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.

Observably, and experientially, 'woman' is more than just the initial dictionary definition. No one person has the power to redefine a word that encompasses (or will encompass) more than 50% of the world's population across geographical boundaries and cultures.

Words describe people, individuals do not own words. Reality is shared. Our personal interpretation does not override anyone else's personal interpretation. But we can all readily identify the characteristics of people we share space.

And you share none with me or you'd say what they are.

True.

And we also understand that words may label entities and identify differences that are not simply superficial appearances we may readily identify, and that these differences are not insignificant simply because they are not readily identifiable to a casual glance.

And also false.

Observably, and experientially, 'woman' is more than just the initial dictionary definition.

I understand that is your belief.

Relationships can be deep and they can be extremely superficial. Both are represented within reality.

Thank you.

I have no idea what you are trying to say here.

Female people exist. That a very small number of male people are able to produce a superficial appearance of being female does not mean the differnces between male and female do not exist, and does not justify your belief that the word "woman" has only to label a superfical social seeming entirely divorced from the reality of actually being female to fulfill all possible use cases of the original word.

It's quite often pretty hard to tell what he means. Worshipping at the altar of Judith Butler will do that to prose.

I think he thinks it makes him sound intelligent....

Whereas in reality, clarity is important.

It's just surrounding his point in linguistic froth, similar to surrounding his maleness in pseudo femninity.

We agree. Female people do exist. A vast majority of women (>99% are female).

Where we differ is in the use of superficial. I believe that a many-decades relationship would not qualify as superficial. I suspect the gender critical use would require every knowable fact about a person be shared before superficiality is shed from a relationship.

Edited: never mind. sleep time.

I read your pre edit, and if there's anyone who monologues, it's you.

All women are female.

I understand you believe otherwise, but your belief results in an incomplete version of "woman" that does not capture the full meaning of the original word and leaves a significant cohort of humanity nameless and adrift from their history. Utility, logic and simple fairness dictate therefore that you are wrong. Not in who you are, but in your belief the name for this is "woman".

I understand you truly believe this, but we from where we stand see so much in the experience of women that you miss.

"I don't have to live that life as if I am not currently required to have a tattoo on my forehead or wear a badge everywhere I go, lest someone become 'confused.'"

I see the not so subtle allusion OP made about us all being Nazis upthread with this.

No! You are not the same as the Jewish people killed in the Holocaust and it's extremely offensive that you are acting like being trans is the same thing. It really, really isn't!

"Relationships can be deep and they can be extremely superficial. Both are represented within reality." (Ooh! Look how deep and philosophical I am. So special, so unique!)

Water is wet. The sky is blue.

You are still a man and will always be male. Reality does not change just because you wish it to do so.

I think he thinks it makes him sound intelligent too, and also it a really useful smoke and mirrors technique.

Pepper your posts with meaningless statements like "Abilities aren't wishes, they aren't beliefs, they aren't feelings, they are actions." which is not only nonsense, it's also wrong.

Or state things everyone would probably agree on but don't actually have anything to do with anything like "Relationships can be deep and they can be extremely superficial. Both are represented within reality.".

You can obscure just about anything if you refuse to speak factually, obfuscate and talk enough nonsense around it.

It's all just dressing to the word salad.

But he's still male. Admits he plans to continue breaking the law in the UK, and doesn't care about how actual women feel about that because apparently our consent doesn't matter.

Yes. I tried it in my first one to one undergraduate supervision with an eminent prof. I thought I sounded great. He looked at me for a while and eventually said 'yes, but what do you mean' . I didn't try it with him again.

Now it does come in handy, but when I'm deliberately trying to obfuscate, I know exactly what I'm doing and why, which is mostly to shut down conversation, so I can only assume that's what he's trying to do here. Because he actually hasn't got a point to make, and constantly avoids the plain, simple and difficult questions.

So he's either me, and doesn't want to (90% of the time) or can't (10%) engage properly, or he's just stupid.

That made me laugh @murasaki, maybe we need a new picture of your professor saying "yes, but what do you mean?" instead of using the interrupteron sign for certain posters 😂

That style of talking/posting is also a useful tool of control (who said domination was the point, FlirtsWithRhinos? I agree!).

If the language of every post/conversation is designed to be a word salad nonsense of obscurity and pseudo-intellectualism, it necessitates that the other participants in the conversation dissect everything down to individual words in order to find clarity of meaning and a point of shared understanding from which to continue from. If the word salad talker keeps serving up the elaborate word salads this can continue forever gestures expansively at this thread, and all the threads like it which came before.

The result is that no one is talking about the actual point any more. In this case that that men and women are two distinct biological sexes, women have needs which are based on their biology that men do not need, society has recognised those needs and have enshrined protections for women in law based on that biology and those needs.

Instead we get bogged down in the mire trying to find that clarity with discussions that essentially boil down to "What is biology, and does it even matter?", "What is a woman?" and even further into philosophical territory with "What is reality?" and "Do words have shared meaning? Do they have any meaning at all?".

All in service to an attempt to torpedo women's rights. It's a morally and intellectually derelict way of going about things imo.

Edited to add: I think it's essential we (general term) do (the bit in bold), and I really appreciate the posters who take the time to do it. It's just frustrating that it's necessary in the first place.

Can we predict which sorts of humans don't give a shit about female consent?

For all the 'I'm a woman i have a certificate' ramblings, it really doesn't take much to get to the central premise.

But you are not a woman. If you are a “woman” as a male, then all the females there cannot be women. Either woman means an adult human female and you are not a woman, or woman means male, and they are not women, either way, any space you enter is no longer a woman’s space. It is a mixed sex space. Your total disregard for the needs and boundaries of those people who used yo be called women before you colonised that word show you are not a woman in any possible way. To paraphrase Elizabeth Bennett “you have insulted us in every way possible”

I too am smiling @FlirtsWithRhinos

i dont get bogged down in the word salad of shite because it’s pointless.

I stick to the simple stuff. men don’t belong in women’s spaces. I don’t consent to sharing a single sex space. No one else can consent for me. The law says so.

I have found this thread to be illuminating in the extreme and I will not rest easy for a long time. The attitude could not have been demonstrated more clearly. Operation let them speak.

I think it's also really important to have posters like you who don't get bogged down in all the pointless word salad.

It's always good to see someone cut right to the point amongst all the waffle!

It's always illuminating isn't it? Never the way they think though...

I used to be be kind what does it matter. Use the pronouns.

I’ve said it before on here but I am so ashamed of how spineless I was and how much I just let women’s rights be taken away unchallenged.

my rape was horrendous. I wasn’t unconscious and I remember every second. Also the violence that accompanied it. Which was deliberately dehumanising - some of his actions were designed to completely humiliate me.

I fought as hard as I could but I couldn’t fight him off.

the rape changed me - I don’t want to share a single sex space with a man when I go for counselling and the law says I don’t have to. I will report any provider that doesn’t provide me a truly single sex space where provision is presented as such.

as much as poly doesn’t like that the law says he is a man, legally he is and he needs to obey the law.

I'm so sorry that happened to you @Taztoy It's clear that some of these men don't really care about women, because if they did they would self exclude from female single sex spaces and listen to women like you.

It shouldn't take women having to disclose sexual assault or rape for these men to listen, and as we see right here, some of them just don't care anyway - and that's the most positive interpretation I can come up with, lack of care. That says something if that's the nicest spin I can come up with.

As to starting off in a be kind mindset? I don't think you should think of yourself as spineless or be ashamed, it's not like you were saying "No rights for me and all other women? Yeah go ahead and fill your boots!". I started off that way too. I was prepared to give a little social leeway to what I thought of as a really vulnerable minority (and honestly, that was mostly made up of effeminate gay men), you know pronouns basically. I never expected the madness that followed!

We were prepared to give an inch and opportunistic men took a mile, then another mile, and eventually whole countries!

Some women were quicker off the mark in thinking through the consequences, and a bit more aware of the possibility of opportunism lurking in the wings than I was. The important point, I think, is that when it became clear that it wasn't just a relatively meaningless kindness, people like you and I woke up to what was happening and the real danger presenting itself to women's rights.

Thanks @CohensDiamondTeeth

None of that is at all relevant to the post you quoted, which you have nearly sidestepped in your standard fashion.

I'm sorry about your childhood experiences , it makes it all the more important that you were accepted as an adult as you have been.

Genetics are the gatekeeper of womanhood. Yours is XY.