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'm uncomfortable with the 20 questions style of this thread. It feels like pulling teeth and is too logically inconsistent with postings on other threads.
So I am off. Thank you for your contributions @polypostwonder.

too logically inconsistent with postings on other threads.

Why would you expect the posts on this thread to be logically consistent with the posts on other threads? Do you think everyone on FWR shares a single hive mind?

My posts may not be logically consistent with other posters on this thread because we're different people with different interests, experiences, history with the OP, and points of view. Why would you expect us to be logically consistent with each other?

Sorry, complete explanation fail on my part. I mean that his posts don't line up with some of his postings on other threads and that his obfuscation leads us to have to adopt a 20 questions style format to get a meaningful answer to any point we raise. I just feel that the outcome isn't worth the effort, for me personally.

Thank you for your answer.

I agree. OP avoids direct answers and his answers mislead instead of clarify. I think that's why others wonder what he's getting out of chatting here. What's the point if you consistently avoid addressing the topics of conversation?

I've been skimming to catch up, trying not to disrupt wherever the thread of thought is now, but saw this and had to reply. Imdunfer, in the context of your other thoughtful posts, it really surprised me. I mean:

Person A, arguing for lowering the speed limit outside their kids' school: "I think a legal limit of 30 would safeguard our kids - stats show cars going at that speed cause significantly fewer injuries and deaths".

Person B, arguing against this: "So, exactly how are you going to stop people breaking the limit?!"

Since I'm now interrupting anyway, I'll also add what I thought when you hypothetised about the 5 foot 4 effeminate male.

Besides the obvious thin-end-of-the-wedge issue (I mean, to echo the above, "exactly how are you going to measure the height and/or femininity [of aspirant entrants to this hallowed space]?")...

...The first thing that came to mind was that parts of your description could well match the three young boys recently let off with a slap on the wrist for rape. It's certainly a fair description of a large proportion of younger teen boys, many of whom could still physically overwhelm most women.

For me, the strength differential is key. In a single-sex loo, I'm fairly evenly matched with anyone in there (please could no one go down the "But, bigger women / gym obsessives!" road - it would be about as silly in the context as answering the question above with "Stick a ruler by the door!"). In a loo in which even short, effeminate males can enter, the vast, vast majority (any?) of these - hormones or not - would be able to overpower me with a flick of their delicate wrist.

This is not equality.

I deserve the knowledge enjoyed by men in their equivalent spaces: that I am not wholly reliant on the good will of another person in there for my safety; that I am autonomous in that sense.

Women deserve autonomy in this and the linguistic sense.

The latest answers to my questions appear to be inconsistent with previous answers on this thread and also conflict with the idea that "women" is a culture that includes anyone who says that they are a woman, which was my understanding of the opening post.

I've now come to the conclusion that PPW's personal experience is very rare and of very little relevance to the current and wholly justified battle over women's rights in the UK.

I'm also done with asking PPW any more questions, for those reasons.

Person B, arguing against this: "So, exactly how are you going to stop people breaking the limit?!"

I'm not arguing against it being law, I fully support it being law. Nowhere have I said that I don't support or being law, in fact I've said I'm happy that we now have a legal right to challenge people we think are male in female spaces.

Sadly though, unless you are one of the people who believe that every single male presenting as a female can be identified, although you do indeed "deserve the knowledge enjoyed by men in their equivalent spaces: that [you are] not wholly reliant on the good will of another person in there for [your] safety" I can see no way that is possible to achieve.

PS to save me going back and finding it, to the person who suggested that I should donate to Sex Matters in any case.

I do.

Oh come, now. Would you say that to the mother above, arguing for a speed limit to safeguard her child? Or pretty much any other safeguarding measure?

Sign by a quarry - "Well, if you want to put that there, you'd better stand right by it ready to physically wrestle kids ignoring it to the ground, or it'll be pointless!"

Laws against rape - "Well, people, conviction rates show there's really not much point in this; I think we'd better scrap 'em, yeah?"

I just don't understand how this is seen as a gotcha when it's so... silly.

Why are people addressing me as if I have argued against female only spaces being law?

I haven't.

I have made it clear that I fully agree with that law.

Good to hear that.

What stymies me, though, is why you think absolute, unmitigated success must be achieved?

I mean, we'd all love that, of course, but given, y' know, reality, it's not an argument you tend to see in any other context.

Which is what may be leaving readers bemused at best - and demoralised and cynical at worst - when they see it apparently suggested as a serious consideration.

ETA: Hopefully my above answers your last: for my part, bemusement, basically (with a touch of jaded cynicism), at some of what you were saying. Still rather bemused, but also very happy to move on - I've enjoyed your posts otherwise. :)

What stymies me, though, is why you think absolute, unmitigated success must be achieved?

I am completely and utterly baffled why you think that I do.

My whole argument is that the law is good, but it will not be possible to exclude every last female identified man from female spaces.

Ahem - going to disappear with my hands glued away from the keyboard til I've read the intervening posts now, as, ofc, I'm beginning to see that people have made all my points above a dozen times before my late arrival... which I should have taken a second to read instead of leaping to type my own astonished version two pages later. Sorry, everyone...

Great. We agree then? I think it may be things like you asking posters how they expect to take personal responsibility for policing this and offering associated prizes, though.

[Puts the Pritstick away... struggling now, with slightly sticky fingers, gets out the superglue...]

To create the perfectly passing trans women argument that can be leveraged to create a crack of doubt in otherwise firmly Gender Critical women's support for entirely sex-based provisions, I would assume.

As I've mentioned before, there is a school of activist online thought that is quite happy to tell untrue stories on the grounds that they could be true, and therefore are just as valid in the debate as actual truth. Whether that applies here I cannot say, but that approach is out there.

What I will say is that all this focus on Wonder's claims of physical "femininity", for want of a better word, is missing the point that that his current "femininity" is the result of a conscious choice to alter his body based on the perceived female-ness of his mind.

To take the view that his body now justifies treating him as "a woman" ignores that this is not where all this started for him.

Yet again, it all starts with the sexism of believing some ways of thinking are only right for women and others only right for men.

Society must not endorse that basic premise irregardless of how unfortunate a position its adherents may have put themselves in with regards to their ohysical presentation vs that usually expected for their sex. Whatever the solution for their predicament is, it must not be the "reward" of social endorsement of the concept of "a woman's mind".

I did not ask anyone to take any responsibility for policing anything.

I asked them what workable solution they could think of that would achieve zero males in female spaces.

As I suspected, there isn't one.

I suppose I think that's rather a pointless sidetrack, so not sure why you made such a big deal of it.

We don't think robust clear laws or even just robust clear social conventions create an unpassable barrier, we just think they are much better than the alterntaive where no one can ever be challenged, and where uncomfortable or sidelined women are told it's their attitude that is the problem.

so not sure why you made such a big deal of it

I just responded to other people's repeated challenges, I didn't write it out of the blue.

He can't do anything but mislead, so has to rethink everything to ensure that he doesn't drop himself in it. Hence 20 different language wrangling sentences to get to 'I wasn't born in the UK'.

I think I'm going to let this one go now, too. I'm finding it a bit hard to follow some of the trains of thought - plus on rereading more systematically to fill in the gaps, recent discussion's gone down some curious rabbitholes. PPW, best wishes. You've given me some insights into a situation like that you describe, and I hope you'll reflect on the arguments of the women here.

I'm sorry, @Imdunfer, I value your contributions which are generally thoughtful and thought-provoking but you absolutely went off the deep end a few hours ago. No worries though, you are perfectly entitled to do that, but we are entitled to call it out too.

PS It was me that suggested you just give your £1000 to SM anyway💚💜

Never had an issue requesting HRT...

Not the case for me and thousands of other women suffering peri and menopause.

But yeah, you're totally like other women. Treated exactly the same.
Almost like there's a defining factor at play here.

We both "need" hormone therapy.

Difference is I, and many of my female friends have to fight for it.

You, on the other hand seem to have an easier ride in the process.

I think most would be happy with ALARP - As Low As Reasonably Practicable

Yep, but ALARP(aeiydgawsiyssbt)

As Low As Reasonably Practicable (and even if you do get away with sneaking in you still shouldn't be there)

ie - "passing" doesn't a mean a man is an actual exception we agree to treat as a woman, it just means it's hard to catch him at it

The problem is PPW accounts are whimsical.

We dont need to concern ourselves about how to keep such a man out of our spaces, because such a man rarely, if ever, exists.

I could suggest far fetched ideas like x ray machines, cheek swabs, blood test, i could develop a brand new test, and PPW would claim to have passed them already.

The one thing that allows a man to pass in women's spaces is if women are too afraid to mention it. If everyone else isnt talking about it, its difficult to be the one to say it.

Thats changing. Trans awareness initiatives have really backfired.

You might as well ask people what solution they have to prevent all rape, given that the nature of the crime makes it more difficult to prosecute.

Plenty of roads don't have speed cameras, yet we are still expected to obey the speed limit.