The left eats JK Rowling over transgender comments

[krypton iodine sulfur]

The idea that sex is not relevant is central to transgender rights legislation.

In a sense. Typically, it's argued that equality and non-discrimination measures should recognize gender identity and expression as a protected characteristic distinct from sex.

Now, you and I both know that some trans activists also believe that sex is a social construct.

I've never seen this argued in the sense that rejects biological sexual differentiation. Every time I've seen a headline talking about how 'sex is a myth' or 'sex isn't real', the actual content wasn't saying anything that simplistic. I assume there are people who say sex is a social construct and mean that in a way which denies biology. I assume that just due to numbers. Get a group large enough, and eventually you'll find at least some people who believe every distorted version of an argument.

You might regard the rejection of patent nonsense as transphobic, but I don't.

I am more concerned about the ways you embrace patent nonsense, to be frank (or perhaps Francine).

No. The language is exclusive only if people consider 'women' to refer to gender and not sex. You support that revision of the word and I do not.

I've already been over this. I covered two scenarios. That was the other one.

But the point Rowling was making was how dehumanizing referring to people by individual sex-related functions was - just as trans activists find it dehumanizing when strangers ask about their genitals (because a person is not their genitals).

The article was referring to them as people, not as menstruators. Menstruation was salient to the article. This is not analogous in any way to strangers asking about your genitals. I say this as someone who doesn't really give a fuck if anyone asks me in most circumstances.

She isn't confused. She objects the same kind of dehumanizing language that trans activists object to when people enquire about their genitals.

I'm not sure where she actually said this, but it would be a silly argument.

Yet that's what Rowling was attacked for. If trans activists think that there is nothing transphobic about saying sex is real, why was Rowling attacked for saying it?

She wasn't attacked for saying sex was real. She was attacked for objecting to a more inclusive headline and for defending a woman who opposed a portion of transgender rights legislation. Hiding behind saying she they are under fire for saying sex is real doesn't make it so.

Your birth certificate now contains a lie, and it's a lie that the Canadian government and trans activists were co-collaborators on. You should oppose the amending of sex on birth certificates for people to amend their gender on other documents.

Of course, if those other documents refer to sex and not gender, that is an additional lie enabled and compounded by the first lie.

The documents refer to a common identifier. When they were designed, there was no distinction between sex and gender. The documents contain the information which is most useful in identifying me.

I would hope so. Until of course trans activists demand that that too is erased.

That still doesn't erase the reality of sex or whatever hyperbolic wording you used. I swear, you are the mirror of people who say "You're killing trans people" at the drop of a hat.

I agree that social constructs are real, but denying sex as a biological phenomenon and calling it a social construct and substituting gender for it denies sex is biologically real.

That has nothing to do with what was quoted.

 

[Jokodo]

* Changing birth certificates retroactively, as if birth certificates referred to gender rather than sex.

Do they though? How many people with ambiguous sexual characteristics at birth get a chromosome screening or get their hormone levels tested before getting the "M" or "F" in their birth certificate circled? I believe in the overwhelming majority of cases, what happens is a judgment call by a not particularly qualified doctor or midwife based entirely on the superficial looks of the external genitalia. That's certainly not how I would define biological sex.

 

[repoman]

what is the point of talking about these edge cases except to deflect like the ideologue that you are?

So because there are some of these cases that has zero effect on babies that do not have these anomalies.

 

[Politesse]

what is the point of talking about these edge cases except to deflect like the ideologue that you are?

So because there are some of these cases that has zero effect on babies that do not have these anomalies.

Some us feel that rights should be extended even to minority populations, shockingly.

 

[Metaphor]

* Changing birth certificates retroactively, as if birth certificates referred to gender rather than sex.

Do they though? How many people with ambiguous sexual characteristics at birth get a chromosome screening or get their hormone levels tested before getting the "M" or "F" in their birth certificate circled? I believe in the overwhelming majority of cases, what happens is a judgment call by a not particularly qualified doctor or midwife based entirely on the superficial looks of the external genitalia. That's certainly not how I would define biological sex.

Well, let's get one thing clear: birth certificates never ever recorded gender. That, at least, should be obvious.

Now, except in the case of ambiguous genitals, visual inspection of the external genitalia is a correct marker for sex for babies about 99.9% of the time. That is, a penis and testes is generally sufficient to determine a baby is male, or a vulva and labia to determine a baby is female.

A an obstretician/gynecologist is not only particularly qualified to make the judgment, but all manner of people, including normies, are qualified to make the judgment. That a separate concept to sex called 'gender' evolved from earlier sex-role concepts in about the 1960s does not mean birth certificates did not record sex.

 

[Metaphor]

In a sense. Typically, it's argued that equality and non-discrimination measures should recognize gender identity and expression as a protected characteristic distinct from sex.

Perhaps they should, but what happens when sex-based rights conflict with gender-based rights?

I've never seen this argued in the sense that rejects biological sexual differentiation. Every time I've seen a headline talking about how 'sex is a myth' or 'sex isn't real', the actual content wasn't saying anything that simplistic. I assume there are people who say sex is a social construct and mean that in a way which denies biology. I assume that just due to numbers. Get a group large enough, and eventually you'll find at least some people who believe every distorted version of an argument.

A large enough majority of people argue that 'gender' is a spectrum and not a binary. I'm more or less willing to let that go, since gender is a feeling in your head and does not have to conform to any external reality.

But people also argue as if sex were a spectrum, which it isn't, even with the existence of multiple intersex conditions.

The article was referring to them as people, not as menstruators. Menstruation was salient to the article. This is not analogous in any way to strangers asking about your genitals. I say this as someone who doesn't really give a fuck if anyone asks me in most circumstances.

If women told you that they found it offensive to be referred to as people who menstruate, would you pay heed to that offense?

She wasn't attacked for saying sex was real. She was attacked for objecting to a more inclusive headline and for defending a woman who opposed a portion of transgender rights legislation. Hiding behind saying she they are under fire for saying sex is real doesn't make it so.

So, defending somebody who objects to certain transgender rights legislation, and objecting to 'people who menstruate' over 'women' makes Rowling transphobic?

The documents refer to a common identifier. When they were designed, there was no distinction between sex and gender. The documents contain the information which is most useful in identifying me.

I'll bet you'd object to your documents saying Trans Woman, instead of F, even though the first is far more useful in identifying you, because the second is a fantasy.

That still doesn't erase the reality of sex or whatever hyperbolic wording you used. I swear, you are the mirror of people who say "You're killing trans people" at the drop of a hat.

Sex is a real biological phenomenon, and humans cannot change their sex. A woman is an adult human female. A logical conclusion from these premises is that trans women are men. Yet, expressing that belief would cause me a great deal of trouble at work.

 

[Jokodo]

* Changing birth certificates retroactively, as if birth certificates referred to gender rather than sex.

Do they though? How many people with ambiguous sexual characteristics at birth get a chromosome screening or get their hormone levels tested before getting the "M" or "F" in their birth certificate circled? I believe in the overwhelming majority of cases, what happens is a judgment call by a not particularly qualified doctor or midwife based entirely on the superficial looks of the external genitalia. That's certainly not how I would define biological sex.

Well, let's get one thing clear: birth certificates never ever recorded gender. That, at least, should be obvious.

Now, except in the case of ambiguous genitals, visual inspection of the external genitalia is a correct marker for sex for babies about 99.9% of the time. That is, a penis and testes is generally sufficient to determine a baby is male, or a vulva and labia to determine a baby is female.

A an obstretician/gynecologist is not only particularly qualified to make the judgment, but all manner of people, including normies, are qualified to make the judgment. That a separate concept to sex called 'gender' evolved from earlier sex-role concepts in about the 1960s does not mean birth certificates did not record sex.

Except in the case of ambiguous genitalia, visual inspection is sufficient to determine the shape of the genitals. Well, duh. Tautology alert.

Unless you also want to make the claim that the shape of the genitalia is uniquely important in determining biological sex, in such a way that a person with what looks like a vagina but XY chromosomes and high testosterone levels really and unambiguously is a woman, you have not made the case that what's recorded in birth certificates is sex.

 

[Metaphor]

Except in the case of ambiguous genitalia, visual inspection is sufficient to determine the shape of the genitals. Well, duh. Tautology alert.

No, I did not say that. You can tell I didn't say that because I didn't say it. I said inspection of the genitals was usually sufficient to determine sex.

Unless you also want to make the claim that the shape of the genitalia is uniquely important in determining biological sex,

Of course it isn't uniquely important, it's simply correlated to such a high extent that it is generally all that is needed.

in such a way that a person with what looks like a vagina but XY chromosomes and high testosterone levels really and unambiguously is a woman, you have not made the case that what's recorded in birth certificates is sex.

The vanishing minority of people with intersex conditions does not invalidate that inspection of the external genitals is almost always sufficient to determine the sex of babies.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Perhaps they should, but what happens when sex-based rights conflict with gender-based rights?

I can't think of scenarios where that applies. They are the same set of rights. How those rights apply in practical scenarios may have some variation. For instance, in practice, there are discrimination standards which apply to religious holidays, but no equivalent scenarios with regard to sexual orientation even though both characteristics have the same legal protection from discrimination. In a case where there is a conflict potentially resulting in discrimination against one party, a tribunal or potentially a court examines whether discrimination occurred and whether there is a bona fide reason for that that discrimination.

If we take a case such as bathrooms segregated by men's and women's, there aren't conflicting legal rights. There is no specific legal right to segregated facilities, and there is no right to have people you dislike or whose presence you disapprove of in those facilities. If a transgender man uses the men's room and someone objects, it becomes a question of whether or not it is discriminatory to prohibit that transgender men from using the men's room. If so, is there any bona fide reason prohibiting that transgender man is defensible in the eyes of the law. The answer to the first will like be yes, it is discriminatory, and to the second, no, there isn't a defensible reason.

But people also argue as if sex were a spectrum, which it isn't, even with the existence of multiple intersex conditions.

Sex is a human descriptor of various biological phenomena which pertain to sexual reproduction and gametes. Those phenomena are pretty indifferent to how we categorize. If we're talking about the specific phenomenon of specialized gametes for the sake of reproduction, then a binary description wrt humans is the best one. But the further we stray from that concept, the less sensible the idea of a strict binary makes. We end up with more groupings of genes and genetic expressions than a simple m/f. We end up with more overlap and variability.

There is nothing wrong with saying in generalized terms that the human species has men with XY karyotype and women with XX karyotype in the right context. It's meaningful. But a problem does arise when someone starts mistaking that useful distinction with some bizarre and borderline puritanical belief that human biochemistry exists absolutely in this tidy male/female delineation. It's a problem of failing to understand the relationship of a human descriptor to the complexity and diversity of the biology it describes.

If women told you that they found it offensive to be referred to as people who menstruate, would you pay heed to that offense?

I don't call women 'people who menstruate'. The article in question didn't call women 'people who menstruate'. The article title referred to a subset of people: the subset was those who menstruate. It used that title presumably because that was what the article was talking about. So if I wrote that article, would I change the title? No, not without a compelling reason.

Certainly I wouldn't walk up to a random person and say 'You look a bit older. Do you menstruate?' just because I had some impulsive curiosity about them and menopause. I wouldn't walk up to someone and say, "Excuse me person who menstruates, but can you tell me where the nearest coffee shop is?"

So, defending somebody who objects to certain transgender rights legislation, and objecting to 'people who menstruate' over 'women' makes Rowling transphobic?

Defending her as a person? Not in itself. Aligning with her views against transgender rights legislation? More likely if you're coming from the perspective that the legislation was warranted. Mischaracterizing the situation in a way which makes it seem like transgender people have victimized Maya Forstater? More likely so, still.

I'll bet you'd object to your documents saying Trans Woman

I don't give a shit with regard to my own identification papers, no. I used the options available. Had it been an option at the time, I would have just put an X.

 

[Metaphor]

I can't think of scenarios where that applies.

They've already been mentioned. Women have the right to compete in sex-segregated sports. If trans women demand entry into sex-segregated women's sports, it means that trans rights and women's rights conflict. Either women don't have the right to compete in sex-segregated sports, or trans women don't have the right to compete in a sport team that matches their gender but not their sex.

They are the same set of rights. How those rights apply in practical scenarios may have some variation. For instance, in practice, there are discrimination standards which apply to religious holidays, but no equivalent scenarios with regard to sexual orientation even though both characteristics have the same legal protection from discrimination. In a case where there is a conflict potentially resulting in discrimination against one party, a tribunal or potentially a court examines whether discrimination occurred and whether there is a bona fide reason for that that discrimination.

If we take a case such as bathrooms segregated by men's and women's, there aren't conflicting legal rights. There is no specific legal right to segregated facilities, and there is no right to have people you dislike or whose presence you disapprove of in those facilities. If a transgender man uses the men's room and someone objects, it becomes a question of whether or not it is discriminatory to prohibit that transgender men from using the men's room. If so, is there any bona fide reason prohibiting that transgender man is defensible in the eyes of the law. The answer to the first will like be yes, it is discriminatory, and to the second, no, there isn't a defensible reason.

But that's absolutely absurd. If there is no legal right to sex-segregated facilities, how on earth is there an enforceable legal right to gender-segregated facilities?

You are suggesting that it is impermissible to have a bathroom segregated by sex, but permissible to have a bathroom segregated by gender. And yet you also claim that gender-based rights do not interfere with sex based rights.

Sex is a human descriptor of various biological phenomena which pertain to sexual reproduction and gametes. Those phenomena are pretty indifferent to how we categorize. If we're talking about the specific phenomenon of specialized gametes for the sake of reproduction, then a binary description wrt humans is the best one. But the further we stray from that concept, the less sensible the idea of a strict binary makes. We end up with more groupings of genes and genetic expressions than a simple m/f. We end up with more overlap and variability.

There is nothing wrong with saying in generalized terms that the human species has men with XY karyotype and women with XX karyotype in the right context. It's meaningful. But a problem does arise when someone starts mistaking that useful distinction with some bizarre and borderline puritanical belief that human biochemistry exists absolutely in this tidy male/female delineation. It's a problem of failing to understand the relationship of a human descriptor to the complexity and diversity of the biology it describes.

So why do people have no legal right to a sex-segregated bathroom, but they do have a right to a gender-segregated bathroom?

I don't call women 'people who menstruate'. The article in question didn't call women 'people who menstruate'. The article title referred to a subset of people: the subset was those who menstruate. It used that title presumably because that was what the article was talking about. So if I wrote that article, would I change the title? No, not without a compelling reason.

A "no" would have been sufficient.

Defending her as a person? Not in itself. Aligning with her views against transgender rights legislation? More likely if you're coming from the perspective that the legislation was warranted. Mischaracterizing the situation in a way which makes it seem like transgender people have victimized Maya Forstater? More likely so, still.

Transgender people didn't victimise Maya Forstater. The army of trans activists and the judge did.

 

[Metaphor]

So, it seems to me that nobody so far can explain why what Rowling wrote was transphobic.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

They've already been mentioned. Women have the right to compete in sex-segregated sports. If trans women demand entry into sex-segregated women's sports, it means that trans rights and women's rights conflict. Either women don't have the right to compete in sex-segregated sports, or trans women don't have the right to compete in a sport team that matches their gender but not their sex.

There isn't a specific right to 'sex-segregated sport'. Institutions such as schools or regulated sports bodies may have an obligation to ensure equal opportunity for people on both the basis of gender identity and sex. If a legal complaint is filed, the tribunals and potentially courts will weigh what is discriminatory, what is reasonable accommodation, what amounts to undue hardship, etc.

If a particular case concerns discrimination against women, let's say, then sure we talk about it as women's rights. And if a tribunal or court decision

But that's absolutely absurd. If there is no legal right to sex-segregated facilities, how on earth is there an enforceable legal right to gender-segregated facilities?

I don't understand what is complicated about this. It's not based on a sex-specific right or a gender-specific right. It's based on a balance of what is discriminatory and what represents a bona fide or defensible reason for an allegedly discriminatory act. There are precedents and legal tests which guide how balance is struck in any given case. I mean, I'm simplifying a little.

A "no" would have been sufficient.

The question was inane and came across as fishing. People don't refer to women as 'people who menstruate'.

 

[Metaphor]

There isn't a specific right to 'sex-segregated sport'. Institutions such as schools or regulated sports bodies may have an obligation to ensure equal opportunity for people on both the basis of gender identity and sex. If a legal complaint is filed, the tribunals and potentially courts will weigh what is discriminatory, what is reasonable accommodation, what amounts to undue hardship, etc.

If a particular case concerns discrimination against women, let's say, then sure we talk about it as women's rights. And if a tribunal or court decision

This seems like an unfinished response, but you haven't addressed the point I made. A right to a sex-segregated sport conflicts with a right to a gender-segregated sport. If an institution separates sport by sex, it cannot separate sport by gender also.

But, since I may be talking past you by using the dictionary definition of 'men' and 'women', I will instead talk in terms of male and female. If females have the right to sex-segregated sports, if that is to mean anything, it means they have the right to not compete against males. You appear to be saying females do not have this right, that they ought not have this right, but trans people deserve the right to play on the sex-segregated team that 'matches' their gender identity.

I don't understand what is complicated about this. It's not based on a sex-specific right or a gender-specific right. It's based on a balance of what is discriminatory and what represents a bona fide or defensible reason for an allegedly discriminatory act. There are precedents and legal tests which guide how balance is struck in any given case. I mean, I'm simplifying a little.

Hand waving and saying 'tribunals' and courts will determine what to do when sex-based and gender-based rights conflict is admission that they can conflict.

There can be no 'balance'. You can choose not to separate sports by sex at all, or you can separate them by sex. But you can't separate them with some hopeless admixture of sex for cisgender people, but special rights for trans people to compete not bsaed on their sex but matched via their gender identity. And if you object to the term 'special rights', then it doesn't even need to be that. If a cis or trans person can pick any 'team' to compete on, there cannot be teams separated by either sex or gender.

 

[Toni]

So, it seems to me that nobody so far can explain why what Rowling wrote was transphobic.

Here's an article that I think explains it:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jk-rowling-accused-transphobic-comments-twitter/

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

This seems like an unfinished response, but you haven't addressed the point I made. A right to a sex-segregated sport conflicts with a right to a gender-segregated sport.

What jurisdiction are you talking about? What jurisdiction has sex as well as gender identity and expression as protected characteristics, and also has some form of enumerated or otherwise codified or established legal right to either gender or sex-segregated sport?

You appear to be saying females do not have this right, that they ought not have this right, but trans people deserve the right to play on the sex-segregated team that 'matches' their gender identity.

I honestly do not know where you get that from. I haven't been talking about my personal beliefs regarding sports at any point in time in this thread.

Hand waving and saying 'tribunals' and courts will determine what to do when sex-based and gender-based rights conflict is admission that they can conflict.

Conflicting interest does not equate to conflicting rights. Rights can conflict or compete,

There can be no 'balance'. You can choose not to separate sports by sex at all, or you can separate them by sex.

You put 'balance' in quotation marks as if this has anything to do with what I said.

 

[Politesse]

So, it seems to me that nobody so far can explain why what Rowling wrote was transphobic.

That says more about you than Rowling, if you ask me. It's been explained to you repeatedly at this point.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'll bet you'd object to your documents saying Trans Woman, instead of F, even though the first is far more useful in identifying you, because the second is a fantasy.

That last part is, I think, just completely wrong, and as a starting position, it more or less makes almost everything you are subsequently saying just wrong also. Your whole case rests on a falsehood. I think it really is that simple.

 

[prideandfall]

So, it seems to me that nobody so far can explain why what Rowling wrote was transphobic.

it's transphobic because it's apparently been decided recently that the extent to which the rest of us are required to participate in the self-image of a miniscule subset of people is "totally, unequivocally, and unquestioningly."

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Why are certain individuals obsessed with their own anti-trans activism? It's really weird.

 

[prideandfall]

Why are certain individuals obsessed with their own anti-trans activism? It's really weird.

i can't speak for others, but i find the subject very difficult to pull myself away from because of how powerfully my views on the subject conflict with my otherwise consistently aggressively liberal/progressive stance.

so it's fascinating for me due to the internal struggle it causes to where a part of my brain desperately wants to embrace the narrative that one can obliterate a lifetime of upbringing and cultural conditioning and biological factors to magically become something that one is not, but at the same time i simply cannot seem to stop myself from adding an asterisk to the end of 'woman' whenever the subject is trans.

(huh, while posting this just discovered another little internal bias there i wasn't aware of - i don't seem to have this issue with trans men. i guess that's kind of like the whole 'punching up' thing about what groups it's OK to target in comedy for mockery)