Transwomen are not Women - Part 14

Emily's Cat said:

If a person is passing and clothed... nobody is going to challenge them in any of the situations we're talking about.

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I don't think the attempts to allow for an "X" gender marker has anything to do with the usual "situations we're talking about" wherein someone demands access to a formerly single-sex space or service. It's more of a paperwork issue where the only substantive right at issue is the right to declare one's gender identity on an official i.d. document.

Suppose the State of Ozarkansaw passes a law which allows people to state their gender as "W" or "M" or "X" on their i.d. but the same document also has a field for sex-at-birth with "F" or "M" or "I" as well. What would be your objection?

I feel compelled to share the following list from a collection of gender-critical essays which I've been reading, and—if you're interested in answering—I'd like to make it a sort of quiz in order to gauge the extent to which this thread has become ideologically and terminologically homogenous among active participants.

When reading the following, give yourself a point every time you agree (or at least mostly agree with minor quibbles) with all the claims made under each numbered statement.

1. There are two sexes, male and female. It is impossible to change your sex.
2. Sex characteristics cluster into a bimodal distribution and intersex people are not outside of the two main clusters.
3. Sex matters politically and women’s sex-based rights should be protected.
4. Female-only spaces, services, and provisions are important to women and girls and should not be offered on the basis of self-identified sex/gender identity.
5. Self-identification, statutorily declared, is an inadequate basis for legal sex and a subjective sense of one’s ‘identity’ does not trump all others’ interests in conflict cases.
6. Transwomen are male and transmen are female, and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be trans.
7. Gender is sex caste by way of gender norms, explained by or built on top of sex difference.
8. Gender (as previously defined) should be abolished.
9. Everyone is ‘nonbinary’ (relative to the previous definition of gender) so no one is.
10. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are sexual orientations, and thus refer to and depend on sex.

I find myself somewhere around 80% agreement, with most of my misgivings on points 7-9. This is high enough to where I would probably have to consider myself "gender critical" if I were to become a feminist.

d4m10n said:

I don't think the attempts to allow for an "X" gender marker has anything to do with the usual "situations we're talking about" wherein someone demands access to a formerly single-sex space or service. It's more of a paperwork issue where the only substantive right at issue is the right to declare one's gender identity on an official i.d. document.

Suppose the State of Ozarkansaw passes a law which allows people to state their gender as "W" or "M" or "X" on their i.d. but the same document also has a field for sex-at-birth with "F" or "M" or "I" as well. What would be your objection?

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Adding extraneous information to official documents is bad policy. Adding non-identifying information to identity documents is bad policy.

theprestige said:

Adding extraneous information to official documents is bad policy.

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The subjective belief that someone ought to be seen as a different sex than the actual one doesn't strike me as extraneous information, even if all we're trying to do is validate someone's identity.

theprestige said:

Adding non-identifying information to identity documents is bad policy.

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In my home state, "you may get the Veterans Identifier on your...driver license or state ID card" even though this adds nothing in terms of identification. Are you against this sort of thing on roughly the same grounds?

d4m10n said:

[*]Gender is sex caste by way of gender norms, explained by or built on top of sex difference.
[*]Gender (as previously defined) should be abolished.
[*]Everyone is ‘nonbinary’ (relative to the previous definition of gender) so no one is.

I find myself somewhere around 80% agreement, with most of my misgivings on points 7-9. This is high enough to where I would probably have to consider myself "gender critical" if I were to become a feminist.

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Most of the rest are clear because they refer to sex, which can be defined.

These are around gender, and so complicated due to lack of clear agreement about what gender means.

d4m10n said:

I feel compelled to share the following list from a collection of gender-critical essays which I've been reading, and—if you're interested in answering—I'd like to make it a sort of quiz in order to gauge the extent to which this thread has become ideologically and terminologically homogenous among active participants.

When reading the following, give yourself a point every time you agree (or at least mostly agree with minor quibbles) with all the claims made under each numbered statement.

1. There are two sexes, male and female. It is impossible to change your sex.
2. Sex characteristics cluster into a bimodal distribution and intersex people are not outside of the two main clusters.
3. Sex matters politically and women’s sex-based rights should be protected.
4. Female-only spaces, services, and provisions are important to women and girls and should not be offered on the basis of self-identified sex/gender identity.
5. Self-identification, statutorily declared, is an inadequate basis for legal sex and a subjective sense of one’s ‘identity’ does not trump all others’ interests in conflict cases.
6. Transwomen are male and transmen are female, and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be trans.
7. Gender is sex caste by way of gender norms, explained by or built on top of sex difference.
8. Gender (as previously defined) should be abolished.
9. Everyone is ‘nonbinary’ (relative to the previous definition of gender) so no one is.
10. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are sexual orientations, and thus refer to and depend on sex.

I find myself somewhere around 80% agreement, with most of my misgivings on points 7-9. This is high enough to where I would probably have to consider myself "gender critical" if I were to become a feminist.

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I'm not sure I even understand what 7, 8 and 9 actually mean, but I agree with all the others.

Matthew Best said:

I'm not sure I even understand what 7, 8 and 9 actually mean, but I agree with all the others.

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I assume that what is meant by it is that male and female gender roles are methods of perpetuating inequality between the sexes.

Although TERF is considered a slur, I think it does make sense as a term for actual radical feminists who see gender as worse than useless but as an impediment to equality of the sexes.

d4m10n said:

I feel compelled to share the following list from a collection of gender-critical essays which I've been reading, and—if you're interested in answering—I'd like to make it a sort of quiz in order to gauge the extent to which this thread has become ideologically and terminologically homogenous among active participants.

When reading the following, give yourself a point every time you agree (or at least mostly agree with minor quibbles) with all the claims made under each numbered statement.

1. There are two sexes, male and female. It is impossible to change your sex.
2. Sex characteristics cluster into a bimodal distribution and intersex people are not outside of the two main clusters.
3. Sex matters politically and women’s sex-based rights should be protected.
4. Female-only spaces, services, and provisions are important to women and girls and should not be offered on the basis of self-identified sex/gender identity.
5. Self-identification, statutorily declared, is an inadequate basis for legal sex and a subjective sense of one’s ‘identity’ does not trump all others’ interests in conflict cases.
6. Transwomen are male and transmen are female, and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be trans.
7. Gender is sex caste by way of gender norms, explained by or built on top of sex difference.
8. Gender (as previously defined) should be abolished.
9. Everyone is ‘nonbinary’ (relative to the previous definition of gender) so no one is.
10. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are sexual orientations, and thus refer to and depend on sex.

I find myself somewhere around 80% agreement, with most of my misgivings on points 7-9. This is high enough to where I would probably have to consider myself "gender critical" if I were to become a feminist.

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I am inclined to agree with that. I am not sure exactly what 'gender is sex caste' means, but the underlying idea behind gender critical perspectives is that gender norms are oppressive. I personally am more moderate in relation to point 8; I don't think it is possible to 'abolish' gender altogether, because there are some average sex differences in behaviour and preferences, and people will always try to build some concept of gender around them. Rather, we should say it's ok to be gender-nonconforming in the same way it's ok to be gay, and nobody should be pressured into conforming to gender norms that don't suit them, or discriminated against in employment etc for not conforming. In fact I thought this was pretty much accepted in Western societies until genderism came along and said gender is everything and is what makes you a man or woman or neither.

'Everyone is nonbinary' I would take to mean that most people are neither extremely masculine nor extremely feminine but somewhere in the middle or have a mix of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits. The term 'non-binary' as used by genderists implies that only a small minority of very special people are really gender-nonconforming, and everybody else identifies with gender norms. Removing GNC people from the categories of men and women therefore enforces gender norms for everyone else in the same way that traditional societies used 'extra genders' to keep the man/woman categories pure and enforce rigid gender norms.

But another issue with nonbinary is that it isn't actually being used as a synonym for being GNC. If it was, people who identify as nonbinary would not object to being described as male or female. It is in fact based on pseudoscientific ideologies of sex denialism, where biological sex is replace by subjective identity (you are actually what sex you identify as). It is also deliberately conflated with actual DSD conditions, so that a lot of ill-informed people actually believe that people identifying as nonbinary are intersex. Not to mention appropriation of oppression and marginalized status on the basis of voluntarily adopting an ideological belief that is actually popular in elite circles and backed by rather powerful organisations.

angrysoba said:

I assume that what is meant by it is that male and female gender roles are methods of perpetuating inequality between the sexes.

Although TERF is considered a slur, I think it does make sense as a term for actual radical feminists who see gender as worse than useless but as an impediment to equality of the sexes.

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I'm not entirely sure it's about equality between the sexes. Maybe as a byproduct, or as a greater ultimate goal, but I don't think it necessarily follows.

I tend to think it's more about discrimination between the sexes, in the sense that the stronger demands of this group usually involve some contextually specific forms of segregation between the sexes, and for that purpose, they need to defend that this differentiation is the one that's necessary.

Aber said:

These are around gender, and so complicated due to lack of clear agreement about what gender means.

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Matthew Best said:

I'm not sure I even understand what 7, 8 and 9 actually mean, but I agree with all the others.

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For the radical and GC feminists, "gender" means all the social norms which perpetuate the idea of women as a "class of support persons for men" in all areas of life; they call this idea 'gender as sex caste' in the early radfem & contemporary GC literature. My disagreement with point 7 is primarily that this isn't what the word "gender" is generally taken to mean outside of that narrow academic/activist subfield, and that words convey what speakers and hearers think they convey; there is no platonic realm of correct meanings.

ETA: By "all the social norms" they mean something really rather broad; for example, high heels exist to make women's calves, legs, & buttocks more appealing for men.

Elaedith said:

'Everyone is nonbinary' I would take to mean that most people are neither extremely masculine nor extremely feminine but somewhere in the middle or have a mix of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits.

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It is probably true that even the most masculine of men occasionally exemplify feminine virtues and even the most feminine of women occasionally exemplify masculine virtues. None of this really matters, though, because the people who call themselves non-binary are almost certainly not using the "previous definition of gender" extolled by GC feminists.

Elaedith said:

The term 'non-binary' as used by genderists implies that only a small minority of very special people are really gender-nonconforming, and everybody else identifies with gender norms.

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It might well imply that, but they would never say as much because they believe (non-binary) identity is essential—almost spiritual—rather than somehow dependent on interactions with external social norms.

d4m10n said:

The subjective belief that someone ought to be seen as a different sex than the actual one doesn't strike me as extraneous information, even if all we're trying to do is validate someone's identity.

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The purpose of ID is not to validate the ID-holder's self-perception.

In my home state, "you may get the Veterans Identifier on your...driver license or state ID card" even though this adds nothing in terms of identification. Are you against this sort of thing on roughly the same grounds?

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One, veteran status is a formal, accredited identity based on facts.

Two, veteran status is predicated on how others perceive you, based on the facts.

Three, veteran status on your government ID can be used to obtain services predicated on veteran status.

Your gender self-ID does none of that. It no more belongs on your government ID than does your fursona, your football jersey number, or your favorite color.

Elaedith said:

The Scottish government has been advised to halt prescription of puberty blockers pending further research, following conclusion of a review of the Cass recommendations by a multidisciplinary team established by the chief medical officer. The conclusions of the Scottish review team were published yesterday.

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Holy Hamburgers, that's a big move for Scotland!

d4m10n said:

I don't think the attempts to allow for an "X" gender marker has anything to do with the usual "situations we're talking about" wherein someone demands access to a formerly single-sex space or service. It's more of a paperwork issue where the only substantive right at issue is the right to declare one's gender identity on an official i.d. document.

Suppose the State of Ozarkansaw passes a law which allows people to state their gender as "W" or "M" or "X" on their i.d. but the same document also has a field for sex-at-birth with "F" or "M" or "I" as well. What would be your objection?

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Minor objection to I, it isn't a sex, it's a very broad set of medical conditions. Every single person with a DSD is still either male or female, and of the 0.02% of the population that have a DSD, 99.9% of those are unambiguously male or female.

Beyond that, I object to official identification documents including self-declared feelings-based views of oneself. I object to it for the exact same reason I would object to people putting "Catholic/Lutheran/Jainist/etc" on their official IDs, or putting their political party on their IDs. What a person thinks about themselves isn't a means by which to determine whether they are who they claim to be.

d4m10n said:

I feel compelled to share the following list from a collection of gender-critical essays which I've been reading, and—if you're interested in answering—I'd like to make it a sort of quiz in order to gauge the extent to which this thread has become ideologically and terminologically homogenous among active participants.

When reading the following, give yourself a point every time you agree (or at least mostly agree with minor quibbles) with all the claims made under each numbered statement.

1. There are two sexes, male and female. It is impossible to change your sex.
2. Sex characteristics cluster into a bimodal distribution and intersex people are not outside of the two main clusters.
3. Sex matters politically and women’s sex-based rights should be protected.
4. Female-only spaces, services, and provisions are important to women and girls and should not be offered on the basis of self-identified sex/gender identity.
5. Self-identification, statutorily declared, is an inadequate basis for legal sex and a subjective sense of one’s ‘identity’ does not trump all others’ interests in conflict cases.
6. Transwomen are male and transmen are female, and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be trans.
7. Gender is sex caste by way of gender norms, explained by or built on top of sex difference.
8. Gender (as previously defined) should be abolished.
9. Everyone is ‘nonbinary’ (relative to the previous definition of gender) so no one is.
10. ‘Lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are sexual orientations, and thus refer to and depend on sex.

I find myself somewhere around 80% agreement, with most of my misgivings on points 7-9. This is high enough to where I would probably have to consider myself "gender critical" if I were to become a feminist.

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Same - agreed with the exception of 7/8/9.

Gender Critical isn't a term that is limited to feminists. Nor to females. Gender Critical describes a view toward the concept of gender identity, particularly with respect to public, legal, and educational policies derived from gender identity. There are a LOT of males out there who are gender critical.

That said, there are a fair number of feminists who have adopted the term Gender Critical as a reaction to being called a TERF. Largely because most of us aren't actually trans-exclusionary, we're male-exclusionary-in-specific-situations. And because the vast majority of us aren't Radical Feminists in the first place - most of us are classical feminists.

d4m10n said:

The subjective belief that someone ought to be seen as a different sex than the actual one doesn't strike me as extraneous information, even if all we're trying to do is validate someone's identity.

In my home state, "you may get the Veterans Identifier on your...driver license or state ID card" even though this adds nothing in terms of identification. Are you against this sort of thing on roughly the same grounds?

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The Vet identifier serves the same role as disabled identifiers - they provide specific information that allows special privileges or accommodations to that individual. It doesn't serve to identify the individual, it serves to verify that they're allowed to circumvent certain rules that would otherwise apply.

d4m10n said:

This is high enough to where I would probably have to consider myself "gender critical" if I were to become a feminist.

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You don't have to be a feminist to be "gender critical"!

Emily's Cat said:

....What a person thinks about themselves isn't a means by which to determine whether they are who they claim to be.

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Emily's Cat said:

The Vet identifier serves the same role as disabled identifiers - they provide specific information that allows special privileges or accommodations to that individual. It doesn't serve to identify the individual, it serves to verify that they're allowed to circumvent certain rules that would otherwise apply.

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...and besides, being a vet or disabled is not a part of "what a person thinks about themselves", its a part of who they factually are!

Emily's Cat said:

Beyond that, I object to official identification documents including self-declared feelings-based views of oneself. I object to it for the exact same reason I would object to people putting "Catholic/Lutheran/Jainist/etc" on their official IDs, or putting their political party on their IDs. What a person thinks about themselves isn't a means by which to determine whether they are who they claim to be.

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I'm entirely unsure why this rule of thumb ought to apply to one's license to drive a vehicle but not the license plate on that vehicle, which may be customized to show one's support for all sorts of special interests which are orthogonal (at best) to the process of vehicle identification. Have you ever expressed your disapproval of custom license plates because they violate the rule which you've promulgated above?

Emily's Cat said:

The Vet identifier serves the same role as disabled identifiers - they provide specific information that allows special privileges or accommodations to that individual.

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Surely you must be aware that some owners of public accommodations (e.g. Wi Spa) would prefer to provide special privileges to individuals based on their personal sense of self as a woman or man.