Is it hateful to say humans can’t change sex?

[1971feminist]

In a landmark hearing at the NZ Human Rights Review Tribunal, the question of whether it is hateful and harmful to say that men can’t be lesbians is under scrutiny. Read more about it here https://open.substack.com/pub/resistgendereducation/p/is-it-hateful-to-say-humans-cant?r=24091f&utm_medium=ios

'Of course people cannot ever change sex. You can’t change what gamete-producing organs you have.
as for whether saying a man can never be a lesbian is “hateful”, just absolutely no. I imagine people who object to this are lesbians who aren’t interested in male - genes/ bodied persons. Which is 100% fine.
If a male wants to call himself a lesbian and his lesbian partner also says she is a lesbian, then they can knock themselves out. Just don’t expect a free pass to all lesbian events and spaces, because some aren’t interested in male born people, however they identify.
Sating you don’t fancy someone, or that they aren’t in your sexual crosshairs isn’t hateful. It’s completely fine. Anyone telling you who you should fancy or accept into your community, well, they are the dictatorial ones.'

This. What's annoying is those trans-ally gay men who wouldn't go with a TM but think a lesbian who wouldn't be with a TW is a transphobe. Utter hypocrites.

Can you give us an example where saying the exact words 'humans can't change sex' would be hateful due to context?

I thought the tide was turning then three people on my Fakebook announced the 'transwomen are women, transmen are men, anyone who disagrees isn't any friend of mine' bollocks.
I just presume their MH is poor at the moment and didn't comment. They can live with delusional thoughts, just like others that spouted conspiracy shite about flat earth. Same level of understanding and delusion.

Facts might be uncomfortable at times, but they cannot be hateful.

Did this just get shunted to the naughty corner?

A distressed transman is on a bus, explaining to her friend how upsetting she finds it when other people think of her ‘as if I am a female’. The person in the row in front turns around as says, ‘you can’t change sex’.

Intent and impact are key determinants as to whether something is hateful. In the scenario above, the intervener will know that their comment is going to cause, or further, the transman’s distress. Concluding this was a hateful thing to say is not unreasonable - despite what is being said is true.

Three more weeks of hearings - two in September, the last one in October.

Rude and unnecessary, but I don't see how this would reach a threshold for hate

They'll move on to the next cause soon enough.

“Hateful opinions” in this case just means that it’s a fact someone hates to hear, & wants nobody to be able to state.

Humans are mammals and no mammals change sex. Nor are there any mammalian hermaphrodites.

Although sex has evolved separately several times in different phyla, it has always been a binary. And while the mechanisms to create the sexed phenotypes of male & female are complicated and can go wrong, the results are amazingly stable.

That’s just evolution!

There are people who don’t believe in evolution, but they’re wrong!

If that's the best example of hate you can come up with, it's possible you don't understand what hate actually is.

No. It's a biological fact.

Exactly, it's just factual. I've never understood how the green party (who I've voted for before) can fully understand the science behind climate change but ignore the scientific facts around humans and mammals generally.

I work with people who cause a lot of harm, in wide ranging ways, yet and fail to recognise this - for a range of reasons. My role is to help them develop better insight into the relationship between their thoughts and feelings, their corresponding actions, and their impact on others.

The work involves differentiating hate and hateful, whereby the word hate is used to describe a feeling, and hateful to describe an action that is driven by or significantly influenced by hate.

We help patients to differentiate between hate and dislike by reflecting on the intensity and duration of feeling.

We also talk about considering the likely impact of behaviour and the toxicity of knowingly or intentionally inflicting harm, versus unintentionally or unavoidably causing harm.

In line with this, if a person has an intense and persistent dislike of an individual or group of individuals, and acts in a way that will knowingly cause distress, with the intent to cause distress, we describe this as hateful.

To this end, pretty much anything could be hateful, but it needs to meet criteria relating to intent and impact.

I think that yes it's hateful. Just because it's true, it doesn't mean it's not a hateful thing to say.

"You are fat and ugly" - might be true, but is hateful
"Your test score was pathetic and disgraceful" - might be true, but is hateful
"Your clothing/house/whatever makes you look really poor" - might be true, but is hateful.
"Your teeth are crooked"
"Your son is really very behind compared to mine"
"Your house smells of dog piss"

There are better ways to put these things -if they even need to be said at all, which they might not. You know humans can't change sex, but there is no need to parrot that at someone who is really struggling with their body and identity issues.

Things that need to be said can be said kindly, rather than just thinking that because things are facts, that they aren't hurtful and hateful.

Would you say to a woman having a double mastectomy for breast cancer - oh if you have a kid after this, you won't be able to breast feed. Breast feeding is the best start you can give a baby's gut. Your baby will miss out on health benefits as well. And expect that to go OK? After all, people seem to think it's ok to say stuff if it's a biological fact?

You are fat and ugly" - might be true, but is hateful
"Your test score was pathetic and disgraceful" - might be true, but is hateful
"Your clothing/house/whatever makes you look really poor" - might be true, but is hateful.
"Your teeth are crooked"
"Your son is really very behind compared to mine"
"Your house smells of dog piss"

...

Most of these examples are subjective judgment.

Not statements of objective fact which 'humans can't change sex' is

Would you say to a woman having a double mastectomy for breast cancer - oh if you have a kid after this, you won't be able to breast feed

If she asked, you would (gently). You wouldn't lie to her presumably.

The only reason we are having to say 'humans can't change sex' is because there's been a host of idiots propagating the 'transwomen are women' line. They aren't. If respect for truth and reason had been upheld in the first place, none of this would be necessary.

"You are fat and ugly" - might be true, but is hateful
"Your test score was pathetic and disgraceful" - might be true, but is hateful
"Your clothing/house/whatever makes you look really poor" - might be true, but is hateful.
"Your teeth are crooked"
"Your son is really very behind compared to mine"
"Your house smells of dog piss"

None of these are relevant because there is no implicit value judgement in the statement that a human cannot change sex.

Would you say to a woman having a double mastectomy for breast cancer - oh if you have a kid after this, you won't be able to breast feed.

Yes, that would be a subject that a doctor and patient would discuss, particularly if talking about a preventative mastectomy, and it is likely that the patient would discuss it with friends and family. You have to face up to many things when you have a cancer diagnosis.

Merrymouse put it best -

It's not hate, because there is no value judgement in the TIM being male. The fact that they don't like being male doesn't mean I should contort myself into intellectual and philosophical question-marks in order to provide a scaffolding for their delusion.

Do we now have to pretend that smokers have the same life expectancy as non smokers, statistically? Or that unnecessary medical interventions bring their own risks? And will never make a vagina?

Facts don't care about anyone's feelings.

(Yes, I know it's an adapted Ben Shapiro quote, but it's apt)

I honestly think its more hateful to allow mentally unwell/ autistic / abused people to believe that it IS possible to change sex and by doing so, somehow identify out of their pain and trauma. Much healthier to say to people, you can present any way you want, you can identify however you please, but you honestly can't change sex.

Facts are only hateful if you’re delusional.

Yes. Exactly.

We are kind to people on the wrong timescale (Jimmy Carr).

Telling someone what they want to hear in the moment (yes, that 9th glass of wine will be JUST FINE - to the alcoholic on the cusp of liver failure) is of course less jarring. But it saves a bigger, potentially life atomising shock down the road when the truth of material reality renders its ugly head.

Cyberpunk body modification was meant to be a dystopia, not high fantasy.

You’re using false equivalence here, as is often the case when this topic is discussed. What you’re doing is unnecessarily insulting someone, that isn’t what is being discussed. If someone is labouring under a false assumption that they are in the wrong body and they believe they can change sex, they would need to have the reality of the situation explained to them by a MH expert, and be given ongoing therapy. There are ways of giving people unpalatable truths without insulting them, but I think you already know that.

I really hate to be picky, but haven’t you just misgendered this imaginary trans man?

No wonder people are leaving NZ in their droves, absolute lunacy.

well on the face of it say your in a club and meet what you to presume is a women, yet later you find they have a snake, what or how are you ment to prevent that to begin with while being respectful etc ?