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.

Somehow they identify which child to sell.

Are you saying women in Afghanistan are oppressed because they “believe” they are women and all they need to say is they “believe” they’re men and they’ll get their rights back? Wonder why they didn’t think of that 🙄🙄🙄🙄?

And all those male gay couples who insist TWAW know exactly who to pay when they want to buy a newborn baby.

Exactly. And TIM are male. So yeah, male facilities for them.

If only Anne Boleyn had thought of claiming that Elizabeth identified as a boy she could have kept her head.

And Joan of Arc wouldn’t have been burned. Funny how it’s only lately that no one seems to know what words mean.

Even with no words. Language or laws, there would be humans who produce large gametes and human who produce small gametes and not one has ever been able to produce the other.

They like liminal, it was very popular in universities when media studies and psychology got popular. They use it alot in acting. It does not mean what they think it means. It does not mean that humans can literally transition across a threshold into a different type of human.

What alternative definition of woman do you suggest? Please make sure it's actually a sound definition, not a circular one.

The 'social perception' you are reffering to is actually social deception. Only when society has the full story can we determine the suitable social rights, but TIMs refuse to give us the full story. It's still insincere and predatory, you still carry responsibility for your actions within society and ensuring people aren't misled into giving you women's opportunities.

"Liminal" seems to mean whatever some people want it to mean, depending on when they are saying it, and which context/situation they are trying to subvert at that time. Just like all their other definitions: socially-perceived/defined sex, for one. It's another in a very long line of obfuscating terms, designed to deflect from the actual argument.

So I can identify as a man?

Time marches on, yes, but we can, and will, fight falsehood. If the younger generations all think as you say they do, there won't be any humans around to argue about this anyway.

Somehow, I think it unlikely.

Observation is a major part of it as many of us have said on this board over time and on this thread.

However, ‘socially’ agreed definition of the language female people use to define themselves is irrelevant if it doesn’t match the material reality of the boundary definition of category being described. As ‘Shed’ said above, remove all language and humans would be able to still categorise which humans are female. Even after observing those who are male humans but believe they are living life as if they would if they were female people. Ie. Even those male humans who live their concept of how female people live.

A definition of a category group that is used for the imperative purposes of safeguarding the group from harm as the category of female is, cannot be ‘socially’ decided. That is why these discussions are repetitive and cycle through the exact same arguments.

If a person has to resort to endless philosophising to change the boundaries of a category so that they can be described as being in that category when materially they don’t and will never belong, it is a sure sign that they are male and are demanding that they be treated. as if they are female when they are not.

Even if it is a passive demand where they do nothing as let society assume they must be female because that male person has acted as if he was female and no one stopped him from doing so. Continuing a deception is no excuse for ignoring the fact consent has been negated through that deception process. Sadly, some people believed that when their loved ones and highly invested professionals gave consent, that meant it was a blanket consent when that is not how consent works.

hard agree.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. No one gets to consent for me and I do not consent to any transgender identifying men in women’s single sex spaces. And the law in the U.K. says they shouldn’t be there.

I don’t care how they identify. I don’t care if they think no one clocks them as male. I don’t care if they get upset. None of that is my problem to solve.

This line that is apparently crossed with discordant sex characteristics such as.a man growing or implanting breasts, or a woman growing a beard. It's still almost impossible for an adult to not be easily recognisable as the sex they are.

I do not care how sophisticated your pretence gets, fundamentally you are a man pretending to be a woman. You are free to do that but you should not be using your pretence to enter women's spaces.

If you no longer feel safe in men's spaces, seeing as men are sometimes violent, you need to campaign for your own spaces.

You are not, cannot be, any kind of woman.

To get back to one important question that I don't believe has been answered:
Why can't males argue for 3rd/4th/special spaces? There are apparently many people - including women - who would be happy to share those spaces, so there wpuld be no issue with 'outing', and it would solve the problem entirely.

Reader’s note:

’Younger generations’ being used to leverage in societal definition of category (as opposed to material reality) changes based on a younger generations current acceptance of that change is never going to be a strong argument. Because the likelihood of those young people changing their own minds about how the category is defined as they understand the ramifications of the change and experience it is high.

That argument also ignores the current research that has shown that those very same young people will act as if they agree with people even when they don’t agree, giving a false perception out of fear of negative impacts to their lives.

This means that calls to future authority where a future generation will support a group of people’s belief in a subjective reality that doesn’t reflect material reality completely unreliable.

The polling shows that 18-24 year old people still prefer single sex provisions if given a choice. And answer explicitly that people with transgender identities should not be using those single sex provisions if they are not that sex category.

If Stonewall & all the others had taken that angle from the start, things could be completely different now.

The thing that frustrates me most about this discussion at the stage we're at now is that the trans rights lobby will not accept that one subset of their cohort are fetishists who have decided to behave as close to a facsimile of a woman as they can because it gives them sexual satisfaction to do so. Some, Debbie Hayton for one, are open about this.

It is one thing to allow a man who firmly believes he is a woman into women only spaces. It is another altogether to allow a fetishist who gets off on being in women only spaces to be in women only spaces. And it's on another planet to demand that lesbians get over their penis phobia.

And the impossibility of telling who is who among female identified trans people is exactly why nobody male should be in women only spaces.

I don't agree that physicality is only a matter of perception or visual ambiguity.

Physicality comprises the measurable and observable facts of the body. Female bodies are demonstrably and measurably different to male bodies. They also function differently at certain levels and in certain ways and this is shaped and determined at the level of chromosomes.

Pronoun use is not demonstrably 'biological' at all. Pronoun use is a social/cultural signifier.

Many men have bigger breasts than many women.

We see them every summer when men take their shirts off.

No it fucking well isn’t. What you observe has fuck all impact on whether I’m going to get pregnant and need maternity leave.

But they are not breasts......they do not have breast tissue and are not functional in the way that nature intended.

Younger generations may be sweet summer children, led into medicalisation and abuse by older more cynical people men with agendas and penises.

Those of us with more life experience won’t stop pushing safeguarding.

Men do have small amounts of breast tissue and can get breast cancer.

It just doesn't make them women.

It is not just culture which determines one's sex category, though. There are measurable differences, not just in the most obvious physical ways, but also at a population level when it comes to matters such as sexual behaviour and drive. This is a factor regardless of sexual orientation.