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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

How gender believers sabotage conversation and debate so their views won’t be challenged

199 replies

TerfLady · 28/04/2023 18:07

Hi there!

I tried to make the title as non-inflammatory as possible but I don’t think that’s fully possible with this topic but I saw a user on another thread make some really insightful observations that I couldn’t ignore about how woke people tend to shut down conversations and debates so they don’t have to have to challenge their own views and I thought it was really interesting!

If you want to get into this thread you might want to strap in because I’m going to get a tad long winded here. Sorry in advance. I thought about doing a TLDR but I don’t tuning it would work for this thread.

If you want to see the comment @Helleofabore replied to @cherryyoga on page 23 talking about her experience being a reformed liberal if you click on this link and how they handled arguments. Sorry I hope you both don’t mind me tagging you.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4794270-genuinely-willing-to-discuss-in-good-faith?page=23&reply=125778813

Anyways CherryYoga discussed in bullet points how she was conditioned to handle arguments in the following ways:

-Assume their privilege
-Name call and denounce
-Removed the context (This is the part where they sabotage the conversation/debate so it can’t happen
-Stonewall (anyone whose ever tried to debate a woke liberal I think has experienced being blocked. It’s actually meme worthy at this point.)

Now she goes into this list a lot deeper so I recommend you read her comment because it would take a lot of space here!

I find this pattern extremely familiar and interesting. If we know this pattern it definitely looks from the outside like they just don’t want to talk to you once they discover that you have an opinion they don’t like. Yet there were several people like this expressing their frustration that they could not have a conversation while knowingly or unknowingly sabotaging the conversation. Why is that?

Because you might not know that I’m also an ex liberal and I did exactly word for word what CherryYoga described and I’m now on the other side scratching my head. I remember the frustration thinking the “alt right” just didn’t care. Feeling defeated and thinking conversation just wasn’t possible and then coming out on the other side asking myself why I ever thought that. 😧🧐

The conversation was only impossible because I made it impossible because I couldn’t accept their ideas because I saw them as an attack on vulnerable people. But it turns out that was far from the truth.

I wonder if there are other reformed woke people that wanted to share their experiences if they had arguments or debated this way? Is there a way we can reach them gently without surrendering our values?

Or is it better to just save our breath for the people that are ready to listen?

What are good strategies for poking holes in their “argument” strategies if we feel we must debate them?

Page 23 | Genuinely willing to discuss in good faith | Mumsnet

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 wit...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4794270-genuinely-willing-to-discuss-in-good-faith?page=23&reply=125778813

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SpicyMoth · 30/04/2023 19:21

I really wish I'd looked into all this in much more depth so I could join in with the steelman-ing rather than just lurk, it's fascinating!
You're all making such amazing arguments and counter arguments and it's given me so so much to research.

Something that might be interesting to attempt to steelman or discuss in general could be this though; Someone on the TRA side gave me this as a response to;
"Why is it transphobia to believe a male can't become a female?"

"If you're referring to the ability to change ones chromosomes, all trans people understand they cannot accomplish that. Yet if your hormones, genitalia, physical body, and breasts are all physically different, whether or not your chromosomes really matter is an open question."

IcakethereforeIam · 30/04/2023 19:30

Sorry, I've not read the thread but I posted a link on another thread to a YouTube short by Jill Bearup which is pertinent as to it's more than size and weight between men and women in sport. I'll try to find it and BRB.

If there are any objections in the interim I won't clutter the thread anymore than I have.

nepeta · 30/04/2023 19:36

JanesLittleGirl · 30/04/2023 16:39

@TerfLady

"“Is this not already done where it's relevant? Such as boxing? There is nothing wrong with setting up such sporting categories and having them gender inclusive- as long as we keep the categories male and female in the existing leagues.”
-I actually can’t think of a good argument against this. Good job!"

This one is a really bad idea. Putting together a similar weight and height male and female in a boxing ring would be a blood bath. The superior reach, strength and arm speed of the male would give a massive advantage which, combined with the thinner, lower density bones of the female, could result in serious injury to her.

Yup. It would not be enough, for adult athletes in any case, to create categories by only weight and height (and age), say, because a male and female athlete of the same height and weight and age, irrespective of their talent and past practice, differ in other sex-linked traits, on average. For instance, the male athlete will have more explosive power, more upper body power, a stronger grip and so on.

So to make the categories fair, they would have to be based on a very large number of physical measurements. The current use of sex might be seen as an imperfect approach to creating such categories. In elite sports certain types of variation (say not being tall in basketball or not being strong in weight-lifting) are already going to be minimised so what remains is often sex-linked.

TerfLady · 30/04/2023 19:36

IcakethereforeIam · 30/04/2023 19:30

Sorry, I've not read the thread but I posted a link on another thread to a YouTube short by Jill Bearup which is pertinent as to it's more than size and weight between men and women in sport. I'll try to find it and BRB.

If there are any objections in the interim I won't clutter the thread anymore than I have.

Oh yes please. I’m very interested in this because I know it will come up at some point!

OP posts:
TerfLady · 30/04/2023 19:41

SpicyMoth · 30/04/2023 19:21

I really wish I'd looked into all this in much more depth so I could join in with the steelman-ing rather than just lurk, it's fascinating!
You're all making such amazing arguments and counter arguments and it's given me so so much to research.

Something that might be interesting to attempt to steelman or discuss in general could be this though; Someone on the TRA side gave me this as a response to;
"Why is it transphobia to believe a male can't become a female?"

"If you're referring to the ability to change ones chromosomes, all trans people understand they cannot accomplish that. Yet if your hormones, genitalia, physical body, and breasts are all physically different, whether or not your chromosomes really matter is an open question."

I’ll take a crack at it.

"Why is it transphobia to believe a male can't become a female?"
It’s transphobic to believe a man cannot become a woman because trans women experience misogyny after they transition.

"If you're referring to the ability to change ones chromosomes, all trans people understand they cannot accomplish that. Yet if your hormones, genitalia, physical body, and breasts are all physically different, whether or not your chromosomes really matter is an open question."

🤔 Can you rephrase this? Is it pro-TRA or gender critical? Sorry I’m not understanding the intent?

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TerfLady · 30/04/2023 19:44

@nepeta Yes I think there is the assumption that same height and weight means same amount of muscle mass and fat. Because there always seems to be the assumption that men and women are very similar other than our genitals. Which just isn’t true.

Not only do women carry more fat naturally than men we also NEED more fat than men so we could actually physical harm ourselves if it drops too low where as men carry more muscle than fat and don’t carry the same risks when their fat percentage drops very low.

So there are a lot of assumptions happening when they ask for height, weight and age categories.

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TheSingingBean · 30/04/2023 19:46

I’ve found it helpful too, it’s taken me years to be confident about my arguments - not their validity, but my ability to communicate clearly and persuasively.

Going through the issues dispassionately is giving me greater assurance about the coherence and strength of my convictions - thank you.

nepeta · 30/04/2023 19:53

An interesting conversation.
I seem to have used the 'steelman' concept without knowing it existed in my own struggles to try to understand the various arguments of TRAs and of gender identity theories, because I wanted to find a way to reconcile the needs and goals of feminism with the trans movement demands.

It couldn't be done and it can't be done. Sadly.

Where my steelmanning failed was when I tried to move from one tiny snippet of theory to another snippet, to sew them together into a wider framework. Each snippet worked when viewed alone, but when plugged into the wider framework they often contradicted each other: If one thing was true then the other thing could not be true at the same time. (For instance, either gender identity is fixed and knowable from very early age or it's always fluctuating and unknowable until the new moment of revelation, for instance.)

The whole framework is full of contradictions and logical flaws and cherry-picked data and newly created definitions which also change weekly.

I believe that we can't take one definition of what 'women and men' mean and just repurpose it to mean something entirely different, or perhaps more often, to have the same words sometimes mean one thing (feelings) and sometimes another thing (sex of the body) so that exchanging information becomes impossible.

This erasure of certain definitions and words is colonising behaviour when it is clearly much more aimed at the less privileged class of female people than the more privileged class of male people.

As others have stated, the gender identity approach is a belief system and its basic concept, the existence of an abstract gender identity (a gendered soul) is unfalsifiable.

Some believe in it and believe that they posses such a gendered soul. Others do not believe in it and find no such gendered soul in themselves, however long they introspect.

The problem is that this gendered soul is not viewed as a belief but as an absolute fact and debating its existence is not allowed. Rather, the older definitions of 'woman and man' are now viewed as not inclusive enough, even though the new 'inclusive' definitions might kick a very large number of women out of the class named 'women' because they don't believe in abstract gender identities.

IcakethereforeIam · 30/04/2023 19:58

Right, I'm back. Hope this is useful. She does link studies and short

https://youtube.com/shorts/fxgxKjHptC0?feature=share

Before you continue to YouTube

https://youtube.com/shorts/fxgxKjHptC0?feature=share

SpicyMoth · 30/04/2023 20:00

"If you're referring to the ability to change ones chromosomes, all trans people understand they cannot accomplish that. Yet if your hormones, genitalia, physical body, and breasts are all physically different, whether or not your chromosomes really matter is an open question."

Can you rephrase this? Is it pro-TRA or gender critical? Sorry I’m not understanding the intent?"

@TerfLady I will attempt to!

I was the first comment/question from a GC standpoint, it was on a ContraPoints video for context, the Witch Trials one.
The response was from someone who I assume from either a TRA/ally/trans person.
My best guess at what they mean would be that if they look like a woman (They got breast implants and had genitalia altered), sound like a woman, act like a woman, say they're a woman, they're a woman, and breaking it down into a person's chromosomes and whether they matter is splitting hairs.

  • Unsure what they mean by "physical body" in that context aside from fat distribution at a stretch tbh? But that doesn't strike me as approaching their point in good faith to say that, though maybe I'm wrong there!

I would assume had the replier continued to engage with me, that they likely would've then gone on to say something about people being born with extra or mismatched chromosomes and bringing in intersex people (I forget the mumsnet term for haywire/mismatched chromosomes/genital anomalies, I think there's a G and a D in it somewhere? Apologies, it's that time of the month and the brain fog is making itself known today apparently😭)

BonfireLady · 30/04/2023 20:05

@TerfLady two things:

  1. the way you described your personal journey through your thoughts on gender identity was fascinating
  2. I was asked to post a link to this thread on a different one... I really hope doing so isn't the catalyst to the tone and spirit of this thread changing. If it does, I offer my profuse apologies in advance 😬🤦‍♀️🤞🙏
TerfLady · 30/04/2023 20:09

@nepeta aw yes the good ol’ fashioned gendered soul. Some TRA’s believe in it and some believe they have a gendered brain. Like maybe they were just a man born with a female brain.

The gendered soul is flawed because it would require that we all not only believe in gendered souls but at the same time agree that their soul is in fact female. Which require us to share a faith based system.

The brain issue is flawed because… Well I will share a video. Matthew Walsh argues against trans brains much better than myself.

If you want to skip to the point just jump to 2:25

Michael Knowles REJECTS Student's Baseless Claims About the Brains of Transgendered People

The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles spars with a student at the University of Wisconsin-Superior about the brains of men, women, and transgenderism.

https://youtu.be/WCWcJhOTkKA

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TerfLady · 30/04/2023 20:27

@BonfireLady naw it’s okay. I’m not worried at all over it! All the people here are pretty amazing and interesting people!

@IcakethereforeIam
wow that video was had some really juicy info! This will be useful later on.

@SpicyMoth
Aw okay. I think I get it. I’m personally not opposed to trans women who had a vaginoplasty going into female sex spaces but I do have issues with women’s sports particularly if they experienced male puberty and I think they need to be honest about that for the sake of fairness.

I hope my reply made sense. Lol

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BonfireLady · 30/04/2023 20:37

Agreed @TerfLady ! Lots of really amazing people. I feel the same about the FWR board in general. I was just very aware that the thread I posted it in was covering some of the same points at times but had a different tone to it... hence the heads up. So anyone hopping across may bring a change in tone. Anyway, all good and differing views are the point of discussions anyway👍

TerfLady · 30/04/2023 20:39

Sorry I said matthew walsh but it was michael knowles. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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SpicyMoth · 30/04/2023 20:43

I think I agree with your stance on it as well @TerfLady , but I can't lie - I would definitely have some remaining concern about physical strength differences.
From a "going about your day" perspective it's fine imo, I can deal with it, I don't often use public spaces tbh as I prefer to stay at home, but from a safeguarding perspective I worry.

I can see myself and other women for example getting out with maybe a few cuts and scrapes in a fight with a bio woman.
In a fight with a trans woman however, I have no idea how I or others would fair.

But I definitely know what a punch to the stomach from a boy vs a girl felt like at school, and that even as children there was a huge difference.

Drunk people get into fights all the time as an example of a scenario where this may occur - I hope my reply also makes sense! 😅

nepeta · 30/04/2023 20:46

The chromosome argument is something that a couple of biologists have commented on in the past, and Kathleen Stock does, too, in her book.

She mentions several possible operational/measurable definitions of biological sex*. Although in theory individuals with DSDs might not be 'assigned' the same sex in all of them, in practice almost everyone of us (because DSDs are rare) would be clearly defined as either female or male.

I suspect that this is the case for an equally large number of those who don't identify as the gender their society associates with their sex, so the chromosome argument is not relevant in the transgender debate.

In other words, most transgender individuals would probably be classified into the same biological sex under all of those operational definitions.

*And if we use the more basic definition of biological sex as based on whether the individual is on the developmental path towards the sex which produces small gametes or the one which produces large gametes, then almost everyone, including individuals with a DSD, would be classified as male or female. Some DSDs are, in fact, sex-specific.

Boiledbeetle · 30/04/2023 20:56

TerfLady · 28/04/2023 22:01

@Stillcountingbeans I love your strategy although I know these things take practice and real life experience.

@JanesLittleGirl yes I’m also religious but my religion is very uncommon. I almost never bring it up. I believe that nature has a spirit. Although I wouldn’t enforce that on others. To some people a rock is just a rock and that’s their business. Lol

I'm not religious, but i d be more willing to accept nature has a spirit, mainly because nature is amazing.

Who needs purity spirals when you can have nature spirals!

(And yes this is a sneaky way of placemarking as my heads not up for the debate aspect of this today! But it's an interesting read!)

How gender believers sabotage conversation and debate so their views won’t be challenged
TerfLady · 30/04/2023 21:06

@SpicyMoth I would be lying if I said that that never crossed my mind. I suppose for myself I believe if they’re willing to lose the penis they must truly be invested in being a woman so to me it’s the least we can do but I’ve also seen some pretty compelling gender critical arguments that they’ve pushed it all too far so to give them an inch is to give them a mile which I respect. I guess I don’t have strong feelings myself on the matter of a fully transitioned adult transwoman entering the women’s bathroom but at the end of the day it’s hard to police it really. The GRC have become pretty meaningless pieces of paper these days.

@nepeta oh I forgot about this argument yes most intersex people have either tested or ovaries and those are usually what determines how their sex is expressed if I remember correctly.

@Boiledbeetle this is just that cake business all over again!!! 🤬😱💩🤯😡
In case you could not tell… I’m just kidding 😄

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PurpleBugz · 30/04/2023 21:13

@nepeta

"Where my steelmanning failed was when I tried to move from one tiny snippet of theory to another snippet, to sew them together into a wider framework. Each snippet worked when viewed alone, but when plugged into the wider framework they often contradicted each other:"

As your comment goes on to say TRA is a belief system. I think if my steelman accepts it's a belief system rather than a fight for biological sex, gender reassignment or sexual orientation rights they would argue that there is always variation within the beliefs in each religion. I only know Christianity enough to use the example but say catholics believe communion is the literal body and blood of Christ. Others believe it becomes the body and bloo of Christ when it's been consumed and others still say it's just a representation. Because there are variations within their beliefs doesn't make them any less religious and therefore legally protected under the equality act or deserving of respect as an individual within our society.

But my steel man would not consider their beliefs as a religion. They are surrounded by other people who are telling them it is women's rights. Children's rights. Comparable to racism or able ism etc. my steelman does not like religion for its homophobia. Still man is atheist and has very good friends who are homosexual who have suffered nastiness from religious zealots. The idea that this movement is a religion is offensive to steel man. Religious people are stupid and wrong you can't prove god. still man is not stupid or wrong this isn't 'faith' this is knowledge

Boiledbeetle · 30/04/2023 21:14

@TerfLady 🎂 😁

PurpleBugz · 30/04/2023 21:22

I love how the witch trials of JKR never says TRA is a religion but the lovely lady who did who I can't remember the name of came from zealot religious background and talks about her own experiences a lot. So so so cleverly done in so many ways. It's as neutral as it can be in the debate just asking questions of people on different sides and relating to them how she can. Anyone who hasn't listened to it absolutely should

JussathoB · 30/04/2023 21:26

TerfLady · 30/04/2023 19:13

I’m not at all offended. We are doing steelman exercises so we can make our gender critical arguments stronger. I was just using common arguments that TRA’s use online to try to push their agenda so gender critical women can rebuttal more easily. I don’t actually believe that men can get pregnant. 😁

Thank you, yes I understand.
This is the only discussion on this topic that I have felt to be informative and helpful, glad to hear posters expressing themselves genuinely and trying to express points without getting into a hysterical defensive argument. it’s a relief to realise that people can try to understand the topic in a reasonable way. It’s the only way forward.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 30/04/2023 21:27

SpicyMoth · 30/04/2023 19:21

I really wish I'd looked into all this in much more depth so I could join in with the steelman-ing rather than just lurk, it's fascinating!
You're all making such amazing arguments and counter arguments and it's given me so so much to research.

Something that might be interesting to attempt to steelman or discuss in general could be this though; Someone on the TRA side gave me this as a response to;
"Why is it transphobia to believe a male can't become a female?"

"If you're referring to the ability to change ones chromosomes, all trans people understand they cannot accomplish that. Yet if your hormones, genitalia, physical body, and breasts are all physically different, whether or not your chromosomes really matter is an open question."

My response to this:

Firstly, there is no technology today that can make a man's body (hormones, genitalia, physical body and breasts) indistinguishable from that of a born female. It may be possible to create a superficial resemblance but the internal experience of that body is not the same. There is no menstruation, the vagina doesn't produce its varying mucuses and scents which over her life the natal women comes to know as well as her own hands, there is no memory of the body changing at puberty or memory of/anticipation of the menopause. Instead there are other memories, of surgery, hormones and transition, and the routines of injections and dilation. Furthermore, the skeleton, muscles, lungs etc do not become female, meaning the athletic capabilities of this MTF body are different to those of a female body. The adjusted male is not experiencing life as a female person simply because his male body has been given a superficiality female appearance.

Why does this matter? Because the discussion about who "is" a woman is not simply a philosophical game. The claim of male womanhood is being leveraged to open up formerly female-only resources and protections to male people. So the question must also move from the philosophical to the practical. Why do these provisions exist, and does the adjusted male, by virtue of his physical adjustment towards a more female-presenting exterior, now have the same needs as female people?

I found it telling that you said "are all physically different" rather than "female". Whether conscious or not, this suggests to me you do understand that the adjusted male body is not a female body. Furthermore, it betrays a belief that womanhood is a function of difference to a male norm rather than a thing in itself. The adjusted male may be significantly changed from what he was. This does not mean he has become female.

In the case of sports or anything to do with female biology and medical care, clearly the difference matters. The adjusted male body is not a female body. It has advantages in sport - maybe not as much as an unadjusted male, but still advantages. In medical care, clearly the needs of a true female body with a female endocrine system, female internal organs and female reproductive role are not the same as a male patient, but also, we respect that some patients may want intimate or sensitive care from someone who shares their body type - who knows "how it feels", who understands and sympathises from a place of experience.

What about more social provisions? The physical spaces that exist for privacy and safety, and the opportunities and cultural spaces that exist to empower women against the heavy structural imbalance of historic patriarchy?

This brings me on to my second point. A woman is not simply her biology as it stands in front of you today. She is also the life lived to get there. The challenges and needs she has as a woman are not just the intersection of the body she has and the way she is treated by society because of it, but also the way she has learned to think of herself because of it, because of the images of girl- and womanhood she has been surrounded by since birth, the expectations she has felt, the social rewards and punishments that have shaped her behaviour, her self image, her mental toolbox. It's a process that started the day she was born, and something an adjusted male, no matter how well he may pass today, can never share.

Similarly, the adjusted male has absorbed cultural ideas about himself and about women that formed his own understanding of self and other, and even if he now consciously rejects them, they are still part of his story and part of what formed him.

BonfireLady · 30/04/2023 21:31

@PurpleBugz

Hi Steel Man, I have a question relating to this bit (I'm going to try out the "bridge" approach):

The idea that this movement is a religion is offensive to steel man. Religious people are stupid and wrong you can't prove god. still man is not stupid or wrong this isn't 'faith' this is knowledge

I'm an atheist too. I'm not going to take us down a religion rabbit hole about whether god can be proven or not as I think you've made a really good point and I'm totally with you there. And please don't think for a minute I'm saying you're stupid. I would hate it to come across that I did. The bit I really struggle with is why some people are so sure this is knowledge and for others it's a belief. I just can't get my head around that, even with everything you've just said [the rest of your comment]. I've searched deep inside myself to understand if I have a gender identity and I don't believe that I do. I've read tons on this and I know I'm not stupid either. So how can it be knowledge? Isn't it the case that we'll conclude that it's a belief, just as we did over time with religion when science started to prove that some things happened without any divine intervention?*

*No religious offense intended here 😬 I'm talking to a fellow atheist because Steel Man has told me that he is. So I'm appealing to our shared values.