As far as religion goes there are many people who participate in religion, who like the lifestyle, who WANT to believe but they do not in fact believe. On the other end of the spectrum you have people who believe yet do nothing externally with it at all.
Similarly you have the issue of drag queens. Yes I believe there are people who like the lifestyle and would maybe even assert but the internals are not there. I also believe that there are people who have feelings that never act on them. So the matchup of feelings to actions, like religion, isn’t always particularly coherent.
Ultimately it is going to be a spectrum of feelings and behaviors. I think when people get into these issues initially they want their new world to be simple and explainable. There used to be people who claimed there was no such thing as a bisexual, and that every person who was homosexual was born that way. I don’t think either of those things is true. There are people “from birth” and also experimenters, people looking for a thrill, people who go back and forth, people who repress a particular urge and never act on it. That is actual reality.
Yes I believe people have internal feelings about trans, but there’s a whole spectrum of reality.
There absolutely is a whole spectrum of reality about
Fandom
Headaches
Sexual turn-ons
Enjoyment of Jim Jarmusch films
Gender identities
Perception of color
Experiences of nature
Experiences experienced as the divine
Identity as a Buddhist
Because these are all internal experiences, there doesn’t need to be a coherent “matchup of feelings to actions.” All there needs to be is a coherent matchup of “respect to declared experience.”
Note what’s not on the list: an analysis of why those internal experiences occurred. If you tell me:
I’m a fan of The Beatles because they’re the most musically complex band in history and are much better than trash like Taylor Swift;
I have a headache because that Chinese food had MSG in it;
I’m turned on by big butts because of evolutionary psychology;
I hate Jim Jarmusch movies because he’s totally incompetent at telling a story;
I identify as a man because I have a penis, and that’s 100% of the only criterion on which to identify as a man;
I see a difference between red and green because I’m paying attention and you’re not;
I love nature more than you because I’m more connected to mother earth than you;
I speak with God because God is real and is going to send you to hell for not believing;
I’m a Buddhist because the world really is an illusion and you’re too trapped by material goods to reach enlightenment;
Now we’ve moved beyond your experience and into analysis, and now we have a basis for disagreement.
There is a whole organization of atheist ministers, who have to hide their lack of belief because the paycheck depends on it and they aren’t trained to do anything else. They likely started out as believers, but stopped believing.
In some communities there is a lot of social pressure to go to church, believe or not. And of course there are kids who go because their parents make them go. Non-believers have many more reasons to go to church than a sip of wine and a cracker.
I would absolutely believe that. Why wouldn’t I? It’s not even that outre a hypothetical.
Sexual identity isn’t contingent on sexual activity. A heterosexual virgin is still heterosexual. A lesbian is still a lesbian even if they’ve never kissed another woman.
Secondly, and relatedly, lots and lots of people don’t realize their actual sexuality until much later in life, particularly if they come from highly religious or conservative backgrounds. “Middle aged married woman realizes she’s a lesbian,” is practically a cliche.
What, precisely, is a “concession to femininity?” If a biological woman makes no “concessions to femininity,” do they lose their status as a woman? Asking for all my trans guy friends.
That’s just the standard right wing rhetorical tactic of trying to shut down discussion by pretending an issue can’t be addressed unless a group is 100% identical and unified. Which isn’t ever so, therefore discussion is conveniently impossible.
So “Women who don’t shave” aren’t actually women, then? Because I’ve known a few cis-gender women who had visible facial hair, and didn’t really care about removing it.
I’m not sure what an “LGBT position” is, outside of some very specific sex acts. Certainly, I can’t think of any job where it would be appropriate to hire someone purely based on their sexual identity. I suppose I can imagine a job where having significant experience with queer relationships might be necessary (say, a relationship counselor specializing in same-sex relationships) but the issue there would be a matter of experience, not identity.
But she’s not making a concession to femininity! How can she be a woman if she doesn’t fulfill your specific stereotypes about how a woman should look or act?
Alas, I can’t answer that question without contravening the board’s rules. Sorry.
I have a question for you, though. Is there anything, quite literally anything at all, that a male who identifies as a woman can do to make you doubt his sincerity and/or stability? It seems to me like there can’t possibly be. Whatever standard you come up with, I can find a cisgender woman somewhere who represents an exception to it. Therefore, we have no choice but to believe that everyone who says that they’re a woman genuinely is one, 100% of the time.
So, just to clarify, I wouldn’t be strawmanning you if I said your position was Anyone who says they’re a woman is a woman, and everyone else is morally obligated to treat them as a woman because there exists no foolproof test of their sincerity. A male may dress like a stereotypical man, talk like a stereotypical man, and act like a stereotypical man, all the while rocking a beard that would shame a Viking, but if he says he’s a woman then he is one and you’re a bigot if you doubt him
I realise this describes virtually no transgender women, but it’s still a position that would seem to follow from what you’ve said so far in this thread. If I’m going wrong, I’d appreciate some clarification on where I’m going wrong.