Could someone explain the differences between same-sex marriage and TWAW?

[cheeseismydownfall]

I am relatively new to the gender identity shitshow and, like many of us, have been grappling over the past month or so with having to rethink a lot of what I had previously accepted as Correct Opinions (Guardian, left wing, being kind, good! Daily Mail, Tories, bad!).

Part of this has involved reading more, questioning more and simply thinking more than I have done before. In doing this, I want to make sure that I stay balanced and fair, and keep trying to think of alternative points of view. I don't want my indignation and rage to make me as blinkered as the TRAs.

So, something I was pondering over yesterday is the argument that denying trans women the right to define themselves as women (something which I instinctively disagree with) is no different to the (now legally unacceptable) desire to deny same sex couples the right to marry (something I instinctively agree with).

At the time it was being debated, same sex marriage was something I didn't give any real thought to - it seemed at face value a perfectly reasonable thing for gay people to want to be able to do, and I personally didn't have a problem with it. And I would have almost certainly judged someone who did, and thought, frankly, that they were a bit of a bigot.

But what I'm now realising is that I didn't have any skin in the game. When DH and I got married, the motivation was the legal status of marriage, and, to a lesser extent, to make a personal and public commitment to each other. DH re atheists, so we had a civil ceremony. Religion didn't come into it, and if it had have been available at the time, we might have formed a civil partnership instead. So when the word marriage got legally redefined to mean a partnership between two people, rather than specifically between a man and a woman, it didn't take anything away from my marriage*.

But presumably for many people to whom marriage had a deep religious significance, this may have been deeply troubling. It forced them to accept a new definition, a new ideology being forced upon them against their will, against their beliefs. Presumably many of these people enthusiastically welcomed the rights of gay couples to form civil partnerships in order to achieve (almost) the same rights in law as married couples, but that concept of marriage wan't other people's to give away. I understand that Baroness Nicholson objected to gay marriage. Was this how she felt, I wonder?

I can't quite reconcile my position on this and would really appreciate some view points. Is the crux of it similar to the idea of proportionate response? That while one can recognise that a person with religious faith may legitimately disagree with gay marriage, their sense of 'harm' caused by the existence gay marriage is, on balanced, trumped by the harm caused to gay people by denying their right to marriage. Whereas in the case of TWAW, I can argue that the harm that would be caused to biological females through dismantling single sex provisions is much greater than the harm caused to trans women by denying them the right to be legally indistinguishable from natal females?

@JellySlice

He sees heterosexual and homosexual relationships as categorically different, as one clearly is predicated on reproduction and the other is not.

This always puzzles me, mostly because plenty of hetero couples get married with no intention to have children, but also because of the attitude that marriage has to be for any purpose other than two people committing to each other.

TBH I never understood the need for civil partnerships. We have faith weddings for people who believe that marriage is a sacrament, and civil weddings for people who don't hold that belief. If religions will not permit gay marriage because the faith position is that marriage is for reproduction, that's up to the religion. I do not understand why civil partnerships were ever created, rather than simply opening up civil marriage ceremonies to same-sex couples.

In human history that possibility has been a tiny blip. The second half of the 20th century it became possible, but even so many people still see family life as being tied to having children.

But more importantly, if it weren't for reproduction, there would be little reason for institutional marriage to have developed in the way it did or maybe even at all. People could simply hook up and separate as they liked, each person working and responsible for their own self.

In reality though, parents and children are the basic unit of human societies, and different types of customs and rules about marriage are largely oriented to making that unit as socially functional and stable as possible, in order to deliver the next generation.

I like to treat issues separately, working from foundational principles, and the big one is 'is that fair?'

My view was that it was unfair for the Christian church to be granted ultimate sway over who could enter into a civil marriage because recognisable forms of marriage predate the Christian church which only goes back 2000 years. A Christian couple would have no right to tell a Hindu couple or a Jewish couple (both of which predate Christianity) that their religious marriage ceremony wasn't a marriage ceremony because it wasn't performed in a church. No Christian church invented marriage and it's not any church's intellectual property. I myself got married outwith the church (being a committed atheist) in a 100% secular register office event. No-one tells me my marriage can't be called a marriage, do they? It was totally accepted that people had civil marriages and that the state had the right to set the parameters for who could apply to be married at a state building in a state ceremony. And now there was a proposal to change those parameters in response to public campaigning.

I said then, and I say so now, that any Christian denomination should have the right to refuse to perform same sex marriage religious ceremonies, which is a right they retain. I would be happy to march on a protest for religious freedom if anyone tried to remove that and force the Catholic Church to perform same sex weddings! (In fact, you'd have to tie me down to stop me going on that protest.) However, faiths that do not believe in same-sex marriages don't have the right to tell other denominations or faiths that they shouldn't perform same sex marriage ceremonies either. For example, representatives for Quakers and Reform Jews said at the time that they did want to be perform same sex marriage. That is their religious freedom (which was being repressed by the legislation of the time).

So, in conclusion, Christians should be entitled to say that the Christian concept of marriage (in their denomination) is between a man and a woman and they are entitled to refuse to have any truck with same-sex marriage themselves. You might say that they've been legally granted the right to keep churches gay-wedding-free spaces.

They don't get to tell the Quakers what their own concept is and the Quakers don't have the right to impose their wishes on Catholics. (Not that I can see that ever happening anyway.)

The situation with TWAW is making me more GC by the minute because no-one is allowed to not subscribe to it themselves. I support same sex marriage and the right of religious institutions not to perform them. Yet where is the consideration for the women whose religious beliefs mean they can't accept TW as W? (This was genuinely a peak trans moment I had a few years back.)

@borntobequiet

It doesn’t matter that some (heterosexual) people get married without intending to have children. Or if they can’t. The point is that men and women generally do reproduce. You wouldn’t say that eyes are not for seeing just because some people are blind. Or that legs are not for walking because some people choose to sit on their sofas all day long.

I don’t think this follows though - plenty of people have second marriages past reproductive age.

Certainly at some point in history marriage was at least partly motivated by a man’s desire to control his wives reproductive lifespan, but we’re donkeys years past that in the west.

But it really doesn't matter if people get married when past reproductive age, or for whatever reason. Because without reproductive necessity, marriage (or whatever the equivalent might be called in any culture) wouldn't exist.
There really isn't any other way of getting progeny than by having male and female gametes. Ultimately, we exist to reproduce.

but that concept of marriage wasn't other people's to give away.

I think this is the nub of it for me. Marriage is a concept. Women are a solid, actual thing, and I do not agree with the word 'woman' being converted into a concept instead.

@borntobequiet

But it really doesn't matter if people get married when past reproductive age, or for whatever reason. Because without reproductive necessity, marriage (or whatever the equivalent might be called in any culture) wouldn't exist. There really isn't any other way of getting progeny than by having male and female gametes. Ultimately, we exist to reproduce.

I agree re: gametes, but marriage isn’t about reproduction (which happens perfectly well with no legal contract in sight) it’s about assets.

All mammals make babies, only one type of mammal has created the legal contract of marriage.

People with no assets are far more likely to have children without a marriage contract.

I agree re: gametes, but marriage isn’t about reproduction (which happens perfectly well with no legal contract in sight) it’s about assets. All mammals make babies, only one type of mammal has created the legal contract of marriage. People with no assets are far more likely to have children without a marriage contract.

So, we tend to assume the idea of marriage is about the legal element. From a more anthropological approach though, it isn't - marriage is more about all the social forces and customs and the way of thinking about male-female sexual partnerships that can potentially be fertile. In most societies there is no legal framework, it's all customary. In some instances the couple just move in together. As long as society considers it to be marriage, it is.

So to say, we define it, from that POV, is only sort of true. Every society has these kinds of male-female procreative pairs, and they are somehow socially integrated in ways related to their procreative role. So what's the name for that?

So what drives social forces?
Biology.

@borntobequiet

So what drives social forces? Biology.

Yes, absolutely. And the repercussions, socially and biologically, are really big with reproduction. Not least because as a species we don't have many children, and we spend a heck of a lot of time and resources on the ones we do have.

It's worthwhile for a society to try and make this as effective as possible.

I had thought that Baroness Nicholson had objected to gay marriage as she believed it would diminish women's rights and pave the way forward for gay men to demand surrogates provide them with children (as they are now doing) but I may be misremembering.

Oh another old thread!

Soon as I saw the date of the OP I suspected, and then there it was. TheJoyOfTrolling. Again.

Tediosity.

It's a step change, isn't it? Instead of derailing and trolling a thread with irrelevant posts, this tedious plank is attempting to derail and troll the entire board with irrelevant threads.

Doesn't this ignore lesbians though?

Does their getting married still undermine women's reproductive status & worth, and if so, how?

Does he feel it's wrong for gay couples to raise children,or just male ones?

I personally think gay couples should coparent so children have access to both bio parents, so I can see his concerns though I don't agree re marriage.

One of the reasons the then Govt created the legal fiction of "sex change" back in the day was because it didn't then think it could get same sex marriage through the Lords. And some transwomen wanted to marry other men. Now that we have laws permitting same sex marriage the rationale for legal "sex change" rather falls away.

If you consider marriage the union of am egg producer and a sperm.producer in order to facilitate the safe upbringing of the combination of egg and sperm then you might think gay marriage is wrong.

But as they're learning how to make babies by rubbing cells together then perhaps someone should be suggesting that cells can get married.

Same sex marriage gives homosexual couples the same legal status as heterosexual. It’s a question of sexual orientation, which requires no belief in the impossible, whether you approve or disapprove of it.
TWAW requires you to believe people can change sex, which is materially impossible.
The two situations are entirely different.

The question you seem to be asking is, is it ok to validate the self determination of a group if the consequences are in conflict with the rights with another group?

Firstly, self determination is a human right:

"All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."

-OCHR

Human rights can conflict when one person's right infringes on another's, requiring a balancing act to determine how to limit one right for the sake of another, or to resolve a conflict between different rights, such as freedom of expression and privacy. Legal frameworks often address this by establishing a process where rights can only be limited if it is reasonable, necessary, justified, and proportionate.

So given both CIS people & trans people are entitled to self determination as a principle of human rights, how then can both be met if the are in conflict? Conflicting rights don't mean they aren't manageable IE a workable compromise can't be reached. As evidenced, progress has been made in terms of women's sports, 'private spaces' (in jurisdictions where this is a public concern) & medicalisation of minors (holistic care & stricter access).

Accepting all people as having the same human rights doesn’t necessarily mean you're required to accept everyone's disposition as valid & give up your own fundamental rights as we have a means of addressing disputes.

"Marriage is a legal structure like fhat, and the acting like you were married to someone long, long predates the civil and religious ceremonies. There is a way of “being married” that is socially understood."

As there are ways of being a 'mother' that is socially understood which doesn't have biological associations like adoptive mothers. Typical behaviours are socially associated to categories including concepts like 'women' & men'.

concepts like 'women' & men'

This is the sort of phraseology that makes gender identarian discourse make most people with a grasp of reality go “WTF”.

I think that argument is quite an American import, where objections to anything LGBT are more grouped together and religion based. In the UK, the arguments against gender superceding sex are mainly left wing, with lots of lesbians involved and women's rights based.

Same sex marriage gave equality to some without affecting anyone else. Nobody was forced to start calling their marriage a cis-marriage, heterosexual people could still say husband/wife/bride/groom without anyone claiming to be offended. There wasn't that kind of over-reach, same sex couples never wanted to redefine marriage for everyone.

People who want to be recognised, in all situations, as the opposite sex have nothing at all in common with people wanting to enter a legal commitment to each other. It's forced teaming.

The best argument against it is to go back to why these protections exist at all. Marriage recognises next of kin, a combined life - why not two men or two women, no arguments against.
Women's rights are to recognise situations where separation allows women equal opportunities, in terms of competition, safety, having children etc. There's no good reason to open that to men and lots of reasons against.

Ohh another 5 year old resurrected thread 🙄 albeit one with some v interesting debates on marriage. As always, FWR is an interesting fountain of knowledge!

OK it is an old thread resurrected - but still interesting.

he feels that co-opting marriage for homosexual relationships undermines the status and worth of women and their reproductive capabilities

This sounds like he doesn't see women as having any significant worth except for their reproductive capabilities.
Why on earth would gay marriage (between men) undermine the status and worth of women?

I think this may be a clumsily worded way of acknowledging that marriage (and associated conventions around chastity) has/had a function of protecting women and children from destitution and predation by men, in exchange for guaranteed paternity.