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Epiphanies 2019: TERFs, gender, sex, etc.

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  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    As I said previously, I think it is a mix of psychology. Certainly some of the abused child kicking the puppy in turn, but I think it is a broader problem. For one, the idea that one oppressed group should have sympathy for another seems intuitive, but history shows this is not true. Some of the TERFs will simply be bigots. Some will be not wishing to share the attention. Especially since feminist goals have not been completely met. "Why are we worrying about them when we haven't sorted out things for us?"
    There is another factor that doesn't put TERFs in a great light and that is collaboration. First wave American Feminism collaborated with racist groups (especially in the South) to suppress black voting in order to get support for female suffrage.
    ISTM, there are a number of reasons some feminists resist trans-rights. Just not any good ones.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    As I said previously, I think it is a mix of psychology. Certainly some of the abused child kicking the puppy in turn, but I think it is a broader problem. For one, the idea that one oppressed group should have sympathy for another seems intuitive, but history shows this is not true. Some of the TERFs will simply be bigots. Some will be not wishing to share the attention. Especially since feminist goals have not been completely met. "Why are we worrying about them when we haven't sorted out things for us?"
    There is another factor that doesn't put TERFs in a great light and that is collaboration. First wave American Feminism collaborated with racist groups (especially in the South) to suppress black voting in order to get support for female suffrage.
    ISTM, there are a number of reasons some feminists resist trans-rights. Just not any good ones.

    With you 100%. Once anyone has tasted bigotry and oppression, you would think they would not only never forget the bitter taste but also develop a greater empathy for others. But there seem to be walls in some minds to prevent that. "Me first" does seem to get in the way of the expected empathy. I understand that response in my mind, but I don't get it emotionally. It's a bad blind spot.

    Plus of course the fact that some experiences are deeper and longer lasting than others.
  • MarsupialMarsupial Shipmate
    I think some of what we are seeing in trans-hostile feminism is a reflection of the fact that a lot of theorizing about gender happened before anyone was taking transgender experience seriously or thinking that you might need to understand it in order to understand gender properly. Which gave rise in many cases to thinking about gender that did not square well with what trans and non-binary people report about about trans and non-binary experience.

    I spent a few years teaching philosophy of science in a previous professional life and one of the topics we covered was how scientific opinion changes. One of the recurring themes was that no one throws out an entire theory just because it's contradicted by one observation, and sometimes people hold on to their favourite theories long after it seems reasonable to do so. I think we may be seeing some of that with an older generation of gender theorists, which fortunately seems to be going by the wayside with generational change.

  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    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.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    .
    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.

    This is bollocks as far as I can see, of course. I have no interest in sports, have an active dislike of football, consider cars to be entirely utilitarian and have disliked the aggressive toxic masculinity so common in our society since I first experienced it at the age of four. Throughout my childhood I was abused by my peers as a "sissy", a "woman", and "queer", despite being exclusively heterosexual in my attractions. None of this makes me feel in any way anything other than a man. Gender identity clearly is not about conformity to societal norms. But that seems to this bear of little brain (who is neither a woman nor trans) where they're coming from.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Trans people exist, and clearly have in many cultures for thousands of years. But I do think the leap of imagination to what that might be like is difficult for many cis people in western culture - and people tend to fear and distrust what they do not understand. There seems to be a progression of discourse that goes something like:
    • Women are men with some defects and human completeness is a man and woman together, they have these bodies and do these things - including having children, if they do not achieve motherhood they are broken
    • Women are complementary to men and human completeness is a man and woman together, they have these bodies and do these things - including having children, if they do not achieve motherhood they are broken
    • Human completeness is a man and woman together, women have these bodies and do these things - including having children, if they do not achieve motherhood they are broken
    • Human completeness is a man and woman together, women have these bodies and do these things - usually including having children
    • Women have these bodies and do these things - usually including having children
    • Women have these bodies and do these things
    • Women have these bodies
    • Women are ?

    I think people find ? difficult to contemplate.

    It is also complicated by a tension between whether gender presentation is primarily about self expression; or non-verbal expression of your preferred sexual partners, activities and aspirations. (Or if you prefer, what is the point of my knowing if you are female, male or non-binary - what is that information for ?)

    I am aware there are transmen, but most of the debate seems to be around the female gender.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    Well they do raise a bit of a problem for the Bathroom Argument. Because if transwomen have to use the men's bogs, then transmen would logically have to use the women's. Do the women who do not want women with male genitalia in their facilities want people who present as men there? Surely if there's a danger under self-recognition of cis-men pretending to be transwomen to abuse women, wouldn't it be even easier for a cis-man to pass himself off as a transman to get entry under their preferred scenarios?

  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Well they do raise a bit of a problem for the Bathroom Argument. Because if transwomen have to use the men's bogs, then transmen would logically have to use the women's. Do the women who do not want women with male genitalia in their facilities want people who present as men there? Surely if there's a danger under self-recognition of cis-men pretending to be transwomen to abuse women, wouldn't it be even easier for a cis-man to pass himself off as a transman to get entry under their preferred scenarios?

    I assume the plan is to conduct penis inspections.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    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.
    The appeal to plumbing is gender essentialism. I think you are trying to hard to ascribe a. slightly, more positive motivation. Fuck it, To paraphrase the great philosopher F. Gump: Hate is as hate does.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    I am aware there are transmen, but most of the debate seems to be around the female gender.
    Because that is the threat that works to motivates fear.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I am aware there are transmen, but most of the debate seems to be around the female gender.
    Because that is the threat that works to motivates fear.

    Also there is a feeling that "Well it's understandable that a woman would want to be a man. Who wouldn't? But why on earth would a man want to be a woman?"
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    I do think the fact of being left with no external way of defining what a woman, or a man, is - is conceptually difficult to understand.

    If you like the world to be clearly one or another thing, with no areas of ambiguity - if ambiguity is anxiety provoking - then not being able to define sex/gender is going to feel threatening.
  • I do think the fact of being left with no external way of defining what a woman, or a man, is - is conceptually difficult to understand.

    If you like the world to be clearly one or another thing, with no areas of ambiguity - if ambiguity is anxiety provoking - then not being able to define sex/gender is going to feel threatening.

    Especially if your whole raison d'être* as a public thinker is defining sex/gender, or at the least depends on such a thick black line as a background condition.

    *raisin for eating**
    **not really. reason for being.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Also there is a feeling that "Well it's understandable that a woman would want to be a man. Who wouldn't? But why on earth would a man want to be a woman?"

    Which is ironic because every trans person I know is a trans woman.

    Well, there's one person who identifies as agender, uses "they" pronouns, and has female biology. But apart from them.

  • mousethief wrote: »
    Also there is a feeling that "Well it's understandable that a woman would want to be a man. Who wouldn't? But why on earth would a man want to be a woman?"

    Which is ironic because every trans person I know is a trans woman.

    Well, there's one person who identifies as agender, uses "they" pronouns, and has female biology. But apart from them.

    Of the trans folk I know well enough to consider friends there's one man and one woman.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2020
    mousethief wrote: »
    I do think the fact of being left with no external way of defining what a woman, or a man, is - is conceptually difficult to understand.

    If you like the world to be clearly one or another thing, with no areas of ambiguity - if ambiguity is anxiety provoking - then not being able to define sex/gender is going to feel threatening.

    Especially if your whole raison d'être* as a public thinker is defining sex/gender, or at the least depends on such a thick black line as a background condition.

    *raisin for eating**
    **not really. reason for being.

    It’s not just that though, massive chunks of social life are formally and informally organised around gender at the moment. Underlying that organisation, is the assumption that your gender conveys some kind of pertinent information about you. We do see men on the Great British Sewing Bee nowadays - but virtually none, if any, of them have been straight men.

    Clothes shops are organised by gender, not just because they expect you to have differently shaped bodies - but because they expect you to want to wear different cuts and colours of clothes. When I want to buy plain blue T-shirt’s or loose fit black jeans, I have to buy Tesco menswear - I even know my size in both genders now.

    Until we organise society in a fully unisex fashion, some people will always try to police the boundaries.

    (However, counterexample, the My Little Pony fandom has a Nazi problem with straight white men, because who even knows why ?)
  • mousethief wrote: »
    I do think the fact of being left with no external way of defining what a woman, or a man, is - is conceptually difficult to understand.

    If you like the world to be clearly one or another thing, with no areas of ambiguity - if ambiguity is anxiety provoking - then not being able to define sex/gender is going to feel threatening.

    Especially if your whole raison d'être* as a public thinker is defining sex/gender, or at the least depends on such a thick black line as a background condition.

    *raisin for eating**
    **not really. reason for being.

    It’s not just that though, massive chunks of social life are formally and informally organised around gender at the moment. Underlying that organisation, is the assumption that your gender conveys some kind of pertinent information about you. We do see men on the Great British Sewing Bee nowadays - but virtually none, if any, of them have been straight men.

    Clothes shops are organised by gender, not just because they expect you to have differently shaped bodies - but because they expect you to want to wear different cuts and colours of clothes. When I want to buy plain blue T-shirt’s or loose fit black jeans, I have to buy Tesco menswear - I even know my size in both genders now.

    Until we organise society in a fully unisex fashion, some people will always try to police the boundaries.

    (However, counterexample, the My Little Pony fandom has a Nazi problem with straight white men, because who even knows why ?)

    What effect do these things have on TERFs, who were the people under discussion?
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    I vacillate between trying to understand, or even have compassion for, people with a TERF perspective, and not giving a damn about what they think or why. Since at the moment I'm the former mode:

    ISTM some strains of feminism struggled with performative femininity (appearing, dressing, speaking, acting in certain culturally-approved 'feminine' ways). So they distinguished between biological assignment and performative femininity: "real women" didn't have to wear dresses and heels, "real women" had certain biological features and had no need to perform femininity. They moved away from words like "lady" with its heavy emphasis on culturally-approved feminine behaviours and preferred the word "woman."

    From this POV, a transwoman who adopts those performatively feminine behaviours turns this perspective on its head. She does not have certain biological features marking her as a "real woman" and yet chooses aspects of performative femininity as part of her identity as a "real woman". TERFs can't seem to get around that.

    From my perspective, if you say you're a woman, you're a woman. I don't need to check under the hood to verify what you're saying.
  • Interesting discussion. Feminists have shifted between a biological view, a sociological view, (social construction), and other stuff such as performativity. I still feel surprised that TERFdom has gone back to biology, as to me, it smacks of Freud at his conservative worst, anatomy is destiny etc.

    I suppose anatomy is a solid thing, apparently. Thus, you are a womb bearer, and so on. However, this is very behaviourist. I don't feel like a penis on legs.
  • I forgot to say that transwomen seem to generate strong anxiety, transmen less so.
  • I forgot to say that transwomen seem to generate strong anxiety, transmen less so.

    Which is weird, really. I mean, if I was going to get worried about trans folk (I'm not), the ones more likely to be amped up on testosterone are the ones I'd worry about.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Interesting discussion. Feminists have shifted between a biological view, a sociological view, (social construction), and other stuff such as performativity. I still feel surprised that TERFdom has gone back to biology, as to me, it smacks of Freud at his conservative worst, anatomy is destiny etc.

    I suppose anatomy is a solid thing, apparently. Thus, you are a womb bearer, and so on. However, this is very behaviourist. I don't feel like a penis on legs.

    I suppose it comes down to what does ‘woman’ mean ? What does ‘man’ mean ?

    Can you tell me what a man is ?
  • Interesting discussion. Feminists have shifted between a biological view, a sociological view, (social construction), and other stuff such as performativity. I still feel surprised that TERFdom has gone back to biology, as to me, it smacks of Freud at his conservative worst, anatomy is destiny etc.

    I suppose anatomy is a solid thing, apparently. Thus, you are a womb bearer, and so on. However, this is very behaviourist. I don't feel like a penis on legs.

    I suppose it comes down to what does ‘woman’ mean ? What does ‘man’ mean ?

    Can you tell me what a man is ?

    No. I've no idea. But I think this is a positive, since hard and fast rules about identity, don't work. Identity is different from biology and behaviourism. I'm not your description of me.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    That makes gender some form or self expression rather than communication - which is broadly fine, but we probably need some other ways of signalling various bits of info non-verbally.
  • I forgot to say that transwomen seem to generate strong anxiety, transmen less so.

    Which is weird, really. I mean, if I was going to get worried about trans folk (I'm not), the ones more likely to be amped up on testosterone are the ones I'd worry about.

    Something about fragility going on? I imagine that men don't care if a trans man says, I'm a man. But both sexes seem to get angry about trans women, that is, some of them.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Transmen get a souped version of the hostility gay men get, and consequently are at higher risk of murder - so I don’t think your hypothesis flies.
  • Transmen get a souped version of the hostility gay men get, and consequently are at higher risk of murder - so I don’t think your hypothesis flies.

    OK.
  • That makes gender some form or self expression rather than communication - which is broadly fine, but we probably need some other ways of signalling various bits of info non-verbally.

    Well, performance is probably old-fashioned now, but I act out various personas, some with indications of sex/gender, but also I feel certain identities, which may be unstable. This is a witches' broth, and very hard to comprehend, and impossible to describe. But I don't live in the third person.
  • GarasuGarasu Shipmate
    Leaf wrote: »
    a transwoman who adopts those performatively feminine behaviours turns this perspective on its head. She does not have certain biological features marking her as a "real woman" and yet chooses aspects of performative femininity as part of her identity as a "real woman".

    So is (part of) the problem to do with the fact that someone who identifies as the other gender is required to perform as such?

    Or, in concrete terms, the M2F who says, "but I really like playing football," is told that they can't therefore really be a woman...

  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited June 2020
    Except, that we have just said that female gender is not defined by what you wear or what you do - so what are you performing ?
  • GarasuGarasu Shipmate
    Whatever the medical community has decided is feminine?
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    Which is what ?
  • It's a bit circular, isn't it?

    I think if you want to define "man" and "woman", you probably have to start with the assumption that most people are cis, and then you get something like "a man is a person who has a similar self-image to most people that have penes".
  • GarasuGarasu Shipmate
    Just to be clear: I'm not claiming that the medical community is right!

    I spent much of my childhood being told that I was a defective male*. I've had friends who were biologically female and who considered themselves to be female and were regarded by their friends to be female who played rugby.

    I don't actually think that you can determine gender by an interest in sport (or cars, or knitting, or anything else).

    I do think that there is a tendency (including medical personnel) to assess gender dysphoria against social norms of gender identity.

    Things may have changed, but school in the 1980s-1990s in England, it was fairly clear what male and female meant. And I'm guessing that doctors now were brought up then!

    I hope they're learning.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    There is a difference between the medical community and person's within the medical community.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    Sorry, I'm trying to follow this as I know I don't know much about this subject. But is a trans woman someone who was called female when they were born and who now identifies as male? Or the other way round?
  • A trans woman is someone who was assigned male at birth (AMAB) and now identifies as a woman.

    A trans man is someone who was identified female at birth (AFAB) and now identifies as a man.

    That is, they are each described as they now identify: a trans woman identifies as a woman, and a trans man identifies as a man.
  • Leaf wrote: »
    From this POV, a transwoman who adopts those performatively feminine behaviours turns this perspective on its head.

    There are butch trans women.
  • quetzalcoatlquetzalcoatl Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    It's a bit circular, isn't it?

    I think if you want to define "man" and "woman", you probably have to start with the assumption that most people are cis, and then you get something like "a man is a person who has a similar self-image to most people that have penes".

    What bothers me is that many narratives about trans, are in the third person. This is probably unavoidable, but I think there also is a kind of revolution here, well, already put in place by feminists and gays. This is, the subjective point of view. You have incorporated this in terms of "self-image".

    Generally, anti-trans writers determine your gender status in the third person. Has penis = male. Isn't it bizarre to be reduced to anatomy?

    Something quite interesting here, is that gender identity is part of the postmodern, post-objective, framework, of course, detested by the right wing. I think it is anxious making, that I can't define you, in terms of genitals. But I don't really get why people [redacted] are so genitally fixated, if that's what is going on. I suppose the bathroom bill advocates want to peek under your dress/jeans. Gulp.
  • quetzalcoatlquetzalcoatl Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    Well, I think [redacted] want a stable world, where men are men, and women are women. It's understandable.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    Again, I think there is no need to go through mental gymnastics to excuse them. Plenty of plain bigotry and simple territory defence. Yeah, there are other reasons for some people, but no need to cut yourself on Occam's razor trying to find nicer reasons for the vitriol.
    Every group fighting for its rights have pockets of this behaviour.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Leaf wrote: »
    From this POV, a transwoman who adopts those performatively feminine behaviours turns this perspective on its head.

    There are butch trans women.

    True, which is why I specified "a transwoman who adopts those behaviours" because - as you say - not all do.

    As I'm neither trans nor TERF, trying to understand the mindset of the latter is an act of imagination for me. Therefore I may, and probably will, get it wrong.

    With that caveat in mind, I imagine that a TERF would have more problems with stereotypically feminine behaviours from a transwoman than with stereotypically butch behaviours. It seems likely to me that from a TERF perspective, a butch transwoman is "only a mildly confused man" while a femme transwoman is "a very confused and offensive man." Both of which are, from my point of view, wrong.

    Tbh I don't think I care to crawl into a TERF mindset more than that, because I don't like it there.
  • Yes, thanks.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    Sorry, I'm trying to follow this as I know I don't know much about this subject. But is a trans woman someone who was called female when they were born and who now identifies as male? Or the other way round?

    One way to remember this might be to think of the word "to" or an arrow -> in between the words trans and man or woman. The person has transitioned to their accurate identity. Therefore, for example, "trans to woman" or "trans -> woman" might be a little internal memory aide to remember the gender.

  • Yes, thanks.

    This is a reply to lb above.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited June 2020
    Leaf wrote: »
    Sorry, I'm trying to follow this as I know I don't know much about this subject. But is a trans woman someone who was called female when they were born and who now identifies as male? Or the other way round?

    One way to remember this might be to think of the word "to" or an arrow -> in between the words trans and man or woman. The person has transitioned to their accurate identity. Therefore, for example, "trans to woman" or "trans -> woman" might be a little internal memory aide to remember the gender.

    And also that the man or woman in the label is what they are.
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin Shipmate, Glory
    edited August 2020
    Thank you all for the explanations.

    Something that puzzles me is why people [redacted] are worked up about this issue. If everyone I know declared that they had changed that wouldn't worry me in the slightest. As long as I can go on being what I currently am, I'm not affected.
  • What bothers me is that many narratives about trans, are in the third person. This is probably unavoidable, but I think there also is a kind of revolution here, well, already put in place by feminists and gays. This is, the subjective point of view. You have incorporated this in terms of "self-image".

    A transwoman is a woman, because she says she is. "Woman" is how she sees herself. Whilst there are some brain studies that claim to show that transwomen think more like ciswomen and not like men (I have no expertise in neuroscience. I don't know how strong or conclusive these are.) there isn't an objective thing that we can point at and say "look - this is a woman because ..." She's a woman, because she tells us that she's a woman. It doesn't make a difference what she likes to do, what clothes she likes to wear, or what she wants to look like.

    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.

    So I imagine some kind of multi-dimensional scatterplot featuring axes of self-image, without defining (or needing to define) what those axes are. We assume that there are two mostly-distinct clusters; one of them contains most of the people with penes and one of them contains most of the people with vaginas. We label the first cluster "men" and the second cluster "women", and the small number of people that fall somewhere between or away from the two big clusters are people who identify as agender etc.

  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    Thank you all for the explanations.

    Something that puzzles me is why people [redacted] are worked up about this issue.
    Again, there is just plain bigotry. But there are people who feel an implied threat to their identity. "I'm X, if that person who looks Y is also X, then my identity is threatened." It is not rational, but it is the way people operate.

  • RooKRooK Shipmate
    edited August 2020
    Thank you all for the explanations.

    Something that puzzles me is why people [redacted] are worked up about this issue. If everyone I know declared that they had changed that wouldn't worry me in the slightest. As long as I can go on being what I currently am, I'm not affected.

    [redacted]
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