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

[Emily's Cat]

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.

That's exactly what the intention is. That's what a lot of the argument from females has been - that the words we use to describe ourselves and our experiences are being appropriated, and then being coercively redefined. And those redefined terms, if accepted, will make it impossible for females to address the disparities in our lives.

For example... how do you address Violence Against Women and Girls, when "Women" includes both sexes and "Girls" includes not just both sexes but both adults and minors? How can we measure and combat violence that is massively disproportionally perpetrated by males against females when we're not allowed (or able) to track who is male and who is female? The appropriation and redefinition of sex-based terms to support a faith-based system of gender reification provides cover for the continuation and the escalation of sex-based violence.

How do we measure the disparity in poltiical representation of females in society, when we aren't allowed to distinguish between males and females? How do we address this when males get counted as females - especially when it's based on nothing more than their belief in the gender status of their souls?

How do we combat the difference in wages when males are counted as females?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Can you imagine trying to push through the same thing with respect to race or ethnicity? Can you imagine the net effect on the justice system when white people get counted as black people, based on how they feel on the inside of their brains? We'd see a sudden dramatic improvement in the statistics about arrest rates and incarceration rates for "black people", even though nothing actually changes. Because - and I know it's a shocker - police and juries and judges can still actually tell what color your skin is... they just write down "black" when they let the white guy off with a warning, and they just write down "white" when they arrest the black guy for a minor infraction.

Suddenly, we'd see no more disparity in hiring or promotion practices - it would all magically be evened out. But in reality, it would allow even more employers to underpay or decline to hire black people - solely on the basis of the skin they can actually see before them.

But the statistics, the reporting, would be magically all better. It would give cover to continued and escalated racist practices. It wouldn't address any of the underlying problems at all... it just "defines" them out of existence.

It's supremely Orwellian.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

That's exactly what the intention is. That's what a lot of the argument from females has been - that the words we use to describe ourselves and our experiences are being appropriated, and then being coercively redefined. And those redefined terms, if accepted, will make it impossible for females to address the disparities in our lives.

For example... how do you address Violence Against Women and Girls, when "Women" includes both sexes and "Girls" includes not just both sexes but both adults and minors? How can we measure and combat violence that is massively disproportionally perpetrated by males against females when we're not allowed (or able) to track who is male and who is female? The appropriation and redefinition of sex-based terms to support a faith-based system of gender reification provides cover for the continuation and the escalation of sex-based violence.

How do we measure the disparity in poltiical representation of females in society, when we aren't allowed to distinguish between males and females? How do we address this when males get counted as females - especially when it's based on nothing more than their belief in the gender status of their souls?

How do we combat the difference in wages when males are counted as females?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Can you imagine trying to push through the same thing with respect to race or ethnicity? Can you imagine the net effect on the justice system when white people get counted as black people, based on how they feel on the inside of their brains? We'd see a sudden dramatic improvement in the statistics about arrest rates and incarceration rates for "black people", even though nothing actually changes. Because - and I know it's a shocker - police and juries and judges can still actually tell what color your skin is... they just write down "black" when they let the white guy off with a warning, and they just write down "white" when they arrest the black guy for a minor infraction.

Suddenly, we'd see no more disparity in hiring or promotion practices - it would all magically be evened out. But in reality, it would allow even more employers to underpay or decline to hire black people - solely on the basis of the skin they can actually see before them.

But the statistics, the reporting, would be magically all better. It would give cover to continued and escalated racist practices. It wouldn't address any of the underlying problems at all... it just "defines" them out of existence.

It's supremely Orwellian.

Cool conspiracy theory

 

[d4m10n]

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 think we have to take the problem back a step or two, to the part where people have a concept of "gender identity" in their own minds. Some of us think of it purely in a practical behavioral sense, that is, people have identity X if they are willing to openly identify themselves as an X. I believe people when they tell me they are Green Bay fans whenever I'm back home in Chicago, because only a fool would take such an unpopular stance with so many Bears fans around. I believe people who tell me they are religious unbelievers or undocumented immigrants or lesbian or gay or transgender here in the Bible Belt. I don't even really bother to fire up my skepticism module because these are fairly unpopular things to say about oneself (or others) hereabouts. Identity is little more than voluntary self-identification, in this view.

Rowling, as we have seen, takes rather a different view:
https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1671507557175681024

I suppose some people really do believe in "unprovable essences that may or may not match the sexed body" but since that's a pretty useless idea I'm going to stick with my idiosyncratic view of what constitutes the possession of any given identity.

ETA: Some identities require broader social consensus, such as MVP or award-winning author or champion swimmer. I'm emphatically not talking about those.

 

[mumblethrax]

The idea that 'cis' is offensive is weird. Once we settled on 'transgendered', 'cisgendered' is the obvious choice. If you refuse to use one on the grounds that it forces you to make an ideological commitment, you should also refuse to use the other. I mean, if 'not transgendered' isn't offensive, why would 'cisgendered' be?

You might as well complain about being called 'straight'.

I also don't get the 'subset' reasoning. All sets are subsets of themselves.

Just looks like people struggling for a way to be offended to me.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Both of you seem very sure that the inclusion argument is a disingenuous facade, and no more than an easy route for transwomen to play on easy mode and grab money and fame that would otherwise not have come their way as easily, and maybe not come their way at all.

...

Oh, and smartcooky, this last kind of follows from what I’ve already said, but I guess Emily’s Cat is correct in so far as she points out that merely looking at participation numbers at the higher levels, the levels that generally make for news, may not work, given that while transwomen are at a clear advantage in ciswomen categories, but transmen end up being at a distinct disadvantage in cismen categories (and so are unlikely to make it to top levels). For this “metric” to work --- heh, grand formal-sounding word, that, for what is just an off-the-cuff thought! --- I was saying, for this metric to actually be meaningful, we’d have to dig deeper than that.

Chanakya, I'm not saying that a desire for inclusion is a completely fraudulent argument. What I am saying is that even if the *initial* argument is heartfelt and sincere...
1) there is no way for us to tell that it was sincere - it's unverifiable, and
2) it provides a loophole by which insincere people can exploit the goodwill of others - in this case, given the lopsided nature of physicality by sex, the result is that insincere males have gained a way to exploit the good nature of females and of sporting authorities.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

You have still not provided one whit of support for your assertion that JKR is a TERF. Neither in the literal sense nor in the figurative (and intentionally insulting) sense.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

As a fairly straightforward example of this phenomenon... the term "negro" was initially used in nothing more than a descrptive sense, to describe people whose skin was very very dark when compared to the skin of the average European person. Even today, there are parts of the world where it does not carry a negative connotation.

But if you were to call a black person in the US a "negro"... they would take it as an intentional insult, and a slur. And no amount of the transgressor insisting that it's an "accurate" and "neutral" "descriptive" term is going to alter that.

 

[theprestige]

The idea that 'cis' is offensive is weird. Once we settled on 'transgendered', 'cisgendered' is the obvious choice.

Obvious choice for what purpose?

If you're not a man but want people to know you think of yourself as a man, "transman" is the obvious choice. But I don't to say I'm a "cisman" to set myself apart from transmen. "Man" works just fine for that.

If you refuse to use one on the grounds that it forces you to make an ideological commitment, you should also refuse to use the other. I mean, if 'not transgendered' isn't offensive, why would 'cisgendered' be?

"Not transgendered" is already the null hypothesis. People who aren't trans don't have to go around telling everyone they're not trans. It's already understood and assumed. That's the whole point.

You might as well complain about being called 'straight'.

You might as well accept that this analogy has been thoroughly considered and rejected for being flawed and not to the point.

 

[d4m10n]

Just looks like people struggling for a way to be offended to me.

Isn't that the name of the game here, though? If you don't use my preferred terminology, I will take offense. It's a wonderful shortcut, obviating any need to make an argument.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Exactly!

That's one of the challenges with this topic. And from a tactical perspective, it's brilliant. It makes it damned near impossible to have the discussion at all.

The pro-trans side of this appropriated common words, and then redefined them to obscure the commonly understood meaning and to insert their own desires into it. And because they've taken over common words, it becomes extremely difficult to argue. They just retcon their new meaning back throughout history and they play the game of "hearing" what they want to hear... and then they pretend that you said what they want to hear.

"Women's Restroom"? Duh, it says it right there in the name - it's for women, not for females. And since "women" has been redefined to include bepenised ejaculators, it by (neo)definition includes transwomen. There's no basis for ciswomen to object - it's a room for ALL women, regardless of what body parts they have.

It's transparently underhanded and disingenuous... but it's also one that ends up being farcically easy to sneak past a bunch of people who haven't been paying attention.

 

[d4m10n]

And no amount of the transgressor insisting that it's an "accurate" and "neutral" "descriptive" term is going to alter that.

I don't have the stats readily to hand, but it seems to me that "cisgender" is typically used in a neutral and descriptive sense.

 

[mumblethrax]

Obvious choice for what purpose?

For the purpose of referring to people who aren't trans, naturally.

If you're not a man but want people to know you think of yourself as a man, "transman" is the obvious choice. But I don't to say I'm a "cisman" to set myself apart from transmen. "Man" works just fine for that.

So don't use it. That hardly makes it offensive.

"Not transgendered" is already the null hypothesis. People who aren't trans don't have to go around telling everyone they're not trans. It's already understood and assumed. That's the whole point.

Straight people don't have go around telling people they're straight, either. What follows from that?

You might as well accept that this analogy has been thoroughly considered and rejected for being flawed and not to the point.

No, I don't accept that.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Does this mean that you think that transwomen and ciswomen are totally the same, they're both equally women? They're just different subsets of the group of women, just like tall women and short women, just like blond women and brunette women? That's all it is, a minor descriptive difference that allows for an easy shorthand when talking about two different populations that are still fundamentally the same?

If that's what you actually mean, then by all means, carry on. If that's not what you actually mean, then perhaps there's more to this discussion.

 

[mumblethrax]

Isn't that the name of the game here, though? If you don't use my preferred terminology, I will take offense. It's a wonderful shortcut, obviating any need to make an argument.

It's the name of the game for manipulative ********, sure.

 

[mumblethrax]

Does this mean that you think that transwomen and ciswomen are totally the same [...]

The fact that they're called transwomen and ciswomen is a pretty clear indicator that they aren't totally the same.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The idea that 'cis' is offensive is weird. Once we settled on 'transgendered', 'cisgendered' is the obvious choice. If you refuse to use one on the grounds that it forces you to make an ideological commitment, you should also refuse to use the other. I mean, if 'not transgendered' isn't offensive, why would 'cisgendered' be?

You might as well complain about being called 'straight'.

I also don't get the 'subset' reasoning. All sets are subsets of themselves.

Just looks like people struggling for a way to be offended to me.

Well, I prefer to speak of transgender identified males as exactly that - transgender identified males. Or sometimes simply as "males".

But that completely accurate and neutral description, which completely sidesteps the element of belief altogether... is considered "hate speech".

 

[mumblethrax]

But that completely accurate and neutral description, which completely sidesteps the element of belief altogether... is considered "hate speech".

So you're choosing to be ridiculous because you see other people as being ridiculous?

 

[lobosrul5]

The fact that they're called transwomen and ciswomen is a pretty clear indicator that they aren't totally the same.

Its actually interesting in that its the pro-trans side of the debate that is OK with using descriptors to describe biologically matched sex/gender people in a different way than themselves, and its the other side of the debate that doesn't want that.

I think most trans people recognize and admit that they are, at the least, physically different from cis people of their claimed gender. And I'm struggling to figure out why JKR or anyone else takes issue with that other than just to make everything a confrontation.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The fact that they're called transwomen and ciswomen is a pretty clear indicator that they aren't totally the same.

Are they not totally the same in the way that short women and tall women are not totally the same, but are still equally women?

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, I prefer to speak of transgender identified males as exactly that - transgender identified males. Or sometimes simply as "males".

But that completely accurate and neutral description, which completely sidesteps the element of belief altogether... is considered "hate speech".

Oh I think you know perfectly well why a construction such as "transgender identified female" differs from "trans man", and what each of these clearly implies about the user's views on the validity* or otherwise of transgender identity. Otherwise you'd just use "trans man" and "trans woman" like everyone else in the non-anti-trans community, including the entire mainstream medical community (who know infinitely more about this subject than you or I).


* And I wearily repeat, owing to more faux-naivete among some of the usual suspects, that "validity" here is effectively a synonym for "existence as a condition which is not a mental health disorder".