"I don't need you to believe I'm a woman"...but I still get whatever I want

[WeeBisom]

https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/i-dont-need-you-to-believe-im-a-woman

I've just read this article which was gushingly endorsed by Jesse Singal. The author is a non-passing TIM who admits that he isn't really a woman and hasn't really changed sex. And it's ok, he doesn't need us to believe he's a woman! Despite that, even though he's not a woman, and knows he's not a woman, he still claims that he has 'rights' to have access to women's spaces and services. We don't have to believe he's a woman, but we have to be fine with letting him do whatever he wants and taking all our stuff anyway.

His argument for being allowed to use women's toilets boils down to 'freedom': it's more free to not police spaces and let people do what they want, than to have boundaries in place. There is no analysis whatsoever of why toilets and spaces are segregated by sex. No analysis of safety or dignity risks to women. The thought that women might just not want to hang out in spaces with males doesn't cross his mind.

I think he's right to say that the mantra of 'trans women are women' doesn't work, and people don't believe it. But where the argument falls flat is his insistence that even though he's not really a woman, and no one has to believe it, he STILL is entitled to women's rights.

I demand my right to steal from you and I decry that my right to be free to do so is illegitimately curtailed by the police state’s laws against theft. Liberty or death!

Sorry what’s the role of the police state exactly in relation to gender / sex / trans?

NB in the UK at least I’d say healthcare is inescapably politicised because of the NHS. Politicians make decisions on budgets and required standards, it’s unavoidable at the macro level.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing btw, but the idea that healthcare is an ideological blank slate / free-for-all isn’t really correct.

While I can't say I agree with the general direction of the article, I did actually find it interesting to read. As other posters have already pointed out, it's obviously very much written through a US lens and doesn't always translate well to those of us in the UK.

I thought it was interesting to hear a perspective from the other side of the fence decrying the mindless mantras and the rabid insistence from some quarters about no debate etc.

Maybe we'll see more of this in future and things will calm down a bit... Who knows?

Sorry what’s the role of the police state exactly in relation to gender / sex / trans?

Well bodily scrutiny for the purposes of public toilets isn't exactly exclusive to trans people. Its women as well.

NB in the UK at least I’d say healthcare is inescapably politicised because of the NHS. Politicians make decisions on budgets and required standards, it’s unavoidable at the macro level.

Budgets isn't the same as medical decisions which should be based on professional medical expertise not popular opinion.

it's obviously very much written through a US lens and doesn't always translate well to those of us in the UK.

The US constitution was written under a pro liberty lens so the principles of freedom are very much ingrained in the American psyche but that doesn't mean there aren't implications on other countries who lack constitutional authority. In fact they are more vulnerable to attacks on their liberties as a result of not having constitutional protections by popular opinion.

You think so? I think it is more about recognising that while some aspects of medical care are certainly down to personal choice and decision where adults are concerned, it is also important to recognise that there are situations when governments have to assert authority , for example to protect wider communities in the event of particular threats ( I am old enough to remember the polio outbreaks in the fifties) or, and this is pertinent, to protect those who do not have the capacity through age, immaturity or impairment, either to make appropriate decisions for themselves, or when they are being coerced into or denied appropriate care. This could involve decisions being made not on the grounds of health but for other reasons be that ideology, religion, ignorance or intransigence.

If you are male, you have a significantly higher level of strength than a female and are statistically more likely to assault a female than another female.

Your gender has nothing to do with it, your sex has everything to do with it. Therefore, women will judge you on your sex because that is the thing that is threatening to women, especially when they are in a room alone and taking off their clothes.

The difference being it wasn't the Government who determined polio was a threat but the medical profession who then advised them on this. Whilst governments are responsible for the medical profession determining safety like they did with the systemic review of puberty blockers its beyond their expertise to adjudicate safety themselves not to mention the vulnerability to bias. I don't think people realise how dangerous a precedent it is to now demand the government not follow the Cass expert recommendations based on inexpert political pressure. Its no different from the government ignoring vaccine or climate change expert advice because its not popular.

We are living in very dangerous times where amateur popular opinion is considered a viable replacement for expertise.

Singal's commentary about the article is infuriating and basically that, about a decade ago, he had a chat with another bloke about whether or not this bloke (and blokes like him) should be allowed to use women's single-sex provisions. And they both decided they were cool with it happening cos a) they both got on well and b) blokes are human too 🙄:

https://nitter.net/jessesingal/status/2087158172259643484#m

1/ This column from Cassie Pritchard is excellent. I guess it makes sense I'd think so because I am increasingly one of those boring liberals and Cassie is (I think uncharacteristically) endorsing boring liberal positions, but one quick point

2/ Before I got sucked into the youth gender medicine vortex, I got to interview Laura Jane Grace, lead singer of a band that has had a tremendous influence on me, Against Me! She had transitioned and was campaigning against North Carolina's bathroom bill.

3/ I was a fanboy going in but I found LJG to be a lovely and wise person. It was difficult to see how anyone could hear her story and want to police where she went to the bathroom. I don't remember the fight as having centered on whether people like her were really women.

4/ I have no doubt that some activists wanted to frame it that way, and they clearly won at the level of the big orgs. How did that work out? I think the boring argument of "Look at this group of people, hear their stories, treat them as human" was far more effective.

I'm being childish I know, amongst all of you having a proper conversation, but this thread just brought Monty Python vibes. "The group resolves the logical impasse by agreeing to fight for Stan's symbolic "right to have babies," even if the physical reality is impossible."

"I'm not a woman but I want to have the right to be recognised as one" 🙄

Saying “excuse me this is the ladies toilet” is hardly equivalent to a true police state though, like the Stasi or the KGB, is it?

Of course politicians have to get involved in health matters eg Covid quarantine rules, fertility / abortion laws etc. Informed by clinicians for sure but entirely appropriate for elected representatives to make decisions about what is allowed or not.

Being polite about the bodily scrutiny of women doesn't change the fact its the bodily scrutiny of women.

Excuse me, would you terribly mind if trampled all over your privacy & made a public wild guess about your sex & asked you to leave based on stereotypes?

Informed by clinicians being the operative words.

We are living in very dangerous times where amateur popular opinion is considered a viable replacement for expertise.

I agree with those words, thegoodnews.
It is dangerous that a movement which is based on the non-factual amateur opinion [not very popular though, in either meaning of the word] that TWAW and TMAM, has had such disproportionate and damaging effect on so many areas of society - media, education, legislation, medicine, even language itself.

Incredible, really. But there are signs that reliable, observable, provable facts about human sex are regaining ground on unscientific, post-factual, 'true because I say so' amateur popular opinion.

They don't think past the abolishment, so have not worked out why we have prisons.

'.....as done for religion.'

Can you imagine what this bloke's cult religion would be like? Here's a taster.....

I like lesbian orgies, my sex-worker friends, and my natural baritone voice that juxtaposes strangely (for most people) with my 540 cc breast implants.

"But here’s the thing: I like lesbian orgies, my sex-worker friends, and my natural baritone voice that juxtaposes strangely (for most people) with my 540 cc breast implants. I long ago realized that passing as a cis woman was not possible for me — and I wasn’t willing to put in the work even if it were. I’m trans, I’m odd, and I don’t have much interest in hiding either fact."

Spoken like a true lady. Obviously one of the most vulnerable and oppressed kind. And not a fetish.

Why won't you bigots let him watch you in the changing rooms?

Oops sorry dark I cross posted with you. Very slowly as I was processing the WTF-ness of it all!

Nothing childish about this observation.

The whole transgenderist ideology is nothing less than a childish tantrum.

So what? I’ve been one of those women. I’ve been challenged in the ladies’ loos. No, my privacy was not trampled in any way. I was glad to be challenged. It is right and proper than women should challenge anybody they perceive as potentially male in a female space. And I said so, while they were apologising for challenging a woman in a women’s space.

The people scrutinising bodies in a women’s space are also women. They are not ogling or judging beauty stereotypes. They are not looking for their sexual gratification. Any males caught out this way should feel uncomfortable, because they have no right to be there.

You simply don’t have a right to privacy in your sex.

The statutory existence of services and facilities divided by sex mandates that your sex cannot be private. That’s the end of the matter.

Your transgender status is yours to reveal as you see fit: if you’re a man you can keep private the fact that you do or don’t identify as a woman. You’re not entitled to keep secret that you are man, or mutatis mutandis a woman.

Yet somehow there are states in America where it is impossible to get an abortion.

I prefer the British rights framework.

Literally the ONLY requirement to be a trans woman is to be a MAN! 🙄

like they did with the systemic review of puberty blockers its beyond their expertise to adjudicate safety themselves not to mention the vulnerability to bias.

The government stepped in because it is very obvious that nobody has any expertise on the rationale behind or consequences of attempting to block puberty.

There is no expert body to refer to.

Gender is just a modern social construct. The new generation of children are totally open about it, the wall of difference is almost gone. There are no men, there are no women, we are all just people at different stages of emotional and sexual evolution.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have really helped change the pattern for the youth of tomorrow.

There are no men, there are no women, we are all just people and different stages of sexual evolution.

"I didn't realise I could get pregnant, I thought we were on a different stage of sexual evolution"