Circling the square
Top argument skills.
The difference is between women who are transgender and those who are not, what we call cisgender women.
There is no difference between women and transgender women or betwern women and cisgender women.— Morgane Oger M.S.M. (@MorganeOgerBC) April 27, 2019
“This is the difference.
There is no difference.”
Got that?
Wow. That’s convoluted. If there is no difference between transgender women and women, and no difference between cisgender women and women, then how can the difference be between transgender women and cisgender women? Does that make sense?
Of course, if asked, I am sure Oger would say the only difference is in privilege. With, of course, nothing but assertion of made up ‘facts’.
I don’t think it’s convoluted so much as just plain DUMB. The second sentence flat-out contradicts the first. Ogre wasn’t paying attention.
Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought, but I decided to try to find some logic in it. I have a bad habit of that. I found none.
I don’t see a logical problem here. She’s saying that trans women and ‘cis’ women are subsets of women. Given this premise, then “ what’s the difference between trans women and women?” would be like asking “what’s the difference between strawberry ice cream and ice cream?” There is no difference between strawberry ice cream and ice cream.
The argument might not be sound, though.
Going with the charitable interpretation @4 of set theory, something funny happens in translation to words (if the sequence of words means one thing is contained in another thing):
Sastra: There is no difference between strawberry ice cream and ice cream — because strawberry ice cream is a subset of ice cream. ← Valid.
Ogre: There is no difference between ice cream and strawberry ice cream — because ice cream is a subset of strawberry ice cream. ← Not valid.
I will pass over the inept writing, in order to get at what the ‘logic’ seems to be. And so, I suspect Oger’s intended meaning would be better written as
“This is the difference between between women who are transgender and those who are not (i.e. what we call cisgender women): there is no difference between women and transgender women or between women and cisgender women.”
So, trans women are exactly equal to women, and cis women are exactly equal to women. Which directly means that trans women are exactly equal to cis women. Morgane Oger believes that there is no distinction between trans and cis… which contradicts the whole fucking body of theory put forth by trans activists.
It also contradicts biology. (Trust me on this, I’m an Ecologist).
As I interpret this, she’s saying there is a difference between trans women and cis women, not that they’re the same. They’re both women, but different types of women. It’s not convoluted or contradictory in itself, I think.
Either way, though, she didn’t answer the question being asked, but corrected the way it was put.
Oh, I get it, I think. The first sentence is correcting the way the questioner worded it, and the second purports to be answering the question. In that case fair enough, it’s not contradictory.
It’s just totally wrong!
The way I understand that somewhat terribly worded tweet is that Oger is trying to claim that the difference between ‘cis’women and transwomen is the same as the difference between Sumatran orang utans and Bornean orang utans, both being sub-sets of orangs.
I disagree with Oger and say that the difference between a woman and a transwoman is…..a penis. That, and the feeling that if ‘transwoman’ is a sub-set of anything, it’s a sub-set of man, not woman, being a variation – albeit a psychological variation – on the theme of adult male human.
That, and a certain sense of entitlement that comes with the training in bringing up a male child. In my experience, most male children who exhibited tendencies toward effeminacy were given this treatment in spades in an attempt to make them “man-up”, so their argument that this wasn’t their experience because they felt like girls is irrelevant at least in part. It isn’t what you feel you are, it’s the messages that society is giving you about who you are. I know. I didn’t think I was a stupid ditzy airhead that needed to be pretty and flirt and get ready to have babies, but society regularly gave me that message. Which is why most women lack confidence (even when in high level positions and with zillions of accomplishments) while many men exude it (even in low level positions without many accomplishments).
The trans-women carry this into their transition, making them more suited for making demands on the original members of the new gender than trans-men are.