Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Ziggurat]

If that is a thing he is likely to have to do, then it redoubles the point that there is no way he should be going into women's spaces. (Can you really do that?)

Yes, you can do that. You're just pinching off a tube to prevent liquid flow. But the thing is, that's downstream from the muscles that normally prevent urination, so if that's what you're doing to prevent peeing, then the muscles have already released urine into the urethra so you cannot let go even for a moment without peeing.

Plus, it's almost always quicker to use the men's bathroom than the women's. So if he needed to go badly, then just go to the men's where he wouldn't have to wait so long (if at all).

 

[Matthew Best]

They ate the ones actually being exposed to this.

Well that seems like an overreaction.

 

[smartcooky]

LGBTQ+ has a paedophile problem | The Critic Magazine

The question of whether predators are hiding in plain sight, in a movement graced by an unexplained plus sign, has always struck me as clinically naive

thecritic.co.uk

Interesting extract/highlight part way down the page...

​

"Predators gravitate to organisations that don’t safeguard"​

​

This is absolutely a fact.... one that LGBTQ+ organizations are desperate to deny is the truth!

 

[Ziggurat]

Interesting extract/highlight part way down the page...

​

"Predators gravitate to organisations that don’t safeguard"​

​

This is absolutely a fact.... one that LGBTQ+ organizations are desperate to deny is the truth!

My local church has religious ed classes for kids on Sundays, pretty typical. One thing I've noticed that wasn't the case when I was a kid is that all the classes are supposed to have a parent chaperone as well as the class teacher. Given how the classrooms are set up (plenty of windows) it would be hard for a teacher to get away with much regardless, but it's about more than that. By making a policy of parental chaperones for every class, it sends a message to parents that the church is taking the issue seriously, and isn't going to just rely on abuse being unlikely. It also sends a message to teachers and potential teachers that they have to behave themselves, which probably dissuades predators from signing up to be teachers in the first place. It took the Catholic Church far longer than it should have to come to grips with the abuse problem, but taking steps like this are important. And if LGBTQ+ organizations aren't taking steps to safeguard against predators, then they absolutely will attract predators.

 

[Brainster]

My local church has religious ed classes for kids on Sundays, pretty typical. One thing I've noticed that wasn't the case when I was a kid is that all the classes are supposed to have a parent chaperone as well as the class teacher. Given how the classrooms are set up (plenty of windows) it would be hard for a teacher to get away with much regardless, but it's about more than that. By making a policy of parental chaperones for every class, it sends a message to parents that the church is taking the issue seriously, and isn't going to just rely on abuse being unlikely. It also sends a message to teachers and potential teachers that they have to behave themselves, which probably dissuades predators from signing up to be teachers in the first place. It took the Catholic Church far longer than it should have to come to grips with the abuse problem, but taking steps like this are important. And if LGBTQ+ organizations aren't taking steps to safeguard against predators, then they absolutely will attract predators.

I was a volunteer with Big Brothers, an organization that had problems with predators. During one of the orientation meetings they had us proposed Bigs sit in with a group of proposed Littles while they showed the kids the anatomically correct doll, and talked about good touch and bad touch. I suspect the hope was that it would discourage abuse and it certainly sent out a clear message that these kids were not going to unaware.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes, you can do that. You're just pinching off a tube to prevent liquid flow. But the thing is, that's downstream from the muscles that normally prevent urination, so if that's what you're doing to prevent peeing, then the muscles have already released urine into the urethra so you cannot let go even for a moment without peeing.

Huh. All of our plumbing is internal. There's nothing available to pinch.

 

[Thermal]

Thread taking a somewhat unexpected turn.

 

[Hercules56]

No uterus, no breasts, no vagina, no ovaries, no fallopian tubes, no female chromosomes, no female hormones.

A penis, facial hair, testicles, prostate, male chromosomes, male skeletal structure, male hormones, sperm.

Nope, trans-women are definitely not women.

 

[Ziggurat]

Huh. All of our plumbing is internal. There's nothing available to pinch.

Nothing that will stop urination, anyways.

 

[Thermal]

No uterus, no breasts, no vagina, no ovaries, no fallopian tubes, no female chromosomes, no female hormones.

A penis, facial hair, testicles, prostate, male chromosomes, male skeletal structure, male hormones, sperm.

Nope, trans-women are definitely not women.

Multiple years into this discussion, and you seriously haven't figured out that the entire issue is that a woman is a distinctly different concept than "biological female"?

I mean ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ seriously, dude. If you say a guy is not a "real man" does ya silly ass not understand that there is a whole different paradigm at play than denying the guy has facial hair and an identifiable skeletal structure?

 

[Ziggurat]

Multiple years into this discussion, and you seriously haven't figured out that the entire issue is that a woman is a distinctly different concept than "biological female"?

I mean ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ seriously, dude. If you say a guy is not a "real man" does ya silly ass not understand that there is a whole different paradigm at play than denying the guy has facial hair and an identifiable skeletal structure?

I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree with it.

First off, I have never, ever heard anyone say about a biological woman that she's not a "real woman". Not that women don't face social expectations for behavior (and reprimand for failing to meet those expectations), but that the language and connotations around what constitutes a "real man" versus a "real woman" aren't the same. In particular, while a male can fail to be a "real man" because he's too feminine, the more common case seems to be more about concepts of maturity. A not-real man is still male. He's considered a boy, not a woman. Women who fail to meet social expectations get called all sorts of things (some of them quite vile), but the accusation that they're not "real women"? It's really not a thing. So there isn't symmetry here.

Second, a female can be as strong, assertive, competent, competitive as you want, can have all the attributes that make a male a "real man" instead of a boy, but that doesn't suffice to make her a "real man", because despite the behavioral components, it's still linked to sex. Yes, the concepts of womanhood and manhood are not exclusively about biological sex, but that doesn't mean they are divorced from sex. They aren't, not for the vast majority of people.

And lastly, even if you personally want to use a definition of woman or man that's divorced from sex, most people don't. Even the trans activists know that most people don't, though they pretend otherwise. The fact that "woman" and "man" are linked to biological sex is why there's so much effort put into mimicking the visual signifiers of sex. They're trying to redefine the word in a way divorced from sex to try to circumvent having an argument they don't think they can win directly.

 

[theprestige]

Multiple years into this discussion, and you seriously haven't figured out that the entire issue is that a woman is a distinctly different concept than "biological female"?

I mean ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ seriously, dude. If you say a guy is not a "real man" does ya silly ass not understand that there is a whole different paradigm at play than denying the guy has facial hair and an identifiable skeletal structure?

Multiple years into this discussion, I've seriously figured out that woman is in no way a distinctly different concept than "biological female".

The people trying to push this distinction have abjectly failed. Their attempts end up being circular, incoherent, and somehow misogynist.

And the whole time they've been trying to push this distinction, they've also been making it clear that they don't really care about it. What they really mean by "woman" is "male who's entitled to caucus with the females".

 

[Thermal]

I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree with it.

First off, I have never, ever heard anyone say about a biological woman that she's not a "real woman". Not that women don't face social expectations for behavior (and reprimand for failing to meet those expectations), but that the language and connotations around what constitutes a "real man" versus a "real woman" aren't the same. In particular, while a male can fail to be a "real man" because he's too feminine, the more common case seems to be more about concepts of maturity. A not-real man is still male. He's considered a boy, not a woman. Women who fail to meet social expectations get called all sorts of things (some of them quite vile), but the accusation that they're not "real women"? It's really not a thing. So there isn't symmetry here.

Second, a female can be as strong, assertive, competent, competitive as you want, can have all the attributes that make a male a "real man" instead of a boy, but that doesn't suffice to make her a "real man", because despite the behavioral components, it's still linked to sex. Yes, the concepts of womanhood and manhood are not exclusively about biological sex, but that doesn't mean they are divorced from sex. They aren't, not for the vast majority of people.

And lastly, even if you personally want to use a definition of woman or man that's divorced from sex, most people don't. Even the trans activists know that most people don't, though they pretend otherwise. The fact that "woman" and "man" are linked to biological sex is why there's so much effort put into mimicking the visual signifiers of sex. They're trying to redefine the word in a way divorced from sex to try to circumvent having an argument they don't think they can win directly.

No argument on man being linked to male and all that. There's a ton of intersectionality. But it's not 100% correlated. A young boy can be said to behave like a real man. There are little slivers in that Venn diagram.that don't follow the "man = adult male human" rule, as reliable as it is. Enter trans men.

Like, when you say someone is a "real.man", you usually mean his behavior. And that is what gender is all about, right? We have a tiny slice in that Venn overlap where the behavior doesn't correlate to the sex, just like there is a larger slice where it doesn't correlate to being an adult.

I agree a lot of the trouble is mitigated by having locker rooms and restrooms male and female, not men and women. When you have an outie, ya use the outie's facilities, whether or not you would prefer the other. I'd go a step further though and say that if you are transitioned, or actively transitioning, you can have your sex recognized on your driver's license and all. It's true that you are not chromosomal male and all that, but there are always going to be edge cases where we don't have to be pure binary. You can live every minute as a woman, sliced and diced and implants and the works, but still get a prostrate exam.

 

[Ziggurat]

Like, when you say someone is a "real.man", you usually mean his behavior. And that is what gender is all about, right?

Sure. But again, they don't say that about "real women". "Woman" is not tied to behavior the same way that "man" is.

We have a tiny slice in that Venn overlap where the behavior doesn't correlate to the sex

That is an incorrect description. Just because it's not equal to sex doesn't mean it's not correlated to sex. It's still correlated to sex, even in the cases of men who aren't "real men", because they still satisfy one of the key requirements of being a "real man", just not all the requirements.

 

[Thermal]

Sure. But again, they don't say that about "real women". "Woman" is not tied to behavior the same way that "man" is.

You've never heard a guy describe a woman he is enamored of as a "real woman"? I sure have.

That is an incorrect description. Just because it's not equal to sex doesn't mean it's not correlated to sex.

Right. It's correlated to established sex roles.

It's still correlated to sex, even in the cases of men who aren't "real men", because they still satisfy one of the key requirements of being a "real man", just not all the requirements.

And a trans woman can satisfy two key requirements: human and adult.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Multiple years into this discussion, and you seriously haven't figured out that the entire issue is that a woman is a distinctly different concept than "biological female"?

I mean ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ seriously, dude. If you say a guy is not a "real man" does ya silly ass not understand that there is a whole different paradigm at play than denying the guy has facial hair and an identifiable skeletal structure?

Mmmm.... not so much.

[soapbox]
The end of society is going to come about because people have lost the ability to distinguish between literal and figurative language. When we start conflating the two, it speaks to an inability to work with abstract concepts. And that ability underlies extrapolative thinking, innovation, imagination, and all of the variations of thinking into the future and considering (and mitigating against) what might happen.
[/soapbox]

When someone says "you're not a real man", everyone who understands figurative language knows that this means "you're not behaving the way our current society thinks that masculinity should be displayed". But we all also know that this doesn't imply that the person in question isn't male.

On the other hand, when we see a sign that says "men's room", we understand that this is NOT figurative, and that this was never intended to imply that the room is reserved for people displaying culturally informed masculinity. We know that it means it's the toilet facilities for males.

One of the problems with the entire concept of gender identity is that it selectively interchanges the literal and the figurative meanings, to suit whatever argument is being made. So when we start talking about the biological reality of the sexes, we'll get responses of "sex and gender are totally different"... but whoever is making that argument will frequently proceed to pretend that any instance of the common usage of "woman" as the homo sapiens species term for a sexually mature female somehow has been transformed into the performance of a sex-based stereotype.

 

[Ziggurat]

You've never heard a guy describe a woman he is enamored of as a "real woman"? I sure have.

I've never heard someone describe any female as being not a "real woman".

Right. It's correlated to established sex roles.

And to actual sex. Stop pretending otherwise.

And a trans woman can satisfy two key requirements: human and adult.

But not the third.

 

[Emily's Cat]

No argument on man being linked to male and all that. There's a ton of intersectionality. But it's not 100% correlated. A young boy can be said to behave like a real man. There are little slivers in that Venn diagram.that don't follow the "man = adult male human" rule, as reliable as it is. Enter trans men.

Transmen aren't men at all, they're female human beings (women) who wish to be perceived as male human beings, even though they objectively are not. You (impersonal collective) can't force other people to perceive you based on what you wish - people will perceive you based on their own eyes and ears and other sense organs.

Like, when you say someone is a "real.man", you usually mean his behavior. And that is what gender is all about, right? We have a tiny slice in that Venn overlap where the behavior doesn't correlate to the sex, just like there is a larger slice where it doesn't correlate to being an adult.

Sort of, but not exactly. You might say to a male that you think is lacking masculinity that they're not a "real man"... but would you ever contemplate telling a female that you think is displaying masculine behaviors that they're a real man? If you did, would you say it as a compliment or as an insult?

When an adult human male gets told they're not a "real man", it's intended as an insult. It's an attack on their masculinity, particularly those traits of masculinity that society values in males. When a male is told they're being girly or they're a pussy or is called a sally or a nancy, it's an insult - and it's directly tied to their sex.

I agree a lot of the trouble is mitigated by having locker rooms and restrooms male and female, not men and women. When you have an outie, ya use the outie's facilities, whether or not you would prefer the other. I'd go a step further though and say that if you are transitioned, or actively transitioning, you can have your sex recognized on your driver's license and all. It's true that you are not chromosomal male and all that, but there are always going to be edge cases where we don't have to be pure binary. You can live every minute as a woman, sliced and diced and implants and the works, but still get a prostrate exam.

Partially. People can live most of their lives however they heck they want. They can wear what they want (within the reasonable bounds of appropriate attire), they can adorn themselves as they please. And all of us in this thread support that 100%. I think we all grew up in the era of Poison and Prince, Annie Lennox and Grace Jones. We don't care.

But reality is still reality. And you know, even if Hafthor Bjornson were to go full-bore transsexual and have all of the surgeries every possible by the very best cosmetic surgeons on the planet... I don't think there's a female on the planet who will actually perceive Bjornson as being female. They're never going to pass. Their desires and wishes - no matter how strong and genuine - cannot alter another person's perception.

And the vast majority of females are NOT going to want Hafthor in the showers with them, even though they're reported to be a very nice person.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sure. But again, they don't say that about "real women". "Woman" is not tied to behavior the same way that "man" is.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊. You might not see it, because it's not directed at you. Just give it a think though - how often have you heard some absolute idiot make a snide comment about Michelle Obama or Serena Williams being "a man" or "manly"? I've heard it plenty, despite the fact that they're both quite clearly and indisputably female. But they're strong both physically and mentally, and they're intimidating to weak-minded males.

There are just as many behavioral constraints on females as there are on males.

Here's one in particular that a lot of males are inadvertently blind to. In the business world, promotions and career advancement are largely merit-based, with a soupcon of glad-handing and network building. Females are just as capable of making good, informed decisions, strategic thinking, etc. as males are. But we face some interesting hurdles that males don't. When we're below the age of about 40, females get promoted more slowly than males do, despite having comparably quality of work. There are several reasons:

1) When females have children, they still take on a disproportionate share of childcare such as school pick-ups, parent teacher conferences, hosting and planning holiday and birthday events, etc. If the kid is sick, it's almost always the mother who stays home with them. This necessarily means that work is not always their single highest priority. Sometimes, females with children will have to prioritize their kids instead of staying late at work.

2) When a female does NOT have kids, they still advance more slowly because they *might* have kids. And in many cases, employers don't want to promote younger females into executive positions when they think there's a risk that the female might have kids and then prioritize those kids over work in critical roles.

3) Now here's the kicker - When a female has kids and does NOT prioritize those kids, they're perceived as being heartless, cruel, and a bad mother. It gets perceived by both male and female colleagues as not having a good head on their shoulders, not making good decisions, not being dedicated to what's really important.

It's a catch-22, where regardless of whether a female has children or not, regardless of whether they're willing to place the job first... any choice results in a barrier to their career growth.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And a trans woman can satisfy two key requirements: human and adult.

Well, they're human, and they're adult, and they're male.

What's the term for a sexually mature equine? Stallion.
What's the term for a sexually mature bovine? Bull.
What's the term for a sexually mature ovine? Ram.
What's the term for a sexually mature galline? Rooster.
What's the term for a sexually mature human? Man.


ETA: If we're talking about behavior, I'd also point out that a whole, whole, whole lot of transgender identified males still behave in very male patterns - they talk over females, they take up lots of space, they are demanding and they expect to get what they demand, they are aggressive and get physically combative when challenged, etc. Almost none of them actually behave the way females are either evolutionarily primed or socially conditions to behave.