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.

"Women" is a social construct and so a woman is defined on the basis of how she socially identifies.

What does this mean?

"socially identifies"

People use such nonsense phrases without challenging themselves as to what they actually mean.

I 'socially identify' as having two legs, blue eyes, and having ovaries. Does that make sense? Perhaps I can claim there are two ways to have two legs. The material reality way, and the "I fail to meet the material criteria so I'll claim there's a social identity way to have two legs, whilst actually only having one."

If claims are to carry any weight, they must still be capable of explanation using other words.

"I socially identify as having two legs"
= I'm bipedal. Two has a meaning. Legs have a meaning. I have two legs. This is a material fact. Count my limbs and verify it for yourself. If I was dead or unconscious this fact remains unchanged. It's therefore not an identity.

So
"I socially identify as a woman"
= I'm adult, human and female. Those words each have a material meaning. Assess me against those criteria, test my claim. Verify it for yourself. If I was dead or unconscious this fact remains unchanged. It's therefore not an identity.

Material facts are not identities. They're verifiable descriptors. If you fail to meet the criteria, you cannot claim to 'identify as or with' those material states, it's ludicrous.

There's no alternative way to have two legs, other than having two legs. That's the only way to be two-legged. Anything else simply means "I don't, but I wish I did."

There's no alternative way to have blue eyes, other than to actually have blue eyes. You can copy the clothes you see blue-eyed people wearing, eat the food you see them eat, go to the places you see them go. But if you try to claim that "this is the social way to be a blue-eyed person, it's valid for me to identify as blue-eyed because I like what they like" your ridiculous claim would be dismissed. Not only does it ignore the material reality that makes eyes blue or not, but it makes sweeping and easily disprovable claims that there is a universal set of social traits that all blue-eyed people share, and no other eye-colour has.

It's a fundamental confusion between AM and DOES.

Woman is an AM material state.

All other claims that it can be a 'social identity' are a false trail from

Some [AM material state] DO this
I also DO this
Therefore I AM material state.

It's false reasoning.

To some extent there has to be a recognition that people are on"the same level" because that is how democratic nations work. Even when one approach is dominant, which quite often just means numbers rather than being a better or more justified perspective, other ways of thinking are not a priori given less status.

So we could think queer theory is stupid and wrong all we like, but we will still have to engage so long as others disagree.

@SmokedDuck

To some extent there has to be a recognition that people are on"the same level" because that is how democratic nations work. Even when one approach is dominant, which quite often just means numbers rather than being a better or more justified perspective, other ways of thinking are not a priori given less status.

So we could think queer theory is stupid and wrong all we like, but we will still have to engage so long as others disagree.

Not on matters of scientific fact and health we don't.

So we could think queer theory is stupid and wrong all we like, but we will still have to engage so long as others disagree.
Yes exactly. Even more so when most of the laws etc are now going through from a starting point of TWAW. We can't not engage because the other side are wrong

Queer theory is not just "stupid and wrong", but directly incompatible with safeguarding policy and practice.

"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.

Funny, I always thought "Women" was just the plural of "Woman". As in more than one adult human female.

@QuentinWinters

So we could think queer theory is stupid and wrong all we like, but we will still have to engage so long as others disagree. Yes exactly. Even more so when most of the laws etc are now going through from a starting point of TWAW. We can't not engage because the other side are wrong

But engaging means challenging the starting point of TWAW, because if we agreed with that we wouldn’t have any problem with policy based on TWAW.

Religious belief is specifically protected but is not all treated as ‘on the same level’. You can see this when parents don’t have an absolute right to refuse medical care for children because of religious belief.

Scientific beliefs are tested and debated and certainly aren’t all given equal value.

But engaging means challenging the starting point of TWAW, because if we agreed with that we wouldn’t have any problem with policy based on TWAW.

That's right - and surely obvious to anyone with a basic knowledge of the issue?

I keep coming back to this post upthread:

I agree that gender is a reality, that TWAW if they say they are and...? I have just destroyed any chance I had for keeping male bodied people who say they are women out of single sex spaces because I have said, using their parlance/your parlance/ whatever works for this, all sorts of women are female, even the male ones.

On what basis would we exclude "socially identified women" from women's spaces?

On the basis that some spaces are for females only - where sex is deemed important. Intimate care, changing rooms, rape crisis settings etc. Some can be for socially defined women e.g. women's networks in a work place. And trans women's right to socially identify (pronouns, names etc) could also be protected.

I don't want to be compelled to use female pronouns for a man. Because it's not true.

On the basis that some spaces are for females only - where sex is deemed important. Intimate care, changing rooms, rape crisis settings etc. Some can be for socially defined women e.g. women's networks in a work place. And trans women's right to socially identify (pronouns, names etc) could also be protected.

But this will be denounced as transphobic. I mean, they would say it's exclusionary because TWAW.

OP, what do you think women have in common with trans women in the work place?

I am genuinely interested.

I worked in a very male dominated work place. I got along great with the men, had more in common with them than with the female PAs. There were very few female colleagues in other teams and on any social occasion I wouldn’t especially choose to sit next to them, I was happy with my (all male) co workers.

The things where I actively bonded with females

Maternity leave and how to get back to work
Pregnancy and the work place
Sexual harassment (as more senior, trying to help junior women to navigate this).

Which of these do you think I have in common with trans women? Sexual harassment?

This is so insulting. Women don't go around announcing how we identify. We've got enough problems to deal with, without this being added on.

Up until a few days ago there was a sticky at the top of this board about how women are being impacted during the pandemic. Women are losing their jobs and those that aren't are juggling childcare, schooling and household management. Girls are having to do childcare and missing out on their education. And no one is identifying into taking on any of this burden for them.

There's an epidemic of sexual assaults in schools, and of domestic abuse in the home. Its costing the country a fortune but people seem to be happy to pay out billions in tax rather than tackle it.

Women are not a social identify. We are a sex class. Its astonishing that the problems faced by women are so easy to ignore and so difficult to solve.

Thelnebriati, I have asked many trans posters on this board where the trans women impacted by additional child care and housework responsibilities are. This would give us something in common. I would be happy to have a joint cause in this.

Unless.... trans women are all about the clothes and the makeup...you know, the things most women don’t have any time to care about in the pandemic....?

Let’s imagine just for a moment that the definition of Women changed from its historical and currently generally accepted definition as those people from the sex class Female, to be a more generalised term to also include those from the Male sex who wished to be called Women.

What would be the purpose other than allowing the second group to feel a sense of acceptance? Would it actually create that acceptance in reality? Would it confer additional ‘rights’ to access all spaces, would it impact safety for some women, would it reduce/increase gender stereotyping, would it impact targeted sex-related health campaigns, how would it impact single-sex sports, would it create confusion and resentment?
If not would we need a new term to define who the sex class females are, a new word. Maybe something like Womxxn, this group could then still keep their protected rights for single-sex spaces, sports, health campaigns. Male sex woman could then all be called women if they so wished.
But what would be the point? You still have 2 different groups, and I suspect those ‘women’ would then feel excluded by the word ‘womxxn’.

You can’t actually change the accepted meaning of Women to something else without being clear what rights would change or need to be safe-guarded.
Why isn’t Transwomen and Women sufficient - what is the problem with that distinction?

On the basis that some spaces are for females only - where sex is deemed important. Intimate care, changing rooms, rape crisis settings etc. Some can be for socially defined women e.g. women's networks in a work place.

I'm sorry I think this is naive. The trans lobby will not accept that some spaces are for females only. We are already seeing this. It weakens our position when we say they are a type of women. They are not. I think we need to shift the Overton window so we aren't pandering and qualifying our requests constantly. So that we are clearly defined as a sex class with different needs and not just one group of two lots of women being awkward.

I don't accept the workplace needs of MTF trans people and women are in any way the same. And it's women who will lose out.

We've already been doing a version of what you're suggesting, and it doesn't benefit us. I don't think the answer is to concede the clear statement that woman is simply a term for female.

I don't accept the workplace needs of MTF trans people and women are in any way the same. And it's women who will lose out.

I agree. I really don't have anything in common (as a group) with MTF trans people. If someone could tell me where our needs or lives overlap I would be interested to hear this but for the moment we still need a word to refer solely to the class of people who are biologically female. That word is and has to stay as "woman".

Not on matters of scientific fact and health we don't.

We do, actually. Society as a whole does this every day, we've just spent the last year hashing out this kind of thing. "Science" as such doesn't really give us political or definitional answers anyway, and it doesn't tell us how to make policy.

And there is no neutral thought system that is somehow obvious or neutral in a way that is different from what people are calling a protected belief system. Even the desire to elevate science or give it some sort of priority is part of a belief system. It is, right now, a fairly dominant and taken for granted belief system, so much so that most people try and make their point from within that, or claim to do so.

Anyway - if we want to have any kind of say in the formation of policy on a society wide level, it means engaging. These decisions are made in the political arena. It's possible to enter with the intent of winning every round in a straight up fight but it really isn't crazy to be more strategic than that. And the question of what to do if it looks like you might lose remains - give it up altogether, or salvage what you can?

Society as a whole does this every day, we've just spent the last year hashing out this kind of thing.

Yes, and we have decided bleach no, vaccines yes.

We haven’t treated all opinions as equal.

Yes, and we have decided bleach no, vaccines yes.

We haven’t treated all opinions as equal.

Exactly. If people want to pay lip service to gender identity ideology that's up to them. I don't think it's likely to work out well for us.

By us I mean women and girls.

but it really isn't crazy to be more strategic than that

I don't agree that this is a good strategy. It's what has already been done. An inch was given and a mile was taken.

I think Eresh has it.

Regardless, although the English language can bear having a single word that can mean different things in different contexts, you'd better make it damn clear which one you mean at any given time.

If you tell me someone's outside with a bat looking menacing, I'll need more information before knowing whether to call the police or the RSPCA. If you're looking for a row, I'd be grateful to understand whether we need to find a spreadsheet or a river (or - if you've told me in writing - whether I need to avoid you for a bit until you've calmed down).

I don't think there's an honest to goodness push to use the same word to mean different things, in this context. I think the hope is that, by virtue of using the same word, nobody will notice or mind whether you're playing cricket with a hunk of wood or a small, blind animal.