12 ways to gently respectfully challenge pro-trans arguments

[Ladyof2024]

I thought this might come in useful to those just beginning to take on the opposition.
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Twelve Ways to Voice Opposition to Daft Ideas Without Losing Friends or Alienating People, by Joanna Gray.

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How to get better at objecting to unedifying ideas

Ask the person suggesting an obviously daft idea if he or she would mind if you shared your opinion about it, rather than foisting it on him or her uninvited.

Respect others’ intentions. Most people are good and are trying their best, so avoid a heavy-handed aggressive disapproval.

Ask questions: “That’s such an interesting idea Chancellor, what are you hoping to achieve by it?” Often, that is sufficient: if the idea is flawed it will unravel itself in no time.

Remember your Aristotle: to win debates you need ethos, logos and pathos. Ethos is your good character and your authority to speak on the subject – most crudely used by those who say “as a mother…”. Logos is the truth of the matter. Pathos is your ability to persuade your opponent. Emotion alone is insufficient to win the point, it must be backed up by truth, but an ability to connect with and respect the emotion of your opponent is vital.

Remember you are debating the idea not the person. Don’t make him or her feel threatened, belittled or ill-informed.

Just try it! You don’t need to present a fully formed Douglas Murray-style-gotcha speech, initially it might just be sufficient to say, “I’m not yet sure why, but this idea is making me feel uncomfortable, may I have a think about it and get back to you?” If social or career disaster doesn’t follow, then you may feel emboldened to make a more spirited and researched objection later.

Be prepared to flatter. “You will know more about this than me but have you thought about…”

Listen to your opponent. Don’t stand there rolling your eyes, tutting or guffawing,

Remain calm and never shout.

Be prepared to use their own language. “Chancellor, this act of removing artworks of men might be considered by some to sit adjacent to sexism…”

Be satisfied with having planted a seed of doubt in those who listen to you, rather than furiously fighting for decisive victory.

Remind yourself why making a stand is important: “If not me, who? If not now, when?”

This is why I don't actually use the term "trans woman" myself, because it heads off some of the gaslighting around it.

Same here.

I will sometimes use transwoman or transman, but never trans woman or trans man.

I normally use "MTF trans person" here on MN. Which is an official term, it's clinical, and it's clear that I'm not saying they are women.

yes. The claim that a male person who declares they have a 'woman' gender identity is somehow no longer male is more of that fuckwittery. It is a denial of the established use of language and relies only on the language that has been repurposed by those with the philosophical belief that prioritise gender identities and attempt to give them some kind of objective and material basis. Strip away that language and the emotional manipulation that is supporting it and that gaslighting is very clear.

Strip away that language and the emotional manipulation that is supporting it and that gaslighting is very clear.

The plain nastiness and lack of care from many genderists as well. The power trip for some of the people who push this agenda. And often the resentment that a woman isn't doing what she's told, if the person you're talking to is either a sexist male or a woman who believes that men are the more important sex. And there are certainly plenty of those, even in 2024.

We have plenty of evidence to show that "gender identity" is mutable though. In particular, detransitioners. Also dementia patients who forget they ever had a transgender identity.

It's not really comparable to homosexuality.

Let's not forget the identities that are upfront in their 'fluidity'.

And supposedly female people are supposed to accept that fluidity when a male person simply declares that at that exact moment they are 'female'.

There has been a deliberate distraction of our attention away from this group because this group very much proves that the only commonality that people with gender identity have is their philosophical belief. And no other group gets additional rights over the sex based rights needed for equality of opportunity and safety.

It pays for us to keep remembering those with those fluid identities for just that reason. Well, those gender identities and the 130 + other gender identities too.

Great post ⬆️

Never forgetting that Izzard said in an interview that the change from 'girl mode 'to 'boy mode' is effected by "taking off my shoes".

And yet we're apparently supposed to take that seriously, whether he's in "boy mode" or identifying as a woman.

Obviously I wouldn't try to speak on behalf of anyone else but if I understand things correctly, being gay is a bit like quantum theory under gender identity belief: everyone is both gay and not gay at the same time.

It goes back to my "reverse flip" post earlier when I asked Dadjoke not to conflate sexual orientation with gender identity.

But if I set aside my concerns about this conflation, think of sex being assigned at birth (rather than a biological fact that can't be changed) and gender as being some kind of layer within or around that (I'm not sure which but it fits in somewhere, so I think that works) then I've got a start point from which to begin:

I'm going to use Jammiedodger as my example because back in my pre-MN days I watched loads of JD videos to try and understand everything (so that I could support my daughter when she told us she wasn't sure if she was a girl or not):

Jamie is married to Shaaba. Jamie was "assigned female at birth" and talks about this lots. Sometimes Shaaba joins Jamie and they talk about their relationship. They met and started a relationship when Jamie was about 17 and was "presenting female". Not long afterwards, Jamie transitioned and their relationship continued. So Jamie and Shaaba are both gay and straight.

If they aren't both gay and straight at the same time (quantum-style) then either a) they must be straight because Jamie has now "transed away the gay" or b) they are gay because both of them are female (sex), although one of them identifies as a man (gender).

With my gender identity belief hat on, it can't be a or b because both of these sound transphobic. Therefore I land back on the idea that they have to be "gay and straight".

And as I don't have a gender identity myself (perhaps I'm agender, non-binary, gender-fluid or still figuring it out), I assume I'm gay and straight too. I have no idea if my husband has a gender identity, or if he does what it is. But as he's married to me, I'm going to assume he's also gay and straight - he has to be by the same logic as my own gay-straightness.

For the sake of inclusion, I'm happy to share my thoughts on the logic of conception without sperm and virgin births as well.

However, I think I've illustrated my point: if you hold a belief - that we've all got a gender identity or that Jesus is the son of god etc - I think you have to be prepared to take it on the chin that other people will find your belief illogical. If you force other people to accept your belief as a truth, even if it impacts them (for example, I've now just defined my husband's sexual orientation in relation to my own), it stands to reason that you'll get people saying no.

However, I think I've illustrated my point: if you hold a belief - that we've all got a gender identity or that Jesus is the son of god etc - I think you have to be prepared to take it on the chin that other people will find your belief illogical. If you force other people to accept your belief as a truth, even if it impacts them (for example, I've now just defined my husband's sexual orientation in relation to my own), it stands to reason that you'll get people saying no.

Exactly. That's what I find so jarring that many of these people, despite not having any convincing arguments or even interested in persuading me, expect me to go along with this idea without question.

Why should I?

And then it all comes back to my feeling that it's about power and control,

Of course you think your prejudice is different to a prejudice you don't support!

Treating transgender people as having equal rights as non-transgender people annoys some people who support illegitimate discrimination against transgender people.

Transgender people have certain rights enshrined in the EA2010, GRA2006 as well as the convention on human rights which you don't like and want to remove. The nature of those rights, is of course, different in some respects to the rights of people with other protected characteristics.

Gender critical people want to exclude transgender people from all single-sex spaces, as well as bathrooms and changing rooms, don't want their gender legally recognised and express their innate identity as a "belief." That is not balancing rights work. It's as riduculous as saying gay people have the right to marry, just not to a person of the the same gender.

So, under certain circumstances trans women are included in single-sex spaces (whether GC people want them to or not) and in some cases trans women are excluded from single-sex spaces (whether transgender people want to be excluded or not.)

And maybe the occasional chance at an Paralympic medal, when you're 20 years older than everyone else in the race?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13821635/Transgender-athlete-Valentina-Petrillo-shares-photos-transitioned-Runner-declares-dont-care-JK-Rowling-says-reveals-ex-wife-gave-make-tips-son-calls-Daddy.html

Edited to correct: it should have said Paralympic. AFAIK there weren't any (transwo)men in women's events at the Paris Olympics. However, there were of course two (alleged) male boxers with DSDs, as per my first post on this thread. Obviously the two shouldn't be confused but the net effect is the same: women's sports have been widened to include anyone, by the widened definition of the word "woman".

AFAIK there weren't any (transwo)men in women's events at the Paris Olympics.

D'oh. That was a daft thing to have written, given I then went on to talk about men with DSDs 🤦‍♀️ I'll try this instead from the suggestions in the thread above:

AFAIK there weren't any MtF trans people in women's events at the Paris Olympics.

Gender critical people want to exclude transgender people from all single-sex spaces

Can you spot your error here?

don't want their gender legally recognised

Why should they get ther gender legally recongised? Nobody else does.

and express their innate identity as a "belief."

Explain how an unprovable internal feeling is not a belief.

AFAIK there weren't any (transwo)men in women's events at the Paris Olympics. However, there were of course two (alleged) male boxers with DSDs, as per my first post on this thread. Obviously the two shouldn't be confused but the net effect is the same: women's sports have been widened to include anyone, by the widened definition of the word "woman".

Bit of a grey area, Imane Khelif (and Lin Yu Ting) is almost certainly male according to all the available evidence but is claiming to be a woman. So in my book Khelif is also "trans" because identifying as the opposite sex.

Gender critical people want to exclude transgender people from all single-sex spaces, as well as bathrooms and changing rooms

This sentence doesn't even make any kind of sense.

I'll assume you genuinely don't understand what I'm getting at, so I'll rephrase it.

There are certain circumstances in which trans women (for example) can be excluded from spaces and positions for women, and circumstances in which they can't.

@Snowypeaks said;

Overall, genderists embrace the existence of gender stereotypes. That is absolutely fundamental to the idea of being in the wrong body. Specifically, the males who claim to be women (MCW) who have a special interest revel in gender stereotypes.
Generally, it is claimed that transitioning is freeing, an expression of the true, authentic self. That doesn't suggest a rejection of gender stereotype boxes, but rather of a desire to break out of one box and climb into another.

Well stated and I agree. That's part of what's so frustrating, because they are presenting it as freedom from the social constraints of gender, but it's just embracing the social constraints of another gender, thereby reinforcing them.

I'll assume you genuinely don't understand what I'm getting at, so I'll rephrase it.

You should, because that sentence was incoherent. I'm not interested in debating my rights as a woman with men though. It doesn't feel very social justicey for men to lecture me, a woman who has suffered considerably from the actions of men, on what rights I should have.

Anyone who uses the term 'transgender people' when they mean men/transwomen, ignoring the fact that among the young most 'transgender people' are women/transmen, isn't worth listening to.

Particularly when their fantasy that women are not valid humans extends to not acknowledging that gender critical people say that all women, including transmen, are entitled to access women-only single-sex places.

And yet, sex based rights exist whether you like this or not.

And yet, making a distinction for male people to be excluded using legitimate exceptions are available.

So your attempt to frame my posts as being 'prejudiced' is indeed that fuckwittery that I referred to. It is a dishonest misrepresentation of what I said.

I don't want to 'remove' rights. I want organisations to enact the exceptions that are legitimately available to them. Even those with GRCs.

"Gender critical people want to exclude transgender people from all single-sex spaces, as well as bathrooms and changing rooms, don't want their gender legally recognised and express their innate identity as a "belief." That is not balancing rights work. It's as riduculous as saying gay people have the right to marry, just not to a person of the the same gender."

Again, this is just false comparisons that you are trying to use to progress your personal political view point. But this is a false comparison. As I have explained. One is legitimate, and one is illegitimate. Not allowing a homosexual or bisexual person to marry someone of the same sex is illegitimate discrimination. It always was.

"So, under certain circumstances trans women are included in single-sex spaces (whether GC people want them to or not) and in some cases trans women are excluded from single-sex spaces (whether transgender people want to be excluded or not.)"

Excellent. So you DO understand. Is there a reason you wish to frame me saying this as 'prejudice'? Rather an ad hominem attack there.

Excluding a male person from a female single sex space, even if that male person has a GRC, is legitimate discrimination if it can be justified. And privacy for female people alone is a justification I believe.

Anyone who uses the term 'transgender people' when they mean men/transwomen, ignoring the fact that among the young most 'transgender people' are women/transmen, isn't worth listening to.

Ah yes of course. It was a Freudian slip. The sentence makes a little bit more sense now.