There is a strong strain of misogyny running through this discussion
From Kathleen Stock’s piece What I believe about sex and gender (and what I don’t):
I am also asked, more generally, what I think being a woman is. I’m fairly sure it isn’t a feeling in the head, or a set of ‘feminised’ preferences and behaviours. I don’t feel like a woman, particularly, and most of my preferences and behaviours are not remotely feminised. I am nonetheless a woman. For the rest, I am still thinking about it. I severely regret the list of restricted options available in the academic literature. Philosophers who in other contexts are highly creative in theorising about ontological matters tend in this area to state certain rather simplistic mantras dogmatically, no doubt partly out of fear of criticism. (Indeed it is not clear that any other sort of claim would be published).
The fear of criticism has another aspect, which is fear that the criticism would be justified because saying something other than the simplistic mantras would be in some hard-to-specify way damaging to trans people. In other words there’s self-regarding or self-protective fear and then there’s also altruistic or solidarity-based fear. That’s part of what’s going on: the unease that maybe one is wrong, maybe doubts about the power of “identifying as” are as cruel and harmful as the angriest activists say.
There is a strong strain of misogyny running through this discussion, which automatically treats the experiences of transwomen as more worthy of attention than the other, much bigger set of women who are materially affected by the expansion of the legal and political category to which they belong. This is fuelled by the popular media and press, which knows that transwomen are more attention-grabbing than boring old non-transwomen, on the whole (after all, there are so many of the latter! They are not in the least ‘exotic’ or ‘interesting’).
And that’s a problem.
Moreover, if you capitulate to the easy sentiment that all Gender Critical views are transphobic, you are automatically going to rule out properly talking about what many non-transwomen are concerned about, since it will then constitute a social taboo to do so.
You are going to and you do, every day, every hour.
I don’t think the damage is hard to specify: they kill themselves. 78% entertain suicidal thoughts, and 40% attempt suicide. In the overall population something like 4% of people entertain suicidal thoughts and 0.6% attempt to commit suicide.
@1, are you saying 100% of that damage is because some philosopher or gender critical feminist talks about what it is or is not to be a woman? That seems… overly bold. It also ignores much more direct and thoroughly appalling influences such has physical assault, loss of employment, social ostracism, shunning by families and verbal abuse and ridicule. I’m not saying that academic and theoretical discussions about women hood may not contain hurtful content for some trans people, but to even remotely suggest that it is on a par, let alone responsible, for harm in the way these other actions are is a nonsense.
On top of that, women have a bloody right to discuss issues that go to the heart of their own being, existence and lives.
Like a straw man? Yes, that’s how your question seems to me as well.
Yes, I noticed that you mentioned murder, assault, etc., but I’m pointing out that you actually classified “ridicule” separately from the “criticism” referred to in the OP. So let’s focus on “ridicule” for a moment. Do you mean “ridicule” like this?
Who the fuck wants to be ‘intimate’ with a surgical wound anyway? Trans women, if you cut off your penis, lesbians still don’t want to have sex with you. This is because we know that females are not merely neutered males.
Lesbians have one single solitary gender in the minds of the vast majority of human beings: Woman. And a woman is an adult female in all but the tiny little minds of a handful of mentally ill people.
I get really angry at these men who assert they are womon…I just wanna tell them to fuck off and find a gender of their own and leave OURs alone- bastards all of them…
Etc., Etc.
Is that the sort of “ridicule” you had in mind?
You’ll have to quote the bit where I say any differently. Indeed you’ll have to point out where I made any assertions at all about what is or isn’t womanhood, or anything else. But yes, again I did notice that you’re saying “women” with reference specifically to cis women, and I do realize that in doing so you’re begging the question. But I’m not going to take your bait, because I’m not interested in having the argument you wish I would.
@Masked Avenger The high suicide rate amongst trans people is terrible and I don’t think anyone would deny that. But it doesn’t exist in isolation. The reason for many of the mental health problems people suffer as they struggle with their internal conflicts over gender and societal expectations associated with gender presentation is because we can’t have these conversations. Trans people experience abuse because they violate those societal assumptions of what a man or a woman is. If we can’t explore what it means to be a man or a woman then we’re left with troubling definitions that are outdated and oppressive to everyone regardless of gender identity. We’re caught in this Mobius strip of misery and the only way out is to break it.
What are those three short paragraphs between “Do you mean “ridicule” like this?” and “Etc., Etc.”? Are they quoted from somewhere? If so how about indenting them and saying where they’re from? Or are they hypotheticals? If so what the hell?
But as for “I did notice that you’re saying “women” with reference specifically to cis women, and I do realize that in doing so you’re begging the question” – oh just fuck off. Until you start calling all black people other than Rachel Dolezal “cis black people” just fuck off.
Ok, I consulted Google and found the source of those three short paragraphs: each is taken from a site called “TERF quotes” – as if to demonstrate that NO as a matter of fact we may not talk about this without someone bouncing in to call us “TERFs.” Maybe we should say “thank you” for not also brandishing barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bats in our faces?
What is the point of that? What is the point of going to a site called “TERF quotes” and finding some remarks and dumping them here – without naming a source and without even quotation marks – as if they demonstrate something?
A MAsked Avenger, are you saying your comment @1 was nothing more than a trolling straw man? If so, what exactly was the point? I’ve never seen anyone here deny that trans people get appalling treatment in society generally and that they suffer a terrible level of mental illness, suicide, violence and general maltreatment.
But your statement doesn’t build on that. It doesn’t clarify anything. It just lies there like a piece of crap on someones doorstep. Stinking the place up but for no obvious reason.
Claire @4 makes some really good points. It would be good to see you make a genuine effort to address those.
As for your scare quotes around ridicule and criticism. I unapologetically differentiate them. I’ve witnessed trans people being ridiculed and verbally abused. It’s a very different thing from the kind of criticism involved in discussions of gender and all that goes with it.
As for the quotes above. They don’t look like they are intended as ridicule. Certainly they would be hurtful. But, they are actually expressions of genuine hurt, fear and anger in their own right. I’m surprised you can be so protective and empathetic with one group and so oblivious and disregarding of another. In recent years lesbian groups and culture have come under attack and have been increasingly marginalised in a way that male gay culture has not. A large part of that has been in response to attacks by trans activists. There have been well reported examples of trans people bemoaning the fact that despite them considering themselves quite the catch neither men nor women want to have sex with them – as they should.
It’s a bit oblivious to the fact that personal intimate relationships, perhaps especially sex, is something that a person should willingly choose to enter into. It’s not up to just one side of the potential pairing to determine what happens. Lesbians as a group have been pilloried by some trans activists for stating a clear preference about whom they will have sex with. I wouldn’t use the language above, but then it’s not pain, hurt and fear that is being expressed.
You didn’t specifically say that women couldn’t discuss the issues, you were just absolutely contemptuously dismissive. Also I’m not baiting anyone so I don’t care whether you bite or not. To be crystal clear, my current view is that there are differences between women and trans women. There are a multitude of views as to how important those differences are and I think it would be healthy and productive for all concerned if those were discussed and explored. Politically, I think that feminists and trans activists have a huge overlap in terms of common goals and areas for potential co-operation in seeking legislative and societal change. But, there are also areas where it is clear that currently little or no common ground exists.
It’s interesting that you are so eager to have group entirely powered to make all determinations about all things by fiat, but want the other, much larger group, to shut up and do what they’re told. I have a lot of sympathy with women being angry at being told to shut up and do as they are told.
Transwomen suffer. At whose hands? If you mean physical violence, that’s almost entirely men. If it’s nasty commentary, that’s random strangers or “friends” or relatives. But it’s up to women, as a group, to fix it.
Transmen suffer. Same questions and asnwers. But I have yet to see a call that it’s up to men to fix that. Except for one, done to make it plain what’s being demanded here. The men’s reaction: “There was widespread anger among the male swimmers at the pond. … Mr John, from Hackney, said: ‘They’re saying, ‘I want to identify as a man today’. That’s not how this works. Women have their own female-only pool, we have ours….”
But women are to budge up and shut up or else they deserve bats wrapped in barbed wire.
Anyone who can’t see the misogyny in that is a misogynist.
It is worth noting that there are disagreements about the validity of claims of exceptionally high transgender suicide rates.
This befuddles me, as someone with no dog in the hunt. How did so-called “TERFS” become trans-enemy #1?
The very real difficulties and oppressions that face trans-women can’t be addressed by demanding that they be considered identical to those faced by ‘cis-women.’
It is deeply patronizing (or perhaps ‘matronizing’) to shoehorn the real lives of trans and cis women into a single category. Calling up issues like suicide is a smokescreen. Whip up some outrage in one hand, and pull the rabbit out of your hat with the other.
There is no credible evidence that trans people are at a higher risk of being murdered than other people. In the U.S., risk varies with race and socioeconomic background (black males are at a much higher risk than whites). “Trans” status does not affect risk.
Politically-motivated claims about epidemics of murder and suicide aside, even if these things were true, they would not magically make other claims made by trans activists true. Obviously we can oppose violence against trans people without believing, for example, that “trans women are women.”
A Masked Avenger, I could offer much, much worse quotes, made by trans people and directed at gender critical women. Fantasies involving suicide, murder, and snuff films, with “TERFs” as the victims.
But I won’t bother, because that would not be an argument; it would be an appeal to pity.
In fact I’ve had worse things than those you quoted said to and about me many times in my life. Somehow that fact doesn’t oblige anybody else to see me as I see myself.
(And trans people and their activists have in fact assaulted women for disagreeing with them. One trans-identified male was recently convicted in England. An American case is under investigation.)
Sure. It’s also deeply patronizing (or perhaps ‘racist’) to shoehorn the lives of cis women into a single category. There are white, American, middle-class cis women, and poor, black, Costa Rican cis women, and well-to-do Minang cis matriachs.
Your statement that “they’re different!” is identical in form to the statement that “Men and women are different!” Gloria Steinem famously pointed out that yes, they are, but the differences between individual women or individual men are greater than the differences between men as a whole and women as a whole. Denying the difference would be dishonest, but so would extrapolating the difference into a basis for discrimination against one group by another.
There are no cis women. Zero. That’s a meaningless nonsensical insulting word.
Quibbling terminology has its place: if someone insists on discussing gay rights while referring to gay people using a homophobic slur, that’s a problem that needs to be addressed. Sure, I get that.
Apart from that, all vocabulary is fungible. Instead of “homosexual,” we could decree that homosexual persons be referred to as basha, or tóngxìng, or zobungqingili, or for that matter timtam or teacup. The only thing that matters is that everyone adopt a common nomenclature for the duration of the discussion.
In chemistry, cis is the opposite of trans. It means “not trans.” If you want to read my comment and mentally substitute “non-trans” everywhere, be my guest.
If instead you want to substitute, say, “real, regular, normal, honest-to-God, not-some-delusional-pretender-who-wants-to-chop-his-dick-off,” or, say, “non-shim,” then per the above I invite you instead to share your thoughts on “faggot marriage.”
I want to say “women.” That’s all.
AMA, I hope you’re planning to get around to answering Ophelia’s questions @6:
There’s a bunch of people running around saying they’re also women.
Nobody is entirely sure what the fuck that means, including themselves — not in any objective sense that can be explained biologically or quantified — all we know is that they’re awfully sure of it, that they persist despite massive personal risk comparable at least to out gay people, and that they’re subject to major risk of depression and suicide.
At one end we have folks who accept this claim fully at face value and reject many efforts to investigate the phenomenon as too risky for potential harm to the individuals involved. I remember similar opposition to studies of homosexuality, back in the ’80s, on the grounds that it might be used to identify and abort gay fetuses, or that it might be used to argue for putting homosexuality back in the DSM. Having only been removed 10-ish years before, it was a possibility. This end is basically folks who regard the welfare of these individuals as a paramount consideration.
At the other end are various kinds of folks who simply identify them as freaks. Some are fundies convinced they’re an abomination to God and man. Some are dictionary atheists who define them as a priori abnormal because Darwin intended men, and only men, to have dicks, forever and ever amen. Some are KKK members and other bigoted ilk who basically lump them with queers, Jews, and blacks. But one way or another, this end is the folks who regard the welfare of these individuals as an irrelevant consideration.
And of course there’s a range in between. I lean toward the former end of the spectrum: I say, first do no harm.
I discount many claims that there are competing harms to balance here, because for example I don’t believe that they’re enduring all this shit just to invade the ladies room and molest little girls: there are much more effective and less risky methods of accomplishing that end.
I don’t discount that we might yet discover a psychological or biological basis for this phenomenon, and I don’t discount that we might discover that it’s induced by trauma and even that it’s curable. Since nobody really knows what the fuck it is in the first place, it could turn out to be anything. But note: nobody really knows how the fuck sexual orientation is formed, either, so I accept the possibility that the same might be discovered about homosexuality. Who knows what we may one day learn. We’re basically starting at zero, here.
Mean time, though, these people exist, are greatly at risk, and should to the best of our ability be treated in such a way as to minimize the harm to them and maximize their flourishing (as well as everyone else’s). If that requires updating my vocabulary, that’s a small price to pay.
And so far, at least, I haven’t heard any convincing counter-arguments. They want to use the ladies room? So do a lot of women you might not like. We all gotta shit somewhere. They want to attend women’s conferences? So do Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, etc., — and they’re doing it purely to collect fodder for misogynistic publications. If a convincing case of competing harms can be made, I’ll listen. And in particular cases, exceptions can always be made. Bar Laura Ingraham from your conference? Sure! And also a particular trans woman with past violent incidents? By all means!
Ah, that’s all you’ve heard, is it? Well maybe that could be because you aren’t paying all that much attention? Or don’t know where to look? Or don’t have enough at stake? Or don’t really care?
And no, not “They want to attend women’s conferences” – they [some of them – the more aggressive and entitled and thus visible, who probably don’t represent the majority] want to speak at women’s conferences, be on All-women short lists, run in women’s races, play basketball on women’s teams, compete with women in bicycle races, be Women’s Officer in the Labour Party, win prizes set aside for women. They also want to talk over women, silence women, threaten women, attack and beat up women – again, the more aggressive and entitled faction, but then they are necessarily the ones we see the most of and the ones doing the most harm to women.
Interesting questions all. Is it possible to consider those questions in a way that minimizes harm? Or are there really only two options: supine surrender or reactionary attack?
Trans issues are for-real issues, but they’re not the only issues. Letting trans issues take precedence over all other women’s issues may be a valid concern, of the sort that often arises when multiple social issues compete for people’s limited time, money and attention.
This idea that it’s a hostile takeover is very familiar to me, because I’ve seen the identical reaction to every encroachment on up-class white straight male Christian privilege by blacks, poors, Mexicans, gays, Muslims, and atheists. Oh, and women. Did you know that I lost out on a STEM professorship because the EEO office made them hire a goddamn woman instead? Also, did you know that there’s a war on Christmas, that Christians are persecuted, and that whites are the only unprotected minority now? Oh, the humanity!
Yes, yes, your case is different. AFAICT, that’s mostly because this time it’s your ox that’s being gored.
I suggest an approach that actually places value in minimizing harm to those individuals, in addition to your other considerations, rather than rallying with Germaine Greer et al and chanting “Build That Wall!” (The Messicans will never pay for it, by the way.)
Um, no. As a trained chemist, no. Cis is from the latin meaning “on this side”, while trans is from the latin meaning “across”. Trans literally means across to the other side. Hence Transition.
Also, I get a bit bent out of shape about this…
Sure, we could all agree that teapot now means homosexual, but what if we don’t? Communication requires understanding, consistency of approach and precision. Without the latter two you can’t have the former. Without the former, there is no communication. While word meaning is certainly fluid, in any given culture or sub-culture, at any given time, there is a dominant and sometimes extremely specific meaning assigned to a word. Choosing to use an uncommon or disagreed meaning for a word actively blocks communication and understanding. Indeed, that is precisely what propagandists often rely on.
But, we’ll never even begin to approach that point of understanding while a certain class of trans activists shout down, attack and destroy the careers of anyone who even attempts to discuss or study the issue. Doubly so if they even hint that they are leaning to a view that is less than 100% in lockstep with almost meaningless slogans.
You’re obviously a chemist and not a mathematician. “What if we don’t?” If we don’t, then generally speaking someone doesn’t want to discuss the subject. Or won’t discuss it honestly, and insists on using loaded language (“Let’s refer to homosexual people as ‘hell-bound perverts,’ just as a matter of nomenclature”). Or maybe they’re incapable of abstract thought: people for whom Webster’s is holy writ are the most intellectually boring of people — barely sentient in my book. Human parrots, capable of reproducing the form but without the essence.
For honest individuals of sound mind, nomenclature is a triviality to be established beforehand for notational convenience, and later elaborated as necessary for clear communication to continue unimpeded.
Masked Avenger @ 22 – what do you mean “reactionary attack”? This goes back to those questions you still, I think, haven’t answered – why did you @ 3 include three quoted passages from a site called “TERF quotes” – without identifying them as such or even marking them as quotations at all? And what do you mean “reactionary attack”? Are you saying that’s what I’m doing, or that’s what Kathleen Stock is doing, or Rob, or all the above? If so, why?
You seem to be doing that thing that makes this whole discussion so impossible, which is treating any kind of analysis or interrogation as OMIGOD TERF TERF TERF.
But, given the last three paragraphs of that comment, I shouldn’t even bother. I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but it ain’t me or anybody here.
As for using loaded language – take a look at your own language. All of it.
As a slight derail, No I’m not a mathematician. For that matter I’m no longer a practicing chemist. Funnily enough I spend a big chuck of my life… doing maths.
One thing that doesn’t happen in maths is constantly assigning a different and random meaning to already agreed nomenclature. It actually has a meaning. You certainly never see two mathematicians taking an agreed mathematical term [say log10(X)] and redefining it as 2+2. Why? Because it would completely fuck up all understanding and wider conversation with other mathematicians and interested by standers. This is exactly what a certain type of trans activist seeks to do by obscuring discussion about what it is to be a woman, or trans for that matter. I agree with you @24 when you say that this represents someone who doesn’t want to discuss the subject, or won’t discuss it honestly.
I admit I’m curious why you’re quoting the Latin dictionary, rather than talking about geometric isomerism. While my offhand summary was over-simplified, your reply was misleading and unrelated to chemistry.
Given your use of quantifiers like “constantly,” your statement is true, but it’s again misleading. (It might have occurred to you to tread cautiously when explaining mathematics to someone you could easily have guessed was a mathematician!)
What mathematicians do all the time is extend existing terms to new contexts.And since you went there, the symbols + and x are routinely redefined. In abstract algebra, either one may be used to denote a the composition in a group (although x is generally preferred), and by convention in a ring + is used for the operator that makes the ring an abelian group, and x is used for the second operator that distributes over the + operation. And yes, this is done not just for matrices or groups of symbols, but also for integers and rational numbers, so in fact + and x are redefined for numbers all. the. time. Like, an entire branch of mathematics is devoted to doing this on a daily basis.
This is a prime example of extending existing terminology to a new situation: namely, people that used to be denoted by the term, “What the fuck is that thing? Somebody kill it!” Greek and Roman culture had little or no concept of transgenderism, although they did classify intersex people as hermaphrodites or androgynes, but Roman law required them to be classified as either male or female based on “whichever traits were most dominant.” Church law followed this lead (as well as brutally repressing homosexuals), and is a major reason that Western culture has no meaningful concept of sex or gender other than male (possibly defective) and female (possibly defective).
Tales of other cultures having broader notions of gender are somewhat exaggerated: in a majority, provision exists for “men” (sometimes castrated, sometimes not) to undertake to live like “women,” and rarely vice versa, with a change in social status and recognition rarely as “women” but more often as a third class, which is often required to serve in some sort of ritual or liturgical role.
One notable exception are the Bugi people of Sulawesi, who recognize trans women as calabai, trans men as calalai, and “beyond gender” people as bissu. They have clear terminology for describing these phenomena, and cultural norms fo these groups — some good, and some bad. For example bissu are generally expected to be shamans, and calabai are generally expected to be wedding planners and hosts.
In the West, thanks to the Romans and their Catholic heirs, we have no meaningful concept of transness, and treated intersex conditions simply as birth defects until recently. This is a situation that necessitates not only a change in attitude toward these people, but a change in vocabulary to make it possible even to talk about it. And since the gender binary is ingrained in the fabric of our culture, they choose to denote themselves as women rather than trying to convince everyone that there are five genders a la Sulawesi.
Similar is true of gay people, by the way: it’s dogma that gay people are “born that way” and “have no choice,” not because this is empirically proven, but mostly because our Christianity-soaked culture presents the false dichotomy that IF it’s a choice, THEN it can be declared a sin, and conversely if it’s NOT a choice, then God made them this way, and it must be accepted. In reality, it doesn’t make a fucking difference whether it’s determined at birth, or puberty, or if it changes over time, and whether or not choice is or isn’t involved. It only matters under a moral rubric that only that which is involuntary can hope to escape religious condemnation.
I did indicate them using a bulleted list, but your software rejected the UL and LI tags that I used.
They were more or less randomly selected from a handy source, but are similar to things said on the Facebook group that you frequented in the past. I’m not on Facebook, and so could not view any of those conversations (nor had the time) to pick out examples. Or I could have picked Germaine Greer’s statement that “just because you lop of your dick doesn’t make you a fucking woman.” It didn’t come ready to hand, because I couldn’t remember either her name or the exact wording, but that’s the one I was originally googling for.
The point is reasonably clear, though: we’re not talking about an effort to understand what’s going on with at-risk individuals, but rather a straight up demand that they fuck the fuck off, right now, and go do whatever floats their boat — like lopping off their dicks or killing themselves — and stop bothering real women.
Which reminds me, what was your other question? Oh, yes:
Telling people to fuck right off, and go use the designated water fountains and sit in the back of the bus, and stop annoying decent white folks, would be an example of a “reactionary attack.”
A trans activist got full up on his own self-righteousness and acted like an asshole to you a while back, and you told him where to shove it, and others got into the act, and it ended badly all around — but it’s unfortunate that the outcome was to drive you into the arms of some reasonably shitty people. Who, I realize, don’t seem shitty at all when you’re not their victim. I get it, because racists treat my lily-white ass like a long lost brother and offer me hotdogs at their cookouts in the park. They don’t seem terrible at all, in the day-time without their hoods and whatnot.
A Masked Avenger, since you’re all about the evolution of words’ definitions, please answer this:
The concept of “trans” boils down to the idea that a person whose birth certificate says “male” can be a “woman.” Can you provide a definition of “woman” where this can be true? A definition that’s not circular or unfalsifiable?
Ah, guilt by “things similar to things said on a Facebook group” association. Well now I’m persuaded.
@28 Simple. Because the phrases used in geometric isomerism come from latin roots. The phrasing and description of origin comes from my old chemistry texts. So, fuck off. Education. It’s a wonderful thing.
@29. One thing life has taught me is that assumptions are dangerous. I don’t even assume your sex or gender, let alone your occupation or skills. You have just nicely demonstrated my point that some meanings are confined to sub-cultures though. In this case mathematicians. So, again. How far would a mathematician get randomly assigning log10(X) as 2+2? Not far I expect. Are you really sure that you want to drag the Bugi people into it? I’m more familiar with similar concepts in some Pacifica cultures, but from what I understand (which may be at least partially wrong) the meaning of calabai is “false women” and similarly calalai is “false man”. Not that different from the commonly understood meaning of trans* in our culture really. I do like that they beleive that all genders should live in harmony though. Not calabai claiming to be women and don’t dare question us. Just we are what we are, lets live in harmony. Nice.
@30 AMA:
No, dude. The outcome was a better understanding of the facts. For all of us.
Rob,
The Latin roots are irrelevant here: “cis” and “trans” are the two kinds of geometric stereoisomers, which I crudely stated, and you replied without ever acknowledging the fact. Instead you used the etymology to somehow imply I was talking through my hat. You were either wrong or dishonest in doing so, and now you’re doubling down.
But you assumed you’d get away with talking through your hat about how mathematics works? Apparently you were assuming I wouldn’t see through it — or else you honestly thought you could safely make pronouncements about a subject you know very little about. Dunning and Kruger, maybe?
Congratulations! You’ve found wikipedia! And to get there, all you had to do was evade the entire point!
Once again. Our culture gives these people no vocabulary to talk about what they are, except various terms that all boil down to “freak.” Within a strict two-gender system, they have no choice but to pick the closest matching concept, and they choose “woman” as the best available fit. In another culture, where there are more than two concepts of gender available, they pick a different one. Would they, if there were an option (C) in English and the Western world? Mebbe. Probably, even. We don’t know, because culture offers them no such choice.
By a quirk of fate, gay men have lots and lots of classifications available. Except in Iran: in Iran, a gay man is classified as a woman, and forced by law to undergo sex reassignment surgery, after which they can live stigma-free with a monogamous husband. Well, except for the stigma of being a woman.
Rome fell somewhere in the middle. See, men who penetrated other men were perfectly normal, manly men. Penetrating things is manly, and what you’re penetrating doesn’t much matter. But being penetrated? That’s for women. A man who lets himself be penetrated has demeaned himself. Anti-sodomy laws targeted only the partner who “has sex like a woman,” i.e., by being penetrated. Pederasty was tolerated because young boys were sort of the same thing as women, if you think like a Roman hard enough.
The point you keep evading is that culture offers a finite set of roles you can assume while still being an acceptable member of society, rather than some sort of deviant freak. Trans people within the culture have no choice but to pick one of the available slots, because altering the culture to create more is not an option. It can be done, but it requires widespread embrasure over a considerable time period, and it entails being recognized as a freak in the mean time.
Cressida,
Why would you ask that after I clearly stated that nobody knows what the fuck is actually going on with this phenomenon? What combination of biology, culture, psychology, etc., create the thing we call transness?
There is some evidence that brain scans of trans people resemble brain scans of women more than brain scans of men — but results are mixed, and as Gloria Steinem said in an interview, culture can alter physiology. Living the woman’s cultural role may produce these (small) differences in brain scans not only in trans women, but in women generally.
And that’s before we factor in hormones. XY males deprived of testosterone through birth defects have been successfully raised as female — except that sometimes they revert, as in one spectacular case where the person lived as a male in his teen years and later committed suicide. Reassignment experiments on intersex and ambiguous babies do indicate that there’s something going on here: “picking” a gender can work, and it can fail, even when it matches the karyotype and internal sex organs.
People are complicated, so this is no surprise. We have absolute objective proof that this “trans” phenomenon exists, and basically no fucking clue what it consists of. The people experiencing it interpret what’s going on in the context of the ambient culture. Their conclusions and self-identifications aren’t objective fact — by definition! — but represent their best effort to interpret their experience in terms of the culture they live in.
Meanwhile, decent people do their best to treat them empathetically. Shitty people get pissed off that they’ve decided to try and fit in in their back yard, and audibly wish they’d go fuck off and try to fit in somewhere else, out of sight and out of mind, wherever freaks go to fit in.
Jesus fucking christ you sound like Jason Thibeault in 2015 writing long inquisitorial posts that included “and she liked a tweet this one time.” You also sound like an inquisitor, period. How the fuck do you know what Facebook groups I “frequent” or have “frequented” in the past? And what the fuck business is it of yours? And why the fuck do you think it’s some kind of legitimate argument to dig up quotes that you consider “similar to things said on the Facebook group that [I] frequented in the past” while implying that I’m saying the quoted things now?
And when the formatting didn’t work you could have said so instead of just leaving those paragraphs lying there like turds.
I had more than enough of this shit in the summer of 2015. I’m not having any more of it here. Stop the bullying and policing and wild exaggerating or get lost.
Oh give me a fucking break. I haven’t charged you with anything, or asked you any questions, I have no power–and no wish–to impose any form of punishment upon you… in fact I give negative fucks about your personal opinions on the subject. “Inquisitor”? For making a couple statements you don’t like? Maybe I’m “censoring” you — like Christians, conservatives, and men are being “censored” these days. Jesus Jumped-Up Christ on a pogo stick! I’ve seen thicker-skinned apples.
But anyway, if you want to actually talk about the substance of anything I’ve said, that’s fine.
I note that you’re still comparing trans women to Rachel Dolezal. IDGAF what you think transgenderness is or isn’t; I personally have no idea, suspect everyone is wrong, and have doubts whether we’ll ever know. What I DO give a fuck about is that the way we treat these people has an impact, and I recommend a more empathetic approach.
If it turned out that transgenderness (and homosexuality, for that matter) were literally traceable to a combination of genetic defects and psychological damage — i.e., if we someday learned to an empirical certainty that one or the other or both was properly classifiable as a “defect” and an “illness” — it wouldn’t change the fact that people who are currently taking that stance are quite noticeably lacking in empathy and treating fellow people in a shitty manner.
The analogy to Rachel Dolezal almost works for me, in fact, but the reflection is cast in the opposite direction than most people think. If she’s sincere[ly deluded], then she doesn’t deserve the shit-pile she’s under. And if she’s mentally ill, then the sit-pilers should truly be ashamed of themselves. We can discuss the propriety of letting her claim a scholarship designated for African Americans, or how to handle it if she applied for one, but we can do it without the avalanche of abuse she has suffered. Yes, to me she seems deluded and pathetic — and she probably shouldn’t be retained as president of an NAACP chapter — but most of her critics have come off looking worse than her.
I’ve said much the same about Dolezal several times.
I also, by the way, have never said we should treat trans people badly or harshly or whatever it is you keep implying I have said. You appear to be equating attempting to analyze (on this particular blog) what we mean by “gender” and “identify as” and related concepts with treating trans people badly; I think that’s a completely ridiculous equation. It’s not feminist women who beat up trans people, and the kind of men who beat up trans people don’t read this blog or attempts to analyze what we mean by “gender” and “identify as” and related concepts in general.
Furthermore, ever more violent rhetoric (and now iconography) aimed at feminist women who try to analyze what we mean by “gender” is getting ever more widespread. I mean violent literally, as in “Kill All TERFs” and “choke a TERF today” and similar. That’s fucked up. I don’t do anything like that; I don’t know of any feminist women who do anything like that; it’s not a thing or a trend, but the “Kill a TERF” shit most definitely is. You don’t seem to have much (that is, any) empathy in that direction.
A little more on that. You don’t give a fuck what I think transgenderness is or isn’t. Well ok then, you could just stop reading posts of this kind. I don’t give much of a fuck that you don’t give a fuck, either, except for the fact that you keep vomiting bile at me for discussing it. I do give a fuck about that, and I’m puzzled that you bother when you don’t give a fuck. You type a lot of words on the subject for someone who doesn’t give a fuck. It’s almost as if you feel a strong need to correct this one defiant old bitch who has her own ideas on the subject.
Oddly enough, women have a stake in how we think about gender and “gender identity.” Feminist women have a massive stake in it (and we think all women do, whether they realize it or not). Our ideas about gender and “gender identity” are often in tension with the ideas of some trans women on the subject. I think we’re allowed to talk about that without being bullied, much less threatened.
It certainly is. Assault is bad — the identity of the victim is irrelevant. I’m not a fan of the “punch a Nazi” meme that’s running around, either. And claims of violence in self-defense merit close scrutiny: there’s no such thing as physical self-defense against rhetorical threats.
As an aside, that’s one problem with rhetorical threats. They’re indistinguishable from actual threats if the person threatening has means and opportunity. I.e., if someone holding a bat starts talking about knocking a person’s teeth out, they shouldn’t be too surprised if they get shot and the shooter gets acquitted. I don’t engage in violent talk for exactly that reason. Seldom even in jest.
“Vomiting bile”? My original comment was purely this: the harm at stake for trans people isn’t hard to define; it’s death, especially death by suicide. Almost all my subsequent posts have been expansions on that point in response to people reacting poorly to it. Practically none of it has been directed at you or in any way about you. Things are being blown WAY out of proportion here.
No it wasn’t purely that – it was many more words than that. Maybe in your head that’s what it boiled down to, but it’s certainly not literally all you said. You can’t just assume that other people will read you the way you read yourself in your head. As for “none of it has been directed at you or in any way about you” – if that’s true you did a lousy job of making it clear. Since I wrote the post it’s not unnatural to assume you’re talking to me. The abusive comment I threw out instead of approving also got that wrong.
OK, we’re done here. You may have found my post objectionable, but by deleting it and referring to it as “abusive,” you’ve inviting the other readers to use their imaginations. That’s a dishonest tactic.
Fair enough; I approved it. Time stamp 9:48 so people will need to scroll up a bit.
I’m just going to point out that the record shows that AMA, in #36, was unable to answer the question posed in #31.
Not at all what I would have predicted after posing it.
Since you’ve (dishonestly) doubled down, I’m going to triple down. You said @17
That’s not crudely stated, it’s just wrong. And instead of acknowledging that fact you’ve gone on about me pointing out the Latin roots of the words from a chemistry text book as if that invalidates what I’ve said. You’ve insisted that I talk about geometric isomerism, when I have done so. Accusing me of being dishonest for not acknowledging what you have said and implying I should give you a break for expressing something poorly in an area not your speciality, while all the while not acknowledging that you got an answer from an expert and castigating me for getting something wrong in your own speciality is dishonest. I’d throw your Dunning Kruger reference back at you except I don’t believe that to be the case. I think it’s just another dishonest and half baked accusation.
Yeah, I found wikipedia. You’ve never used it? What did you expect people to do when you went on about an obscure people that most have never heard of? Take you at what’s left of your word? You certainly never told the full story about how the Bugi view what we call trans* people (false*). I could just as easily have thrown fa’afafine or whakawahine at you. Unless you come from my culture you’d need a resource to look that up.
I’ve never evaded it because you never actually asked my view. For the record, I absolutely agree that is the case. I also absolutely agree it should not be. As I suspect would every other regular at this blog. The women and feminists who read this blog actively fight against those strictures! I would imagine the same applies to those who are gay.
As a youth I was bullied for years because I was a ‘homo’. I wasn’t. I was just quiet as I processed the disintegration of my parents’ marriage and subsequent messy divorce. It didn’t stop me from being physically assaulted numerous times in addition to that bullying. Including a couple of real beatings that resulted in bone fractures. But hey, assume I have no understanding of the issues and no empathy for anyone else.
From what I can distil (do I need to provide a chemists definition?) from your posts, your stated position is that you don’t know what the cause(s) of trans identity (I use the phrase loosely) is, but that we should treat them in exactly the way that certain trans activists say we should.
No one here is going to beat a trans person. No one here is going to yell slurs at them on the street. No one here denies that they should be treated with anything other than compassion and understanding. However, many, if not most of the regular commentators at least, draw a line and say “based on what we know and observe, trans women are not ‘just women’, period.” We want to discuss and understand what it is to be a woman in our culture first and foremost. because trans women are claiming places in womens spaces that results in debate that includes trans people. You say you want understanding. But we can never have understanding when we’re not allowed to discuss certain topics at all.
All that empathy for trans people and apparently none for feminists defending the place of women in patriarchal culture. Maybe Cressida is right and you are a dude.
[…] what I was saying (over and over again) on that post last week about (ironically, or inevitably, or both) the misogyny of the response to women trying to talk […]
A Masked Avenger said “Trans people within the culture have no choice but to pick one of the available slots, because altering the culture to create more is not an option.” #36
That is patently not true. There are other options, such as that suggested by trans activist Kate Bornstein, which was to think of trans people as occupying / creating additional gender categories. But this approach ended up being rejected by the trans movement because some trans women wanted to be considered as fully woman, not as partially woman. It was not because altering the culture was not an option. It was because it did not suit the self-conceptions of some trans women.
Cressida, I posted (#12 and #13) and AMA never responded to me at all.
FFS. We already know a few things about gender dysphoria. One of the things we know is that it is not one single thing. Likewise, being “trans gender” is not one single thing.
There are doubtless psychological and biological bases for these phenomena–how could there not be? But “psychological basis for feeling one is or should be or wants to be the other sex” does not MAKE ONE THE OTHER SEX. There are still important questions to discuss there. Some people are doing all they can to render those questions taboo.
Ask yourself why.
Hey, AMA, If you were actually interested in learning about these issues, you could do some reading. Read trans activists; read their critics. Read researchers like Michael Bailey and Ken Zucker ( trans activists will tell you not to read them.) Read researchers favored by trans activists.
Think for yourself. But I suggest make an effort to understand the arguments before you write any more long, long comments on the subject.
Oh, and by the way–those suicide rates? Inflated. (But I repeat myself.)
(Try applying just a little critical thought to the claims you see being shared by trans activists and their allies. They are calculated to shut down discussion, a calculation that works well on people like you.)