If you think something is objectively offensive just because trans men say it is, then you need to explain why “cis” is not objectively offensive when women say it is.. I mean, unless you’re totally ok with looking biased against women.
You are straining at gnats because we’ve moved past debating JKR’s tweets.
But even still, you’ve mischaracterized the issue. It wasn’t “women and other menstruators” she criticized. She was pointing out that “people who menstruate” obscures the true demographics of menstrual stigma.
Convinced me of what? That trans men are women? That nothing JKR said should be criticized? That trans women are not women? No, I’m not convinced of those things.
Do you remain convinced its unreasonable for women to be concerned about their rights being eroded by gender ideology and the language policing that is occurring?
If you find “cis” offensive, then I apologize for referring to you as cis and I won’t do it again - if you’ve already said so in this thread, then I forgot or missed it.
That stigma and associated challenges are also faced by some others. Not a huge amount of people, but still some that I think it’s appropriate to not rhetorically erase. But yes, “women and others who menstruate” would have been better. Based on her writing, I don’t think this would have been okay with JKR (who appears insistent on rhetorically erasing trans men, by my reading), but at least it wouldn’t have reduced anyone to body parts.
Not at all, and I don’t think I ever was. My criticism of JKR is generally about the specific language she chose to use, not that she has these concerns.
That’s certainly one interpretation, but I don’t understand why you think that is the one that makes the most sense given the context of that article.
Is there such thing as a real anything? We can’t seem to reach a consensus on what “woman” means in this thread. Do we have more agreement on “girl”? Is “girl” a gender identity too or is it simply another way of saying " female child"? If it is a gender identity, when do we start teaching little girls that they aren’t real? Are we going to teach them that anyone who says they are a girl–including 300 lb linebackers–is a girl, the same as any other girl? Or do we not do this because we know how bad that sounds.
It’s one thing to peddle bizarre abstractions to adults. It’s another to do the same thing to kids and expect them to receive the message as intended. I think if I were a little girl and I heard someone say “There’s no such thing as a real girl”, I’d take that message quite literally and thus I’d be very confused over what it means to be a girl. Or even a person. I’d be wondering what else about me isn’t real.
People can say they don’t believe in a “real” woman, but I will always be skeptical of that claim. I’ve never heard someone refer to a conventional-looking female they’ve never talked to as a “female-passing individual with an unknown gender identity”. We always default to “girl”, “woman”, or “lady”. There may be no type specimen for “woman”, but we certainly have a visual concept of “woman” that we rely on for clear communication. When people say “real woman”, they are referring to that concept. They simply aren’t speaking about people walking around saying they are women. But in order to be super inconclusive and not hurt anyone’s feelings (both actual and assumed), we’ve got to deny that we have a cognitive framework of “woman” that goes way beyond “people who say they are women”. We have to deny the reality that people who are women because they look like the visual concept of women really are different than the people who are women only because they say they are women.
This craziness is why I find “There’s no such thing as a real woman” eye-rolly. Perhaps KAndre has her own reasons.
If you meet the qualifications for American citizenship or you have lived in the States practically your whole life and blend in with the customs and culture , I think almost everyone (who isn’t a Trump supporter, perhaps) would consider you a “real American”.
If you have never touched American soil and your only experience with America is from watching reruns of 90210, then no, you aren’t a real American. And no one who is sane and reasonable would have a problem with a real American telling you that.
If you meet the qualifications for American citizenship or you have lived in the States practically your whole life and blend in with the customs and culture , [/quote]
Wait, I have to “blend in” now to be real? No, I reject that categorically. The whole point of being American is that I can be as blendy or not blendy as I want.
This sounds like the difference between “is and American” and “is not an American.” I don’t see how the word “real” plays any legitimate role here. The only time I see someone mentioning “real Americans” and “real America” is to imply that other kinds of Americans are not legitimately American.
And I’ve heard people say “Of course I’m a real American! I was born here! I pay my taxes! I vote! What more do you want me from me, you racist bastard! I’m probably more of an American than you are!”
I would never respond to “You aren’t a real American!” with “There is no such thing as a real American!” Because I’d be saying that there’s nothing meaningful “American”, when that is the last thing I want to communicate given the nature of the accusation.
The best response to the obnoxious saying “Real women have curves” is “Real women come in all sizes.” A bizarre response that would be “There’s no such thing as a real woman.”
There’s nothing bizarre about it. It merely reflects a different context surrounding an understanding of the word “real.”
In a certain context, “real X” has meaning only if you accept the implication that some significant group under discussion is illegitimately pretending to be “X.”
There are better ways of reacting to a statement like “Real woman don’t do X or look like X” than to deny the realness “woman”. That’s what “There’s no such thing as a real woman” sounds like to me. A denial of millions of people’s perceptions of the very realness of their bodies and their experiences with those bodies.
But you are perfectly free to interpret this notion however you want and feel however you want about it.
I am not wedded, on a fundamental level, to any set of terminologies for their own sake. I fight to keep using them for as long as they seem the best communication tools. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that “male” and “female” cease to refer to one’s physical morphology — not just for some folk but for the majority of the people using the damn language.
Fine. Then I’m a peniled gal. A femme with a penis. I’m not saying you have to call yours a penis if it’s external and the urethra runs down the middle of it, but that’s what I choose to call mine, ok? And a fundamental part of my life-experience is due to the body I inhabit, even if that’s primarily because of the assumptions and attitudes others bring to bear because they view me as a peniled person. I’m still going to talk about morphology. I’m still going to talk about the body as part of what shapes social experience.
No doubt there will be some who will become offended if I define “penis” as an external genitalia with a urethra running down the middle of it. Because some people with external genitalia and urethra-down-the-middle configuration have a clitoris (of roughly four inches when unengorged) and I’m misgendering them and disauthenicating their identity when I say my physiological equipment, thusly described, is a “penis” because when I do that I’m somehow implying that theirs is a penis too and so I should just shut up about these things because whatever is in your underwear is nobody’s business etc etc.
There is defensiveness. I’m not saying that none of it is mine, but I’m thinking most of it is theirs.
Again, let remind you that you are male. You aren’t a woman, have never had an occasion to be called a woman, and wouldn’t have to live with the consequences of “woman” being turned into a meaningless placeholder for any man to use and abuse. So why do you think your failure to find anything bizarre about any of this count as much as the opinions of multiple women who say otherwise?
Why are women having to debate men on the validity of their own identity as a sex class? It is surreal we are even having this conversation.
“There’s no such thing as a real doctor.” A statement like this is never going to be said by doctors; it is almost always going to come from people who resent the fact that some people have claim to the title and some people don’t. It is meant to devalue actual doctors and discount all the years of training, experience, and professionalism behind their doctorate. If they can make people believe there is no such thing as a real doctor, non-doctors can then go around presenting themselves as doctors. They can have opinions on medical issues assigned as much worth as a real doctor. They can gain access to platforms and positions of influence and surgical suites that would have been closed to them previously.
Then, when the doctors complain about this and point out the problem with allowing any John Doe off the street coopt the doctor title, they are told it’s not a big deal, it’s not bizarre at all, no problem to see. They are told this mostly by non-doctors—the one group who will not see their identity nullified by this satire-worthy boondoggle.
Your continued criticism of JKR increasingly seems out of proportion to the much more significant concerns that women are raising right now.
This discussion is telling me that I can’t count on progressives to care about women’s rights, because they would rather focus their ire on the woman (JKR) pointing out the problems rather than the problems themselves. If I’m feeling like this, imagine how many moderates are feeling the same way. Being blind to reality has consequences beyond biology. November is just around the corner. Women make up more than half the voting population. You do the math, @iiandyiiiii. If we lose the election because giving males the right to beat females on the basketball court is considered more important than upholding Title IX, will you be happy with this outcome? The issue is on people’s radar now.
Women (cis women, many taking part in this thread, and others named in this thread) are also raising concerns about trans rights and the abominable treatment of trans people on our society. I’m still unconvinced that there is any conflict beyond the extreme fringes of trans activism, which appears unrepresented in this thread.
As for worries about voters, the same was said for every progressive advance - civil rights, gay rights, and much more. Maybe they had an effect on some elections, like 2004. But it was still the right thing to do. Right now, our society is terribly anti trans, and trans people face sky high rates of violence, suicide, and more. Women are treated like shit too, but only a very, very few liberal or progressive cis women that I’ve spoken to or read from agree with JKR (the majority of cis women I talk to and read from are supportive of trans rights) that there is a conflict here. So I remain supportive of trans rights, which doesn’t mean that I think cis women shouldn’t have safe spaces, or that there’s no potential conflict in athletics (I recall Una saying that there is no simple solution for athletics), and these things are reasonable to discuss as long as hateful, dehumanizing, denigrating, and rhetorically erasing language is avoided.
That’s probably true, but not necessarily true for everyone. If and when we develop artificial, external womb technology, and sentient robotic bodies, a lot of people might choose the neuter, asexual route, simply to avoid debates like this. I know I’d be tempted, so long as the procedure could be reversed at some point.