Science My transgender hobbyhorse

[Oleg]

 

[DrZoidberg]

My argument is that there's nothing about cluster concepts preventing you from using that to define gender

Indeed, and with gender, as per any other cluster concept, there is an expected and correct contraindication on saying "No-True-Scotsman" as it were.

Hence why I don't say such bollocks as "they aren't a _____" with regards to gender.

More waffling

It's a lazy way to not have to make a coherent argument and defend your position

Says the person in the act of not actually defending a position, because as has been noted all up and down the thread so far, no attempt has been made to apply anything but clearly dysfunctional semantic definitions of "woman" and arbitrary selections leading to cluster concepts.

You haven't noted anything. You've just been babbling nonsense. You seem to be struggling to define your own position. Perhaps there's some sort of article or something that may elucidate what you mean? I know there's not because I've read plenty of queer and gender theory.

Neither of these serve your purpose of declaring trans people ought not have access to hormones.

What are you talking about?

The argument being leveled by the twat referenced in the OP is that trans people ought not be allowed to exist, not be allowed to access hormones because they in particular fail to fall within the imaginary borders of "woman".

What are you talking about? You're reading things into the documentary that's not there. You're interpreting a threat that isn't.

"They know it when they see it".

I'm sorry, but that seems to be your position, not mine.

How about "don't be a dick, just ask, and accept the answer politely, even if they answer their gender without telling you about their genitals."

Again... what are you talking about? This is about gender identity. If I ask someone what gender they are and they tell me, how am I to know what they mean? What assumptions can I make? If the words for gender mean nothing, why bother saying it?

The fact that there's plenty of human behaviours found both among men and women doesn't mean that, on average, they also always overlap

This is, quite pointedly, sexism and sex-essentialism.

It's not sexism. Denying gender differences will unavoidably swerve into sexism, because you will by necessity have to use one gender as default and the other will have to be forced to adapt. And yes, it is sex-essentialism. Because that's what fits the experimental data.

You however, have not defined anything. You've avoided defining it.

You mean, a part from posting this:

Sex–gender distinction - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My attitude on this is the same as with any scientific issue. I will adapt my opinion to whatever a majority of the scientific community says it should be. And as far as I'm aware human sexual dimorphism has never been questioned within the scientific community. There's a near universal agreement on it. And has been all the time. It has also been extensively studied.

Gender ONLY as a social construct has a fairly weak support even among the big names of gender studies. Even. the pope of queer theory, Judith Butler agrees that gender is partly a social construct and partly a result of biological differences. In her book Gender Trouble she talks at length about how there's a large variety in the chromosomes that make up sex. So even she acknowledges that the biology plays a part. And if so, we can use science to define it. Which, I'd argue is important today, since gender has become such a contentious political issue.

I'd argue that gender studies has become a religious cult, increasingly losing connection to reality. Progressives who in the name of progress have become fanatics.

To me you come across as a fanatic. A Jacobin of gender.

My position has the benefit of letting people define themselves on that field as far as the treatment they recieve from the modes of treatment I offer commonly, and then just doing that.

I still don't understand what your position is. You've said nothing intelligible IMHO.

 

[Bomb#20]

... They are talking about abolishing gendered bathrooms and making all children use the same bathrooms regardless of their sex or their gender identity. The problem is not girls being forced to choose between holding in their pee and sharing a bathroom with trans people. The problem is girls being forced to choose between holding in their pee and sharing a bathroom with cis boys.

I have a problem with people saying "bathrooms". As if that's what it is about. Making bathrooms gender neutral is a non-issue.

Making bathrooms gender neutral is a non-issue to you. That is because you are a man, and the people gender neutral bathrooms create an issue for are women. There is a fundamental asymmetry between the sexes, one that I know you personally are not blinded to by ideological purity, even though it's evidently a verboten concept to some people here. A great many women perceive men as predators and themselves as prey. This is not an experience they can rid themselves of merely by subjecting themselves to a sufficient number of holier-than-thou lectures from their self-anointed betters.

Everybody will poop in private stalls. At no point will women, even attempt, to use the urinals. And if they do, who cares? It's smoke and mirrors.

Who cares? Who cares?!? Women care!!! Did you ask any woman whether making bathrooms gender neutral is a non-issue to her before you decided it's not important? Or did you just philosophically contemplate whether it ought to be an issue by imagining how your male brain would feel if it were in a female body?

I don't know if women think differently in Scandinavia, but in America women overwhelmingly do not want to have their women's bathrooms taken away from them. And judging from the reaction of the British schoolgirls in the article I linked, British women think like American women in this regard. When girls are so desperate not to go to the bathroom with boys that they'll dehydrate themselves all day to avoid it, you may depend upon it that it's an issue to them!

 

[DrZoidberg]

... They are talking about abolishing gendered bathrooms and making all children use the same bathrooms regardless of their sex or their gender identity. The problem is not girls being forced to choose between holding in their pee and sharing a bathroom with trans people. The problem is girls being forced to choose between holding in their pee and sharing a bathroom with cis boys.

I have a problem with people saying "bathrooms". As if that's what it is about. Making bathrooms gender neutral is a non-issue.

Making bathrooms gender neutral is a non-issue to you. That is because you are a man, and the people gender neutral bathrooms create an issue for are women. There is a fundamental asymmetry between the sexes, one that I know you personally are not blinded to by ideological purity, even though it's evidently a verboten concept to some people here. A great many women perceive men as predators and themselves as prey. This is not an experience they can rid themselves of merely by subjecting themselves to a sufficient number of holier-than-thou lectures from their self-anointed betters.

Everybody will poop in private stalls. At no point will women, even attempt, to use the urinals. And if they do, who cares? It's smoke and mirrors.

Who cares? Who cares?!? Women care!!! Did you ask any woman whether making bathrooms gender neutral is a non-issue to her before you decided it's not important? Or did you just philosophically contemplate whether it ought to be an issue by imagining how your male brain would feel if it were in a female body?

I don't know if women think differently in Scandinavia, but in America women overwhelmingly do not want to have their women's bathrooms taken away from them. And judging from the reaction of the British schoolgirls in the article I linked, British women think like American women in this regard. When girls are so desperate not to go to the bathroom with boys that they'll dehydrate themselves all day to avoid it, you may depend upon it that it's an issue to them!

Perhaps there's some cultural issue here.

In Scandinavia bathrooms haven't been gendered for at least 25+ years. If there's a urinal there's a sign for mens. But that's it. Sometimes there's stalls and urinals mixed. In Scandinavia women don't seem to have a problem with that.

The last couple of years this sign has started showing up. I have only seen it at very large concert venues. So I assume the target audience is tourists.




The reason I made that comment is because I thought bathrooms weren't gendered anywhere in the west any longer. I live in Scandinavia, so I just assumed it's the same here as elsewhere. But if it's not, I apologize.

I went to a nightclub last Saturday and there the bathrooms had gendered signs on the bathrooms. But that would have been impossible to tell from the people inside. Men and women went to both. Nobody seemed to care. And that's the only gendered bathroom sign I've seen here in a long time.

In the 90'ies when bathrooms became gender neutral here, I can't remember there was any resistance to it. It allows a more efficient utility of the facilities. So was universally embraced. And fast. Perhaps it's just as easy as that in Scandinavia this never became an ideological battleground? Conservatives here clearly never thought defending gendered bathrooms was a hill worth dying on. So they didn't.

But you are correct that I haven't asked what Scandinavian women think about it. It's not a conversation that comes up in these parts. We embraced gender neutral bathrooms so long ago that today I doubt it's anything anyone in Scandinavia thinks about it any longer. When I've been out travelling I certainly don't care if it says ladies or gentlemen on the doors. If I have to make any extra effort to pass a ladies to go to the gents I just go to the ladies. I wouldn't think I was breaking a taboo and I think I'd be surprised if anybody would have a problem with it. The Copenhagen airport has gendered bathrooms. But I never take the gender signs seriously when I'm at the airport. I just use whatever is closest.

Anyway... that's why I just assumed gendered bathrooms were a non-issue today, everywhere outside of Afghanistan and Iran.

 

[Bomb#20]

Oh for the love of god. Women and girls do not feel uncomfortable undressing and peeing in front of men and boys because somebody told them there's something wrong with boys. Do you even know any women?

Oh for the love of god. Women and girls aren't being asked to undress or to pee in front of anybody.

Oh for the love of god, women and girls aren't being asked, full-stop. They are being imposed upon. They are being dictated to. Nobody held a referendum before making all the bathrooms gender neutral, let alone a referendum of women. Their safe-spaces from men are being abolished without anyone in power giving them a say in the matter.

But no, of course they aren't being ordered to undress or to pee in front of anybody -- they're being given the option of just holding it in for hours on end.

A locked stall in a room that is shared by everyone is a perfectly private space. Have you even seen a bathroom?

Have you ever even seen a clue?

Did you read the article? Is there some part of

One angry mother shared, "The cubicles were open at the bottom and top so older pupils can easily climb up the toilets and peer over."​

that you didn't understand? Have you forgotten the world outside your little corner of Australia? You're from the UK! You have to know perfectly well that bathroom designs are highly variable. If you have gotten accustomed to a region where a locked stall in a room that is shared by everyone really is a perfectly private space, lucky you. Have a little empathy for people who have to live with less. I know a woman whose last workplace switched to all gender-neutral bathrooms. She tricked out the back of her car with window curtains and took up parking at the most remote place in the parking lot, so she could leave the building, walk a ways, get in the car, and crouch over a jar, because that was less intimidating than peeing in a locked stall in a room that is shared by everyone.

Mixed gender bathrooms have been the norm in many places in Europe since bathrooms were invented. The idea that such spaces must be segregated is an odd and twisted offshoot of puritanism.

If you encounter a woman who prefers her public bathrooms to be female-only, I'm sure she'll come to see how wrong she is if only you mansplain her feelings to her.

 

[Bomb#20]

The problem is girls being forced to choose between holding in their pee and sharing a bathroom with cis boys

So in other words you posted something that has absolutely nothing to do about the thread title or even OP material.

I at least assumed you posted something germane to the topic. That, I think, was my mistake.

Do you get off on play-acting the part of an idiot? I know you are not as stupid as the garbage you write.

As you must surely be aware on some level, the school authorities did not enact an all-gender-neutral bathroom policy because they are philosophically committed to an ideology of gender-blindness extremism. They did it because the progressives who decided trans people belong at the top of the progressive stack put them up to it! And the school authorities' progressive overlords didn't decide all-gender-neutral bathrooms are the right way to support trans interests because trans people were unwilling to use gendered bathrooms of the genders they perceive themselves to be. A typical transwoman would be perfectly happy to use a ladies' room and have no cis men there; and vice versa for transmen. But the problem with that solution, from those progressives' point of view, is that if there's a ladies' room that only cis women and transwomen are supposed to use, and cis men are supposed to stay out of it, then there would need to be some objective criterion for determining who is and who is not a transwoman. And that is anathema to the progressive circular definition that a woman is any person who claims to be a woman. This is not rocket science.

The entire underlying reason for those schoolgirls being psychologically and physiologically tortured on the altar of political correctness is progressives' refusal to explain what they mean by "man" and "woman" -- what DrZ called the incoherent theoretical foundation of queer theory and gender theory. So in other words, what I posted has absolutely everything to do with the thread title and the OP material.

 

[bilby]

One angry mother shared, "The cubicles were open at the bottom and top so older pupils can easily climb up the toilets and peer over."

So what? The doors out to the rest of the building aren't locked, so anyone could just walk in when the bathrooms were gendered.

Having gendered bathrooms does nothing to stop rule-breakers from breaking the rules. No rules ever stop rule-breakers from breaking the rules. If people are climbing up and peering into toilet cubicles to harass the users, that's a behavioural problem that needs to be corrected, and putting up a sign saying "Ladies" is just kicking that can down the road. Bullying and harassment of teenagers by teenagers isn't new, isn't surprising, and isn't effectively addressed by gendering bathroom spaces.

The whole thing is only an issue because Americans (and the Poms) are so steeped in these random puritan rules that they've come to imagine these rules to be laws of nature.

Nobody in the EU cares, so clearly these are not, in fact, a naturally arising result of differences between male and female.

These are completely artificial cultural idiosyncrasies, and no more harm arises from un-gendered bathrooms than from wanton refusal to wear a burka, or from women wearing trousers, or from bathing in costumes that fail to cover every inch of skin between neck and knee.

All of which protections for women against predatory men were (and in some cases and places, still are) deeply believed to be absolutely essential, the the point of requiring laws ensuring their continued universality. And none of which laws ever did anything to actually protect women against sexual harassment or assault.

 

[Oleg]

One angry mother shared, "The cubicles were open at the bottom and top so older pupils can easily climb up the toilets and peer over."

So what? The doors out to the rest of the building aren't locked, so anyone could just walk in when the bathrooms were gendered.

Having gendered bathrooms does nothing to stop rule-breakers from breaking the rules. No rules ever stop rule-breakers from breaking the rules. If people are climbing up and peering into toilet cubicles to harass the users, that's a behavioural problem that needs to be corrected, and putting up a sign saying "Ladies" is just kicking that can down the road. Bullying and harassment of teenagers by teenagers isn't new, isn't surprising, and isn't effectively addressed by gendering bathroom spaces.

The whole thing is only an issue because Americans (and the Poms) are so steeped in these random puritan rules that they've come to imagine these rules to be laws of nature.

Nobody in the EU cares, so clearly these are not, in fact, a naturally arising result of differences between male and female.

These are completely artificial cultural idiosyncrasies, and no more harm arises from un-gendered bathrooms than from wanton refusal to wear a burka, or from women wearing trousers, or from bathing in costumes that fail to cover every inch of skin between neck and knee.

All of which protections for women against predatory men were (and in some cases and places, still are) deeply believed to be absolutely essential, the the point of requiring laws ensuring their continued universality. And none of which laws ever did anything to actually protect women against sexual harassment or assault.

This is the triump of the Patriarchy. Men telling women how they should feel in female spaces.

 

[Jarhyn]

Reality tells conservatives that the way they tell their wives and daughters they ought feel in particular spaces is unnecessary and harmful. Conservatives double down.

 

[Oleg]

Reality tells conservatives that the way they tell their wives and daughters they ought feel in particular spaces is unnecessary and harmful. Conservatives double down.

Curious that you want to simply cast this as evil conservatives. There are plenty on the "left" who are against men in female spaces. Like that fascist J. K. Rowling. That men should not be in females spaces is one of the most common sense things. Women shouldn't lose that simply because some guy wants to live out his autogynephilia.

 

[Bomb#20]

It seems that the only folks who are trying to feel superior, or enable folks to feel superior, are those who try to exclude folks.

...says the guy who wrote:

I would eject anyone from a department who makes arguments such as theirs that "is" of their dubiously definite "sex" informs any kind of "ought" might not have the wherewithal to hack it in academia in the first place.

Superiority is fundamentally taking power over someone. Saying "by power of my strength, or the strength of the traditions of the past, or by the strength of my friends, you may not for your own sake do some thing to yourself."

That's what this is about.

And people who think like you are taking power over schoolgirls, constructively excluding them from school bathrooms by making those bathrooms a safe-haven for sexual harassment, and de facto saying to those girls "by power of our strength, the strength of our subculture's religious faith, and the strength of our friends, on school grounds you may not for your own sake do bladder evacuation to yourself."

(No doubt when the unintended but entirely foreseeable consequences of their actions ensue, those progressive lunatics tell themselves they didn't exclude the schoolgirls -- the schoolgirls excluded themselves. When an employer allows the men who work for him to sexually harass a woman to the point where she finds it intolerable and quits, the employer no doubt likewise thinks to himself that this was the woman's choice and has nothing to do with him. That will not save him from an adverse judgment in the woman's wrongful termination lawsuit. It's called "constructive dismissal".)

 

[Jarhyn]

Reality tells conservatives that the way they tell their wives and daughters they ought feel in particular spaces is unnecessary and harmful. Conservatives double down.

Curious that you want to simply cast this as evil conservatives. There are plenty on the "left" who are against men in female spaces. Like that fascist J. K. Rowling. That men should not be in females spaces is one of the most common sense things. Women shouldn't lose that simply because some guy wants to live out his autogynephilia.

I see you dropped an ought in there.

Your 'common sense' does not seem so common nor sensible, however.

If it is such a common sensibility then surely you can point to a commonly held, shared principle between us which necessitates this puritanical separation, when all of Europe seems to be doing just fine without it?

 

[Oleg]

Reality tells conservatives that the way they tell their wives and daughters they ought feel in particular spaces is unnecessary and harmful. Conservatives double down.

Curious that you want to simply cast this as evil conservatives. There are plenty on the "left" who are against men in female spaces. Like that fascist J. K. Rowling. That men should not be in females spaces is one of the most common sense things. Women shouldn't lose that simply because some guy wants to live out his autogynephilia.

I see you dropped an ought in there.

Your 'common sense' does not seem so common nor sensible, however.

If it is such a common sensibility then surely you can point to a commonly held, shared principle between us which necessitates this puritanical separation, when all of Europe seems to be doing just fine without it?

Are you sure?

Has the transgender bathroom question finally been answered? | The Spectator

As Keir Starmer still struggles to tell us what he thinks the word 'woman' means, some much-needed common sense has been injected into the transgender debate. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published guidance for providers of single-sex and separate-sex services: in short, it says...

www.spectator.co.uk

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published guidance for providers of single-sex and separate-sex services: in short, it says bathrooms and domestic abuse refuges can be single sex in certain circumstances.

Once again, this could not be clearer. Separate-sex and single-sex services are permitted because men and women have different biology; that is not affected by a legal fiction created under GRA. Thank goodness that the EHRC is willing to point this out.

 

[Jarhyn]

It seems that the only folks who are trying to feel superior, or enable folks to feel superior, are those who try to exclude folks.

...says the guy who wrote:

​

I would eject anyone from a department who makes arguments such as theirs that "is" of their dubiously definite "sex" informs any kind of "ought" might not have the wherewithal to hack it in academia in the first place.

Indeed, the inability to avoid excluding others on account of their sex (applying an 'ought' to the 'is' of sex, whatever that happens to be) is grounds for dismissal.

Nobody has an obligation to tolerate fools or assholes

Superiority is fundamentally taking power over someone. Saying "by power of my strength, or the strength of the traditions of the past, or by the strength of my friends, you may not for your own sake do some thing to yourself."

That's what this is about.

And people who think like you are taking power over schoolgirls, constructively excluding them from school bathrooms

They excluded themselves on account of the abusive messaging of their parents. No matter how much you complain that you have to share a drinking fountain with darkie, it is still your own tantrum that injures you.

by making those bathrooms a safe-haven for sexual harassment,

Wow, Europe must be absolutely sick with sexual harassment everywhere then...

Or not.

and de facto saying to those girls "by power of our strength, the strength of our subculture's religious faith, and the strength of our friends, on school grounds you may not for your own sake do bladder evacuation to yourself."

They absolutely MAY use the bathroom. They are pointedly choosing not to, as a result of years of layered abuse from parents and teachers.

(No doubt when the unintended but entirely foreseeable consequences of their actions ensue, those progressive lunatics tell themselves they didn't exclude the schoolgirls -- the schoolgirls excluded themselves.

They did.

When an employer allows the men who work for him to sexually harass a woman to the point where she finds it intolerable and quits, the employer no doubt likewise thinks to himself that this was the woman's choice and has nothing to do with him.

Excepting of course that only these American girls in this American school are having this problem.

Of course as has been discussed, part of this does fall on the school and their incompetence in doing proper civil engineering to intelligently work with their policy decisions.

That said, since plenty of others can and do make the choice, and because it is not onerous anywhere else, one may surmise that it is an act of self-sabotage among the objecting families.

 

[Bomb#20]

Reality tells conservatives that the way they tell their wives and daughters they ought feel in particular spaces is unnecessary and harmful. Conservatives double down.

Has it occurred to you that men who are married to women might potentially receive more expert input from women on the topic of how women feel in particular spaces than men who are married to men receive from their husbands on that topic? "tell their wives and daughters they ought feel". Your ignorance of ordinary heterosexual marriage is breathtaking.

Progressives are the ones telling women. I am listening to women.

 

[Jarhyn]

Reality tells conservatives that the way they tell their wives and daughters they ought feel in particular spaces is unnecessary and harmful. Conservatives double down.

Has it occurred to you that men who are married to women might potentially receive more expert input from women on the topic of how women feel in particular spaces than men who are married to men receive from their husbands on that topic? "tell their wives and daughters they ought feel". Your ignorance of ordinary heterosexual marriage is breathtaking.

Progressives are the ones telling women. I am listening to women.

No, you really are not listening to women, because you are still in here insisting for arbitrary reasons that certain people aren't women.

What I find particularly stupid about your views on the topic are such that your views about what defines "woman" would in fact define my husband as such, and you quite pointedly made a show of insisting that his opinion is not germane...

 

[Oleg]

you are still in here insisting for arbitrary reasons that certain people aren't women.

Half the population are not women. A subjective desire to present as a women doesn't make a man a woman. I mean, the whole point of dsyphoria is that these guys want to be something that they are not.

 

[Jarhyn]

you are still in here insisting for arbitrary reasons that certain people aren't women.

Half the population are not women. A subjective desire to present as a women doesn't make a man a woman. I mean, the whole point of dsyphoria is that these guys want to be something that they are not.

And then we are back full circle: prove that half the population are "not truly women".

I fully accept that LESS than half the population are not women because they say they are not women.

This is different from making some qualitative statement about half the population. People are allowed to make qualitative statements about themselves after all.

Get back to me when you have a definition that even qualifies for making qualitative statements about others, and then I'll laugh at you with Bilby again for a while when you metaphorically define "chair" in a way that captures "horse".

 

[Oleg]

This is different from making some qualitative statement about half the population. People are allowed to make qualitative statements about themselves after all.

What's that saying, people are allowed their own opinions but not their own facts? So Rachel Dolezal is a black woman? It'd be great if the gender ideologists could pinpoint the exact stage in our evolution when the sexual binary imposed on all other mammals was magically erased.

Get back to me when you have a definition that even qualifies for making qualitative statements, and then I'll laugh at you with Bilby for a while when you metaphorically define "chair" in a way that captures "horse".

Enjoy milking your bull. I mean, your trans-cow.

 

[Bomb#20]

Has it occurred to you that men who are married to women might potentially receive more expert input from women on the topic of how women feel in particular spaces than men who are married to men receive from their husbands on that topic? "tell their wives and daughters they ought feel". Your ignorance of ordinary heterosexual marriage is breathtaking.

Progressives are the ones telling women. I am listening to women.

No, you really are not listening to women, because you are still in here insisting for arbitrary reasons that certain people aren't women.

I'm doing nothing of the sort. Feel free to point out any case where I've insisted someone wasn't a woman, and I will present the non-arbitrary reason.

What I find particularly stupid about your views on the topic are such that your views about what defines "woman" would in fact define my husband as such

Your husband is a male-identifying person who was born female? Sorry, I didn't know that. If you've said it elsewhere, sorry, I confess to not having read all 11000 of your posts.

As for what my views are about whether your husband is a woman, you have no idea what my views are. You don't care enough about other people's views to make any effort to get it right when you tell others what they think.

, and you quite pointedly made a show of insisting that his opinion is not germane...

That was before you told me he has experience being female. In any event, I can't help but suspect that his experience is atypical -- if he didn't mind men in the women's room, that might be because he'd have preferred to be in the men's room anyway. I also can't help but suspect that your arguments here are based more on your own ideology than on passing along your husband's recollections -- you don't come off as all that big on taking input. "tell their wives and daughters they ought feel". Your ignorance of ordinary heterosexual marriage is breathtaking.