Whew. Thanks.
I’m trying to understand the subject; but am sure my knowledge is incomplete.
@Johanna , I’m very sorry if this thread is problematic. It was never my intention to denigrate transgender people.
I started this thread to look at the psychological of transphobia, not to justify or excuse or dismiss their behavior, but to try to understand if there is some way to reach some of them by attacking the subconscious issues driving it.
I hope I haven’t presented myself badly. Any negative stereotypes I’ve mentioned had been purely to cite the attitude. If I’ve focused on the cis perspective, it’s largely because I don’t want to project on your life.
My one observation is that the reason cis people seem to focus on the sex aspect is that it is the only real intersection point where a person’s status is relevant. I don’t consider you a freak or a curiosity for my amusement. I know you just want to live your life.
I genuinely respect you. I have some trans acquaintances and don’t have any issues. I offer support in whatever way I can.
Like I said in the OP, I’ve had to attack my own discomfort, and I’ve mostly overcome it. I know it is an issue with me, not with you or any trans person.
I hope I haven’t been insensitive. I’m sure dealing with all this social and political mess is stressful. I hate to think I’m contributing to that.
Johanna
I like to think that most Dopers are inteligent and empathetic enough to have at least a rough understanding of what it is like to be trans.
’ This body is wrong. It will always be wrong. I can attempt live as the gender on my birth certificate and be utterly miserable, or I can transition. If I transition, various loved ones may violently reject me. I will become the target of ridicule and random violence. While I should tell doctors right away, when is the right time to tell a romantic partner or potential romantic partner? Will being trans prevent me from ever finding love?’
Obviously, the cis gender Dopers do not have the visceral, first hand experience of what it is like. But we are honestly trying to understand. If we get things wrong, we are open to correction.
OTOH
I cannot wrap my head around transphobia. I suspect a lot of other Dopers can’t either. I have now found love with a woman I hope to spend the rest of my life with. When I was single, I was always looking for sex and/or romance. I may be lying to myself, but finding out that a woman I was interested in, or had already been sexually intimate with was trans would not have been a dealbreaker. I would understand why she had not told me earlier and in all likelyhood attempt to continue a romantic/sexual relationship. I can be certain that I would not become enraged and kill her.
tf I discuss transphobia more than what it must be like to be trans, that is why. I simply cannot understand transphobia.
I understand your good intention and I appreciate your sincerely working toward better understanding.
It just started getting to me how transphobes are making all the fuss and gaining all the attention, so their psychology is foregrounded. Their lies, distortions and pathological hate. Looking at things from their point of view, the funhouse mirrors of unreality, isn’t healthy. For me, it’s constantly tearing open wounds that are trying to heal but don’t get a chance.
I want to see more awareness of the effects of this from trans human beings’ point of view. The inhuman evil of it all.
From what I have observed, by listening to conservative people bemoan trans people, their objections are less about fear of being tricked or deceived, and more about boundary-crossing of traditional gender roles. In addition to that, they seem to lack the basic, scientific understanding that gender identity is not purely anatomical, but neurological. They don’t “get it” that a female brain can reside in what appears to be a “male” body–rendering that individual inherently female (to give a binary gender example). If they did understand this basic concept, they might be less likely to misinterpret trans phenomena as a psychological idea, a decision, a choice, or a part of a popular “fad” (which I have actually heard at least one conservative person express)–as opposed to being natural phenomena that are occurring for biological reasons which are more compelling than being born with some particular formation of genitalia.
I want to point out that I wasn’t necessarily talking about conscious motive. Rather, that sense that something doesn’t match expectations.
I wouldn’t associate it from a potential mating standpoint. People are already pretty good at sorting out who they are attracted to, and don’t have difficulty not considering someone they don’t find attractive. I don’t think sex or potential for sex is involved.
I can see how all the focus on how “we” perceive things can be a bit exclusionary. I hate that the right has latched onto this issue as THE breaking point on acceptance. People can be cruel, whether intentionally or just through ignorance and unwillingness to allow others to be different than they are. Know that not all cis-het white men are against you.
Right, certainly on the conscious level. I was trying to consider how the subconscious could be contributing.
Yes, I’ve heard that attitude as well.
We know that the body default is female. We know that male development is triggered by a series of hormones at different times during develoment. Any one of those signals misfiring results in miscues in development, and leads to a variety of intersex states.
What seems stupidly obvious to me is that some of those triggers are working on the brain. But because the nature of identity is still a black box we haven’t cracked, the possible effects are also unidentifiable.
I don’t recall ever having to be told how I feel. Just like I never had to be told to be attracted to women. I guess I was lucky enough that my identity fit to the body I am in.
I struggle to think how that might feel. But I believe that most trans people are experiencing something about their identity that doesn’t fit their external genitalia. A person is more than what’s between their legs. What’s between the ears is a much more important characteristic for measuring someone’s significance.
And I will say that regardless of why people are uncomfortable, hateful and violent reactions are despicable. They reflect on the character of the actor, not the target.
I respectfully disagree here. I think this is the thread where I brought up Gwen Araujo. The boy who considered Gwen cute enough to dance with, neck with, and receive oral sex from, found out a few minutes later that Gwen had a penis. He killed her.
I am honestly not sure romantic or sexual partners kill trans women after learning that they are trans. I suspect a violent reaction is common. After all, from his perspective he was lied to and tricked into having sex with a ‘man’. Further, if the victim in question is not out as trans, he can be sure that she won’t press charges. That would mean telling the world (or at least a courtroom) that she is trans.
It just strikes me that there’s not much understanding being shown towards women who object to the presence of transwomen in women’s spaces. According to more or less everyone in this thread, they’re either brainwashed, ignorant bigots, or they’re evil, hateful bigots who didn’t need the brainwashing in the first place.
It seems to me that there’s an implicit assumption underlying both judgements: Transwomen are women, and they are obviously women, they are self-evidently women. The argument is settled. Over. Finito. Done. And. Dusted. Therefore, any woman who objects to transwomen using women’s spaces can only be a bigot, because for what other possible reason would they choose to turn their backs on such an obvious, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truth? The only question, therefore, is, ‘Is their bigotry motivated by ignorance or hatred?’
What if it’s neither? What if the progressive left has just done a really shitty job of making the case that transwomen are women? I mean, in many progressive circles (of which this site is most definitely one), the question is regarded as settled and beyond the scope of reasonable debate. “Transwomen are women” is actually an official rule here, which is why I have to be careful about how I phrase all this. Who do you think that attitude is winning over?
We all agree that women have a right to be wary of men. We all agree that women have a right to intimate spaces that explicitly exclude men, where the absence of men is the point. And we all accept this because we know that, as a group, men are dangerous to women. We just are. Men murder nearly 4,000 women a year. The number of reported rapes and sexual assaults is about 460,000 a year, and that’s only a fraction of the true number because the vast majority of rapes and attempted rapes aren’t even reported. And that isn’t even touching on the staring, voyeurism, lewd comments, catcalling and other general creepy shit women have to put up with from men. Women are right to be wary of us. Women are wise to be wary of us, and we, as a sex, will never, ever stop inundating women with reasons to be justifiably suspicious of us. This a hard lesson for men to learn and many men are very reluctant to learn it, but we have to learn it because it’s just the way things are.
From the point of view of a woman who doesn’t believe transwomen are women, objecting to their inclusion in women’s spaces is the most sensible thing in the world. If the left wants to change this, the sensible thing to do would be to stop asking one another which particular species of bigotry these uncooperative women simply must be burdened by, and start making a positive case for why transwomen are women. You may think the progressive left has already done this, but that’s laughably untrue. Until the progressive left start putting at least as much effort into arguing why transwomen are women as the right are putting into arguing why they aren’t, then they won’t be doing anywhere near enough.
On one hand, yes we need to do more and/or do things differently to convince people "Trans women are women.
OTOH
With minor changes, your arguments apply just as well to keeping ‘dirty, violent, ape-like n*ggers’ out of Whites Only spaces.
Radical feminists tend to dislike and distrust men at best. IME many do indeed fear being tricked into accepting a man into the ‘sisterhood’; it’s a big deal for them because they think about and treat men and women very differently. Other women fear being tricked into letting their guard down around a man, a caution we’ve all grown up being told is necessary.
Obviously a lot of transphobia in men is based on fear of being tricked into feeling attraction for ‘another man’. I’m not sure if there is also a general unspecific fear of being conned somehow, though I do think there might be an uncanny valley or uncomfortable cognitive dissonance effect of seeing multiple gender cues that point in opposite directions.
Great insight. Changing categories can be a good thing, but they generally evolved the way they did for a reason. (Evolved in the memetic, not genetic sense.)
It’s also something we are never going to stop caring about as long as we are a sexually reproducing species. Sexual orientation is pretty hardwired; people aren’t going to stop mentally classifying others into ‘potential mates’ and ‘potential rivals’ any time soon. Maybe if we all move into some kind of virtual reality world where we all get to choose our ideal avatar, it won’t be an issue, but until then…
There are plenty of women convinced they can tell at a glance, apparently due to special female superpowers. Explaining the concept of false negatives makes no impression on them whatsoever.
The obvious explanation is that sexual orientation and gender identity are each distinct parts of the brain, and whatever causes one to be flipped or develop non-standardly frequently does not affect the other.
Were you intending to imply black people as a group are dangerous to white people? 
Because that’s the only way it would apply.
Note the single quotation marks. I was not implying anything. I was clearly stating that within living memory, most white Americans regarded black Americans as filthy and dangerous sub-human animals.
This is not at all a point I would make. Although categorization behavior is innate, there’s no evidence that categories themselves are innate or evolved.
My point is that people’s category sense is so important to them that if they’re challenged with a difference between that and reality, they’ll prefer to change reality itself before they change how they see it.
A case was made that convinced me, some years ago. Quite a lot of people have become convinced, over those years.
If what you mean is that it’s “laughably untrue” that a case has been made, that’s nonsense. If what you mean is that there are people who aren’t yet convinced, that’s true enough.
Is this the point where we start posting all the pictures of transmen that, apparently, when they’re forced to use the restrooms of their assigned gender there will be no objections?
ISTM—and has STM ever since we were discussing these issues with actively transphobic Dopers on these boards several years ago—that the key is a carefully unexamined discriminatory assumption.
Namely, the assumption seems to be that in practice, transgender men will want to use the men’s bathroom and will be allowed to get away with it, with little or no objections or concern. Because transgender men “are really” women, and “women are harmless”, especially to men. So having transgender men in men’s spaces is no big deal, if the transgender men in question are “deluded” or “reckless” enough to wish to be there.
Meanwhile, the transphobic focus is very strongly on preventing transgender women from using the women’s bathroom, and other women’s spaces, and lots of angry energy must be spent on scrutinizing and policing their behavior. Because transgender women “are really” men, and “men are dangerous”, especially to women. So having transgender women in women’s spaces is a huge horrible OH NO OH NO OH NO, PENIS!!!1!! hazard to women’s very existence.
No, I don’t think this attitude would stand up to the rational scrutiny of a court challenge on sex discrimination grounds. But as long as it’s kept unscrutinized, it works fine to emotionally validate the one-sided paranoia with which transphobes regard the inclusion of transgender people in gendered spaces.
Nitpick: You’re not being quite careful enough, actually. (And, of course, there is nothing inherently unfair or burdensome about expecting people in civilized discourse to be careful how they phrase what they say in order to avoid insulting or dehumanizing others. “Everybody has to be so careful what they say nowadays!” is not exactly the ringing denunciation of oppression that many of its proclaimers imagine it to be.)
Where you’re being a bit inconsiderately careless, AFAICT, is in using the term “transwomen” to refer to transgender women. Everybody knows and acknowledges that transgender women are different from cisgender women in a number of ways (as are transgender men from cisgender men). But if you’re refusing to acknowledge transgender people’s identity even to the minimal extent of using their generally preferred descriptor to refer to them, then you are conforming to the discourse norms of transphobic bigotry.
You personally may feel that it’s still an open question whether transgender women “should be” or are “entitled” to be called “women” in any sense. Okay, that’s a viewpoint, I’m not going to say that you can’t have that viewpoint or defend that viewpoint in polite discussion with others. But if you want your discussion to be considered polite, you can’t go on insisting that transgender women need a whole special nomenclatural category that is separate from “women”.
Consider this analogy: There are still a lot of people who hold a belief that marriage “is really” the union of a man and a woman, despite the legal existence of same-sex marriage. Many of them would find it more appropriate to have separate terms like, say, “gayhusband” for a man married to another man, or “gaywife” for a woman married to another woman. They sincerely feel put-upon when expected to refer to homosexual spouses by the ordinary terms “husband” or “wife”, because they don’t feel that same-sex marriage is “entitled” to use those terms.
Okay, that’s a viewpoint, and it’s possible to politely discuss it. But if somebody holding that viewpoint insists on calling a married gay man a “gayhusband” as opposed to just a “husband”, that person is being insulting and should cut it out. Same goes for the insistence that transgender women need to be called “transwomen”.
Deferential attitudes toward bigoted discourse never “win over” anybody. The point of making rules against transphobic speech is to support the rights of transgender people, not to conciliate those who don’t think transgender people should have rights in the first place.
Principled and rational support for human rights speaks for itself. Rational and principled people who have been socialized into bigoted beliefs will eventually win themselves over to the side of principled and rational support for human rights, by using their capacity for rational and principled. There’s no point trying to hurry them. And it’s certainly unfair to transgender people to refuse to call out transphobic bigotry because we’re trying to “win over” the people promoting it.
It’s important to distinguish between spaces like a woman’s reading group, and spaces like a public restroom. The first is a private space, and whoever runs the space can restrict access based on whatever criteria seem best to them. The second is a public accommodation, and everyone needs access to those spaces.
Despite the widespread false belief that women and men are totally different and look obviously different and can be neatly separated, in fact, there are a lot of people who look neither like effeminate women nor like masculine men. And they need to be able to pee in public restrooms, too. And what people “look like” is not super well correlated with the gender designation on their birth certificate. This is especially true of trans men who take testosterone, but it’s also true of a lot of trans women.
When the law says, “use the restroom you want”, almost all trans people use the one that will attract fewer stares and comments. When the law says, “you must use the restroom that matches your birth certificate”, many trans people are effectively banned from public restrooms. If they use the one they are legally allowed to use, they will be challenged and possibly attacked. If they use the one that they look like, they risk criminal penalties.
And a fair number of cis women who look masculine run into the same problem. They have no safe place to pee.
While i get that many women want to exclude men from some spaces, they don’t want trans men there, either. And there needs to be an option for those who don’t look exactly like their gender.
“Bathroom bills” are just bad policy.
I think they were hoping that as more trans people came out publicly, it would just naturally become more socially acceptable? The progressive left almost always analogises trans rights to gay rights, and that’s how it worked in that case. Pathologizing people for their perfectly normal beliefs is surely not improving the popularity of the left, though.
It still doesn’t work as an analogy, because (almost?) everyone here does accept that ‘dangerous, catcalling, rapey men’ should be kept out of Women Only spaces. There are still separate-but-equal restrooms and locker rooms for them!
Ah, but it DOES work as an analogy. I fully agree that ‘dangerous, catcalling rapey men’ should be kept out of women only spaces. Trans women are not ‘dangerous, catcalling, rapey men’. They are not men at all. Some people, for whatever reason, perceive them as men. That does not make it so.