Transwomen are not Women - Part 14

[Elaedith]

Protesters attempted to ambush doctors and blockade the entrance at the first conference of the clinical advisory network on sex and gender, held at the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) building in London on Saturday 23rd March. The conference featured clinicians and researchers critical of the current approaches to medical transitioning minors, including Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, chief psychiatrist and the Department of Adolescent Psychiatry at Tampere University hospital in Finland.

Protesters let off smoke bombs and attempted to forcibly break into the building. Apparently the police were slow to act but eventually cleared the entrance and made three arrests.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Sex is a fact of nature. It is immutable, it cannot be changed.

Gender is a human social construct. It is flexible, and can be changed at the will of the individual.

Yes but we keep getting told there is a third axis which we have to accept or we are bigots and exactly what that third axis is will be explained any minute now.

Any minute now.

Any minute now.

*From the shadows the whispering voices of "It's a complicated spectrum of complicated spectrumness that is such a complicated spectrum that you simply can't wrap your mind around how complicated the spectrum of complicated spectrumness is...."*

 

[d4m10n]

Yes but we keep getting told there is a third axis which we have to accept or we are bigots and exactly what that third axis is will be explained any minute now.

It has already been explained repeatedly.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It has already been explained repeatedly.

Both of those are just you quoting someone going "It's complicated" but with more words.

 

[d4m10n]

Both of those are just you quoting someone going "It's complicated" but with more words.

It isn't remotely complicated and it comes down to just a few key claims:

1. All human beings have a gender identity—the sex or gender the individual knows themself to be.
   
2. A person’s gender identity is a fundamental component of their identity that is durable and deeply rooted.
   
3. Gender identity cannot be changed by social or medical intervention.
   
4. Someone’s sex or gender is properly understood to be the same as their gender identity.
   

These claims may be true or false but they are fairly straightforward and uncomplicated from where I'm sitting.

Nothing like parsing, say, Judith Butler.

 

[Steersman]

Both of those are just you quoting someone going "It's complicated" but with more words.

LoL.

How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Proverbs 1:22

https://biblehub.com/proverbs/1-22.htm

 

[Steersman]

It isn't remotely complicated and it comes down to just a few key claims:

1. All human beings have a gender identity—the sex or gender the individual knows themself to be.
   
2. A person’s gender identity is a fundamental component of their identity that is durable and deeply rooted.
   
3. Gender identity cannot be changed by social or medical intervention.
   
4. Someone’s sex or gender is properly understood to be the same as their gender identity.
   

These claims may be true or false but they are fairly straightforward and uncomplicated from where I'm sitting.

Kind of amused -- blast from the past -- to see you link to an old comment of mine which links to an older Quillette post. This of particular relevance here:

Truth matters. Words matter. What is objectively the case matters. And insofar as our words and concepts can be about the objective world at all, then the shared set of words and meanings that we collectively use and are permitted to use to describe, navigate, and refer to that objective world matters.

https://archive.ph/4e2n0

The issue is whether "male" and "female" are categories with entirely subjective criteria for membership or whether membership in them is contingent on meeting more objective requirements -- however we might stipulate them.

Is "teenager" to be just a matter of "self-identification" -- someone over 50 years of age can "identify-as a teenager so IS a teenager"? Or does one not have to be 13 to 19 to qualify as a referent of the term?

Inquiring minds ...

You CAN call a dog's tail a leg, but that doesn't make it one.

Nothing like parsing, say, Judith Butler.

LoL. Kind of like the Trinity:

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of [gender identity]. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of [Judith Butler].”

Apologies to Thomas Jefferson ...

https://quotefancy.com/quote/918147...apon-which-can-be-used-against-unintelligible

 

[Steersman]

Sex is a fact of nature. It is immutable, it cannot be changed. ....

That assertion -- i.e., 'sex is immutable' -- is a flat-out lie since literally hundreds of species change sex all the time. And in many species, ants in particular, some "morphs" or phenotypes never acquire a sex in the first place although some may eventually acquire a restricted ability to reproduce, to act as if they actually had a sex.

For details, see the whole Strict Biological Definitions (SBD) thread, although these two posts of mine may provide a useful starting point since "Roger Ramjets" had asked for a summary of the thread:

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14282687&postcount=1152
https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14284360&postcount=1177

 

[Trausti]

That assertion -- i.e., 'sex is immutable' -- is a flat-out lie since literally hundreds of species change sex all the time. And in many species, ants in particular, some "morphs" or phenotypes never acquire a sex in the first place although some may eventually acquire a restricted ability to reproduce, to act as if they actually had a sex.

For details, see the whole Strict Biological Definitions (SBD) thread, although these two posts of mine may provide a useful starting point since "Roger Ramjets" had asked for a summary of the thread:

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14282687&postcount=1152
https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14284360&postcount=1177

How was it not clear that smartcooky was referring to humans? How do you miss that? Transwomen are men. Transmen are women. Can't change your sex.

 

[theprestige]

That assertion -- i.e., 'sex is immutable' -- is a flat-out lie since literally hundreds of species change sex all the time. And in many species, ants in particular, some "morphs" or phenotypes never acquire a sex in the first place although some may eventually acquire a restricted ability to reproduce, to act as if they actually had a sex.

The debate about trans rights in public policy would be very different, if it were actually about sorting clownfish and nematodes into sex-segregated sports and prisons. Context matters.

 

[Steersman]

How was it not clear that smartcooky was referring to humans? How do you miss that? Transwomen are men. Transmen are women. Can't change your sex.

Did he say "human-sex" to differentiate it from sex in all of the other anisogamous species? He might have had a point if he did.

But he wouldn't because it would then be evident that he was using folk-biology, the Kindergarten Cop definitions. Bit of a stretch for him to then say that it was a "fact of nature". That's NOT a "fact of nature", that's just "because I say so", because I get butthurt otherwise. That by itself underlines the recourse to nature, to all of biology which encompasses those standard biological definitions. He can't have his cake and eat it too.

If you're going to allow idiosyncratic and quite unscientific definitions into the tent then why not those of the transloonie nutcases? From which they might well be said to change sex.

Which really gets more into those strict definitions which, some mods might argue ..., are of questionable relevance in this thread. You might take it up there -- particularly relative to this comment there -- as I'm getting a bit fed up with seeing my comments deleted:

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14287200&postcount=1238

 

[smartcooky]

That assertion -- i.e., 'sex is immutable' -- is a flat-out lie since literally hundreds of species change sex all the time. And in many species, ants in particular, some "morphs" or phenotypes never acquire a sex in the first place although some may eventually acquire a restricted ability to reproduce, to act as if they actually had a sex.
For details, see the whole Strict Biological Definitions (SBD) thread, although these two posts of mine may provide a useful starting point since "Roger Ramjets" had asked for a summary of the thread:

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14282687&postcount=1152
https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14284360&postcount=1177

Any answer I give will be off topic and supporting yet another of your attempted derails.

This thread is not about other species, it is about HUMANS, and only HUMANS.

 

[smartcooky]

Did he say "human-sex" to differentiate it from sex in all of the other anisogamous species? He might have had a point if he did.

But he wouldn't because it would then be evident that he was using folk-biology, the Kindergarten Cop definitions. Bit of a stretch for him to then say that it was a "fact of nature". That's NOT a "fact of nature", that's just "because I say so", because I get butthurt otherwise. That by itself underlines the recourse to nature, to all of biology which encompasses those standard biological definitions. He can't have his cake and eat it too.

If you're going to allow idiosyncratic and quite unscientific definitions into the tent then why not those of the transloonie nutcases? From which they might well be said to change sex.

Which really gets more into those strict definitions which, some mods might argue ..., are of questionable relevance in this thread. You might take it up there -- particularly relative to this comment there -- as I'm getting a bit fed up with seeing my comments deleted:

https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14287200&postcount=1238

If you understood anything about context, you would realize it was about humans. You even snipped out the next few lines that made it clear it was about humans. If you, for once, learned to read posts IN THEIR ENTIRE CONTEXT, you wouldn't keep making your embarrassing mistakes.

Also the thread is only about HUMANS - its the entire context of the thread.

This is clear to everyone else in the thread, and to anyone with a functioning brain, but apparently, not to you!

 

[Emily's Cat]

Jesse Singal just wrote an interesting account of the reporting by CNN of the UK policy on puberty blockers.

The article reporting this contains the sentence "Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which one wants to be known.”

As Singal points out, the claim that gender-affirming care is medically necessary and evidence-based is highly dubious, especially for minors, but is stated as fact rather than opinion. This same statement has been published repeatedly in multiple pieces by CNN over several years, and the rationale given is that reporters are given 'guidance about accurate and appropriate language'. However, this is a contested scientific claim, not a style guide. CNN is reporting on a policy of moving away from medical transition for minors due to lack of evidence, while simultaneously implying that this change in policy must be wrong because there is evidence. No wonder so many people in the US have warped opinions on this issue when they are being routinely fed this type of misinformation.

Incidentally, in the same blog article Singal seems to interpret the NHS policy on CSH for adolescents aged 16 or older as relatively stringent.

US News isn't factual these days, it's almost entirely opinion.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It isn't remotely complicated and it comes down to just a few key claims:

1. All human beings have a gender identity—the sex or gender the individual knows themself to be.
   
2. A person’s gender identity is a fundamental component of their identity that is durable and deeply rooted.
   
3. Gender identity cannot be changed by social or medical intervention.
   
4. Someone’s sex or gender is properly understood to be the same as their gender identity.
   

These claims may be true or false but they are fairly straightforward and uncomplicated from where I'm sitting.

Nothing like parsing, say, Judith Butler.

They're straightforward in exactly the same way that "All humans have souls" is straightforward and uncomplicated. It's a catechism expressing an article of pure faith. The words are simple, but they're also meaningless and unfalsifiable.

 

[d4m10n]

They're straightforward in exactly the same way that "All humans have souls" is straightforward and uncomplicated. It's a catechism expressing an article of pure faith. The words are simple, but they're also meaningless and unfalsifiable.

"All humans have souls" is actually somewhat more clearly defined than "all humans have a gender identity" since there is much more broadly shared and longstanding agreement over what it would mean for the former claim to be either true or false. When Cartman proclaimed that gingers are born without souls, those of us in the audience immediately knew what he meant—and the metaphysical materialists amongst us were reluctantly forced to agree.

 

[Steersman]

When Cartman proclaimed that gingers are born without souls, those of us in the audience immediately knew what he meant— ...

Other ways of knowing, amirite?

 

[Steersman]

US News isn't factual these days, it's almost entirely opinion.

Lotta that goin' round these days.

The problem is this statement, maybe an opinion, but it highlights the common confusion between sex and gender -- which many people, rather pigheadedly ..., don't want to differentiate between:

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender — the one the person was designated at birth — to their affirmed gender — the gender by which one wants to be known.

From the more rational perspective that does differentiate, no one is assigned a gender -- a personality -- at birth, only a sex. And somewhat prematurely ...

But a more or less succinct and common distinction in a paper by Muhammad Ali Khalidi on "Are sexes natural kinds?"

In the familiar terms of the sex/gender distinction, “sex” is the biologically given basis of sex identity and sexuality. Biological sex comprises external and internal genital anatomy, anatomically secondary sex-characteristics, and certain hormonal and chromosomal combinations. The words “female” and “male” identify persons in terms of their biologically sexed natures. Gender, by contrast, encompasses traits and behaviors which mark, and are traditionally thought to express, those biological givens in cultural practice. Gender includes psychological qualities, intellectual traits, social roles, grooming styles, and other modes of self-presentation. The words “feminine” and “masculine” identify persons in terms of their genders.

https://philpapers.org/rec/KHAASN

 

[smartcooky]

A very important case is coming up in Australia. The weirdly named "Tickle v Giggle" case is one that could have a severe and destructive impact on women's rights everywhere in the western world.

https://beforeitsnews.com/internati...ll-womens-rights-globally-videos-2513259.html

I have found it difficult to find details about this case, because the Australian media is among the most "captured" media in the world, especially the ABC, which is all-in on the side of TRA's. They do not want to cover it, presumable, because any coveragle would expose them.

Essentially, a woman called Sal Grover wanted to create a women's only app (Giggle for Girls) for women to network and share information, advice and tips. A transwoman who calls himself called Roxanne Tickle is butthurt because they won't let him join, so he's suing her to gain access.

 

[Samson]

A very important case is coming up in Australia. The weirdly named "Tickle v Giggle" case is one that could have a severe and destructive impact on women's rights everywhere in the western world.

https://beforeitsnews.com/internati...ll-womens-rights-globally-videos-2513259.html

I have found it difficult to find details about this case, because the Australian media is among the most "captured" media in the world, especially the ABC, which is all-in on the side of TRA's. They do not want to cover it, presumable, because any coveragle would expose them.

Essentially, a woman called Sal Grover wanted to create a women's only app (Giggle for Girls) for women to network and share information, advice and tips. A transwoman who calls himself called Roxanne Tickle is butthurt because they won't let him join, so he's suing her to gain access.

A proper description in this video


https://youtu.be/Wroz5dPg_wo?si=tvFRikePd05fIy1J