Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Ziggurat]

It's got to be possible for a regular woman's behaviour to break the social contracts to entitlements like "being in the womens' spa" so why isn't it possible for trans women's behaviour to do the same?

Logically speaking, you're correct. But the typical claim is that these males aren't doing anything that a woman would receive complaints for, that they're only getting complaints because they are trans. And given that there typically isn't video footage of what's going on in these locker rooms and bathrooms, it's hard to definitively prove otherwise. Witness testimony from those complaining gets dismissed as biased. So it's no easy task to establish that they were behaving in a manner which wouldn't be acceptable were it done by a woman.

Plus, of course, there is a different standard, and with justification. A female being naked in the presence of other naked females really isn't the same as a male being naked in the presence of naked females. There's nothing wrong with a female objecting to the presence of a naked male where they would not object to the presence of a naked female.

tl;dr: you're right, but it doesn't really matter that you're right.

 

[theprestige]

Nonsense. Predators want to isolate their victims.

Nonsense. Predators want to isolate their victims because there are social and legal consequences if they are caught.

We already have cases of sex pests not bothering to isolate their victims, because their victims have no legal recourse, and will be vilified if they complain. Cases directly a result of trans rights efforts in public policy. Trans identification by fiat self-ID transfers the legal and social consequences on the victim if they speak out or take corrective action. It's a complete inversion of the social order you're appealing to when you say, "predators want to isolate their victims."

And it's exactly that inversion of the social order that object to.

 

[d4m10n]

Apparently the Cass report was mentioned, which obviously proves the conspiracy theories that it was a set up funded by the US right.

It was mentioned a fair bit by the conservative justices, along with national level policies in various bits of Europe. This case will likely turn on whether the courts apply rational basis review or heightened scrutiny, and it's difficult to envision how detailed scientific findings from systematic reviews could help the court cut that knot.

 

[angrysoba]

You mean the first "known" mustachioed female; amusingly the media is using the "first known" formulation, leaving open the possibility that, say, Felix Frankfurter actually had a bun and not a hot dog.

Well, now that you mention it, pronouns in first name and double entendre in family name is a bit a give away.

 

[Elaedith]

It was mentioned a fair bit by the conservative justices, along with national level policies in various bits of Europe. This case will likely turn on whether the courts apply rational basis review or heightened scrutiny, and it's difficult to envision how detailed scientific findings from systematic reviews could help the court cut that knot.

I haven't been closely following what is happening in the US, because the whole area is so politicized and the processes so different from countries with public health care systems that I don't have time to work it out. I just noticed that there is a big decline in people posting misinformation about Cass and similar reviews on Twitter/X, and a huge upsurge in misinformation on Bluesky (which is largely going unchallenged there, from what I can see). One popular meme is that if published research is cited in a court case, the research must have been conducted for a political purpose and the researchers should have found something different. Possibly this is projection, as the information produced by activists (such as the Yale Integrity Project paper) was produced for litigation, and people don't understand the difference between this and peer-reviewed systematic evidence reviews. IOW, they think that all output is just intended to support a pre-determined conclusion, but that they are the ones who are correct because they started with the morally righteous conclusion.

 

[d4m10n]

I haven't been closely following what is happening in the US, because the whole area is so politicized and the processes so different from countries with public health care systems that I don't have time to work it out.

I can sum it up pretty quickly, there are four possible outcomes for any given opinion, whether minority, majority, or plurality.

1. Rational basis review applies; Tennessee law prevails under this standard
2. Rational basis review applies; Tennessee law fails to meet this standard
3. Intermediate scrutiny applies; Tennessee law prevails under this standard
4. Intermediate scrutiny applies; Tennessee law fails to meet this standard

The more progressive justices will probably go with option #4; conservative justices will probably choose #1.

No one will choose #2, it's very rare to see legislation struck down for having no rational reasoning at all.

It's possible some of the swing justices will go with #3, applying the more stringent standard but arguing that it has been met.

This is all speculation and you'd do well not to believe it, unless it turns out to be correct in which case I will repost and do a little dance.

 

[Ziggurat]

Why does wanting to have sex with women make a man a predator?

What the hell are you even talking about? She never said it does. Trying to have sex with a woman who doesn't consent makes a man a predator. And there are enough of them out there that it's worthwhile to take precautions to minimize the risk that a woman is vulnerable to a male predator.

And BTW, there are indeed female sexual predators. But for various reasons, including the asymmetry in the biology of sex, female sexual predators don't follow the same patterns as male sexual predators. The relevance to this thread is that female sexual predators don't have an incentive to pose as males in order to engage in predatory behavior. Male sexual predators, however, do have an incentive to pose as females in order to engage in predatory behavior. This simple fact is at the heart of why so many women object to the trans rights movement. It's also a fact you have yet to come to terms with.

 

[Rolfe]

Interesting that this article was published in 1979. Not many people seem to have been listening.

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/male-and-female-created-he-them-transexual.html

Also, this thread, which is just a collection of transactivists' definitions of "woman", is absolutely hysterical.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1847587154852974874

 

[Emily's Cat]

Do you mean the sort of people (of any age or color) who deeply believe the social world must be sorted into oppressed and oppressor groups, the latter to be levelled down and the former to be lifted up?

Pretty much. IIRC, cultural marxism - the extension of the core marxist philosophy of bourgeoisie versus proletariat reframed and rubbed all over any situation where one can imagine a disparate outcome. It fundamentally assumes that any existing disparity can only be explained by oppression within that context.

Which is dumb. The reason I'm not successful at sports is because I'm short and uncoordinated, not because the athletic people are keeping me down. The reason I'm not successful at singing is that I have a crappy voice and can't carry a tune any better than your average chihuahua with a head cold, not because the in-crowd of rockstars are oppressing me.

In most any religion there will be those who go out of their way to signal devotion and piety; this is why so many of them come with silly hats.

Hmm... You're giving me ideas...

 

[Emily's Cat]

I've just seen a video clip of "Chase Strangio". Despite the moustache and the masculine haircut, she's obviously, incontrovertibly a woman. Pernicious creature.

Have you heard Stangio *speak*? That makes it even worse.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Honestly not what that post is about. I'm saying I don't understand why it keeps getting framed like trans people have been given a pass to behave badly in women's spaces 'because they belong there.' Something is misaligned with that. I'm saying that should not be a factor in 'Can we get this person out of here? They are acting weird' and I don't understand why it apparantly is.

It's got to be possible for a regular woman's behaviour to break the social contracts to entitlements like "being in the womens' spa" so why isn't it possible for trans women's behaviour to do the same?

Here's the thing, it gets framed that way by trans activists, not by people who are supporting female rights.

The actual argument is that giving a subset of males a special dispensation to violate female boundaries on the basis of their subjective and unverifiable internal feelings about themselves has the easily foreseeable effect of entitling ALL MALES to violate female boundaries at their whim, and removes any vestige of safety or dignity for females.

This very reasonable position was repeatedly met with the assertion that "transgender identified males are just like any other female, and shouldn't be considered males, and would never ever misbehave in female spaces, and besides you totally can't tell that they're males anyway... so clearly any females who are concerned about throwing open the doors to any and all males is just overreacting and being hysterical about it."

And when evidence is provided that 1) transgender identified males misbehave in female spaces and 2) most of the time do NOT AT ALL pass as female and are pretty obviously males...

We get the incredibly well thought out (/s) rebuttal that "well, females misbehave in female spaces too!" as if that somehow invalidates the desire to have spaces in which males are disallowed regardless of whether they wear trousers or skirts.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I consider it to be A problem, just not the same problem you're talking about. It's fine if nobody else wants to talk about my hobby horse but I'm still gonna have it.

Here, I'll even reframe my hobby horse: It's got to be possible for a regular woman's behaviour to break the social contracts to entitlements like "being in the womens' spa" so why isn't it possible for men claiming to be trans women's behaviour to do the same?

I don't know what you think you're accomplishing... but you seem to be completely missing the fact that these are entirely different social contracts being discussed.

Females who break social contracts on acceptable behavior in female-only spaces are analogous to the chicken in the coop that routinely pecks other hens on the head for no good reason. They're a misbehaving chicken, and that should be dealt with.

MALES who break social contracts on who is acceptable to access the female-only space in the first place is analogous to the fox that enters the chicken coop. Even if they behave, they're still a fox, and the coop is for chickens. If you change the rules and decide that foxes that stick feathers up their ass are allowed in the coop... you materially increase the likelihood of a fox misbehaving in the coop because you've now granted foxes the right to waltz into coops whenever the ◊◊◊◊ they feel like it.

And throughout all of this, you seem to be pretending that the incidence rate of females acting in inappropriate ways is the same as the incidence rate of males acting in inappropriate ways. I feel no obligation to play pretend with you.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I agree as far as that goes. I'm more referring to the reports we're shown of trans women doing far more than just 'exist politely in this space' and of upset women and girls being told 'sorry, nothing we can do,' when someone is lounging around spreadeagled and leering, etc etc, aka behaviour that should not be acceptable from any woman in the first place.

Females aren't prone to walking around with their penises in full view...

Also, this pretense is silly - females do not commit sexual offenses at anything near the same rates that males do. Females do not engage in exhibitionism without consent nor do we engage in voyeurism at anywhere near the same rate at which males do. There's a reason it's a "peeping tom" not a "peeping tammy".

But all of this is beside the point, and it shouldn't have to be argued at all. Because males being in female-only spaces is a violation even if they're behaving in a way that YOU think is appropriate. A fully naked male with their genitals visible in a female-only shower or spa is by itself unacceptable behavior - and their gendery feels are completely irrelevant to that.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Logically speaking, you're correct. But the typical claim is that these males aren't doing anything that a woman would receive complaints for, that they're only getting complaints because they are trans. And given that there typically isn't video footage of what's going on in these locker rooms and bathrooms, it's hard to definitively prove otherwise. Witness testimony from those complaining gets dismissed as biased. So it's no easy task to establish that they were behaving in a manner which wouldn't be acceptable were it done by a woman.

Plus, of course, there is a different standard, and with justification. A female being naked in the presence of other naked females really isn't the same as a male being naked in the presence of naked females. There's nothing wrong with a female objecting to the presence of a naked male where they would not object to the presence of a naked female.

tl;dr: you're right, but it doesn't really matter that you're right.

Lithrael isn't right, because Lithrael is arguing a red herring.

Their argument is logically analogous to "all males should be allowed in female-spaces provided they don't engage in any behavior that females would find unacceptable in a fellow female"

The fundamental problem isn't their behavior, the problem is their sex. Allowing "well behaved" males into female-only spaces makes those spaces mixed sex.

It's tantamount to arguing that foxes should be allowed in the henhouse, as long as those foxes don't behave in ways that make the hens uncomfortable... which ignores that what makes the hens uncomfortable is the fact that it's a fox.

 

[ahhell]

What we should be asking is, why are some many hens fox-phobic?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Interesting that this article was published in 1979. Not many people seem to have been listening.

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/male-and-female-created-he-them-transexual.html

It's shocking that nothing has changed in 45 years, and we're still trying to get the same point across. I'm going to need to read that book.

This resonated with me, as it really captures the situation: "Critics of transsexualism contend that such a person is a “male‐to‐constructed‐female” (Miss Raymond's term), or a fake female, or a castrated male transvestite who wears not only feminine clothing but also feminine‐looking body parts."

It hits to one of the fundamental problems with transgender identity beliefs. Putting on a costume of the other sex doesn't alter reality. Even a really good costume is still a costume. And at the end of the day, transgender identified males remain every bit as male as they started their lives. If I paint a tennis ball orange, it doesn't become a tangerine, no matter how good a job I do with stippling.

Also, this thread, which is just a collection of transactivists' definitions of "woman", is absolutely hysterical.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1847587154852974874

That thread had me rolling.

The argument that "woman" can't be limited to female humans, because we use the same term to describe elves and orcs...

And "women have an empty space to create something from nothing, like soup"

 

[Emily's Cat]

What we should be asking is, why are some many hens fox-phobic?

It's truly a mystery...

 

[Rolfe]

Have you heard Stangio *speak*? That makes it even worse.

Yes. It was the moment she opened her mouth that everything fell into place. Before that it was more a sort of "what's that?" disconnect.

I've heard time and time again that trans-identifying women pass better than trans-identifying men, and that's clearly true for some individuals. But I've also heard that this tends to break down when one is up close and personal with them rather than looking at still photos or even video clips. This is because one gets all the cues like shoulder width and waist-hip ratio and hand size and even just height, as well as making the feminine face more obvious. I'm told Buck Angel looks more than half way to female in the flesh.

So the fact that Strangio (actually Kate Bachrach or something like that) was so obviously female just on a video clip and only seeing the top half of her body was quite surprising. Considering that she's supposed to be one of the ones who passes relatively well.

There's a lovely scene in the extras in the Lord of the Rings DVD set where a woman is interviewed made up as one of the Riders of Rohan. Basically the producers put out a call for people with trail-riding horses and their own mobile accommodation to come and be in the film. Quite a lot of them showed up and many of them were women. So they just put beards and masculine clothes on them and got them to ride. As soon as you were close enough it was obvious it was a woman's face looking out through the beard. I think it's quite often like that with the trans-identifying ones too.

And sorry I know this thread is about trans-identifying men and this is off topic and I will stop now mea culpa.

 

[theprestige]

What we should be asking is, why are some many hens fox-phobic?

Men are not analogous to foxes.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes. It was the moment she opened her mouth that everything fell into place. Before that it was more a sort of "what's that?" disconnect.

I've heard time and time again that trans-identifying women pass better than trans-identifying men, and that's clearly true for some individuals. But I've also heard that this tends to break down when one is up close and personal with them rather than looking at still photos or even video clips. This is because one gets all the cues like shoulder width and waist-hip ratio and hand size and even just height, as well as making the feminine face more obvious. I'm told Buck Angel looks more than half way to female in the flesh.

So the fact that Strangio (actually Kate Bachrach or something like that) was so obviously female just on a video clip and only seeing the top half of her body was quite surprising. Considering that she's supposed to be one of the ones who passes relatively well.

There's a lovely scene in the extras in the Lord of the Rings DVD set where a woman is interviewed made up as one of the Riders of Rohan. Basically the producers put out a call for people with trail-riding horses and their own mobile accommodation to come and be in the film. Quite a lot of them showed up and many of them were women. So they just put beards and masculine clothes on them and got them to ride. As soon as you were close enough it was obvious it was a woman's face looking out through the beard. I think it's quite often like that with the trans-identifying ones too.

And sorry I know this thread is about trans-identifying men and this is off topic and I will stop now mea culpa.

I think with trans-identifying females "passing" at a cursory glance is easier for a couple of reasons. 1) Facial and body hair is a very visible strong secondary sex characteristics in males, as is male-pattern baldness, so we've got millennia of evolutionary wiring that predisposes us to read "balding with stubble" as male. 2) There is a larger standard deviation in physical dimensions in males than there is females, so it's more common to see a much-shorter-than-average male than it is to see a much-taller-than-average female. So we end up being less likely to take a second glance at a short-statured, small-handed, fine-boned male-appearing person than we would for a tall-statured, big-handed, broad-shouldered female.

But that really only holds well for that cursory glance. There aren't a lot of really well known trans-identified females out there, and honestly Buck Angel might be the most convincingly masculine of the bunch. But even so... when you see Angel in the company of actual males, the difference is quickly apparent. Despite the musculature, the beard, etc... their overall body shape is female, as is their gait and surprisingly their gestures and overall movement style.