Trans activists: Trans women should not be required to suppress testosterone to play on women's teams

[Koyaanisqatsi]

First of all, a "brain" is not a monolithic organ; it is simply the name we assign to all of the organs housed primarily in the skull. Secondly, those organs are not steadystate; just like everything else about our bodies they are dynamically changing all the time, either with new information or different drugs or trauma (both physical and "mental"), etc., etc., etc. As someone noted, much of what is in our skulls is "plastic" in that you could actually remove significant portions of certain areas and the other sections will soon takeover the functions that used to be conducted in the missing sections.

The notion that anything about our glowing fog of human shaped atoms is somehow binary or immutable is anachronistic nonsense.

 

[Toni]

Strawmanning much? The research is there for you to see.

I'm asking you, if you actually believe that men's and women's brains to be systematically different, why do you not also believe this could be a cause, or partial cause, of the gender pay gap?

Speaking for myself, I refuse to believe that the structure of men's brains is such that it forces them to refuse to recognize the accomplishments and value of others' labor, to allow them equal opportunity to engage in meaningful and productive employment or to fairly compensate them for it.

 

[Metaphor]

Strawmanning much? The research is there for you to see.

I'm asking you, if you actually believe that men's and women's brains to be systematically different, why do you not also believe this could be a cause, or partial cause, of the gender pay gap?

Speaking for myself, I refuse to believe that the structure of men's brains is such that it forces them to refuse to recognize the accomplishments and value of others' labor, to allow them equal opportunity to engage in meaningful and productive employment or to fairly compensate them for it.

Are you training for a political run? Because you just failed to answer a straightforward question with about as many words as possible.

 

[Toni]

Speaking for myself, I refuse to believe that the structure of men's brains is such that it forces them to refuse to recognize the accomplishments and value of others' labor, to allow them equal opportunity to engage in meaningful and productive employment or to fairly compensate them for it.

Are you training for a political run? Because you just failed to answer a straightforward question with about as many words as possible.

I'm sorry if you don't understand what I write.

 

[Metaphor]

Speaking for myself, I refuse to believe that the structure of men's brains is such that it forces them to refuse to recognize the accomplishments and value of others' labor, to allow them equal opportunity to engage in meaningful and productive employment or to fairly compensate them for it.

Are you training for a political run? Because you just failed to answer a straightforward question with about as many words as possible.

I'm sorry if you don't understand what I write.

I don't. I asked you if you think that men's and women's different brains could partially explain the gender wage gap. You "answered" a different question which I did not ask and which I cannot see the relevance of.

 

[Emily Lake]

Reality is that there really is a difference between males and females. Physically, behaviorally, and genetically.
Reality is that there might or might not be a difference in gender that is something other than conditioning and brain plasticity around gender roles... but there really isn't anything that conclusively demonstrates this to be the case.

I agree with you about the claims that having a supposed ‘female brain’ should not mean you can use female showers, refuges etc.

But your last two paragraphs confuse me in the way I previously indicated.

So you have behaviour in the first paragraph (of the last two), and you call that ‘really a difference’, even though conditioning could be a factor. And then in the second paragraph (which seems by contrast to be about ‘not really differences’) you have conditioning, and brain plasticity, as if...the latter is less real than behaviour....or.... sorry I don’t understand.

Let me see if I can be less messy. It's a messy subject, so bear with me.

There are differences between males and females. Anyone who claims there aren't are either stupid or lying. Anatomically, we are different. Barring developmental mishaps, females have ovaries, a uterus, fallopian tubles, a cervix, and a vagina. Skeletally, females have a different pelvis than males, and also have different shapes to their skulls, their brow lines, their rib cages, and a handful of other bits and pieces. Females have a different ratio of hand size relative to the length of their forearm. The list of physical differences is long, but I'm sure you get the picture. We also have differences in how we store and pass along our genetic code.

But sex isn't quite the same thing as gender.

Gender is more about how other people perceive you, how they treat you, and what they expect of you on the basis of what they assume your sex to be. We look at other people, and we take in the constellation of physical attributes they have, and we make a judgement about whether that person is more like a male or more like a female. It's a cluster algorithm on a grand and subconscious scale. We also, however, take into our mix external indicators of assumed sex, like clothing and comportment and certain socially-defined behaviors. Those, however, tend to be more of a tie-breaker than a direct indicator.

If we see a person that is naked, it's an easy calculation. Does that person have a visible penis? If yes, then male, otherwise female. If they're clothed, we tend to base assumptions off of anatomical shape. Do they have obvious boobs? Probably female. If boobs are absent, or they're fat enough that we can't tell if they're boobs or moobs... then look at their shoulders and their hands and whether or not they have facial hair and an adam's apple, the shape of their eye sockets, the shape of their lips, etc. If all of that is ambiguous or inconclusive, then look at what they're wearing, how they walk, how they talk, and how they act. If they present in sync with social expectations of one sex or the other, then assume that to be the case.

With very few exceptions, humans are really good at determining at a glace whether a given person is male or female once they've entered puberty. A male in drag is still a male, and while we might view them as being attractive or even feminine in appearance, they're usually still obviously male. A female in a men's cut suit is usually still an obvious female. While not perfectly accurate, humans can make a pretty good guess at a person's sex from the shape of their eyes and their brow alone.

When we start to talk about gender as being separate from sex, however, it gets more confusing. I apologize up front if this offends anyone, but I've rewritten this section several times now, and I can't come up with a way to say this that does risk hurting someone's feelings. That's not my intent, I just lack specific enough vocabulary to be as clear as I would prefer.

For a transgender person, they may have the body of one sex, with all of the related bits functioning properly, but their internal view of themselves is of the opposite sex. That internal view isn't something that anyone else has direct access to. So a transwoman may have the body of a male, with a penis, testes, prostate, facial hair, etc. And all of those parts might be perfectly normal in form and function. But they don't feel as if they're a man. Inside their minds, they feel as if they're a woman. So we end up drawing a distinction between a male and a man... which is a relatively new distinction for most people. And it ends up bringing out a question: In what way is a man different from a male? And that's really, really hard to answer.

Partly, it's hard to answer because much of what distinguishes "man" from "male" is socially driven for most of us. It's inherent in clothing and behavior and comportment. A transwoman is likely to say that what she feels is much stronger than that - she's not a tomboy, it's not just that she likes men's clothing and men's activities and behaviors. She genuinely views herself as a woman wrapped in a male body, and that male body is the wrong body. So we try to find some physical or neurological basis for that difference, some cause for it. We try to find evidence to support that the body is male but the mind is female.

But simply looking at the brains of adult humans isn't really enough, because brains are plastic. We have a really hard time determining what elements of the brain are innate differences (differences in underlying structure that have existed since birth), versus elements that are sex-linked and triggered by the onset of puberty, versus those that are environmental and learned differences. Our environments and childhood exposures shape and change our brains.

So my first claim: Reality is that males and females are different in many measurable ways, and those differences are innate: anatomy, skeleton, genetic composition, and some behaviors - they're sex-linked traits that are definitely real differences between males and females.

Then my second claim: There may or may not be differences between men and women that are NOT attributable to either a) sex or b) environment. There is nothing conclusive that demonstrates that the concept of 'man' being divorced from 'male' is anything other than social conditioning. It might be the case... but we can't demonstrate what that difference actually is.

 

[Emily Lake]

I'm asking you, if you actually believe that men's and women's brains to be systematically different, why do you not also believe this could be a cause, or partial cause, of the gender pay gap?

Not speaking for Ziprhead... but in my opinion, any minute differences that might exist are so immaterial as to be meaningless when it comes to job performance, intelligence, capability, or anything else relevant to pay. On the other hand, I'm also fairly sure that any minute differences that exist will get used as an explanation for the pay gap, regardless of how minute and meaningless that difference is. Pretty much "ladybrains just aren't naturally as good at X so it's no surprise they don't get X jobs" where X are jobs that pay very well on the whole...

 

[ruby sparks]

Reality is that there really is a difference between males and females. Physically, behaviorally, and genetically.
Reality is that there might or might not be a difference in gender that is something other than conditioning and brain plasticity around gender roles... but there really isn't anything that conclusively demonstrates this to be the case.

I agree with you about the claims that having a supposed ‘female brain’ should not mean you can use female showers, refuges etc.

But your last two paragraphs confuse me in the way I previously indicated.

So you have behaviour in the first paragraph (of the last two), and you call that ‘really a difference’, even though conditioning could be a factor. And then in the second paragraph (which seems by contrast to be about ‘not really differences’) you have conditioning, and brain plasticity, as if...the latter is less real than behaviour....or.... sorry I don’t understand.

Let me see if I can be less messy. It's a messy subject, so bear with me.

There are differences between males and females. Anyone who claims there aren't are either stupid or lying. Anatomically, we are different. Barring developmental mishaps, females have ovaries, a uterus, fallopian tubles, a cervix, and a vagina. Skeletally, females have a different pelvis than males, and also have different shapes to their skulls, their brow lines, their rib cages, and a handful of other bits and pieces. Females have a different ratio of hand size relative to the length of their forearm. The list of physical differences is long, but I'm sure you get the picture. We also have differences in how we store and pass along our genetic code.

But sex isn't quite the same thing as gender.

Gender is more about how other people perceive you, how they treat you, and what they expect of you on the basis of what they assume your sex to be. We look at other people, and we take in the constellation of physical attributes they have, and we make a judgement about whether that person is more like a male or more like a female. It's a cluster algorithm on a grand and subconscious scale. We also, however, take into our mix external indicators of assumed sex, like clothing and comportment and certain socially-defined behaviors. Those, however, tend to be more of a tie-breaker than a direct indicator.

If we see a person that is naked, it's an easy calculation. Does that person have a visible penis? If yes, then male, otherwise female. If they're clothed, we tend to base assumptions off of anatomical shape. Do they have obvious boobs? Probably female. If boobs are absent, or they're fat enough that we can't tell if they're boobs or moobs... then look at their shoulders and their hands and whether or not they have facial hair and an adam's apple, the shape of their eye sockets, the shape of their lips, etc. If all of that is ambiguous or inconclusive, then look at what they're wearing, how they walk, how they talk, and how they act. If they present in sync with social expectations of one sex or the other, then assume that to be the case.

With very few exceptions, humans are really good at determining at a glace whether a given person is male or female once they've entered puberty. A male in drag is still a male, and while we might view them as being attractive or even feminine in appearance, they're usually still obviously male. A female in a men's cut suit is usually still an obvious female. While not perfectly accurate, humans can make a pretty good guess at a person's sex from the shape of their eyes and their brow alone.

When we start to talk about gender as being separate from sex, however, it gets more confusing. I apologize up front if this offends anyone, but I've rewritten this section several times now, and I can't come up with a way to say this that does risk hurting someone's feelings. That's not my intent, I just lack specific enough vocabulary to be as clear as I would prefer.

For a transgender person, they may have the body of one sex, with all of the related bits functioning properly, but their internal view of themselves is of the opposite sex. That internal view isn't something that anyone else has direct access to. So a transwoman may have the body of a male, with a penis, testes, prostate, facial hair, etc. And all of those parts might be perfectly normal in form and function. But they don't feel as if they're a man. Inside their minds, they feel as if they're a woman. So we end up drawing a distinction between a male and a man... which is a relatively new distinction for most people. And it ends up bringing out a question: In what way is a man different from a male? And that's really, really hard to answer.

Partly, it's hard to answer because much of what distinguishes "man" from "male" is socially driven for most of us. It's inherent in clothing and behavior and comportment. A transwoman is likely to say that what she feels is much stronger than that - she's not a tomboy, it's not just that she likes men's clothing and men's activities and behaviors. She genuinely views herself as a woman wrapped in a male body, and that male body is the wrong body. So we try to find some physical or neurological basis for that difference, some cause for it. We try to find evidence to support that the body is male but the mind is female.

But simply looking at the brains of adult humans isn't really enough, because brains are plastic. We have a really hard time determining what elements of the brain are innate differences (differences in underlying structure that have existed since birth), versus elements that are sex-linked and triggered by the onset of puberty, versus those that are environmental and learned differences. Our environments and childhood exposures shape and change our brains.

So my first claim: Reality is that males and females are different in many measurable ways, and those differences are innate: anatomy, skeleton, genetic composition, and some behaviors - they're sex-linked traits that are definitely real differences between males and females.

Then my second claim: There may or may not be differences between men and women that are NOT attributable to either a) sex or b) environment. There is nothing conclusive that demonstrates that the concept of 'man' being divorced from 'male' is anything other than social conditioning. It might be the case... but we can't demonstrate what that difference actually is.

Now I feel a bit bad, because, well, (and you're not going to like this) you've gone to all that trouble, with the colours and everything, and I'm at least as confused about what your point is (or points are) as I was before. I can't put my finger on it, but it's as if we're talking past each other. It's not so much what you're saying, but why you are saying it, that I don't understand.

Let me just pick up on the very last thing you said, and try to be succinct.

In this discussion specifically, I don't really care what causes gender dysphoria or trans gender identity. And I'm not clear on why you do.

ETA: I also wasn't quite sure about "Gender is more about how other people perceive you". Would that not be more like merely what gender looks like from outside?

I can't shake off this notion that you are saying that gender dysphoria isn't really real.

 

[Toni]

Reality is that there really is a difference between males and females. Physically, behaviorally, and genetically.
Reality is that there might or might not be a difference in gender that is something other than conditioning and brain plasticity around gender roles... but there really isn't anything that conclusively demonstrates this to be the case.

I agree with you about the claims that having a supposed ‘female brain’ should not mean you can use female showers, refuges etc.

But your last two paragraphs confuse me in the way I previously indicated.

So you have behaviour in the first paragraph (of the last two), and you call that ‘really a difference’, even though conditioning could be a factor. And then in the second paragraph (which seems by contrast to be about ‘not really differences’) you have conditioning, and brain plasticity, as if...the latter is less real than behaviour....or.... sorry I don’t understand.

Let me see if I can be less messy. It's a messy subject, so bear with me.

There are differences between males and females. Anyone who claims there aren't are either stupid or lying. Anatomically, we are different. Barring developmental mishaps, females have ovaries, a uterus, fallopian tubles, a cervix, and a vagina. Skeletally, females have a different pelvis than males, and also have different shapes to their skulls, their brow lines, their rib cages, and a handful of other bits and pieces. Females have a different ratio of hand size relative to the length of their forearm. The list of physical differences is long, but I'm sure you get the picture. We also have differences in how we store and pass along our genetic code.

But sex isn't quite the same thing as gender.

Gender is more about how other people perceive you, how they treat you, and what they expect of you on the basis of what they assume your sex to be. We look at other people, and we take in the constellation of physical attributes they have, and we make a judgement about whether that person is more like a male or more like a female. It's a cluster algorithm on a grand and subconscious scale. We also, however, take into our mix external indicators of assumed sex, like clothing and comportment and certain socially-defined behaviors. Those, however, tend to be more of a tie-breaker than a direct indicator.

If we see a person that is naked, it's an easy calculation. Does that person have a visible penis? If yes, then male, otherwise female. If they're clothed, we tend to base assumptions off of anatomical shape. Do they have obvious boobs? Probably female. If boobs are absent, or they're fat enough that we can't tell if they're boobs or moobs... then look at their shoulders and their hands and whether or not they have facial hair and an adam's apple, the shape of their eye sockets, the shape of their lips, etc. If all of that is ambiguous or inconclusive, then look at what they're wearing, how they walk, how they talk, and how they act. If they present in sync with social expectations of one sex or the other, then assume that to be the case.

With very few exceptions, humans are really good at determining at a glace whether a given person is male or female once they've entered puberty. A male in drag is still a male, and while we might view them as being attractive or even feminine in appearance, they're usually still obviously male. A female in a men's cut suit is usually still an obvious female. While not perfectly accurate, humans can make a pretty good guess at a person's sex from the shape of their eyes and their brow alone.

When we start to talk about gender as being separate from sex, however, it gets more confusing. I apologize up front if this offends anyone, but I've rewritten this section several times now, and I can't come up with a way to say this that does risk hurting someone's feelings. That's not my intent, I just lack specific enough vocabulary to be as clear as I would prefer.

For a transgender person, they may have the body of one sex, with all of the related bits functioning properly, but their internal view of themselves is of the opposite sex. That internal view isn't something that anyone else has direct access to. So a transwoman may have the body of a male, with a penis, testes, prostate, facial hair, etc. And all of those parts might be perfectly normal in form and function. But they don't feel as if they're a man. Inside their minds, they feel as if they're a woman. So we end up drawing a distinction between a male and a man... which is a relatively new distinction for most people. And it ends up bringing out a question: In what way is a man different from a male? And that's really, really hard to answer.

Partly, it's hard to answer because much of what distinguishes "man" from "male" is socially driven for most of us. It's inherent in clothing and behavior and comportment. A transwoman is likely to say that what she feels is much stronger than that - she's not a tomboy, it's not just that she likes men's clothing and men's activities and behaviors. She genuinely views herself as a woman wrapped in a male body, and that male body is the wrong body. So we try to find some physical or neurological basis for that difference, some cause for it. We try to find evidence to support that the body is male but the mind is female.

But simply looking at the brains of adult humans isn't really enough, because brains are plastic. We have a really hard time determining what elements of the brain are innate differences (differences in underlying structure that have existed since birth), versus elements that are sex-linked and triggered by the onset of puberty, versus those that are environmental and learned differences. Our environments and childhood exposures shape and change our brains.

So my first claim: Reality is that males and females are different in many measurable ways, and those differences are innate: anatomy, skeleton, genetic composition, and some behaviors - they're sex-linked traits that are definitely real differences between males and females.

Then my second claim: There may or may not be differences between men and women that are NOT attributable to either a) sex or b) environment. There is nothing conclusive that demonstrates that the concept of 'man' being divorced from 'male' is anything other than social conditioning. It might be the case... but we can't demonstrate what that difference actually is.

See above bolded by me. This is true, on average about the differences between male and female anatomy. This does not take into consideration differences within genders and individual differences in anatomy that may result in some individual males having certain physical characteristics that are more typically female and some individual females having some physical characteristics that are more typically male.

 

[laughing dog]

I'm sorry if you don't understand what I write.

I don't. I asked you if you think that men's and women's different brains could partially explain the gender wage gap. You "answered" a different question which I did not ask and which I cannot see the relevance of.

It was not hard to parse that her answer was "No".

 

[Metaphor]

I'm sorry if you don't understand what I write.

I don't. I asked you if you think that men's and women's different brains could partially explain the gender wage gap. You "answered" a different question which I did not ask and which I cannot see the relevance of.

It was not hard to parse that her answer was "No".

Right. So:

• Men and women have different brains on average
• The difference arises only in areas that have no influence whatsoever on interests and career choice and personality, which are all related to wages and salaries
• Therefore, zero percent of the gender pay gap is influenced by brain differences.

Got it.

 

[laughing dog]

It was not hard to parse that her answer was "No".

Right. So:

It means that she answered your question. Duh.

 

[Emily Lake]

See above bolded by me. This is true, on average about the differences between male and female anatomy. This does not take into consideration differences within genders and individual differences in anatomy that may result in some individual males having certain physical characteristics that are more typically female and some individual females having some physical characteristics that are more typically male.

Some shades of red have more blue in them, some shades of red have more yellow in them. They're still red though, aren't they?

I don't think anyone expects every male to have every male characteristic. But any given person will very likely have over 90% of the characteristics associated with their sex.

It's certainly possible that a male might wear a women's size 10 shoe. That's quite small for a male, but also quite large for a female. It's very unlikely that an adult male will be able to wear a women's size 5 shoe. That's on the small side of the range for women's shoes, but it's firmly in the child size for men's shoes. Similarly, a female might wear a men's size 9 shoe, which is fairly small for a men's shoe. But a female is very unlikely to wear a size 13 men's shoe.

Sex-based characteristics all come in a variety of sizes and variations, but they also follow a fairly well-established dimorphism on the whole. It's entirely possible that a male might have one or two traits that are more commonly found in females. But that's one or two traits out of a hundred. The entirety of the set of characteristics is usually very strongly representative of one sex or the other.

Some true hermaphrodites exist, of course. As well as some few chimeras. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, there's not much ambiguity.

 

[Emily Lake]

Now I feel a bit bad, because, well, (and you're not going to like this) you've gone to all that trouble, with the colours and everything, and I'm at least as confused about what your point is (or points are) as I was before. I can't put my finger on it, but it's as if we're talking past each other. It's not so much what you're saying, but why you are saying it, that I don't understand.

Let me just pick up on the very last thing you said, and try to be succinct.

In this discussion specifically, I don't really care what causes gender dysphoria or trans gender identity. And I'm not clear on why you do.

ETA: I also wasn't quite sure about "Gender is more about how other people perceive you". Would that not be more like merely what gender looks like from outside?

I can't shake off this notion that you are saying that gender dysphoria isn't really real.

First off, the easier part - yes, gender dysphoria is real. I don't doubt that. And here's where I risk offending someone. Schizophrenia is also real, as is social anxiety, as is anorexia. I completely accept that gender dysphoria is a real thing, and that at present, transition of some sort is the only treatment that is reasonably effective. What I'm not convinced of is that gender dysphoria is really truly a case of a woman's brain being trapped in a male body. I could be wrong - we could find truly compelling and meaningful neural wiring that supports that view. At present, what we have is not compelling on that front.

As to why I care about the cause? Because sometimes it does affect me. At a minimum, it does affect females in general. It changes who is allowed into our safe spaces, into our prisons, into our sports.

I have a lot less of a care when the person in question has been living and presenting as a woman for a long time, especially if they're taking estrogen and anti-androgens. I'm far more comfortable accepting someone as a woman, and allowing them entry to female sex-segregated spaces when they reasonably pass as a woman.

I have a lot more care when the person in question identifies themselves as a woman, but does not dress or present as a woman, doesn't take hormones, and doesn't plan on any kind of functional transition. I am much more skeptical of allowing a person who looks and acts like a man entry to sex segregated females spaces.

I am really not supportive of the push to self-identification alone being sufficient for a person to gain access to sex-segregated spaces, including sports.

I don't really care deeply about what causes it. I do, however, care about people using claims to "female brain" to justify forcing females to accept people who are visibly and obviously males into their spaces. I wish I didn't care - I wish I lived in a world where there was no reason to care. If I lived in a world where females and males were actually treated equitably and had equal opportunities unbiased by our perceived sex, and where there wasn't such a disparate amount of sexual violence experienced by one sex, then I assure you I wouldn't care. But right now, whether it's reasonable or not, I feel like females are being pushed out, our needs and our opportunities are being pushed aside. Again. By people with penises. Their feelings are being cast as more important than those of females. Their wants are framed as being more important than ours.

She identifies as a woman? Okay, let's put the known sexual offender and rapist in the women's prison, despite the fact that she has an intact and fully functional penis.

She identifies as a woman? Okay, let's allow her to stay in the women's rape shelter, despite the fact that she has an intact and fully functional penis and masturbates onto the sleeping bodies of other women in her room.

She identifies as a woman? Okay, let's allow her to compete in the women's track competition, despite her having the musculature and build of a man. Okay, let's allow her to complete in the women's weightlifting competition, despite the beard and the obvious size difference.

I know, there's only a small number of transgender people out there, and I know they face a lot of discrimination and mistreatment. And I firmly believe that they shouldn't be treated that way. But I don't think that females should have to share our meager progress, or by-our-fingernails progress, and our limited recognition. I can't help but feel that females are being asked to set aside their objectives as being less important... again. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it's been that way for ages. Women have always been expected to take a back seat, wait their turn, and deprioritize their own happiness below that of the males around them. This isn't any different. It's just in a slightly more colorful outfit

 

[ruby sparks]

First off, the easier part - yes, gender dysphoria is real. I don't doubt that. And here's where I risk offending someone. Schizophrenia is also real, as is social anxiety, as is anorexia. I completely accept that gender dysphoria is a real thing, and that at present, transition of some sort is the only treatment that is reasonably effective. What I'm not convinced of is that gender dysphoria is really truly a case of a woman's brain being trapped in a male body. I could be wrong - we could find truly compelling and meaningful neural wiring that supports that view. At present, what we have is not compelling on that front.

As to why I care about the cause? Because sometimes it does affect me. At a minimum, it does affect females in general. It changes who is allowed into our safe spaces, into our prisons, into our sports.

I have a lot less of a care when the person in question has been living and presenting as a woman for a long time, especially if they're taking estrogen and anti-androgens. I'm far more comfortable accepting someone as a woman, and allowing them entry to female sex-segregated spaces when they reasonably pass as a woman.

I have a lot more care when the person in question identifies themselves as a woman, but does not dress or present as a woman, doesn't take hormones, and doesn't plan on any kind of functional transition. I am much more skeptical of allowing a person who looks and acts like a man entry to sex segregated females spaces.

I am really not supportive of the push to self-identification alone being sufficient for a person to gain access to sex-segregated spaces, including sports.

I don't really care deeply about what causes it. I do, however, care about people using claims to "female brain" to justify forcing females to accept people who are visibly and obviously males into their spaces. I wish I didn't care - I wish I lived in a world where there was no reason to care. If I lived in a world where females and males were actually treated equitably and had equal opportunities unbiased by our perceived sex, and where there wasn't such a disparate amount of sexual violence experienced by one sex, then I assure you I wouldn't care. But right now, whether it's reasonable or not, I feel like females are being pushed out, our needs and our opportunities are being pushed aside. Again. By people with penises. Their feelings are being cast as more important than those of females. Their wants are framed as being more important than ours.

She identifies as a woman? Okay, let's put the known sexual offender and rapist in the women's prison, despite the fact that she has an intact and fully functional penis.

She identifies as a woman? Okay, let's allow her to stay in the women's rape shelter, despite the fact that she has an intact and fully functional penis and masturbates onto the sleeping bodies of other women in her room.

She identifies as a woman? Okay, let's allow her to compete in the women's track competition, despite her having the musculature and build of a man. Okay, let's allow her to complete in the women's weightlifting competition, despite the beard and the obvious size difference.

I know, there's only a small number of transgender people out there, and I know they face a lot of discrimination and mistreatment. And I firmly believe that they shouldn't be treated that way. But I don't think that females should have to share our meager progress, or by-our-fingernails progress, and our limited recognition. I can't help but feel that females are being asked to set aside their objectives as being less important... again. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it's been that way for ages. Women have always been expected to take a back seat, wait their turn, and deprioritize their own happiness below that of the males around them. This isn't any different. It's just in a slightly more colorful outfit

There's a lot in there.

Gender dysphoria as real as Schizophrenia (and indeed homosexuality). Check.

Now, if someone identifies as a woman, while having a man's body (ie the rest of their body other than the brain part of their body), there there must be, without any question I think, something female about that person's brain. Literally, logically and biologically. As with the schizophrenia and the homosexuality (and your epilepsy and my depression), it's not fairy dust and more to the point it's not just role play or learned behaviour (well mostly not, assuming we are talking about clear and clinical cases). And what does it matter if it's because of nature, nurture, or a combination of the two? Or, what does it matter if it shows up on a brain scan or not?

Does that mean that a trans woman has a 'woman's brain'? From what I know of the sorts of differences that can be measured, I don't think that could readily be said. It seems far too complicated. There may even be no such distinct thing as a woman's brain. And as I said way back, what are we measuring? I suggested (without knowing a great deal about it) oxytocin, by which I meant chemicals in general (rather than brain structures) another of which might be testosterone and I'm sure there are others. Obviously, chemicals are both biological and influential, right? And even if it's not chemicals, or if it's several things interacting, it's something, and it's real and physical.

So I do think it's possible to say that someone who has a male body has enough of a 'female brain' (including the 'fixed' and 'moving' parts, the tubes and what's flowing through them) to make them identify as female, without going as far as saying it's overall or fully a female brain.

To me, the question of whether someone should get into women's refuges, compete in a race with women or use women's changing rooms, are all slightly separate from the above, even if it were true that it was a woman (as in a person with a woman's brain) trapped in a man's body (by which I mean the rest of the body since the brain is a body part) and I would not generally be in favour of those things, even in that hypothetical case.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm asking you, if you actually believe that men's and women's brains to be systematically different, why do you not also believe this could be a cause, or partial cause, of the gender pay gap?

As you point out, it would seem inconsistent not to agree that differences in brains are at least a partial explanation for the latter.

Toni probably overstates the role of social influences (such as patriarchy), and you probably understate them. But there will almost certainly be both factors, and they will probably be interacting.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm asking you, if you actually believe that men's and women's brains to be systematically different, why do you not also believe this could be a cause, or partial cause, of the gender pay gap?

As you point out, it would seem inconsistent not to agree that differences in brains are at least a partial explanation for the latter.

Toni probably overstates the role of social influences (such as patriarchy), and you probably understate them. But there will almost certainly be both factors.

Non. I have not offered an opinion on what the percentage of social influences is on the wage gap (except that the contribution of the patriarchy is zero percent, because the patriarchy does not exist).

Anybody who instead wants to eliminate the wage gap (to reduce it to zero) either believes there are no relevant biological differences between men and women that could contribute to the wage gap, or do not care about the effect of biological differences, and therefore will continue to endorse discriminatory measures for ever, since the wage gap will last forever.

 

[ruby sparks]

...the contribution of the patriarchy is zero percent, because the patriarchy does not exist.

Lol. Thank you for illustrating my point, which is as untenable in the opposite direction as saying that brain differences have zero influence.

Also, just so it's clear, I did not say 'the patriarchy'. That's your slight switcheroo, and it makes a slight difference, in the way that red herrings often do.

 

[Metaphor]

...the contribution of the patriarchy is zero percent, because the patriarchy does not exist.

Lol. Thank you for illustrating my point, which is as untenable in the opposite direction as saying that brain differences have zero influence.

Also, just so it's clear, I did not say 'the patriarchy'. That's your slight switcheroo, and it makes a slight difference, in the way that red herrings often do.

Non. There was no 'switcheroo'. Please read my post more closely. There are many social influences on the gender pay gap, because there are social influences that differ between men and women. The patriarchy isn't one of those social influences, because the patriarchy is fictive.

 

[ruby sparks]

...the contribution of the patriarchy is zero percent, because the patriarchy does not exist.

Lol. Thank you for illustrating my point, which is as untenable in the opposite direction as saying that brain differences have zero influence.

Also, just so it's clear, I did not say 'the patriarchy'. That's your slight switcheroo, and it makes a slight difference, in the way that red herrings often do.

Non. There was no 'switcheroo'. Please read my post more closely. There are many social influences on the gender pay gap, because there are social influences that differ between men and women. The patriarchy isn't one of those social influences, because the patriarchy is fictive.

You're just saying the same thing again. So my response is as above, and your position is without question as incorrect as, say, someone who says brain differences have zero influence. And you're still trying to do the switcheroo.

Patriarchal influences and legacies, and patriarchal processes and systems, or better to say social systems and processes which have them as features to at least some extent, sometimes as systemic residues, are not fictive, even if 'The Patriarchy' as a distinct set of people (literally outright patriarchs) might be. I agree that patriarchal effects can be way overstated, and are, to some extent, in almost all feminist ideology, imo. But they are not zero. That is untenable and is as ideologically unsound as its counterpart.