The Witch Trials, anyone else?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

31 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Again, please read this in order to learn how you've been grifted to hate Trans:

https://www.rawstory.com/how-far-right-activists-secretly-devised-a-brutal-anti-trans-plan-report/

BTW -- hey Everybody! The reason for gender separate lavatories in public spaces in the first place is there were no lavatories/cloak rooms for women at all, because women were not there: in government, in offices, etc.

When women arrived in these spaces, men were NOT about to share lavatories with women.

There are continuing issues and problems with this in both, for example, parliament and Congress.

Who, in this thread, has said or implied they “hate Trans”?

[Phylum of Alexandria]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

As said above, I just don't buy this.  At the risk of being called a misogynist again, I really don't understand this fear.  If you are a creepy enough dude that you are doing this type of shit in a women's bathroom, you have already violated all social norms or taboos - let alone laws.  How is that not clear?

I dunno, I think of the creepy men on crowded Japanese trains, either trying to rub up on women, grope them, or slyly take photos under their skirts. This type of creepiness was only made possible by the extremely crowded nature of Tokyo trains, but the creeps used whatever plausible cover they had to make the transgression. The problem was eventually addressed by introducing women-only train options.

I'm not saying it's guaranteed to happen, but the idea that some portion of creepy men are kept at bay by normative taboos is not insane.

Edited April 18 by Phylum of Alexandria

[Larry of the Lawn]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Who, in this thread, has said or implied they “hate Trans”?

 Did you read the link?

[DMC]

20 minutes ago, karaddin said:

It is so fucking soul destroying to see the umpteenth iteration of an argument with more and more people teetering away from supporting you primarily because the argument has become increasingly toxic and that association gets attached to you, even though 99% of the people involved aren't even trans. 

So sorry you had to read this dribble.  I really do think what I said in my first post - history will judge those accordingly.  Not a big fan of Gen Z generally, but they at least get this one right.  With civil rights it took a president getting shot in the head, so, I don't think that will be replicated.  Or at least I hope not.  But with gay rights it was just normalizing, and in that way it's happening now.  The shift in American public opinion on gay marriage over the aughts was extraordinary in both how quickly it happened and how many shifted.  In that way, I do think there's good reason to be hopeful.

[Week]

"Now all people are treated equally to only unisex bathrooms (good luck with the trough at Fenway park) because we're too lazy to fight for equal rights and acknowledge transgender people as they see themselves. It's just simpler that way for us to do this end around for transgender people. It'll work out great. Obviously there will be no resentment like for bike lanes, press 2 for Spanish, or any other accomodation for inclusivity that is tarred as "woke bullshit"."

[Zorral]

39 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

I dunno, I think of the creepy men on crowded Japanese trains, either trying to rub up on women, grope them, or slyly take photos under their skirts. This type of creepiness was only made possible by the extremely crowded nature of Tokyo trains, but the creeps used whatever plausible cover they had to make the transgression. The problem was eventually addressed by introducing women-only train options.

I'm not saying it's guaranteed to happen, but the idea that some portion of creepy men are kept at bay by normative taboos is not insane.

wtff has this to do with the people who have trans or are transing to the gender etc., they feel comfortable with?

This thing you invoke is about fracking icky horrible cis MEN.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

27 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

 Did you read the link?

No.  But I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone posting in this thread who has said or implied that they hate Trans… 

[TrackerNeil]

4 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Finally I don't see how bringing folks like Rowling is going to actually help move anything forward. At least in the US this is about as partisan as you can get. Who is going to agree to move over here? On the one side you have people saying that trans women are women; on the other side you have people saying trans women are pedophile groomers. 

I read this a few hours ago, and I've been mulling over how to respond. 

First, I don't much care what Rowling thinks on this issue, nor do I have any intention to "bring her over." She gets to have her opinion, whether or not I approve. I think the vitriol directed at Rowling is frankly unhinged, but people can spend their emotional energy any way they like.

What really catches my eye about your comment is this Manichean choice, that you either believe that trans women are women, with all that entails, or else you're a raging bigot. I think most Americans' views on transgender issues just don't fit neatly into that model, and the polls I have seen reinforce this belief. (Polls can be wrong, of course, but I'd rather rely on them than on anecdata, or the stuff you can find on Twitter.) 

What these polls tell me is that Americans' views on transgender issues are complex. It seems Americans think trans people should be able to hold jobs and find housing, but are more reluctant when it comes to access to sex-segregrated facilities and sports. And that makes sense, because those are areas in which "trans women are women" becomes more tricky. Your statement seems to indicate that there is no room to be uncertain on these issues; you either accept everything or you might as well accept nothing. That just doesn't make sense to me, not rationally and not in terms of public policy. Maybe these opinions will move towards your stance as time goes on, although that Pew poll seems to find the opposite, in at least one way.

Despite what some have said, I think this issue is difficult, because it strikes at what many hold to be fundamental ideas of propriety and fairness in a way the gay rights movement just didn't. "Trans women are women" makes a good bumper sticker, but I don't think it maps well to real life, which needs more nuance than just four words can provide.

Edited April 18 by TrackerNeil

[Phylum of Alexandria]

6 minutes ago, Zorral said:

wtff has this to do with the people who have trans or are transing to the gender etc., they feel comfortable with?

This thing you invoke is about fracking icky horrible cis MEN.

It doesn't really have to do with trans people; it's more about the issue  that was mentioned of normal public bathrooms made into unisex or having relaxed standards vs having more updated private individualized spaces to prevent creepy guys from being creeps.

[Raja]

25 minutes ago, DMC said:

So sorry you had to read this dribble.  I really do think what I said in my first post - history will judge those accordingly. 

Agreed.

[Tywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Despite what some have said, I think this issue is difficult, because it strikes at what many hold to be fundamental ideas of propriety and fairness in a way the gay rights movement just didn't. "Trans women are women" makes a good bumper sticker, but I don't think it maps well to real life, which need more nuance than just four words can provide.

It is difficult and does require nuance. However, often times (not so much here) people then use that as an excuse to not even try to understand it. At least in my travels that's what I've experienced. 

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I read this a few hours ago, and I've been mulling over how to respond. 

First, I don't much care what Rowling thinks on this issue, nor do I have any intention to "bring her over." She gets to have her opinion, whether or not I approve. I think the vitriol directed at Rowling is frankly unhinged, but people can spend their emotional energy any way they like.

What really catches my eye about your comment is this Manichean choice, that you either believe that trans women are women, with all that entails, or else you're a raging bigot. I think most Americans' views on transgender issues just don't fit neatly into that model, and the polls I have seen reinforce this belief. (Polls can be wrong, of course, but I'd rather rely on them than on anecdata, or the stuff you can find on Twitter.) 

What these polls tell me is that Americans' view on transgender issues are complex. It seems Americans think trans people should be able to hold jobs, find housing, but are more reluctant when it comes to access to sex-segregrated facilities and sports. And that makes sense, because those are areas in which "trans women are women" becomes more tricky. Your statement seems to indicate that there is no room to be uncertain on these issues; you either accept everything or you might as well accept nothing. That just doesn't make sense to me, not rationally and not in terms of public policy. Maybe these opinions will move towards your stance as time goes on, although that Pew poll seems to find the opposite, in at least one way.

Despite what some have said, I think this issue is difficult, because it strikes at what many hold to be fundamental ideas of propriety and fairness in a way the gay rights movement just didn't. "Trans women are women" makes a good bumper sticker, but I don't think it maps well to real life, which need more nuance than just four words can provide.

Looking at the poll breakdowns I don't see how "nuanced" follows. It is as I said - massively, exceedingly partisan. As a whole the US is split evenly, but that breaks down almost perfectly along party lines.

So while you're somewhat right that there are some people who are undecided, the vast majority of people fall into the camps of what I said. Which neatly also explains why anti-trans legislation has been so successful despite supposed ambivalence- because it is largely united in the places that are red states.

And none of that really matters anyway! How many people in 2000 thought gay people should be able to marry? How many people in the 1950s were against segregation? The idea that because US views are divided means that people aren't bigoted or are just nuanced is an obvious fallacy. It means that it's more likely that we will see more discrimination, hate and attacks against them - but it doesn't mean that it's accurate or reasonable.

[karaddin]

Trans women are women maps perfectly fine to real life until a bunch of people cynically use us as a political wedge. My being trans makes no difference (relative to if I was a cis woman) to literally anyone in my life, even including my wife. 

Policing bathrooms doesn't make cis women safer, it results in an awful lot of trans women just withdrawing from public life... Which is pretty much what I've done. Instead you get women harassing other cis women believing them to be trans, and in plenty of cases it's actually just men doing the judgement and harassment instead. There aren't enough trans people to actually "flesh out" the paranoia, so it just hurts other women instead.

Policing sport is once again not justified by the miniscule number of trans people even trying to be involved, and isn't even consistent unless you start applying the same tests to all women and excluding those who just happen to be genetically blessed. 

Prisons? If you're looking to protect women inmates your best starting point would be looking at the guards, there is more of a conversation to be had there but I think much like the sport situation simply lumping is into a single basket and excluding us is not logically consistent or reasonable.

None of this would even be high profile issues without the political theatre though.

[Conflicting Thought]

new cotrapoints video essay about the witch trials of j.k rowling

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmT0i0xG6zg

[TrackerNeil]

16 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

So while you're somewhat right that there are some people who are undecided, the vast majority of people fall into the camps of what I said. Which neatly also explains why anti-trans legislation has been so successful despite supposed ambivalence- because it is largely united in the places that are red states.

So let me ask...what evidence would change your mind?

[Kalbear]

8 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

So let me ask...what evidence would change your mind?

On what - that most people's ideas on transgender rights are not partisan? Despite your polls breaking it down neatly that way?

Probably the easiest experiment would be to show me red states with advanced trans rights or blue states with heavy anti-trans laws. Or show me laws in place where they defend trans right to work but emphatically do not give trans people gender equality. Those seem reasonable. 

There was a study a while back that showed how simply having a conversation around trans people could make people convinced to not be bigoted. It was pretty cool! But it also was done when trans issues were not a hot button topic and most people hadn't formed an opinion - and more importantly it hadn't been associated with their identified political view. Now that it has? Good luck with that.

What about you? Despite the polls you linked showing that the issue is overwhelmingly partisan, what evidence would you need to show you that the divide on this is heavily partisan and not particularly based on any kind of a spectrum?

[DMC]

I think one way to explain this conflict is what I mentioned in my first post in this thread.  Piers Morgan all of a sudden became concerned about NCAA women's swimming.  Why do you think that is?  All of sudden there's plenty of people concerned about public bathrooms as if it's been an endemic societal problem.  Why do you think that is?  These are very obviously not issues that would warrant national attention otherwise. 

Are there certain complicated issues involving trans people that warrant debate?  Sure.  But it's very obvious why certain ones are being amplified and the people that are amplifying them.  And this IS a problem.  Even if you don't care about the wave anti-trans bills that are being passed across red-state legislatures, I would think most here would care about the marked increase in violence towards trans people.  Or at least I'd hope so.

[Kalbear]

I do also appreciate that the response to the problem of "women legitimately are afraid of men in places" is not to question why we suck so bad at educating, policing and dealing with men being horrible and is instead focused on making sure that they aren't too tempted to rub their crotches on people. And we do that by denying other people their rights.

Somewhere, Bakker is furiously masturbating while yelling TRUTH SHINES

Edited April 18 by Kalnestk Oblast

[kiko]

7 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

JK Rowling is not being attacked by people because of academic theory. She's being attacked because she believes that a woman is defined entirely by genitals at birth and that also connotes certain rights and privileges that should not be shared by trans women.

Just going from what has been said and quoted in this thread, it might be that you are misrepresenting her on this one. She seems to be fine with women who have the right set of genitals at this point. For me that sounds more that she has a more narrow definition of transness than what should be consensus. This would also fit in with the other quote I know from her about people that menstruate.

[Heartofice]

I think it’s pretty obvious there are some genuinely transphobic bigoted bad actors with big platforms. I’d certainly put Matt Walsh and Posie Parker in that category. I find them to be mostly abhorrent and definitely have no real interest in reaching a middle position.

Rowling I don’t think is anything like that. She seems to have genuine love for trans people, but she is a hardcore feminist and has concerns about men abusing the system and attacking women. Personally this is something I don’t get, I’m not a woman so it seems a little irrational and from my perspective things like bathrooms are such edge cases that putting this level of energy into it is bizarre. 
 

I suspect however she has been entrenched into defending a position by all the attacks on her and having so much bad faith thrown at her means she’s less inclined to roll back. 
 

Having said that, what I think seems to get missed is that we’ve seen a big and rapid change in thinking on trans rights in the last few decades. 
 

For most of my life the prevailing thought was that trans people were those who suffered from gender dysphoria, as in being uncomfortable in their physical body and feeling like their gender identity doesn’t match their physical sex. Therefore through a period of medical supervision they were treated to allow them to be more comfortable. Sexual reassignment surgery might be a treatment for this as well as therapy. 
 

Then things changed, and I’m sure changed for good intentions but come with unintended consequences. Obviously to make things easier for trans people the burden of ‘changing sex’ was reduced, and the concept of self identification became the norm. Then to make trans people feel more comfortable it became that we should consider that trans people are literally the sex that they wish to present as. 
 

All done for good reasons but this is pretty much the core of the issue IMO. Rowling isn’t scared of trans people, she is scared of men who can one day self identify as a woman and get into women’s spaces.  She doesn’t agree that we need to say that a man who suddenly says he is a woman IS a woman. She wants safeguards  and checks and isn’t on board with the new way of thinking.

Almost all of the contentious points around trans rights centre on the conflict between self id and declaring that trans people are sex they identify as. Whether it’s safe spaces or women’s sports, it’s based on the problem that lack of safeguards and political ideology lead to men being able to abuse the system and gain advantage.

Yes personally I think it’s a minor issue, and not worth the news copy, but the pushback on anyone pointing out the flaws of  self ID is also way out of proportion, and much of the thinking around gender ideology is not based on any hard facts, it’s a system of beliefs that you have to adhere to. 
 

I’m more concerned about the staggering increase in young girls identifying as trans and being given surgery at a point in life where they are going through many changes and might have emotional issues. As a father this is something I would be very worried about. 
 

I don’t think it’s at all possible to have a reasoned debate on the issue though, there is too much entrenchment on both sides to really get anywhere.

Edited April 18 by Heartofice