Can someone help me word this debate with me cousin re Trans rights/Trump?

[TornLikeNatalieImbruglia]

My cousin has shared this article on Facebook to which I commented-

I’m a bit confused... I mean this part-

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” read the memo. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

-seems fair enough to me? I mean you can identify however you like but it isn’t going to change what you are on a cellular level.

Below which someone else responded with this-

The problem here is that when a trans person’s identity is defined by biological sex on a form of identification, then that becomes a way for others to question or disregard their identity.

Being trans isn’t simply a matter of deciding to identify as something other than one’s assigned gender at birth; it’s an intensely personal experience that nobody chooses to go through. It’s less a case of “identifying as what you want” and more a case of “having to prove to almost everyone that this is who you are.”

Let’s say a trans person has done everything they can to get closer to the point where others treat them the same way they would treat a cisgender person. They’ve taken hormones, they’ve gone through the mandatory 2 years of psychological assessment before getting active treatment, they’ve undergone very painful and intimate surgery that takes months to recover from, they’ve gone through every legal procedure to make their status as the correct gender officiated...

then, they get told that their assigned sex is what’s actually going to define them in the eyes of the state. So this person, after having undergone every stage of their transition is going to look down at their passport – as much a method to move freely as it is a cultural symbol of absolute identity – and see that it would delegitimise all of that.

Last year’s report from stonewall reported that 45% of trans minors in the UK have attempted suicide. And that’s just the ones under 18. And they’re just the ones that lived to be able to fill in surveys. Almost all of them cited the treatment they receive as a result of transphobic abuse from other minors and adults alike as reasons for doing this. You may feel like I’m relying on emotional rhetoric here, but this issue is inherently emotional: the choice of the state to revoke the legal identities of trans people and file them with the identities that their transphobic abusers label them as is to indisputably side with the abusers. If the abusers feel supported by the government, they will feel empowered. If they feel empowered, they will act more harshly towards trans individuals. If that happens, then that suicide rate is not going to get better.

So no, it’s not about people “identifying how they want” – it’s about people being able to live a bearable life.

P.s. I somehow doubt that these mandatory legal registrations of biological sex will take intersex people into account (people with chromosomes other than xx or xy) but that’s another point for another time.

And then my cousin replied-

I have no idea how to explain in a concise way the potentially life threatening consequences this could have for an already disenfranchised demographic at high risk of violence. According to recent statistics 2 in 5 trans people have had a hate crime committed against them and 1 in 8 have been attacked by colleagues or customers at work in the last year alone. What the Trump administration is proposing is essentially the legal erasure of their very existence, revoking any protection they currently have. At the end of the day the way trans people identify barely affects the day to day life of cis people but it can be the difference between life and death for those involved.

And then linked to fucking Stonewall.

Help me form a response to this- I keep starting one and deleting it!

Nobody is ‘erasing their existence’, that’s hysterical nonsense. I’m not sure I’d bother with this.

You could point out, a very small percentage go through gender reassignment surgery. You might also say that, every single cell in our bodies indicate if we are male or female. It’s information for data collection, which affects crime stats, health care provision and more. The fact remains human beings cannot actually change their sex, DNA does not change and personal identification used for official purposes should reflect material reality. As for not affecting others, I think Karen Whites victims, including the teenage autistic girl he raped in a mental health ward, would beg to differ.

Also that the suicide rate is actually less than one per cent, obviously every suicide is a tragedy, but this is a very tricky demographic, there are many other factors at play, self harm, poor mental health generally, autism, sexual abuse etc.

I think the proposal from Trump go as far as to create a place where trans people can not longer live freely. In the US and UK people can get official documentation such as passports in the gender they will be living in by application and without a GRC - but this totally would remove any chance of changing documentation. This means that for instance a driving licence will match how they are seen. For someone to remove this opportunity for trans people would be totally disenfranchise them in society without hope and yes this will lead to more trans people considering of committing suicide. It would erase trans people as the only way they could live would be not not live how they actually are. I think support your nethew in opposing these changes. Even Gender Critical people in the UK are not proposing this level of change. Personally I think this crosses a line and is very sad.

Oh my god they've swallowed all the pills.
Including the false suicide statistics. (Which is actually less than 1%)
The "no one chooses to be trans" (B.S).
Insulting intersex mention.
The legal erasure of their existence?? Come off it.

the way trans people identify barely affects the day to day life of cis people

Tell that to the victims of KW. Tell that to those sportswomen who lost to Andrea Yearwood, Rachel Mckinnon, Hannah Mouncey, Fallon Fox, That awful weightlifter and countless others.
Tell that to WPUK who have suffered endless attacks. Tell that to any woman who has lost her job thanks to challenging TWAW. Tell that to women in the LB losing women only shortlists.

Sorry I can't help with your reply because I would be tempted to say "all of that is bs".

It is though. Not sure how you could espied without being blocked and having to deal with the fallout from their "hurt feelz"

LP not LB and could reply

I would say "I'm not arguing about whether trans people face discrimination and need legal protection (though I have seen those suicide and hate crime statistics thoroughly debunked). What doesn't make sense to me is why this is about how "sex" (not gender) is defined as law. As I said, the fact that sex is biological and immutable and typically identifiable at or before birth is true! We on the left can hardly mock Trump and his ilk as "anti-science" when it comes to climate change, if we're asking the law to pretend that biology isn't real and has no bearing on who is male or female. Besides, where does redefining "the sex a person is" to mean "the sex a person feels themselves to be" leave protections for women and girls (in sports, prisons, dv shelters, gym showers...)? Or statistics on male/female health outcomes, income levels, political representation, violence...?

Gender identity is subjective and based on feelings. I don't doubt it's real for those who experience it (I don't; there's nothing about me that I could call my gender identity, that I couldn't as easily call my personality), and if it feels incongruent to their biological sex then I can imagine that's distressing.

I abhor Trump and agreed with Obama on many things. But moving beyond knee - jerk reactions, TBH I find this proposal much more rational than the fact that "sex" was ever redefined in law to mean "gender identity" in the first place. By all means add a protected characteristic for gender identity so that trans people can't lose out on housing, education, employment etc on grounds of being trans. But when women are still oppressed by political and media underrepresentation, lower pay, casual sexism and male violence, why wasn't there an outcry when the protected characteristic (sex) that describes them was erased in favour of gender identity?"

Well @NoodleEatingPoodle I posted your reply and got this absolute gem in response-

^Children are literally killing themselves and the first thing you say is that you have “seen those statistics debunked”

Sounds like you just don’t like trans people but ok

Nobody is saying that biology isn’t real; they’re saying that biology and gender are not the same thing (something that scientists, psychologists, philosophers and doctors generally agree upon) and that legally defining trans people by that contributes to their mistreatment because all the people who DO think gender and sex are the same will use that legal classification as a tool to tell trans people they’re wrong and that their identity is invalid. I’m not going over every point again because I said them in my first comment and it seems like you’re being wilfully ignorant of most of a lot of it.

But hey, you get double terf points for the scaremongering implication trans protections inherently make women and girls less safe^ 😬

Now I’m really pissed off.

So you could reply-

• being careful around suicide statistics is advised by all experts and particularly Samaritans. Inflating statistics could be deterimental to the health of the affected groups. That’s not hateful, that’s actually being sensible and following accepted guidelines.

TERF is a misogynistic slur. Your answers sound like you just don’t like women tbh

If someone is that barking you are wasting your time. Move on.

"I didn't say trans protections make women and girls less safe. I made it clear that i support protections on the basis of gender identity. What makes women and girls less safe is erasing sex as a protected characteristic in order to protect gender identity instead. I said we should have both, but that yes, of course sex is in reality biological and immutable and should be defined in law accordingly.

It's important that falsly inflated suicide statistics are debunked because there is an element of contagion in suicide among young people and it is wrong to send kids who are struggling with gender the message that they are constantly at risk from themselves and others or that suicide is a common route for 'kids like them' to take.

How dare you say I don't like trans people and use a misogynistic slur against me. I am a woman with an opinion as to how the word "sex" should be defined in law and applied to protections which generations of women have fought for. Are women not allowed to have an opinion on that? Would any other marginalised group be told that they are hateful for having a view on how their protected characteristic should be defined? I have stated my support for gender identity to also be protected. But one is not a substitute for the other. There is willful ignorance and hostility in this exchange but none of it is coming from me."

VickyJo:

You said under Trump's rollback of Obama's unconstitutional attempt to unilaterally rewrite federal civil rights laws so they'd pertain to gender & gender ID rather than sex, trans people in the US won't be able to get proper ID documents.

Not true. In the US, drivers' licenses are issued by states, each of which has its own regulations. Birth certificates are issued either by municipalities or states - again, all according to their own rules & regulations. Many municipalities already allow trans people to change their natal sex on their birth certificates; now some places, like NYC, also allow a third option, X. Trump's proposal regarding federal civil rights laws won't change this.

The only IDs issued by the US federal govt to US citizens are passports. Trans people who've changed their birth certificates can also change their passports accordingly.

Trans people who are citizens of the US or reside in the US are fully able to "live freely." They have all the same rights everyone else in the US has. What specific rights are trans people in the US denied?

I disagree that its a waste of time. Remember you're writing to help peak the lurkers / give courage to others who have reached the same conclusions, not to convince your cousin.

It wasn’t my cousin who posted that reply btw, all she’s posted were the original article and then that comment about the hate crime statistics and stonewall link. The rest is coming from someone I don’t even know.

Glosswitch comment:

22/10 Trevor Philips in Times ( chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission 2006-12)
'Trans extremists are putting equality at risk

Allowing people to declare their own gender would make a mockery of Britain’s decades-long struggle for fairness'
(extract)
The feminist objection to “self-declaration” has already been made on these pages, not least by Janice Turner, who has been subject to shrieking abuse by some bullies from the trans lobby. Many of these people were born — and still are — male, by most people’s standards. The fact that in at least one case women in prisons have been sexually assaulted by a “woman” who happened to possess a penis would give most of us pause for thought. Yet the otherwise sensible MPs on the women and equalities select committee have backed self-declaration and startlingly, David Isaac, my admirable successor as chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, has announced that he favours “de-medicalisation” — a way of allowing men to become women without the inconvenient step of ceasing to be male.

I can only imagine that many of those supporting this insanity believe that they are displaying empathy for a group of individuals who have suffered genuine anguish. But this is certainly not what I had in mind when, along with the other authors of the 2010 Equality Act, we fought to include transgender as a protected characteristic in anti-discrimination law. The truth is that, far from encouraging empathy, extreme trans activists and their allies are adding a new layer of cruelty by raising false hopes that changing gender could become as easy as changing a name.

The problem is this: if self-declaration becomes established as a principle for one protected characteristic — gender — why should it not apply to all of the other eight, including disability or race? It is hard to see how the law could resist the claims of a man who, despite all medical advice to the contrary, decides that he is mentally disabled, and therefore should be eligible for disability benefits and time off work. The human and financial costs would be horrendous.

I can already hear outrage at the comparison. The activists will complain that equating gender with disability is yet another example of galloping transphobia. But why shouldn’t a society ask individuals to pass objective tests to acquire identity status? Without criteria other than personal preference, it would be impossible to decide whether some groups truly suffer disadvantage — a big issue for women and people of colour. The measurement of gender and ethnic pay gaps would become instantly unviable, since no one could be sure that those who declared themselves to be black women actually were either black or female." (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0fe1693a-d56f-11e8-926d-96790161a92a

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3401790-trevor-phillips-in-the-times

Just when I thought cousins friend had given up I get this...

I don’t really get what you’re trying to say about the suicide statistics – the kids struggling with those issues aren’t just being told they’re at risk from others, They ARE at risk from others. There are people who want them gone. There are people who will make them feel like shit, up until the point where life will not be enjoyable to live. Pointing out the dangers surrounding trans people is not “wrong”, it is necessary – just like it is necessary to point out the dangers surrounding cis women. As a queer individual, I’m personally quite grateful for the attention paid to the suicide rates and mental struggles of those in the LGBT+ community, because they highlight the reasons people feel this way and give mental health professionals more tools and understanding to help treat them.

when you say “what makes women and girls less safe is erasing sex as a protected characteristic in order to protect gender identity instead” – I kind of get your anxiety around this, but my (and a lot of other people’s) problem with this is that it still has some worrying implications on how yoy view the validity trans people’s identities. I can’t say for sure because you haven’t given any concrete examples other than vague references to locker rooms and the like, but it kind of sounds like you’re saying that it would allow men into women-only spaces, which is kind of weird when you consider that if spaces were designated purely based on biological sex, then a lot of trans men would end up on women-only spaces (due to the fact they don’t have another choice). May be reading too much into that, but not sure what else to read from your comments tbh.

The thing that’s ridiculous about sex-based identitification is this: would you rather gain entry to a place based on your outward-facing identity as a woman, or by invasive questions/statements about your body? I’m not saying this stuff doesn’t happen, because obviously a huge amount of cis women have that kind of stuff thrown at them daily, but my point here is that this sort of treatment shouldn’t be supported by official systems, especially when you consider that doing so could give security and police reason to label a trans person as someone “concealing their identity” when their gender expression doesn’t match their ID.

As for the terf stuff, I’m just gonna say that I don’t believe terf is a slur. A hell of a lot of other feminists agree and I’m more inclined to side with them than the person who saw a post about trans people’s legal identification being revoked and immediately jumped to play devils advocate for the trump admin of all things. You ignored the points made about the trauma and hardship this decision can cause and said “but this is part is only fair!” As someone who calls themself a feminist, I’m pretty sure you know that’s not how it works. That’s what I mean by wilful ignorance. Maybe you’re not a terf, but it’s suspicious that you put terfs’ favourite talking points before trans people’s responses to this like it ain’t no thing.

Aaaand now my cousin-

I'm not going to engage further after this comment but I do not feel comfortable leaving it as is. I love and respect you and I do not want this to cause any divide between us. It is a difficult subject to discuss neutrally because it is an emotionally charged issue that severely affects the lives of LGBTQ+ people, many of whom are my friends on facebook and in real life and for whom I'm sure this is a very upsetting exchange to read. Your opinions on this subject matter are innately hostile as, whether or not you choose to believe the statistics or feel that they are conflated, trans people are very vulnerable in today’s society and this new legislation is a direct threat to their lives. I've always known you as a civil rights advocate and I'm sure you can see the problem with the kind of 'separate but equal' approach that you are suggesting. I feel very strongly that intersectionality is important in feminism as the problems with oppressive marginalisation within society extend much further than the problems faced by cis white women. There is a sort of ‘otherness’ with which you talk about trans people which implies transwomen are not involved in (or even that they might be threat to) feminism. The reality is that trans people are far far more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators of violence and it very important to include them in feminist spaces and the kind of political discourse and activism that feminism encourages.

Personally I just don’t have misogynistic people in my life, relatives or not. I would just not engage again. Ever. The disrespect shown to you by your cousin is unacceptable.

oh and leave the terf is a slur web address

I wonder if your cousin knows you’re asking other people to come up with your argument for you

Are these people Canadians?

And, yes. Transmen are welcome in women's spaces. In the UK the total of 25 transwomen in prison are all housed in the women's prison and everyone is fine with this.

^crap.
In the UK the total of 25 transMEN in prison are all housed in the women's prison and everyone is fine with this.

"Can I ask that you stop with the "playing devils advocate for the trump admin" garbage. I'm trying to have an adult discussion, have not insulted you, and have made it clear that I coming at this from a feminist and not a socially conservative (or Trumpian) perspective. They are different things.

I am saying that there should be protection based on gender identity, and also protection based on biological sex, because they are different things and each comes with its own set of forms of oppression for those in the disadvantaged group (trans people in the case of gender identity, people born with female reproductive systems in the case of sex).

The fact that you not only disagree with that view but actually find it offensive and think it's appropriate to dismiss women who hold that view as 'terfs', says to me that 1. you don't accept that people born with female reproductive systems face any particular forms of oppression on the basis of that fact or 2. You accept that people born with female reproductive systems suffer forms of oppression on that basis, but you don't care, and don't think they should have groups, sports, spaces or opportunities unique to them, nor should the characteristic for which they're oppressed be defined or protected in law, nor should there be a word that describes them (all of them, and only them) as a group.

It's not very intersectional."

I have an American FB friend who jumps on anything vaguely GC I post and says I sound like a 'Trump supporting bigot'. She knows perfectly well I am nothing of the sort. She's a decent person, demonstrating for abortion rights etc. But I guess she's seen a very different side of the issue. Her DD is gay, and I hope not tempted to 'become a man' because of it!