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

[Emily's Cat]

Without starting yet another sub-debate a lot of the issue is that we lump two (to me anyway) very different things under the vague term "trans."

I've always said that a biological X who defines as Y and is actively going through steps to make actual physical changes to their body; reassignment surgery, hormone treatment, etc makes absolutely 100% perfect sense because it recognizes that actual, objective, physiological changes have to be made to turn from an X into a Y.

We could quibble over whether or not it "counts" or whether or not any amount of effort really can fully change a pure X into a pure Y, but at least they are acknowledging that actual, real, objective, non-internal change has to happen.

"I'm an X but now I'm a Y and that change occurred the moment I changed my completely internal self identity and I have no intentions of making any changes beyond that and still demand to be literally thought of as a Y" is where my issue has always lay.

That's where the vast majority of the debate lies.

Although, there is still an element of the former scenario that lends itself to "in which situations do we, as a society, allow this person's medical endeavors to overshadow the material sex of others?' For someone that has completely medically transitioned, including genital reconfiguration... that ends up being almost exclusively the question of sports, where the physical advantages of a male puberty are still present. For someone who has not made cosmetic alterations to their genitals... it's a bit broader scope. Perhaps with a reasonable amount of genuine transition, we no longer care about bathrooms, or even most adult communal showers (provided they keep it covered). But we might still care a whole lot about prisons, or about middle or high school showers.

 

[d4m10n]

You take other people's perception out of the equation and what are we even doing?

Gender is a social construct, you can't take out other people's perception.

That's a perfectly cogent response so long as we are talking about the social construct of gender rather than, say, the actual experience of gender dysphoria. If a patient has "[a]n intense need to do away with his or her primary or secondary sex features (or, in the case of young teenagers, to avert the maturity of the likely secondary features)" and "[a]n intense desire to have the primary or secondary sex features of the other [sex]" and "[a] deep desire to transform into another [sex]" then they are clinically dysphoric, even if they do not experience "[a] profound need for society to treat them as another gender."

 

[Emily's Cat]

It used to be that transsexuals and transvestites were different things.

Yep. Transvestites were almost exclusively males who got some degree of sexual titillation from dressing in female clothing. It ranged from the relatively mild thrill of violating a social taboo... all the way to fairly extreme paraphilia.

Transsexuals were almost exclusively males whose self-perception was in some way faulty, such that their brains had a severe and distressing disconnect about their sexed body. By description, it often included not just discomfort and dislike for their penis, but frequently an intense feeling of surprise and shock that it was even present - their brains genuinely viewed the appendage as an imposter, something that did not belong to them and wasn't supposed to be there.

Both of those could experience some degree of dysphoria. One of the major distinguishing features between them is the intent and the degree of sexual arousal associated with the opposite sex. And of course, people aren't always honest about their motivation when the predominant factor is to gain sexual arousal and gratification... so just asking wasn't really sufficient. The most observable difference between the two is that those with a transsexual perception nearly always felt this way from a very young age, and it was predominantly body focused, not just social expectation focused. So it wasn't "I like pink sparkly things and baby dolls", but more "This thing sticking out of my body is foreign and I it's not mine and it shouldn't be there". Transvestic focuses, however, tend to develop during or after puberty. They stem from the development of sexual urges, even though they sometimes don't fully manifest until later in adult life.

 

[Ziggurat]

That's a perfectly cogent response so long as we are talking about the social construct of gender rather than, say, the actual experience of gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria is a misnomer. It should be called sex dysphoria.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Yep. Transvestites were almost exclusively males who got some degree of sexual titillation from dressing in female clothing. It ranged from the relatively mild thrill of violating a social taboo... all the way to fairly extreme paraphilia.

Transsexuals were almost exclusively males whose self-perception was in some way faulty, such that their brains had a severe and distressing disconnect about their sexed body. By description, it often included not just discomfort and dislike for their penis, but frequently an intense feeling of surprise and shock that it was even present - their brains genuinely viewed the appendage as an imposter, something that did not belong to them and wasn't supposed to be there.

Both of those could experience some degree of dysphoria. One of the major distinguishing features between them is the intent and the degree of sexual arousal associated with the opposite sex. And of course, people aren't always honest about their motivation when the predominant factor is to gain sexual arousal and gratification... so just asking wasn't really sufficient. The most observable difference between the two is that those with a transsexual perception nearly always felt this way from a very young age, and it was predominantly body focused, not just social expectation focused. So it wasn't "I like pink sparkly things and baby dolls", but more "This thing sticking out of my body is foreign and I it's not mine and it shouldn't be there". Transvestic focuses, however, tend to develop during or after puberty. They stem from the development of sexual urges, even though they sometimes don't fully manifest until later in adult life.

 

[smartcooky]

Starting at puberty, they won't be - because pretty much as soon as puberty begins, females become uncompetitive against males.

In New Zealand, Junior Rugby Football age grades Under-13 and below are mixed. Its not unusual to go out to the local field here on a Saturday morning and see a school team of mostly boys with the occasional girl playing at loose-forward or somewhere in the backs. At the next grade Under 14, the sexes are split, and girls are no longer allowed on the boys teams, for obvious reasons.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I don't want to go down a road of arguing via terminology anymore than I have to but in general "dysphoria" is a little generally seen as a little more complex than "Oh **** everyone just agree with them so there is no conflict between what they think and reality (or what everyone else thinks.)"

If some thinks they are Napoleon the solution is not to make everyone else treat them like Napoleon because that's less stress on them.

"I think I'm a woman, it would be less stress on me and better for my mental health if you just nodded and agreed" does not NECESSARILY equal "Therefore we all have to treat them like a woman."

We don't let people with Anton Syndrome just keep thinking they are blind.

 

[mumblethrax]

Can you please provide your personal view on how we distinguish between a transwoman and a man, in a general way?

There isn't a reliable way to casually distinguish between the two.

There also isn't a reliable way to casually distinguish between a transman and a man.

You've got the same problem either way.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Seems like if you're in a country that permits legal sex changes, that possibility is pretty undeniable.

This is muddling of meanings for "gender" versus "sex".

In legal parlance, "gender" is used as a euphemism for sex. It has never been intended to represent either 1) a person's internal feeling about themself or 2) the set of roles and behaviors that they're expected to perform in society. Neither of the recent meanings of the term "gender" is applicable to how the term has been used judicially and legally in the past.

A country that permits legal sex changes is producing a legal fiction on behalf of a person. And it's specifically the fiction that the person is of the opposite sex for many legal purposes. For example, having the legal fiction of being "female" when one is biologically male allowed people of the same sex to get married in the UK at a time when same-sex marriage was illegal. And in Canada, it allows a person who is biologically male to qualify for lower car insurance rates because they are legally treated as "female".

But we all know that they aren't ACTUALLY changing sex. They're still the same sex they've been since the seventh week in their mother's womb. It's a fiction supported by the state.

Please don't conflate gender and sex. More specifically - please don't overwrite newfangled meanings of "gender" onto historical usages where gender was clearly intended as a polite euphemism for sex.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Until you just brought it up I hadn't realized how long it had been since I heard that term in any modern discourse.

When was Izzard's most popular stand up show?

Alternatively... the last time you saw Rocky Horror Picture Show?

 

[Emily's Cat]

No, it used to be they were considered the same thing (they were all transvestites). It wasn't until 1950 or so that a distinction was made in English between transvestites and transsexuals. That distinction is still in place.

How about "throughout the entire lives of every single person posting on ISF... they have been different things"? Does that work for you? Do we really have to incorporate everything back to Charlemagne?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Is it even possible for a woman to be a transvestite these days? It's pretty common for women to wear what would have previously been considered strictly men's clothing, and it's not really considered cross dressing but rather just part of the normal range of styles available.

Or has crossdressing always meant men who dress in women's clothing?

If said female cross dresses predominantly for sexual titillation, then absolutely.

 

[Emily's Cat]

They can find it unconvincing all they want. The reality is that the law does treat corporations as legal persons (for some purposes, at least).

If you can legally change your sex, that entails a social recognition of the possibility of a change in gender.

There's so much muddling and conflation involved in this thread already, can we please not add more?

"The law treats as... " is absolutely not at all the same as "In reality actually is... "

This shouldn't have to be specified, and adults with a reasonable grasp of the concepts involved shouldn't be confused by this.

 

[mumblethrax]

In legal parlance, "gender" is used as a euphemism for sex. It has never been intended to represent either 1) a person's internal feeling about themself or 2) the set of roles and behaviors that they're expected to perform in society. Neither of the recent meanings of the term "gender" is applicable to how the term has been used judicially and legally in the past.

Sex is a matter biological. Gender is all of the social, cultural, psychological attachments to sex.

Which side of that razor do you think "the law" falls on?

Please don't conflate gender and sex.

I'm not. Everyone else seems to be.

 

[mumblethrax]

T"The law treats as... " is absolutely not at all the same as "In reality actually is... "

Of course it isn't. This is the point I've been trying to make for the past several days. The law is not a direct reflection of reality.

This shouldn't have to be specified, and adults with a reasonable grasp of the concepts involved shouldn't be confused by this.

I agree. So why is everyone so confused by it?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yet how often does either word appear even in this thread? Almost never, and usually to point out that the words aren't used anymore. The whole focus on "gender" rather than sex, the push for self-ID, the insistence that you can be transgender without gender dysphoria, and even the whole "truscum" thing all serve to conflate transvestites with transsexuals.

I've used "transvestite" many times. Particularly in the context of transvestic fetishism. I've also used transsexual many times, in order to distinguish between the legal and social approaches of the past and the current free-for-all approach of self-id. theprestige has also frequently used transsexual.

Pretty sure we even had a discussion about "truscum" versus "tucute" about a year ago, where the distinction between advocacy views for transsexuals versus transgender people were addressed.

I follow about half a dozen people on twitter who refer to themselves as transsexuals.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It really is hard to imagine what the female to male equivalent of drag queen even would be.

So... I was going to flippantly stick a picture of a jock strap in here, just for giggles.

Google's return images for "jock strap" includes a whole lot of stuff that's NSFW.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I've been wondering about this for years now. For whatever reason, cross-dressing seems to be an important part of expressing transgender identity. It sure seems like some transwomen - e.g., Rachel Levine, Lia Thomas - are making the argument that a transwoman is a woman if he dresses (stereotypically) like a woman. How can the question of whether transwomen are women, and therefore this thread, not be at least partly about the role transvestism plays in transgender expression?

I disagree, at least to some degree.

First off, let's not ignore reality on this. In reality, for a male to pass as a female successfully, they absolutely have to wear traditionally female clothing. That doesn't mean they cannot wear jeans and a t-shirt... but they sure better wear female-cut jeans and a female-cut t-shirt. Unless they've had extensive surgeries done - full facial feminization, rib removal, hip and buttock implants, etc - they're not going to pass if they wear male-cut clothing. So whether they actually WANT to dress in female clothing isn't directly relevant if we're talking about people with genuine severe dysphoria who have transitioned for non-sexual reasons. That's just the way it is. Hell, females who don't wear sufficiently female-cut clothing get some side-eye. And I'm not talking about just "trousers" here, I'm talking about male-cut trousers. Because they're literally cut differently to accommodate different body shapes. A female in jeans is almost always wearing jeans that were designed for a female body shape. Very few females actually wear jeans designed for a male body shape. They tend to be uncomfortable.

I don't think transvesticism in it's clinical definition plays a role in ALL transgender expression. Cross-dressing plays a roll. But not all cross-dressing is transvestic. It's only transvestic if it's done for sexual arousal or gratification.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Much of what is being said in this thread could best be summarized as "biological essentialism", that is, that the binary reality of biological sex is pretty much the only thing that is relevant and gender, if it even exists separately from sex, is a distant secondary concern at best.

This is unsurprisingly a mischaracterization.

 

[Samson]

Unfair Play

A new book by Sharron Davies, swimmer from the 80s, notably says she gets letters from parents of 10 and 11 year olds where the mixed races (all sports I think) yield no female winners at all.

https://youtu.be/5iziF646MCk