Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Emily's Cat]

I surmise that the point is that males are incapable of having a "view from the inside" of what it's like to be a female human being, and thus they are incapable of actually having any reasonable basis for saying they "feel like a woman". And the opposite is also true - females cannot know what it's like to be a male, and hence any claim to "be a man" on the part of a female is nothing more than fantasy and wishfulness.

I don't often quote myself... but I want to expand on this.

When I climb up a ladder and look around, I might very well say "I feel tall". But let's all recognize that this is shorthand on my part - what is actually being communicated is "I imagine this is what it must be like to be tall". Because I'm NOT actually tall, and I haven't had any of the experiences of being tall. All I have is a very thin approximation on a very narrow aspect of tallness - the visual view of the top of my fridge, something I don't normally see from my short vantage. All of us know that there's a huge volume of things about being actually tall that I am completely ignorant of.

If I were to follow up that "I feel tall" statement from the top of the ladder by saying "I identify as tall"... I suspect most everyone would shrug and politely keep their mouths shut since it's an incredibly silly thing to say. It lacks any concrete or relatable meaning.

If I were to take it a step further, and say "I identify as tall, therefore manufacturers should stop referring to the pants length that fits me as short, and instead should label them as tall" I would hope I get laughed out of the room and told no. If I were to say "I identify as tall, therefore you have to let me ride the big rollercoaster even though I don't meet the physical criteria of height" I would sincerely hope my demand were scoffed at. If I were to say "I identify as tall, therefore the courteous thing is for everyone to always treat me as if they perceive me as being tall, and everyone should pretend that I'm actually tall, and failure to engage in such polite fiction is bigotry"... well, at that point I would expect that rational sane people might suggest I see a psychiatrist.

 

[Emily's Cat]

No. It's a perfectly normal link to a Twitter post and it's working for me. If you haven't seen the video then you have no basis to understand the title.

It only works if you're logged in to Twitter.

 

[p0lka]

No. It's a perfectly normal link to a Twitter post and it's working for me. If you haven't seen the video then you have no basis to understand the title.

Yeah you posted it so obviously yes, doesn't mean it works for everyone else though. A bit like opinions.

 

[p0lka]

Sex expression was wishy washy. Sex wasn't. And everyone knew that "woman" and "man" were still terms of sex.

That's a sweeping claim, are you sure about that?

That's already been happening. It's not an improvement. The true fight has never actually been about words, those are just proxies. Changing which words we fight over won't change the underlying battle.

I disagree because I haven't seen any examples yet. one set of labels are vague gender labels the other set is factual definitions. You can just say yeah bollocks mate when they start denying reality, it's harder to do that when it's vague gender labels you're arguing about.

 

[p0lka]

I surmise that the point is that males are incapable of having a "view from the inside" of what it's like to be a female human being, and thus they are incapable of actually having any reasonable basis for saying they "feel like a woman". And the opposite is also true - females cannot know what it's like to be a male, and hence any claim to "be a man" on the part of a female is nothing more than fantasy and wishfulness.

Assuming sex equals gender then yeah I agree. I don't think it does though. Society tells you to pick a role.

 

[smartcooky]

I'm going to put this juicy cherry in spoiler tags because it's pretty unpleasant .

https://twitter.com/x/status/1934527967985827986

He can conduct himself as he pleases of course, but please quit insisting that women should accept these men in our private spaces and in our society. It's sickening.

I suppose he's one of the "dolls" (cheap plastic non-functional facsimiles of women) that some people are anxious to "protect".

What a charming creep!

 

[Ziggurat]

I disagree because I haven't seen any examples yet.

There was a transwoman poster in this very thread early on who insisted they were female.

They were not female.

The fact that you haven't personally seen examples just indicates that you haven't seen much of this debate.

one set of labels are vague gender labels the other set is factual definitions.

Once upon a time, both were factual. They have gotten you to accept one term as being vague, and you think that you will solve any problems by jumping to the other one? You will not. They will just turn that one into a vague gender label as well.

You can just say yeah bollocks mate when they start denying reality, it's harder to do that when it's vague gender labels you're arguing about.

It's very easy to deny reality. They've been doing that for years, I do not know what makes you think it's hard. You're in denial about what has already happened.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Assuming sex equals gender then yeah I agree. I don't think it does though. Society tells you to pick a role.

Destroy the roles. Don't destroy our ability to talk about our sexed bodies and experiences, and don't deny humans the ability to distinguish our species from others when discussing sex.

Otherwise it's bass-ackwards.

*Note, I'm going to momentarily step away from my general position of not using he/she/man/woman/etc. because this won't make sense otherwise and will take up five times as much space

It's a social construct that women do the dishes. That's a sex-based role that was put on us all by a society in which men were out working all day and women were expected to mind the home. In many cultures, this was tied with women being prohibited from having jobs and incomes of their own. Most of us realize that this is a convention, and that men are physically capable of doing the dishes - it's not like their hands shrivel up and fall off if soap touches them in the presence of a plate after all. So it's not a literal division, unlike gestation and childbirth which is.

The effort underway when I was growing up was to mitigate the social aspect of our sexes, to burn gender roles to the ground. The effort was to combat the stereotypes and the presumptions that went into those sex-based roles so that they could be available to anyone. In fairness, it was a fairly one-sided approach, since for the most part, it was women who had prohibitions and expectations that prevented us from being able to fully participate in society. But there's a fair bit that went the other direction - like considerable effort in child custody to ensure that fathers could gain full custody if it were better for the kids. In short, the effort was to promote that anyone can do the dishes.

The modern trans movement has turned it upside down - and what you're saying here is not all that far from what they parrot. They take those stereotypes and use them as prescriptive. If a young male likes dolls and reading and is quiet and enjoys sewing, instead of just letting him take part in pastimes that he enjoys, now that gets interpreted as him being "gender nonconforming" and it means that he's actually a girl. The current trans movement is busy trying to force people to choose which of the two restrictive roles they want to conform to.

Traditionalist: The women do the dishes.
Liberal: Anyone can do the dishes.
Trans Activist: Whoever does the dishes is the woman.

Just swapping out "woman" with "female" doesn't actually fix the problem. It doesn't eradicate the coercive social roles in any way. And much as you and I might wish it were so... it also doesn't clarify the issue in the US with respect to intimate spaces, services, and sports. We're going to need a UK-style legal ruling for that, and that's going to give female humans back the word "women".

 

[Pixel42]

There was a transwoman poster in this very thread early on who insisted they were female.

There are transwomen posters on the other forum I belong to who object just as strongly to being described as male as they do to being described as men. Even putting the entirely unnecessary adjective 'biological' in front of the word doesn't mollify them.

 

[Aber]

I was born in july 1969 in the UK, growing up gender was always wishy washy. Constantly told by society and tv or books and anyone you came into contact with to conform to typical gender roles in society or else.

So you grew up with: first women prime minister, Boy George, Annie Lennox, David Bowie...

 

[d4m10n]

I was born in july 1969 in the UK, growing up gender was always wishy washy.

Sex wasn't. And everyone knew that "woman" and "man" were still terms of sex.

That's a sweeping claim, are you sure about that?

It's pretty tricky to prove up a universal negative, but I couldn't find any instances of the phrase "transgender woman" prior to the mid-90s, nor any other phrases which might indicate the existence of the sort of women who might well impregnate other people. It's easy to forget how recently these linguistic shifts came upon us, even in academia.

 

[Rolfe]

I thought this was interesting in the context of men not being women and how very very few of them "pass". I'm copying the image because links to Twitter don't always seem to work. The text accompanying the photo says "Just got he/himmed looking like this."



On the basis of that still photograph alone, I would read that person as female. (I do have some questions, starting with the bloodstained shirt, but never mind that for now.) There may be filters involved of course, there often are, but whether or not that is the case, something about the real-life appearance must have triggered someone's unconscious "this is a male person" response, despite the clear attempt to impersonate a female. It might have been the voice, but I suspect that when you see the whole person in the round his sex is a lot more obvious than he'd like to think it is.

I couldn't say for sure that they never pass, but they're a lot less convincing than they'd like us to believe.

 

[theprestige]

The nuance that I think @polka is missing is that the modern trans rights movement is a movement aimed at sex segregation.

Modern trans rights activists (TRAs) have taken the "gender nonconformity" movement as an intermediate step, and took sex nonconformity as the end goal.

Even the term "gender nonconformity" should tell us something: There was a perception of binary gender linked to binary sex, and thus the possibility that someone could deviate from conforming to the gender role implied by their sex. But I digress.

The modern trans rights movement is aimed squarely at biological sex, and sex segregation. The modern TRA demand, in a nutshell, is that men should be entitled to override sex segregation whenever they want. As much as polka wishes it would, calling men "males" won't make this demand go away.

---

Another nuance that I think I've been missing is, trans-affirming medicine* and transgender presentation don't make any logical sense, in the context of trans rights rhetoric.

In TRA theory, transwomen are already female, by fiat self-ID.

If a trans-identifying male is female simply by virtue of so identifying, then why does he need hormone treatment? He already manifests a female hormone profile. Maybe not the same hormone profile as a biological female, but there's nothing wrong with that. His hormone profile is female, because he says it is.

So why does the trans-identifying male need hormone treatment? Why does he need surgery of any kind? He's already female, right?

Of course he's not already female. He knows it. We know it. Trans rights activists sure the hell know it. That's why TRAs push so hard for trans-affirming medicine* for minors. It's why they push so hard for a right to trans-affirming medicine* in their health insurance. The trans-identifying male knows he's not female. He knows he wants to be female, both physically and socially. And he knows that social transition must depend in part on conforming to certain physical attributes that he does not innately possess. So he ends up trying to force the social transition, to force people to pretend he's female even when everyone knows he isn't. And he tries to force the physical transition in support of this, through stereotypical attire, hormone-shifting, and surgery to remove/reduce/replace outward physical indicators of his biological sex.

---

All of which to say, polka's idea of replacing "man" with "male" won't work, because the battleground is sex segregation. The TRA propaganda is aimed at sex segregation - not overturning it, but giving men the right to override it whenever they want.

The next time a TRA tells you trans-affirming medicine* is a necessity, ask them why, if transwomen are already women?

 

[d4m10n]

The modern TRA demand, in a nutshell, is that men should be entitled to override sex segregation whenever they want.

I think it is marginally (but importantly) more accurate to nutshell their claims using their own words.

If we accept that the goal is to replace biological sex with psychological sex, we can make sense of why they want to preserve (wo)men's spaces and services while redefining who ought to be sorted into them. Even in situations where segregation isn't particularly relevant (e.g. passport markers, birth certificates, other such documents), the goal of replacing objective sex at birth with subjective gender identity at present remains urgent to these activists.

We tend to focus our discussion here on instances of segregation by sex because those are the exceptional situations in which we were taught that it's okay to say "No, you cannot come in here," rather than invoking the usual feminist norm that women and men can freely compete for the same roles in society, even the ones which were formerly dominated by males.

 

[d4m10n]

The shocking thing is not so much that this pervert is doing this, it is that (like the woodwork teacher with the outsized knockers) it is being tolerated by the people in charge.

I think a good rule of thumb would be to ask whether we'd tolerate a female employee doing the same thing.

 

[theprestige]

I thought this was interesting in the context of men not being women and how very very few of them "pass". I'm copying the image because links to Twitter don't always seem to work. The text accompanying the photo says "Just got he/himmed looking like this."

View attachment 61917

On the basis of that still photograph alone, I would read that person as female. (I do have some questions, starting with the bloodstained shirt, but never mind that for now.) There may be filters involved of course, there often are, but whether or not that is the case, something about the real-life appearance must have triggered someone's unconscious "this is a male person" response, despite the clear attempt to impersonate a female. It might have been the voice, but I suspect that when you see the whole person in the round his sex is a lot more obvious than he'd like to think it is.

I couldn't say for sure that they never pass, but they're a lot less convincing than they'd like us to believe.

A lot of the "passing" paradigm seems to be based on the unstated/overlooked assumption of extreme effort, ideal lighting, and a sympathetic audience. Momentarily catfishing someone in an overproduced still photo or a strobe-lit nightclub isn't the "checkmate, transphobes!" that some people seem to think it is.

 

[theprestige]

I think it is marginally (but importantly) more accurate to nutshell their claims using their own words.

If we accept that the goal is to replace biological sex with psychological sex, we can make sense of why they want to preserve (wo)men's spaces and services while redefining who ought to be sorted into them. Even in situations where segregation isn't particularly relevant (e.g. passport markers, birth certificates, other such documents), the goal of replacing objective sex at birth with subjective gender identity at present remains urgent to these activists.

It's urgent because trans-identified males urgently want the things our society reserves for females. Replacing biological sex with psychological sex* is a means to that end.

I'm less interested in the rhetoric, and more interested in the practical results for public policy. The practical result that TRAs are pursuing in public policy is a male entitlement to override sex segregation whenever they want (or, in the case of things like passports, to override sex distinction).

We tend to focus our discussion here on instances of segregation by sex because those are the exceptional situations in which we were taught that it's okay to say "No, you cannot come in here," rather than invoking the usual feminist norm that women and men can freely compete for the same roles in society, even the ones which were formerly dominated by males.

Yes, exactly.

 

[Rolfe]

I think a good rule of thumb would be to ask whether we'd tolerate a female employee doing the same thing.

Apparently, following complaints from the parents, he has been taken off that route. Nobody knows whether or not he has simply been moved to a different route. It's shocking that he felt emboldened to do it in the first place, and shocking that there wasn't a huge scandal, just a quiet redeployment.

 

[Rolfe]

The nuance that I think @polka is missing is that the modern trans rights movement is a movement aimed at sex segregation.

Modern trans rights activists (TRAs) have taken the "gender nonconformity" movement as an intermediate step, and took sex nonconformity as the end goal.

Even the term "gender nonconformity" should tell us something: There was a perception of binary gender linked to binary sex, and thus the possibility that someone could deviate from conforming to the gender role implied by their sex. But I digress.

The modern trans rights movement is aimed squarely at biological sex, and sex segregation. The modern TRA demand, in a nutshell, is that men should be entitled to override sex segregation whenever they want. As much as polka wishes it would, calling men "males" won't make this demand go away.

---

Another nuance that I think I've been missing is, trans-affirming medicine* and transgender presentation don't make any logical sense, in the context of trans rights rhetoric.

In TRA theory, transwomen are already female, by fiat self-ID.

If a trans-identifying male is female simply by virtue of so identifying, then why does he need hormone treatment? He already manifests a female hormone profile. Maybe not the same hormone profile as a biological female, but there's nothing wrong with that. His hormone profile is female, because he says it is.

So why does the trans-identifying male need hormone treatment? Why does he need surgery of any kind? He's already female, right?

Of course he's not already female. He knows it. We know it. Trans rights activists sure the hell know it. That's why TRAs push so hard for trans-affirming medicine* for minors. It's why they push so hard for a right to trans-affirming medicine* in their health insurance. The trans-identifying male knows he's not female. He knows he wants to be female, both physically and socially. And he knows that social transition must depend in part on conforming to certain physical attributes that he does not innately possess. So he ends up trying to force the social transition, to force people to pretend he's female even when everyone knows he isn't. And he tries to force the physical transition in support of this, through stereotypical attire, hormone-shifting, and surgery to remove/reduce/replace outward physical indicators of his biological sex.

---

All of which to say, polka's idea of replacing "man" with "male" won't work, because the battleground is sex segregation. The TRA propaganda is aimed at sex segregation - not overturning it, but giving men the right to override it whenever they want.

The next time a TRA tells you trans-affirming medicine* is a necessity, ask them why, if transwomen are already women?

Yes to all of that. It's beyond ludicrious to imagine that we can simply concede the word woman, admit that trans-identifying men are allowed in spaces for women, but then if we simply re-designate these spaces as female, these same trans-identifying men will meekly say, OK then, we're not female so we'll stay out. They want it all, and if we want to prevent them from having it all, we have to ensure that they don't get anything.

The irrationality of demanding hormones and surgery if they claim they're women already has been discussed previously. I suppose it's best answered by Jack(ie) Green, who says that he was born with "a small birth defect" and had surgery to correct it. But then he was puberty-blocked and transed by his appalling mother. The bottom line is that these men believe they would pass as female if only they had had puberty blockers, so failing that possibility (not having a time machine) they want to make sure the next generation get them. But also, of course, if children can be trans then obviously it's not a fetish or a perversion, right?

But of course they have this magical lady-essence so it doesn't matter in the slightest, they shouldn't even have to shave off their beards if they don't want to.

 

[p0lka]

There was a transwoman poster in this very thread early on who insisted they were female.

They were not female.

The fact that you haven't personally seen examples just indicates that you haven't seen much of this debate.

Oh yeah, I do faintly recall a poster stating that. Though I don't remember whether I interacted with them so I probably didn't.

Once upon a time, both were factual. They have gotten you to accept one term as being vague, and you think that you will solve any problems by jumping to the other one? You will not. They will just turn that one into a vague gender label as well.

It's very easy to deny reality. They've been doing that for years, I do not know what makes you think it's hard. You're in denial about what has already happened.

No, it's all on me. I've had this issue with being told how to behave and fit in for as long as I can remember.

As a little kid it was confusing that people just did things and when I asked why, the answer is that it's because it's supposed to be that way. Pink versus Blue in shops was a big thing, why can't you just buy whatever you want?. Social pressure to conform to a gender role was and is everywhere.
Growing up I met various people that refused to conform to that social pressure, I don't think any of them mentioned biological sex though, it was nothing to do with it, it was all about the social pressure to conform.