The idea that someone like Alex is expanding the concept of womanhood crystallizes all that is wrong with gender ideology. There is so much conceit behind that. So much colonialism.
You have a point there.
@Delayed_Reflex, thanks so much for providing that link to the Alex Drummond video.
YWTF:
So much colonialism.
I cringed during that Alex Drummond video, but I don’t know how much of that can be blamed at her feet versus the editor’s. Like, her statement “women are allowed to work on cars” is super eye-rolly to me. Who is she talking to? Transwomen? Women in general? Society at large? Women have been engaged in mechanical work and hobbies since the beginning of time. I doubt seeing a transwoman work on cars is going to challenge stereotypes about women held by women or society at large…though I guess I could see how it might be beneficial to transwomen to have a role model of femininity that speaks directly to their experience. I personally don’t feel inspired to take on mechanical hobbies just because Alex somehow ‘proves’ that women are capable of doing so. I can’t imagine any ciswoman feeling this way, though I suppose there are some.
Also, I’m going to cringe a whole lot more when a transwoman athlete shatters Usain Bolt’s speed record and says something like “Women are allowed to run faster than Usian Bolt, you know.” Working on a car is one thing. Doing something that is biologically damn near-impossible for a ciswoman is a very different thing. I don’t know what we would gain from silently tolerating this notion of “Woman can literally be anything”. I do know what we lose, though. If females can literally do and be anything that males can and are, then females don’t deserve special protections. They don’t deserve special outreach programs or scholarships. They don’t deserve reserved spaces. They are indistinguishable from males. That’s damaging to people who can’t “opt out” of their biological and social realities like transwomen can.
My mind immediately goes to this quote from the feminist scholar Kimberle Crenshaw, who is credited with the term “intersectionality”:
“Treating different things the same can generate as much inequality as treating the same things differently.”
I agree with Alex’s statement that no one should be forced to undergo surgery. But in a free world, freedom should go both ways. I don’t think anyone or any institution should be forced to treat any male as a woman. It’s great that she wants to have a beard and wear a skirt and take selfies in a style reminiscent of a teenage girl (rather than a 50-something grown-ass woman). Do you, boo. But these are things any male could do. A gender dysphoric male. A male with autogynephilia. A male who just wants to play games with people. Why should ciswomen see these males as equivalent to her in a sociopolitical sense?
I can go along with the idea it wouldn’t be a big deal to let Alex the lone individual use a facility reserved for ciswomen. But I don’t think we should assume it will always be “the lone individual” demanding entry. If one day there are a whole lot of Alex’s coming into women’s spaces (some presenting in feminine clothing and some not), I think almost everyone would agree that we have a problem because then it would be obvious that the women category has been turned into a nonsensical and harmful clown car. But gender theory doesn’t give us any way of stopping this. It plants in people’s head the notion that if we accept one, we must accept them all because all claims are equally valid. And while we’re doing all this acceptance and accommodation, the complaints of ciswomen will be ignored since ciswomen will be turned into a privileged group, even though spaces were created for them due to their lack privilege in society as a whole. And they lack privilege even in gender discourse.
To wit, how many people will listen to a gay male like Duncan, who espouses very TERFy ideas in the piece that @YWTF linked to, before they will listen to JK Rowling or another ciswoman? How much extra credibility does his maleness give him? How many people will listen to Alex Drummond over a ciswoman? People can pretend that their wokeness shields them sexism, but I’m really not seeing a lot of evidence of this. I see lots of so-called woke people falling into the same patterns as their unwoke counterparts: Something isn’t a problem until a male says it is one. A female says it and she’s hateful and hysterical and “Karen”. A male says it, well, let’s stop and think about it. I’m glad @YWTF posted a link to that piece, but I am concerned it only reinforces sexist bullshit. For women to have our voices heard and respected, we must have a respectable male spokesperson. I’m not going to be enthusiastic about fighting for transgender equality until we can get true gender equality first.
It’s a good question. Who needs to be told that women can work on cars? Presumably it’s anyone who thinks being female means having certain hobbies and interests. Who subscribes to this rather antiquated way of thinking?
Well, it’s certainly not people who are gender critical. It’s certainly not people who think a female reproductive system is the only thing that defines a woman. So ironically, the only people who presumably need to be told “women are allowed to work on cars” are people who believe in a concept of woman that is laden with stereotypes and gender roles. In other words, people who believe in gender.
If Alex Drummond believes that one can be a woman and still do “man” things, then doesn’t that go in the other direction? Can’t one be a man and still do “woman” things, like wear dresses and dangly earrings? If Alex wants to expand some concepts, it should be the concept of manhood. But for reason it’s womanhood that is being targeted.
Its funny you say this because it weighed on my mind before I posted it. The concerns of women and black folks are never assigned credibility or validity unless a white male authority vouches for it, and here I am, pointing to a white male authority so that people listen to my concerns.
But I don’t know what else to do. This subject is serious enough that I’m willing to throw whatever I can at this problem to get people to wake the fuck up. If a gay man can identify the problem with divorcing womanhood from its biological underpinnings and if a gay man can recognize the wrong in allowing males to unilaterally declare themselves females and become entitled to female-exclusive protections, then women and straight men have the capacity to do this too. They just need to be told than can do this and still be good people.
I thought the same thing as monstro when you posted it.
The value it provides, though, is huge, and that value comes from that it’s very carefully, precisely written. It’s not just a white guy saying “behold, I am a white man with an opinion.” It’s an outstandingly planned explanation.
And incidentally, these concerns are not, as is often claimed, theoretical. We’ve had trans women assault women in prisons. The vile case of Vancouver Rape Relief being denied municipal funding and being subjected to hate crimes because they don’t allow males inside. Absurd colonialism of women’s sports. This stuff is starting to happen for real.
Here’s the thing; I am a man, and a good and decent one in general, but I simply don’t trust men. Men are pigs to women, as a group. I can cover my own eyes and pretend that’s not true or I can open my eyes, see the truth, and see that men can be appallingly predatory to women, ARE predatory to women in truly staggering numbers, and that many of them will go to truly insane lengths to do so. I can see that men in group situations step all over women and push them aside and talk over them. I can see that women are often harassed by men and frightened by them. Women need space, they need enforced fairness, and they need society to be structured in a way that gives them a fair shot and dignity.
The extent to which men are blind to this stuff can be quite incredible. I used to be blind to this stuff. My eyes are open now.
Well, it’s not just that, but he is leveraging a certain amount of privilege that others lack in this discourse. I think it’s fair to say that. He uses Part 1 to establish his authority as a trans ally and anti-transphobe. By telling us his history as a gay man who has dealt with homophobia, he also preempts any accusations of being blinded with privilege.
JKR’s essay was just as compelling, IMO. It’s just that when a woman says something like a “woman is not a costume”, someone inclined to dismiss women as irrational and stupid will not give this any thought. They won’t say “gee this person—who is a woman herself—might know a little something about this subject that is worth listening to”. And they won’t see this woman as being familiar with discrimination and stigmatization, no matter how many stories they lead off with. Women are seen as privileged even though all evidence says otherwise.
I think there’s a misconception that men are driving this particular issue. In a Harris poll from last year, there WAS a gender gap in supporting bathroom use based on gender identity, with women supporting it 54% vs. men supporting it 46%. Link
Those of us supporting the idea are aligned with a majority of women on the issue, women who presumably use public bathrooms just as much as their peers, who know damn well better than me the dangers of letting men into their protected space.
Thanks for your frankness and honesty (and for being a good man…I’m lucky to be married to another good man. And he gets this stuff just like you do.)
Graham Linehan has called the blindness you’re talking about “strategic ignorance”. Meaning there is something purposeful in the blindness; it’s not a honest failure to see and understand. There is willfulness to it, even if it’s not 100% intentional.
I feel like he’s right. This isn’t regular ole blindness that can be addressed with education campaigns. Cognitive bias is at work.
Because, as has been said numerous times already, bathrooms are not like other spaces. If the pollster had asked respondents how they feel about giving males access to women’s locker rooms, women’s shelters, women’s support groups, women’s prisons, and women’s sports, it is likely they would have gotten very different results.
I also think most people are under the assumption that most transgender women are gender dysphoric and thus most undergo some degree of body modification to become significantly less male when they transition. According to Duncan, however, most transwomen are not like this.
@Cheesesteak, you have to take stories like that with a grain of salt. Polls can vary significant depending on how questions are asked. Another confounder is that the general public still assumes transgender means people who actually have had surgery and are making an effort to pass as the opposite sex. They aren’t envisioning Alex Drummond types.
See article below. When people in the UK and Scotland were asked specifically about people with penises using women spaces, over 80% of men and women are against that.
Transforming the question
Lovely link there. I’m glad the good reverend told us how these spaces are reserved for “actual women”. That’s the hateful bullshit that you are aligning yourself with. Talk about transforming the question, let’s ask women if they want “people with penises” in their space.
Here is the question as stated in the poll “Do you think that transgender people should be required to use the bathroom of their sex at birth or allowed to use the bathroom that best aligns with their gender identity and stated sex?”
The reality of what this poll showed See page 208 is that the biggest variance in response isn’t between men or women, isn’t age related, race related or income related. It’s political party related. So please, feel free to have your position, but don’t act like your side is the only side that respects women.
The problem with that question is that they didn’t define transgender. People may have answered the question assuming a transwoman is a male person who has gone through a significant medical transformation, which may include hormones and surgery. If instead transgender was defined as any person who identifies as the opposite gender regardless of any medical transformation, the results would likely be different. I would guess many people would be surprised that genetically male people who look exactly like typical men (facial hair and all) are considered transwomen.
Let me make sure I have this right:
If men don’t agree with you, they are “willfully” and “strategically” ignoring the danger to women.
If women don’t agree with you, they’re just ignorant, and don’t understand the question.
Just because there are women are “on your side” doesn’t mean that your side is actually respecting women’s rights.
I would say most people don’t understand the question, since “transgender”, “man”, and “woman” seem to mean anything that someone wants them to mean. It’s like asking “Should ABC be allowed to use the XYZ bathroom”, where you’re free to substitute whatever you want for ABC and XYZ.
It IS men who drive this issue. The Harris poll isn’t measuring who drives the issue, it’s measuring casual agreement with the specific notion of letting people use whatever bathroom they choose. Those are not the same thing.
At the activist, pushing, lobbying level, at the bleeding edge of this, this is a largely male-driven issue.
When I think of transwomen, I think of celebrities (Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner). I think of my coworker, who is clearly trans but who I know well enough.
I simply don’t think of males with a cross-dressing fetish. Or males who identify as woman one day and man the next day and thus will never modify themselves biologically. I also don’t think of effeminate gay males who might be compelled to identify as women because they are experiencing social dysmorphia as men. I have a lot of sympathy for folks in this situation, but that doesn’t mean I see them as sisteren.
So if a pollster asked me if I think transwomen should be allowed to use women’s restrooms and I had no choice but to say yes or no, I would say yes. But if the question was instead framed as: Do you think males should have unrestricted access to the women’s restroom? I would say no. The second is really what trans activists are calling for. They just aren’t saying this out loud because they know there would be a lot of pushback against it.
I’m honestly not understanding what makes it hateful to say that women’s rooms are made for actual women.
Handicapped parking spots are for people who are actually handicapped. Not people who think of themselves as handicapped.
HOV lanes are for people driving high-occupancy vehicles. Not people who aren’t driving high-occupancy vehicles but just think they are.
I already explained this to you earlier bit I’m going to do it again: there is a biological reason why women and girls need restrooms set aside for them. Males don’t have the needs they have. If an able-bodied person is an ass for feeling entitled to a handicapped parking spot, a male is an ass for feeling entitled to accommodations set aside for females.
I started out in this thread expressing indifference to public restrooms, but I’m now I’m like fuck that shit. Girls and women struggle enough with long lines, and they shouldn’t be forced into waiting even longer just because of male entitlement.
@Cheeseteak, read this article and tell me with a straight face that you care about women’s concerns.
To understand how much better regulations have gotten on the issue of wait times, it helps to understand just how horrendous they were. The customs of public-restroom construction began to coalesce in the 19th century. Then, “the main concern of the male city fathers was to provide toilets for men, whose role in public space was accepted and indeed regarded as important to the industrial economy,” writes Clara Greed, an urban-planning scholar in the United Kingdom, in her contribution to the 2010 academic anthology Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing . “From the outset,” she explained, “public toilet provision for women was seen as an extra, as a luxury, or as problematic in other respects.”
As plumbing codes took shape in the following century, they generally overlooked women’s needs. As Greed and others have noted, this was probably not a coincidence, given that architects, engineers, and code officials have historically been much more likely to be men.
Your insistence that nothing is lost if transwomen add themselves to the ladies’ room queue is consistent with a long tradition of ignoring women’s needs.