Guest post: What do you mean by ”exclusionary”?
Originally a comment by maddog on What makes them experts?
“The judgment does not remove the legal protections trans people currently enjoy under the Equality Act,” the experts said. “But it may be used to justify exclusionary policies that further stigmatise and marginalise an already vulnerable population, as well as human rights defenders working to protect and promote transgender rights.
So much to unpack here!
The judgment “may be used to justify exclusionary policies . . . .”
What do you mean by ”exclusionary”? Who gets to say what policies are ”exclusionary”? You imply a universal pejorative to the word ”exclusionary,” as if ”exclusion” is always bad. Is that really true? I mean, if you classify or categorize anything, you are making decisions or selections — i.e., discriminating — between what things are “in” a category (included), and what things are “out” (excluded).
Human beings routinely make such decisions dozens or hundreds of times a day, if not more. We decide whether something “is” or “isn’t” what we think it is, All. The. Time. We have to, or we’d be dead. Neither “discrimination” nor “exclusion” is inherently bad; they are essential for our survival.
So, “exclusionary” in this context means “excluding men (the sex that women are not) from the spaces, facilities, resources, opportunities, offices, competitions, etc. that are specifically set aside for women (the sex that women actually are).” In that case, where divisions are based upon actual sex, it is necessary to “exclude” men from anything afforded to women as a sex class. “Men” are the other sex from “women.” The word “women” necessarily excludes “men.” Everyone used to know this. It is mind-blowing how many people, who I used to think were intelligent and kind, have expunged these facts from their memories. Like 1984’s doublespeak and doublethink, T dogma has managed to destroy many people’s mental access to what was formerly “knowledge;” the erasure is astonishingly and chillingly complete. The whole reason for “women’s” anything is that women — because of their sex — have historically been systematically excluded from full rights of participation in society. You want to talk about “exclusionary policies”? That’s your exclusionary policy right there. Women have been “excluded” from most rights in most places for most of history. Women’s sex-based rights are relatively recent “INclusionary policies,” to allow women to finally have some say in civic life. Then along comes T and destroys what little women have (grudgingly) won for themselves.
The judgment “may be used to justify exclusionary policies that further stigmatise and marginalise an already vulnerable population . . . .” Really? ”Stigmatize” how? “Marginalize” how? ” Vulnerable” in what way? The men who call themselves “trans women,” are kings of the roost as far as I can tell. They and all their sycophantic allies and enforcers have had almost everything their own way for a decade or more. The rapidity and completeness with which T has captured all major social institutions puts the lie to any claims of “vulnerability” or “marginalization.” Any group that can snap their fingers and get police — the State — to punish people for a sticker that says, “Woman = adult human female” or for photographing a suffragette ribbon, is neither vulnerable nor marginalized.
I don’t see anything to the claim of “stigma,” either. Trans women (men) have been so aggressive and bullying and public and “out there,” that there’s nothing new or surprising about seeing guys in frocks running in packs with their black pampers enforcers. The institutional capture has been so successful for so long that there’s no particular stigma in being a trans woman per se. However, when all these trans identified males keep bullying, terrorizing, and attacking women, there’s a certain stigma attached to being a sexual pervert. If the men (trans women) stuck to using men’s facilities instead of insistently invading women’s spaces, the stigma of sexual perversion would be minimized. Win-win. Women get their own spaces, and trans identified men reduce stigma against themselves.
As to “human rights defenders working to protect and promote transgender rights,” those people are not being ”excluded”; afaict, those people aren’t stigmatized or marginalized or vulnerable in any way. They are just an army of misogynistic bullies who like to stick it to women.
As to what the T army of “human rights defenders,” who are “working to protect transgender rights,” are really advocating for, are not human rights at all. There’s no such thing as a “human right” to lie about your sex, and to falsify government and medical records.
The entire T enterprise is a lie founded upon lies. Human beings cannot change their sex. It’s a monstrous lie to say that men can be women. The T movement is a men’s rights movement, meant to terrorize and punish women, with the added bonus of public adulation for doing so.
So, yeah, you’ve got entirely the wrong people being unfairly “excluded,” or “stigmatized,” or “marginalized,” or “vulnerable.” As always, the real victims are women.
I wonder how many transactivists would like to have “inclusive” bank accounts, where anyone dressing up to look vaguely like them, and “identifying” as them is given access to their funds. Would they join in the chorus of people “identifying” as them, demanding that any tellers asking for actual proof or documentation before handing out cash, be fired for attempting to do their jobs? How secure would the activists feel leaving their savings in such an institution?
See also: people idennifying as your parent or sibling, your boss or employee, your doctor or dennist, your pilot or bus driver, your spouse or child, your best friend, your cousin, your other best friend…the list is long.
And transactivism demands that, unlike every other “identity” on this near-infinite list of unacceptable imposters, we’re suppose to give “men identifying as women” a pass. We’re expected to drop our guard and celebrate the men storming this loophole.
My compact car identifies as a cement mixer; I demand that I be paid for cement mixing contracts.
It’s strange to realize that the people making the most honest argument are the incels and explicit misogynists railing against women having any special spaces or accommodations at all. No Women of the Year awards, no women’s sports, no single-sex anything — it should all be unisex and merit-based and if that means women never win another trophy or stay away from the bathrooms well it sucks to be inferior, doesn’t it?
That’s clear. We can at least meet that point of view head on. The men who are pretending they’re not men are simultaneously advancing the position We-Hate-Women’s-Exclusive-Spaces and We-Love-Women’s-Exclusive-Spaces. That one takes sorting out.
You know, I’ve been trying to figure out what this phrase reminds me of and I think I’ve got it. What vulnerable population is stigmatized and marginalized?
Years ago there was a movement to mainstream Special Ed kids into standard classrooms. Children with Down’s Syndrome, autism, learning disabilities, physical impairments, and emotional and behavioral disorders are certainly a vulnerable population. It would also be fair to say that other children (and even adults) tend to stigmatize them, marginalizing them to other rooms, activities, and ceremonies. Excluding this group from the “normal” aspects of schooling was sometimes cruel — though sometimes reasonable and sometimes necessary. My understanding is that this movement therefore had its successes and failures.
Is identifying as transgender supposed to be like being a child who’s blind or has cerebral palsy? They seem to want to invoke similar feelings of pity, concern, and protectiveness. If so, that’s yet another group appropriated.
Sastra, calling them a ‘vulnerable population’ is supposed to invoke an emotional response but I don’t think it has anything to do with special needs kids.They’re playing to a liberal audience and liberals tend to be concerned about the environment. As such they will be familiar with hearing about vulnerable populations in relation to species under threat of extinction. I believe that that is the connection we are supposed to be making, if only subconsciously, and for the reasons you stated – to invoke feelings of pity, concern, and protectiveness.
@AofS #6;
Yes, that’s probably one of the images invoked, but we usually don’t think “stigma” when it comes to protecting the environment.
An analogy with Special Needs Kids might also help explain the curious exaggerated yet unmerited praise many women bestow on TIMs: “You look WONDERFUL — that’s sooo becoming —- good job, what a really really good job!”
Sastra, I expect that’s there, and that the activists may be aware of it. It’s also, and primarily, IMO, to tie the movement together with gay rights, and with anti-racism. Those are the images they seem to invoke more frequently, especially the issue of racism. Stating that ‘TERFs’ are racists and Nazis is meant to tie them with the BIPOC populations and with the gay/lesbian populations who were so brutally oppressed and in many cases, jailed and/or killed.
There have probably been a number of deaths of disabled children due to the way they have been stigmatized, and some cultures (probably including some in our own in the past) who exposed these children, leaving them to die. But the lynchings and beatings and other ways (legal and illegal) in which people of color and people of a different sexual orientation have been prlonged, and in many cases, very public.
Indeed. It’s more forced teaming, and a way to appropriate some kind of history and back story to support the claim that “Trans people have always been here!” Gender-non conforming? Certainly. “trans”, in the modern sense of the putative “born into the wrong body” sense? Certainly not.
The opportunistic grafting of the”T” onto the Gay Rights and Civil Rights movements gives this instant, ersatz LGBTQIAetc. “community” a greater presence in time than it actually has. By way of the “community”, trans activism gets to acquirRailing against “White, Colonial, cisheteronormative patriarchy” (as if TiMs were not mostly heterosexual, White, males), gives them a magical get out of jail free card that’s supposed to exclude them from being counted amongst the Officially Approved “Baddies.” “We are harmless and innocent because we have told you so. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along.” Their “marginalization” and “vulnerability” is shamelssly stolen from the other members of their cobbled together community, since in the current culture, transactivists are more likely to be the perpetrators of oppression rather than its victims.