This week: the Nobel-winning psychology of why you've never once won an argument about trans people, and never will. Featuring Daniel Kahneman, Richard Dawkins, and the man down the flat-roof
The irony here is in the fact that on our second date, Andie and I bonded over having both recently read The God Delusion, and cited it as a pivotal work in our like minded observations on organized religion. I think the most powerful take away I will get from this post is the driving analogy - we accept there is risk but are willing to trust everyone does not cross the painted line. People who object to trans women in women’s bathrooms need to trust that the trans women are no more likely to inflict harm than biological women. We go into public spaces with people of all genders every day and we accept that we are at risk of being attacked by someone, yet we move past that. Bathrooms, pronouns, passports are no different.
"In one narrow biological sense, the sentence is true. I wasn’t born female. I don’t produce ova. I can’t become the kind of woman my mother is."
I think this is a really important sentence. It's something very rarely admitted by those arguing for complete trans inclusion but with out it they are arguing straight past the feminist PoV.
I'm broadly supportive of the TERF position but I think this article is the best argument against it I've seen.
Thing is, there are compromises that achieve dignity and safety for both trans people and women but they are a complex question that requires listening and compromise.
There's a reason we use 'cis' and 'trans', so I'm very confused by the claim that we don't admit that there are differences between trans and cis women. I guess this is why using cis gets such a hugely negative reaction?
I don't know who 'we' is in this context but my experience of the public policy debate in the UK is an awful lot of repeating 'Trans women are women' (or similar) from organisations speaking for (over?) trans people and not a lot of discussion of the genuine complexities in (for example) women's sports or women's prisons.
The upshot of this has been a ton of negative publicity and a series of lost legal cases that have left trans people upset, worried and a punching bag for the far right.
Years ago there was scope to listen to the feminists who've won these legal challenges and to address their concerns. Now everyone seems to be dug in for a war and trans people are stuck in the middle of it.
Trans women are women- the point of that statement is that not all humans born female are women, and not all women are born female. It's a problem because 99% are both, but people really want that to be 100%- and that just denies that anyone is trans.
I'm open to anyone willing to discuss the complexities of women's sports or women's prisons, but 9 times out of 10 when I try it ends up in a "I don't care if they've gone through a female puberty and not a male one" for sports and "I don't care about trans women getting raped in prison, that's a problem for men" for prisons.
So legitimate concerns sure, but it's hard to find people who aren't just looking to eliminate trans women full stop in practice.
"Trans women are women- the point of that statement is that not all humans born female are women, and not all women are born female. It's a problem because 99% are both, but people really want that to be 100%- and that just denies that anyone is trans."
If that's your argument you need to find a way to prove to the general population that trans women are litterally women. Most people's definition of women (adult females) excludes transwomen, so you are just arguing past them.
"I'm open to anyone willing to discuss the complexities of women's sports or women's prisons, but 9 times out of 10 when I try it ends up in a "I don't care if they've gone through a female puberty and not a male one" for sports and "I don't care about trans women getting raped in prison, that's a problem for men" for prisons."
You need to understand their argment. These women (the ones who've been so successful in altering the UK legal position) have been fighting for women's rights for decades. Telling them they need to give up some of those rights because trans women might be unsafe isn't going to work because they see males as the oppressor class they are fighting against.
"So legitimate concerns sure, but it's hard to find people who aren't just looking to eliminate trans women full stop in practice."
It's bizarre that you go from 'won't support trans women in women's spaces' to 'want to eliminate trans women. Eliminate as in kill? That kind of silly hyperbole is why the debate is terrible. Comments like that are what's fueling transphobia.
Yes, eliminate. The hard questions go away if trans women are simply not allowed to be anything except men.
And the fact that "you have to care about risks to us but we don't give a fuck about risks to you" is the line of argument you are justifying makes me think that there's no common ground to be found. I care about my safety. If that's a deal breaker for discussion, then we are done here.
"Yes, eliminate. The hard questions go away if trans women are simply not allowed to be anything except men."
What does this mean? How does (for example) not permitting trans women to box against women change whether they are a woman?
"And the fact that "you have to care about risks to us but we don't give a fuck about risks to you" is the line of argument you are justifying makes me think that there's no common ground to be found. I care about my safety. If that's a deal breaker for discussion, then we are done here."
I'm not justifying anything. If you want to persuade a majority to support public policy changes then you have to make a case for it. You brought up the fact that many opponents don't see the safety argument as the silver bullet you seem to. I'm trying to explain why that's the case for feminists.
It's fine to say 'we are done here' when someone doesn't agree, rather than trying to understand the counter-view, but it won't be successful. That was rather the point of my first comment.
It might be less hypocritical to accuse TERFs of constantly sprouting slogans if I hadn’t heard the meaningless phrase “trans women are women” a billion and three times 🙄
"The hard question is this: what is the actual risk of allowing trans women into women’s spaces, weighed against the actual cost of excluding them, in light of the actual evidence?"
I asked about the cost of excluding trans people. Virginia laid out a fairly detailed cascade of that cost. You replied that you saw no cost to women in it. Correct, because that wasn't the question. You've answered a different one and marked your own homework as complete. The cost I asked about is still sitting there, unread.
https://switcheroo.azurewebsites.net/ I built an app today to take your arguments apart. Put yours in and see what it says. It explains how you're effectively providing weak evidence, a coherent claim, but weak evidence. Anyway, it's good fun. Knock yourself out. I built it because I was bored arguing with a few people.
If a service were to exclude trans women and tgerefore men from any reciprocal service then one could say well they just can't use that and indeed in life no one should be entitled. The trans people may simply find another service to use.
The difficulty faced is that by degrees trans people will reach a tipping point where they cannot function in society because of the scarcity of options.
In a rational society any woman should be able to go into a male changing space without risk of objectification, harassment or harm. That unfortunately is not the society I which we live. So when a service says trans women should use male changing spaces they are knowingly putting those trans women at risk. If that is a workplace then denying a trans person access to facilities is denying them work, whicb denies income, which denies food and accommodation. It is a cascade of increasing harm which becomes real though the original risk that a trans woman would harm a woman in a woman's space is unsubstantiated.
The added layer is that some men have developed a pathological hatred for trans women. This is clearly not motivated by any sense that they may be at risk from a teans woman. Consequently trans women need spaces where they can be away from that real threat.
The breakdown in thinking is to start with trans women once looked like men and tried to behave like men out of self preservation I will add, therefore they will always be men, therefore as men harm women trans women are a threat.
The real elephant in the room, which is a taboo notion, is that lesbian women will gravitate to women's single-sex spaces, some lesbian women will objectify other women and may pose a risk. 'May' must be emphasised because it is only on the basis that trans women may pose a risk that this has, on the face of it, come about.
There is however a parallel argument 'trans women are men who are taking away women's hard won rights'. More ask the question what rights are being taken away and be clear to distinguish between rights and privilege.
More often what you will hear is women have a right to a space without men. No, that is a privilege. Many women both cis and trans want that space but it is a privilege.
The final factor I will contribute is mutual respect. Too many people on all sides want their personal space and boundaries respected but are not willing to extend that respect to others. A woman using a single-sex space may legitimately not want her body inspected but to ensure her autonomy demands all others are inspected.
Trans-identified men entering men's bathrooms may be at risk from violence from other men. The numbers. However, are low. But it is far easier for them to defend themselves than it is for a woman to fight off a man in a women's bathroom. There are numerous examples of women and girls bring attacked in women rooms by me, usually heyerosexual. Why is it that TIM love to identify AS women but seem incapable of identifying WITH women? If they made an effort to understand why we want to preserve our dignity and safety, remembering that we have additional reasons to use bathrooms, then they would not breach our boundaries. But they're men after all and their concerns are not women's safety or dignity. And we know that.
You've moved smoothly from "rare attacks happen" to "and we know their real concern isn't safety," which is quite a leap from counting incidents to reading minds. The article's whole argument is that people swap the hard evidence question for an easy story about what's in someone's head, because the story is satisfying and requires no data. You've supplied the story. The evidence question is still where I left it.
If these men pretending to be women cared about or respected women, they would stop invading our spaces. But it's not about women's dignity, for them, it's about men's feelings and the insistence of men to have their own way. Nothing is new under the sun.
I said you'd swapped the evidence question for a story about what's in people's heads, and your answer is a longer story about what's in people's heads. "It's not about dignity, it's about men's feelings, men's insistence on their own way." You can't see inside me, Redwing. You've never met me. You've decided what I want and then treated your decision as a finding. That's the entire move the essay describes, and you've done it twice now in two comments.
The evidence question is still sitting where I left it. You've walked past it twice now to tell me what's in my soul.
You're quite right. I can't pretend to know what's in your mind or guess at your motivations. However, what I see as embarrassing is the narcissistic behavior of some trans-identified men, observable behavior, that does little to endear such men to women who prize their fast disappearing privacy.
Are you also going to make the "you need to care about my safety, but I don't need to care about yours" rhetorical move? Seems like the next step here, after excoriating us for lacking empathy...
“The hard question is this: what is the actual risk of allowing trans women into women’s spaces, weighed against the actual cost of excluding them, in light of the actual evidence?”
The question is not that but does society want people in the opposite sex’s spaces.
And how, pray tell, do you know if they do or they don't? Based upon all the podcasts that you watch with Helen Joyce and chums? Do you not think that's a very biased sample set? My sample set is the general public, because I live like this, 24/7, 365. And I can tell you right now, most of the general public are absolutely fine. They're not hysterical, they're calm and rational, and able to make decisions based upon risk. What you think is universal objection is nothing of the sort, because I live it, I see it. And by the way, that's the last comment I'll make to you.
Me: “The question is not that but does society want people in the opposite sex’s spaces.”
You: “And how, pray tell, do you know if they do or they don't? Based upon all the podcasts that you watch with Helen Joyce and chums? Do you not think that's a very biased sample set?”
I made no claim as to what society wants. My claim was about relevancy: what is relevant is what society wants, not necessarily the violence-risk posed by transgender people.
I have never seen a podcast and do not know who Helen Joyce is. Are you okay?
For gauging what the public wants, polls and surveys are best.
A U.K. poll shows the majority wanting male transgender people out of opposite-sex spaces.
And around two-thirds (68%) of the U.S. public say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth:
Also for gauging what the public wants, see the actions of elected officials.
“My sample set is the general public, because I live like this, 24/7, 365. And I can tell you right now, most of the general public are absolutely fine.”
How they treat you to your face ≠ what they want.
People might refer to you as a woman out of fear you are a lunatic who will go off on them if they “misgender” you. My actions are influenced by that concern.
I am somewhat friends with a waiter who is trangender. If he ever asked me to refer to him as a female, I would do it, because I owe him after all the good service he has provided me (whereas I owe no such thing to random transgender people), and to avoid conflict with someone who is on the job, subject to management’s rules. But meanwhile, on social media, I am defending the truth about biological sex. I want transgender people out of opposite-sex spaces. If polled, I would say that; and I vote in elections accordingly.
“They're not hysterical, they're calm and rational,”
Same here. See my posts in this reply-chain.
“and able to make decisions based upon risk.”
But risk is irrelevant to me. If anyone simply wants transgender people of the opposite sex out of their spaces, that is all the reason I need to oppose transgender people in opposite-sex spaces. There is no burden on me to show any violence-risk.
“What you think is universal objection is nothing of the sort,”
I made no claim about any universal objection.
“And by the way, that's the last comment I'll make to you.”
You've been clearer than anyone else here, so let me return the favour.
You say risk is irrelevant, and what matters is what the public wants. Good. Then we agree on the important thing: your position has nothing to do with safety, and never did. You've removed the one justification that would make exclusion protective rather than preferential, and you've done it deliberately, in writing. "There is no burden on me to show any violence-risk" might be the most honest sentence anyone has produced on this subject. Thank you for it.
But look at what's left once safety is gone. "I want these people out and I owe no evidence" is a complete account of every exclusion anyone has ever been ashamed of in hindsight. The public preferring a minority's absence has been true, by polling, of every group that's ever been shown the door. That's the beginning of the moral question, not the answer to it. You've treated a headcount as a verdict.
Then your waiter. You'll call him "her" to his face because he's earned it through good service, but you'll vote to keep him out of the relevant spaces and defend that online. Sit with the shape of that. The dignity you extend is a tip, contingent, withdrawable, gone the moment he's a stranger or a ballot. That isn't respect. It's a transaction, and you've told me the terms.
You ask if I'm okay. I'm grand, thanks. I named Helen Joyce because the argument arrived pre-assembled in her shape. If you built it yourself, that isn't better, it's just the same conclusion reached more lonelily.
And you're right that you weren't rude. But "I want you gone and I don't have to say why," delivered in a perfectly civil voice, is the rudest thing in this whole exchange. That was rather the point of the essay.
“Now, I want to be careful here, because there’s a version of me that wastes the rest of her life disputing whether a man can become a woman, and I’m not her.
In one narrow biological sense, the sentence is true. I wasn’t born female. I don’t produce ova. I can’t become the kind of woman my mother is. Fine. Granted. I don’t need metaphysical perfection from the universe before I’m allowed to exist with dignity.”
Hard question: "Can a man become a woman?"
Easy question: "Do I deserve to exist with dignity?"
Thank you for this, genuinely. Seventy-seven replies and counting, and I don't think a single one engages the actual question the piece asks. They restated my three-rung ladder word for word and asked what was wrong with it. They accused me of switcherooing in the same breath as switcherooing. One of them announced I work in IT as though that were a refutation. It's the most thorough proof of a thesis I've ever been handed, and I didn't have to lift a finger. So please do keep linking it around. Every new reply is another footnote I didn't have to write myself.
Ugh. Read a bit of it, but so much garbage. Felt like I was reading the ramblings of a group of 12 year old boys complaining about the current actor for Superman. Basically a group of people saying 'we want to exclude group xyz' and the rest going 'yes, thank you for saying what we've been thinking'. Today xyz is transgender women, 30 years ago it was gays/lesbians, 60 years ago it was blacks. 80 years ago Jews. 100 years ago Italians/Scottish/etc. I could go on but throughout history groups in the majority LOVE to exclude minority groups and they will make up any argument for it - often 'think of the women and children' is the core of it, just like today, and NEVER do they have one ounce of factual evidence. Modern science has shown trans women's brains are more like cis women's brains than cis men's - both pre and post hormone replacement, and both while alive and studied after death. These studies are damn easy to find btw.
The irony here is in the fact that on our second date, Andie and I bonded over having both recently read The God Delusion, and cited it as a pivotal work in our like minded observations on organized religion. I think the most powerful take away I will get from this post is the driving analogy - we accept there is risk but are willing to trust everyone does not cross the painted line. People who object to trans women in women’s bathrooms need to trust that the trans women are no more likely to inflict harm than biological women. We go into public spaces with people of all genders every day and we accept that we are at risk of being attacked by someone, yet we move past that. Bathrooms, pronouns, passports are no different.
"In one narrow biological sense, the sentence is true. I wasn’t born female. I don’t produce ova. I can’t become the kind of woman my mother is."
I think this is a really important sentence. It's something very rarely admitted by those arguing for complete trans inclusion but with out it they are arguing straight past the feminist PoV.
I'm broadly supportive of the TERF position but I think this article is the best argument against it I've seen.
Thing is, there are compromises that achieve dignity and safety for both trans people and women but they are a complex question that requires listening and compromise.
There's a reason we use 'cis' and 'trans', so I'm very confused by the claim that we don't admit that there are differences between trans and cis women. I guess this is why using cis gets such a hugely negative reaction?
I don't know who 'we' is in this context but my experience of the public policy debate in the UK is an awful lot of repeating 'Trans women are women' (or similar) from organisations speaking for (over?) trans people and not a lot of discussion of the genuine complexities in (for example) women's sports or women's prisons.
The upshot of this has been a ton of negative publicity and a series of lost legal cases that have left trans people upset, worried and a punching bag for the far right.
Years ago there was scope to listen to the feminists who've won these legal challenges and to address their concerns. Now everyone seems to be dug in for a war and trans people are stuck in the middle of it.
Trans women are women- the point of that statement is that not all humans born female are women, and not all women are born female. It's a problem because 99% are both, but people really want that to be 100%- and that just denies that anyone is trans.
I'm open to anyone willing to discuss the complexities of women's sports or women's prisons, but 9 times out of 10 when I try it ends up in a "I don't care if they've gone through a female puberty and not a male one" for sports and "I don't care about trans women getting raped in prison, that's a problem for men" for prisons.
So legitimate concerns sure, but it's hard to find people who aren't just looking to eliminate trans women full stop in practice.
"Trans women are women- the point of that statement is that not all humans born female are women, and not all women are born female. It's a problem because 99% are both, but people really want that to be 100%- and that just denies that anyone is trans."
If that's your argument you need to find a way to prove to the general population that trans women are litterally women. Most people's definition of women (adult females) excludes transwomen, so you are just arguing past them.
"I'm open to anyone willing to discuss the complexities of women's sports or women's prisons, but 9 times out of 10 when I try it ends up in a "I don't care if they've gone through a female puberty and not a male one" for sports and "I don't care about trans women getting raped in prison, that's a problem for men" for prisons."
You need to understand their argment. These women (the ones who've been so successful in altering the UK legal position) have been fighting for women's rights for decades. Telling them they need to give up some of those rights because trans women might be unsafe isn't going to work because they see males as the oppressor class they are fighting against.
"So legitimate concerns sure, but it's hard to find people who aren't just looking to eliminate trans women full stop in practice."
It's bizarre that you go from 'won't support trans women in women's spaces' to 'want to eliminate trans women. Eliminate as in kill? That kind of silly hyperbole is why the debate is terrible. Comments like that are what's fueling transphobia.
Yes, eliminate. The hard questions go away if trans women are simply not allowed to be anything except men.
And the fact that "you have to care about risks to us but we don't give a fuck about risks to you" is the line of argument you are justifying makes me think that there's no common ground to be found. I care about my safety. If that's a deal breaker for discussion, then we are done here.
"Yes, eliminate. The hard questions go away if trans women are simply not allowed to be anything except men."
What does this mean? How does (for example) not permitting trans women to box against women change whether they are a woman?
"And the fact that "you have to care about risks to us but we don't give a fuck about risks to you" is the line of argument you are justifying makes me think that there's no common ground to be found. I care about my safety. If that's a deal breaker for discussion, then we are done here."
I'm not justifying anything. If you want to persuade a majority to support public policy changes then you have to make a case for it. You brought up the fact that many opponents don't see the safety argument as the silver bullet you seem to. I'm trying to explain why that's the case for feminists.
It's fine to say 'we are done here' when someone doesn't agree, rather than trying to understand the counter-view, but it won't be successful. That was rather the point of my first comment.
It might be less hypocritical to accuse TERFs of constantly sprouting slogans if I hadn’t heard the meaningless phrase “trans women are women” a billion and three times 🙄
The irony of what you said is beyond delicious. I can't stop laughing. If you don't like where I write don't read it .
"The hard question is this: what is the actual risk of allowing trans women into women’s spaces, weighed against the actual cost of excluding them, in light of the actual evidence?"
What is the cost of excluding them?
I asked about the cost of excluding trans people. Virginia laid out a fairly detailed cascade of that cost. You replied that you saw no cost to women in it. Correct, because that wasn't the question. You've answered a different one and marked your own homework as complete. The cost I asked about is still sitting there, unread.
Excluding men from women-only spaces is to the benefit of women. Any issues men might have with that are not women's concern.
https://switcheroo.azurewebsites.net/ I built an app today to take your arguments apart. Put yours in and see what it says. It explains how you're effectively providing weak evidence, a coherent claim, but weak evidence. Anyway, it's good fun. Knock yourself out. I built it because I was bored arguing with a few people.
Did not click.
Yeah. Probably a classic poisoned chalice or equivalent.
Right. To rephrase your statement, "the costs to trans women don't matter. So what are the costs?"
If a service were to exclude trans women and tgerefore men from any reciprocal service then one could say well they just can't use that and indeed in life no one should be entitled. The trans people may simply find another service to use.
The difficulty faced is that by degrees trans people will reach a tipping point where they cannot function in society because of the scarcity of options.
In a rational society any woman should be able to go into a male changing space without risk of objectification, harassment or harm. That unfortunately is not the society I which we live. So when a service says trans women should use male changing spaces they are knowingly putting those trans women at risk. If that is a workplace then denying a trans person access to facilities is denying them work, whicb denies income, which denies food and accommodation. It is a cascade of increasing harm which becomes real though the original risk that a trans woman would harm a woman in a woman's space is unsubstantiated.
The added layer is that some men have developed a pathological hatred for trans women. This is clearly not motivated by any sense that they may be at risk from a teans woman. Consequently trans women need spaces where they can be away from that real threat.
The breakdown in thinking is to start with trans women once looked like men and tried to behave like men out of self preservation I will add, therefore they will always be men, therefore as men harm women trans women are a threat.
The real elephant in the room, which is a taboo notion, is that lesbian women will gravitate to women's single-sex spaces, some lesbian women will objectify other women and may pose a risk. 'May' must be emphasised because it is only on the basis that trans women may pose a risk that this has, on the face of it, come about.
There is however a parallel argument 'trans women are men who are taking away women's hard won rights'. More ask the question what rights are being taken away and be clear to distinguish between rights and privilege.
More often what you will hear is women have a right to a space without men. No, that is a privilege. Many women both cis and trans want that space but it is a privilege.
The final factor I will contribute is mutual respect. Too many people on all sides want their personal space and boundaries respected but are not willing to extend that respect to others. A woman using a single-sex space may legitimately not want her body inspected but to ensure her autonomy demands all others are inspected.
I see no cost to women in your reply.
Trans-identified men entering men's bathrooms may be at risk from violence from other men. The numbers. However, are low. But it is far easier for them to defend themselves than it is for a woman to fight off a man in a women's bathroom. There are numerous examples of women and girls bring attacked in women rooms by me, usually heyerosexual. Why is it that TIM love to identify AS women but seem incapable of identifying WITH women? If they made an effort to understand why we want to preserve our dignity and safety, remembering that we have additional reasons to use bathrooms, then they would not breach our boundaries. But they're men after all and their concerns are not women's safety or dignity. And we know that.
You've moved smoothly from "rare attacks happen" to "and we know their real concern isn't safety," which is quite a leap from counting incidents to reading minds. The article's whole argument is that people swap the hard evidence question for an easy story about what's in someone's head, because the story is satisfying and requires no data. You've supplied the story. The evidence question is still where I left it.
If these men pretending to be women cared about or respected women, they would stop invading our spaces. But it's not about women's dignity, for them, it's about men's feelings and the insistence of men to have their own way. Nothing is new under the sun.
Stop... you are embarrassing yourself now.
I said you'd swapped the evidence question for a story about what's in people's heads, and your answer is a longer story about what's in people's heads. "It's not about dignity, it's about men's feelings, men's insistence on their own way." You can't see inside me, Redwing. You've never met me. You've decided what I want and then treated your decision as a finding. That's the entire move the essay describes, and you've done it twice now in two comments.
The evidence question is still sitting where I left it. You've walked past it twice now to tell me what's in my soul.
You're quite right. I can't pretend to know what's in your mind or guess at your motivations. However, what I see as embarrassing is the narcissistic behavior of some trans-identified men, observable behavior, that does little to endear such men to women who prize their fast disappearing privacy.
Are you also going to make the "you need to care about my safety, but I don't need to care about yours" rhetorical move? Seems like the next step here, after excoriating us for lacking empathy...
Bingo.
“The hard question is this: what is the actual risk of allowing trans women into women’s spaces, weighed against the actual cost of excluding them, in light of the actual evidence?”
The question is not that but does society want people in the opposite sex’s spaces.
And how, pray tell, do you know if they do or they don't? Based upon all the podcasts that you watch with Helen Joyce and chums? Do you not think that's a very biased sample set? My sample set is the general public, because I live like this, 24/7, 365. And I can tell you right now, most of the general public are absolutely fine. They're not hysterical, they're calm and rational, and able to make decisions based upon risk. What you think is universal objection is nothing of the sort, because I live it, I see it. And by the way, that's the last comment I'll make to you.
Me: “The question is not that but does society want people in the opposite sex’s spaces.”
You: “And how, pray tell, do you know if they do or they don't? Based upon all the podcasts that you watch with Helen Joyce and chums? Do you not think that's a very biased sample set?”
I made no claim as to what society wants. My claim was about relevancy: what is relevant is what society wants, not necessarily the violence-risk posed by transgender people.
I have never seen a podcast and do not know who Helen Joyce is. Are you okay?
For gauging what the public wants, polls and surveys are best.
A U.K. poll shows the majority wanting male transgender people out of opposite-sex spaces.
And around two-thirds (68%) of the U.S. public say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth:
https://apnorc.org/projects/most-say-gender-is-determined-at-birth/
Also for gauging what the public wants, see the actions of elected officials.
“My sample set is the general public, because I live like this, 24/7, 365. And I can tell you right now, most of the general public are absolutely fine.”
How they treat you to your face ≠ what they want.
People might refer to you as a woman out of fear you are a lunatic who will go off on them if they “misgender” you. My actions are influenced by that concern.
I am somewhat friends with a waiter who is trangender. If he ever asked me to refer to him as a female, I would do it, because I owe him after all the good service he has provided me (whereas I owe no such thing to random transgender people), and to avoid conflict with someone who is on the job, subject to management’s rules. But meanwhile, on social media, I am defending the truth about biological sex. I want transgender people out of opposite-sex spaces. If polled, I would say that; and I vote in elections accordingly.
“They're not hysterical, they're calm and rational,”
Same here. See my posts in this reply-chain.
“and able to make decisions based upon risk.”
But risk is irrelevant to me. If anyone simply wants transgender people of the opposite sex out of their spaces, that is all the reason I need to oppose transgender people in opposite-sex spaces. There is no burden on me to show any violence-risk.
“What you think is universal objection is nothing of the sort,”
I made no claim about any universal objection.
“And by the way, that's the last comment I'll make to you.”
Suit yourself, but I have not been rude to you.
You've been clearer than anyone else here, so let me return the favour.
You say risk is irrelevant, and what matters is what the public wants. Good. Then we agree on the important thing: your position has nothing to do with safety, and never did. You've removed the one justification that would make exclusion protective rather than preferential, and you've done it deliberately, in writing. "There is no burden on me to show any violence-risk" might be the most honest sentence anyone has produced on this subject. Thank you for it.
But look at what's left once safety is gone. "I want these people out and I owe no evidence" is a complete account of every exclusion anyone has ever been ashamed of in hindsight. The public preferring a minority's absence has been true, by polling, of every group that's ever been shown the door. That's the beginning of the moral question, not the answer to it. You've treated a headcount as a verdict.
Then your waiter. You'll call him "her" to his face because he's earned it through good service, but you'll vote to keep him out of the relevant spaces and defend that online. Sit with the shape of that. The dignity you extend is a tip, contingent, withdrawable, gone the moment he's a stranger or a ballot. That isn't respect. It's a transaction, and you've told me the terms.
You ask if I'm okay. I'm grand, thanks. I named Helen Joyce because the argument arrived pre-assembled in her shape. If you built it yourself, that isn't better, it's just the same conclusion reached more lonelily.
And you're right that you weren't rude. But "I want you gone and I don't have to say why," delivered in a perfectly civil voice, is the rudest thing in this whole exchange. That was rather the point of the essay.
“Now, I want to be careful here, because there’s a version of me that wastes the rest of her life disputing whether a man can become a woman, and I’m not her.
In one narrow biological sense, the sentence is true. I wasn’t born female. I don’t produce ova. I can’t become the kind of woman my mother is. Fine. Granted. I don’t need metaphysical perfection from the universe before I’m allowed to exist with dignity.”
Hard question: "Can a man become a woman?"
Easy question: "Do I deserve to exist with dignity?"
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5538715-article-on-arguing-with-a-terf
Discussion on Mumsnet
Thank you for this, genuinely. Seventy-seven replies and counting, and I don't think a single one engages the actual question the piece asks. They restated my three-rung ladder word for word and asked what was wrong with it. They accused me of switcherooing in the same breath as switcherooing. One of them announced I work in IT as though that were a refutation. It's the most thorough proof of a thesis I've ever been handed, and I didn't have to lift a finger. So please do keep linking it around. Every new reply is another footnote I didn't have to write myself.
Ugh. Read a bit of it, but so much garbage. Felt like I was reading the ramblings of a group of 12 year old boys complaining about the current actor for Superman. Basically a group of people saying 'we want to exclude group xyz' and the rest going 'yes, thank you for saying what we've been thinking'. Today xyz is transgender women, 30 years ago it was gays/lesbians, 60 years ago it was blacks. 80 years ago Jews. 100 years ago Italians/Scottish/etc. I could go on but throughout history groups in the majority LOVE to exclude minority groups and they will make up any argument for it - often 'think of the women and children' is the core of it, just like today, and NEVER do they have one ounce of factual evidence. Modern science has shown trans women's brains are more like cis women's brains than cis men's - both pre and post hormone replacement, and both while alive and studied after death. These studies are damn easy to find btw.