From an international human rights perspective
Via quixote in a comment, Alessandra Asteriti on the very material reasons women need legal protections:
Selective abortions and female infanticide. There are an estimated 126 million missing women in the world (United Nations Population Fund). Trans women do not suffer this form of discrimination. (2/n)
— Alessandra Asteriti (@AlessandraAster) March 29, 2019
'Child Brides'. There are an estimated 650 million women who married when they were children (Girls Not Brides). Trans women do not suffer this form of discrimination. (4/n)
— Alessandra Asteriti (@AlessandraAster) March 29, 2019
Pregnancy discrimination. 11% of women are dismissed from work and 20% are harassed because of pregnancy status (Equality and Human Rights Commission). UK is one of the 'good countries'. Trans women do not suffer this form of discrimination. (6/n)
— Alessandra Asteriti (@AlessandraAster) March 29, 2019
Let’s pause there. An estimated 830 women a day die in childbirth. Is that cis privilege?
Gender Pay Gap. In the EU, again, one of the best places in the world for women, current gender pay gap is 16% (Eurostat). Trans women do not suffer this form of discrimination. (8/n)
— Alessandra Asteriti (@AlessandraAster) March 29, 2019
I could add a lot more, domestic violence, period poverty, sexual slavery. You get the point. A lot of discrimination against women is designed around our body, our biology, our reproductive role. It is not about some magical gender essence. Fin (9/9)
— Alessandra Asteriti (@AlessandraAster) March 29, 2019
Meanwhile “activists” like Rachel McKinnon concentrate all their venom and rage on women, as if their discomfort with being male were our fault. When are trans women going to be told to be more intersectional?
It’s almost as if sexual discrimination is handed out on the basis of sex. Who knew!
I remember one time when PZ was lecturing a woman writer about cis privilege. The author in question was writing about ovarian cancer. Yeah, so privileged. She was making the more than obvious point that this is not something that non-women get, and therefore women’s health is the appropriate term. Apparently we are privileged in that we can get ovarian cancer when trans women can’t. And men can’t, but his point is that men can – trans men.
iknklast, speaking of ovarian cancer and PZ, one of his mob, Crip Dyke, came out with a glorious word salad to explain why transwomen do so need women’s health services (in response to latsot, I think). Cutting through the waffle, CD stated that trans women (note the division of ‘transwomen’) are f-t-m women who are somewhere on the journey to transitioning to men, and therefore may still require access to women’s health services.
So, a trans woman is a woman with a woman’s body until her transition (whether surgical or psychological), when she becomes a transman with a male body. That, of course, flies in the face of the current orthodoxy (dogma?) that a trans-x’s body is and always has been an x body in all respects, and therefore has never been a y body. Oddly, CD didn’t quite get around to explaining why and when a transwoman might require access to women’s health services, or whether a ‘fully transitioned’ transman no longer has need of such services.
I always thought it good policy to decide on one’s terms, phraseology, etc. before making one’s claims, but I’m starting to get the impression that these people are making shit up on the fly, and the ‘NO DEBATE’ command is a ruse to disguise that fact. Tell me it ain’t so.
AoS, and that’s being disingenuous, anyway. They always claim this thing about “men [meaning trans women] need access to women’s services”. But when you look at what the real demanding is, it’s nearly always for trans men [real women, goddamit] to have access to women’s services…women only spaces. The women [us] who are TERFs [us] aren’t usually complaining about the female bodied people having access to women’s spaces, women’s sports, etc; the women [us] who are TERFs [us] are suspicious of having male-bodied people invade women only spaces, because, well, male bodies in women’s spaces are a problem. That’s why we have women’s spaces.
But if they can turn it around and pretend the women [us] who are TERFs [us] are saying something else, it makes us look just oh so much more awful. But it defeats their argument, as you just noted, because it is acknowledging that f-t-m people aren’t really male people with male bodies, they are people calling themselves male people with female bodies. Which means, the m-t-f might also have to admit that they are not really female people with female bodies, they are male people calling themselves female people and claiming to have female bodies.
Wow. It’s enough to make one’s head hurt. I’ve read new agers who aren’t so convoluted.
If you’re confused, iknklast, spare a thought for the gender-fluid: biologically female yesterday, biologically male today, back to female tomorrow. What if they’re part-way through undressing for a swim and their gender suddenly switches? Get dressed, go to the other changing room (the ideal place for a spontaneous switch of gender, I suppose) and carry on. Or, making love as a hetersexual, gender flips and, whoops, I hope the partner doesn’t mind a same-sex romp. Pregnant woman one minute, pot-bellied bloke the next…..
I’m overthinking, aren’t I? :-))
You know, AoS, I once switched from being a lemur to an otter practically instantaneously. It was really confusing, because I was in a tree at the time, and otters don’t really like being in trees.
I was once looking at a globe and suddenly transitioned into a fly. It was terrifying; I thought I was flying way too high.
A bearded woman in the locker room might bother me, esp. linitially, and I would object to a testosterone-enhanced woman competing in female sport.