Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Emily's Cat]

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

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

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.

Let's also incorporate physicality into this calculus. On average, a female has even odds of being able to fight off an attacking female. On average, a male has even odds of being able to fight off an attacking male.

On average, a female has extremely low odds of being able to fight off an attacking male.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Every poster in this thread, or every poser on ISF? Because I assure you that some of them are adamant that there's no meaningful difference whatsoever, and that failure to accept transgender identified males as being identical to females in every way that matters is rank bigotry and borders on a hate crime.

 

[Emily's Cat]

@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.

The connection is that what that male describes has also been described in all its gory details by self-declared transwomen all over the internet, multiple times. The entire description is 100% autogynephilia, and it's pretty much exactly what many self-declared transwomen report to other self-declared transwoman. That *is* the underlying motivation for a whole lot of them.

ETA: Look, just go read through some of MaryCate Delvey's posts on twitter, specifically the stuff in their "Listen to transpeople" set. Delvey isn't making any of it up - it's all literally what trans identifying males actually post about themselves.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1752758318789951920

 

[Brainster]

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?

Brilliant! So we should make sure not to allow any cis men into women's spaces. Now if we only had a way to check who's cis and who's really trans... oh, hell we're right back at the beginning again!

 

[Mycroft]

That's how it starts.

I don't get it. So what if it does?

 

[smartcooky]

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.

In the argument about what percentage of who does what to whom, there is an important point that often gets missed, and that I don't see discussed very often. We know that transwomen sexually offend against females and children at more that two-and-a-half times the rate that normal males do. Rolfe and I, et al have posted the stats on this multiple times. The point is that a very, very small number of predators can do a very, very large amount of damage. If you take a look at the UK trans crime website, you can see that there are a lot of trangender sexual predators on their lists who are repeat offenders... and those are only the repeat offenses we know about.

By allowing self-ID transwomen access to female spaces , we know with absolute certainty that the number of females and children who will become victims of sexual predators will increase.

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.

One of the worst aspects of this is those "old-school" trans have been hugely negatively impacted. They used to be tolerated, but they have now become the unwilling victims of trans activism.

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.

Indeed.

Even in this country, one which is not fully captured by gender ideology the way Australia has been, there have been people fired from their jobs for misconduct because they refused to use preferred pronouns.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't get it. So what if it does?

I already explained. Public support for indulging someone's fetish is going to be a lot weaker than for alleviating their dysphoric distress. People who are trying to satisfy a kink are piggybacking on the public willingness to alleviate distress, and the public is largely unaware of this.

 

[Hercules56]

How about this? If you still have testicles and a penis you cannot enter a woman's locker room or bathroom.

Basically this requires surgical transition in order to claim to be a woman.

Some say this is very legit, others call it bigotry.

 

[Mycroft]

I already explained. Public support for indulging someone's fetish is going to be a lot weaker than for alleviating their dysphoric distress. People who are trying to satisfy a kink are piggybacking on the public willingness to alleviate distress, and the public is largely unaware of this.

I don't think autogynephilia is a fetish. I think it's just a normal way for a trans-woman to feel. I think it might be weird if they didn't feel that way.

I also think raising the issue is just a way to discredit trans-people. To frame their condition as a fetish and to cost them public support. I don't think a person's rights should be determined in any way by their private fantasies.

 

[smartcooky]

I don't think autogynephilia is a fetish. I think it's just a normal way for a trans-woman to feel. I think it might be weird if they didn't feel that way.

I also think raising the issue is just a way to discredit trans-people. To frame their condition as a fetish and to cost them public support. I don't think a person's rights should be determined in any way by their private fantasies.

Then a person's rights should certainly not be determined in any way by the fetishes of others. Yet, here we are, in a world that wants to grant transwomen the right to use female safe spaces against the will of women, and in so doing abrogating their rights.

I don't know about you, or if you have children or grand children, but I don't want my daughters or granddaughters being followed into the female safe spaces they use, by the types of individuals described here https://transcrimeuk.com/

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't think autogynephilia is a fetish. I think it's just a normal way for a trans-woman to feel. I think it might be weird if they didn't feel that way.

Then you don't understand what autogynephilia is. It is NOT dysmorphia.

I don't think a person's rights should be determined in any way by their private fantasies.

Neither do I. But the trans activists do.

 

[theprestige]

I don't think autogynephilia is a fetish. I think it's just a normal way for a trans-woman to feel. I think it might be weird if they didn't feel that way.

I also think raising the issue is just a way to discredit trans-people. To frame their condition as a fetish and to cost them public support. I don't think a person's rights should be determined in any way by their private fantasies.

I agree that a person's rights should not be determined by their private fantasies.

However, we can probably render the question moot by focusing on the rights actually under dispute here.

Do you believe a man should have the right to:

• Compete in women's sports
• Be housed in women's prisons
• Use women's locker rooms
• Enter women's shelters
• Be recognized as a woman in matters of women's representation (e.g., a list of women CEOs)

If that man says he wants those things?

 

[Emily's Cat]

One of the worst aspects of this is those "old-school" trans have been hugely negatively impacted. They used to be tolerated, but they have now become the unwilling victims of trans activism.

 

[Emily's Cat]

How about this? If you still have testicles and a penis you cannot enter a woman's locker room or bathroom.

Basically this requires surgical transition in order to claim to be a woman.

Some say this is very legit, others call it bigotry.

It's very compassionate and noble idea.

Now... try to put yourself in the shoes of a female. A 6'2" broad-shouldered hair person with an entirely male body structure and facial stubble walks into a female locker room.

How are we supposed to know whether or not this individual has their wedding tackle or not?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't think autogynephilia is a fetish. I think it's just a normal way for a trans-woman to feel. I think it might be weird if they didn't feel that way.

It's classified as a sexual fetish in DSM-5.

And why on earth do you think it should be normal for a transgender identified male to get sexual arousal and titillation out of fantasizing about themselves as a female, and from imposing themselves amidst females who object to their presence? Why do you think it should be considered normal for a transgender identified male to get their rocks off by overriding female sexual boundaries?

Do you think that other males get sexually aroused by thinking about themselves as males?

I also think raising the issue is just a way to discredit trans-people. To frame their condition as a fetish and to cost them public support. I don't think a person's rights should be determined in any way by their private fantasies.

Some of them actually do have a fetish.

And it's NOT private - that's the problem. Granting these males access to female-only spaces where females are naked or vulnerable isn't private at all, it's given them the legal right to force females to take part in their sexual role-play against our will.

 

[Mycroft]

Then you don't understand what autogynephilia is. It is NOT dysmorphia.

I'm pretty sure I understand it fine. It seems natural to me for a transwoman to fantasize about having sex as a woman regardless of where they are in the transition process. It's most likely a part of their first masturbatory experiences and definitive of being trans.

Imagine saying something similar about gay people. "They just want us to accept their fetish for having sex with the same gender." Well, duh!

Isn't thinking of themselves as a woman fundamental to being a transwoman?

Neither do I. But the trans activists do.

Yet I only hear the issue raised by anti-trans people. You even said presenting it as a fetish makes it less sympathetic. That's precisely why you present it as a fetish.

 

[Mycroft]

It's classified as a sexual fetish in DSM-5.

Science changes as understanding deepens. That's a feature, not a bug.

And why on earth do you think it should be normal for a transgender identified male to get sexual arousal and titillation out of fantasizing about themselves as a female, and from imposing themselves amidst females who object to their presence? Why do you think it should be considered normal for a transgender identified male to get their rocks off by overriding female sexual boundaries?

I said the first part, you added the bolded part. Please be honest about what ideas I'm expressing. I'm right here to correct you when you get it wrong.

Do you think that other males get sexually aroused by thinking about themselves as males?

Yes. My sexual fantasies involve me being a male. I'm pretty sure that's normal for me.

Some of them actually do have a fetish.

I think if it's autogynephilia, most transwomen do that.

And it's NOT private - that's the problem. Granting these males access to female-only spaces where females are naked or vulnerable isn't private at all, it's given them the legal right to force females to take part in their sexual role-play against our will.

The issue I raised is about autogynephilia. Of course you're welcome to introduce new topics, but please don't pretend they come from me when they come from you.

 

[Mycroft]

I agree that a person's rights should not be determined by their private fantasies.

However, we can probably render the question moot by focusing on the rights actually under dispute here.

Do you believe a man should have the right to:

• Compete in women's sports
• Be housed in women's prisons
• Use women's locker rooms
• Enter women's shelters
• Be recognized as a woman in matters of women's representation (e.g., a list of women CEOs)

If that man says he wants those things?

I get the competing in women's sports. At the same time, sports organizations are obsessed with statistics and can make their own rules without government interference.

 

[Ziggurat]

I'm pretty sure I understand it fine.

You absolutely don't.

It seems natural to me for a transwoman to fantasize about having sex as a woman

That's not autogynephilia.

Isn't thinking of themselves as a woman fundamental to being a transwoman?

That's not autogynephilia.

Yet I only hear the issue raised by anti-trans people.

You missed my point there, and I don't care to explain it, so I'll drop it.

You even said presenting it as a fetish makes it less sympathetic. That's precisely why you present it as a fetish.

No. Gender dysphoria isn't a fetish. And not all transwomen have autogynephilia. Nor is everyone with autogynephilia trans.

 

[Mycroft]

You absolutely don't.

That's not autogynephilia.

That's not autogynephilia.

This is the definition I'm using:

Autogynephilia. Autogynephilia (derived from Greek for "love of oneself as a woman") is a term coined by Blanchard for "a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female", intending for the term to refer to "the full gamut of erotically arousing cross-gender behaviors and fantasies".

No. Gender dysphoria isn't a fetish.

I never said it was.

And not all transwomen have autogynephilia. Nor is everyone with autogynephilia trans.

Then why bring it up at all?