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.

Please don't go back to lurking Catiette! That last post of yours is bloody brilliant!

Spot on.

"Identifying as a woman" relies on knowing what a woman really is but pretending not to.

Knowing that you are a "person with a cervix" relies having once learned that you have a cervix because you are a woman.

Amazing, isn't it. TRAs like Spooky arrogantly tell us words like "women" are impractical and incorrect to be used and tell us that we're confused with concepts like TM and TW.

No Spooky, "women" is absolutely the right word to use, there's no confusion on the part of the rest of us.

All you demonstrate with such bad faith arguments is that you have nothing to argue with, and are prepared to use the English language in your war on women, men, children.

I am now struggling with the Idea of the menstruating transman who won't buy any sanpro 'cos they're all aimed at women. How fuckwitted would you have to be?

I still do think that the word woman is ambiguous

It's not, though. A woman is a female. A small group of people have chosen to use and ask others to use the word for the sex that they are not.

Their trans status means that they are people pretending to be/identifying as the sex they are not.

There's no ambiguity at all about the word 'woman'.

If you have a different analysis of the word 'trans', it's be great to hear it.

“So, taking this conclusion at face value, if there was a law that said ‘trans women are banned from competing against cis women in elite sports’, that would not be the correct way to word the intention of the law.”

Spooky. You talk about precision yet this sentence is a great example of just how imprecise this terminology is.

Where do people who are NB come into it?

No. A precise sentence is:

‘trans women All male athletes who have or had the ability to process testosterone are banned from competing in female categories of sports events against cis women in elite sports’.

Because until such time as males who have not experienced male puberty have been proven to not have any advantage over female athletes no male person should be competing against female people. Height is one, because males who have artificially halted or prevented puberty may grow taller than they would have if they went through their natural cycle- happy to provide a study on this.

The sentence then doesn’t exclude those athletes with CAIS (a male person with a specific DSD) at this times. I suspect in future those with CAIS may well be shown to have advantages which is why they are over represented in sports. But for now, they are not the focus and more data is needed here.

If the sex category is used it is precise. Why does anyone then need to use the next level of definition- and include a set of male people into the definition of female people?

It is this sleight of hand that has allowed this ridiculous situation to be written into sports policy to start with. This denial of who is male and who is female. I believe it was the 1996 Olympics they stopped sex testing (a swab in the mouth) and this was to allow males with DSDs to participate. And we ended up with Rio where we had three male athletes on the podium for one race and different males winning other medals that should have been for women.

No need to make things accommodating in regulations and law. There is a need to be clear cut with no ambiguity. And sports is governed by regulations and by legislation as well.

Imagine if the next definition that queer theory worked on was the word and the concept of ‘first’? Is that going to be next?

And spooky, there is a definition that is unambiguous for female in humans too.

A female human is one who has the body formed around the production of large gametes, whether that gamete production has, will in the future, or is currently occurred.

ie. If a person has ovaries, even if those ovaries never worked, or were even formed partially, and there are no testes or ever were any testes even partially formed, they are of the female sex.

If a person cannot accept their own sex, and we are assured that most people with trans identities accept their sex, why would we remove the specificity of using the terms for sex when sex matters?

my point was that the word woman is difficult to precisely define

@SpookyFBI

Again it really isn't it means an adult human female. The only ambiguity is when a girl becomes a woman (starting periods? 16? 18?).
The difficulty only arises when you try to define woman in a way that includes some men.
Humans have managed to both identify and define women for millennia. It is only for the last decade or so that there has been any suggestion that it was some how tricky.
Do you find the word man equally hard to define? Because in the brave new world of mangeled language the NHS and cancer charities seem to continue to use men with impunity. For some inexplicable reason it only seems women that are being redefined as body parts and functions.
Men are getting caught in the use of 'pregnant people' though and having to tell qualified medical professionals if they are pregnant or not - what a great use of stretched resources.
I have yet to find a case of believers in gender hiring any sort of person other than a natal female (please stop using 'cis' - if people are allowed to identify as 72 different genders why are women not allowed to identify as women?) when they want to use a surrogate so it seems that even the proponents of 'its tricky' and 'no one can tell' manage to figure it all out when push comes to shove.
Finally yes there are trans women (people who were born male and now regard themselves as female) who claim to have a cervix, periods and the menopause. There is at least one 'charming' individual who claimed to be pregnant planning to then have a 'still birth' when they didn't have a baby at the end of the process. These are the people we are being told to 'be kind' too. Oh the ones who wank in M&S changing rooms and the ones who think 'fish' is an acceptable term for women and the ones who tell us they are better women than us and we are womaning wrong if we don't shave our legs. Not to mention the rapists and murderers who discover their inner woman when facing a long stretch in prison.
We need to be kind to these people but tell rape victims to reframe their trauma and Muslim women to stay home!

Trans is from the Latin 'tra' which means accross, beyond through.

So in this case it's sex of gender depending on your beliefs.

Personally I don't see how the word trans is appropriate if a person always has been the sex they identify with. If they are changing their sex/gender then it would be appropriate. So to me the very name challenges much of TRA argument. 🤷‍♀️

Finally spooky, woman = adult human female. Just as ‘girl’ means a juvenile human female.

It was only ever after males wished to take on the identity of women that there was any ambiguity. This was only ever in contention to serve to make some male people feel better about themselves.

Before that, it was never imprecise. Ever.

As a woman, who has no gender identity, I absolutely reject any male taking the word used for me as a female person to describe themselves. And I was never asked. How disrespectful was it that those male people simply took what they wanted? Sounds like patriarchy to me.

And women have now been forced to let that patriarchy rule, out of kindness.

Thanks @WaitWhat23. Definitely hanging around (though may have some issues with internet access today). Genuinely interested in any response from @SpookyFBI to recent updates. I really do appreciate how thoroughly they're engaging with points made. Some of the thoughts being shared can feel a bit raw - listening to (retrospective!) arguments for your own (re)definition can be genuinely upsetting (something that seems to be unquestioningly acknowledged for transpeople, but not so much for women!) - but I hope that this listening is what distinguishes us (and makes Spooky rather unusual in these fora). The last few pages of the thread, and there's at last some evidence of a genuinely good faith discussion on both sides!

having thought about it now I would change my position and disagree that it is always necessary to have a strict, precise definition of what a woman is in order to have a conversation about women

I agree, the definition doesn't have to be particularly precise. Women are adult human females. Easy to identify via numerous markers such as body shape, hands, voice, gait etc. Anyone born with a penis won't grow to be a woman.

The definition only becomes problematic when men decide they can be women because they say so.

By the way. I have now come to the conclusion that you only ever do a small part of the homework, but expect to receive full credit for it.

You then try to blag receiving credit when people call you out on your lack of homework.

What are your problems with this study?

What shortcoming have you found in it?

It really is a bit beyond belief that people expect me to spend my time undermining a study that supports a position I believe in.

”But in the context of someone who fully understands what a trans woman is talking to other people who fully understand what a trans woman is, using the word ‘male’ would be deliberate misgendering.”

Yet, as I said earlier, we have been told by trans people that they do not deny their sex.

When does a male become a ‘transwoman’ exactly? Just as they are solidifying that thought in their mind, when they first announce it, after medical treatment of drugs, surgery? What about the detransitioners who went through all of that? Are they still transwomen despite now saying they are men now?

Speaking of imprecision, how fucking imprecise can you get by the way?

There has been an attempt to force society to believe that it is ‘misgendering’ to use the correct sex for a male who has adopted a trans identity. I won’t be falling for it.

Because it leads to women and girls being out in harmful positions to not have a precise language to define themselves as significantly different to these male people.

Women and girls cannot escape into a world where they can deny their bodies.

It is always interesting to read posts by transitioned female people on MN. Almost 100% of them admit they know they cannot be ‘male’ people. Most state they are in a limbo place. That is not the experience that we hear from the males who transition.

Are you honestly trying to suggest that a female body or a male body are themselves somehow 'assigned'? That a female body is only a female body because someone says it is - and not objectively so?

Let me guess you also think that a penis can be a female organ?

Even with breasts removed and a body full of testosterone, and facial hair you can still tell in most circumstances; certainly if you observe closely. Women tend to have shorter arms and their pelvis is a different shape, for starters

The provenance of the global gender gap report data is pretty good isn't it?

Carried out by the World Economic Forum and referred to and cited by so many international governmental bodies and women's charities.

So many of those countries in the top 20, doing so well for so long, for so many women...also now choosing to proceed with policies of self ID.

Why do you think they have suddenly got it so wrong?

I don't think they have. I admire what they've achieved for women in their countries, far beyond what UK has achieved for women's parity, and I don't think they are all suddenly taking radical missteps now.

So why are you here, still posting in the early hours of Sunday morning?

You "believe in a position" and you ignore questions or challenges to that position it. When you are proposing something that defies commonly understood material reality then the onus is on you to back it up - not simply re-asserting the belief.

I don't think there can much more credible back up than to highlight all the countries that are doing exceptionally well for women also proceeding with policies of self ID.

Why do you think they have got this wrong, after doing everything else so well for women?

Try listening to the podcast episodes referenced here.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4795558-just-discovered-this-wonderful-podcast?reply=125807641

They demonstrate the effects of the missteps on the poorest and most disadvantaged in Ireland. Who are not the only women damaged.

Those figures now include men who identify as women. They are not sex disaggregated.
And you ignore the countries where things are not so good for women.

Next time you are sitting outside somewhere with people passing by start watching them at a distance. You may well realise that you can tell which are male and which are female at some distance even from behind because men and women walk differently. I don't mean women are teetering along in heels but that if you look at bodies in the abstract you will notice that there are subtle differences in how they move, in the ratio of height compared to where the waist is. These ways aren't assigned by the picking of a blue ball or a pink ball when a baby is born they are the result of the actual quantifiable differences between male bodies and female bodies.

I also think its beyond the pale for posters to say their points have not been answered, when women have spent time typing out answers that are ignored.

On another thread, posters are engaging in 'steel manning' - that is, making a case for the other side. The benefits to this include understanding your opponents point of view, and strengthening or changing your own beleifs.
Try that instead of complaining that you are expected to undermine your own argument.

@SpookyFBI:
"I still do think that the word woman is ambiguous, and our colloquial understanding of what it means changes in different contexts. This doesn’t mean that no one should ever use it and it should be completely removed from our vocabulary (no one is genuinely calling for that and anyone who claims to be is doing it for views/click bait), just that strictly defining precisely what the word woman means for once and for all is not possible."

You may be right. That does not change the point made earlier, however. If we take the specific context of an assertion "a trans woman is a woman" ('TWAW'), it does seem important to be able to explain what 'woman' means in that assertion if we want to consider whether the assertion might be true.

As I think I said upthread, there does not seem to be any explanation of what 'woman' could mean in this particular context that neither simply rules out the truth of the assertion 'TWAW' (as 'woman' means 'adult female human' does), nor engages in either spurious fantasy metaphysics or a misogyny of stereotypes.

(Perhaps, on reflection, I should have included the possibility (still popular in some quarters, I'll admit) of circularity. That doesn't affect the point.)

So, SpookyFBI (or others?), would you like to have a go?

... In the specific context of an assertion 'TWAW', what can we take 'woman' to mean if the assertion is to be possibly true?

... Or, (again in this specific context) what is a woman if TWAW?

It still seems there is no reasonable answer to this question. Given which, we are forced to accept the conclusion (quite a strong one, really) that there cannot be any way in which 'TWAW' could be true.

Or, again back to material mode, a transwoman cannot be a woman.