J K Rowling and the trans furore

In My Humble Opinion
202

My hypothesis is that we’ve become so use to female victimization that it’s par the course. Nothing to see here, nothing to see. Dog bites (wo)man. C’est la vie. No need crying over something that is fixed property of nature as we know it. If women are afraid, they should just stay home or carry mace or learn judo or something. The risk of assault is the price of admission women must pay if they are to participate in society, and it’s unreasonable to ask men to sacrifice anything to lower that risk. We’re tired of hearing about women’s fears because they just need to get over that shit already.

But if trans women are afraid of men, well that’s a story we haven’t heard before! Something must be done to protect them…but still, we can’t ask men to give anything up because that’s just crazy, So let’s put the onus on women to protect them from male-perpetrated violence.

We are all our socialized to think like this, not just men. It’s the bias that is baked into our society thanks to patriarchy. We see it on this board whenever the subject of rape comes up.

Then there’s the fact that a lot men get very offended at the thought that women are wary of male violence, because they often personalize it and interpret it as irrational prejudice against them. There’s a “how dare you presume every man is a rapist!” sentiment they have. So when women express concerns about transgender males entering women spaces, they aren’t thinking of this issue from the women’s perspective but rather the penis-having person’s. Because that is what they are used to doing whenever women talk about their fears.

203

Wow. Transwomen are already able to stand for the seats reserved for women, but that’s not enough, this person is campaigning to eliminate them entirely.

And nothing says ‘woman’ like telling women to ‘suck my girldick’. Totally normal female behaviour!

204

Why is it acceptable for female inmates to assume any risk of male violence while in jail? Women are being asked to treat their own safety and privacy as an acceptable loss; why is that fair when they are already disproportionately vulnerable to sexual assault and other acts of violence?

I don’t understand why the onus is on women to prove their risk isn’t elevated when males are allowed to identify their way into women’s prison. The onus should be the other way around: where is the evidence that putting trans women in prison with women is risk-neutral?

One in 50 prisoners identifies as transgender amid concerns inmates are attempting to secure prison perks

psychologists working with forensic patients are aware of a number of cases where men convicted of sex crimes have falsely claimed to be transgender females for a number of reasons.

If I heard any critics of JKR arguing for more stringent gatekeeping, my concerns would be lessened. But I’m hearing the opposite advocated. It makes no sense.

205

Most of society is not laws but norms, values, and mores. Free speech is more than the 1st amendment. It is a value of a good society. If there are areas that people can get fired for discussing those areas will soon be devoid of any contrary opinions and that is an area ripe for Lysenkoism and groupthink. Society evolves through convincing people and stifling speech succeeds in cutting off debate society will evolve in destructive ways.

This story may be apocryphal but rings true. During the civil rights movement most places reacted to sit ins and demands for equal rights with police crackdowns, fire hoses, and violence. In one southern city the city fathers got together and said we don’t want violence in our town so instead of reacting that way we will just maintain a list. On that list we will put the name of every black person in town who speaks out about civil rights, or engages in any protest. No one whose name is on the list would be hired or have their business used. After a couple of months the prominent black citizens came to the business leaders and begged to have the list done away with and promised not to advocate for civil rights.
I hope everyone can agree that what those people did was evil and worthy of condemnation even though it was legal at that time.

Trying to cancel Rowling because of her comments is an assault on free speech, which is a pillar of a good society.

206

It’s funny, puddleglum. I don’t recall you or any other conservative Doper speaking out against the president of the US for calling Colin Kaepernick et al. “sons of bitches” who don’t belong in the country for their free speech. The US president called for the “cancelling” of these brave individuals and not a single prominent conservative spoke out against it. In fact, they agreed with the president.

If you waved the “free speech” banner all the time instead of only waving it for your pet issues, maybe people would take what you have to say more seriously.

207

Ah yes, there was one other point I wanted to make.

When people worry about “cancel culture”, the sort of cases that are springing up which are causing much of the present concern aren’t people losing their jobs for the casual use of slurs. Practically no one gives a flying crap about protecting people like that. Or at least, I certainly don’t.

The actual worry is that political opinions or scientific findings will be suppressed by mob outrage.

This isn’t some empty fear. For one notable example, the researcher David Shor got fired recently, a few days after a Twitter argument in which he cited a paper that discussed the political effectiveness of violent vs peaceful demonstrations. I’m not an expert on any of this, but the dataset was apparently the history of popular protest in the United States from the 1960s on. But one of the people Shor was arguing with on Twitter @'d his boss, accusing him of racism for citing the paper. A few days later, Shor was canned. (There’s been no statement on the reasoning here from either party, so there’s a shot that the sacking had some other deeper cause.)




This is the sort of thing I’m interested in.

A Rowling thread might’ve been a bad place to ask about this, but whenever I hear “speech has consequences”, it’s very seldom the case that the person saying that particular sound-bite believes it as an absolute principle. Normally they believe that some subset of speech should not, in fact, have consequences. Normally they believe there should be explicit legal protection from consequences for some kinds of speech. And so. I ask about this not because I believe there is any contradiction – as I said many times – but because different people draw the line in different places, and I’m curious about the reasoning behind where they draw the line. Different people almost always have different reasons, and I’m curious about those reasons.

I think we need to investigate these reasons if we want a change in the culture that encourages free inquiry.

There needs to be an avenue available for discussion social science research, even if it has politically inconvenient conclusions, without the people discussing it getting fired. I agree that a law here is not tenable. I actually said so myself earlier in the thread. It’s a cultural problem. I’m not actually sure there is any solution except waiting it out.

But in a world where the null hypothesis is true, it’s still the case that a certain percentage of careful research will up end rejecting a true null by chance. Or even more than that: not even true fact about the world is going to be politically convenient. If a charge of racism gets a researcher cancelled, then I simply don’t see that as being in the “same universe” as someone fired for vilely slurring a large fraction of the population.

The continual mention of slurs as the base case here is just false. That’s simply not what the worry is.

The worry is that cases like David Shor will keep happening, and certain branches of scientific inquiry will be closed for ideological reasons. Even a few cases can potentially have a broader chilling effect.

208

I’m glad you think enough of me to keep track of everything I have said about that issue. It is very validating.

209

I guess I’m not the memorable type.

210

Um, I said I don’t recall you saying anything, which indicates I do not track everything you say. If I cared enough to track everything you say, I wouldn’t have phrased it like that.

Did you come out against the president’s attack on NA kneelers? If you can direct me to a post of yours condemning the president for doing that, then I’ll retract everything I said in my post.

211

I read the Rowling article. I think her concerns about young girls are genuine, and if it is the case that there has been a sudden gender rebalancing in those transitioning so there are now comparatively more young girls identifying as trans, that is a concern. Accepting the standard belief that trans are trans because of inherent neurological differences, there would be no obvious reason for a sudden shift of that sort. So I get that bit.

I don’t accept anything else that she says. She obviously cares about women and girls. She speaks differently about other groups.

Transmen get mentioned mainly as victims of their own trans nature, because she sees them as women. They get sympathy, but not acceptance.

Transwomen only get to be a threat to natal women. To her that’s what they are. The only time she has sympathy for transwomen is in the context of being abused by natal men.

That continues in her approach to men. Men are mentioned as abusing her online, as abusing her in real life, and in otherwise pejorative contexts.

I find the disdain for men distasteful and the concern for women misguided. One of these groups is far more likely than average to be a victim of violent crime, the other is far less likely than average to be a victim of violent crime. My concern is driven by the facts.

212

When the discourse becomes so polarized and vicious, it has a chilling effect on people who have nuanced viewpoints but don’t want to suffer negative consequences for saying the “wrong” thing. It shouldn’t require an act of bravery to say what JKR did, because none of it should be controversial. But somehow all of it is. That’s what is most interesting to me. That “sex is real” even needs to be defended in the year 2020.

People are trying to cancel JKR but good luck with that. She’s a billionaire whose creative output keeps thousands of people employed and millions of people entertained. I have to laugh at the idea that she’s deserving of complete ruin, when you have folks like Mel Gibson still producing and getting work and no hate club stalking him. Burn at the stake the most successful female writer of all time for the crime of saying women aren’t “menstruators”, but don’t you dare pause and think maybe—just maybe—sexism is behind your own outrage.

I don’t think this is a freedom of speech issue, per se. I see it more as an indication of group think and complete and total loss of rationality.

213

Yes, which is why I’m strongly in favor of letting women use women’s facilities. You’re the one arguing that some women should be forced to use men’s facilities, and you’re the one showing absolutely no concern if some women are sexually assaulted.

214

If you’re in favour of letting trans women use women’s facilities, and you’re opposed to gate keeping, the practical effect is that you’re in favour of letting men use women’s facilities. Ditto for women’s scholarships, awards, and measures supposed to increase participation of women in politics. If people were lobbying for one or other of such measures, but not both, it would be less of an issue.

I’m not particularly bothered by trans women using women’s toilets, as long as, like Monstro says, there aren’t too many of them. I am bothered by businesses, schools and government deciding the easy way out of the controversy is to make all toilets gender neutral, often in the stupidest possible way by simply replacing the signs on the doors. This is what has been happening in the UK.

215

I’m okay with gate keeping that’s done to prevent frauds from abusing the system. I’m not okay with gate keeping that’s done to further victimize trans people or gender non-conforming people, and I don’t trust the people who are most vocal about needing gate keepers to appreciate the distinction.

216

So this is when I’m supposed to just nod my head and meekly smile while I’m being mansplained about what a woman actually is. Is that right?

Sorry, I tried, but I can’t do it this time. I’m tired of the gaslighting. Adult human females are women. Trans women are trans women. Two different sex classes. They are not the same, and that’s ok.

217

In fairness, I’m also explaining to you about what a man actually is. Transmen are men, after all.

218

You forgot the ‘explain’ part of mansplain.

AIUI, the biological explanation is that the part of the brain that tells you which sex to identify with develops wrongly in trans people. Doesn’t that technically make them intersex, as they have at least one characteristic of each sex?

219

I think there’s an argument to be made to that effect, yes.

220

What do you actually consider reasonable? For example, in Ireland to change gender you have to sign a declaration that states:

i) have a settled and solemn intention to live in the preferred gender for the rest of my life,
ii) understand the consequences of the application, and
iii) make this application of my own free will.

There is no need for a medical diagnosis, hormone therapy or surgery, or to have lived in the preferred gender previously. Is that sufficient? And would you nevertheless reserve some areas for birth gender only, eg sports, or is ‘transwomen are women’ an absolute for you?

221

I believe that in most circumstances the right thing to do is to treat trans people as their preferred gender, but scientifically speaking it is not that simple. And there are some circumstances, like sports, where I think biology is more important than identity.