'Nuanced' discussion: dangerous?

[thatdamnwoman]

I've been involved in a long on-line conversation (lasting weeks) on an obscure public messageboard with a lawyer with more than 30 years experience who is very careful not to deny what she would call the 'potential' conflict of transgender and women's rights but seems to me to play them down. She is one of those cerebral women with a barrister's training who regards a lot of the material I link to from here as slightly hysterical and not necessarily reliable. She doesn't deny or refute it, just sees it as marginal to legal rights issues.

She seems to place a lot of emphasis on recognising and acknowledging the feelings of transgender people, while also showing due concern for the rights of women. She hasn't disclosed whether she has trans friends or family but I do wonder. Her constant carefully-worded criticism of me and my argument is that I lack nuance. She has taken the position that until the radical feminist position is able to be more flexible and nuanced, so as to be able to find some accommodation for some transgender people she cannot support it.

She isn't presenting as a trans supporter – and she acknowledges the issues involved – but her bottom line is that she/ we are a bit hysterical (not that she would use that word) and using a sledgehammer when we need tweezers and a magnifying glass.

We've been debating on a public messageboard and I've noticed that a number of other women who used to be close to my position have begun to back off and talk about how perhaps 'we' need to be a bit more understanding and 'give' a bit.

Has anyone else encountered this? I know someone who knows the woman concerned and I know she is who she says she is. I have no sense that she's actually supporting the transactivist viewpoint, but her underlying message, even if it's couched in legalese is 'we have to be kind'.

Is it best to end the conversation so that she doesn't convert the other women any further into being kind? How does one stand against 'be kind' when it's couched as showing nuance and flexibility and seeing the issue from all sides?

I can't really comment for myself as everything in your post is so high-level and vague and about feelings/approaches not facts or legislation. Any specifics or concrete cases? Is she saying 'X wouldn't happen'?

victimfocus.wordpress.com/2020/02/23/lets-talk-about-sex-and-gender-ideology/
Really good article to share with them all.
I took this from another thread on here that I now can't find.

Just to add that she has alluded to Keir Starmer's appearance on Today this morning as being nuanced and thoughtful in his unwillingness to take sides. Whereas I just see him as trying to say anything meaningful on the subject and protecting himself.

The position isn’t a radical feminist position though, is it?

Up until about a decade ago, almost everyone thought that single sex prisons, refuges and sleeping accommodation were essential.

Dunno. It seems to me that given the widespread media coverage about Harry's case and the existential threat to freedom of speech it represents, there has been a paradigm shift. This lobby's activists repeatedly demonstrate that they are opposed to public debate. They simply expect women to obediently relinquish sex segregated spaces and demonise anyone who objects. Those tactics might have met limited resistance, but now they are being exposed to widespread public scrutiny, the resistance will increase. This agenda does not have public support. Why should it be forcibly imposed without discussing its downside?

endofthelinefinally, I linked to that Jessica Taylor article yesterday and she's read it and says it raises some very interesting points and was generally impressed by it, but still I am characterised as lacking nuance and seeing things only in black and white.

I've asked her several times what solutions she might propose and she has done one of those 'on the one hand' and 'on the other hand' numbers that amount to nothing. I'm not as clever as her, I don't understand the law and legal ramifications as well as her and I can't talk her language very fluently.

Anyone else here who feels most of the time that they know where they stand and what they're talking about and then gets the carpet pulled from under their feet by people who come at things from a different tangent?

My sex isn't nuanced.
My sex isn't flexible.
My rights pertaining to my sex are neither nuanced, nor flexible.

The oh so moderate and reasonable people preaching moderation, nuance and flexibility are loathe to admit that what they truly mean is
'moderate the truth with a element of lie.'
'add a touch of nuance to your right to say no to the opposite sex'

People who won't take a simple, clear, unequivocal 'no' for an answer are not on quite the moral high ground they think they are.

Many women are simply unwilling to lie about their own sex in order to appease the opposite sex. I consider this to be the most ethically acceptable position.

I don't tend to hold those who prefer to take a little bit of lying with their truth to be in a position to lecture me about morality.

If we start compromising at this point when our opposition haven’t even acknowledged that there is a conflict of rights then where do you think we will end up?

Well, some radical feminists are nuanced, and some aren't. So it might depend on which sort of argument you are putting to her. She could be right, or not.

Generally speaking it's not helpful to concentrate on refusing someone's position, because it opposes yours. It doesn't even work well. You need to listen to what people say and consider it and respond to what they are saying, in order to get ahead with your own position. Of course that means that sometimes, your position might shift.

Trying to speak generally thought - IME lawyers tend to focus on legal sorts of arguments, based on the current legal landscape, and can forget to consider the deeper linguistic or philosophical issues, even the scientific ones. They look through the lens of their own training, which is what we all do to some extent. That's part of the reason discussions can be useful, we can gain perspective on another lens that really makes our own ideas deeper or just more informed.

From the sound of it, talking about Starmer, I would not call what she was talking about nuanced as an argument. I might even call it shallow. I would say its a fairly practical political approach, and that has a place when people in a society disagree or see themselves as having different needs. We won't always get everything we want in politics, and sometimes with the best solutions it turns out that no one gets what they really want.

That's the sort of thing I have said dozens of Times, BovaryX. But that's not nuanced, apparently, and I can imagine her saying that it doesn't take account of those who would suffer terrible distress if, say, the GRA were to be changed and they were to be denied a GRC. My response that the legal rights of 51% of the population should not be compromised to validate the feelings of a few is regarded as lacking nuance, being very black and white and so on.

It seems to be a very effective way of making women feel bad about being angry and wanting things in black and white – which, as a pp has said, was the way it used to be. Men in male prisons and changing rooms, women in women's prisons and changing rooms.

It's a dilemma. I actually understand the argument about being able to enable people to change their minds / move their position in a tactful way. BUT I also know that it is only by being intransigent and determined that we have got where we are. If women had shut up (as demanded of us by Stonewall and baseball bat wielding lawyers etc) we would never be where we are.

It's complicated.

Safeguarding measures and protective boundaries are not that nuanced, nor amenable to flexibility. And that is why the provisions we already have are in place. Without firm rules and boundaries then we'll be in a right mess.

You're talking to a barrister who is a skilled debater. A really good one could argue that night is day. But, if her arguments are so good, why hasn't she convinced you?

I think there's plenty of nuance in the debate as to what the actual solutions to transgender facilities are, but none whatsoever to the question of women's right to retain single sex spaces. I would move the conversation away from women's spaces and focus on her reasons why third spaces aren't a much more sensible, fair solution. It will invariably come back to hurty-feelings in some form or another so then you question why trans-hurty-feelings trump women's-hurty-feelings. Ultimately there is no good reason for invading women's spaces in preference to campaigning for third spaces, it's unarguably the best solution to protect everyone's safety, privacy and dignity.

But that's not nuanced, apparently

A barrister who dismisses a robust defence of freedom of speech when it is suffering a sustained, aggressive existential threat by lobbyists as 'not nuanced'? I would advise an Orwell refresher course. She should start with 1984, paying particular attention to Newspeak and Doublethink.

Yup, Hiding, I've done that sort of thing several times and it does come back to, in her words, 'respect for difference and ways to accommodate those differences'.

I'm going to say what I think about the Keir Starmer interview, say that it's an example of how far apart we are still in the way we interpret things, despite the weeks of polite debate, and announce that I'm taking a break from the proceedings.

I'm aware that even on a very niche messageboard with just a few registered posters there may be hundreds of people picking up the 'be nice, be reasonable' message and I don't want to give her any more oxygen.

Third spaces are superfluous, completely unnecessary, and serve to place women and girls who use them at risk.

Why would they use them, unless they had some particular reason not to use the spaces set aside for women? FWIW I don't think they are really necessary, but in some cases they may be useful for a variety of people who need more privacy.

thatdamnwoman

So, are you mostly talking about how to deal with the legal issues around such individuals, or access to spaces more specifically?

With a lawyer, what I might be interested in talking about is how to differentiate between contexts where sex is the relevant category, and ones where it is gender. I'd e asking her to defend the conflation of the two which generally leads to sex being simply ignored - and in any case I think it's pretty clear that in most instances where the law talks about women, what they mean is female people.

You're talking to a barrister who is a skilled debater. A really good one could argue that night is day. But, if her arguments are so good, why hasn't she convinced you

Absolutely, some of the highest paid, and most skilled, make a living out of defending the un-defendable - and to great acclaim.

As Barracker points out, nuance isn't relevant when protecting women's and girls rights. What's wrong with holding a line? With having clear boundaries? Decent safeguarding

Yes, this is not about negotiation, but about firm and clear rules and boundaries. Many still don't seem to understand the profundity of the issue, and see it as a side issue or minor dispute.

Third spaces are superfluous, completely unnecessary, and serve to place women and girls who use them at risk

When I say 'third spaces' I refer to a specific provision for trans people. they would exist alongside single sex spaces.

However, more to the point is that to suggest this entirely reasonable and considerate provision as a solution - to everyone's comfort, dignity and safety, would also reveal the full extent of the validation agenda.