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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Reconciling competing rights

317 replies

GaspingShark · 19/04/2018 20:26

Let me start by saying I do know what it's like to have my experience disbelieved, invalidated and gaslighted on an large scale, though not as a trans person or a victim of sexual assault. I don't have PTSD but I do know what it's like to have triggerable sources of distress, again, not as a trans person or a victim of sexual assault.

For me, equal rights must include the right to define your own experience, without gatekeepers, and to be very hesitant to consider people delusional.

So I am unsure about this. I would be ashamed of trans friends seeing me saying stuff such as "I err on the side of including them as much as possible", because I don't think that kind of recognition is mine to confer.

OTOH, I don't know if therefore that means I'm not recognising sexual assault survivors distressed by the fear of male people in women-only contexts.

Is this reconcilable, or does it mean one side just has to grin and bear it? I'll read this thread carefully but due to my bad management of a health condition I can't promise to tend it beyond the OP atm.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 00:32

No, they know woman is just a synonym for "adult human female". So they are women. But don't "feel like a woman" because it's not a feeling, it's a biological reality.

Can you really not understand the gender critical position?

And if you describe yourself as a woman yet don't believe you are a woman or a man, that's interesting. Most non binary types I've come across deny that biological sex is a thing.

bottleblue · 13/05/2018 00:36

Why can't trans people define their own experiences honestly as trans people - which there's nothing at all wrong with in my view - and the MtF ones can work this hard on the MEN to be more accepting? How come all the men don't have to deal with this? The trans-identifying ones don't have to work on the attitudes of men, and the men don't have to work on their own attitudes and the women have to do all this explaining and shifting up again? And then there's something wrong with our attitudes. WTF is that actually about? It's really annoying.

Original poster
GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 00:36

I am undoubtedly an adult human female.

OP posts:
bottleblue · 13/05/2018 00:37

I know all that's been said a million times. I'm new. I want to say it again. Pardon me (i'm a woman).

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 00:39

They don't need a "gender" is the point. They don't rush to define themselves as non binary because they like both cupcake baking and Formula 1. They don't reject womanhood because it's just a biological state.

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 00:45

And with regards to the cotton ceiling, doesn't that level of entitlement and coercive and abusive emotional manipulation bother you? Especially when it's normally directed at young women?

Kinderlosigkeit · 13/05/2018 01:01

For me, equal rights must include the right to define your own experience.

This kind of statement is the problem. There are 7.6 billion people on the planet, with 7.6 billion unique experiences; and while some among them will share similar viewpoints and opinions, no two people's will ever be absolutely identical on all points. Clashes and mutually exclusive demands based on all these unique experiences are inevitable and guaranteed. In the animal world, unique experiences and viewpoints leading to conflict are usually resolved quite simply: whomever is strongest wins.

What stops human beings from using this same resolution method? Objective absolute standards to which everyone must bow. Law is an objective standard. In many places, customs and culture serve as objective standard. Another one is science.

Original poster
GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 01:03

Entitlement and coercive and abusive emotional manipulation bother me wherever they are, and they are normally directed at young women, everywhere, by everyone. I'm a little amused at how quickly people dropped the idea that I was a transwoman once I said that I was gay and they could start on the cotton ceiling instead.

I didn't say I don't believe I'm a woman or that I'm non binary. I'm a woman who doesn't want to be a man. Beyond that, my feelings about these issues are rather like my feelings on the nature of consciousness: I suspect that is a definite answer one way or the other but it's not one we know as yet so I wish people would stop acting like it's all cut and dried.

OP posts:
bottleblue · 13/05/2018 01:10

no that's the thing - we do know the answer. sex is sex, that's how we can decide where to put boundaries round sex-based protections, gender is a kind of social expression - historically imposed - modern thought is that we should do whatever we want with out gender - good - we're all 'non-binary,' Gender isn't sex.. it's the conflation of the two that's the problem.

thebewilderness · 13/05/2018 01:15

My questions remain the same as they have been since the beginning of the discussion over gender identity.
Can you mandate belief?
Can you codify into law the idea that some people can mind over matter themselves out of material reality and into the opposite sex, and must be treated accordingly?
It is like transubstantiation. A belief that only the true believer actually believes.
Will you allow people to drug and mutilate children based on this belief that no one believes?
How will the non believers be punished?

Original poster
GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 01:16

In the animal world, unique experiences and viewpoints leading to conflict are usually resolved quite simply: whomever is strongest wins.

That view is pretty dated. Have you read The Selfish Gene?

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 01:17

Entitlement and coercive and abusive emotional manipulation bother me wherever they are, and they are normally directed at young women, everywhere, by everyone

Er, the emotional manipulation of the cotton ceiling is quite clearly a male entitlement issue. But well done for once again avoiding the issue. I'm guessing you're quite young yourself. You seem to have a bit of an issue with empathy for other women though?

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 01:20

Beyond that, my feelings about these issues are rather like my feelings on the nature of consciousness: I suspect that is a definite answer one way or the other but it's not one we know as yet so I wish people would stop acting like it's all cut and dried.

What are we supposed to not know? There is gender dysphoria. There is also body dysmorphia, and believing that one is made of glass. Other than that, there are two sexes, and people with disorders of sex development. What else?

MadBadDaddy · 13/05/2018 01:21

@BarrackerBarmer I liked your post too and found most of it straightforward. How do you imagine it would go down on a Trans-board?

IMO, I see your nice big house as suitable for 50% of the population. It's not so different from the other big house over the road, but we want to move out. So far all we've found looks like a Wendy house. And it's already full of bearded men in lipstick.

thebewilderness · 13/05/2018 01:21

Have you read The Selfish Gene?
Dawkins? Are you effing kidding me. The Dear Muslima misogynist effing Dawkins?
Go on with you.

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 01:23

I'm a little amused at how quickly people dropped the idea that I was a transwoman once I said that I was gay and they could start on the cotton ceiling instead.

I merely took you at your word that you are a gay woman. Don't you expect to be taken at your word?

Original poster
GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 01:34

I would like you to consider the possibility that somebody else has a different experience of the world, of their gender from yours and it is equally valid. "gender is a kind of social expression" is not a fact, it's a hypothesis. It is you who are telling them what to believe and who to be when you insist "Just trust me, Poppy, once you believe it's ok to play with trucks you'll feel alright."

@Ereshkigal. I have a bit of an issue with empathy for everyone, don't take it personally, it's a neurological thing. And I'm pushing 40.

OP posts:
bottleblue · 13/05/2018 01:40

I'm not telling anyone who to be. Express gender however you like as far as i'm concerned - i've been 'misgendered' my whole life. But sex is a fact. We do know that.

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 01:44

I would like you to consider the possibility that somebody else has a different experience of the world, of their gender from yours and it is equally valid

Their perception is equally valid. But perception is subjective. Do you believe people when they say they know there is a god because they feel it?

Nothing wrong if you do, just curious.

Original poster
GaspingShark · 13/05/2018 01:58

I merely took you at your word that you are a gay woman. Don't you expect to be taken at your word?

Not on here, no. You have form. I've seen you misgender people who have clearly said and I know to be adulthumanfemales, over and over again, simply because they think differently from you. What exasperates me about it is that what you are identifying is, at best, someone who has avoided "female socialisation", and the "men act this way women act that way" bullshit you're complaining about.

If we get rid of gender restrictions it won't be an anodyne utopia, it'll be everyone acting like bastards equally. So here I am saying something you don't like and your response isn't "Ooh, here's somebody who's broken free of gender restrictions," it's "Ooh, here's a man." It's exactly the same kind of reductive bullshit that you think you're fighting against.

OP posts:
Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 02:03

Not on here, no. You have form. I've seen you misgender people who have clearly said and I know to be adulthumanfemales, over and over again, simply because they think differently from you

No you haven't. I might have said once or twice that I thought specific posters were men because it seemed like they might be from their posting style. And then they said no and I accepted that. And that's not "misgendering" it's missexing.

thebewilderness · 13/05/2018 02:07

Looks like you have been committing a lot of felonies lately, Ereshkigal

Gender roles and expectations vary from culture to culture but we will pass laws based on these beliefs that no one believes. Recipe for disaster if you ask me.

That's nice you finally let it out, graspingshark.

Ereshkigal · 13/05/2018 02:09

So here I am saying something you don't like and your response isn't "Ooh, here's somebody who's broken free of gender restrictions," it's "Ooh, here's a man." It's exactly the same kind of reductive bullshit that you think you're fighting against.

Another person said they thought you were a man, not me. Go back and read. I thought your response to me when I asked you about being gay and what you thought about the cotton ceiling was fucking bizarre and evasive. I accepted that you said you were a gay woman. Which you then backtracked on and sneered about.

thebewilderness · 13/05/2018 02:13

Usually we understand when women are a bit coy.
Not being able to keep your story straight isn't quite the same thing though, is it?

LaSqrrl · 13/05/2018 02:46

For me, it was the OP's a 5'4 female woman-type-creature partaking of the gay

Me thinks this is another potato thebewilderness, do you agree?

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