Continuation of Polypostwonder thread

[Imdunfer]

Follow on from this thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5532352-the-liminality-of-sex-perception-sex-based-spaces-and-bodily-autonomy?page=39

For argument sake, I understand Blaire White to be a woman. This is independent of the knowledge she chose to only undergo cosmetic facial surgeries and breast augmentation, while retaining everything else.
I think I remember reading that she politically aligns 'right' and is politically vocal about being a male, living as a trans woman. I'm not 100% sure, though. It's not a way that I could understand living, but it is financially lucrative in her case.

There is a person who declares themselves to be male.

That person chooses to live presenting as a female.

In spite of their self declaration as a male, complete with male genitals, you understand that they are a woman.

And you ascribe their understanding of themselves being male, at least partly, to financial motives.

This is either monumentally arrogant or monumentally stupid thinking, or possibly both. Or perhaps you just like playing with a largely female forum and seeing how many feathers you can ruffle.

One thing is for sure, and that is that I don't think anything you write on this subject from now on is going to be of any value to read.

I’d not believe it even then. Sex refers to which sort of gamete your phenotype is organised to support, so he’d still be a man.

Well yes. Your chromosomes determine which sex you develop into, but do not define it, it’s determined by which gamete your phenotype develops to support.

You know this, you know the difference between determination and definition so why pretend not to?

experientially prove that there is no actual requirement for 'sex' in the gender critical sense, to drive the process. Biology matters, but it doesn't.

OK, I'm going to really try to address just this bit, by breaking it down.

Your "no requirement" seems to be based on your self-perception, and others' perceptions of you in your ability to pass.

However, in this context, the choice of "requirement" is curious. It suggests that you're extrapolating from your personal experience some kind of rule or necessity: presumably that, by logical extension, there's no "requirement" for 'woman" to be sex-based.

I do see what you mean in a sense, and I saw it the first time you made this argument. I think many of us do, and some - including me - sympathise with it, too. In the sense in which you're writing, this is a valid point.

But it simply ignores, time and time and time again, the central human rights question we're asking.

What I'm desperately curious to have is not further justifications of the above, which focusses on you and your experience of "woman", but explanations of the below, which addresses a wider human rights issue. Basically, my questions would be:

Practical Need

1. Do you believe that adult human females retain any practical need at all for a word with which to distinguish themselves as a demographic sharing* certain commonalities and associated challenges?

*with inevitable exceptions (eg. illness, DSDs, variability across ages etc. etc. etc.) - please let's assume we're all grown-ups and can acknowledge this as self-evident!

2. If not, could you explain why such an (unusually consistent, in biological terms) universal pattern of shared practical need (eg. periods, a capacity - or, yes indeed, a perceived capacity for - pregnancy, menopause, relative physical vulnerability etc.) is insufficient to justify retaining a noun for this particular class of human?

Ethical Rights

3. Do you believe that adult human females still have any right to a word to distinguish themselves in language and law (particularly given that a significant proportion globally have made their wish for this clear, including taking this to the highest courts in several lands)

4. If not, on what definitive, democratic basis (beyond your own personal, anecdotal impressions of probable popular opinion), would you absolutely, confidently deny them this right?

Dr Hrfrrrr

He knows he didn't change sex otherwise why lie to all family and friends?

My husband joined me on a trip to Qatar once. If the gender critical beliefs were reality, our experience would have been much different.

I'll just respond to this one, too. I think one of the issues we're facing is that "gender critical" doesn't quite encompass the single-minded certainty your use of it suggests. In terms of feminists, it's a grass-roots movement encompassing all political classes and leanings. It ranges from the questioning (as you may call it!) to the moderate to the more hardline. From the sympathetic and cautious to the cynical and furious. And on those spectrums, it touches on every possibility inbetween. And all that's before you turn to the overlap with ideologies and allegiances many (most?) gender critical feminists find actively distasteful - yes, we share some beliefs with Christian fundamentalists: biology is real, for example. No, we don't share many (any?) more. And no, that overlap is no more a moral stain on us, than agreeing with Trump that the sky is often blue would be!

I mean, surely you can see that even from the range of voices and approaches in this thread!

As such, when you say, "if the gender critical beliefs were reality", which beliefs do you mean?!

It's true that many on this thread have expressed scepticism about your passing. Some haven't, though. And almost all have expressed their scepticism in a way that acknowledges that you may well in some / many / almost all contexts - just not all. I've not commented on this: 1) I just don't know enough about what conditions and treatments like those you describe may lead to and 2) I don't like to use the more personal in my posts - neither about my life, nor yours!

So, if, as I understand above, you're saying that you being treated as a woman in Qatar on the basis of your outward appearance somehow invalidates the whole of gender critical thought... it simply doesn't. While I understand, again, how intensely personal and important to you that experience was (and why), on a wider, ethical scale, it does feel rather like another get-out that avoids the more universally gender-critical issues in my post above.

Because whatever the other variations across the gender critical feminist movement as regards eg. passing, I can guarantee, 110%, that each and every member of it, regardless of political leaning, personal views or posting style, will recognise the critical importance of the four questions I post above.

I'd be really interested in your responses to them.

At least some Islamic states, Iran for instance, are all for gay men being castrated and calling themselves women, because in the mind of the religious fundamentalists that means they're no longer gay.

So I don't think acceptance in such states means quite what the OP thinks it does.

Edit: I don't think such states think very much about women other than that they are not-men.

“Biology matters, but it doesn't.“

Is this a reference to the difference between purpose of the word ‘female’ for things like definition and them concepts such as illegitimate discrimination?

If so, it really isn’t not that hard to understand.

Biology matters for the definition of the sex category boundaries. This is uncontroversial really and has been established for millennia. It is only because some people wish to destabilise this definition and the category boundaries using philosophical theory that there is even questions around this.

Then there are the situations where biology does not matter.

That is where there is no one correct behaviour, interest or opinion for a female person to have to fit that category of female human. This is also not confusing.

And for many purposes female people cannot be discriminated against for being female such as in
employment. There ARE legitimate roles that discriminate against women but where it is not legitimate ‘sex category does not matter’.

So claiming that there is contradiction such as saying “Biology matters, but it doesn't”, is actually just showing the person making the statement either doesn’t understand the issue, or maybe they are trying to discredit the significant points being made by pretending that there is a lack of coherence and the discrepancy is due to hatred or something else.

On a lighter note, PPW, before signing out again for a while... you've earned your username!

I have whiplash.

I can't be arsed to go and catalogue them all, but you have lied about:

• Being a woman
• Having basically 0 testosterone
• Having literally changed sex
• Not going through male puberty at all because of early puberty blockers
• That you went through female puberty

I wonder if your romantic partners may not actually know you are a trans identified male, because of the way you are determined to ignore material reality and insist you are in fact an actual woman when you really aren't.
You said in the last thread that your partners have never thought of you as anything other than female. but I really, really hope they know your actual sex is male.

Thanks? I'll respond tomorrow.

I absolutely love a thread where dissembling dissemblers actively dissemble.

Oh and you lied about what Tanner stage you were at before you got put on blockers.

A confidently stated, random guess about something you don't actually know for sure is a lie. You later admitted you had done exactly that.

There also weren't gender clinics on every corner in the 80s. Trans kids were not a thing. Nobody was giving wrong sex hormones to kids in the US then.

Nobody was giving wrong sex hormones to kids in the US then.

One of PPW's many claims is that he is from Canada although his present location is unspecified.

I know!!! My response was predicated on knowing this!

Okay, then! Thank you.

I don't understand this. How could "culture" possibly "separate out individuals" for 'special treatment'"? What does this mean? Culture's an abstract concept used to describe wide-ranging commonalities in behaviour, belief etc. It has no direct relation to individuals in the sense you seem to use above. Are you using hyperbole, to make a rhetorical point? Or perhaps countering a belief you honestly think we have? Or yourself misunderstanding or misusing the word? or concept? of culture?

I probably should have just said that everyone is a member of a social sex class, even if they feel they don’t belong and wish they weren’t.

I suspect you would say the exact same, except for biological sex and I would agree, mostly. Repeating, I don’t feel most people think about biological sex classes the same way as gender critical people. I think most people are experiencing a person’s body, sex characteristics and movement.

"Idealised personally navigated pattern" is similarly hard to understand - by "idealised", I think you must mean "ideal", in the sense of optimised personal preference, because "idealised" has a rather different meaning... but again I'm unsure. Fundamentally, though, you seem to be saying we're all influenced by culture again? If so, then again, I know that!!! Perhaps assume as a starting point that I understand this key concept. I'm not seeking oceanic metaphors (nice as yours actually is!), but rather just asking you to describe, clearly, the commonalities that suffice to define "woman" in "cultural" terms. AKA: what do we share culturally that, in your view, supersedes the 99(.9?)% universality of my period analogy?

I meant ’Idealized’ in the ‘projected ideal vision’ sense. Yes, but more of the same.

I believe culturally, speaking of the UK, my experience and place in society would primarily be recognised within the ‘wife and working mother with a grown family’ roles and expectations. My friend groups and work life have been arranged around this in ways that still surprise me. Before this, my experience and place has evolved as I and my family have evolved.

Primary amenorrhea is a big deal. There are far more girls experiencing it in the 99(.9?%) than there are girls with DSDs.

I’ve been assumed to have had a period more times than I can easily count, in many contexts. It is socially relevant and culturally expected. It is shared by the 99%. It is an experience that I do not share.

I’ve shared this already here, but my most of my friends know that I’ve been on hormones since my teens because I have no ovaries. They know I have no uterus and have never had a period. A handful know that I’ve had genital surgery. They know I am not one of the 99%. Excluding me as a woman because of this has never been a topic of discussion.

I don't entirely agree with the "not permitted", though. Posters have thanked you for your relation of your experiences, sympathised with you and responded to them. Many have also, it's true, expressed scepticism to a greater or lesser degree. I haven't, and am instead just asking you to move beyond the personal to debate in general terms as well.

I somewhat agree. I’m getting better at filtering, but the basic broad-based denial is a lot to move beyond. It is difficult to separate the personal because I cannot place myself into the archetypical ‘trans woman’ straw man (for whatever it’s worth) that FWR/gender critical people have built.

However, in this context, the choice of "requirement" is curious. It suggests that you're extrapolating from your personal experience some kind of rule or necessity: presumably that, by logical extension, there's no "requirement" for 'woman" to be sex-based.

I was referencing observation from personal experience as well as discussions with friends over the years. “Requirement” is in reference to the gender critical belief that all human life emanates from one of a pair of immutable essential internal sex states.

Some gender critical people do extend this out to the body, which I very much agree with. But, when I claim my body within my experience and treatment within cultures in this discussion, it is denied as invalid. And shortly following, my life is projected into the land of maleness that I've never occupied.

1. Do you believe that adult human females retain any practical need at all for a word with which to distinguish themselves as a demographic sharing certain commonalities and associated challenges? ...*

A practical need? I understand some women feel very strongly about needing to control the word. The gender critical framing of ownership is problematic as gender and usage of the word as one of two genders has been defined culturally and still functions culturally, thoroughly independent of gender critical direction.

I agree the exceptions you include are self-evident (though I imagine there wouldn’t be universal agreement within gender critical people). I don’t believe anyone has ever run through the exceptions whenever they think ‘woman’ (or ‘man,’ for that matter).

The declaration that ‘woman’ is being made meaningless because some tiny number (in comparison) of trans women also find affiliation in the word is observably not true. The infinitesimally larger pie doesn’t modify culture’s social forces upon women or the first thoughts in anyone’s mind when the word is generally used in almost any context.

1. If not, could you explain why such an (unusually consistent, in biological terms) universal pattern of shared practical need (eg. periods, a capacity - or, yes indeed, a perceived capacity for - pregnancy, menopause, relative physical vulnerability etc.) is insufficient to justify retaining a noun for this particular class of human?

People’s understanding of 'women' still defaults to encompassing everything you list above. Social services and organisations are able to provide support to those above, even when ‘trans women’ were supported in peak ‘acceptance.’

1. Do you believe that adult human females still have any right to a word to distinguish themselves in language and law (particularly given that a significant proportion globally have made their wish for this clear, including taking this to the highest courts in several lands)

I believe a very very small (statistically unclear) percentage of women refer to themselves as ‘adult human females.’ I believe they have the right to build support for their goals to distinguish themselves uniquely as women in language and law. I recognise the efforts of one UN Special Rapporteur who supports this effort globally, however every other UN Special Rapporteur would seem to be supportive of broader human rights efforts that are inclusive of trans people.

I'm not aware of several other countries seeking to adopt UK-like definitions at this point…except maybe NZ’s conservative leadership? Several UK-ish-framed human rights lawsuits, if successful, may initiate a longer, separate process to change law in other countries such as AU? But, the underlying gender critical goals don’t appear to have wide support domestically within those countries at this time.

1. If not, on what definitive, democratic basis (beyond your own personal, anecdotal impressions of probable popular opinion), would you absolutely, confidently deny them this right?

I don’t believe I have the ability to deny anyone the right to build support for their goals and ideas and reinforce them within laws and language—definitively or democratically. I also don’t believe it has yet been achieved in the UK to the degree or clarity most gender critical people wish it to be. There is lots more work to be done there.

I dont deal in straw men.

I deal in real men, their risk as a sex class to women as a sex class, and in using the word 'men', it includes men who think they are not men.

I mean, surely you can see that even from the range of voices and approaches in this thread!

That's fair. There's a much deeper and marginally related discussion here about the efforts of American Christian Conservative organisations within the variously aligned culture wars in the UK. But point accepted.

At the same time, trans people are not a monolith. But I suspect everyone is aware of this, but for expediency and messaging, prefer to platform the publicly problematic as examples of the whole.

As such, when you say, "if the gender critical beliefs were reality", which beliefs do you mean?!

Perhaps I should have specified FWR instead of ‘gender critical’ here. But, the specific and pervasive belief that I am a man and that my husband and I are gay.

It's true that many on this thread have expressed scepticism about your passing. Some haven't, though. And almost all have expressed their scepticism in a way that acknowledges that you may well in some / many / almost all contexts - just not all. I've not commented on this: 1) I just don't know enough about what conditions and treatments like those you describe may lead to and 2) I don't like to use the more personal in my posts - neither about my life, nor yours!

Passing wasn't in my thoughts though, when I wrote this. I was thinking about my marriage and relationship with my husband.

I said much earlier in my posts on FWR that I don't pass. And I still believe that. I live. I am not moving through the world in disguise. I am not concerned that I will be 'discovered.'

Qatar is very anti-trans and anti-gay. It was, I thought, a simple real example that refutes the belief that I am a man and my husband and I are gay. The laws and cultural rules impact people based on biological sex, but the execution of those laws and rules are applied within a social context rather than biologically. Even the laws against lesbian and gay people and trans people are somewhat biological (in the GC sense), but enforcement occurs socially.

It's probably just wasted energy at this point, but as long as my lived reality is denied by gender critical people, I am unlikely to be able to discuss anything beyond my life experience.

I've never been on blockers. This is another false claim that I have been repeatedly accused of making.

I've never said I had reached a specific Tanner stage prior to transition. I estimated my development to have been before Tanner stage 3, and then repeated that it was a guess further in the discussion.

No one was giving HRT to trans teens in Canada back then either.

There was a TRA on here a few months back who claimed that he passed so well that his children didn't know he was trans.

Do you understand that broad based denial is exactly what you inflict on women (original female sense) when you tell us we are no different to a surgically altered male like yourself, and that the great injustices of history and that not-insignificant ones many female people face today because of our female bodies are less significant to the needs and challenges of female people than the fact your friends call you a "woman"?

Ah well, maybe you don't understand.

But women do.