Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Emily's Cat]

In the context of this discussion though, the opposite angle gets brought up: a guy who *does* have those same tastes as many other women. Maybe he's trans, maybe not. "He's aping! Womanface! Cross dressing perv!" yells the gallery. I don't think so. I think he's just ar another point on the spectrum.

Le sigh.

The only time we give a flying ◊◊◊◊ and call it aping or womanface or anything else is when such a male is claiming that they're caricatured presentation in feminine garb is what *entitles* them to violate female boundaries and use female-specific spaces and services. And the reason we do so is because those males have effectively demonstrated that they fundamentally believe that slutty bimbo clothing is what makes a female a woman. It's regressive and offensive.

Also drag performances, because that genuinely is womanface aping femaleness. But that's a different topic, not germane to this thread.

 

[Emily's Cat]

In my circles, the guys are not really calling the shots, so there's not much of a clique to dominate anyone not in it. I'll happily hold the door open for a female engineer I work with, and defer to her opinions and expertise (she's damn good). Same for a couple kitchen and interior designers. I feel.like it's the same when I move in my wife's professional circles.

I hold open the door for other people, regardless of their sex, because it's polite.

Re: treating all genders as one of the guys: a dive bar I used to frequent has one of those troughs for men to communally urinate in together. Should I (or do you) whip out the Johnson with little regard for the gender of those around you? No. I extend that defence to other (more subtle) behaviors around women. And no, it's not 'that's different'.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊. You refrain from whipping out your wedding tackle based on the SEX of the people around you. I doubt you hesitate to use a communal urinal when the people around you are males, regardless of whether one of them is wearing a sparkly pink tiara. On the other hand, I bet you would refrain from exposing your shlong in the presence of a female, even if such a female was wearing a flannel shirt and overalls with heavy-duty workboots and a buzz cut.

 

[Emily's Cat]

One of the reasons we started using the word "gender" instead of "sex" is that when you ask teenage boys "Sex?" on a form, they all tend to say "Yes please!" That doesn't work when you put "Gender?" instead.

If true, that's an incredibly stupid reason for mangling the English language.

It's not literally true, but it's not far off. Regardless of whether it's reasonable or not, the fact that the word "sex" has both a noun and a verb definition has been a source of prudish laughter and fainting spells for quite some time. I don't know when it happened, but there was a shift to using "gender" in reference to a person's body type because it was considered more polite. It was considered more polite, because people thinking about copulation whenever the word "sex" was uttered was considered impolite.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm not so sure. Cross-culturally, men have always adopted dress and mannerisms that were more butch, and women more dainty (for lack of being willing to come up with better adjectives). I think the standalone sense is more hardwired, and the specific cultural expression a lighter specific variant.

Cross-culturally, females have adopted clothing that emphasizes their femininity and males have adopted clothing that emphasizes their masculinity. Because reproduction is a thing.

Also, I doubt anyone thinks that burqas and niqabs are "dainty" items of clothing.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm not sure I've ever considered what I wear in light of what others might think, except in loose dress up/down. In the privacy of my home, where no one else can see me, I've never felt like putting on a nightie. Maybe the gender role is smashed in there so ddep that it's not registering as an option, I dunno.

Alternatively... female clothing is shaped for a female form, and is probably not going to be comfortable for you. Also, because you're not a transvestite and you don't get a sexual thrill from putting on a nightie. Also, your spouse would be more likely to laugh at you in a nightie than to see it as an invitation to do some maritals.

 

[smartcooky]

Le sigh.

The only time we give a flying ◊◊◊◊ and call it aping or womanface or anything else is when such a male is claiming that they're caricatured presentation in feminine garb is what *entitles* them to violate female boundaries and use female-specific spaces and services.

This is what he doesn't get - and it is what he will never get so long has he continues to mindlessly parrot TRA policy and talking points!

And the reason we do so is because those males have effectively demonstrated that they fundamentally believe that slutty bimbo clothing is what makes a female a woman. It's regressive and offensive.

Yup, in spades!

 

[Emily's Cat]

That's the generic bigoted rhetoric, yes.

WHY do you think it's bigoted? Do you think that males with transgender identities are actually for realsies females?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Within the practical contraints, sure. I recall Rosie pictured with an Aunt Jemima do-rag that I don't recall being trendy for the guys?

How can you be such a bigoted racist?????

/s

 

[Emily's Cat]

I think that the sense of being a man runs independent of the surrounding culture's expectation of it's expression (like sex and gender, related but not synonymous). Were I to drop into feudal Japan, I would gravitate towards the dress of the samurai, not the geisha. Not because they expect it, but because it would jibe for the same reasons they gravitate towards it. It satisfies their sense of being a man, even though the expression is a little different.

The garb of a samurai conveys meaning to others - martial aptitude and male sex. The garb of a geisha conveys training in how to sexually satisfy a male and female sex.

It's not a matter of satisfying anyones "sense of gender", it's a matter of nonverbally conveying vocation and sex. In the vast majority of societies, clothing styles are designed to emphasize and communicate a person's sex, simply because we're a sexually reproductive species. Clothing serves the same purpose (in a much more fluid way) as a peacock's feathers.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Morally, we don't call obese people obese at every opportunity. You can claim that your standard is to only speak the biological truth, so you must call them obese, but no one anywhere believes those who say that .

On the other hand... nobody is demanding that we call obese people svelte or thin either.

 

[Ziggurat]

On the other hand... nobody is demanding that we call obese people svelte or thin either.

But they are demanding we call them beautiful.

Which reminds me of the Lizzo meme, about how many women react positively to someone saying that Lizzo is beautiful, but negatively to someone saying that they look like Lizzo, even if this person just said Lizzo is beautiful. I suspect you can do the same thing regarding trans identifying males: if you say "transwomen are beautiful", that's a good thing, but don't dare say "you look like a transwoman".

 

[Emily's Cat]

Something's been bugging me about the "cherry orchard", and this morning I figured out what it is: They're all middle-aged white males.

I think I first had some inkling of this when considering the case of Admiral Levine, a year or so back. Part of my assessment was that Levine had accomplished most of their career advancement as a cis-identifying male. I.e., as a bog-standard white male with all the advantages that carries. He got to be the "first ever trans" to reach that rank or whatever mostly by being "yet another white male" to reach every preceding rank. The only part of his career that he achieved while openly trans was that final step, which coincidentally only happened right at the moment when society was most likely to reward him for being trans over rewarding him for being white and male.

And it seems like there's a lot of that in the "cherry orchard". Middle aged white men who have figured out that being openly and toxically "trans" is something they're allowed to get away with, now. To me, this is less "ameliorating the distress of gender dysphoria" and more "finding a socially acceptable outlet, either for untreated mental illness (best case), or for being an anti-social dickhead (worst case). This is probably just a stereotype, but the next time you hear about a trans restroom harasser, or a trans prison rapist, try guessing the ethnicity and age of the perpetrator, and see if you're right.

Behavior disorders and paraphilias are statistically more prevalent in white males than in any other cohort, with a very few exceptions. Narcissism, psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality disorder, and host of others are all much more likely to occur in white males. Borderline personality disorder is more common in white females.

For whatever evolutionary reason that I have no clue about... white people have more crazy.

Bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder are some of the few that seem more evenly spread by both race and sex.

 

[Ziggurat]

For whatever evolutionary reason that I have no clue about... white people have more crazy.

I'm not sure how confident we can be that diagnosis rates match occurrence rates. But some behavioral disorders are strongly affected by environment, and that absolutely can correlate with race.

 

[theprestige]

I guess building and maintaining western civilization is very stressful. /s

 

[Emily's Cat]

But they are demanding we call them beautiful.

Which reminds me of the Lizzo meme, about how many women react positively to someone saying that Lizzo is beautiful, but negatively to someone saying that they look like Lizzo, even if this person just said Lizzo is beautiful. I suspect you can do the same thing regarding trans identifying males: if you say "transwomen are beautiful", that's a good thing, but don't dare say "you look like a transwoman".

Yep. It's pretty clear virtue signaling. Objectively, I think Lizzo is quite beautiful for a very large female. But that italicized part is the quiet part that everyone understands but doesn't say out loud. All they're doing is refraining from saying something that might be considered derogatory or might make Lizzo feel bad about themself. But there's no way around the reality that Lizzo is a big, big person. On the scale from "big" to "damn!" I'd say they're between "husky" and "fluffy". And because everyone is aware of this reality, when you tell someone they look like Lizzo, it will be perceived as you telling them that they're obese.

It's the same thing with transgender stuff. There are a whole lot of females out there who will happily parrot the catechism that "transwomen are women". Right up until you congratulate them for coming out as trans, or otherwise imply that you perceive them as being a male in female garb. Because that's the reality - everyone almost always knows they're male, and that maleness is the most salient feature when it comes to perception. So no matter how much people say that a male with transgender identity is feminine... what they really mean is feminine for a male.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm not sure how confident we can be that diagnosis rates match occurrence rates. But some behavioral disorders are strongly affected by environment, and that absolutely can correlate with race.

Fair. I don't know whether there's a difference in expression involved. At a minimum, I expect there's often a cultural difference in the perception of some behaviors. What is considered a socially unacceptable level of self-focus in a strongly protestant informed culture might not even raise an eyebrow in a different society, so rates of diagnosis for narcissism would be different. I would speculate that in a highly patriarchal and controlling culture, it wouldn't even register as out of norm.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I guess building and maintaining western civilization is very stressful. /s

One could make the argument that autism, ADHD, narcissism, and OCD have contributed to it...

 

[Tomboy]

Imma run with your screen name as a tip.

Well, yes, I consider myself a tomboy, obviously, but that brings me back to how one can't, or shouldn't, assume a person's gender identity by how they present. That seemed to be what you were saying when you said you treat butch women like one of the guys and feminine men as women, and when you responded to D4m10n saying he doesn't know what it feels like to be a man outside of social expectations with not wanting to wear a lace thong and mini skirt as indication of feeling like a man, presumably.

A person's internal sense of self is internal, not necessarily external. Not all butch women want to be men. Not all effeminate men want to be women. Moreover, some overtly masculine men do want to be thought of as women, at least some of the time in some contexts for various reasons not all of which, but at least some of which, may be nefarious.

And that brings us (or me) back to how do we, women, biological females who have nothing against transwomen and sympathize with their situation but who wish to use the women's bathroom with as much privacy and as little risk as possible, know which men are harmless transwomen going to the place that validates their internal sense of self, and which are there for nefarious reasons?

Please don't cite lack of evidence that it's a problem like you've done before. I know we're on a skeptic's forum, but we're talking about feelings here, not facts. Internal sense of self is a feeling. By your definition, gender is a feeling. A biological male who feels like a women and feels more comfortable in the women's bathroom vs biological females who feel uncomfortable with biological males in the women's bathroom. If the argument is that bathrooms should be segregated based on gender, not sex, we're talking about segregating based on feelings. How do we do that?

I really don't think clothes make the wo/man. Like we've all noted, jeans and a t-shirt and hoodie are pretty unisex out here.

It's possible I've missed something, but it seems like any time you're asked how one can determine another's gender, or internal sense of self, you respond with an example that involves clothing and other socially appropriate stereotypes. Apologies if I'm mistaken.

I get that. I'd feel very comfortable saying you are wholly a woman, just not with the same tastes as many others. That happens a lot.

Appreciated, but again, that seems to support the point that you can't always accurately judge a person's internal sense of self based on their external appearance or behavior. Whereas most people can accurately judge a person's sex.

In the context of this discussion though, the opposite angle gets brought up: a guy who *does* have those same tastes as many other women. Maybe he's trans, maybe not. "He's aping! Womanface! Cross dressing perv!" yells the gallery. I don't think so. I think he's just ar another point on the spectrum.

I don't agree with your premise or phrasing, but let's run with that anyway. Another point on the spectrum. Sure. So where on the spectrum does one have to be to use one bathroom or the other? Sex is binary. That's clear cut. If gender is a spectrum, that makes things far less definitive.

Because it ends it. Governmrmt started this ◊◊◊◊ by equating them, then.making an unclear distinction later (I was asked for my gender in grade school, and told it was more appropriate than asking young children about their sex).

Not sure I agree that the government started it. Pretty sure the terms sex and gender were considered synonymous long before the government got involved in anything. Regardless, the fact that #1 ends the discussion is kind of why I think it's the best definition.

Sooooort of. It's not a clear role or stereotype I'm responding to (although I'm sure there's a measure in there), but more the overall vibe. If I was responding to 2&3, a girl in jeans and t-shirt would get the guy treatment.

What is "the guy treatment"? What if this girl in jeans and a t-shirt doesn't want "the guy treatment"? Or the girl treatment, for that matter, if by that you mean silly stuff like holding open doors. I let my boyfriend hold doors open for me, but only because I know it makes him happy to do so. And I make sure to get to enough doors ahead of him that I can open doors for HIM nearly as often. I hold doors open for everyone because I like being nice to people.

I've been trying to determine whether or not I treat people differently based on either sex or gender. Sex, yes. As a woman, I kind of have to in some contexts. The same way men have to treat women differently in some contexts; you've given examples of this. Gender, I really don't think I do.

#2 and #3 are things that I've been fighting against my whole life. I want to get rid of social stereotypes and social roles, not reinforce those walls.

Not 'must'; just a reliable clue.

Probably my fault. I shoot out responses with less thought than they deserve during the work day when I check my phone for one reason or other. If the above does not clarify, please let me know. I get that you are not setting up a gotcha, appreciated.

I don't thinks it's as reliable as you think.
Nope, I'm still curious and confused, but I very much appreciate the conversation.

The prayer thing hits home for me. I did my first year of High School in a Catholic school, being a protestant (my whole town went to this school because our public sending district was shared with one of the state's most violent school systems). My attitude was ultimately 'when in Rome' and I didn't raise a stink over Hail Marys and the other Catholic jazz. I knew what I was, and 'playing ball' in that limited context didn't compromise my essence.

I went to Catholic school for grades 1-8 and a Lutheran high school for grades 9-12. When we went to church, my family went to a Lutheran one, but I wasn't raised strongly anything religious. I never received my first holy communion and was never confirmed, so when I attended a Catholic church for school, I didn't go to communion and I've never gone to confession. My much faded recollection is that you have to have done the ceremonies/received the sacraments to participate in those sorts of things. Even in the Lutheran church where there are no sacraments and I've been told I'm welcome to go to communion with everyone else, I politely opt out. As an atheist, it doesn't feel right. I don't make a stink, though, I just quietly sit in the pew with my head down.

My point is that there's middle ground between "raising a stink" and politely opting out. Don't ask me what that is in terms of pronouns, but it feels like an important distinction.

You guys take this way too seriously.

What makes you think it's not serious? Alternately, why shouldn't we? Pronouns seem like they should be a harmless concession, but slippery slopes and narrow wedges and all that jazz. Me, I just very much have trouble using pronouns that are contrary to what my eyes observe. I have a biologically female friend who is trans, and she's... nope. Never mind. I was going to use that friend as an example of someone who's taken enough testosterone to pass well enough that I think of her as male, but my brain betrayed me and my fingers typed "she" before I could mentally correct myself.

--------

As an aside, I typed this next bit because it felt important when I was replying to the first quote about internal sense of self not necessarily matching the external, but darned if I know where I was going with it. With apologies in advance for potentially oversharing for no good reason.

After college, I spend a few years seriously wondering whether or not I might be trans. I don't mean like a passing thought here or there, but a few years of indecision and soul searching. I was involved in the body modification community; a community where people who weren't happy with their appearance, whose internal sense of self didn't match the outside, didn't hesitate to change the outside. For some, it was just piercings and tattoos, often the kind and quantity that are considered socially appropriate, but also the kind and quantity that are considered extreme. For others, it was castration and genital surgery, or filed teeth to look like fangs, surgically pointed ears, and dermal implants to look like whiskers. It was a community where anything outside of the social norm was celebrated, and encouraged, even. There were a lot of folks saying things to me like, "If you like looking like a man, maybe you are a man."

As someone who's never felt particularly feminine, who feels like my body doesn't match my internal sense of self (not in terms of genitals but in terms of overall shape and size), and who tends to have more in common with the guys than the gals, it wouldn't have been a big leap. After a lot of research and introspection and discussions with trans people, I decided that I can like masculine things without wanting to be a man, because as much as I dislike many of the trappings of being female, I didn't really want to be a man.

I think I'm lucky I wasn't born later than I was because younger me with internet access would have been very vulnerable to being convinced of being trans when I'm really not.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I went to Catholic school for grades 1-8 and a Lutheran high school for grades 9-12. When we went to church, my family went to a Lutheran one, but I wasn't raised strongly anything religious. I never received my first holy communion and was never confirmed, so when I attended a Catholic church for school, I didn't go to communion and I've never gone to confession. My much faded recollection is that you have to have done the ceremonies/received the sacraments to participate in those sorts of things. Even in the Lutheran church where there are no sacraments and I've been told I'm welcome to go to communion with everyone else, I politely opt out. As an atheist, it doesn't feel right. I don't make a stink, though, I just quietly sit in the pew with my head down.

My BFF in high school was catholic, and I went to church with them a couple of times. I also went to confession with them periodically. The first time I went, I did the whole thing, and just told the priest "I'm not Catholic, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do, I'm here to support a friend". The priest was pretty nice, we had a little discussion about things I've done that I was ashamed of or thought were sinful, why they were wrong, and what to do about it. They finished up by telling me they'd usually suggest x number of "hail marys" or whatever it was, but that since I wasn't catholic, I should spend some time by myself in a pew contemplating my actions, their consequences, and what I've learned from that, and consider how I should go about forgiving myself and committing to not repeating those errors. It was actually a pretty nice experience.

 

[Ziggurat]

I went to Catholic school for grades 1-8 and a Lutheran high school for grades 9-12. When we went to church, my family went to a Lutheran one, but I wasn't raised strongly anything religious. I never received my first holy communion and was never confirmed, so when I attended a Catholic church for school, I didn't go to communion and I've never gone to confession. My much faded recollection is that you have to have done the ceremonies/received the sacraments to participate in those sorts of things. Even in the Lutheran church where there are no sacraments and I've been told I'm welcome to go to communion with everyone else, I politely opt out. As an atheist, it doesn't feel right. I don't make a stink, though, I just quietly sit in the pew with my head down.

The difference between the Catholics and Lutherans (and a lot of other protestant faiths) is that Catholics believe in transubstantiation, and protestants generally don't. So the meaning of receiving the eucharist is fundamentally different. In Catholic mass, you are normally only supposed to receive communion if you are Catholic (there are a few exceptions). But what you can do at mass (but are not obliged to do) as a non-Catholic is to receive a blessing from the priest or deacon in lieu of communion. Eucharistic ministers (the lay people who help distribute the eucharist) aren't able to do this blessing, only priests and deacons can. The way a person is supposed to do this is to go up as if for communion, but instead of receiving the eucharist, you cross your arms across your chest and bow. Anyone is permitted to do this regardless of faith (yes, even atheists), and Catholics who aren't in a position to properly receive communion for whatever reason (such as not having fasted for an hour before communion, or having committed a mortal sin and not having gone to confession) are also supposed to do this rather than receive communion.

Remaining sitting in the pews is totally OK too, though, that's absolute fine. Just some trivia.