There are some things about Discord that I like and others that I absolutely despise.
Religion and sexuality.
If someone told me they identified as straight, but they were having one gay love affair after another, I think I’d suspect differently. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time someone was in denial about their sexuality. You aren’t the sexuality you claim to be. You are the sexuality that you were born as; it’s an innate drive. It’s usually hard to know what a person’s sexuality is except for what they tell you, but it’s not just what you identify as.
Some things are rather difficult to know aside from a person’s own “identification” but that doesn’t make them any less objectively true. When Donald Trump claims to be 6’3" and weigh 239 pounds we can all conclude to a fairly high degree of confidence that he is lying, because those things can’t both be true just looking at his appearance. When he says he’s Christian, that is much harder to know the truth of - but in that case I don’t personally buy it, based on other evidence.
No, they don’t work like that.
I can claim I’m a Jew all day long, but “Jew” has a well-established definition. I can call myself a Jew, but Jews aren’t obligated to accept my identity.
I can claim I’m a Catholic or a Jehovah’s Witness, and the same applies. Just professing that I have these identities does not mean others are big meanos if they decide not to indulge me. They can ask me questions to discern how authentic I am. They can decide I don’t meet the criteria for participating in certain rituals or joining the church. They can tell others that I’m trying to pass myself off as someone I’m not.
Sexuality is a little different, but not that much. If I were to say I’m an asexual in one breath, but talk about how many hawt guys I’ve slobbed down in the next, then I would need to be prepared for some questioning, or least raised eyebrows. And it wouldn’t be rude for people to question me. If someone says they are gay but then they admit they’ve only been sexually attracted to women, I’m sure you would question whether they are really gay. But according to gender ideology, a person could say they are a woman because they love dresses and frilly stuff, and no one is supposed to say anything about that. We aren’t supposed to question if that person is really a woman because that would be regressive and hurtful. (Which ignores the hurtfulness of having your gender equated to “dresses and frilly stuff”)
All social constructs are open up to questioning and critique. Nationality, race, sexuality, religion, socioeconomic class, political ideology–all of them have a “two-wayness” to them. You can claim a category for yourself and others are allowed to push back on that, if they care enough about it.
Only gender identity is being put up on a pedestal with a “do not touch” sign taped to it.
Sure. So I would only accept this as objective reality if thought there were grounds to believe that the way people identify corresponds to a real underlying biological phenomenon, a sexually dimorphic mental state, something other than fantasy or whimsy or pathology. The strongest evidence for this is the very existence of a significant minority of people who are trans, many of whom are persitent, consistent and instistent that their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth - despite horrific persecution and social pressure to conform to a cis identity. I don’t find it plausible that trans people would invite suffering by asserting an identity in this way unless it were real. And sexually dimorphic brain development is perfectly biologically plausible, since we all carry essentially the same set of genes.
And that’s also the way most models of gender identity work - you’re born with a gender, and it’s immutable. And it doesn’t always correspond to your biological sex. Setting aside the question as to whether there are “gender tourists” who will casually adopt an identity because its fashionable, there’s undeniably a population of people out there where this incongruence between biological sex and gender identity is very, very real.
Men are the main ones pressuring women to see trans women as just another woman. Not just in this thread, but elsewhere I’m seeing the same pattern. It is mostly men who are arguing with women, over and over again, telling them in so many words they are bigoted bitches for not singing the “trans women are women” song with everyone else.
It’s jarring to see this sex divide because it’s only women who are being forced to make real concessions in this era of trans inclusiveness. Trans men aren’t browbeating men to change “men’s health” into prostate-haver health or some other reductive nonsense. Trans men also aren’t a threat to men athletically, and are usually housed in women’s prisons, not men’s. Men aren’t at risk of being displaced from power by trans men because men dominate most spheres of influence. Trans men are non threats because they are members of the disadvantaged sex class, and they don’t want to start fights they know they will lose.
It’s the lack of male/man erasure that stands out the most at this point of our discussion, though. Count how many times “man” or “men” are mentioned on this webpage on prostates. There is no attempt to be inclusive to trans women. No attempt to dodge implying that trans men aren’t really men. Despite this, there is no campaign to cancel WebMD. No outpouring of grief and rage because WebMD chose to refer to men as just men. But Rowling must bend the knee to “menstruator” or else.
Maybe it’s just me and my crazy female “mental state”, but the fact that female-specific terms are the only ones being butchered and politicized and imbued with ideological bullshit proves we are very much drowning in patriarchy right now. Patriarchy is all about men controlling women to ensure men take a disproportionate share of power. Divorce the language that women use to define themselves from their biological reality and gaslight them into believing a woman is physically indistinguishable from males, and you end up disarming them through them confusion and fear. The confused and fearful group of people formerly known as women won’t be able to organize as a politically strong group, so the men (who will never not give up their name) get everything they want.
What’s most disappointing is that it is progressives doing this. If only Orwell could see us now.
This is objectively false, as has already been shown in numerous cites on the specific issue of Rowling’s views upthread. For a more general overview, see here:
This is untrue. Support for trans rights is, on average, around 10% higher among ciswomen than among cismen.
Cites supporting the fact that women are on average more supportive of trans rights than men are easy to find. Miller has already linked to one extensive survey upthread. Here is a research paper on that specific question:
That’s okay. I’m not impressed by absurd hypotheticals, so we’re on equal footing here. I’ll decline to discuss them further.
But she still said something really, really dumb, discounting all these various categories of women and others who menstruate, and that she didn’t intend for offense (aside from offending trans people) isn’t an excuse.
Is WebMD saying something really, really dumb by using the word men and not acknowledging all the various categories of others who also have prostates?
What about Healthline and their take on erectile dysfunction? It only mentions men. Don’t trans women deserve mentioning too? I’m sure they aren’t immune to ED, right?
Oh and look at this guidance entitled Top 5 Shave Tips for Men. But wait a minute! Don’t boys also shave? Why, I’m so offended that males under the age of 18 are being ignored. And not only are trans women once again erased, but so too are cis women with PCOS and other conditions. And all the bearded non-binaries! Maybe we should petition to have them rename this “Top 5 Shave Tips for People with Hairy Faces”. Because it is a total outrage that they focused only on men—who so happens to be segment of the population that shaves their face the most.
You can keep telling yourself you are justified in your condemnations of Rowling, but you aren’t. You, like many others, have merely jumped on a bandwagon.
It’s pretty pathetic that you’re still trying to rescue your absurd Biden hypothetical by making the obviously false inference that I don’t believe any isolated aspect of the hypothetical is ever real in any other real-life person.
It’s very possible all those sources could do better. What’s so odd is that JKR demanded that the article be less accurate - it was about people who menstruate, and that’s what they said. Maybe those other sources you mention ought to be more accurate and inclusive - that would certainly be a reasonable request, IMO. What’s not reasonable, IMO, is when an effort is made to be more accurate and inclusive, and the demand is made that they be, deliberately, less accurate, and less inclusive. JKR’s dumb tweet isn’t the end of the world, and neither is criticizing her for it.
Maybe my feelings on this are real and legitimate and not “bandwagon” or whatever. Maybe the same goes for all the cis women feminists whose lead I’m following on this. I can tell this is really upsetting you, but I’d just ask you to consider that maybe a decent person can genuinely come to a different conclusion than JKR on this - even one critical of the words she used.
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So yes, it’s entirely possible that some asshole men will try and use this for evil, and women shouldn’t be afraid of speaking out if they see that occur.
But we are afraid. We see the attacks that JKR got for even speaking of this as a possibility. You don’t think witnessing millions of people shouting TERF and transphobe at her doesn’t send a message to women sitting on the sidelines? The message they get is that any attempts to speak out, no matter how politely worded and calm, will get you treated the same way.
So I tell you what a lot of women are going to do if they see a suspicious male in a women’s restroom or locker room. They will be too scare to report him. They are just going to turn around and leave just like the woman who encountered this sword-carrying person did. They will hold their bladder until coast is clear. Or maybe they will just leave the store or whatever completely. They won’t make any trouble for themselves because they aren’t idiots. The word on the street Is that society will not going to listen to what a woman says when she says anything remotely terfy.
But not every woman or girl will be so terfy. Because they don’t want to see themselves as a transphobe, they will ignore their instincts and place themselves near the dangerous person in their space. You have a crime of opportunity that can happen now that could’ve been prevented if 1) the terfy women had taken their concerns to the authorities and 2) the non-terfy women hadn’t been browbeaten into a taking a naive posture with a threat.
But we you think it will play out differently. Okay, guess we will let you know how it will all work out for us.
You have no problem imagining how transwomen feel about urinating in men’s restrooms.
And yet you have no problem belittling the fears of ciswomen when it comes to men capitalizing on the “woman” label in the realm of politics. Why is that? Seems like sneaky, scheming, misogynistic unscrupulous men outnumber violent men by a whole bunch. If they are rare and insignificant, maybe the violent ones are too.
I think it is pathetic that it’s the year 2020 and women are still being told that our concerns aren’t as important as another groups’ concerns. I’m supposed to assume there are shitload of people who are grieving over the fact that “woman who menstruate” doesn’t include them. I’m supposed to believe that people are suffering under the oppressiveness of being described as “male” instead of “biological male”. But I can’t ask anyone to simply consider a scenario that illustrates the ridiculousness the gender identity model being passed off as fact, because THAT’S UNREALISTIC!!!
I can’t call nonbinary people who play with gender “extreme” or “wacky” because that would be offensive and disrespectful But the idea that a guy like Joe Biden could one day come out out as “woman”? That’s outrageous! I’m being extreme and wacky for even thinking that something like that would ever happen. And yet there’s nothing inherently extreme or wacky about that idea. There’s nothing stopping it from happening. For all we know, Joe really is a woman. I can’t seen his “mental state”, after all. And neither can you, Riemann.
You manage to come up with some rather dismissive adjectives when you’re describing my position and argumentation. If I were a transwoman talking about my fears and perceptions, I do not think you’d be treating me like that. If I were a transwoman and I told you I’m afraid that men will dress up in women’s clothing so they could act a fool and in the process discredit transwomen, I really doubt that you’d be so condescending, so dismissive. I think you would at least listen to that view respectfully and not try to mansplain it away.
There’s nothing pathetic about the hypothetical. You just refuse to acknowledge that there’s a weakness to this “anyone who says they are a women is a woman” business. You just don’t have the balls and/or ovaries to admit as much. As long as the go-to response is always "But that’s unrealistic! or “But that’s pathetic!!” whenever ciswomen express their concerns about where things are headed, ciswomen are going to keep having those concerns. It doesn’t matter if that response is coming from men, transwomen, or other ciswomen. But it especially won’t matter if it’s coming from a guy.
Of course it was about people who menstruate. Women and girls who menstruate.
You seem to think she was only taking issue with that one article. But it’s the current trend of using female body parts and biological functions as stand-ins for the word “women” that she was really highlighting and criticizing. Your very narrow interpretation of her comment just looks like a search for something to condemn her for, because all the male-focused media I just cited are just as guilty as anything she said.
All of this is already possible, and already was before as well. If bathrooms go as JKR prefers, predators can pretend to be trans men, or masculine appearing cis women. If bathrooms go at trans activists prefer, predators can pretend to be trans women, or (just as they always could) masculine appearing cis women.
The trans issue doesn’t change anything. That’s what I get from these various pro trans cis woman feminists I named earlier - that the real issue, as it always is, is predatory men. That’s where the focus is. Trans activism is about protecting trans people from these predators, but no evidence that I’ve seen has been presented that it increases the risk to cis women. Predatory men have a path either way, and that’s where the focus should be IMO.
And the other categories of people who menstruate. The article was also about them.
There are a handful of things in her writing that I’ve criticized - that tweet was just the first. I listed them earlier. I think, especially, her usage of the word “contagion” may reflect some unconscious negative feelings she has about trans people. Hopefully someone has brought this to her attention and she’ll seriously consider it.
By the way, thank you, YWTF, for bringing up all those sources referring to men’s medical issues. I hadn’t thought of those (though they’re not surprising to see) but they do represent some of the broader ways society could still be improved to be more inclusive and accepting of trans people, IMO.