Trans women are/are not women is a pointless place to start a debate

[QuentinWinters]

Just reading threads about trans rights and feminism, which seem to rely on whether or not trans women are women. I want to reply this to all of them so I thought I'd create a post.

There are two different definitions of women in play:
"Women" is a social construct and so a woman is defined on the basis of how she socially identifies.
"Woman" is an adult human female and a woman is defined on the basis of biological features.

Both these viewpoint have an evidence base supporting them and so are valid. Both are based on an individuals opinion of which definition they prefer.

There is a trend to say it is "transphobic" to be of the second viewpoint because it excludes trans women. It isn't transphobia. The second view point is in some ways a more evidence based definition than the first, because it relies on observable facts and truths that apply throughout nature.

Trying to start a debate with "the other side" from either of those two viewpoints is going to be a hiding to nothing. Let's not do that.

Similarly focusing on areas where the viewpoints are inevitably going to clash will just end in argument as both sides defend their opinion (trans women providing intimate care to female patients for example).

It is far more productive to recognise those view points and what they lead to and see how and where that can be accommodated comfortably by both sides and build out from there.

I do too.
Im not debating why I don't believe in gender with someone who does. Totally pointless.

menopausalcrone thanks for the link, good article

The idea that "identifying" as a thing can make you that thing is circular and incoherent.
No. Their belief is that "woman" is a feeling. Our belief is that "woman" is a biological fact. We can't reconcile those things, telling people who believe gender is a feeling that they are wrong will never work.

Instead we need to focus on what they want, what we want and how they can accommodate each other to move forwards. And not get drawn into TWAW derailing.

This isn’t the equivalent of Christians and atheists arguing about the existence of god. It’s more like evolutionists arguing with creationists. One has science and tangible evidence behind their position. The other has only belief in something that can never be proven.

@QuentinWinters

The idea that "identifying" as a thing can make you that thing is circular and incoherent. No. Their belief is that "woman" is a feeling. Our belief is that "woman" is a biological fact. We can't reconcile those things, telling people who believe gender is a feeling that they are wrong will never work.

Instead we need to focus on what they want, what we want and how they can accommodate each other to move forwards. And not get drawn into TWAW derailing.

You mean.......negotiate?

How very sensible.

Instead we need to focus on what they want

What they want is access to women's spaces to validate that feeling.

It’s more like evolutionists arguing with creationists. One has science and tangible evidence behind their position. The other has only belief in something that can never be proven.
Yes. Totally fruitless and anger inducing argument

It’s more like evolutionists arguing with creationists. One has science and tangible evidence behind their position. The other has only belief in something that can never be proven.

Very much this.

The problem with “let’s negotiate” is that it is predicated on a fundamental belief that the demands of TPAs have some reasonable start and end point to them, and if we could only define what those reasonable parameters are, then women and males identifying as women could peacefully co-exist, sometimes in shared spaces and sometimes not.

But such a belief would be fundamentally flawed, because the start points we’re told about (TW are unsafe in men’s spaces, transpeople are the most oppressed/vulnerable/at risk of suicide) are demonstrably false by any measure, evidence or statistic, and - crucially - there is no end point. Anything women try to retain or recreate for themselves, TW will want it, be that our words, our spaces, our right to exclude dicks from lesbianism. And if you give ground on “woman is a social construct” then you remove our right to exclude men from whichever part of the female sphere should be for biological women only.

The problem is the definition does matter as its used in legislation, guidance, regulations and in important data that informs medical practice, policies and so on. So we need to understand what the legislation and data is talking about.

I agree the debate goes round in circles though.

.

It is the key question.

If they are then they can't be excluded from women's spaces. Unless one wants to draw a line between women's spaces and female spaces. But you must know that the trans lobby doesn't want this. We are a long time into a consensus that transwomen aren't just women but also female.

If they are not then we can keep women's spaces female-ony.

If we take any document, law, regulation, conversation, dialog or any other human communication created before (say) 2004 that uses the words woman or man and ask:

"What did the originator of this communication mean?

Did they mean

"Adult human female (or male)"

or did thy mean

"Someone who feels they have an undefined, un-provable gender identity, they will only be invented in the 21st century"

If we change the meaning of everyday, common, basic words, we lose the ability to communicate. When it comes to gender this is a feature not a bug.

The whole debate reminds me very much of listening to atheists and Christians argue about the existence of God. Fruitless and neither side will change their mind based on the argument of the other. That's the comparator I fight every time I see it. It only strengthens one side of the argument.

You see God is not a provable entity. Indeed if God were to be proven many Judeo-Christain religions would cease instantly. Douglas Adams wasn't just playing when he had God promptly vanish in a puff of logic.

In the TWAW discussion biology is a measurable, real 'entity'. The more we learn about the caveats to our binary sexed existance the more we show that it is indeed binary. Years ago we had hermaphrodites, then we learned about intersex and now we have DSD. From two sexes in one body, to a body with aspecxts of both sexes to bodies that are one sex but have an abnormality on a sex chromosome, but are always just one sex.

So likening this to a debate about the exiatence of a god is fallacious. A total straw man. It actually strengthens the TWAW arguement. And it sounds, on the surface, to be a reasonable comparisaon.

But it isn't. It is at best an ill thought out expression and at worst a knowing one that seeks to undermine anything a GC poster might want to add!

Either way, now you know this you can't continue to use it in good faith!

@OnlyTheLangoftheTitBerg

The problem with “let’s negotiate” is that it is predicated on a fundamental belief that the demands of TPAs have some reasonable start and end point to them, and if we could only define what those reasonable parameters are, then women and males identifying as women could peacefully co-exist, sometimes in shared spaces and sometimes not.

But such a belief would be fundamentally flawed, because the start points we’re told about (TW are unsafe in men’s spaces, transpeople are the most oppressed/vulnerable/at risk of suicide) are demonstrably false by any measure, evidence or statistic, and - crucially - there is no end point. Anything women try to retain or recreate for themselves, TW will want it, be that our words, our spaces, our right to exclude dicks from lesbianism. And if you give ground on “woman is a social construct” then you remove our right to exclude men from whichever part of the female sphere should be for biological women only.

You are absolutely right. But the only way to equitably deal with conflicts of rights and interests is some kind of negotiation, so it's got to happen eventually. And there are trans people who don't want to take over the whole world.

Just throwing things out here. I've only been aware of this issue since JKR's intervention last June, and I realise that there are many here who have been around the block time and time again. Still learning. Always learning.

A Christian simply believing in god and finding happiness in that is a matter of supreme indifference to me, as is someone who believes they have a gender a identity.

People can subscribe to whatever belief systems they like, and good luck to them. It might make for a vaguely interesting discussion over lunch if we were so inclined.

However.

If your belief leads you to lobby public institutions to implement your religious rules - and compel others to follow them - then not only are we going to have a debate about whether or not those rules themselves should be implemented and whether it's fair and just to impose them on me, we are almost certainly going to have a robust discussion about the belief system itself that has led you to your lobbying.

The reason for that is not that I will be desperate to undermine you as a person, but because in the course of that debate, you will almost inevitably explicitly rely on that belief system to make your case. It will be brought out as at least one column supporting your conclusions and it is therefore completely legitimate and necessary for me to examine and challenge the belief itself because it is the foundation on which your argument is built (and you say as much!)

It may not change your mind or your religion, which is absolutely fine, but it airs the issues for the benefit of the wider populace so that a democratic decision can be taken on the basis of a full examination of the facts and issues.

If your belief leads you to lobby public institutions to implement your religious rules - and compel others to follow them - then not only are we going to have a debate about whether or not those rules themselves should be implemented and whether it's fair and just to impose them on me, we are almost certainly going to have a robust discussion about the belief system itself that has led you to your lobbying.
Agree. In this country we don't teach creationism as its belief based, we do teach evolution as its fact based. I think we should use the same approach to gender really.

The comparison to God is gender identity not sex curious.

I personally don’t mind changing the definition of woman to be a purely social thing that includes males. It means I’m not a woman but that’s fine in so far as it’s just a label.

I very much do mind that the demand to change the meaning of the word is not being accompanied by reviewing everything historically and currently defined as Woman’s (prisons, sports, rights, officers, initiatives, protections, opportunities) to determine if it exists to address a socially constructed Woman’s challenge or a Female body challenge, and where it’s the latter, redefining it to ensure it continues to be fit for purpose.

Indeed, the trans ideology is engaged in a social sleight of hand by saying on the one hand the sex-based conception of Woman needs to change, but on the other, insisting everything that belonged or pertained to the sex-based conception of Woman is a right of anyone defined as a Woman by the new meaning.

Until this logical fallacy is addressed, I cannot accept a redefinition of the word woman because it destroys things female people need to thrive in a sexist culture.

To clarify my point above, “female body challenges” include social risks, socialisation and limitations imposed on people with female bodies. Basically, anything I didn’t get a choice about because of the body I was born in.

I don't think there is such a thing but the other side think there is and its fundamental to their existence and sense of themselves. Like a divine figure to a religious person

Haha you obviously haven't come across AGP it's more to do with the permanent semi hard on for them!

I don't think it is pointless to have the argument. Although it is tiring. The reason we must is because it impacts youth understanding of sex. We have seen in less than a decade how this has taken hold and influenced the ability of a generation to understand that one's body is not a commodity to be altered or manipulated, as a presentation according to inner feelings. It is our biology and if it is healthy and whole, that is a huge blessing. It is common for teens to have a difficult relationship with this body as it changes in puberty.

What is the social construct woman then? How do we recognise it?
Some adjectives perhaps: dress wearing, heels wearing, skimpily clothed, pierced, polished, having long hair, doing housework, likely lower earning capacity, higher pitched voice, a nurturer, a sex object, a lady....... I don't fall in to many of these categories now. They are deeply sexist and offensive. But if the social construct is not this, what is it?

I personally don’t mind changing the definition of woman to be a purely social thing that includes males. It means I’m not a woman but that’s fine in so far as it’s just a label

Right, so how does this "just a label" translate in reality?

How do you ringfence anything for women only?
Women's sports
Women's prisons
Women business awards
Women only evening courses
Women's changing rooms

Shall we just rename everything "adult human female sports/changing rooms etc etc" even though Feminists already fought for these things in the first place? Now we have to go back and rename them all?

If you're okay with the word "woman" to be taken by men, you're basically stuck with men using all "women only" spaces and services.

JustSpeculation I don’t see this as a conflict of rights any more. Transpeople have the same rights in law as any other protected minority to ensure they are not discriminated against, and more than some (transphobia is recorded as a hate crime, got example. Misogyny is not). What they don’t have, and shouldn’t have, is the right to colonise single-sex spaces or to make policy on the basis of gender rather than sex. But that seems to be what the majority of those who are actively lobbying are striving for, including the major charity supposedly acting in their interests. They’re not fighting for third spaces, for safe trans-only wings in prisons, or against male violence. They’re trying to get extra privileges, not rights.

@QuentinWinters

The comparison to God is gender identity not sex curious.

I am perfecty aware which is why I said TWAW.

If you start with the word gender it still comes back to that "I am what I say I am/what I believe I am"

I find the whole "It's like talking about God" comparison to be one big red herring!

Ever since "transwomen are women" became a dominant mantra, the common understanding or "special relationship" between women and transwomen has completely broken down. The dogmatic assertion that TWAW is a step too far. It's basically abusive.

There used to be a mutual trust there, women would have transwomen in their space so long as transwomen were respectful in return. I.E. didn't win 1st place in women's sport, didn't rape or abuse women locked up in prison, didn't openly flash their hard-on at your 11 year old daughter, etc.

Well sorry but it's all fallen apart now and it has to be said that no, transwomen are nothing like, not even comparable to women. It's a long road back to how it used to be and it's energy consuming but worth it.

OK. I don't. I think its impossible to use facts to change an opinion based on faith (and vice versa).

A lot of people hold the view that gender identity exists and is a more useful way of defining people than sex. They have reasons for thinking that. Its impossible to disprove. So I don't see the point, even though I don't agree.

If you give both viewpoints equal credence, you can start protecting sex based rights. Otherwise it just reverts to where we are now, not getting anywhere because we can't define "woman" to the satisfaction of both sides