I think some folks use “female” in a colloquial way that still sometimes applies to trans women. Not in a clinical way, or in a formal way (except maybe when referring to older records that didn’t make this distinction possible), but just in some everyday conversation, in my experience. I doubt that’s likely to change.
But a few posts ago, didn’t you suggest that as long as transwomen don’t count as “male” when interpreting Title IX, then all is fine?
You’re talking about applying these terms to trans persons even in a legal sense. That’s the complete opposite of colloquial.
OK, it’s great that you doubt that’s going to change. But you do realize that this is what TRAs are pushing for, right? This is what JKR is responding to when she says “sex is real”. And the people shouting her down, whether they realize it or not, are defending the idea that “female” has the same squooshiness as “woman”. If JKR can be shouted down for saying something as uncontroversial as “sex is real”, then hell yes I’m going to be worried about what’s going to happen to the “female” designation if TRAs start influencing legislation to a significant degree.
I’m just not seeing the nuance to their position that you seem to be assuming is there.
Title IX was written before transgender was understood, much less accepted, by anyone beyond a small minority (thus my “older records” caveat in my previous post). I think the Obama/Biden guidance does a good job of clarifying how it should be applied to trans kids, and protecting both the rights of trans kids and fairness and safety for cis girls.
What should be the formal (clinical) term when we are referring to females in the traditional sense of the word?
So the answer is yes. You are perfectly content to see “female” and “male” redefined in a legal context to enable transwomen and transmen to be exempt from sex-segregation policies.
So it’s rather curious that you just brought up colloquial usage. As if that’s the extent of it and we don’t need to worry our silly little heads over anything more significant than this.
“Biologically female”, or “cis women”, or similar, depending on the context. In my understanding.
Sex exists. None of this has changed. A (biological) female pitted against a (biological) male is not a fair contest. Gender identity doesn’t change this reality because sex is real.
Sex is real.
Agree with all of this except that the third sentence is only usually true, not always true, in my understanding.
There’s much I don’t understand about this topic. Would referring to male born humans as ‘Y’ and female born humans as ‘X’ solve any of these issues? Or Y and X sports teams?
No.
There are people who are born with essentially complete female anatomy who have the Y chromosome. They present physically as women, no one would even suspect they have a Y but either the gene that activates male hormones, which turns a fetus into a male, is inactive, or the hormones exist and they aren’t received by the cells.
But these people are women. ETA: often they can’t reproduce, which is how it’s typically found out. But that comes as a major shock to everyone.
It is not fair when female access to equal opportunity is denied. This has been decided in court just a few ago, so “in my understanding” is kind of irrelevant.
Same with a layman asserting that Title IX was written during a time of an outdated views towards sex/gender, thus allowing us to reinterpet sex-specific language. The court just reviewed and decided, yup, “female” only means a member of specific sex class. It doesn’t mean males who see themselves as female.
I don’t see why that wouldn’t make sense. You could perfectly well say an individual with CAIS has male sex chromosomes and male hormones but female external genitalia and female secondary sex characteristics. And this person could have a male or female gender identity. What does a male gender identity even mean if not one that is normally found in biological males?
What are all the objections to people saying ‘only women have uteruses’ if not an attempt to enforce a single logically rigid meaning for the word ‘women’?
AIUI they usually discover their condition at puberty when menstruation fails to start. They don’t have complete internal female anatomy, but since that’s not visible it tends to be regarded as less important than the male sex organs.
If that’s so (and since the vast majority of people in the English-speaking world have no idea about this, the battle actually isn’t over) then please tell me what terms you want me to use for the concepts previously expressed by “man” and “woman” so we can proceed with discussing what to do with safe spaces, athletics, and the like. “Biologically female”? That seems pointlessly long, but okay. I’ll shorten those to BF and BM.
Sports (aside from co-ed recreational stuff and the like) should be divided into biologically male and biologically female. In most cases BF can participate in BM sports, but BM can never particulate in BF sports.
Services like Vancouver Rape Relief should be allowed to limit their employees and clients to BFs and not be castigated for it.
Changerooms should be split into BF and BM, though, again, the BM changeroom can be open to BFs in appropriate circumstances.
It should be commonly understood that sexual orientation is generally geared towards how potential sex partners are BF or BM, and people like Rachel McKinnon who say it’s immoral to be gay should be regarded as the rape apologists they are.
I’m not being mean, am I?
Actually, no. I have some policy disagreements (and I’m unsure about the facts re: McKinnon), but I’m absolutely fine with this language.
“All sexual orientations except pan are immoral” is, I believe, the exact quote, and supported by a lot of other quotes.
I’ll google because I don’t know who this person is.
EDIT: Okay, I’d heard of her, but by the name Veronica Ivy. I knew about the cycling stuff. I didn’t recall her older name.
So biological sex is still important as a differentiator but it makes more sense to drop the “trans” prefix from a small group of individuals and add the “cis” prefix to the much larger group.
So as a hetero-male, my gender identity has not changed, but as I go around identifying as a cis-male, would a (formerly identifying) transman continue to feel marginalized as merely a “man”? Or maybe, since ideally we’d both use “man” as a socially encompassing term, what’s wrong with him keeping the trans-man assignation? I mean, why the label games when not only is nobody fooled, arguably nothing meaningful is achieved.
Do you think she should perhaps have to return those Olympic medals she earned as Bruce since she was already Caitlyn underneath? Or can people have lives consisting of different phases but all part of one continuum?