General Trans thread part 2

[ChiefClerkDrumknott]

Following on from this one General Trans thread
Because I'm not Elsa and can't let it go

Even a quick read of this thread suggest there is a lot of anger. ..
Some examples...

You don't need examples. I told you that we are angry

This "debate" between radical feminism and the trans community is being seen by mainstream as a particularly nasty fight with some issues, risks and fears (on both sides) being deliberately exaggerated.

And who do you think started the fight? I think you'll find some rad fem fears stem from being threatened with death and rape when they bring up objections to some of these 'issues' you glibly dismiss. Do you not think that's an understandable reaction? By the way, have you popped over to Twitter or Tumblr yet to plead with 'TERF' killers to be less aggressive?

As mentioned earlier, I may be completely wrong. Perhaps the best solution is to get even angrier, even more offensive and aggressive...

You know what, as I said we are angry and we are 'aggressive', if you term defending women's rights vocally and loudly and consistently aggressive

Man taller than woman > man has longer distance from pivot (shoulder) to club> bigger swing > ball goes further as it is hit with more kinetic energy (?) > man wins

not a physicist!!

Itllall - surely the important thing is to have job-based criteria. If, for instance, part of the job requirements for being a firefighter involve being able to lift and carry a person of a certain weight a certain distance, then there is no problem with setting entry requirements that require candidates for the job to meet this criterion - even if that means, say, that 50% of men can meet the criterion but only 5% of women. What would be unfair would be to say that because only 5% of women met that criterion, women should not be allowed to apply for the job at all.

And it might be the case that the fact that it's 5% is down to a mixture of nature (testosterone) and nurture, and if we created a society that encouraged more girls to take part in sports and outdoor pursuits during childhood and teens, that percentage might go up to 10%, 20%, or whatever.

And it's also worth considering the issue of what the research actually supports - it is an indisputable fact that men are - on average - stronger, taller and faster than women. It's also an indisputable fact that the internal variability within each sex is large - when Paula Radcliffe set her world record in the London marathon, IIRC, the first British man to finish was two minutes slower than her (obviously she was slower than the elite male finishers - but out of a sample size of 70,000,000 she was the fastest British person!) It is however very dubious to claim that there are any metastudies over a wide range of scientific studies (rather than individual research papers cherry picked to support a particular agenda) to support the idea of large (as in large d-value in the statistical sense) differences in cognitive ability. And again, going back to my firefighter example - even if there was a substantial d-value in, say, mathematical performance (an issue close to my heart as a professional scientist in a highly mathematical field), if it turned out that the 80/20 split in my field was down to nature rather than nurture, that still wouldn't justify barring women from training or getting jobs.

Just as an aside really, because Lurcio mentioned Paula Radcliffe, I've always liked this photo!

Ah - thanks Woman. Went poof after I'd composed my carefully worded and considered rant .

There's a thread on site stuff you could drop it into...

Maybe WEP saw the thread and truth hurts?

That rant sounds worth reading

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2555779-Wep-thread

To completly change the subject a second, i remembered something my sister said recently. She said that while she 100% does not believe in innate gender crap and just wants everyone to live how it makes them happy, she couldnt agree with "the rad fem stance that doesnt want men wearing dresses even if it makes them happy" (paraphrased). I insisted that she has misunderstood something and these may well be the views of one person, but are not representative of rad fem, but she wouldnt have it.

I was just musing where this is coming from

I'm probably one of the most trans critical posters on here and even I am perfectly happy for men to wear all the dresses they like provided they don't think that gives them the right to invade our spaces and trample on our rights.

Beyond, that's the power of the snappy TERF slogan. "Trans-exclusionary radical feminist" just sounds as if radfems flat out deny and deride anything to do with trans, including transvestism.

Reality? No.

Gender = society's treatment and expectations given what they assume to be my sex. So I was made to play netball at primary school, the boys football. When the boys went home, they could watch football on TV, no netball to be seen, they played football at playtime, whereas throwing balls wasn't allowed, and we had no fixed nets, so girls couldn't play net ball at playtime, no nets at the playpark, so again the boys could play football, girls couldn't play netball, so funnily enough, we never developed an interest in 'our' sport like the boys did in 'theirs', never even considered professional netball as a career, and never played it again once leaving school.

Gender roles aren't inevitable, they weren't caused by the girls ability or potential interest in sport, they were caused by girls being systematically excluded from playing or watching sport.

I'm totally in favour of transvestism and drag as it highlights the absurdity of different sexes being expected to stick to rigidly defined gendered clothing. Men is dresses yay! Men thinking that makes them actually women no!

That's a really interesting insight into the lies told about misrepresentation of the position of radfems wrt trans.

Agreed Queen, no one I have ever spoken to, and I know some women who are really outspoken on this, none of us want harm to come to MtT people.

Wear frocks, get fake tits, do as you please, no one gives a shit.

Doing all that doesn't make you a woman. Women are more than tits and frocks. Women are not oppressed because they wear frocks and have tits.

Men who think that by getting tits and wearing frocks they are suddenly magically women REALLY have no clue what being a woman is, and therefore automatically preclude themselves from the 'feel like a woman' camp.

Regarding the biological differences between afro-caribbean men and others, no one is suggesting that it isn't fair and we should have a caucasian 100m event where people are genetically tested to prove they don't have an unfair advantage.

Women are not really barred from anything Lucrio but the reason they don't get to the top is because they aren't as good or don't work as hard. Or so we are told. Many people believe that gender roles are a result of differences in the way male vs female brains work. That the reason that men are more violent that women is because of testosterone etc. Basically that gender roles are a result of evolution and a necessary division of labour.

Sorry TWITW I forgot to address your point....well, it all comes down to this basically: Women can demand what they want, their safe spaces, to be free from sexual assault and harassment, to be seperated from men when they want to be etc - but none of it will happen without men giving it to them. In other words despite the premise of feminism winning rights for women, it often feels like we just persuade men to give it to us by getting a bit cross about it....calm down dear and all that. Reminding everyone that men are sooo much stronger than us and we're weak in comparison just sort of reinforces this.

"

Two women a week are killed by men. Between 1 in 5 and 1 in 4 women are raped in their lifetimes. Depending on area and age group, more than 80% of women IIRC have been harassed in the street.

I really don't think pointing out male physiology gives a speed/strength/height advantage in most sports is going to be the trigger that reminds men (as a class) that they are physically stronger than women, do you?

"none of it will happen without men giving it to them"

I think you are wrong here. Women can own land, be rich, donate it to suitable charities or set up their own refuges etc without "men giving it to them" - men still dominate the social power structure, true, but women are no longer powerless.

Some awesome posts on here...too many to mention

Like woman post of 19.18

That made me sound a bit of a half wit

TWITW - but who will protect the safe spaces ? Who will stop the men, with their far superior strength from entering if they want to ? Other men, that's who. I think i need to knock it on the head for the night :(

I will protect my safe space, with a gun and a pack of sandwiches....

Or, more prosaically, with a steel door and an electric fence and fingerprint entry.

I am confused by your position, though. Is it that women should lay low and make nice, or men will attack us who wouldn't have done otherwise?

I have a far better opinion of men than that, don't you?