Genuinely willing to discuss in good faith

[beachcitygirl]

Hello.

This is a thread for those who are uncomfortable with black and white and less than civil discourse around self id.

I welcome those with different views but I don't on this thread welcome those who only want to state their firm settled opinion without nuance or discussion that self id is absolutely wrong.

It's my view that there is no point in discussion if mind firmly made up.
I'll respect your legal right to that view but there's not much point chatting about it and pissing each other off.

There are plenty threads of gc women hoping to create more gc women and that's fine.

I'd like this to be a different space. A place for anyone with genuine questions, discussion points and where we all try to be civil and attempt to answer each other in good faith. Anyone who is unsure, let's talk:

My views are that trans women should be treated in every aspect as women and they are our natural allies against misogyny and the patriarchy and that women are more than their biology.

From which link?

Please be very specific?

From the Williams Institute who used a June 2013 'Gendered Restrooms and Minority Stress' again, with no access?

What data shall we challenge suggestions? You actually haven't provided any.

We are 'challenging' you for posting something that you have claimed :

"If you look up the methodology of this study it is very robust."

Suggestions, you emphasise that the methodology was robust, buy the direct only route I’ve found to accessing the study so far demanded a fair sum for the privilege. As such, perhaps you could really briefly summarise your thoughts on the following.

1. The time period across which the study was carried out - reading between the lines of summaries I’ve found, it seems rather short to draw such definitive conclusions?

2. The reliance on crime reports to police - is there any consideration of the high proportion of non-reporting?

3. How the subjective value of impact on privacy was assessed.

4. Whether there was consideration of the possibility that fear of accusations of hate crime may deter reporting, especially in the context of such recent changes in related law(s)?

As I mention unthread, I’m no statistician, but these are the issues that immediately come to mind and interest me here. I’d also add that the lead author does appear to have some skin in the game.

Conscious I’m contributing to a bit of a pile on here, but am asking as you yourself used the word robust in explicit support of the study, which makes it feel reasonable to ask in the context of the dearth of publically available info., and my 4 qs may make explaining this less onerous…

Equally, statisticians in the room, please tell me if my qs only really reveal my ignorance of how such research is carried out!

Self ID = good for women.
????
No.
Self ID = good for trans women.

I agree that it’s important and useful to be clear about exactly what we mean, which is why I really don’t understand why so many gender criticals object to terms like ‘people who menstruate’ or ‘people who are pregnant’. Those terms could not be more clear. If I was to say ‘the target audience for this menstrual products company is people who menstruate’ (obviously that’s a very simplistic example, but it illustrates my point), I am saying exactly what I mean, I am including all people I mean to include and excluding all people I mean to exclude. Trans women are not part of the target audience because they don’t menstruate and trans men are. Women who have had a hysterectomy and therefore do not menstruate are not included in the statement because they would have no need for these menstrual products. Women who have undergone menopause are likewise not included as the target audience for these menstrual products. Simply saying women in this instance is less accurate.

what it means to ‘live as a woman’ is difficult to define even if we don’t include trans women. There are some 4 billion of us currently living on the planet. You cannot describe a single experience of what it means to be a woman that encompasses everyone. The wealthiest woman on the planet would have a very different experience to the poorest. A woman with 10 kids would have a very different experience to a woman who is child free. A woman in her 80s would have a very different experience to a woman in her 20s. Each woman needs to define for herself what it means to live as a woman.

If precision is the only criterion relevant to naming a social and political class, Spooky, to the extent that my deep discomfort and offence at being called a person „who menstruates“ by companies and national institution bemuses you, presumably you apply the same logical to trans people who dislike the use of noun phrases like „trans-identifying male“ in informal discussion boards?

I agree it will be easier to define who we are talking about if we break them down into their constituent parts. Thus we have people who menstruate , people with penises in woman face, pregnant people, male people with AGP. Actually you’re right , it helps

What you are doing is erasing the humanity of women by eliminating the word 'woman' from medical literature, If you want to include transmen in medical literature aimed at women - you just need to say "women and transmen who are still menstruating". It is not 'inclusive' to erase women or any reference to women in order to accommodate women who don't identify as women.

Sorry, irritable tone there, but the incongruity of the insistence that I extend the privilege of changing my language to suit others while I must submit to my own redefinition in a way I personally find utterly demeaning - and that I believe to be demonstrably detrimental to women’s safety and well-being - really rankles.

I agree that it’s important and useful to be clear about exactly what we mean, which is why I really don’t understand why so many gender criticals object to terms like ‘people who menstruate’ or ‘people who are pregnant’.
Times in my life I wasn't 'a person who menstruates' before I was 11, after I was 48, when I was pregnant, when I was on certain contraception, arguably 3 weeks in every 4 for the remaining years so using those words to sell sanpro erm kind of OK. Using them to define who needs a smear - totally pointless after all they want me to go for a smear when I am not menstruating. As a way to sell something to women who's first language isn't English, probably not great they almost certainly know they are women, I did a couple of languages at school to a fairly high level but I could not tell you the equivalent word for menstruating in either of them.

Why do we need to describe what 'living as woman' means, anyway? As you suggest there is no one way that all women live. What they all have in common though is their femaleness and their female biology.

Males are not women.

I think you’ve misunderstood me. I’m not in any way suggesting that ‘person who menstruates’ should replace ‘woman’, just that in the particular instance of who would be the target audience of a menstrual company, the answer to that specific question is ‘people who menstruate. The answer to that question of who is recommended to have a pap smear would be ‘people who have a cervix and are sexually active or over 21’ (I believe that’s the criteria but happy to be corrected if not). Although there is significant overlap, as you’ve pointed out the two groups are not exactly the same. Simply saying ‘woman’ for both groups is less accurate.

what it means to ‘live as a woman’ is difficult to define even if we don’t include trans women.
Nope - it only becomes difficult when you try to include trans women. It is a simple as being alive and being a woman. What is really hard is trying to define women/womanhood in a way that includes some men without excluding some women. That's why those who reject adult human female can't offer up a simple definition that doesn't boil down to stereotypes or a woman is someone who says they are.

Where does that leave second language speakers or those with learning difficulties. Excluded once again but hey that are only women so.......

Ah, the usual obfuscation. The female category can only be successfully described if it applies to absolutely 100% of all female individuals. And now TRAs want men in the female category too. Now it's possible for women to include actual women AND the nouveau femmes who brandish penises.

This game has been played for years, and Spooky, you seem to keep wanting to play it.
Categories do not have to be categorised against their most unusual outliers and edge cases.

The very fact we can all describe unusual edge cases (females who'll go on to never be able to bear children, women who show worse than male levels of extreme violence, anatomical irregularities) means that we KNOW what the female category is.

To argue that there's a woman in Peru who has no developed uterus or breasts as an adult, one in Greenland who's killed dozens of babies in her care, one in America who will break Usain Bolt's WR, has zero bearing on the fact that the female category is defined by the potential to bear children but not impregnate to create children, the sex class makes puts them at the whim of men, and that femaleness is observed on scan in utero, and in person when delivered after 9 months.

To argue that, oh, there are SO many life experiences of the female sex class, oh, this also includes these natal males, is obfuscation and posturing and downright deceiving and disrespectful.

Hi Smoky. In the light of your clarification that you think "people who menstruate" could be used in contexts in which this bodily function is relevant (despite our feelings about this), could I ask you to address several points made above, including by me? By extension, using "trans-identifying male" would make a lot of sense in particular contexts (eg. facilitating the debate re: female-only spaces). Why is the offence one causes justifiable, and the other anathema. I honestly really would like to hear what you think.

Smoky? Spooky! Conscious of the irony in a discussion about respectful use of appropriate names! Ahem... (Walking & typing having got a bit addicted to this thread...)

I could walk into a shop in France, Germany, Spain, Italy or Poland and any other countries where those languages are spoken and identify a product with the local word for woman/women on the packaging and could probably have a good stab in most other European countries. Even when my A level French was at its freshest I couldn't have told you what the words for cervix or menstruate were. It might be simple for intelligent educated native speakers but it's not simple for everyone. India Willoughby is known to declare that India Willoughby has a cervix should we be giving India a smear?

”trans identifying male” is no more accurate than “trans woman”, it just deliberately misgenders them. There is no one that you would put in the category of ‘trans identifying male’ that I wouldn’t put in the category of ‘trans woman’.

is there a way to talk about menstruation without using the word menstruation that you would find more respectful, while still being accurate?

re: the post upthread saying transmen who still menstruate are women. They are women whether they menstruate or not. Post-menopausal women are women. With increased longevity, most of us will spend at least as much of our lives not menstruating as menstruating.

Doesn't mean out bodies won't play all sorts of hormonal tricks on us.

It doesn't deliberately misgender them. It just accurately references their biology as being male. And it accurately references their gender (gender identity) by saying that they are "trans identified".

Trans people claim that they "don't deny biology". They can't then get upset if their biology is accurately referenced.

Spooky

Using bodily functions to describe people is demeaning and dehumanising. There is a perfectly serviceable word that has been used for centuries to describe people who menstruate: women. Why the sudden squeamishness?

As another poster suggested, the addition of 'and transmen' offers full inclusion .

WRT to 'living as a woman', you make my point for me - there is no possible way to 'live as a woman' unless you are a woman. Gender ideologues will never admit that because it reveals that the whole edifice is only a house of cards.

"Menstruators", "pregnant people" and all the rest are an attempt to suggest that each of these is an independent self-contained category, and there is not one overarching group - women - which unites them.

No apology needed Catiette. The tone deaf arrogance of those who've decided that the sex class of women will now include men is a constant affront.That phrase - "the word woman is taken" needs repeating every time the colonisers and rude appropriaters arrive with their toxic "if we just call you "menstruators" here" and "uterus havers" there, with a dose of "chest feeders" and other dehumanising language scattered about.

The sex class of women does not include any man. It never will, no matter how much bullying and whingeing and lies are used. Once men start gestating and birthing babies, then maybe we can talk - but until then they can all FOTTFSOFATFOSM.

”trans identifying male” is no more accurate than “trans woman”, it just deliberately misgenders them.

But how? I'm honestly bemused by this.......a male person who identifies as trans is a trans identifying male, surely?

To call it a 'deliberate misgender' just doesn't make sense to me. I assume you feel it's an insult.....can you explain why?