Quite off topic from the current discussion, but I thought people might be interested in this:
The data isn’t great and it only covers certain types of crime, but the conclusion is that trans people are murdered at a similar rate to other people in the UK, however they are more likely to experience other crimes like domestic abuse.
“Switch genders” and “changing sex” are not standard terminology, and I don’t know what you mean by this. I’ve asked you repeatedly not to use “sex” and “gender” unqualified, and to use standard terminology to make clear exactly what aspects of those things you are referring to. If you insist on not doing so, please don’t complain that subsequent misunderstandings are “gaslighting”.
“Sex assigned at birth” derives from physical sexual characteristics, sometimes colloquially and loosely referred to as “biological sex”. Obviously so, because babies aren’t at a stage of development where anything is discernable about their mental state.
My understanding of the current state of research is that for most people, gender identity, the internal sense of “who you are as a person” with respect to gender, is firmly established by around age 3. Remembering that “firmly established” is not synonymous with binary or non-fluid, fluidity is a possible aspect of a firmly-established identity. So gender identity is usually not something voluntary or variable past early childhood, and generally “switching gender” is not something that happens.
For someone whose gender identity is not congruent with their sex assigned at birth, they may (to any degree) transition, which means changing any aspect of their body and/or behavioral presentation to align more comfortably with their internal sense of self. If you like, transition involves a change in anything other than gender identity.
Again, I don’t know exactly what you mean here.
To me, the term “woman” denotes an identity, it maps to gender identity, a mental state. You “are” a woman if you have the gender identity of a woman.
The adjective “female” could apply to pretty much any aspect of sex/gender - female sex organs, typically female chromosome configuration, female gender identity, a typically female aspect of gender presentation in a given culture.
Intuitively to me, there’s a distinction between saying “female chromosome configuration”, which I think is fine, it’s just synonymous with “XX”, and indicates the typical state without exclusion of atypical states; whereas saying a woman’s chromosome configuration seems pejorative, because there’s an implication that a person who is not XX is in some sense not a real woman. But that’s just my opinion, an it may be that different usage in technical scientific contexts is appropriate, where in other contexts it’s not.
I’m friends with a lot of women who are furious–but furious at Rowling, not alongside her. The idea that older feminists are angry at trans activists, and younger feminists are angry on behalf of trans activists, suggests to me that maybe the older generation sometimes has trouble adjusting their understanding of the world to match what’s going on currently.
This is true in virtually every other area of society. It’d be surprising if it weren’t true in this area, too.
[Missed edit window:] I can see that describing a specific trans man’s XX chromosome configuration as “female” could be problematic, just saying “XX” explicitly would be better. Whereas loosely referring to the “female” chromosome configuration in a technical genetics context probably would not be, since all biologists know that the only universal rule in biology is that no rule is universal, so the word “typically” is always implicit in virtually any statement.
My understanding is that at least two thirds of kids who identify as transgender grow up to identify with their birth sex as adults (and many of them will be homosexual).
Nope, I’m sorry but “one way is as good as another” doesn’t cut it. It’s pretty straightforward - either you include trans men as “men” or you don’t. If it’s not a typo and you’re really saying that when someone asks for your phone number, you would use “men” to include “cismen, transwomen, and some non-binary people” that’s an unambiguously transphobic position.
What “standard” are you speaking about and what gives you the authority to lecture me on this “standard?”
Switch gender = identify as a different gender than the one you have been assigned at some previous time, such as at your birth but not necessarily.
I’m asking if there is a “female” identity separate from the “woman” identity. If someone identifies as a woman, are they always identifying as a female?
If woman and female are one in the same, then I believe that JK Rowling is justified in feeling like people are handwaving away the very realness of sex. Sex ain’t just about chromosomes or organs or hormones or mental states. It’s ALL of those things. Simply saying the words “I AM A WOMAN” doesn’t magically transform that constellation of things into the female category. And people really shouldn’t have to say “biological” in front of “female reproductive system” or “female health center”. If “Woman’s medical center” is now a landmine, please don’t let “Female medical center” be as well.
Google “gender identity” and read any one of the dozens of pieces describing the standard modern view of gender, and the standard modern terminology. A lot of aspects of terminology are evolving, and no doubt I’m ignorant of some of them myself, since I come at this more as a biologist than a psychologist or someone intimately involved with the community. But you don’t seem to even know the most basic terminology.
You don’t have to agree with it, but for someone expressing such strong opinions it seems odd that you choose to remain ignorant of mainstream thinking. At least make the effort to first understand the model of gender that you’re attempting barely coherently to disagree with.
I guess I have a question here.
“Women’s Health Clinic” seems to describe pretty precisely, given the context, what it is and what kinds of services are provided. A trans man might want to avail themselves of some of those services, or someone genderqueer but assigned female at birth. But I think most any clinic of this sort would be happy to serve all people who needed their services.
But what if someone gets angry at the clinic for its current name?
I mean, the context here means that this is not, at all, an issue of miscommunication. It’s just a preference against using the obvious, short, unambiguous descriptor that is currently being used and in favor of something longer and more unwieldy, which might plausibly cause confusion in the way the current name simply would not. I don’t personally see right now why there should be a problem with “Women’s Health Clinic”. But is there one?
ETA I did not see that previous post with a similar question
What’s the basis of this understanding?
The drum we seem to be beating now is about what to call people.
I’m not sure what is hard to grasp about this particular part. I only speak for myself, but it really seems that the general consensus on my side of the argument is… Of course?
Speaking for myself, I would never use the term “people with vaginas” as a term to describe women. But I suppose, if I had to address something that was specific to vaginas, then I might need to use “people with vaginas” to include transmen with vaginas.
The major takeaway, though, is that I and (as near as I can tell) most people on this side are comfortable calling people what they want to be called. You want to be called a woman? No skin off my back. You don’t like the cis- prefix? Again, no problem. It isn’t something I use in normal, everyday speech, only in discussions where it needs to be used for emphasis.
That’s up to the clinic in question, I suppose, but dipshits look for reasons to get offended over stupid things. Film at 11. See: JK Rowling’s stupid “seeking to be offended” tweet that started this whole thread.
All the studies that have ever been done on the subject:
I don’t know the answer to this, but all I can say is that if there’s widespread acceptance that gender identity is what defines you as a “real” man or woman as a person, then dealing with the fact that our traditional vocabulary is imperfect to deal with all aspects of the complexity of gender is something we’ll eventually work out in good faith, no doubt with many mistakes along the way.
But I’m not seeing any acceptance of that on one side of this discussion. I’m seeing pretty explicit fundamental rejection of gender identity, a rejection of the idea that a trans woman is a real woman and a trans man is a real man. If this most basic concept is rejected, talking about the details of vocabulary seems beside the point.
Is that the only thing you can think of to explain why older feminist would have problem with the current gender ideology?
I mean, I don’t think second-wave feminists are just butthurt because they are old fogies who don’t want to get hip with the times. I think a lot of them have no problem with transgender folks. They have a problem with gender fluidity, nonbinary 58 gender categories, and this notion that gender isn’t a big deal unless you make it one. They have 20-old male-looking people lecturing them on womanhood on social media (where everyone can claim to be an expert on anything), when 50 years ago, similar male-looking people were telling them that a woman’s place was in the home and 40 years ago, those people were able to advance far in their careers and become their boss while they were never seen as qualified enough, despite having all the credentials. People in our generation don’t have a memory of being victimized like this. We don’t know how it feels to have our boss tell us that women aren’t good at X, because if our bosses said anything like this, we’d take his ass to HR in a NY minute. Our mothers and grandmothers do have this memory. So why wouldn’t it be jarring to have men and people who look like men telling us to share our identity with individuals who we perceive to be men.
I know it is tempting to liken these women to the racists of the 1960s who didn’t want to give up white power. But I think that’s unfair. White racists of the 1960s had always had power. They didn’t know what it felt like to be at the bottom rung of society. They didn’t want to give up their power because they just didn’t want to share with anyone else. In contrasts, the feminists who are frustrated by today’s gender ideology are afraid that the little power they’ve managed to secure will be snatched away from them. What worse, they won’t be able to talk about this injustice because words suddenly don’t mean anything anymore.
The two of us may not be having this fear, but I don’t think all of the fear is coming from a place of bigotry, stubborness, hatred, or general old-fogeyness. I think some of it is justified.
First, thanks for the link. Second, it doesn’t back up your understanding that “at least two thirds of kids who identify as transgender grow up to identify with their birth sex as adults.” One study gives a conservative estimate that 54% of kids who identified as transgender as children identify as cis as adults.
Here’s a more comprehensive link to the research. Now, I’m not going to go to the archives to dig up " The “sissy boy syndrome” and the development of homosexuality from 1987 to see if I think their research was rigorous and unbiased. Be my guest if you’d like to do so. I will point out that the incredible pressure on boys not to act “effiminate” is both a reason that a lot of such boys would learn to act “masculine,” and a reason why there’s such a high suicide rate among trans youth. Looking at this study, in which 1 out of 44 subjects was trans as an adult, may not be super helpful in figuring out how many trans children will become trans adults absent overwhelming social pressure to conform.
Finally, sure: there are definitely some number of kids who are gender-fluid, who transition one way and then back again. There are definitely some teens who have homosexual experiences before deciding they’re straight. It’s only a problem if we make it a problem.
I’m rejecting the notion that gender identity is a biological category. If I go to a “Woman’s Health Clinic”, I’m not going there because of my mental state or my brain. I’m going there because my girly parts need servicing. My ovaries, my uterus, my vagina, my breasts, my hormones.
“Female Health Center” works too. I ain’t got no problem with that. But I do have a problem with “Biological Female Health Center” because it assumes there’s some other “female” health center.
The teeny tiny number of people who want me to use “biological female” when I’m talking about women who are like me shouldn’t be setting the standard. The standard should be dictated by what terms have the most currency with the minimal harmful impact. I can see “female” eventually having that currency. I cannot see “biological female” ever having that outside of very clinical contexts.
I’m fine with giving “female” to a transgender woman who takes hormones and leaves everything else alone. But transwoman with none of the biological indicia of a female except for perhaps a nebulous mental state? We might as well get rid of "male’ and “female” all together if we can’t describe such an individual as possessing a “male body”.
Shit, man. This was really dismaying, for a minute, until I realize that Posie Parker is not the same person as Parker Posey.
If you look at women’s rights and transgender rights in all the various societies around the world, do you think they are positively or negatively correlated? Is being treated with dignity and respect as a woman positively or negatively correlated with being treated with dignity and respect a transgender person? What evidence is there that increasing tolerance of trans rights implies a retrograde step for women’s rights?
Very well. The research shows at least half of kids who identify as transgender grow up to identify with their birth sex as adults. It’s still a whole lot closer to my position that to ‘gender identity is fixed by the age of 3’. And sure, some of the studies are old and flawed, but they all show more than half of kids desisting by adulthood. What does that say about the immutability of gender identity?