If I try to craft a set of rigorous guidelines for what the limits of gender identity acceptance are, you’ll rightly protest that I’m no authority on the matter.
But perhaps I can do it by example.
Here is a list of options:
[list=A]
[li]A person, born into a biologically male body, who identifies as female[/li][li]A person, born into a biologically female body, who identifies as male[/li][li]A person, born into a biologically male body, who identifies as a male-who-gets-to-change-in-the-girls-locker-room[/li][li]A person, born into a biologically intersex body, who identifies as female[/li][li]A person, born into a biologically intersex body, who identifies as male[/li][li]A person, born into a biologically male body, who is gender variant – that is, does not strongly identify as either gender[/li][li]A person, born into a biologically female body, who is gender variant – that is, does not strongly identify as either gender[/li][li]A person, born into a biologically intersex body, who is gender variant – that is, does not strongly identify as either gender[/li][/list]
In my opinion, only one of these options is not like the others, as Sesame Street might say.
In my opinion, if you honestly contend that each item on the list represents a claim that is indistinguishable from all the others – if you wish me to believe, in other words, that you can’t tell which is the sole claim above that should be treated with extreme skepticism amounting to near-automatic disbelief and rejection – then I’m not sure I know how to proceed in the discussion with you.
I am reasonably sure I can pick the choice that you believe is significantly different from the others. What I would like is for you to define what it is that makes that claim different, in that it should be almost automatically rejected.
I think I know what you think. I would like you to explain why you think it.
If the idea is to decline to debate the principle under which you make the distinction, then you are correct - we probably cannot proceed. As a wise Doper said at least once, a gratuitous assertion may be gratuitously denied.
But let me ask you to explain how you knew which one of my options was different?
And let me offer some possibilities: only one of them is an entirely theoretical creature. And only one of them – the same one – is almost certainly being made in bad faith, or at least motivated by selfish or prurient ends.
So as a first attempt to define a harmonizing characteristic, let’s go with that: each claim above, save one, is made in good faith and involves the locker room as a side-effect of the truth of the claim. In other words, for the person born with biologically male body parts who identifies as a woman, her goal of changing in the girls’ locker room is not motivated by a desire to see inside the girls’ locker room. The request for the use of the girls’ locker room arises because she is a girl – or so rides her conviction, at any rate. She isn’t feigning her identity for some prurient interest in naked flesh, or seeking some advantage; she seeks only to be treated as the female she is, or feels she is.
That’s true for each claim above, except one. And that’s my first attempt at a principled distinction.
Not really. Let’s unpack this a bit. Why is a man whose skin changes from what would typically considered Black to what would typically be considered White via a skin disease or something else NOT White? Why isn’t this person considered White if he looks White and has White skin? Now, I would imagine you would argue something like skin pigment is not the sole basis of racial categorization. I would counter by arguing many people don’t think self-declared gender identity is the sole basis for deciding who is male or female, or more clearly, who should be able to use which locker room. That doesn’t mean self-declared gender identity isn’t real or isn’t valid; it just means it isn’t the ONLY concern in every circumstance. So please answer the question. Why should a Black person whose skin turns white not be considered White?
Why is a claim the movement is disputing the end all be all?
An assignment is not ridged if it works 99%+ of the time. Sorry, that’s just nonsense. More importantly, the anatomy issue is NOT a red herring. This is why there are not urinals in women’s bathrooms. It’s because it is correctly assumed women typically don’t use urinals because they don’t have penises. Now you can argue that we shouldn’t care about anatomy, but the reality is that people do. That’s part of why most women would find it more “objectionable” to shower or change in front of someone with a penis than someone with a male brain. Do you disagree?
Not really. Let’s unpack this a bit. Why is a man whose skin changes from what would typically considered Black to what would typically be considered White via a skin disease or something else NOT White? Why isn’t this person considered White if he looks White and has White skin? Now, I would imagine you would argue something like skin pigment is not the sole basis of racial categorization. I would counter by arguing many people don’t think self-declared gender identity is the sole basis for deciding who is male or female, or more clearly, who should be able to use which locker room. That doesn’t mean self-declared gender identity isn’t real or isn’t valid; it just means it isn’t the ONLY concern in every circumstance. So please answer the question. Why should a Black person whose skin turns white not be considered White?
Why is a claim the movement is disputing the end all be all?
An assignment is not ridged if it works 99%+ of the time. Sorry, that’s just nonsense. More importantly, the anatomy issue is NOT a red herring. This is why there are not urinals in women’s bathrooms. It’s because it is correctly assumed women typically don’t use urinals because they don’t have penises. Now you can argue that we shouldn’t care about anatomy, but the reality is that people do. That’s part of why most women would find it more “objectionable” to shower or change in front of someone with a penis than someone with a male brain. People clearly care about anatomy more than brain wiring. Do you disagree?
Wrong. That would be true if I had stated anatomy were the sole basis for differentiation. I have not. Nice try though.
No, it’s about the fact that the segregation is due to both gender and sex. You keep ignoring that because it’s inconvenient to your argument.
This is false in 99% of cases. A student cannot use whatever bathroom they want.
Probably not. We don’t even have masses of transgender students creating chaos. The issue is your side wants to make a principled, consistent argument that is not rooted in logic, reason, or consistency.
No, it’s not. Feel free to cite the basis of an affirmative right to use a bathroom based on your perceived gender.
That isn’t happening here. Did you actually read the article?
Wrong again. The dispute is between her using a private facility or the girl’s locker room. No one is forcing her to change in front of boys.
At a bare minimum. Doctor’s diagnosis, school administrative consultation, and the handful of other things typically required to make a legal transition in the eyes of the state.
Except that this highlights a problem: my powers, such as they are, are used for accuracy, here and elsewhere. If I take a position on the “bad” side, then it’s argument that will sway me.
And if Shodan can marshal a compelling argument for his view, then his view will sway me.
I don’t want to hijack this, so I’d simply invite you to consider recent threads in which you’ve staunchly declared that your position is the one you’re sticking with, no matter what scientific evidence might be adduced to the contrary.
Given enough people and time, almost everything you can conceive of happens. Whether it’s White people pretending to be Black (eg. Rachel Dolezal), or an entire team pretending to have special needs to win the Paralympics. Some people have NO shame, no you can be 100% certain this will happen if safeguards aren’t put in place. Now I don’t think it’s too big a concern for a number of reasons, but let’s not pretend nobody would stoop to that level.
Because we understand the facile point you are trying to make?
But that is the crux of the matter you are overlooking. Who gets to determine who is acting in bad faith? If you make the standard someone saying they identify as X, or even having their doctor say that, then you are not going to actually catch people acting in bad faith any more than you would stop frivolous lawsuits by asking attorneys if they are sincere. The law accepts some of this as a cost of doing business, but in this case, one side argues for lax oversight and adjudication while simultaneously arguing no fraud or bad faith will ever happen. That’s nonsensical.
Because one of them was my example, and the rest weren’t.
You are still begging the question. How do you determine that one was in bad faith, and the others weren’t?
But let’s assume it. How do we determine that the desire to be known as a woman with a penis and XY chromosomes is to be accomodated, but the other is not? Assuming that some number of minors and/or the parents who are responsible for them decides that they don’t want their children to be naked in the company of anyone with a penis and XY chromosomes. What is it that justifies overriding their desires in the one special case?
Perhaps some representatives on one side are arguing that no fraud or bad faith will happen, but I am not. I’m suggesting that it’s not unduly difficult to imagine creating a framework that stops the overwhelming majority of fraud or bad faith, and accepting the remaining tiny fraction as an inevitable social cost.
For example, in addition to medical and psychological diagnosis, we might ask if the subject in question is living life as a female in other ways. The assignment to the girls’ locker room is, after all, an expression of the person’s expression of female gender identity. A fair question would be if this person is living as a female outside of the context of locker rooms.
Rather than “a doctor’s note,” I’d suggest that it’s fair to see evidence of on-going medical and psychological counseling… a verification that, pardon the crudity of the phrase, the person has skin in the game.
Now, I grant that perhaps some highly motivated biologically male person might still feign a female gender identity – although if they’re living as a female and under on-going medical and psychological care, I’d say that some issue beyond simply prurience is in play here. Still, I’d be comfortable, as a first draft, suggesting that this is sufficient bona fides of gender indentity to admit a biological male to the girl’s locker room.
And of course, the admission is not carved in stone. Should our hypothetical biological male arrive on his first day, wait until girls were undressing, and yell, “Ha ha! Fooled you! Boobies! <honk honk>,” then I agree there should be no second day. (Given the outcome of this hypothetical, I deliberately used “his” and not “hers” here.)
Perhaps there’s an analogy to be made here when we look at debates about false rape claims.
Advocates on the side of women’s rights often go overboard in vehemently suggesting that all rape claims be believed, or insist on mountains on evidence before acknowledging that a claim is false. They do so because of the historical backdrop in which many legitimate claims of rape were ignored, rejected, or otherwise improvidently addressed. We might think of them as the force on one end of the playground see-saw: they push down hard on their end, unfairly hard, but the end result is that the see-saw itself stays horizontal.
Una is not only an advocate but someone who has lived the journey. I agree that her statements are too sweeping and thus too easy to falsify. She pushes so hard, though – and this is again my opinion only – because the backdrop of this issue has been institutional indifference. She’s not worried about erring slightly on the side of trans rights, because even her most heroic efforts won’t balance the see-saw.
So you can of course continue to take the easy shots at her for her failure to qualify each and every statement, and no doubt: you’re factually correct. But I’d suggest the larger issue in play is a discussion about what our social policy should be, not whether she failed to expand on what she meant by a doctor’s note.
Don’t be obtuse. You know what I am asking, and you know what your answer is.
And that’s fine. That’s actually an honest opinion. I don’t agree with it, but I understand where it comes from. I’m not trying to pin you to a board or play gotcha here. I just want to have some honesty.
What makes my blood boil is hearing a lot of weak, nasty little backward rationalizations being presented with a straight face. Let’s face it- if you really did believe the kid is a woman in the same way that I am, making her change in the boys dressing room would be not only cruel, but nonsensical.
Agreed. However, such a system also indubitably harbors “false negatives” as well as “false positives”. More importantly though, no one else or your side seems to be as willing to negotiate on this matter at all or accept anything less than complete accommodation with no back and forth or consideration for others.
Great. Now get advocates like Una to agree to that.
Fair enough, but the devil is in the details. If a school decides a student’s transition isn’t sincere or doesn’t require accommodation despite his/her appeals, would you be okay with that?
Okay, but why would expect any less from something affecting so few people? I think your wording is a bit too pejorative, but I accept the spirit of what you are saying. However, a lot of people are concerned that accommodation in the age of people identifying as one or more of over many dozen genders can become a morass. Understandably so in my opinion. That’s not to say we shouldn’t aim to mitigate suffering for all and to outlaw cruelty where it exists, but it’s a much tougher sell to explain to someone why a guy who identifies as trigender should have free roam to whatever gender segregated bathroom they like regardless of how others feel. Now I hate to be the slippery slope guy because I don’t honestly think letting this girl go to the female locker room will result in chaos, but I also hate being told one worldview is the only one that exists or matters, and that everyone else is a bigot for even deigning to question why something is allowed.
They’re easy shots because her rhetoric is logically bankrupt. This isn’t nitpicking. It’s her unfailing desire to present terrible arguments while acting indignant that anyone question her.
But that is the issue though isn’t it? Rhetoric doesn’t make the issue less complicated because it is actually a complicated issue with many stakeholders. It’s not as if every person going into a locker room is asked for proof of gender. If some woman is in a locker room, and the non-famous versions of Caitlyn Jenner, Ru Paul, and Jon Hamm walk in and undress, is some woman changing supposed to immediately recognize only one of them should be allowed? Should said women report any of the people? Should Jenner be offended if she is constantly asked to defend her right to be there? How should such a scenario play out in your opinion? Should we just not segregate anything gender related? What do you do in situations like sports where segregation is based on both gender and sex? Should agender people be accommodated with private areas? The answers to these questions are not easy and the questions themselves are not trivial. That’s the real issue, IMO. Most people don’t want to be needlessly cruel, but they also don’t want to be told every unique person’s situation must require them to modify their behavior, pay more in taxes, and redefine terms and understandings to be inclusive in every conceivable manner.
