Transwomen are not Women - Part 15

[Ziggurat]

I totally get what you're saying. Do you get that the way you phrased it is incredibly insulting to us guys who have spent much of our adult lives being no threat whatsoever to women in any way, shape or form, and being their active allies and partners?

I didn't feel at all insulted.

But then, not only am I the sort of man who is not a threat to women, I'm also the sort of man who will signal to women that I'm not a threat by excluding myself from female intimate spaces. So maybe that makes a difference.

You would never say you are almost constantly in fear of being raped or murdered by black people, would you? Phrasing and all that.

Phrasing is indeed important. But she didn't phrase it that way, did she? EC never said she was almost constantly in fear of being raped or murdered by men.

 

[Thermal]

What's your starting premise? You have one, otherwise you wouldn't be able to form an opinion.

Basically, the one I keep saying: I'm heavily, perhaps irreconcilably conflicted.

Trans people are a tiny percentage of the population. Do we cater policy to them?

Bad transpeople are an even tinier percentage of that tiny percentage. Do we use that as justification to establish policy against them?

Everything about the debate feels wrong.

 

[theprestige]

One of "us guys" here. Not insulted at all.

A little saddened sometimes, when it seems like a woman feels it necessary to treat me like a risk. But I'm not a member of the tribe that made the world this way, and neither is EC.

 

[Emily's Cat]

As I posted previously, 'Well yeah, there's three different states. There's trust, then there's not trust, then there's active distrust.',....... which do you think EC belongs to?

I don't agree with your three levels oversimplification. In general, I trust males in the western world to behave appropriately, but it's a provisional trust that's also dependent on the situation.

Let's use "Bob" as a generic male. If I personally know Bob and Bob's temperament and beliefs, there's a good chance that I will trust Bob at like 98% in any situation whatsoever. It's never full trust, because most rapes are committed by people known to the victim, and I've personally been assaulted by someone I knew fairly well and trusted. But I would give very little thought to Bob as a potential risk.

If Bob is a complete stranger, my trust level is going to be lower as a general thing. But it's also highly situational. If Bob is a stranger, but works in my office building, then my trust level is going to be relatively high. Other people are around, it's daytime, it's a business situation, and the likelihood of Bob misbehaving is almost nonexistent. If for some insane reason Bob *did* try something untoward, it's almost certain that someone else would step in quickly to prevent harm. So the risk is very low.

If Bob is a complete stranger walking behind me at night in a vacant parking garage with nobody else around, my trust level will be very low. I would probably consider Bob to be unlikely to do anything to cause me harm, but the value at risk is extremely high for me if my assessment is wrong.

Do you trust males around children? Is it trust, not-trust, or active distrust? Or do you accept that there's always a level of risk to children from adults, and you adapt your trust level depending on how well known the adults in question are, and the type of situation where they're interactive with kids?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Her fear of men fuels her viewpoint, and your contempt of women fuels your agreement that them women better damn right be in fear of your complete control.

At no point has Zig expressed contempt for females. You are simply wrong.

 

[Thermal]

I didn't feel at all insulted.

But then, not only am I the sort of man who is not a threat to women, I'm also the sort of man who will signal to women that I'm not a threat by excluding myself from female intimate spaces. So maybe that makes a difference.

Same here. That's why I dislike the implication that I have complete control over them, and rape or murder them depending on my mood.

Phrasing is indeed important. But she didn't phrase it that way, did she? EC never said she was almost constantly in fear of being raped or murdered by men.

If you think you are at their mercy, ie under their complete control, you'd be a damn fool not to be afraid.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Sure, but why isn't it the case here anymore when it still is elsewhere? Is it because American women are stronger than Afghan women? No. Is it because American men are weaker than Afghan men? No. Can you figure it out yet?

 

[Thermal]

At no point has Zig expressed contempt for females. You are simply wrong.

Contempt is likely the wrong word, conceded. Is 'belief that men are superior in every way' more palatable?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Pointing and laughing is an effective method of avoiding rational argument. Anyone who grew up enmeshed in an orthodoxy (religious or otherwise) knows that people learn this tactic fairly early and deploy it whenever the prevailing groupthink is called into question. In this thread, that tactic is employed against the dominant (gender critical) view, but in other threads here at ISF it is employed against those who question progressive ideology.

To be fair, the gender critical view *is* questioning progressive ideology.

 

[Ziggurat]

Basically, the one I keep saying: I'm heavily, perhaps irreconcilably conflicted.

Trans people are a tiny percentage of the population. Do we cater policy to them?

No, we do not.

Bad transpeople are an even tinier percentage of that tiny percentage. Do we use that as justification to establish policy against them?

If you adopt self-ID as a policy, then the problem isn't just going to come from the subset of trans identifying males who are predators. It will also come from non-trans predators who will adopt a trans identification to enable predatory behavior. And that's a potentially much larger group. We can see this issue a mile away even before it arrives. Why would we open up that obvious vulnerability?

And the policy of sex segregation isn't really against trans people. It may be against their preferences, but that's not the same thing.

Everything about the debate feels wrong.

That's not much to hang your hat on.

 

[ahhell]

There are some implicit assumptions in here that I disagree with.

First, it assumes that "genuine" males with transgender identities cannot be a threat to females. That's an unsupported assertion and pretty much wishful thinking. There's no good reason to assume that males who prefer to dress and express themselves in a female-typical way are somehow precluded from behaviors that occur throughout all males.

Secondly, it's a straightforward No True Scotsman fallacy. Essentially, it results in any male who professes a transgender identity who does victimize females being retroactively defined as "not trans" and only pretending.

Third, and most fundamentally important... There is no way to tell beforehand which male who claims to have a transgender identity is a "real trans" versus a "fake trans". But they're ALL male.

The net outcome of this is that females end up being obligated and forced to let in any male who says magic words. And we can only eject them AFTER they've harmed females... and then only because now they're "faking" it. It removes the ability of females to take reasonable preventive measures to protect ourselves from harm - especially harms that we already experience at a massively higher rate - in supplication to making sure the feelings of some males don't get hurt.

The short version is: The feelings of males are more important than the safety and rights of females.

You are not wrong but nothing about what you say would necessarily change my policy preferences. Saying a few magic words should not get you access to women's spaces. Saying a few magic words and fully transitioning probably should.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Agreed, but that's not my point about crime stats. My argument is essentially nothing is showing as crimes, where I would expect something in a nation of a third of a billion. Surely we could expect a couple dozen per day stepping over the legal line, and at least a few hundred per day of the kind of instances in this video, which wouldn't show on crime stats? Why are lone. ambiguous instances spaced weeks or months apart the only ones showing up, and a Merager or Cox every few years?

1) What's to report when a male being naked and having their dick exposed in a female shower is not illegal? What's to report when a male looking at a female while the female is nude in the female changing room is not illegal? That's a big part of the issue: the behavior that is the actual problem has been legalized, leaving females with no means to combat it.

2) Why do you expect females to report it when doing so results in the female being harassed and vilified? Why would females subject ourselves to further pain and offense by reporting it when the law will take the side of the male? See Merager, Black, Francis, and all the female students of that Ohio school who a judge told had no right to visual bodily privacy from males while in the female locker room and showers.

3) Given how small a portion of the population transgender identified people are supposed to be, don't you think that instances showing up every few weeks or months might be a big ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ deal?

 

[Ziggurat]

Contempt is likely the wrong word, conceded. Is 'belief that men are superior in every way' more palatable?

It may be more palatable, but it's completely wrong. Men as a group are significantly stronger than women. Men as a group are far more capable of using violence to enforce their will. These are simply true statements, they do not carry any moral judgment. But I never, ever said that men are better than women at everything. I don't believe anything of the sort, I never said anything of the sort, and I have no idea where you get that from.

 

[smartcooky]

YOU use that language, Thermal. Stop pretending other people are doing so.

Indeed, he is in fact the ONLY one here who uses that language.

Oh, I'm sure he thinks he's just paraphrasing, but I do wonder if his continued insistence on using such language to impugn the motives of others, isn't just some kind of Freudian projection.

ETA: Did you notice how he dodged addressing your post that showed his bull-◊◊◊◊ claim about "3 out of four Californians" supporting self ID and transgender identified males being allowed to use women's spaces was... err... bull-◊◊◊◊?

 

[theprestige]

You are not wrong but nothing about what you say would necessarily change my policy preferences. Saying a few magic words should not get you access to women's spaces. Saying a few magic words and fully transitioning probably should.

Which brings all the way back around to "papers please", which was a point of concern in the very first chapter of this thread.

 

[Thermal]

If you adopt self-ID as a policy, then the problem isn't just going to come from the subset of trans identifying males who are predators. It will also come from non-trans predators who will adopt a trans identification to enable predatory behavior. And that's a potentially much larger group. We can see this issue a mile away even before it arrives. Why would we open up that obvious vulnerability?

Because we don't see it happening? Even the Cox and Meragers do their creepshow thing one way or the other. Actual imposter transwomen (and I may be mistaken here) have not shown up anywhere, yet we should be swimming in reports if the threat was real.

On the chance that it has completely slipped my mind, how many of these imposter trans criminals have actually been reported, outside of the jailhouse converts gaming the system (and that door should get closed, as even my own NJ does)? Go worldwide, and cross decades. Shouldn't be hard to identify a few hundred, and thousands more slipped through the cracks. Even just the first few dozen would do.

And the policy of sex segregation isn't really against trans people. It may be against their preferences, but that's not the same thing.

Pretty sure they are not seeing it that way. And they have a logical point, if you accept transpeople as real.

 

[Ziggurat]

Same here. That's why I dislike the implication that I have complete control over them, and rape or murder them depending on my mood.

Why do you dislike the implication?

I could murder my children any time I wanted to, depending on my mood. That's simply a true statement. It doesn't bother me, because I am confident that I will never be in the mood, and to my knowledge, nobody is worried that I will ever be in the mood.

Do you think that you're being accused of the possibility that you might some day be in the mood? Is that what's offensive to you? I can see why that might bother you, but I don't think her post actually contains any such accusation.

If you think you are at their mercy, ie under their complete control, you'd be a damn fool not to be afraid.

Why? Were you afraid of your parents when you were a child? You were under their complete control. Do you think people under your complete control have reason to fear you?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Seriously? You've never seen a public toilet or toilets in clubrooms, or sports changing facilities that look like this?

In this country, you'd be hard pressed to find one that isn't. They are pretty much all like this!

It doesn't allow for complete and total privacy, but it allows for reasonable privacy of the *ahem* private parts. It also, however, allows other people the ability to gain access to a locked stall in the event that someone inside has a medical event and needs assistance.

Of less importance, it also makes it relatively easy to determine whether you're alone in a vulnerable space or not. Not usually a big deal, but late at night in a large venue, a lot of people (mostly female people) like being able to glance along the floor line and see if there's someone in there, and whether or not that someone has male-sized feet and thus might represent a risk to a female alone in space where they will be partially unclothed and particularly vulnerable to attack.

 

[Ziggurat]

Because we don't see it happening? Even the Cox and Meragers do their creepshow thing one way or the other. Actual imposter transwomen (and I may be mistaken here) have not shown up anywhere, yet we should be swimming in reports if the threat was real.

There is no way in general to distinguish between an "authentic" trans person and an imposter. So why would you expect to be able to identify them? And when their predatory behavior (like masturbating in the locker room) isn't even illegal, why would you expect that to show up in statistics?

 

[Pixel42]

If Bob is a complete stranger walking behind me at night in a vacant parking garage with nobody else around, my trust level will be very low. I would probably consider Bob to be unlikely to do anything to cause me harm, but the value at risk is extremely high for me if my assessment is wrong.

I'm reminded of something I read years ago. A bunch of men were asked what they thought would be the right thing to do if they noticed they were following a lone woman down a deserted street at night. The number who said they would speed up in order to safeguard her was astonishingly high. Even when they were reminded that the woman could have no idea who they were and what their intentions were, many still didn't get it. They knew they were no danger to her, and seemed incapable of imagining how she might feel.

I'm putting the right answer in a spoiler box, so the men here can think about it before clicking.

Cross the road and walk on the other side.