J K Rowling and the trans furore

In My Humble Opinion
3365

No I’m not. I have no idea what motivates you to believe what you do, and I actually don’t care.

I’m pretty fearless my own self. And to that you should be saying so the fuck what. The only reason I’m so fearless is because I’ve been lucky. My brushes with perverts have been relatively mild and infrequent. I’ve been leered at and groped but these instances have only made me extra wary, not traumatized. Other women cannot say the same thing. They have every reason to want to undress in an area without worrying they will be treated the way they our outside of those doors. Single-sex spaces is one small measure to ensure this.

3366

This is a problem, though, because we do not and should not hold women to this standard, and if “Trans women are women” you can’t hold them to that standard, either.

If there is anything I firmly and wholeheartedly believe, it is that gender is largely stereotypes, is almost wholly sexist, and is corrosive, repressive bullshit, and I cannot in good faith ask people to live by stereotypes. My wife usually wears pants and doesn’t wear makeup; anyone who says she should will doubtless be told by her to go suck it. Granted, she’s obviously female in her other physical traits, but it’s the principle of the thing. Should really butch lesbians have to go pretty up? That sounds super duper sexist to me, but this is exactly the sort of weird conundrum you get into by just shrugging and pretending the distinction between men and women doesn’t exist. You’re inevitably going to get stuck on things like this.

3367

I really don’t think most ciswomen are afraid of butch lesbians. I know they don’t give me any special concerns. Even if butch lesbians were just as violent and prone to sexual perversions as men, I would argue that they should be able to pee in women’s restrooms anyway since they are female. You can’t have a spot reserved for females and tell females they can’t go inside. That would just be wrong.

But you can have a spot for females and still grant entry to non-threatening feminine males (whether they identify as women or not). If you’re female, you’re entitled to be there. Even if you’re a big ole jerk and you’re 300 lbs of muscle. But if you’re male, you aren’t entitled to be there. You may be allowed to be in there, but you aren’t entitled to be there. It’s not a slam on your humanity if someone asks you to leave. And it’s not a crime against humanity to hold you, a male, to a higher standard of decorum than females. Females are allowed to dress however they want in women’s spaces. They can present as butch as they want. But males should be required to be unambiguously female-presenting, preferably female-passing enough to not be triggering according to the “reasonable woman” standard. Females are allowed to be unclothed in common areas. But intact males should not be. Females are allowed to use the space even when they are creepy and weird-behaving. But if you’re male, you should not allowed to be creepy and weird-behaving in that space. Go somewhere else if you have creepy and weird-behaving tendencies and you’ve got a dick. Without these kind of social rules, women will be just as much at risk of harm as they are in the outside world.

I really do not have a problem with letting some males into women’s spaces. Even locker rooms. But I’m not in support of the notion that some subset of males are just as entitled to those spaces as females are. Females should be the only ones entitled to those spaces. And they should be the ones who dictate who gets to be in there. Not males.

3368

No I wasn’t saying that. My point is that the idea of telling trans women “look feminine” would, if TWAW, have to be extended to all women, if TWAW. Telling butch women to “look feminine” is profoundly offensive, right? But that’s the insane kind of contradiction this stuff leads to. It’s not a winnable situation. The approach you then describe is quite logical… but it’s based on applying the accepted facts up to roughly 2013 or so (woman are female humans) with an addition of common sense, sympathy, knowledge of the dynamics between men and women, and just trying to do what’s right in a given situation based on general guidelines.

Of course, in a few years, they’ll be telling butch lesbians they’re really men, that they’re just trans men in denial. If that sounds too nuts to happen, just wait.

3369

@RickJay

My point is that the idea of telling trans women “look feminine” would, if TWAW, have to be extended to all women, if TWAW. Telling butch women to “look feminine” is profoundly offensive, right? But that’s the insane kind of contradiction this stuff leads to.

Yes, that is a major weakness of TWAW, which is why I think it needs to be dropped as a slogan. Transwomen may be perfectly OK with male-presenting males with intact male anatomy and a bloodstream full of testosterone calling themselves “woman”. But ciswomen shouldn’t have to pretend that these individuals are our “sisters.” Just because some can (or at least say they can) doesn’t mean all of us should be forced to.

3370

Yes, I agree with this. I don’t think there should be anything wrong with having social rules that say transmen and transwomen should make an effort to look like they belong there before using facilities intended for the opposite sex, and be extra discrete if their body parts are not the ones expected to be encountered in that space. And the majority of trans people do follow these in practice anyway. But the hard-core believers in TWAW want to change these social rules as well as changing the law, as that sign shows and based on what posters here have said.

Nuts? From reading the stories of transitioners and detransitioners and lesbians, I think this is pretty much what has been happening to teenage and young adult lesbians for the last several years. When they’re not being told that it’s transphobic not to like cock, that is.

3371

I don’t disagree with you in concept, but how you would write a law that would permit this kind of exclusion policy? Title VII prohibits sex discrimination on the basis of gender presentation, and that is essentially what you would be calling for if you put this in print. You’d be holding males that dressed masculine to a different standard than those who do, even if they both claim a female gender identity.

I wouldn’t lay this problem at the feet of TRAs. It’s a flaw baked into gender ideology. Since the entire premise is based on sexist notions of how women and men behave, think, and feel, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. As long as there are butch women, a transwoman can also be butch and still be true to a female identity, and besides, maybe their locus of identity is strongest in the “think” and “feel” categories as opposed to behaviors like gender expression. Which means Trump could identify as a woman tomorrow and we would have to just accept that shit.

Trying to untangle the logic behind this helped push me over the edge into disbelief. If the only transwomen that strike me as “true trans” are the ones that outwardly exhibit stereotypical femininity, then that makes me guilty of sexism. If I’m only skeptical of masculine transwomen, then I probably don’t really accept that perfectly normal women can also be masculine either. In other words, I’ve imbibed the sexist idea that femininity defines women and masculinity defines men.

So once you accept that transwomen are allowed to be indistinguishable to Trump and still be valid, then you have to decide whether you believe transwomen (including Trump-indistinguishables) are entitled to be treated as women in the eyes of the law (TWAW). If you say yes, then you won’t be accused of transphobia. If you say no, then you will be. This is where we are today.

Some people try to sidestep this dilemma by only validating feminine transwomen; this allows them to sometimes say yes (TWAW applies to this particular transwoman) and sometimes say no (TWAW doesn’t applies to this particular transwoman). But this is sexist. @RickJay is 100% right on this point.

3372

That’s where it’s starting, yeah. This is on the cutting edge of TRA thought and will probably be orthodoxy within five years.

This sort of nonsense is increasingly common, and it is extremely disproportionately aimed at lesbians.

3373

The important difference is that cis-women have a strong female presence and their female form is evident regardless of what they wear and how well they conform to stereotypes. A female is a woman because she’s an adult female, not because she conforms to stereotypical standards. A female looks like a female because of body shape, skin texture, fat distribution, bone structure, etc. A female in traditionally male clothing is still clearly female. A female with facial hair is still obviously female because of other biological markers. A female does not have to conform to stereotypes because they meet the standard definition of a woman: an adult human female.

A transwoman does not necessarily have that strong underlying female energy. Their body shape, bone structure, skin texture, fat distribution, etc. may still have strong evidence of being male. A transwoman can overcome that by conforming strongly to stereotypical female traits, such as smooth skin, makeup, feminine clothing etc. That can be enhanced with medical procedures, such as hormone therapy which will create more feminine skin and features. A transwoman certainly doesn’t have to do any of that. I strongly support Alex Drummond’s right to be a transwoman even though she has a beard and has other strong male features. But I’m less willing to say she looks like a woman when she’s not making a sincere effort to overcome her obvious male traits. If a transwoman like Alex wants access to female spaces where nudity is involved, I feel she should make a more dedicated effort to conform to norms of female appearance so that the other women in that space can easily recognize her as a transwoman rather than a man.

3374

I 100% agree, which you surely know, because I’m the guy whop keeps pointing out that trans women are not actually women.

Again, though, if you assume TWAW, then “you must attempt to appear feminine” isn’t a standard you can apply, because under that assumption, John Cena is exactly as feminine as Charlize Theron. You cannot apply rules of femininity if TW truly AW, because the concept of “femininity” does not exist.

If “woman” is a meaningless term, “feminine” is a meaningless term. “Feminine” just means “stereotypically or physically associated with girls and women.” That’s it. If “woman” just means “anyone who feels like a woman,” which is basically meaningless, then “feminine” doesn’t mean anything either. Logically, if someone who looks just like John Cena says they’re a woman, then under the TWAW myth, that appearance must be a female appearance. I am not just making this up; this is a thing trans supporters will actually say. “Well, she just has a female penis” is something people actually say.

If we start to pretend TWAW, we cannot get around these problems, because TWAW (and the growing popularity of “transwomen are female” inevitably results in complete meaningless in the concepts of man and woman and male and female. Those terms will eventually therefore be replaced with meaningful terms but until they are, you cannot resolve any of these issues in a way that makes a lick of sense.

Well, okay, let’s deal with this. What does that mean? What are you supporting?

If you say you’re supporting Alex Drummond’s right to wear skirts and makeup and do other things that have, historically, been stereotypically associated with women, well, so do I, and so does anyone who’s not an asshole. People should be free to do as they please as long as they don’t infringe upon others. But trans women aren’t actually women, and Alex Drummond has no right to make me pretend they are or to make women pretend they are. monstro hit this one on the head; allowing transwomen into female spaces is a allowance and a privilege, not a right. In many cases that’s quite cool, because, again, we should be kind and charitable and hard and fast rules often make no sense (who would, for instance, ever complain about a mother taking small boys into a public bathroom? What the hell else is she supposed to do? That’s a male in a female space, but no sane person complains about it) but that doesn’t mean we have to be delusional and lie to ourselves.

3375

I do see the problem. We have the choice of defining men and women based on biology (transphobic according to most progressives), based on conforming to gender roles (sexist), or solely on internal identity (taken to its logical extreme this implies there are no meaningful differences between men and women, in which case there’s no point having those categories at all - bad for feminism).

Even so, we need to find some sort of workable solution. I’ve been thinking about the difference between social conventions and laws. Historically, there hasn’t been a law saying men can’t enter the women’s toilets, but social conventions have done a pretty good job of keeping them out. So maybe it doesn’t matter if we change the law, so long as the social conventions don’t change and male-looking people will still be noticed entering and questioned if they start loitering in women’s spaces. That would rely on trans people not becoming too common and being willing to follow conventions, though. (Eg, if you need to wear a badge to tell people your pronouns, then you should be using the unisex bathroom.) I suspect most ordinary trans people do use common sense and try to avoid attracting attention, but the most vocal and visible activists seem to be trying to change social rules as much as they are the law.

3376

Once you go down the path of catering to a request that’s predicated on the basis of “denied humanity”, then it becomes very hard to tell the requester to STFU when they keep making that claim for other wishes. If we allow ourselves to believe that sign over a restroom makes or breaks someone’s humanity, then on what basis do we have to disagree with them when they say “Rejecting me as a romantic partner because I have a dick is denying me my humanity”? We don’t have any basis. We’re in for a penny, in for a pound at this point. But if we had spent some time thinking about what constitutes “denied humanity” from jump street and had not allowed a group with members prone to pathological insecurity dictate what this means, we wouldn’t have a problem with telling some trans folks “No, you’ve gone too far with this ‘woman dick’ business. You have no more political capital left. Please stop.”

I think a lot of progressives know that shit has gone too far, but they don’t know how to stop it without highlighting their own culpability. You can’t say “gender is a social construct” and also say that it’s hateful and wrong to reject someone for not conforming to your own gender-based notions in the context of romantic relationships. But if you say it’s okay to reject a person based on their genitals, aren’t you as guilty of denying trans folks of their humanity as the transpobes and TERFs you’ve spent the last five years vilifying? You can’t say gender is no big deal and then turn around and say that gender affirmation is a fundamental human right, without which suicide is inevitable. But if you say that the right to gender affirmation doesn’t exist in sexual relationships, then aren’t you turning gender into a bunch of nonsense? What is gender expression but a way to signal to others how you “do” sexual and romantic stuff. Seems to me the relationship arena would be where gender affirmation would be the MOST important. Not the bathroom and locker room stuff. But once you make it about bathroom and locker room stuff, you can’t step back from that without admitting you were wrong and the TERFs were right.

This is why I say trans folks are entitled to civil rights, but they aren’t entitled to literally everything they want. Giving them literally everything they want is harmful to them and the rest of us.

3377

I agree with this, but I think a lot of allies are listening more to vocal and visible activists than their friendly neighborhood ordinary trans folks. Notice that Boudicca90 said the same thing that I did: she’d be uncomfortable in the presence of masculine males in the locker room. The difference between us is that she’d feel comfortable asking them to explain themselves whereas I would not be. Probably because she doesn’t have to worry about being called a transphobic TERF like I do. I have a feeling if Boudicca90 had been the first in this thread to say she didn’t want to masculine males to be in the locker room, the allies in this thread wouldn’t have treated her like they did me. They would not have tried to convince her that lesbian ciswomen are more of a threat than masculine males. They would have not accused her of blocking transwomen’s access to public life. And they would not have told her that she should wait for the masculine males to harm her before saying or doing anything. So this is why the discourse feels anti-ciswomen to me. Allies wait for transwomen to say how women feel or should feel when really it should be ciswomen who should have this privilege.

The most vocal trans activists are saying that all transwomen are entitled to women’s spaces and so naturally the allies are echoing this. But I don’t think all transwomen believe this.

3378

The Advocate article underscores where TRAs want to wage the real battle. Bathroom access is low hanging fruit. But if you can use the bathroom debate to convince people that gender identity dictates one’s status as woman/female and man/male, then it only follows that people must change their
concept of sexual orientation. As JKR said from the beginning, same-sex attraction become meaningless if we subordinate sex to gender identity.

Can someone else tell if they spot the same issues in this passage that I have?

Conversely, straight men are often deathly afraid of being seen as gay because they are attracted to a transgender woman. And TERFs — trans-exclusionary radical feminists — have even conflated being set up on a blind date with a transgender person with rape and sexual assault. Though, it does call into question whether they understand what a blind date is, you don’t have to have sex on a first date, and that the owners of the coffee shop where you’re having it generally frown on that sort of thing. Conversely, some gay men are afraid that dating a transgender man would call into question their “gold-star” status.

My critiques:

-Notice that straight men and gay men are “afraid” (a sympathetic emotion) of how they will be perceived by others. Women, on the other hand, are guilty of stupidly and irrationally conflating blind dates with rape.

- Notice that women aren’t called women (and of course they wouldn’t be, right? Females can’t be called that anymore, but for some reason men can still be men.) Their sexual orientation is not even mentioned like it is for straight and gay men. They are simply dismissed as TERFs. So everyone from Tracy Chapman-style lesbians to red state “Karen” heterosexual soccer moms are being lumped together as radical feminists.

- Conclusion: Women who say no to transgender people are a despicable hate group. Men who say no just need to have their fears assuaged.

3379

This is where I fall. Keep single-sex policies as they are but allow enforcement discretion for males who do not stand out as intruders. I honestly don’t know how it can be any other way without running into problems in either direction.

3380

Cismen beat up and kill transwomen. Poor babies. Maybe if transwomen leave them alone and go hang out with the ciswomen, their egos will heal and they will see the light.

Ciswomen don’t want males to feel entitled to their spaces because feminism. HATEFUL TRANSPHOBIC TERFS! LET’S KILL THEM ALL AND SHOW THEM WHOSE BOSS!!

This is exactly what the discourse is like right now. I know people will say “B-b-b-but feminists!” But feminist allies are in a self-imposed pickle. They don’t want to get the same shit flung at them that they’ve been flinging at others. So they are gonna keep doubling-down and hope that when the tide finally turns, no one will remember how they were complicit in silencing their sisteren.

3381

Which is the status quo. Allowing males unrestricted access to women’s facilities is not status quo. it’s radical. It’s a newfangled thing that anyone with two brain cells knows will result in harm.

There’s no need to change anything wrt women’s facilities. Those transwomen who would benefit the most such facilities are already using them. Those who stick out like a sore thumb don’t need them for safety purposes. They can use the men’s facilities or use unisex facilities. Let’s stop telling people they are entitled to things they aren’t entitled to and keep it moving. We’ve got so many other pressing matters to deal with than affirming gender in a tiny percentage of the population.

3382

Yup. Sex classes exist because of sex. Sexual activity, sexual attraction, sexual reproduction…sex. If humans didn’t need sex to reproduce, the concept of women and men wouldn’t exist; we’d be a unisexed species. Likewise, we wouldn’t have corresponding gender categories.

So it is disingenuous to say TWAW…oh yeah, except in the one arena that gives true meaning to the concept of sex classes to begin with. Society can eliminate sex-segregation policies, make women’s sports co-ed, redefine woman into a pile of circular meaninglessness, but if sexual relationships continue to function according to the conventional dictates of sexual orientation, then TWAW is up there with “you can do anything if you just believe”. It’s gives hope and warm fuzzies, but it is not grounded in realism. Risk of disillusionment is dangerously high.

3383

Ever watched Oz? That’s basically what prison is: some inmates abusing others in prison.

3384

Because it’s about gender to many of the people who go through the process. They not only want the legal recognition, they also want the societal recognition, which is not about genes and is about gender.

The issue isn’t whether you (or Kimstu) have a different opinion. The issue is whether transwomen view them as separate things. And of course, you will find transwomen who do, and transwomen who don’t. Possibly this mirrors the trangender/transexual divide, I don’t know. But the transwomen I know call themselves transgender, yet nevertheless are insistent on legal sex status changes too. They view it as a package deal.

It’s situational - the referenced “erasure” was in a medical context where greater specificity actually mattered. In ordinary social situations, it doesn’t.

No, you’ve drawn them way sooner than that.