Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Ziggurat]

I'm not hearing similar indignation about transmen taking "men's words"?

Because trans identifying females don't pull the sort of ◊◊◊◊ that trans identifying males pull.

This discrepancy should also give you a hint that this isn't actually being driven by animus towards trans people. But it doesn't.

 

[John Freestone]

Can you answer the question I asked when replying to one of your posts? the below post.

My question in reference to the red and underlined was and still is, 'wouldn't gender being separate from sex solve that particular problem?'.

My statement was, "people, kids, think they are a particular gender (by which they literally mean sex) on the basis of what they like and don't like."

No, separating sex from gender wouldn't solve that problem. It created the problem. I probably didn't express that clearly enough. The people I'm talking about use the word 'gender' when they start believing they are 'trans', but what they are imagining (at least many of them) is that they can change their sex. They don't know (a) that sex is binary and immutable, thanks to the TRAs lying endlessly to them, and (b) they're using 'gender' almost the way it was used when it replaced 'sex', just as what you call being male or female.

What do you mean by 'gender being separate from sex'? I believe you mean they will be fine to accept their sex (assigned at birth, as they'll still call it) and put on whatever gender they want (when they want). And you're apparently so innocent, you think that'll solve the problem. Just like you're so naive you imagine putting "FEMALE" on toilet doors will keep the males out.

And you appeared to agree with the main point of my statement - they see sexual stereotypes and on that basis decide what sex they are (they - at least many of them - just call it gender instead). But if we - if teachers in school especially - just talked about the sexes, gender ideology would not get such a foothold. 'Gender' immediately invites 'gender identity'. But then apparently you're fine with that as well, so god knows where you are from moment to moment. You don't want kids to think they're the opposite sex based on stereotypes, but you're happy for them to try different 'genders' as and when they feel like it, because they have an internal sense of their gender. I give up.

 

[John Freestone]

Then pay more attention. Gender is closely linked to sex, so to refer to it in a sexless vacuum is a nonsensical proposition, like meaninfully defining a wheel without referring to circularity.

That's fair, and I intuited that I wasn't expressing what I wanted with the question when I wrote it.

 

[John Freestone]

I'm not hearing similar indignation about transmen taking "men's words"?

That's because our safety hasn't been impacted anything like as much, and we don't have a historical background of fighting tooth and nail for equal rights (feminism), and TIFs, even with exogenous androgens, seem generally not to be as obstinate and arrogant as the TIMs who invade womanhood and claim it as theirs. I've not yet heard a TIF tell a bloke she's a "better man" than he is, but I've heard several TIMs tell women they're better women.

On the other hand, as a mild-mannered bloke, I dislike it when a TIF describes herself as a man. She has no idea what being one is, or what boyhood is like. She's never had to deal with the excruciating embarrassment of unwanted erections, or the various demands to be manly. But I also know our struggles aren't much compared to those of women.

While we're at it, imma throw a fit because 'human' and 'woman' and 'mankind' stole our special word. Hey, you stole the 'male' to use in 'female'.Where's my clutching pearls?

Idiotic and insulting. The fact that we used 'mankind' and 'human' and prefixed 'man' with 'wo' for 'womb' was male chauvenism. Women were an afterthought. Still are in many, many ways. How is that stealing the male version of the word? What if women had made up the words, called the species 'people' and then thought, "Oh, we'd better name the other lot - er - prickpeople"? And then said you'd stolen the 'people' part.

EC, you're not 'giving up' anything, or having anything taken away from you. This is ridiculous.

 

[theprestige]

I'm not hearing similar indignation about transmen taking "men's words"?

*Flexes in Patriarchy.*

 

[Ziggurat]

But I also know our struggles aren't much compared to those of women.

Our struggles are different than women’s struggles. We have it easier in some respects, harder in others. I don’t think it’s very useful to try to rank them, particularly when there’s so much individual variation.

 

[Ziggurat]

The fact that we used 'mankind' and 'human' and prefixed 'man' with 'wo' for 'womb' was male chauvenism.

That is not the etymology of “woman”. This idea that the word itself has sexist origins is an urban legend.

 

[smartcooky]

We just end up saying the reason we make girls play softball is because of their gender, and we're back to the conflation that's so unhelpful, opening the door for boys to claim they have a feminine gender and thus should be able to play softball with the biologically sexed girls.

Just to confound things a bit we don't play baseball in NZ. Someone tried to start a league a few years ago, but it didnt work out.

In this country, the main "stick and ball" sport is Cricket, played by males and females, and is that closely followed by Softball, also played by males and females.

 

[John Freestone]

That is not the etymology of “woman”. This idea that the word itself has sexist origins is an urban legend.

Oh yes, I remember now (that it's not from womb, but wīf). It's scary the number of times I learn the same facts and forget them again. Ironically, I almost reiterated the naming of the male, "prickperson".

The word for 'woman' was wīf or wīfmann (lit. 'woman-person') whereas 'man' was wer or wǣpnedmann (from wǣpn 'weapon; penis'). However, following the Norman Conquest, man began to mean 'male human', and by the late 13th century it had largely replaced wer.[12] The consonants /f/ and /m/ in wīfmann coalesced into the modern woman, while wīf narrowed to specifically mean a married woman ('wife').

 

[John Freestone]

ETA: There is a good discussion of the differences between gender₃ and gender₄ on this blog.

I just got round to reading that article. Very interesting, thanks.

The ending echoes my sentiments a little on using 'gender', but I go further and try to eschew it altogether:

This situation particularly annoys those feminists who feel they’ve lost ‘their’ word. But it might be asked how much we really need that word. It didn’t originate in feminist political analysis or grassroots activism: it belonged to an academic register (and is still, according to the corpus evidence, used predominantly in academic contexts). Many classic feminist analyses of the social condition of women (like Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Firestone’s Dialectic of Sex and Angela Davis’s Women, Race and Class) do not use it at all.

In recent years I’ve become more careful about when and how I use ‘gender’, since in some contexts and for some audiences I know it might not be clear which sense I’m using it in. Now I’m asking myself if there are any contexts where I really couldn’t manage without it. As I’ve said, plenty of feminists in the past did manage without it. Maybe what was good enough for Simone de Beauvoir and Angela Davis should be good enough for me.

Another thing I notice is this:

Knowing that the two competing senses have developed from different intellectual traditions (one sense has its roots in the social scientific study of human culture and behaviour, while the other is rooted in the theory and practice of clinicians working with gender-variant individuals) makes it easier to understand why they conflict in the ways they do. And the conflict is profound: if I use ‘gender’ to mean ‘a social status imposed on people by virtue of their sex’, and you use it to mean ‘an innate sense of identity linked to the sex of a person’s brain’ (a now-common understanding which derives from the medical tradition), we may be using the same word, but our conceptual frameworks have almost nothing in common (for instance, your ‘gender’ has a biological basis, whereas the defining feature of my ‘gender’ is that it doesn’t).

Weird. Debuk says that "the defining feature [my italics] of, 'a social status imposed on people by virtue of their sex'" is that it has no "biological basis". How the hell does "[something] by virtue of their sex" have no biological basis? And, of course, while it's obvious that "an innate sense of identity linked to the sex of a person’s brain" has a biological basis, it is clearly also purely subjective.

At first, they seemed the wrong way round, but I think what's key is that it's all biology. Philosophical naturalism is the key to a lot of things.

 

[Rolfe]

That is not the etymology of “woman”. This idea that the word itself has sexist origins is an urban legend.

It's still the case though that in many languages the male is the default. This leads to specific words arising to describe the female, because otherwise it's simply assumed that the male is intended.

From an alien's point of view, the English sentence "Two men were walking down the street; one male and one female" is perfectly correct. Also witness the regrettable mangling of Christmas carols with lines like "pleased as man with man to dwell" and "Go, now carry me to Bethlehem to see the Lord appear to men" in a cack-handed attempt to be PC, as if the authors actually intended to exclude half the human race when they wrote the poems.

Context is everything, people.

 

[smartcooky]

Bull ◊◊◊◊. I'm contesting the begged question that anything was ever carved in stone to the point where it would need to be 'overridden'. It's always been overwhelmingly sex=gender, and a very rare nonconformist here and there, and no one throwing a fit because a woman was in the men's room.

Males have not had to fight tooth and nail for equality, for the right to vote, for the right to participate in government at every level, to not have to be limited by a glass ceiling in employment, for the right to be treated with dignity and respect and for the right to be treated as equals. They have also fought to get spaces and services for themselves. Females have had to do all of these things - our grandmothers, mothers, sisters and aunts have fought for these rights for the last 100+ years to get to where they are today, and that fight is ongoing - they will not give those rights up willingly... they will NOT comply. However, there is currently a campaign being undertaken by TRA's (many of whom are males but not actually transgender identifying males themselves) to erase these women's rights. YOU are a participant in that campaign (whether you understand it or not, and whether you intend to be or not). There is NO grey area or nuance on this - if you are repeating TRA talking points, or using them to make your argument, then you ARE a TRA.

And before you say it, let me cut to the chase:

"But those trannys rape and kill the women!"
"We are not seeing that."
"But I mean the imposter trannys will rape and kill the women!"
"We are not seeing that either."
"But I mean that they make me uncomfortable!"
"We are all uncomfortable around some people sometimes."

Yeah, we get it. You don't think women should be allowed to be uncomfortable with their panties around their ankles, or being otherwise part-naked, with a strange man just feet away on the other side of a very flimsy door. You don't think women ought to be allowed to complain about a naked man waving his schlong around in their changing rooms while they are getting changed (see the PennU case with Will Thomas, Riley Gaines etc), or the fact they might have been dealing with a personal biological issue (see the Sandie Peggie case) or had prior trauma from being raped (see the Darlington Nurses case). They should just get over themselves and buck up their ideas - right?

And on and on we go. The bottom line is you don't like them or trust them and don't want them around. Which is fine. I just wish we would stop.playing this game where it's always something else that's the real reason.

Correct. Women don't want males around when they are vulnerable, or need privacy, but you clearly do not believe women deserve to be treated with dignity.

You seem to think this is all just about safety in toilets and changing rooms... IT IS NOT. It is also about dignity, privacy and respect. You argue that there have never been sex-segregated spaces with the force of law, and you are probably right about that, but it is also true that never before has the law interfered in the rights of the owners and managers of organizations with sex-segregated spaces to set and enforce their own rules for these spaces. Companies, businesses, clubs, associations and the managers of public facilities have always been able to set aside areas where males are restricted or banned. Hospitals were allowed to have areas and wards where males are not allowed. Males have always been barred from entry to females' domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centres. But as Wi Spa, Giggle for Girls, the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centres and others have found out, that is no longer the case - the law has interfered in the rights of the business owners to set their own rules.

 

[Thermal]

That's because our safety hasn't been impacted anything like as much

We discussed safety repeatedly. When it gets pointed out that there appears to be no safety impact one way or the other, (g)you respond with 'well it's not safety, it's discomfort'. Circling back to an earlier point, we need to solve for X before getting into safety assessments.

, and we don't have a historical background of fighting tooth and nail for equal rights (feminism), and TIFs, even with exogenous androgens, seem generally not to be as obstinate and arrogant as the TIMs who invade womanhood and claim it as theirs. I've not yet heard a TIF tell a bloke she's a "better man" than he is, but I've heard several TIMs tell women they're better women.

Couldn't that be interpreted as men generally being more welcoming to non-conformists, rather than transwomen generally being abrasive?

On the other hand, as a mild-mannered bloke, I dislike it when a TIF describes herself as a man. She has no idea what being one is, or what boyhood is like. She's never had to deal with the excruciating embarrassment of unwanted erections, or the various demands to be manly.

True, but so what? A transman looks at men and thinks 'that looks like how I feel', not 'that's what my experience has been'.

But I also know our struggles aren't much compared to those of women.

Agreed. Not sure that both sexes having a non-conformist in the rest room, or having the opposite sex use part of your sexed name, really constitutes a loss in a struggle. Sounds more like even-keeling. The policy effects both restrooms, and we are treating everyone actually equally.

Idiotic and insulting.

Ya that was the facetious point.

 

[d4m10n]

I behold you giving it power.

If only I could give it much more! Every time a male feels morally constrained from entering women's leagues and/or spaces, that's gender₃ at work, regardless of what we choose to call the process by which sexed roles are personally internalized and socially enforced.

If you keep using a word that a set of people are determined to corrupt, you have either the endless task of adding your definition every time and making a point of undermining theirs every time they use it, or you just stop playing the game and use a perfectly good form of words that does the same job.

It seems to me you're giving the word "gender" itself too much importance. It is entirely possible to state the central idea of gender ideology without using that word at all, as when Martine Rothblatt claimed the following:

The legacy of medicalization...is that a person with a penis usually can't wear a dress to work until they convert their penis into a vagina and change all their ID from male to female. This is absurd. We must finally end the notion that sex is between our legs. Instead, it is time to realize that sex is between our ears.​

That last bit is transsexualism/transgenderism in a nutshell: Sex isn't a condition of the body, it is a state of mind, and all things socially sorted by sex need to take that into account.

 

[Ziggurat]

We discussed safety repeatedly. When it gets pointed out that there appears to be no safety impact one way or the other

There's a very clear safety impact in prisons. And sex segregation in prisons has been part of this debate. Plus, feeling safe is a real issue too. It's part of the whole dignity thing which you have already conceded.

Couldn't that be interpreted as men generally being more welcoming to non-conformists, rather than transwomen generally being abrasive?

These aren't mutually exclusive.

But you're right, men are generally more welcoming to non-conformists. Why? Is it because they're better people than women? As a man, the idea flatters me, but I don't have any logical reason to accept it. Especially since there's another explanation: that men have higher risk tolerance, because we are less vulnerable than women. Non-conformity can signal potential threat (this too is logical), and women are more sensitive to danger than men. This isn't a moral fault of women, it's a logical response to a difference in circumstance.

But again, since men are more welcoming of non-conformists than women, why can't trans identifying males just use the men's bathrooms? I'm still waiting for an answer on this.

 

[Thermal]

Males have not had to fight tooth and nail for equality, for the right to vote, for the right to participate in government at every level, to not have to be limited by a glass ceiling in employment, for the right to be treated with dignity and respect and for the right to be treated as equals. They have also fought to get spaces and services for themselves. Females have had to do all of these things - our grandmothers, mothers, sisters and aunts have fought for these rights for the last 100+ years to get to where they are today, and that fight is ongoing - they will not give those rights up willingly... they will NOT comply. However, there is currently a campaign being undertaken by TRA's (many of whom are males but not actually transgender identifying males themselves) to erase these women's rights. YOU are a participant in that campaign (whether you understand it or not, and whether you intend to be or not). There is NO grey area or nuance on this - if you are repeating TRA talking points, or using them to make your argument, then you ARE a TRA.

Which is a stupid take. You insist that everyone has to be at one extreme or the other. Have you heard of a concept called a spectrum, or shades of gray, anything like that? Everyone else has. Member arthwollipot is solidly a TRA, and considers me to be on 'your side', because I do not endorse his extremes fully and unreservedly. It's strictly you guys at the extremes that prevent any kind of real discussion about this.

Yeah, we get it. You don't think women should be allowed to be uncomfortable with their panties around their ankles, or being otherwise part-naked, with a strange man just feet away on the other side of a very flimsy door.

Are you familiar with the concept of a multi occupant public rest room? The general public, men and women both, are a few feet away on the other side of an open door, without even a flimsy latch on it. And that's actually a good thing- if anyone feels threatened, one yell and people on the other side of the unlocked door can respond immediately. That's likely why you can't find stats on bathroom assaults. They are such poor areas to assault someone that no one is trying, beyond the nuts that do the same thing under any policy.

You don't think women ought to be allowed to complain about a naked man waving his schlong around in their changing rooms while they are getting changed (see the PennU case with Will Thomas, Riley Gaines etc), or the fact they might have been dealing with a personal biological issue (see the Sandie Peggie case) or had prior trauma from being raped (see the Darlington Nurses case). They should just get over themselves and buck up their ideas - right?

Wrong, as usual. In fact, it's the polar opposite of what I have repeatedly stated, ie strict sex segregation needs to be introduced where communal nudity would be expected. At this point, there is no room left for you to say you are misunderstanding. You are being stupid, willfully or otherwise.

Correct. Women don't want males around when they are vulnerable, or need privacy, but you clearly do not believe women deserve to be treated with dignity.

More stupidity, willing or otherwise. I have said the opposite, that women's privacy and modesty are in fact the most persuasive arguments in favor of strict sex segregation in public rest rooms.

You seem to think this is all just about safety in toilets and changing rooms... IT IS NOT. It is also about dignity, privacy and respect.

Ya I've said the same a hundred times. But your side counters with 'but look at how these pervs really are, they are dangerous sex criminals'.

If you guys stuck to the simple modesty argument, you'd seem entirely reasonable and no one would be calling you Bashers. But when you throw anything you can think of out, even when it fails on reasonable grounds, the fig leaf slips.

You argue that there have never been sex-segregated spaces with the force of law, and you are probably right about that, but it is also true that never before has the law interfered in the rights of the owners and managers of organizations with sex-segregated spaces to set and enforce their own rules for these spaces. Companies, businesses, clubs, associations and the managers of public facilities have always been able to set aside areas where males are restricted or banned. Hospitals were allowed to have areas and wards where males are not allowed. Males have always been barred from entry to females' domestic violence shelters, and rape crisis centres.

Maybe in your neck of the woods, but I know for a fact that rape crisis centers and domestic abuse shelters in mine have never turned away anyone. A victim is a victim, and those that want to help victims do not get judgey about their lifestyles.

But as Wi Spa, Giggle for Girls, the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centres and others have found out, that is no longer the case - the law has interfered in the rights of the business owners to set their own rules.

How the hell did Wi Spa get in that list? Nothing changed, before or after Merager.

 

[Thermal]

There's a very clear safety impact in prisons. And sex segregation in prisons has been part of this debate.

And I have weighed in that prisons should be almost entirely sex segregated, with a few possible exceptions made on a case by case basis.

Plus, feeling safe is a real issue too. It's part of the whole dignity thing which you have already conceded.

It's not a concession. It was my starting point. {eta: I mean Jesus Christ, it's one of the main reasons I am conflicted. I haven't been shy about that}

These aren't mutually exclusive.

But you're right, men are generally more welcoming to non-conformists. Why? Is it because they're better people than women? As a man, the idea flatters me, but I don't have any logical reason to accept it. Especially since there's another explanation: that men have higher risk tolerance, because we are less vulnerable than women. Non-conformity can signal potential threat (this too is logical), and women are more sensitive to danger than men. This isn't a moral fault of women, it's a logical response to a difference in circumstance.

That's one alternative, of several. Another is that men are not fearful of attacks that generally aren't happening anywhere, and are less swayed by fear mongering. Standing at a urinal, I am just as vulnerable to a knife wielding mugger whether they are male of female (and before you say it, how violent the 'average' woman is depends heavily on locality. In my Atlantic City, the babes are just as mean as the beaus). All of which keeps circling back to my first question here, solving for X and determining what the actual risk is. How much is speculative and how much is demonstrable?

But again, since men are more welcoming of non-conformists than women, why can't trans identifying males just use the men's bathrooms? I'm still waiting for an answer on this.

How many times would you like it repeated? The can, and are encouraged to, and I'll personally throw a 'Trans-Anythings Welcome Here' mat in front of every men's restroom I see. What we shouldn't have is a policy that says 'hey transperson, you know how you have often been able to use either restroom for generations without penalty? We are making that a crime now, to appease people that are contemptuous of men in dresses, but totally ok with women in jeans. We good, yes?'

Is there anything ambiguous about that which you will claim in a couple pages that you are still waiting for an answer to?

 

[Thermal]

So, cast your mind back if you can, and tell me if you remember the last time, in normal conversation, you used any of the sexed third-person pronouns?

But you don't appear to write like that. Maybe you're one of those people who takes their cue from how others are speaking (or writing). If your friend was talking a lot about Helen, saying, "She's nice, Helen. I really like her, don't you?" and you wanted to add something about Helen, maybe then you'd conform to what your friend is using. I can't imagine you continuing, "Well, yeah, they're nice, but they still owe me a tenner."

This might be a 'some Brits' colloquial thing? I just ran across a British poster in the wild who said:

"A friend of mine had to be circumcised in their early 20s, because of not being able to fully retract their foreskin and it would often tear during sex. For him it was a necessary procedure to treat a specific problem."

Note two 'theys', while referring to an obvious male, and a 'him' later.

 

[p0lka]

I'm quite tired of males demanding that females must surrender the word "woman" so that males with identity issues can feel better about themselves. Like, why do you think your assertion that females should just shut up and let some males take the word that describes our sex? Why do you feel entitled to give away what was never yours in the first place?

I have no idea about your accusation of my assertions that didn't happen?....i wish i had an image of a bunny with a pancake on its head.

 

[p0lka]

Still haven't seen any of the equivocators and position-flippers in this thread answer John's question.

I said I would answer when they answered my previous question.