Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Ziggurat]

Ok. So no idea whatsoever?

No, I have some idea, but error margins are large, and the specific number doesn't really matter to my point.

So we are talking about establishing a broad public policy and social courtesies around the knowledge that there is some unknown fraction that will likely abuse them?

Yes. We do that sort of thing all the time.

Honest question: do you think there might be gay men who get themselves a little jolly on checking out guys in a locker room? Lesbians? Are you advocating for restricting their access wholesale too? Or is that different? If so, exactly how?

It's very different. I'm surprised you can't figure out any of these differences on your own.

First off, and I've gone over this MULTIPLE times in this thread, male sexual predatory behavior is fundamentally different than female sexual predatory behavior. Female sexual predators rarely if ever target strangers, and the small subset that do are mostly doing so in conjunction with a male sexual predator. And even if it did happen, female-on-female sexual predation doesn't pose nearly the same risk as male-on-female, because women aren't as strong as men, they can't impregnate anyone, and female-to-female STD transmission rates are much lower than male-to-female STD transmission rates.

As for gay men, yeah, there are gay male sexual predators. But 1) where else are you going to put them? Segregating by sex works. Segregating by sexuality, not so much. 2) Because there are a lot less gay men than heterosexual men, the number of gay male sexual predators is lower than the number of heterosexual male predators, 3) because of their strength, males are better able to defend themselves against gay male sexual predators than females can defend themselves against heterosexual male predators, 4) male victims of male sexual predators can't get pregnant, 5) gay culture is sufficiently permissive that gay males don't tend to have as hard a time finding sexual partners as heterosexual males.

 

[Thermal]

Been googling around for something more than quantitavely-free assertions about autogynephilia. An NIH paper says that up to 3% of men in western countries experience this. Since around half a percent of men in western countries identify as trans, this is primarily a "cis" kink, by a factor of 6x?

 

[theprestige]

I did not. I pointed out that CC's specific argument was not sound. Try it this way:

CC: Transwomen are not women. If they were, they wouldn't be called trans women.

T: While I am not disagreeing, that is not a persuasive argument, because if one's starting assumption is that transwomen are a subset of women (much like bathrooms are a subset of rooms), then there is no inherent invalidation of womanhood by including the descriptor "trans".

I simply preferred the short version.

Thanks for the clarification.

I think you missed CC's point, though. The term exists because womanhood is coupled to femaleness in a way that transwomanhood cannot be.

Same thing with preferred pronouns. If transwomen were a subset of women, they'd just be called pronouns.

 

[Thermal]

No, I have some idea, but error margins are large, and the specific number doesn't really matter to my point.

It matters a lot. If we are talking about a third of them versus some insignificant fraction of a percent, they are weighed differently.

Yes. We do that sort of thing all the time.

No, we largely ignore tiny potential fractions for abuses, or we'd literally never have a policy about anything.

It's very different. I'm surprised you can't figure out any of these differences on your own.

I can, for myself. But others here have some really off the wall extrapolation going on, so I'd rather not assume.

First off, and I've gone over this MULTIPLE times in this thread,

Search is down. The thread has been going for years with tens of thousands of posts. Not everyone in the forum lives for this topic. So please excuse those of us who haven't got every posters previous thousands of posts tattooed their arms for easy reference.

male sexual predatory behavior is fundamentally different than female sexual predatory behavior. Female sexual predators rarely if ever target strangers, and the small subset that do are mostly doing so in conjunction with a male sexual predator. And even if it did happen, female-on-female sexual predation doesn't pose nearly the same risk as male-on-female, because women aren't as strong as men, they can't impregnate anyone, and female-to-female STD transmission rates are much lower than male-to-female STD transmission rates.

As for gay men, yeah, there are gay male sexual predators. But 1) where else are you going to put them? Segregating by sex works. Segregating by sexuality, not so much. 2) Because there are a lot less gay men than heterosexual men, the number of gay male sexual predators is lower than the number of heterosexual male predators, 3) because of their strength, males are better able to defend themselves against gay male sexual predators than females can defend themselves against heterosexual male predators, 4) male victims of male sexual predators can't get pregnant, 5) gay culture is sufficiently permissive that gay males don't tend to have as hard a time finding sexual partners as heterosexual males.

Not sure any of that has anything to do with what I asked?

You said that being an unknowing participant of indulging in someone else's kink was the issue. Who can get pregnant or who's lifestyle is more permissive is irrelevant to that argument.

This originates with the White Lotus article, which as near as I can tell, has nothing to do with anything. The fictional guy in the fictional plot was not trans. He was indulging in a fantasy kink that was very very specifically private and consensual and had dead zero to do with public accommodation.

Posters extrapolating to "...and therefore, trannys are dangerous freaks" are off on some other line of thinking, which is what I'm questioning.

 

[Thermal]

Thanks for the clarification.

I think you missed CC's point, though. The term exists because womanhood is coupled to femaleness in a way that transwomanhood cannot be.

Same thing with preferred pronouns. If transwomen were a subset of women, they'd just be called pronouns.

Ok, but he was simply restating the years old title of the thread. Every poster here knows that there is a hard line distinction between a transwoman and a woman, used in each and every post regardless of the position and argument presented, or we wouldn't have a single intelligible post. We'd all be saying "men" and "women" and nobody would have a ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ clue who was being referred to.

 

[Ziggurat]

No, we largely ignore tiny potential fractions for abuses, or we'd literally never have a policy about anything.

You moved the goalpost. You were asking about what we do when we don't know the number, not when we know the number is negligible.

I can, for myself.

If the risk of homosexual sexual predation is different than heterosexual predation, then there's no reason to respond to the risk the same way. So if you already know why they are different, then you should already know that the responses don't need to be the same.

But others here have some really off the wall extrapolation going on, so I'd rather not assume.

That's not a reason to ask. It doesn't matter if I'm mistaken about why they are different, you already know they are different, so me being wrong about why they are different is irrelevant to the fact that they are different.

Not sure any of that has anything to do with what I asked?

You asked how homosexual predation was different from heterosexual predation. I told you the difference. How are you confused?

You said that being an unknowing participant of indulging in someone else's kink was the issue.

No. It's an issue. It's not the only issue. And one of the big problems with indulging in predator's kinks is that they can escalate. For the reasons I described, the risk of escalation is much lower for homosexual fetishists than for heterosexual fetishists.

This originates with the White Lotus article, which as near as I can tell, has nothing to do with anything. The fictional guy in the fictional plot was not trans.

Have you not been paying attention? Autogynephiles don't start as trans. They become trans as their fetish escalates. This guy isn't trans now, but he's at a point that a lot of autogynephiles start at.

He was indulging in a fantasy kink that was very very specifically private and consensual and had dead zero to do with public accommodation.

And if he becomes trans (as many autogynephiles do), then that kink is going to evolve into something not private and not consensual.

 

[Ziggurat]

Been googling around for something more than quantitavely-free assertions about autogynephilia. An NIH paper says that up to 3% of men in western countries experience this. Since around half a percent of men in western countries identify as trans, this is primarily a "cis" kink, by a factor of 6x?

Sure. But that also means that autogynephiles could be a majority of trans people even if only a minority of autogynephiles are trans. And it's the trans autogynephiles that are demanding accommodations, not the cis ones.

 

[Thermal]

You asked how homosexual predation was different from heterosexual predation. I told you the difference. How are you confused?

Oh for Christ's sake, I asked not a goddamned word about "predation". This is ridiculous, man. You are actively hallucinating.

Have you not been paying attention?

Plenty, but it's like Alice in ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ Wonderland.

Autogynephiles don't start as trans. They become trans as their fetish escalates. This guy isn't trans now, but he's at a point that a lot of autogynephiles start at.

Dead zero evidence shown. The only evidence I've found is that this condition is overwhelmingly a cis kink. You literally have gone from.a fictional cis guy who was privately and consensually getting his freak on, and somehow you are now raving about gay predators and pregant rape victims. In like two posts.

And if he becomes trans (as many autogynephiles do), then that kink is going to evolve into something not private and not consensual.

Oh okay, then it's all a Slippery Slope that... let me grab the edges of the table here for support... that a fictional cis guy privately indulging in his consensual kink, who of course he might become trans in an unestimated fraction of cases, and for whatever reason, not want to get railed by guys anymore while looking at a woman, but wants to hang out in a restroom as a gay predator, who might impregnate his victims, thereby not even remotely resembling this kink anymore, which was entirely tied to getting privately railed?

 

[Thermal]

@Ziggurat and to others: sorry for getting testy, but I'm kinda new here and am not connecting dots the way you guys are. When an article about a TV show is put up as evidence of something or other, I don't have this web of interconnections that you guys have. An imaginary cis guy getting consensually freaky in private has no connection to addressing a transwoman as "she" for me.

 

[Thermal]

Sure. But that also means that autogynephiles could be a majority of trans people even if only a minority of autogynephiles are trans.

You claimed earlier to have estimates, that varied widely. Are those estimates credibly over half of trans people?

 

[Ziggurat]

Oh for Christ's sake, I asked not a goddamned word about "predation".

Predators are central to why males are kept out of female spaces. There's no point in talking about the exclusion of males from female spaces without acknowledging the role of sexual predation. Nor are sexual kinks separate from sexual predation. Not-predators can have kinks too, but kinks have a lot to do with predatory behaviors. We all know this at an instinctual level too, which is why behavior like peeping toms or flashers is considered so repulsive.

 

[Ziggurat]

You claimed earlier to have estimates, that varied widely. Are those estimates credibly over half of trans people?

I think I remember estimates of around a third. Is that not enough?

 

[Thermal]

Predators are central to why males are kept out of female spaces. There's no point in talking about the exclusion of males from female spaces without acknowledging the role of sexual predation.

Since we are rather adamantly NOT entertaining the idea of trans women in sex segregated spaces, maybe we could give that whole avenue of irrelevant replies a rest, yeah?

Nor are sexual kinks separate from sexual predation.

Largely, they are. The movie guy is a perfect example of that. He preyed on no one. Any connection would have to be robustly demonstrated, not assumed.

Not-predators can have kinks too, but kinks have a lot to do with predatory behaviors. We all know this at an instinctual level too, which is why behavior like peeping toms or flashers is considered so repulsive.

Yes, and both are definitionally involving unwilling or unknowing participants. From where we are right now, the White Lotus guy had not the slightest hint of involving anyone in his play non-consensually. I think.you are taking a massive leap to assume the consensual kink suddenly becomes unleashed on the public at large. Millions and millions of people have some kinks, and the staggering majority keep it cool and don't involve non-consentors. You seem to be carving out a special response for trans people, like they are hard wired for criminality.

The link between the cool behavior to not-cool behavior is being glossed over in this discussion, despite the large volume of keystrokes dancing around it in every direction, except the direct one being asked about.

 

[Thermal]

I think I remember estimates of around a third. Is that not enough?

Enough? I don't even know if it is real. Certainly that wouldn't be "the majority" of transpeople, in any event.

From what I am understanding of it (admittedly still separating wheat from chaff) is that it does not exist for trans people. It is strictly a cis kink, literally by definition. If someone is trans, it definitionally doesn't work any more.

Eta: OK, I was mistaken that it doesn't affect trans folk. It does, but according to research:

The prevalence of autogynephilia is estimated to be low, affecting about 1-3% of male-to-female transgender individuals.

Autogynephilia: an underappreciated paraphilia - PubMed

Autogynephilia is defined as a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female. It is the paraphilia that is theorized to underlie transvestism and some forms of male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism. Autogynephilia encompasses sexual arousal with cross-dressing and...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The part I was misunderstanding is that a trans person would actually be fantasizing themself to be... what they were in the first place... and getting turned on by that fantasy.

 

[Emily's Cat]

However, the much larger problem is this hyper dishonest pretending that the tenth of a percent is representative of the whole.

They're not representative of the whole. But they are overrepresented in that population, by a fairly significant portion. And that overrepresentation presents a *risk* to females and to children. The fact that they are only a small portion of the whole gets used to not only disregard any proposal for reasonable safeguards, but to directly impugn us as bigots for even daring to want safeguards in the first place.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I get that you want to walk the line between being respectful and polite toward individual expression and retaining female single-sex spaces and services, and I appreciate that. Despite my frustration, I really do appreciate it. And even though it's not all that apparent, I know from around a decade of experience in this thread, that others appreciate it too.

Where we (including me) end up pushing back is that the respectful politeness that seems like it should be entirely reasonable has turned out to be unreasonable in application.

Honestly, I think all of us, even Rolfe and smartcooky, started out where you're at now. Possibly even more generous than you - I know that Rolfe and I both started from a position of tolerating "old-school" trans, when we believed that the vast majority of them had undergone genital surgery prior to showing up in our bathrooms. And we started out having no problem with pronouns, even though it was frequently awkward and confusing.

What we've witnessed and observed over the last decade, however, has changed our view. Those pronouns that seem so reasonable have been weaponized and used as a means to harass and abuse people, including getting people fired from their jobs and forcing a rape victim to refer to their male rapist by female pronouns in order to ensure that proper respect was shown to the entirely male-looking rapist! The pronoun question itself ended up resulting in Rolfe leaving the forum for a year or two, and it resulted in my change in terminology - not because it's what I prefer, but because it's the only way to avoid being penalized for accurately referring to a male as a male. I have personally been subjected to a really unpleasant pile on from other forum members for referring to Ellen/Elliot Page as "she" and Eddie Izzard as "he" even though neither of them is even a member of ISF!

We've been on the receiving end of having preferred pronouns used as weapons, and held over our heads as threats - both here and in our professional lives.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Great! Still screwing around with that tenth of one percent, and acting like it is representative of thr other 99.9%.

Hey, you know, only about a tenth of a percent of priests are pedophiles. We should totally avoid talking about the way the church has sheltered them, and the way the church has tried to direct attention away from them and refused to address the issue. We should certainly avoid noting that there was a complete lack of appropriate safeguards in place that made it easy for predators to access children.

We don't think they're representative. We do think they're overrepresented, and we think that the absolute unwillingness of the activist organizations to even consider safeguards for females and children is a massive problem.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ever seen that podcast "whatever"? I don't recommend watching a lot of it, but watching some of it can be quite educational.

I've seen several clips of it, and I agree with your assessment. I don't think the chosen guests represent females in general, and I'm often quite offended by their views and their lack of connection to reality.

Once in a long while they'll have a female on who actually does make sense, and makes some good reasonable points.

 

[Emily's Cat]

They have to keep it hidden, because most males wouldn't tolerate that ◊◊◊◊ if they witnessed it.

Spot on. It's also a barrier though. The fact that they keep it hidden from other males frequently leads males to believe that females are exaggerating our experiences. And that makes it an uphill battle to do simple things like... retain female-only spaces and services

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm sure. Or the transitioning had started, and it was mistaken for the kink.

Sissy porn and bimbofication.

Google them... but you'll probably want incognito mode and definitely a personal device.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Honest question: do you think there might be gay men who get themselves a little jolly on checking out guys in a locker room? Lesbians? Are you advocating for restricting their access wholesale too? Or is that different? If so, exactly how?

There may be some few, but they're genuinely very very few. A gay male might get a bit of a frisson out of seeing a hot male in the locker room, but they're not getting off on violating the boundaries of those males because they're NOT violating anyone's boundaries. Similar with lesbians.

The entire issue is that AGP males get off on violating female boundaries - being in a female-only space without the consent of those females, and frequently against their will, is a significant part of the turn on.