Transwomen are not Women - Part 14

[Emily's Cat]

Have to be honest and in reality there is a stereotype of women and men that society still expects and that includes outward presentation, this also includes behaviour but we don't need a dissertation! Sure some women and some men don't go along with that stereotype and many women and men decry its existence, but it does exist and most women and men fall into it. I would call that stereotype "gender", I consider akin to DNA and the phenotype - in this analogy the DNA is the biological sex, the phenotype is the gender. With that in mind it I think it is accurate to say that trans men are woman that take on the gender of a man.

I could quibble with your analogy, but I think the gist is spot on.

There are some behavioral tendencies that are evolved as a result of our sexual dimorphism. That shouldn't surprise anyone, we observe behavioral differences by sex in many other species, and presumably this is influenced by the disparate burden of reproduction. We also observe pretty regularly that these are tendencies, not dictates. Lionesses tend to do the hunting, Lions tend to do the fighting (almost always against other males). But lions can and do hunt when the need arises, or when they're solitary. And lionesses absolutely can fight off attention from an unwanted male or an aggressive wildebeest.

There are going to be innate tendencies in humans that differ by sex. It would be irrational to pretend that none exist (and yes, some of my predecessor feminists are irrational on this topic).

But as you alluded, there's also a social element that is enforced by culture, and isn't necessarily correlated with the evolved behavioral tendencies. Those are the norms and expectations that show the most variation across culture and era. Fashion is at the top of that list. That females in western society are expected to have longer hair and wear make-up isn't an evolved thing, it's social in nature, and it hasn't always been the case. That males are disallowed to wear dresses or frills is equally external - there are definitely times where males have gone in for a lot more adornment than females have done.

 

[Emily's Cat]

So that's really, really stupid.

Why do we care about the opinion of an organization which has subscribed to such stupidity? Are we to take their idiocy as some sort of authority? Are we supposed to not notice the emperor has no clothes?

They expect us to be unable to notice that the emperor has no clothes, because they told us that the emperor is in a fancy new suit, and they told us that it would be unforgivably rude to fail to comment on how lovely the emperor's new suit is when the emperor walks by.

Yes, they expect us to take their idiocy as authority.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You.

Now I'm not playing this game with you because you're just gonna go "No I didn't say it I was quoting some study that someone else said" because your entire act, which everyone is now sick of is, is that you aren't capable of actually having an opinion of your own.

Honestly, it's a very confusing discussion. Unless d4m10n has done a 180 in recent weeks, the TRA position isn't one they hold. As far as I can tell, we've gotten stuck in a Devil's Advocate meets die-hard pedant loop.

 

[d4m10n]

I thought I had it there, for a moment. But nope. I still can't tell if Damion is trying to illuminate the ACLU/TRA position, be a devil's advocate for it, or defend it on principle.

Just the first two. Until we get a new Boudicca90, we need to have some sense of what that side of the debate sincerely believes. I figure court documents are as good as it gets in that regard, what with the oaths and all.

Regardless, the only case where transgender identity matters is when seeking to transcend sex segregation in public policy.

Disagreed on this one; preferred pronouns usually fall into the category of cultural norms rather than legal mandates.

It would be better if Damion just got straight to his conclusion, whatever the **** it is, rather than trying to creep up on it by slow degrees while the rest of us wonder what the hell he's getting at.

I'm trying to sketch out a position which is actually supported by the folks at ACLU, Stonewall, etc. without mischaracterizing them or just making **** up and putting it in quotation marks to show how intellectually lazy I am about just making **** up.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Again the simple fact that literally nobody can explain to us what actual, objective factor of "being a woman" a trans-woman has to take on to BE a woman and at this point it's just one big performative act of glibly not answering that question is telling.

What is the difference, REAL difference, between a Cis-man and a Trans-woman? The question can not get more fundamental then that.

Whether or not they cosplay as a stereotype of the opposite sex. That's the only REAL difference for about 95% of them.

I withhold about 5%, because there do exist some few people who have a perceptual disorder related to their sexed bodies, similar to how anorexic people genuinely perceive themselves to be fat and people with BIID genuinely perceive that they should not be able-bodied. For those people, the difference is entirely psychiatric in nature... and this TRA approach doesn't help them one whit.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Treat them based on what they tell you, obviously.

Are you aware of how incredibly difficult it is to tell whether you're playing devil's advocate and saying what you think a TRA would say... or whether this is the argument you yourself are making?

You're being very confusing my friend.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What happens when I walk into a place full of naked transmen who don't look the part, and I'm like, "I don't feel I belong here"?

According to them, you're supposed to just suck it up and get over your genital bigotry. Or something. Because your feelings don't matter, only their feelings matter.

 

[d4m10n]

Are you aware of how incredibly difficult it is to tell whether you're playing devil's advocate and saying what you think a TRA would say... or whether this is the argument you yourself are making?

Until we get a new Boudicca90, we need to have some sense of what that side of the debate sincerely believes. Having interacted with TRAs, would you say I missed the mark?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I see there is evidence that anti-psychotic drugs can successfully treat gender dysphoria.

This would suggest that treatment should be the first and primary option, not the knife and hormones or hormone blockers.

Somehow, that does not surprise me at all.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Just an off topic note. Be careful using "handedness" as an analogy, because it can get complicated.

For example, I "write, pitch, draw, and open doors with my right hand", however, I play golf left-handed. In cricket and softball I bat left handed. This is not uncommon among cricket players, and apparently among baseball players as well.

When I play racquet sports such as tennis, squash, badminton, I hold the racquet in my right hand, but have a more powerful backhand game than forehand game. I also shoot left handed, but for a different reason - my left eye is my dominant (master) eye. I see more clearly with the left eye than the right.

I'm quite strongly right hand dominant... but I'm left eye dominant. When I learned to shoot a bow, I shot left handed because I hit the target much more often that way. Aim was more dependent on vision than on fine motor skills. My left hand could learn to hold and release the string, but my right eye couldn't learn to have better acuity.

 

[Ziggurat]

Until we get a new Boudicca90, we need to have some sense of what that side of the debate sincerely believes. Having interacted with TRAs, would you say I missed the mark?

You are engaged in an impossible task, because their beliefs are generally not sincere to begin with. That’s why we have such farces as the question of “what is a woman?” being treated as if it’s some intellectual Gordian knot.

Try saying what YOU believe first, then move on try trying to describe what you think others believe. Otherwise people will continue to be confused about what you’re really arguing.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Okay so new request. Can we get one of the "I am the Lorax, I speak for the Trans" types who acts like they've ever once had a normal human conversation and know how they work?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Again I ask, who said it was the only category like that?

Do we need someone to say it? I can't come up with any other category in which we place a person's subjective view of themselves above objective view of them from an external observer. We don't allow people to subjectively identify into height, or into weight, or into careers, do we?

Maybe the closest I can get it hair color... but even then we don't let people do it in a completely subjective self-professed way. They dye their hair so that they and everyone else perceives them to be the hair color they wish to be seen as. And that only works as long as they keep their roots dyed. For things like pink or blue or neon green hair, we all know it's not their actual hair color, it's make-up for their follicles, and it doesn't require any of us to play along and pretend like we think their scalp actually produces green hairs.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Can I qualify as Republican if I register as Republican just for this election cycle?

That's not a good analogy. Republican is more or less a club - there's no objective means by which to discern whether someone is a republican or not. It's a voluntary association, free to anyone at all who wants to sign up, for whatever reason. And in fact, if it weren't for stupid rules around primaries, only a few true believers would register for any political party.

It's actually an even worse analogy than that though - I don't consider myself to be a conservative, I've never been registered republican, and I've more often voted for democrats than republicans. Most of the views I hold are generally considered to be liberal (although not progressive in most cases). But people on ISF regularly tell me that I'm a conservative and insist that they're right about my views and I'm wrong.

So apparently, not only do you not qualify just be registering, you can be excluded on the basis of other people's perceptions within specific arguments!

 

[Emily's Cat]

Just the first two. Until we get a new Boudicca90, we need to have some sense of what that side of the debate sincerely believes. I figure court documents are as good as it gets in that regard, what with the oaths and all.

Disagreed on this one; preferred pronouns usually fall into the category of cultural norms rather than legal mandates.

I'm trying to sketch out a position which is actually supported by the folks at ACLU, Stonewall, etc. without mischaracterizing them or just making **** up and putting it in quotation marks to show how intellectually lazy I am about just making **** up.

Thank you for clarifying on this. It has genuinely been confusing.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Until we get a new Boudicca90, we need to have some sense of what that side of the debate sincerely believes. Having interacted with TRAs, would you say I missed the mark?

No, you haven't missed the mark. You've just confused the hell out of many of us, because it has been unclear that you're taking the devil's advocate role.

Which I suppose means you're doing a damned fine job of it.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Okay so new request. Can we get one of the "I am the Lorax, I speak for the Trans" types who acts like they've ever once had a normal human conversation and know how they work?

I think they've all gone into hiding. The last few we had in here have decided to stop engaging... especially once the "actual medical experts in progressive countries who know what they're talking about" have backed away from their prior policy positions of affirmation only.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Is this a real thing?

Trans folk who claim to have boy days and girl days?

Yes, which bathroom and locker room do non-binary folks use? Whichever they decide that week?

Yes, it's a real thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pips_Bunce

 

[smartcooky]

The most obvious example (from where I'm sitting) is registration with a particular political party or other expressions of political affiliation (e.g. "I'm a lifelong independent!"). We generally trust people to self-identify into both fandoms and political coalitions, putting aside the question of whether those are indeed different things.

Can I qualify as Republican if I register as Republican just for this election cycle?

Nope, this is not a valid comparison to being male/female or being African American.. Your political allegiance is something that you choose, not something that is, and of itself, inherent to you biologically. You are not born Republican or Democrat, Liberal, Tory, Socialist, Communist.

You are, however, born male or female, and you cannot exchange one for the other; you are born Black or White or Latino or Asian, and you cannot exchange one for another.

This is different from my answer at #1109 only insofar as you characterize the key feature not merely as a belief but as a belief caused by mental illness.

IMV, such a belief can only be caused by some kind of mental aberration, because there is simply no known rational reason for such a belief.
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[Paul2]

. . . .
I'm trying to sketch out a position which is actually supported by the folks at ACLU, Stonewall, etc. without mischaracterizing them or just making **** up and putting it in quotation marks to show how intellectually lazy I am about just making **** up.

That's admirable, I take it to be steel-manning. For the record, that's *not* what I was doing, I was trying to fisk the ACLU text quite closely. And you and I still disagree about that, but let's not go there, I'm done with that conversation.

However, what happens to articulating their position as well as possible if it turns out to be internally inconsistent? /rhetorical