Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[d4m10n]

But also well done for confirming what Mycroft was saying that much of this is a liberal-conservative split.

Long time followers of this thread will be familiar with how this went down in the UK and how it didn't map neatly on to the usual Labour vs. Tory dynamic. I don't expect the U.S. will be much different, since the people who traditionally focus on women's rights/spaces/leagues tend not to be social conservatives.

 

[d4m10n]

Once again: in a society in which sex discrimination is illegal, and everyone is free to dress/present/behave however suits them, the only practical differences between men's and women's lives are due to their actual biological differences - menstruation, pregnancy, different hormones leading to behavioural differences, vulnerability to sexual harrassment and violence, etc.

I think it's important to point out that even liberal societies allow for at least some discrimination by sex.

In the USA, it's okay for WNBA teams to hire exclusively female athletes and it's okay for casting directors (outside of California) to ask for only females to audition for a particular role. It's also okay for schools to segregate bathrooms by sex (under Title IX and constitutional equal protection jurisprudence) until SCOTUS says otherwise. Similar exceptions exist under the Gender Equality Act in the UK.

Much of this thread is concerned with the extension of antidiscrimination laws to literally make sex discrimination illegal in cases where it was previously tolerated or even explicitly carved out as an exception in black letter law.

 

[Pixel42]

Long time followers of this thread will be familiar with how this went down in the UK and how it didn't map neatly on to the usual Labour vs. Tory dynamic.

You mean J K Rowling and Germaine Greer aren't life long far right extremists?

 

[angrysoba]

You mean J K Rowling and Germaine Greer aren't life long far right extremists?

Long time followers of this thread will be familiar with how this went down in the UK and how it didn't map neatly on to the usual Labour vs. Tory dynamic. I don't expect the U.S. will be much different, since the people who traditionally focus on women's rights/spaces/leagues tend not to be social conservatives.

I'm well aware that it is not solely right-left split, of course. I have said numerous times that I think the word TERF, despite being an insult, is in fact quite descriptive and even accurate when it comes to radical feminists from the 1970s to 1990s who were probably on the front lines of this.

That said, it was claimed by none other than smartcooky that left wing parties will lose on these issues and held up the example of Trump as evidence.

If that's the case then it does confirm that "much of this" (as I said) is a liberal-conservative split (most radical feminists have contempt for liberals anyway).

 

[d4m10n]

I'm well aware that it is not solely right-left split, of course. I have said numerous times that I think the word TERF, despite being an insult, is in fact quite descriptive and even accurate when it comes to radical feminists from the 1970s to 1990s who were probably on the front lines of this.

The term obscures the existence of TELFs, that is, feminists who hold mainstream liberal views which (prior to the Great Awokening) included the previously uncontroversial idea that female humans deserve to have their own leagues/spaces/set-asides/etc. which they get to gatekeep to their own satisfaction.

(I'd be willing to bet that more gendercrits identify as liberal than radical, BTW, but don't have survey data on point.)

...it was claimed by none other than smartcooky that left wing parties will lose on these issues and held up the example of Trump as evidence.

I don't think Trump is very good evidence, but his team was wise to lean into any issue that was 70/30 or more in their favor amongst the general voting public.

 

[Rolfe]

Yup... its misogyny 101 - slap the "bigot" label on any woman who stands up for their rights, refusing to be bent over a trans-rights activist's knee and spanked. Also, slap the "transphobe" label on any men who voice support for those women. Its sickening!

I find it staggering that some of the responses of some of the males in this thread, particularly Americans, hark back to the late 19th century - how on earth did American women ever win the right to vote!!

This one really staggered me.

It staggers me just how hateful people can be. None of this really affects any of you. No one is saying you have to suck a dick. Or wear women's clothing. How hard is it to treat others as they want to be treated? Is basic humanity and kindness to others too difficult?

My bet is almost none of you actually personally know anyone who is Trans. Yet the same people repeat the same prejudiced remarks day after day, week after week, month after month. As if the tiny few Trans people out there makes any of your lives worse.

None of it really affects me, or indeed other women? All our lives until about the past 10 years we could trust that our intimate spaces, should we need them, were male-free zones. Public toilets, changing rooms for gyms and spas, dormitory accommodation. We knew that any man in there was either a maintenance worker, who would leave if requested, or some poor embarrassed bloke who got the wrong door and was busy beating an apologetic retreat. We might occasionally see a "female impersonator" in there, but it was our choice to tolerate them. Now we know that any man who happens to feel like a bit of voyeuristic titillation, and/or the desire to plant a hidden camera to watch us in the toilet stall or the shower, can come in with no hindrance, and we can't even raise an objection because the chances are the establishment will tell us that they are "inclusive" and everyone is welcome to use whatever facilities they want.

And even if none of us in this thread are competitive athletes, some may have children or younger friends with such ambitions, and the girls can no longer count on not having to race against boys. Hell, even Parkrun is allowing men to register as women and take the women's records.

Of course I know trans people, including quite a close friend who told me in a late-night phone call (some time in the 1990s) that he'd discovered he was "really a woman" and was going to transition. He has never done me any harm, but crikey, the emotional labour I did for a while assuring him that his skin was getting softer and he was developing a waist, and his moobs might need a bra sometime, perhaps. I feel a bit exploited now. I just have a far less rose-coloured view of trans-identifying men than @acbytesla has, and I also don't assume that the ones I know personally (about half a dozen all told) are representative of them all. Although come to think of it, Michael "Elaine" Gallagher, last seen standing shoulder to shoulder with a group of protesters screaming "◊◊◊◊ you!!" at women going into a conference to discuss violence against women, because it had been made clear this was a women-only event, is probably fairly typical. Also seen giving a speech to the Council about how puberty blockers are safe and reversible and lifesaving healthcare that should practically be given out with the school milk. Oh and Andrew "Roz" Kaveney, the fervent campaigner against the "cotton ceiling". The other trans-identifying men I know are not such creeps, but the creeps exist, and worse than that, and the evidence is all over social media. We can't airbrush these people out of existence.

 

[Hercules56]

This one really staggered me.



None of it really affects me, or indeed other women? All our lives until about the past 10 years we could trust that our intimate spaces, should we need them, were male-free zones. Public toilets, changing rooms for gyms and spas, dormitory accommodation. We knew that any man in there was either a maintenance worker, who would leave if requested, or some poor embarrassed bloke who got the wrong door and was busy beating an apologetic retreat. We might occasionally see a "female impersonator" in there, but it was our choice to tolerate them. Now we know that any man who happens to feel like a bit of voyeuristic titillation, and/or the desire to plant a hidden camera to watch us in the toilet stall or the shower, can come in with no hindrance, and we can't even raise an objection because the chances are the establishment will tell us that they are "inclusive" and everyone is welcome to use whatever facilities they want.

And even if none of us in this thread are competitive athletes, some may have children or younger friends with such ambitions, and the girls can no longer count on not having to race against boys. Hell, even Parkrun is allowing men to register as women and take the women's records.

Of course I know trans people, including quite a close friend who told me in a late-night phone call (some time in the 1990s) that he'd discovered he was "really a woman" and was going to transition. He has never done me any harm, but crikey, the emotional labour I did for a while assuring him that his skin was getting softer and he was developing a waist, and his moobs might need a bra sometime, perhaps. I feel a bit exploited now. I just have a far less rose-coloured view of trans-identifying men than @acbytesla has, and I also don't assume that the ones I know personally (about half a dozen all told) are representative of them all. Although come to think of it, Michael "Elaine" Gallagher, last seen standing shoulder to shoulder with a group of protesters screaming "◊◊◊◊ you!!" at women going into a conference to discuss violence against women, because it had been made clear this was a women-only event, is probably fairly typical. Also seen giving a speech to the Council about how puberty blockers are safe and reversible and lifesaving healthcare that should practically be given out with the school milk. Oh and Andrew "Roz" Kaveney, the fervent campaigner against the "cotton ceiling". The other trans-identifying men I know are not such creeps, but the creeps exist, and worse than that, and the evidence is all over social media. We can't airbrush these people out of existence.

Indeed. Men telling women they are a hateful bigots unless they accept having dicks & balls in the changing and bathroom and locker room with them, is pretty intolerant. And oh yeah, "if they dont like it, they can go pee somewhere else".

Reeks of misogyny.

 

[Rolfe]

The complete lack of ability to appreciate how this affects women is astonishing, especially as it's been explained so often in this very thread. All the empathy is for the trans-identifying men, who are ALL assumed to be sweet, harmless marginalised flowers who only want to pee and would never, ever think of planting a hidden camera or perving over used sanitary products or filming themselves masturbating.

If any of this is addressed at all, it's only to the effect that these people are imposters, only pretending a trans identity, and their existence is no reason to be mean to the aforementioned sweet, harmless marginalised flowers. The question of how to exclude such imposters while still allowing the marginalised flowers in is never considered.

Any consideration of how women feel at the loss of their personal spaces is waved aside. Women's discomfort, embarrassment and even fear is as nothing against coddling the female impersonators, who must have everything they want.

It's a men's rights movement.

 

[Hercules56]

The complete lack of ability to appreciate how this affects women is astonishing, especially as it's been explained so often in this very thread. All the empathy is for the trans-identifying men, who are ALL assumed to be sweet, harmless marginalised flowers who only want to pee and would never, ever think of planting a hidden camera or perving over used sanitary products or filming themselves masturbating.

If any of this is addressed at all, it's only to the effect that these people are imposters, only pretending a trans identity, and their existence is no reason to be mean to the aforementioned sweet, harmless marginalised flowers. The question of how to exclude such imposters while still allowing the marginalised flowers in is never considered.

Any consideration of how women feel at the loss of their personal spaces is waved aside. Women's discomfort, embarrassment and even fear is as nothing against coddling the female impersonators, who must have everything they want.

It's a men's rights movement.

The needs of transwomen outweigh the needs of women.

 

[theprestige]

You said bathroom access was the thin edge of a toxic wedge. I agree, and say that is exactly why how it is resolved must be thought out in how it will be extrapolated as a precedent.

Ah, thanks for explaining! That makes sense.

Personally, I come at it from the other direction. Once you concede sports, you've conceded the entire question of overriding sex segregaton:

1. Athletic data makes it abundantly and incontrovertibly clear that there are two biological sexes, with substantially disparate physical statistics.
2. Therefore, athletic data makes abundantly and incontrovertibly clear that sex segregation in some areas is desirable to civil society and should be upheld.
3. No medical justification has been given for overriding sex segregation as a treatment for anything at all.

Once you've made a policy against overriding sex segregation in sports by self-ID, the precedent extrapolates itself automatically and immediately to the entire category of sex-segregated things - including public restrooms.

You say the existing setup is Open and Women's. In some sports, maybe. But in the Olympics (arguably the world's most prestigious sporting games), men's and women's divisions are clearly defined, and a few sports are actually Open. The same applies right down to a high school or college gym where records are hung on the walls. Men's and women's clearly separated, no Open.

While it may be true for the NFL and chess, it is by no means the rule.

Thanks for the correction. I'll adjust my thinking on this.

In the meantime, consider whether transwomen - who want to be seen and treated as women by society, are interested in competing in Open divisions against a bunch of men, rather than in women's divisions where all the other women are.

The whole idea is challenging sex segregation on the grounds that it is equivalent to gender discrimination. That's literally the whole problem.

I know what the problem is. I'm hoping you'll address it, rather than continue to restate it or allude to it. Here's the specific points I was hoping you'd address on this last go-round:

You're begging the question that the desire of person suffering from gender dysphoria has a legitimate desire - an entitlement - override sex segregation.​

​

And/or you're begging the question that a man who has not been diagnosed with dysphoria, and has not been prescribed any kind of sound medicine for anything, has a legitimate desire - an entitlement - to override sex segregation.​

​

Either way, I'd like to see you establish some sort of rational basis for us to agree on, that either of these things represents a legitimate desire to transcend sex segregation.​

​

Again, for avoidance of doubt, I know what the whole idea is. I'm asking for your response to that idea, and how you think it should guide our personal and policy preferences on the subject.

Cart before the horse. Self ID doesn't provide an all-access pass, yet at the same time, self ID is sufficient to take their claim seriously.

I'll get back to this in a subsequent post.

If you have some more exhaustive way to define medical or mental health legitimacy, I'm all ears. It's still a problem area for me.

Peer-reviewed research using sound scientific methodology, leading to a consensus of the medical community on sound diagnosis and ethical courses of treatment. You know, the same thing we have for literally every other physical and mental health condition we take seriously in western medicine.

More or less. A doctor can kind of thumbnail assess if the patient ticks the required boxes, but we don't have a reliable standard once we move away from the extremes.

I don't know what this means.

Yeah. Welcome to The Problem.

I don't know what this means. From my perspective, "The Problem" is that there's a strong push to single out gender dysphoria for special pleading, and a unique freedom to self-ID and claim personalized "treatment" that has no basis in medicine. You don't need to tell me that's the problem. I'm hoping you'll give your thoughts on how to address it.

Your use of "womanface" suggests insincerity. I still maintain that trans people are likely perfectly sincere as a whole.

Deluded costumes are still costumes.

You keep saying i advocate an entitlement to override sex segregation. That is flatly untrue. Our laws against gender discrimination demand it.

Our laws demand no such thing. The legitimacy of giving women leagues of their own, spaces and recognition of their own, is well established.

And appealing to the law is a cop-out anyway. If you agree with the law, then you advocate for what the law advocates. You don't just stop thinking for yourself once you find out what the law says. What if you disagreed with the law?

I think at times, it's reasonable, but a solid standard is too slippery to nail down, so I am arguing for a resolution that meets everyone's needs fairly, if not exactly what they each want.

Male vs female is a very solid standard, and already well nailed down.

Here's a resolution that meets everyone's needs fairly:

• Uphold the current conventions and policies on sex segregation. This meets the needs of women, and does so fairly.
• Research and provide the most humane, ethical, and effective medicine we can, to people suffering from mental health conditions relating to gender dysphoria. This meets the needs of people who suffer from such conditions, and need real relief. It does so fairly.
• Do not persecute or discriminate against anyone for their gender expression, regardless of whether it stems from delusion or playfulness, without taking their expression as a license to override sex segregation. This meets the needs of people who like to self-express as transgender or genderqueer, whether as a personal preference, a self-identification, or even a sociopolitical statement. It does so fairly.

All the points in this resolution are based on the very solid, well nailed down standard of male vs female.

{Eta: and I'm still wrestling mightily with your assertion that transwoman is meaningless unless relating to bio sex}

Good luck! It's a tough one.

It's been going strong for a few years now. I think the only sensible exception so far was provided by @d4m10n: Identifying as a woman in the US military entitles (requires?) you to wear women's uniforms, regardless of your actual sex. Literally the only practical application of gender without sex is the kind of hat you get to wear, and whether a skirt is allowed, in your dress uniform. And the president just put a stop to that.

Ok, I just went back a couple replies to see what questions you say I ignored, and all I see is a rhetorical question about "why should we coddle sociopaths?" or something to that effect (which I addressed directly). Last I heard, we were roundly in agreement. What questions specifically do you think I ignored?

The points I raised in this post, specifying that I'd like you to address them (at your convenience, of course), are a good start.

 

[theprestige]

Partially. You are taking their symptom seriously, a priori assuming they are factually wrong. Had you checked first to see if they are in fact being gangstalked, and were simply reporting an objective fact?

If my name were Marie St. Jacques, I might consider that I'm dealing with Jason Bourne, not a paranoid schizophrenic, but it isn't, so I don't.

IMO, whether it causes them distress. And by that, I mean in and of itself, not brought about by hostile bystanders. If we use the hostile bystanders standard (or society or whatever you want to call it), being black is a mental illness.

Dysphoria causes distress by definition.

 

[acbytesla]

Do you think men should be entitled to override sex segregation whenever they want?

Because that's what we're talking about.

I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. That Trans individuals are an incredibly small percentage of the population and their effect is so small it is negligible. About the only thing I agree with you about is that there probably needs to be a dividing line in competitive women's sports must be based on some agreed biological line. Beyond that, I don't care. Beyond that, I believe we should be tolerant of others and treat every human being with kindness and respect. That EVERY human being should be treated with dignity.

 

[Rolfe]

You don't care. Because treating women with kindness and respect isn't on your radar.

The very existence of these people has destroyed all women's single-sex spaces. Whenever we enter such a space now, we know that any man can enter it too, and we are powerless to stop him, or to have him removed. That is not a negligible effect.

 

[d4m10n]

And appealing to the law is a cop-out anyway. If you agree with the law, then you advocate for what the law advocates. You don't just stop thinking for yourself once you find out what the law says.

It's also worth pointing out that the state of law is hopelessly muddled on sex and gender, especially when taken together.

Here, for example, is the part of the California Civil Code relied upon by Wi Spa when arguing that they had no legal right to exclude Merager from women's spaces:

“Sex” includes, but is not limited to, pregnancy, childbirth, or medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth. “Sex” also includes, but is not limited to, a person's gender. “Gender” means sex, and includes a person's gender identity and gender expression. “Gender expression” means a person's gender-related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person's assigned sex at birth.​

Clear as mud, yeah?

 

[acbytesla]

You don't care. Because treating women with kindness and respect isn't on your radar.

The very existence of these people has destroyed all women's single-sex spaces. Whenever we enter such a space now, we know that any man can enter it too, and we are powerless to stop him, or to have him removed. That is not a negligible effect.

You're not really protecting women. You're just using that as an excuse for some internal need to hold on to this prejudice.

 

[theprestige]

You're not really protecting women. You're just using that as an excuse for some internal need to hold on to this prejudice.

There's nothing wrong with being prejudiced against men being entitled to override sex segregation whenever they want.

And once you've concluded that you can exclude men's from women's sports on biolgical grounds, and still be treating them with respect and dignity, then it follows you can exclude them from other sex-segregated spaces and categories for women, without disrespecting them or insulting their dignity.

Excluding men from women's restrooms on biological grounds is no more disrespectful to them than excluding them from women's sports on biological grounds.

What motivated you to bound into this thread and call people bigots, when you actually agree with them on the important points?

 

[Rolfe]

You're not really protecting women. You're just using that as an excuse for some internal need to hold on to this prejudice.

Quoted for jaw-drop value.

Women not wanting men in women's single-sex spaces is not prejudice.

 

[acbytesla]

Quoted for jaw-drop value.

Women not wanting men in women's single-sex spaces is not prejudice.

You're not a woman. You're arguing that they know the individuals are male. You're arguing that this is some significant aspect of their lives. I don't buy it.

 

[Rolfe]

What?

 

[Hercules56]

You're not really protecting women. You're just using that as an excuse for some internal need to hold on to this prejudice.

Not really. Women have a right to their own safe space, seperate from men when they are getting naked, getting dressed, using the bathroom. Especially girls.