Cont: Transwomen are not women - part 13

[TurkeysGhost]

Again my issue is we could be having this exact same argument about anything; height, weight, eye color, blood type with the same "My internal self image doesn't match reality" and we just... aren't.

Why does everyone's actual real world height that actually exists in the real objective world never clash with their "subjective internal self image of self" so that we have to have SOME version of the "Okay the are 5 foot 5... but they see themselves as 6 foot and we have to acknowledge that in some way?"

These are not questions we are bigoted simply for asking.

Why only sex/gender? Why does literally no other objective, real world biological variable demand accomodation for an internal sense of self?

Considering it's only recent history that "left-handedness" has been de-stigmatized, I would not rush to assume that trans identity is unique in this way.

Gender expression, even for cis-gendered people, has long been a contentious topic. Trans people are only the most flagrant transgression against conservative gender roles, but it's part of a larger context.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You have to make up new words to make it work, yes is new.

"I'm 5 foot, but my height expression is 6 foot" doesn't make sense just because you claim "height" and "height expression" are two different things.

Yes who we are and how we express our selves are two different things, stop acting like that's a truth bomb you're dropping on us as if we aren't aware of it.

But who we are and who we want to be don't manifest like THIS is any other context.

 

[Ziggurat]

Why only sex/gender?

Because the activists for that cause have organized.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You have to make up new words to make it work, yes is new.

"I'm 5 foot, but my height expression is 6 foot" doesn't make sense just because you claim "height" and "height expression" are two different things.

Yes who we are and how we express our selves are two different things, stop acting like that's a truth bomb you're dropping on us as if we aren't aware of it.

But who we are and who we want to be don't manifest like THIS is any other context.

You keep bringing this up, and it's obviously important to you, but I literally have no idea what the hell you're talking about each time you do.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You keep bringing this up, and it's obviously important to you, but I literally have no idea what the hell you're talking about each time you do.

Because you don't know how to argue without calling people Terf's and claiming the moral high ground as your total argument and this is no longer my problem to solve.

The complete picture of who we are consists of two things. Who we are and what we want to be.

Only with transgenderism does it manifest as this weird, line straddling "What I want to be IS what I am" way.

Being 5 foot 5 but WANTING to be 6 foot doesn't make you sorta 6 foot or a kind of 6 foot or 6 foot in certain situations.

When I close my eyes and picture "myself" I don't see exactly what the real world sees. This is true for everybody and there is absolutely nothing wrong with. Only with transgenders do we expect it to matter in this specific way.

Keep pretending it's super hard to understand because you can't function in an argument without a softball opponent you can call and Terf and wipe your hands of.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Because you don't know how to argue without calling people Terf's and claiming the moral high ground as your total argument and this is no longer my problem to solve.

The complete picture of who we are consists of two things. Who we are and what we want to be.

Only with transgenderism does it manifest as this weird, line straddling "What I want to be IS what I am" way.

Being 5 foot 5 but WANTING to be 6 foot doesn't make you sorta 6 foot or a kind of 6 foot or 6 foot in certain situations.

When I close my eyes and picture "myself" I don't see exactly what the real world sees. This is true for everybody and there is absolutely nothing wrong with. Only with transgenders do we expect it to matter in this specific way.

Keep pretending it's super hard to understand because you can't function in an argument without a softball opponent you can call and Terf and wipe your hands of.

I get you and I won't see eye to eye on these things, but I'm being quite literal here when I say I don't understand what the hell you're talking about.

I would love to jump to a conclusion about your point, but I don't even know what you're trying to say. As far as I can tell your objection seems meta or aesthetic or metaphysical in a way I don't really comprehend.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I get you and I won't see eye to eye on these things, but I'm being quite literal here when I say I don't understand what the hell you're talking about.

I would love to jump to a conclusion about your point, but I don't even know what you're trying to say. As far as I can tell your objection seems meta or aesthetic or metaphysical in a way I don't really comprehend.

*Sighs*

Look at it this way.

Height:

External: How tall you actually are in the real world. This is an immutable fact that doesn't change. You can "identity" as taller all you want, you still ain't getting on the roller coaster until you are this tall. Looking at someone who is 5 foot 5 and going "you are 5 foot 5, not any other height" is not seen as bigoted or wrong.

Internal: How tall you would like to be. Everyone has a self image of a... well I don't want to say "idealized" because that has connotations of improvement or self inflation I don't want to get across but something like that, version of themself. We all have this but nobody is expected to accommodate us for it in any way. If I'm 5 foot 5 but want to be 6 foot, this means exactly nothing to anybody else.

Compared to:

Sex/Gender:

Factor 1: The biological structure of your body that outside of rare (hell often one off) cases of legit intersex conditions that lie outside the scope of this discussion falls into one of two categories. This is an immutable fact that doesn't change. You have a penis or vagina. You have a specific chromosome structure. These are not matters of opinion or perception or identity.

Factor 2: Identifying as a man magically makes you a man in some actual objective way that the rest of the world has to care about or change something about how they interact with you even if you have a female genital structure and chromosomes. "Self identity" is elevated to the same level as objective reality. "I want to be" and "I literally am" are now the same concept.

Again my core standard that both "sides" refuse to meet is "Can you describe the distinction you are trying to make without just defining it? Tell me what separates X from Y without using the words sex, gender, male, female, man, woman, cis, or trans. Every single distinction I make can be described in that way.

All you've got is "I'm right because I define myself as right oh and you're a Terf."

 

[Ziggurat]

I get you and I won't see eye to eye on these things, but I'm being quite literal here when I say I don't understand what the hell you're talking about.

I don't understand your confusion. It's really quite simple.

Let's take a specific example: Rachel Dolezal. She's a white woman who wanted to be black. She pretended she was black. She adjusted her appearance to pass as black. When it became publicly known that she was in fact white, lots of people got upset at her. Pretending to be a race that you aren't actually was somehow offensive.

But why? Race is more superficial than sex. Unlike sex, it's also truly a continuum, and so category boundaries really are arbitrary. And she did a good enough job at making the superficial cosmetic changes to appear to be black that a lot of people never noticed she wasn't what she claimed to be. So why is pretending to be a different race somehow verboten, but pretending to be a different sex isn't? What's more, why is everyone else supposed to play along when you pretend to be another sex, but we don't have to play along when you pretend to be another race, or height, or weight? I can't make you call me "Doctor" just because I want to be a doctor, I have to actually be one. But I can make you refer to me as a woman even though I'm a man because I want to be a woman. There is no coherent conceptual justification for treating gender identity in this manner when we don't treat any other aspect of identity the same way.

I would love to jump to a conclusion about your point, but I don't even know what you're trying to say. As far as I can tell your objection seems meta or aesthetic or metaphysical in a way I don't really comprehend.

I really don't understand why you're confused about it. But it's likely at the heart of your failure to understand why anyone wouldn't agree with you. I suggest you try to figure it out, because the problem isn't with Joe's expression of the idea, it's with your comprehension.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

*Sighs*

Look at it this way.

Height:

External: How tall you actually are in the real world. This is an immutable fact that doesn't change. You can "identity" as taller all you want, you still ain't getting on the roller coaster until you are this tall. Looking at someone who is 5 foot 5 and going "you are 5 foot 5, not any other height" is not seen as bigoted or wrong.

Internal: How tall you would like to be. Everyone has a self image of a... well I don't want to say "idealized" because that has connotations of improvement or self inflation I don't want to get across but something like that, version of themself. We all have this but nobody is expected to accommodate us for it in any way. If I'm 5 foot 5 but want to be 6 foot, this means exactly nothing to anybody else.

Compared to:

Sex/Gender:

Factor 1: The biological structure of your body that outside of rare (hell often one off) cases of legit intersex conditions that lie outside the scope of this discussion falls into one of two categories. This is an immutable fact that doesn't change. You have a penis or vagina. You have a specific chromosome structure. These are not matters of opinion or perception or identity.

Factor 2: Identifying as a man magically makes you a man in some actual objective way that the rest of the world has to care about or change something about how they interact with you even if you have a female genital structure and chromosomes. "Self identity" is elevated to the same level as objective reality. "I want to be" and "I literally am" are now the same concept.

Again my core standard that both "sides" refuse to meet is "Can you describe the distinction you are trying to make without just defining it? Tell me what separates X from Y without using the words sex, gender, male, female, man, woman, cis, or trans. Every single distinction I make can be described in that way.

All you've got is "I'm right because I define myself as right oh and you're a Terf."

The biological reality of sex is pretty straightforward like you say, but I don't see how that negates that gender, being a social construct, is complicated and nuanced. The meaning that people derive from biological differences is entirely what is in question in these broader debates about gender roles, and this has implications far beyond trans people.

To take the left handedness example, being left handed is a biological fact, but whether or not left-handedness is a sign of wickedness is not.

 

[theprestige]

Homosexuality. Send a gay kid to a camp prison where he can focus on what you've made him think he wants to be instead of what he is, and it's a crime against humanity.

Tell a six year old boy that he wants to be a girl and you're going to do everything you can to help him cosplay that without any going back, and you're doing the lord's work.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Homosexuality. Send a gay kid to a camp prison where he can focus on what you've made him think he wants to be instead of what he is, and it's a crime against humanity.

Tell a six year old boy that he wants to be a girl and you're going to do everything you can to help him cosplay that without any going back, and you're doing the lord's work.

Telling a six year old boy it's ok to be gay seems more obvious example, if not as helpful to your point. If you're going to cook up lazy analogies at least have the intellectual integrity to follow them through to their obvious conclusions.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The biological reality of sex is pretty straightforward like you say, but I don't see how that negates that gender, being a social construct, is complicated and nuanced. The meaning that people derive from biological differences is entirely what is in question in these broader debates about gender roles, and this has implications far beyond trans people.

"It's complicated."

We've been having this discussing for years and it's not getting any simpler. That dog won't bark anymore.

"It's complicated." Well the ******* explain it and stop using that concept as a crutch.

Here's a radical idea. If something is so complicated you can't actually explain it, maybe it's just ********.

To take the left handedness example, being left handed is a biological fact, but whether or not left-handedness is a sign of wickedness is not.

If we had people writing, pitching, catching, shooting, opening doors, and picking their noses with the right hands but demanding to be perceived as left handed you'd have a comparison.

 

[Ziggurat]

The biological reality of sex is pretty straightforward like you say, but I don't see how that negates that gender, being a social construct, is complicated and nuanced.

It doesn't negate those complexities. But if you're trying to substitute gender for sex, then the reality and immutability of sex is extremely relevant. And make no mistake, the TRA's are absolutely trying to replace sex with gender.

And there are all sorts of social constructs around weight. That subject is complicated and nuanced as well. Yet we aren't expected to pretend that fat people are actually thin just because they want to be.

Well, not yet, anyways. Maybe that's coming.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

"It's complicated."

We've been having this discussing for years and it's not getting any simpler. That dog won't bark anymore.

"It's complicated." Well the ******* explain it and stop using that concept as a crutch.

Here's a radical idea. If something is so complicated you can't actually explain it, maybe it's just ********.

Are you assuming that "simpler" is the desired end goal? Why?

Some things are just complicated. Gender roles are definitely complicated.

There's plenty of well reasoned and well articulated writing on the subject. It's complicated, but not impenetrable. It's out there if you are really curious, Judith Butler's work is generally well regarded.

If we had people writing, pitching, catching, shooting, opening doors, and picking their noses with the right hands but demanding to be perceived as left handed you'd have a comparison.

Left-handed people were routinely harangued into being right handed. Probably an interesting parallel there.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Are you assuming that "simpler" is the desired end goal?

I'm saying you can't just saying "It's a complicated spectrum of nuance on a complicated nuanced spectrum of complicated" forever.

Also.. .what's complicated? Explain it. Use small words. I'll wait.

Person A has a penis. Person B has a vagina. Person A may want to be a man or a woman. Person B may want to be a man or a woman.

It's NOT complicated.

"Okay but you see there's this third axis of a gender soul that is sorta going if you want to be a man then you ARE a man but in a way that I will literally never actually describe the functional difference of...." isn't complicated, it's convoluted.

And none of this is necessary. We can treat and interact with people in a way that checks all the boxes people are claiming is important without invoking any of this.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I'm saying you can't just saying "It's a complicated spectrum of nuance on a complicated nuanced spectrum of complicated" forever.

Also.. .what's complicated? Explain it. Use small words. I'll wait.

Person A has a penis. Person B has a vagina. Person A may want to be a man or a woman. Person B may want to be a man or a woman.

It's NOT complicated.

"Okay but you see there's this third axis of a gender soul that is sorta going if you want to be a man then you ARE a man but in a way that I will literally never actually describe the functional difference of...." isn't complicated, it's convoluted.

And none of this is necessary. We can treat and interact with people in a way that checks all the boxes people are claiming is important without invoking any of this.

We can, but we don't. Society has decided gender is something that is very important whether individuals like it or not.

Trans people have to live in the world that exists now, not the post gender utopia of the future.

Is it your view that gender is not something that is socially coded with huge practical implications?

An obvious example of this is race. Race pretty much doesn't exist in any objective sense, it's entirely socially imagined. That doesn't make it any less "real". It's real because society has made it real.

 

[theprestige]

Are you assuming that "simpler" is the desired end goal? Why?

I'm assuming "simpler" is the desired end goal for both sides. It's no secret that the TRA position is to reduce sex segregation down to fiat self-ID. It's no secret that TRAs want to have a simple, forceful, "settled science" rebuttal to any objection or concern about complexities and nuance.

 

[Ziggurat]

Are you assuming that "simpler" is the desired end goal?

No. He's just rejecting "it's complicated" as an argument. Being complicated doesn't preclude an explanation, but no coherent explanation for the TRA concept of gender identity, and particularly not for the demands for accommodation, has ever been put forth.

There's plenty of well reasoned and well articulated writing on the subject. It's complicated, but not impenetrable. It's out there if you are really curious, Judith Butler's work is generally well regarded.

Judith Butler's work is ****. Yes, it's well regarded, but that's a damning indictment of the field, rather than proof of quality. And Butler is anything but coherent. She falls very much into the Foucault mold of writing in deliberately opaque ways to try to sound more meaningful than she actually is.

 

[JoeMorgue]

We can, but we don't. Society has decided gender is something that is very important whether individuals like it or not.

And absolutely nothing in transgenderism as you or anyone else has ever presented makes one single iota of sense under this "Okay but it's just a way to get around gender norms society puts us on" argument.

In the span of 5 pages you've presented transgenderism as a mental disorder, a stop gap until we get rid of gender roles, and a 3rd axis on the sex/gender diagram depending on what suited the argument best at the moment.

The more you talk the more I am 100% sure that you don't actually understand transgenderism more then any of us. You just got told "Here's the new progressive thing and here's the bad group you get to hate for disagreeing with it."

You have utterly failed to intellectually or argumentatively actually support anything you are saying. All you've got is claiming the moral high ground and puffing your chest out but when push comes to shove and you're forced to actually explain what you are talking about you slink off. You are incapable of arguing against anymore making a point, you just wander around the discussion waiting for someone to say something wrong in a way that let's you call them a TERF and declare yourself the winner.

I've used "Transgenderism is bringing back old, outdated gender stereotypes so a small subgroup can use them ironically/non-traditionally" as a CRITICISM of transgenderism for years now and now you're trying to argue that's the whole point.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

And absolutely nothing in transgenderism as you or anyone else has ever presented makes one single iota of sense under this "Okay but it's just a way to get around gender norms society puts us on" argument.

In the span of 5 pages you've presented transgenderism as a mental disorder, a stop gap until we get rid of gender roles, and a 3rd axis on the sex/gender diagram depending on what suited the argument best at the moment.

The more you talk the more I am 100% sure that you don't actually understand transgenderism more then any of us. You just got told "Here's the new progressive thing and here's the bad group you get to hate for disagreeing with it."

You have utterly failed to intellectually or argumentatively actually support anything you are saying. All you've got is claiming the moral high ground and puffing your chest out but when push comes to shove and you're forced to actually explain what you are talking about you slink off. You are incapable of arguing against anymore making a point, you just wander around the discussion waiting for someone to say something wrong in a way that let's you call them a TERF and declare yourself the winner.

I've used "Transgenderism is bringing back old, outdated gender stereotypes so a small subgroup can use them ironically/non-traditionally" as a CRITICISM of transgenderism for years now and now you're trying to argue that's the whole point.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't hold my own persuasive powers in high esteem either.