Cont: Transwomen are not women - part 13

[Emily's Cat]

erm...

None of whom perhaps?

Sorry, Nova, I don't understand what you're saying here. Can you rephrase? My processor seems to have glitched on your post

 

[Emily's Cat]

Here's a good one; a group of fifth graders were going on a field trip from Colorado to DC and Philadelphia. The parents were assured that while it would be four kids to a room and two kids to a bed, boys would be kept on one floor and girls on the other.

Well you can probably see the loophole there:



Apparently he was supposed to be in "stealth mode," but couldn't resist sharing his secret identity:



It is unmentioned as to whether the different female student was aware she was going to be sleeping with a boy, although this makes me suspect not (from the complaint):

Even if the school and "KEW"'s parents all had the very best of intentions, this is still not okay.

Seriously, in what world is "stealthing" a male into the presence of females without their consent an okay thing to do? Or vice versa?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Regardless you can disagree with someone without this kind of conspiratorial demonization.

And as horrible as it is to phrase it this ways there's easier ways to get access to victims that don't involve having to role play as a group at the center of much controversy and attention.

There's a difference between saying the trans side is wrong and saying they are being dishonest. (With the obvious shouldn't have to be stated caveat that "wrong" and "honest" are over simplifications of complicated concepts with a crap ton of nuance and context.)

And more basically and pragmatically I'm not just going to ignore that "They are really practicing subterfuge as a way to get a children to make them sexual victims" isn't exactly an argument that hasn't been used against ever non-traditional sexuality ever so....

It's like if you told me you found a new kind of Jew but no this one really did practice blood libel. I don't think I'd believe you very easily.

The fact that you could take a lot of gay panic talk from the 80s and just swap out the nouns and be having the exact same discussion we're having now isn't something I'm going to just pretend isn't true to make the discussion easier.

Sure it would be lovely and neater if everyone could just form nice and easy "Yes or no" sides to this but there's a lot of complexity and nuance and despite me having issues with a lot of the trans movement that doesn't mean the anti-trans side isn't full of the same old bigoted scripts, barely dusted off and updated.

I hear you, I feel you, I get where you're coming from.

That said... Pedos really actually for realsies are using "trans rights" as a trojan horse. That doesn't mean that all people supporting trans rights are pedos, or even that they advocate for pedophiles. It means pedos are using this movement for their own nefarious agenda and we ought to be aware of it.

To make things more difficult... pedos were using the gay rights platform in the 80s in exactly the same way. Go look into it. NAMBLA attached themselves to gay rights and tried to wedge their agenda into that activism. They were ultimately ousted from that effort... after which, unsurprisingly, support for gay rights gained ground rather quickly. At least in the US.

So all the naysaying about the "moral panics" of the 80s... they have some of the same basis, and it's not all made up and imagineered into existence. Pedos really actually are trying to hijack the parade floats.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You say that like every conservation I’ve had in this thread hasn’t ended with: “Shut up, TRA.”

That and multiple gross mis-characterizations of the argument I was making at the time.

Do you have receipts for this accusation? Because as far as I can tell, every conversation you've had in this thread has ended with you tapdancing around very reasonable questions then disappearing in a huff.

 

[Emily's Cat]

“Shut up, TRA.”

In what world is "are you going to answer my questions now" synonymous with "shut up"?

It looks like I last posted on page 69. I don’t see you having any follow up questions after that, but I also don’t see the ad-homs which led to me taking a break. I’m guessing whatever you are upset about me not answering has been pruned.

All the ad-homs that you totally reported and the mods totally took action on, right?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Single or unisex bathrooms and changing areas, largely.

Your solution to predators using fiat self-id as a loophole to gain access to the opposite sex against their target's will... is to just completely remove all barriers completely? Just go ahead and make it a walk in the park, then there's no problem at all!

Are you now willing to actually discuss the alternative to self identification, barring a physical examination and/or genetic testing,

The alternative to self id is what it had been for decades: A clinical diagnosis that weeds out bad actors, a few years of therapy to make sure it's genuine and persistent, and includes training for how to behave appropriately and not make females uncomfortable in their own spaces. And once that is in place, we will have some degree of confidence that the male-looking person in the female shower has been vetted by someone who actually gives a **** about females.

given that we can't visually recognize a person's sex but only how closely they adhere to a society's concept of gender norms?

This is ********. It's obvious ********.

Tell you what, go put on a dress and some lipstick, give yourself as clean a shave as you can, then go to a bar and let me know how many males hit on your thinking you're a female.

A female in trousers and steel-toed boots with short hair very rarely gets genuinely mistaken for a male. A male in a skirt and heels very rarely gets genuinely mistaken for a female. We're a sexually dimorphic species.

Stop pandering disinformation.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yep full fringe reset. We're going to have to go through the whole "Durrr I don't understand" script again.

Well, we don't have to really. None of us are exactly required to respond to obvious ********.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And, as I have already answered, it depends. It depends on the nature of activity/sport/competition. It depends on when in their life the person transitioned. It depends how they transitioned. Hell, it probably depends on the person was like pre-transition.

Okay, this is a response, but it's an empty response.

The nature of the activity was specified - pool. Beyond that, the question is in terms of generalities, not specific individuals.

Are you taking the position that for every activity and every sport, each single individual needs to be evaluated to determine whether they, as an individual, can compete on the female team?

 

[Emily's Cat]

(1) Nature of activity: I started to compile a list where it's indisputable that men have an advantage, but I quickly realized it's silly because it includes almost all sports. There' are several sports where that's debatable. I don't see why men are advantaged at archery for instance. For the miniscule list of sports where men aren't advantaged, sure, open them up to everyone.

But will you concede that for most sports by far, men have an advantage?

(2) When transitioned: Maybe boys who transition before puberty aren't advantaged. I dunno. But this is a rare exception, yes?

(3) How transitioned: Thus impresses me as highly dubious, but maybe there are factors I'm unaware of.

(4) What the person was like pre-transition: This is flat-out absurd. Individual exceptions shouldn't factor in. Since you were shorter, slower, and weaker than the average boy pre-transition, you can be on the girls team. Crikey.

Regarding item (2), the impact is less than many think. During puberty, testosterone prompts a male body to put on significant muscle density, and prompts a growth in the size of the lungs and heart. On the other hand, the skeletal structure and muscle attachment points are already present prior to puberty, so the angle of the femur won't be altered by a pre-puberty transition. Additionally, height, foot size, and hand size are governed by the adrenal gland, not the pituitary gland - that means that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones won't alter that in any material way.

Transition before puberty prevents males from growing facial hair, and it prevents their voice from dropping. It also, however, prevents their testes from fully descending away from the body and it prevents their penis from lengthening to an adult size. Those two things can result in the male being rendered sterile as well as ending up unable to experience orgasm.

 

[Samson]

I hear you, I feel you, I get where you're coming from.

That said... Pedos really actually for realsies are using "trans rights" as a trojan horse. That doesn't mean that all people supporting trans rights are pedos, or even that they advocate for pedophiles. It means pedos are using this movement for their own nefarious agenda and we ought to be aware of it.

To make things more difficult... pedos were using the gay rights platform in the 80s in exactly the same way. Go look into it. NAMBLA attached themselves to gay rights and tried to wedge their agenda into that activism. They were ultimately ousted from that effort... after which, unsurprisingly, support for gay rights gained ground rather quickly. At least in the US.

So all the naysaying about the "moral panics" of the 80s... they have some of the same basis, and it's not all made up and imagineered into existence. Pedos really actually are trying to hijack the parade floats.

An actual pedo dressed in women's clothes because it is fine to do so.
He gave a young girl a lift. She thought she was safe because it was a woman.
He raped her.
Little red riding hood.
There is a case to disallow men to dress as women as a response to this true story.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Trans is pretty rare in itself. Rare enough that we could evaluate on a case-by-case basis and not necessarily needing a blanket ban?

Rarity isn't the problem. Over the past few years, we've repeatedly seen males who identify as transwomen taking podium positions in female leagues. It's become almost common in running and cycling for the gold and silver positions to be won by males. Even if it's relatively rare within a population... the problem is that the MALE advantage over females is so overwhelming that any moderately fit male can mop the floor in most sports if they're competing against females.

You know what else is rare? Steroid use. But even if only 2% of the competitors are doping, they still get disqualified.

That's kinda my point. if a transwoman is short, slow, and weak, do they still have an unfair advantage that means they shouldn't be allowed to participate?

This is a silly argument. What if a regular run of the mill male is short, slow, and weak? Should they be allowed to play on the female team?

 

[Emily's Cat]

To return to a point I made at some point in the distant past of this deathspiral made up of other nested deathspirals that walks like a discussion.

We "rank" (for lack of a better term) people WITHOUT CATEGORIZING THEM all the time.

If you're a hockey player going pro they don't measure your testosterone levels and put you in the ECHL, AHL, or NHL. They watch you play hockey and see how good you are at it and just put you in the highest level you can reasonably compete at.

There's no categorical or demographic or "identity" difference between an ECHL and an AHL and an NHL player, and indeed players move between the leagues regularly but we have zero problem sorting hockey into different levels of play.

We are fully capable of going "Here's different level of plays that match up via skill" that doesn't need any "identity demographics" to work.

So yeah why not just do THAT? No womens leagues, no mens leagues, no trans leagues, no cis leagues just... here's the sport/competition/activity/whatever. The Top 1% go in the AAA League, the remaining 5% of that go in the AA League, the remaining 10% of that go into the A league all based on how well they play, no "this has to match my internal identity soul" needed.

Fair question. And in response, I'll ask: How many leagues do you intend to have?

When you sort leagues in this way for athletics, whether it's intentional or not you end up excluding females from participation. Remember that the super-elite pro female soccer teams routinely get beat by middle school male teams. And the vast majority of those middle school males won't be able to qualify for any level of pro soccer leagues. They'll wash out and not be good enough.

So you'll end up with one of two scenarios. In the first, you have a limited number of leagues, the top two or three leagues will be all males, and maybe you'll have a couple of extremely rare females playing in the lowest level leagues. In the other, you have a virtually unlimited number of leagues, and by the time you get to the level where even half the team is female... the only spectators will be their immediate family and friends. And even then, the team is going to be at risk if just a handful of overweight males with minor heart conditions decide they want to play.

It sucks, but it's reality. We have female sports leagues because females cannot compete against males. But females like to compete, and there are a fair number of people who enjoy watching female teams to make it feasible. It's the only way to allow females some measure of equal opportunity to participate in sports at all.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Indeed. Why not?

Of course, as I've already said, some activities actually want to draw in groups that have traditionally been excluded from participating, free of those gender role pressures. That's a different objective than just determine who is the best of the best, isn't it?

What gender role pressures?

 

[Emily's Cat]

From a player perspective, why would it be? To competitors usually get to choose who they compete within a league (meant as a generic term)?

Well, it seems that the males who say they are "women" get to choose. Nobody else does, only those that say the magic words. There might be a secret handshake too, I'm not positive.

 

[Emily's Cat]

How are people to be evaluated case-by-case? Size? Speed? A note from the PE teacher? Does each school district create its own standards? Each sport within each district? What about boys who were unable to make the boys team but aren't Trans? Are they too eligible for the girls team?

And of course, each boy/Trans who is allowed on the girls team denies a position for a girl. What about those girls?

Your post is pretty much spot on for why it's not a reasonable approach.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I would replace "sex" with "gender", especially if we're talking about socio-cultural factors. Sex is biological, gender (and gender role) is societal.

I would NOT replace it. Here's my reasoning.

Gender roles are socially defined, true. But those roles are based on sex. Those perception and expectations aren't defined based on whether a person has long hair or short, or whether they wear a dress for special occasions. Those social roles are based on sex.

In many cases, the abilities necessary for those roles are not dependent on, nor derived from sex - and that why early feminists emphasized the social nature of the restrictions and stereotypes involved. For example, there's a social role of "homemaker" that is disproportionately placed on females. There has long been an expectation that females *should* stay home and keep the house, cook dinner, and care for the children. But that's an entirely social creation - there's nothing inherent in being female that makes females better at cleaning a toilet or cooking a roast than males are. The social stereotypes that get used to limit our opportunities are, in most cases, independent of sex.

But that's not what we're talking about here, and you're misusing the term "gender role". Because when we're talking about sports, and even activities like pool, the division of leagues is not based on social stereotypes. It's not a league for "breadwinners" and a league for "diaper changers". It's not a league for "doctors" and a league for "nurses". The leagues are divided on the basis of sex. Biological sex.

For the vast majority of them, those divisions exist because the sexes are dimorphic, and males have a clear and unarguable physical advantage over females in those endeavors. In some few - like chess - the divisions exist largely as a means to overcome sexism. And sexism is based on sex, not on gender roles.

Pool ends up in an in-between for me. I suspect that the dominant force behind the division is based on a desire to overcome sexism. On the other hand, however, there is definitely an advantage in pool for people with longer arms and legs - which males have in comparison to females. I strongly suspect that if sex-based divisions in pool were removed, and we lived in a world with no sexism at all, and in this utopia participation was roughly 50% male/female in pool... you'd still end up with males comprising about 75% of the top 100 spots. Because at the end of the day, granny sticks just don't work as well as actually having your pivot point be above the edge of the table and having arms long enough to aim properly.

I'll note that I said all this previously with respect to pool.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Oh. You cut off the rest of my question before answering. Why did you do that?

Probably because the rest of your question is completely irrelevant to what varwoche is asking you. It in no way addresses the questions put forth.

In fact, at this point, despite several requests from several different posters... you have not provided any criteria with respect to how a person ought to be evaluated at all. You've repeatedly dodged the questions in ways that more or less align with Joe's characterization... "It's complicated".

 

[Emily's Cat]

But that was my question.

"I'm not going to answer the question that you asked me until after you answer the question that I asked you after you asked me the question I'm not answering. So there."

 

[Emily's Cat]

And then I asked how many cases you thought there would be that it would be highly impractical.

Are we all caught up or is it only other people’s questions being ignored that gets derided? ‘Cause I’ve had other questions people seem to be avoiding.

Oh FFS.

Up: It's rare! It's super rare, we can just do it on a case by case basis.
Var: Seems impractical.
Up: Why? Because it's like, super rare you know. How many do there need to be?
Var: The number isn't relevant. Even if it is super rare, what criteria would you even use?

This is not hard to follow. Upchurch, all you're doing is dodging the question.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You literally answered a different question that you created by ignoring everything I said except for a single word. How am I the one arguing in bad faith here?

Baloney - varwoche ASKED YOU a follow-on question to something that you initially hand-waved away, and then you doubled down on your hand-waving. At this point, I'm expecting some tap shoes and a spangly outfit to go with your jazz hands.