I learned French from 8 to 14 years of age. It was easier than English. It is related to the fact that my native language is Romanian but everyone must have a native language after all which is why the difficulty of learning a second language in general and English in particular is a relative thing. Let us remember that language shapes the way we think too.
I’m listening to Grace Jones right now. She’s on my diva playlist. I love me some Grace Jones, and I hope she lives forever.
Would it be hateful for me to say Grace Jones looks like a dude?
Cuz she does in that picture. I have no problem seeing her as a woman now. But if I didn’t know Grace Jones and I saw only that linked photo of her, I’d think to myself, “People are saying this person is a woman, but this person sure looks like a dude to me!” But if I saw her displaying “womanness”, then that thought would be immediately replaced with “I can see it now. You go, girl.”
I’m not gonna front like I’m the most enlightened person in the world. I have no problems admitting that not all my thoughts and feelings are politically correct all the time. But I don’t think I’m a hateful person.
One cannot force someone to change their values and beliefs or to want to and trying to demand such nearly always has the exact opposite impact. Labelling those beliefs as something hateful is even more counterproductive. IMHO people who do that are posturing for their own sake, to make themselves feel self-righteous or to get some group approval. OTOH it is very fair to demand behaviors that are non-discriminatory and tolerant. You believe that abortion is moral wrong? I don’t care about convincing you otherwise - so long as you are also supportive of others to have other beliefs and have their choice about acting upon them or not. Treating people with respect and dignity is what we can demand, along with not blocking reforms of systems. Changing long-standing belief systems … that’s a heavier and much longer game lift that uses different strategies and tactics.
The below is correct.
While Una’s efforts here went a long way to convince me, and I suspect many others, that gender identity IS in fact to a large degree biologically-based with a mismatch between it and their gross anatomic phenotype occurring in some people, being convinced of that is not required to be supportive of societal standards treating people as their self-identified gender and doing so in our own interactions. There is no need for me to believe that there is a direct mapping of the gender-related mind or physical brain structures of a woman who is a trans-woman to one who is a cis-woman, that each are the same, for me to supportive of their rights and of them being able to live day to day as their self-identified gender without hassle and with respect.
I would also like to open up my question to LHOD to others - how does one effectively respond those cis-women feminists who perceive trans-women as appropriating their identity and struggle? (Which may be Rowlings’ issue for all I know.) I do not thinking calling them transphobic and trying to impose cancel culture condemnation on them is effective argumentation, (even if some are in fact transphobic). What else you got?
I wasn’t likening those things. I was asking, “Is conduct enough to not be prejudiced, or can someone be prejudiced just for thinking a certain thing is true?”
“That person looks more like a man than a woman,” isn’t misgendering. “That person is a man despite claiming to be a woman,” is misgendering, and yeah, that’s very often done hatefully. People sometimes mistake you for a man. Do they do it deliberately? Do they do it persistently after being corrected? Does it happen when you go out of your way to signal that you’re a woman? I’m guessing “no,” which puts your experience with being misgendered in the same box as my experience with being called racial slurs: irrelevant.
I wasn’t attempting to force anyone to change their values or beliefs. I was questioning a particular poster about how she draws the contours of prejudice. You seem to be taking the same position - that it’s actions that define prejudice, not beliefs?
I don’t know that anyone is necessarily demanding that you subscribe to a particular theory about the causes of transgenderism, only that you accept trans peoples’ experiences as real and valid, and not a delusion or a joke.
You’re the one who thinks the tactic is ineffective - shouldn’t it be on you to come up with a better solution?
Nothing in my experience makes me think that a straight cis white dude like myself is going to have an effective response to them. You’ve opened the question up to the wrong person.
There’s a problem here. monstro raised this parallel, and when I didn’t respond to it, asked me why. When I finally responded, it elicited a “wtf” from her.
It’s very difficult for me to talk about racism and how it analogizes to other things without risking sounding like a giant asshole. It was a mistake for me to respond to that analogy in the first place, I think.
Different kinds of oppression are different. It’d behoove everyone, IMO, to drop the attempts to analogize here.
I would recommend that they discuss it with their daughters and granddaughters, who, by and large, don’t have a problem with transwomen.
You did see Maya’s tweets and posts, right?
Are there any women here who are members of groups like “women in engineering” who have had transwomen join them? The only instance that I personally know of that happening it was not well received. A big part of the problem in that instance is that she was very controlling of the conversation and dismissive of anyone who didn’t agree with her (which was also a trait she had before she transitioned). I wonder if she had been more supportive of the group if she would have been received more positively.
“This person is saying they are a woman, but they look like a man to me.” Is his hateful?
“This person is saying they are a woman and I’m going to do my best to use the correct pronouns and be respectful, but I’m not going to beat myself up just because I am having a hard time seeing them as a woman.” Is this hateful?
“This person says they are a member of my tribe but they don’t look like they are in my tribe.” Is this hateful?
“This guy is saying he’s a woman even though he’s a linebacker with a goatee and no visual signs of femininity or femaleness. I don’t get it and I don’t think I ever will.” I can see how this is not an enlightened thought. But I don’t see how it is necessarily hateful. To me, it isn’t any more hateful than saying, “Rachel Dolezal is saying she is black but she looks like she’s white to me. I don’t think I’ll ever see her as black.” This statement would only be hateful if we believed white was worst than black.
“This person is a man despite claiming to be a woman,” wouldn’t be a thought I would have (I don’t think) unless I thought someone was pulling my leg. And what I’m saying is that it is naive to think that this is impossible, so I don’t think we should say this is an inherently hateful statement. This statement might be driven by hateful intentions 99% of the time. But if an edgelord is pulling my leg by claiming to be a woman for some edgelordy reason, I want to be able to think whatever I want to think without worrying that makes me a transphobe TERF. Just like I want to be able to judge someone like Rachel Dolezal without worrying if that means I’m a racist.
I’m not talking about intentionally misgendering anyone. All this time I’ve been talking about reflexive thoughts and feelings–reactions that don’t happen intentionally. Sorry, I’m not someone who pretends to be able to control all of my thoughts and feelings. You can tell me you’re a woman while looking like a goateed linebacker, and I’ll try my damnedst to treat you how you want to be treated. But you aren’t going to be able to make me see you as a woman unless you, as you say, “go out of your way to signal you’re a woman”. If you don’t want to be misgendered by me mentally, then you will need to do something besides just saying you’re a woman. Otherwise, you’ll just need to be satisfied with my proper usage of pronouns and keep it moving.
I’m troubled by the idea that misgendering is presumed to be hateful unless someone can prove they did it accidentally. You didn’t say this is what you believe, but that’s the logical inference from what you said. If someone calls me “nigger”, there’s no way that can be an accident (unless Tourette’s is involved). If someone calls me a “nigger”, I know they hate people like me and no apology is going to make me feel better. But if I misgender someone accidentally and they burn daggers into me with their eyes because they think I’m being a transphobe, is my apology going to make them feel better? Will the apology take away their pain and embarrassment? Should I have to apologize every time I call someone the wrong pronoun lest they think I’m a transphobe? Should people view me as a transphobe for screwing up the pronouns for a specific person even when all my other actions show that I’m a decent person trying her best?
If all of that gets a “yes” from you, then maybe we could get rid of gendered pronouns and go by “them” and “they”. Because if calling someone the incorrect pronoun is anyway akin to being called “nigger”, then that really is the best solution.
I haven’t had any experience with this either, but I have heard stories from others. Stories about transwomen exhibiting the same kinds of annoying behaviors that are disproportionally found in men (like mansplaining) and doing so in spaces that are supposed to be a refuge from those behaviors.
But I’ve heard about this on Reddit, where people are given to lying and exaggerating. I can imagine it happens, but I don’t know how much of it is just run-of-the-mill obnoxiousness that can be handled with some better governance (like a rule barring any long-winded explanations that resemble “mansplaining”).
I really don’t know if it’s reasonable for people to expect a perfectly “safe” space. There’s a lot of diversity among ciswomen. All kinds of personality types. A ciswoman who expects a group for women to be free from obnoxiousness is in for a rude awakening. All groups have their obnoxious members. You just deal with it. So I don’t think a pushback against transwomen in women’s spaces on the basis of obnoxiousness is fair.
LHOD, since you decline to comment on the specific, will you kindly expand on the general question that preceded it? What in your mind would be a damned good reason not to follow your general rule to accept a person’s sincerely-proffered identity? Does appropriation count? If so who gets to define what is appropriation?
It is the actions that I see as of most importance and as what we can most reasonably hope to impact. If their actions are just to others, then their private thoughts are of less concern to me, and something that future lived experiences and engagement without pegging them as evil are the best antidote for. OTOH waiting for generational turnover, as GreysonCarlisle seems to suggest seems to be cop-out.
I stand by my assessment of those who seem to care more about public posturing than actually accomplishing change.
Miller my best take on how to respond?
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To acknowledge the point that there is a difference in the identities. Lumping all LatinX together as if the cultural heritages of Cuban and Mexican Americans are the same would be ignorant. But they do have some shared experiences and shared identity as well. Same goes for most groups. Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans are both LatinX, have commonalities, and are not the same. I’d start off agreeing with them about the fact that their experiences as cis-women and the experiences of trans-women are different.
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To point out however that the charge of an intent to appropriate their identity, the perception of them as a threat somehow, is incorrect and encourage some understanding of the other, to appreciate the challenges the other have had to deal with that are not the same as well as the ones they have not had. I’d demand behavior that respects the other’s dignity and object to insults made, such as deliberate misgendering. To the degree that beliefs are based on ignorance I would respectfully engage to degree that such is possible. Harder and harder to do that though as these thing are more often shouted on Facebook and such than in mutually respectful conversations.
GreysonCarlisle I am on record as not giving two shits about JK Rowling’s thoughts per se and who was the bigger asshole first in this specific back and forth.
Since that’s the point and purpose of this thread, I’m not sure why you’re here. But I am certain that you oughtn’t be critical or dismissive of those who do want to discuss the topic.
But the parallel I raised didn’t have to do with who pees in what bathrooms or “nigger” or anything else. The parallel I raised was about the two-wayness we give to racial identity (you are allowed to identify with whatever race you want but the rest of us are allowed to tell you what we think about that, without necessarily being called “racist”) while gender is only being granted a onewayness (you get to be able to claim whatever gender you want, but the rest of us shouldn’t say or even think anything critical about it unless we want to be called “transphobe”).
Miller, BigT and you are going above and beyond the point I made. I think there are similarities between race and gender in the context of self-identity and social construct, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends.
Again, though, there’s an enormous difference, inasmuch as a transgender person “passing” as the other gender (i.e., a transwoman passing as male) must “out” herself any time she needs a bathroom–and it’s the outing that presents the greatest physical danger. I don’t think you can handwave this difference away just by saying it’s not the parallel you wanted to raise: it’s central to the reason why this parallel doesn’t work.
I do not believe it is threadshitting or a hijack to point out that caring so much about what celebrities say, trying to parse out what they meant by it, is a fairly self-serving useless exercise, and comment about the more general form of the argument being made: an eagerness to condemn others based on a belief of what they believe and why, as if that actually is an activity of pro-social rather than posturing self-serving value.
So I am certain that being critical of that is fair game and my not engaging in that play activity, instead addressing the more general argument being made, is fine for me to do. (Especially at the point in the discussion that I entered.) Feel free to report me to a mod though given your certainty that it is something “oughtn’t” be doing.
Sorry whether or not a specific celebrity is transphobic is not a Great Debate - the general form argument implied by posting it as if it was such a subject is one though (supported by how the discussion had progressed by the time I joined in), more of something I give a shit about.
Really what was the discussion you were wanting to have with your proposition free op? You of course invite either affirmation and group posturing of how horrible JK Rowling is (akin to Facebook likes), or inane analysis of what she meant or did not mean maybe (Dope does do dat), or arguments about the value of what is claimed about her beliefs and how and why people respond to their expression … Do you believe that what Rowling thinks really matters as a GD subject in and of itself? If so why?
The one we’ve been having until you showed up. You mischaracterized everything about this thread, the OP, and what you magically assume to be my intentions.
We get it–you’ve got pet peeves. Keep them on a short leash lest they bite you in the ass.
But none of my posts should make you think I want transgendered folks (or any folks) to be barred from restrooms!
If we were just talking about restrooms, I wouldn’t be participating in this thread. I don’t give a fuck about restrooms. Let people pee and shit wherever they want. Call people whatever the pronouns they want. Giving people these rights does not require us to change our individual opinions about gender, though.
According to BigT, letting people pee and shit wherever they want and referring to them by the pronouns they want isn’t enough. We must also see people the way they want to be non-bigoted.
Even though…
We don’t do this with race.
We don’t do this with religion.
We don’t do this with nationality.
We don’t do this with sexuality.
We are being told by folks like BigT that we must police our thoughts when it comes to gender identity. If we don’t do this, then we are hateful and transphobic and TERFy. Apparently gender is such an integral part of who we are that the crime of mentally misgendering someone, even if it is a reflex due to a lifelong programming, is no different than seeing them as a non-human or a less-than human. Doesn’t matter if you act right by them in every way possible. You’re a bad person if you aren’t “thinking” right.
If you can see how ridiculous this viewpoint is, then great! I wish you would say so, though, so we can’t stop arguing.
GreysonCarlisle I have no interest in bickering with you and will not continue to do so in this thread. My comments in this thread have been on subject. If your op desire was to restrict the discussion to an assessment of what JK Rowling meant then that ship had sailed long before I ever posted in this thread and after you started calling other posters transphobes. I invite you to Pit me if you want to or to report me for threadshitting if that is your belief.
Meanwhile unless advised by a moderator otherwise I will continue to make comments related to the ongoing discussion and share that I do not think what JK Rowling’s thinks is in and of itself important.
FWIW I do like the imagery of having a peeve as a pet kept on a leash and wonder what a pet peeve on a leash would look like! I’d guess small but hyperactive, loud, and yappy. Peeves are very annoying pets. 
I don’t see any problem in dealing with this situation by accurately stating its facts. If you say something like “The person in this photo looks (to me) more conventionally masculine than feminine, with traits such as short hair and a bold jawline that are more typically associated with men than with women”, that would be entirely accurate and I don’t find anything hateful in it.
If on the other hand you were saying something like “That person in the photo is obviously a dude and if he wants me to think of him as a woman then he’s going to have to show some ‘womanness’”, then yeah, I can see how non-gender-conforming people could consider that somewhat hateful or at least hurtful.
Huh what? We don’t? Seems to me that we definitely do. If I secretly decide, for example, that a gay friend of mine isn’t “really” gay (even though he identifies as gay) because he doesn’t “look gay”, I am absolutely being bigoted, even if I never tell him so.
Once again, as I said, it’s not bigoted or hateful to be accurate about facts.
It’s not bigoted, for example, to point out that a light-skinned black person who can “pass” as white has different experiences from darker-skinned black people.
It’s not bigoted to point out that, say, Reform Jews and haredi Orthodox Jews (not to mention Messianic Jews aka “Jews for Jesus”) have extremely different ideas about what it means to be Jewish.
It’s not bigoted to point out that a US immigrant with Permanent Resident status has a different cultural background, and to some extent different legal rights, from a native-born citizen.
It’s not bigoted to point out that a feminine-looking bi woman in a lesbian relationship has different experiences from a Kinsey-6 butch lesbian.
And it’s not bigoted to point out that a transwoman with XY chromosomes is biologically different from (and probably experienced different cultural expectations and socialization from) ciswomen with XX chromosomes.
No problem with any of that. But if we’re telling any of those people that they are, respectively, not black or not Jewish or not American or not lesbian or not a woman, even though that’s how they identify? Yep, bigoted.
Excluding religion, every one of these is false. We do in fact argue every single one of those things. In fact, such is argued in nearly every post on this board about bigotry. People do not argue it’s okay to be a racist as long as you hide it. Granted, people don’t usually explain the reasoning, which is why I did so–it is because beliefs will inherently leak into behaviors.
People do not argue that it’s okay to be racist as long as you hide it. People do not argue that it’s okay to be prejudiced towards people of another country as long as you hide it. People do not argue it’s okay to be homophobic as long as you hide it.
All of the terms for bigotry are about belief. Racism is the belief that races are not equal. Xenophobia is the fear or hatred for people of another country. Homophobia is the fear or hatred of homosexuals. All of these things which are morally wrong are things that occur in the mind. Misogyny is prejudice, hate, or contempt towards women. And the term prejudice literally means “pre-judging,” and judging is something that occurs in the mind.
If you think those of us who talk about how these forms of bigotry are wrong–things people shouldn’t do–have been talking about actions and not beliefs, then you are incredibly mistaken.