£10,000 prize for arguing both sides of trans debate

[IcakethereforeIam]

This could be interesting. I expect to see FWR being cited 😁

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/10k-essay-prize-for-arguing-both-sides-of-trans-debate-vvfgmbc8k

https://archive.ph/NzNEy archive link

Although, the journalist quoted seems to have transwomen/trans women mixed up.

Transmen are, once more, conspicuous by their absence.

I could write that TWAW because I know all the arguments. Such as they are. Even the one that says we know they're not, but we think you should do it anyway, because 'inclusion'.

It would never be convincing, though. It hasn't convinced anybody, so far. The only reason things have got as far as they have is because of the wholesale intimidation and untruths, like suicide stats, etc.

So if arguing for TWAW has to be 'persuasive', I don't believe that's possible, unless you lie.

what am I missing?
He’s acknowledging that trans women prejudges the outcome of the essay, and uses transwomen as being ‘problematic’ but less so than the alternative.

As everyone knows, we can’t have this debate without differentiating between two groups. One term grammatically requires TIM to be a subset of women. The other term is less explicit, I think. It doesn’t intrinsically mean they absolutely aren’t a form of woman.

And yes, debates require a motion- ‘this house believes that TW are women’, which debaters either support or reject.

This. I am tempted to ID as an undergraduate. I could really do with 10k about now and I bet anyone who's spent any time on here would be able to do as well as or better than any of the other undergrads entering. Although obviously undergrads who are also on here probably have the best advantage.

It's very exclusionary limiting it to undergraduates only isn't it? What about struggling single mothers who can't afford to go to uni but definitely id as undergrads?

It would never be convincing, though. It hasn't convinced anybody, so far. The only reason things have got as far as they have is because of the wholesale intimidation and untruths, like suicide stats, etc.
^^
So if arguing for TWAW has to be 'persuasive', I don't believe that's possible, unless you lie.

It would have to be based on emotion, appeals to the "vulnerability" of trans people and the right for everyone to "live authentically". I slightly disagree that this type of rhetoric hasn't ever persuaded people. It has persuaded plenty of people (men and women who have internalised sexism/misogyny) who don't see women's rights as all that relevant and haven't explored the issue much, that trans people are a small vulnerable minority who can be accommodated fully without much trouble to anything important.

But no, I agree that most of these people don't believe they are actually are women, just that it's better for everyone to pretend that they are.

He’s acknowledging that trans women prejudges the outcome of the essay, and uses transwomen as being ‘problematic’ but less so than the alternative.

He is, but the Times journalist got it completely arse about face.

I don't know about writing an essay covering both sides but here is my attempt in two sentences.

Transwomen believe that they are women. Women know that they aren't.

I'm thinking the aim is to encourage young students particularly to think critically- because lack of this, and free speech issues, are such an issue in the universities.
Rather than the focus being on the question/task in and of itself.

Especially as uni students will be the next gen of professionals with influence. And the universities often don't seem to be doing this themselves.

I'm completely confident I could write an essay on this, having been exposed to the other side's arguments often enough. I'm just disappointed it's only open to undergraduates.

Both Kathleen Stock and Jane Clare Jones have written essays that systematically expose the flaws in the TWAW argument, though, so you really don't need anyone else to waste their time.

Same. I would love to enter this competition.

And unfortunately I don't think undergraduates are likely to have enough life experience to really do this topic justice.

The bottom of the article says "Lord Sumption confirmed last night that he will be a judge in the competition."

A serious and real judge!

If only they were brave enough to open the essay competition to allcomers. Ah, go on, go on.

I think I could argue why trans people should be treated with the same respect that should be due any other law abiding person. Equality, all that good stuff. But arguing that tw are literally women! It would be a work of fiction, I don't think I could pull it off. What's more I believe I would be disrespecting women and transwomen both by attempting it. I'd make a terrible barrister.

Yes, I think the thing that's tripping me up is the premise that transwomen are women.

I don't see how one can convince anyone of that, other than claiming it's because of DSDs and then they'd have to pretty much fudge it anyway.

Unless they're going to change the definition of woman. I wouldn't mind someone having a go at that. It's incredibly revealing how sexist they look when they try.

At the very least, I believe this will show up that, when they say woman, they don't actually mean a woman. So that's moving the conversation along a tad, at the very latest.

One of the frustrating parts of this is that people don't actually even get to have the bloody conversation.

This could be valuable. It's asked genderists to provide their absolute tip top arguments. Either it'll be a load of gish-gallop with misinformation and emotional blackmail or it'll be an argued-in-good-faith religious treatise.

Both could end up as being valuable. At the moment we have massively self-indulgent books or things like the Freda Wallace comedy act.

And inherent in that is that the 'everyone' it's better for is actually only adult men and that women and children aren't worthy of consideration at all because even 30seconds of consideration shows that it's NOT better for them. And that's even without 'transwomen' like the Scottish butcher just convicted of kidnapping and assaulting a schoolgirl and Dolatowski (convicted of attacking a child in the women's toilets) .

It's the most misogynistic take there is.

@Circumferences Transwomen are not a type of woman, like a seahorse is not a type of horse.

Thanks, I shall be using this one.

@pickledandpuzzled

I know that the difference between "transwoman" and "trans woman" is an inportant concept to dissect, but I'm not certain that it is as important a distinction as a trans privileges advocate would have you believe.

Just because the latter has a separate noun, and a TRA might claim that that therefore means trans women are a subset of women, I don't think it necessarily is so.

Take for example ersatz woman, or fake woman, nbeitherof these constructions automatically means that the subject is in fact a woman.

The 'tip top' argument will rest entirely on what the AI provided upthread:
"Gender identity is one’s internal sense of being male, female, neither, or both, and it does not always match the sex assigned at birth."

It doesn't explain what this means, it never does. Never specifies what actually differentiates a woman from a man in terms of gender. Somehow the above sentence is accepted as a sentence that can be parsed and/or communicates meaning.
To me it's like 'colourless green ideas sleep furiously'.

Actually I like this idea, mainly because I think that as soon as undergrads are required to genuinely explore the case against they will be converted. The TWAW arguments are dross sustained only by shouting over the other side. Well done to the organisers.

That my view too. Look at the court hearings, you have people who have been using their power to abuse people for years on the basis of unexamined and bizarre views and when they're invited to defend them in a forum structured around logic, rationality, and coherency, they're all over the place, flailing about and discrediting their cause.

Actually I like this idea, mainly because I think that as soon as undergrads are required to genuinely explore the case against they will be converted.

I suspect this is exactly what the competition organisers are thinking too - it's an experiment to see if undergrads can be bribed into using logic and reason for 10,000 quid.

That's what I figured too. The TW/T W mix up confused me but, having seen one of the organisers speaking in the youtube linked upthread, it's clear he's no tra. That a bona-fide judge will be one of the, erm, judges also reassures me that it'll be fair and that it might actually happen.

Hold my beer!

Genuinely.

I read the TRA arguments and think "I can make a better case than you and I don't even believe it!" I'm literally willing them to see the same better arguments I can!

(Actually that's not true. I do mostly believe it. I believe most people who claim a gender identity (trans and cis) are expressing something they genuinely feel and I think it's valid to want society to recognise it. I just don't think it's interchangeable with sex so it shouldn't have the same name nor be used as justification to appropriate single sex support, spaces or opportunities.)

FlirtsWithRhinos

I read the TRA arguments and think "I can make a better case than you and I don't even believe it!"

I thin that "arguments" suggests an intellectual rigour, which is simply absent in, what to me is just aggressive emotional blackmail.