Whose dignity?
Zoe Williams at the Guardian tries to rebuke Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for not having approved opinions:
Five years ago, the writer said in an interview: “When people talk about, ‘Are trans women women?’ my feeling is trans women are trans women.” She has written extensively about the fire she came under after that.
…
This is the driving logic of her fear for free speech: that she can’t say biological sex is inalienable without sparking a storm. “So somebody who looks like my brother – he says, ‘I’m a woman’, and walks into the women’s bathroom, and a woman goes, ‘You’re not supposed to be here’, and she’s transphobic?” We break briefly so I can look at a photo of her brother, who is smiling, tall, bearded and handsome. He’s actually on this trip with her; she has five siblings in all, two sisters, three brothers, all very close. I suggest that he would look different if he were living as a woman.
Oh well that’s all right then. The beard is gone and he’s wearing lipstick so it’s fine for him to barge into the women’s toilets.
“But that’s the thing,” she says. “You can look however you want now and say you’re a woman.” And, she adds, anyone who might take issue with this is “outdated” and needs “to have the young people educate [them]”. I suspect she’s taking an argument – that trans people don’t want to be policed for how they dress and what stage of transition they’re at – and reducing it to the absurd.
No, she’s not reducing it to the absurd; it is absurd. It’s already absurd, without any help from Adichie. It’s absurd that people think they can change sex, and that men are women if they say they are. The whole ideology is completely absurd.
I suspect she’s taking an argument – that trans people don’t want to be policed for how they dress and what stage of transition they’re at – and reducing it to the absurd. So I tack another way: “Imagine your brother did want to live as a woman. You would support his endeavour with love, right? You’d probably think treating him with dignity and respect was more important than where he went to the toilet?”
“But why is that?” she asks. “Why can’t they be equal parts of the conversation?”
“Maybe because dignity is more important?”
Whose dignity??? Whose motherfucking dignity? Why is it always the “dignity” of men who claim to be women that’s under anxious protection in these conversations, while the “dignity” of women is summarily thrown out the window? Why is Zoe Williams so eager to see women forced to share toilets with men?
“Not if you consider women’s views to be valid. This is what baffles me. Are there no such things as objective truth and facts?”
I’m not having that. “You couldn’t objectively say, ‘All women are threatened by trans women.’ I’m also a woman. That doesn’t reflect my experience.”
Oh, she’s not having it. Isn’t she the feisty one. But the objective truth and facts aspect is about the objective truth and fact that men are not women. That’s it. Men are not women, therefore the two facts that men are stronger than women and that some men will assault or molest women if given the opportunity are relevant to the whole conversation about women’s right to say no to men.
“No, of course not. And it would not reflect the experience of many people. I think that’s different from saying, ‘Women’s rights are threatened by trans rights.’”
I think the opposite is true – and since I’m in the oppressed category whose rights she’s wanting to protect, I think we have to file the matter under, at best, not-yet-settled. Then we drop it since, realistically, we could fight about this all day and she has a flight to catch.
Williams thinks the opposite is true – so she thinks trans rights are threatened by women’s rights? That’s certainly an interesting take. It’s probably not what she meant, she probably meant women’s rights are not threatened by trans rights, but that’s almost as stupid and abject. All these years, and I still find people like her astounding.
No, I wouldn’t. That answer applies equally to both questions. It is precisely because I love him that I wouldn’t support the “endeavor”. It’s precisely because I value dignity and respect that his using the female restroom would be unacceptable.
I. Mean. Seriously.
“Dignity” is a very Catholic thing, “dignity of life” for suffering terminal patients, and “dignity of life” for the unborn. It’s superior to anything else. Protect dignity first, women come after that.
Mike H., that’s because women don’t have dignity. Women do things like bleed once a month, and push great big heads out through tiny little orifices. That’s about as undignified as it gets, right?
The whole gist of the argument hinges on one thing, and one thing only: trans women are women, or trans women are men. Once we get that straight, the rest will make sense. Men do not belong in women’s spaces. I suspect most of the trans activists would agree with that in theory. The problem is, they will not admit that trans women are not women, so they can feel they are upholding both sides of the argument. “No, we don’t want men in women’s spaces, but since trans women are women, what’s the problem?”
We on the other hand say “No, we don’t want men in women’s spaces, and trans women are men, so why do you insist on accepting them in women’s spaces?”
And what about policies like the one where I work? No matter what bathroom someone is, no matter how broad the shoulders or how long the beard, you are to assume that they are where they belong and not question them. Questioning trans dogma can lead to severe penalties. So her “reduction to the absurd” could be called “reduction to the lived reality of many of us”. They’re so keen on “lived reality”, why won’t they acknowledge that women also have a lived reality?
Also, they are so eager to say that we don’t speak for them, they are not afraid of trans-women. But they are also eager to speak for us, to go from that to “no woman should feel afraid of trans-women”. Can’t have it both ways, at least until they get the laws on their side…or coopt enough agencies they might as well have the law on their side.
Oh good point, Mike. I did cringe slightly at “dignity” but didn’t think of the churchy angle. The whole trans thing seems to bring out buried piety in people – I think that’s what I cringed at. So much dopy rhetoric of that kind, dopy and quasi-religious. Blegh.
Even if you did concede that trans-women are women you still have the problem that it is impossible to tell apart the “genuine” TWs from predatory men who are gaming the system. This is something that the TRA side seems unable or unwilling to understand. Instead they accuse the GC side of labelling all trans people as predators.
Aha, a near-admission that ‘living as’ a woman means putting on a costume. And also not necessarily true.
A friend of mine is heavily involved in Adelaide’s gay and lesbian night life (despite being straight), and has been a supporter of trans people since before it was politically convenient to him. He will readily take anyone’s adopted name and pronouns as gospel, shuns ‘deadnaming’ as assiduously as possible. Despite this eager support of the trans cause, he sometimes complains to me about some of the trans women he has met demanding to be spoken of as if a woman, while making no attempt to change their appearance or even shave their beard off.
So no, it ain’t necessarily so Zoe.
And of course there remains the point that looking like X usually is not taken to mean you are a genuine X. Try it with a police impersonation and find out.
I wonder if she knows that women are also resentful of having their clothing and styling policed. She breezes right past the possibility, arguing instead that womanhood is an appearance, so I’m guessing she does not know… despite being a woman.
And yet if this is pointed out to her, I suspect she will bristle at the suggestion she does not know this while continuing to argue that there is such a thing as a woman mode of dressing and styling.
Why is it considered dignified to humour someone’s pretence? Seeing adults tiptoe around the hair-trigger temper of a person in womanface, pretending not to see that the obvious man is a man… seems to be more akin to farce than dignity.
And dignified or not, I would suggest that the privacy of the women in those spaces is more important than indulging the man. Somehow this point never occurs to the trans advocate.
I think they understand it quite well. They can’t afford to concede this point because TiMs are just men pretending to be women. Whether or not any of them are “predators” is beside the point. They’re forcing themselves into women’s spaces, they’re doing their damnedest to cross women’s boundaries. That makes them suspect.That makes them a risk even if they’re not providing cover to “cis” predators who are gaming the system. The TiMs are gaming it too. They are raising red flags all on their own, even if they’re “harmless.”
Take “Lia” Thomas. Forget the medals for a moment; they’re an insult, to be sure, as are the spots and awards taken from the women he cheated. Even if he’d lost every race, and never made it to the podium, there was still injury. He didn’t have to assault any of his teammates to constitute a threat. His mere presence in the change room did that. It was an affront and a violation of the women forced to share their space with him. Not just offensive, but an offense. In any other circumstances he would have been arrested. On his own, he couldn’t have gotten away with it. But Thomas had help. All of the university administrators, coaches, sporting bodies and regulatory commissions, all the lawyers and activists, aided and abetted his crime. Together they created a new triathlon; Men’s Gaslighting, Exposure, and Voyeurism. It’s already an Olympic Demonstration Sport. Women are already participating, but always unwillingly, and with no medals awarded.
Women have suffered and will suffer at the hands of men taking advantage of TiMs steadfast refusal to admit, let alone discuss women’s legitimate concerns for their safety. This refusal means that they consider this an acceptable tradeoff. And that makes TiM’s demands a danger to women, however “harmless” they claim to be.