I’m encouraged to see that @BB is for some gatekeeping for prisons, but sadly, the rationale for reneging on TWAW when dealing with violent transwomen greatly undermines the ideology he espouses. He’s been cagey with this question for a reason.
What prisons does society place violent female prisoners? They stick them in women’s prisons, that’s where. Because they don’t stop being women just because they kill and mangle people. They are women unconditionally.
If we subject transwomen to a different set of rules, then that means society doesn’t really see them as real women. Their status as women exist only conditionally; any right to gender affirmation they might have can be snatched away when their deviation from the “sugar and spice and everything nice” stereotype becomes too hard to ignore.
If a person can lose the right to gender affirmation and revert to being treated as their birth sex, then we’re back to treating a person’s sex as the real deal as opposed to their gender identity. Is Karen White a woman imprisoned with men? Or is she a man imprisoned with other men? No matter how you answer, it’s problematic for trans rights activists who preach TWAW but lack the gumption to advocate Karen be housed with women.
If I was actually born in Nevada, I could change the sex on it no problem. Unfortunately I was born in Florida, where they require GRS to change the birth certificate (i’m still on the fence about that). It’s not a big deal however, since it’s not a document that is required often. That’s why changing my name and gender on my licence and my SSA card was much more important for me. This is actually one area where I think we handle things better than with the UK and the GRC. It seems like it takes far too long and is far too restrictive.
And in almost every circumstance in real life gatekeeping isn’t required either. Its not required, or it would be impractical. In terms of things like sports almost everyone agrees that the IOC rules on transgender athletes are a decent benchmark. Almost everyone agrees that sexual predators like Karen White should be kept out of women’s prisons.
Not really. The discussion has been done to death. This thread is in IMHO. It isn’t my responsibility to “save the world”, to come up with policy that is the job of the government, to answer every question that you throw my way.
A plain reading of my posts in this thread would reveal that my position has been consistent throughout this thread. If my “tone” has lead you to believe otherwise thats your problem, not mine.
You’ve literally put words in my mouth. I said what I said. In almost every case just saying you are a women should be enough for the rest of the world to accept it. But I’ve never demanded that “the rest of the world” are required to accept it.
You don’t get to pick and choose what I use as an example when you lob an absurd generic question about gatekeeping my way.
The “triviality” of messageboards is precisely the point. You said “there have been examples in this thread that clearly show a desire for a simple self-declaration to be all that is required. Do you think that is OK or not?” And the answer to that question is in most cases of course it is, IMHO. Its okay here on a messageboard. Its okay when we go out to eat at a restaurant. It was a generic question and I gave you an answer with an example.
This thread is full of bad-faith arguments from people with a clear anti-transgender agenda.
Its not about transwomen. Its about violent sexual offenders. Keeping a child sexual offender away from other children doesn’t mean the child sexual offender is no longer a child.
Yep, I think we have both been pretty clear on where we stand. The problem is you aren’t answering the way they want you to, with total agreement and submission, so they act like you aren’t answering the questions. You just haven’t answered it in a way they can satisfactorily spin it to favor their side.
Do you really think it’s a more severe offense than it would be if a biological woman followed her into the bathroom and tried to enter the stall she was in by violently shaking the door?
Let me explain something. The bad action wasn’t entering the bathroom. The bad action was violently shaking the door and trying to enter the stall. I think it should be illegal for anyone to do that.
Is there any evidence that the criminal was trans or impersonating a transwoman? I don’t get how this gains you anything, unless it’s part of your quest to prove that public restrooms are super dangerous spaces.
So is Karen White a woman imprisoned with men, or a man imprisoned with men? Does her history of preying on women permit us to doubt her gender identity, or should we assume her gender identity is true but irrelevant when women’s safety is at risk? I see validity in both positions, but squaring either one with the self-ID model is problematic.
If Karen White had no business being placed in a women’s prison because of her criminal history, that seems like a strong case for making sexual violence grounds for rejecting a legal sex change request. Are you in favor of prohibiting sexual offenders from getting GRCs or at least require applicants to be psychologically assessed to ensure no predatory red flags appear? It’s really hard to find any trans rights activists pushing for these two things, which makes it easy to assume none are.
To your point above, kids who sexually offend may not be incarcerated with other children, but they certainly aren’t housed with adults. Like females, their status as minors isn’t granted conditionally.
If she is truly trans, she belongs in a women’s prison. But that doesn’t mean her history shouldn’t be taken into account. She is clearly a danger to other inmates, so the right thing to do would be to separate her from the rest of the general population so the other women will be safe. I imagine it would be the same if a cisgender woman was sexually assaulting another inmate. The problem isn’t that she is trans, the problem is she is a rapist and pedophile and can’t be trusted around other people period.
If only we could determine who is truly trans and who isn’t, this thread would be so long. Unfortunately it is an undeterminable thing unless a trans person confesses to lying. Karen White, to my knowledge has not.
Karen White is in men’s prison. Do you think that is unjust?
I will ask you what I asked BB. Are you in favor of prohibiting sexual offenders from getting GRCs or at least require applicants to be psychologically assessed to ensure no predatory red flags appear?
…what problem are you trying to solve here? Why would transgender people need to be “psychologically assessed” for “predatory red flags”? No I wouldn’t support that.
You raise a good point; we need to stop thinking in terms of one or the other for trans people. Transitioning really seems to mean a bit of both genders until the transition is complete. That could take years. In the meantime, the trans person really needs to be treated with a certain amount of empathy and support. It can’t be that easy.
Yes I do think it’s unjust. Since she has been transitioning, I do see her as sincerely a woman, and her criminal history should have no bearing on whether she gets a GRC or not. A person could be a mass murderer and they still deserve to live as the gender they truly are. But as I stated, her criminal history does prove that she is a danger to others and should be treated as such. The only criteria for a GRC should be if they are truly transgender or not.
If I was in a stall and a woman violently shook the door, I would 1) most likely have the ability to overpower her or come close enough to it that I could escape. It’s very unlikely I would be able to overpower or escape from a man. 2) Even if a woman was able to break the lock and get into the stall, it’s unlikely that her intent would be to rape me whereas it would be much more likely that a man attempting to break into my bathroom stall did want to rape me. 3) It’s very unlikely that the average woman could kill me with her bare hands whereas most men could. So for me, and I think most women, it would very much matter whether it was a man or a woman trying to break into her bathroom stall. As for whether the same action is a more severe offense in the eyes of the law when committed by a man rather than a woman…I mean, probably not, but in that moment, when the door is being violently shaken, it would definitely be more serious and terrifying to me if it was a man instead of a woman.
Why that’s relevant to this thread is that, to me at least, the central issue that hasn’t been answered is how to prevent men from abusing the access to women’s spaces that’s created for trans women. If it were my decision, I would convert the men’s locker room to a unisex space to be used by men, trans women, trans men, and any women who want to use it. The women’s locker room would be for biological women only. Ideally, there would be many single-person, private changing stalls in the unisex space to cut down on men leering at and ogling women while they’re undressing. Private stalls would also prevent outing transwomen or transmen who pass. I suppose trans women could “sneak” into the women’s locker room if they wanted, but the fact that the women’s room was for women only would at least help prevent guys like this one from the article posted earlier from strolling into the women’s locker room where underaged girls are getting changed for swim practice.
Hmm. In the satanic ritual abuse scare therapists were also insisting we must believe the children at all costs and not think critically about what they were saying. Just imagine if it was happening now and JKR tweeted that satanic abuse didn’t exist and it was all caused by the influence of the therapists. She’d get much the same reaction.
The people running these charities and advocacy groups are also not experts in the field for the most part. Yet while you won’t even sully your eyes by looking at evidence collected by people you disagree with, you actively support the other groups advising parents, going into schools and teaching kids with their unscientific training materials, and even pressuring clinicians to change the way they treat their patients, as well as lobbying for cross-sex hormones to be available to under 16s.
GRS is one thing that is not required for a GRC in the UK. But it is an overly long and complicated process, and most people don’t bother, since as you say, the birth certificate is not required that often.
I don’t want to ask anything too personal about your decision on GRS, but obviously it carries certain risks, and many/most people who transition as adults choose not to get it. Blocking natural puberty in kids reduces distress and gives them a better cosmetic result as adults, but it also prevents normal sexual development (ie of sex drive and ability to orgasm), as well as making them sterile. I’m wondering what you think of this trade-off. And whether kids with no experience of what they’d be losing understand enough to make that decision?
“Experts in a field” can be just as corrupt, profit-driven, ideologicaly-driven, and sociopathic as anyone else. “Experts in a field” have led all kinds of horrific abuses throughout history, especiallywhen it comes to women’s health.
But we have posted what the concerns of some experts in the field in this thread. But you won’t read them because you object to the sources. You only seem to want to listen to experts that echo your slogans.
So how does one prevent future Karen Whites from obtaining GRC’s so that they have unfettered access to women’s locker rooms, rape shelters, and dorm rooms? Believe it or not, this is what we’ve been talking about for the bulk of this thread: male predators exploiting self-identification.
If you’re not interested in even this level of gatekeeping, then it doesn’t appear that you are really in favor of gatekeeping. You’re okay with putting Karen White in women’s prisons, but taking her out if women end up getting violated. Actually preventing that violation with upfront screening doesn’t seem like something you want to do, and that constitutes a gaping problem.
I believe I’ve accurately re-phrased your position for clarity but I’ll happily do so again.
You don’t think that a male simply stating they are a woman should be enough to guarantee full rights, as a woman, in all circumstances, but that it should be enough for most circumstances.
That is the essence of what you are saying and it seems to be the general opinion of the vast majority of people in this thread. That’s not a problematic position (one would think) and the conversation therefore is all about where those lines get drawn, and how.
This is an example of you wanting to have your cake and eat it. You insert an “in most cases” caveat that my statement didn’t contain because by doing so you can then answer “of course it is” and you look ever so virtuous and progressive. But that’s the trivially easy part and costs you nothing seeing as pretty much everyone agrees with that. The difficult part, that I’m not sure you are willing to do, is to properly navigate the difficult area that lives between “in most cases” and “in all cases”. The arguments worth having are pretty much never in the areas of general agreement, they always live on the edge.
I don’t see this thread in that way. On the contrary, the discussion for the most part has been practical, pragmatic, respectful, informative and thoughtful. Outstandingly so.
Of course when people don’t draw the gatekeeping lines in exactly the same place as others do then certainly they risk an accusation of being anti-transgender, or worse but that seems a very weak position and not borne out under further scrutiny.
By linking your cause with Karen White’s, please understand that you are aligning yourself with a violent rapist of the most vilest kind known to womankind. This will not help persuade the mainstream public that transwomen are actually women, and from a feminist standpoint, it only reinforces the perception that transwomen see things as a male misogynist does.