Most Minnesota high schools have settled something well: there will be no further discrimination against transgender students in athletics.
Capping months of emotional debate that brought tens of thousands of e-mails, the board overseeing high school athletics in Minnesota overwhelmingly said yes Thursday to opening up girls’ sports to transgender student-athletes.
The decision by the Minnesota State High School League will take effect in the 2015-16 school year, making the state the 33rd to adopt a formal transgender student policy.
The board set out criteria for determining whether transgender students who were born male but identify as female can be eligible for girls’ teams at the nearly 500 schools in the league’s membership. State law already permits girls to compete in boys’ sports.
Except (there’s always an “except”)…
Religious-affiliated private schools will be exempt from complying with the league’s new language.
Of course. Because religion is not a proper source of ethics and morality. Can we stop arguing that it is?
There’s even worse, though. The Star Tribune also ran this ad.
Let’s ask different question. A male wants to shower beside your 14-year-old son. Are YOU ok with that?
It’s all in the innuendo. Make it sound like a threat — “A male” — and obscure reality as much as you can. The most likely fact of the matter is that a shy person with possible gender dysphoria who has been terrifed for most of her time at school is being forced by school policy to take her clothes off in public and shower with a whole bunch of other people. If my past experience as a 14 year old boy is any measure, she’s going to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes and is going to want to get the experience over as quickly as possible.
Also from my past experience, the only people who see the after-gym shower as a predation opportunity were aggressively cis-gendered jocks who would mock all the smaller, younger kids. I don’t see how a transgender girl in the shower is going to be as dangerous as the bullying football player with a wet towel.
And of course the people behind this disgraceful ad, the Minnesota Child Protection League, are a religious bigots and tea party loons.
I just pray that God will be merciful. I do not understand. God is NOT homosexual and he talks about how dangerous this life style is for our eternal souls. (1 Corithians 6:9-11) God created us Man and Women. Does this not express his “good” creation. No civilization has been able to survive this decision. It will be a rapid decline. We turn away from Him even though we know we do not make our own hearts beat, nor our own lungs breathe.
God also seems to have created us gay and straight, cis and trans. If he’s so all-powerful and intrusive that he’s making our hearts beat and our lungs breathe (although as a biologist I’d argue against that), then every time a trans woman takes a breath, she’s being given a gift from your god. Her pulse rebukes you. Who are you to deny her respect?
Why is it a good thing that male-bodied children should be allowed to compete in competitions for female-bodied students? Don’t we divide sports according to sex because we recognize that there are significant physical differences, on average, between the two sexes which would put females at a real disadvantage, particularly in certain sports?
Also, many females ARE in fact, very uncomfortable with sharing spaces in which they will be nude with male-bodied people. By the time of high school age, a significant number of girls will have already experienced ongoing sexual harassment, and in some cases, serious sexual assault from males.
Oh! More ignorant assholes. What a surprise!
That ad makes me want to smash something. Trans people are not trying to prey on anyone. They just want to be able to exist on their own terms, and be treated as the equal of everyone else. And they fucking well deserve to be!
How interesting – the only way GLBTI peoples are okay is if god is all those things? That ad is utterly shameful, showing people and their so-called god at their worst. I was in high school long ago, and I don’t remember anyone who was enthused about collective showering. I expect the majority of teenagers would be much happier with enclosed, single person showers.
Hmmmn. Let’s see. In Jr. High, even with my severe asthma, I was fastest at short sprints (faster than even the boys, by a pretty significant amount) and I managed to run a half mile in 3:33, pretty much unable to breathe at the end.
Apparently my tits and vagina didn’t impair me.
An easy answer for the shower thing is to have individual stalls. The end.
soporificat @ 1:
No. The history of most sports has every effort of keeping girls/women not eligible for play. Gender should not be a reason for exclusion.
And just what does this have to do with a transgender teen? That being in an environment which is comfortable for them all of sudden will lead inevitably to sexual assault, because reasons?
1. Here’s an idea – INDIVIDUAL SHOWER STALLS FOR PETE’S SAKE. Nobody likes being naked in front of other people, especially teens, whether they are the same gender or not. Group showers are ridiculous, especially given how cheap metal stall dividers are in the grand scheme of things. Then nobody has to see anyone naked!
2. Nobody in my school ever actually “used” the showers. Does any kid, anywhere? We were forced by one PE teacher to shower after class or get points taken off of our grade, so what everyone did was kept underwear on, pulled bra straps down so our shoulders were bare, wrapped up in a towel, then just stood in front of the shower and opened the towel up towards the shower so it looked like we were getting wet even though we weren’t. Even for after-school games etc., I can’t imagine a situation in which a kid wouldn’t rather just wait to shower until they got home, or a setup that would require them to shower there.
Carlie @ 7:
When I was swim team in HS, our coaches insisted on showering – everyone just kept their bathing suit on.
How about: no frickin’ showers at all? Seriously, think how much money would be saved!!! Cue republicans dancing in the streets.
@Iyeska — the history of exclusion of girls from sports is due to sexism, but the fact remains of the physical differences between males and females. Let’s integrate the Olympics and see how that goes for the female-bodied athletes, shall we? No? Why not?
My point was that a transgendered male’s comfort should not come at the expense of the comfort of female-bodied children (or adults, for that matter). I know that culturally we all assume that females must accommodate, but i don’t agree with this, personally.
soporificat @ 10:
Yes, there are physical differences. So what? That differences are still used to exclude girls and women is still sexism. We are not talking about olympic sports, we are talking about high school. Some girls want to play football, some basketball, some softball, some soccer etc. There’s no reason they should not be able to play.
A transgender male would be a female. Try to get that into your head, for a start. I expect most teens would be much more accepting of a transgender girl than you ever would. You brought up the specter of sexual assault simply because there would be a penis attached to one girl’s body, seemingly comfortable with the idea that a penis will automatically lead to sexual assault.
This isn’t about females having to be submissive and accommodating – it’s about allowing a girl to integrate with other girls. Try watching this, perhaps you’ll learn something.
soporificat @10:
Can’t have that. After all the very fabric of reality might unravel.
And who is suggesting that a trans man’s comfort should come at the expense of anyone? We’re talking about trans women being treated as women, and being allowed to shower with women. Trans women *are* women.
(Probably extremely) Long-term, we need to lose this ridiculous obsession with hiding our bodies from sight. Skin ≠ sin. If casual nudity were an unremarked-upon cultural norm, this wouldn't even be an issue.
In the practical short term, I second Carlie. Shower-cubicles→problem solved.
I’m on the side of those who say that forcing group showers on people is the real problem here. You really think predation only ever comes from “male-bodies” people? Or only against “female-bodied” people? That might be the one happening most often, but it’s certainly not all of it.
And why Americans, of all people, are forcing people into communal showers really boggles me. I mean, these are the people with record-level prudity – this sounds positively anti-American. Maybe there is something to the idea that Americans view schools pretty much as prisons for kids.
Daz @ 13:
I agree. We are talking about the States, though, home of the religious, prudes, and the proudly ignorant.
@soporificat
In the grand scheme of things, I’d rather kids were allowed to be who they felt they were, than cis-gendered kids/parents be able to decide the gender of other kids because they’re worried they won’t win first place. As for the Olympic competitions, I don’t really care. People are/should be more important than national pride anyway.
Having grown up being terribly ashamed of my body i’m all for teaching kids that they have nothing to be ashamed of and breaking the taboo that seeing other people naked is somehow going to make your eyes explode, but i’ve always found communal showers so ridiculously unnecessary….Seriously, what the fuck is the point of forcing everybody, extroverts and introverts, cis and trans, straight-bi-gay, young and old, to shower together as if everybody could or should feel exactly the same way about it? But not men and women, oh no, that’s sexual and it would make people very uncomfortable O_o
Anyway, to answer that dishonest, disgusting ad: depends on the male. I can think of many situations in which i would have zero issues with my 14 year old daughter showering alongside a male or males, provided everybody involved felt the same way. I’m not so fucked up as to think that such a thing would necessarily and inevitably end up in abuse.
khms:
Oh, they aren’t forcing people into it, they’re forcing kids. That’s different.
sarcasmSoporificat-
Stop focusing on my body and its physical genitalia. On genitalia in general, actually. It’s creepy as hell. You’re creepy as hell.
azhael @17:
I know you didn’t mean to, but I fear that your response here plays into the narrative of transphobic bigots. We need to eviscerate the narrative (rather than working within its framework) that says “boys will be showering with girls”.
Another problem with the ad–it erases the existence of trans girls and boys (bc to the bigots, children with gender dysphoria don’t exist). It plays upon transphobia to hint that an adult will be showering with children, when in actuality, it would be trans girls showering with cis girls.
If you’re going to segregate by a physical attribute, why is it by sex? There’s a lot of overlap, you know: in middle school, a lot of girls are physically bigger than their peers (which changes later), but even in high school, there are boys who are better physically matched with some girls in sports, and vice versa.
Iyeska@11 and Tony@12
Transwomen are male. Neither hormones, nor feelings, nor even plastic surgery can change the physical reality of your body from male to female or vice versa. People may find this emotionally inconvenient, but it is still a fact.
@Iyeska– When did I say that females shouldn’t be allowed to play sports? That is a random assertion. However, unlike you, I believe that young female athletes should not be further disadvantaged than they already are.
Also, you know nothing about me and my supposed comfort or discomfort with people who are transgendered. I’m not going to get into a “cred” argument with you. It is besides the point. It’s not about accepting people who are trans, it is about whether or not resources and spaces that are currently restricted to females should be opened up to males.
@Tony — Female athletes would be locked out of many sports if the Olympics were integrated.
It is magical thinking to assert that there are no important differences between male bodies and female bodies when it come to sports.
Iyeska #15:
Gawd, whatever happened to poetry? “The piously, prudishly, proudly ignorant.”
:-)
Oh, for fuck’s sake soporificat, seriously?
First of all, the average differences are fucking meaningless in group activities. Not all the members of a football team are equally fast, strong, etc, and you don’t have to be at the very top of physical prowess to be useful to your team.
Second of all, how the fuck is comparing highschool kids playing sport to the very best athletes in the fucking world even remotely appropriate or meaningful?
And finally, and least importantly, a transgender individual may not be representative of the average for their genetic gender, specially if they are undergoing hormonal treatment of some kind, so this difference that would render sports meaningless, MEANINGLESS I SAY!! may not even be measurable at all…
Averages really mean fuck all here…
Oh, and women are not the only ones capable of being very uncomfortable being nude in front of someone of the opposite sex, or their own, for that matter…but your attempt to make this about how delicate women are is noted.
Can we just ban this stupid, fucking transphobe? Because they’re obviously not here to learn a damn thing.
Yeah, God is totally straight. Just ask His wife. Which is…um…The Church.
Maybe God’s problem is sexual frustration, not having any other gods to fool around with. I can’t imagine that business with Mary was very satisfying.
Republicans can’t dance.
PZMeyers@21 — Classification by height and weight would make a lot of sense, and would encourage kids who are small, of either gender to participate because they might finally have a real chance. I’m all for that! (speaking as a small person)
Agree with the other comments saying lets just get private spaces for all the kids who want that.
Folks, while discussion of the difference between world-class athletes at the far end of the bell-curve may be interesting the topic at hand is genderism in the changing rooms/showers, not the relative abilities of people on the sports field.
If you wish to discuss the former, might I suggest you take it to T’dome?
@20 Tony!
I understand and agree with all of your points. Mine was that even in the distorted version they are dishonestly trying to portray, where a 14 year old girl is showering with adult males, it’s not necessarily a situation that i would have an issue with.
I live in Iceland. Travel writers routinely remark on the fact that there is a universal rule for swimming pools here that there are no-swimwear showers required before entering the pool. From the conversation in this thread, it really rather seems to me that the unusual thing here is that nobody has a problem with it. (Though, for the record, the setup has been rather slow in figuring out how to handle trans people.)
Anyway, the point of mentioning this was that ‘forcing people to be naked in front of each other’ is clearly not so very problematic in itself; it is a cultural thing that varies. (And before you bring up targets of bullying: I was one. It was problematic, but that had more to do with lack of adult supervision than anything else.)
It’s stupid that these debates always come back to showers. It’s also stupid that schools take a bunch of people who are will never be more emotionally volatile (teens) and make them get naked in front of each other.
That aside, the reason for gender segregation in sports is that high-school boys teams regularly beat Olympic level women’s teams. The women’s world 100m record is almost a half second behind the men’s high-school record. If not for separate women’s sports, there would be no chance for women in sports.
@28 You are absolutely right, Daz, sorry i fell into the bigot’s web.
soporificat:
Transwomen are women. They are female.
I know all I need to from what you write. Your transphobia is obvious. It’s also unwelcome here. Soporific – it’s a good nym for you, given your sleepy efforts at thought.
soporificat @22:
Fuck you.
Transwomen are women. You don’t know the first goddamned thing you’re talking about. Go read up on gender dysphoria. Go learn about how gender is a social construct. Go somewhere other than here, bc your transphobia is NOT FUCKING WELCOMED HERE.
Fucking shitspigot.
What civilizations do they have as examples? Besides S&G which we have difficulty finding evidence of having existed in the first place.
Tony @ 34:
Which is why I included a nice link to Ryland’s video, which was soundly ignored by the bigot in question.
soporificat @22:
It certainly is about accepting people who are trans; your referring to trans women as male is evidence that you don’t, in fact, accept them.
Seconding A. Noyd @25.
soporificat
Why are you fixated on the person you think is male, being in the female changing rooms? Do you have no opinion on what I assume you see as the female in the male changing rooms?
ledasmom @37, responding to our resident bigot:
Very true. We know that soporificat is a transphobe who deliberately misgenders trans women and men. We know that xe doesn’t understand the first thing about the very subject xe is trying to pontificate on. We know that xe is not interested in educating hirself.
Here’s something else the transphobe can ignore: how biological sex is a social construct along with gender. But other people might enjoy it.
Look, facts are fact, once kids start puberty the males quickly get longer bones, and more muscle mass on average, then the females. High school sports are serious business, so all the sneering comments about “it’s just sports, so who cares?” is insensitive and foolish. It matters TO THOSE KIDS.
The transphobe comments are stupid and uncalled for. No, I am neither afraid of trans people, nor do I want to harm them.
As a female, I care about protecting the very hard-won resources that are finally being put towards females, and I care about maintaining safe spaces for females. Period. The rights of transwomen should not come at the expense of females. Surely there is another solution.
For all those who don’t think young females need safe spaces? Here’s a fact for you: transwomen offend at the same rates as men. If you need a citation for that I will be happy to give that to you.
Also, it’s interesting to me that nobody is talking about the transmen. Nobody really cares about them, do they. In these discussion they are always in afterthought.
TERF.
@soporificat
Y’know, that argument might be plausible if it wasn’t for the bizarre implication that plastic surgery was somehow more likely to be effective in causing change than hormonal treatment. If I puzzle the ‘might be plausible’ argument out, it goes something like this: “Sex and gender are different things. Therefore, it is possible for trans women to be male, and vice versa.”
It just completely collapses when you then go on to claim that sex is, effectively, immutable. For the first part, it’s not even clearly defined in biological terms. There are scores of (admittedly rare) biological conditions that can create individuals that you simply cannot neatly categorise as biologically male or female. Regardless, those people can most of the time be fairly easily classified as women. Even the ones with testicles. (Mammalian trait, that: Our development processes basically default to female if something goes weird, so surface characteristics drive in that direction.) So claiming that hormonal treatment and surgery “can’t change it”? Bullshit.
Even if we’re going to pretend it’s biological sex – which is neither clear-cut nor fixed – and not gender that’s the actual determinant of who’s supposed to shower where. Which just isn’t the case.
soporificat:
Why did you ignore the link to Ryland’s video I provided? Your bigotry aside, that video is about a transgender boy. And you’ve made it clear that you don’t give a shit about anything outside of making sure transgender children are ignored and stomped on. If this was about a transgender boy in the boy’s locker room, you’d bring up the same shit, citing sexual assault again, making sure everyone knows it’s simply not possible for anyone to be transgender, ’cause those folks just don’t pay their dues, amirite? You’re spitworthy.
Welcome to my world, my dears. And thank you for sorting out this TERF bullshit.
I’m not going to engage in this thread, as I try never to offer the civilising cover of debate to people with an eliminationist approach to trans people: we’re allowed to exist, only we’re stuck in SeparateButEqualLand if we do.
Fuck that noise. I’ve literally been hearing this bathroom panic shitwave since…92? What’s that, 22 yrs now? I’ve yet to hear of any actual cases, but I’m sure we’ll hear shortly how someone’s cousin’s hairdresser’s sister-in-law’s neighbour totally had a trans woman talk to her once in a bathroom, and that zie is now traumatised for life to discover that bathroom signs are not magic sigils that keep people out by their imagined karyotype.
My deep sympathy for that grim close escape, five-degree person. I’m so desperately sorry for existing at you.
Thanks, Horde, I’ll leave you to this one.
A. Noyd @ 41:
I did. Thank you.
soporificat (#22):
First of all, you’re confusing gender with biological sex. While the two categories overlap in most individuals, they are not the same thing.
Secondly, you seem to have a very black-and-white, essentialist understanding of sex, one which is biologically inaccurate. Male and female are not rigid, binary categories where all the different criteria (genetic, hormonal or physiological) match up neatly into one category or the other. Male and female are just clusters on a spectrum of possible developmental outcomes.
In short, you don’t get to tell a transwoman what her gender is, based on your vague, irrelevant and uninformed understanding of biological development. Or based on anything else for that matter.
Tony #38 & A. Noyd #25
Request duly passed on.
soporificat @42:
Transphobia is more than being afraid of or wanting to harm trans people.
You’ve definitely displayed antagonistic attitudes and feelings towards trans people.
Transwomen *are* women. I don’t know what you’re basing your opinions on, but it isn’t empirical evidence.
You can start here for your education fucknuggett:
Your protestations to the contrary, the professionals in the relevant fields all recognize that gender dysphoria is real. You’re not educated on this subject. You’re ignorant and you’re speaking from well of ignorance. That well is steeped in transphobia. Apparently you’d rather continue swimming in that well rather than correcting yourself and amending your beliefs.
You disgust me.
It’s really disappointing to me how many people on this thread don’t know or don’t care to know about basic biological facts. Biological sex is not a social construct. Jesus. Gender almost certainly is. The two things are completely different, and gender essentialism is the cause of tremendous suffering in the world, mostly for women.
@A. Noyd — I’ve already read that article you linked, and it is such bullshit it doesn’t merit my debunking it.
Just a general fyi, I’ve read extensively on trans issues and gender issues. It’s pretty clear that most of you here have not. I started thinking about it, education myself, and discussing it with others about four years ago, when my daughter starting interning with a trans activism group. Some of the most interesting conversations I had were with her girlfriend who was being pressured by some of her LBGTQ “friends” to transition, which is a whole other can of worms. Sadly, as you can see, I’ve given into the “cred” part of this pile-on.
All the cries of “TRANSPHOBE! TRANSPHOBE! BAN THE TRANSPHOBE!” are gross. Fuck you right back.
Being European, this sounds a bit obsessive-american to me. Nakedness isn’t all that terrible as far as I know.
And gender is a matter of the mind, the body may be an indication (I’d freely guess the two are congruent about 80 to 90% of the time or so, but whatever the actual numbers, there’s no reason to avoid accomodating those 10-15% (by my guess, see above, no claim that that’s an actual limit either way) who aren’t that easily dealt with…
A transgirl is a girl. A transwoman is a woman, A transboy is a boy. A transman is a man, Any deceptive appeareance to the contrary is merely due to the body not having cought up with the mind…
CaitieCat:
You have all my love and support.
I knew a woman once who was raped in a public women’s bathroom – by a cis man who came in with a knife. There was a case here some years ago where a man went into a women’s fitting room at a store and slid his cell phone along the floor with his foot, so he could get video of the women in their stalls.
When men want to assault women, they find a way to do it. They don’t go to the trouble of subjecting themselves to the massive amounts of shit that trans women face on a daily basis just because they think it might make it a tiny bit easier to get to women.
Trans women are not men in disguise who are sneaking behind enemy lines. They are not fake women.
And this discussion is about children. It is unbelievably cruel, to basically tell children that they’re… what? Deluded sexual predators? Trans youth don’t have high enough suicide rates already?
soporificat:
Who are you to tell children that their gender dysphoria isn’t real? Who are you to deny the lived experiences of others? Who are you that you get to decide for the rest of humanity who qualifies as a girl/woman or boy/man?
I agree with mythbri @43. You sound just like a Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminist.
::spits::
@42-
Don’t try to pull trans men into this discussion like you actually care about their needs. It’s obvious you don’t, and that in this one specific case they’re simply a useful rhetorical weapon for you. I’m sure they’re so grateful to you and your ‘concern’ for their needs that they’d totally overlook your dehumanization.
I’m also amused that apparently women like me don’t exist to you. I’ve big bones, and I’m really strong. I regularly heft around 100lb dogs, deadlifting them from the floor to a 3 ft tall x-ray table by myself and with no real effort. I can pick up and walk away with a standing human weighing up to 250lbs with ease. I’ve been 5’6″ since I was 12. My male manager had me lift heavy objects, because I was the strongest person in the clinic.
As a WOMAN (female? what are you, a ferengi?) I care about other women (and men). Which means I care about trans women just as much as those who were born into bodies with tits and vaginas. And I care about men who born into bodies like mine; I can only imagine how much of a horror menstruating must be for those men considering how awful *I* find it.
You, however, do not care about other women; not really or you would care about trans women as well. What you care about are bodies, not people, and you think that if a body has tits, the person is a woman by default. Incorrect, rude, bigoted, misinformed, ignorant.
soporificat
Just what exactly is your problem? That some vagina-owners might see a penis-owner naked, or vice versa? Shock fucking horror!
How’s about we instead try not teaching kids to be prudes?
soporificat @ 51:
Gender is. By definition. There’s no “almost” about it. So who’s without a basic understanding of what’s under discussion here?
I’m out. I don’t have the time or interest to deal with your fantasies about how I am “eliminationist” or a “TERF” (a slur, btw, thanks). Also, pile-ons are impossible to deal with, because you do you address first? How to even get through all the bullshit.
For the folks trying to pull out the dusty old inter-sex arguments to imply or assert that a transwoman is actually a female (or a tranman is actually a male), why don’t you go educate YOURSELF about what the intersex community has to say about that? Also, stop being dishonest about the rates of conditions where we cannot reliably come to a conclusion about an individual’s sex, either because of a lack of match between chromosomes and morphology, or because the morphology is unclear. The rate for that is about 0.017%, or in other words, vanishingly small. And, it has nothing to do with trans conditions. The dishonesty of all of this makes me sick.
Hoku at 31:
That’s all fine and good for competitive sports, but for phys ed classes (mandatory for everyone in my burgh through grade 10, back in the day), integration worked just fine. We played sports ranging from badminton to rugby to touch football together and generally had a lot of fun doing it.
Phys ed isn’t just about competition and rah-rah stick-and-ball sport, it’s about learning to use your body and develop physical skills. It should be as open to everyone as possible, regardless of sex or gender.
/relurks
soporificat:
You fucking willfully ignorant shitstain–intersex and transgender are not the same fucking thing.
soporificat (#51):
That’s … a hefty dose of lack-of-self-awareness you’ve got going there.
And yet your argument depends on conflating sex with gender, and treating sex in binary, essentialist terms in defiance of biological reality. I’ll let others dissect your less-than-convincing protestations that you’re not a transphobe, but you’re certainly a hypocrite, and an audacious one at that.
Shall I go back in time and tell Matt, a trans man who was attending my single-sex high school and that I was good friends with for those 4 years, that he was in fact a ‘she’ and that his near suicidal feelings about being in a female body were something he should have just gotten over?
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
To any trans women or men reading, I’m sorry that people like soporificat are oppressive bigots.
soporificat @ 59:
Except we didn’t. The distinction between gender and sex was pointed out, and the not-at-all crystal clear nature of the latter was brought up not to argue “trans women are female” but to note that “trans women are women“, which is only the same if you do buy into an essentialist argument.
Shower-cubicles→problem solved?
Probably not – they lead to enclosed areas where bullying can take place.
It would be interesting to know how the students feel about this. There was that high school that elected a trans girl homecoming queen, and the one that was discussed here a while ago, where the bathroom freakout crowd made up a bunch of lies about girls being harassed, but the actual cis girls didn’t have problems with their trans classmate. I suspect that the teens are much cooler about this than the adults are, and will get more so as this becomes the status quo.
The question of resources is a red herring. It only arises if you see trans girls as not really girls. Otherwise there would be no question about funds set aside for girls. And it’s not like there will be a sudden influx of boys pretending to be trans girls to get a piece of that sweet, sweet Title IX money (or to throw off the makeup of the teams so suddenly cis girls won’t be able to compete anymore).
Safe spaces? Maybe some cis girls will feel threatened by the sight of a penis. The solution is not to further victimize trans girls. Shower stalls will help with that. And it might not be possible to have 100% safe spaces – we’ve seen that here with rape survivor conversations, where what’s healing for one survivor is triggering for another. It requires a lot of thoughtfulness and sensitivity to navigate – not throwing trans girls under the bus.
madtom1999 @66:
Bullying occurs in open space too though. And with witnesses.
Can I just say how completely fucking OVER this “TERF is a slur” horseshit I am? I am SO. Fucking. Over. It. “Oh em gee, how dare you refer to me in a way that accurately describes the attitudes I display?!” Fucking hell.
burgundy @ 67
But, but, but … that takes effort and doesn’t give us a simple and easy path to follow in each and every case!
</sarcasm>
Wait, do people still take showers in school? I know I didn’t – and I’ll second the fairly obvious notion that forced communal showers are a terrible idea anyway.
Soporificat: why is it that people like you are the first to invoke biology despite having a god-awful understanding of biology? Sex is not a binary, and I honestly don’t feel like explaining this to you because you’re clearly arguing in bad faith. “TERF” is a slur? Don’t make me laugh. Please stick the flounce.
Apparently sopor is unaware of intersex people as trans* allies. Shit, just recently there was an article on everyday feminism written by an intersex person about how awful TERFs are for those who are intersex as well as trans*.
soporificat (#59):
The point, you terminally obtuse person, is that your position is only plausible if gender and biological sex are the same thing, and biological sex can be treated as a simple binary distinction. The facts are that both these assumptions are false.
Only on the most restrictive definitions of “intersex”. Broader definitions put the figure as high as 1%. But apparently “honesty” involves selectively quoting the estimate most convenient for your argument and ignoring the others.
No, it doesn’t. It was only brought up to counter your implication that “male” and “female” were unproblematically exclusive categories. But by all means focus on the lesser point rather than address the main one, which was your conflation of sex with gender.
Jerry fucking Sandusky.
PZ—I ask you in the most urgent way possible to make this kind of transphobia an instantly bannable offense. It should not be possible, here, for trans people to have to watch bigots tell them that they are not the gender they claim to be. It’s inhuman. It’s every bit as horrendous as calling black people monkeys, or gay people psychotic deviants.
Please. No trans person should have to live with the fact that this is seen as acceptable in conversation here.
I’ve got a better full-page ad:
A male priest wants to be in charge of your son in a position of power and respect. Are you OK with that?
Hey Tony, I don’t even know what a Shoop! is, but you’ve turned me into a Shoop! fan! :D
A shoop is a singular sheep.
Marcus @77:
Thanks (and chigau is correct @78).
PZ:
I second Josh’s request.
I also second Josh’s request. I was a bit shocked to read this thread and find TERF vomit all over it. Thanks to the Horde for not letting that slide by. Shame on anyone who thinks transgirls and transboys don’t deserve to be in the situation they feel safest and most comfortable in. We’re talking about people who have some of the highest rates of violence and bullying against them in our society. They deserve protection. And I can’t believe it needs to be said, but transwomen are just as much women as I am (and most probably identify as women more strongly than I do), and transmen are just as much men as cismen.
And to soporificat and others like them,
Denying a transperson’s gender identity is the very root of transphobia, so yes, you are being transphobic by misgendering them.
hopefull that soporificat sticks xer flounce. xe seems to be confusing transgender with transvestism. The latter, where MEN prefer Women’s clothes, pretend to be a woman, but retain their male gender.
(too much RHPS, there).
soporificat, my understanding is that “gender” is a psychology, independent of xir body’s morphology. Am I wrong about that? [sorry, you flounced, so I cannot expect an answer] Gender is much more than just the genes and hormones flowing through one’s body, that you are so obsessed with. Psychology is REAL, people are more than just the biochemicals in them.
The transvestism/transgender confusion seems to be behind that ad PZ posted. They are simply implying that, “any boy who wears a dress can shower with all the girls in that school”. I doubt trying to educate them about gender dysphoria is pointless; they’ll just deny it completely. Cuz Corinthians has it right there in black and white. Gawd is the highest authority. etc etc.
At least that trashad didn’t bring up the LGB [minus T] issue: e.g. “Do you want your [child] to shower with a [gheyperson]?” Countdown for that: 3 … 2 … 1…
Agree with what Josh and Tony and toska said above. Don’t need this sort of bigotry here.
A bit late to the thread, but I’m with Josh, Tony! and Toska on this. Also, thanks to everyone in the thread for shoveling the shit that asshole spread all over in here.
I can’t believe that the very first comment is from a vile, insensitive and utterly closed-minded TERF.
I’m also with Josh – this is reprehensible.
♥ to CaitieCat
and that awesome laughing unicode pile of poo for soporificat, because it’s laughing at you as it’s spilling out of your mouth (typing fingers, in this case).
That sports derail, about women and men competing together being a bad thing, going to take that one for a bit of a run: It’s not a ‘natural’ division, it’s a historical one, because the Olympics started as a men-only event, and has only relatively recently even allowed women to compete – and even then, not even in the same number of sports/categories as men. So the fact that women don’t compete with men is a cultural thing – and may (and hopefully will) change with time and pressure.
Because re: Olympic sports and women being shut out of them? Or some of them? Or most of them? Didn’t quite catch that point, but anyway. Funny. The international bobsleigh and skeleton federation, just this year, opened up 4-man bobsleigh races to women (with teams allowed from 1 – 4 women) – so it is now 4-person bobsleigh, right on up to the World Cup circuit, with – get this! – not one, but two women-piloted teams trying for the top spots and looking pretty darn good for it. Not sure how they’re being shut out by being included and being allowed on the same field as men, with men, and managing pretty darned decent results for a first season. And it’s only just begun, too! (It’s not the Olympics, but that’s high-calibre athletes up there.)
That whole clear demarcation between who is which gender and/or sex that soporificat is looking for is just… not as clear as they would like it to be. And why should it be so clean-cut? Why put people into two separate boxes? It leaves too many people without a box at all.
For shame.
Also, to repeat – transwomen are women. Transmen are men. Your sex chromosomes don’t determine who you are. Other people cannot tell you who you are. You get to do that.
And telling children that they’re not actually who they think they are (re: the ad itself, above) is the most horrible bullshit you can put on someone already going through the terrors of puberty, esp. in cases where their body may be turning even more into something they are not and do not want to be.
The harassment / assault aspect? As mentioned above, those who wish to assault women will find ways to do so, never mind any barriers placed in their way.
So fuck anyone who believes that transpeople should not be made comfortable and welcome (and yes, closed showers would be best for everyone – I’ve seen them in movies!). Just fuck them. Up to and including ‘I have read so much on trans issues’ soporificat.
I’m over here enjoying my afternoon, not having to engage with an ideology in which I and my not-cis siblings would be denied meaningful access to the thing that keeps me (no exaggeration – would you give up your gender first, or your life?) moving around in this world. “You can exist just like all other men” is not an honest tolerance, any more than “You can marry someone of the opposite sex just like anyone else” is.
I don’t have to, because y’all have become reliably there on this. Pharyngula is starting to move to a deeper site-wide understanding of intersectionality, and it means we’re better equipped to have each other’s backs. I’m seeing it more and more around here – recognising the value of empathy and living its implications – and it’s an enormously inspiring thing to watch people who can counter the bullshit of bigotries that don’t affect them personally without (usually) forcing the oppressed to do all the heavy lifting. Not always, but we’re trying.
And so I don’t have to ruin my day arguing with an eliminationist, I get to enjoy the day instead, because Horde.
Thanks.
Piling onto what Josh said @75, with the entire bandwagon. Transphobic shite like this needs to be a bannable offense.
Bye, soporificat.
On the sports thing – do you think that hordes of transwomen are going to suddenly appear and dominate women’s sports? Seriously? From what anyone can tell, it’s a fairly rare thing. Letting trasnwomen play women’s sports is not going to stifle the ability of anyone else to play women’s sports.
Oh, fuck off to that. The post itself was about an ad that specifically raised trans panic with respect to transwomen, that specifically targeted the “fragile girl being preyed upon by a man” trope. The comments are in response to that.
I suspect it already is bannable — but the ban tentacle appears to be busy dealing with offline life (for good reason).
“No way, I’m not a bigot, I just express bigoted bullshit” is not a great argument. But at least it shows that it is getting decreasingly socially acceptable to be bigoted in that particular way.
Oh, the ban tentacle showed up while i was typing! Hurray!
Why do TERFs hate trans women anyway? Trans women give up the tremendous privileges of being male and assume the additional, grave risks of being trans*–and the TERFs think it is some sort of scheme to gain access to vulnerable women? Really?
Because, frankly, that’s amazingly stupid. Male predators hardly need to go to such lengths to find vulnerable women, sadly. Not to mention the fact that increasing numbers of trans* people are transitioning as children–are THEY clever predators simply biding their time? Of course not!
And yet TERFs are so terrified of transwomen that they are willing to ally with agents of the patriarchy against them. I just don’t get it.
No, all those transmen are going to ask for special privileges in the men’s categories. :P
Not to mention that TERFs never seem to acknowledge that those arguments could be used against same-sex anything as well. Oh, a man might fake being a woman and gain access to the coveted female-only space and then look lustfully at a female so you have to keep them out? I get to waltz right into the female-only space, so what’s keeping me from looking lustfully at the same person then? Huh? That line of argument just doesn’t hold water.
CaitieCat @87,
Hugs to you. I’m glad that the discourse (at least here on Pharyngula) seems to be improving in quality :)
I’m gonna second Josh on that one. While the take-down was great, transphobia should not be allowed here. I’m comfortable with this place being completely closed off to TERFs.
On the subject of sports, I agree with PZ that gender isn’t the only consideration here.
What about all of those genetically more athletic women pushing less athletic women out of women’s sports? Same goes for men. There’s nary a non-genetically gifted (in terms of athletics) man to be seen in the Olympics! It’s just not fair!
Maybe someone with more historical sports knowledge can help me out here, but I can imagine this argument being used against racially integrating sports in the 20th century. Statistically, African Americans tend to be larger and more muscular than white men, so I’m sure the idea of black people dominating American sports was once very scary to some people. Most of us got over it. Interesting how prejudicial arguments tend to reflect each other, no matter who the target is.
It occurs to me that when you read people like Kitcher who want to talk about the socially positive aspects of religion, you should mentally substitute “patriotism.” and see if it still makes sense without being trite.
I always believed that since males tend to have more muscle mass, dividing some sports between sexes would help women have a more fair go at participating.
I noticed that some recently invented sports (Ultimate and Quidditch come to mind) do away with gender separation.
Could anyone suggest me some good resources on the topic?
BTW, born and raised in Italy, which is not exactly the most enlightened of the countries, we had individual showers but none used them.
AFAIK communal showers exist only in private gyms, and not all of them.
I join the ranks of those surprised about American prudes having communal showers. O_O
And yes, this problem would disappear if we weren’t mandated to cover our bodies.
We can show our naked bodies to strangers in the communal showers, but why is it illegal to do that on the street?
“Think of the children”?
@lyeska #4: And surely God doesn’t use condoms!
God doesn’t seem female either, or male according to many, or…
WTF, how do they manage to be so dishonest even on their own beliefs?
@A. Noyd, @Tony!, @Josh: Am I the only one uncomfortable with banning the transphobe?
I have been learning a lot from this thread.
I’d expect most trans* people to be too well acquainted with the arguments against them, wouldn’t feel better for them to see those arguments rebuked? I’m honestly asking, I have never been at the short end of any *phobia.
F.O. –
As a cis-woman, from my own experience, I’d much rather be in a place where I don’t have to deal with sexism at all, versus experiencing it and seeing it be rebuked.
Or, as a real-life example, I’d much rather be in a WoW guild with players who treat me as a person, versus one where I’m told “Show me ur tits or GTFO” and the guild master says “not cool”.
I’ll drop this one, and then go back to watching me some anime:
I will guarantee that trans teens showering with their gender group are almost universally much more scared of the cis people around them than the cis people are, and with good reason. Trans panic is still an accepted defence to anti-trans violence in many places.
If police are called, particularly to incidents involving trans women of colour, there comes a new danger: being preyed on by police for sexual assault and monetary extortion, with the threat of “I could put you in the cage that’s worst for you, and even the ACLU won’t help you before morning.” Also happens to white trans women, but much less often.
So yeah. Showering with other women early in my transition, something I didn’t do. Dysphoria often (not for everyone) means being unhappy with and deeply shamed by one’s body, particularly its genderedness. How you get from understanding that to thinking that this place of great fear for trans people is in fact all the main goal of enduring all the shitstorm that transition so often provokes: an easier(!)* way to get access to girls and women otherwise safely protected by the skirt on the stick figure/pervertproofing sigil on the door.
Because of the ‘logic’ that says “one thing we definitely know about rapists who have penes (generally one to a customer, I believe?) and favour violating women and girls is that they are usually dead keen to have vaginoplasty, right?
Right?
Otherwise how does this even make sense to anyone?
Now, maybe some Morse, or Scott & Bailey.
You are the hordiest of froods.
* Easier. Yeah, that’s how to convince me you know your arse from your medulla oblongata on trans issues, tell me how badly cissexist bigots have it online, what with our “Blatantly Living/Existing At Cis Hets” aggression and all.
F.O.
Regarding your last bit, how do you think a person of colour would feel if we allowed their very being and humanity to be questioned on a thread about racism? Or someone like Tony might feel if someone came into a thread about gay marriage to argue the humanity of gay people? How they can already get married – just to someone of the opposite sex, so why should they have special rights?
This is similar: transphobia that denies transpeople as being who they are and say they are right at the root – by saying, for instance, that transwomen are male – well, how do you think our transfriends around here feel about their very selves being denied? Their humanity and value as people is not under discussion and shouldn’t ever be a topic for debate, end of story. PZ is right in banning and others are right in calling for banning such transphobia because this shouldn’t be a platform for such horrendous views, no matter how much you are learning from it.
You can learn by (a) going out into the great wide internet, (b) sitting in on less transphobic threads that actually discuss trans issues and (c) asking some of our lovely transfriends if they’re willing to teach you or explain some finer points to you, leaving the actual teaching and any replies at their discretion.
As educational as it may be, please don’t use the dehumanization of a specific group of people for your own learning experience. Garbage is garbage and must be taken out so as not to stink up the place too badly.
And these are the kinds of arguments that transpeople already rebuke day-in and day-out. They don’t need to see them again, I bet – there’s probably zero new material in any of soporificat’s arguments. If this community is serious about creating a safe space, that means saying ‘no’ to this kind of bullshit, the same way white supremacists, MRAs and other denizens of the slimier parts of the internet are not welcome.
F.O.:
A bigot doesn’t need to be present for learning to take place. Cripdyke did a series on gender here, and other peoples would be happy to help out on the learning front. I’m not comfortable with a TERF presence here, as they are not going to change their mind, but will use every moment they have the chance to spread bigotry of the most vile kind.
I can’t imagine ever feeling comfortable using communal showers, no matter who I shared them with. We had showers in high school, but none of us ever used them and no one expected us to.
While these showers should probably be built differently (separate stalls) or done away with completely, that’s just treatment of a symptom. There are separate stalls in women’s toilets and yet transphobes don’t want to let transwomen use them. Again, unisex toilets are a step forward, but are worth little without officials addressing transphobia in all its appearances.
Otherwise, all you have is another case of women are allowed to vote, so there’s no sexism any more.
F.O.
On the subject of transwomen being able to compete in women’s sports and transmen being able to compete in men’s sports, I would ask, how do you know what body type any given person will have? Many transgendered people (particularly those who receive hormone treatments) will not fit the morphology of their birth-assigned sex. In fact, people in general have different body types, so no matter where you draw the line, you’re going to have smaller people trying to compete with bigger people, even if they are both cis women or cis men.
A question you have to ask yourself is whether you’d prefer privileged cis people to have their concerns or ignorance at the center of the discussions on trans issues, or whether you’d prefer trans people to feel welcome and respected in conversations about issues that affect them.
rq @ 103:
The problem here is that some of us, because of privilege and (sometimes) cultural differences, don’t realise that questions need to be asked. Now, I’m not arguing against your point, nor do I feel unease about the ban – but I also understand where F.O. is coming from with that comment. I know that for me, many of the points that have been raised here have been things that simply wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask about. But I’m not selfish enough to claim that this value outweighs the costs to others. It doesn’t even count.
Addendum to my #105:
Unisex toilets as one possible solutions, I’m sorry that my comment implied that they should be used because of transwomen, who should of course be able to use women’s toilets where toilets for men and women are in separate spaces.
odin
I get that sometimes you (or I) might not get it, as being from a position of privilege. It’s just that with a teensy bit of thought re: one’s position in this discussion (whether one of experience or of privilege or of (attempted) allyship), this should be quite obvious: dehumanization of a group of people is never okay, no matter how much you’re learning from the subsequent conversation, and no matter who that group of people is. Dehumanization of a group of people does not belong in a space that is meant to be safe and welcoming. toska put it rather well in @106.
If you’re curious or have questions, there are ways to find the answers.
I echo the request: can it please be instaban for that kind of transphobia? I can only imagine what it’s like to come into a thread and read that kind of hateful crap.
A small note on usage, and please regard this as a suggestion, because there isn’t a solid consensus by any means.
“Transgender” is preferable to “transgendered”; for me because it diminishes my agency in choosing transition, I’m sure there are other reasons I don’t remember just now.
I prefer to separate the prefixes trans/cis from the words they’re modifying. Again, not universal. For me, it’s because I don’t say “gayman” or “Blackwoman” either; transness is a part of me, not my definition.
Last, when I want to refer to the set of people who are !cis, I choose “not-cis” or “trans*”, with the star serving as wildcard. And since it’s best to be explicit as well as perfectly civil (incivility is a sign of residual male privilege when a trans woman does it):
Not. Universal.
Suggestions only. You can do more research yourself, if you want to know the reasons other people cite for their usage choices.
And further to my 109, I will add that I speak as someone in a position of rather great privilege (I’m only missing ‘man’ from my checklist), so I do get things (like terminology and the appropriate use of the word ‘trans’) wrong, probably more than less.
But. The only reason I feel comfortable speaking out on a thread like this is because of what I have learned from people here at Pharyngula. By getting to know commenters who do not identify as I do, listening to them, and learning (passively and actively). And the most important thing I have learned is that it is never okay to dehumanize any group for any purpose, but most especially for one’s own gain, even if that gain is supposedly positive (such as education).
It’s not hard: my education does not have to come at the expense of other people’s comfort, most especially that of my friends. What kind of a friend am I, if I am willing to use them like that?
Having read through the thread, and endured the vile transphobia of the now banned and thoroughly unlamented soporificat, I would just like to offer my support to any trans Pharyngulites that might want it, for whatever it is worth.
I agree with Josh @ 75 – no one should be told that they are not the gender they identify as because some bigot is hung up on what resides between a person’s legs as if that is the be all and end all of gender. It is monstrously cruel, and again as Josh says exactly comparable to calling gay people ‘deviants’ or asserting that Black people are somehow not fully human. It is beyond repugnant and deserves nothing more than a swift appointment with the business end of PZ’s Banhammer.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
@ CaitieCat, Harridan of Social Justice – I am so sorry you have to go through this kind of poisonous abuse all the time. That TERF’s and all stripes of transphobic arsehats are able to spew their bilious hatred so publicly and with such acceptence from mainstream society makes me despise humanity even more than I usually do.
The Horde is with you, and we are more than happy to make sure our teeth are sharp and our coats are sniny by savaging transphobic bigots whenever they rear their heads.
Cyberhugs are freely available if you want them.
rq @ 109:
Yes. That’s actually pretty much what I wanted to be saying in the end of my last post, but did poorly. That one hadn’t appeared when I started writing mine.
Yes. The issue is when you’re so ignorant of the issues at stake that you don’t even realise there’s something to be curious about. To take one example, I had to look up ‘TERF’. And that brings me to tons of questions that now I know to ask. But eliminating my ignorance isn’t be the point. A welcoming environment is better for everyone.
Thanks for the corrections/suggestions, CaitieCat.
This especially totally makes sense to me, and reads like something I really should have thought of before but alas… So thank you.
Nothing of substance to add, but just wanted to say:
1) Always value the information provided in these threads.
2) Sorry people have to put up with bigoted shit.
3) Glad the bigot was banned.
Cheers.
@Rowan #101: Fair. =)
@CaitieCat #102: Thanks for sharing. You make a very good point about trans not wanting to shower with others.
I found the term “Gender non-comforming”. How do you feel about that?
@rq #103: TBH I’d feel exactly that way: let the asshole speak and be rebuked.
Again, I have no direct experience so this is why I’m asking.
I am pretty happy to put my own education after people’s comfort, and have been reading the links in this thread and other stuff anyway. =)
Thanks for the explanation, much appreciated.
@lyeska #104: Yeah, thanks for reminding me, I should check Crypdyke’s posts.
Also, I have been reading about TERFs and yeah, my reserves against the banhammer are no more.
@toska #106: I was speaking more about cis women vs cis men, I personally find the criteria to decide who’s better at a certain physical activity rather inane.
I think the only criteria that actually matters is inclusivity, ie the ability for everyone to participate meaningfully.
Tony, speaking only for me, there is no need to apologize for the things that soporificat said. There was nothing that she said that I have not heard hundreds of times before.
Funny thing, just about the only people who argue that “TERF is a slur” are TERFs. And some odd MRAs when they decide to team up. (Yes, it does happen.)
soporificat was using the “CHROMOSOMES” argument that trans women are male and trans men are female. Funny thing, before I started HRT, my testosterone level were low enough that some cis women had a higher level then I did.
Had to laugh at the many different wrong terms that soporificat did use for trans people. Almost as if she was doing it on purpose. Just what type of person would refer to a gay man as a homosexualed man. (No. I am not a transgendered woman.)
Also, some intersex people resent resent being used as a reason to attack trans people. This is even as they (justifiably) work at being seen as a people with a different cause than trans people.
One last thing, when soporificat made the point that trans women commit violence at the same rate as men (Because penis is male![TERF talking point}), she was ignoring that women also attack other women. But the narrative that men are dressing as women (as well as taking hormones and having “plastic surgery”) in order to attack women in the women’s room. That is a lot of work and money for something that a man can do just by walking through the door.
In a perfect world, “trans” and “cis” designators wouldn’t be relevant 90% of the time (except in medical care)–if someone presents as a woman, then they are a women, regardless of what they may have presented as in the past.
If I may recommend a book that I read as a teenager that really shook up my (cis, straight, slightly homophobic, unaware of trans*) self, Jack Vance’s Steel Beach is fascinating. Set in the far future, humans have the medical skill to change sex quite easily and reversibly. So much so that anyone who doesn’t change sex at least once in their lives is considered “odd”. They also have other options, such as “neuter”. And a whole plethora of genders–no gender binaries here! At first I was weirded out, but as I thought about, I realized, hey that’s really cool. I’d love to try being a woman for a while, just to see what it was like. And if someone decides they want to be a different sex than the one they were born with, why the hell not? [My teenage self was painfully naive…]
Of course, in the real world, its far more painful and difficult (and my heart goes out to trans* people who have to deal with the TERFs intruding in this space), but to me the ultimate goal has been a world where no one cares if one has the “right” sex organs or presents as the “right” gender.
F.O. @100:
Does your desire to learn trump the desire of trans people to have a space safe* from bigotry? Given that you have the entire Internet at your disposal to learn about trans issues, and there are, sadly, not enough spaces for trans people to feel safe and welcome in, I’d say no.
I get that you’ve learned a lot.
But you’re looking at this too personally. You’re looking at this through a lens of “what can I learn”, rather than the lens I looked at when reading the various transphobic comments by soporificat. I was trying to view things from the perspective of a trans person. How would *they* feel entering this thread and reading comments from a bigot…comments that include denying their basic humanity?
If the topic of the thread were related to homosexuality or racism against African-Americans and a bigot left comments that denied either LGB people or Black people their basic humanity, I’d hope that PZ would ban their ass too.
You’re treating all trans people as a monolith who all think and react the same way. Some might like seeing people oppose transphobic bigots. Others might see the hateful comments and simply avoid this thread. Still others might dip into the thread and wind up triggered. Others might wade into the thread and criticize the bigotry. Just bc many trans people are familiar with the bigotry directed against them doesn’t mean they want to see that shit again.
You don’t have to have experienced any bigotry to empathize with those who have.
*I recognize that Pharyngula isn’t designated as a specific Safe Space, but for many people (myself included), it does serve that function.
I think it’s emotional abuse to make kids take off their clothes and shower together in a culture where nudity is so completely sexualized and where aggressiveness is so tolerated. It’s more than bad enough that kids have to grow up in a “Lord of the Flies” atmosphere where they are subjected to bullying and sexual harassment. Adults shouldn’t even be making kids strip and be herded into showers together on top of everything else. Individual shower stalls should be provided, or gym class should be at the end of the day so kids can shower at home.
Again, nudity is sexualized in our society. Taking that into account it seems perverted to me that adults find it so crucial that kids see each other naked, and I don’t think it makes a damned bit of difference what the sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation of the kids in question might be. All of them should be entitled to a bit of privacy. (Especially at an age when many of them are exploding with zits. They shouldn’t have to see that, or be seen like that.)
A particular individual may choose to endure and engage a bigot, and i agree that the resulting conversations are very educational and valuable for priviledged people like us, but it is crucial to remember that it is their choice.
Personally, i have engaged people spouting homophobic shit, despite the emotional toll that it invariably takes, but i did so by choice. That matters.
As others have said, it’s not acceptable to allow arseholes to dehumanize people for the educational value of the conversation it may spawn, unless, i would say, the dehumanized people agree to it, and even then we don’t need the pressence of the bigot to have that conversation. There are ways to have this useful, informative discussions without giving a voice to hate.
CaitieCat, thanks for the suggestions.
By the way in my post @24 i mistakenly said “genetic gender” when it should have been “genetic sex”, i apologize for the slip.
F.O.:
Also, when it comes to learning about trans issues, FtB is home to Zinnia Jones. You could learn a lot reading her blog. You could also check out Sincerely, Natalie Reed.
Thanks CaitieCat and Janine for explaining some of the terminology. I have used the terms transgender and transgendered interchangeably because I hear both outside of an obviously bigoted context, and I’m privileged in that I’ve never had to think of the implications of one term over the other, but after both of your explanations, it seems so obvious. The -ed makes it seem like a verb, like it’s something that happened to a person. I won’t be using the term again unless I’m in a situation where a trans person has informed me that they prefer using that term to describe themselves.
@Tony! #120: Sorry, I expressed myself poorly.
The notion that I am learning a lot would be valid *only* if the “seeing-bigots-rebuked” argument was also valid.
But since this is not the case, it is a no-brainer that the protection of people goes first and I apologise if I gave any idea of the contrary.
I was slow to recognize the de-humanizing aspects of soporificat’s posts.
I am not used to these kinds of arguments, so my brain assumes that they are very rare.
Eh. Privilege.
F.O. @117:
I think you left out a word in there (so I added it in).
One thing to note for people who aren’t familiar with trans issues (or the issues of any marginalized group). It is great to want to educate yourself. I applaud the efforts of anyone who wants to speak up against bigotry. Just be aware that those people who are part of a marginalized group are human beings and they aren’t always willing to answer questions.
@Tony Yeah, I knew Zinnia, but will check her blog again.
Ugh, have piles of stuff to read, this will teach me. =D
To be honest, the whole correct terminology thing is making my head explode.
Can we just get rid of the distinction altogether? Like no males, no females and various shades. Just “humans”, “people”?
/rant
@Tony #126: Yup. I mistakenly used the noun rather than the adjective. Thanks for the correction.
Doug Hudson
Steel Beach was written by John Varley.
Varley wrote a lot of good books with interesting sexual themes.
and strong female characters
Jeanette Norman @ 121:
Well, but at the same time it’s fairly clear that the tendency to view nakedness as a taboo and the naked body as something intensely private that is generally only seen as part of sex is a huge component of the sexualisation of nudity. So that’s a bit of catch-22, isn’t it?
F.O. @127:
Be careful, you’re treading very close to “I don’t see color”. Doing that erases the experiences and suffering of marginalized people.
Also, if I may…I found it useful (and still do at times) to just sit back and read a thread and not comment. I know you’re still learning (and you’ve made strides) and want to learn more, which is great. But especially in a discussion on a subject that you are largely ignorant of, perhaps it would be better to remain silent until such time as you are more acquainted with the subject matter? Just a thought.
In my limited experience, a few who sweat a lot do, at sometimes. The showers were not, however, communal. (And I never had a teacher who was a voyeur. FFS.)
I was going to say!!!
…Ah. Yeah. That. I forgot.
*sigh*
I’m a biologist; I can tell you understand the physical reality less well than Wikipedia does.
FFS, we’re mammals. In mammals, the physical reality of sex consists only of hormones and their aftereffects.
…Are the kids made to compete in American highschool sports? :-S
*eyeroll* Do you actually remember puberty? Different people enter it at wildly different times. Some have a growth spurt early, some have a growth spurt late, some have a somewhat elevated growth rate for years…
That’s what used to be thought, but it’s actually more complicated.
Gay and black are adjectives, while trans- is a prefix, so I much prefer spelling it as such, if you don’t mind…
On the sports issue, transsexual athletes have been allowed to compete in the Olympics for the past decade ( http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=1803423” ), and clearly this hasn’t led to a crisis in women’s sports.
And, of course, allowing trans people to participate in a gender-segregated activity is not at all the same thing as “integrating” the activity so that it is no longer gender-segregated.
@Tony: I wanted to add something to the effect of “and actively ensure everyone can be whatever they want to be” but I was just ranting.
I’m already making an effort against my compulsion to post anything that crosses my brain and just listen (that’s part of my learning here) but I’m following pretty much all threads and many of the links offered.
I’m reminded of the Czech Republic and Slovakia separating in 1993 and joining the EU on the same day just 14 years later: apparently you need to have a nation-state before you can give it up.
Chigau @129, my apologies, I meant John Varley, of course. Thanks for the correction!
Varley was my first exposure to more “progressive” SF, and it was an eye opener. Although the Titan / Demon / Gaia series was a bit too advanced for my teenage brain, and I never got very far with it–I need to go back and try it now!
Religious bigots always have to ruin everything. I myself have actually used a restroom at the same time as a transwomen and (gasp) nothing terrible happened. We had a nice chat about lipstick, and the difficulty of finding the perfect shade of red. As far as showering in high school, My experience was as Carlies. Few of the girls actually ever used the communal showers, and there were separate stalls available for anyone who wasn’t comfortable in the group shower.
The quoted ignorant bigot would have been more correct (is that possible?) if he’d written “God is NOT”. Simple!
David M. @132:
While CaitieCat only suggested that, perhaps you ought to reconsider your position here. The suggestion is to refer to trans people in the manner they prefer, not your preferred manner bc it’s not about you. It’s about people defining themselves.
Or look at it like this–trans is short for transgender. Would you call someone a transgenderwoman or a transgender woman?
I think, my last comment for the night.
I’d like to give you a little nugget to chew over in your head: what value does society gain by the non-consensual imposition of gender on children at birth? What do we gain from the government registering our gender at all? Why do driving licences need a gender marker? Passports? School records? Why does the gender marker need to reflect a particular set of physical indicators in preference to others of reasonable validity? Imagine a world without transition, because people can gravitate to a gender or genders as it suits them, as they grow.
You don’t need to address me in answering, but consider it, will you? What good argument can you make for “official” recognition of gender? Why does your argument not apply to orientation?
Enjoy your Saturday or Saturdays adjacent time.
David @ 132:
Am I really the only one whose experience is that having problems with communal showers was unusual? Perhaps there really is some truth to Iceland’s swimming pool culture being weird. o_O
It always is. Is it inaccurate as a first-order approximation, though?
CaitieCat @ 140
The original argument, really, is horribly simple: Distinguishing persons by their perceived ability to carry a child to term. That distinction was for fairly obvious reasons adopted as the principal axis of division in society, and thus an important identifying characteristic. Tradition tends to trump arguments in bureaucracy, and we often forget just how old the bureaucratic apparatus really is. Around the time some of the systems used were originally developed, the Germanic tribes were still pottering around somewhere in Asia…
CaitieCat’s question at 140 reminds me that a few months ago I stopped using the “gender” field in my database at work. We never use it for anything, it was just a leftover question from decades ago. So I don’t ask anymore, and just leave the field blank.
With children, there are probably reasons why the child’s healthcare provider should know the child’s (current?) sex, since there are sex-based medical issues even for children. But I can’t see any reason why anyone else would need to know. Or care, really–but then, a lot of people seem to be deeply interested in other people’s genitalia and whether those genitalia match up with stereotypes.
(Aaaaand apparently I forgot to make the obvious disclaimer: That’s not a good argument. It’s just what I expect to be the actual reason. Evolution is everywhere, see?)
odin @141:
You might be the only one in this thread, but I’m sure there are plenty of other people out there who don’t have a problem with communal showers.
Barring sexy funtimes, I like my shower time to be solitary. I don’t want to share that space with anyone else. I’ve done it when I’ve had to (like when I’m at the gym and have to work afterward), but I feel quite uncomfortable doing so. I suspect it comes from my childhood and not wanting to be around naked men because I was worried people might find out that I was gay. I thought I’d be tormented if I was in the shower and got an erection.
Doug Hudson @143:
Sex, yes. Is there a reason a healthcare provider needs to know a person’s gender?
Tony@146, Usually, no. The only reason I can think of is if the person is unhappy with their current sex because it doesn’t match their gender.
I can definitely say this was a major component of it for me, though not the only one.
Odin, as far as i understand, attitudes towards nudity in countries like Denmark, Iceland or Sweden are very healthy and it’s the kind of attitude that i would like to see spread elsewhere, but that is not the case in many other societies. Here in Spain, the influence of catholicism has definitely made nudity very different in the eyes of most people. For some more than others, that’s for sure. Hopefully, these attitudes will continue to progress.
CatieCat
I don’t have an argument, good or otherwise, but from my reading on brain science it appears that humans have a specialized part of the brain that is specifically for recognizing gender. So, I guess it is important if you wish to reproduce, but not really pertinent for most any other reason besides proper medical care.
Odin @ 130
Yes, I see your point in that the idea of nudity as private is complementary to the idea of nudity as sexual. But if stripping kids down and making them see each other naked would fix all of that, then societal ideas would already have changed as a result. Even public breast-feeding is controversial in our culture, FFS. Mothers who publicly breast-feed are helping to dispel the idea that our bodies are solely sex objects, and they deserve our support. But kids are pretty helpless, and the society they’ve been born into is as it is, so I think we should allow them to keep their clothes on in public.
But I do think that changing young people’s attitudes is necessary in order to change societal attitudes. Parents are the main key to that, but with the divisions in our culture change is slow, and kids are not growing up in an atmosphere where it’s safe and secure for them to be stripped down and thrown in showers together.
I’m glad that fewer schools are forcing this issue. We don’t do that to adults, so why is it okay to do it to kids? (Okay, the military does it, but that’s hardly the model of psychological well-being, IMO.)
Re: communal showers.
I don’t think sexualization of nudity is the reason why communal showers are a bad idea for teens.
.
One big problem is that that’s a time when kids bodies are changing. That alone is going to cause some body anxiety. You’re not going to feel comfortable with other people (especially people you can’t trust your vulnerabilities with) seeing your body when you haven’t even gotten used to how it looks yourself. Add to that the fact that different people change differently and at different times and rates, and when kids are massed together like cattle (e.g., school), being different is going to make them feel unsafe (and often _be_ unsafe.)
.
I don’t know about girls’ locker rooms and showers (I’m MAAB), but I know that in boys’ locker rooms, boys seem to like to humiliate other boys for how their bodies are. Not to mention things like dumping your non-gym clothes in the shower so you have to wear wet clothes for the rest of the day. Again, not sexual. It’s more about male socialization — learning to see every other male as a possible threat.
.
If you’re trans — specifically if you have body dysphoria, you have the added discomfort of having other people see a body you already feel alienated by. I know that as far back as I can remember (age 4), I’ve felt uncomfortable looking at my body or having anyone else look at it (including parents) or being reminded of how it looks, especially those features that mark me as male, and I’ve always felt very, very uncomfortable in locker rooms or any place where other people see my naked or even partly naked body. (I am _so_ glad I’ve learned of the concept of “body dysphoria.” It may still mean I’m crazy, but at least I have a word for the craziness.)
.
And I really appreciate that transphobia (whether the TERF variety or something else) is not welcome here. Right now, I’m at the stage where 3 days a week I think I’m trans, and the other 3 days a week I’m convinced I’m just being a drama queen, and having people waltz in and call this part of me I’m agonizing over a delusion and some sort of philosophical error or something makes me feel really unsafe.
Odin
Wait, what huh? We just emigrated en-mass to North America right around 1900. The patriarchy is a feature of Greek/ Roman culture, the Germannic tribes were far more eglatarian until the witch hunts and forced conversions of the 1400s. /suevi
F.O.: Timely, possibly.
Tethys @149:
Have you considered the possibility that this part of the brain exists because society inundates us with the concept of gender differences from the day we are born? An awful lot of human brain development occurs after birth, and is driven by experiences — what we see, what we hear, etc. The portions of the brain that deal with frequently experienced stimuli develop, the portions that would deal with the absent stimuli don’t.
Under relationships on god’s Facebook page it says “it’s really complicated”.
My brain is pretty good at recognizing who I want to have sex with; this may very well be genetic.
But the point is: why should this matter to the society rather than just to the individual?
Tony @ 146
A healthcare provider might ask about my gender as a way to determine which pronoun(s) to use when referring to me. This would be nicer than just assuming that my gender matches my biological sex. It would be even better if they just asked what pronoun I prefer to be called, since people with the same gender may have different pronoun preferences. However, most of their cisgender patients would probably be very confused by that question.
People use gender in order to apply the “right” set of stereotypes to each person. I would think that sex would be part of a person’s medical record, whereas gender (or at least preferred pronoun – gender itself may not really be relevant) would be written as a notation on the front of the patient’s chart, along with the patient’s preferred name.
For someone who is appallingly ignorant about this topic, this has been a great read. Thanks, CaitieCat, for your information and suggestions. And thanks A.Noyd (#41). That was interesting.
CaitieCat #140
There is at least one couple that decided not to do that at all. You might find this article interesting: Couple raise child as ‘gender neutral’ to avoid stereotyping
_____________________________________________________________
Re: Crip Dyke‘s workshop:
Here is the link to her last one from September: September Online Gender Workshop: Gender Attributions in Practice
It has links to her previous ones. I think it would be useful to have it on a link-roll or next to the Pharyngula Wiki links.
PZ, I’d be thankful if you did that – there seems to be a demand for that, or some other informational hub for Trans* 101 (in the same vein that you have a social justice link roundup and economical roundup).
_____________________________________________________________
Re: Showers
This reminds me of my time in the army. There were several gay guys in boot-camp who were very uncomfortable about taking shared showers with straight guys. The problem was that in boot-camp you don’t really have a choice when to take a shower because all activities are timed and apply to your entire unit (in order to form group cohesion).
One of them finally decided to talk about it with the commander. The commander turned out to be very understanding. She designated a special showering time for anyone who was uncomfortable (with valid reasons) showering in the regular time. That seem to have satisfied everyone – I can’t remember even a single complaint from anyone, gay or straight.
How ironic it is that a boot-camp, literally a stone-throw away from a war zone, was more egalitarian than so many civilians?
@Azkyroth Drinked the Grammar Too :) #153: thanks.
Caitiecat @140
Reminds me of before I became officially French, I was always having to show my American birth certificate to this or that official to obtain this or that permit or other paper. It was a horrible thing in itself not to be a citizen with full rights, not to feel legitimate, but there was one moment which was worse than all the others. I was standing in line reading over my fucking birth certificate and the translation of the birth certificate when I looked up and saw that the booth I would be going to was manned by a black official and I suddenly felt this incredible shame that my birth certificate stated I was white, that people in the country I was born in slapped a racial label on helpless people just out of the womb, that I was representative of a racist country. Birth certificates in France do not state race, no official papers do, it’s anathema to French values. But they do state sexe.
So, I’ve often thought about the fact that birth certificates and other official papers state male or female. It’s at best unnecessary. I don’t think, for instance, that it helps passport officials identify people. It would be much better if official documents did not do this, we’d all be a lot freer.
Ah, that’s not how I understood it.
Short answer: yes. :-)
I don’t actually know; but the fact that many women grow a moustache after menopause is now attributed to male development being the default in some ways.
Asia? What do you mean?
Odin:
I doubt you’re alone. I don’t have any problem with communal showers, however, I’m an adult and it’s a matter of choice for me, like what I choose to do at the gym or physical therapy.
To me, the big ol’ problem is that we’re talking about kids, and kids at a time in their life when most are going to be excruciatingly aware of their bodies, and allowing them no choice. Most public schools in the States ended up with communal showers because they were the cheapest option. There’s really no excuse to keep them going – if showers are going to be required, the best thing is individual stalls, or at the very least, separating walls.
Kids are often treated as though they have no right to bodily autonomy, and too many people think that is perfectly okay. It isn’t.
AMM
I am trying to find a reference for you without much luck as I cannot recall the name of the bit of brain anatomy that is responsible for recognizing gender, but since it is present in mammals and birds I am quite sure that it’s existence is not due to cultural conditioning. I will keep searching and hopefully Jadehawk or SC will pop in and drop some great science links on the thread.
Mate selection is pretty important from a continuation of the species viewpoint. I think it only matters to society insofar as appropriate accommodations are made according to the different needs of different peoples. However, society is made of people, and people are hardwired for facial recognition. It isn’t possible to make humans not notice gender, so educating them to broaden the possible cognitive categories for gender beyond M/F is important if we want to be a progressive society IMO.
@ Tethys:
Two thoughts:
Lightheartedly, that part of my brain that goes “attractive person/mate over there!” is incredibly unreliable, at least in terms of identifying people who might bear me children, or complement my personal sexual profile (or whatever). Very frequently, a second look will reveal that said person/mate is actually an advertisement at a bus stop or something. :) It’s almost like there’s something non-genetic telling me that I should on the look-out for certain shapes on bodies…
More seriously, addressing CaitieCat’s original question: on the subject of proper medical care, I can’t even see why there would need to be a form telling you what physical gender attributes (and subsequent medical needs) a kid has. If your doctor can’t figure out appropriate care without your birth certificate’s Official Determination of Gender… get a new doctor. This comment was more prompted by you than directed at you, if that makes sense.
I would be really interested in such a reference. My first reaction is, um, lots of animals (mammals and birds in particular!) have mating rituals whose sole purpose appears to specifically be “HI! LOOK AT MY GENDER!”. In other words, lots of animals seem to be really bad at identifying gender without “cultural” cues.
Just my layman’s perspective from casual reading.
Odin,
It’s definitely an American thing (and possibly other cultures). The crazy religionists spend so much time teaching people their body is something to hide. The crazy fatphobia people spend so much time telling people their body isn’t good enough to be allowed in public fully clothed, let alone seen nude.
I was privileged to visit Iceland last year, and went to the public pool in Hella. It was wonderful! The whole showering situation is very businesslike, with the signs with red spots noting the critical body parts to wash. :) To me it was evidence of early cultural training of children, that they would grow up with the whole notion normalized, and the practical purpose of the shower was obvious.
The businesslike arrangement of the showers (you HAVE to walk through them to get to the pool) and the bluntly practical environment of them made it easy to get past any lingering concerns (not that I have many; Iceland isn’t the first country I’ve been to with such arrangement). Everything about it says, “This is a good idea and we all think nothing of it. It’s okay.”
People of high school age have not yet gone through surgery/hormone treatment as I understand it. That means that the male body / female body thing is an issue because male bodies are so much stronger than female bodies so the males have an unfair advantage over the females. It is just unfair is my opinion. At least for sports where the person has to compete with the females to be on a team. For sports that include everyone I don’t see it as a problem. But in competitive sports like basketball, track, volleyball, soccer, etc. where a limited number of people are allowed to play, it is unfair.
Patrick G
My goggle-fu isn’t working very well , but I have found this reference about brains and facial recognition in sheep. Male faces and odours evoke differential patterns of neurochemical release in the mediobasal hypothalamus of the ewe during oestrus: an insight into sexual motivation?
I find it fascinating that merely looking at pictures elicited a hormonal response. I suspect advertisers are well aware of this phenomena of pattern recognition.
Not this again.
On average, yes. People aren’t average, though. Some women are stronger than some men. If you’re going to police athletics to make sure no one has an unfair advantage, sex is a damned poor proxy to use.
From PZ:
Wrestling and martial arts tend to compete based on body weight, but everyone will practice together. I wonder if this would work for some other sports.
My high school did not have a women’s [american] football team. There was a girl at my high school who wanted to play football, and she did join the boy’s team. And no, it was not flag football or contact-free football.
A short comment on the “Olympic sports are divided so the women have a chance” argument.
There’s a very interesting incident in mixed-gender sports at the Olympics. From 1972 to 1992, most of the shooting events were mixed gender. Then in 1992, Zhang Shan (a woman) won the gold in skeet shooting. By the 1996 Olympics the shooting events were gender divided, and indeed women’s skeet shooting didn’t get added to the Olympics until 2000.
The Olympics segregate a lot of sports where the segregation makes no sense (ski jumping?), and much of it seems to be in the name of protecting the delicate feelings of the male competitors. So it’s not just to allow the women to compete.
@PatrickG:
Mm. To a certain extent, some things have to be disclosed for medical purposes. But (to me) it makes somewhat more sense to hand patients a form with a list of checkboxes, e.g.
“I have:
a penis
testicles
✓ovaries
✓a cervix
✓a uterus
a prostate
✓ breasts”
After all, someone might have breasts, a penis, and a cervix. This person needs PAP smears and mammograms, but does not need prostate exams.
Oh, and of course said form would include checkboxes (and a fill-in-the-blank) for preferred pronouns.
A feminist friend of mine was rather upset about the decision to allow men who have changed their sex to match their gender to compete on an even basis with women who were born women. She argues that, in theory, there shouldn’t be women’s sports. There should be people’s sports. The problem with this is biology. Men are generally bigger and stronger than women. Only a handful of women could compete at the higher levels of competition with men. We have women’s sports, because women and men do have a real biological difference.
To her, the problem is that transgender people have one biological sex and another biological gender. She has no problem with who has sex with whom and as what. Her problem is that people who have male bodies have a biological advantage in athletics. Having the mind of a woman in a man’s body doesn’t mean you don’t have a man’s body. Even if you alter your sexual organs, you aren’t going to reduce your muscle mass, change your bone structure or reduce your overall body size. Allowing someone with a man’s body to compete in women’s sports, even with a woman’s mind, obviates the whole point of having women’s sports in the first place.
She is rather resigned to the change. In general, being born a woman means losing a lot of battles. When someone gets kicked to the side, it is usually the someone born as a woman. Women are expected to make sacrifices. If women born as women are marginalized in athletics, that comes with the territory.
kbme @168:
(I’ll preface the following by saying that other than working out in a gym, I’ve never been an athletic person. I’ve played sports once in my life ((baseball as a pre-teen, and even then, only a short time)). I never played sports in middle or high school. My perspective and understanding of playing sports is limited.)
How does physical strength affect one’s ability to play a game like soccer? Wouldn’t stamina and speed be just as important? I ask bc in discussions about making sports co-ed, many people bring up the average difference in strength between men and women. But aren’t there relevant factors-other than physical strength-to consider?
kaleberg @175:
Doesn’t this reduce all athletic competitions down to a question of strength and size? Are there not some sports where strength and size are not the most important factors?
Also, see PZ’s comment @170.
kaleberg @175
FTFY
As for the rest of your comment, it’s been brought up repeatedly on this thread. I’d suggest you scroll up and read what people have already said about it.
@ Esteleth:
I like that solution. Do you have a ___ that needs to be paid attention to?
@ Tethys:
Thanks for the link. I don’t have the spare brain capacity at the moment, but will definitely look into it.
Sort of what I was getting at with the being attracted by bus stop advertisements / side-eyed people, where the gender in question would turn out to be quite variable. Can only speak for self, but humans seem … bad at identifying gender.
Do we pretend that Otherkin are really dragons, too?
……what the fuck do you think all the references to “hormones” in a transition context are about?
(…that is, if being terse with someone who’s being smugly clueless won’t cause shit-random tone policing attacks or creepy obsessives perusing multiple years of my commenting history to try to humiliate me over basically having the same fallible human psychology as any of the people they’re giving a pass to.)
(…again, I mean.)
gmcard, 180:
I think you could have reasoned this out by asking yourself a couple of questions:
1. Are dragons real?
2. If there is sufficient evidence to conclude that dragons are real, are they also human?
I submit that your question is silly.
I wonder if gmcard accidentally posted in the wrong thread.
No, Tony, gmcard is playing one of the more stupid transphobic tropes. It is done by people who think that posting a picture of a squirrel captained to say that “I am really a dog!” is the height of wit and knowledge. Never mind that what trans people are dealing with happens within the spectrum of what is possible within a species.
In other words, gmcard is a transphobic troll who thinks that they have a clever idea that refutes the idea that anyone could be transgender, that trans people are just mentally deluded.
The troll’s lack of humor is matched only the lack of knowledge.
Boring troll is boring.
@ soporificat #42
bold and italics are mine.
So you agree that some “females” have the muscle mass etc. necessary, and you emphasize that you are concerned about “those kids”, but you do not seem to be able to accept that some of “those kids” are trans and should be permitted to play because it matters to them. “Those kids” are all cis?
*Whew* and I was worried there for a bit.
I also accept that by the time I get to the end of this thread, our dear friend soporificat may be long, long banned. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.
because obviously, there is a stampede of transgendered folk just WAITING to get the green light to DESTROY ALL SPORTS!!!
fuck me, why are you assholes so GODDAMN FUCKING STUPID.
*boot to the head*
I can’t really see having an issue, because my high school, built in about 1974, had shower cubicles, not group showers, they were awful, as showers go, but reasonably private.
bullshit.
No one’s sneering that ‘It’s just sports’. We’re trying to point out that women can, actually, compete with men and do well, so they wouldn’t be getting shut out if the gender divide was scrapped in sports to make sports more inclusive for all people. Even in high school.
Janine @186:
Oh shit. That’s vile.
****
gmcard:
Either take a good hard look at your bigotry and try to be a better person, or take that transphobic shit somewhere else. I’d love it if you chose the first option, but I won’t hold my breath on that.
kaleberg #175
But what do you believe?
Can you ask your feminist friend if this for all trans women? Or just the big ones? And what if the teams have cis women as big or bigger than the trans women? Should they be banned too because obviously they also have an unfair advantage. Maybe each sport should have a specific size divisions. Like boxing!
Also, that horrible ad in the blog post. Ugh. It’s like people getting pissed about a trans woman using the lady’s room. As if being trans is all a scam to get into the bathroom to assault people.
They got the gendering backwards (doubtfully accidentally). I did find it strangely consistent that they did the male\girl (not boy\girl or male\female) and still used the dehumanizing one on the girls in the scenario.
Those two are pretty awesome. I’d put those in a list as positives. Sad they’re listed in an attempt at riling up bigots.
I’d take that story with a grain of salt if I were you. A big one.
It sure is constructed like a pat fabrication.
I was tempted to either say “bullshit” or “cool story bro”, and just at random chose the former.
I could be wrong, but it stinks of trolling to me.
Thank you for demonstrating you don’t know shit about what you are talking about. If you think hormones don’t affect muscle mass and bone density, you are fucking wrong.
And for crying out loud, the averages mean nothing!!!!! You are superposing that average on every individual, which is a fucking lie.
@166 PatrickG
Mating rituals in mammals and birds are very rarely, if ever, about communicating what sex the displayer is, most often that is inmediately apparent to the individuals involved. The mating ritual is about communicating your fitness.
There are other animal groups in which mating rituals and displays are used not necessarily to communicate what sex you are, but to show that you are a member of the same species. The mere fact that the individual is intending to mate is usually indication enough that they are the opposite sex (and i stress, usually).
As others have said, we are genetically and physiologically adapted to recognize faces (and there are exceptions, as always), because this is crucial for a visually oriented social species, particularly one that lives in very large societies as we do. That hability to recognize individuals also allows us to estimate age and sex, for example. At a subconscious level it is even argued that we make estimations of reproductive fitness, although this is much more fallible than the other inferences.
However, being programmed to recognize characteristics of the individuals around us doesn’t mean that we need to culturally give weight to those characteristics, when in fact, there is no reason why they should matter in the vast majority of contexts.
gmcard, feel free to: a) read the thread; b) fuck off. Preferably both.
My thanks to all those who have been posting good and (to many of us) useful information.
Incidentally, even if it were the case that every trans* woman would out-perform every cis woman at every sport at every level (which is clearly nonsense) this would still not be an argument for excluding trans* women from women’s sports. Because a) they are women, and – well, that’s it really.
And this whole matter has fuck-all to do with the general underfunding and lack of facilities and lower status of women’s sports, and the way many girls are discouraged from participating. Those are the issues that need addressing if we want to support women in sport.
Oh my gosh, there will be such a flood of cis men rushing to live full-time as women and have hormone treatment and reassignment surgery just so they might get on a sports team! Or enter a women’s changing room. Seriously, how divorced from reality do you have to be to think that is an actual likelihood? A trans* person using the correct facilities (by which I mean a trans* man using men’s facilities or a trans* woman using women’s facilities) is not placing anybody else at risk; horribly, they are at considerable risk of harassment or worse themselves.
The more I hear “it would be the death of the Olympic games” the louder a voice inside me says “wait, that’d be actually a GOOD thing”…
Not as though this really matters for kids to play sports, but yes highschool age kids CAN get hormone treatment. Preteens sometimes get hormone blockers and then at the puberty years they start hormones. Sometimes just the latter happens. Some people are not out until after highschool so it waits. Some people cannot take hormones. But the fact of the matter is, YES, high school age trans* kids frequently DO get hormone treatment. Surgery generally waits till age 18, but that’s not really relevant. A person’s genitals does not play the sport.
@176 Tony! The Queer Shoop
Afaik, world class womens teams in football (soccer) are about on par with elite boys’ team aged 16-ish. They will be more experienced, on average, but slower and lighter in frame. Marta e.g. would of course be able to play at some level in mens football, it’s just hard to say what that level would be. If you go down to the level of recreational football, whoever practices cardio at all with some basic skill level would win.
Tony! #176
Speed is affected by your strength and height, stamina is also affected by various other physical factors. There really are good reasons to use men in some positions: goalies need to be tall, defenders are usually large and strong, so are midfielders who also need to be the fastest and have the best stamina.
However, the requirements are different for forwards and attacking midfielders. There agility, sprint speed and ball control are by far more important. In fact the greatest names (like Maradona and Romario) were rather petite (about 5′ 5”). Others (like Pele) were of very average height.
Likely the best possible team would have a mix of men and women – men at center-back with a woman sweeper, male midfielders and female forwards.
erik333 @ 200,
In soccer weight doesn’t count for much. Speed, accuracy in passing, team work and the ability to calculate angles or make chances (brain power rather than muscle) matter far more. Some of the best players ever among the men have been rather slight in build.
I challenge you to find a team of whatever gender, age, weight which could consistenly beat the England women’s team.
Are you sure your own pre-programming is not getting in the way of your ability to observe and analyse?
@201 AlexanderZ
What level of play are you talking about?
@202 Maureen Brian
The Swedish national team actually do practice games vs boys you know, and are ranked higher than England. The data is in on this. Personally i think its a bad idea, since it won’t be representative of womens football and thus will breed some bad habits. But maybe they are trying to mimic what it is like to play the German womens team, who are in fact faster, bigger and stronger.
AlexanderZ @ 201
No, there are no good reasons there to especially focus on men for those positions. On average people with the physical qualities suited for those positions are most often men. The goal is to place players well suited to the positions, which not all men are and yet someone women could be. Who has the physical ability and skill for the position? Not in general, but in specific. You put actual individuals on a team, not an average of a gender.
Tall women. Strong women. They exist. Let’s not erase them from the world just because they aren’t the average. Athletes aren’t average either.
For anyone who, you know, thinks all women have the same teeny-tiny-as-compared-to-men-body-type, let me just leave this groups shot here, first half and second half. Now, you might say “But there’s no soccer players on there!” and you would be right. But look at those body types and the types of sports – endurance, agility, speed, strength – all the characteristics are there. What’s to stop these women, with the right kind and amount of training, from competing with men, besides cultural prejudices?
Regarding soccer, someone once put up a great link about top scorers in soccer, and about how the top 3 women scorers out-score the top 10 men’s scorers or something. Bloody hell can’t find it. But you would be fine in telling me that those women and their teammates can’t even beat a team of 16-year-old boys? Ever? Ever?
I don’t have any info on hockey, but I give you Kaillie Humphries, first woman 4-person bobsleigh pilot in Canada, who, along with American Elana Meyers Taylor are the first two women to win medals in 4-person bobsleigh ever in the history of the world – and that was in the first ever race this season, also the first ever race where women were allowed onto bobsleigh teams with men. And look at Kaillie’s bio – you’re saying that kind of experience and talent doesn’t deserve a chance to compete against everyone? … Scared the men are gonna lose?
.. And re: that group shot of the women athletes – I simply cannot believe that transwomen wouldn’t appear all over that spectrum, too. So – what advantage exactly would they have?
I wasn’t keeping count, but aren’t the only women who “worry” about trans women having an advantage over other women in sports admitted TERFs? And the rest are men doing that mansplaining thing.
Example #40598 of religion getting a special exemption in law to behave unethically.
If religious institutions are such paragons of virtue, why are these exemptions necessary?
Why are people so obsessed with the “transitioning to win at sports” problem? Given all the problems transwomen face, including rampant discrimination, organized harassment campaigns, a staggering suicide rate, a horrific murder rate, and hopelessly inadequate medical support, why is that always the issue that comes up?
@206 rq
Hockey -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayley_Wickenheiser
Who said anything about them not being able to beat “a team of 16-year-old boys” “Ever”? The claim was that world class womens’ teams (e.g. team Sweden) are about on par with elite teams for 16-yo boys. As evidenced by the fact they choose such teams for practice games, in order to get quality game practice more cheaply and often than can be arranged vs USA or Germany e.g.
My apologies, then, for extrapolating too far.
But this?
See that word ‘cheaply’? As was mentioned above, women’s sports are often seriously underfunded, so it’s really no surprise they would go that route. So, maybe if their funding improved, we would see them practice against more comparable teams?
This whole “world class women’s teams are on par with elite boys teams” argument is completely idiotic. It’s an absolutely pointless comparison. It’s like saying someone throws like a girl. Girls throw like people who haven’t been taught how to throw. If we funded girls sports the same as boys, encouraged athleticism in girls the same as boys, let girls compete against boys if they want to, etc. nobody knows how that comparison would stack up. It’s the same old bullshit of rigging the game to favor boys/men and then using the fact that girls/women don’t perform as well as evidence that they’re not suited to [insert pursuit here].
hyperdeath @210: why are people so obsessed with anything but trans rights? For the same reason that people are obsessed with false rape reporting and black-on-black crime: it’s a way to derail from discussing the actual topics, and an effective one.
Note that this thread has now wandered from discussing the actual topic to whether or not women can compete with men. We’re not even talking about trans people anymore, just how cis women and cis men stack up with one another.
They do it because it’s an effective derailing tactic, and that way we can get away from the cause of actually doing anything to advance the rights of trans people.
-=-=-
Janine, thanks for calling out that piece of rank bullshit by gmcard. I saw it in my mail, but decided I wasn’t going to mess with it, thinking it so obvious that someone else would step on it. My mistake.
If it helps, folks, think of that particular line of bullshit as a) another derailing tactic, and b) about as relevant as the people opposed to marriage equality throwing out the line about people marrying their dogs or brothers.
-=-=-
As to how ubiquitous this bathroom panic shit is, I direct you to two things.
1) The New York Times uncritically published a bathroom-panic attack a couple of days ago, talking about ENDA not having a chance in the House. Some right-wing turdwaffle gave almost exactly the same text as that repulsive ad above, and the “liberal” Times published it without even seeking a rebuttal. So much for “always get both sides”, ne? It was linked in Salon, I’m sure someone not on a phone can find and paste the link.
2) A book was published a couple of years ago; I had the opportunity to contribute as an interviewee, talking about the times I have been unsafe in bathrooms because of my transness. This video is an interview with the author of Queering Bathrooms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wahE2b3aJh8
Sorry if that embeds, HTML is brutal on a phone.
Alright, I’m late to the thread, but I was at a peaceful protest against police brutality and police racism last night, so I guess that’s a pretty good excuse.
I was assigned male at birth. I didn’t ask for that, and while it took me longer than it should have to realize that I am female, I never felt male, and I never identified as male. I’m a bit early in my transition (~4 months on HRT, still need to work on my voice), but you know what? That doesn’t change me being female one bit. TERFs can go fuck themselves.
Regarding showers/locker rooms: Trans people are far more likely to be the victims of violence in these settings than the perpetrators. In fact, I can’t think of a single incident where a trans person has started shit there. Speaking of nudity, trans people in locker rooms or bathrooms just want to use the facility in peace, stay out of trouble, and not bring attention to ourselves, because those places are dangerous for us. Do any of the TERF or otherwise anti-trans idiots think that there are incredibly easy steps for us to not expose our lower genitalia? Hell, even when I was still on swim team/water polo team, pretty much all of my teammates used towels to cover our genitals when changing. Trans genital exposure in a locker room or bathroom is not a thing, nor is a big deal.
Speaking of trans genital exposure panic in bathrooms or locker rooms, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the narrative and panic is about trans women and a fear of having cis women see penises. Nobody gives a shit about a trans guy possibly showing his vagina, since cis guys are totally cool with seeing vagina. But no, we must protect the innocent women against the wrath of exposed cock, or something. There’s a deeply sexist narrative that’s embedded within the transphobia, but that’s really not surprising.
Regarding sporting abilities: The Olympics allows trans people to compete as their correct gender. I’m sure they know more about sports and biological ability of athletics than any of the anti-trans people who cling to a simplistic 8th-grade level of biology. I’ll stick with actual science on this. Speaking of trans people competing in sports, there’s yet again another sexist narrative where everyone focuses on trans women and ignores trans men competing. And you know what? It’s also bullshit, and so is the “competitive advantage” crap. This is anecdotal, but if I had realized that I was trans and came out while I was on swim team, I could have swam on the women’s team and still have had shitty times in my events. Competitive advantage my ass. Speaking of which, I’m sure that there are plenty of trans athletes that nobody gives a shit about, but when one of them (eg Fallon Fox) actually starts doing well in their sport, then people bust out the transphobia.
In conclusion, trans women are women, trans men are men, and TERFs are idiots.
If you define “woman” by “can pop out babies”, I have a few choice words for you. One of them starts with an M and has been called a “slur” with the same right as “TERF”
You can take the biologistic bullshit and shove it where it came from, the place where the sun doesn’t shine.
All those fucking “what if a guy just claims to be a woman in order to sexually assault women/win the olympic gold medal/shower with the highschool girls” scenarios are about as realistic as “what if a giant duck eats the Empire State Building” while intentionally shutting down the conversations about the real actual harm done to and suffered by trans women every day, in some cases at the hands of the very feminists who should stand shoulder to shoulder with them for women’s rights.
Cait
You’re right about the derail. Sorry. :P Should keep these things better under control (speaking of my own typey-type fingers).
Rachel
Thank you, thank you, for that comment.
(And yay for being out protesting. That is an awesome excuse. Hope all went peacefully!)
Caitie
Because, in their heart of hearts, people really believe that there are onle men and women and that one of them is from Mars and the other one is from Venus. They think that the labels male or female reveal some useful information about the baby. I remember that when the kids were little and I dressed them in what has been deemed “male” clothing, some people would react angrily, because apparently I was maliciously withholding some important information from them they considered to be their right to know.
So people know, one of the most vocal TERFs is Cathy Brennan. (She works as a lawyer for the payday loan industry. Let that sink in.) She also goes by “bug” and works that into her many Twitter accounts. She has many because she gets suspended often.
She has a blog called Gender Identity Watch. She keeps a list of what she deems male violence. On that list are men who have committed rape and murder along with names (and dead names) of trans women. That is because all trans women, by definition, are anti-lesbian misogynistic pro-rapist men.
She also calls the murders and rapes of trans women by men “male on male violence”.
So, when ever I see the “trans women are actually men” rhetoric used by the recently banned troll, this is what I see being argued. Not just the denial that trans women exist, it is the argument that trying to live as I am causes violence to all women.
I could go into greater detail but this should be enough for cis people to see the depths of the arguments used against trans people.
Every time I hear about Cathy Brennan, I realize that actually, she can turn out to be even worse than I previously believed.
Giliell @ 216:
Since I made comments skirting this, and didn’t notice anyone else doing so: I don’t. But I also can’t see what else explains the origin of divisions by sex in society. The difference in other regards simply isn’t great enough as far as anyone’s been able to demonstrate.
Well, odin, a certain school of thought says that the difference between “men” and “women” is that men fuck and women are fucked. This has the effect of explaining the very different societal views of gay and bi men who allow themselves to be penetrated from the men they have sex with. This is also why people who do not have children are nonetheless categorized as “men” or “women” rather than as genderless.
This framework leaves a bit out, IMO, but there’s a certain amount of accuracy in it.
esteleth
Though especially women who do not have children got and are getting “not real woman” thrown at them the way a man without children doesn’t seem to get shit. With men it’s more like you are a man by default and if you make lots of babies you are a superior one.
odin
Well, if you don’t have a better answer, there’s always god. I know that this is snarky, but it’s also true. Bodies are real. Mine does have indeed the ability to pop out babies the way the person I’m married to’s body doesn’t, but hopefully for many years to come none of our children will test that ability yet people are treating them in a certain way already. Because that’s what it comes down to.
Also decidedly trollish is the way erik333 clings to the idea that no woman for women’s team could ever out-perform 16 year old lads.
I can’t work out whether he’s conscious of this or not but this is the old and long debunked notion – taken for granted in about 1830 – that the default human is the adult male, all others being either immature or defective or sometimes, in the case of women, permanently immature and permanently defective. Either way, it’s a nasty idea and does precisely nothing to recognise the huge variability in all genders.
It’s a great way to shut down all and any scientific or sensitive discussion of the experience of real trans* people. It’s another “me-me-me” ploy – ” let’s not talk about reality, let’s just concentrate on my ignorance because I am so very important.”
toska, #171
It’s interesting you mentioned those two, because I was just about to post an example from MMA.
Fallon Fox is a transgender MMA fighter. She fights in the women’s division. There was (and still is) a lot of opposition to her being able to compete because “omg man muscles!” Well, she doesn’t have any sort of unfair advantage over the women she competes against. She’s really good. But she lost one of her fights by knockout. She has also stated that her training partner (a woman) is stronger than her, which forces her to focus on perfecting her techniques.
I’ve always hated this whole women can’t compete shit. Of course if you enforce it from childhood on virtually every single girl, it’s going to happen. Just let people be and see what happens. People with the aptitude and enough passion will make it regardless of gender.
I hate it when people make these claims about average meassured performance implying that this obviously and conclusively means that group x and group y have different aptitudes and capabilities as a consequence of different biologies. None of that data has ever been taken from a sample that is not contaminated with cultural impossitions and biases. Ever. Get a fucking sample that is not contaminated, take as much data points as you like and THEN tell me the results, i promise i’ll take them into account. Until then, fuck off, all you’ve meassured, as far as anybody can tell, is the detrimental effects of cultural norms and limitations upon the performance of a task affected by them.
Quoting the banned TERF
philosophybullshit spouting troll soporificat (6 December 2014 at 2:08 pm),I wanted to quote this thoroughly dishonest piece of utter bullshit about intersex people, since it too was part of the thread derailing disinformation and also happens to require debunking. I’m trans, not intersex, but as there has been plenty of debunking of the transphobia in the thread it is worth adding some actual information to counter the incorrect information about intersex:
What does the Intersex community say about their relationship to transgender and gender diverse people? Well, quoting the local chapter of Organisation Intersex International (OII) and their pamphlet Intersex for allies:
The point to take from this in respect of the thread topic is that intersex people are often at risk of systemic discrimination because of the policing of stereotypical sex characteristics, but which operates in a different way from the discrimination faced by trans people. The biological essentialist philosophy espoused by so-called “gender critical” TERFs also contributes harm towards intersex people, as discovered by the intersex and trans blogger Dr Cary Gabriel Costello, who pointed out that they pathologise intersex conditions as being aberrations of a deterministic “true” underlying sex, despite the mismatching of karyotype or phenotype or ambiguous morphology.
If you don’t read that blogpost, a useful pull-quote would be from a paragraph where Costello explored what the consequences would be for intersex people if TERFs followed through on their programme of assigning sex:
Emphasis added; now let’s go back and read the first sentence the banned troll wrote in comment 22:
Quelle surprise. A TERF.
Finally, as far as lies, damned lies, and statistics go, the banned troll cited the extreme rarity of intersex as 0.017% and it is no surprise that this too is lying by the citation of statistics that erase people from the discussion. Intersex is an umbrella term for a collection of many different diagnoses, well over two dozen in number, each with a different prevalence in the community – medically they are termed “Disorders of Sexual Development” (DSD), which for obvious reasons is problematic for reinforcing the idea that all such “disorders” have to be medically or surgically corrected, given the lack of consent when infant genital surgeries take place. Again referring to OII:
If the 1.7% figure seems way higher (Anne Fausto-Sterling’s estimate), that’s because she includes individuals who are born with genitals intermediate in size or ambiguous in appearance, who would be at risk of “corrective” surgery in places where societal pressure to conform to norms of appearance might override consideration of the individual’s own best interests – typically boys born with micropenis or hypospadias, or girls with clitoromegaly – the Intersex Society of North America cites 1 percent of live births exhibit some degree of sexual ambiguity, anatomically.
The 0.017% to 0.018% figure however seems to derive from Leonard Sax who said definitionally intersex should be “restricted to those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female” (Wikipedia citation), which inherently would erase from the discussion those intersex people who don’t have one of the diagnoses of DSD, but do have genitals with a degree of ambiguous appearance.
TL:DR — banned troll is not only a transphobe spouting bullshit trans-exclusionary propaganda, she is also spouting utter rubbish about intersex as well.
I’d say women’s football is roughly at the level of under 16 football, but that doesn’t necessarily say much about the inherent abilities of women as the pool of women who consider giving football a go is much smaller than the pool of men, the training is probably worse too.
On strength in football, it does somewhat depend on the the position you play in. Generally it’s important, though if you are very fast (acceleration being more important than outright speed) or skilled you can compensate for a lack of strength to a degree. However, it will be a flaw in your game if you lack strength, no matter who you are. Maradonna at 5’5 was brought up as a counterexample, but he was stronger than the average player, as well as being incredibly gifted in other areas.
If we look at high level professional football there are a few notable examples of players without much in the way of physical gifts. Pirlo and Scholes (in his latter years) don’t have the speed or stamina for football, but were still played because of their pass accuracy and vision. But they were still strong, and not many players can be as accurate as them. Bojan Krkic might be an example of a weaker player, but he’s skilful and quick enough that he can still be a good player. He’s going to be stronger than the average women player, but there will be women who can match or exceed him for strength.
Maureen
What does this mean? Do you mean we have to make a team of people we know personally? You can’t think the England women’s team is the best football team on the planet, can you? It’s not even the best women’s team. And undeniably every premier league team for example would absolutely destroy any women’s team.
rq
That doesn’t say anything about the quality of women’s football or those high scoring players relative to the men. Those women scored lots of goals playing against other women. Scoring a goal isn’t like scoring a free throw in basketball.
Marc Abian @ 228,
No, of course I don’t think the England Women’s team is the best team ever. They have been doing rather better than the men’s team in recent decades though.
I tell you what! Let’s come back to this when women have had a minimum of 150 years of sponsorship, training facilities, active encouragement from childhood onwards and, for professionals, salaries sufficient both to live on and to put in all that training. Their performance might still be different but that would be a realistic basis for comparison.
Or is this”women can never be better than 16-year-old males” some sort of religious tenet?
*applauds Sven @213*
er, Seven, even.
Ican tipe g oodly.
rilly.
“… transwomen are just as much women as I am (and most probably identify as women more strongly than I do), and transmen are just as much men as cismen.”
^ THIS. ^
I don’t really identify strongly as any gender, so I simply present as my biological gender because that’s easy. And from that position, it disgusts me that someone who identifies strongly enough to present themselves differently wouldn’t be unconditionally accepted as such.
Somewhat related: I was really impressed with my dad recently. For context: I’ve never particularly spoken to him about gender issues, and he’s never researched them. He’s completely ignorant on the subject, so when he mentioned being served by a transwoman working at the new Costco, I was prepared for awkwardness.
He then continued the anecdote. His co-worker had been sighing about how “life is tough”, thanks to financial and relationship difficulties. Dad agreed, but then mentioned that, for all that life was tough for them, how much tougher would it have to be for this woman, presenting as such and working in retail in addition to dealing with all the crap they have to deal with?
To him, that was way more “tough” than anything he’d ever have to go through. To his (and my) surprise, his conservative christian co-worker actually thought about it for a moment and agreed with him: that was tough.
Not only did Dad correctly gender her, he also recognised and brought up the privilege he and his co-workers hold, from a position of complete ignorance on the subject. So yeah. Fist bump for gender equality. *dap*
I’m so bloody sick of the goddamn “bu-bu-but blahdeblah male bodies so super strong compared to women, we so care about women’s sports, you guys” bullshit to dismiss trans* kids and trans* athletes, because it is so aggressively ignorant of the way trans* people in general and trans women who hormonally transition in specific operate or are forced to operate it doesn’t even know.
See, here’s the thing about trans* kids. They are not usually allowed to transition at normal pubescent age, even if they have known since early age. Usually they are only offered blockers (or acquire them illegally if denied) and so have radically delayed pubescences compared to their peers. What this means is that the average trans girl who is competing in a women’s sport in middle school or high school is most likely to not only have a lack of “male pubescent development”, but also “female pubescent development”, leaving them much smaller, weaker, and otherwise at a disadvantage compared to their peers in their sports.
Even for adults who presumably went through an inaccurate pubescence, the structural gains are pretty well knocked out within a couple of years of hormonal treatment as is confirmed by trained endocrinologists working in the field of literally determining the eligibility rules surrounding trans* athletes and have made the topic their primary focus of study. Furthermore, trans women adults are often at a disadvantage athletically, because often they have a much lower testosterone level than their peers in women’s sports and often have difficulty building and maintaining muscle mass as well as balance because the shifts that hormones bring.
What this all means is that often trans women athletes who hormonally transition* are not only “not biologically privileged to instantly destroy the competition”, but actually have to work harder and train smarter simply to compete on the same level (usually by learning methods of competing that rely less on strength, but instead speed, agility, or good decision making.
And that leads to a bullshit situation where not only are trans women at an inherent disadvantage in their chosen sports, they also have their accomplishments used as weapons against them. If they succeed, it isn’t because they trained hard and worked their ass off to “make up” a biological deficit, but rather because of what a bunch of biology and endocrinology ignorant mother fuckers think trans* development looks like (or more often, just the bigoted idea of trans* women equaling super hairy buff guy in dress because that’s what terrible comedies like to depict trans* people as).
So yeah, not only are the arguments about trans women being “biologically” superior at sports than cis women a bigoted distraction designed to infantilize women athletes and diminish their accomplishments, but they are also factually wrong.
And yeah, on the Bobdamned Trans Panic in the bathrooms and the locker rooms.
When I go into the bathroom, I go in to pee.
I don’t know what all the bigots are doing that they think its all orgies, peep shows, and peeking under toilets, but for every trans* person I have ever known, we have all gone in to pee… or possible poop. And there’s few of us that don’t hate having to use public facilities at all. The majority of violence we receive tends to happen around bathrooms as the gendered nature of them seems to make every wannabe tough guy and gal into the bobdamned gender police. Plus, it’s just an uncomfortable space where we have to have direct focus on bits we’re not particularly happy about. I’m not the only trans* person I know who’s worked to become part camel so as to try and not ever use restrooms in public because of just how uncomfortable, scary, and likely to fuck up your whole day with dysphoria they are.
And changing rooms are like that but so much worse. Nearly all trans* accounts of changing rooms in high school paint them as times of no-look speed changing, near-panic attacks, the thing preventing them from wearing their preferred undergarments (or getting the crap beating out of them if they did), and trying to flee as fast as possible with as little skin exposed as possible. I doubt I was the only trans* kid who in changing spaces, mastered methods of changing without ever being shirtless or pantsless.
The shitstorm is such an obvious tactic and its so painfully clear that those who have bought into it have never met a trans* person in their life, because otherwise they would never fucking think “gosh, here’s someone who wants to linger and make waves in a closed off gendered space where no one can hear them scream”.
*And before any of you bigots try and argue “well what about trans* people who don’t hormonally transition? Well, they A) aren’t allowed to compete at all due to what few rules there are only allowing a slim subset of trans* individuals who have been on hormones for awhile or otherwise have name changes and are on blockers and B) are often fucked in a lot of annoying ways when it comes to getting their official sex changed due to wide-spread belief that the only possible way to be transgender is to be the set of two (unt only two) possible stereotypes of ultra femme trans girl or ultra butch trans boy who want to hormonally and surgically transition.
And on the subject of communal showers, speaking as someone who was perfectly willing to be chastised for being late to class rather than change in the same room as other people (let alone shower in front of them, urgh)… no. Just… no. I don’t care if it’s a cultural thing or if I’m naturally a prude, but *NO*. All of the noes. ALL OF THEM.
Crap, my comment seems to be stuck in limbo.
Shorter me:
The trans women are super strong compared to poor cis women argument is both patronizing to cis women athletes and horribly inaccurate. Trans girls (the population that would compete in high school and middle school sports) are often put on puberty blockers and denied hormones for years “just in case” they suddenly change their mind, leaving them smaller and weaker than similarly aged peers of both sexes.
And trans women athletes who hormonally transition often have any gains made by inaccurate pubescent development offset by only a few years of hormones, leaving them often at a disadvantage strength-wise due to massively decreased testosterone counts compared to other women.
Both sets are actually at a disadvantage and have hard work discounted as “unfair male advantage” whenever they dare succeed through hard work and often become targets for elimination from competing in a sport if they dare strive to do well and make up said deficit.
So yeah, the distraction is not only a distraction but provably false.
FYWP. It keeps eating my comments.
Not if I can help it. The surface is toxic, full hazmat gear required….
Maureen ~229
Maybe you should read my post again?
For your first paragraph, see my response to rq. For your second para, see my first para. For your third para, see my third para where I discuss the the potential for physically lacking players to play top level football, though I don’t have any strong belief about whether any or many women would be able to cut it in the premier league. I also note that no one said women could never be better than 16 year old males, it was a comment on the current state of women’s football.
Now please satisfy my curiosity; what did you mean by your challenge about finding a team that could consistently beat the English women’s team?
The Mellow Monkey #205
You’re right. I wasn’t thinking enough.
erik333 #203
Any level of play. Just like rq, Seven of Mine and Maureen Brian have said (sorry if I forgot someone) – there is no reason to think that the current level of women sports is as high as it ever going to get. Women sports don’t have nearly the same resources as men sports, so any comparison of contemporary performance is flawed.
Even men’s football has visibly improved in the last 30 years. It’s quite odd watching games from the 70s or 80s and see how much space and time the players get. It would never happen now.
I’ve read of some fairly nasty hazing that has gone on in showers and locker rooms with cis-males. Maybe communal showers just aren’t a good idea? Not only would single stall deals fix whatever ‘problem’ could be presented by trans students, it would also put a dent in the existing problems which we know are actually going on. And anyone trans is in more danger in the allegedly ‘proper’ place for them.
Cerberus @ 233 Thank you, that post was particularly enlightening.
@ azhael:
Yeah, my bad… copy/paste error led to what was originally a two-part comment (mating rituals, dimorphism) into a horrible mash of two different thoughts. Was meant to be a comment on clear dimorphism (e.g. ducks, with distinct plumage as gender marker) vs less-clear dimorphism (humans, for instance) and how non-genetic/cultural markers become more significant when only extremes (physical size, mammary size, what have you) become clear indicators of gender (and even then, of course…). Thus, bus ads leading to gender confusion. :)
Instead, I totally screwed up my own comment. I’m not good at this internet thing; ’tis why I don’t comment much.
I don’t actually mind communal showers. It’s like any other communal activity — everybody’s there for the same reason, and everybody’s focused on getting their own shower [or laundry, or whatever] done.
@Cerberus,
Thanks for your comment. It’s so insidious how the objection to trans people participating in sports according to their proper gender insults everyone involved, but I also liked that you brought up how the assumption that trans women are automatically better at sports than cis women hurts trans athletes. I really hate that their accomplishments are dismissed that way. The whole idea that women’s sports are under attack or will be ruined by trans women is laughable. Women are marginalized in the sports world (ALL women — not just cis ones), but the struggles of women athletes don’t come from the transgender community.
On the topic of locker rooms, your comment also resonated with me a lot. I was always a fairly masculine or androgynous girl (and very ‘unpopular’ with my peers), and I mastered the “change with as little skin showing as possible” routine, and I was bullied in high school after peers saw some markings on my body in the locker room. As awful as that was for me, I can’t even begin to imagine how much worse it is for trans women and men. I admire trans kids so much for facing their nightmares every day.
Marc Abian @ 240,
It was a rhetorical device. You pick your own team but whoever you pick will not advance your understanding of the topic under discussion one whit.
Let us look at another sport – marathon running. Men have been doing it competitively since the Games were help at Mount Olympus, with all the glory, fame and encouragement anyone could wish for. The first woman to run in an official, timed marathon was less than 50 years ago – Boston, 1967 – and even then the officials tried to remove her forcibly from the race. The official rule – drawn up by guess who? – was that the the longest distance women could possibly run was 1.5 miles.
Now look at the results for the London Marathon in 2014, this is a race of tens of thousand and the starts are staged and timed separately so I’m just giving you the top ten elite runners for men and women. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/other-sports/athletics/london-marathon-2014-results-winners-3408387
The difference is a matter of minutes and on that day Kipsang set a course record. So if women can get from 1.5 miles to this in less than half a century where might they be in another hundred years? There might still be a difference but it is unlikely to be greater.
You need to be listening to the people here who are giving you good, detailed information. Even better, talk to some athletes who have transitioned. It would be more to the point than trying to play gotcha with me.
Yep, “bathroom panic” makes you think about what those people do in bathrooms.
Having cis privilege, I have used many of them during my lifetime. Not once have I seen anybody else’s genitals, not even when I accidentially walked in on people because they forgot to lock the door.
***
Cerberus
I wanted to mention puberty blockers, too, but you did a much better job than me explaining them.
+++
Also, please can we stop about cis wo/men’s football here? Take it to the Lounge or TD.
@224 Maureen Brian
As far as I’m aware, I’m only clinging to that within the confines of your mind. Indeed, let’s not talk about reality, let’s talk about the world as you imagine it to be. Where no team could beat Englands womens team consistently…
@247 Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
Sure.
Yay! My post got through!
Oh, and adding on to my @233, there’s a double-edged sword about the “be good as a trans girl athlete and be dismissed as having an unfair advantage”. If you’re mediocre or bad at a sport as a trans woman or girl athlete, you’re also usually fucked over, because it’s assumed that you are only into the sport for the opportunity to “spy on” your fellow athletes and are campaigned against that way.
So, no matter the skill, you’re either assumed to be a predator or an unfair competitor.
And yeah, adding on to the whole bathroom panic, it’s amusing how trans women who pee are demonized as such clear obvious predators even though the bigots who propogate that myth have been literally scouring for any single instance they can exploit of a trans woman committing violence in a bathroom or locker room and literally finding nothing for decades even though there have been quite a number of cases in that same time of dedicated campaigners against “bathroom bills” who have turned out to be predators who like to violate cis women in women’s restrooms.
It’s almost like IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION or something with these fuckers.
http://wiki.bme.com/images/6/6a/Buck-Angel.jpeg
This is Buck Angel, a transexual pornstar who was born a women and who has a vagina. Are all these people saying Angel should be using the ladies room? Would they feel more comfortable then?
Matthew White, just because Buck Angel has a vagina does not mean that he was born a women. Was he born as a fully sized and a fully developed adult?
Please do not use “born a ____” because it is too close to the gender essentialism that transphobic people make use of.
Thank you.
Matthew White:
This isn’t about adults, it’s about teenagers and high school. The ad attempts the big scare by using ‘male’, bringing up the image of an adult man in the girl’s locker room. It’s not helpful to buy into that nonsense.
Janine:
Not only that, as far as I know, no one ever was born a women. That would be quite the feat. Oh, and for the record, I wouldn’t be upset in any way over sharing a lavatory with Mr. Angel. I am in favour of unisex lavs.
Matthew White,
When your gotcha against bigots amounts to “scary* trans man”… you’re doing it wrong. Very very wrong.
*not the word I would use to describe the man in that picture, but that seemed to be the implication of White’s comment
I see 3 takes on this issue:
1) A Harvard educated psychiatrist, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/johns-hopkins-psychiatrist-transgender-mental-disorder-sex-change
2) The general opinion held by the majority of people on the planet, of whom soporificat (who was banned for speaking the default viewpoint) is a member. Basically, this viewpoint is transgenderism is crazy. Believing/wishing/hoping you are a member of the opposite sex does not make it so. Getting a sex change operation no more makes you a member of the opposite sex than getting surgery and hair implants all over your body so that you look like a gorilla, and you eat bananas all day and act like a gorilla, and thinking you are a gorilla too does not make you a gorilla.
This viewpoint appears here: http://www.returnofkings.com/19175/8-ways-to-spot-a-transsexual
3) The transgender opinion: “I am a member of the opposite sex because I feel and believe that I am because I do not fell comfortable in my body, finger in ears, eyes closed I won’t hear you nyah nyah nyah!”
Okay, so which one of these points of view is the correct one? Am I to accept #3? Is that not the same as me going to an insane asylum asking someone there “Ary you insane?” and the lunatic says “Definitely not!” so I say “Gosh, the medical personnel must have their diagnosis wrong. Those cuts on your arms must be caused by something else, the leering gaze in your eyes something else too. They were wrong! They should release you right away because you say you are sane.”
So let me get this straight: I am to dismiss the highly educated opinion of a PhD, peer-reviewed paper writing psychiatrist and take the transgender-thinking point of view?
Please tell me why I should disregard the Harvard educated psychiatrist?
And do not call me a troll. A troll spouts an opinion to stir up trouble. I have not stated my opinion on the subject, nor will I unless specifically asked. And do not call me a TERF, transphobe, or some other childish name.
I have asked an honest, legitimate question: why should I accept a transgendered opinion of the subject over that of a trained, experienced psychiatrist?
@dadsen 256 Why should I ask a trans* person what it’s like to be trans*? Or for that matter, why ask a black person what it’s like to be black? Surely a (white cis male) Harvard professor knows better! After all, he’s studied.
You’re choosing to believe a secondhand experience over a firsthand one. And, more than that, you’re choosing to believe the secondhand word of a privileged person over the firsthand experience of a marginalized person. That is a depressingly common pattern, with any marginalized group.
dadsen, #256
I’ll wait for more knowledgeable people’s responses to see how they address your point #1, but regarding this:
You sure did:
So…. what were you folks saying about bannable offenses?
Dadsen @ 256, I’ll give you an answer once you manage to drop MRA/PUA bullshit as any sort of credible source. I will give this to you for free, though: you’re being a massive asshole, not all that far off from the banned TERFer, and given that transgendered people have been participating in this thread, you might want to tread carefully.
Beatrice @ 259:
Yeah. I think if Dadsen decides to carry on, PZ should be informed.
@dadsen,
Do you realize that when transgender people start transitioning with HRT and/or surgery, they have to consult psychiatrists and medical doctors? The doctors who help them are also trained, experienced PhD holders. It’s almost like the opinion of one psychiatrist doesn’t define the entire field of psychology concerning transgender issues. Who would have thought?
Iyeska,
Way ahead of you ;)
Preemptive warning already mailed. I have no patience for this kind of bullshit.
Straightforward eliminationist stance: “why should I recognise that you exist, when I would clearly rather you didn’t, and these people who would also prefer that agree with me?”
Why on earth would anyone call that anti-trans?
If he were making this kind of statement about the existence of gay people or mental illness, we’d recognise it instantly as bigotry.
Here’s some relevant information on Dr. McHugh:
Uh oh. There’s that buzzword… “family values”. We know what that means.
Oops, here’s the source for my #265:
New York Times article
fuck you, dadsen
You are to study the history of psychology and psychiatric medicine, at some level of detail greater than taking “their” every declaration on faith, before you assume “their” hateful bullshit is grounded in anything other than hateful bullshit. Because scientists can be fucked up people, just like everyone else.
I put “their” in scare-quotes for a reason. It doesn’t help that you find one hateful bullshitter of a scientist, or even several bullshitters out of the entire field, while disregarding the rest and while disregarding any consideration of the quality of evidence. This is nothing like the consensus based on the evidence. It’s some garbage which you decided to cherry-pick, because you’re a shitstain.
dasden
1. Argument from authority
Hey, we can probably find hundreds of highly educated men who think/thought that homosexuality is a mental disorder and that women cannot think cause their uteruses start to wander.
2. Argument from popularity
Which one is the real one? But after all, the overwhelming majority of people past and present DO believe in gods, why should anybody be atheist?
3. Well, because they’re talking about themselves? Because the harm they suffer when not being allowed to transition is real and demonstrable?
4. Just fuck off or stop spouting that bullshit.
I love when people say “transgenderism is crazy”. Even if it WERE, which I do not think it is for even a second, it would still be a real experience. My psychotic disorder, the very definition of “crazy”, is still recognized.
Dadsen, go ahead and cherry pick psychiatrists and ignore the medical community as a whole, as well as take the word of the members of a privileged class. You’ll be wrong, but by all means. Just don’t get your hopes up that you’ll stick around here with your bullshit.
dadsen @ 256:
Can I call you a MRA, considering you actually posted a link to Return of Kings, calling it representative of mainstream opinion?
Sorry, I cannot take seriously anyone who links to Return Of Kings in order to back up an argument.
Janine
Well, it comes from somebody who thinks it’s unfair that he has to wipe his own butt, so it’s probably the opposite of argument from authority…
Janine,
No no no, he’s not making an argument or stating his own opinion. He’s just asking legitimate questions. Honest.
As for the idea that being transgendered means that one is crazy, I will say this: It is the stress of being trans in a society that thinks there is something inherently wrong with being trans that causes mental problems. Try being a six year old child, reading all one can find, trying to figure out why getting pregnant is not possible, realizing why and knowing that you better keep your mouth shut because of the problems you will get from everyone.
Yes, I know this experience personally. I wish it upon no one.
Me neither. And I resent people like Andrea James who have made it into a fetish.
dadsen
There’s a lot of idiocy in your post so I’ll just pick out a couple things:
Who gives a shit what most people believe? Everyone on the planet used to believe the sun orbited Earth but, despite that, Earth kept on keepin’ on orbiting the sun.
Neither does believing/wishing/hoping XYZ doesn’t exist make that so.
That you think Return of Kings is a reputable source for anything says pretty much all there is to know about you. I wouldn’t trust someone who writes for that site to tell me what color the sky is.
Yes, I do, in fact, believe individuals regarding their own experiences. And ya know what? Even if your completely back-asswards understanding of gender dysphoria was correct, it costs me nothing to respect the wishes of any human being with regard to what name to call them by and which pronouns to use in reference to them. It’s not even necessary to believe or understand. You just have to not be an abject asshole.
Are you under the impression that this paper you’ve cited is the only paper ever written on the subject? Do you think there aren’t papers in existence which would directly contradict its conclusions? If you think those exist, why are you OK with dismissing those papers but not the one you’ve cited? Could it possibly be because *gasp* the one you’ve cited happens to reinforce your preconceptions? Surely not!
You appear to be working with rather an odd definition of “opinion”.
Goodness, am I sheltered. This thread was my first in-the-wild sighting of both a TERF and someone who unironically JAQ’ed off.
@#256: if you only see three takes on “the issue”, it’s because you’ve stopped looking. Laziness != comprehensive understanding. But just to pile on:
You should dismiss ANY opinion that does not conform to explorable reality. You should be wary of ALL motivated reasoning. You should GET OVER THE IDEA that a degree means someone must be right.
I can’t tell if you’re a bad troll (oops, used the t-word. Sorry/not sorry.) or a coward…although nobody’s yet demonstrated those to be mutually exclusive for you. People who JAQ off are people either afraid to be criticized or are using stupid rhetorical tricks to re-frame the debate in a way they feel benefits them.
1. Dr Duane Gish, Dr Fuz Rana, Dr William Dembski, Dr Paul Nelson all say evolution is hogwash. Why should I let high school teachers instruct kids in evolution when they’re so thoroughly outranked?
2. At the time of the Civil War, a majority of Americans thought Negroes were inferior. They must have been right, since there were so many of them.
3. I’ve decided that you, sir, are a professional clown, that you should quit your job, and go to clown college, so you can spend the rest of your life blowing up balloon animals. What are you going to do, stick your fingers in your ears and go nyah nyah, insisting the you don’t want to be a clown, or are you going to obey the instructions of Dr Myers, Ph.D and the will of a majority of the commenters here?
Dasden, your comment was so stupid and full of fallacies that I’m putting you on notice — spout any more of your transphobic crap and you will be banned.
Seven of Mine
This.
I just read a post by an Austrian trans woman on a German blog where she tries to explain that it’s nothing trans people choose and I thought “what the hell if it were? It would not change shit because even if being trans was as much a choice as dying your hair it would NOT justify the hatred, violence and discrimination trans people suffer.”
Wasn’t homosexuality listed as a mental disorder in the first two editions of the DSM? Is the fucking 9th Circuit just reinforcing the delusions of a bunch of whackos? Or could it be that since then we’ve fucking come to realize something about sexual orientation? Could it also be that we’ve come to realize that just like sexual orientation, gender is not this set in stone thing we once thought it to be?
For posting the link to that disgusting article alone your trolling ass should be shown the door like so many Stormfront linking pieces of shit were before you.
How about asshole? Is asshole OK with you?
Because he is factually wrong. Because he is not a medical doctor, or an endocrinologist. Because his factually incorrect opinion is both hateful and harmful.
Approximately 1 in 1000 births are intersex, depending on which criteria are used to define intersex. It is not particularly rare, and frankly, fuck you. Here is some reading ( and a television program for those to lazy to read) to remedy your abject ignorance . Nova ; Two Sexes are not enough
Yup, ignorant hateful asshole works for me.
Why would I care what a psychiatrist thinks about anything?
“Asshole” is an adult name, so yes.
If I had a say in the matter, any comment that linked to RoK or other MRA shitweasel as evidence or argument would lead to insta-moderation and probable ban.
dadsen, fuck right off back to your shithole.
…and apparently I did not refresh the tab as recently as I though, so was unable to see all the comments already dealing with the MRA. Hopefully another voice to the choir doesn’t hurt.
dadsen
Fuck yourself sideways, old bean.
Arguments from authority are not inherently fallacious, any more than people with gender dysphoria are inherently disordered, but it’s worth pointing out that the professional opinion of the psychiatrists who are members of world peak body for transgender health, WPATH, would tend to disagree with dadsen’s pet psychiatrist, and they also represent the group of people who actually do peer-reviewed research in the subject… but it seems these trolls never consider getting a second opinion (or a third, or a fourth, …).
Wow. That was quite the blockquote bork.
Will it harm you to do so?
I’m Furry. I’m pretty much a cat cleverly disguised as a human. So long as it doesn’t interfere with my daily functioning, it’s cool. (My worst “offense” on this front is forgetting to human.)
For a trans-person, with hormones and surgeries, they can alter their bodies to match their identities, and damn well ought to be able to pursue whatever level of medical intervention that they need or want in order to feel “right”. On top of that, they’ve the absolute right to be treated as people, as members of their preferred gender, instead of as freaks or novelties.
REGARDLESS, we should leave people to be themselves, so long as no harm is done.
Words to live by.
Seconding WMDKitty a thousand, thousand times.
You know what’s funny? A cursory Google search shows me that the general medical consensus on gender dysphoria is that the best treatment is… well… transitioning. Huh… I guess that one “doctor” is wrong after all, especially since his view is pretty much… well… wrong.
I’m still learning about all this myself, but, as usual, I go back to my default position as an ally: shut up and listen. If somebody starts to describe their experience in life to me, one of the many things I never do is go “nuh uh! You’re wrong!” Know why? Because I’m not them. I’m me.
If someone presents themselves to the public as a woman, and they tell me they’re happy being referred to as a woman, then that’s how I will refer to them. Same if they present and wish to be referred to as a man. Same if they prefer to remain gender neutral. I don’t see why this is something that has to be questioned… unless you’re a privileged bigot, of course.
Dasden, the only reason I won’t call you a TERF is because you linked to fucking Return of Kings. I think that’s enough to disqualify you from getting to use the “feminist” label. So instead, I’ll call you a misogynist and a transphobe. I don’t care if you don’t like it. That’s how you’re coming across, so…
An additional “fuck you” for dadsen for throwing people who self-harm under the bus.
How fucking self-unaware or mindbogglingly dishonest do you have to be to spew the shite dadsen has spewed and claim that you have not voiced any opinion on the matter?? Holy fucking shit…your prejudice is so fucking obvious i’m amazed you haven’t named it yet.
“This is Imashitehead, my irrational transphobic prejudice, i’m afraid it is not potty trained yet…”.
dadsen @256 is a troll, troll, troll, troll, troll!
There. How’s that for me not listening to you and your desire not to be called a troll? You’re a troll. An MRA one, at that! A transphobic, MRA troll. Return of kings, indeed.
+++
Yes.
I really wish I hadn’t clicked on that return of kings link. I’ve just had my lunch and now I’m struggling to keep it down.
dadsen, congratulations – only one gobbet vomited, and yet you’re already in contention for the title of shittiest human being in this thread. Please take your Loathsome Bigot badge and go the fuck away.
call me mark, #298
I almost did, but I’m getting in the habit of reading the entire URL first and the “8 ways to spot a transsexual” gave off strong NOPE vibes.
Yikes! I see a mob with torches and pitchforks coming my way, and moving slowly and deliberately behind this mob is a giant squid looking like Edward Scissortentacles. It is almost like walking into a Stephen King novel.
Thank you all for your responses. I learned some things, hopefully not at the expense of anyone’s feelings.
For the record, I have never met nor spoken to a trans-person, probably because I do not live in a city, a place where the population is dense enough allowing a better chance for all the different types of people to occur.
Warning heeded, saying no more about this subject.
Ah yes, i bet you can even feel the warmth from the torches…..ah wait, no, you can’t because there aren’t fucking any.
Jesus fucking christ, torches and pitchforks… hyperbolic much?
You made ignorant, factually incorrect and prejudiced comments against transgender people….you got called on it….with words….on the internet…..cry me a fucking river dadsen…
If you’ve had no exposure to the subject, i recommend you start reading this thread from head to toe and the several wonderful links that some of the regulars have kindly provided. That is, if you actually want to improve your decidedly flawed perspective on this subject. If you are here just to spew prejudice, insult people who have done nothing to deserve it and whine hyperbolically, then ignore that and simply fuck off.
dadsen
Are you quite sure about that?
Wrong. They’re here on this very thread.
chigau @ 303 and Giliell @ 304, exactly. I’m going to assume dadsen is cis-male because of his linking to the nauseating R**sh anus.
———————————————————————————————————————————
Ugh, I feel really bad for the trans* people here who’ve read through this shit.
As a lesbian, there are some days when I simply cannot muster the gumption to get on the internet because I will keep hearing how I’m inferior in some way, or how I should be killed, or how I’m inherently immoral. It’s much worse for trans* people.
Having lived in San Francisco for 22 years, I know a lot of trans* people. I really think other people know trans* people, too, but they just don’t know it.
TW = Suicide linked to transphobia
Anecdote: I worked at a major bookstore in downtown SF for awhile and had several trans* employees (perhaps I had more than I even thought about, but I’m including only those who told me they were trans*). S (I won’t use her name) was from Ireland and had a lovely brogue and was very crafty. We became close. She complained about having to use the registers. I was in charge of scheduling registers so I just didn’t put her on them. (160 employees, I had a choice.)
One day S was on register when I clocked in for the day. WTF? I wasn’t sure how that happened. She was so often harassed on register. Then I heard a customer say to S, “Can you hurry it up, SIR?! Can’t you see I’m busy, SIR?!” S was flustered, of course. And I was furious. Before I could get up to the register area, S said, “Fuck you, SIR! We don’t need your business, SIR! FUCK YOU!” Yep, every time she ran register, she would get shit. And for months on end, she had taken it. I thought she was quite reserved, considering. I sent her home, with pay.
My boss, who happened to be there, unfortunately, told me to fire her. And I refused. “Fire her? Fire me.” So she was not fired and never put on register again. But that didn’t help her in every day life. She committed suicide about a year later.
I had another dear trans* friend die quite young, too, so this whole subject makes me livid.
YOU don’t understand it? Well, boohoo, for fucking you. We’re talking about real people here. People I, and many others, love. Get over yourselves.
dadsen @ 256:
There is not a FUCK YOU big enough for you. You are actively killing people I love with your horribleness. I hope you expand your horizons at some point, but I won’t hold my breath.
k so MMA competitions hashed this one out, and decided transwomen who had been on hormones for 2 or more years could compete against females. Guess what happened when transwoman fallon fox competed? Fallon Fox has an unbroken winning streak and has disabled opponents during fights. Its because the effects of years of testosterone during development does not disappear when someone starts taking estrogen or gets SRS. Her last opponent has a lot of experience and said the level of force involved was just not comparable to fighting females. Interestingly enough that woman made no issue of Fox being trans and was still taunted for being a lesbian by Fox’s fans.
Sexual dymorphism is a reality. I do not see why a whole lot of women got to get the shit beat out of them to validate someone elses identity, but that is what is happening. The only fair class of competition for feminized males is other feminized males (same goes for FTM transpeople).
I also think its bullshit to ignore that any man can just declare themselves trans to do whatever they want. This is NOT the “transwomen are out to rape!’ trope, I am talkng about non trans males saying they are trans to gain access to a girl’s locker room in high school. Why wouldn’t they do that? With things like stubenville happening all the time I don’t know why I am supposed to assume good faith on the part of the dudes in a high school. its just a fact that gender identification is something you carry around in your head. You have to tell other people that you are trans or not, it isn’t something that most people know until they are told. You may or may not be perceived the way you identify, and because of that fact literally anyone can claim to be trans in order to gain access to traditionally sex segregated spaces. Predators will have a field day. I wish there could be a third option for people who are comfortable with all bodies and identities.
I await being branded a TERF for not toeing the party line. People get called that for the most minor infractions of gender theory, so I don’t care anymore.
skeptifem, #306
You lying piece of shit. Fox doesn’t have an unbeaten record. She has been TKOed by Ashlee Evans-Smith. Ronda Rousey, Cat Zingano and Holly Holm, on the other hand, do have perfect records. Rousey and Zingano have beaten better competition as well. All three of them also happen to be cis women.
If you had read the thread, you’d have seen I’ve already addressed the Fallon Fox issue. Fuck off with your bullshit.
skeptifem, #306
1. Then why aren’t just “any men” doing so?
2. Who the fuck are you to tell people how they feel about themselves and what they can declare themselves to be?
I don’t know what that means. Where is this happening?
Second, so if some non-poor people lie to gain access to financial assistance programs, financial assistance programs must be banned altogether.
But more predators are cis men. What do you want to do about that? Ban men?
I’m afraid it’s not a minor infraction. Telling living, breathing, feeling human beings that you look down upon their nature is full asshole territory, you transphobe, bigot piece of shit.
A disingenuous assclam said this:
Let us see what happened here. Dadsen plops in, says somes slurs and backs it up with a like to a site ran by a racist and some, at the least is a rape apologist. Dadsen gets called on his shit. Dadsen whines, using the now stereotypical and extremely dishonest trope that a mod is after him.
Assclam, no one is coming to murder, let alone burn, stab nor break your bones.
Stop saying shit like that, you are not a victim.
Also, fucking love how you excuse your hatred, that you never met a trans person. If you never met anyone like me (Yes, I am a trans woman.), how do you know my opinion is this?
When I said you are not a victim, it is because you actually are seeking to discredit and dismiss people like my. Why else site a psychiatrist who’s opinion is discredited. Why else use a hate group to back up your words? Why make up a quote that no trans person has ever said. (Also, I fucking hate the term “opposite sex”. There is no “opposite sex”!) And your excuse is that you never met a trans person.
There are trans people around you. And if you are this repulsive in real life as you are here, they are avoiding you for the sake of their own self preservation. And guess what, it is not my fucking job to seek out, befriend and teach transphobic bigots like you.
Dadsen, fuck you and fuck your trying to paint yourself as a victim of a violent mob.
You say you are gone. Please keep your word, you worthless shit.
No one needs to brand you as a TERF, skeptifem. You have already done the job yourself.
skeptifem
As others have already been told, fuck off with your transphobic bullshit. Not only are your ‘points’ stupid on their face, they’ve all been addressed and debunked already here in this thread. I’d have expected better of you than fucking ‘bathroom panic’, frankly. You’re seriously going to pick that side? In case you’ve missed it and aren’t being a disingenuous shithead, cis men who want to prey on women in bathrooms etc. already fucking do that. Fucking hell.
skeptifem @306
This is the same argument used to keep homosexuals as second class citizens who had to hide their sexuality to prevent locker room beatings and shaming. Your fears are entirely TERFish and unjustified. Whatever minority of situations where your fear seems justified will likely be at the same prevalence as any other sexual assault when accounting for the population proportions. It’s your job to show otherwise.
skeptifem, I am pretty damned sure that no school is going to just say “ok, whatever” as soon as any student tells them they’re trans and let them just switch locker rooms. Do you honestly think that’s going to happen? Do you think that there is any school that will take that statement without a shitload of evidence of that person living (or trying to) as trans for years prior to that? Do you really think there will be any high school cishet guy who is going to decide “Hey, I’d like to get into the girls’ locker room, and to me that’s worth being treated as a girl 24/7 for the entire year, including all of the shit I’ll get from everyone for it”??? What color is the fucking sky in your world?
I always “love” whenever I encounter a transphobe spouting the standard “hey, did you ever think about how everyone thinks you’re deluded and disbelieves the reality of your existence” crap. Cause they always seem to think their argument is the newest shiniest box under the tree. What’s that? People despise me and disbelieve my lived experiences couldn’t possibly be true because it would interfere with their reductionist worldviews? Oh my, what shocking and novel information. And deluded? Gosh, I never ever thought of that. It’s not like I haven’t spent agonizing years introspecting and retreading the warn paths of my mind to see if it lead anywhere other than the truth or that I didn’t waste years of my life denying my reality in order to really honestly give that cisgender male costume an honest to Bob try in ways that were severely damaging to my mental health. Thank you random stranger for breaking up our giant echo chamber with such novel insight, otherwise I might have gone on my whole life not knowing that people who are intentionally ignorant of biology and the lived experiences of trans* people think I am just deluded. Without your rapid cisdude intervention I might have gone a whole 5 seconds between someone trying to aggressively deny my humanity and reality in order to justify ill treatment and bigoted laws that impact my ability to be out and open in the world.
I mean, seriously, fuck, do these idiots not realize that the people who are these things might, just might, have thought about it more than them and might just know more than some idiot repeating what a bunch of rapists and guys who rant about their magic sperm think about the world? It’s like the assholes who rant at me that I must be lying or deluded about being ace, because totes biotruth that everyone is sexually attracted to someone else and haven’t you tried to be sexual as if I didn’t spend a very awkward pubescence scouring the internet for the “thing I was attracted to”, and haven’t still failed to ever be sexually attracted to anyone in my life. Gawrsh, thank you random asshole, now I want all the various types of people, now that you’ve told me my existence is fundamentally impossible. I would have forgotten my marginalized position in the world if it wasn’t for you.
And yeah, emphasis on that last bit, because it’s very telling that every trans* discussion including the general populace anywhere apparently has to include one asshole by law who thinks we really need to hear some ignorant transphobic bullshit because otherwise, we’ll never know how other people think of us.
Yeah, I think the first time I overheard someone casually debating killing me for being trans* might just have fucking clued me into that one, jackoff!
Skeptifem… Have you, you know, ever seen how trans people are frequently treated? Do you really think some teenaged cis-gendered boy is going to want to go through the bullying, harassment, and possibly physical assaults that are sure to come his way by his peers just so he some girls changing? Do you even realise the suicide rate that trans people face?
By your logic about physical strength, I should probably be banned from ever attempting any sport that requires strength because I can, without breaking a sweat, deadlift a flailing 100lb dog from the floor to the x-ray table by myself. I can pick up a standing human weighing up to 250lbs and walk away with them with a jaunty step. Most of my strength is in my legs, so I must *definitely* be banned from kickboxing because I have an unfair advantage in my strength and my flexible hips that allow me to kick someone in the head even if they’re 6 feet tall, and I’m only 5’6″. And because my former male manager, and former male coworkers, asked *me* to help move heavy objects, because I was stronger.
[OT]
Rowan vet-tech
I would love to learn your techniques.
Me and the SO, working together, couldn’t get the 7-pound kitteh into the carry-box.
(we can go to the Lounge for discussion)
skeptifem
Wow, using tales of mythical cis men who pose as trans women for nefarious purposes to justify your irrational fears and bigotry. Haven’t seen that one before. Oh, except in the ad in the OP. Congrats, you sound exactly like the right wing “family values” bigots who made that ad.
Trans women are more likely to be the victims of violence than any other demographic, so remind me of the supposed benefits of posing to be trans women long term just to get access to girls locker rooms and bathrooms? If you can even find one real life example of this happening, I’d bet you could find dozens, if not hundreds, of cases of trans women being assaulted or murdered (often with impunity) for every one example of a cis man pretending to be a trans woman in order to assault cis women.
And you object to the term TERF? Why? Claiming to be a supporter of women’s rights but only fighting for cis women instead of ALL women makes you a TERF by definition. Don’t want to have that term applied to you? Then support all women.
As for the sports argument, maybe you should actually read this thread. The very example you brought up was already discussed, and as Saad pointed out, you are factually incorrect about it.
clueless fuckwit @ 306 sez:
Because it’s not actually necessary to commit to presenting as female all the time to get access to a girls’ locker room? Because sneaking in while cis would be a fuckton easier? Because women exist in places that don’t even need to be snuck into? And you reference Steubenville as evidence that they’d do this? So cis-het dudes already have easy access to rape people without pretending to be trans* or sneaking into places they’re not allowed and not only get away with it but count on the people of their community to make their victim’s life miserable so, of course why wouldn’t they make it 10000000x more complicated for themselves? Jesus fuck, what color is the sky on your planet?
You know, it’s actually bloody appropriate to have all these ignorant idiots repeating meaningless bullshit about what they think trans* people are like and conspiring to do to the poor defenseless and put upon ciswomen if evil deceptive/deluded trans women (unt it is only ever trans women that these fuckers think exist) and thus hey, can’t trans* people go without human dignity, respect, or even a break in a single thread to actually discuss issues that affect them instead of having to constantly respond to TERF or garden-variety transphobe panic attacks over fictions (or worse yet, pseudoscientific pontificating on topics they clearly don’t know shit about).
Because that’s pretty much the problem. We trans* people are expected to do without the right to pee and change because those things need, unfortunately, to be done, because somewhere somehow someone who can’t be bothered to spend 20 minutes googling what it’s like to be us needs to freak out over shit they can’t even be arsed to find out about, usually circling around bathrooms (or now because condescension plays better, hand-wringing over “unfairness” in athletic competitions). And as we see in this thread, there is never. Period Never a break from this shit. Just a constant drumbeat of how little regard society has to whether we live or die (I mean, we’re what? Less than a month past the Transgender Day of Remembrance with this parade of shit?). Over and over and over again. And then we’re blamed and minimized if we ever internalize that and contemplate suicide.
But hey, speaking of the latest of the casual bigots, let’s tear into the latest illustrative example, shall we?
skeptifem @306
I like how bigots constantly assume that trans women people just, I dunno, pout and shake their hips and wiggle and BOOM suddenly there’s just these free floating laws that must have happened without anyone having a chance to furrow their brow and be all concerned and wonder about the poor medical field that’s clearly been ignored, because how else could things go against the way dumb ass ignorant fucks think the world works?
Gosh, how did such laws happen. Why two years? Oh I’m sure that has nothing to do with the sworn testimony of endocrinologists who’s entire field of research is to determine the time wherein structural and hormonal differences are well within normal variance for athletes of that given gender and definitely doesn’t have anything to do with that research being backed by the consensus of medical opinion on the subject as far as how muscle and fat and bone density distribute or athletic body types or hormone levels. Nah, must have just been evil trans* sorcery.
Repent, daywalker, lest we infest you with the dysphoria too! Oooooooh!
Oh hey, didn’t I just upthread talk about the bind trans women athletes are put under where they can’t succeed, less their accomplishments be used to discredit all trans women athletes and garner this type of just so magical wizardry biology-ignorant horseshit blather about “unfairness?
Thanks for demonstrating that rather neatly. And yeah, it’s a real fuck. Fallon Fox is a competitor. A competitor at a disadvantage. She’s got less strength than her opponents because unlike her cis women competitors, she’s got her testosterone count knocked way down as part of the process of transitioning. As every interview with her makes clear and becomes obvious when you see her fight, her whole style is based on speed and leverage. Basically her working smarter and harder to overcome the fact that being trans* makes her a less not more capable fighter in pure strength terms.
But hey, let’s ignore all that, because “eeek, trans woman succeeding, it must be because of the evil man bones!”
You know what makes that argument sadder? It was the same argument used against Jazz to block her from competing on her soccer team for awhile, even though she’s known since she was 6 that she was trans and has been on blockers since the first sign of puberty, which has left her considerably smaller and weaker than the other girls on her team. But hey, evil man powers must clearly predate even pubescent testosterone and render these unfair situations for the poor defenseless ciswomen powerless against the invaders that are women who like sports and work hard to overcome a handicap.
Yeah, a lot of her opponents have thrown out a lot of abiological pseudoscience in order to discredit her and diminish the weight of their losses. It’s almost like they’re learning from society on how to exploit people’s mark-like willingness to fall for any transphobic excuse that allows them to discount the accomplishments of a trans* person.
And funny still how the medical field that governs the rules of MMA and the various medical professionals who supervise haven’t backed up this bullshit at all, but in fact have discounted it as the bullshit it is. But hey, whatever lets people who lost in a sport based on knocking each other the fuck out minimize their curb stomping I guess is fair game even if it has nasty consequences for the perception of legitimacy of trans* athletes.
And yeah, no points for guessing why the example is always Fallon Fox and her “horrifying knock outs” are always the focus and the whispered BS campaign. It’s almost like it’s exploiting the very real problem of domestic violence and how it’s perceived as a men beat women thing (which to be perfectly accurate is indeed the vast majority of cases) in order to make honest competition look inherently nefarious and thus justifying all manner of hateful thoughts to some poor athlete just trying to do what she loves.
Yes, MMA fans are shitweasels. Really? This is news?
But hey, thanks for the typical TERF minority against minority posturing where its all lesbians versus trans women as if there weren’t trans lesbians who have fought and bled on the front lines for women’s and lesbian rights. Really does remind us of our place as you become more and more able to marry your loved ones in any state in the country while we worry about whether this walk outside is the one where someone is going to shoot us in the fucking head.
Oh, PS, thanks for throwing us under the bus all those times in those anti-discrimination bill fights. My inability to come out at work without fearing rationally that I’ll be fired instantly thanks you.
Heh. It always amuses me to see supposed radical feminists who theoretically (when they’re not selling out the entirety of their value system in favor of running screaming into conservatism out of fear of sharing a community with evil vile trans women and their creeping cooties) reject patriarchal systems where an overplaying of the differences of dimorphism are used to justify societal gender oppression and sexism so consistently (when they identify as trans-exclusionary) nonetheless repeat those same bigoted arguments wholesale.
And actual biologist here, not only are dimorphic differences often socially overplayed and dwarfed by intrasex variation, but the most commonly mythologically held points of what is viewed as classic dimorphism have quite a handy spread of individuals that mess up the neat binary of said dimorphism. Why? Because humanity is a fuck to binary systems and the animal propensity towards biodiversity will always ensure that. It’s just never going to be neat and clean-cut and evenly divided with no gray area, because that’s just not how life works.
Sorry.
Oh, hey, wow, why even bother to the pretense of the dogwhistle if you’re going to just spell it out like that?
I mean, do you think we’re all as dumb as you are and couldn’t pick up how this game was being played the first time you pulled out Fallon Fox as an example for your TERF war?
But hey, to answer your question, I agree completely. It is scandalous that poor innocent women are being beaten repeatedly just to validate the identity of a small core of narcissistic thugs. Like this “Roussey” character who is so willing to beat up women just to validate her identity as an “athlete” and a “champion”. And it just doesn’t end there. I once heard tale of a whole slew of shady characters who went around beating up people of color just to validate their identities as “boxers”. It’s a sickness I tell you! A SICKNESS!
Sure, it’s dismissive and dehumanizing, but I feel like it could be more so. Hmmm, what if instead of feminized males we called them cockbearers? Or badevil mcwrongsatan? Or registered Republicans? I mean, this is serious! Some trans women could be going around thinking she’s a person unless we act fast to come up with a term for them with just the right amount of condescending dehumanization!
Totally, your average cisman is totally going to volunteer to submit to the abominable hellscape that is gender dysphoria, suffer the violent gauntlet that is toxic masculinity’s enforcement of masculinity standards, risk murder by transphobes, and all the other bullshit and hopes we regularly have to jump through so that they can… um… what, exactly? What in your backwards upside down bullshit land would the average cis male who thinks having to be aware that rape exists is a fundamental attack on him personally gain from going through the vile bullshit someone like me has to endure every day? The chance to do slightly better than they would normally in certain forms of sports (based on your ignorant idea of what trans women are like)? The chance to pee in a stall adjacent to a ciswoman? Oh, well, sign everyone the fuck up for that bullshit express!
And also, trans* people have been an out community for how many decades now? And there’s still no sign of a cisman wearing the habit for a day for the supposed benefits we get? Despite the fact that TERFs and assorted other transphobes have been looking for years for ANY bob damn example of someone living up to this night terror in reality, scouring everywhere for their smoking gun and still… NADA.
But hey, I guess since it hasn’t stopped television shows and movies from depicting it, it must be true in the hearts of adult children everywhere and isn’t that what really matters?
Surrrrrrre, it’s not.
I mean, you only are insinuating with a dog whistle held up to a megaphone about how evil violent men will totally dress up as women in order to do (dramatic music sting) things (/dramatic music sting), but pray tell of course you wouldn’t mean to imply that trans women are rapists. Just that it’s the most natural thing for cis men to do is to deal with a mass of transphobic shit and hate in order to infiltrate women’s spaces in order to have access as if gendered spaces had magical forcefields barring them that only let in people with a designated amount of femininity and not… yanno, a door, no less able to protect women than other doors of similar shapes and sizes as no shortage of perfectly masculinely dressed men raping and assaulting women in women’s bathrooms can demonstrate.
And I’m sure, what with your hasty defensive posture, that the very second part of this sentence won’t at all invite us to roll our eyes at this obvious bit of bad faith PR. And…
And we’ve broken the dog whistle, ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary folks of all ages! Let’s give a round of applause for our featured guest and what a fast turnaround too.
I mean, fuck, do you at least deceive yourself with this bullshit? Cause I can’t see it fooling anyone else on the planet. Oh, noes, I’m not saying evil trans women are going to rape you in the locker room like some common retrogressive conservative asshole, I’m just saying Steubenville and access to locker rooms and of course there are theoretically a long list of cis men that would be so willing to jump through all the hopes and hatred and bullshit to get in when they could just you know, walk in and rape someone as is what happens fairly frequently.
Oh hey, you know what doesn’t happen, despite the fact that every Matt Barber and TERF loser on the planet has been frantically searching for for literally decades now, a single trans woman who has raped another cis woman in a bathroom or a locker room. Or fuck, even attacked or creeped on a cis woman in those spaces. No shortage of trans women being beaten or killed or raped for being in the “wrong bathroom”. No shortage of non-binary and trans men being beaten or raped or killed in the bathrooms. But no trans women assailants in those spaces even though it’s soooooo intuitive that that would happen all the time. It’s weeeeird, almost like… that assumption is complete bullshit based on the idea that the non-normative is inherently dangerous and thus violence against them is justified… but that’s just crazy talk.
Clearly, trans women are just really good at hiding all the bodies as is demonstrated by their ability to keep up their coy con up until an often early death at the hands of some fucker somewhere.
Also… I love the whole assumption at play with the “oooooh, locker rooms, infiltration” nonsense because it’s so out of touch it isn’t even aware of how out of touch it is. Why, in Bob’s name, would anyone bother with all the myriad of shit that comes with “faking” being trans* to maybe almost perhaps see a boob when we have the fucking internet and people in every manner of dress, undress, and sexual act is literally a handful of keystrokes away.
All the transphobes keep making arguments like it is somehow easier for a dude who wants to see tits to fake a whole history of gender dysphoria, bullying, and all the shit that the transphobic world dumps on a person’s head than to log onto their phone and type “tits”. Ditto for those who seem to believe that bathrooms are magical orgy pits instead of a place where you step around wet toilet paper and debate sitting on the mysterious wet spot so you can pee to the accompaniment of the sound (and smell!) of someone’s fetid farts.
But hey, it’s not like reality is something any of you bigots have a strong relationship with.
It is fact because I say so. I am GORETAX THE LAWMAKER! It is said, therefore it is done. Now, GORETAX says you are a chicken. Bawk for GORETAX!
Yeah, and everyone knows that anything that isn’t visible and obvious to everyone who encounters you at first glance isn’t real. That’s why being gay, having a mental disability, having a vision impairment, having chronic pain, having a mental illness, and being left-handed are all myths. And anyone who claims otherwise IS CLEARLY A WITCH AND YOU MUST STONE THEM!!!
It’s the only way to pierce the five-fold wards protecting these holy places of sanctuary! Only through the mighty spell of trans* may one pierce the veil and get front-row participation seats in the eternal lesbian orgy that is every locker room and bathroom. It is foolproof! The only thing that could ruin this grand plan would be if locker rooms and bathrooms were just spaces where most people didn’t want to linger and were only protected by a single door that anyone could enter regardless of how they identify. But honestly, I shudder to think of living in such a painfully muggle world as that! Away, Excelsior!
I like how transphobes keep on pretending that trans* people just all of a sudden started existing last Tuesday in order to obfuscate the fact that they’ve been making this argument for decades now with literally jack shit to show for it. Oh wait, no, jack shit would at least be something and that’s quite a bit more something than the bigots have ever been able to find.
So instead of admitting that predators have had this “option open” as the transphobes dog-whistle for deacade and have decided, fuck that shit, my vileness is mostly defined by my angry defense of a toxic form of masculinity instead, we get them intimating a potential future of endless cross-dressing predators because trans* people are apparently new and sudden.
And yeah, the whole new and sudden thing is something I’ve lost all patience for what with it being at the center of my disownment by my family as they pretended that I “suddenly” sprung my trans* ness on them by coming out to them 3 years prior. How dare we suddenly start existing years ago! It’s unfair and unamerican!
Or you know, do away with meaninglessly gendered spaces altogether seeing as how nearly no one really likes them and adopt a European model of just having single-occupancy toilets regularly placed and allowing changing stalls for those that need or want them with single use shower stalls as is already done in many colleges in the U.S. Naaaah, let’s just instead build a third bathroom and locker room for the freaks and the freak lovers so we can live in our hateful enclave in peace.
I honestly love the breathless defensive posturing of TERFs to the word TERF, because it demonstrates a fundamental truth about bigots, which is there is no appellate mild enough that they won’t take offense to being called out on their bullshit. I mean, TERF is probably the most respectful and deferential word ever. It literally describes their main attributes in a language that affirms and supports the identities and actions of those who have dehumanized us. Trans-exclusionary radical feminists. Aka, radical feminists (a recognized ideology to which the people belong) who would exclude trans* people from their communities.
But even that is treated with “reverse bigotry” affectation because it doesn’t eliminate the fact that no matter what you call a bigot, if you are the one targeted by their bigotry, you’re going to have to defend your humanity and that is the one thing a bigot can’t stand. And it really doesn’t matter how nice or deferential or humanizing you behave, the bigot will react in the same carbon-copy style.
And it serves as a nice reminder that coddling bigots does nothing to minimize how much they whine about being called out.
But hey, I suppose its fitting. After all, we may have gone a whole minute or two without someone reminding us trans* people that a number of people are dedicated to removing our humanity in literally every space in existence out of nothing more than bullshit, lies, and a disquieting discomfort with a marginalized community existing and worse yet advocating for their own rights.
I mean, after all, if the TERFs and the garden-variety conservative bigots weren’t out in force, there could be a day in the future where I could pee in a public bathroom without having my anxiety levels spike through the roof. And can’t we all say we are safer for being spared such a horror as that?
Seven of Mine @318
Nah, you don’t understand, the rape culture only works when you’re wearing a dress. It’s due to the same magical force field that prevents random cis dudes walking into a woman’s bathroom or locker room and doing violence there… or just doing violence in a crowded party room surrounded by witnesses because our rape culture is such that a cis dude has never had to go to any dramatic lengths to have his rapist ways hand-waved by a frighteningly large percentage of the population.
It’s just simple logic.
I used to understand it, but then I found out I was a trans* woman and now I can no longer logic because biotruth. It’s science! (/moron thinking)
Seriously, though, it’s amazing that anyone with even a passing familiarity with trans* people or, well, reality would ever buy that it is easier to spend the majority of your life “faking” being trans* and all the disownment, loss of privilege, bigotry, dysphoria, etc… that comes with than just you know, retaining the power of being a cis dude.
But hey, honestly, I can empathize. I would also love to live in a world where rape is so uncommon that rapists have to go through convoluted hare-brained schemes to victimize instead of just, you know, doing what they do on Earth.
skeptifem
FFS, transwomen are WOMEN, not “feminized males”.
And women aren’t “getting the shit beaten out of them”, unless you’re exclusively referring to martial arts where, just for your information “getting the shit beaten out of you” is kind of the idea, though of course it isn’t, because there’s usually rules to prevent that.
You’re sounding like “women can just claim they have been raped and ruin a good man’s life”. Because, in case you didn’t notice, transwomen are actually the most marginalized group there is. And in case you didn’t get it anyway: Women are not a privileged group. There are no perks to being a woman as opposed to being a man, so even if it were just “a (cis) man declaring himself to be trans” it would not actually allow him to “do whatever he wanted” but it would constrain him in the way women are constrained and marginalized.
Why the fuck would they? It must be a really wonderful life, being a trans* woman. That’s why they have such incredibly low murder and suicide rates.
Well, it’s called decent human being. But congratulations, your membership card has just been revoked.
skeptifem we know that you are too vile of a human being to treat others with the dignity they deserve, but could you at least find it in that putrid heart of yours to not use that nym again, because you clearly have never even touched skepticism with a 100 foot long stick.
Also:
Even IF that were even remotely true, please know that in this particular case, you are being called a TERF, not because of a minor infraction of gender theory, but because you are a disgusting, transphobic, bigoted, ignorant, pseudoscientific, hateful, dishonest, sadistic piece of steaming shit. Seriously, it’s 100% not because you disagreed in some minor point, it’s because of how repugnant and vile you are towards people who don’t deserve your abuse in any way, shape or form. FUCK YOU. If you are going to be this bigoted and hateful, and make up lies to validate your bigotry, at least have the decency to own your own prejudice and irrational hatred, for you to pretend that your hate comes from an understanding of fact or a genuine concern for the safety of others is complete fucking bullshit. You just want to hate… If you cared about unfairness and people being abused, you would not be talking about hypothetical transvestite predators, you’d be caring about the real people who suffer because of hateful, phobic monsters like yourself.
I’m always wondering why TERFs so violently oppose to being called just that. After all, it’s an acronym that pretty neatly describes their position. Trans-exclusive radical feminists. It is as if, in their heart of hearts, they know they’re shitty assholes. I mean, I might find “Social Justice Warrior”, which describes my position less adequately, silly, and I might even think that whoever uses it unironically is nobody I want to spend time with, but I’m not actually offended. Because as others remarked, the opposite is an asocial injustice coward.
And if SJW and TERF are anything, there’s one thing they are not and that is a slur.
A slur is something that demeans whole group based on an aspect of their identity that they themselves did not choose. Calling a black person the n-word because they did something bad is to say that ALL black people share that negative characteristic by virtue of their skin colour. Calling somebody a TERF because they spout vile shit against trans* people while also being in general feminist says that yes, they belong to a group of feminists (an aspect of your identity that you chose) that excludes trans women (again, something you actively DO, not something you ARE).
If somebody doesn’t want to be called a TERF, they should not spout TERF positions.
BTW, it is also not possible for a world to exist where being trans does not come with any kind of stigma but where at the same time rape culture, misogyny and objectification of women is still intact. A world in which a hypothetical cis guy/boy could decide to “play trans” without fear of stigma, repurcussion and violence is not one in which he could also sexually assault girls and women and expect to get away with it.
Skeptifem appears to believe that declaring oneself trans is a magical passport to a life of privilege. This belief does not appear to coincide with the world as I understand it to currently exist.
Wouldn’t it be – well, not nice, couldn’t call it nice, but at least a change, to have a discussion on this issue that doesn’t reference either athletic competions or bathrooms? Can’t we have original assholery?
As to your being branded a TERF, skeptifem, well, if it’s orange and stripey and sitting on my chest meowing for its breakfast, I call it my cat.
I apologize for the lack of quotes; trying to master the art of quoting on this ipad thingamabob.
Giliell @ 321 quoting skeptifem beforehand:
Perfect.
Cerberus, CaitieCat and Janine, massive love for you, if you want it. I don’t understand how people can read your words and not get it.
Confession: I used to think skeptifem was a good commenter, but that was many years ago. They seem to have spiraled off into some awful weirdness. That was full-on horrific.
Giliell @ 323
I think it’s the same dishonest equivocation we were talking about on the “How can a black person be racist thread.” You maintain the pretense that TERF or “racist” or “sexist” refers to active, conscious dislike and thereby cast yourself as the victim of rampant political correctness and avoid accountability for your actions and words.
Well. after seeing the vile hate in this thread from two different TERF’s it is accurate to say that I am feeling active, conscious dislike. Of course I also remember the shit that skeptifem threw at Oggie , so she has been on the asshole list for awhile now.
Cerberus,
your #319 was amazing.
@Cerberus (#319), you are awesome. I am learning a lot on this thread. Many thanks to you all.
@Giliell (#321)
You’re right! That’s the same argument! Same pattern, same irrational fear of improbable consequences. Very interesting. Saad’s #308 comparison with people lying to get financial assistance was also relevant, but your remark is very to the point. How revealing!