"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.

Some men are pregnant right now, many have even given birth. Look it up, do your own research.

Wow. I just thought I’d read the latest post on this thread to see where it was going

10/10 for craziness, no notes

this is the <chef’s kiss> of bonkersness

<goes back to the previous page to try to figure out where the heck this has come from >

I think it's satire

Yes, their raging anorexia and co dependent/hate relationship is a great example for kids today.

Or were you being sarcastic? It's hard to tell sometimes.

🤣🤣🤣

You are referring to women who identify as men.

However, 'woman' is just a term that includes everyone in the group of people that menstruates, has miscarriages, requires sex specific fertility treatment, has sex specific cancers and other medical conditions, goes through menopause, breast feeds, experience discrimination because they might become pregnant, experience discrimination because they have been pregnant, relies on contraception and abortion rights to prevent pregnancy etc. etc., regardless of their identity.

You can pretend that all these things have no consequence and that we have no idea who might experience them, but that just leaves women in the dark ages.

One of the most bizarre things about the trans movement is the weird libertarian individualism at its heart and its reliance on very conservative gender stereotypes, the latter not just being ‘I like having long hair and wearing lipstick, therefore I’m a woman’, but also the idea that women should just budge up and make space for these guys even though it’s obviously detrimental to us. It’s place within progressivism feels very superficial and nothing more than pity-party politics (it’s not the only progressive cause where pity-party politics seems to be the main driver and I fail to see the actual progress).
It’s interesting that so many trans activists claim to be communists, I can’t think of anything less likely to be tolerated by an actual communist regime than something so focussed on the individual rather than the collective, it would be seen a waste of resources. No, you are not going to be a teacher/artist/poet, you’re physically healthy and require no medical treatment of any sort. Get back to the collective farm/tractor factory and shut up.

For those saying women’s spaces should be open to males because the US believes in freedom, I’ll start thinking American freedom is a real thing when I see them scrapping things like HOAs who’ll fine you if your lawn is slightly too long or they don’t like your garden furniture, or you’re not thrown into prison for having a miscarriage.
Freedom my arse.

God I hope so

If someone that looks like a woman and dresses like a woman uses the ladies toilets who's to know if it's a man? If a person flaunts their masculinity while using the ladies toilets they should be chucked out. Otherwise what are you going to do a strip search at the door.

Men have been living as women and women as men forever it only becomes a problem when it becomes a problem.

We don't strictly police toilet use, so it is indeed not that difficult to use an opposite sex toilet (which is not a criminal offence in the UK). I could waltz into the empty gents' if the queue for the ladies' is too long and nobody is going to arrest me.

However, I wouldn't have a right to be there and I could be asked to leave, and I should really consider that the toilet might not be empty and my presence next to the urinals might cause distress to men who have a right to be there.

Humans are good at judging sex, and everyone knows their own sex, so the system should work if we assume that people are honest and understand their impact on other people.

I don't know how one would live as a woman, or how one would organise toilets around how people 'live' and exclude people who 'live' in the wrong way. You seem to just be suggesting mixed sex toilets, which is fine, but is probably a difficult sell.

It's just the same cant we get from other cu stomers who come in here with their pish easily dismantled arguments.

The ones that hang around long enough and engage enough to recognise - they all end up saying 'ok I've conceded all your points with the illest of grace available to the online medium. Further to that - I don't care and I'm going to do what I want anyway'.

Just saying if you can't tell and they behave as a woman it doesn't matter and as you say you really can't police it anyway. I'm not suggesting unisex toilets or people just using whichever suits them, just the rare cases of men actually living their life privately as a woman and visa versa. When I say live as a woman everyday they get up and dress as a woman, take care to look like a woman, mix with women as a woman, etc.

Oh, are you going to be the first one to successfully explain what living as woman looks like without reference to long hair, make up and spinny skirts?

I do hope so.

I think I already did look up a post.

All i can see us this description:
"When I say live as a woman everyday they get up and dress as a woman, take care to look like a woman, mix with women as a woman, etc."

How does a woman dress? I'm definitely a woman, birthed two children and everything. Yesterday I was wearing a T shirt and chino shorts, exactly the same clothes as my husband wears when he gets in from work.

How does a man take care to look like a woman? I have short hair, my son has long hair, my husband had long hair when I met him. I rarely wear make up.

How does a man mix with women as a woman? By persuading/coercing women to call him "she" in conversation and not object when he uses women's toilets? By endlessly discussing clothes and hair and make up and knitting?

I have no way of knowing how anyone lives privately if I meet them in a toilet, and using your list, I don't know whether I would qualify as 'living as a woman'.

Do you mean that men who 'pass' should be able to use opposite sex toilets?

How do they know if they pass?

I think they have much more certainly if they know that they have the right to use men's toilets and that they have a right to unisex provision where possible.

It's a very American argument, but that doesn't mean it won't spread here. Politics with regards to Freedom always has to balance the two types of freedom: the freedom people have to do things and the freedom people have from things.

America has always been balanced a lot more in the "freedom to do" side of things (see guns, no regulation on drugs or foodstuff, libertarianism). Men also prioritise the freedom to do things as many don't really feel threatened that often and take the policing etc for granted, what do they need protection from.

This strikes me as a great example of an opinion from that perspective, it isn't pretending to need protection from anything, it's more honest. Unfortunately though, other people (including women) exist and are demanding freedom from having men everywhere.

These clinicians, the same ones that admitted that they are basically making it up as they go along? Who took the drug given to prisoners and gave it off label to kids? Who 'self ID' as experts and who were arguing about a procedure to remove a boy's penis during the procedure as they hadn't done it before?

No you didn't.

no regulation on drugs or foodstuff

What on earth is this supposed to mean? The FDA with an annual $7bn budget exists entirely to regulate food and drugs. One in every 5 people in prison in the USA is there for drugs offences, that's somewhere about 300,000 people.

libertarianism

As long as your libertarianism is a right wing libertarianism that doesn't clash with any right wing values. Have you tried getting an abortion in Texas?

The US has a lot of the kind of freedoms that don't apply to black people, women, or poor people. The freedom to go without.

How do you dress assumingly you are a women? You just dress in a million different ways according to your taste your age, etc, etc, and as a woman you meet your friends, or go to work and no one questions if you are a woman, Obviously you keep your facial hair well shaved down if you have a lot. You wear what you want to, and chat about the usual things women chat about. Do you constantly talk about hair and make up and knitting? I never do and I am a woman.

Long or short hair is totally irrelevant.

You still haven't explained the difference between dressing as a woman and dressing as a man and if this is your system for deciding who should use which toilet, you do need to make that clear. On what basis would somebody be excluded?

(Maybe you could publish a dress code like at Royal Ascot)

Ignoring the point rather, but does anyone else, when faced with the phrase "Over 1 in 10 trans people have lost a job because of their gender identity" think "or maybe because their massive sense of entitlement and self-absorption made them the employee and co-worker from hell, and the people they didn't-actually-work-with couldn't wait to attend their leaving party"?

Get with it gurrls! If TWAW then however a TIM dresses is ‘dressing as a woman’, OK?

I think he’s trying to find a reasonable compromise (in his eyes): he can accept most people perceive he’s a man and is ok with that. He is generously not going to start cancelling us or shouting us down with insults. True benevolence. And what we’re supposed to concede, in return for not being forced to believe he’s a “proper” woman, is that he’s allowed in women only spaces because he puts a bit of effort in to look like what he thinks a woman is, and/or he believes himself. However it does not follow: if you do not believe someone is female, you’re not going to think that it’s ok for them to access female only spaces just cos they say they’re trying to look like one, or prefer to think of themselves as one. It’s this appeal to a charitable side, that even though the logic isn’t there, we’re still going to make an exception because… he asked nicely, said please and said he thought about our perspective for five seconds?? What happens when we still say no and he doesn’t get what he wants after all the reasonable compromising he did? All seems like pretty standard entitlement to me.