Epiphanies 2019: TERFs, gender, sex, etc.

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  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    q--

    I'm not challenging anyone. Just saying that, to me, it's understandable if the reasons and circumstances are what I suggested.
    It is under the guise of "understandable" that transphobia is being promulgated.
  • I know a young woman who is 6'2, flat-chested, and wears a tightly-cropped haircut. She has been physically accosted going into the ladies' room in a restaurant. Needless to say, this sort of thing has got to stop.
    In effect, banning trans people from various facilities is to ban them from public life. I don't think Trump or any right wing leader would do that, at the moment. Odd link, isn't it, the right wing with some feminists.

    Origin of the phrase, "politics makes strange bedfellows."
    But for this statement to have any meaning, we have to agree on what a woman is. Women are people who see themselves as women is tautological, and meaningless. You could replace "Women" with "Jabberwocks" and it would be just as helpful. Which is why you end up having to tie it to the idea that most people are cis, in order to remove the degeneracy.

    And yet when the ship has tried to define what a Christian is, this is what we always end up with.

  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Data suggest that neither rest rooms nor strangers are the primary problem. 90% of those raped in the U.K. report having known the perpetrator before the offence.
  • Agreeing on what a woman is is a long walk. OK, a female adult human, now what is female? You can go down the biological route, genitals, chromosomes, etc., but is that what a woman is for you? You related to your mother as a set of genitals? You have overlapping factors, such as biological, sociological, reproductive, historical, existential. Now what?
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    [redacted]It's ironic that changing rooms near me have been unisex for decades, not because of trans, I think.

    I would guess [redacted] wanted trans people to use single user / disabled facilities (cf. trans kids in schools being asked to change for gym in the nurse's office or somewhere)
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    Golden Key: I'm thinking about your comments, and hopefully reflecting fairly on them.

    "Understandable" is a word for one-on-one human relationships. ISTM that's one way you are speculating possibilities [redacted]

    "Reasonable" is a word for public policy, and that is mostly (I think) what we as Shipmates can discuss productively. What is reasonable public policy concerning trans people and public washrooms? AFAIC it's reasonable to expect trans people and cis people to behave in reasonable ways in a public bathroom: keep your hands and your unkind opinions to yourself, and wash your hands on the way out.

    Confusing "understandable" and "reasonable" is problematic for public policy.

    If someone is assaulted with a rolling pin, it may be triggering for them to see a rolling pin (understandable) but not therefore to make The Great British Bake-Off illegal (not reasonable as public policy).
  • mousethief wrote: »
    And yet when the ship has tried to define what a Christian is, this is what we always end up with.

    No, I don't think it is. Our collective definition of "Christian" remains anchored to Jesus Christ. Sure, we have problems defining the boundaries, and haven't done better than "you're a Christian if you think you are" out in the fringes, but the core definition of "Christian" remains anchored to Christ. That's what gives the word meaning.

    The same argument goes for women. You need to anchor the word "woman" to something to make it mean anything, and the thing that we anchor it to is cis women. And then we can say "you're a woman if you think you're a woman", but that only has meaning if "woman" is anchored to the majority of people with female biology. Otherwise it's just a word adrift in space.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    And yet when the ship has tried to define what a Christian is, this is what we always end up with.

    No, I don't think it is. Our collective definition of "Christian" remains anchored to Jesus Christ. Sure, we have problems defining the boundaries, and haven't done better than "you're a Christian if you think you are" out in the fringes, but the core definition of "Christian" remains anchored to Christ. That's what gives the word meaning.

    The same argument goes for women. You need to anchor the word "woman" to something to make it mean anything, and the thing that we anchor it to is cis women. And then we can say "you're a woman if you think you're a woman", but that only has meaning if "woman" is anchored to the majority of people with female biology. Otherwise it's just a word adrift in space.
    There is little likelyhood of the word drifting in space. The majority of women fit within the narrow, outdated definition and this is highly unlikely to change. Expanding the understanding does not threaten them or the word.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    There is little likelyhood of the word drifting in space. The majority of women fit within the narrow, outdated definition and this is highly unlikely to change. Expanding the understanding does not threaten them or the word.

    Yes, that's my point. The word is anchored to cis women, because they are the vast majority of women, and so the statement "I am a woman, because I think I am a woman" by a trans woman has meaning, and isn't just a tautology.

  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited August 2020
    [redacted]

  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    [redacted]

  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    edited August 2020
    I am also a sexual abuse survivor and that has nothing at all to do with any trans person and [redacted] abuser, like mine, was a cis het male. [redacted]. It's actually very very hard for young trans people to get medical help and not the reverse.

    This amounts to demonisation of a tiny vulnerable minority of women - transwomen. [redacted]

    Transwomen are far more at risk of being assaulted than cis women like me and they are greatly in need of being able to use women's toilets or changing rooms safely and not to be exposed to male abuse. The research on this is very clear - they are the people who are at additional risk of assault, [redacted] They are much more likely to be assaulted by men than we are.

    [redacted]

    And here we are again, talking about a harmless tiny minority of people in terms of potential sexual abusers in bathrooms... This is dehumanising and stigmatising. Remember those Nazi films that worked by associating Jews with rats and other vermin in sewers and slums? Remember the not very-dearly-departed former shipmate whose game was to keep mentioning gay people in the same breath as paedophiles? His ploy was to insinuate that any equality for gay people would lead to an increased paedophile threat. This is a similar trope.

    Personally, I think it's time we stopped giving this very stinky 'dead cat' houseroom
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy

    Just talking about it in these terms [redacted] too easily makes us complicit in dehumanising and othering transwomen.

    Can we change the dead cat's litter tray, please?
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    edited August 2020
    PS. Magdalen Berns [redacted] spread anti-semitic George Soros conspiracy theories among other things. I would be careful of taking [redacted] characterisations of others at face value.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    @Louise - Thanks for the new term!
    Golden Key wrote: »
    [redacted]

    [redacted]
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    A week after I was raped I heard what I thought was a male voice in the women's toilet in the bus exchange. My first reaction was fear, then anger and I marched out determined to do battle. I recognised the woman who was a colleague of a friend and had very recently transitioned (in her 50s). I took a deep breath and made some comment about the weather.

    I think after that I had a glimmer of how much easier life is for me as a cis woman.
  • ArgonaArgona Shipmate Posts: 17
    edited August 2020
    Well, I think [redacted] want a stable world, where men are men, and women are women. It's understandable.
    KarlLB wrote: »
    .
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    With respect, marsupial, you give too much credit.
    Feminists have fought against gender essentialism and some are now clinging to it to deny trans rights. TERFs are not holding onto old theories, they adopting the theories of the enemy.
    This does not smack of lack of understanding so much as hostility.
    Been trying to think how to best articulate this.

    IME, many TERFs seem to be motivated by a belief that affirming Trans identity means accepting gender essentialism. They appear to think that if a person with male genitalia claims to be a woman, that person is appealing to an essential woman-ness that goes beyond physical plumbing. Hence their appeal to plumbing to deny Trans identity as it that objective observation is the only one they deem valid.

    They then tend to turn to gender rôles, and the hypothesis then is that gender is socially defined and therefore Transwomen should rather accept themselves as men who don't adhere to social gender norms.


    When TERFs want to tell trans-women who they ‘really’ are, and what they should have done about it, they can seem to have someone like me in mind. Though I identify as non-binary, I do wonder if that’s the right way to put it. In my temperament and dispositions I’ve always felt an identity with women that’s confirmed to me by so much, mostly good though some things not so good.

    However, one way I differ from a trans-woman is that I’m content to be biologically male, a man with an atypically gendered mind, which I express in my appearance but trans-women experience something more, they are women. Kindred perhaps to someone like me, but not the same. The TERFs don’t get that, or don’t want to.

    As for a bathroom law, I wouldn’t think of using a women’s toilet because I am male, and visibly so to anyone paying attention. At the men’s, going in the way I look, it’s not unusual to hear a ‘wrong toilet, love’ from someone, to which I’ll grin an ‘actually, no’ and disappear quickly, as always, into a cubicle. I’ve come to no harm like that so far, but have had frightening enough moments elsewhere for the risk to be always in my mind. For a trans-woman, quite apart from her feelings at being in a men’s toilet at all, an assault would be so much more likely – but what else could she do? Piss in a gutter, never go out, or maybe just die? It’s gold-standard vindictiveness.

  • KarlLB wrote: »

    Sad but not surprising given what I have seen from TERFS, and heard about them from trans people I know.
  • "Large gametes" is the jargon now among terfs, in other words eggs, produced by many female animals, and small gametes for sperm. You see, this is truly scientificalistic, and proves that terfery is correct. We have mathematically proven that women carry eggs, and trans women don't, so bigotry is holy.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    God I hate when people use "science" to bolster their claims whilst ignoring real science.
  • It doesn't help it when you have bat-sh*t-crazy self proclaimed "trans activists" on twitter talking about how "genital preference" is trans-phobic and so a trans-women with a penis being rejected as a sexual partner by a cis-lesbian is transphobic.

    At first I thought it was an alt-right parody account, but apparently not!!
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    It doesn't help it when you have bat-sh*t-crazy self proclaimed "trans activists" on twitter talking about how "genital preference" is trans-phobic and so a trans-women with a penis being rejected as a sexual partner by a cis-lesbian is transphobic.

    At first I thought it was an alt-right parody account, but apparently not!!
    I don't think that group are part of the TERF issue.
  • It doesn't help it when you have bat-sh*t-crazy self proclaimed "trans activists" on twitter talking about how "genital preference" is trans-phobic and so a trans-women with a penis being rejected as a sexual partner by a cis-lesbian is transphobic.

    At first I thought it was an alt-right parody account, but apparently not!!

    What does "it doesn't help it" mean?
  • What does "it doesn't help it" mean?

    I suppose that it's harder to convince the mainstream not to be transphobic if "not being transphobic" has to include not minding what sort of genitals your sexual partner has.

  • What does "it doesn't help it" mean?

    I suppose that it's harder to convince the mainstream not to be transphobic if "not being transphobic" has to include not minding what sort of genitals your sexual partner has.

    Yes, it's quite convoluted. That seems extreme to me, and trying to legislate for personal preferences. I don't want to fuck a man, does that make me homophobic?
  • Yes, it's quite convoluted. That seems extreme to me, and trying to legislate for personal preferences. I don't want to fuck a man, does that make me homophobic?

    We had a poster on the ship who put forward the view that you shouldn't care about your partner's genitals. Their perspective was that if you were a straight man, then you claimed potential sexual interest in women. But if you reject a trans woman as a potential partner not because of anything about her character, looks, or whatever, but merely because she has a penis, then your revealed position is that trans women with penes aren't "real women", and that is transphobic. (Because the only reason that you're not considering a relationship with this woman is her penis.)

    It is a fact that a number of trans women have become victims of assault from potential male partners who have just found out that the woman that they have been getting intimate with has a penis, been disgusted by this, and chosen to beat the woman up because of it.

    But I think there's a lot of middle ground between "it's OK to beat up a woman if you get off with her and then find out she's got a penis" and "you mustn't care whether she has a penis".
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    I would not want a woman with a penis in my bed. I have reasons, one is memories of assault and the other is that I've never like peni. Thing is, I'm not sure if this isn't a little transphobic. If I accept gender identity, then a woman with a penis who likes women is a lesbian. Attraction is a variable and sometimes odd thing. It is often mixed with prejudices, though not all of them are clear in origin. The man who only dates Asian women, liking ginger-haired people, not liking ginger-haired people, preference for or against tallness, etc. are all prejudices.
    I'm not saying everyone should be attracted to anyone else, but that we have a lot more going on subconsciously than we like to think.
    Whilst we should not assume transphobia because of a preference, we cannot rule it out either.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    The man who only dates Asian women, liking ginger-haired people, not liking ginger-haired people, preference for or against tallness, etc. are all prejudices.

    Sure, but are they fundamentally different kinds of prejudices from the man who only dates women, or the man who only dates men? It is conventional to think that they are, but is that actually true?

  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    I think there's a difference between prejudices and irreducible "I'm attracted to this and not to that" considerations. If you refuse to date blondes because you think they're all dumb, then you're under the influence of a prejudice that's simply factually wrong. If you happen to know/like/respect a number of blondes but still are more attracted to brunettes, I don't think anyone can say you're "wrong" for that preference. These are mostly very personal decisions, and it's unfortunate that some people seem to want to politicize them.

    The thing I remember about the earlier thread on the old Ship is that some people thought they could never maintain an attraction to another individual once they discovered they were trans, even (say) for someone who had lived as the gender they identify as since childhood, never experienced the "wrong" puberty, and had since fully transitioned . Without ever denying that these things are highly personal, I wonder if there may be a prejudice (or if you prefer, a mistake) lurking there.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The man who only dates Asian women, liking ginger-haired people, not liking ginger-haired people, preference for or against tallness, etc. are all prejudices.

    Sure, but are they fundamentally different kinds of prejudices from the man who only dates women, or the man who only dates men? It is conventional to think that they are, but is that actually true?
    Homosexuality/heterosexuality are not prejudices as there is no innate behaviour to associate with either. The preference for a racial group is by definition pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic.

  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    Marsupial wrote: »
    I think there's a difference between prejudices and irreducible "I'm attracted to this and not to that" considerations. If you refuse to date blondes because you think they're all dumb, then you're under the influence of a prejudice that's simply factually wrong. If you happen to know/like/respect a number of blondes but still are more attracted to brunettes, I don't think anyone can say you're "wrong" for that preference. These are mostly very personal decisions, and it's unfortunate that some people seem to want to politicize them.
    It is not politicising preference to acknowledge there can be prejudice in it.

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    The preference for a racial group is by definition pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic.

    Really? If I find a particular skin tone, hair colour, or whatever attractive, that's "pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic", but finding a particular gender attractive isn't?

    Women of a particular racial background have an identifiable group characteristic, but there's no identifiable difference between the group "women" and the group "men"?

    I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The preference for a racial group is by definition pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic.

    Really? If I find a particular skin tone, hair colour, or whatever attractive, that's "pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic", but finding a particular gender attractive isn't?

    Women of a particular racial background have an identifiable group characteristic, but there's no identifiable difference between the group "women" and the group "men"?

    I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
    That which fuels sexual preference is biological. Find the blonde preference gene and we'll talk.
  • It struck me that the TERF position is a conspiracy theory. I happened to be reading about satanic child abuse, about which there were various panics in the 1980s, and some feminists got embroiled in that. But there are parallels to terfdom, covert villains who are out to get the vulnerable. It's fantasy. Of course, child abuse isn't, and men attacking women isn't.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited July 2020
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The preference for a racial group is by definition pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic.

    Really? If I find a particular skin tone, hair colour, or whatever attractive, that's "pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic", but finding a particular gender attractive isn't?

    Women of a particular racial background have an identifiable group characteristic, but there's no identifiable difference between the group "women" and the group "men"?

    I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
    That which fuels sexual preference is biological. Find the blonde preference gene and we'll talk.

    This is quite illogical and an invocation of 'biological' without unpacking what it means. There is no "gay gene", and so asking for a "blonde preference gene" is asking for an equivalent to something that doesn't exist.

    It also equates "sexual preference" with nothing more than gender preference. Which is just all sorts of problematic. Straight guys believing that gay guys simply MUST find them attractive is a factor in straight guys feeling justified in attacking gay guys.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    Speaking of 'biological', I'm always a bit mystified that biology seems to not include the brain.

    I'm actually inclined to the view that being transgender has a biological basis, but I don't see how people conclude from that that biology below the neck is more important than biology above it.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Speaking of 'biological', I'm always a bit mystified that biology seems to not include the brain.

    I'm actually inclined to the view that being transgender has a biological basis, but I don't see how people conclude from that that biology below the neck is more important than biology above it.

    I keep waiting for a discovery that will show a biological basis, partly because the people I've met who are non-binary or trans or non-conforming struck me as ineluctably so. One of my old friends described himself as female, although he didn't object to being called he, but in 40 years of knowing him, I never saw any shift from this position. Of course, this could be my confirmation bias or other error.
  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    orfeo wrote: »
    Speaking of 'biological', I'm always a bit mystified that biology seems to not include the brain.

    I'm actually inclined to the view that being transgender has a biological basis, but I don't see how people conclude from that that biology below the neck is more important than biology above it.

    I keep waiting for a discovery that will show a biological basis, partly because the people I've met who are non-binary or trans or non-conforming struck me as ineluctably so. One of my old friends described himself as female, although he didn't object to being called he, but in 40 years of knowing him, I never saw any shift from this position. Of course, this could be my confirmation bias or other error.

    Well, I don't know that I'd expect a clear and easy discovery any time soon, any more than we got one when it came to homosexuality (and it was fascinating how the best study on homosexuality was reported, in as much as any media reporting of science is 'fascinating' rather than 'bang your head against the wall in frustration').

    Because I doubt that gender identity is any less complex than sexuality.

    Genetics and epigenetics and neuroscience are all making great strides, but the brain is an insanely tricky thing and not that easy to study. There are all sorts of conditions and states where we don't have that great an understanding of what is going on in there.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    That which fuels sexual preference is biological. Find the blonde preference gene and we'll talk.

    Is it? Here is a nature article from last year.
    Ganna and his colleagues also used the analysis to estimate that up to 25% of sexual behaviour can be explained by genetics, with the rest influenced by environmental and cultural factors.

    In other words, at least 75% of sexual orientation has no genetic correlation.

    But genetics is a red herring, I think. Biology is much more than genetics.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The preference for a racial group is by definition pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic.

    Really? If I find a particular skin tone, hair colour, or whatever attractive, that's "pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic", but finding a particular gender attractive isn't?

    Women of a particular racial background have an identifiable group characteristic, but there's no identifiable difference between the group "women" and the group "men"?

    I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
    That which fuels sexual preference is biological. Find the blonde preference gene and we'll talk.

    This is quite illogical and an invocation of 'biological' without unpacking what it means. There is no "gay gene", and so asking for a "blonde preference gene" is asking for an equivalent to something that doesn't exist.
    Yeah, we need pedantry here. Sexual orientation is biological, preference for blonde is very unlikely to be.


  • orfeoorfeo Suspended
    edited July 2020
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The preference for a racial group is by definition pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic.

    Really? If I find a particular skin tone, hair colour, or whatever attractive, that's "pre judging individuals by a supposed group characteristic", but finding a particular gender attractive isn't?

    Women of a particular racial background have an identifiable group characteristic, but there's no identifiable difference between the group "women" and the group "men"?

    I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
    That which fuels sexual preference is biological. Find the blonde preference gene and we'll talk.

    This is quite illogical and an invocation of 'biological' without unpacking what it means. There is no "gay gene", and so asking for a "blonde preference gene" is asking for an equivalent to something that doesn't exist.
    Yeah, we need pedantry here. Sexual orientation is biological, preference for blonde is very unlikely to be.

    And your basis for saying this is... what, exactly? Your overall sense of justice and how things ought to be? Not exactly scientific.

    I repeat, there is no gay gene. You've just been provided with a link to an article that summarises the best research on sexuality. I don't know what you mean by 'biological' because you think expecting you to unpack it is 'pedantry', but if you think that it's a synonym for genetic than you're engaging in a gross over-simplification.

    Which wouldn't be so bad if you weren't then attempting to use it to tell other people how they're engaging in prejudice.

    We DO need pedantry. Because science is pedantic. You don't get to misrepresent the science and then claim that attempting to correct it is 'pedantry'. That's nothing more than claiming that you don't have to have things right before telling other people that they're wrong.

    As the person who went down the route of distinguishing one thing as 'biological' and another thing as 'prejudice', it IS up to you to get the science right. Otherwise your opinion has no factual foundation.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    An announcer on our ABC is a trans-man, having transitioned over the last few years. He spoke very movingly about 9.30 this morning of the realisation that he was really a man, how he now feels and the general process. Worth listening to if you can get it - ABC Classic FM.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    "Large gametes" is the jargon now among terfs, in other words eggs, produced by many female animals, and small gametes for sperm. You see, this is truly scientificalistic, and proves that terfery is correct. We have mathematically proven that women carry eggs, and trans women don't, so bigotry is holy.

    Never mind that many women who are (struggling for term; sorry!) "biologically 'normal', as expected" have problems with their reproductive plumbing, and might not qualify, either. Throughout history, many of them have felt or been made to feel inadequate, broken, less than, not truly women, etc. So the "carry eggs" distinction is apt to unnecessarily hurt people on all sides, however they define/experience themselves.

    Again, sorry for any miswording. Struggling.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited July 2020
    It struck me that the TERF position is a conspiracy theory. I happened to be reading about satanic child abuse, about which there were various panics in the 1980s, and some feminists got embroiled in that. But there are parallels to terfdom, covert villains who are out to get the vulnerable. It's fantasy. Of course, child abuse isn't, and men attacking women isn't.

    But there are some who do. To just say, "it's so rare that if you think that it's transpobic", is akin to "child abuse by [insert choice group; priests, teachers, women etc] is so rare that you are unreasonable in expressing fear".

    If trans people are defacto above suspicion then I would expect more and more depraved men to (likely) pretend or even live out as trans, just as in the past they may have become priests, teachers and policemen. I believe it's happened a number of times in jails in the UK already.

    Google Jessica Yaniv for a (probably) non-criminal missuse of a trans person's rights.

    Do something to address (potentially legitimate) fears. Maybe stronger prison sentences, revoking trans status of trans women who sexually assault cis-women etc. Not just say "so rare, why talk about it terf" and there will be a lot more traction, and less chance of backlash from the general public.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    You treat transwomen who sexually assault cis-women the same as any other sexually abusive woman. The prison problem isn't transwomen; it's sexually abusive women being given access to potential victims.
  • Golden KeyGolden Key Shipmate, Glory
    edited July 2020
    I think one factor in reactions by non-trans people to anyone trans is that most people have never met a trans person, knowingly or unknowingly. AIUI, they're pretty rare around the world (Daily Dot). Some non-trans folks might not even know that transgender exists--or may think it even more rare than it is. Not everyone has the same education (in a loose, general sense), or the opportunities to know and learn.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited July 2020
    KarlLB wrote: »
    You treat transwomen who sexually assault cis-women the same as any other sexually abusive woman. The prison problem isn't transwomen; it's sexually abusive women being given access to potential victims.

    But there clearly is a difference between sexually abusive cis and (pre-op) trans women as sexually abusive (pre op) trans women have a penis to sexually abuse with.

    Shock, horror: hardened criminals might not be the best people to take at face value for their sudden revealing of their new gender status. Especially if they are jailed for raping women. Especially if that new gender status puts them in a building full of women.
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    I think one factor in reactions by non-trans people to anyone trans is that most people have never met a trans person, knowingly or unknowingly. AIUI, they're pretty rare around the world (Daily Dot). Some non-trans folks might not even know that transgender exists--or may think it even more rare than it is. Not everyone has the same education (in a loose, general sense), or the opportunities to know and learn.

    You may be right about knowingly. I would guess that most people have met at least one trans person, even if unknowingly, at some point in their lives. I grew up in a fairly middle-of-the-road middle class family and by the time I was 18 I had met at least two people whom I later learned to be trans.

  • KarlLB wrote: »
    You treat transwomen who sexually assault cis-women the same as any other sexually abusive woman. The prison problem isn't transwomen; it's sexually abusive women being given access to potential victims.

    But there clearly is a difference between sexually abusive cis and (pre-op) trans women as sexually abusive (pre op) trans women have a penis to sexually abuse with.

    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that for the victims the means of abuse are rather less important than the fact of it. What should happen is that a risk assessment should be carried out and, if necessary, sexually abusive female prisoners should be kept separate from other inmates. Presumably there are measures in place to similarly risk-assess men who abuse men who are held in prison, or is prison rape only a problem when it's trans-woman on cis-woman?
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    Shock, horror: hardened criminals might not be the best people to take at face value for their sudden revealing of their new gender status. Especially if they are jailed for raping women. Especially if that new gender status puts them in a building full of women.

    Sure, but what we were talking about was generalized suspicion of all trans women. I don't understand how you get from here to there.

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