The liminality of sex perception, sex-based spaces and bodily autonomy.

[polypostwonder]

This thread continues a discussion between BonfireLady (sorry, I wanted to tag you but the system says your username doesn't currently exist) and I on biological sex vs perceived/observed sex in https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5530455-us-to-open-worlds-first-childrens-detransition-clinic-texas-hospital-to-offer-free-services-reversing-the-effects-of-gender-affirming-treatments?page=10&reply=152406258

She has requested I answer the following two questions:

1. would you consider that a viable way forward is for you to self-exclude from women's spaces and instead either advocate for third spaces for anyone to use (e.g. unisex facilities in addition to single-sex) or (probably your least preferred) use the men's?
2. would you support a restriction on anyone under 18 (or 25?) making permanent changes to their body, to match it with their perception of their "gender"? Similar to other restrictions on permanent body changes.

I believe I have previously answered them both. My answers today are superficially the same, but I have better thought out my answers (maybe?). To do this though, I need to share some assumptions.

In the previous thread, I believe there was somewhat of an agreement on the following statements:

1. People can identify a man when dressed in clothes 'traditionally associated' with women. Clothes are superficial to sex.
2. People look at other people and perceive their sex. People are not identifying the gametes/sry/chromosomes/other unobservable immutable biologic factor inside another person.
3. Assumptions about sex are made based on a person’s sex characteristics amongst other observable cues.
4. Pretty much every person in the whole world "exists within the expectations of sex categories". Very rarely it's unclear.
5. If a person exists within the expectations of sex categories, then socially they are treated as that sex whether they wish to be or not.

Building on those statements and previous discussion, some additional thoughts:

1. ‘Biological sex’ is defined by a person’s gametes/chromosomes/sry/other unobservable immutable biologic factor. This cannot be changed.
2. ’Observable sex’ is based upon the perception of sex characteristics rather than known biological sex and influences the placement and treatment of people in social sex categories. Perception is not under control of the observed, nor is it a demand of others.
3. Observable sex can be heavily influenced by biological sex and sex-based function. But sex-based function is not a requirement for the perception of sex.
4. Women’s rights are a cultural accommodation to rebalance access to society and ensure health, fair treatment, safety and/or dignity. Not all women require or access every right, but these rights are a vital benefit to women as a class.
5. Users of a culturally defined space for members of one sex may feel comfort, privacy or protection through separation from non-users. But all users share an equal right to feel comfort, privacy or protection.
6. Misogyny is not biologically based. It is a prejudice directed at women’s observable sex. Sexism can be biologically directed, but it can also be directed at members of an observable sex.
7. Sex realists believe every person should live and be treated by society according to their biological sex, no exceptions.
8. Trans people have a wide range of beliefs and goals. They do not share a single motivation.
9. Better quality research should be done with trans people of all ages.

I think BonfireLady is correct in saying each of us sees the other's "belief" as non-sensical and our own as position as factual. I'm hoping we can discuss this from a somewhat sensical space.

I agree, it makes no sense.

Your sex does not depend on “what the majority of observers think you are”.

It is a real, verifiable fact, independent of any observers.

Meta-dialoging aside... This is biological sex.

You are arguing that you are observed to be 'culturally' female by outsiders, so they 'treat you like a woman'. You also argue that grants you access to women's spaces and opportunities. Because of other people's perception.

This doesn't make it right to use women's spaces, nor does it actually give you a claim to women's opportunities. I'm sure you've been given them, but you have been given that by deceit and allowing them to believe you are female. The responsibility still lies on you. You have taken opportunities away from women. And committed a crime at the same time. xx

Being 'culturally' a woman is impossible. A woman is an adult human female, and while they may conform to certain social expectations, that isn't what makes them women. Outward presentation is a result, not a cause. You lack the cause, ergo you are not a woman.

Are you appearing as a woman? Probably. If I dress as a sheep, should I get my own feild? If I put on makeup and dye my hair grey, should I get a winter fuel allowance? I might be treated socially as an old person if I present myself as one, but it's not right for me to perpetuate that. It's not right, morally or legally, for you to do so to women.

Your arguments are fallacious, illogical, and falsely equating social assumptions with social rights.

(I apologise for accidentally quoting the wrong person! This is meant for OP.)

Your arguments are fallacious, illogical, and falsely equating social assumptions with social rights.

Then my participation ends as my viewpoint is invalid within no shared reality.

???
I am “socially grouped as a woman”?

By whom? This is nonsense.

It isn’t what makes me a woman.

(I apologise for accidentally quoting the wrong person! This is meant for OP.)

Well that's a relief 😆

I suppose we're in agreement then!

That's what sex is. Biological.

The rest is gender. The two are different.

You make things too complicated. Human beings can accurately sex each other based on face, voice, physique, and movement, even if the genitals are concealed. The error rate due to DSDs is less than 1 in 10,000.

Trans people disguise themselves as the opposite sex, but will have only limited success (if male) unless puberty is medically interfered with: such interference is unethical and will, I hope, be banned.

In any case, a disguise is not reality.

The question of what special accommodations trans people should have is a different issue. I do not think it should include the right to deceive, given the practical importance of sex: nor do I see the value in such a right. Sex is an observable well-understood phenomenon of the natural world, not something subject to individual choice.

There isn’t any other sort of sex.

Sex realists believe every person should live and be treated by society according to their biological sex, no exceptions.

No.

Sex realists just believe that sex is real and have a variety of views. It's like believing in gravity or that the sun will come up tomorrow.

Feminists believe that a society that treats people 'according to their biological' sex is usually oppressing women based on gendered expectations of how women should behave. Most of the time we don't treat people as their biological sex. We just treat them as human beings.

Women need sex based rights because being female has material consequences.

However, there is a line that can be crossed when 'gender presentation' goes beyond androgyny and into an observer's perception of ambiguous or discordant sex characteristics.

Women have been wearing whatever they want for a very long time.

The difference is that men believe they will lose status if they wear clothes associated with women. Loss of status does not = woman.

Imagine the pay rise you could get if you went into work wearing a fake moustache!

I’m a woman.

I have rights on the basis of my sex, not gender.

Transgender individuals have additional rights I don’t have on the basis of their gender.

Those rights don’t override my sex based rights.

Stay out of women’s single sex spaces.

If you want a fourth space (NOT a third, the third is for disabled people, again, protected in law so you can’t have that) please do.

So are you saying you only see yourself as female because people say you are? What if everyone said you were a cat? Would you then believe and see yourself as a cat? Why is your whole identity reliant on how other people perceive you? Surely thst just confirms you are not female. Females do not need other people’s confirmation to confirm they are female. They just are

'Making things too complicated' is a go-to for trans activists, isn't it?
Faced with the problem that human sex is unusually simple: binary and immutable, and inclusive of very rare differences in sexual development, a fog of complexity has to be manufactured to keep the concept of transgenderism alive and hide the huge gaps in its logic.

Cue lots of liminal meta-dialoging!

1. Misogyny is not biologically based. It is a prejudice directed at women’s observable sex. Sexism can be biologically directed, but it can also be directed at members of an observable sex.

Yeah, but it is. That pesky thing that inhibits women’s performance in many fields, the old female body and its tendency to have periods, miscarry, give birth, leak breast milk… the targeting of those perceived as female is a small symptom, not the whole. If women had men’s biological bodies, they wouldn’t experience sexism and misogyny.

I’m a little bewildered by your attempt to present all words as meaning only what you want them to. Sex is biological. That’s all it is.

A man can wear a dress and lipstick, but if he looks like a mentally ill fetishist in doing so, then he almost certainly is. Very few men who wear styles more usually seen on women are making a fashion statement.

All this is very interesting but in the end people shouldn’t trample over laws and the rights of others to get what they want for themselves.

There is zero liminality in relation to make or female sex of mammals. That’s why your “side” had to invent “gender” to create wriggle room/confusion!

If you as a male go into women’s single sex spaces and services then you’re imposing on others.

You may well be a man who looks very convincingly like a woman so you may be able to cheat the system but that still means youre a cheat.

For all other regular interactions or what you wear or your personal relationships, i refer to JKR’s controversial tweet

Most of the time sex doesn’t matter but sometimes it does and maybe that makes you sad, but I’d maybe suggest you orientate your happiness towards something that doesn’t require the validation of others - because that’s just not healthy for anyone

Sadly the OP has taken his bat and ball home so we can't play liminality any more. I had to look up 'liminality' and I would have liked to have asked what it added to the thread title or the thrust of the opening post.

Let's base the law not on biological sex, but on the perception of biological sex! Let's have a committee of 1000 women who vote on the perceived sex of the person in the liminal state, and, if they all agree, then the sex marker is changed! /s

Agree with this.

Posh word for trans innit?

I think he’s upset that we didn’t bow down to his superior vocabulary and admit we were wrong and sex is just a wibbly wobbly nebulous dog whistle.

“Misogyny is not biologically based. It is a prejudice directed at women’s observable sex. Sexism can be biologically directed, but it can also be directed at members of an observable sex.”

In science, misapplication of a noun doesn’t redefine the thing being named in line with that misapplication. Where the thing being described is socially constructed, ok, that may lead to an evolution of what’s understood by it. But to extend that to objective, provable fact is to argue for the collapse of language itself.

“Sex realists believe every person should live and be treated by society according to their biological sex, no exceptions. Trans people have a wide range of beliefs and goals. They do not share a single motivation.”

This was interesting. One group is a homogenous mass. The other, free-thinking individuals.

—-

To think like this requires a certain level of privilege.

Whatever society layers over biology - shifting trends in clothes and make-up, the decline of manual labour, sex-based protections in law, the contraceptive pill and maternity care - that biology remains. Whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever words we use and however much we write about why we use those words, the fact remains that women will still be subject to physical challenges and constraints men will never experience.

To say “misogyny is not biologically based” is ivory-tower theorising. That some of us have the freedom to do this here and now represents progress in a sense. But to use it to deny or wrest out of shape the inescapable reality of 99.9% of female humanity, unable even to dream of such things? Offensive, naive and deeply dangerous.