Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[Trausti]

ETA: Did you think she's a transwoman?

No. The facial features / structure were certainly feminine. Thought a case of hirsutism.

 

[Arctish]

ETA: Did you think she's a transwoman?

No. The facial features / structure were certainly feminine. Thought a case of hirsutism.

Well, I'm glad you wouldn't call the cops if she used the Women's restroom but do you think that holds true for everyone in places where trans exclusion bills have been passed?

 

[SigmatheZeta]

This does not mean that you have a woman's brain. You have a gay man's brain.

I have a trans-woman's brain.

So....what?

Single-sex spaces are not predicated on the brain-states of the people in those spaces, but on the sexed bodies of the people in those spaces. Women don't use the women's toilets because they have 'ladybrains' but because their bodies are female.

So we're on toilets, now.

In the Research Triangle Park area, the desegregation of single-occupancy bathrooms has become pretty widespread, and it has been a long while since I have even encountered a segregated single-occupancy bathroom in the wild. I am sure that I could find one at a local Bojangles, but I do not go to those kinds of places.

The prevailing sentiment is that we ought to have done this a long time ago. The only downside is occasionally having to wipe up somebody else's menstrual bleeding. I am obsessive-compulsive, and I cannot just leave that unattended. It really does not bother me because my parents used to breed retriever dogs, and they would do that stuff all over the house.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I am talking when they are single-occupancy bathrooms, and they are unnecessarily segregated. I find that shit creepy.

I am more creeped out by the idea of what some of the men i know would do to, and with, the contents of a tampon dispenser they found in a bathroom they were alone in.

Well, you are currently running out of segregated single-occupancy bathrooms

"I'm" running out?

 

[SigmatheZeta]

ETA: Did you think she's a transwoman?

No. The facial features / structure were certainly feminine. Thought a case of hirsutism.

Well, I'm glad you wouldn't call the cops if she used the Women's restroom but do you think that holds true for everyone in places where trans exclusion bills have been passed?

In North Carolina, local businesses, in the Research Triangle Park area, took the route of desegregating their bathrooms. It was done practically overnight, actually. The mom and pops led the charge, and all-gender/unisex bathrooms (I swear I get images of a phallic version of a unicorn whenever I say "unisex") have become practically the standard practice in most workplaces in my part of the state. We are an educated area, and the culture here better resembles that of Massachusetts than it does most of the American South; it's the high density of engineers that does it, and I think that you would find that anywhere you had a lot of engineering schools. We even have a famous Moravian congregation that makes the Unitarian Universalists look relatively conservative and low-brow. The people are incredibly caring, and when some people in their communities were in trouble, they were swift to act.

Transgender life lesson: if you are transgender, consider moving to an area with a high density of engineering schools. By the way, that hipster pizza joint, where you are served by that incredibly badly dressed and unshaven obese dude that always looks unbelievably stoned, actually has the best mushroom themed pizza in town. You will probably find it because they are slightly famous and incredibly LGBTQIAA friendly.

In fact, I think that transgender people would almost be better off promoting education than fighting with hateful douchebags on Twitter. I refuse to even get a Twitter account because far too many of the transgender people, on there, do the same shit the zoosexual activists used to do before my friend Lykon interceded to put the estoppo on it: they use that critical theory garbage, and if not for that shit, then nobody would have cared if transgender women were using the ladies' room. After they started that critical theory strategy, it got my state's polity so polarized that, while I had plenty of local allies (because I have reasonably good judgment in which kinds of places I would ever want to live), what was going on in the REST of the state was a whole different story.

I am going to rant a little bit about critical theory. Sorry, no, I will not say "rant" because I am not going to rant. I am going to make what I think are some reasonable statements. The problem with critical theory is that, while it DOES inflame the passions of a loyal political base, it also polarizes people into an approximate 50/50 split on whether to elevate you to sainthood or have you slain as a devil-worshiper, with very little middle-ground.

For instance, I think that, without critical theory, it would have been substantially easier to get someone like @Emily Lake as an ally, although not without her own reservations. I think that people like her are not inherently enemies.

I do not expect people to think in exactly the same way that I do, but I am going to be very straightforward about the practical realities that I have to contend with. I am not going to make a secret of what my life is actually like. I am not going to hide it. I am not going to "keep a stiff upper-lip." I have a very straightforward personality, and my approach to dealing with just about everything is to just tell you the most accurate and detailed information that I possibly can. I am a world-famous text-waller.

The way that you defeat the problems, with critical theory, is to honor people's intellectual independence, and leave room for them to have their own nuanced views on complex topics. Even though you might disagree with some or even many of their ideas, keep channels of communication open unless they have gone in the direction of absolute bad faith. Do not rise to any bait to get you into a fight over petty shit that does not matter, but instead, maintain continuous and open communication about your top priorities, starting with those priorities that most clearly, in real world situations, affect your ability to survive.

People are not horrible, and they go through life with their own list of priorities in their heads. In almost every case, the top priorities that are important for YOUR survival are not really in conflict with the top priorities for OTHER PEOPLE's survival.

Think of your energy to pursue your priorities in terms of spoons. At the start of the day, you have only a limited number of spoons for pursuing any given priority, and every time you invest energy in something new, you have to use one of those spoons in order to pursue it. The more time and energy you spend on meaningless bullshit, the less time and energy you have to spend on things that affect whether or not you can even survive. If you run into conflict over something that is not really a priority for you, then just say, "I disagree with you, but I don't have the spoons to pursue it. Bai." Your spoons are important, and you should protect your spoons. Let's call it "Spoon Theory."

And another way that you should protect your spoons is to just never ever spend hours and hours a day going around in circles with people that just want a punching-bag because they can't deal with the real issues in their own lives. If somebody is just not in a headspace where they really want to rethink their positions on things, then you don't have the spoons to talk them down into a more reasonable frame-of-mind. Best case scenario, you end up playing the role of that person's unpaid private therapist. Worst case scenario, that person becomes fanatically obsessed with tearing you down. Put your spoons to better use.

My feelings on this go beyond gender issues, but I think it's time to seriously rethink critical theory, overall.

 

[ZiprHead]

Again, it would be nice if gender scholars could pinpoint the exact stage in the evolution of our species when our innate predispositions and psychological adaptions shaped by millions of years of sexual selection were magically erased.

Do you think you're making some sort of a point? And if so, what is it?

 

[KeepTalking]

@Metaphor Well, at bars, which I do occasionally go to, it's actually the men's bathroom that is always full at peak hours, so I don't even bother knocking on the men's room anymore. The ladies' room is usually vacant. I am very impatient with bullshit.

However, if they don't have all-gender bathrooms, I don't usually go back because I kind of find segregated bathrooms to be creepy.

Ah. We’re different in that respect. I don’t mind single toilet unisex bathrooms at all. But I’d prefer not to share a bathroom with a man who is not an intimate partner, especially at a bar. But it’s rarely an issue as I am rarely at bars….

I am talking when they are single-occupancy bathrooms, and they are unnecessarily segregated. I find that shit creepy.

I don't usually go to places that would have multiple occupancy bathrooms, though, and I haven't been in one in a while.

My wife used the single occupancy Men's room at a place we were at on Sunday. There was a line for the Women's room, and the Men's was unoccupied. It seemed rather silly that they were gender specific to begin with, given that they were single occupancy. She actually started a trend, as another woman who had already been in line left it to use the Men's room right after her.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Jebus! We are talking about a school. A school where there are lots of students, that have been attending these schools for years! The teachers know the kids, the staff knows the kids. There is a sense of humanity that exists in the real world that involves the real world history of the students at these schools, instead of these scary hypotheticals where some random person magically appears before a principle (with a beard while wearing a skirt) and demands access to the girls' locker room because they are trans... and the staff is shaking in their boots over potential lawsuits if they don't abide this person they've never before seen in their life.

Why do you believe that some random new person needs to show up for this to be an issue?

A male student has been in the school for years. That student is starting to go through puberty and now claims to be trans.
What knowledge known by the teachers and staff is both necessary and sufficient to be able to 99.9%+ reliably determine whether or not the student in question is a transgirl or a naughty, naughty boy?

You mean other than, excluding the parents, having teachers, who have been around the child more than anyone else and that experience to draw from? Other than that?

No, I mean including that.

Kind of seems like an asked and answered question then.

Let me clarify my inquiry in another way, using a "scary hypothetical":

One night, while you are sleeping, you get kidnapped...

Okay, I'm just gonna stop there. I'm talking about the real world. Where people know other people based on their interactions and experience that has helped develop both a generalized baseline for the students in general, and insight on individuals.

 

[Enigma]

Okay, I'm just gonna stop there. I'm talking about the real world. Where people know other people based on their interactions and experience that has helped develop both a generalized baseline for the students in general, and insight on individuals.

Very well then, the real world:

If your answer amounts to "just ask the teachers if they think the student is trans", then I hate to break it to you, but rural counties in red states have teachers too.
Such teachers aren't guaranteed to believe that being trans is a real thing, much less be able to confidently tell whether or not a student is trans.

Are you sure that this is the gold standard you wish to use?

I ask because I'm reasonably confident that it would get a good number of trans people specified incorrectly as sex offenders. Far more than @Jarhyn would be comfortable with, at any rate.

But hey, that's no big deal. You don't have to get it right all the time. Just because a misjudgment could potentially screw up someone else's life doesn't mean you have to take it seriously.

It's not like anybody has a gun to your head or anything.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Okay, I'm just gonna stop there. I'm talking about the real world. Where people know other people based on their interactions and experience that has helped develop both a generalized baseline for the students in general, and insight on individuals.

Very well then, the real world:

If your answer amounts to "just ask the teachers if they think the student is trans", then I hate to break it to you, but rural counties in red states have teachers too.
Such teachers aren't guaranteed to believe that being trans is a real thing, much less be able to confidently tell whether or not a student is trans.

Are you sure that this is the gold standard you wish to use?

It isn't the right question. Why are people always asking the wrong questions. I mean other than to put forth their own biased opinions?

The question is "Based on what we know about this student, do we believe what they are saying is true?"

I ask because I'm reasonably confident that it would get a good number of trans people specified incorrectly as sex offenders. Far more than @Jarhyn would be comfortable with, at any rate.

I'm sure you are worried about that.

Any other hypotheticals you want to toss around?

 

[Enigma]

Okay, I'm just gonna stop there. I'm talking about the real world. Where people know other people based on their interactions and experience that has helped develop both a generalized baseline for the students in general, and insight on individuals.

Very well then, the real world:

If your answer amounts to "just ask the teachers if they think the student is trans", then I hate to break it to you, but rural counties in red states have teachers too.
Such teachers aren't guaranteed to believe that being trans is a real thing, much less be able to confidently tell whether or not a student is trans.

Are you sure that this is the gold standard you wish to use?

It isn't the right question. Why are people always asking the wrong questions. I mean other than to put forth their own biased opinions?

The question is "Based on what we know about this student, do we believe what they are saying is true?"

Who is "we" in this situation? The teachers and staff, I presume?

The ones who may or may not believe that being trans is a real thing and have that color their perceptions and judgment of a student accordingly?

Any other hypotheticals you want to toss around?

I don't know. Are you done exploring the one where school teachers and staff are magically guaranteed to be unbiased and unbigoted paragons of reasonable judgment?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Okay, I'm just gonna stop there. I'm talking about the real world. Where people know other people based on their interactions and experience that has helped develop both a generalized baseline for the students in general, and insight on individuals.

Very well then, the real world:

If your answer amounts to "just ask the teachers if they think the student is trans", then I hate to break it to you, but rural counties in red states have teachers too.
Such teachers aren't guaranteed to believe that being trans is a real thing, much less be able to confidently tell whether or not a student is trans.

Are you sure that this is the gold standard you wish to use?

It isn't the right question. Why are people always asking the wrong questions. I mean other than to put forth their own biased opinions?

The question is "Based on what we know about this student, do we believe what they are saying is true?"

Who is "we" in this situation? The teachers and staff, I presume?

The ones who may or may not believe that being trans is a real thing and have that color their perceptions and judgment of a student accordingly?

Well, until we develop a litmus test, we are stuck with human judgment. Your objection seems to be based solely on the "No perfect solution" fallacy.

 

[TomC]

I don't, and never have, used pronouns to refer to gender,

Why not?

I see it as a simple matter of politeness.

Usually, an individual's sex and gender match. That makes it easy. But if someone identifies as a woman, why would you use masculine pronouns? It's just mean. Most people are more attached to their gender than their sex.

This looks to me like a form of ideological purity that's just as annoying as the trans ideological purists. Just get over your yourself. Be kind and polite.

Regardless of any individual's gender issues, just be kind and polite!

Tom

 

[none]

yeah all that education and he never ever says Dr. I mean that would just be rude....

Spoiler

in other words no education...

 

[Toni]

Nature hardwired our ability to discern male and women. A biological female doesn’t have to do anything to appear a woman. A trans must do a lot of work for passable mimicry. Nothing to do with labels just Nature’s cues.

Sure, Jan.


View attachment 36002

Again, it would be nice if gender scholars could pinpoint the exact stage in the evolution of our species when our innate predispositions and psychological adaptions shaped by millions of years of sexual selection were magically erased.

It would be even nicer if you could realize that learning things you never knew before about biology doesn't magically erase all prior knowledge.

Humans are a sexually dimorphic species; what do you think that means? Are you some sort of creationist? Do you imagine that before modernity no one could tell the difference between man and woman?

You said nature hardwired our ability to discern male and women and a biological female doesn’t have to do anything to appear a woman. I provided a picture of a woman who has gone to a lot of effort to appear a woman. She's wearing foundation, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, and a pretty head wrap in a style associated with women. But that beard of hers is a lot to overcome.

Granted, her pheromones are probably a pretty big clue. And her voice and mannerisms might be feminine. But she still has to put some effort into her appearance to indicate her sex and gender.

ETA: Did you think she's a transwoman?

There is a person who lives in my town that I have run into from time to time over the years while we were walking dogs. Hair is cut short in a style that could be male or female. Build is wiry—and could be make or female. Clothing? Not different significantly than mine —or my husband’s: jeans, t-shirts, sneakers. Jacket if weather warrants. Voice is…ambiguous. A little low for a woman, very tenor for a man. Age? I think a little older than me.

Their dogs tended to need to not closely encounter other dogs, so our exchanges of words were brief, friendly but really brief and usually fro across the street as one of us or the other would automatically cross in deference to their dogs. I have no idea what their name is although I know the names of some of the dogs over the years. This has been going on for …at least 20 years.

I’m still not certain that I know whether this is a woman, a man or a trans individual. I should be, I suppose. But I’m not.

For a bunch of years, it made me uncomfortable, this ambiguity and not being able to place them in some neatly labeled box.

I suppose that I could actually say, ‘hey, we’ve been running into each other for years and I don’t even know your name’—which might give a good clue—or maybe their name is like mine: appropriate for male or female.

And then I got a clue: it was my problem, not theirs. There was zero reason or context under which it made any difference to me at all.

Even if they were in the same bathroom as me.

BTW, I think single stall non-gendered bathrooms are the way to go….

 

[Metaphor]

This does not mean that you have a woman's brain. You have a gay man's brain.

I have a trans-woman's brain.

So....what?

Single-sex spaces are not predicated on the brain-states of the people in those spaces, but on the sexed bodies of the people in those spaces. Women don't use the women's toilets because they have 'ladybrains' but because their bodies are female.

So we're on toilets, now.

What? Toilets and bathrooms are synonyms in Australia for the room you go to ablute your doings.

 

[Metaphor]

I don't, and never have, used pronouns to refer to gender,

Why not?

Because pronouns refer to sex when used in humans and other animals and always have.

I see it as a simple matter of politeness.

I see it as a reordering of language, but with added gaslighting by denying that any reordering took place at all.

Usually, an individual's sex and gender match. That makes it easy. But if someone identifies as a woman, why would you use masculine pronouns? It's just mean. Most people are more attached to their gender than their sex.

Because pronouns refer to sex when used in humans and other animals and always have.

Why don't people refer to Rachel Dolezal as a black woman? Are they, too, "mean"?

 

[Trausti]

Again, it would be nice if gender scholars could pinpoint the exact stage in the evolution of our species when our innate predispositions and psychological adaptions shaped by millions of years of sexual selection were magically erased.

Do you think you're making some sort of a point? And if so, what is it?

That saying you cannot reliably discern a person’s biological sex on appearance alone is inexcusably stupid.

 

[none]

Again, it would be nice if gender scholars could pinpoint the exact stage in the evolution of our species when our innate predispositions and psychological adaptions shaped by millions of years of sexual selection were magically erased.

Do you think you're making some sort of a point? And if so, what is it?

That saying you cannot reliably discern a person’s biological sex on appearance alone is inexcusably stupid.

yet you did the hook and switch, first it was a GENDER issue and your point was about SEX...
so let us all know about sex.

 

[Trausti]

Again, it would be nice if gender scholars could pinpoint the exact stage in the evolution of our species when our innate predispositions and psychological adaptions shaped by millions of years of sexual selection were magically erased.

Do you think you're making some sort of a point? And if so, what is it?

That saying you cannot reliably discern a person’s biological sex on appearance alone is inexcusably stupid.

yet you did the hook and switch, first it was a GENDER issue and your point was about SEX...
so let us all know about sex.

Gender is just another word for sex; as in common usage. This effort to constantly morph the commonly understood usage is simple mendacity.