Cont: Transwomen are not women part XII (also merged)

[mumblethrax]

Elective cosmetic surgery isn't medically indicated surgery. I don't know what you think your point is.

It is if you have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

(And that's still not what elective surgery means.)

 

[d4m10n]

The term gender has never been synonymous with sex, except in the euphemistic sense. Prior to the 1950s, it had no meaning at all to do with sex.

The euphemistic replacement of "sex" with "gender" goes back at least as far as Charles Dickens writing in the 1830s.

This is the hend, is it, of all my bearing with her deceitfulness, her lowness, her falseness, her laying herself out to catch the admiration of vulgar minds, in a way which made me blush for my--for my--'

'Gender,' suggested Mr Squeers, regarding the spectators with a malevolent eye...

I'd be surprised if Dickens was inventing this euphemism out of whole cloth, creative though he was, because the other meaning of gender (as a verb) involved breeding.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

[mumblethrax]

The euphemistic replacement of "sex" with "gender" goes back at least as far as Charles Dickens, writing in the 1830s.

Fair enough.

It doesn't really matter in any case...there's nothing wrong with coining a new sense of a word. Happens all the time. And it needed to happen, because people routinely attributed to sex things non-biological.

 

[theprestige]

The flattening of the very nuanced issue that is sports categories into the male-female binary is arbitrary. Not unreasonable, for that degree of flattening; but to fix on that degree of simplification is what is arbitrary.

Not sure why you're bringing in prisons and "certain other things". I made it very clear, I thought, that I was referring to sports and only to sports.

I think you're trying to manufacture an arbitrary nuance of the gaps, hoping to find a gap into which you can wedge some idea of transwomen competing with women that is safe, fair, and interesting. But you're not there yet. And even if you do think you've got there, you're still not able to force women's prisons and women's shelters into whatever gap you imagine must exist for sports.

The fact is that transwomen are not women. There are some really important contexts in which this truth really matters. Sports is one of them. It's useful to our discussion because of the abundance of statistical data supporting sex segregation. Trying to devise some arbitrarily nuanced system whereby each transwoman is matched with the female athlete who most closely matches their arbitrarily decided athletic potential is not the answer.

Your real problem is that you cannot come up with an arbitrary system of weight classes and handicaps for putting a rapist in a women's prison, just because he says he'd prefer to be locked in a room with a woman.

 

[mumblethrax]

Are you seriously arguing that in the legal sense... the law is actually and for realsies talking about what sort of gender role and presentation a person likes? And has always done so?

No.

I am saying what is true of biological sex is formally independent from anything the law says at all. The law does not discover natural truths. That's not what it's for. It can only make social arrangements around sex...and that's gender.

I am not talking about what distinctions the law can make. I am saying the law itself, as it pertains to sex, can only ever be a set of norms about what sex should entail in a social setting. That's gender. It's not sex. If you want to know something about a behavorial aspect of reproductive phenotype, ask a biologist or ethologist or some other relevant specialist. Definitely do not ask the law.

Are you seriously arguing that the government's view of "gender" 50 years ago was NOT as a euphemism for sex?

I have no idea whether 'the government' even had a view of gender 50 years ago, and I really don't think it matters.

 

[mumblethrax]

As far as I can tell, ACLU is begging the question that the healthcare they're concerned with was actually necessary in Owen's case. Was he diagnosed with a condition that is ostensibly treatable with that kind of care? Was that kind of care ever prescribed for him?

Well that will all rather depend on whether Owen was ever given the healthcare necessary for a psychiatric diagnosis, in the first place, I suppose.

 

[mumblethrax]

Even if the rule bears no relationship to the facts...

The rule bears a formative relationship to the facts. The facts inform the policy debate. The policy debate is how we decide what we want the rule to be. The (statutory) definitions are subservient to that fact. If one definition better serves the purposes of explaining the meaning of the text, that's the definition to use.

Whether or not that definition is 'factual' is neither here nor there. These are fiat definitions for the purposes of understanding the text.

I mentioned the Animal Welfare Act earlier--here is that law's definition of animal in all it's glory:

(h) The term "animal" means live dogs, cats, monkeys (nonhuman
primate mammals), guinea pigs, hamsters, and rabbits.

I have problems with that definition, but not because it excludes protozoa from concern (1966 was a long time ago, which raises another obvious point). My problem would be that it entirely excludes from consideration the welfare of those 10 billion animals per year who most need protection--those that are destined for charnal houses so we can have really important things like bacon-wrapped, chicken-fried steak at TGI Gutbusters, or provide jobs that we can complain about immigrants stealing.

The outcome would be the same - I'm male, but the record was corrected.

The same as what? I'm saying that if that's the outcome you want, that's the definition you'll push for. If it occurs to you that there really are people with gender dysphoria who would be left in the wind, and that you might want to accommodate them to some degree, you'll probably want to entertain the possibility of using another definition, or otherwise changing the text. That there are two possible ways to change the meaning of a law--change the text, or change the definitions--should go some way towards explaining how irrelevant using the 'factual' definition is.

Your statement implies that the law should ignore the science if the science is inconvenient... presumably due to the rise of unscientific activism?

It not only implies exactly the opposite, it say exactly the opposite.

Can we please stop with this burn-the-witch nonsense? This is the work of dogmatists wearing the cloak of science, not the work of people with a genuinely inquisitive mind.

I'm very much in favor of science informing laws. I wish it happened a lot more. Seems like a major concern to me that we know the voir dire process doesn't work, for example. We all of us in the US have the right to a trial by an impartial jury, a right no one has ever exercised.

No, the people who want the biological definition of sex to be the legal definition are those who want a stable foundation for the law, not a foundation based on the sands of imagination and activism.

No, they're dogmatists who don't have a clue what they're doing or what the consequences will be and have no real interest in becoming informed on that subject.

 

[smartcooky]

Sure, it's less fair. But that doesn't make mixed-sex competitions on the basis of weight alone actually fair. For consideration, 14 year old males - who are far from fully grown and developed - routinely demolish professional female athletes who have put years of effort into devoted training.

Correct, as per examples...

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...se-70-to-team-of-15yearold-boys-a3257266.html

Australia’s women’s football team are ranked the fifth best side in world football. They lost 7-0 to the Newcastle Jets 15 year-old boys team. They didn't just beat the Matildas, they absolutely ran them ragged and it was only some shoddy attacking that kept the score down. The boys had 27 shots on goal and were only able to score from 7 of them. The women had three shots on goal.​

https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/ne...-the-u-s-womens-national-team-in-a-scrimmage/

The US Women’s football team lost 5-2 to the FC Dallas 14 year old boys academy team. At the time, the US Women's team was ranked No. 1 in the world.​

I love watching women's sport, especially team sports. The Women's Rugby World Cup final played in Auckland last year was arguably one of the best rugby games ever (perhaps beaten out the 2000 Bledisloe Cup match in Sydney, and the 1973 Barbarians v All Blacks match in Cardiff). But this women's team, even at its peak would get thrashed by any amateur mens club side in New Zealand - and wisely, NZ rugby would never permit such a match to go ahead due to the real potential for serious injury to the girls.

As I said, I love watching women's sport, which is why I don't want it see it ruined, and its credibility shattered by allowing a few selfish transwomen, who are in every way, biological men who have gone through puberty, to stray out of their lane.
‎
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[mumblethrax]

Alternatively:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

Seems like a good reason not to have the law try to define natural facts (and also not to use dilettantes as experts).

There is a particular debate in the UK about whether it needs to be clarified that sex in a law means biological sex. Context is that it has always been assumed that sex in law meant biological sex, until a recent ruling in a court case (which may be appealed) meant that it might not.

Yeah. Probably some 'begets' in there, but pointing at roughly the same thing.

If it goes the other way...that's why I don't think we should think of the legal definition sex as sex at all. It's always just an answer to the question of how to order a society. It's not like sex becomes meaningless just because the common law definition changes.

In the US, we had kind of the opposite situation. The court found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act barred employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, not because the law changed, not because the definition of sex changed, but just because they noticed it always did. Such discrimination always entails discrimination on the basis of sex (if you fire your male employee for dating men, but not your female employee...you did so "because of" their sex).

In response, the Trump administration...tried to change the meaning of the word sex (kinda, sorta, mostly in some sex-segregated contexts, I think).

 

[mumblethrax]

Since you've repeatedly referenced this as a multivariate system, please outline the variables that you're measuring. What specifically and exactly are you measuring? What is the unit of measurement that you're applying to each of those variables? Are they discrete or a continuous measures on each?

You've already said that it's possible to do this. Not my field, I don't care.

 

[Lplus]

The rule bears a formative relationship to the facts. The facts inform the policy debate. The policy debate is how we decide what we want the rule to be. The (statutory) definitions are subservient to that fact. If one definition better serves the purposes of explaining the meaning of the text, that's the definition to use.

Whether or not that definition is 'factual' is neither here nor there. These are fiat definitions for the purposes of understanding the text.

I mentioned the Animal Welfare Act earlier--here is that law's definition of animal in all it's glory:


I have problems with that definition, but not because it excludes protozoa from concern (1966 was a long time ago, which raises another obvious point). My problem would be that it entirely excludes from consideration the welfare of those 10 billion animals per year who most need protection--those that are destined for charnal houses so we can have really important things like bacon-wrapped, chicken-fried steak at TGI Gutbusters, or provide jobs that we can complain about immigrants stealing.


The same as what? I'm saying that if that's the outcome you want, that's the definition you'll push for. If it occurs to you that there really are people with gender dysphoria who would be left in the wind, and that you might want to accommodate them to some degree, you'll probably want to entertain the possibility of using another definition, or otherwise changing the text. That there are two possible ways to change the meaning of a law--change the text, or change the definitions--should go some way towards explaining how irrelevant using the 'factual' definition is.


It not only implies exactly the opposite, it say exactly the opposite.

Can we please stop with this burn-the-witch nonsense? This is the work of dogmatists wearing the cloak of science, not the work of people with a genuinely inquisitive mind.

I'm very much in favor of science informing laws. I wish it happened a lot more. Seems like a major concern to me that we know the voir dire process doesn't work, for example. We all of us in the US have the right to a trial by an impartial jury, a right no one has ever exercised.


No, they're dogmatists who don't have a clue what they're doing or what the consequences will be and have no real interest in becoming informed on that subject.

All I get from this is "change is good, everything must be mutable" I disagree - fundamentally.

 

[smartcooky]

All I get from this is "change is good, everything must be mutable" I disagree - fundamentally.

100%

 

[TurkeysGhost]

EC's point is about the discrepancy, not the absolute time it takes for her versus transitions. That's why she used the relative term "easier."

What does the discrepancy matter? Are trans people responsible for the piggish attitudes of doctors who automatically refuse care that will result in the sterilization of young patients, even when they explicitly give their informed consent?

Trans affirming care could be criminalized where EC lives tomorrow and that wouldn't move the needle at all for these doctors refusing care on the grounds of prioritizing their fertility over quality of life.

If EC wasn't viewing this through the forced perspective of a zero-sum battle between the rights of cis women and trans women, they might even realize that both groups have very similar interests in bodily autonomy and a right to direct their own medical care without undue interference by secondary interests. In the case of the US, rollbacks of women's right to abortion and other reproductive care often goes hand-in-hand with criminalizing trans affirming care, almost as if their interests are linked and they have a common enemy. Such facts do not square well with the dead-ender transphobe who must lay every evil on the doorstep of trans activists.


What exactly does focusing on this discrepancy show besides sour grapes? EC's grievance is with patronizing doctors, not other patients also trying to receive medical care.

 

[Darat]

In my experience, lesbians look and admire... but tend to not reduce females to being valued for their sexiness alone, en masse.

Then it shows your bias.

 

[Darat]

I'm not giving you my or my mother's medical records.

And I never asked for them.

What I asked for was the evidence for the claims that you made, which were not about you and your mother's firsthand experiences. Are you now wanting to walk those claims back?

 

[Darat]

Additionally, in the US, reconstructive surgery after a disfiguring event is not considered to be cosmetic.

I doubt the UK is different to the USA in this matter - if it is solely about appearance, then yes it is, if the reconstructive surgery is about functionality as well as aesthetics then it isn't.

 

[crazycat]

"The simplest definition of harm in healthcare is a negative effect, whether or not it is evident to the patient."

Medically unnecessary surgical procedures are "harm" by definition. A tubal ligation is a negative effect - removing a woman's ability to conceive. Most doctors I know would absolutely require their patient to undergo some sort of psychological evaluation prior to proceeding with the surgery. This is a bell that cannot be un-ringed.

You're (mostly) wrong. Tubal ligation is often reversable, although a woman considering it should not assume that it could be reversed in her particular case.

Tubal ligation is NOT a case of "do no harm".

 

[Darat]

And rightly so.... "primum non nocere" forms part of the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors swear to. It means "First, do no harm"

No they don't.

The procedure (tubal ligation) is irreversible and it does harm. I'm not surprised that many doctors would refuse to perform this procedure on young women.

Why shouldn't women have agency over their own reproductive system?

 

[Darat]

You're (mostly) wrong. Tubal ligation is often reversable, although a woman considering it should not assume that it could be reversed in her particular case.

Tubal ligation is NOT a case of "do no harm".

It seems remarkably patriarchal and patronising to decide women shouldn't have agency regarding their own bodies and in particular their reproductive system. I can see a surgeon wanting to be sure someone understands what they are asking for, and ensuring they know what the consequences will be but in the end that type of call should be left to a woman and not be imposed on them by society.

 

[theprestige]

Well that will all rather depend on whether Owen was ever given the healthcare necessary for a psychiatric diagnosis, in the first place, I suppose.

Which raises the question of whether transgender identity is a mental health issue or not.

On the one hand, we're assured it isn't. That no diagnosis is necessary. That it's transphobic to suggest otherwise. That wanting to cross sex segregation boundaries is perfectly normal and healthy and that all you have to do is say you want to.

But on the other hand, we're told that if you don't use someone's preferred pronouns they might well kill themselves.