Cont: [ED] Discussion: Trans Women are not Women (Part 5)

[LondonJohn]

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/envi...isthedifferencebetweensexandgender/2019-02-21

No, the ONS is not quoting the UK Government's definition. It makes a claim about what that definition is. But there is no quotation, and there is no source cited.


This is your burden of proof. Even the ONS doesn't claim that theirs is a medical definition.


That ONS paper doesn't actually define "woman".

Have you ever actually seen a medical definition of "man" and "woman"? Because I don't think you have. I don't think you've even seen a government definition that actually references such a medical definition.

You must have missed the part of that document which said, very clearly (my bolding/highlighting):


The UK government defines gender as:

a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity; gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth

where an individual may see themselves as a man, a woman, as having no gender, or as having a non-binary gender – where people identify as somewhere on a spectrum between man and woman



And I'd say that, erm, most people would find it extremely easy to derive a definition of "woman" (in this specific context) from the above excerpt. But in case you cannot, I've done so for you already, a few days ago (do a search).

 

[Olmstead]

I too find it curious that the status quo of cis women being abused by other cis women is fine and only the abuse committed by trans women is worth worrying about. Everything is fine as long as all the unwanted sexual assaults in women's prisons only involve cis women as victims and cis women as aggressors.

And, obviously, the rampant unchecked abuse in men's facilities is fine.

I very much want to live in a society that treats sexual violence seriously, rather than one that just tries to make sure only the "right" victims are the ones getting abused.

The unstated argument here is that transwomen should be thrown into men's prison, which by all characterization by those attempting to deny trans people their rights, is practically sentencing them to serial rape at the hands of men overseen by indifferent authority figures.

Would you put cisgender men in a women's prison? If not, why not?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Hahahaha do you know nothing at all about gender dysphoria and transgender identity? Do you know nothing at all about DSM5? Do you know nothing at all about the way that many major national governments (including US and UK) are legislating for transgender rights (and the definitions upon which they decide the appropriate legislation)?

I really do suggest you do some learning.

Ha ha ha ha

I do know that your repeated assertions and appeals to authority are entirely unsupported and are not in evidence in any actual medical literature or government documents I can find.

You sir... are making **** up as you go along and pretending that it's fact.

 

[LondonJohn]

Fine. I hereby declare all of your appeals to authority to be fallacious and disingenuous, not supported by any evidence at all.

Feel free to do whatever you like.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Hold on... the human right they're being denied is that of having their internal, subjective feelings affirmed by the rest of humanity?

And in order to grant that "right" to sperm-producers... you're willing to increase the risk of violence committed against women.

Correct, having their human rights affirmed by society would probably do a lot to boost their sense of self worth and feelings.

And, ya know, all other things like it not being lawful to deny them public accommodation, arbitrarily fired, targeted for violence, and all the rest, but who's counting.

 

[LondonJohn]

Ha ha ha ha

I do know that your repeated assertions and appeals to authority are entirely unsupported and are not in evidence in any actual medical literature or government documents I can find.

You sir... are making **** up as you go along and pretending that it's fact.

What am I "making up"? Have you read DSM5? Do you know the UK Govt's definitions of sex and gender, as they pertain to transidentity?

Or are you accusing me of either a) falsifying official documents, or b) misrepresenting official documents?

We're really going deep down the rabbit hole now.

(ETA: That latest Biden EO must have really got those cognitive dissonance juices flowing in small-town small-minded America, don't you think?)

 

[theprestige]

No. This is getting ridiculous. Don't ask me again. Thanks in advance.

The one thing that would shut me up is the one thing you refuse to provide.

You're trying to enjoy all the benefits of the moral high ground, without actually doing the necessary work to claim it.

 

[Ziggurat]

Generally speaking, we penalize individuals for bad behaviors.

Am I being penalized by not being allowed into the women's changing room? Or is that not the right word to describe that prohibition?

Assigning criminality to broad swaths of populations based on inherent characteristics, like gender identity, is generally seen as regressive.

Is it regressive to not let me into the women's changing room? Sex is an even more inherent characteristic than gender identity.

So far, this doesn't appear to be an argument for allowing self ID, it's an argument for abolishing sex segregation entirely. Then again, purely self ID pretty much accomplishes that anyways.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This begs the question that there is no other way. Throughout these threads I'm continually shocked by the complete lack of intellectual curiosity into this matter.

You certainly haven't proposed any other way. Additionally, you've opposed the suggestion of placing transwomen in a separate wing as being unacceptable. So please, feel free to provide a different solution, I'm all ears.

I am of the opinion that a vast amount of the abuse occurring in all prisons could be addressed if anyone actually cared to make this a priority.

Why should a trans-discriminatory policy be the first option if other nondiscriminatory options have not been explored?

Tell you what - you spearhead an approach to tackle prison rape overall, and reduce it to a level that is below the level of rape that occurs in the unincarcerated population... and THEN you can propose moving transwomen to the female ward.

 

[Ziggurat]

Correct, having their human rights affirmed by society would probably do a lot to boost their sense of self worth and feelings.

And, ya know, all other things like it not being lawful to deny them public accommodation, arbitrarily fired, targeted for violence, and all the rest, but who's counting.

Who is denying them public accommodation? Nobody here. We're discussing WHICH public accommodation they get, but if they get the same one I get, how are they being denied but I'm not?

And EVERYONE here doesn't want them targeted for violence, so that's a big fat straw man.

 

[The Atheist]

What's "physical safety" got to do with it?

For Zarquon's sake, that is possibly the dumbest question I've ever seen.

But, in case anyone is actually thick enough to not understand, I'll answer it anyway.

Let's use rugby as an example. Women are a lot more likely to get a broken neck in a scrum than a man, which is why there are men's and women's competitions. Putting men into a women's scrum is asking for serious harm at any level of the game.

 

[Lithrael]

I agree, in concept. The challenge here is that such an approach does not PREVENT harm.

Why is drunk driving illegal? It's not illegal to be drunk. And it's not illegal to drive. And most people who drive while slightly intoxicated don't do any harm. Why don't we decriminalize it, and then say that we'll punish those who cause an accident while drunk instead? Then we codify the appropriate social behavior of being in control while you're driving... but we're not limiting the right of drunk people to drive themselves home, right?

This analogy compares the risks of negative consequences to chemical impairment with the risks of negative consequences to being male at all.

Never mind that it took along and protracted campaign by many individuals and groups to show there was a need to actually take drunk driving more and more seriously even as thousands of people were being killed every year. In the face of all this gruesome death it took decades to change the general public’s attitude that drunk driving was basically harmless. With a real, massive numbers of people in the morgue real, deadly problem.

I can’t get my head around reacting with similar alarm to ‘I can name five people on the internet and two in prison who are doing disgusting things with this.’

We do absolutely need to figure out how to deal with these issues and bad actors but blanket condemnation of all trans inclusion, a la drunk driving, isn’t doing it for me. Now if your analogy was ‘flaunting dick’ to ‘drunk driving’ as far as public scorn, I’d be with you.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You certainly haven't proposed any other way. Additionally, you've opposed the suggestion of placing transwomen in a separate wing as being unacceptable. So please, feel free to provide a different solution, I'm all ears.



Tell you what - you spearhead an approach to tackle prison rape overall, and reduce it to a level that is below the level of rape that occurs in the unincarcerated population... and THEN you can propose moving transwomen to the female ward.

Funny that civil rights don't work on your schedule.

Ready or not, trans acceptance is coming. It's already the law of the land in Canada, and TERF stronghold UK won't hold forever. Even the US is making slow but steady progress.

We, as a society, are going to have to figure out how to keep people safe from sexual violence, and that includes a seat at the table for trans people. Excluding them may be the preferred option for many, but luckily most civilized countries do not leave civil rights for the minority at the whim of the majority.

One of these days, sooner a later, a gavel is going to clap down and trans-exclusion will be made illegal. You should probably be prepared for that, because it's practically inevitable.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Aaaaaand, there goes that "comic" bigotry again. "Dude in a dress"? "Chick in jeans"? ******* hell.

"Have some self-awareness" - oh, the irony.....................

Dude in a dress includes all male-appearing people who prefer to wear women's garments, including completely cis-gendered transvestites, drag queens, and plain old scots in kilts. That also, by the way, includes transmen who pass well enough to be perceived as male.

Chick in jeans includes all female-appearing people who prefer to wear men's clothing, including dock-working cis-gendered women, butch lesbians, and plain old cowgirls. It also, by the way, includes transwomen who pass well enough to be perceived as female.

That's exactly what I mean by self-awareness.

If you are perceived by most others to be male-bodied, regardless of what you're wearing, go to the gents. If you are perceived by most others to be female bodied, go to the ladies.

That's my personal view for BATHROOMS and bathrooms alone. And it's a perfectly cromulent common-sense solution.

We only ever have a problem in restrooms when males who look like males want to go into the ladies because of how they feel on the inside.

 

[Emily's Cat]

What's "physical safety" got to do with it?

Yeah - screw those wimpy little females who are smaller and weaker than the males who identify as girls! Who gives a **** if males on their contact sport team presents them with a significantly increased risk of injury! They're just females, who cares about them anyway?

 

[LondonJohn]

Correct, having their human rights affirmed by society would probably do a lot to boost their sense of self worth and feelings.

And, ya know, all other things like it not being lawful to deny them public accommodation, arbitrarily fired, targeted for violence, and all the rest, but who's counting.

Yes.

When the laws were changed allowing black men to sit tight alongside white women on the bus (as opposed to being forced to give up the whole of the two-person seat to them), I'll bet there were righteous protests howling that white women were being placed in harm's way as a result. "Is it worth granting black people this right", they'd say, "if so much as one white woman ends up getting inappropriately touched or even made to feel uncomfortable by one of them there black perverts?"

 

[Olmstead]

Yes.

When the laws were changed allowing black men to sit tight alongside white women on the bus (as opposed to being forced to give up the whole of the two-person seat to them), I'll bet there were righteous protests howling that white women were being placed in harm's way as a result. "Is it worth granting black people this right", they'd say, "if so much as one white woman ends up getting inappropriately touched or even made to feel uncomfortable by one of them there black perverts?"

Would you put cisgender men in a women's prison? If not, why not?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Why are you making up "medical necessity" as your yardstick?

Were black civil rights predicated on what was a "medical necessity" and what was not? Or gay rights?

I smell something which resembles one of those Norse monsters under a bridge.....

Yeah seriously theprestige! Don't you see that males have been seriously oppressed? They're being denied the *right* to access females whenever they want to and see naked females whenever they feel they ought to, and to compete against smaller weaker females whenever they feel like they need more wins in their lives! It's a travesty that such rank bigotry is still allowed in the developed world!

Let's all unite to free those poor prostate-owners from the shackles of oppression by the matriarchy!!!!!

 

[theprestige]

This begs the question that there is no other way.

No it does not. It is agnostic about the existence of other ways.

Throughout these threads I'm continually shocked by the complete lack of intellectual curiosity into this matter.

Please satisfy my intellectual curiosity: What other ways are there, to add males to a female prison population without increasing the amount of sexual violence that goes on?

I am of the opinion that a vast amount of the abuse occurring in all prisons could be addressed if anyone actually cared to make this a priority.

I agree.

Why should a trans-discriminatory policy be the first option if other nondiscriminatory options have not been explored?

Because those other options have not been explored. It doesn't make sense to go straight for an option that we know will increase the violence, instead of pushing to explore all the things we should be doing to decrease the violence.

So.

What is the medical necessity for adding males to a female prison population, something we know will substantially increase the amount of sexual violence there, which we actually should be trying to decrease?

 

[Boudicca90]

That sounds pretty reasonable. I wonder if Boudicca agrees that official government ID should be a part of any self-ID regulation.

Do you happen to have the Canadian regulations handy? Does Canada require that you have the government ID in your possession? Or do they require that self-ID be honored even if the claimant does not or cannot produce the ID?

One concern I have about government ID is the same as my concern about medical transition as a requirement. When we talk about voter ID, there is HUGE push-back on the grounds that not everybody can easily get one. Voter ID is held to be regressive, effectively a poll tax, and essentially bigoted in nature.

So it seems to me that requiring government ID would be similarly problematic. It doesn't seem fair to tell Boudicca and others, "you can't fully live your identity until the government signs off on some paperwork".

Now, if trans rights advocates were to take that position, "it's not quite fair, but it's a good solution and it's the one we support", I'd be willing to accept it as well. But is that a TRA position?

You've said that Canada has this policy. You haven't said if you agree with it, or why you think it's a good policy.

It should be encouraged, just to avoid any potential issues with discrimination, but shouldn't be required. As you have pointed out, a lot of people don't have identification in the first place, so it would place an unfair burden on the poorer among us.

I've gone through quite a bit to change as many legal documents as possible to female. Like my drivers license, VA card, insurance card, etc. with the only document unchanged being my birth certificate (although now that I recently realized Florida has changed their laws to allow me to change it without surgery, I have started the process).

I am only advocating making it easier, like when the Nevada DMV changed their requirements to change sex on IDs to where you don't have to provide a letter from a physician (this change happened right after I did it and had to provide one). I would have still have had to obtain a court order to change my name since being listed as female and still having my deadname wouldn't have been good for me in trying to be seen as a woman.