Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[acbytesla]

For crying out loud. Back in 2003 when I first joined the forum I took the name of my late cat, and had a bit of fun seeing if anyone would figure out which sex I was. That ship sailed a long time ago though, almost certainly before you even joined the forum, and long before the "gender wars" started. I've had the custom title "Adult Human Female" for several years. The discussion in this thread has made it plain that I'm a woman time and time again.

I have presented the woman's point of view repeatedly here. I've described in literally intimate detail how women use our single-sex spaces and why these uses are torpedoed by having men in there. I've referred to women as "we" and "us" in many, many posts. Emily's Cat has included me in her periodic lists of women in this thread who have made particular arguments. I've had the dictionary definition of "woman" as my custom title for OVER THREE YEARS.

I'm not saying you didn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure I knew this from making the same mistake before. This is entirely me being asleep at the wheel.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Once again, menstruation issues et al have nothing to do with a transwoman in the restroom with you. Aside from the thought in your head, she's just another occupant.

Thermal, this is why you get so many people who perceive you as arguing that transgender identified males should have right of access to single-sex spaces based on their mental identity. Because despite you having said that you support sex-segregation in intimate spaces... you just keep defending males with special feelings being allowed to override that sex-segregation.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Also, what do you say to the inevitable rebuttal, that an "F" encoded anywhere, in any symbol at all, is hurtful to transwomen?

I say that having my actual weight encoded anywhere is hurtful to me, but nobody seems to give a flying ◊◊◊◊. Identifying documents don't exist to make me feel good about myself - they exist so that other people who don't know me have a reasonable chance of verifying that I am who I say I am. They're for other people's benefit, not mine.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Exactly. "This is how we've always done it" is Shirley Jackson's Lottery thinking.

Counter with... Chesterton's Fences.

If you don't know why the thing's been done that way, perhaps you should try to figure it out before you knock it down.

 

[Thermal]

Thermal, this is why you get so many people who perceive you as arguing that transgender identified males should have right of access to single-sex spaces based on their mental identity. Because despite you having said that you support sex-segregation in intimate spaces... you just keep defending males with special feelings being allowed to override that sex-segregation.

Because like a lot of people, I'm still kicking around the conflicting ideas. I am viscerally supportive of hard line sex segregation, till I really start thinking about it. Then I don't feel so sure. Sometimes the fastest way is to get it all out and hash it out, and weigh the final result.

Eta: and the 'why' is not always gonna jive with the 'what' to do, and the more I'm looking at the 'why', the less confident I feel

 

[Thermal]

Counter with... Chesterton's Fences.

If you don't know why the thing's been done that way, perhaps you should try to figure it out before you knock it down.

Right, it could go either way, or some of both. But the standalone "we've always done it this way" is one weak-assed justification for literally anything.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Your ID is your core identity, and it is not variable.

This is false. Have you never interacted with a teenager? Hell, most people's core views evolve over their lifetimes, how we see ourselves and what we think is most important about ourselves changes with time. Our beliefs alter over time. And our core personality traits aren't even cemented until we're in our mid-twenties - and even then they can and do change as we age.

 

[Thermal]

This is false. Have you never interacted with a teenager? Hell, most people's core views evolve over their lifetimes, how we see ourselves and what we think is most important about ourselves changes with time. Our beliefs alter over time. And our core personality traits aren't even cemented until we're in our mid-twenties - and even then they can and do change as we age.

Fair point. We are different heights and weights at different points too. But regarding what you actually *are*, that doesn't change with your donut intake, shouldn't go too far too quickly, as gender fluidity claims.

Eta: and teens are in a changing state by definition, which is why I think they shouldn't get trans-surgeries till thier twenties, when the brain mellows out

 

[theprestige]

I am aware that I often spit out posts too quickly and don't make myself clear enough. I appreciate your patience and ensuring clear communication when I drop the ball.

Ok, I agree that once our precedent-setter is established, we work from there. You want to start from sports. That might work, but I think sports might be viewed as a special case, balancing physical advantages that taking a pee doesn't worry about.

Oh, I'm absolutely sure that people will try to excuse or dismiss sports as a special case. It already happens all the time.

My position is that once you concede there's no medical necessity to override sex segregation in sports, you've pretty much conceded the entire sex segregation question. Everybody likes sex segregated bathrooms, except for a very small minority who has no justification for overriding that.

I thought I was clear on this, and it addresses a lot of your questions: first and foremost, we need to clarify the sex and gender definitions. If gender is clearly defined as in your head, and sex in your pants, a lot of the problems solve themselves. There is no more transgender surgery. It's transsexual surgery, or a sex change. Then we have to lobby that our sex segregated sports were always intended to be based on sex, not gender. That clears up who can cross that line, or not, decisively.

I don't think we need to clarify the sex and gender definitions at all. Sex is sufficiently well-defined to support sex segregation where appropriate. Beyond that, gender and gender expression don't really need to be defined at all, because they're not really operative for anything practical.

What I do think we need to clarify is whether, for policy purposes, transgender expression is a mental health condition that needs proper treatment, or whether it's an affectation that needs nothing more than tolerance from society.

If the policy is to be medicine-based, that's one conversation. If it isn't, that's another conversation. If it's both, it's yet another conversation. We're stuck here, in the public discourse, because trans rights activists insists on equivocating between the two, depending on where they see the rhetorical advantage from moment to moment.

I have zero interest in admiring that problematic equivocation. I'm not here to fondle its nubbins and fawn over all its nuances and exceptions. I'm here to cut through the gordian knot in which the TRAs keep trying to bind us.

You're a man who wants to use the women's restroom, as a matter of self-ID? Have you been diagnosed with anything relevant? Have you been prescribed women's restroom as a treatment for such a diagnosis? No? Then piss off. Simple as.

Not really a correction. We'd have to balance out all the sports to see which groupings prevail. You might be right, but I suspect there are more M/W than W/Open.

Doesn't really matter to me. Transwomen don't want to compete in open divisions anyway, for the same reason women don't. So there's no need to rebalance anything. Sports is fine as-is. The problem is men who want to override sex segregation. Making every men's division an open division won't solve that problem.

 

[smartcooky]

You might want to consider listening to my replies, then, which have taken her opinions into consideration.

You might want to consider that your replies have been dismissive, and shown that you do not truly understand

Rape Crisis Centres: Do you really think a woman who is a victim of a rape by some random male, really wants to have more random males coming and going from the facility? The last thing a rape victim wants men anywhere near them!!

Domestic Violence Shelters: Do you really think that a woman whose face has been battered and is covered with bruises from the belting she got from her husband/boyfriend wants to risk ANY chance of him coming there and finding her. You see, its highly unlikely that the shelter staff would know what the basher looks like, and if men were allowed right of entry to a women-only space like that, it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to use self-ID to gain access.

Toilets and like facilities: Do you really think that a woman who is suffering from a menstrual disaster or a miscarriage in a toilet or changing room wants to have some random male in there, demanding he has the right to use that space and refusing to leave when asked? And if you think that's not going to happen, I new some news for you. There is a court case going on right now in the UK where it did. Sandie Peggie v NHS Scotland - Peggie was suffering a menstrual flood in the female changing rooms, a TIM doctor, "Beth" Upton, refused to leave so that Sandie could deal with it privately. Later, Upton accused Peggie of bullying and transphobia over this incident, and the Peggie was fired.

Prisons: Do you really think that is OK for male prisoners, who have been convicted of rape and sexual assault, to have themselves moved into a Women's Prison pure by saying the magic word "I am a woman"? There have been a numver of occasions where priners so handled have them raped female inmates.

Ok, that's what im.getting at: why would you be so uptight about incidental nudity? I think it was a Swede or something that had mentioned it on one of these discussions, that getting changed together was a fairly normal thing, as was a bit of skin shown on occasion. It really shouldn't be that big of a deal. I live in a beach town, where a lot of skin gets shown, intentionally and sometimes more than intended. It's just not that big a deal, even with the teens. People are not the pervs some here assume.

In a changing area with some cheap plastic privacy screening, would you still feel weird with your friend? I wouldn't be craning my neck to get a peek.

I get changed literally on the public street when surfing, with young ladies nearby. Yeah, towels slip a little sometimes, but generally no one is a pervy freak getting their jollies. Bottom line is I'm wondering if we are taking incidental exposure a little too seriously?

This is YOUR anecdote, it does not apply to me. I am not Swedish either, so what Swedes do in their country is inconsequential to me. Bringing up what Swedes do is another example of whataboutism.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The term obscures the existence of TELFs

Also the existence of MEAFs. Male-Exclusive Average Females.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not saying you didn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure I knew this from making the same mistake before. This is entirely me being asleep at the wheel.

Would you care to revise any of your replies to me in the light of that not-so-new information? Because I have to say I was pretty offended by your attitude several times.

 

[Rolfe]

Thermal, this is why you get so many people who perceive you as arguing that transgender identified males should have right of access to single-sex spaces based on their mental identity. Because despite you having said that you support sex-segregation in intimate spaces... you just keep defending males with special feelings being allowed to override that sex-segregation.

Exactly. Thermal, you keep saying you're in favour of sex-segragated bathrooms and so on, and telling us to read your posts, but then we read stuff like this.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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.

Their effect on males is so small as to be negligible, perhaps. Their effect on females is much larger than you've declared it to be. Perhaps that's because you have no idea what the experience of an average female is, and you absolutely fail to understand how big an impact it is to find that all of our single-sex spaces are now mixed-sex without our consent. Perhaps you simply can't imagine how impactful it is to be a female and be told that any male who says magic words is now entitled to look at us while we're naked, whether we want them to see us or not.

Perhaps you have just completely failed to even try to understand how this impacts females... and have instead taken it upon yourself to mansplain how all us ladies just need to sit down, be nice, and let the fancy males have their way.

 

[Rolfe]

I say that having my actual weight encoded anywhere is hurtful to me, but nobody seems to give a flying ◊◊◊◊. Identifying documents don't exist to make me feel good about myself - they exist so that other people who don't know me have a reasonable chance of verifying that I am who I say I am. They're for other people's benefit, not mine.

Yeah. I have back-slid since my triumphs in the weight loss thread. I just had to state my weight for a helicopter flight I'm booked on. That hurt. Should I have been given a free pass and allowed to say 58 kg because that's the weight I imagine myself to be, the weight I want to be, the weight I wish I was? Should reality have to take a back seat to my deeply held sensitive feelings?

And then the helicopter crashes.

 

[Emily's Cat]

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

I'm trying really hard not to lose my temper here. This is such incredibly insultingly misogynistic horse ◊◊◊◊ that I hardly know where to begin.

I do not consent to random males having the right to look at me without my consent when I'm naked. I do not consent to random males having the right to expose themselves to me without my consent.

If you think this is *prejudice* I can point you in the direction of some nearby men's rights activism groups so you can find common ground with other males who give zero ◊◊◊◊◊ about the safety and dignity of females.

 

[Thermal]

You might want to consider that your replies have been dismissive, and shown that you do not truly understand

Goddam. There's some world class pot-kettle action if I've ever seen it.

Rape Crisis Centres: Do you really think a woman who is a victim of a rape by some random male, really wants to have more random males coming and going from the facility? The last thing a rape victim wants men anywhere near them!!

Rape centers over here are staffed by men and women. Transwomen get raped too. So do young boys, often incestuously. But lemme guess: ◊◊◊◊ them? You only acknowledge female rape victims? I don't think you know how sick that sounds.

Domestic Violence Shelters: Do you really think that a woman whose face has been battered and is covered with bruises from the belting she got from her husband/boyfriend wants to risk ANY chance of him coming there and finding her. You see, its highly unlikely that the shelter staff would know what the basher looks like, and if men were allowed right of entry to a women-only space like that, it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to use self-ID to gain access.

Same. Do you know men and boys are even more frequently in domestic violence shelters than male rape victims? Lemme guess: ◊◊◊◊ them too?

Toilets and like facilities: Do you really think that a woman who is suffering from a menstrual disaster or a miscarriage in a toilet or changing room wants to have some random male in there, demanding he has the right to use that space and refusing to leave when asked? And if you think that's not going to happen, I new some news for you. There is a court case going on right now in the UK where it did. Sandie Peggie v NHS Scotland - Peggie was suffering a menstrual flood in the female changing rooms, a TIM doctor, "Beth" Upton, refused to leave so that Sandie could deal with it privately. Later, Upton accused Peggie of bullying and transphobia over this incident, and the Peggie was fired.

Prisons: Do you really think that is OK for male prisoners, who have been convicted of rape and sexual assault, to have themselves moved into a Women's Prison pure by saying the magic word "I am a woman"? There have been a numver of occasions where priners so handled have them raped female inmates.

Neither relates to my positions, so pretty worthless.

This is YOUR anecdote, it does not apply to me. I am not Swedish either, so what Swedes do in their country is inconsequential to me. Bringing up what Swedes do is another example of whataboutism

Sure, you can be 100% closed minded and demand that your way is the Way, the Truth, and the Light, and ◊◊◊◊ everybody else because they are all wrong because you say so. Knock yourself out.

 

[Rolfe]

You might want to consider listening to my replies, then, which have taken her opinions into consideration.

{Eta: Rolfe's personal opinions are not the be-all and end-all of discussion, either. Much like mine aren't, or anyone else's. I'm surprised that would have to be spelled out for you. Rolfe might be the one who has to reasonably give a little, in a workable solution, or someone else's stance might}

Ok, that's what im.getting at: why would you be so uptight about incidental nudity? I think it was a Swede or something that had mentioned it on one of these discussions, that getting changed together was a fairly normal thing, as was a bit of skin shown on occasion. It really shouldn't be that big of a deal. I live in a beach town, where a lot of skin gets shown, intentionally and sometimes more than intended. It's just not that big a deal, even with the teens. People are not the pervs some here assume.

In a changing area with some cheap plastic privacy screening, would you still feel weird with your friend? I wouldn't be craning my neck to get a peek.

I get changed literally on the public street when surfing, with young ladies nearby. Yeah, towels slip a little sometimes, but generally no one is a pervy freak getting their jollies. Bottom line is I'm wondering if we are taking incidental exposure a little too seriously?

I am not "reasonably" going to give a little, as regards the rules that should be in place. I might give a little in the actual application of them, but that's a different matter.

You really have no idea how a large chunk of women feel about this, do you? And I'm not even Moslem or Orthodox Jewish. Or a victim of serious sexual assault. (Like all women, I am a victim of relatively minor sexual assault.)

 

[Emily's Cat]

You're not a woman.

Who the ◊◊◊◊ are you to decide that a human female isn't a woman? Males don't get to decide who does and does not count as a female human.

You're arguing that they know the individuals are male.

99% of the time, we do.

 

[Thermal]

Exactly. Thermal, you keep saying you're in favour of sex-segragated bathrooms and so on, and telling us to read your posts, but then we read stuff like this.

I've explained it more than a few times. See, I'm not one of you guys dug into an entrenched position. I'm discussing the conflicting ideas on a discussion thread.