I think that the salient point is that despite whatever challenges Caitlyn Jenner must have had to overcome, and they are non-trivial at that, they did not include the specific challenges that face non-trans women their entire lives from childhood.
So yes, she can keep her medals.
Replying generally to @monstro @demontree @ywtf and @rickjay
I understand how you feel about the issue. Almost 4000 posts later, I know what your opinions are. I understand that you think you’re right. I understand that you are supremely confident in your rightness. I understand that you think you are so right that it’s beyond your comprehension how anyone could disagree with you. I understand that frustrates you.
I still think that you are projecting fear, although my patience with your fear has worn thin. I still think that you have what I see as an almost comical dystopian vision of a future where men in dresses steal all the honor and awards due to women, and physically attack them with impunity while the world watches with a shrug of its collective shoulders and says “There’s nothing I can do, she says she’s a woman.”
What I don’t understand is what you want to DO about it. If you had the ability to write laws and regulations to stop this oncoming train, what would they look like and, more importantly, how would they be enforced?
Do you want a law that segregates public restrooms by sex? How would you handle enforcement, considering that most people are in and out of public restrooms in under 2 minutes which is quicker than most law enforcement response.? Should private citizens have the right to detain someone they feel is breaking this law? When the cops get there, will they have the authority to check genitals? Should we hire monitors and grant them the authority to perform genital checks so masculine looking women are constantly detained and violated in the name of safety? Should we make a heavy investment in some sort of scanners, similar to those in airports , that people need to walk through in order to get to the bathroom?
Should there be a law forbidding penises in women’s locker rooms?
If you don’t want to “validate” trans people…do you want a law forbidding people from officially changing their sex? Do you want to reverse every legal sex change ever made? Should employment applications be cross-checked against birth records and legal penalties enacted for people who list themselves as their non-birth gender on applications? Should businesses, such as doctor’s offices, be legally forbidden from asking patients for their preferred pronouns?
Because in one sense, I’m not sure that our positions are that far apart… I believe that in most everyday situations we should treat people like a member of the gender they present as, even if it provides them validation that you think they don’t deserve.
I acknowledge that there are situations that are exceptional, like certain medical issues and competitive sports. But I do not see any need for any new legislation to define gender and restrict trans people. I think the laws we have regarding civil behavior, such as disorderly conduct, are sufficient. DO YOU?
But the bulk of this discussion seems to consist of you trying to sell your dystopian vision, and me ( and others) not buying it. And I’m failing to see the point because I’m not seeing a plan, in terms of a legal and regulatory path, that you want to see enacted.
That means one of two things
Your only plan is to talk and talk until your face is blue and you convince 100% of everyone that you are right, and then the world will mold itself to your specifications.
IMHO, that NEVER works.
You are actually in favor of enforceable legislation that might include things like genital checking but you are hemming and hawing over saying it out loud.
Edit - there were over 50 posts added to this thread between the time I wrote it and posted it. Some of my points been addressed in those posts but it’s still vague. I see a lot of talk about “validation” and “gatekeeping” and “enforcing women’s only spaces”, but I still have no idea what the substance of legislation proposed to address this would look like and how you would propose enforcing it.
What part of “keep single-sex spaces as they are but create gender neutral accommodations for persons that don’t want to be misgendered” is so hard to understand?
Truly we are not talking about rocket science. We are talking about preserving the things women rights activists fought long and hard for (like Title IX) while still addressing the needs of a minority. If this is too much to ask for, then the deal is off the table for me.
I understand that this is what you want. I don’t understand how you would accomplish this through laws and regulations in a legally enforceable manner.
Would you mandate that every establishment currently required to have public restrooms be required to have a gender neutral space? Is that even feasible? -adding plumbing do existing structures can be difficult. Would you then have a law keeping trans people out of the gender specific space? Would a masculine looking biological female have to use the neutral space to avoid legal scrutiny? How would you enforce that law?
Suppose it’s not. Why is the current conventional arrangement of having BM and BF washrooms not acceptable? How is that an inferior arrangement?
I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. Instead of asking me what laws and regulations I think will stop this oncoming train, you should be asking me how I think we should write laws and regulations so that there is no “oncoming train” to worry about.
I don’t want anything to change to existing laws and regulations unless we’re shoring up the protection of existing civil rights. I’m AGAINST expanding rights to include “gender affirmation”. So I don’t want to insert any language like that into existing or new legislation. I think that’s just asking for abuses. Like, I don’t think male prisoners are entitled to be housed with women just based on a claim of “womanness”, so I will not be in support of any law or regulation that grants this right. I don’t think male athletes are entitled to compete in female-only sports leagues, so I will not be in support of law or regulation that grants this right. And I don’t think the legal definition “female” should have anything to do with “identity”. It should rest on biological criteria (which doesn’t necessarily mean congenital criteria). So I will not be in support of any law or regulation that deviates from this.
I think most of the solutions that would help gender nonconformists of all stripes (not just trans folks) rest in institutional policy and the free market, rather than legislation. Like, why shouldn’t we have sports leagues that are mixed-sex, if biological sex really isn’t a thing? Why not have gyms that don’t do the whole sex segregated thing with their locker rooms? That way, trans folks don’t have to feel weird about being undressing in a spot where they feel unwanted. If gender neutral free market ideas take off, then it would signal that people really don’t care so much about sex segregation and maybe the old school robots are clutching their pearls all over nothing. There are so many ideas out there that don’t require 99% of the population to revamp their own understanding of their gender/sex classes. Devoting energies to these kind of solutions would go a long way to building consensus. Consensus-building is how TRAs should be playing this game. Not creating division.
Do you want a law that segregates public restrooms by sex?
What keeps restrooms segregated by sex right now? I don’t think it’s law, because otherwise the bathroom bills wouldn’t be so controversial. And I’m not in favor of bathroom bills. I’m in favor of status quo. Today it is acceptable in most places for women to scream when a man-looking person enters the women’s restroom. It is acceptable for them to register a complaint and it is acceptable for them to request assistance with removing males from those spaces. I want this practice to be preserved. I do not want it to ever be acceptable for a male to feel entitled to use a women’s space–to feel empowered to use that space and dare the occupants of that space to say something about it when everyone seems to be just itching to “cancel a Karen” using camera phone footage nowadays. I don’t think the law needs to be involved to prevent this. All that is required is for people not to go all in on TWAW and to not be afraid to tell some males “no, please get out of here”.
Should there be a law forbidding penises in women’s locker rooms?
The same as the restroom thing. This is the domain of social norms, not the law. Just like it is socially inappropriate for a naked woman to walk around in a locker room with a strap-on and banana up her ass in the women’s locker room, it should be socially inappropriate for a naked male to strut around with his wang hanging out in the women’s locker room. If a male does not conform to this social convention, it should be socially acceptable to ask them to leave. The police do not have to get involved with this unless they refuse.
If you don’t want to “validate” trans people…do you want a law forbidding people from officially changing their sex?
I’ve said repeatedly that I’m OK with legal sex changes. I’m not in support of legal sex changes just based on an identity claim. I wear non-feminine clothing all the time. I don’t wear make-up, don’t get my nails done, and I don’t swish when I walk. Have I met all the conditions I need to meet to get my legal designation to “male”? Or should I have to demonstrate that I’ve made some effort to change my biological femaleness to a reasonable approximation of biological maleness? I don’t think this is that crazy a demand. I hope that one day every American who wishes to have their genitalia modified will be able to get that done at no cost so that finances aren’t a hurdle for those who wish to be formally recognized as the sex they believe themselves to be.
But I do not see any need for any new legislation to define gender and restrict trans people.
Me neither. Which is why I’m not advancing any new laws or regulations. The only people looking to change status quo are the TRAs and their allies. Apparently they aren’t happy with trans rights being limited to discrimination-free housing, employment, and education. They are looking for rights that no one else has (the freedom to enter any space they want without being told to GTFO). I’m against any legislation that enshrines rights that don’t serve a greater good and that might impinge on the safety, security, and well-being of my group. From where I sit, folks looking to make changes to the status quo have to prove to me that they’ve thoughtfully considered my safety, security, and well-being with their proposal. If they can’t be bothered to do this, then I’m going to refuse to echo their slogans. I don’t think this is all that crazy. I think everyone should be skeptical when a political ideology is represented by slogans more than transparent plans.
You seem to be thinking we are the ones trying to change the laws and regulations. We are not. There is over a century worth of data to show single-sex policies are enforceable. We have very little data to back up the prudence of sweeping gender affirmative policies.
Every day a random man somewhere is getting kicked out of a woman’s restrooms for trespassing, and the vast majority gyms do not allow intact males to undress with women. In the US, the vast majority of women’s prisons are 100% female. All of this is precisely because our laws are what they’ve always been and they are enforced as they’ve always been. It is only TWAW progressives who think reality is something different.
It’s like you and other posters are living in a bubble where the average person thinks “female” and “woman” apply to people other the human equivalent to mares, hens, and lionesses. But they don’t. The majority of people in this country don’t think a male is entitled to be called a woman because of the pronouns in their bios or the feeling in their head. Only in 2020 would it be controversial to say only females have cervixes and get pregnant. Outside of social media, no one would blink an eye at this.
I was writing a reply, but turns out I pretty much agree with Monstro. The only thing I’d add is that census data, crime records, and surveys relevant to women’s rights and inclusion should be required to include sex at birth as well as self-defined gender, so the data can be disaggregated in different ways.
Right. I’m thrown off by this too. Isn’t an “oncoming train” supposed to be a dangerous and scary thing? Why is the “train” barreling towards us not a threat that should be stopped with everything we can throw at it? Let me close and barricade the fucking doors if that’s how it’s going to be.
Funny thing, I was looking at the old pit thread @MrDibble linked to earlier and found this exchange:
Back in the long ago days of 2013, neither thought to question whether the comment was transphobic.
So much bigotry in that post, I feel so scandalized.
I wasn’t asked. And I don’t think it would be transphobic to say it, even today, lo, these many years later.
Ignorant and transphobic are not synonyms.
What would be transphobic would be sticking with the point, say after a transman in the thread related that they were a man and had, in fact, had ovarian cancer.
But yay, nice gotcha, there. My, what a big hypocrite I must be 
Well, yes, saying that would make one a jerk and transphobic. However, I question whether that would even be said by anyone who didn’t set out to be a transphobic jerk. Hell, transphobic jerks hardly ever need an excuse. That’s the thing about them. Shouldn’t we instead be focused on making laws against jerks? (Rhetorical).
Transphobic jerks aside, I doubt that the trans-man in the example would be under any illusion about why he was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Certainly his medical team wouldn’t need an Idiot’s Guide to Gray’s Anatomy. So while I understand that such a response as you describe is theoretically possible, would it be likely IRL? I mean, what possible reason would a trans-man have to actually maintain a position that he is a man who is being treated for ovarian cancer? Wouldn’t it be more likely that he’d say he is TRANS-man undergoing treatment?
Eh, you’re allowed to change your opinions over time in any case.
Personally I’d interpret it to mean ‘woman’ in the biological, producing-large-gametes sense, since it’s a statement about something biological.
Nah. And the times she set should not be counted as new records for women, either. My view is that accomplishments pre-transition should be considered as belonging to the birth sex.
One thing that I’m starting to realize is that identified gender is in the process of losing meaning. A long time ago, it was much clearer that transwomen self identifying as a woman meant they conformed to established gender norms. They took steps to remove typical male characteristics such as body hair, adams apple, hair style, etc. They presented themselves in a very feminine way in appearance and behavior. But now that is not the case. Now transwomen are rocking glitter beards and highlighting other masculine characteristics. It seems we are in the middle of a transformation. I could see a future transwoman being 100% masculine in every way except for how she identifies.I personally think that’s fine–a transwoman can be a masculine or as feminine as she likes–but it’s going to mean that trying to determine trends or common sociological characteristics of transwomen may not really be meaningful. It also means the laws should take into account that a transwoman may look and act nothing like a sterotypical woman/female/geneticallyXX/biological female/etc. Saying that “transwomen can do xyz” may lose meaning as “transwoman” becomes more nebulous.
Still wondering how legally-mandated gender affirmation is supposed to work for genderqueer people. Kind of amazing those in favor of keeping single-sex spaces are the ones grilled about legal enforceability, but we still haven’t gotten an answer to how society is supposed to accommodate 50+ genders in the public sphere.
Does a gender fluid prisoner get to bounce between the male and female estate? Why not?
If a genderqueer person’s preferred pronouns is “it”, could an employer be sued for discrimination for refusing to hire this person? I imagine a lot business don’t want customers overhearing the floor managers calling staff “it”, but hey we’re talking about a human right violation, right?
If an employer doesn’t have gender neutral restrooms, then couldn’t that be another lawsuit? What room is a non-binary supposed to use if the men’s and women’s just feels wrong to them?
I see zero evidence that gender supporters have thought any of this through. Making gender identity a protected characteristic means having answers to these questions before laws change. Yes it’s easy to focus on male and female gender identities because they easily translate to what we are comfortable with. But focusing on what is relatable to the exclusion of the non-relatable means ignoring gaping holes in the hull of the ship. A policy that is not watertight will sink.
I suppose my question would be, what would the law even have to do here? If someone was born male and looks like a male and is physically a male, what’s the law involved in this for?
In the context of that conversation, where the contrast was with “race”-related diseases, it was perfectly in keeping. It’s clear that the biological definition of woman was what was being thought of by Trinopus. If anyone had raised an objection, I’m sure they would have amended their statement to make that clear. I know I would have. So no, I don’t think either of us were setting out to be transphobic jerks.
You’d be surprised? I know of one full-transitioned transwoman who didn’t know she could get prostrate cancer - even after she did, she was convinced it was some mistake as she’d had “all that” excised (that was the term used by the person telling me this anecdote). Took her doctor a little while to convince her, apparently. I blame the doctor who did the transition for not properly explaining that she’d still have to have the post-40 prostrate exams…
But I get your point - after the diagnosis, there would be no mysteries as to why. But that’s besides the point.
I said “had had”, and the reason would be to make a point about TMAM in a thread like that.