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

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Emily's Cat said:
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?
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No, pretty obviously in a different way. Just like dead women and living women aren't the same.

What is ridiculous about calling a male a male, as well as making a concession to address their personal gender identity at the same time?
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That's not the part that's ridiculous.
 
lobosrul5 said:
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.
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If you think that's what's going on, boy oh boy, do I have some fantastic beachfront property to sell you in central Nevada.

They're not trying to highlight and describe the difference between transgender identified males and females. They're trying to obscure the difference, by redefining all of us as "just slightly different types of women".

Here's a synopsis of the course of events:

Transgender Identified Male (Tim): I identify as a woman. I want to live my life as a woman.
Females (Fem): Okay, you do you. Here's some tips on how to do make up so you can pass better when you're out in public.
Tim Great! And now that I'm a woman, I'm going to use your restrooms too.
Fem: Um... Okay, I guess. I mean, that makes me a bit uncomfortable, because you're still, you know, male and all that. But I guess if you behave yourself and are respectful, I'll pretend like you're not a male and just get on with the business of peeing.
Tim: Fantastic! Now that we've settled that, I'm also going to use your locker rooms and your showers, and I want to be on the female ward in the hospital, and I should be in the female prison too. And I'm definitely going to play sports on the female leagues.
Fem: Hold on, no, that's not okay. It's great that you want to express yourself as if you were a woman, everyone should be able to dress and present however they want to, I'm all for that. But I really don't think that males should be in the women's showers - you've got a penis, after all, and that makes me and all of the females I know really, really, really uncomfortable and we feel intimidated and exposed. I think we need some alternative option for you.
Tim: But it says "Women's Locker Room" and it's called "Women's Prison" and "Women's Sport" - obviously that's where I belong, I'm a woman!
Fem: Well... you're not really a woman, you're a transwoman. And that's a fine thing to be, no judgement on that! But you're not a real woman - under the hood you're still a man. I mean, you've got a dick and some dangly balls! And all those spaces are divided on the basis of sex, not gender identity. That division should still hold.
Tim: No! Transwomen ARE women. We're the same as you - we're women through and through! "Woman" is a word that means gender identity, not sex.
Fem: No, the word "woman" generally means sex, at least the way it's commonly used. You are figuratively a woman, you're not literally a woman. And we can tell that you're not a woman - you're male, and you look like a male, and you move like a male, and you have male parts. In the sense that those spaces are designed, we're talking about sex, not gender identity. Those are female spaces, for females. That's what that sense of the word "woman" means - human females.
Tim: NO! TRANSWOMEN ARE WOMEN, TRANSWOMEN ARE WOMEN! We're the same as you, we should be treated exactly the same as you. It's our right to use women's spaces. In fact, you're a CISwoman! We're both women, just different kinds of women!
Fem: Now I'm getting angry. I'm not a "ciswoman", I'm just a woman - I'm a female human. You're not a female human. You can dress and present however you want, I'm fully supportive of that. But female humans - women - face a lot of discrimination and violence from males. It's important to us that we have spaces that are limited to just our sex. And that means that you don't get to use those spaces - especially not while you have all your dangly bits. Get rid of those and maybe we'll reconsider our stance.
Tim: That's cruel and abusive, it's bullying and bordering on genocide! You can't demand that I cut my dick off, I still use it! I'm a woman because I say I'm a woman. I feel like a woman. Woman is my identity! Who the **** do you think you are to tell me I'm not a woman? I'M A WOMAN!
Fem: Look, this is getting ridiculous. You're a transwoman. You're not female. And I should be allowed to talk about my experiences as a female human without having to include you in them - you aren't female!
Tim: I AM TOO! I'M A FEMALE BECAUSE I TAKE FEMALE HORMONES! I'M A FEMALE IN ALL THE WAYS THAT ACTUALLY MATTER IN REAL LIFE! YOU'RE JUST A HATEFUL ****... YOU'RE A TERF! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DISCRIMINATION OR ABUSE OR VIOLENCE, YOU'RE A CISWOMAN - YOU'VE NEVER EXPERIENCED ANYTHING LIKE REAL VIOLENCE, NOT LIKE TRANSWOMEN DO, WE'RE THE ONES WHO'VE REALLY GOT IT BAD! IT'S SO BAD WE CAN'T BE EXPECTED TO USE MEN'S SPACES, MEN MIGHT HURT US!
Fem: This is absurd and incredibly insulting! Don't you DARE relegate me to a subset of my own sex class! That's such an incredibly patriarchal and downright misogynistic thing to do! Women have rights too, and one of those is the right to have our own boundaries and not have to be forced to share intimate space with males. Seriously, I'm starting to wonder how sincere you are in "identifying" as a woman - you clearly have no idea at all what it's like for women, you obviously have no compassion or care for actual women.
Tim: YOU'RE JUST A CISWOMAN, YOU'RE CIS-SCUM, YOU'RE A BIGOT AND A TRANSPHOBE! YOU'RE AN EVIL GENOCIDAL RIGHT-WING TERF WHO WANTS TO EXTERMINATE TRANSPEOPLE! TERFS NEED TO BE HOUNDED OUT OF SOCIETY, TERFS SHOULD BE PUNCHED! TERFS SHOULD GET RAPED WITH BARBED-WIRE WRAPPED BASEBALL BATS!
Fem: OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH! I'M DONE WITH THIS. YOU'RE A COMPLETE BELLEND AND YOU CAN **** RIGHT OFF WITH THIS ********.
...
Fem: But yeah, men suck a lot and if you're wearing a dress they might try to rape you. I'll support you getting a third space that you can use safe from other men... just not women's spaces.
...
Tim: I'M BEING GENOCIDED WITH YOUR VIOLENT WORDS! YOU'RE A TERF AND A TRANSPHOBE AND A BIGOT AND EVERYONE WHO'S ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY SHOULD HATE YOU!


...


Man New to the Discussion: What they hell is going on? Why are you chicks being so mean to that transwoman? Can't you see she's wearing a dress, she's clearly not a man, men don't wear dresses. Obviously it's women who are out of line. Those chicks really need to learn their place. All non-men should have access to spaces for non-men. Duh.

Woman who hasn't been paying attention: OMG, you're being so mean, why are you being so mean to that poor transwoman! I've been told that sooooo many transwomen get hurt, all the time! They're constantly getting attacked and beat up, it's even worse than it was for gays in the 80s! I know this one transwoman, and she's totally sweet and harmless. We should totally support them. And besides, I don't really use public showers or anything, and I don't even know anyone in jail, so it's probably not a big deal, right?

Fem: <head explodes>
 
LondonJohn said:
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).
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I use it because it clearly implies that they are male with an alternative gender identity. Or to parallel your framing, they are female with an alternative gender identity. Their sex is a factual reality of their existence. It is objectively observable and verifiable. Their gender identity is a belief - it is unverifiable, unobservable, and entirely subjective.

I give primacy to material reality, not to faith and belief.

Also, "trans-" is a prefix, it is not an adjective.
 
lobosrul5 said:
Are you defining women as sex or gender in this context?
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Sex. Always sex.

The fact that you even have to ASK that question is why I almost always use "female" and "male". This is exactly what I mean by obscuring the meaning of words. This is what I mean when I say the words that my sex uses to describe ourselves and our experiences has been appropriated.
 
Emily's Cat said:
If you think that's what's going on, boy oh boy, do I have some fantastic beachfront property to sell you in central Nevada.

They're not trying to highlight and describe the difference between transgender identified males and females. They're trying to obscure the difference, by redefining all of us as "just slightly different types of women".

Here's a synopsis of the course of events:

Transgender Identified Male (Tim): I identify as a woman. I want to live my life as a woman.
Females (Fem): Okay, you do you. Here's some tips on how to do make up so you can pass better when you're out in public.
Tim Great! And now that I'm a woman, I'm going to use your restrooms too.
Fem: Um... Okay, I guess. I mean, that makes me a bit uncomfortable, because you're still, you know, male and all that. But I guess if you behave yourself and are respectful, I'll pretend like you're not a male and just get on with the business of peeing.
Tim: Fantastic! Now that we've settled that, I'm also going to use your locker rooms and your showers, and I want to be on the female ward in the hospital, and I should be in the female prison too. And I'm definitely going to play sports on the female leagues.
Fem: Hold on, no, that's not okay. It's great that you want to express yourself as if you were a woman, everyone should be able to dress and present however they want to, I'm all for that. But I really don't think that males should be in the women's showers - you've got a penis, after all, and that makes me and all of the females I know really, really, really uncomfortable and we feel intimidated and exposed. I think we need some alternative option for you.
Tim: But it says "Women's Locker Room" and it's called "Women's Prison" and "Women's Sport" - obviously that's where I belong, I'm a woman!
Fem: Well... you're not really a woman, you're a transwoman. And that's a fine thing to be, no judgement on that! But you're not a real woman - under the hood you're still a man. I mean, you've got a dick and some dangly balls! And all those spaces are divided on the basis of sex, not gender identity. That division should still hold.
Tim: No! Transwomen ARE women. We're the same as you - we're women through and through! "Woman" is a word that means gender identity, not sex.
Fem: No, the word "woman" generally means sex, at least the way it's commonly used. You are figuratively a woman, you're not literally a woman. And we can tell that you're not a woman - you're male, and you look like a male, and you move like a male, and you have male parts. In the sense that those spaces are designed, we're talking about sex, not gender identity. Those are female spaces, for females. That's what that sense of the word "woman" means - human females.
Tim: NO! TRANSWOMEN ARE WOMEN, TRANSWOMEN ARE WOMEN! We're the same as you, we should be treated exactly the same as you. It's our right to use women's spaces. In fact, you're a CISwoman! We're both women, just different kinds of women!
Fem: Now I'm getting angry. I'm not a "ciswoman", I'm just a woman - I'm a female human. You're not a female human. You can dress and present however you want, I'm fully supportive of that. But female humans - women - face a lot of discrimination and violence from males. It's important to us that we have spaces that are limited to just our sex. And that means that you don't get to use those spaces - especially not while you have all your dangly bits. Get rid of those and maybe we'll reconsider our stance.
Tim: That's cruel and abusive, it's bullying and bordering on genocide! You can't demand that I cut my dick off, I still use it! I'm a woman because I say I'm a woman. I feel like a woman. Woman is my identity! Who the **** do you think you are to tell me I'm not a woman? I'M A WOMAN!
Fem: Look, this is getting ridiculous. You're a transwoman. You're not female. And I should be allowed to talk about my experiences as a female human without having to include you in them - you aren't female!
Tim: I AM TOO! I'M A FEMALE BECAUSE I TAKE FEMALE HORMONES! I'M A FEMALE IN ALL THE WAYS THAT ACTUALLY MATTER IN REAL LIFE! YOU'RE JUST A HATEFUL ****... YOU'RE A TERF! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DISCRIMINATION OR ABUSE OR VIOLENCE, YOU'RE A CISWOMAN - YOU'VE NEVER EXPERIENCED ANYTHING LIKE REAL VIOLENCE, NOT LIKE TRANSWOMEN DO, WE'RE THE ONES WHO'VE REALLY GOT IT BAD! IT'S SO BAD WE CAN'T BE EXPECTED TO USE MEN'S SPACES, MEN MIGHT HURT US!
Fem: This is absurd and incredibly insulting! Don't you DARE relegate me to a subset of my own sex class! That's such an incredibly patriarchal and downright misogynistic thing to do! Women have rights too, and one of those is the right to have our own boundaries and not have to be forced to share intimate space with males. Seriously, I'm starting to wonder how sincere you are in "identifying" as a woman - you clearly have no idea at all what it's like for women, you obviously have no compassion or care for actual women.
Tim: YOU'RE JUST A CISWOMAN, YOU'RE CIS-SCUM, YOU'RE A BIGOT AND A TRANSPHOBE! YOU'RE AN EVIL GENOCIDAL RIGHT-WING TERF WHO WANTS TO EXTERMINATE TRANSPEOPLE! TERFS NEED TO BE HOUNDED OUT OF SOCIETY, TERFS SHOULD BE PUNCHED! TERFS SHOULD GET RAPED WITH BARBED-WIRE WRAPPED BASEBALL BATS!
Fem: OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH! I'M DONE WITH THIS. YOU'RE A COMPLETE BELLEND AND YOU CAN **** RIGHT OFF WITH THIS ********.
...
Fem: But yeah, men suck a lot and if you're wearing a dress they might try to rape you. I'll support you getting a third space that you can use safe from other men... just not women's spaces.
...
Tim: I'M BEING GENOCIDED WITH YOUR VIOLENT WORDS! YOU'RE A TERF AND A TRANSPHOBE AND A BIGOT AND EVERYONE WHO'S ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY SHOULD HATE YOU!


...


Man New to the Discussion: What they hell is going on? Why are you chicks being so mean to that transwoman? Can't you see she's wearing a dress, she's clearly not a man, men don't wear dresses. Obviously it's women who are out of line. Those chicks really need to learn their place. All non-men should have access to spaces for non-men. Duh.

Woman who hasn't been paying attention: OMG, you're being so mean, why are you being so mean to that poor transwoman! I've been told that sooooo many transwomen get hurt, all the time! They're constantly getting attacked and beat up, it's even worse than it was for gays in the 80s! I know this one transwoman, and she's totally sweet and harmless. We should totally support them. And besides, I don't really use public showers or anything, and I don't even know anyone in jail, so it's probably not a big deal, right?

Fem: <head explodes>
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Thats strawman of the year material... I'm actually genuinely impressed :jaw-dropp
 
Emily's Cat said:
Sex. Always sex.

The fact that you even have to ASK that question is why I almost always use "female" and "male". This is exactly what I mean by obscuring the meaning of words. This is what I mean when I say the words that my sex uses to describe ourselves and our experiences has been appropriated.
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Emily's Cat said:
Or you know, the way that MALES and FEMALES aren't the same?
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Yeah... thats why hardly anyone uses the terms transmale or transfemale AFAIK. Because it doesnt make sense.
 
mumblethrax said:
So you're choosing to be ridiculous because you see other people as being ridiculous?
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As long as there's a general consensus that it's ridiculous to insist on using "cis" to differentiate from "trans", I guess I don't have a problem with it. But, having come to the conclusion that preferred pronouns are the thin end of an orwellian language-wedge, I have a hard time seeing "cis" in a charitable light.
 
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mumblethrax said:
The part where people take offense to 'ciswoman'.
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Let me try this again.

The reason that many females take offense to the term "ciswoman" is because it is being used in a way that is offensive.

It is being used to imply that transwomen are "just another kind of woman" in the same way that blonde females and brunette females are both different kinds of females. It gets used to obscure the material reality that transwomen are MALE and thus, in the most commonly used sense of the term, are not any kind of woman at all - they are not female.

It gets used to relegate human females as a subset of our own sex class. It gets used to reinforce the catechism that "Transwomen ARE woman", and that they're an equally valid subset of females as actual females are.

Activists actively push public figures and publishers to adopt the term "ciswoman" any time they are talking about females... because "not all women have cervixes" and "some women have penises". It gets used to continually reinforce that "woman" is a term that MUST include males.

And it gets used as a means to denigrate and to ostracize females that do not accept that some males are females too.

It's honestly insulting and frustrating to go through this.

Look - several years back, Rachel Dolezal caused a lot of stink, because they identify as black. Dolezal genuinely seems to think of themself, and to envision themself as black. For all intents, Dolezal is transblack.

Since their identity - how they think of themself, and how they want others to think of them - is black, shouldn't they be completely accepted as black in society?
Shouldn't we alter our language to talk about transblack and cisblack people?
Shouldn't we celebrate Dolezal during Black History Month?
Shouldn't we highlight and showcase the experiences of transblack people on Juneteenth?
Aren't they just as black as cisblack people are?
Isn't it transphobic to deny Dolezal's existence as a valid black person?
There's no mention of transracial identities in the DSM-5 at all, not even a tiny reference to anything that could be remotely considered a mental health consideration of transracial identities - and doesn't that clearly mean that transrace is NOT a mental health disorder?
Wouldn't it be transracist to deny the Dolezals of the world their due recognition in awards intended to raise black people above their historically oppressed role, and to overcome the continuing barriers to true equality for black people?
Wouldn't it be horribly childish and hateful if cisblack people objected to being labeled "cis" without their consent or agreement?
 
Emily's Cat said:
I use it because it clearly implies that they are male with an alternative gender identity. Or to parallel your framing, they are female with an alternative gender identity. Their sex is a factual reality of their existence. It is objectively observable and verifiable. Their gender identity is a belief - it is unverifiable, unobservable, and entirely subjective.

I give primacy to material reality, not to faith and belief.
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I know exactly why you use it. I wasn't claiming otherwise.



Also, "trans-" is a prefix, it is not an adjective.
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By the same token, I assume you correct people talking about an "atom bomb", by pointing out that this is a meaningless descriptor and they should instead be saying "nuclear fission bomb"? Or that you correct people talking about "phoning a friend" by pointing out that this is an inappropriate descriptor ("phone" only means "sound" after all, strictly speaking), that "telephone" (or, even more strictly, "telephonic") is actually being used as an adjective, and that they should instead be saying something like "talking with my friend using a pair of telephone/telephonic devices connected by electrically-powered network technology"

So yes, a prefix can perfectly well be used as an adjective, provided it's in sufficient colloquial usage that the majority of people know what concept is being conveyed. Language is quite clever like that, you know?
 
Emily's Cat said:
Let me try this again.

The reason that many females take offense to the term "ciswoman" is because it is being used in a way that is offensive.

It is being used to imply that transwomen are "just another kind of woman" in the same way that blonde females and brunette females are both different kinds of females. It gets used to obscure the material reality that transwomen are MALE and thus, in the most commonly used sense of the term, are not any kind of woman at all - they are not female.

It gets used to relegate human females as a subset of our own sex class. It gets used to reinforce the catechism that "Transwomen ARE woman", and that they're an equally valid subset of females as actual females are.

Activists actively push public figures and publishers to adopt the term "ciswoman" any time they are talking about females... because "not all women have cervixes" and "some women have penises". It gets used to continually reinforce that "woman" is a term that MUST include males.

And it gets used as a means to denigrate and to ostracize females that do not accept that some males are females too.

It's honestly insulting and frustrating to go through this.

Look - several years back, Rachel Dolezal caused a lot of stink, because they identify as black. Dolezal genuinely seems to think of themself, and to envision themself as black. For all intents, Dolezal is transblack.

Since their identity - how they think of themself, and how they want others to think of them - is black, shouldn't they be completely accepted as black in society?
Shouldn't we alter our language to talk about transblack and cisblack people?
Shouldn't we celebrate Dolezal during Black History Month?
Shouldn't we highlight and showcase the experiences of transblack people on Juneteenth?
Aren't they just as black as cisblack people are?
Isn't it transphobic to deny Dolezal's existence as a valid black person?
There's no mention of transracial identities in the DSM-5 at all, not even a tiny reference to anything that could be remotely considered a mental health consideration of transracial identities - and doesn't that clearly mean that transrace is NOT a mental health disorder?
Wouldn't it be transracist to deny the Dolezals of the world their due recognition in awards intended to raise black people above their historically oppressed role, and to overcome the continuing barriers to true equality for black people?
Wouldn't it be horribly childish and hateful if cisblack people objected to being labeled "cis" without their consent or agreement?
Click to expand...

If somehow, someway we get to transracialism being a thing... which I doubt, then saying I'm cis-white will be a thing to say in short: I'm white, I've always been white, I'm not trans-white.

And really they are not the same thing. Our society does very little in the way of segregation on race, as we do by sex (or gender when/where gender is a synonym for sex).
 
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lobosrul5 said:
Thats strawman of the year material... I'm actually genuinely impressed :jaw-dropp
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It's only slightly exaggerated. That's about a decade's worth of discussion boiled down to a notebook page.

But realistically, it's not far off. We started out supportive, we started out accommodating. But when females started saying "no, your transgender identity doesn't override our sex" we were met with a lot of vitriol, a lot of threats, a lot of demands.

Honestly, how do you think we ended up here? Just 20 years ago, this was not a problem. There were some few transwomen out there, and yes - sometimes they used our restrooms. But they were respectful and they were considerate, and we pretended that we didn't know they were male. That was the unspoken agreement - respect us and we will support the fiction.

Now however, we've got adult males walking around showers in front of teenage females... and when the females complain that their entire swim team is uncomfortable and intimidated by this, the young females are chastised as being in the wrong, and told that they can find somewhere other than the female showers to change and bathe.

We've got adult males going to Korean spas and using the female side of the spa complete with their balls and dick on display - and when the females complain that they're not okay with this, they're told that they're in the wrong, and that males have every right to be there whether the females like it or not.

We've got adult males "discovering" their "true selves" while in prison, right when laws are passed that allow prisoners to be housed according to their professed gender identity - with no need for any verification of any sort and no need for any transition at all. And we have a waiting list of males who now have the *right* to share cells with female inmates as long as they say they identify as a "woman".

We've got female athletes losing spots on teams, losing spots in play-offs, to male-bodied people with completely intact male bodies, and those females are told that they're the bad guys if they complain. They're threatened with suspension from the female swim team if they complain about the male teammate that walks around nude in the shower rooms with their genitals on full display.

In this thread, over several years, the reasonable request of females to have access to male-free spaces has resulted in us being called names, being maligned and insulted, being denigrated.

It's really not that much of an exaggeration.
 
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