I shared this on the Eutychus hell thread. It bothers me that people with such fears are dismissed as being irrational.
Can you show where someone has dismissed women's fears as irrational on the Ship?
If women only spaces exclude transwomen, where do transwomen go?
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
edited July 2019
I think one of the real problems with this thread is that issues are revisited, after they have been thoroughly explored, without any new points brought to bear. That has helped raise the temperature on this emotive topic. For the sake of all Shipmates and your long suffering Hosts, will you please look before posting to check that you are adding to the discussions by what you wish to say, rather than just going round in circles?
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
(xposted. A general observation, not directly connected to the most recent posts)
I shared this on the Eutychus hell thread. It bothers me that people with such fears are dismissed as being irrational.
Can you show where someone has dismissed women's fears as irrational on the Ship?
If women only spaces exclude transwomen, where do transwomen go?
From Colin earlier on this thread, in response to my question about abused women wanting single sex spaces:
If you transfer your bad experience with one person onto all persons who share characteristics with that person, then yes, you are the equivalent of a racist.
I think that there is a potential clash of rights and it's not necessarily that simple to decide on what's best to do. A lot of it might be able to be helped by structural changes. So, for instance changing toilet facilities to individual separate rooms, rather than cubicles in a big room. This will all take time and money of course, and might be difficult to do retrospectively.
The simplest (but most expensive) answer is to make all spaces for intimate bodily needs individual -- accessible for (and lockable by) only one person at a time. Eliminate group changing / showering / dressing / elimination facilities, and make all individual facilities unisex.
Of course, this then causes difficulties for people out in public who may have need of personal assistance, i.e. transferring from wheelchair to toilet, etc.
But then you ensure that in that provision there's at least one toilet adapted for disabilities. It could be locked with a RADAR key. We have them with winches for people to be able to move themselves.
The unisex changing rooms I know don't have lockable doors, but cubicles with curtains, both in the swimming pool and shop changing rooms. Personally I infinitely prefer individual cubicles to the free-for-all of open plan changing rooms.
Curiosity killed: The standard definition of transgender is that there is a mismatch between the sex assigned at birth (SAAB) (which mostly refers to anatomical sex, but not always) and gender identity.
Thanks for the clarification. So where does the traditional understanding of gender: masculine and feminine, fall into this conceptual framework? Presumably, nowhere.
Although I understand the distinction between SAAB and 'gender identity' understood as a consciousness of being 'male' or 'female' , ISTM the distinction is a rather nice one, and I'm curious as to its cause.
From the discussion, I gather that trans is a function of nature not nurture, and that there is a critical distinction between SAAB and gender identity. The fact that for more 99 percent of the population, more or less, the distinction is irrelevant suggests that the genetic linkage between the two is only a little less than perfect. Might one, then, hypothesise that SAAB and gender identity are a function of the same gene, but subject to aberration as is most genetical material? (I take the point, of course, that in some cases SAAB is arbitrarily assigned by a physician. Nor do I draw any inference from my questions as to how one addresses the condition).
Talk of genetic identity obscures the point that gender identity is subjective. In fact, everybody does a self ID, but most people align it with sex. However, it is unclear to me how many people have a non-conforming identity, as I've talked to lots of people who don't feel purely male or female.
Can you explain why you think Rachel Dolezal's identity is a matter of her choice, as opposed to what you are referring to here as "self ID", in which you appear to think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that the individual in question has no choice?
From the discussion, I gather that trans is a function of nature not nurture, and that there is a critical distinction between SAAB and gender identity. The fact that for more 99 percent of the population, more or less, the distinction is irrelevant suggests that the genetic linkage between the two is only a little less than perfect. Might one, then, hypothesise that SAAB and gender identity are a function of the same gene, but subject to aberration as is most genetical material? (I take the point, of course, that in some cases SAAB is arbitrarily assigned by a physician. Nor do I draw any inference from my questions as to how one addresses the condition).
SAAB is another of these phrases that seems to have entered the lexicography without much thought for how it is applied. It was coined for people with DSDs where doctors often did choose to assign a sex when it wasn't clear which sex the person was (and there were often procedures carried out to enforce as such, which was pretty awful if the person then identified opposite to how they were assigned). But for the vast majority of people sex isn't assigned, it is observed. (Unless of course, you think that sex itself is a construct, which some people do).
In terms of genetics, there probably are effects that make it more likely that someone is trans. But, similar to the 'gay gene', I'd be surprised if it was anything like as simple as an on/off type switch. Development in the womb is likely to play a large part (as it does for DSDs), and social development too.
The brain is really interesting in that it is pretty 'plastic' in how it responds to development, and the sex differences are much less important than how what you do effects it. The sex differences often quoted are much less dimorphic than other sex characteristics - e.g. the hypothalamus is on average twice the size in men than women, but for a lot of men have a hypothalamus about the same size as the average female one.
@Eutychus - thinking about the Rachel Dolezal case in comparison to transgender, I believe all people with problems with their identity should receive some support to explore the issues, preferably before transitioning. One of the young people I knew was exploring transgender after being assaulted and the psych help was helping him come to terms with that assault before suggesting he transitioned. The last I heard about him was that he still hasn't transitioned.
There is a long history of transgender; the first transpeople to have surgery were in the 1930s, transpeople have been prescibed hormone treatment since the 1940s. It's not new. There are decades of experience in recognising a mismatch between sex assigned at birth and gender identity in individuals. Rachel Dolezal's case is unusual and I haven't heard of any replications, so until that becomes a recognised identity mismatch, I would want to investigate to see if there were other things going on there.
@Doc Tor - I did try arguing the need for unisex facilities for those reasons back here on page 26 and I'm pretty sure before that, because we do seem to be going round and round again. It didn't seem to wash last time because we're back discussing it again:
<snip> What is also happening is that a lot of places are being designed unisex. This enables other things, like fathers taking children to the toilet without having to take them into the men's toilets or beg a woman to take them into the ladies'. The Olympic Swimming Pool at Stratford has unisex changing rooms and the recently built local secondary school has unisex toilets, with open areas and cubicles. It means more cubicles and the loss of urinals in toilets.
@Eutychus - thinking about the Rachel Dolezal case in comparison to transgender, I believe all people with problems with their identity should receive some support to explore the issues.
I'm not sure anybody here disagrees with that.
Rachel Dolezal's case is unusual and I haven't heard of any replications, so until that becomes a recognised identity mismatch
The Wikipedia article on Rachel Dolezal to which I linked upthread says
The review of Allyson Hobbs' A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life tried to put the [Dolezal] case in a wider and historical perspective on passing.
All this aside, how far back cases of either nature date, or their incidence, does not address the philosophical and ethical question of the extent to which an individual's self-identification is their sole prerogative. @quetzalcoatl asserts, without support, that for transrace, it's a "choice", but (again, unless I'm mistaken) he seems to be saying this is absolutely not the case as regards transgender.
It is by no means clear to me why, from a philosophical perspective, Dolezal's asserted self-identity should not be de facto acknowledged if asserted trans identity is to be de facto acknowledged.
(Note I'm not saying it should never be acknowledged. I'm also not saying there isn't a difference, and I may have missed it, but I haven't seen a convincing distinction made here yet).
I would want to investigate to see if there were other things going on there.
I wholeheartedly agree, for Dolezal* as for other atypical asserted self-identities. I think that in some cases gender identity issues may be a 'presenting problem' and not the actual source of the suffering. Which presumably appropriate support will identify.
*Dolezal appears to have been "investigated": Wikipedia again: "In June 2015, psychologist Halford Fairchild said, "Rachel Dolezal is black because she identifies as black. Her identity was authentic, as far as I could tell." Fairchild appears at first glance to have a pretty legitimate CV.
Can you explain why you think Rachel Dolezal's identity is a matter of her choice, as opposed to what you are referring to here as "self ID", in which you appear to think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that the individual in question has no choice?
Sorry, know nothing about transracial, and have never met one, whereas gender variance I have come across quite a lot. But I assume that being black, for example, is genetic, although blackface isn't. Thus, I assume that Meghan Markle is mixed race, and can't change that.
There is an element of gender expression which is a choice, thus, I could choose to wear a dress, but gender identity seems different. But it is all foggy, I think, if we consider "doing gender" as another category.
Curiosity, re the long history of TG, you can also cite third gender in various cultures, e.g., hijras in India and Pakistan, although the various types (fa'fafine in Samoa), are not an exact match to TG.
Barnabas62Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
May the subject of toilet facilities be dropped since there is now general agreement that a move to unisex cubicles solves the problem? Just trying to eliminate a circle.
@Doc Tor - I did try arguing the need for unisex facilities for those reasons back here on page 26 and I'm pretty sure before that, because we do seem to be going round and round again. It didn't seem to wash last time because we're back discussing it again:
<snip> What is also happening is that a lot of places are being designed unisex. This enables other things, like fathers taking children to the toilet without having to take them into the men's toilets or beg a woman to take them into the ladies'. The Olympic Swimming Pool at Stratford has unisex changing rooms and the recently built local secondary school has unisex toilets, with open areas and cubicles. It means more cubicles and the loss of urinals in toilets.
I was simply pointing out that small, unisex cubicles are less than satisfactory for more than just those who need a carer because they have a disability. (Also, fathers taking children to the toilet in the men's is fine. Men don't tend to worry about that. Fathers having to take their children into the women's toilets to change them was the presenting problem when the torlets were tiny.)
Even if that's so (which I'm not convinced of), it raises the question of whose subjective view is the one that counts in any given situation. If it's ALL subjective then how can you say that one person is right about it and another is wrong?
Easy. As in most situations, the person who is right and whose decision must be accepted is the one who is most affected by the situation. It's about letting other people live their lives as they see fit.
[
Can you show where someone has dismissed women's fears as irrational on the Ship?
If women only spaces exclude transwomen, where do transwomen go?
From Colin earlier on this thread, in response to my question about abused women wanting single sex spaces:
If you transfer your bad experience with one person onto all persons who share characteristics with that person, then yes, you are the equivalent of a racist.
I think that there is a potential clash of rights and it's not necessarily that simple to decide on what's best to do. A lot of it might be able to be helped by structural changes. So, for instance changing toilet facilities to individual separate rooms, rather than cubicles in a big room. This will all take time and money of course, and might be difficult to do retrospectively.
I did say that such a fear is irrational, and I stand by that. But I did not dismiss it as irrational.
The answer to irrational fears is not to create safe spaces (spider-free places for arachnophobes?) but to offer therapy so people can work through irrational fears.
Incidentally, Eutychus makes an interesting point about philosophical aspects, and this seems knotty. For example, I could choose to cross-dress, and many people will accept that this is a choice. However, you could argue that the wish to cross-dress is not a choice, although acting on it is. I think that this spirals off into headaches and confusion.
Easy. As in most situations, the person who is right and whose decision must be accepted is the one who is most affected by the situation. It's about letting other people live their lives as they see fit.
A lot of people would not agree with you when it comes to Rachel Dolezal. Aside from issues relating to fraud, the way she led her life was perceived as a direct insult by a lot of other people to their own identity.
But I assume that being black, for example, is genetic
So is being male or female. XX or XY, and all that.
If you assert that someone can be genetically male but identify as (and therefore should be recognised by society as) female, then why not also assert that someone can be genetically white but identify as (and therefore should be recognised by society as) black? What's the difference?
Easy. As in most situations, the person who is right and whose decision must be accepted is the one who is most affected by the situation. It's about letting other people live their lives as they see fit.
A lot of people would not agree with you when it comes to Rachel Dolezal. Aside from issues relating to fraud, the way she led her life was perceived as a direct insult by a lot of other people to their own identity.
I'm not familiar with the Dolezal case but I think racial identity is a much bigger thing in the US than in the UK.
I think there's a distinction between people whose sense of identity is unique to them (a group which I would put myself in) and those who identify 'with' a particular group, be it on national, ethnic, religious, or cultural or whatever. I can just about see how someone who identifies with a particular group could feel that their sense of identity is threatened by someone who appears to be insulting or challenging that group identity (e.g. a Christian might feel their identity as a Christian is threatened if their church adopted something they disagreed with) but at the same time people who choose to identify with a particular group have to accept that group identity is fluid and beyond any one individual's control.
To me, however Rachel Dolezal chooses to be 'black' has absolutely no bearing on any other person's identity.
@Eutychus - I think the problem with the long history of passing as a different race is evidencing it comes across the same difficulty found in proving women living as men in earlier times were really transgender. North East Quine and I discussed this back on page 30
There are records of women living as men through history, for example .... James Barry. So this is not unknown. Historically women have been more successful at disguising themselves as men.
In the case of James Barry, assuming a male identity enabled him to rise from poverty, support his mother financially, have a career etc. With so many incentives, it is hard to assume that James Barry was transgender. Historically, there are a number of cases of women living as men in order to earn male -level wages. At a more mundane level, women writers often assumed a male name on the basis that a female name might reduce sales.
Historically, where there was a clear financial motive in a woman assuming a male identity, I would be wary of suggesting they were transgender.
quetzalcoatl: Talk of genetic identity obscures the point that gender identity is subjective. In fact, everybody does a self ID, but most people align it with sex. However, it is unclear to me how many people have a non-conforming identity, as I've talked to lots of people who don't feel purely male or female.
Quetzalcoatl, I respect your integrity and experience, but I'm not with you on this. Because an attitude is subjective it doesn't mean it's not genetically determined. I would have thought the fact that around 99 percent of the population identify with their assigned biological sex indicates a genetic link. Surely, this is not surprising from an evolutionary perspective. One would expect natural selection to favour the cis-gendered and the two sexes to be genetically wired to be aware of themselves as males and females for the purposes of reproduction.
Regarding those of non-conforming gender I would like to know what you mean by that, what they mean by that, and a great deal more about the cases you cite, particular in relation to their behaviour from a reproductive perspective.
[
Can you show where someone has dismissed women's fears as irrational on the Ship?
If women only spaces exclude transwomen, where do transwomen go?
From Colin earlier on this thread, in response to my question about abused women wanting single sex spaces:
If you transfer your bad experience with one person onto all persons who share characteristics with that person, then yes, you are the equivalent of a racist.
I think that there is a potential clash of rights and it's not necessarily that simple to decide on what's best to do. A lot of it might be able to be helped by structural changes. So, for instance changing toilet facilities to individual separate rooms, rather than cubicles in a big room. This will all take time and money of course, and might be difficult to do retrospectively.
I did say that such a fear is irrational, and I stand by that. But I did not dismiss it as irrational.
The answer to irrational fears is not to create safe spaces (spider-free places for arachnophobes?) but to offer therapy so people can work through irrational fears.
This survey showed that in Britain, men estimated that only 46% of women would experience sexual harrassment, whereas the true figure is 68%.
It would take a lot of therapy to convince women that their fears of sexual harrassment are irrational. It's a bit like permitting smoking in public places and providing therapy to those afraid of lung cancer caused by secondary smoke to help them cope with their "irrational" fears.
FWIW I've come out of a public toilet cubicle to be confronted by a man wanking at the sinks and it does leave you with a ongoing heightened sense of "is this safe?" I don't worry about it happening again, because I was 13 at the time and I'm fairly sure I was targeted because I was young, but I did worry about my daughter being targeted when she was a similar age.
And in a unisex toilet that man would have more chance of being stopped or punched by another man. But I have had men wank in front of me in a train carriage, in an underground station and at work. That last got him a formal written warning. Unpleasant men take advantages of situations wherever they find them.
quetzalcoatl: Talk of genetic identity obscures the point that gender identity is subjective. In fact, everybody does a self ID, but most people align it with sex. However, it is unclear to me how many people have a non-conforming identity, as I've talked to lots of people who don't feel purely male or female.
Quetzalcoatl, I respect your integrity and experience, but I'm not with you on this. Because an attitude is subjective it doesn't mean it's not genetically determined. I would have thought the fact that around 99 percent of the population identify with their assigned biological sex indicates a genetic link. Surely, this is not surprising from an evolutionary perspective. One would expect natural selection to favour the cis-gendered and the two sexes to be genetically wired to be aware of themselves as males and females for the purposes of reproduction.
Regarding those of non-conforming gender I would like to know what you mean by that, what they mean by that, and a great deal more about the cases you cite, particular in relation to their behaviour from a reproductive perspective.
I didn't say that it's not genetically determined. I said that it's a subjective experience, it's not either/or. As far as I can see, our knowledge about all the aspects of gender, that is, roles, expression, identity, performance, is not large. But as regards gender variance, counsellors and consultants take the client's experience as is. But this is generally the case. If you turn up and say you feel depressed, I believe you, there aren't many fakes.
@Eutychus - I think the problem with the long history of passing as a different race is evidencing it comes across the same difficulty found in proving women living as men in earlier times were really transgender.
If transgender is an innate condition there is absolutely no rational reason I can see to discount possible historic instances simply because the diagnostic tools weren't available at the time.
@North East Quine's implication is that historical cases were for financial gain. There is no denying that Dolezal gained financially from her transracial identity, but I really don't think that automatically means she is lying when she says she feels her identity is black.
And in a unisex toilet that man would have more chance of being stopped or punched by another man. But I have had men wank in front of me in a train carriage, in an underground station and at work. That last got him a formal written warning. Unpleasant men take advantages of situations wherever they find them.
Absolutely: it's not the only time a random man has wanked in front of me. My point is that Colin Smith has suggested that women who have "irrational" fears about sexual assault need therapy. Whereas most of us have had actually experience, and our fears are entirely rational.
Eutychus, bollocks to that. You fucking chopped off my post about Meghan Markle. Fuck that, what is the point of this thread if people start quote mining.
@North East Quine's implication is that historical cases were for financial gain.
May I fine tune that? I think that the historic case cited, that of James Barry, was for financial gain. And the much higher wages available to men did make financial gain an incentive. But I don't think that is true of all historic cases. Each case would have to be examined individually.
@Eutychus - I was querying whether the long history of passing as another race could indicate a history of transracial identities because the article you linked to was mainly of people categorised as black passing as white and there have been advantages to that in the USA. There's not the history of transracial identity the way there is of transgender.
I did also argue the point that transgender was neither proven nor disproved in the case of James Barry.
"But I assume that being black is genetic, for example, although blackface isn't. Thus I assume that Meghan Markle is mixed race, and can't change that".
@quetzalcoatl There were two posts. I didn't chop off anything substantial from the first one, which I've reproduced above in its entirety.
I realise now I also quoted the first part of the post in which you mentioned Meghan Markle, I'm sorry, I missed that when responding to you just now. I didn't quote the rest of your second post because I didn't have anything much to say about that part (nobody's arguing about Mecghan Markle's race), but I did have something to say about the apparent contradiction between your blanket statement in the first post I quoted - transracial is a choice - and your claimed ignorance of the subject in the second one.
May I fine tune that? I think that the historic case cited, that of James Barry, was for financial gain. And the much higher wages available to men did make financial gain an incentive. But I don't think that is true of all historic cases. Each case would have to be examined individually.
Of course. I wasn't meaning to misrepresent you, sorry. My real point was that the appeal to history, especially pre-diagnosis, is pretty moot when it comes to the philosophical question.
Especially if gender self-ID were to be presented as something about which the individual had no choice: that surely can't vary over the course of history.
Indeed. I find the “transrace” question to be very interesting in the context of people advocating self-ID as the only determinant of a persons status.
Indeed, that does cause some controversy when it comes to racial quotas. In Brazil we have quotes for black and indigenous people in universities, but most of the population is of mixed race. There are people who have african ancestors but look white. Do they apply? Some universities adopt the criteria of self identification, but there are white people identifying as black cause that makes it easier to enter university. Others adopt the criteria of phenotype, but that´s not easy with mixed race people. In fact, there has been a famous case of twin brothers of whom one was considered black and the other white.
But that´s a whole other story, since you can put whiteness and blackness in a spectrum, and many people are in between. Sex is not the same thing. There isn´t a spectrum of male and female. There are people who are biologically intersex, but that´s because they have an anomaly, not because they are in the middle of a spectrum. Just like there are people with 47 chromosomes (ex: down syndrome), but we don´t say there is a spectrum of how many chromosomes humans have. It´s 46, with anything less or more being an anomaly. Humans, like all mammals, are male or female. The existence of intersex people doesn´t make it into a spectrum, so that a person could be 90% male, 10% female, for example.
"But I assume that being black is genetic, for example, although blackface isn't. Thus I assume that Meghan Markle is mixed race, and can't change that".
Once you've done attacking Eutychus for ignoring that part of your post, maybe you'd like to answer those of us who did respond to it?
@1986_overstaged Sex is not the same thing as racial spectra, I agree entirely. I've already pointed out on this thread that the demands and aspirations of intersex people are often very different from trans people, not least because the starting point is biology.
This does not however apply to what is being called gender here. I have a trans friend and colleague who has identified seven genders, and I think they would definitely call them a spectrum.
@quetzalcoatl There were two posts. I didn't chop off anything substantial from the first one, which I've reproduced above in its entirety.
I realise now I also quoted the first part of the post in which you mentioned Meghan Markle, I'm sorry, I missed that when responding to you just now. I didn't quote the rest of your second post because I didn't have anything much to say about that part (nobody's arguing about Mecghan Markle's race), but I did have something to say about the apparent contradiction between your blanket statement in the first post I quoted - transracial is a choice - and your claimed ignorance of the subject in the second one.
Well, Meghan Markle is mixed race, although she could hide it possibly. Is transrace the same? It strikes me as blackface. (I know that transracial used to be used of adopted kids of different race).
@quetzalcoatl the fact that the target identity (race) happens to be genetically definable doesn't ipso facto say anything about whether a self-asserted transracial person sees their asserted identity as something they have a choice about.
Dolezal may well be physically in a position to cease being black at will, and I can (nearly) fully understand why a black person would find that so insulting, but I'm by no means convinced her physical ability to do so means she is psychologically able to do so, and apparently at least one leading psychologist agrees with me. I wouldn't be surprised if she considered any such injunction to be as much an assault on her identity as asking a trans person to make their gender correspond to their sex.
"But I assume that being black is genetic, for example, although blackface isn't. Thus I assume that Meghan Markle is mixed race, and can't change that".
Once you've done attacking Eutychus for ignoring that part of your post, maybe you'd like to answer those of us who did respond to it?
Well, FFS, you quote mined me as well. Why is it so common on this forum?
I don't know what you are claiming about transrace, is is mixed race, or is it like blackface, or something else? It sounds a bit like cross-dressing to me, although as I said above, we can get into difficulties over the choice involved with that.
It means chopping off a chunk of a post that is significant.
It's usual practice here to quote the part of a post one wishes to respond to in order not to have to scroll through walls of redundant text.
I don't think the part of the post I left out had any logical bearing on the part I quoted and leaving it out in no way changed the import of what you said in the part I left in.
Which was that you are now claiming no special knowledge of transracial people, having blithely asserted upthread that transracial was a choice. It's still not clear to me why you think it's a choice.
Comments
Can you show where someone has dismissed women's fears as irrational on the Ship?
If women only spaces exclude transwomen, where do transwomen go?
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
(xposted. A general observation, not directly connected to the most recent posts)
From Colin earlier on this thread, in response to my question about abused women wanting single sex spaces:
I think that there is a potential clash of rights and it's not necessarily that simple to decide on what's best to do. A lot of it might be able to be helped by structural changes. So, for instance changing toilet facilities to individual separate rooms, rather than cubicles in a big room. This will all take time and money of course, and might be difficult to do retrospectively.
Of course, this then causes difficulties for people out in public who may have need of personal assistance, i.e. transferring from wheelchair to toilet, etc.
The unisex changing rooms I know don't have lockable doors, but cubicles with curtains, both in the swimming pool and shop changing rooms. Personally I infinitely prefer individual cubicles to the free-for-all of open plan changing rooms.
Thanks for the clarification. So where does the traditional understanding of gender: masculine and feminine, fall into this conceptual framework? Presumably, nowhere.
Although I understand the distinction between SAAB and 'gender identity' understood as a consciousness of being 'male' or 'female' , ISTM the distinction is a rather nice one, and I'm curious as to its cause.
From the discussion, I gather that trans is a function of nature not nurture, and that there is a critical distinction between SAAB and gender identity. The fact that for more 99 percent of the population, more or less, the distinction is irrelevant suggests that the genetic linkage between the two is only a little less than perfect. Might one, then, hypothesise that SAAB and gender identity are a function of the same gene, but subject to aberration as is most genetical material? (I take the point, of course, that in some cases SAAB is arbitrarily assigned by a physician. Nor do I draw any inference from my questions as to how one addresses the condition).
@quetzalcoatl, Rachel Dolezal asserts she has a non-conforming identity. You say that this is a choice.
Can you explain why you think Rachel Dolezal's identity is a matter of her choice, as opposed to what you are referring to here as "self ID", in which you appear to think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that the individual in question has no choice?
SAAB is another of these phrases that seems to have entered the lexicography without much thought for how it is applied. It was coined for people with DSDs where doctors often did choose to assign a sex when it wasn't clear which sex the person was (and there were often procedures carried out to enforce as such, which was pretty awful if the person then identified opposite to how they were assigned). But for the vast majority of people sex isn't assigned, it is observed. (Unless of course, you think that sex itself is a construct, which some people do).
In terms of genetics, there probably are effects that make it more likely that someone is trans. But, similar to the 'gay gene', I'd be surprised if it was anything like as simple as an on/off type switch. Development in the womb is likely to play a large part (as it does for DSDs), and social development too.
The brain is really interesting in that it is pretty 'plastic' in how it responds to development, and the sex differences are much less important than how what you do effects it. The sex differences often quoted are much less dimorphic than other sex characteristics - e.g. the hypothalamus is on average twice the size in men than women, but for a lot of men have a hypothalamus about the same size as the average female one.
There is a long history of transgender; the first transpeople to have surgery were in the 1930s, transpeople have been prescibed hormone treatment since the 1940s. It's not new. There are decades of experience in recognising a mismatch between sex assigned at birth and gender identity in individuals. Rachel Dolezal's case is unusual and I haven't heard of any replications, so until that becomes a recognised identity mismatch, I would want to investigate to see if there were other things going on there.
@Doc Tor - I did try arguing the need for unisex facilities for those reasons back here on page 26 and I'm pretty sure before that, because we do seem to be going round and round again. It didn't seem to wash last time because we're back discussing it again:
The Wikipedia article on Rachel Dolezal to which I linked upthread says There is obviously a long history of 'passing'.
All this aside, how far back cases of either nature date, or their incidence, does not address the philosophical and ethical question of the extent to which an individual's self-identification is their sole prerogative. @quetzalcoatl asserts, without support, that for transrace, it's a "choice", but (again, unless I'm mistaken) he seems to be saying this is absolutely not the case as regards transgender.
It is by no means clear to me why, from a philosophical perspective, Dolezal's asserted self-identity should not be de facto acknowledged if asserted trans identity is to be de facto acknowledged.
(Note I'm not saying it should never be acknowledged. I'm also not saying there isn't a difference, and I may have missed it, but I haven't seen a convincing distinction made here yet).
I wholeheartedly agree, for Dolezal* as for other atypical asserted self-identities. I think that in some cases gender identity issues may be a 'presenting problem' and not the actual source of the suffering. Which presumably appropriate support will identify.
*Dolezal appears to have been "investigated": Wikipedia again: "In June 2015, psychologist Halford Fairchild said, "Rachel Dolezal is black because she identifies as black. Her identity was authentic, as far as I could tell." Fairchild appears at first glance to have a pretty legitimate CV.
Sorry, know nothing about transracial, and have never met one, whereas gender variance I have come across quite a lot. But I assume that being black, for example, is genetic, although blackface isn't. Thus, I assume that Meghan Markle is mixed race, and can't change that.
There is an element of gender expression which is a choice, thus, I could choose to wear a dress, but gender identity seems different. But it is all foggy, I think, if we consider "doing gender" as another category.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
I was simply pointing out that small, unisex cubicles are less than satisfactory for more than just those who need a carer because they have a disability. (Also, fathers taking children to the toilet in the men's is fine. Men don't tend to worry about that. Fathers having to take their children into the women's toilets to change them was the presenting problem when the torlets were tiny.)
(Dammit. X-post with B62. I'll drop it.)
Easy. As in most situations, the person who is right and whose decision must be accepted is the one who is most affected by the situation. It's about letting other people live their lives as they see fit.
I did say that such a fear is irrational, and I stand by that. But I did not dismiss it as irrational.
The answer to irrational fears is not to create safe spaces (spider-free places for arachnophobes?) but to offer therapy so people can work through irrational fears.
So is being male or female. XX or XY, and all that.
If you assert that someone can be genetically male but identify as (and therefore should be recognised by society as) female, then why not also assert that someone can be genetically white but identify as (and therefore should be recognised by society as) black? What's the difference?
I'm not familiar with the Dolezal case but I think racial identity is a much bigger thing in the US than in the UK.
I think there's a distinction between people whose sense of identity is unique to them (a group which I would put myself in) and those who identify 'with' a particular group, be it on national, ethnic, religious, or cultural or whatever. I can just about see how someone who identifies with a particular group could feel that their sense of identity is threatened by someone who appears to be insulting or challenging that group identity (e.g. a Christian might feel their identity as a Christian is threatened if their church adopted something they disagreed with) but at the same time people who choose to identify with a particular group have to accept that group identity is fluid and beyond any one individual's control.
To me, however Rachel Dolezal chooses to be 'black' has absolutely no bearing on any other person's identity.
Wow, all this quote mining. Why did you chop off the rest of my post, Meghan Markle, etc?
Quetzalcoatl, I respect your integrity and experience, but I'm not with you on this. Because an attitude is subjective it doesn't mean it's not genetically determined. I would have thought the fact that around 99 percent of the population identify with their assigned biological sex indicates a genetic link. Surely, this is not surprising from an evolutionary perspective. One would expect natural selection to favour the cis-gendered and the two sexes to be genetically wired to be aware of themselves as males and females for the purposes of reproduction.
Regarding those of non-conforming gender I would like to know what you mean by that, what they mean by that, and a great deal more about the cases you cite, particular in relation to their behaviour from a reproductive perspective.
https://theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/06/men-underestimate-level-of-sexual-harassment-against-women-survey
This survey showed that in Britain, men estimated that only 46% of women would experience sexual harrassment, whereas the true figure is 68%.
It would take a lot of therapy to convince women that their fears of sexual harrassment are irrational. It's a bit like permitting smoking in public places and providing therapy to those afraid of lung cancer caused by secondary smoke to help them cope with their "irrational" fears.
FWIW I've come out of a public toilet cubicle to be confronted by a man wanking at the sinks and it does leave you with a ongoing heightened sense of "is this safe?" I don't worry about it happening again, because I was 13 at the time and I'm fairly sure I was targeted because I was young, but I did worry about my daughter being targeted when she was a similar age.
I didn't say that it's not genetically determined. I said that it's a subjective experience, it's not either/or. As far as I can see, our knowledge about all the aspects of gender, that is, roles, expression, identity, performance, is not large. But as regards gender variance, counsellors and consultants take the client's experience as is. But this is generally the case. If you turn up and say you feel depressed, I believe you, there aren't many fakes.
@North East Quine's implication is that historical cases were for financial gain. There is no denying that Dolezal gained financially from her transracial identity, but I really don't think that automatically means she is lying when she says she feels her identity is black.
I'm not "quote mining". You've got the wrong post. I'm quoting your first answer to my question about Dolezal, which in its entirety, reads thus: Are you wanting to retract any of that?
Absolutely: it's not the only time a random man has wanked in front of me. My point is that Colin Smith has suggested that women who have "irrational" fears about sexual assault need therapy. Whereas most of us have had actually experience, and our fears are entirely rational.
May I fine tune that? I think that the historic case cited, that of James Barry, was for financial gain. And the much higher wages available to men did make financial gain an incentive. But I don't think that is true of all historic cases. Each case would have to be examined individually.
I did also argue the point that transgender was neither proven nor disproved in the case of James Barry.
"But I assume that being black is genetic, for example, although blackface isn't. Thus I assume that Meghan Markle is mixed race, and can't change that".
I realise now I also quoted the first part of the post in which you mentioned Meghan Markle, I'm sorry, I missed that when responding to you just now. I didn't quote the rest of your second post because I didn't have anything much to say about that part (nobody's arguing about Mecghan Markle's race), but I did have something to say about the apparent contradiction between your blanket statement in the first post I quoted - transracial is a choice - and your claimed ignorance of the subject in the second one.
Especially if gender self-ID were to be presented as something about which the individual had no choice: that surely can't vary over the course of history.
Indeed, that does cause some controversy when it comes to racial quotas. In Brazil we have quotes for black and indigenous people in universities, but most of the population is of mixed race. There are people who have african ancestors but look white. Do they apply? Some universities adopt the criteria of self identification, but there are white people identifying as black cause that makes it easier to enter university. Others adopt the criteria of phenotype, but that´s not easy with mixed race people. In fact, there has been a famous case of twin brothers of whom one was considered black and the other white.
But that´s a whole other story, since you can put whiteness and blackness in a spectrum, and many people are in between. Sex is not the same thing. There isn´t a spectrum of male and female. There are people who are biologically intersex, but that´s because they have an anomaly, not because they are in the middle of a spectrum. Just like there are people with 47 chromosomes (ex: down syndrome), but we don´t say there is a spectrum of how many chromosomes humans have. It´s 46, with anything less or more being an anomaly. Humans, like all mammals, are male or female. The existence of intersex people doesn´t make it into a spectrum, so that a person could be 90% male, 10% female, for example.
Once you've done attacking Eutychus for ignoring that part of your post, maybe you'd like to answer those of us who did respond to it?
This does not however apply to what is being called gender here. I have a trans friend and colleague who has identified seven genders, and I think they would definitely call them a spectrum.
Well, Meghan Markle is mixed race, although she could hide it possibly. Is transrace the same? It strikes me as blackface. (I know that transracial used to be used of adopted kids of different race).
Dolezal may well be physically in a position to cease being black at will, and I can (nearly) fully understand why a black person would find that so insulting, but I'm by no means convinced her physical ability to do so means she is psychologically able to do so, and apparently at least one leading psychologist agrees with me. I wouldn't be surprised if she considered any such injunction to be as much an assault on her identity as asking a trans person to make their gender correspond to their sex.
Well, FFS, you quote mined me as well. Why is it so common on this forum?
I don't know what you are claiming about transrace, is is mixed race, or is it like blackface, or something else? It sounds a bit like cross-dressing to me, although as I said above, we can get into difficulties over the choice involved with that.
That's like saying transgender is just dressing up as someone of the other sex.
It means chopping off a chunk of a post that is significant.
Well, some people say that.
I don't think the part of the post I left out had any logical bearing on the part I quoted and leaving it out in no way changed the import of what you said in the part I left in.
Which was that you are now claiming no special knowledge of transracial people, having blithely asserted upthread that transracial was a choice. It's still not clear to me why you think it's a choice.