Follow the conversation back: I was talking to monstro:
I agree. Which is why I think it’s immensely disappointing to see you use it to oppress other women.
Look, I for one absolutely agree with you, regarding the oppression of women. The fact that women are underrepresented in Congress is a terrible, terrible problem that needs to be fixed. Twenty years ago, I said during a discussion about elections that we would definitely see a black man as president well before a white woman (when both seemed, sadly, ridiculously unlikely).
However, I am not seeing how my current position regarding trying to also prevent the oppression of an even MORE underrepresented group connects to the oppression of women.
When it comes to using “biology” as a basis for denying access to certain facilities, what is the biological litmus test? Physiology? Chromosomes? Hormones? What do you propose?
Okay. But what would you advise me to do in the situation I mentioned?
This has nothing to do with stereotyping behavior. I don’t claim to understand exactly what differences in mental state are associated with feeling “male” or feeling “female”. But almost everyone self-identifies as having some gender identity (not necessary binary, of course), and this is clearly something that is in their brain. Do you need to check between your legs to determine your own gender identity? Does a cis woman cease to be a woman when she stops menstruating? Is your model of human nature really that you think anyone could transition? This is just as mistaken as thinking that sexual orientation is a choice.
In principle, we might one day develop the technology to determine someone’s gender identity in a manner that you might find more satisfactory by scanning their neuron configuration directly by fMRI or something. But the technology we currently use to interrogate gender identity involves stimulating someone’s neurons with sound waves, and detecting and decoding the sound waves that they output in response. Or, if we’re more polite, we wait for them to volunteer the information if they choose to.
This has nothing to do with whether mental states have objective physical reality. What you’re claiming here is that trans people are faking it, that they are either lying or deceiving themselves about their mental state.
I doubt it’s possible for any two people to have exactly the same mental state. But I have a couple of issues with this.
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If someone’s brain is mostly masculine, their body is fully masculine, they have typically male interests and hobbies, and they act in a stereotypically male way, why should this one aspect of the gender identity override everything and cause us to say this person is ‘really’ a woman?
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Some people are convinced they are transgender, take hormones and even get surgery, and then later decide they were wrong and go back to their birth gender. What is going on with their mental state? Do you think they are faking it? What would the neuron configuration show?
Men. Cis men, that is, can breastfeed: Male lactation - Wikipedia
Also lol at linking alt-right hackery site “Quilette” as a source. The website that argued that Twitter banning David Duke and the American Nazi Party was “oppression of conservatives”. Vet your sources better if you’re not actually just a nazi in feminists’ clothing.
What “one aspect”? I don’t understand what you mean. People clearly have a mental state, a sense of self, an identity. And for the great majority of people that identity includes “feeling” that they are male or female (or non-binary). This has nothing to do with stereotyping. Nobody discovers whether they feel that they are male or female by going down some checklist of whether they like playing with dolls or woodworking.
I don’t know. What do you think is the correct conclusion to draw from an observation that human brains are complex and don’t always follow typical or predictable paths? Does this imply that mental states do not have objective reality, or that we should not take seriously what people tell us about their mental states?
I don’t agree with allowing trans women on hormone therapy to compete as women, because male biology provides a hell of a lot more advantages than just hormones. Body size, joint differences, larger hearts and lungs, more fast twitch muscle fibre. All these make more or less of a difference in different sports, and there is no way of ensuring a level playing field.
That doesn’t seem to match the evidence - the Olympics have let trans athletes compete since 2004, with just hormones in 2015. The result has not been domination by trans women - none have even made it. Funnily enough, a trans man is the trans athlete who got closest to qualifying. There have been trans athletes who have won at lower levels, but occasionally winning isn’t proof of an unfair advantage.
I do think it is reasonable to gatekeep sports, but the Olympics seem to have found a good balance.
For at least some (not all) of those people, dealing with gender dysphoria was less painful than the bigotry they experienced as a visibly trans person.
But people do discover they feel like the opposite sex more or less late in life. Did their gender identify change?
What I was trying to get at is that there are many more aspects to someone’s personality than gender identity. There is probably some specific part of the brain where this identity is located, and the rest of the brain may not match it, same as the body doesn’t.
I think we should take it cautiously, especially with adolescents, and people who have other developmental or mental health problems.
She isn’t claiming that at all.
She’s saying that for eons we’ve equated gender with sex. We have gender-segregated places because we believe that there should be places for people who possess biological parts. We did not construct these places so that people with certain minds can be together. It has always been about parts.
And now people are saying those spaces must open their doors to anyone who claims membership, damn what their biology say. Some of the “anyone” will be folks who sincerely believe they belong to that gender while some will not. It is undeniable that some will not , but just talking about this gets someone labeled as a TERFy bigot. The assumption is always that “fraudsters” aren’t worth worrying about when it comes to all the innocents who are harmed by gate-keeping…
Women like YWTF, DemonTree, and Rowling are saying that’s some bullshit. And it is bullshit that mainly comes from men and folks who used to live as men. Which shouldn’t be too surprising since men don’t have anything to lose with “fraudsters” invading their spaces. But women certainly do, given the amount of power women have relative to men.
As an analogy, let’s say we started embracing the transracialism. White folks can suddenly claim blackness and vice versa. It doesn’t take a sociology degree to know which group will be opposed to this movement. It won’t be white folk. White folks’ stoicism wouldn’t be due to how extra enlightened, open-minded, or non-racist they are compared to black folks. It would be due to the fact that they don’t need special spaces. Mainstream society is already their safe space.
This is not actually true. Support for “bathroom” bills is significantly higher among men than among women. Only about 40% of women support laws requiring transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding with their birth sex. About 50% of men do.
https://www.prri.org/research/americas-growing-support-for-transgender-rights/
Let’s say we did have that technology. At that point, would it be acceptable to define gender on a concrete, measurable, quantitative criterion? Because I’m guessing gender activist would say no, that would not be acceptable since their ideology posits that anyone should be able to claim whatever gender what they want to claim.
I personally wouldn’t want gender defined around mental state. I have my doubts that I’d pass such a test but I have no doubt that I’m a woman.
I’m not just talking about restrooms when I say “spaces”.
In which spaces do you think the numbers would be different?
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However, I am not seeing how my current position regarding trying to also prevent the oppression of an even MORE underrepresented group connects to the oppression of women.[/quote]
Women are being denied sex-segregated spaces (like prisons and shelters) that have historically excluded men because of safety and privacy concerns.
Women now have to compete against males for opportunities set aside for women, even though these opportunities were intended to address inequalities in areas where women have been historically disadvantaged, like athletics and political office.
At the same time, women are being told its transphobic to call biological functions exclusive to female reproductive systems “women issues”. Menstruation and pregnancy now are considered things men can experience too. This means every time women try to talk about the biological root of our oppression and how we should combat it, we risk being drowned out by people calling us TERFs and whatnot. This further marginalizes us from power and influence.
Not treating trans women exactly like women in every single situation is not oppression. To assert otherwise is cheapening what oppression means. When keeping sex classes apart is important, there should be 3rd spaces.
For all the talk in this thread about restrooms, I could actually care less if restrooms were completely mixed sex. But I feel differently about locker rooms and everything else. In the absence of gatekeeping that limits who can legitimately call themselves trans, allowing trans women to enter these spaces means allowing all males to enter, no questions asked. It be would wrong for me to say I support that when I don’t.
When it comes to using “biology” as a basis for denying access to certain facilities, what is the biological litmus test? Physiology? Chromosomes? Hormones? What do you propose?
When we’re born, our sex is recorded on a birth certificate. Sex is observable from our genitalia and DNA, and doctors are pretty proficient in knowing it when they see it. Sex is also how we know who has the potential to become pregnant and who isn’t. It never happens to people born with penises and no vagina.
From the birth certificate, our sex class shows up on all of our legal documents. Drivers license and passport. This means if there is any dispute as to whether we should be in the women’s locker room, we can show someone our ID to prove that we belong in the right room.
Self-ID destroys this control by giving any predatory edgelord the right to request a legal “sex change” and gain entry into spaces where previously he would’ve been excluded or at least scrutinized.
If I were to form a support group for women professionals who work in male-dominated fields, I would be looking to create a safe space for women to discuss things that they don’t feel comfortable saying in mixed audiences. Maybe we don’t want to be “mansplained” or told that our feelings are hysterical or silly. We would want to voice thoughts and opinions around people we believe will get what we are saying because they have lived the same kinds of experiences.
Are women wrong for wanting to preserve that kind of space? Do you think it would be acceptable for me, the leader of this hypothetical group, to limit the group’s membership to individuals we believe to be biological females? Or do you think we should let anyone in who says “I am a woman”, damn what our eyes are telling us?
Because I think if we’re gonna allow folks to define gender however they want for themselves, then it is only fair to allow people to define gender how they want for others.
Lots of women don’t give a flying fuck where a person pees and shits, as long as they do it behind a stall. But when it comes to a space like women’s support groups (which Rowling talks about in her essay), then yes, it kind of matters what the person who is sitting across the circle from you, watching you bawl your eyes out, looks like.
I’ll freely admit to not being plugged in to this particular debate on a daily basis, but are these things that are actually happening or things that it is feared might happen? Because even among the “woke” people I generally discuss social change with, I have seen literally ZERO support for allowing unfettered access to physical competitions between trans- and cis-gendered women. Not at all sure how gender of any kind falls into political office beyond the already shitty situation all who aren’t cis-hetero-dudes find themselves in.
So what about the edge cases of those born with female genitalia that are genetically male? I mean, the transgender population is all an edge case. But what about those on the edge of the edge? Because even from a biological standpoint, it isn’t as simple as DNA or who has which dangly bits. I’m not trying to attack you on this, it’s something on which I struggled with determining my own position.
Predatory people will always find a way to do it. But as many have pointed out, when it came to even the most basic of rights for homosexuals were fought against with the same tired arguments- any “give” was going to result in bands of predatory gays using this tiny amount of latitude to rape and pillage our vulnerable populations.
Narrator: that didn’t happen.
Shitty people will still be shitty. But these arguments basically suggest that anybody that is other than cis-gendered should be equated with predators, and to me, that is utterly immoral.
ETA: I would like to throw my support to all of those who have said that chest-feeding is cringe-as-fuck.
Transwomen have set world records in womens events. I’m not aware of any transmen who have set world records.
During the cold war some of the communist countries gave their female athletes male hormones (sometimes without their knowledge). These were top Olympians, and they blasted through the previous female records. But they never touched the men’s. I think this shows the difference is more than just hormones.