"Transwomen should be legally considered women" - debate

[beastlyslumber]

Really felt for the molecular geneticist in this debate.

The young woman didn't have one credible argument. It was basically "be kind". Quite worrying she is training to be a molecular geneticist.

Nope!

If anyone can give me a definition of trans woman that is logically distinguishable from 'any man that wants to be' we can certainly talk about it further. Otherwise the demand should be judged as; any man that wants to be should be legally treated as a woman.

Umm no thank you.

If any of these kind and lovely people want to get into the nitty gritty of when and where it's ok versus when and where there are good reasons to recognise the reality of the sex of the person or people you're discussing, ok we can certainly talk about it further. Otherwise the demand is; any man that wants to be should be legally treated as a woman for any and all purposes regardless of safety, dignity, fairness or safeguarding issues and detriments this would cause women and girls.

Umm no thank you. It's just bad manners to not give a damn about the feelings of other people.

If they should be legally treated as women, then that means mixed sex prisons, and vulnerable women (84% of which are there for non-violent crime, and some of whom have committed no crime, but are there under the Mental Health Act because of inadequate mental health unit provision!) sharing a cell, and maybe a slopbucket, with a male stranger.

No thank you.

And closer to home for most of us we are talking about men on female only hospital wards, no right to have personal care performed for elderly relatives by a female care assistant in care homes, personal searches at airports, men in female changing rooms at gyms and pools………..

I think the format of these discussions is really interesting. Peter Boghossion (who is definitely not woke!) is great at conducting these conversations, although people rarely move from their starting points. I thought it was cool that someone moved.

I thought the young woman was brave to take part at all. It was interesting that she felt everyone would hate her. Maybe the first time she's had to defend these ideas.

The molecular geneticist was very anxious and angry and I totally relate. When she said "it's the most insane thing that's ever happened to me, that woman has become a feeling" I thought that was so well put.

Otherwise the demand should be judged as; any man that wants to be should be legally treated as a woman.

Umm no thank you.

It's not a demand, it's a motion for debate.

However, I agree with you and I think that the 'strongly disagree' woman was very clear in stating that men aren't women (to a round of applause!)

Not sure which bit you're nope-ing!

The difference between the older of the two women and the man was quite stark. He has no skin in the game and he wanted to 'be kind' until the molecular geneticist spelled out a possible consequence of 'just' changing his drivers licence. He obviously had not given it a thought.

The younger women knows she can't change her mind publicly as she would be shunned by her peers.

I think the older woman was stunningly brave to say what she did - and it was interesting the audience applauded her. She got by far the biggest round of applause so perhaps all is not lost. She was frightened to say it as she too knows about being shunned for speaking out. But still she said it - go her!

There was talk of 'fully transitioned' - are they not aware of the massively high percentage of men who transition who do not have 'bottom surgery'?

The only way anyone who claims to be a woman can actually be one, is if the only definition of “woman” is “person who says they are a woman”. If being a woman is just a nomenclature thing, not an actual thing. That can’t stand. So no.

I've watched a couple of these and they make me so incredibly annoyed, I just can't!

One the other day about men in women's sports and the young women who were pro-men were so aggressive, manipulative and disingenuous it was actually quite scary. No critical thinking. No listening to the opposing view, just name-calling and hyperbole. Beyond infuriating.

I recommend reading Jonathan Haidt's books The Coddling of the American Mind, and The Righteous Mind for an understanding of these people. As to how we can encourage them to use science and reason instead of emotion and mantras, I really don't know

Men will never be women no matter how many body parts they remove, or how much medication they take.

But they're not women. They're men.

Particularly brave to say it at Berkeley, which is Woke Central.

One thing I often find interesting about these debates is that it always seems to be about the rights of trans women. The rights of trans men simply do not get the same amount of attention and I wonder why.

1. Because it is about women who feel they are men - and that's deemed less important or is less visible than the other way around

1. Because I wonder if many trans men are more circumspect about their rights to access men's spaces than is the case with trans women (because they are genuinely more vulnerable by virtue of having been born female)

1. Because the issues about supremacy in sports don't apply (because trans men don't have the advantages that trans women have re male puberty etc)

Am I making any sense?

I watched this yesterday. I thought that as well as being angry the geneticist was scared. I think it's possible that the younger woman was too. Who in their right mind thinks housing convicted sex male offenders with women is a good idea.

Some people seem to think that a man who has inverted his penis is less of a risk to women but some months ago I found a case dating back to 2006 (I think) where a post op convicted sex offender brutally sexually assaulted their female cellmate with whatever they had available to them.

Peter Bogossion has taken on "woke" academia at great personal cost. I listened to an interview with him, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay about the Grievance Studies Affair. It was part hilarious (the details of the "dog park" paper) and part terrifying but it does give some insight into how, allegedly, progressive ideologies have taken hold in universities and why the younger female in this experiment is so confused.

I wish they'd get someone like Helen Joyce to talk on the BBC. It's frustrating that she and others are sidelined to outlets like GB News when clearly (from the applause) mainstream audiences respond to direct message and facts. There's so much pussyfooting around.

I recommend reading Jonathan Haidt's books The Coddling of the American Mind, and The Righteous Mind for an understanding of these people. As to how we can encourage them to use science and reason instead of emotion and mantras, I really don't know

Yes, agreed - they are excellent books. I think PB is trying to teach/encourage critical thinking skills with this project of his. He has way more patience than I do!

Right?! She was great.

No.

Women as a political class are adult human females. We need to be recognised as this in order to protect our rights.

Trans women do not share any of our needs. We have nothing in common with them. They are gender non conforming males. It is men who need to be kind and accept the multitude of variations of male that can exist.

Do we have anything in common? No. Our healthcare needs are completely different because they are male. Any abuse they receive is not because of misogyny, it is because they are gender non-conforming males. We do not have any other same medical needs as males and females are built differently. We do not have the same social needs as they cannot gestate foetuses in a box.

Be polite, use the names they want, but there is no need for any of them to be considered women in any sense and doing so will only weaken our defined role as a political class.

Big respect to Berkeley for hosting this. Really surprised! And respect to all the participants for being willing to publicly discuss these things (especially the 'strongly disagree' scientist who was so courageous).
I enjoy PG's experiments - they help me to firm up (or dismantle, as the case may be) my own judgements.

The example given at the end by the young woman was not comparable. Women being at risk as they move into previously male spaces is completely different from moving males into women’s spaces. In both examples it is the women who are at risk, but in the first the women are choosing to take that risk, because they perceive it as worth taking in order to get an education. In the latter case, women are not given a choice and there is no advantage to be gained.

I wish he’d challenged her on it. Maybe it’s coincidence, but I think he does similar in other videos, closing on a false argument from those arguing for gender ideology. Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen to be challenging these people’s false arguments too intensely, but I do find it frustrating when there’s an obvious loophole in their argument.

It did seem like the younger woman had really not thought through any of her beliefs.
I was particularly confused about her attempt at reasoning that men should be allowed into women's prison's because it is the same as when women were allowed into universities; ie it is just about everyone accepting that previously excluded groups should now be included becasue it is a nice thing to do.

Really good to see the older woman putting things so clearly and getting support from the audience.

The thread is not asking you the question, but pointing towards the debate itself. The debate format and the participants in the debate are what I wanted to discuss. (I presume that we would all be standing on the 'disagree' or 'strongly disagree' line.)

It did seem like the younger woman had really not thought through any of her beliefs.

I thought it was interesting to see her in a minority, as often in these debates, there will be three young people all saying the same things. When PB asked her whether it was more important to make decisions with your head or your heart, she said both, because it was important to have empathy. I bet no one has ever asked her to consider having empathy for women.

But I think she was brave to join in the conversation. I expect you could be cancelled even for entertaining the idea of a debate in the first place.