Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Ziggurat]

Agreed. But sometimes the objective of a successful meeting might be more important than taking a stand. Sometimes you want to get something else accomplished as a higher priority and aren't looking for a fight right then. So don't set up camp on the battleground right then.

When someone does something which is not wrong and which they are entitled to do but it's not maximally efficient, I do not blame them because someone else had an unjustified reaction.

 

[Thermal]

Yes, I want to treat males differently than females. Because they are. Males are more dangerous than females in the context of bathrooms, that's just a fact. There's no sense in pretending otherwise. I don't want to treat trans people any differently than non-trans people.

And there is a significant difference when it comes to airport security. The reason that treating children the same as adults when it comes to security screening at airports isn't because children are just as likely as adults to be terrorists. It's because if you didn't, then that would create a security vulnerability that adults could exploit by making children smuggle the contraband onto planes. And once on the plane, the adult could reclaim that contraband from the child and then use it for harm. There is no equivalent vulnerability with sex segregation. Admitting a female associate of a male into a female-only sex segregated space, for example, does NOT give the male who did not enter that space access to that space.

Wow. There's plenty of stuff you have said that I thought was wrong, but this is the first time I remember you saying something that I thought wasn't simply wrong, but actually stupid. That may be rude of me to say, but I need you to understand that this is not simply something I disagree with. It's wrong on such a basic level that no reasonable dialogue is even possible if you cannot rectify this error.

The reason this thread exists is precisely because the trans activists DO NOT want trans people to be treated the same way that cishet people are treated. Cishet people are treated according to their sex. The trans activists want trans people to be exempt from this. They want trans people to be treated differently than cishet people because they are trans. *I* am on the side that wants to treat them the same. Not you.

Edited by zooterkin: 

<SNIP> for civility.

I note you snipped out the question that is fatal to your 'treat everyone the same because of the miniscule threat' assertion. Care to address that, preferably without moving the goalposts?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Jesus! I knew the Beeb was captured, but not to this extent.

This will be one of the reasons why finding evidence of this sort of thing that we KNOW is going on is so damned difficult.... the media is actively blocking and suppressing publication of these stories.

Are ITV and the papers all as extensively captured as the Beeb?


ETA: One of my daughters can relate directly to the fifth one down on your list - confronted by a man in the women's changing rooms of a local public pool. Told him to leave. He refused, claiming he was a women. She complained to the management and was told she was a transphobe.

Never went back.

Reduxx does a pretty good job of reporting those sorts of stories... but they're almost entirely alone in that and are routinely dismissed as being "anti-trans". The bias in media is astonishing when it comes to this topic.

Social media doesn't help. The way the algorithms work results in legitimate reports and events being pushed into obscurity because a large group of TRAs respond to the initial event with accusations of bigotry or transphobia, then it gets quoted and re-quoted and amplified to infinity... to a point where it becomes incredibly difficult to find the instantiating post or article. Essentially the same thing happens with google - all of the concerted "it's transphobia you bigot" activity drowns out the original and it ends up on page 17 and nobody goes that far back.

For example... several years ago d4m10n posted a couple of articles about the high school female swim team that used the pool at Evergreen College, and the situation they had with a physically intact self-declared transwoman, Colleen Francis. I remember it, because the outcome was so shocking to me - here was an adult male with penis and testicles, who made a habit of using the sauna in the female showers during the high-school practice, where young females were exposed to *his* naked body whether they wanted to see it or not, and *he* got to see naked high-school females whether they wanted *him* to or not. And when the females complained, they were told that the law was on *his* side because trans, and if the females didn't like it they could find somewhere other than the female showers to change.

Now... I remember a lot of the details on this - it stuck in my brain. But when I google "Colleen Francis Oregon swim team"... get a total of 3 pages of results, the majority of which have nothing at all to do with this event. Only TWO reference the actual situation, and BOTH of those are pro-trans articles which declare it to have been a massive hoax perpetrated by right wing media.

Reporting on misbehavior by transgender identified males or their allies gets actively squashed by mainstream news outlets, often gets censured on social media, and gets drowned out on the internet. Any organization that actually does report on it gets labeled transphobic bigots driven by hate. And thus they get ignored over and over.

And then we end up with posters on this forum (yes, Thermal, I'm talking to you here) who insist that any reports of poor behavior, aggression, violence, exposure, etc. are all "cherry picked" and "outliers" and "not a big deal".

 

[Emily's Cat]

When I say imma jet on out of here, that's a clue for normies to not pose further questions.

That's absurd. Why on earth do you think you have the right to dictate what we can or cannot do? If you wish to leave the conversation, then leave it. It's easy - just stop coming to this thread at all. Stop checking in. Stop posting. Don't try to make your lack of self-control an obligation for everyone else.

 

[Thermal]

That's absurd. Why on earth do you think you have the right to dictate what we can or cannot do?

I don't.

If you wish to leave the conversation, then leave it. It's easy - just stop coming to this thread at all. Stop checking in. Stop posting. Don't try to make your lack of self-control an obligation for everyone else.

Lol, now who's dictating what others should do?

Normal people, when asking questions, expect an answer. Normal people further tend to answer direct questions. On a discussion forum, doubly so.

Tell the truth: I had already pulled out. Then you break out the firehosing of questions and challenges from three weeks ago. Why did you ask direct questions when I wasn't participating anymore, and had said so weeks before? Rhetoric? Seriously, why?

 

[Ziggurat]

Edited by zooterkin: 

<SNIP> for civility.

Leaving aside your subjective opinion about my position being bigoted and stupid, you're still factually wrong. You claimed I want to treat trans people differently. But that is wrong. I want trans people and cishet people treated exactly the same. The trans activists are explicitly opposed to this. They want to discriminate on the basis of trans status, not me.

I note you snipped out the question that is fatal to your 'treat everyone the same because of the miniscule threat' assertion.

First off, this is a straw man. I never said treat everyone the same. I very explicitly DO NOT want to treat everyone the same. I want trans people treated the same as cishet people, but I want males treated differently than females. That is EXPLICITLY what sex segregation is. You cannot have sex segregation if you want everyone treated the same. And note that the trans activists don't want everyone treated the same either (and I suspect you don't either if you were honest), so that's not a difference between me and the TRAs. Nor did I say anything about any particular threat being miniscule. What I said was miniscule was the fraction of people who are a threat.

Care to address that, preferably without moving the goalposts?

If I disabuse you of a straw man, that's not me moving any goalposts. That's you being wrong and me calling you on it.

As for men not being allowed into men's restrooms if there is a lone boy in there, that's just stupid and you know it. There are practical tradeoffs between the benefits and costs of any measures we impose. There is absolutely ZERO hypocrisy in deciding that one measure provides enough benefits to justify its costs and another measure does not. The idea that I must advocate for any and all measures that might reduce risk because I advocated for a particular one has no logical basis whatsoever.

 

[Darat]

Thread back on moderated status. It will be cleaned out at some point.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Darat

 

[Thermal]

You complain about toxicity, but note: you're the one calling me names. I didn't call you names.

Leaving aside your subjective opinion about my position being bigoted and stupid, you're still factually wrong. You claimed I want to treat trans people differently. But that is wrong. I want trans people and cishet people treated exactly the same. The trans activists are explicitly opposed to this. They want to discriminate on the basis of trans status, not me.

For the second time, we are not talking about what TRAs want. We are talking about your argument.

First off, this is a straw man. I never said treat everyone the same. I very explicitly DO NOT want to treat everyone the same. I want trans people treated the same as cishet people, but I want males treated differently than females. That is EXPLICITLY what sex segregation is. You cannot have sex segregation if you want everyone treated the same. And note that the trans activists don't want everyone treated the same either (and I suspect you don't either if you were honest), so that's not a difference between me and the TRAs. Nor did I say anything about any particular threat being miniscule. What I said was miniscule was the fraction of people who are a threat.

If I disabuse you of a straw man, that's not me moving any goalposts. That's you being wrong and me calling you on it.

As for men not being allowed into men's restrooms if there is a lone boy in there, that's just stupid and you know it. There are practical tradeoffs between the benefits and costs of any measures we impose. There is absolutely ZERO hypocrisy in deciding that one measure provides enough benefits to justify its costs and another measure does not. The idea that I must advocate for any and all measures that might reduce risk because I advocated for a particular one has no logical basis whatsoever.

Bull ◊◊◊◊. It's not a strawman in any way, and your cop out is weak.

You agree that terrorists are a miniscule threat, that everyone must be subjected to precautions against. Agreed. We could cook up some statistics, where they would be in the couple dozen range across decades out of the billions flying. But that involves widespread deaths, potentially thousands at a time, so our precautions err dramatically on the side of caution.

Now how many men abuse young boys? More than the incidence of wannabe terrorists? Certainly. Exponentially. And do more men abuse boys than transwomen abuse women? That's why it's not a strawman. It's a solid real-world comparison, if your 'miniscule threat justifies global invasive precautions' argument is sincere in any way. You only believe it when it comes to trans people. For cis people, meh, no problem.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'd be more upset about this if I saw some convincing science about how hormone therapy is an ethical and effective treatment for gender dysphoria.

It's generally easier for a person to get hormones if they say they're transgender than otherwise.

For example... I got progesterone no problem, but post hysterectomy I have to go through prior-authorization and talk to my insurance company to convince them that I should have estrogen. But until this bill passes both houses, my male relative who identifies as a "woman" gets their estrogen with not a moment of hesitation. My spouse's testosterone supplements as they age are not covered and we have to pay out of pocket... but my female relative who identifies as "non-binary" gets testosterone covered by their insurance easily.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You might be surprised how often the science supporting the current standard of care is unconvincing upon close inspection.

Nevertheless, I'd argue that the standard treatments for every diagnosis in the DSM ought to be covered by health insurance.

It's at least a bit sus to carve out exactly one exception like this.

This isn't really an argument, though.

Umm... counseling and therapy for gender dysphoria is and will continue to be covered.

There is no other mental health condition for which cosmetic surgery is an acceptable course of treatment, and no other cosmetic surgeries are covered as essential health benefits.

 

[theprestige]

Hmmm…

Either you are Andrew Sullivan or your just think the same way!

Well I'm glad it's happening, and I don't begrudge them a cautious approach in today's climate, but I think "intellectual honesty prevailed, as it must" is a bit of a stretch. If intellectual honesty must prevail, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

The NYT hasn't been immune to ideological capture this whole time. The NYT has done its fair share of gaslighting people with anti-science and post-truth narratives, on this issue. Whatever is going on here, it's not the inevitable rise of intellectual honesty. Except maybe in the sense that these particular reporters and editors had some intellectual honesty in them, ready to be taken up if and when they so chose. Good on them for choosing to lay hold of it.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You said trans folks have the "same protections regarding employment" as other people but now you are justifying firing them based on transgender status in one specific employment situation, which happens to be the only one currently under debate in the U.S.

Do you see any inconsistency here?

They have the same protections regarding employment. But let's expand on that - people with vision impairments have employment protection, so do people with hearing loss, physical disabilities, asthma, epilepsy, and many other medical and physical conditions. They can't be denied a position on the basis of their disability alone provided that the disability does not prevent them from performing the duties of the role and that accommodations necessary for their condition are not unreasonable. Similarly, employers can't discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, or nationality except in situations where those characteristics are a fundamental aspect of the job function. So a strip club can discriminate on the basis of sex, an organization focused on advancement of a particular race can require that key employees be of that race, a synagogue can require that all employees are jewish, and a significant number of federal roles in the US require that employees be US citizens (or in some cases, natural born citizens). Those are all legitimate exceptions to employment protections and non-discrimination.

Physical disabilities and medical conditions have pretty much always been exclusions for military service. Every active duty member is required to be capable of deployment to combat - even if their MOS is unlikely to be deployed. That is a fundamental requirement to be hired into the job in the first place. Some conditions are acquired during service, and depending on MOS and severity, they can result in medical discharge from service. Generally speaking, any condition that requires persistent medical treatment that is unlikely to be available in combat, or which requires accommodations that cannot be made in combat, will exclude a person from service.

So... if a person feels transgender inside their head, but has no need for uniform or facility accommodations, and they don't need pharmaceutical treatment for their transgenderiness, then I don't care if they serve or not. But at that point... if they're a male who is content to use male facilities, be referred to by male pronouns, wear a male uniform, needs no therapy, takes no drugs, and wants no surgery... what exactly makes them "transgender" in the first place?

 

[Emily's Cat]

You do know that there's more than two sexes right?

Not in humans there aren't. Nor in any other mammal or bird.

I'm not even sure there are more than two sexes in any vertebrate, although there are certainly some species that have only one sex. Hell, even the vast majority of plants and arthropods have exactly two sexes.

Algae, now, those have more than two sexes. But humans aren't algae so it's rather irrelevant.

 

[d4m10n]

Now... I remember a lot of the details on this - it stuck in my brain. But when I google "Colleen Francis Oregon swim team"... get a total of 3 pages of results, the majority of which have nothing at all to do with this event. Only TWO reference the actual situation, and BOTH of those are pro-trans articles which declare it to have been a massive hoax perpetrated by right wing media.

I think this happened in Washington rather than Oregon.

Transgender woman told to leave women's locker room

A transgender woman said she was discriminated against after using the women’s locker room at Evergreen State College.

www.kiro7.com

https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/sex-changes-and-changing-rooms-at-evergreen/

 

[Ziggurat]

You said trans folks have the "same protections regarding employment" as other people but now you are justifying firing them based on transgender status in one specific employment situation, which happens to be the only one currently under debate in the U.S.

You know why the military is the only employment scenario where transgender status is under debate? Because in every other employment scenario, trans people already have the protections they ask for. They've already won, and society is OK with that victory. Which should put the lie to the idea that society is anti-trans. Or hell, that even the gender critical folks are really all that anti-trans.

 

[d4m10n]

Physical disabilities and medical conditions have pretty much always been exclusions for military service. Every active duty member is required to be capable of deployment to combat - even if their MOS is unlikely to be deployed. That is a fundamental requirement to be hired into the job in the first place. Some conditions are acquired during service, and depending on MOS and severity, they can result in medical discharge from service. Generally speaking, any condition that requires persistent medical treatment that is unlikely to be available in combat, or which requires accommodations that cannot be made in combat, will exclude a person from service.

Having served in uniform from 1992 until 2001, I met countless servicemembers who needed to take a pill every morning in order to function optimally or perhaps even normally. In my case it was an OTC allergy pill, but other folks actually took prescription medication such as hormonal bill control pills. If you're not looking to disqualify women on hormonal birth control from military service, why are you trying to make that argument for transgender people who also need to take hormones in pill form?

 

[theprestige]

Having served in uniform from 1992 until 2001, I met countless servicemembers who needed to take a pill every morning in order to function optimally or perhaps even normally.

Having served in uniform from 1992 until 1998, I met a countable number of servicemembers, but certainly more than I ever bothered to count, and I certainly couldn't give you a decent estimate today. But the number of servicemembers I met, about whom I knew their pill-taking versus functionality levels, I could easily count on the fingers of neither hand. It boggles the mind that you learned such medical details about "countless" fellow soldiers.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What if it was a trans horse? A male horse that identifies as a female horse, or vice versa?
I'm only partly joking. There are - off the top of my head- some 450 species of animal that exhibit homosexual behaviour. It's a strong argument to show that homosexuality is natural. Are there any non-human animals that exhibit trans tendencies?

There's one case of a male tiger that took over care of cubs when the female parent died. It was extraordinarily rare, because male tigers don't generally even stick around for the birth.

There are periodic cases of other animals taking on the social roles of the opposite sex, almost always in cases where there weren't enough of that sex to get the job done. I don't think that counts as "transgender" though - It's adaptation within a social species to cover all the needs. I am not aware (also not an expert) of animals with sex-based role of function divisions adopting the opposite sex role when there's not a gap.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Right. How about I agree with everything you said.

Now, would it make more or less sense to recognize something as autogynophilia and just accept that some men enjoy wearing women's clothes. We cannot define women's clothes any less accurately than we can define gender - maybe we know it when we see it, but that is unenforcable as a method of who goes into what toilet or who competes in what sex-segregated sport.

Maybe if we just accepted AGP as something some men have we could then not worry about such men using the men's toilets or wearing their hair long and having extensive nail art when running the 100 metres hurdles.

Wouldn't that be preferable to your demand that AGP be stigmatized and thrust back in the closet ("where it belongs")?

Perhaps if it wasn't stigmatized, the trans-rights demands would never have got off the ground.

The pity is, to me it seemed Eddie Izzard was once at the forefront of that, and yet has now adopted the idea that he is transgender as opposed to transvestite. To me, that is the fork in the road where the choice made by society was a mistake.

Couple of points here... If AGP was limited to males getting sexual arousal and gratification from dressing in female-typical clothing, maybe... maybe... that would be minimally problematic. But that's not the end of it.

When an AGP male is out in public dressed in female-typical clothing that provides sexual arousal to them, they are acting out their sexual fantasies real time, in public. Think about that for a few moments - this means that they're in the act of self-arousal in public, without the consent of anyone else.

And to make matters worse, a great number of AGPs find even more sexual arousal by being in the presence of females, in female-specific single-sex spaces. They are actively using non-consenting females as live props in their sexual role play.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Two of them look like they've learnt 'less time in water equals faster'. Those 3 in the background need to go back to school as the angle they're hitting the water is a mess. I presume the one that's jumped further and hasn't the water yet is the trans person? Maybe they have just learnt more about angles? Maybe that's a bit misogynistic.

Buddy, this is physics. Thomas is 1) taller and 2) stronger. Thomas can launch materially further before their parabolic arc starts the downward turn. That's not the case for the shorts, weaker females whose arc is necessarily smaller.