Yes, you have to sign a piece of paper in front of a magistrate. I’m so reassured. 
I could totally hear Biden saying “Predatory men have always attacked women, so why are you worried about it getting worse just because now we say anyone can be a woman without any conditions, you dog-faced pony soldier you! C’mon, man!”
That wasn’t all, but I’m totally open to the possibility of a poorly written law. If so, hopefully someone will sue, and hopefully the law will be changed.
Lol, that’s such a very American attitude. 
Scotland was about to pass the same law as Ireland, that is why JKR was ‘triggered’. I don’t think you realise just how different the political climate is here in Europe. It was the right-wing party that legalised gay marriage in Britain. It was the same party that planned to bring in self-id to make changing your gender as easy as changing your legal name. Of course the more left-wing parties are all in favour of this too.
Trans people are already protected from discrimination in employment and housing, and get free treatment on the NHS (after being on a waiting list, but that is true for everyone). The things I am talking about are absolutely what they are campaigning for.
How about we actually listen to women who think we may be affected, and don’t force some poor person to suffer before we fix the obvious loopholes?
Thanks for the info about Europe, and I have no problem with the last paragraph, assuming this doesn’t preclude the possibility of disagreement and criticism.
The disagreement appears to me to be in the details. I think your characterization of trans activists and their allies is mostly wrong (I think you’re applying the views of nuts on Twitter to mainstream progressives). I think some of what JKR said is denigrating and erasing. Maybe some of the laws need to be revised. It’s still okay to disagree with and criticize some of what JKR said.
Sure, but I do feel you’re ignoring the substance of what she wrote in favour of criticising some minor issues with language. You don’t have to agree with someone’s philosophy to believe they have something useful to say on a subject.
Like @monstro, I think we could come to some compromise that everyone is happy with, but that would require an actual debate. Which is very difficult when one side insists there is nothing that needs debating because “there is no material conflict between trans rights and women’s rights”.
That statement doesn’t close off debate. Threats close off debate, but not “I still don’t see the conflict”. And I still don’t, because I’m unconvinced that any significant portion of trans activists really are advocating that rapists can say they’re women and get into women’s prisons. From cursory googling, that one example in Ireland is the only obvious one out there, and it had very little info and a lot of vagueness. Maybe there was a single badly written or badly applied law, or maybe that article was misleading. It’s fine to talk about these things, and I’ll stand with you against nuts on Twitter who try to close debate with threats. Hopefully you can stand with me against denigrating and erasing language against a group that faces extraordinary danger in much of the world.
Thanks for offering more insight and education on this. I appreciate the new perspectives I’m learning and getting a more nuanced understanding of the difficulties transgender people are facing.
I certainly also agree that the conflict between physical and mental is real. I don’t think I implied that it wasn’t, just was trying to determine what the logical ramifications were on each side. Anyway, I get that and it’s very important that this conflict is honored and respected, because I know it’s all too real for those experiencing it.
It hadn’t occurred to me that for many transgender people, that the mental state might be more real, as it were, and that physical transitioning is only a way for them to modify the “less-real” part - their physicality. That seems right to me. And very fair.
So… would it not also be fair to say that a woman’s mental sense of their gender is also very real? At least as real as their physical body and maybe as real as say, a transwoman’s? Maybe even more, who knows? I can’t imagine anyone would fight that point, but maybe someone will… Until then, I’ll continue. If a ‘cis-gender’ woman’s inner sense of gender is as real as a transwoman’s - shouldn’t that woman also be afforded at least the same respect as a trans-woman? That is, if they find it offensive to be referred to by other people as ‘cis-gender’ women or ‘birth-women’ or whatever else, shouldn’t we all respect that and continue to refer to them as women and allow them to identify as women and be identified as women? Since we’re already willing to adjust language and public facilities, among other things, to ensure that trans-women are safe and not offended, do we not also have an obligation to the many billions of women who have been mentally gender-identifying as women since they were born? It seems to me very cruel to rip that identity away from them so ruthlessly, simply to avoid hurting a smaller segment of the population. (I’m not suggesting that the smaller segment should be hurt, only that the larger population should also not be hurt) Yes. It seems only fair that the rights afforded to a few should also be afforded to everyone. Doesn’t it? We can’t have one set of rights for some people and no rights for other people, can we?
Just a note on your intro. When you respond by simply asserting “No, that does not follow,” it comes off as dismissive and slightly arrogant. If you’re serious about helping people understand something new, I’d suggest you work on a way to communicate with maybe a less overtly dominating tone; with a more inclusive, friendly and curious one. You know… maybe indicate that you’re really considering other points of view, maybe even highlighting parts of what people say that are positive. It’s kind of a mutual give and take, you know? Teaching is hard, for sure.
Thanks!
This is an excellent list. Thanks for posting.
“Look, when women tell me they don’t want predatory men in their changing rooms, I tell them no one knows the motivations of predatory men better than I do. And those guys don’t want to go in there, okay? Anyone who says otherwise is a damn liar.”
Hey Taber. I don’t think I am following what you’re trying to say. Can you explain again?
I’m saying that the very existence of a “conflict between the mental and physical” which is resolved through physical transitioning, only proves that (for that person), the physical is more real than the mental - otherwise how could it possibly resolve the conflict? What is the reverse of this? I am only referring to this to support my main point, that even trans-women seem to view the objective biological female as a real woman, otherwise why not just be satisfied with the mental state of being a woman and keep their male bodies?
But Powers has already pointed out in a follow-up that in some cases trans-women’s inner gender conflict is not resolved though physical transitioning. And in those that do find the conflict is resolved through physical transitioning, it is only because their inner gender is more real than their physical body - and so they’re modifying the less real part - the physicality. However, I feel this still does show that the physical body changing does have some kind of conflict-resolving effect - and so it seems to still support my point, though maybe not in all cases.
There’s a world of difference between saying “I still don’t see the conflict”, and signing a pledge stating categorically that there is no conflict. The first allows for debate, the second shuts it down.
And the conflict is obvious. Trans activists want trans people to be held in the prison matching their gender. These same activists want people to be able to self declare their gender without any hoops to jump through. Some rapists claim they are trans. I don’t presume to say whether they are genuine or not, but I don’t want them held in women’s jails.
And what happened in Ireland is also simple. The law states prisoners should be held in the jail matching their sex. They recently passed a law allowing anyone to change their sex simply by signing a declaration in front of a magistrate. Put these things together and anyone can claim to be trans - genuinely or not - and sign the declaration and be sent to the opposite sex jail.
There was a case in Argentina, too, where a male prisoner changed his sex to female, was moved to the women’s prison and reportedly distressed other inmates by walking around naked, as well as making no effort to dress as a woman, and impregnated a female inmate (another problem with housing prisoners of different sexes together):
If you agree that men should not be able to move to women’s jail simply by declaring themselves transgender, how would you accomplish this? By not allowing (all) transwomen to serve their time in female jails? Or by requiring some evidence in order to be counted as a transwoman?
I’m unconvinced that you speak for all trans activists. The majority I’ve spoken to, along with their cis allies, don’t support this.
I’d establish some sort of reasonable process for verifying someone’s declaration of gender identity is legitimate for the rare circumstances (prisons and maybe a few others) in which the danger to others is significant. In my understanding, the vast majority of trans activists and allies are fine with this.
This is the logical conclusion of “there’s no such thing as a real woman”. If this
can happen in Denmark, it can happen in the United States.
What denigrating language? Rowling is much pilloried for saying things she didn’t really say.
There is a significant imbalance in this debate because there just isn’t the same debate over transmen - because, of course, there doesn’t need to be. As a man, I have nothing to fear from women. Women don’t regularly rape and assault and threaten men. Transmen don’t frighten me, and if a transman wants to use the shitter while I’m in the same bathroom, I couldn’t care less. It wouldn’t even have to be a transman; even “cis” women are fine in the bathroom, really. I have privilege that women don’t, and know the correct and decent thing to do is to concede them space so they feel safe.
Women DO have reason to fear men. That’s just life.
What’s sad is how many men just don’t know that.
Many men do know that; it’s just that it’s often inconvenient for them to remember that. Outside of the context of gender ideology, men are the first to tell women that they need to protect themselves from rapists at all times. Women are told, largely by men, that by increasing their vulnerability out in public (by drinking, wearing proactive clothing, going out alone at night), they put themselves at unnecessary risk. Trusting strange men not to spike their drink or not take advantage of them while getting a lift home is reckless and foolish. This is just the reality we live in, ladies. That is the message women hear every day of our lives, and its rare to find a man who does anything except amplify this message.
But simultaneously, women are bigoted and hysterical for wanting to exclude men from spaces where we are literally buck naked and defenseless.
In her essay she quoted someone else saying that ‘social contagion and peer influences’ could be a factor in entire friend groups announcing they were trans at the same time. Shocking, eh?
She also ‘rhetorically erased’ transmen and non-binary people by tweeting that ‘people who menstruate’ used to be known as women. This after the transmen and enbies campaigned to have the symbol for ‘woman’ erased from the articles previously known as feminine hygiene products, because they feel it’s degrading to have to buy a product meant for women.
This new ‘inclusive language’ also obscures the fact that the difficulty women have obtaining menstrual products in many countries is intimately related to gender - men don’t care about them because they don’t use them and women don’t have the power to fix the problem - but apparently that’s not important.
I think most men would be uncomfortable having a woman watch them pee - when I worked in a pub they certainly weren’t thrilled to have me come in to check the facilities - but they’re not going to feel threatened.
Rowling denigrated an article for using “people who menstruate” and sarcastically suggested that the article refused to use the word “women.” However, the article actually does refer to “women” when it means women. It refers to “people who menstruate” to disinclude when appropriate women who do not menstruate and include people who menstruate who don’t want to be labeled women. What about this usage is threatening to women?
I think they do know it. They’re just tired of hearing about it.
They’re tired of always having to listen to women about their concerns about sexism and misogyny. So talking about transwomen rights gives these dudes a chance to argue from the “other side.” “How dare you women want to exclude males from your spaces! That’s just as hateful as men excluding women from men’s spaces, can’t you see?!”
But as you say, it’s not the same thing at all.
As I have said repeatedly, if all males claiming a “woman” identity were female-presenting and possessed a biology that was a close approximation of “female” as you can get (estrogen, no penis, no balls) then I wouldn’t be participating in this conversation. But the quintessential transwoman is not the point of contention. It’s the guy who hitches his wagon to the transwomen’s fight for recognition that we need to be thinking about. This piece explains the issue pretty well (and the writer seems like one of those reasonably woke people I wish there were more of):
In Philosophy, there’s a well-known problem called the “Sorites paradox”. The usual example given to explain it is a heap of sand. We start with a single grain of sand. Is this a heap? Clearly not. We add another grain of sand. Is this a heap? Clearly not. And so on… and so on… until what we have clearly is a heap, and yet it wasn’t clear at what point the accumulated grains turned from a non-heap into a heap. The part of this paradox that will be interesting for us is the side-by-side comparisons, say, six grains of sand compared against seven grains of sand. It’s clear that either both of these are a heap, or neither of these is a heap. The side-by-side cases are similar enough that we should treat them as the same.
I think this kind of logic also shows up in discussions about who counts as a woman. The reasoning goes like this: clearly this type of person should be treated as a woman (say, a fully-passing transsexual woman); there is not enough difference between this person and the next (say, a fully-passing transwoman who isn’t able to have sex reassignment surgery because of its prohibitive expense), so she should be treated as a woman too; and so on… until we reach a person who clearly should not be treated as a woman (say, a male-bodied male-appearing person who merely asserts that ‘she’ is a woman, such as US trans activist Danielle Muscato or UK advisor to Stonewall Alex Drummond).
With this Sorites series of side-by-side types of transwomen, people will tend to reach different conclusions depending on which end of the chain they start at. Those who start with the person who should clearly not be treated as a woman will be forced to accept that this takes them all the way back to the person who should, but they’ll be likely to accept that in order to reject the person who should not be treated as a woman, they have to reject all the others too. Those who start with the person who clearly should be treated as a woman will be forced to accept that this takes them all the way forward to the person who should not, but they’ll be likely to accept that in order to accept the person who should be treated as a woman, they’ll have to accept all the others too. Realizing that there’s a Sorites (or Sorites-like) series of transwomen helps to explain why people come to such different conclusions about transwomen’s inclusion as women.
The writer admits that the solutions people come up with (include the glitterbeards and anyone else who says they are women into the “woman” club versus come up with some criteria that must be met before they can be treated like a woman) will make folks uncomfortable. But just because it is hard to discuss this without feeling uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s not worth discussing.
It is not surprising to me why guys who are secure in their “wokeness” are more likely to feel uncomfortable about discussing it. The easier stance to take when you have absolutely no skin in the game is the “no gatekeeping!” position. After all, it’s not your identity that is being told isn’t “real”. It’s someone else’s. If you don’t have to worry about what will happen if the doors to the woman category are flung open to anyone who wants in, then of course you won’t get why there’s opposition to it. This is especially true if you have been programmed to believe that women aren’t trustworthy narrators of their own experiences and thus must provide irrefutable proof to back up their claims before they will believed. Women are always saying they are afraid. We wouldn’t get anything done if we established policies around their fears. So it’s the men’s job to tell women that their fears are making a big deal out of nothing.
I’m grateful to you that you haven’t fallen into that pattern.
This is one of my problems with the ‘a woman is anyone who feels like a woman’ definition.
I don’t fear men because they have a male gender identity, I fear them in as much as they are bigger and stronger than me, and more aggressive, and have been raised to objectify women and to expect to get what they want, and have a male sex drive and the parts that go with it. So why the heck should internal gender identity be the deciding factor when it comes to entering women’s spaces?