I await your evidence that it does happen. There are places, many places, covering millions and millions of women that currently have no restrictions on self described transgender people using the bathroom of their choice. When do men pretend to be trans for the purpose of harming women?
Just a side note, I am going to invoke the post it rule. This means, when tens of millions of people are supposedly “at risk” and I can write down the details of all the relevant incidents over many years on a single post it note, you lose, you haven’t proven they’re in danger.
I’m guessing it is because it is hard to take care of business when you’re constantly looking over your shoulder. You might feel compelled to look over your shoulder when you’re scared of being harrassed or attacked, but you might also look over your shoulder just out of self-consciousness. The restroom or locker room is where you can prep yourself for public view without feeling self-consciousness about it. You can do your hair, adjust your make-up, groom yourself, adjust yourself, etc. Since a lot of this “prep work” is done to earn the gaze of the opposite sex, there is some reasonableness in having single-sex spaces even in nudist places.
I just had a flashback to that wonderful song “Meeting in the Ladies’ Room” by Klymaxx. While typically the ladies room is just a place to pee and poop, it can also be a place where women privately discuss what’s happening out on the dance floor.
(Also, unfortunately many women who have been programmed to think their bodily functions should be kept hidden from men. Not even talking about just menstruation either. It’s OK for men to acknowledge they have healthy digestion systems. But real ladies don’t poop, and they definitely don’t fart!)
The difference is, in other civil rights cases, it was all about bringing the rights for a particularly disadvantaged group (women, blacks, homosexuals) to be equal to those of the advantaged group. In none of those cases were the disadvantaged groups simply looking to co-opt the identity of the advantaged group - women/black people/gay people simply wanted to be treated as equals to men/white people/straight people, not be considered as if they WERE men/white people/straight people. The civil rights movements have not led to the erosion of the definition of white/black, man/woman, straight/gay. In addition, in none of these cases was an advantaged group looking to join membership in a disadvantaged group. For example, would you understand if people were peeved if someone, who has only ever had straight relationships in their life and never expressed interest in the same sex, declared that they were bisexual and cleaned up at the GLAAD awards? I expect this is how a lot of women feel when they see gender-fluid people winning women’s business awards/sports events.
The other thing is that previous civil rights movements never involved overriding biology. You talk a lot about bathrooms but have not mentioned sports, prisons, or health care. Do you agree that these discrimination in these areas should be done by sex, not gender? If not, why not?
To be truly analogous to previous civil rights movements, going towards unisex bathrooms should be your top choice. All people are on a level playing field, there is no segregation. Advocating that trans people should be using the washroom of their preferred gender is basically the same as saying that there should still be white and black fountains, but since some white people don’t feel comfortable using their own fountain they can use the black fountains.
Lastly, I struggle a bit with people saying that they are being denied their humanity if people deny their identity. It is likely because I don’t personally have a strong gender identity, so it seems weird to me that people do. Is denying someone’s racial identity, national identity, professional identity, or any self-imposed identity as dehumanizing as denying someone’s gender identity? “Sorry, you’re not actually Chinese - sure, you were born in and live in China, speak Mandarin fluidly, and have black hair and almond shaped eyes - but your parents were from Vietnam so you’re not Chinese.” “You’re not a real American, you came here from France.” “I don’t believe that you’re actually a doctor.” These could all be hurtful statements, but are they necessarily dehumanizing?
It is absolutely understandable to me why trans people are hurt when they are not accepted as their gender. Yet, I also understand how the gender critical people in this thread can deny the concept of gender and not believe that they are being hurtful. If they believed women were inherently inferior to men, therefore trans men were not men, that would be hateful, but if they believe people are simply miscategorizing themselves, there is no malice involved.
Let’s compare “You’re not a woman, you’re a man” to “You are not American, you’re French”
To me, both of these statements range from offensive to basically common sense, depending on who they are directed at:
French person is just a tourist in the US / Male-presenting person who declares themselves to be a woman but does not attempt to live as a woman
French person is living in the US, but speaks exclusively French, only partakes in French food/culture, has no intention of gaining US citizenship / Biological male who has majority of their lived experience as a man, now declares themselves to be a woman but retains many male characteristics
Person who has immigrated from France and speaks French a lot of the time, and English sometimes with a strong French accent, has a green card and wants to be seen as American but no intention to apply for citizenship / Person has adopted some feminine characteristics and desires to be seen as a woman, but retains some masculine characteristics and has no intention to do HRT
Person who has immigrated from France and has a strong French accent, but has assimilated into American culture, and has obtained citizenship later in life / Person has adopted feminine gender presentation, using HRT, lives as a woman
Person was born in France but moved to the US when they were young, full citizenship / Person has had gender reassignment surgery, fully presents and lives as a woman
Person was born in the US but can speak French / Biologically female and identifies as a woman, but has a masculine appearance or masculine traits
Then there would be those who believe the only true Americans are people born in the country, and that anyone else is an immigrant, even if they’ve obtained citizenship. That would be the closest analogue to YWTF and RickJay’s stance on gender, from what I gather.
So ultimately, I think on a practical basis, people treat 5/6 as Americans/women, and I think a great number of people (maybe the majority - myself included) recognize 4, while 3 might see a lot of debate. But it seems like there is a push to accept 2, and possibly even 1 for self-declared identities, and I don’t see why that is beneficial. To me it seems like DemonTree, monstro, etc. are pushing back more against those than anything else. I’d like to hear how the trans advocates in this thread would consider the above.
I mean, I obviously do not believe that, so no. (That said, a person who immigrated and then obtains citizenship is both an immigrant and a citizen, so that’s not a great analogy. What they cease being when they become a citizen is an alien.)
I thought your post overall was great but this is incorrect.
I believe the only true Americans are people who meet the definitions of American citizenship as set forth in our constitution. I don’t believe a foreign national has the right to be called and treated as an American just because they:
They dress and groom themselves “like an American”
Speak with an American accent
Have an interest in traditionally American pastimes
Insist on being referred to as an American
Claim to have “American” feelings
Any other thing someone can come up with
For “American” to mean anything, we need to have a shared understanding of what makes a person actually an “American”. If anyone is capable of self-identitying as an American, then it becomes a meaningless concept.
I guess what I was getting at is that you believe that sex status is the only meaningful category, and gender status is essentially meaningless. I realize that it is an imperfect analogy, but the analogue here is that birth nation is the only meaningful category and that citizenship is meaningless.
We know that now, but in the midst of the SSM debate there were a lot of people arguing about the erosion of the institution of marriage. The erosion of religious freedoms. The “scientific” “biological” basis for preferentially treating a man/woman relationship. The “definition” of marriage being a man/woman relationship. How SSM would devalue marriage, encourage sham marriages or ridiculous marriages to turtles and goats.
Turns out, it was a whole lot of nothing. You make one change, SSM is legal and nothing bad happened at all. There’s no wave of people marrying their dogs, no trend of college roomates getting married for tax benefits, no wholesale destruction of the institution, just a few extra people being married.
Same here, you let this happen, there won’t be waves of perverts hanging out in the women’s locker room, and rapists waltzing into the bathroom for today’s assault. It’s going to be a whole lot of nothing. No need to remodel every public bathroom in the country or restructure everything about how men and women relate, you’ll just have a couple of more folks going to the bathroom and moving on with their day.
They won’t, because they’d be sued for discrimination. If there are problems then women will just shower and change at home or stop going to the gym entirely.
Yes, that’s a good analogue for my view. And when it comes to this debate I feel like I was sold on the latter categories, or for a more topical comparison agreed that ‘dreamers’ should be given citizenship, but then found out they’re actually planning to give citizenship to literally anyone that asks for it.
It’s not such a good analogy for YWTF and RickJay’s views, because citizenship is a social category and we can easily change it. There’s no such thing as a ‘biological American’ (there are natural-born citizens but that’s still something defined by humans). Race would be a better analogy for that since it has a biological component, but we don’t currently let people change their race at all.
So while there is an approved process by which a foreign national can become an American citizen, do you believe there is any process by which a person born male can become a woman? The reality is that being an American, while it CAN result from being born in the country, is not solely predicated on unchangeable characteristics like country of birth, race, etc.
It might be easier to frame the analogy with a different country as opposed to America - say, Japan. Being born to Japanese parents automatically makes you Japanese. You can also naturalize to become Japanese, officially, but if you have white skin and grew up outside of Japan, I think people will still generally not consider you Japanese even if you speak Japanese fluently, live in the country, and have gone through the official process of becoming a Japanese citizen. I wonder how many people would consider that person to be Japanese, given that it is impossible for them to truly understand what it’s like to be a native Japanese person?
If this analogy sounds close to you, then I think I might better understand your stance. Is having gender reassignment surgery enough for someone to be seen as woman in your eyes (eg. going through the naturalization process), or will they always remain a man (eg. a foreigner)?
This is the slippery slope fallacy but in reverse. Just because discrimination of one kind is wrong doesn’t mean all forms of discrimination are wrong. Each needs to be evaluated on its own merits
Yes, SSM didn’t cause the sky to fall. Giving gays and lesbians the right to be legally married was good for society. It has helped destigmatize homosexuality. But none of this has any bearing on whether we need to
Eliminate age of consent laws that prevent adults from sexually abusing kids
Allow students without learning disabilities or ADHD to use special accommodations reserved for IEP students
Permit people with high incomes to collect welfare, obtain food stamps. and use Medicare
Give men the right to self-identify as women so they can urinate, undress, shelter, and compete with them in sports.
Unless you intend to also advocate for all of these other “dehumanizing injustices”, stop with the bringing up of rights that other minorities have fought for. The logic is bogus.
Not from what I understand. You can be born to Japanese parents, live in Japan, have Japanese citizenship, etc., but if, say, your parents moved to France when you were a couple of years old and you spent a critical mass of years living and going to school there before moving back to Japan, that might be enough to give you a hard time being accepted as Japanese.
I’m not sure that what you mean by ‘race’ has any biological component, but surely you are aware that for instance some people choose to ‘pass’ as White instead of Black? Or even the other way around: there was that book where all it took for the author to ‘pass’ as Black were some (not medically advisable) UV tanning sessions and he got to experience nasty racism firsthand.
ETA so, if you like, you can interpret these examples as illustrating both that people’s perception of your appearance will affect their acceptance of your identity, and that your experience (cf of living in Japan vs growing up elsewhere) will matter to them as well.
You continue to focus on bathrooms while ignoring the broader conversation about the impacts of expanding the boundaries of a demographic. Do you have any thoughts about the impact to women’s sports, prisons, shelters, scholarships, achievement awards, from including males in the category of women? Do you believe male presenting, lived-experience-as-man people should be considered trans-women because of their self-declared gender identity, and grouped with other women in all of these areas?
True. And maybe some of the white-passing individuals really do identify as white. I remember watching some Jerry Springer-type show years and years ago that featured an obviously mixed race young woman who identified as white. The audience thought this was ridiculous, but why shouldn’t she identify with one half of her heritage more than the other? Because other people don’t see her that way is the only possible reason.
In the US, a person can self-identify racially however they want for the census and other government forms. Like, if I were to endorse the “white” box on forms, it’s not like the police would swoop down on me and ask for me to show my “white people” papers.
But when it comes to programs devoted to assisting stigmatized racial minority groups, gatekeeping is allowed. Back in my college days, I was in a special orientation program for minority students. One of my roommates was a girl who appeared to be your run-of-the-mill white girl. Right off the bat, before we darkies could even ask her the obvious question, she explained that one of her grandfathers was Mexican. Hence her Spanish last name. I’m sure not everyone in the program was overjoyed by her presence, but at least she had a narrative that been vetted by someone. It wasn’t like she was doing the Rachel Delozal thing.
The vice president nominee for the Democratic Party is a woman who has African and Indian ancestry. She identifies as black, but she could also identify as biracial. There would be a lot of raised eyebrows if she identified as white, though. She probably has some European ancestry (many of us African Diasporans do), so if she went with “white”, it wouldn’t be wrong in any objective sense. But I don’t think anyone would be labeled racist or hateful if they said, “I don’t know what the hell Kamala is smoking, but she isn’t white.” And if Biden identified as black, absolutely no one would be hateful or racist for believing he was co-opting an identity he has no claim to. Blackness isn’t a rigid box. But it is still a box.
It does happen from time to time. Some examples have already been cited. It certainly doesn’t happen very often. Indeed, it’s very rare. But the reason it’s very rare right now is that the pervs know they’re not going to be treated like a woman just because they say they are one, and if they’re caught hanging about in a women’s locker room they might very well get the shit kicked out of them, regardless of whether or not they’ve got a wig on, or whatever. That’s a powerful disincentive, and it’s reasonable for women to be scared of what’ll happen if that disincentive is removed.
Personally I don’t have a meaningful concept of “woman” that is not firmly planted in membership of the female half of the species. It’s primarily a biological designation, not a political one like citizenship. Sex is immutable just like being a member of the Homo sapiens species is immutable. If Neanderthals lived among us, I would want them treated as people the same as us, but I would object to saying “Homo neanderthalensis who identify as Homo sapiens are Homo sapiens”. Among other things, this rhetoric actually implies there is something wrong with being a Neanderthal, and I don’t see how it’s helpful to the trans community to use this same construct.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t think some males can’t get a legal sex change. I believe transwomen who have had genital surgery are unlikely to be “doing woman” as a lark; it’s a proxy for severe gender dysphoria that, IMO, is grounds for reasonable accommodation. I don’t consider transsexual women to be adult human females (AKA women), but I’m not concerned if this population uses single-sex accommodations reserved for females (except for sports).
Public perception is one thing; how that person is treated in the eyes of the law is a completely different thing. A Japanese citizen is legally entitled to the rights that come with any Japanese citizen, regardless of what they look like. Even if they look as Anglo as Prince Charles. It really doesn’t matter how the person on the street sees them, when it comes to rights.
Having GRS doesn’t make someone a woman; in the eyes of the law, it means they can access certain accommodations reserved for women,
Whether or not they will be “seen as women”, analogous to your Japanese example, depends on the people perceiving them.
That analogy doesn’t work for me specifically, and DemonTree has pointed out some other issues with it, but I see your point. That said, I don’t think a person’s claimed gender identity has to be disregarded in all circumstances. I have never held that.
But there you go; you’ve demonstrated that that issue was not analogous.
This has already been discussed, again and again; marriage is a purely legal and sociological construct. It is not physical, biological reality. It’s whatever the hell we want it to be, and changing the law from saying “… between a man and a woman” to “… between two adults” does not reduce the definition to circular meaninglessness. It does change it, but it’s still a meaningful term. The definition of “marriage” as is now legally exists here is still quite specific and definable, and really isn’t all that different from what it was before.