Cont: Transwomen are not women - part 13

[Emily's Cat]

Also raise your hand, 100% on your honor, if you think this is the last "distinction" people are going to try to make?

I've made the observation many times that for all the vaunted coffee shop liberal worship of "intersectionality" history has shown us again and again that the new disenfranchised group does not hold anymore loyalty to the last then the general population. "I fight for equality" is a lot more "Screw you I've got mine" then "Well know that I've climbed the ladder I will help the next person up" then the left would have us believe. Women are just as racist as men, blacks are demographically shockingly homophobic, and this very discussion proves that the relationship between gays and trans is at best complicated and contentious. The "I suffered to get rights" is not the easily transferable quality we like to think it is.

So I'm going to make the radical guess now that trans people are not going to welcome the next group fighting for equality with universally open arms and no this does matter in a way that can't be countered with a vague, glib "Well they aren't a hivemind."

Trans people would do well to remember that every thought terminating cliche and copout they use know WILL be used to argue for something that not all of you will agree with 10, 15, 20 years down the road.

Astute observation.

Although, I might counter this a bit by pointing out that not all "rights" are rights, and not all "equality" is equal. My parents were very supportive of black civil rights, as well as gay equality... but they don't support the "rights" that have been floated by MAPs. And I 100% support their view on that. Rather, there's a tendency of some groups to look back at history and decide that since a different group was successful in pursuing equal rights... then if they just frame their own desires as "rights" they'll get support.

Sadly, they're often right.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Because it's not an argument it's a fringe reset. He's going start going "Durrr I don't understand, explain it again" soon.

Fair point.

 

[Ziggurat]

So yeah, I'll admit that I might be a little out of date.

The current cohort is very different from the cohort 40 years ago.

Do I think that kids are faking for sexual gratification? No, not really.

Everyone here recognizes that there are people who genuinely are "trans". One of the problems under consideration (but not the only one) is that self-ID creates an incentive for predators to pretend that they are trans, and removes much of the safety measures that would limit their predatory behavior. Given that dynamic, you'd have to be a fool to think that predators won't take advantage of that. As with most sexual predation, that's primarily a problem with adult perps, not children. It's also a problem of male sexual predators. Female sexual predators follow different patterns, and aren't really incentivized to pretend to be trans.

I'd more suspect that they might be faking for attention or maybe they're just confused from all the noise.

Among children, confusion is far more of a concern than predation. But attention seeking doesn't necessarily mean faking, and children can act both out of attention seeking AND confusion. If all they want is attention, then they can satisfy that with a "non-binary" identity, they don't need to transition in any meaningful sense. But there are a whole lot of kids with psychological issues who have problems fitting in and feeling normal, and they're being told that the reason that they don't conform is because they're trans. That creates a hell of a lot of confusion. And if they accept that answer, they may get a lot of positive attention, which is a very powerful reinforcement mechanism to convince them that they're right. By the time they figure out that transition isn't actually solving their problems, permanent damage may already be done.

The objection to medically transitioning kids isn't based on the idea that they're faking it. It's based on the idea that kids don't really know anything, we don't have reliable diagnostic criteria, and delaying or stopping puberty does permanent harm. The advantages are superficial, the disadvantages are significant, and people are better off medically transitioning as adults.

 

[Darat]

The court should use "they" and just wash their hands of the entire quagmire.



Also, given that the subject of the sentence is deceased... why does it matter what pronoun the courts use? Is the child's ghost likely to file a protest about it?

Such callousness.

 

[Samson]

Such callousness.

Ashley Winter is the bench mark.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Such callousness.

If you wish to see it that way, sure. I don't deny that it would seem callous to some.

On the other hand... It's not the role of the courts to cater to people's feelings. The role of the court is to make determinations based on factual evidence in order to secure a just society. When courts begin to alter that approach, and begin to shape themselves around the beliefs and the feelings of either the defendant or the claimant, then that court is failing it's primary duty.

There's no need for the court to take a strictly sex-based stance, nor a strictly gender ideology stance. The court can very, very easily adopt neutral pronouns and rely largely on terms like "the deceased", "the accused", "the claimant", etc. as well as using the actual names of those involved. By doing so, they avoid the risk of advocating for a belief - something that courts should never do.

And it's not that hard. I've been doing it for a few years now, and so far as I can tell, my use of neutral pronouns and names has neither offended anyone nor caused confusion.

In my opinion, it's not "callous" for the court to avoid miring itself in a religious conflict.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Let's talk about the retroactive fictionalization of history for a moment.

My employer has required training, which is fairly normal for any larger company. Most of it is based on information security, Conflict of Interest stuff, and for me HIPAA compliance. But over the past couple of years, there's been a large shift toward DEI-related stuff.

I just went through 90 minutes of "training" on Native American Two-Spirit stuff. The presenter is Hopi by descent, and there was some rather interesting bits in there... although I doubt that what I found interesting was what they intended for me to take away from it.

By their own admission, the term "two spirit" is a pretty new invention. It's not some deeply embedded aspect of US First Nations history. It's a term that has been created to support the agenda of "educating" Native American populations and get them to be more accepting of hoosexual and transgender people. Part of the presentation talked about the re-education efforts underway among Hopi, Navajo, and Apache populations on the topic.

My take-away from this is that all the narratives around the deep importance of two-spirit people to Native American populations is a complete invention.

There's some reason to believe that historically, many cultures - including Native Americans - have made space for males who don't conform to strict sex-based roles within their societies. But the story we're told about how two-spirit is a huge a deeply sacred tradition, venerated within Native American culture... well, that's just made up out of whole cloth.

 

[Darat]

If you wish to see it that way, sure. I don't deny that it would seem callous to some.

On the other hand... It's not the role of the courts to cater to people's feelings. The role of the court is to make determinations based on factual evidence in order to secure a just society. When courts begin to alter that approach, and begin to shape themselves around the beliefs and the feelings of either the defendant or the claimant, then that court is failing it's primary duty.

There's no need for the court to take a strictly sex-based stance, nor a strictly gender ideology stance. The court can very, very easily adopt neutral pronouns and rely largely on terms like "the deceased", "the accused", "the claimant", etc. as well as using the actual names of those involved. By doing so, they avoid the risk of advocating for a belief - something that courts should never do.

And it's not that hard. I've been doing it for a few years now, and so far as I can tell, my use of neutral pronouns and names has neither offended anyone nor caused confusion.

In my opinion, it's not "callous" for the court to avoid miring itself in a religious conflict.

The "on the other hand" does not address anything to do with your callousness "..Also, given that the subject of the sentence is deceased... why does it matter what pronoun the courts use? Is the child's ghost likely to file a protest about it?.."

 

[Roboramma]

The "on the other hand" does not address anything to do with your callousness "..Also, given that the subject of the sentence is deceased... why does it matter what pronoun the courts use? Is the child's ghost likely to file a protest about it?.."

Because the court's choice of pronoun here means endorsing a particular view about which is the right pronoun to use. And the court's authority within society has a broader impact on society as a whole than just its impact on the deceased child or even on the parents and family of the deceased child.

I can understand the desire to spare the feelings of the family here. And might even agree that that is the right choice, but there clearly are other concerns as well, and in arguing for the importance of concerns about the feelings of the family, you shouldn't ignore concerns about the court's endorsing of what some of us consider an anti-truth view.

You may think the latter is not an anti-truth view, and thus shouldn't be a concern here. But can you accept that for those of us who do see it in that light, there's a real tradeoff to consider?

ETA This sounds much more melodramatic than I'd like. One reason that I think I could agree with you about using the child's preferred pronouns is that I see this as a relatively mild endorsement of that view, one whose impact isn't particularly large, and thus the feelings of the family may legitimately take precedence. But I'm still undecided. If you asked me what I'd do in that situation right now from my undecided position, I'd use the child's preferred pronouns, or perhaps take EC's way out and just use gender neutral pronouns.

 

[Ziggurat]

Let's talk about the retroactive fictionalization of history for a moment.

As the old Soviet joke goes, "The future is certain. Only the past is unpredictable."

 

[theprestige]

Because the court's choice of pronoun here means endorsing a particular view about which is the right pronoun to use. And the court's authority within society has a broader impact on society as a whole than just its impact on the deceased child or even on the parents and family of the deceased child.

I can understand the desire to spare the feelings of the family here. And might even agree that that is the right choice, but there clearly are other concerns as well, and in arguing for the importance of concerns about the feelings of the family, you shouldn't ignore concerns about the court's endorsing of what some of us consider an anti-truth view.

You may think the latter is not an anti-truth view, and thus shouldn't be a concern here. But can you accept that for those of us who do see it in that light, there's a real tradeoff to consider?

ETA This sounds much more melodramatic than I'd like. One reason that I think I could agree with you about using the child's preferred pronouns is that I see this as a relatively mild endorsement of that view, one whose impact isn't particularly large, and thus the feelings of the family may legitimately take precedence. But I'm still undecided. If you asked me what I'd do in that situation right now from my undecided position, I'd use the child's preferred pronouns, or perhaps take EC's way out and just use gender neutral pronouns.

Given the diffuse nature of the UK constitution, and the role of common law in defining it, I wonder if a judge's choice of language from the bench has further implications there. If (some) courts are using pronouns to indicate percieved sex rather than asserted gender, this may limit attempts to claim the latter as a constituional right later on.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The "on the other hand" does not address anything to do with your callousness "..Also, given that the subject of the sentence is deceased... why does it matter what pronoun the courts use? Is the child's ghost likely to file a protest about it?.."

I don't actually care if you think it's callous. You can hold whatever opinion you want.

The premise of using wrong-sex pronouns for people with gender identity problems is all about protecting their feelings. Anything and everything beyond that is about proving one's adherence to religious tenets regarding a magically gendered soul that is divorced from the body.

If the actual individual in question is not present, then there's no reason at all to engage in fiction on their behalf. In this case, the individual in question is deceased. Not only are they not present, it's impossible for them to be exposed to what pronoun other people are using with reference to their corpse.

So genuinely - unless you think the kid's ghost is going to file a complaint, pronouns are 100% irrelevant in this situation.

 

[Emily's Cat]

ETA This sounds much more melodramatic than I'd like. One reason that I think I could agree with you about using the child's preferred pronouns is that I see this as a relatively mild endorsement of that view, one whose impact isn't particularly large, and thus the feelings of the family may legitimately take precedence. But I'm still undecided. If you asked me what I'd do in that situation right now from my undecided position, I'd use the child's preferred pronouns, or perhaps take EC's way out and just use gender neutral pronouns.

Given that the British courts have previously castigated a female pensioner for failing to refer to their male attacker as "she", and essentially refusing to allow compensation to the victim of the violent crime because that female victim didn't toe the ideological line... I'm a bit less inclined to see this as a mild endorsement.

 

[Samson]

From X:

In March, four 14 year old girls walked into their high school locker room after PE class. They entered the showers in their bathing suits to wash chlorine off. That’s when an 18 year old trans identified male walked in, undressed, and began to shower and expose himself to the minors.

When Sun Prairie East High school officials were notified of the incident and of the girls’ discomfort, they did not contact a Title IX officer as required by federal law. They did not contact the girls parents. They did not offer any services to the girls.

A month later, the principal provided a policy (not approved by the school board) that requires girls to use private facilities if they are uncomfortable by male exposure in their locker room. Today, the Department of Education announced it will investigate whether or not the district violated title IX in its poor response to sexual harassment.

The trans movement enables these incidents by providing offending males an acceptable cover. These girls deserved better.

It really doesn't matter who said this it is probably true, and statistically almost certain the 18 year old is just a common or garden autogynephile.
The sooner this nonsense is reversed the better.

 

[Elaedith]

Interesting paper just published on the characteristics of a sample of 78 detransitioners.

Detransition and Desistance Among Previously Trans-Identified Young Adults

The main findings are summarised clearly in the abstract.

 

[Roboramma]

Given the diffuse nature of the UK constitution, and the role of common law in defining it, I wonder if a judge's choice of language from the bench has further implications there. If (some) courts are using pronouns to indicate percieved sex rather than asserted gender, this may limit attempts to claim the latter as a constituional right later on.

Given that the British courts have previously castigated a female pensioner for failing to refer to their male attacker as "she", and essentially refusing to allow compensation to the victim of the violent crime because that female victim didn't toe the ideological line... I'm a bit less inclined to see this as a mild endorsement.

These both seem like valid points to me.

I haven't made up my mind here (though I still think your solution of just using neural pronouns works well), but both of the above do seem like reasons to consider that the impact is not just localized to the people involved in this particular court proceeding.

 

[gnome]

From X:

In March, four 14 year old girls walked into their high school locker room after PE class. They entered the showers in their bathing suits to wash chlorine off. That’s when an 18 year old trans identified male walked in, undressed, and began to shower and expose himself to the minors.

When Sun Prairie East High school officials were notified of the incident and of the girls’ discomfort, they did not contact a Title IX officer as required by federal law. They did not contact the girls parents. They did not offer any services to the girls.

A month later, the principal provided a policy (not approved by the school board) that requires girls to use private facilities if they are uncomfortable by male exposure in their locker room. Today, the Department of Education announced it will investigate whether or not the district violated title IX in its poor response to sexual harassment.

The trans movement enables these incidents by providing offending males an acceptable cover. These girls deserved better.

It really doesn't matter who said this it is probably true, and statistically almost certain the 18 year old is just a common or garden autogynephile.
The sooner this nonsense is reversed the better.

It may be as you describe, but it seems like the full facts are not yet established.

Wisconsin Public Radio: US Department of Education is opening an investigation into Sun Prairie locker room incident

The Office of Civil Rights will investigate whether the school district "responded to a report of sexual harassment consistent with the requirements of Title IX."

"Please understand that opening an investigation does not mean that OCR has made a decision about the complaint. During the investigation, OCR is neutral; OCR will collect and analyze the evidence it needs in order to make a decision," the letter states.

The school itself has a page about the incident:

Sun Prairie Area School District: Supporting All Students

Due to laws protecting student privacy, we cannot comment on the details of the incident. However, we can share:

All individuals involved in this incident were students enrolled in the District.
The District immediately addressed this incident after it was brought to the District’s attention and started an investigation.
The District took steps to ensure a similar incident does not recur.
The District talked with the students and families who were involved who came forward.
The District offered and provided support to the involved students and their families.
The School Board has been fully informed of the incident during a Closed Session on May 1st, has been briefed by the school district’s attorney, and is aware of the school district’s community response.
We want to be clear:

The Sun Prairie Area School District does not condone any student of one sex being present in a state of undress in the presence of students of another sex.
The District does not condone a student of one sex showering in the presence of students of another sex.
What happened in this incident was not in line with our District’s practices.

Additional details may not be forthcoming unless the students involved waive their privacy rights and allow the school to make a more detailed statement.

However, I think it can pretty clearly be discerned that the school does not consider this incident in line with their policy. So regardless of the findings of the OCR, it will not be policy there that a trans female may shower in the presence of biologically female students.

 

[Manger Douse]

Trans female?

 

[Samson]

Trans female?

That's unfair.

 

[Darat]

Given the diffuse nature of the UK constitution, and the role of common law in defining it, I wonder if a judge's choice of language from the bench has further implications there. If (some) courts are using pronouns to indicate percieved sex rather than asserted gender, this may limit attempts to claim the latter as a constituional right later on.

Nope. There is nothing binding in the court's decision to use she and her in this case to refer to the murdered trans child that the murderers referred to with the pronoun "it".