I would argue this is not the correct framework to understand all this. No one is being asked to revamp one’s entire concept of gender. They are being asked to take the gender critical hypothesis from the 1970s or so and update it with new information. The old hypothesis–that gender is entirely created by society and has nothing to do with biology at all–cannot hold with the existence of trans people. Hell, it was already on shaky ground when people actually tried to not raise their child with any gender expectations, but they wound up happening anyways.
If someone chose to accept an untested hypothesis as being true and build a philosophy around it, that’s not my fault that it turns out to be wrong. You’re supposed to be able to update or discard hypotheses. But that’s not what modern gender critical feminists do. They try to discard the evidence. They come up with a hypothesis of why trans people aren’t real.
Modern feminism has not discarded trans people, and modern gender studies no longer hold the old gender critical hypotheses. The new framework accepts that there is some aspect of gender that is not learned. Granted, we don’t know exactly how it all works, which is why we have a lot of hypotheses (including mine that gender identity is SEPARATE from gender roles). But the one we can safely discard is the one that gender is entirely socially created.
And if you wonder why I may be saying something different than you’ve heard before–it’s because I find that one of the biggest problems in convincing people is the conception that this is all just philosophical. While there is a philosophical component, I think it’s more convincing to focus on the more concrete aspects–especially since so many people who have trouble with the trans concept prefer more concrete thinking.
That is what I would argue. You might run into the occasional person who seems to present male but identify as female. But there will be so few of them that, even if they were faking, they can’t really be a threat–at least, no more a threat than any other woman could be. (The predator angle is the dumbest, as why couldn’t there be a cisgender lesbian predator?)
And as for the semi-famous trans people we talked about last time, there just is no reason to care whether they’re faking or not, when you can judge them by what they say–what their positions are. I can point out that most trans people disagree with them, without having to also accuse them of faking being trans. Because, what if they aren’t faking? I don’t want to misgender them.
I tend to use “male” and “man” interchangeably, because to me “man” just means “adult male”. And I think that’s how most people define “man”.
But “man” has another definition that is separate from biological sex. A person can identify as “man” while biologically female. And a biological male can identify as “woman” without having anything “womanish” about her appearance, anatomy, or behavior.
I have a very hard time referring to a “man” or “woman” without also evoking (at least mentally) biological or socialization criteria while still having confidence that I’m communicating effectively. If I describe a criminal suspect as a “5’ 4” woman", it seems to me that everyone will understand that I’m talking about a female-presenting individual, as supposed to someone who has told me they identify as “woman”. Maybe “adult female-presenting individual” is more precise language, but I don’t understand how it’s an improvement over “woman”, a term that just about everyone has an agreed-upon framework. The people who don’t share this framework represent a very small proportion of the population.
I think there’s concern (and I’m very open to the possibility it is an overreaction) that there we will be language-policed into divorcing “woman” from “female” in every day speech. That is to say, if I describe a criminal suspect as a “woman” just because she looks like an adult female to me, someone with a bullhorn is going to leap out of the woodwork and yell at me for using a gender box when I can’t possibly know what that person’s gender is and doing so is disrespectful of individuals who inhabit female bodies but identify as men. I think a lot of people (yes, including me) are worried that our current widespread usage of “man” and “woman” is one day going to be seen as offensive, the same way people are offended by the unnecessary use of race labels when describing people. I am exhausted by gender and yet I don’t have any problems with sorting people into “man” and “woman” boxes. This is socially engrained behavior. Is it a sign that I am not “down” enough, that I have this programming and don’t feel especially motivated to change it? Or do I just not see the big deal in sorting people into groups as long as everyone is treated fairly and adjustments are made at the scale of an individual?
The policing of language and terminology is something that happens with the revamping of language and terminology. I don’t think policing is necessarily bad, but there is a cost to it. Maybe I do spend too much time listening to the opinions of extremists, since those people make me want to say “FUCKIT!” to the entire discourse. That’s why I’m wondering if Rowling is reacting to reasonable ideas presented by reasonable people or extreme ideas presented by extremists.
This article about two women who transitioned to male and then back to female again was on the BBC a few months ago.
Detransitioners are probably pretty rare right now - though no one is tracking them. But the number of children being referred to gender clinics has vastly increased - from 77 to 2,590 in a decade. It suggests many children and young people with other conditions are being misdiagnosed and rushed into making irreversible physical changes. In the UK you have to be over 18 for surgery, but even taking testosterone leads to permanently lowed voice and male facial and body hair. Other countries allow minors to get SRS. Also, the increase has mostly been in girls, and especially girls with autism. It’s not an epidemic of teenage boys wanting to chop off their penises, it’s an epidemic of teen girls who feel unhappy with their changing bodies and the role assigned to them by society, wanting to chop off their breasts and become men. Rowling isn’t the only woman who I have seen say she’s afraid she would have been diagnosed transgender if she was a teenager now.
If it was just an epidemic of teenagers wanting to experiment with pronouns and dressing differently, then I wouldn’t have such a problem with it. People shouldn’t feel bound by traditional gender roles. But the current paradigm actually reinforces them. It tells young people like Ahunter3 that they’d be happier if they transitioned. Instead of saying that it’s okay for anyone to have stereotypically masculine or stereotypically feminine interests or a combination, it says if you don’t fit the stereotype you’re ‘really’ the opposite sex, or non-binary. And the treatment is to change your body with hormones and surgery, something the activists have been pushing to make easier to access, and at a younger age.
Maybe I care more because I recently had a baby - a daughter - and what Rowling said about thinking things would be better for her daughters, and being horrified at how misogynistic society has become really resonated with me.
It’s not describing women, it’s describing people who menstruate. There’s a difference, which is kinda the whole point.
No-one’s talking about changing, say sports categories to ‘Men’ and ‘Menstruators’, it’s for situations where it’s relevant. The first situation where it could be used that sprang to my mind was jail; if the rules say menstrual products must be available for all women in jail, well, then 70 year old Doris can have them though she’s not needed any for 20 years, but the 22 year old trans man just gets left to sit in a pool of his own blood. Sure, they could try and reword the rules to include trans men who need menstrual products, but, as people don’t fit neatly into boxes there’s always a risk someone will be left out. Menstrual products must be made available to people who menstruate (or all menstruators). No loopholes, no demanding people define themselves into a category that matches the wording; you need 'em, you get 'em.
Who are you to tell me what my priorities should be? Changing the law affects everyone. If that change might harm me, and people like me, I want to be able to see evidence for and against, not have it dismissed out of hand the way people have been here:
I’d like women to be able to talk about possible negative consequences publicly without being labelled transphobes and shouted down and told to shut up.
If we’re discussing what to do with transgender people in prisons, we should be taking both attacks on and attacks by transgender prisoners into account. Because putting a transwoman in a men’s jail is a pretty terrible idea, but so is allowing any man who says he’s a woman to live in a female jail. Ideally everyone would be safe in jail regardless of sex and gender, but we all know that isn’t going to happen. So why should women be expected to bear all the risk? - when it’s men who commit the crimes. A separate prison or unit for transgender prisoners would keep everyone safe.
And something else I noted from those articles: the figures only include prisoners who haven’t legally changed their gender. It’s impossible to get stats on attacks by transwomen and transmen who have a GRC, because they’re counted as their new gender. So we have no way to find out now if there is a significant risk or not, and if it is made easier to legally change gender, we won’t be able to find out whether crimes have increased as a result.
I do have sympathy with this view. I’m a gay woman myself, who was a terrific tomboy in her youth, and I do feel uncomfortable with the idea that the trans movement may, inadvertently, impact kids like myself who didn’t feel ‘typically feminine’. There does run the distinct danger that the idea of ‘womanhood’ gets increasingly tied with ‘femininity’, when in fact there are many ways of being a woman.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t support trans people and trans rights. I most certainly do, and there’s is no doubt that it’s real. We just need to make sure our kids realise there are many ways to live, and to be a man or woman, and that if you don’t feel you fit neatly into a stereotypical gender, it doesn’t automatically mean the other gender is for you. I can already see in a number of my friends how they are struggling with this increased emphasis on femininity/masculinity, and prefer to adopt a non-gendered role. I understand it, but there are times when it makes me cross that society is making them feel ‘other’ because they don’t fit neatly into a box.
Sorry if that was a ramble. It’s a complex issue, and one I mentally grapple with. But I’m not stopping anybody using the girls’ loo (not least because I have lesbian friends who have been abused by other women in womens’ toilets because they don’t look enough like a woman, even though that’s exactly what they are).
Yes, DemonTree, if the change might harm you, then you have a right to object. But first you have to explain just what the harm is. “It’s annoying to have to think about other people” doesn’t qualify as a harm.
…your priorities **are **out-of-whack. 124 sexual assault cases should be alarming for you. That it isn’t says everything we need to know.
How will which particular law change affect you personally? How will it affect “everyone?”
I’ve bolded the key word here. “If.” There was nothing in the post that I addressed that had anything to do with a law change. And I didn’t dismiss anything out of hand: I researched your claim and provided citations that showed your cite was (probably) playing games with the truth.
You made a specific claim: “There have been several cases in the UK of transwomen moved into women’s prisons who went on the sexually assault other inmates.” The cite you provided (that I addressed) didn’t back up that claim. So before you start the gish-gallop routine how about we address this claim of yours first. How many cases are we actually talking about here?
124 sexual assault cases is alarming (and the tip of the iceberg of problems in British prisons). It also doesn’t answer the question of whether transgender rights could adversely impact women.
RE a law change, the UK government was considering changing the law to allow anyone to change their legal gender simply by filling in a form, without needing a diagnosis from a doctor, or to live as the opposite sex, or any other requirement. This would allow any man to legally access services supposed to be reserved for women, not just public toilets but also changing rooms, women’s shelters and prisons. It now looks like they have changed their mind, thanks to protests from women concerned about losing these services.
Because the stats also include attacks by transmen? Unfortunately they don’t have a broken down version. There was one case mentioned in the story, and there is another here (also paywalled, unfortunately), so that’s at least two. Oh, and the BBC also says 60 out of 125 transgender inmates were convicted of one or more sex crimes. But hey, no need to worry!
…if someone expresses transphobic views then there is nothing wrong with labelling them a transphobe. And JKR has an ENORMOUS platform. She has 14.5 million followers on twitter. She isn’t in any danger of getting “shouted down”.
What was bad was putting a convicted paedophile on remand for grievous bodily harm, burglary, multiple rapes and other sexual offences against women into a situation where they would be able to keep on committing those crimes, which was what happened with Karen White.
Transwomen are women: a women’s prison is simply the appropriate venue. As for “bearing the risk”: from the stats you cited the real risk isn’t transwomen in custody but male prison guards. 124 sexual assault cases should be alarming to you. Shouldn’t you be advocating for getting rid of male prison guards?
Is that what the articles actually said? Because that isn’t what the article I cited said. Can you quote the bit that says that? Your original cite was paywalled.
Cite?
So you don’t actually know if its a significant risk or not?
Your cites show that male prison guards are a significant risk. What do you want to do with that? My cite shows that Eleven transgender prisoners were sexually assaulted in jails in England and Wales last year, as opposed to a single case where a transgender person is **suspected **of carrying out a sex attack. So why should transgender prisoners “bear the risk?”
If the problem is attacks by transwomen, then yes, you’d probably decrease those specific attacks by putting people in the prison corresponding to their birth-assigned sex. On the other hand, if the attacks are by transmen, then you’d decrease those specific attacks by putting people in the prison corresponding to their identified gender. In order to draw any conclusion at all from those statistics, it’s necessary to know which we’re dealing with.
DemonTree, I’ll try to help you with this since I am sorta-kinda sympathetic to the Rowling argument.
A couple of years ago, one of my sisters caught flak from her one of her sister-in-laws, who I guess you can say is a part of “cancel” culture. My sister wanted to have a “girls day” at the spa. She chose a spa that was explicitly “ciswomen only”. I didn’t know those kinds of places exist, but apparently they do. Her SIL found this horrible and didn’t speak to her for a while.
I talked to my sis about it and her rationale was that she didn’t want to bring our mother into an environment where she’d be uncomfortable. She pictured someone with a big dong walking around naked in the changing room. “I don’t have a problem with that,” my sister said. “But I’m think Mommy would.”
I told her that I don’t think that’s true. Our mother is actually really progressive on gay/trans rights. I mean, of course my mother might feel weirded-out having to look at a woman’s penis, but who in the hell would be forcing her to look at it? When I’m in the changing room, I don’t “look at” all the boobies and coochies around me. I see them in my periphery, but I’m not looking at them. I would expect to be kicked out if I was caught looking at them.
I also explained to her that people feel uncomfortable for all kinds of stupid reasons. Like, prior to racial integration, white folks expressed discomfort about having to be around black bodies in restrooms and dressing rooms and the like. Should we give their discomfort any consideration? No, of course not. The same goes when people express discomfort about being around fat bodies or disfigured bodies. Sometimes you just have to recognize that the discomfort is a “you” problem and just get over it.
Now I do think folks on both sides of the discussion will always need to be understanding and compassionate of where the other side is coming from. Like, even though I sat my sister down for what she did, I’m not ready to chastise the ciswoman who only wants to share a dorm room with another ciswoman. I’m not ready to chastise the ciswoman or transwoman who has undergone gender reassignment surgery for preferring a medical practitioner who has her kind of parts. I’m not ready to chastise the person who has lived the “woman” experience for 30 years from intentionally seeking out a psychotherapist who has the same level of experience. Why? Because I don’t think gender, as annoying as I find it, is just a meaningless label that is “no big deal”. If someone tells me they are a woman, they are communicating to me we have some things in common that go beyond simply claiming the “woman” identity. I am ready to let some gender notions go, but I’m probably always going to cling to that one.
J K Rowling isn’t at much risk of getting shouted down. Other people are.
If women’s prison is always the appropriate venue for transwomen, what do you propose should have been done with Karen White? (And she has been convicted, by the way.) I don’t think transgender prisoners should bear the risk by being kept in men’s prisons, I think they should be housed separately. As for male prison guards, I was asked for examples of how transgender rights could harm women. The fact other things also harm women is not relevant to that question.
Cite that prisoners with a GRC are not included in the stats - from the article you linked
I also found a case from Argentina that shows the problem with ill considered changes in the law. They separately passed laws saying prisoners must be housed according to their official gender, and that people could change their legal gender upon request. The result was a prisoner in jail for domestic violence changed his gender to female and demanded to be moved to a female prison, where he strutted around naked, made no attempt to dress like a woman, impregnated another prisoner and then savagely beat her. (I say ‘he’ in this case because I really don’t believe this individual is genuinely transgender.)
…so it appears you don’t actually care about women in prison then. Noted.
And whats your problem with that?
Women wouldn’t be “losing any services.” Thats alarmist talk.
Because those stats included those who were** born female but identified as men**, non-binary or intersex, as well as people who were male by birth and now identified as female. You claimed it was just transwomen. That isn’t the case at all.
So only one case where we actually know the offenders name?
You do realize that people end up in prison because they committed crimes? There are 13,000
convicted sex offenders in prisons in England and Wales. You’ve managed to only cite a single confirmed case and a probable case of sexual assault in comparison to over a hundred sexual assaults committed by probably prison guards.
Its not about “hey, no need to worry!” It about having a sense of proportion, it about not regurgitating m#msn$t propaganda.
Assuming you meant contested, there was a recent meta-study that confirms it, at least for hormones, which I imagine is the more controversial of the two.
…getting the Guardian to publish an open letter sure is an odd definition of “getting shouted down.” Campus protests and calls for dismissal in the press are expressions of free speech. No-platforming is a perfectly valid method of protest. No evidence was provided of any “harassment, foiled plots to bring about dismissal, or attempts to censor academic research and publications.”
So your cite doesn’t say very much at all actually about “shouting people down.”
I wasn’t talking about Karen White: I was talking about the other person you cited that wasn’t named.
And I didn’t say women’s prison was **always **the appropriate venue. I’m fine with where Karen White is now.
That wasn’t the question I asked. You claimed that “**It’s impossible **to get stats on attacks by transwomen and transmen who have a GRC, because they’re counted as their new gender.” My cite states that these stats didn’t include prisoners with a GRC, but it didn’t say that those figures didn’t exist.
So cite?
Cherry-picking is a fallacy, and cherry picking an article from a website called “women are humans” that “believes the gender identity ideology movement dehumanizes women and girls” doesn’t give me any confidence that the article you cited “shows the problem with ill considered changes in the law.”
If Fernández did “savagely beat the woman when he learned that she was pregnant," and if “11 women attested to witnessing the attack”, and if “after the discovery, a judge released Fernández from custody, determining that they was eligible for parole”, then the problem very obviously isn’t “the change in the law.”
But we don’t lock the doors of public bathrooms to start with.
You seem to be imagining a world where prior to marching into a woman’s bathroom a man has to swipe a keycard to get the door to unlock. That is not the world we live in. In the real world, the acceptance of trans women in women’s bathrooms doesn’t change a damn thing, because if somebody is criminal enough to walk into a bathroom and start raping people, they’re criminal enough to do it even if, after the fact, they can’t say, “But I have my trans-card and thus rape is okay!”
The fear of increased bathroom rape may not be the stupidest thing ever, but it’s right up there.