Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Brainster]

I don't know whether the allegedly typical shrinking frightened flower of a "transwoman" even exists, or if it's a hangover from the Coronation Street transwoman character who was played by a 5' 3" woman for pity's sake, or maybe some people are putting on an act of being frightened. But the fact is that they're male, not slight, diminutive women, with a man's strength. Why can't they cope with going in the male facilities?

In contrast the bullying, entitled boundary-violating obnoxious trans-identifying male is very very real and currently on a front page near you. (And one of them is quite likely to be on a front page near you in relation to criminal charges, too, often of a sexual nature.) How about we talk about actual observable reality, and make policies that deal with actual observable reality, rather than living in a 1990s dream world where Hayley Cropper (a deliberate, calculated piece of propaganda) is the only notion we have of what transwomen are like.

What amuses me is that these people who supposedly hate their male body quite plainly do not hate the part of them that is the most definitively male.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ok, knock it off. The scenario as posed specifically allowed for single occupancy privacy rooms, for exactly that reason. So you are just gonna play make pretend and strawman it? Come on, EC.

Are you proposing that every room has a toilet, a sink, and an air drying inside of it, with no need to open the door at all? Because that doesn't seem to be suggested by your descriptions. You keep referring to a high school which has private stalls, but shared sink areas.

 

[Emily's Cat]

IDGAF. Why do you ask?

Oh, don't worry - I completely understand that YOU DGAF. But you're also insisting that because YOU DGAF, nobody else should either. You're using your DGAF to rhetorically insist that females should allow "true trans" to use our single-sex spaces because it doesn't bother you. You keep drawing a distinction between "true trans" and "imposters" and essentially asserting that we should let the "true trans" into our spaces because you think it's nice for those "true trans" males to be allowed into female-only spaces... but that we should be able to exclude the "imposters".

If we can't tell the difference between "true trans" and "imposter", then letting any of them in allows ALL OF THEM right of entry.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And they statistically don;t exist. There's like a half dozen, most of whom could literally be claimed to be ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊. Dozelal even asked a roomate once not to 'blow her cover', which is openly admitting to it being a deliberate ruse.

No it's not - it's perfectly synonymous with a transgender identified male who believes they pass and are operating in stealth asking their roommate - who knows they've got a dick - to not blow their cover. Similarly, it's synonymous with the demand that expecting transgender people to use a third gender-neutral or trans only space would "out them" against their will. It's the same thing.

 

[d4m10n]

There may be ways round, but honestly, why even bother?

I've already linked to why the UUA folks bother and why the Skepticon folks bother.

You are free to take exception to their reasoning, if you like, but from where I'm sitting they only thing they got wrong is that they failed to consider any other factors beyond the needs of the few.

 

[Emily's Cat]

We've studied transwomen, and found them to have brain activity that resembles that of women. We don't have transracial patterns to compare, because they kinda don't exist.

No, you haven't. There's been a whole lot of repetition of this claim, but it's not actually true.

What few studies have even been attempted...
1) do not control for sexual orientation and ignore that there is observed and known activity in the part of the brain associated with sexual attraction that is driven by orientation - homosexuality is observable
2) do not control of the presence of hormones, and we know that hormones affect behavior - if you're looking at transgender identified males who are taking estrogen, you will observe the impact of that on the brain - but this doesn't imply that they had differential brain activity prior to estrogen, so you're seeing a false conclusion

Furthermore, studies that purport to find differences in the brain activity between males and females that is NOT directly attributable to sexual attraction or to hormones find low levels of correlation that are generally different but extremely far from predictive. You can look at a very large set of scans where you already know each person's sex, and you can observe differences. But if you're given a scan where the sex is not already known, the likelihood of picking the correct sex is close to 50%.

There is one study that was done on a very specific set of people, that did find an observable and replicable pattern. It looked explicitly at males who were attracted to males, who had not undergone any hormone therapy or surgeries, and who had clinical levels of body dysmorphia from a very young age. It found anomalous activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for self-perception - the same area of the brain that lights up for anorexics. So if you want to make the argument that HSTS males have brains that genuinely perceive them to be female, we can talk about that.

 

[Thermal]

Are you proposing that every room has a toilet, a sink, and an air drying inside of it, with no need to open the door at all? Because that doesn't seem to be suggested by your descriptions. You keep referring to a high school which has private stalls, but shared sink areas.

What I keep referring to, as was posted upthread, was a common area with privacy stalls and shared sinks, and scattered single occupancy rooms. I've been pretty clear on that, because it's an integral part of the solution to accomodate everyone.

 

[Thermal]

Oh, don't worry - I completely understand that YOU DGAF. But you're also insisting that because YOU DGAF, nobody else should either. You're using your DGAF to rhetorically insist that females should allow "true trans" to use our single-sex spaces because it doesn't bother you. You keep drawing a distinction between "true trans" and "imposters" and essentially asserting that we should let the "true trans" into our spaces because you think it's nice for those "true trans" males to be allowed into female-only spaces... but that we should be able to exclude the "imposters".

If we can't tell the difference between "true trans" and "imposter", then letting any of them in allows ALL OF THEM right of entry.

Which as we have seen is staistically not a problem. When the rubber hits the road, these fearsome imposters aint happening with any more frequency than they are right now.

 

[Thermal]

No, you haven't. There's been a whole lot of repetition of this claim, but it's not actually true.

What few studies have even been attempted...
1) do not control for sexual orientation and ignore that there is observed and known activity in the part of the brain associated with sexual attraction that is driven by orientation - homosexuality is observable
2) do not control of the presence of hormones, and we know that hormones affect behavior - if you're looking at transgender identified males who are taking estrogen, you will observe the impact of that on the brain - but this doesn't imply that they had differential brain activity prior to estrogen, so you're seeing a false conclusion

Furthermore, studies that purport to find differences in the brain activity between males and females that is NOT directly attributable to sexual attraction or to hormones find low levels of correlation that are generally different but extremely far from predictive. You can look at a very large set of scans where you already know each person's sex, and you can observe differences. But if you're given a scan where the sex is not already known, the likelihood of picking the correct sex is close to 50%.

There is one study that was done on a very specific set of people, that did find an observable and replicable pattern. It looked explicitly at males who were attracted to males, who had not undergone any hormone therapy or surgeries, and who had clinical levels of body dysmorphia from a very young age. It found anomalous activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for self-perception - the same area of the brain that lights up for anorexics. So if you want to make the argument that HSTS males have brains that genuinely perceive them to be female, we can talk about that.

Ya so we keep hearing over and over and over, with no actual peer reviewed refutation? I mean, it doesn't even matter to the point being made. Y'all are just latching on to keywords and running.

 

[Elaedith]

No, you haven't. There's been a whole lot of repetition of this claim, but it's not actually true.

What few studies have even been attempted...
1) do not control for sexual orientation and ignore that there is observed and known activity in the part of the brain associated with sexual attraction that is driven by orientation - homosexuality is observable
2) do not control of the presence of hormones, and we know that hormones affect behavior - if you're looking at transgender identified males who are taking estrogen, you will observe the impact of that on the brain - but this doesn't imply that they had differential brain activity prior to estrogen, so you're seeing a false conclusion

Furthermore, studies that purport to find differences in the brain activity between males and females that is NOT directly attributable to sexual attraction or to hormones find low levels of correlation that are generally different but extremely far from predictive. You can look at a very large set of scans where you already know each person's sex, and you can observe differences. But if you're given a scan where the sex is not already known, the likelihood of picking the correct sex is close to 50%.

There is one study that was done on a very specific set of people, that did find an observable and replicable pattern. It looked explicitly at males who were attracted to males, who had not undergone any hormone therapy or surgeries, and who had clinical levels of body dysmorphia from a very young age. It found anomalous activity in the part of the brain that is responsible for self-perception - the same area of the brain that lights up for anorexics. So if you want to make the argument that HSTS males have brains that genuinely perceive them to be female, we can talk about that.

Which study is the one you are referring to in the last paragraph? The one I am aware of is the one below, which controlled for sexual orientation and found that transgender participants had sex-typical values in most brain regions after controlling for sexual orientation, but were distinguished in regions related to processing self-perception.

Burke, S. M., Manzouri, A. H., & Savic, I. (2017). Structural connections in the brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 17954.

 

[Rolfe]

I've already linked to why the UUA folks bother and why the Skepticon folks bother.

You are free to take exception to their reasoning, if you like, but from where I'm sitting they only thing they got wrong is that they failed to consider any other factors beyond the needs of the few.

In a situation like that, for a weekend, when the arrangements can be temporary then returned to the usual configuration, fine. But to change the entirety of society, permananently?

 

[Elaedith]

Ya so we keep hearing over and over and over, with no actual peer reviewed refutation? I mean, it doesn't even matter to the point being made. Y'all are just latching on to keywords and running.

All of this was discussed at length in earlier versions of the thread long before you started participating. You have not provided any peer-reviewed evidence to support any claims you made.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Are you making it a crime for a trans-person to use the public restroom facility they identify with?

Why do you want to make it a right for males to override female boundaries, and be able to look at us naked or expose themselves to us without our consent?

 

[Thermal]

All of this was discussed at length in earlier versions of the thread long before you started participating.

Meaningless, both in the problem with search being disabled, and also that most members aren't ongoingly participating in decade long threads. We just ain't that obsessed.

You have not provided any peer-reviewed evidence to support any claims you made.

Nor do I care, as I said in the very post you quoted. The study you just posted actually makes the point for me, though. Brains were seen to be sex consistent with the exception of "the right inferior fronto-occipital tract, connecting parietal and frontal brain areas that mediate own body perception." That substantiates my claim that transwomen can be physiologically shown to be sincere, and not play-acting like the transracial people seem to be.

 

[d4m10n]

But to change the entirety of society, permanently?

IMO the totalizing instinct is part of the problem on both (progressive and conservative) sides of the bathroom policy debate.

Rather than allowing individual businesses and services leeway to modify their public accommodations to adapt to the situation which we find ourselves in (viz. decoupling birth sex from gender-at-a-glance) we've got people on one side demanding full self-i.d. as a matter of legal right and people on the other side demanding strict sex segregation as a matter of state policy.

 

[Emily's Cat]

We actually have some self IDed asexual / option 4 or 5 or whatever people on this very forum, as I recall. How do you feel about talking them they can shove their feelings about inclusivity and get with the Cis-het program like normal people? Cuz I feel funny about that.

Sorry Thermal, but this is stupid. Nobody cares that someone is asexual. Nobody is forcing them to have sex. They have ALWAYS had the right to refuse sex, to not be sexually active. There's not even any real social stigma attached to it. People who identify as asexual literally need nothing at all, aren't discriminated against in any way, and pretty much can live their entire life without any inconvenience placed upon them by others.

Anybody could, if they felt like it. It sometimes matters to ...how did you phrase it?... people other than you.

How does it matter to anyone-other-than-Alex if Alex has no interest in sex?

 

[Thermal]

Sorry Thermal, but this is stupid. Nobody cares that someone is asexual. Nobody is forcing them to have sex. They have ALWAYS had the right to refuse sex, to not be sexually active. There's not even any real social stigma attached to it. People who identify as asexual literally need nothing at all, aren't discriminated against in any way, and pretty much can live their entire life without any inconvenience placed upon them by others.


How does it matter to anyone-other-than-Alex if Alex has no interest in sex?

Agender. Non binary. Whatever you call it when people are being recreationalky difficult. I have specific posters in mind but am not calling them into this ...place... for obvious reasons.

 

[Emily's Cat]

They have been shoved into the closet of the mens room for years. They say "hey you know we feel like women, we would feel a lot less ostracized if we could use the ladies room instead of having guys giving us a hard time?" and they get met with "I want a law to keep these weirdos out of here!"

Yeah, there's a closet thing going on here.

Dude, no. There's an acknowledgement that sex is binary and immutable in humans. What someone "feels like" doesn't change their reality. Furthermore - if you actually go read things written by transgender identified males, talking about how they feel... I assure you it does NOT align with how actual females feel about being female. It's usually an incredibly misogynistic view based on negative stereotypes of females as being dumb bimbo sex dolls, being a receptacle for someone else's sexual titillation, being useable and devoid of full personhood, being subjugated and demeaned. It's not flattering, and it's not what females generally feel - in fact, a whole lot of it is the stereotype and treatment that we've been fighting against for my whole life.

 

[Emily's Cat]

In fact, I was suggesting that as well as having mixed-sex provisions, single-sex facilities should also be provided.

I've never seen anyone on the gender-critical side oppose the provision of unisex or mixed-sex facilities as well as single-sex, but the pro-trans lobby seems adamantly opposed to us having anything at all, even after their darlings are fully catered-for.

Agreed - perfectly happy to have unisex options available in addition to single-sex. Heck, in many venues I'm perfectly fine with having only unisex facilities when there just isn't a huge capacity to be dealt with, or where they're all single use rooms anyway. The only thing I object to is having spaces that are labeled "women" and "men", but where people can pick and choose whatever they "feel like" - that's false advertising.

 

[Emily's Cat]

We are not talking about their feelings. We are talking about discrimination.

No, it's ENTIRELY about their feelings. They are objectively male. They feel as if they want to be female, even though they objectively are not. And they demand that they should have right-of-entry to female-only spaces, on the basis that it affirms their feelings.