I find it hard to accept my disagreement with @YWTF constitutes misogyny, for the same reason I would not accept the label of misandry because I disagree with a homophobe denying the manhood/maleness of a homosexual man.
Riemann
Anomalous data that break the old model: widespread observation that a significant minority of people in all cultures are trans.
People are identifying as trans, this is true. I don’t take the existence of these people as proof that self-declared gender identity is as valid a indicator for one’s sex as their body’s primary sex characteristics. That would be as asinine as concluding the existence of Rachel Dolezal is proof that people can have the brain of one race but body of another. And how about the fact that millions of people believe in Hindu gods? I hope you can understand why I wouldn’t infer from this that Hindu gods are actually real.
So now we need a refined model.
No we don’t. You don’t understand how science works, unfortunately.
I have suggested a hypothesis - which simply assumes that trans people are telling the truth about their state of mind, and which is scientifically perfectly plausible. So I’m not just pulling random ideas out of thin air - I’m seeking to explain something scientifically.
How can you type this and not see how wacky it is? You create a hypothesis that is based on an untestable assumption and then you call that a scientific explanation? That is the complete opposite of science.
And so far as I can discern, your competing hypothesis is what?
That people sometimes are very unhappy in their own skin and want to try on another. Its a condition as old as time.
If you’re a gender nonconforming person (e.g. a boy who plays with dolls and likes to play dress up) the world often is unkind to you. The message you will receive is that there is something wrong with you. You’re not a real man or a real woman. You may develop hatred towards the parts of your body that remind your of “wrongness”, and you may fantasize about belonging to another gender. Transitioning would the logical path to doing that.
This theory doesn’t require me to believe that trans people are truly their desired sex “on the inside”. It doesn’t require me to believe that trans people have the same brains as cis counterparts. I’m also not judging them as liars or frauds. I believe most are sincere in their claims of a gender identity.
The same way you’ve pushed back against her for the things she’s said that you find “bothersome?” And do you really want to argue that civil rights should be predicated on the oppressed group policing it’s own members?
Have I called her position transphobic?
There’s also a long history of people using biology to justify the oppression of queer folks. When people bring up, “Trans people aren’t real because biology,” it feels pretty similar to “Gay people aren’t real because biology.” So, yeah, my 'phobe radar has been pinging too, but I’ve been trying to give everyone on the other side the benefit of the doubt and not assume that they’re arguing out of bigotry. Apparently, I can’t expect the same consideration.
I have pushed back against her position by occasionally agreeing with her opponents (though they don’t always perceive me to be agreeing with them). I just haven’t screamed and hollered at her and accused her of hating anyone. I know she doesn’t. I don’t think her logic is backwards or regressive. I just don’t agree with some of it.
So are you claiming gender expression is completely independent of gender identity? That someone’s chromosomes can be male, their genitals male, their appearance, their secondary sexual characteristics, everything male, and their gender expression can be 100% masculine, and they can still be a woman? How does that not make the term ‘woman’ meaningless in practice? And meanwhile, we are left with no word for the group of people who have uteruses, bear children and sometimes have periods, a group who actually have things in common and that we frequently do want to talk about.
I’m not seeing the problem. Teenagers do all sorts of things trying to figure out their identity. If she kisses a boy to see if she likes kissing boys, or if she goes goth for awhile, or if she comes back from a week in France being a pretentious twit about art, or if she goes on a serious Janelle Monae jag, that’s part of adolescence.
If cultural gender fluidity leads to a significant number of teenagers changing their gender identity a few times, who’s hurt?
I find it hard to accept my disagreement with @YWTF constitutes misogyny, for the same reason I would not accept the label of misandry because I disagree with a homophobe denying the manhood/maleness of a homosexual man.
It’s not the fact that we’re disagreeing that prompted my response to you.
It’s the fact that you and other men feel it is your place to tell women they can no longer define the elements comprising their own group identity. You doing this reveals how little you think of women. That doesn’t even include the casual disregard I’m seeing in this discussion for women’s rights in general:
“So what if this causes them to get raped a little more? It’s just a little extra rape; not a big deal. And it doesn’t matter if women are victimized by men every day. They are irrational in their fears and have nothing to complain about”. This is the misogynistic vibe I’m getting from this thread.
Long post ahead. Read only if you care enough to know why this subject cuts me deep.
Feminists have fought for decades so that women could be seen as human beings that just so happened to be equipped with a certain kind of reproductive system. Feminists have preached that a woman doesn’t have to act a certain way, look a certain way, or think a certain way to be a valid woman. All she has to be is a person in a female body.
Trans activists are now declaring this wrong and transphobic. Please try to understand why this is problematic for women if you don’t already. When a girl finally reaches the point of understanding that there is no wrong or right way to be a woman, it is a very affirming thing. You are no longer a slave to the beauty standard. You can reject gender norms and do what you want without worrying about performing woman wrong. You no longer feel pressured to be meek and submissive to validate men’s sense of masculinity. You can just be yourself. You also acquire a respect for what your body can do. The female body comes with unique burdens but it can also do amazing things that male bodies cannot. You learn to be proud of that.
Trans activists are now saying that it’s wrong for women to be proud of the things that only their bodies can do. Apparently it’s transphobic to link pregnancy with womanhood now. Do you understand how maddening it is to see this being insisted upon by men, of all people? Men have never died due to labor complications. They’ve never been on bedrest for two months to ensure a baby isn’t born too early. Men have never been fired or passed over for promotion or rejected for a job because of a human being growing inside of their body. And yet men are now criticizing women for claiming pregnancy as an exclusively female experience.
In this very thread, I’ve been debating men who are insisting it’s wrong to associate a body’s reproductive system to a person’s sex class. This is just as maddening to me as saying it’s wrong for me to consider pregnancy a uniquely female experience. What exactly is motivating men to say this, knowing good and well they have never had to carry—and will never have to carry—the dangerous burden of pregnancy themselves? I can’t help but see this as glaringly arrogant. And yes, it is also a reminder of how easy it is to take women for granted. Women have the right to base their group identity around their shared biology and the experiences that flow from that commonality.
I know that I’ve been rather blunt myself in this thread and I may have said some things that have caused offense (but I have no idea what I’ve said that monstro finds so bothersome and perhaps I will never find out because she is being vague for some reason). But this isn’t just an piddling exercise in debate for me. I’m not lying when I say I’m scared right now because of the things I’m seeing. If women can’t even advocate for themselves without being attacked by progressives of all people, what do we do? I hate that I’m feeling like this right now.
I think if you’re genuinely open minded about this, you should make some effort to understand what this standard terminology means yourself, rather than twisting concepts that you’ve just come across to try to generate a “gotcha”. I’m tired of this. Go read Wikipedia, or any one of dozens of educational articles that are easy to find on gender terminology.
How about you don’t ‘correct’ my terminology when the words you give me might not match the concepts I was trying to express?
I’ve double checked the definitions, and so far as I can see my ‘gotcha’ is exactly what you believe. That a person’s internal sense of their gender - which may or may not be ‘persistent and insistent’ - should outweigh everything else about them. That is your philosophical position, isn’t it? That someone with NONE of the attributes generally considered by society as denoting womanhood, whether physical, mental, behavioural, or sex differentiation in the brain as seen on scans, with the sole exception of their gender identity, is just as much a woman as someone for whom all these attributes align, because the gender identity is the ONLY thing that matters. That two ‘women’ could literally have nothing in common except this identity, which we don’t understand, can’t measure and sometimes changes through life.
And I think - why should that one attribute be the only one that matters? Especially in situations where the sexes are (have been) divided based on, and because of, physical differences: sports, changing rooms, prisons; or awards and political positions for women, which are supposed to counteract discrimination based on biology, or based on societal perception of you as a woman - which again depends on external characteristics, not internal identity.
Why is this even a useful category to divide people by? If this is now the definition, then why continue to have different pronouns and separation based on sex? I can explain why it makes sense to have separate changing rooms for people with male and female bodies. Can you tell me why it makes sense to have separate changing rooms for people with male and female gender identities?
I’m arguing that it’s pretty misogynistic to insist on pregnancy, or the ability to become pregnant is somehow vital to be counted as a woman. Women’s value to men has, for millennia, been tied to what’s between their legs and their ability to produce heirs, rather than what’s in their brains. How is agreeing with that suddenly a feminist stance?
And it’s not just men disagreeing with you.
Since you think I’ve been too vague, I’ve quoted what I find bothersome.
I get the point you’re making, but I’ll push back on it. Many women find pride in their body’s ability to carry children. But that isn’t the unifying experience of womanhood or the female gender identity. Yes, I do think the “fuck biology” stance makes light of the influence of biology of the Woman Experience. But this experience contains many things. Not just pregnancy. Not just what happens to the uterus every month.
I don’t like the creep of “dewomanizing” language. But we can push back on this shit without pushing back on transgender folks. We don’t have to swallow all gender ideology rhetoric. But politically speaking, I do think we’re at the point where we should let some stuff slide. You may think “woman” is an adult human female possessing female parts from birth, but enough people out there disagree with you such that there’s no point to digging in your heels unless you just want to seem like a bigot. All we can do at this point is to curb the excesses that come from “all gender identities are valid and equal” and “anyone who says they are a woman (even if they change their mind two weeks from now) IS a woman” nonsense.
You’re arguing from a position that has already been settled in most progressive’s minds. So you aren’t going to be able to change anyone’s minds. All you can do is remind people why shit like “fuck biology” is hurtful to women.
I think the argument you made that convinced me that I might need to check myself was when you reminded us that in a discourse built around feelings (the feelings of transgender people), it sure seems like no one has a problem shitting on, dismissing, and belittling the feelings of others (the feelings of ciswomen). I think if we can remind people that there are feelings on both side of this issue that both deserve respect and consideration, we’ll have more success in changing minds. But beating the WOMEN HAVE FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE PARTS!! drum isn’t working.
Filbert
And trans people are assaulted, raped, murdered and discriminated against at a rate way, waaay higher than cis women.
I don’t want to make this thread go down the path of the oppression Olympics, but this needs a cite or two of support. Especially if your stance is premised on this idea.
Femicide is a global problem, and it’s actually getting worse in some regions (Mexico is seeing a spike). Women who become the victims of rape or incest are subject to honor killings and beatings. The alarming gender imbalance in China, India, and other countries is largely caused by female infanticide, and the women left behind in those places are extra vulnerable to rape and human trafficking.
Then there is stuff like female genital mutilation, a cultural practice that only exists to block female enjoyment of sex. Women and girls are still being exiled to menstrual nuts, and frequently dying in them. In places like Saudi Arabia, women can’t even publicly show their faces or compete in sports.
It is not my intent to minimize the violence that the transgender community faces. It is undeniable that they too are oppressed. But their struggle should not be pointed to as a way to discount the hazards that come with being a woman. The casualness of your assumption underscores how female-targeted violence has become normalized.
I’m arguing that it’s pretty misogynistic to insist on pregnancy, or the ability to become pregnant is somehow vital to be counted as a woman.
“Being capable of carrying a pregnancy is a requirement for being female” is not the same thing as saying “the only people who can become pregnant are female people and that is because they as a group posses a reproductive system that allows for this; males don’t”. I’m saying the latter.
Really, I’m going need you to consider how condescending it is that you think you need to tell me people can be women even if they aren’t able to get pregnant. No shit, Sherlock. One day I’m going to be one of those women when I enter menopause.
I get the point you’re making, but I’ll push back on it. Many women find pride in their body’s ability to carry children. But that isn’t the unifying experience of womanhood or the female gender identity. Yes, I do think the “fuck biology” stance makes light of the influence of biology of the Woman Experience. But this experience contains many things. Not just pregnancy. Not just what happens to the uterus every month.
What do you think women have in common, if it’s not their biology?
To me, it’s obvious that our shared biology and all the experiences that flow from that is the only thing that distinguishes adult human females from males. From periods, to pregnancy, to sexual objectification, to pressure to conform our bodies to rigid beauty standards that cater to the heterosexual male gaze, to our weaker physical bodies…all of these facets can be linked back to our unique biology and the social environment our bodies are placed in. It’s our reproductive system that makes for this unique biology. Just like it does for other animals.
I guess I could care less what “progressives” think goes into being a woman. If someone wants to call themselbes a woman because their concept of woman is “putting on a dress and wearing long hair” (which you call “doing woman”), I’m not going to get in their face and call them wrong. But what I’m not going to do is agree this definition is as valid as the only one that makes sense to me as a veterinarian and woman.
I think the turn the conversation has taken invites an good discussion on political identity versus self-identity.
The political identity of ciswomen differs from the political identity of transwomen. Not trying to speak for YWTF (though I have done this a lot, I know), but I believe that’s what her premise rests on. Melding the two groups dilutes their individual political interests.
For instance, let’s say we are interested in documenting the discrimination that women face in a particular field. Surveys are conducted to gage women’s perceptions. The results come back show that perceptions are all over the place. Some women report feeling discriminated against. Some women feel like everything’s hunky-dory. Some women feel like they have it harder than men to rise up in the organization. Some women feel like they haven’t had any problem getting promoted.
If you compare those results from a similar study conducted 15 years ago, the differences are striking. Fifteen years ago, most respondents perceived a anti-female bias in their workplace.
Do we conclude that gender discrimination is a thing of the past?
Or do we step back and wonder if our changing definition of “woman” might be confounding the results? Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing this since we didn’t ask survey respondents how long they’ve been living openly as women. Perhaps the folks who haven’t encountered challenges to being promoted just happen to be transgender folks, but we have no way of knowing this.
There’s a lot of variability among ciswomen too, though. We know that ciswomen come in all shapes and personalities… So even if we exclude trans folks from our subject pool, it’s possible that the results would still be mixed.
But it seems undeniable that adding transwomen to the mix will increase that variation and thus make it harder for us to speak about “women’s issues” in any meaningful way.
I think most people are assuming that transwomen will always be a small minority compared to ciswomen, thus making this a “no big deal” situation. But we need to admit that this is just an assumption. And like many assumptions, it might not always be true.
So I don’t think researchers should be worried about politics. When studying women, we really do need “cis” and “trans” categories so that we can study the groups separately when it makes sense to do so.
I think when gender critical folks hear “anyone who says they are a woman IS a woman”, they immediately think of the “male-washing” of women’s oppression. Throw enough biological males into the female box and suddenly women oppression disappears and men get off the hook for dealing with their shit. I don’t think this is going to happen, but I can understand why someone else would. I certainly don’t think it helps to tell someone who is afraid of this happening “TRANSWOMEN HAVE IT HARD TOO!!!” Yes, they do. But their blues aren’t always the blues that ciswomen have. There’s nothing wrong with talking about those blues separately.
Go back and read what I wrote. I said that biology is important to the women experience. But pregnancy itself isn’t the thing that unifies us.
You were a woman/female for 39 years before you carried a child. And you would also have been a woman/female if you’d never menstruated. Those things are super important, but those things aren’t the substance of femaleness. I know those are not your words, but that’s the message you’re putting out.
You asked me to tell you what I found bothersome. I didn’t want to, but you called me out. I’m really not looking for an argument with you.
monstro
Go back and read what I wrote. I said that biology is important to the women experience. But pregnancy itself isn’t the thing that unifies us.
I didn’t say it was the only thing that unifies us. It is among a cluster of things that do unify us, being that they are products of our unique biology. Our reproductive system is this biology.
I am sorry for being unclear about that.
Even if trans people remain a small minority, I’m worried about the effect on women’s rights. Because if anyone can be a woman, why do we have laws protecting women from discrimination? Why care if women are represented in politics? If the idea that gender is some airy-fairy thing that’s fun to experiment with and essentially meaningless becomes popular, if enough people share the ‘fuck biology’ sentiment, society will be back to assuming everyone is the same and has the same needs and concerns - men’s needs and concerns. And women will still be discriminated against and still suffer from harassment and sexual violence, but the people who were supposed to be defending us will be telling us not to talk about it because we should all be gender blind.
Two good responses to JKR’s post (both from ciswomen), IMO – the first is more polite and empathetic, and the second more fiery:
https://the-orbit.net/ashleyfmiller/2020/06/12/jk-rowlings-anti-trans-post-a-deep-dive/
Recently I came to realize that if my comfort with gender ideology and “TWAW” almost entirely hinged on there only being a small number of trans people entering women spaces, then it would be dishonest for me to say I really believe trans woman are actually women. I felt bad for a while as I wrestled with this realization, but it’s true and I won’t apologize for it.
If a trans woman was elected as President, I would not consider them the first woman POTUS. I would recognize this as a major milestone for the queer community, but I would not consider it one for women. It would be very disappointing to know that this “first” was not actually going to a member of the female sex class that has struggled so hard to attain power and representation in this country. Seeing this first given to a male—the group who has never not had power—would make feel demoralized. And if this person was like Caitlin Jenner who transitioned after years of living as a man, I would feel like I’m a living in a dystopic novel written by Vonnegut.
Now it would be one thing if I could be convinced this could never happen. But something like it just happened in NYC. A trans non-binary person is filling the Female District Leader position In Queens. What’s extra crazy is that they aren’t even a trans woman, but they’ve claimed a spot that was reserved for females anyway. So this tells me that yes, the whole POTUS thing could very well happen.
I expect that more and more people will soon be waking up to the fact that “TWAW” could mean the displacement and erasure of the class of people historically known as women. Whether they are fine with this displacement and erasure depends on whether they consider the needs and interest of this class worth protecting.