Trans rights: a perspective

[Rhiannon]

Cracking article.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

How do people here feel about their own position on trans rights? Secure as usual, insecure? it seems to me dangerous territory for the moral butterfly flitting around for another easy win.

[Shaker]

How do people here feel about their own position on trans rights? Secure as usual, insecure? it seems to me dangerous territory for the moral butterfly flitting around for another easy win.

Perfectly secure. Why would it be otherwise? I paraphrase Thomas Jefferson (in another context): it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg how people choose to identify. It's none of my business, primarily; that said, life is a long show to be miserable so identify however you like and be comfortable in your own skin.

[Shaker]

So you have a morality that is good for all.

Insofar as holding that people own themselves and should be free to live their lives according to their lights without interference unless they're doing some harm to others is a morality, yes.

I am also now pulling the old religionethics trick of interpreting your appeal to Jefferson as support for slavery.

Not a religionethics trick; a trick either of the incurably dim or the constitutionally mendacious.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Insofar as holding that people own themselves and should be free to live their lives according to their lights without interference unless they're doing some harm to others is a morality, yes.
Not a religionethics trick; a trick either of the incurably dim or the constitutionally mendacious.

Oh yes it never happens here that appealing to Christ is escalated tomean support  for homophobic murders, child abuse, slavery, childhood cancer.

[Shaker]

Oh yes it never happens here that appealing to Christ is escalated tomean support  for homophobic murders, child abuse, slavery, childhood cancer.

Never heard it invoked in the context of paediatric oncology but as for the others - you clearly don't watch the news, and I can't be bothered to go into the full megillah about some old guy in Ireland ...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Never heard it invoked in the context of paediatric oncology but as for the others - you clearly don't watch the news, and I can't be bothered to go into the full megillah about some old guy in Ireland ...

That is like writing off modern atheism on account of Lawrence Krauss.

Jefferson kept slaves and yet here you are suckling on the pizzle of his wisdom.

[Shaker]

That is like writing off modern atheism on account of Lawrence Krauss.

Jefferson kept slaves and yet here you are suckling on the pizzle of his wisdom.

No, I'm using a phrase of his that simply and clearly exemplifies my position. It doesn't indicate agreement with anything else he may have said and done, though it's typically and wholly unexpectedly dishonest of you to pretend otherwise. No surprises so far.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, I'm using a phrase of his that simply and clearly exemplifies my position. It doesn't indicate agreement with anything else he may have said and done, though it's typically and wholly unexpectedly dishonest of you to pretend otherwise. No surprises so far.

This post then is contrary to reply 30 in an act by you of arse clenching special pleading.

[Shaker]

This post then is contrary to reply 30 in an act by you of arse clenching special pleading.

Er, no.

Which bit are you having trouble with?

[Nearly Sane]

Cracking article.

Yep, I think it gets it right in talking about respecting that you treat trans as of they are  natal women/men in most day to day areas but that it has its limits.

[Rhiannon]

Yep, I think it gets it right in talking about respecting that you treat trans as of they are  natal women/men in most day to day areas but that it has its limits.

Abd about the need for people to be heard. 

[Nearly Sane]

Abd about the need for people to be heard.

Yes, though I do think that the attempted shutting down of debate is a wider problem than this.


I fear that the issue is going to become even less open to nuanced discussion after what has happened with Aimee Challoner, the battle lines on Twitter, never vulnerable to outbreaks of bonhomie even at Christmas, are diamond hard. I think the Green Party in England have handled it very badly with their statement.


https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/26/green-politician-pulls-out-of-deputy-leadership-race-over-child-rapist-father-7884459/

[Rhiannon]

Yes, though I do think that the attempted shutting down of debate is a wider problem than this.


I fear that the issue is going to become even less open to nuanced discussion after what has happened with Aimee Challoner, the battle lines on Twitter, never vulnerable to outbreaks of bonhomie even at Christmas, are diamond hard. I think the Green Party in England have handled it very badly with their statement.


https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/26/green-politician-pulls-out-of-deputy-leadership-race-over-child-rapist-father-7884459/

What do you think they should have done?

[Nearly Sane]

What do you think they should have done?

The statement should have been about distancing themselves for what happened, it should have been much more covering that they would investigate the circumstances, and highlighted that the most important person they needed to consider was the victim of David Challoner's crimes.

[Nearly Sane]

And another piece


https://medium.com/@tom_farr/the-left-are-abandoning-women-and-in-doing-so-abandoning-everything-they-stand-for-51fd63457d8c

[Rhiannon]

And another piece


https://medium.com/@tom_farr/the-left-are-abandoning-women-and-in-doing-so-abandoning-everything-they-stand-for-51fd63457d8c

I agree so much with this. I have direct experience of being abused and hated for being female, for having a female body that did female things. I'm genuinely scared that an understanding of femaleness - which to me has always been dominated by my reproductive system - is going to be erased.

[Nearly Sane]

I agree so much with this. I have direct experience of being abused and hated for being female, for having a female body that did female things. I'm genuinely scared that an understanding of femaleness - which to me has always been dominated by my reproductive system - is going to be erased.

Yes, it's a different experience and a different fight. That in no way implies that trans people should not be respected in their own right but that that needs reciprocal respect for natal women.

[Rhiannon]

Yes, it's a different experience and a different fight. That in no way implies that trans people should not be respected in their own right but that that needs reciprocal respect for natal women.

Exactly. Trans women have a trans female experience that absolutely needs respect. They are vulnerable too.

[jeremyp]

But seeing a penis in a changing room isn't that big a deal

No it isn't for you and a lot of women and it isn't a problem for me to have women accidentally see my penis. However that that isn't always the case for all women in all situations. The rules change based on context.

Where the lines will end up being drawn, who knows.

Agreed but not talking about the lines and where they should be is a bad thing IMO.

Here's an example to think about, Jerry Coyne, a few weeks ago, reported on a college athletics meeting in the USA where the women's 100 metres was won (easily) by a pre-op trans woman who was physically male. This is a case where the line is in the wrong place IMO.

[Rhiannon]

No it isn't for you and a lot of women and it isn't a problem for me to have women accidentally see my penis. However that that isn't always the case for all women in all situations. The rules change based on context.

Agreed but not talking about the lines and where they should be is a bad thing IMO.

Here's an example to think about, Jerry Coyne, a few weeks ago, reported on a college athletics meeting in the USA where the women's 100 metres was won (easily) by a pre-op trans woman who was physically male. This is a case where the line is in the wrong place IMO.

Sport just doesn't seem to have any idea what it is doing here. I think it'll get ugly.

Of course we need to talk about where lines get drawn, but at present trying to do so is likely to result in hate mail, cyberbullying violence and/or arrest

[Nearly Sane]

Another good article

https://janeclarejones.com/2018/09/09/gay-rights-and-trans-rights-a-compare-and-contrast/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[Rhiannon]

I couldn't get to the end of it - too depressing.

Can I just say as an aside though that I have trans friends who absolutely aren't jumping up and down about this. In fact they don't really talk about being trans at all.

[wigginhall]

I couldn't digest everything in that.  I can see there is a clash between gender as I define it for myself, and gender as I define it for others.  Traditionally, it was defined for us as kids, and we accepted it, mostly.   However, self ID puts a bomb under it, I haven't a clue where this is heading, and the distinction between sex identity (biological), and gender (non-biological), is a car crash now.  However, it struck me that everybody does self ID,  but using different criteria.  Thus "I am a woman because I have a female body" and "I feel like a woman", are colliding?

[Nearly Sane]

I couldn't digest everything in that.  I can see there is a clash between gender as I define it for myself, and gender as I define it for others.  Traditionally, it was defined for us as kids, and we accepted it, mostly.   However, self ID puts a bomb under it, I haven't a clue where this is heading, and the distinction between sex identity (biological), and gender (non-biological), is a car crash now.  However, it struck me that everybody does self ID,  but using different criteria.  Thus "I am a woman because I have a female body" and "I feel like a woman", are colliding?

I think that is absolutely the case, but I think that sex identity is not a simple matter of self ID, and that in trying to ignore sex identity, some trans people are then going down a route which actually regressively defines gender into traditional societal norms.