The left eats JK Rowling over transgender comments

[Emily Lake]

I don't strongly disagree with any of that in principle, but I might have some concerns about where it goes to. For one thing, I think the "perfectly acceptable to be an outlier" part is a bit idealistic. I speak as someone whose abnormality was nothing to do with gender, but was chronic depression (until controlled by medication). Do you think I should have stood in front of the mirror every day and convinced myself that (a) I wasn't depressed or (b) it wasn't a problem?

Poorly worded on my part. I don't mean that outlier conditions are no big deal or should be wished away. More that society as a whole should be more accepting of outlier conditions and not treat people with those conditions as pariahs. That goes hand in hand with my opinion that people who have outlier conditions should exist in a world where it's okay for them to accept their conditions as outliers without any added stress or negative impacts. So, don't try to force the world to accept the outlier as "normal", just be okay with the fact that you're an oultier and move on with making your life as good as you can. That doesn't my any means suggest that people don't get treatment or make whatever accompdations they need, it just means no insisting that it be viewed as 'normal'.

My sister is bipolar, and I'm extremely happy that she is getting good treatment. But she fought that diagnosis for a long time, and she fought hard against suggestions from my mom and I that she might want to see a doctor. She was much happier (as was my family) when she accepted that she was bipolar and started dealing with it directly instead of insisting that she was perfectly normal and we were all just assholes.

I don't know what you mean there, by 'differences in brains'. I think you may mean fixed brain structure. But we've already agreed that the differences might not be to do with that. A drinking glass filled with beer and a drinking glass filled with water have the exact same glass structure but as as combos they are two different things. Also, brain plasticity. How is that not about brain differences?

Innate biological differences as opposed to learned and developed differences. To take your analogy, innate differences would be like having two tumblers, one made of glass and one made of plastic - they're shaped the same, and they perform the same basic function, but they're actually physically different from the ground up. Developed differences (plasticity) would be akin to your initial example of having the same glass, shaped the same and made of the same material, filled with different kinds of liquids.

More directly, and outside of the brain... Innate differences between men and women would be different range of vocal pitch, as a result of different sized trachea, voice boxes, and that whole adam's apple thing. Developed plastic differences would be men on average being louder and projecting further than women, and women being more soft-spoken and quieter than men. That's not an effect of innate physical formations (see opera singers, for example), that's a result of social conditioning, and learned behavior.

Obviously, there will be influential social aspects to such things. But the claim that social factors fully explain them is not, imo, likely true, and seems to me to be becoming less and less likely to be true every year that genetics (and understandings about innate dispositions and how nature interacts with nurture) is proceeding. Homosexuality and left-handedness are social constructs? Really? I think you're taking the social/nurture/environment model a bit too far.

Not quite... This is a tricky thing to put into words, so I apologize for not being clear. Honestly, not all of it is clear in my own head, let alone when I apply words to it.

I'm not trying to say that handedness or sexual orientation are social constructs. I'm trying to say that "identity" is a social construct. "Gay man" as an identity is a social construct.

If society didn't give a crap about who you like to shag, then sexual orientation simply wouldn't be a material part of a person's identity. It's part of the identity constellation for most gay people because society sets them apart because of it. If society didn't, then it would become a much more minor aspect of the descriptors that a person identifies themselves as. It wouldn't change who they're attracted to - that would remain... but without society caring about sexuality, it simply wouldn't matter any more than one's shoe size.

Handedness is actually a moderately good example, that doesn't have as much emotional distraction. For a good part of history, left-handed people were mistreated. They were forced to learn to write and function using their right hand, because that was the "correct" way, and left-handedness was frowned upon. Even after right-hand usage was no longer forced, nobody made scissors or desks or notebooks etc. for left-handed people. Everything they needed to use worked poorly for them. Because that set them apart, "left handedness" was part of their identity. Nowadays, there are a lot more accommodations for left-handed people, even if they're still hard to find. So being a righty or a lefty is a passing element of interest to most people, but not nearly as integral a part of identity as it used to be. Although it still is a barrier from time to time. A few years ago, my company revamped some spaces into collaborative work areas and team rooms. They got a lot of nice, comfy chairs with attached desk bits that swing back and forth. They were pretty cool. Then one of my coworkers piped up and asked "Did you get any left-handed ones?" Nope. They were all right-handed desks, which doesn't really work well for him.

"Identity" is a social construct.

In the case of transgender people, I'm skeptical that the gender identity that is such a cornerstone of it is a truly innate element, or whether it's a reflection of gender being a social construct, and being taken as an identity. That's a very nebulous statement, and I wish I could be clearer, but it's fuzzy to me too. And like I've said, maybe I'm wrong and I'm just ignorant. I'm not saying that it's not a genuine source of stress, anxiety, etc. I'm not saying it doesn't have a real effect on people's lives. I'm just skeptical about whether gender, in the way it's used with respect to trans identifying people, exists as a thing of its own, separate and distinct from innate biological characteristics (sex and sex-based elements) and distinct from socially created gender roles and expectations.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It's really quite ironic:

[MENTION=103]Metaphor[/MENTION]

• claims to advocate for men's rights
• claims that trans women are men
• ... yet gets off of denying rights to trans women.

If there were a Nobel for mental gymnastics, we'd have a nomination.

There's a bit of a sub-topic within this greater point you are making if you refer back to the op....and that is J.K. Rowling was making statements about--and I quote--"male violence." In other words, she was saying that male violence is something to be afraid of and her ex-husband abused her so she is afraid of men and she said she gets triggered and endorses policies all because of a fear of male violence.

Not merely this paragraph, but the whole thing:

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave women and men, gay, straight and trans, who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young gay kids, fragile teenagers, and women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single sex spaces. Polls show those women are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against male violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

Reverse sexism! Reverse sexism!

Now, Metaphor et alia are fond of substituting race in for sex or gender in order to logically test their opponents and try to make arguments for hypocrisy. But look what happens when you substitute race in for sex/gender in the J.K. Rowling statements. You get someone who is clearly racist and pro-racial segregation in sports and the rest of society.

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode Whites as a political and biological race and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave white women and white men, and other victims who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young white kids who can't compete in sports, rape and murder victims, and white women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single race spaces. Polls show those white people are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against black violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

Therefore, using the Metaphor et alia rules of inferences, it's hypocrisy!

 

[Emily Lake]

It's not very high on my list of concerns. The state doesn't obligate anyone to have life insurance for any particular reason, while it does for driving. Driving occupies a strange place of less than a right, but more than a luxury--for many there is some degree of necessity. Housing insurance, to a lesser extent, fits a similar pattern.

I don't think life insurance policies should be charging differently on the basis of sex. I understand from an actuarial perspective how it is rationalized, but there are so many variables applied to a give individual which may alter their actual risk category. Age is a bit different depending on the terms of the policy. Same goes for some illnesses.

There are a lot of morbidity and mortality factors that are highly correlated with sex, and the morbidity and mortality patterns vary considerably by age. Under the age of about 12, males and females show predominantly similar rates of illness, injury, and death. They diverge at puberty. There's a material rise in the rate of injury and death among males during puberty that continue through the mid twenties, where females exhibit a significantly lower rate of injury and death. Those positions swap during child-bearing years, where males show a lower rate of injury and death, but the rates for females rise above those of males. Somewhere in the late 40s, they flip again. Females are at a lower risk of heart attack and stroke, along with several other age-onset conditions, which resulting males having a higher risk of death and illness than females.

The differences in puberty are probably strongly influenced by social conditioning, although testosterone also probably plays a role. The rest of them are very strongly driven by actual sex-based differences... like pregnancy and childbirth.

It falls into the same category of reality that race-based morbidity does. Regardless of whether people find it offensive or not, the reality is that black people are at a statistically higher risk of diabetes than caucasians or asians are, and are significantly more at risk for sickle-cell anemia. There are several other conditions that have clear genetic components that created non-politically-correct medical outcomes.

In other random categories, I don't think hair salons and barbers should charge different rates on the basis of gender either. But in practical terms, this isn't in the same category of concern as automotive insurance.

Generally speaking, some haircuts are more complex and require more time. Shouldn't stylists be allowed to charge more for something that takes longer and is harder to do?

 

[Emily Lake]

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode Black people as a political and biological race and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave black women and black men, and other victims who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young black kids who can't compete in sports, rape and murder victims, and black women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single race spaces. Polls show those black people are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against white violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

Interesting to note that if you substitute "black" for "women" it's not quite as absurd. Some of it contextually wrong, of course, but it's much closer to reality that way.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

But endlessly unpleasant as its constant targeting of me has been, I refuse to bow down to a movement that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode Black people as a political and biological race and offering cover to predators like few before it. I stand alongside the brave black women and black men, and other victims who’re standing up for freedom of speech and thought, and for the rights and safety of some of the most vulnerable in our society: young black kids who can't compete in sports, rape and murder victims, and black women who’re reliant on and wish to retain their single race spaces. Polls show those black people are in the vast majority, and exclude only those privileged or lucky enough never to have come up against white violence or sexual assault, and who’ve never troubled to educate themselves on how prevalent it is.

Interesting to note that if you substitute "black" for "women" it's not quite as absurd. Some of it contextually wrong, of course, but it's much closer to reality that way.

That means according to previous logic, you should support racial segregation either way.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

In the case of transgender people, I'm skeptical that the gender identity that is such a cornerstone of it is a truly innate element, or whether it's a reflection of gender being a social construct, and being taken as an identity.

As a caveat, the trans* umbrella has grown fairly large over the last decade or so, so I can't rule out that there are those who gender expression is based far more on social constructs than an intrinsic issue with the relationship between mind and body. When I say 'mind', I'm using that term rather loosely. I am talking about neurological processes one way or the other rather than some abstract philosophical concept. Whether that is due to have a brain which is at least partially feminized/ masculinized, or it's due to some other phenomenon, we're talking about something occurring in the brain.

My dysphoria is a result of mismatch between mind and body. For whatever reason, they don't align, and I have been aware of this from a very very very young age. The idea that there should be some sort of mental mapping to sexual characteristics may seem alien to someone who has never experience this incongruity, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't normally the case for people regardless of gender identity. As a vaguely akin (though not completely analogous) concept, when you open and close your hand, does that feel like a process which takes place wholly in your hand and arm, or do you feel your brain making it happen? Ordinarily, we'd just move our hand without any pressing awareness that our brain was active in that process as well. But perhaps if you suffered from certain types of apraxia, or you were deprived of a limb and experienced phantom pains the broken link would make you far more cognizant of how the brain and hand were mapped together.

Like I said, it's not truly analogous. The point is merely when things are in alignment and working, it's easy to not notice any distinction between mind and body. This idea that one's mind could expect to find different genitals than what are actually there may seem bizarre to someone who doesn't experience it because they ordinarily would feel any distinction between a neurological sense that they should have a penis with the fact that they do have a penis. It would all just feel like having a penis. When mind and body don't align, that ends up being the root of dysphoria. And what is felt in the mind is the seed for identity.

Even if the mind/ body disconnect does form the root of dysphoria, this doesn't mean social constructs are irrelevant. We are social creatures (even the fiercely introverted such as myself). We understand how people are sorted and how pervasive engendered concepts really are. As a transgender woman, when I was a child I understood what my mind told me and how it did not align with not only my body, but with how i was seen and sorted by society. Every instance where I was excluded from things deemed female and every instance where I was included in things deemed male, it called attention to my dysphoria. It also placed distance between me and others because it was like there was this unseeable aspect of my mind which was entirely obscured by my genitals. How that all plays out between a bizarre property of my mind which doesn't properly align with my physiology, and how that all manifests into social constructs is a really complicated thing. Those social constructs do end up have impact on my identity which in turn feeds back into social constructs. But the root of it was less to do with with social constructs. As long as my mind and body couldn't be reconciled adequately, the dysphoria persisted.

Experiences vary amongst transgender people for a great many reasons. Still, it feels like a lot of dialogue is broken because we need to talk in terms of either biology or social constructs. We need to talk in terms of what is innate or learned/ conditioned. But there easily exists a reality where both are relevant not just for transgender people, but for nearly all people. It's just, transgender people have much more of an aggravating factor calling our attention our gender identity that most people in general.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

The differences in puberty are probably strongly influenced by social conditioning, although testosterone also probably plays a role. The rest of them are very strongly driven by actual sex-based differences... like pregnancy and childbirth.

It's too shallow of an analysis to justify notable discrepancies in rates.

Generally speaking, some haircuts are more complex and require more time. Shouldn't stylists be allowed to charge more for something that takes longer and is harder to do?

Yes. And many stylists have taken to doing just that instead of charging based on gender.

 

[ruby sparks]

Poorly worded on my part. I don't mean that outlier conditions are no big deal or should be wished away. More that society as a whole should be more accepting of outlier conditions and not treat people with those conditions as pariahs. That goes hand in hand with my opinion that people who have outlier conditions should exist in a world where it's okay for them to accept their conditions as outliers without any added stress or negative impacts. So, don't try to force the world to accept the outlier as "normal", just be okay with the fact that you're an oultier and move on with making your life as good as you can. That doesn't my any means suggest that people don't get treatment or make whatever accompdations they need, it just means no insisting that it be viewed as 'normal'.

My sister is bipolar, and I'm extremely happy that she is getting good treatment. But she fought that diagnosis for a long time, and she fought hard against suggestions from my mom and I that she might want to see a doctor. She was much happier (as was my family) when she accepted that she was bipolar and started dealing with it directly instead of insisting that she was perfectly normal and we were all just assholes.


Innate biological differences as opposed to learned and developed differences. To take your analogy, innate differences would be like having two tumblers, one made of glass and one made of plastic - they're shaped the same, and they perform the same basic function, but they're actually physically different from the ground up. Developed differences (plasticity) would be akin to your initial example of having the same glass, shaped the same and made of the same material, filled with different kinds of liquids.

More directly, and outside of the brain... Innate differences between men and women would be different range of vocal pitch, as a result of different sized trachea, voice boxes, and that whole adam's apple thing. Developed plastic differences would be men on average being louder and projecting further than women, and women being more soft-spoken and quieter than men. That's not an effect of innate physical formations (see opera singers, for example), that's a result of social conditioning, and learned behavior.

Obviously, there will be influential social aspects to such things. But the claim that social factors fully explain them is not, imo, likely true, and seems to me to be becoming less and less likely to be true every year that genetics (and understandings about innate dispositions and how nature interacts with nurture) is proceeding. Homosexuality and left-handedness are social constructs? Really? I think you're taking the social/nurture/environment model a bit too far.

Not quite... This is a tricky thing to put into words, so I apologize for not being clear. Honestly, not all of it is clear in my own head, let alone when I apply words to it.

I'm not trying to say that handedness or sexual orientation are social constructs. I'm trying to say that "identity" is a social construct. "Gay man" as an identity is a social construct.

If society didn't give a crap about who you like to shag, then sexual orientation simply wouldn't be a material part of a person's identity. It's part of the identity constellation for most gay people because society sets them apart because of it. If society didn't, then it would become a much more minor aspect of the descriptors that a person identifies themselves as. It wouldn't change who they're attracted to - that would remain... but without society caring about sexuality, it simply wouldn't matter any more than one's shoe size.

Handedness is actually a moderately good example, that doesn't have as much emotional distraction. For a good part of history, left-handed people were mistreated. They were forced to learn to write and function using their right hand, because that was the "correct" way, and left-handedness was frowned upon. Even after right-hand usage was no longer forced, nobody made scissors or desks or notebooks etc. for left-handed people. Everything they needed to use worked poorly for them. Because that set them apart, "left handedness" was part of their identity. Nowadays, there are a lot more accommodations for left-handed people, even if they're still hard to find. So being a righty or a lefty is a passing element of interest to most people, but not nearly as integral a part of identity as it used to be. Although it still is a barrier from time to time. A few years ago, my company revamped some spaces into collaborative work areas and team rooms. They got a lot of nice, comfy chairs with attached desk bits that swing back and forth. They were pretty cool. Then one of my coworkers piped up and asked "Did you get any left-handed ones?" Nope. They were all right-handed desks, which doesn't really work well for him.

"Identity" is a social construct.

In the case of transgender people, I'm skeptical that the gender identity that is such a cornerstone of it is a truly innate element, or whether it's a reflection of gender being a social construct, and being taken as an identity. That's a very nebulous statement, and I wish I could be clearer, but it's fuzzy to me too. And like I've said, maybe I'm wrong and I'm just ignorant. I'm not saying that it's not a genuine source of stress, anxiety, etc. I'm not saying it doesn't have a real effect on people's lives. I'm just skeptical about whether gender, in the way it's used with respect to trans identifying people, exists as a thing of its own, separate and distinct from innate biological characteristics (sex and sex-based elements) and distinct from socially created gender roles and expectations.

I think I agree with most of that. Thank you for explaining. I'm not sure that either of our analogies with glasses is spot on, but I'll temporarily set them aside, as they are only analogies.

So, let's say, for the sake of the argument here, that what you mean by identity is a social construct.*

That would not mean that transgender consisted only of an identity, any more than several other things would, homosexuality for instance (I'm not saying they're the same sort of thing by the way). There's gay and then there's gay identity. There's transgender and then there's transgender identity, and so on.

If that were the case, then the mistake (if it were being made) would be to think that being transgender is only an identity.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


* Away from the argument here, I'd be happy to agree that identity has significant social components, but I might not go all the way to saying it's purely made up of those. That feels very unlikely. I tend to think that nature and nurture nearly always interact. I think I'd also prefer 'environmental' rather than 'social', with the latter as a subset of the former. Hypothetical example (which may or may not apply to gender): stress, which I believe can affect brain development, perhaps via plasticity, especially in children perhaps. Stress could be, for instance, social or familial, or it could be.......dunno.....a traumatic natural event, such as narrowly surviving a tsunami. That's not a very good example in terms of the topic here, but it's the first one I can think of to try to say that environmental influences that might affect brain development don't need to be social influences.

 

[Jokodo]

[MENTION=103]Metaphor[/MENTION] in case you still doubt sexual violence and hate crimes against transgender individuals are a real issue, here's a systematic review by the WHO. Even if we ignore the lifetime rates in many of those studies, where there could be confounding factors, the picture is clear. For example, Kosciw, 2002, found that in his study group, young people in the US, 31.6% of transgender youths between 13 and 20 had experienced physical assault based on their sexual orientation, and 35.1% based on their gender expression, at school, within the past school year. For cis-gendered male (gay or bisexual) youths, the rates were 23.6/14.2%, for lesbian/bisexual girls 15.8/10.8%.

Or maybe closer to home: Leonard et al., 2012 found that in Australia, 6.8% of transgender females had been sexually assaulted in the last 12 months - two to three times the rate for cis-gendered sexual minorities (i.e. gays and lesbians).

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

So, let's say, for the sake of the argument here, that what you mean by identity is a social construct.*

The language regarding transgender identities evolved very sloppily, so it's hard not to reduce the conversation to semantics.

Gender identity is a person's internal sense of gender. Not a social construct at its core, but honestly, I don't see a need to make absolute distinctions.

Gender expression on the other hand, covers more territory which falls under social constructs. Again, not absolutely in the realm of social construct alone.

But using your example regarding homosexuality as a model for how you've used terms, sure, conceptually I think were pretty much describing the same thing.

 

[Metaphor]

I don't think any of the sane women would want to have this continued at their sake for slightly higher insurance rates, many of which here would probably take that hit just to see you and everyone like you shut up about it. And hey, you don't even have to worry about the inevitable extension into "not-a-real-woman sues for lower car insurance rates", or when the rule of large numbers dictates that some gender troll actually does that.

Jarhyn, the law of large numbers is not what you think it is. It does not mean "given a big enough group, someone is bound to do some specific action". There might be a phrase that describes what you want but it is not the phrase you are currently using.

 

[Metaphor]

@Metaphor in case you still doubt sexual violence and hate crimes against transgender individuals are a real issue,

But I did not claim any such thing. I asked what percent of trans women were assaulted because they were using men's lockers.

here's a systematic review by the WHO. Even if we ignore the lifetime rates in many of those studies, where there could be confounding factors, the picture is clear. For example, Kosciw, 2002, found that in his study group, young people in the US, 31.6% of transgender youths between 13 and 20 had experienced physical assault based on their sexual orientation, and 35.1% based on their gender expression, at school, within the past school year. For cis-gendered male (gay or bisexual) youths, the rates were 23.6/14.2%, for lesbian/bisexual girls 15.8/10.8%.

Or maybe closer to home: Leonard et al., 2012 found that in Australia, 6.8% of transgender females had been sexually assaulted in the last 12 months - two to three times the rate for cis-gendered sexual minorities (i.e. gays and lesbians).

What is a transgender female? Even trans activists don't tend to use the language of 'male' and 'female', but rather 'man' and 'woman'. Do you mean trans-identified men?

 

[Metaphor]

Reverse sexism! Reverse sexism!

There's no reverse sexism. When people are prejudiced and discriminate against men, it's sexism.

Now, Metaphor et alia are fond of substituting race in for sex or gender in order to logically test their opponents and try to make arguments for hypocrisy. But look what happens when you substitute race in for sex/gender in the J.K. Rowling statements.

Sex and gender are two different things. They do not become one thing because you wrote them with a forward slash.

 

[Metaphor]

No, they are opinions. You don't get to decide what the relevant definitions are.

Except I didn't decide. Society did, and that usage is contained in dictionaries, and why the definition of 'man' is 'adult human male'.

Sorry. If you even think you do, then you are merely deluded in some way.

ETA: 'trans women are men' doesn't even make sense, as a sentence.

For the purposes of debate around trans issues, I must use language that trans activists understand so that some minimal amount of communication can occur.

Trans activists are not stupid--they know how important it is for them to obscure language. That's why trans activists insist on 'trans women' and not 'transwomen'. "Transwomen are men" is less semantically problematic than 'trans women are men', and that's deliberate.

'Fool's gold is pyrite' is a similar construction to 'trans women are men'. Fool's gold is not gold, even though it has 'gold' in the name.

 

[Metaphor]

Metaphor, it isn't that clean binary you keep trying to sell. It's not as simple as "hotdogs and buns", and we've had that conversation before. The genitals and gonads are the least of your gender.

They're not any part of your gender at all. Gender is a feeling in your head.

The biggest part is who you are, your brain and what parts happened to form in your skull. For almost everyone, they're a pretty good match. For some people either the gonads, or their hormones, or sometimes the genitals themselves, aren't a good match. That part is easier than the brain, and less invasive. Noninvasive, even, for hormone replacement, and hey, then they don't have an adult human male puberty at all, if you do it right.

Transitioning children is child abuse.

 

[Emily Lake]

In the case of transgender people, I'm skeptical that the gender identity that is such a cornerstone of it is a truly innate element, or whether it's a reflection of gender being a social construct, and being taken as an identity.

As a caveat, the trans* umbrella has grown fairly large over the last decade or so, so I can't rule out that there are those who gender expression is based far more on social constructs than an intrinsic issue with the relationship between mind and body. When I say 'mind', I'm using that term rather loosely. I am talking about neurological processes one way or the other rather than some abstract philosophical concept. Whether that is due to have a brain which is at least partially feminized/ masculinized, or it's due to some other phenomenon, we're talking about something occurring in the brain.

My dysphoria is a result of mismatch between mind and body. For whatever reason, they don't align, and I have been aware of this from a very very very young age. The idea that there should be some sort of mental mapping to sexual characteristics may seem alien to someone who has never experience this incongruity, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't normally the case for people regardless of gender identity. As a vaguely akin (though not completely analogous) concept, when you open and close your hand, does that feel like a process which takes place wholly in your hand and arm, or do you feel your brain making it happen? Ordinarily, we'd just move our hand without any pressing awareness that our brain was active in that process as well. But perhaps if you suffered from certain types of apraxia, or you were deprived of a limb and experienced phantom pains the broken link would make you far more cognizant of how the brain and hand were mapped together.

Like I said, it's not truly analogous. The point is merely when things are in alignment and working, it's easy to not notice any distinction between mind and body. This idea that one's mind could expect to find different genitals than what are actually there may seem bizarre to someone who doesn't experience it because they ordinarily would feel any distinction between a neurological sense that they should have a penis with the fact that they do have a penis. It would all just feel like having a penis. When mind and body don't align, that ends up being the root of dysphoria. And what is felt in the mind is the seed for identity.

Even if the mind/ body disconnect does form the root of dysphoria, this doesn't mean social constructs are irrelevant. We are social creatures (even the fiercely introverted such as myself). We understand how people are sorted and how pervasive engendered concepts really are. As a transgender woman, when I was a child I understood what my mind told me and how it did not align with not only my body, but with how i was seen and sorted by society. Every instance where I was excluded from things deemed female and every instance where I was included in things deemed male, it called attention to my dysphoria. It also placed distance between me and others because it was like there was this unseeable aspect of my mind which was entirely obscured by my genitals. How that all plays out between a bizarre property of my mind which doesn't properly align with my physiology, and how that all manifests into social constructs is a really complicated thing. Those social constructs do end up have impact on my identity which in turn feeds back into social constructs. But the root of it was less to do with with social constructs. As long as my mind and body couldn't be reconciled adequately, the dysphoria persisted.

Experiences vary amongst transgender people for a great many reasons. Still, it feels like a lot of dialogue is broken because we need to talk in terms of either biology or social constructs. We need to talk in terms of what is innate or learned/ conditioned. But there easily exists a reality where both are relevant not just for transgender people, but for nearly all people. It's just, transgender people have much more of an aggravating factor calling our attention our gender identity that most people in general.

This was an excellent post, and I thank you for sharing it

Like you, I experienced exclusion from things I wanted to do on the basis of my sex. But I never thought it was a problem with me - I was always certain it was a problem with the world, and it was dumb. I still think the world is dumb. I think the deeming of things to be "boy things" or "girl things" is asinine, and it pisses me off on a regular basis. Even with little things, like earplugs for sleeping. I've been using foam earplugs for a while now, but most of them are a bit on the big side for my ears. All the ones I can find that are smaller are described as being "for women"... and guess what color they are? I really dislike pink, and I really, really dislike the fact that if something is for women, it just has to be pink. It's stupid!

And although it's by no means comparable in terms of extremity, I can kind of relate to your brain expecting something different than what is. My brain is quite convinced that I'm about 6 inches taller than I actually am, and that my hips are narrower than they are. Even as a kid, my brain's idea of how I fit into the world has been fuxxered. I long ago decided that my proprioception is just off kilter. But it's a regular, on-going thing. I firmly and completely expect to be able to reach that shelf... and I still can't. When I look at the wall and estimate where the top of my head is, it's off from where it actually is by half a foot - consistently. When I'm talking to people, I genuinely feel like I'm at the same eye-level as people quite a bit taller than me. I'm sure it's not comparable, but I'm hoping it's at least a bit relatable.

I admit that some of my position is likely emotional. There's a lot of disparity in treatment between men and women, and there's a LOT of social expectations wrapped up in there. Many of those behavioral expectations end up being barriers to women. One of the biggest has to do with the characteristics and behaviors that are considered good in a leader being defined in ways that are effectively synonymous with the behaviors expected of men, and in opposition to the behaviors expected of women. It creates a catch-22. If a woman behaves in the way needed for good leadership, then she is essentially acting unladylike, and she is judged against that artificial behavioral standard for women, and comes up wanting which counts against her. But if she acts in accordance with those expectations, then she doesn't have the characteristics of a good leader. Those expectations are largely social constructs.

I am definitely concerned that acceptance of the idea that male and female brains are 'naturally' or 'innately' different will reinforce those barriers for women. They'll justify the social biases that I, and many other women, are trying so hard to curb.

And yes, I do have some concerns about the extent to which self-identification alone is the arbiter of whether a person gains access to sex-segregated areas. It's an uncomfortable balancing act, and I don't have a finely detailed answer. I want to support transwomen, but I also don't want people that look like men in my locker room when I'm naked, and I don't want people with penises in female prisons. And yes, I do think there need to be some reasonable rules around sex-segregated sports. I don't think those concerns and views are bigoted. I think they're a real worry about trying to balance different ideals that are sometimes in conflict.

 

[Emily Lake]

The differences in puberty are probably strongly influenced by social conditioning, although testosterone also probably plays a role. The rest of them are very strongly driven by actual sex-based differences... like pregnancy and childbirth.

It's too shallow of an analysis to justify notable discrepancies in rates.

I don't know what you mean here. I don't know what you think is shallow?

 

[Metaphor]

As as society, we have two choices: root out toxic masculinity (and if that's supposed to work fast, it's going to be hard and it's not going to be pretty - you never know when someone holding this sick kind of worldview

Sorry, what kind of 'sick worldview'? That men are adult human males and mammals cannot change sex? Believing facts is sick?

is going to snap so we have to put them all into protective custody; that includes you,

You think that if I'm forced to share a locker room with trans woman, I'm going to 'snap' and beat him up?

possibly me), or find other ways of protecting potential victims.

The trans men in your scenario - biological females - where do they go? Do you think somebody with a vagina is particularly safe in the men's locker room?

So: Do you:
A) want to go to jail?

If I commit a crime worthy of jail time, I should go to jail.

B) have a better idea about how to protect trans people from violent snowflakes?

Well you have no idea. Which locker room do you think trans men should use? It's the men's locker room, right? So...all these violent cisgendered men who are going to beat up and/or rape any trans woman they see, are they simply hunky dory with trans men?

C) accept that, given actual threats to real, existing trans people from real, existing bigoted cis people, the female locker room might be the lesser evil, all things considered, even if it isn't an ideal solution? or

So, you are proposing trans men and trans women both use the 'female' locker room?

D) simply not care about trans people?

I think I know the answer, but I'll wait for you to say it.

Trans people should use the locker room of their sex, since locker rooms are separated by sex.

 

[Emily Lake]

[MENTION=103]Metaphor[/MENTION] in case you still doubt sexual violence and hate crimes against transgender individuals are a real issue, here's a systematic review by the WHO. Even if we ignore the lifetime rates in many of those studies, where there could be confounding factors, the picture is clear. For example, Kosciw, 2002, found that in his study group, young people in the US, 31.6% of transgender youths between 13 and 20 had experienced physical assault based on their sexual orientation, and 35.1% based on their gender expression, at school, within the past school year. For cis-gendered male (gay or bisexual) youths, the rates were 23.6/14.2%, for lesbian/bisexual girls 15.8/10.8%.

Or maybe closer to home: Leonard et al., 2012 found that in Australia, 6.8% of transgender females had been sexually assaulted in the last 12 months - two to three times the rate for cis-gendered sexual minorities (i.e. gays and lesbians).

For consideration, the rates of violent assaults, as well as sexual assaults, of females are not significantly different than the rates experienced by transgender people. The reason behind them might be different, but the rate of sexual assault among females is astonishingly high.

They just aren't considered hate crimes. They're just crimes that women face that are part of our everyday lives.

 

[Metaphor]

It's really quite ironic:

@Metaphor

• claims to advocate for men's rights
• claims that trans women are men

They are.

• ... yet gets off of denying rights to trans women.

Gets off? You think it brings me sexual pleasure?

I "deny" the right of any person to violate sex-segregated spaces, male or female.

It beggars belief that you think an MRA wants men to be able to do anything they want. Even if you think MRA are unsaveable scum, surely you don't think for example that MRA advocate for the right of men to rape and murder other men? Saying "that isn't a right men should have" doesn't not make me an MRA.

I don't need to perform mental gymnastics just because you've invented a fantasy obstacle course.