having in this thread isn't restricted to sports. It's about sex segregation in general, and how to handle it in general, in terms of transgender accommodations. The narrow focus you're trying to have on sports is irrelevant to the actual debate.

If you're not participating in this debate, why are you even in this thread? It's not a thread about the nuances of sports leagues. It's a thread about whether transwomen are women.

 

[theprestige]

It occurs to me that introducing the word ciswomen begs the question this thread is about. If transwomen are women, and you want to refer solely to women who were born female, you need another word for that subset of women. If transwomen are not women you don't; women and transwomen are the only words needed. So anyone who uses the word ciswomen is implicitly accepting that transwomen are women.

That's the conclusion I've reached, over the course of this discussion.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It occurs to me that introducing the word ciswomen begs the question this thread is about. If transwomen are women, and you want to refer solely to women who were born female, you need another word for that subset of women. If transwomen are not women you don't; women and transwomen are the only words needed. So anyone who uses the word ciswomen is implicitly accepting that transwomen are women.

Ok, but how does one get from there to saying "cis" is a slur?

Like I understand that transphobes don't think being trans (and thus cis) is "real" or whatever, but it's quite a leap further to say that using cis/trans descriptors is a slur.

 

[Chanakya]

The discussion we're having in this thread isn't restricted to sports. It's about sex segregation in general, and how to handle it in general, in terms of transgender accommodations. The narrow focus you're trying to have on sports is irrelevant to the actual debate.

If you're not participating in this debate, why are you even in this thread? It's not a thread about the nuances of sports leagues. It's a thread about whether transwomen are women.

Transparent attempt to change the subject away from your clearly demonstrated disingenuousness noted.

Also, you're no longer even funny. This is getting old. You can carry on doing this with yourself if you like.

 

[Lplus]

Yeah, "cisgender" makes sense, in that context. "Cismale", "ciswoman", etc., not so much. Cismale is just male. Ciswoman is just woman. Unless you're trying to redefine words like "male" and "woman" so that you are automatically right without having to argue your case.

Cismale and ciswoman make no sense at all. Cisgender male and cisgender female would be the correct discriptions.

Unfortunately male/female and man/woman are still being used interchangeably.

 

[Francesca R]

Cismale and ciswoman make no sense at all.

Sure they do. Although if that was the terminology then I think transmale would be the term for those presently called trans women and I suspect the affected group would reject that.

So it's easier to use trans woman and cis woman IMO.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I wonder where this "cis is a slur" nonsense comes from. Presumably none of these people think that "trans" is a slur.

It comes from a very large number of people, predominantly female, who are deeply and sincerely offended at being labeled as a subset of their own sex class... all so that people who are NOT that sex can make the false insinuation that they're just as female as actual females are.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Again there's no "argument" in the traditional sense of the term here, it's just one big debate about categorization and labels.

Both "sides" (as much as I hate to over simplify it to that level) aren't actually doing anything but trying to define themselves as right, not argue that they are right.

It should be exactly zero % shocking that people getting annoyed at the language being used by the other side should come up from time to time.

Mmm... Not quite that simple.

The trans side is already recognized as trans, that's not an issue. We all already know what a transwoman or a transman is. We know that a transwoman is a male that envisions themselves as, or wishes they were, a female. We know that a transman is a female that envisions themselves as, or wishes they were, a male. We've known this for a long time, it's not new, and none of that has been challenged.

What has changed is that transgender people - especially transwomen - began demanding that they are ACTUALLY women, that they're just as much of a female as biological females are. And they've demanded that nobody is allowed to draw a distinction between them and females of the human species... nobody's even supposed to think it inside their own heads.

Part of that demand that "Transwomen ARE women" came with a complete redefinition of what the word "woman" means in the first place. And well... it turns out that female humans didn't consent to having the words we use to describe ourselves and our experience appropriated by males and activists - especially when those males and activitsts were trying like hell to force their way into spaces where we females are vulnerable or exposed. We tend to see that as a violation of our consent and our reasonable boundaries.

So then they decided that everyone must adopt their language, and that if transwomen were going to be called transwomen in order to draw a distinction between them and actual female humans... then they were going to retaliate and call females "ciswomen" and pretend that the only way we could be told apart was by adopting that prefix.

The majority of females don't like being reclassified as a subset of our own sex class. We especially don't like it when we're being relegated to a subset of our own sex class so that males can pretend that they're part of our sex class. And we REALLY don't like it when we get harassed because we're "just a boring ciswoman" and told that our experiences of discrimination, abuse, violence, and oppression don't count, because we are "cisprivileged" and therefore our experiences should be ignored and set aside. Let alone when we're told that we cannot be "true feminists" if we focus predominantly on the experiences and challenges faced by females... and we're told that if we want to be "true feminists" we should reframe our feminism so that it focuses on and centers transwomen at the forefront of everything.

 

[theprestige]

Transparent attempt to change the subject away from your clearly demonstrated disingenuousness noted.

Also, you're no longer even funny. This is getting old. You can carry on doing this with yourself if you like.

Thank God that's settled, then.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Seems fair to me, I'm a cisgender male - calling me cis is simply an accurate description of my gender. It may well be meant to insult, but as far as I'm concerned it's an epic fail.

Try this on for size:

You're a cisman. That means that you're a subset of the group of people commonly considered males, and that you share that classificiation with transmen, who are 100% just as much a man as you. They're indistinguishable from cismen, you can only tell a transman from a cisman if they tell you they're cis, otherwise they're all totally the same.

It's just that some males have vaginas and uteruses and have menstrual cycles and get pregnant. But that doesn't matter - you can't tell the difference, because cismen and transmen are totally the same in all the ways that really matter.

And if you think that's a bit insulting, then you're just an evil cisman bigot transphobe - you need to reeducate yourself.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sloppy language on my part. You are correct that how they identify is irrelevant, but it's not irrelevant if they've had sex change surgery that includes hysterectomy, since that removes the ability to gestate a fetus. That was the point I intended to convey, but not very successfully.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It comes from a very large number of people, predominantly female, who are deeply and sincerely offended at being labeled as a subset of their own sex class... all so that people who are NOT that sex can make the false insinuation that they're just as female as actual females are.

Yes, it's quite clear that the people trying to make an issue of this want to remind everyone that they're quite upset.

 

[Lplus]

Try this on for size:

You're a cisman. That means that you're a subset of the group of people commonly considered males, and that you share that classificiation with transmen, who are 100% just as much a man as you. They're indistinguishable from cismen, you can only tell a transman from a cisman if they tell you they're cis, otherwise they're all totally the same.

It's just that some males have vaginas and uteruses and have menstrual cycles and get pregnant. But that doesn't matter - you can't tell the difference, because cismen and transmen are totally the same in all the ways that really matter.

And if you think that's a bit insulting, then you're just an evil cisman bigot transphobe - you need to reeducate yourself.

I'm a cismale, not a cisman. In fact the reason I am a cismale is the fact that I see myself as a man.

Edit - possibly better to say the reason I am a cismale is the fact that I do not see myself as a female or wish to become one.

 

[LondonJohn]

This is recognised for the concession that it is--that you have lost the argument and are a sore loser. As was pointed out of course.

I feel that this is a faulty - and inherently biassed - inference to draw from those words.


Compare (in principle only, of course....): "I only post on the 9/11 threads these days to mock the hare-brained Truther ideas that keep resurfacing in those threads".


YMMV, of course. For..... reasons.