Gay/trans false equivalence

[Toblerone345]

Not really sure how to word this but hoping someone slightly more eloquent than me can help me get my thoughts in order. This is something I've seen people bring up time and time again, and it frustrates me that I find it difficult to construct a decent argument against it despite feeling instinctively that it's a load of rubbish.

I often see people compare the treatment of gay people to the treatment of trans people. For example, I've seen people argue that saying trans women aren't women is the same as saying a gay person is just going through a phase. I've also seen people argue that suggesting the best thing for a young 'trans' person might not be to start taking hormone blockers or have surgery is similar to advocating for conversion therapy for gay people.

I don't believe these things are particularly similar but find it difficult to verbalise why. I think at its core it's that the only requirement for being gay is being attracted exclusively to the same sex, and that feeling is completely internal - nobody other than you can say whether you are or are not gay. Being trans, on the other hand, is related to physical reality and claiming to be a woman when you biologically aren't one isn't correct. Can anyone explain simply why the comparison doesn't work?

Oh and OP, there are 2 new articles in Feminism Chat from the Journal of Psychiatry (thread called something like that) which are linked to this topic.

LGB 'rights' were actually an extension of the basic human rights that straight people enjoyed that were denied to LGB people. Lesbian and gay people are easily defined as those who have same-sex sexual attraction. They're a discrete group.

Until relatively recently LGB were excluded from some of the rights that straight people have taken for granted. Things like the legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships which enabled couples to do things like pass on pension rights and inheritance rights in the case of death. Employment protection. The right to adopt. The right to serve in the armed forces (did you know that until 2017 it wasn't actually legal to be in the merchant navy if you were lesbian or gay?) The right to goods and services regardless of sexuality. There'll be others I've forgotten.

Allowing LGB people those rights didn't infringe anyone else's. A few cases (religious B+B owners who didn't want to have to accommodate lesbian or gay guests, the bakers who didn't want to have to ice pro-gay slogans on wedding cakes) came and went and most people got over any initial qualms. Life didn't really change.

Stonewall had actually succeeded in its aims and won equal rights for LGB people and was facing redundancy when it took on the T. The slight problem they faced was that transgender people have exactly the same rights as every other citizen. So they had to push for extra rights.

The extra 'rights' they are seeking are 'rights' that impinge on the rights of others — particularly women and girls who have always had and continue to value female-only spaces and provision. Trans rights also adversely affect women and girls when it comes to sport. Trans rights activists want to compel people to use language they don't agree with to express beliefs they don't hold and which are anathema to them — like requiring Maria McLachlan to call her male attacked 'she' in court or risk imprisonment for contempt.

And of course on top of this is the fact that lesbian and gay attraction is pretty clearcut and discrete group of people. Whereas 'transgender' means... what? The transgender umbrella is so wide that the word is virtually meaningless. It can embrace everyone from an old fashioned post-op transsexual living a quiet life with a GRC to someone who cross-dresses at the weekends as a sexual thrill or a young woman with short hair who calls herself NB, has a boyfriend and sometimes requests that we address her as zhir instead of 'her'.

On top of that you have to take account of the fact that no one had anything to gain by pretending to be gay or lesbian, while I think it's become clear that sexual predators and criminals and men's rights activists and misogynists who hate feminism have pretty quickly cottoned on to the potential advantages of declaring themselves to be transgender. There are things to be gained by becoming trans: they include access to female space and the means to dismantle women's hard-won rights from within. Look at how the Women's Equality Party was almost immediately invaded by transwomen.

This is why it's really stupid to compare LGB rights and trans rights.

@MiladyRenata

As far as I'm concerned, sex and gender mean the same thing, and this is essentially a social role. I don't believe that a person's reproductive organs should define their identity or the kind of person they are allowed to be.

Of course a person's reproductive organs don't define their identity or what sort of person they can be. They simply define what sex you are - which reproductive category you belong to.

Gender is a social construct which suggests that certain personality types, activities, modes of dress etc are only acceptable in people of one sex or the other.

If you understood the difference between sex and gender, perhaps you'd understand why feminists find the concept of gender identity unacceptable.

"As far as I'm concerned, sex and gender mean the same thing, and this is essentially a social role. I don't believe that a person's reproductive organs should define their identity or the kind of person they are allowed to be." MiladyRenata

Your second sentence directly contradicts the first.

So why do you think a person should be given special "rights" (or "privileges" to be more accurate) on account of her biological sex?

Milad, are you asking why women should have rights? Are you calling women's rights 'privileges'?
I mean, crikey, it's bold of you to be quite so open. I appreciate it. You're doing great work here.

So if you can't have wonena rights then wonens rights shouldn't exist?

Isn't that what toddlers do?

womens

Weird auto correct there

the TRA's have very successfully ambulance chased the gay rights movement, right into the very heart of society.

TRA has northing in common with gay rights movement and people are very slowly waking up to this.

Also TRA mantras such as "acceptance without exception" and the push for drug/hormone blockers etc is both not accepting without exception (if you accept yourself why the need to change your body with drugs and surgery) AND in so many cases it is a form of gay conversion therapy. We now know if left alone many teenage trans/binary types grown up to be gay adults.

They hide in plain sight, disguised by the faultess rainbow and associated flags, and all the uncritical thinking liberal/lefty backslappers.

I get it, people with privileges don't want to share them. It's always been that way.

And no, I don't think anyone should be given additional "rights" just because of their biology.

*Milady
*
I don't understand what you're asking.

Can you give examples of rights that women have which aren't directly related to their biological needs eg pregnancy care and sex specific cancer screening? I can't think of anything.

I don't think I've ever heard of women being considered 'privileged' as a class. Can you explain what advantages we currently have compared to men?

Thanks.

Because being trans isn't a sexuality... it's nothing to do with who they want to have sex with.

😂🤣😂

💥

Never thought I'd say this, but please, do keep telling the women on the feminist board that you think their rights are 'privileges' that they shouldn't have. I will not stand in your way.

These rights enable or are supposed to enable women to participate equally in life they're not special privileges unless of course you think owning property or having a job or having somewhere to change at work is a privelege. All things afforded to males without question.

What is it about females having the space away from males that bothers male bodied people so much? What do you think will happen of men cant keep an eye on us getting dressed?

It's not extra rights women have. It's extra protections because males as a group are prone to not respecting women.
It continues to be the case.

And no, I don't think anyone should be given additional "rights" just because of their biology.

What like the right to occupy a category in sport that doesn’t have them competing against people with massive physiological advantages based on their biological sex? That sort of right?

I am genuinely stifling laughter here. I've said it before, you just have to let TRAs speak. They are only too eager to let you know what they think. Wow.

I am genuinely stifling laughter here. I've said it before, you just have to let TRAs speak. They are only too eager to let you know what they think. Wow

I think trying to appropriate lesbianism says all we need to know about how males hate not being centred in everything

Sarah, you're not wrong, but people do seem to need to be walked through that one.

To have some come right out and say women really shouldn't have specific and relevant rights is such a gift I think I might take the rest of the week off and get drunk.

They are only too eager to let you know what they think. Wow.

Yep

All these privileges we finally got. The right to vote, own property, not be raped by our husbands, not be discriminated against at work whilst gestating the next generation, safe sex segregated toilets so we can participate fully in society. It’s scandalous!

Interesting idea about not getting additional rights because of biology. Best take ramps away from public buildings then.