Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

[TomB]

Yes, we are somewhat different than cisgender women, but we are still women as much as they are, and that is my point. We deserve to be treated like women in every way unless there is some insurmountable logistical issue that prevents this, which is rare.

It is not just semantics, it is the heart of the matter.

But if the treatment is the same despite the different terminology?

Which is the core? the terminology or the treatment? Because You can be referred to with different terms but treated the same or be given the same term but treated differently.

If you want people to agree that you are women as much as they are, you have to have a definition where that is true. Right now, you are working with one definition while others are working with another. The definition they are working with was not created to alienated trans-women, it's the historical definition. You are proposing changing that definition to something more inclusive. If you are going to convince people to adopt something closer to your definition they need to know what that definition is.

Even some of your allies, such as LondonJohn have rejected self-ID as a definition because it's not a definition. You say you feel like a woman. And I believe you. But what does a woman feel like that you can objectively compared?

If someone's father passes away, I can say "I know how you feel" but that's inaccurate. I know how I felt when my father passed away and assume that that person feels similarly. The way you feel is how you believe a woman feels, but it's not testable.

For that matter, I don't even know if the way I feel as a man is the same as how LondonJohn feels as a man.

 

[caveman1917]

For that matter, I don't even know if the way I feel as a man is the same as how LondonJohn feels as a man.

I'm not sure what feeling as a man is even supposed to mean in the first place. I don't feel as a man, I am a man because I am observably an adult human male. It's a simple statement of empirical fact, feelings don't come into it, observations aren't feelings.

 

[d4m10n]

For example (and as I have stated several times already within the previous few pages of this thread), it should be clear that in the well-worn issue of gender-specific changing rooms, there should be at the minimum a social contract for trans gender people to take care to avoid causing distress, embarrassment or other dignity issues to cis gender people. This - to me at least - is something that cis gendered people should expect as their right, and something that transgendered people should consider a reasonable imposition upon them. Whether that might ever require any legislative force is - I'd suggest - something that would depend on how a non-legal framework works in practice.

So what the cis women are getting from the "give-and-take" you describe here is a new social contract by which they are assured that they won't have to see too much of anyone's external genitals in a space that used to be entirely free of them. Alas, this new social contract will have zero backing in law and may be freely repudiated without consequence.

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[Paul2]

For me, "who'll have you" is very clearly a bitch slap. Potato-Potahto?

I read it charitably, but let's say, for the sake of argument, that she meant it as a bitch slap. So, let's re-phrase it into what it could have been, the proper way of saying that one is free to engage with partners who are willing, which was the gist of my charitable reading. And, do that for the other three statements, too.

Is the argument still problematic? This would be steel-manning Rowling's position.

 

[Paul2]

Just a comment regarding the highlighted. I'm not really on a side. I see good (and bad) points on both sides, which is what makes this a difficult...and interesting... issue.

One can be on one side for some specific concer and on the other side for another aspect of the overall issue.

Not saying you think this, but there's nothing wrong with arguing a side. You don't even have to accept the conclusion you make, you can just be trying out ideas to see how they work and what they imply. If they turn out not acceptable, you just dump them.

And there's nothing wrong with *not* taking a side, either. A few of my previous posts here have not taken a side, I've tried to describe the conflict between the sides.

I suppose, also, there can be more than two sides.

 

[Paul2]

But if the treatment is the same despite the different terminology?

Which is the core? the terminology or the treatment? Because You can be referred to with different terms but treated the same or be given the same term but treated differently.

If you want people to agree that you are women as much as they are, you have to have a definition where that is true. Right now, you are working with one definition while others are working with another. The definition they are working with was not created to alienated trans-women, it's the historical definition. You are proposing changing that definition to something more inclusive. If you are going to convince people to adopt something closer to your definition they need to know what that definition is.

Even some of your allies, such as LondonJohn have rejected self-ID as a definition because it's not a definition. You say you feel like a woman. And I believe you. But what does a woman feel like that you can objectively compared?

If someone's father passes away, I can say "I know how you feel" but that's inaccurate. I know how I felt when my father passed away and assume that that person feels similarly. The way you feel is how you believe a woman feels, but it's not testable.

For that matter, I don't even know if the way I feel as a man is the same as how LondonJohn feels as a man.

I think one has to start from the feeling that Boudicca90 mentioned that the secondary sex characteristics were the ones that were problematic. It's not completely arbitrary, is it, if one interprets such feelings as not aligning with the sex that normally presents with those secondary sex characteristics, which leaves the other sex as an obvious option. Perhaps there are other options, too, but I'm not sure what they are.

 

[TomB]

Not saying you think this, but there's nothing wrong with arguing a side. You don't even have to accept the conclusion you make, you can just be trying out ideas to see how they work and what they imply. If they turn out not acceptable, you just dump them.

Actually, I believe there is value in arguing the opposite side from what you believe on occasion.

 

[TomB]

I think one has to start from the feeling that Boudicca90 mentioned that the secondary sex characteristics were the ones that were problematic. It's not completely arbitrary, is it, if one interprets such feelings as not aligning with the sex that normally presents with those secondary sex characteristics, which leaves the other sex as an obvious option. Perhaps there are other options, too, but I'm not sure what they are.

Right. I think that was where I was going. If you don't feel like this, then it must be that. It's a logical assumption if the options are limited. I'm not convinced that that's the case, however. And I'm not talking gender fluid or non binary here. I tend to grok identity more as an individual thing than as group thing.

But still, if you are going to sort individual identities into groups A and B, there must be some criteria or commonality between the members of each groups. It doesn't need to be a perfect divide with no overlap, but it has to be there.

In addition, if you are going to sort people into groups, you should have a reason to do so. So if we are going to sort by sex for some application there should be a reason that we need to do so. Same with gender.

Why does _______ need to be sex segregated?
Why does _______ need to be gender segregated?

What happens when we need to segregate both by sex and by gender?

 

[d4m10n]

Why does _______ need to be sex segregated?

Why does _______ need to be gender segregated?

These are very important questions. They are confounded somewhat by the historical fact that many sex-segregated spaces were originally set apart back when almost no one thought of sex and gender as two distinct concepts.

 

[LondonJohn]

So what the cis women are getting from the "give-and-take" you describe here is a new social contract by which they are assured that they won't have to see too much of anyone's external genitals in a space that used to be entirely free of them. Alas, this new social contract will have zero backing in law and may be freely repudiated without consequence.

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Hmmm. Firstly, I'm not altogether sure what you mean by "they are assured that they won't have to see too much of anyone's external genitals in a space that used to be entirely free of them". You're suggesting that women's changing rooms used to be entirely free of any sight of women's genitals??

Secondly, the social contract I'm proposing as an example is as much (if not more) directed towards trans women as cis women: I'm suggesting that trans women would be asked to take all reasonable steps (eg changing underneath a towel where nudity is an issue) to try to avoid anything about their physical appearance affecting negatively any of the other women in that space. I'd also suggest - as I've also stated before - that it would probably be reasonable as well to request that trans women try not to make other women feel uncomfortable/offended by staring at them as they undress to nudity.

Lastly, I'm not sure if you read the part in my post which said: "Whether that might ever require any legislative force is - I'd suggest - something that would depend on how a non-legal framework works in practice."

 

[LondonJohn]

Simple, several claims were made about assertions JKR supposedly made, quotes were requested but not provided.

Ah, so you weren't able to read the small number of linked articles I provided; articles which would have enabled you to see all of the quotes - and not only that, they'd have been able to provide you with relevant context and some informed commentary. I see.

(Had someone simply been saying "Person X said ABC" and then providing nothing at all to support that claim, you'd have had a point of course. As it is, though....)

Not interested in your games. Let me know when you've decided whether you're a type A or a type B person. Or when you figure out what a tautology is for that matter.

Oh, I don't give a monkey's about your games either - I thought I'd made that totally clear before. Don't let that stop you from keeping on trying though (or, for that matter, from trying to represent my refusal as some sort of "victory" for you - presumably on the grounds that I can't answer them (rather than because I don't want to engage with you) And nope, I still don't know what this word "tautology" means. Mind you, I barely know my arse from my elbow, so it's hardly surprising that I don't know any words of more than two syllables*)


* Oh, hang on: how many syllables are there in "syllables"? And what does "syllables" actually mean?

 

[d4m10n]

Firstly, I'm not altogether sure what you mean by "they are assured that they won't have to see too much of anyone's external genitals in a space that used to be entirely free of them". You're suggesting that women's changing rooms used to be entirely free of any sight of women's genitals??

Last I checked, female sex organs are internal. My apologies for any ambiguity here.

Secondly, the social contract I'm proposing as an example is as much (if not more) directed towards trans women as cis women: I'm suggesting that trans women would be asked to take all reasonable steps (eg changing underneath a towel where nudity is an issue) to try to avoid anything about their physical appearance affecting negatively any of the other women in that space. I'd also suggest - as I've also stated before - that it would probably be reasonable as well to request that trans women try not to make other women feel uncomfortable/offended by staring at them as they undress to nudity.

Okay, so I'll ask again. What are cis women getting out this "give and take" which they didn't have before, back when changing rooms were segregated by sex rather than gender?

 

[LondonJohn]

By the way, and going back to the JK Rowling thing:

If Rowling did - in spite of her tweets and other comments on this issue - actually support transgender issues..... would it not seem strange that she never stated, anywhere, something like "I believe trans women are women"?

If, for example, Rowling's sole point of dispute was simply in respect of the dangers of offering affirmative "conversion therapy" to vulnerable adolescents - as some posters here seem keen to interpret as Rowling's true position - then she could very easily have diffused a good proportion of the anger/sadness being directed towards her with a tweet along the lines of:

"Here's my position: I support transgender adults, and I believe a trans woman is a woman. My only concerns are around the risks/dangers of unintended lasting consequences for vulnerable and confused adolescents who may be being given treatment which will end up harming them in the future"


Yet I don't think she's ever made a statement which is anywhere close to the above. And I don't think that - given her huge public profile, and the clear manner in which she's become a focus of mass anger among the transgender community (and most medical mental health professionals) - it's at all unreasonable to draw strong conclusions from the very fact that she's never made a statement anything like that.


(It sort of reminds me of the joke about the medieval English statesman Thomas More, who - after refusing to recognise King Henry VIII's split from the Catholic Church and failing to renounce his own Catholicism - was beheaded. The joke was along the lines of: why didn't More, as he was led up to the executioner's scaffold and asked if he had any last words, simply say "I renounce my Catholicism!"? It's precisely what he didn't say, both in his trial and at the last moment, which sealed his fate. And I believe the same principle can also reasonably be applied to what Rowling doesn't say.)

 

[caveman1917]

Ah, so you weren't able to read the small number of linked articles I provided

Like I already commented about that earlier:

Note the complete absence of the relevant JKR tweets in at least LondonJohn's first link (I didn't bother to check the others). ETA: oops, didn't notice there was another page to this thread where this was already pointed out

None of your further posts contained any actual quotes of JKR either. Indeed, it was JoeMorgue (IIRC) who was the first to bother actually providing quotes. Not a single one in which JKR supported conversion therapy for trans people though, as was the claim.

Oh, I don't give a monkey's about your games either - I thought I'd made that totally clear before. Don't let that stop you from keeping on trying though (or, for that matter, from trying to represent my refusal as some sort of "victory" for you - presumably on the grounds that I can't answer them (rather than because I don't want to engage with you) And nope, I still don't know what this word "tautology" means. Mind you, I barely know my arse from my elbow, so it's hardly surprising that I don't know any words of more than two syllables*)


* Oh, hang on: how many syllables are there in "syllables"? And what does "syllables" actually mean?

Those questions were by Robin

 

[Matthew Best]

Do you think it's possible to say "I support transgender adults, but I don't believe a trans woman is a woman"?

 

[caveman1917]

If Rowling did - in spite of her tweets and other comments on this issue - actually support transgender issues..... would it not seem strange that she never stated, anywhere, something like "I believe trans women are women"?

But can't one support transgender issues (such as supporting measures against discrimination against transgender people in housing or work etc) without necessarily chanting either demonstrably false (if "women" is defined as adult human female) or meaningless (if "women" is undefined) drivel to show one's allegiance to what appears to be a cult?

 

[LondonJohn]

Last I checked, female sex organs are internal. My apologies for any ambiguity here.

Okay, so I'll ask again. What are cis women getting out this "give and take" which they didn't have before, back when changing rooms were segregated by sex rather than gender?

I've already explained that: cis women are getting the agreement of trans women a) not to expose their (trans women) genitals wherever reasonably possible, and b) not to stare at them (cis women) when they (cis women) are in a state of nudity.

In return, they "give" the right of trans women to share their changing rooms.


Incidentally, I'd say that the tacit system of social contract agreements is probably already in use wrt people such as a Thalidomide-affected women with severely deformed limbs, or women with abnormally large clitorises and excessive body hair (both of which I've also mentioned before as examples). Both such women, if/when nude, clearly might potentially cause some level of distress or discomfort to other women; as a result, I'd think that both such categories of women would also generally take the kinds of reasonable steps which I've mentioned, as a quid-pro-quo of being able to share the women's changing rooms*


* In fact, some years ago a member of the same gym as me in West London was a veteran of the Iraq conflict; he'd lost one lower arm and suffered extremely severe lacerations and gouges into his abdomen, when his troop carrier was attacked by a roadside IED. His torso (front and back) was a pretty bad sight - the wounds had healed of course, but the scarring and the results of tissue loss had taken a very big toll. He always changed for the gym in a closed shower cubicle, and he never used the swimming pool. I got talking with him a few times, and he volunteered to me that he took those steps precisely because he didn't want other people either a) becoming distressed at the appearance of his naked torso, or b) pointing at him as some sort of "freak" on account of the appearance of his torso.

 

[LondonJohn]

Do you think it's possible to say "I support transgender adults, but I don't believe a trans woman is a woman"?

No. Of course not. It's a dichotomy: if you truly support transgender adults, then you must necessarily support a trans woman's right to identify as a woman.

Why do you ask? Do you think it's possible for that statement to hold logically?

 

[Matthew Best]

No. Of course not. It's a dichotomy: if you truly support transgender adults, then you must necessarily support a trans woman's right to identify as a woman.

Why do you ask? Do you think it's possible for that statement to hold logically?

Yes.

 

[caveman1917]

No. Of course not. It's a dichotomy: if you truly support transgender adults, then you must necessarily support a trans woman's right to identify as a woman.

Why do you ask? Do you think it's possible for that statement to hold logically?

Ever heard of a false dichotomy? Of course you haven't, who am I kidding... Well at least here's a nice example of one. You are presenting two alternatives:

1. Believing someone identifying as a cat should not have the right to do so (ie should be arrested or something for that).

2. Believing said person actually is, in fact, a cat.

whereas you left out the following option:

3. Believing a person should have the right to identify as a cat yet still not believing the person to actually be, in fact, a cat.

Oh sorry, we were talking sex rather than species? Yeah well I'm not up to speed on this whole New Biology thing I guess.