WSPUS and Transgender
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i have no issue with trans people. i have an issue with self-ID and the redefinition of important terms, especially when those new definitions have no falsifiability. i would like them to give their definition of what a woman is so everyone knows what i mean.
i agree with you on both points, james. this isn’t even an issue i personally want to tackle, but it’s so ludicrous while simultaneously being written into law, so it’s impossible for me to ignore. i would much rather deal with socialist propaganda, but the idea that the more than half of the population we (or at least i) refer to as women should instead be referred to as “breeders” or “menstruators” is dehumanizing and completely indefensible. this is aside from the issue of sports awards or scholarships being taken by men, for example. the issue here is that i don’t believe emma would agree with us on the second point, since i guarantee you their definition of womanhood is different than ours (or at least mine). i want them to set forth their case so nobody can say i’m exaggerating.
I am not going to debate you on this, you and your ilk are very predictable(on top of you making up new categories like “self-ID”). I am not trying to debate you on that, and I don’t know why a male who claims to understand radical feminism feels he is a position to be so authoritative on how the debate should be carried out. It seems you are taking the aesthetics of radical feminism but forgetting the actual practice that made second wave feminism into the force that it was. The reason I think your politics are incoherent is because you retweeted an extremely reactionary politician who’s conception of “women’s rights” probably doesn’t include reproductive rights. Do you really think the amendment to the Equality act that the Republican opposed is going to remove the word women?
I have no doubt that the SPGB/WSM has a better line on this, the article that was posted by the official SPGB in the twitter thread was very reasonable.
you’re trying to change the subject cuz you don’t feel confident in your case. you don’t want to tackle our disagreement from first principles cuz you know your definition of womanhood would be seen as illogical by anyone unfamiliar with every angle of this issue.
i believe you may have edited your reply. in the email i got, you’d also added at the end:
“Would you, as a male, please explain what a women is? Maybe I am too dumb and not confident enough to understand it myself!”
so i’ll do just that.
a woman is an adult human female. every english-speaking dictionary uses roughly that same definition.
i doubt we disagree on what constitutes an “adult” or a “human.” the issue with your group comes with the definition of the word “female.”
a female is an organism who, after gonadal differentiation, developed a reproductive anatomy which is designed to produce large gametes, whether it actually does or if there are any errors along the way. sexual dimorphism began 1.2 billion years ago, long before humanity could engage in social construction. in the vast majority of multicellular organisms, there are only 2 sexes: one that produces large gametes (ova) and another that produces small gametes (sperm).
in humans specifically, as well as in all mammals in general to my understanding, our reproductive systems develop from wolffian ducts (male) or mullerian ducts (female). both cannot fully develop in humans. intersex conditions happen in 0.018% of births (aside from CAH, which occurs in 1.5%, but this condition only affects females), but even those with intersex conditions only developed one of these ducts, so they are atill either male ir female.
now, can you please tell everyone what your definitions of a woman and a female are.
Medical advances have achieved a level that we can indeed physically change gender, male can become female and female can become male. We have taken control of our reproductive abilities and becoming a mother no longer defines a woman. Surrogates and adoption have also made motherhood possible for many who cannot conceive.
I cannot claim to possess the answers but i do say that what unique individuality a person aspires towards can be more easily realized in socialism where the constraints of capitalist culture which commodifies everything – even people – will be broken.
aj, if you’re using gender as a synomym for sex, then no, you can’t change gender. surgery can only make a man look as though they’re female in some cases, but it can never actually make them female. motherhood doesn’t define being female. young girls and women who never have children are still female because they developed a mullerian phenotype — because their mullerian ducts developed along with their wolffian ducts regressing. regardless of any atypical development after gonadal differentiation, only one of these ducts develop in a human. clownfish are often brought up right now, but humans obviously aren’t clownfish.
i should mention though, that many in their group don’t use gender as a synomym of sex. by “gender” they mean some inner feeling. they refer to the way a person acts or dresses as gender expression or performing gender roles, so there’s actually no way to see someone’s gender or “gender identity.” i’m still trying to get a falsifiable answer from one of them about what “gender identity”is — obviously “a gender identity is the gender someone identifies as” is circular.
my issue isn’t with men dressing or acting “feminine.” that’s none of my business. my issue is when these men decide to warp the definition of womanhood to being completely unfalsifiable, then entering women’s sports and winning awards or take female political positions, awards, etc.
men dressing or acting “feminine” are transvestites or cross-dressers. Women at one time were also associated with that but with modern female fashions now featuring male-attire it is no longer frowned upon as a fetish.
Sexual orientation is gay, lesbian or bisexualism, natural inclinations.
i believe being transexual or transgender or non-binary (not sure of the appropriate terminology) are similarly natural but different psychologically.
Your final comments appear to me rather misleading. Do you accept that there exist sexism where females are generally discriminated against because of their gender? If so then TS/TG are not gaining any special privileges as you suggest but share in the general prejudices of society treating them as women. They also suffer in many circumstances added legal obstacles. I don’t find arguments that they have an unfair advantage has any merit.
Sex tests in sports have a long history – 70 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_verification_in_sports
As i said in my earlier post, there is no reason not to accept a percentage of the population as a third gender.
I also note that you do not consider female transitioning to male to be of any significance or importance to your case.
Worth a read for those who wish more info is wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender
I have always followed the maxim “different strokes for different folks” and it has served me well.
Perhaps posting a bunch of links isn’t a particularly useful thing to do, but I found these articles useful in the past…
https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/openfordebate/2020/11/30/is-jk-rowling-transphobic/
https://www.philosophersmag.com/interviews/219-sophie-grace-chappell-talks-sex-and-gender
gender dysphoria probably does have a psychological basis, i’m not arguing against that. the issue is that inner feelings aren’t independently verifiable. all we can go off of is someone’s word. if we define a woman as anyone who says they’re a woman — self-ID, which is what they all advocate for — then any man at any time can say they’re a woman and be afforded every right women have.
females are discriminated against because of their sex. if you’re using gender as a synonym for sex, then i agree with that statement, but again, most people in this group don’t. they explicitly argue that gender and sex are different without offering a falsifiable definition of gender or gender identity. i don’t believe in these things, descriptions i’ve gotten just sound like a personality or some roundabout way of describing a soul.
the house of representatives just passed the ‘Equality Act,’ which does have some good things in it, but the main problem is that it would give any man that says they’re a woman all the privileges women have. it does this by referring to womanhood or manhood as a ‘gender identity,’ without even attempting to define that term.
there are numerous peer-reviewed studies that show that trans-identifying men on average take a 5 – 10% dip in performance after taking estrogen for a year. this isn’t nearly enough of a loss in performance in certain sports categories. for example, i believe have a 30% advantage in upper body strength compared to women their same height and weight. i’ve seen one peer-reviewed study that gets thrown around a lot that argues otherwise, but a twittee user named Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) made a great thread pointing out the issues with it.
they aren’t wanting to be accepted as a third gender, aj. they want to be treated as literal women in every sense. they call lesbians and heterosexual men who aren’t attracted to “trans women” bigots. many will tell you there’s an infinite number of genders — again, while having no falsifiable definition of it. some think your gender can be literally anything — ferociously steph, for example, who says they’re deergender. they “identify” as a female deer while wearing antlers, which only male deer have. i came across another who thinks he’s a fish. if you tell them they’re not, they call you a bigot. i should add that many transgender people don’t accept these “xenogenders” or “otherkin,” but i’ve never seen a good explanation of why.
i really, really didn’t want to go this deep without emma and i laying down our first principles. we’ll be running around in circles without explaining what we each mean by key terms.
they aren’t wanting to be accepted as a third gender, aj. they want to be treated as literal women in every sense.
As always, we should be very careful when we ascribe views to a particular sector of the population as “they” because we just don’t know how representative “they” actually are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender
There is a legal campaign not to be seen as female or male but acknowledged as trans. Not M or F but X
Again, this is worth reading.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/08/transgender-third-gender-no-gender-part-i
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/08/transgender-third-gender-no-gender-part-ii
“Your sex is what’s between your legs; your gender is what’s between your ears.”
Apologies for harping on. It is simply i wish the WSM to be viewed as inclusive and not alienate ourselves from fellow-workers for reasons other than socialist consciousness. We welcome all who agree with our principles, and their status as male, female, trans, straight or gay or bi is irrelevant to us. What we share in common despite many differences is our class position.
my bad for the late replies. i had to read 5 articles and type up rebuttals.
DJP, just finished reading all 3 artocles.
in the first paragraph of the first article, a quote from GLAAD says that J.K. Rowling “continues to align herself with an ideology which wilfully distorts facts about gender identity…” but they fail to define gender identity. besides that, the first article does a great job of laying out a rough sketch of the issue.
i have way more issues with the second article. i should clarify again that i worded my tweet wrong. i have no issue with trans people, i’m not trying to demonize people who actually have gender dysphoria. my issue is self-ID allowing anyone to gain the privileges of women.
one issue: he says he asked his mom if he could “go to school as a girl.” does he mean the sexist stereotype of “femininity,” that dressing “feminine” would be “going to school as a girl”? he seems to be dressed “feminine” in his picture. is this “dressing as a girl” to him? because not all the people i would call girls dress “feminine”. many dress “masculine.” are they not girls? also, some of his group would say that the way you dress is only “gender expression” and has nothing to do with your actual gender or gender identity, like i said earlier.
another: no one’s against their right to exist. we’re against the unfalsifiable redefinition of key terminology.
i appreciate that they say that they acknowledge that sex is real and not a social construct, but i disagree with the money analogy. money’s definitely a social construct. it’s not real. it didn’t exist before humanity. but sex has existed for 1.2 billion years.
he says something very wrong after this. as i said, being female can be explained by one thing: mullerian ducts developing inside you as a fetus. to say there’s no singular criteria of womanhood is ludicrous.
he then makes a terrible analogy between “presenting like a woman” vs adoptive parents. there is no way women universally present. womanhood isn’t based on clothing, it’s based on biology. it’s sexist to say otherwise.
another terrible point he makes is that women being defined as adult human females would make alien women not women. there is a specific name for the female sex of many species, for both the juvenile and adults in many cases. a female antelope is a doe. a young human female is a girl, an adult is a woman. we would probably have a specific name for the females of the alien species, but obviously this is irrelevant cuz we don’t even have irrefutable proof they exist yet.
he makes the point again about calling adoptive parents parents, but wearing a dress isn’t analogous to raising a child.
most RadFems don’t say trans women are a threat to “cis women.” again, the issue is the potential abuse of self-ID. most RadFems just want there to be a public discussion to see if a reasonable compromise can be made, but all that start to gain steam are immediately written off as transphobes and many are deplatformed.
he makes a point about transwomen who pass using women’s toilets. many RadFems don’t wanna make this concession. as a male, i obviously have no real stake in this specific scenario, but i’ve gone on record saying that i personally think it’d be ridiculous to have buck angel or blaire white use the bathrooms of their birth sex. i’m open to discussion on that, though. but most transgender people aren’t, even for those who don’t pass.
onto the third article.
they mention something about bathrooms as being in line with a person’s gender identity. bathrooms have always been sex-segregated. again, they don’t define gender identity.
noone’s assigned a gender at birth. sex is irrefutably observed at birth in 99.982% of cases.
one thing they don’t mention is that a GRC doesn’t affect inheritance, which is a clear case of wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. if an eldest sibling wants to legally be marked as a woman, then any UK inheritance laws regarding eldest boys should follow suite.
Ummm correct me if I’m wrong, but this law just confirms biological sex & gives rights to male people, packaged as a “progressive” move?https://t.co/Pbl5VXBMTS
— Sall Grover (@salltweets) November 18, 2020
they go on a long tangent about male socialization, then say that trans women are different than cis men cuz they don’t feel like boys. there’s no feeling like a boy, you’re just born one. inner feelings can’t even be measured or independently verified, we just have to take people on their word. completely unfalsifiable.
they say gender identity could make a difference in how violent someone is, without defining gender identity.
they say there are no studies showing trans women are just as violent as “cis men.” this is false.
https://fairplayforwomen.com/criminality/
white women are a subset of women because of their mullerian ducts developing as a fetus. “trans women” are a subset of men, otherwise they wouldn’t be trans, they’d be “cis.”
lmao they argue that excluding trans women from women’s spaces even if they have higher rates of violence then other women would be like excluding other groups of women if the same were to be found for those. again, they’re glossing over the fact that “trans women” are men, otherwise they wouldn’t be trans, they’d be “cis.”
“It assumes, in other words, that women-only spaces ought, in fact, to be female-only spaces.”
this implies they understand that “trans women” aren’t female, which would get them cancelled among much of the transgender community. seriously.
they bring up trans women’s vulnerability to male violence. women spaces aren’t there to shield males from other males. they’re there for women.
what constitutes womanhood isn’t a political or ethical question. it’s 100% a scientific question.
they effectively forego offering a definition of what a woman is. not surprising.
there’s nothing ethical about honoring self-ID. we need safeguards.
trans women who pass are subject to misogyny because of their perceived womanhood.
they compare pointing out rare incidents of transgender crimes to be like pointing out muslim rapists even though most rapists are white. i don’t think transgender people are rapists, i think rapists and pedophiles have been lieing and saying they’re transgender to be sent to women’s prisons where they won’t be as brutally dealt with by the inmates, if at all.
“Between 2015 and 2019, the numbers of reported cases of female-perpetrated child sexual abuse to police in England and Wales rose from 1,249 to 2,297 – an increase of 84%.“
https://fairplayforwomen.com/sex_data_wrong/
why?
“Police forces now record crimes based on self-declared gender and not birth sex.” (same article)
another from the same site:
“Half of all transgender prisoners are sex offenders or dangerous category A inmates”
https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-prisoners/
either transgender people are sex offenders at much higher rates or impostor sex offenders are self-IDing themselves into safer prisons. which do you think is more likely?
transgender people aren’t a “profoundly disempowered group.” they have entire governments, universities, and corporations on their side.
they compare feminists getting mad about being called transphobic to people who voice concerns about immigrants getting maf about being called racist. but statistics show immigrants commit crime at much lower rates than US citizens. as i’ve already shown, they also show that trans women retain a male pattern of violence.
in the conclusion they suggest trans impostors are rare. as i’ve already shown, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
they use the “rapists don’t need self-ID laws to rape, cuz they already do it without them” argument, but this isn’t a sound reason to make it any easier.
they say it’s unlikely that a “cis man” will pose as a trans woman to win political elections, but i’m not sure i agree. melissa sklarz — who, to be clear, has publicly identified as trans for decades — lost an election against a man one year (i believe 2019) and won against a woman the next year (i believe in 2020). emilia decaudin won 2 elections against 2 separate black women the same year without even actively campaigning. these were both in new york.
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