Drag Shows

[Emily Lake]

Sure, sure. Let's allow the 3' tall kid to identify as 5'7" so they can ride the roller coaster...

We don't allow people to self-declare their height. They might be able to get a couple of inches by us here and there... but we pretty much all operate in the same world, by the same rules, and a person who is measurably 5'2" gets laughed at if they claim that they're actually 6'2".

Your reply is non-responsive to my point. Someone who is X and states it, identifies as X. What you identify as your height is your true height. The fact you communicate your height means you identify as it.

If I state that my height is 8'2"... is that my true height? Even if I truly, deeply, believe that I am 8'2"... does that obligate anyone else to accommodate my belief, given that it is my 'identity'?

Do you draw a distinction between an objective observation and a self-declaration? Which do you deem to be more important? Which should be recognized and respected?

 

[Emily Lake]

Yet you reject using your body the way it was designed for use.

Our bodies were not designed.

Design may have been a poor word choice. Certainly human evolution has created us the way we are. Metaphor has rejected the way evolution has made us. I have no problem with that. What I object to is Metaphor's rejection of others who do the same as him. He downplays their "feelings" as if they do not matter yet they came to a similar choice as him through the same means. He clearly has a double standard.

This doesn't make sense to me. Are you claiming that a person's feelings about themselves, even when in contradiction to objective observation, are a product of evolution?

 

[Emily Lake]

He downplays their "feelings" as if they do not matter yet they came to a similar choice as him through the same means.

I dunno. Metaphor isn’t demanding that we ignore biology.

Actually he is. The brain and the "feelings" that come from it are biological in nature.

Well, that's the entire field of psychiatry tossed in the bin then.

Have you really thought through the consequences of your statement? It means, for instance, that it's "biological" for children raised with ghost stories of a magical sky zombie to believe in that. It's "biological" for a person who joins Scientology to believe in Thetans.

That we have emotions is biological. What our minds interpret those emotions to mean, and how we respond to those emotions, isn't necessarily biological. And it certainly doesn't suggest that those reactions to emotions are appropriate, reasonable, or rational in any fashion whatsoever.

You're granting belief primacy over reason.

 

[Emily Lake]

And there's the problem. Virtually no one is asking anyone to accept that females have penises. They are saying my brain is telling me my body is differant than what my brain tells me it should be and I wish to be respected as the gender my brain tells me I am. Metaphor rejects that.

Met rejects that ANYBODY ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD is obligated to accept your brain's belief in any way whatsoever. If your brain was completely insistent that you were Napoleon reborn, nobody else should give you command of their military.

 

[ZiprHead]

Yet you reject using your body the way it was designed for use.

Our bodies were not designed.

Design may have been a poor word choice. Certainly human evolution has created us the way we are. Metaphor has rejected the way evolution has made us. I have no problem with that. What I object to is Metaphor's rejection of others who do the same as him. He downplays their "feelings" as if they do not matter yet they came to a similar choice as him through the same means. He clearly has a double standard.

This doesn't make sense to me. Are you claiming that a person's feelings about themselves, even when in contradiction to objective observation, are a product of evolution?

Everything about our bodies is a product of evolution.

He downplays their "feelings" as if they do not matter yet they came to a similar choice as him through the same means.

I dunno. Metaphor isn’t demanding that we ignore biology.

Actually he is. The brain and the "feelings" that come from it are biological in nature.

Well, that's the entire field of psychiatry tossed in the bin then.

Have you really thought through the consequences of your statement? It means, for instance, that it's "biological" for children raised with ghost stories of a magical sky zombie to believe in that. It's "biological" for a person who joins Scientology to believe in Thetans.

That we have emotions is biological. What our minds interpret those emotions to mean, and how we respond to those emotions, isn't necessarily biological. And it certainly doesn't suggest that those reactions to emotions are appropriate, reasonable, or rational in any fashion whatsoever.

You're granting belief primacy over reason.

So trans people learned to be trans? This sounds like another "thoughts in head" post.

 

[Emily Lake]

I still haven't heard anyone explain why drag is inherently problematic.

I stand by my position that it is an inherently offensive caricature of women, and it should not be presented to children as if males putting on a cartoonish costume of women for laughs is something good.

I think that was my reaction for a long time: it was an ugly caricature of women, even when it wasn't intended as an ugly caricature. I've changed my mind over the years but it took real effort at trying to understand why someone would dress in such over the top costumes and embrace such over the top personas. I see it differently now: Those personas represent something different to the performers and the fans than to me. And sometimes it is a bit of a lampoon of stereotypes of women and also a send up of what (some) men are attracted to. When women dress with their hair and tits up to here, in stillettos with their skirts up to here and their neckline plunging and layers of makeup and eyelashes and hairspray and glittery jewelry and gowns: it's also a kind of costume for women as well, and a kind of armor.

HAve you put in the same amount of effort to try to understand the feelings of performers who darken their skin tone for a role, or who dress as their favorite and most revered black actor or actress for halloween? Do you have the same amount of tolerance for the "lampoon of stereotypes" wrapped up in many past SNL skits, for example?

 

[Emily Lake]

Making it sound like evolution is a force can lead to deep misunderstanding.
Evolution is a process that occurs without fail whenever a population of imperfect self-replicators exists in a dynamic fitness landscape.
If there is any "force" involved, it is the inclination of imperfect self replicators to self-replicate that drives the process.

That which doesn't fuck up a specimen too badly gets passed on.

100% a process. No thought, not even any real predictability.

 

[ZiprHead]

And there's the problem. Virtually no one is asking anyone to accept that females have penises. They are saying my brain is telling me my body is differant than what my brain tells me it should be and I wish to be respected as the gender my brain tells me I am. Metaphor rejects that.

Met rejects that ANYBODY ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD is obligated to accept your brain's belief in any way whatsoever. If your brain was completely insistent that you were Napoleon reborn, nobody else should give you command of their military.

Gay people (of which Met is one) demanded equal rights. Their demand should probably have been rejected because no one should be obligated to accept their brain's belief in any way whatsoever.

 

[Elixir]

That which doesn't fuck up a specimen too badly gets passed on.

100% a process. No thought, not even any real predictability.

Which makes its problem solving power absolutely astounding IMHO.

 

[Emily Lake]

Not any more.
I am no longer on staff, in case you didn't notice.
Tom

Congratulations on your newly acquired freedom!

 

[Emily Lake]

The folks who say stuff like "transwomen are women" are systematically unable to explain what they mean by the word "women".

No, we simply understand that some concepts, like "woman" and "furry" are fundamentally arbitrary, and that even while some people have tendencies that naturally lead them to adoption of such cultural systems, it is incorrect to gate participation on comorbidities to those who have such tendencies.

As we have discussed widely, you are also systematically unable to define "woman".

Adult female of the human species.

 

[Emily Lake]

If I ask you to describe the colors red and blue to a blind person, and you are unable to systematically explain those colors to a blind person, does this mean anything? Does this make the colors red and blue non-existent? Does it mean you are a failure at explaining things?

For a starter, I can explain the colors red and blue to a blind person without using the colors themselves as the fucking definition. Additionally, I can provide definition for the color red that would have meaning to a blind person, even if they cannot actually perceive the color red themselves. Even if one might quibble about the exact wavelength range that falls into the category of red within the spectrum of visible light... a clear definition can still be provided, and it can be provided in a way that enable clear understanding by everyone involved, and can be applied in rational ways.

What we have are a very small portion of the population that say they feel as if they are the opposite gender. That their identity is that of the opposite gender. It isn't a phase. It isn't a wish. It is engrained in their psyche. So instead of asking folks to explain what they mean when they say a "transwoman is a woman", perhaps you need to step back and ask yourself, what is within the entirety of a gender? How much is our gender is the chromosomes and how much in the DNA and how much in the neurology? And which part of that matters the most in our personal identity?

And so... in your effort to be caring and compassionate to a small portion of people whose beliefs about themselves are in contradiction to objective observation... you remove a meaningful term from use for half the fucking population.

In order to assuage the feelings of some few men... you are quite happy to fuck over the females of your own species by robbing them of a word that captures and describes their physical reality as well as their social experience.

Yay you. It must be nice to be a man.

 

[Emily Lake]

As has been discussed, none of these are exactly "woman" because "woman" is more a holistic culture built around rather than  of the actual tendency towards differences between people.

Is this true for all other female primates and mammals? If not, why not?

I mean, "mare" is such a completely fuzzy word, it's such a random composite. We really can never know for sure which of those horses is going to be contributing sperm and which is going to be gestating a foal.

 

[Emily Lake]

You mean, it doesn't mean he wasn't born with female genitals. Unfortunately, my post went into greater detail regarding what it means to be a woman, physically, ie chromosomes, DNA, neurology.

Oh please, Mr. Man, do tell me what it means to be a woman! My poor widdle girly bwain just can't figure it out, I need a MAN to tell me what women be like!

 

[Emily Lake]

As has been discussed, none of these are exactly "woman" because "woman" is more a holistic culture built around rather than  of the actual tendency towards differences between people.

Is this true for all other female primates and mammals? If not, why not?

Because they don't have cultural gender norms.
Tom

Then eliminate those regressive and sexist cultural norms. Don't try to pretend that biology isn't real.

 

[Emily Lake]

Because that’s just inconceivable to nearly all other men.

I, too, find it impossible to understand. I kinda get FtM, obviously being a dude is better. But I don't have to understand it in order to grasp that other people can do whatever they want, if it doesn't involve me. I don't understand why guys get so excited about hunting or football either.
Tom

What about when it DOES involve you? What about when you end up with a cluster of female appearing, female-bodied, undeniably female people crashing your locker room and ogling at all of the cocks that surround them?

Also... try extrapolating from the brain of a straight guy - why on earth might a straight guy want to gain access to female locker rooms and showers? Especially if he doesn't actually have to do anything other than toss on some lipstick and a skirt, and nobody is allowed to challenge his presence in the female showers? Can you conceive of why a heterosexual man, who is normally precluded from seeing naked women against their will, might want to exploit some loopholes so he can see the booties and boobs?

 

[Emily Lake]

I, too, find it impossible to understand. I kinda get FtM, obviously being a dude is better. But I don't have to understand it in order to grasp that other people can do whatever they want, if it doesn't involve me.

This isn't about people being free to do what they choose... as this is so much more fundamental. It is about accepting who they are. Accepting that our understanding on gender isn't nearly as simple as we have let on for millennia.

Frankly, gender is a load of hogwash, and it always has been. It's an exploitation of our sexual dimorphism, and the very long burden of childbirth and childcare that female humans take on, in order to secure power for males, and also to ensure that their own genes are the ones passed on to their children by controlling the sexuality and agency of women.

Sex, however, is very real. It's how babies happen, and how all mammals continue to be species and not go extinct.

 

[Emily Lake]

As has been discussed, none of these are exactly "woman" because "woman" is more a holistic culture built around rather than  of the actual tendency towards differences between people.

Is this true for all other female primates and mammals? If not, why not?

It is not. Because they have no such concept of gender in the first place. There are no real assigned gender roles in chimp society, and if an individual within a troupe wants to do something that a religion-blinded human would find offensive due to their assigned gender- like a male chimp spending too much time caring for a child, or getting a hand job from another male - there are no social barriers to their doing so. We know this, because we've seen both happen in the wild on many occasions.

Bullshit - other animals absolutely have sex-based social roles. Care for offspring is not remotely evenly divided in chimpanzee societies, males routinely attack other males, and male hierarchical dominance is strictly enforced among chimps. Sure, there's no "rule" against a male chimp caring for infants... but that chimp is guaranteed to be low on the totem pole.

LOTS of animals have sex-based social roles. Generally speaking, the longer the gestation and the longer a period of time before offspring reaches maturity, the more dimorphic the social roles are. And in many cases, those roles make sense in terms of survival.

What animals don't have is a bunch of claptrap wrapped around those roles that elevates it to some special soul-like aspect that is more important than their actual sex. What they don't have is a brain capable of exploiting those sexually dimorphic roles and enforcing them as social rules that allow for near enslavement of one sex, and active punishment of members of the dominant sex who transgress their closely-guarded power structures.

 

[Emily Lake]

Are you saying this person doesn't really identify as trans, they just wanted to win a contest? Or that they do identify as a woman and they are fat and ugly and shouldn't have won this contest?

Perhaps... regardless of how he identifies, he is not in reality, a woman. And therefore, he should not have been allowed to compete, let alone to win, that competitive. Additionally... given that it is a beauty contest... no, the fat ugly man should definitely not have won.

Also, why do we even still have pageants?

Fuck if I know. I'd say it's because for all our claims to "progress", women are still in a position where men define our worth in terms of our sexual attractiveness and availability for their enjoyment. And because ways to get a leg up in a man's world still frequently come down to being able to willingly being objectified.

 

[Emily Lake]

But why shouldn't women want men in once female-only spaces?

How very dare that woman feel that she have any right to her own sexual boundaries! Doesn't she know that it is the right of the transgender identified male to voyeuristically leer at her while she's naked? It's entirely transphobic of her to find it uncomfortable and intimidating to have a visibly aroused man ogling her!