Legal definition of woman is based on biological sex, UK supreme court rules

[Toni]

Being trans is NOT a matter of what one wears!

If it's not a matter of how a person presents, then what is it? I'm not being a pain in the ass here, Toni.

So far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought - and they disagree with each other.

The first school of thought, the old school approach, is to assume that it's the result of a neurological mismatch between one's actual sexed body and one's internal mental image of oneself. This would make it very much akin to anorexia or BIID, where the person's brain genuinely has an inaccurate perception of how their body should be. This represents a very small number of people, and up until fairly recently, this would have been referred to as transsexual.

The second school of thought, the newfangled approach, is to assume that it's based on how a person feels about their gender with respect to social sex-based stereotypes and presentation. And this one is very, very much in line with my description. And it's the by-far more common view in modern times. This is based entirely on the individuals how much an individual thinks that their likes, dislikes, preferences, behaviors, etc. fit the stereotypes of either sex. It's based entirely on feelings.

And when you start really digging in on how those people describe their feelings... it almost always ends up being based on regressive stereotypes. It almost always ends up being "I like dresses and lipstick" or "I like climbing trees and playing football". When you listen to parents describe how they knew their toddler was trans, it ends up being "he didn't like playing with cars and he was really drawn to dolls".

And whether you want to hear it or not, for a surprising amount of adult males who profess a transgender identity, there's a strong sexual component to it. Not all certainly, but a significant portion of self-proclaimed transwomen are aroused by presenting in female attire.

For a whole lot of people out there, what they like to wear and what sexist behaviors they exhibit is the totality of their gender identity.

FFS, if that were the case, 99.9% of the time, I’d be considered a trans man! I refused to go to school ( which I had very much looked forward to) when I learned I would be required to wear a dress. I horrified my mother by preferring to climb trees, collect rocks and insects, take apart and put back together my bicycle, play basketball and football ( not touch!) instead of …putting curlers in my hair and waiting for some boy to call.

The person wearing a frilly dress is most likely female but may also be a trans woman or simply a straight man ( or gay man) who likes to wear a dress. More power to them! I prefer jeans, myself but hey—how could I rightly criticize some one for wanting to wear clothing that is atypical for their sex and/or gender when that is frankly my preference?

You shouldn't criticize anyone who wanting to wear clothing atypical for their sex. Nobody should give a fuck what people like to wear, provided it's appropriate for the venue.

I have very limited experience ( just a few individuals) who are trans, one of whom I knew quite well when they were a child, so I’ll address that: AFAIK, the parents never acknowledged that their child, despite having physical characteristics, thought of themselves as male. But very very clearly they did and were extremely adamant about it from age 4 forward and indeed, I’ve been told by mutual friends that they transitioned as an adult. I myself never brought it up with the family because of what were some serious personality clashes between myself ( and husband) and this child’s parents. Indeed, I avoided the parents as much as possible because they were so very very unpleasant and I was convinced if I brought this child’s assertions to their attention, it would have been worse for the child. Toxic does not even begin to describe the parents. And I was afraid if I made any waves at all, this child would not be able to continue in the program I was coaching and the child needed that outlet more than any other child in the program— it would have been a huge loss to the child. Example: the mother failed to tell me the child had broken their leg during a ski trip, knowing that I was walking the group 4 blocks to my house—through snow. And objected to the fact that I gave the child carrots and grapes and cheese and crackers instead of gummy worms and soda. The parents were both intelligent well educated people—the father was an engineer. They just were awful people. Awful enough that I tread very carefully for fear of causing trouble for the child if I did anything at all to displease the mother. Like offering a healthy snack instead of crap.

I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist but I’m also not unobservant. There was zero and I mean zero doubt in my mind that this child was telling the truth about who they were. It was not a case of the girls in the family being particularly girly or dressed in girly clothes or having girly hairstyles or toys. In that way, they were pretty non-gendered/androgynous.

Sure it’s one child but that very much changed what I believed about trans people. They are real, they need and deserve acceptance and support as much as gay people do or indeed anyone who falls outside the white middle class heteronormative that we all love so much.

There is a saying about believing people when they show you who they are. I do. Even when it contradicts what I believe(d).

 

[ZiprHead]

So far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought - and they disagree with each other.

The first school of thought, the old school approach, is to assume that it's the result of a neurological mismatch between one's actual sexed body and one's internal mental image of oneself. This would make it very much akin to anorexia or BIID, where the person's brain genuinely has an inaccurate perception of how their body should be. This represents a very small number of people, and up until fairly recently, this would have been referred to as transsexual.

The second school of thought, the newfangled approach, is to assume that it's based on how a person feels about their gender with respect to social sex-based stereotypes and presentation. And this one is very, very much in line with my description. And it's the by-far more common view in modern times. This is based entirely on the individuals how much an individual thinks that their likes, dislikes, preferences, behaviors, etc. fit the stereotypes of either sex. It's based entirely on feelings.

What do you think is the difference between the two and do you have any cites that the second approach you describe is the correct one?

 

[Arctish]

Semenya has a vagina. For a lot of people, that is the defining trait of a woman - not her ovaries, not her uterus, not her breasts. It doesn't matter if she's had a radical hysterectomy and itty-bitty man titties. If she has a vagina, men will treat her as a woman.

Setting aside the question of whether what Semenya has is a vagina, you seem to be saying men will treat a person with a penis, testicles and a vagina as a woman. If so, that appears on its face to be an argument that men tend to be misogynistic jerks instead of an argument that having a vagina is the correct criterion for womanhood -- it sounds like those men are relying on the "women are failed men" definition of womanhood. What makes how "men will treat" someone the truth-maker here? Do women typically consider a person with a penis, testicles and a vagina to match the criteria for womanhood?
...

You are conflating sex with gender. They are not the same thing.

"Is there a vagina?" is a question about sex.

I was following your lead! You're the one who proposed asking a hundred men about a vagina to settle a gender question. So if I'm conflating sex with gender, so are you.

No, I wasn't conflating sex with gender, I was asking a more nuanced question than that.

When I asked that question I was talking about Castor Semenya who grew up as a girl in a family of girls and who has stated that her gender is female. I said that Emily Lake was imposing her ideas about Semenya's gender on Semenya herself despite Semenya having stated her gender very clearly. Then I talked about asking a random sampling of guys if they thought someone who had a vagina could ever be a man.

The question wasn't about being male, it was about being a man as society defines it. It was about whether someone who was told as a child that they had a vagina, who appeared to have a vaginal opening in the place where vaginal openings are found, would think they might be a man when they grew up and what other people would think was possible for them. Because if they and the people around them didn't think it was possible for them to be a man, that only leaves being a woman, being nonbinary, or having no gender identity at all as possibilities.

The question about what women typically consider a person with a penis, testicles and a vagina to be has a list of sex attributes but the embedded question is about gender.

Hey, I'm just correcting the imbalances in your focus group approach. Men don't have any more expertise on "What is a woman?" than women have, so let's have a co-ed focus group.

My neighbor bringing his wife flowers after she gave birth to each of their first 6 children, all girls, and a fur coat after she gave birth to a boy was more about sexism in our society than anything else.

Maybe. Funny story about that -- the last time my mom was in labor my dad told us kids he'd take us out to celebrate when the baby was born -- to our favorite expensive steakhouse if it was a girl and to McDonald's if it was yet another boy. So maybe your neighbor was into diversity, not sexism.

What Semenya made clear was about gender identity, not about gender. Gender ideology equivocates between those constantly. Gender is a social construct. That means your gender is up to the collective, not up to you. People do not get their choice about what's the correct pronoun to use to refer to them.

Can you exhibit any language in the world where noun classes are based on personal choice and speakers are expected to learn and take into account the preferences of the referents of pronouns? For a language to work that way would defeat the entire point of having noun classes and pronouns in the first place -- languages evolve such features because they relieve the burden on memory.

I never studied languages, and I really don't know how noun classes are set in any of them. But I have read a bit about Native American cultures and how some of them recognized more than two different gender presentations, how some of them had specific words for "men who live as women", "women who live as men", etc. And I have read several articles about We'wha that attested to the fact that people who knew him/her used different pronouns for him/her, the choice of which reflected whether he/she was living as a man or a woman at that time.

Sometimes We'wha was a he and sometimes We'wha was a she.

Zuni has no words for "he" and "she" -- it has no third person pronouns at all -- so the people who called We'wha those things were presumably speaking English. And they were presumably speaking it as a second language since they were evidently trying to map Zuni cultural concepts into English. "Sometimes a he and sometimes a she" is evidently what they thought was the closest approximation they could find in Anglo culture. That doesn't tell us anything about whether gender works that way in the Anglosphere; it just tells us different cultures do gender differently and some categories aren't easily translatable.

Interesting.

Apparently Caster Semenya is a she all of the time but not everyone acknowledges or respects that. Some people want her to be a he regardless of her thoughts about herself.

Why is it that you call Semenya's take on gagwe* gender "is", but call other people's take on it "want"? You could equally well describe the situation as "Apparently Caster Semenya wants to be a she all of the time but not everyone judges such things by wishful thinking. Some people acknowledge Semenya is a he regardless of what anyone wants."

(* Sepedi for "his or her".)

For the same reason I take my own gender as an "is" and anyone's attempt to change my gender identity to be their "want".

 

[Arctish]

Or do you concede that males "acting" as females are still male?

In which case we come right back to the circumstances in which we separate spaces and services by sex. Which is commonplace.

Why should a male "acting" as a female have a right to enter a female only space?

Oh, gawd, are we about to have a 10 page discussion of the various meanings of the word acting, the verb act, what it means to enact something or to act in mysterious ways, complete with a YouTube video of Jon Lovitt shouting "Acting!" when he farts?

Thanks, but no thanks.

 

[Arctish]

You quoted us both responding to seanie's non sequitur as though Toni was the one posting fallacies and had said we should allow men into women only spaces.

Either you got confused over who has been arguing what, or you were being disingenuous.

Let's be crystal clear here as it's possible to be - which isn't very.

Toni hasn't said that men should be allowed into women only spaces... but she has said that some males are women and therefore some males should sometimes be allowed into some women's spaces sometimes, even though a penis in those spaces might make some women uncomfortable sometimes... but that's not actually a reason to exclude them, because it's very important that male women have a safe male-free space to use too. It's just that penises are a challenge and there's no easy solution to that. But we shouldn't outright exclude women-with-penises from women's intimate spaces either.

Hope that clears things up for you...

Oh, I see.

Toni draws the line at men having free access to women's locker rooms and spaces where women's safety is a concern but otherwise wants to do away with discrimination by sex wherever possible, but that's too nuanced a position so the straw man version of her argument is therefore valid.

 

[Bomb#20]

Setting aside the question of whether what Semenya has is a vagina, you seem to be saying men will treat a person with a penis, testicles and a vagina as a woman. If so, that appears on its face to be an argument that men tend to be misogynistic jerks instead of an argument that having a vagina is the correct criterion for womanhood -- it sounds like those men are relying on the "women are failed men" definition of womanhood. What makes how "men will treat" someone the truth-maker here? Do women typically consider a person with a penis, testicles and a vagina to match the criteria for womanhood?
...

You are conflating sex with gender. They are not the same thing.

"Is there a vagina?" is a question about sex.

I was following your lead! You're the one who proposed asking a hundred men about a vagina to settle a gender question. So if I'm conflating sex with gender, so are you.

No, I wasn't conflating sex with gender, I was asking a more nuanced question than that.

I didn't think you were conflating them, and neither was I. If you disagree, what makes my question an inch more of a conflation than yours? Your question being more nuanced than mine? What nuances are you talking about? You asking men and me asking women? You asking them if the subject is a man and me asking them if the subject is a woman? You giving the focus group half the information about the subject's genitalia and me giving them both halves? Those don't seem like nuances to me.

When I asked that question I was talking about Castor Semenya who grew up as a girl in a family of girls and who has stated that her gender is female. I said that Emily Lake was imposing her ideas about Semenya's gender on Semenya herself despite Semenya having stated her gender very clearly. Then I talked about asking a random sampling of guys if they thought someone who had a vagina could ever be a man.

The question wasn't about being male, it was about being a man as society defines it.

Yes. You're telling me all that as if you think I forgot. What makes you think I forgot? While we're at it, you still haven't explained why Emily telling you Semenya is mistaken is an imposition on Semenya. What makes you think that?

The Pope identifies as infallible. I'm telling you straight up that the Pope is not in fact infallible. Do you regard me saying so as "imposing my ideas on the Pope himself"?

It was about whether someone who was told as a child that they had a vagina, who appeared to have a vaginal opening in the place where vaginal openings are found, would think they might be a man when they grew up

No it wasn't! You asked about what other people would think, not what the guevedoce would. "100 random guys". You are as usual conflating gender identity with gender.

and what other people would think was possible for them. Because if they and the people around them didn't think it was possible for them to be a man, that only leaves being a woman, being nonbinary, or having no gender identity at all as possibilities.

But this isn't about what anyone told Semenya as a child. Semenya is no longer a child. Everything Semenya and others believed before 2003 is now past its sell-by date. They all have more information now. If you want to limit your claim to saying Semenya was a girl back in the 1990s, then we can have a whole different conversation about that -- there's a reason one of the things Dominicans call guevedoces is "girls who become boys". If you want to lecture Emily about calling a 6-year-old guevedoce "he", you should probably wait until she does it. This is a discussion of what Semenya is now.

What Semenya made clear was about gender identity, not about gender. Gender ideology equivocates between those constantly. Gender is a social construct. That means your gender is up to the collective, not up to you. People do not get their choice about what's the correct pronoun to use to refer to them.

Apparently Caster Semenya is a she all of the time but not everyone acknowledges or respects that. Some people want her to be a he regardless of her thoughts about herself.

Why is it that you call Semenya's take on gagwe* gender "is", but call other people's take on it "want"? You could equally well describe the situation as "Apparently Caster Semenya wants to be a she all of the time but not everyone judges such things by wishful thinking. Some people acknowledge Semenya is a he regardless of what anyone wants."

(* Sepedi for "his or her".)

For the same reason I take my own gender as an "is" and anyone's attempt to change my gender identity to be their "want".

I.e., because you equivocate between gender identity and gender. The multitude who called you "he" weren't attempting to change your gender identity; they were mistaken about your gender. Emily was not saying a bloody thing about Semenya's gender identity. Using "he" is saying Semenya's gender is male. Emily has given no indication that she wants Semenya to identify as a man. To all appearances, Emily couldn't care less about that.

 

[seanie]

Or do you concede that males "acting" as females are still male?

In which case we come right back to the circumstances in which we separate spaces and services by sex. Which is commonplace.

Why should a male "acting" as a female have a right to enter a female only space?

Oh, gawd, are we about to have a 10 page discussion of the various meanings of the word acting, the verb act, what it means to enact something or to act in mysterious ways, complete with a YouTube video of Jon Lovitt shouting "Acting!" when he farts?

Thanks, but no thanks.

You suggested male and female were designations that align with what role a person performs in society.

And that people can switch between male and female depending on the role they are performing.

How is this not a profoundly regressive position?

 

[seanie]

It relies on socially constructed stereotypes.

 

[seanie]

Being trans is NOT a matter of what one wears!

If it's not a matter of how a person presents, then what is it? I'm not being a pain in the ass here, Toni.

So far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought - and they disagree with each other.

The first school of thought, the old school approach, is to assume that it's the result of a neurological mismatch between one's actual sexed body and one's internal mental image of oneself. This would make it very much akin to anorexia or BIID, where the person's brain genuinely has an inaccurate perception of how their body should be. This represents a very small number of people, and up until fairly recently, this would have been referred to as transsexual.

The second school of thought, the newfangled approach, is to assume that it's based on how a person feels about their gender with respect to social sex-based stereotypes and presentation. And this one is very, very much in line with my description. And it's the by-far more common view in modern times. This is based entirely on the individuals how much an individual thinks that their likes, dislikes, preferences, behaviors, etc. fit the stereotypes of either sex. It's based entirely on feelings.

And when you start really digging in on how those people describe their feelings... it almost always ends up being based on regressive stereotypes. It almost always ends up being "I like dresses and lipstick" or "I like climbing trees and playing football". When you listen to parents describe how they knew their toddler was trans, it ends up being "he didn't like playing with cars and he was really drawn to dolls".

And whether you want to hear it or not, for a surprising amount of adult males who profess a transgender identity, there's a strong sexual component to it. Not all certainly, but a significant portion of self-proclaimed transwomen are aroused by presenting in female attire.

For a whole lot of people out there, what they like to wear and what sexist behaviors they exhibit is the totality of their gender identity.

FFS, if that were the case, 99.9% of the time, I’d be considered a trans man! I refused to go to school ( which I had very much looked forward to) when I learned I would be required to wear a dress. I horrified my mother by preferring to climb trees, collect rocks and insects, take apart and put back together my bicycle, play basketball and football ( not touch!) instead of …putting curlers in my hair and waiting for some boy to call.

The person wearing a frilly dress is most likely female but may also be a trans woman or simply a straight man ( or gay man) who likes to wear a dress. More power to them! I prefer jeans, myself but hey—how could I rightly criticize some one for wanting to wear clothing that is atypical for their sex and/or gender when that is frankly my preference?

You shouldn't criticize anyone who wanting to wear clothing atypical for their sex. Nobody should give a fuck what people like to wear, provided it's appropriate for the venue.

I have very limited experience ( just a few individuals) who are trans, one of whom I knew quite well when they were a child, so I’ll address that: AFAIK, the parents never acknowledged that their child, despite having physical characteristics, thought of themselves as male. But very very clearly they did and were extremely adamant about it from age 4 forward and indeed, I’ve been told by mutual friends that they transitioned as an adult. I myself never brought it up with the family because of what were some serious personality clashes between myself ( and husband) and this child’s parents. Indeed, I avoided the parents as much as possible because they were so very very unpleasant and I was convinced if I brought this child’s assertions to their attention, it would have been worse for the child. Toxic does not even begin to describe the parents. And I was afraid if I made any waves at all, this child would not be able to continue in the program I was coaching and the child needed that outlet more than any other child in the program— it would have been a huge loss to the child. Example: the mother failed to tell me the child had broken their leg during a ski trip, knowing that I was walking the group 4 blocks to my house—through snow. And objected to the fact that I gave the child carrots and grapes and cheese and crackers instead of gummy worms and soda. The parents were both intelligent well educated people—the father was an engineer. They just were awful people. Awful enough that I tread very carefully for fear of causing trouble for the child if I did anything at all to displease the mother. Like offering a healthy snack instead of crap.

I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist but I’m also not unobservant. There was zero and I mean zero doubt in my mind that this child was telling the truth about who they were. It was not a case of the girls in the family being particularly girly or dressed in girly clothes or having girly hairstyles or toys. In that way, they were pretty non-gendered/androgynous.

Sure it’s one child but that very much changed what I believed about trans people. They are real, they need and deserve acceptance and support as much as gay people do or indeed anyone who falls outside the white middle class heteronormative that we all love so much.

There is a saying about believing people when they show you who they are. I do. Even when it contradicts what I believe(d).

Most trans women are obviously male. They show themselves to be male.

If you’re relying on declarations instead of presentation, believing people because they’ve said what they’ve said, is profoundly stupid.

Especially when we have an objective test as to whether someone is male or female.

 

[Arctish]

Setting aside the question of whether what Semenya has is a vagina, you seem to be saying men will treat a person with a penis, testicles and a vagina as a woman. If so, that appears on its face to be an argument that men tend to be misogynistic jerks instead of an argument that having a vagina is the correct criterion for womanhood -- it sounds like those men are relying on the "women are failed men" definition of womanhood. What makes how "men will treat" someone the truth-maker here? Do women typically consider a person with a penis, testicles and a vagina to match the criteria for womanhood?
...

You are conflating sex with gender. They are not the same thing.

"Is there a vagina?" is a question about sex.

I was following your lead! You're the one who proposed asking a hundred men about a vagina to settle a gender question. So if I'm conflating sex with gender, so are you.

No, I wasn't conflating sex with gender, I was asking a more nuanced question than that.

I didn't think you were conflating them, and neither was I. If you disagree, what makes my question an inch more of a conflation than yours? Your question being more nuanced than mine? What nuances are you talking about? You asking men and me asking women? You asking them if the subject is a man and me asking them if the subject is a woman? You giving the focus group half the information about the subject's genitalia and me giving them both halves? Those don't seem like nuances to me.

Clearly we are not communicating well.

We can measure someone's height. We can't measure their gender even though we can observe that most people have one.

We can measure their weight. We can't measure the impact their perceived sex has had on their upbringing, although we can observe that in general, persons of one perceived sex are treated differently than persons believed to be of the other sex.

We can make reasoned guesses how a person with what looks like a vagina would have a different childhood, different social circle, different expectations, and different treatment if their penis didn't look like a clitoris and their scrotum didn't look like labia. We can do that because we can observe different treatment given to boys and girls on our culture, and in other cultures as well.

When I asked that question I was talking about Castor Semenya who grew up as a girl in a family of girls and who has stated that her gender is female. I said that Emily Lake was imposing her ideas about Semenya's gender on Semenya herself despite Semenya having stated her gender very clearly. Then I talked about asking a random sampling of guys if they thought someone who had a vagina could ever be a man.

The question wasn't about being male, it was about being a man as society defines it.

Yes. You're telling me all that as if you think I forgot.

I'm saying I think you never understood what I was getting at. If you had, you would not have suggested changing the wording of my question the way you proposed.

What makes you think I forgot? While we're at it, you still haven't explained why Emily telling you Semenya is mistaken is an imposition on Semenya. What makes you think that?

The Pope identifies as infallible. I'm telling you straight up that the Pope is not in fact infallible. Do you regard me saying so as "imposing my ideas on the Pope himself"?

Interesting question.

We can test the infallibility of a Pope when he's speaking of matters of fact and speculate about his infallibility in matters of religion by examining the history of papal decrees. We can ask "Did the Pope get it right the first time?"

How do you propose we test someone's sense of self when it comes to their gender? What would make you more of an authority on someone's gender than they are?

Would it be okay for me to refer to you as "it", as in "I was trying to have a conversation with Bomb#20 and it kept missing the point"? I have more reason to use that pronoun than Emily Lake has to use "he" to describe Semenya. Your self identity on this board is sentient non-human, whereas Semenya has stated she's a "different kind of woman".

It was about whether someone who was told as a child that they had a vagina, who appeared to have a vaginal opening in the place where vaginal openings are found, would think they might be a man when they grew up

No it wasn't! You asked about what other people would think, not what the guevedoce would. "100 random guys". You are as usual conflating gender identity with gender.

and what other people would think was possible for them. Because if they and the people around them didn't think it was possible for them to be a man, that only leaves being a woman, being nonbinary, or having no gender identity at all as possibilities.

...and what other people would think

Don't snip off part of a sentence and then act like I didn't include that part. I might not have been clear but I clearly said it.

But this isn't about what anyone told Semenya as a child.

Yes, it is.

It's about growing up with the notion that some things simply aren't possible for you to achieve.

I am not an expert in childhood development but even I know there are stages that people go through as their brains develop, their emotions become more complex. the social circles expand, hormones affect their cognition, etc. Growing up as a girl has lifelong consequences. So does growing up as a boy. So does growing up in a different culture, or a dysfunctional family, or a war zone, or an isolated community that doesn't watch TV.

By the time Semenya discovered she had a penis she already had the self identity as a girl. She already had the culturally enforced expectation that she couldn't grow up to be a man but she could be an accomplished, strong, and admirable woman.

That's not something that can simply be dropped like outgrown clothes.

Semenya is no longer a child. Everything Semenya and others believed before 2003 is now past its sell-by date. They all have more information now. If you want to limit your claim to saying Semenya was a girl back in the 1990s, then we can have a whole different conversation about that -- there's a reason one of the things Dominicans call guevedoces is "girls who become boys". If you want to lecture Emily about calling a 6-year-old guevedoce "he", you should probably wait until she does it. This is a discussion of what Semenya is now.

How do you propose to evaluate Semenya's self-identity and gender?

Or are you just going to stick with sex as the final word on the matter and ignore the immaterial reality of self identity?

What Semenya made clear was about gender identity, not about gender. Gender ideology equivocates between those constantly. Gender is a social construct. That means your gender is up to the collective, not up to you. People do not get their choice about what's the correct pronoun to use to refer to them.

Apparently Caster Semenya is a she all of the time but not everyone acknowledges or respects that. Some people want her to be a he regardless of her thoughts about herself.

Why is it that you call Semenya's take on gagwe* gender "is", but call other people's take on it "want"? You could equally well describe the situation as "Apparently Caster Semenya wants to be a she all of the time but not everyone judges such things by wishful thinking. Some people acknowledge Semenya is a he regardless of what anyone wants."

(* Sepedi for "his or her".)

For the same reason I take my own gender as an "is" and anyone's attempt to change my gender identity to be their "want".

I.e., because you equivocate between gender identity and gender. The multitude who called you "he" weren't attempting to change your gender identity; they were mistaken about your gender. Emily was not saying a bloody thing about Semenya's gender identity. Using "he" is saying Semenya's gender is male. Emily has given no indication that she wants Semenya to identify as a man. To all appearances, Emily couldn't care less about that.

Emily was saying everything about Semenya's gender identity and was being pretty rude about it, apparently because she doesn't respect anyone's gender identity and thinks no one else should either.

 

[Arctish]

Or do you concede that males "acting" as females are still male?

In which case we come right back to the circumstances in which we separate spaces and services by sex. Which is commonplace.

Why should a male "acting" as a female have a right to enter a female only space?

Oh, gawd, are we about to have a 10 page discussion of the various meanings of the word acting, the verb act, what it means to enact something or to act in mysterious ways, complete with a YouTube video of Jon Lovitt shouting "Acting!" when he farts?

Thanks, but no thanks.

You suggested male and female were designations that align with what role a person performs in society.

And that people can switch between male and female depending on the role they are performing.

How is this not a profoundly regressive position?

I am saying that different societies have different gender roles, sometimes to the point of assigning specific tasks to men and other specific tasks to women, and that different people can fulfill or not fulfill those roles at different times, so the gendered terms used by societies to identify and describe those persons should be carefully selected and thoughtfully applied.

I'm saying that if your society is so sexist that women can't join a science society then a female person who dresses like a man to gain admittance *might* be trans, but may also be a cis-gendered woman trying to break out of an unfair, sexist gender role.

I'm saying that We'wha's culture respected Two Spirits persons and therefore, in modern parlance, was trans friendly.

I'm saying that Caster Semenya was thought to be a girl by the doctor who filled out her birth certificate, by the family who raised her, and by Semenya herself as she grew up, and that suddenly having her clitoris turn out to be a penis did not, and does not, erase any of that lived experience, the self identity she developed through infancy, childhood, and early adolesance, or whether she is, in her own mind, a woman.

I'm saying that a person's sex does not determine their gender or their identity or their interactions with others in their society but the English language makes it difficult to have a conversation in English about any of that without tripping over all the other parts lying around.

And I'm saying I have no idea why you think what I have written is regressive, or why you wrote about sterilization and castration as though anyone except you was even thinking about it, much less advocating for it.

 

[Toni]

Being trans is NOT a matter of what one wears!

If it's not a matter of how a person presents, then what is it? I'm not being a pain in the ass here, Toni.

So far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought - and they disagree with each other.

The first school of thought, the old school approach, is to assume that it's the result of a neurological mismatch between one's actual sexed body and one's internal mental image of oneself. This would make it very much akin to anorexia or BIID, where the person's brain genuinely has an inaccurate perception of how their body should be. This represents a very small number of people, and up until fairly recently, this would have been referred to as transsexual.

The second school of thought, the newfangled approach, is to assume that it's based on how a person feels about their gender with respect to social sex-based stereotypes and presentation. And this one is very, very much in line with my description. And it's the by-far more common view in modern times. This is based entirely on the individuals how much an individual thinks that their likes, dislikes, preferences, behaviors, etc. fit the stereotypes of either sex. It's based entirely on feelings.

And when you start really digging in on how those people describe their feelings... it almost always ends up being based on regressive stereotypes. It almost always ends up being "I like dresses and lipstick" or "I like climbing trees and playing football". When you listen to parents describe how they knew their toddler was trans, it ends up being "he didn't like playing with cars and he was really drawn to dolls".

And whether you want to hear it or not, for a surprising amount of adult males who profess a transgender identity, there's a strong sexual component to it. Not all certainly, but a significant portion of self-proclaimed transwomen are aroused by presenting in female attire.

For a whole lot of people out there, what they like to wear and what sexist behaviors they exhibit is the totality of their gender identity.

FFS, if that were the case, 99.9% of the time, I’d be considered a trans man! I refused to go to school ( which I had very much looked forward to) when I learned I would be required to wear a dress. I horrified my mother by preferring to climb trees, collect rocks and insects, take apart and put back together my bicycle, play basketball and football ( not touch!) instead of …putting curlers in my hair and waiting for some boy to call.

The person wearing a frilly dress is most likely female but may also be a trans woman or simply a straight man ( or gay man) who likes to wear a dress. More power to them! I prefer jeans, myself but hey—how could I rightly criticize some one for wanting to wear clothing that is atypical for their sex and/or gender when that is frankly my preference?

You shouldn't criticize anyone who wanting to wear clothing atypical for their sex. Nobody should give a fuck what people like to wear, provided it's appropriate for the venue.

Wearing a dress may or may not be PART of presenting as female. It’s not the whole thing.

 

[Emily Lake]

Sure it’s one child but that very much changed what I believed about trans people. They are real, they need and deserve acceptance and support as much as gay people do or indeed anyone

*Some* are real in the way you describe. *Some* genuinely have a neurological disconnect between their mental placeholder for themselves and the reality of their sexed bodies. I don't object to that, I never have.

But not *all*, and the portion of people who do NOT fit your description is much larger than the portion who do.

who falls outside the white middle class heteronormative that we all love so much.

Oh do fuck off with this condescending BS. It's shallow and thoughtless to skip out on honest discourse and instead insinuate the trifecta of racism+classism+homophobia all in one bundle. It's nothing more than a cheap ad hominem.

There is a saying about believing people when they show you who they are. I do. Even when it contradicts what I believe(d).

Do you though? I mean, do you actually believe people when they show you who they are? Or do you selectively accept and reject what people show you based on what you already believe?

You're accepting the people who show you a life-long genuine disconnect, which is fine by itself. But you're rejecting a bunch of other people who also fall into the modern categorization of transgender who don't fit that mold even remotely.

Do you think Eddie Izzard needs and deserves the acceptance of women in women's intimate spaces in the way you describe? Do you think Darren Merager needs and deserves to be given legal right to use the female side of the nude korean spa? Do you think Hannah Tubbs needs and deserves the acceptance of teenage girls in juvenile detention while serving out his sentence as a 25+ year old who raped a 10 year old girl?

 

[Toni]

Sure it’s one child but that very much changed what I believed about trans people. They are real, they need and deserve acceptance and support as much as gay people do or indeed anyone

*Some* are real in the way you describe. *Some* genuinely have a neurological disconnect between their mental placeholder for themselves and the reality of their sexed bodies. I don't object to that, I never have.

But not *all*, and the portion of people who do NOT fit your description is much larger than the portion who do.

who falls outside the white middle class heteronormative that we all love so much.

Oh do fuck off with this condescending BS. It's shallow and thoughtless to skip out on honest discourse and instead insinuate the trifecta of racism+classism+homophobia all in one bundle. It's nothing more than a cheap ad hominem.

There is a saying about believing people when they show you who they are. I do. Even when it contradicts what I believe(d).

Do you though? I mean, do you actually believe people when they show you who they are? Or do you selectively accept and reject what people show you based on what you already believe?

You're accepting the people who show you a life-long genuine disconnect, which is fine by itself. But you're rejecting a bunch of other people who also fall into the modern categorization of transgender who don't fit that mold even remotely.

Do you think Eddie Izzard needs and deserves the acceptance of women in women's intimate spaces in the way you describe? Do you think Darren Merager needs and deserves to be given legal right to use the female side of the nude korean spa? Do you think Hannah Tubbs needs and deserves the acceptance of teenage girls in juvenile detention while serving out his sentence as a 25+ year old who raped a 10 year old girl?

I don’t believe any 25 year old belongs in juvenile detention and rapists of all sorts need to be segregated from their preferred victims. I don’t care about Izzard and I doubt very much a situation arises where they need to use any public facility.

From the news stories I located re: Darren Meager, I can’t form any conclusion other than they seem unpleasant, somewhat criminal and unpleasant.

What you refer to as ad hominem is simply an extremely well known and dominant perspective that drives most societal mores. I’m not thrilled myself.

 

[Emily Lake]

I don’t believe any 25 year old belongs in juvenile detention and rapists of all sorts need to be segregated from their preferred victims.

And yet 26 year old "Hannah" Tubbs was placed in a female juvenile detention center because 1) he was 17 when he raped a 10 year old girl in a public bathroom and 2) he said he identified as a woman when he was arrested. So it does happen, and he *did* unquestionably self-identify as a woman. Does he need and deserve acceptance and support for his gender identity?

I don’t care about Izzard and I doubt very much a situation arises where they need to use any public facility.

Your doubts do not alter reality.


There have been many instances of Izzard being observed in the women's restroom since he decided he want to "live in full girl mode".

From the news stories I located re: Darren Meager, I can’t form any conclusion other than they seem unpleasant, somewhat criminal and unpleasant.

I can form the conclusion that a man with multiple previously existing felony sex offenses that include indecent exposure went into the female side of a nude korean spa with his dick and balls in full view of the ladies there. He was reported to the police, and he hid from them for quite some time. He was finally apprehended and charged... and the charges were dropped on the basis that his ID had an F on it, and therefore he was doing exactly what any other woman would do in the nude spa. And I can definitely provide my opinion that this registered sex offender with several prior convictions doesn't merit the acceptance and support that you wish to extend to anyone under the blanket term "transgender".


Would you like to at least consider altering your general statement, and perhaps place some boundary conditions on what constitutes transgender in the first place, and thus give some clarity to who exactly needs support and acceptance? And perhaps elaborate on what form that support and acceptance is expected to take?

 

[Emily Lake]

So far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought - and they disagree with each other.

The first school of thought, the old school approach, is to assume that it's the result of a neurological mismatch between one's actual sexed body and one's internal mental image of oneself. This would make it very much akin to anorexia or BIID, where the person's brain genuinely has an inaccurate perception of how their body should be. This represents a very small number of people, and up until fairly recently, this would have been referred to as transsexual.

The second school of thought, the newfangled approach, is to assume that it's based on how a person feels about their gender with respect to social sex-based stereotypes and presentation. And this one is very, very much in line with my description. And it's the by-far more common view in modern times. This is based entirely on the individuals how much an individual thinks that their likes, dislikes, preferences, behaviors, etc. fit the stereotypes of either sex. It's based entirely on feelings.

What do you think is the difference between the two

I think the difference is underlying cause.

and do you have any cites that the second approach you describe is the correct one?

I don't think the second approach is "correct" in any way at all, I think it should be rejected as having any actual validity with respect to policy.

Regarding the approach... I have low confidence that you'll consider the ramifications, and generally expect that you'll nitpick specific words or otherwise dismiss the intent because it's not spelled out in exactly the right way to match perfectly to how I presented it. But I'll give it a go anyway.

Human Rights Campaign - Notably, HRC doesn't define gender itself

Gender identity​

One's innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves.

Trevor Project

What is Gender?​

Gender is a social construct, an idea created by people to help categorize and explain the world around them. You may not notice it all the time, but each gender comes with a set of expectations, like how to act, talk, dress, feel emotion, and interact with other people. For example, when you think of a teenage boy living in the United States, what comes to mind? Do you imagine him playing football, or do you picture him dancing in a ballet recital? It’s likely that you imagined him playing football first — but why?

In the United States, we have very defined gender roles that describe what it means to be a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, and we learn what’s expected of us at a very early age. Even though these expectations are made up — there’s no reason why boys shouldn’t be encouraged to practice ballet, for example — gendered characteristics, activities, expressions, and stereotypes are really ingrained in our society, and shape most of our lives.

Here are some other gender-specific constructed differences that you may recognize: young girls often get pink clothes, and boys get blue clothes; women are deemed overemotional and men are discouraged from crying; a deep voice is considered masculine while a high voice is feminine; boys should play with building blocks and girls should play with dolls; men are athletic and aggressive, women are nurturing and gentle… the list of expectations based on gender can go on and on, and changes from culture to culture.

In reality, gender roles aren’t set in stone. Even though our society expects certain things from certain people, we don’t have to conform. Rather than on a binary (only two ways of being), gender and sex exist on a spectrum, meaning that there are a lot of different ways that people can express their gender identity or sex.

...

If you don’t feel that your gender identity — meaning, your own personal sense of what your gender is — matches the gender you were assigned at birth, you might identify as transgender (or trans).

NPR

Gender is often defined as a social construct of norms, behaviors and roles that varies between societies and over time. Gender is often categorized as male, female or nonbinary.

Gender identity is one's own internal sense of self and their gender, whether that is man, woman, neither or both. Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not outwardly visible to others.

Cornell

gender identity​

Gender identity is a person’s self-identified gender, which may or may not correspond with their "sex assigned at birth." Gender identity is how a person experiences and expresses their gender. The Yogyakarta Principles, international human rights principles revolving around sexual orientation and gender identity, describe gender identity as “each person’s presentation of the person's gender through physical appearance – including dress, hairstyles, accessories, cosmetics – and mannerisms, speech, behavioral patterns, names and personal references.”

PFLAG

Gender
Broadly, gender is a set of socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate related to a person’s assigned sex.

Gender Identity
A person’s deeply held core sense of self in relation to gender. Gender identity does not always correspond to biological sex. People become aware of their gender identity at many different stages of life, from as early as 18 months and into adulthood. Gender identity is a separate concept from sexuality and gender expression.

Planned Parenthood

• Gender is how society thinks we should look, think, and act as girls and women and boys and men. Each culture has beliefs and informal rules about how people should act based on their gender. For example, many cultures expect and encourage men to be more aggressive than women.
• Gender identity is how you feel inside and how you show your gender through clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It’s a feeling that begins early in life.

The common thread throughout ALL of the literature and advocacy sites I've read, as well as what transgender people have described and conveyed comes down to two things: Gender is a social construct that reflects roles and expressions and stereotypes within a society... and Gender Identity is a person's own internal feelings about what their gender is. When you put those together, it boils down to gender identity is based on how a person feels they fit with respect to social stereotypes.

 

[seanie]

ex

Or do you concede that males "acting" as females are still male?

In which case we come right back to the circumstances in which we separate spaces and services by sex. Which is commonplace.

Why should a male "acting" as a female have a right to enter a female only space?

Oh, gawd, are we about to have a 10 page discussion of the various meanings of the word acting, the verb act, what it means to enact something or to act in mysterious ways, complete with a YouTube video of Jon Lovitt shouting "Acting!" when he farts?

Thanks, but no thanks.

You suggested male and female were designations that align with what role a person performs in society.

And that people can switch between male and female depending on the role they are performing.

How is this not a profoundly regressive position?

I am saying that different societies have different gender roles, sometimes to the point of assigning specific tasks to men and other specific tasks to women, and that different people can fulfill or not fulfill those roles at different times, so the gendered terms used by societies to identify and describe those persons should be carefully selected and thoughtfully applied.

I'm saying that if your society is so sexist that women can't join a science society then a female person who dresses like a man to gain admittance *might* be trans, but may also be a cis-gendered woman trying to break out of an unfair, sexist gender role.

I'm saying that We'wha's culture respected Two Spirits persons and therefore, in modern parlance, was trans friendly.

I'm saying that Caster Semenya was thought to be a girl by the doctor who filled out her birth certificate, by the family who raised her, and by Semenya herself as she grew up, and that suddenly having her clitoris turn out to be a penis did not, and does not, erase any of that lived experience, the self identity she developed through infancy, childhood, and early adolesance, or whether she is, in her own mind, a woman.

I'm saying that a person's sex does not determine their gender or their identity or their interactions with others in their society but the English language makes it difficult to have a conversation in English about any of that without tripping over all the other parts lying around.

And I'm saying I have no idea why you think what I have written is regressive, or why you wrote about sterilization and castration as though anyone except you was even thinking about it, much less advocating for it.

Have you seen the interview where Semanya says “her” internal testes don’t make “her” any less of a woman?

Well, they do. Caster Semanya is a male with the 46xY-ARD condition.

And a person’s “gender” is all well and good. Make up any personality type you want.

But there are some circumstances where a person’s sex matters, to other people, who also have rights.

You’ve tied being male or female to the stereotypical roles that individuals conform to.

That is regressive.

 

[seanie]

And if you support puberty blockers and surgery for minors, as per the gender affirming model, you are supporting the sterilisation and mutilation of children.

Own it.

 

[Arctish]

ex

Or do you concede that males "acting" as females are still male?

In which case we come right back to the circumstances in which we separate spaces and services by sex. Which is commonplace.

Why should a male "acting" as a female have a right to enter a female only space?

Oh, gawd, are we about to have a 10 page discussion of the various meanings of the word acting, the verb act, what it means to enact something or to act in mysterious ways, complete with a YouTube video of Jon Lovitt shouting "Acting!" when he farts?

Thanks, but no thanks.

You suggested male and female were designations that align with what role a person performs in society.

And that people can switch between male and female depending on the role they are performing.

How is this not a profoundly regressive position?

I am saying that different societies have different gender roles, sometimes to the point of assigning specific tasks to men and other specific tasks to women, and that different people can fulfill or not fulfill those roles at different times, so the gendered terms used by societies to identify and describe those persons should be carefully selected and thoughtfully applied.

I'm saying that if your society is so sexist that women can't join a science society then a female person who dresses like a man to gain admittance *might* be trans, but may also be a cis-gendered woman trying to break out of an unfair, sexist gender role.

I'm saying that We'wha's culture respected Two Spirits persons and therefore, in modern parlance, was trans friendly.

I'm saying that Caster Semenya was thought to be a girl by the doctor who filled out her birth certificate, by the family who raised her, and by Semenya herself as she grew up, and that suddenly having her clitoris turn out to be a penis did not, and does not, erase any of that lived experience, the self identity she developed through infancy, childhood, and early adolesance, or whether she is, in her own mind, a woman.

I'm saying that a person's sex does not determine their gender or their identity or their interactions with others in their society but the English language makes it difficult to have a conversation in English about any of that without tripping over all the other parts lying around.

And I'm saying I have no idea why you think what I have written is regressive, or why you wrote about sterilization and castration as though anyone except you was even thinking about it, much less advocating for it.

Have you seen the interview where Semanya says “her” internal testes don’t make “her” any less of a woman?

Well, they do. Caster Semanya is a male with the 46xY-ARD condition.

Semenya's sex is male. But whether the presence of testicles makes it impossible for someone to be a woman - not a female but a woman - is something else.

And a person’s “gender” is all well and good. Make up any personality type you want.

What do you mean by "make up" a personality?

Do you mean playing pretend, or are you talking about the development of self awareness, identity, and personhood that every infant with a semi-normal brain who grows up beyond early childhood does?

But there are some circumstances where a person’s sex matters, to other people, who also have rights.

I agree.

You’ve tied being male or female to the stereotypical roles that individuals conform to.

No, I didn't tie them. I am speaking of societies that have already made that connection and people who live in them. And I am not giving a blanket endorsement to those societies. Neither am I condemning them in this thread, although I have done so in other threads.***

That is regressive.

I agree that enforcing gender roles is regressive. I am not talking about enforcing gender roles, I am talking about people who live as men and women in their societies and whether that is, or must be, strictly tied to their sex organs.

Sex and gender get conflated in English all the time. People have "gender reveal" parties where they celebrate the presumed sex of a fetus. What they are using as evidence of the fetus' sex isn't 100% accurate, as anyone who has been discussing Caster Semenya no doubt knows. What those families are really having is a "my fetus is growing a penis or not growing one" party.

So let's move away from that point of confusion and try to be more clear. I propose, for the purposes of this discussion, using the term perthos instead of gender. It's a portmanteau of "person" and "ethos" to indicate the beliefs, values, character, and identity of a person as it relates to their perception of self within and in relation to their society and its customs. A perthos isn't tied to sex but is in relation to it, either as conforming with social norms or non-conforming. There is an aspect of pathos contained within perthos (we are, after all, emotional beings and our emotional connections to others is enormously important), as well as logos.

So, Caster Semenya's sex was misidentified at birth and as a result, Semenya's perthos was influenced by their upbringing as a girl in a society that makes some pretty significant distinctions along male-female lines. Is Semenya wrong about who and what they are, or is Semenya correct about their self identity? How do you propose we find out?

Also, is accepting Semenya self-identification "woman" regressive, or is the attempt to place Semenya in the category labelled "man" regardless of how Semenya's sense of self and personhood developed, the decision to only respect an identity determined by chromosomes and the effects of hormones, what's really regressive?

*** This isn't exactly on topic at the moment but earlier in this thread a comment was made about sex and gender issues being something new. Here is a link to the Encyclopedia Britannica article on "berdache", the word Spanish explorers used to describe transgendered individuals and people with intersex/DSD development. The so-called "berdache" were ruthlessly oppressed, tortured, and murdered, and their existence all but erased from the historical records, so it's no surprise that folks with Western educations are largely unaware that they even existed.

Also, the cultural recognition of Two Spirits persons is ongoing among the Native American peoples of the American Southwest. And they are still being targeted for violence by people of the European American Christian culture who refuse to accept anything but the male-female heteronormative social roles they hold dear. That's regressive.

 

[ZiprHead]

One of the founders of Free Speech TV, Jon Stout , has a video on the channel talking about spending nights on suicide hotlines trying to get help for their despondent son who was experiencing severe mental health issues. The son finally admitted to Jon and his mother he felt he was trans, not feeling compatible as a boy.

They addressed the situation through medical intervention, he doesn't specify what, but after about two years of medical treatment, his now daughter became a very fine, calm and mentally healthy person.

States are banning such treatment. People will die because of that.

The video is not available at the site nor on YouTube but it plays frequently during show breaks.