J K Rowling and the trans furore

In My Humble Opinion
2764

You are mistaken.

For one thing, this is not becoming the predominant view in society. It’s not even close to that point. The number of people buying into the notion that being a woman is nothing more than a “role” is miniscule. It’s enthusiastically supported amongst a significant portion of the small number of people who actually pay any attention to this issue, but that’s a small number. The vast majority of folks pay little attention to this, or none at all, and the idea that Alex Drummond is a woman is preposterous to them, as it should be.

SEcondly, you’re going down a regressive, dangerous path. When you say being a woman is a “Social identity,” you seem to have little idea how sexist and dangerous that idea will turn out to be. A social identity as… what? What is that identity? If it’s disconnected from biology, from physical truth, then what identity is it? Stereotypes. Sexism. It’s saying women are not a physical truth, they’re… what? Skirts? Makeup?

Is a butch lesbian still a woman in your eyes if “woman” is a “social identity”?

Here we are in agreement.

I am not for an instant suggesting that we cannot, for some purposes, treat trans women as women. Indeed, in many situations it would hardly make any sense not to. Hard and fast legalities and rules have their place, but also aren’t appropriate in a lot of circumstances, and a decent society is one in which people are accommodating, kind, and generous. There is clearly a line on the other which of which, in some cases, a trans woman should be treated as if they are an actual woman. That is just a part of being a reasonable human being.

But understand; when someone says it’s hateful to say that trans women are not actually women, they are saying you’re wrong, that you are a hateful bigot. When you wrote “A lot of people seem to suggest that “feeling like the other gender” is far enough along to spectrum for someone to be considered trans, but as it is impossible to prove to others what you are feeling, I don’t consider that to be a sufficient determiner of trans status either” that is not consistent what others in this very thread have written, is not consistent with “Trans women are women,” and is not consistent with quite a lot of public figures and activists. You and I are just discussing where the line is and how to use the words. They’re saying we shouldn’t be having that discussion or we’re hateful.

This actually is something that has been codified in regulations, or by having regulations refer to some diagnostic criteria or some such thing. It’s not what Boudicca90 says it means, it’s what some authority imposes upon her. It varies from place to place.

2765

I think there are some issues with that viewpoint, but this one has a straightforward explanation. Historically, the way masculine men dealt with effeminate men is to call them fags. Doesn’t matter how true it was; it’s just an easy way of excluding them from the manly-man club.

Conservatives still have that as an outlet, and continue to use it, but men that think of themselves as liberal cannot. TWAW works very well as an alternative; no one can call them on their progressive credentials.

Again, I think the whole theory is a bit dubious but there’s probably some element of truth to it for some men.

2766

What does it mean to treat someone as a woman?

Again, I urge you to read the essay I posted earlier if you haven’t already. The author points out the lack of clear meaning behind the idea of “treating” someone as a certain sex. It is a weak foundation for positing existence of these “social definitions”. Unless you’re in favor of discriminating against people in situations outside of sexual relationships and sex-based provisions (like granting access to women’s sports and restrooms), I don’t think you can articulate a way in which you actually treat a transwoman as a woman that couldn’t be covered with another term.

I also don’t understand what you mean by “we had little understanding of biology” in reference to how society identified who should be treated as men and women. I mean, I think I understand what you’re saying, but it seems so preposterous that it’s hard to believe you’re saying this. Again. After that crazy discussion we had weeks ago about misogyny and it’s root cause.

Society has always known exactly what it was doing when it decided who should be treated as women. It knew enough about biology to know which subset of humans has the potential to carry pregnancies and which doesn’t, which subset is weaker than the other, and which subset has bodies capable of arousing heterosexual penises. That subset has in common a female reproductive system.

Not males who have a certain concept of themselves.

2767

I think @RickJay got this one right despite being wrong about everything else. In order to receive treatment and surgery in many places, you have to live as the gender you identify with for a certain period of time. As far as what traits this encompasses depends on the different gender expressions of the culture you live in.

2768

This is not meant to add weight or anything or even a argument to any side, but I found it interesting. It’s an intersex condition, about 1 in 90 boys in the region, who are, in all appearances and upbringing, girls until puberty. The hormonal flux of puberty literally changes their bodies to male bodies.

Again, this is not to add anything to the debate. This is, ultimately, an IMHO thread, and if there were a different, less contentious thread to mention it, I would.

2769

I guess it’s possible. But I’m 99% sure my position on this issue is the way it is, in addition to my tendency for anything gender related to follow the views of cis woman feminists I know who are generally very similar to @Ann_Hedonia (I named several of them earlier in this thread, IIRC), just because I almost always, if not always, am sympathetic to people who are treated like garbage by society, and based on my reading and experience, trans people certainly qualify. I hear racist, homophobic, and sexist shit from the old white veterans at my office relatively frequently… but it’s nothing compared to the vile poison they direct at trans people any time the topic remotely comes up (or even if it doesn’t). Trans people, and especially trans women, are vermin to these assholes - human garbage. Worth a bullet, if that. The trans people I know were mistreated the worst in their lives by sexist cis men. The statistics I’ve seen on mental health and treatment by law enforcement supports this.

Women are, of course, also treated like garbage by society. But 99% of the time, if not more, I see not a single shred of conflict between trans rights and women’s rights. In fact, I see the issues as closely linked in our society - the worst misogynists, like Trump or Pence, are almost always trans-haters too. The men with the most traditional views of masculinity and femininity in my life universally - 100% - speak of trans people with poisonous hatred. And there’s no possibility of treating trans people with decency in our broader society until we also treat women with decency.

In a truly fair and decent society, none of this shit would matter. Gender and gender identity wouldn’t make a whit of difference in how someone was treated.

So I’m pretty sure that’s the origins of my feelings on this issue.

2770

This is only a thing in a society, such as ours, with profound inherent sexism.

But it’s still a thing, because of that inherent sexism. Ideally, like I said before, none of this would matter. But because our society is so sexist, folks’ internal wiring one way or the other can strongly correlate with the “roles” assigned to men or women. I don’t know exactly how this works, but it quite clearly does, based on both my own feelings about my gender identity and that of trans people (and many cis women) I’ve spoken to and read from.

My point here is that, in the past, we only had a superficial understanding of who had a female or male reproductive system. If someone appeared to have a vagina, then they would have been assumed to be a woman, even if they had no womb because they had some XY intersex condition. And if they appeared to have a penis, they would have been assumed to be men, even if they had some XX intersex condition. That only seems to have changed relatively recently, and far from universally.

2771

What an absolute crock of shit.

2772

Except for pronouns, I don’t purposely treat women differently to men except in dating situations, and we have a whole gay rights movement to tell us that sexual orientation isn’t something that can be voluntarily changed. I’m pretty sure that in fact I do treat men and women differently, unconciously, but if I could change that for an individual, then the moral thing to do would be to instead work to change it for everyone, to create a less sexist society. And this is also true of people who do purposely treat the sexes differently. So what are you campaigning for exactly? To keep sexism but somehow make ourselves believe individuals are a different sex to what they appear?

And as for how we see people, it’s no more voluntary to me to see Alex Drummond as a woman than it is to believe in God. I can choose to say ‘she’, just as in other circumstances I might choose to say ‘God is real’, in order to avoid the risk of abuse from people around me, but in neither case do I believe it. I come at this from the opposite direction to Cheesesteak. I used to accept TWAW, until I saw some of the people who are included in that. And I realised that there are cases like Drummond, and Karen White, where I absolutely don’t believe it, but the gender ideologues still insist I do, because gender is an internal state and not something we can empirically measure.

I came here to see the other side of the argument and see if the smart people at the Dope could convince me to believe again. But it’s only confirmed that I don’t.

Now back to practicalities. Iiandyiiii, you didn’t reply to my previous post. I’ve told you several times now that the legal reform proposed in the UK, and about to be enacted in Scotland, would enable anyone to legally become a woman. Because apparently it’s necessary to state the obvious, ‘anyone’ includes Anthony Scales. So no, nobody is campaigning specifically on Anthony Scales’ behalf, but they are campaigning to remove the need for a medical diagnosis, and any other requirements that might prevent ‘her’ changing sex legally. And I’ve showed you evidence that this is what the TRAs are campaigning for.

I don’t know why you are so reluctant to believe that JK Rowling, or indeed I, might have a better idea of the current situation and laws in the UK than you, an American man who has made no special study of the subject, but I at least thought you would listen to the evidence.

2773

An example from the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018: statutory guidance:

This is one of the requirements to be legally considered a woman for the purpose of that particular law. The rules for getting prescribed hormone treatment or surgery might be different.

2774

That would make sense if there actually was a split, but in reality the gender ideologues are demanding we entirely replace the biological identification with the sociological one, even in obvious biological contexts like which sex has a penis and which menstruates. Not only do you claim one definition of the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ has changed, you’re actively campaigning to ban all use of alternatives by calling them hate speech.

2775

IIRC I agreed with you earlier in the thread that this law might be written poorly, if you’re accurately describing it.

You may have shown that some activists are, but based on the activists I’ve spoken to, I’m unconvinced this is close to universal among them.

2776

This is not my position.

2777

The new Scottish law will not require a diagnosis or medical evidence of any kind in order to change one’s sex legally. Do you think this is a bad law?

2778

Possibly. I’d have to hear from advocates for the language of the law to make a final judgment.

2779

Uh, then what was all that discussion about ‘people who menstruate’ earlier in this thread?

2780

That was different than what you described. I wouldn’t have a problem if JKR had advocated that the piece in question use the phrase “biological women”.

2781

It’s not a complex question of legal language. I’m not talking about an unintended loophole. It’s about whether medical evidence should be required or not. This is the point of the reform.

2782

Okay. But other people in this thread and other places have objected to that phrasing. It’s very difficult for ordinary people to know what words and phrases are considered acceptable by the cognoscenti this week, which means speaking about the subject means you risk being called a bigot, or even more commonly having your message ignored in favour of critiquing the language used.

2783

I think you misinterpreted my claim. I didn’t say everyone always cares. I said that people care about directors around the same amount they care about who the stars are. You even admit your wife might be more or less interested in a movie if she hears that Spielberg directed it. You see that, right? That’s all I was saying.

As for your two examples, agreed. Nobody cares who directs Marvel movies any more than they care who stars in them. That’s not why you go see those movies.