Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[Emily Lake]

No, "made up fuzzy categories" are not "a part of the species". They are not even the only way things reproduce.

It is, however, the only way that HUMANS reproduce. In fact, it's the only way that ALL MAMMALS reproduce.

 

[Jarhyn]

I am trying to figure out whether you are angry at all transgender people or just certain individuals.

Mostly, I'm angry at the ideology being peddled.

I have heard from others here as well that it is the trans ideology that is the problem, but I am nut sure what is meant by "trans ideology". Can you elaborate upon what you mean by it, and whether you think anyone here is engaging in, or pushing that ideology?

For a rough summary:

• The catechism "Transwomen are Women, Transmen are Men" and act as if it's actually completely 100% literally true.
• The argument that sex is a spectrum, and the use of people with disorders of sexual development as a foil even though they have nothing to do with gender identity.
• The argument that self-declaration should be the only requirement for a person to be treated as their declared gender in all legal, social, and interpersonal interactions with no questions whatsoever
• Pushing that transgender people should be allowed to play in the sports leagues of the opposite sex with no requirements for hormone therapy at all
• Pushing policies to remove any protections or safeguards on the basis of sex, including forcing rape and domestic violence shelters to accept anyone who says they're a woman regardless of how they look or present, and without any challenge at all, regardless of the effect this has on traumatized women trying to use those services
• Reframing sexual orientation as being based on gender, and labeling people who are exclusively attracted to only one sex as a bigot, and needs to give some serious introspection to why they're so exclusionary about who they'll consider as a potential sex partner.
• Insisting that anyone who disagrees with any element of the policies being pushed is an evil bigoted transphobic TERF.
• Believes that threatening, harassing, and harming the livelihoods of females who don't accept their ideology is a perfectly acceptable thing.
• Demanding that no discussion of the above be allowed.

Thanks for the detailed response. Does a trans ideologists need to possess all of these attributes? If so, I don't think I have met one, and I am pretty sure there are none posting in this forum.

Feel free to drop the last two off. There are a few posters on this board that possess the first several attributes. @Jarhyn, for example, insists that TWAW end of, that sex is a spectrum, that self-id is all that should ever be allowed, that no treatment or diagnosis be required for sports, that self-declared transwomen should be entitled to female-only spaces like prisons & shelters as a right regardless of whether they have transitioned at all, and that sexual orientation is based on gender. @Jarhyn also treats those who disagree with his beliefs on these issues as if they're morally tainted evil bigots.

@Politesse and @ZiprHead are both awfully damned close too. @Loren Pechtel isn't particularly far behind. After that, I start losing track of people.

Wow, no treatment nor diagnosis? Are you serious?

Do you WANT me to go and dig up, in the sports whinge thread, I specifically pointed out that steroid exposure is the basis on which we should discriminate on with respect to sports?

I WILL find the quote and you WILL be embarrassed you made such a claim.

Your other claims are as silly; I'm not going to play the Gish Gallop Game.

 

[TomC]

You take it for granted that I consider @Emily Lake's concerns to be a priority,

I took no considerations, on your part, for granted.

I recognized, early on, that you don't take anybody's concerns seriously unless they match yours. Anything else, you ignore. Or you hand-wave away.

When @Emily Lake expresses a nuanced opinion that you don't like, you describe her as angry. An enemy. I don't remember you describing her as transphobic, but the angry and enemy part I do.

So, let's take this post full circle, back to what you posted and I quoted. I don't find your concerns a priority. I'm more concerned about the priorities of the female members of society than yours.
Tom

 

[Emily Lake]

Personally, I would rather discriminate exactly on the basis of exactly the thing that a really matters to my situation.

I don't care whether I am housed
with men, women, people who are both, or people who are neither.

I want to be housed with people who will not rape me, on the continuing condition that I am not going to attempt to rape them either, and similarly with regards to violent conduct.

Ideally I'd be housed with people I were also not liable to have social consternation of being "around", but I am not guaranteed that at work so why would I expect it of prison?

I could care less about any other thing.

I'd really like to walk through a dark parking garage with people who will not rape me. I'd like to have gone on dates in college with people who didn't try to rape me.

Can you give me some guidelines on how to sort out which people are safe and which are not? It would be extremely valuable information for most people, and definitely valuable for females of the humans species across the entire planet. So please, pretty please, share that insight with us.

 

[KeepTalking]

Likewise, there is not one singular difference between "men" and "women". There are many differences, and the differences will depend upon the men and women (or man and woman) in question.

Let's try something more explicit.

What do transmen have in common with males that they do NOT have in common with females, and is NOT based on stereotypes?

That was not the question Gen55 asked, and not the question I was answering. It is not more explicit, it is an entirely different question.

Alrighty, thanks for the non-answer I suppose.

Any chance you want to actually answer my question?

No. It is irrelevant to the topic I was discussing with Gen55 that seemed to hinge on certain words having singular definitions. Something I thought should be obvious, but is apparently still an issue for Gen55. That could be due somewhat to irrelevant distractions, so I prefer to keep those to a minimum for now.

If you would like to start a topic about how confused you are regarding transgenders, and asking if would someone like to help you out, maybe I will come join you.

 

[KeepTalking]

Have you tried a dictionary? I obviously recommend Merriam-Websters:

Merriam-Websters : woman

3: distinctively feminine nature

Hooray! Feminine gay males are women whether they like it or not!!!

d(1): one possessing in high degree the qualities considered distinctive of manhood (such as courage, strength, and vigor)

Woohoo! All females who serve in the military are men whether they like it or not!

You're taking euphemistic definitions that take poetic license and assuming that they're somehow useful in this discussion.

I am not. I am showing that there is more than one accepted definition for the word in question. In both cases where I did so, there was more than one definition for me to choose, but I only needed one to prove the point. In both cases, however, I chose a definition that it seems could be used to reference trans persons.

That's the point though. It's an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT definition than what is applied to female humans.

Yes, two entirely different definitions of the same word. That is exactly how "man" can be used to refer to both a trans-man and an adult human male. This answers the conundrum that Gen55 claims to be in, but they will not admit it.

There may be an overlap, but it's solely in the realm of stereotypes. You've got one definition that applies to human females , regardless of how they identify. You have a different definition that applies to how well a person conforms to a social stereotype. The first definition excludes all males, including transwomen. The second definition excludes tomboys and girls that don't like pink. Neither of them is inclusive of cisgender women and transwomen.

So what? This does not mean that the word "woman" cannot be used in both situations. It very clearly can, because there are definitions that apply in those situations.

Can you come up with a definition of 'woman' that includes both cisgender women and transwomen, and excludes both cisgender men and transmen?

Why should I have too? Failure to do so would not disprove my point.

 

[Politesse]

The 14th Amendment to the US requires equal treatment under the law regardless of sex, and the 4th prohibits unlawful search and seizure. Your proposed policy cannot be enforced without violating both.

Gender Identity Is Not Sex

No, but you cannot enforce any rules concerning gender without violating the fourteenth amendment. If you're using people's genitals or chromosomes to determine what class of law should apply to them, that's a violation of sex equality, not gender equality. The facts of your physical body actually are a question of biological sex, so using your physical body as the justification for suppressing individual liberties is sex discrimination even if gender was the presumptive target of the oppressor. And as others have repeatedly pointed out, transgendered people often are intersex biologically anyway, making their case a very clearcut case of sex discrimination. Indeed, as SigmatheZeta has been rightfully elucidating, most transgendered person's nervous systems might indeed be identifiably different (and determinate) in ways that we are only now discovering, making them biologically intersex from a biologist's perspective, even if socially they had never been identified as such. In that case, nearly all cases of discrimination against trans people would also be sex discrimination in a very clear-cut fashion. This is is why I have the right to marry a man, incidentally; even though laws preventing gays from marrying were squarely aimed at punishing me for a behavior inappropriate to my gender in the eyes of Christian conservatives, the effect of those laws was sex discrimination and the Supreme Court was obliged to (very reluctantly!) concede that any formal government restrictions of gay marriage had to be considered illegal.

To put it another way, when you refer to men as "penises", and your desired policies as applying "to penises", you are referencing sex, not gender, and advocating discrimination on the basis of sex, not gender. If you wanted to be consistent about only discriminating on the basis of gender and thus evading running afoul of constitutional law, you would need to leave bodies out of it and only use people's expressed gender as the basis of your proposed restrictions.

 

[Emily Lake]

I’m aware of the small portion of the population in general who identify as transgender.

Just for consideration... about a thousand of the inmates in CA prisons identify as transgender, and they are nearly all male. There are about ten thousand female prisoners in CA. There are about ninety thousand male prisoners. So even though it's only 1% of the total prison population, that would be 10% of the population if they were all moved to women's prisons.

Even other transgender prisoners have concerns about the policy.
California prisons grapple with hundreds of transgender inmates requesting new housing

Tiffany Tooks, a transgender woman in the Chowchilla prison, has also been trying to address concerns. She transferred from Mule Creek in 2019 after having gender-affirming surgery.

“For me, it was everything,” she said, explaining how the inmates received her well after she opened up about her experiences from more than 20 years in prison — which included being raped and hearing inmates make sexually degrading comments when seeing her in the shower. “I feel it’s my duty to help the women that are coming here so they are not misunderstood.”

Tooks said that in early March, she participated in a meeting with the warden, prison staffers and other transgender inmates to address inmates in the men’s prison trying to transfer under false pretenses.

“The idea was how do we determine who really are transgender inmates coming into the prison system here and the fear of the women here who were afraid and still they are afraid that male inmates will infiltrate this prison system and cause problems,” she said.

I think that article is worth reading. It lays out the problem from multiple different viewpoints, both with consideration for individuals and guards stirring up fears as well as consideration for genuine fears. It also does a good job, in my opinion, of showing that for many women, it really isn't transphobia. There are transgender women who have already been transferred, and who have been welcomed and accepted by the other women there. But there is also concern about whether or not the applicants freshly claiming to be transgender are sincere or whether they're trying to game the system.

 

[KeepTalking]

I am trying to figure out whether you are angry at all transgender people or just certain individuals.

Mostly, I'm angry at the ideology being peddled.

I have heard from others here as well that it is the trans ideology that is the problem, but I am nut sure what is meant by "trans ideology". Can you elaborate upon what you mean by it, and whether you think anyone here is engaging in, or pushing that ideology?

For a rough summary:

• The catechism "Transwomen are Women, Transmen are Men" and act as if it's actually completely 100% literally true.
• The argument that sex is a spectrum, and the use of people with disorders of sexual development as a foil even though they have nothing to do with gender identity.
• The argument that self-declaration should be the only requirement for a person to be treated as their declared gender in all legal, social, and interpersonal interactions with no questions whatsoever
• Pushing that transgender people should be allowed to play in the sports leagues of the opposite sex with no requirements for hormone therapy at all
• Pushing policies to remove any protections or safeguards on the basis of sex, including forcing rape and domestic violence shelters to accept anyone who says they're a woman regardless of how they look or present, and without any challenge at all, regardless of the effect this has on traumatized women trying to use those services
• Reframing sexual orientation as being based on gender, and labeling people who are exclusively attracted to only one sex as a bigot, and needs to give some serious introspection to why they're so exclusionary about who they'll consider as a potential sex partner.
• Insisting that anyone who disagrees with any element of the policies being pushed is an evil bigoted transphobic TERF.
• Believes that threatening, harassing, and harming the livelihoods of females who don't accept their ideology is a perfectly acceptable thing.
• Demanding that no discussion of the above be allowed.

Thanks for the detailed response. Does a trans ideologists need to possess all of these attributes? If so, I don't think I have met one, and I am pretty sure there are none posting in this forum.

Feel free to drop the last two off. There are a few posters on this board that possess the first several attributes. @Jarhyn, for example, insists that TWAW end of, that sex is a spectrum, that self-id is all that should ever be allowed, that no treatment or diagnosis be required for sports, that self-declared transwomen should be entitled to female-only spaces like prisons & shelters as a right regardless of whether they have transitioned at all, and that sexual orientation is based on gender. @Jarhyn also treats those who disagree with his beliefs on these issues as if they're morally tainted evil bigots.

@Politesse and @ZiprHead are both awfully damned close too. @Loren Pechtel isn't particularly far behind. After that, I start losing track of people.

Okay, so a trans ideologist does not need to be one who "Believes that threatening, harassing, and harming the livelihoods of females who don't accept their ideology is a perfectly acceptable thing", or who is "Demanding that no discussion of the above be allowed."

That still leaves a large list of criteria that ostensibly a trans apologist needs to fit to earn the label. You seem to want to call @Jarhyn out as such, but admit he does not even meet all of the remaining criteria, and it seems that no on else comes close to ticking off so many items. Is it the case that even fewer of these criteria need to be met to earn the label? Perhaps as few as one? Or is it perhaps the case that those with whom you do not agree in this discussion are not the trans ideologists you make them out to be?

 

[Emily Lake]

Man, these folks turning "you can't tell hard cases, and you shouldn't even be assuming which ones are easy cases; the correct action is to ask and then accept the pronouns you get" to a straw-man of "you can't tell, nobody can tell, for anyone".

It's not "you can't" it's that "you cannot, reliably, particularly for the population in question and playing that game is shitty to you and everyone around you."

Some folks will writhe in agony if they cannot label and categorized all others.

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

Nah, that's a female. She's got some respectable hirsutism going on, but definitely female. Even if you removed all of the make-up, her facial features - the shape of her eye sockets, cheek bones, and chin, are feminine.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Personally, I would rather discriminate exactly on the basis of exactly the thing that a really matters to my situation.

I don't care whether I am housed
with men, women, people who are both, or people who are neither.

I want to be housed with people who will not rape me, on the continuing condition that I am not going to attempt to rape them either, and similarly with regards to violent conduct.

Ideally I'd be housed with people I were also not liable to have social consternation of being "around", but I am not guaranteed that at work so why would I expect it of prison?

I could care less about any other thing.

I'd really like to walk through a dark parking garage with people who will not rape me. I'd like to have gone on dates in college with people who didn't try to rape me.

Can you give me some guidelines on how to sort out which people are safe and which are not? It would be extremely valuable information for most people, and definitely valuable for females of the humans species across the entire planet. So please, pretty please, share that insight with us.

I dealt with being transgender by moving to an area where people's attitudes and beliefs were different, and I was never again surrounded by a violent gang and beaten and then given platitudes and unwanted advice by the police officer I called afterward. The culture that I live in matters to me more than it does to most people.

I am not sure if this is applicable.

 

[Politesse]

I am trying to figure out whether you are angry at all transgender people or just certain individuals.

Mostly, I'm angry at the ideology being peddled.

I have heard from others here as well that it is the trans ideology that is the problem, but I am nut sure what is meant by "trans ideology". Can you elaborate upon what you mean by it, and whether you think anyone here is engaging in, or pushing that ideology?

For a rough summary:

• The catechism "Transwomen are Women, Transmen are Men" and act as if it's actually completely 100% literally true.
• The argument that sex is a spectrum, and the use of people with disorders of sexual development as a foil even though they have nothing to do with gender identity.
• The argument that self-declaration should be the only requirement for a person to be treated as their declared gender in all legal, social, and interpersonal interactions with no questions whatsoever
• Pushing that transgender people should be allowed to play in the sports leagues of the opposite sex with no requirements for hormone therapy at all
• Pushing policies to remove any protections or safeguards on the basis of sex, including forcing rape and domestic violence shelters to accept anyone who says they're a woman regardless of how they look or present, and without any challenge at all, regardless of the effect this has on traumatized women trying to use those services
• Reframing sexual orientation as being based on gender, and labeling people who are exclusively attracted to only one sex as a bigot, and needs to give some serious introspection to why they're so exclusionary about who they'll consider as a potential sex partner.
• Insisting that anyone who disagrees with any element of the policies being pushed is an evil bigoted transphobic TERF.
• Believes that threatening, harassing, and harming the livelihoods of females who don't accept their ideology is a perfectly acceptable thing.
• Demanding that no discussion of the above be allowed.

Thanks for the detailed response. Does a trans ideologists need to possess all of these attributes? If so, I don't think I have met one, and I am pretty sure there are none posting in this forum.

Feel free to drop the last two off. There are a few posters on this board that possess the first several attributes. @Jarhyn, for example, insists that TWAW end of, that sex is a spectrum, that self-id is all that should ever be allowed, that no treatment or diagnosis be required for sports, that self-declared transwomen should be entitled to female-only spaces like prisons & shelters as a right regardless of whether they have transitioned at all, and that sexual orientation is based on gender. @Jarhyn also treats those who disagree with his beliefs on these issues as if they're morally tainted evil bigots.

@Politesse and @ZiprHead are both awfully damned close too. @Loren Pechtel isn't particularly far behind. After that, I start losing track of people.

Okay, so a trans ideologist does not need to be one who "Believes that threatening, harassing, and harming the livelihoods of females who don't accept their ideology is a perfectly acceptable thing", or who is "Demanding that no discussion of the above be allowed."

That still leaves a large list of criteria that ostensibly a trans apologist needs to fit to earn the label. You seem to want to call @Jarhyn out as such, but admit he does not even meet all of the remaining criteria, and it seems that no on else comes close to ticking off so many items. Is it the case that even fewer of these criteria need to be met to earn the label? Perhaps as few as one? Or is it perhaps the case that those with whom you do not agree in this discussion are the trans ideologists you make them out to be?

I am likewise very amused to learn that I am not, apparently, a trans ideologist!

 

[Emily Lake]

@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.

That's part of an entirely different issue going on, with respect to women feeling hounded at bars and just not wanting to deal with men who won't take no for an answer. And just to make things even more screwy, a lot of women choose to go to lesbian bars instead, seeking to avoid persistent men altogether... which the lesbians rather rightly object to.

Completely aside from any discussion of transgender accommodation and rights, there's also an issue with sexism in the US. It's much worse now than it was when I was a teenager.

 

[KeepTalking]

Rape is rape. It is illegal in and of itself, and if a trans person rapes someone they should be prosecuted just like a non-trans person.

Burglary is illegal, and if someone robs a house, they should be prosecuted. Should we then be required to leave our doors and windows unlocked? That's the equivalent here.

I don't think it is. A home is a matter of ownership, and no one should be required to have something they own unsecured. You do not own a public restroom. Those who do own it can choose to install locks or not, thereby giving you tho option to be more secure in your person. Why should an unlocked restroom make you feel more secure, regardless of whether or not it has a sign outside that says "Women"?

Yes, rapists should be prosecuted and jailed. But in situations where the likelihood of a rape is elevated, doesn't it make sense to reduce the opportunity for it to occur? Why on earth do you think we should create giant gaping loopholes, and just assure women that if they do end up getting raped, well, we'll just try to prosecute the rapist after the fact, and if we're lucky they'll go to jail. And well, if they're trans, they get put in the women's prison... and if they just happen to rape one of the women who cannot get away from them and has no way to protect themselves, well, we'll just add more time to their sentence and leave them in with their victims?

You've convinced me, we should have more lockable non-gendered public restrooms.

 

[TomC]

I am likewise very amused to learn that I am not, apparently, a trans ideologist!

Well, Bless Your Heart!

 

[Emily Lake]

[/QUOTE]

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….

That's a view held by the majority of women.

 

[Emily Lake]

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.

It might just be 'tradition'... although I would suspect that the men's restroom includes a urinal and the women's restroom includes feminine hygiene dispensers and disposal units.

 

[Emily Lake]

though nobody uses the term "unisex" anymore. It sounds like a unicorn with a boner growing out of his head.

 

[Emily Lake]

How so? What process do you believe ensures that all sex offenders will be revealed as such?

Oh that's easy - they'll be revealed AFTER they've assaulted or raped someone (assuming that person reports it and is taken seriously), or AFTER they're literally caught in the act of placing spy cameras. In either case, it's extremely likely to be female humans that get harmed by this experiment, and we all know that they don't matter.

 

[Emily Lake]

.

Crazy people aren't representative. Except perhaps of the large number of crazy people on twitter.