Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Ivor the Engineer]

What a load of bs.
When has the color of skin ever caused harm?
But I do know a couple of women that got raped, in other words they were harmed by a dick.*
You cannot be so dumb and think that this is a valid analogy.
Or can you?

And you cannot see that you want to take away rights from women?
Or do you simply not care?
Then we are back at misogyny.

*sorry for being quite explicit, but sometimes it is necessary to make the point clear.

So if I can find examples of people who have been stabbed with objects such as screwdrivers, toothbrushes and biros, we should exclude people who are carrying any of those objects from using all public toilets? I mean, who knows what malevolent motivations people carrying toothbrushes into public toilets have!

 

[Ziggurat]

You are exactly the sort of reformer that Chesterton warned about.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

You seem to be confused about the difference between necessary and beneficial. Yes, you CAN have single sex toilets, and they can work. Sex segregation is not necessary in that sense, that much is true. That does not mean that there's no benefit to sex segregating toilets. That's an illogical conclusion. It doesn't follow.

It's not just that they CAN work, it's that they work to a sufficient (and in my opinion often far superior) level than segregated toilet facilities.

For example, if a transsexual women is trying to perv/rape/do whatever to a biological woman in a unisex toilet there's a much better chance one of you heroes will also be around to rescue her.

 

[Myriad]

It's not just that they CAN work, it's that they work to a sufficient (and in my opinion often far superior) level than segregated toilet facilities.

Trans rights activists do not call for unisex toilets and in fact reject them as a means of giving them access to necessary facilities.

Why are you taking an anti-trans position on this? Are you a far right conservative who is old and likely to die off soon?

 

[d4m10n]

In that case wouldn't everyone have a gender identity

I think they do, especially if it means "do you think of yourself as a man or woman"

We can think of ourselves as men or women without relying on any "internal sense" to reach that point, but most every definition of gender identity is explicitly grounded in subjectivity of experience. If we use the same process (reasoning from observation) to detect sex in ourselves as we do on random passerby at the beach then we are missing an essential element of what people mean when they talk about gender identity.

Perhaps, though, you didn't mean "man or woman" as sex categories but rather something else such as social roles? Worth exploring, if so.

That your internal behaviours are the same as most people and therefore can be used to generalise from.

I do not recall asserting any such belief in that thread; seems to me you must be reading it in between the lines.

OP was about three people (Thrace, Wintemute, & Coleman) who seem not to be able to generalize from their own subjective experience to the broadly held notion that everyone experiences gender identity. I find those people fairly lucid and even relatable, but even if I made the same assertions which they do, that would not constitute an attempt to generalize but rather an attempt to exceptionalize.

I came to the conclusion some time ago that it's okay for me to not be able to personally feel what other people feel. I will never be able to feel the unpleasantness of menstruation because I don't have a uterus or the hormones that usually accompany it. Similarly, I will never be able to feel the gender dysphoria that trans and nonbinary people feel. That means that I don't have the right to judge or make assumptions about the way other people are feeling.

That thread was designedly not about what "trans and nonbinary people feel" but about the claim that everyone experiences gender identity, including people—such as ourselves—who do not experience any discomfort when considering our primary and secondary sex characteristics. The degeneration of the discussion into focusing on transgender and nonbinary identities was perhaps inevitable, despite clearly warning against it in the OP. The question remains whether gender identity can be conceptually nailed down in such a way that basically everyone who takes the time to really think about it would eventually nod and say, "Aye, I've got that."

Analogies are invariably imperfect, but consider the idea of consciousness. We can imagine p-zombies^WP who lack it, but everyone we talk to about consciousness affirms that they experience it and we tend to take them at their word, even though the concept itself is pretty hard to nail down. If I were to run a poll about whether every adult has the property of consciousness, we'd generally agree that they do, after setting aside coma patients. It would be quite difficult to find serious writers like Wintemute and Coleman asserting that they have done a bit of introspection and yet find themselves to be unconscious.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

You are exactly the sort of reformer that Chesterton warned about.

In the case of public toilets the fence has been ripped up and the sky did not fall. Indeed, from my point of view the weather turned quite nice! ETA: Just to clarify: I hate urinals and never use them.

Trans rights activists do not call for unisex toilets and in fact reject them as a means of giving them access to necessary facilities.

Why are you taking an anti-trans position on this? Are you a far right conservative who is old and likely to die off soon?

As you should know by now from my posts I'm not on either team TRA or TERF. I've never been a team player. I don't care what people want, I want what works for as many groups as possible.

 

[Ziggurat]

In the case of public toilets the fence has been ripped up and the sky did not fall. Indeed, from my point of view the weather turned quite nice!

Other people are telling you that it's creating problems for them. The fact that you don't experience a problem isn't any sort of indicator that there is no problem.

As you should know by now from my posts I'm not on either team TRA or TERF. I've never been a team player.

You seem to have bought into a lot of the TRA concepts of gender and transition.

I don't care what people want, I want what works for as many groups as possible.

There's a very large group of women for whom this doesn't work. You're ignoring them.

 

[Thermal]

We can think of ourselves as men or women without relying on any "internal sense" to reach that point, but most every definition of gender identity is explicitly grounded in subjectivity of experience. If we use the same process (reasoning from observation) to detect sex in ourselves as we do on random passerby at the beach then we are missing an essential element of what people mean when they talk about gender identity.

Perhaps, though, you didn't mean "man or woman" as sex categories but rather something else such as social roles? Worth exploring, if so.

I feel comfortable saying it's a mix. I can identify a babe based on their obvious physical attributes, mammalian protruberances and whatnot. I can also clock her based on looking *like* a babe when they are not out in the open.

Since debating this in the thread, I've been paying closer attention to how I clock people, and have been surprised at how often I am either not sure or flat wrong on closer inspection. Like, seeing shapely legs and butt, only to realize it's a dude. So I'm inclined to think we clock sex when physically obvious, but "like that sex" when not as in your face.

Eta: people in medical scrubs have been throwing me for a loop quite a bit (when they are stopping at the store or whatever on their lunch or to/from work). The unisex scrubs and lack of more typical social presentation are killing my guesswork batting average.

 

[Myriad]

As you should know by now from my posts I'm not on either team TRA or TERF. I've never been a team player. I don't care what people want, I want what works for as many groups as possible.

Oh, not a conservative then. A would-be super-villain with a plan for the perfect society whether the proles like it or not!

Might I request the mandatory unisex uniform pajamas be light blue instead of the usual gray? And that the nutritional paste rations not be too dry? And maybe avoid scheduling any outdoor Death Games in mid winter? Ah, never mind, you don't care what people want.

 

[Manger Douse]

What are your thoughts on racial profiling?

ETA: I ask because I suspect most of you believe it is a good idea and should support it. It would be particularly interesting seeing anyone try to argue why racial profiling is wrong but profiling transgender people is the right thing to do.

I think you trying to change the subject again proves your views are undeniably misogynistic

 

[Thermal]

Rubbish. As the example just given makes clear.

Most females would object to being strip searched by any strange male, regardless of the thoughts in their head. It would make us feel anything from uncomfortable to (in the case of victims of male sexual violence) terrified. What you (and those prison authorities) are saying is that the feelings of any male are more important than, and should take priority over, the feelings of any number of females.

You think guys generally get cheered up by a strange man ordering them to drop trou and bend over?

Both sexes would prefer a woman do this.

 

[Thermal]

There's another thread that got started here where a female (cis) high schooler was harassed in a woman's restroom by staff, demanding that she prove she was a woman.

This is the kind of society the bigots want. They want to be the Vigilante Penis Police and feel free to humiliate random women who I guess don't look feminine enough for their tastes.

Still concerned about respecting women, are we?

 

[Georg]

So if I can find examples of people who have been stabbed with objects such as screwdrivers, toothbrushes and biros, we should exclude people who are carrying any of those objects from using all public toilets? I mean, who knows what malevolent motivations people carrying toothbrushes into public toilets have!

Clutching at straws toothbrushes now?
Maybe you can find an example, but sure not as many women are attacked in toilets with toothbrushes and biros and screwdrivers as are sexually attacked.

You did not comment on the "harm by skin color"thing,
I wonder why?
Have you realized that the analogy is flawed?

You also did not really justify taking away rights of half of the population.
Yup, misogynistic.

 

[Manger Douse]

There's another thread that got started here where a female (cis) high schooler was harassed in a woman's restroom by staff, demanding that she prove she was a woman.

This is the kind of society the bigots want. They want to be the Vigilante Penis Police and feel free to humiliate random women who I guess don't look feminine enough for their tastes.

Still concerned about respecting women, are we?

That happened a lot less before some men started demanding any man have the right to access to women's safe spaces on a whim so you can thank said men for this harassment

 

[Manger Douse]

You think guys generally get cheered up by a strange man ordering them to drop trou and bend over?

Both sexes would prefer a woman do this.

All men certainly don't want to be intimately searched by the opposite sex. I think you're projecting and I think this is why you can't understand the women here's point of view

 

[Tomboy]

There's another thread that got started here where a female (cis) high schooler was harassed in a woman's restroom by staff, demanding that she prove she was a woman.

This is the kind of society the bigots want.

No, that's the kind of society you get when women are deprived of the right to police their own sex segregated spaces, and what should be a safe, sex segregated space no longer is.

 

[Thermal]

That happened a lot less before men started demanding any man have the right to access to women's safe spaces on a whim so you can thank said men for this harassment

Do you have something to back that assertion up? This resteraunt or worker fighting off hordes of males charging the restroom doors? Cuz I dont see a damn thing other than a bigot feeling empowered to spit on people.

 

[Thermal]

All men certainly don't want to be intimately searched by the opposite sex. I think you're projecting

I didn't say all.

Hell, most guys would likey prefer a female just because she likely has smaller diameter fingers.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Other people are telling you that it's creating problems for them. The fact that you don't experience a problem isn't any sort of indicator that there is no problem.

A small number of people, I'd estimate 0.5% might not like it, but hey, they're a tiny minority and will just have to undergo inclusive toilet desensitisation therapy until they accept the reality that unisex toilets work. A few of them may self harm, or even go as far to commit suicide, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

You seem to have bought into a lot of the TRA concepts of gender and transition.

I think gender is a useful and valid construct that is probably encoded in the brain. For those of us where it matches our biological sex it is invisible to us. How much of this is nature and how much is nurture I don't know. My feeling is it's mostly hard coded than learned. Does that constitute "a lot"?

There's a very large group of women for whom this doesn't work. You're ignoring them.

No, there isn't. You're making this up. Unisex toilets work just fine.

 

[Manger Douse]

Do you have something to back that assertion up? This resteraunt or worker fighting off hordes of males charging the restroom doors? Cuz I dont see a damn thing other than a bigot feeling empowered to spit on people.

I can't find many stories of this happening before "Transwomen are women" became a thing. The story in the other thread was from yesterday