A thought about 'cis'

[quote bordersroaming]Mentioned here

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-43365446.amp[/quote]
From the article, re. guidelines for caring for a trans person with dementia:

They also include advice on how to help a transgender person with dementia to maintain their preferred appearance when they can no longer do it themselves.

But what is their preferred appearance if they can't remember transitioning? Isn't this forcing vulnerable people to present as trans in order to prop up the ideology that that's their "true" self?

Thank you, @bordersroaming. I hadn't seen that article but it is very telling, isn't it?

Mentioned here

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-43365446.amp

It's been mentioned elsewhere on MN that there are cases of people who have transitioned, developed dementia and then been confused and distressed about their bodies / gender.

Summary of thread so far.

TRAs: Whatever someone says is their identity is the absolute truth and must be affirmed unquestioningly, nobody else is allowed to disagree with their preferred labels, their feelings are sacrosanct!

Also TRAs: Totally trample over people's identities (or lack thereof), slap labels over people's objections, scold people for having unacceptable feelings.

@DadJoke
It's just a shame you can't acknowledge their gender identity.

That's because their gender identity isn't a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, but their sex is. And as far as the Equality Act is concerned, a woman is a female of any age.

Trans women are biological males.
Trans men are biological females.

No amount of identifying, name changing word salad, pronouning or anything else can change that.

Biological males can never be a 'subset' of women, who are biological females.
Why don't we just call everyone biological male or biological female? Is it because it's too triggering? If so, why? Could it be because it reminds people of their true identity which can never be changed?
If TW or TM really believe themselves to be 'real' men or women, why do certain phrases 'trigger' them? Surely they wouldn't care, given that they are 'real' men or women. Why would words matter to them?

Men are not women.
Hilaria Baldwin is not Spanish.
Rachel Dolezal is not black.
Olly London is not Korean.

Identifying 'as' something does not negate true facts of biology.

And most people do actually know this despite the push for a new belief system.

[quote Blibbyblobby]@DadJoke

If you answer the question "are you a woman?" "yes", that's your gender identity.

I think you are missing the point. Please listen because this is so important.

I can answer the question "are you a woman?" With "yes" only if the word "woman" means an adult human female, ie a simple physical decriptor that has nothing to do with identity.

But if you then tell me that "woman" is not a simple fact of the physical body, then my answer to the above question has to be "I don't know, what is a woman and how can I tell if I am one?"

Do you see the problem? By removing the basis on which most so-called "cis" people would call themself a man or a woman, you make the term "cis" meaningless in practice. It's not enough to say what a woman is not (not a female bodied person, not a social stereotype, etc etc), if you really want cis, and indeed trans, to be a meaningful concept you need to be able to say what she is, so that I, who by your definitions cannot be a woman just because I have a female body, know how to tell if I am one or not.

This is not sophistry. This is not me playing word games. This is a real question I am struggling with. It as important to me as a trans woman's gender is to her. If I am not a woman by my body which is the only reason I previously thought myself one, what is it that I could recognise in myself that would make me one?[/quote]
I love the way you articulate this question. You've put your finger on exactly the thing that has been bugging me. If a transwoman who has a male body and looks male but acts in a sort of pastiche-of-a-woman-kind-of-way and wears women's clothes is a woman, then what am I? Cos I am not the same as them. And i sure as hell am not a cis woman, because i don't identify with that phrase, I dislike it intensely.

If someone has no gender then which hosp ward/ toilet / prison should they go to?

However, it doesn't actually matter. This isn't about whether gender is "real". If it is "real" it is separate from sex, and therefore should be using different words to avoid confusion with sex, and underhand attempts to remove sex-segregated spaces by claiming it's all about gender.

This.

DadJoke
Yes it does, but people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment are not excluded by default from the space which reflects their gender, except for proportionate and legitimate reasons. We are going round it circles.

We're going round in circles because you keep mixing up sex and gender.
Women's spaces were set up based on segregation by sex. The "space which reflects their gender" isn't a thing; or at least wasn't until people like you decided to pretend that sex-segregated spaces were really "gender segregated" all along.
If people want to access a space which is not intended for their sex, this is surely where proof should be needed that it is legitimate and proportionate to allow them to do so.

It's just a shame you can't acknowledge their gender identity. It's ridiculous to say sex isn't real (as some do) but equally ridiculous to say that gender isn't real.

I don't think gender is "real" in the same way sex is. I recognise it as a phenomenon. However, it doesn't actually matter. This isn't about whether gender is "real". If it is "real" it is separate from sex, and therefore should be using different words to avoid confusion with sex, and underhand attempts to remove sex-segregated spaces by claiming it's all about gender.

The other slight issue is that if woman/girl = a social identity and nothing else (and always has!).

IE an awareness of a (strongly felt) knowledge that a person identifies as a woman / girl.

Then a massive amount of vagina havers aren't women or girls. By definition. Not trans either. So.. nothings?

This minor issue has never been addressed afaik.

We are not being asked to merely acknowledge.

We are being asked to submit.

I am a vegan of many, many years. I ask that other people "acknowledge" it by leaving the meat off my plate. I don't ask that everyone else eats vegan food while I'm in the room. In fact, I can make polite conversation with someone at a restaurant while entirely ignoring the rare steak on their plate.

My deeply held moral principles do not give me the right to control other people!

I have reviewed the situation and the officer in question is a male

That is a flat lie.

This is a female person who is demanding respect and compliance with their own protected characteristic while showing not only flat disregard for but active, physical breach of another person's.

This is the point I will not any longer use language or behaviours that suggest in any way that I hold a belief that in fact I do not. Other people have rights too. When one person exploits another, in this case in full knowledge of causing distress and totally dismissing their faith, their identity, while demanding validation of their own?

That is not inclusion. That is abuse.

It's just a shame you can't acknowledge their gender identity. It's ridiculous to say sex isn't real (as some do) but equally ridiculous to say that gender isn't real.

Their "gender identity" is "acknowledge[d]". The problem you are having is that we are querying why it logically follows that, for example:

• acknowledging that someone male experiences gender dysphoria and that they want to be known as Karen means that we should place Karen in a women's prison,

•that acknowledging that someone male has gender dysphoria and now wants to be called Laurel means they should take one of the New Zealand places for the Olympics,

•that acknowledging someone female has gender dysphoria means they should be able to strip search an incarcerated man who objects to being seen naked by a female person who is not his wife.

extract

The plaintiff [Rufus West] alleges that in 1995 he embraced Islam. He states that Islamic law prohibits him from exposing his nakedness to anyone except his wife. The plaintiff also states that under Islamic law, "males and females are identified and determined by the sex that Allah (i.e., the Creator) created them with at birth." …

The plaintiff says that on July 2, 2016, after a visit with a friend, he went to the strip search area to be strip searched under a policy that requires all prisoners to submit to a strip-search after a contact visit. Several officers were conducting strip searches.

According to the plaintiff, when it was his turn to be strip searched, defendant Buhle, a female correctional officer, approached him and ordered him to strip. The plaintiff states that he asked defendant Buhle how she was able to do that and she responded, "I'm a dude." The plaintiff says he looked at the other correctional officers, "to see if this was a prank," but that they avoided eye contact with him. He alleges that at this point, he "started to panic because he knew that Officer Buhle was a female based on her female features (breasts, face, voice and demeanor) and that exposing his nakedness to her would be in violation of his Islamic beliefs ….

The plaintiff indicates that "[i]t was later brought to [his] attention that Officer Buhle is a female claiming to be a male and therefore is afforded all of the duties that the male officers perform without discrimination."

The plaintiff alleges that in anticipation of another encounter with defendant Buhle, he wrote defendants [GBCI Security Director John Kind and GBCI Warden Scott Eckstein] and requested an "[e]xemption from exposing my nakedness to the opposite sex … because it is against Islam." On July 12, 2016, defendant Eckstein allegedly denied the plaintiff's request: "I have reviewed your correspondence and have also discussed your concerns with our Security Director. I have reviewed the situation and the officer in question is a male and is qualified to complete these duties. If in the future you are directed to submit to a strip search by this individual or any other male staff member it is my expectation that you will comply."

From reason.com/volokh/2018/08/15/muslim-male-inmate-objects-to-strip-sear/

I honestly believe that years ago when men were at the top of the hierarchy there was none of this.

Well, no. Oddly enough, males then didn't seem so keen to identify into the lower status class. Whether women wanted to identify as men was immaterial - they couldn't.

@ErrolTheDragon

I honestly believe that years ago when men were at the top of the hierarchy there was none of this.
Now women are being listened to, appreciated, gaining recognition and chances denied to them. Men aren’t happy. They have to do something to make them better, more special, more deserving of women.
Ta-Da the trans man! You can’t say anything or it’s transphobic, he gets more opportunities otherwise it’s transphobic, he gets to go to the news and ply the victim and do everything he did as a man but also gets to put women in their rightful place because obviously a man makes a better woman.

There will be years before people see this, years of women’s rights lost. It’s awful.

There are women, and there are transwomen. They're from two completely different groups of people.

The huge glaring differences in all the opinions on this thread and elsewhere, is that trans women are not being told by any woman

• not to be a trans woman
• not being told what to name themselves
• not being told how to define themselves
• not muscling in any rights such as not being sacked from work for being trans, or saying we are in fact trans in order to get more rights, when we are not.

No woman is doing that. However trans men are:

• telling women how to name themselves. Not just in conversation. On legal forms, on equality forms, on the census, on data gathering the word ‘cis’ is appearing instead of woman.
• telling women how to define themselves e.g. bodies with vagina instead of woman. Not biological
• telling women that they cannot have their rights, as that is ‘hoarding’, trans women should have woman rights is what is being asserted e.g. using safe women spaces

There is a difference. It is not just different opinions. It is, in fact, bullying and eroding women, their name, their rights.

A transman who is voluntarily pregnant isn't exactly living according to their alleged gender identity Neither is a rapist. They seem to want to have their cake and eat it, and be wholly unconcerned about women's needs let alone wants.

It's just a shame you can't acknowledge their gender identity.

My son identified as a cat named pillow for three years. There’s a white woman who identifies as black. If it’s all about identify why can’t I identify as a size 8 Egyptian. Oh yeah, because I’m not.

Men can play dress up all they want, still men.

equally ridiculous to say that gender isn't real.

Gender is real, it's an oppressive social construct based on sex stereotypes. I don't believe it's anything more. You have your ideology, and I have the right to disagree and disbelieve. Legally.

not excluded by default from the space which reflects their gender

I didn't say they were. Women's privacy and dignity is a legitimate reason for single sex spaces.