Being transgendered may very well be genetically caused. In this case it would be interesting to know if there are connections to genes that determine sex (also, I think you are confusing the SRYgene with the Ychromosome, there is no Y gene).
One can also use Google to find articles such as this, a recent study suggesting that brain development in trans individuals varies immensely from normal brain development (and suggesting that the condition might be more detectable in the near future, even in the very young). These are neurological conditions, not psychological ones, and are not controllable; that is, they are physical changes in the brain, not simple feelings.
I'm not disputing that or the study's results (Teia also argued this), however like I said I don't believe that having a neurological condition makes someone a 'male' or 'female'. It simply makes someone the sex they are with the neurological makeup of the opposite sex.
I think someone's sex is determined genetically and again while this isn't always so clear cut, in Jenna's case it is.
All discrimination is bad. Everyone should get treated as equals, aside from glaringly obvious cases like not hiring a man to be a Hooters girl (that was an absolutely hilarious lawsuit, also). What I especially don't understand is how some people, such as yourself Cervid, can say one type of discrimination is bad and one type is good when only one small factor is changed.
Hiring a person for a job because he is white is discrimination and racism and bad.
Hiring a person for a job because he is black is discrimination and Affirmative Action and good.
Not allowing a transgender XY to compete in Miss Universe is discrimination and bad despite all other contestants being XX.
Not allowing a natural-born XX to compete in Miss Thailand is discrimination but okay because that pageant is for transsexual/transgender XYs.
Discrimination is wrong. Period. There are so few cases where discrimination is okay (once again, I point at the male Hooters girl lawsuit) that it is statistically irrelevant.
You still have yet to answer how we are supposed to resolve structural inequalities that privilege white heterosexual males if we aren't allowed to "discriminate" against them. There is no ****ing magical fairy wand to take everyone to Equalia.
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
You still have yet to answer how we are supposed to resolve structural inequalities that privilege white heterosexual males if we aren't allowed to "discriminate" against them. There is no ****ing magical fairy wand to take everyone to Equalia.
If the only way to remove an advantageous position is to actively discriminate against people in said position, then that position isn't a result of privilege, it's a result of superiority.
Meaning that, for example, since it is a known genetic fact that white people aren't different from black people in any meaningful phenotypical sense, allowing the labor market to choose without discrimination between blacks and whites will eventually lead to "Equalia," while active discrimination against whites and in favor of blacks will tend to make things unequal.
Discriminating against whites is only a sensible measure if you think whites are actually superior to blacks and need to be hobbled to even things out. I always find this sort of amusing, since it's usually liberals who claim to be as far from white supremacists as one can get that take this stance, not realizing its true implications.
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Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
If the only way to remove an advantageous position is to actively discriminate against people in said position, then that position isn't a result of privilege, it's a result of superiority.
Meaning that, for example, since it is a known genetic fact that white people aren't different from black people in any meaningful phenotypical sense, allowing the labor market to choose without discrimination between blacks and whites will eventually lead to "Equalia," while active discrimination against whites and in favor of blacks will tend to make things unequal.
Except that the history of everything proves that this isn't true. Because there are structural inequalities such as the lack of access to education, etc. that make it such that whites have a massive advantage in both college acceptance and the marketplace writ large. If you said "just hire everyone according to qualifications" all of the time it would sustain discrimination against blacks because they don't have access to the same opportunities to make them as equally "qualified" as whites. It's asinine to think that just letting things continue the way they are will resolve everything simply because there is no biological difference between the two. There's no magic wand to make discrimination in socioeconomic conditions just disappear, and until that is the case it doesn't matter how biologically equal the two races are.
Discriminating against whites is only a sensible measure if you think whites are actually superior to blacks and need to be hobbled to even things out. I always find this sort of amusing, since it's usually liberals who claim to be as far from white supremacists as one can get that take this stance, not realizing its true implications.
This is stupid. Read my above response. It's not the belief that whites have a biological superiority that has to be rectified. it's a social socioeconomic superiority that has to be rectified. I imagine you think you're quite clever for coming up with why liberals are "really" the white supremacists when in fact it's not about whites actually being better in any fashion than other minorities. It's about the social relationship of whites to other minorities. Whites are NOT better, I do believe that whites have SOCIAL superiority and THAT should be fixed.
You're not clever.
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
Except that the history of everything proves that this isn't true. Because there are structural inequalities such as the lack of access to education, etc. that make it such that whites have a massive advantage in both college acceptance and the marketplace writ large. If you said "just hire everyone according to qualifications" all of the time it would sustain discrimination against blacks because they don't have access to the same opportunities to make them as equally "qualified" as whites. It's asinine to think that just letting things continue the way they are will resolve everything simply because there is no biological difference between the two. There's no magic wand to make discrimination in socioeconomic conditions just disappear, and until that is the case it doesn't matter how biologically equal the two races are.
So what you are saying is that black people are still being discriminated against. That being the case, does it strike you as anything less than completely asinine to think that the solution to that problem is to heap as much discrimination against white people as we can so that both groups can be equally oppressed?
You're not clever.
Wow, doesn't take much to get you to collapse into spewing drivel, does it?
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
So what you are saying is that black people are still being discriminated against. That being the case, does it strike you as anything less than completely asinine to think that the solution to that problem is to heap as much discrimination against white people as we can so that both groups can be equally oppressed?
You really think that providing privilege to Black people because of a deficiency in their social situation that puts them at a structural disadvantage qualifies as "oppression of white people?"
And now for the 4th time in this thread. If the solution is not something like affirmative action which attempts to rectify the disparity in access to opportunity then what is?
Asking a question is not the same as providing a solution. Unless you honestly think that the status quo with large level discrimination against minorities is better than any other alternative you need to tell me what the better solution is. Because right now you're still relying upon fairy land. Especially since you didn't respond to ANY part of my post stating why your solution failed.
Wow, doesn't take much to get you to collapse into spewing drivel, does it?
Yeah, all of my post. Drivel.
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
And now for the 4th time in this thread. If the solution is not something like affirmative action which attempts to rectify the disparity in access to opportunity then what is?
The solution is programs that positively affect black people to bring them up, not programs that negatively affect white people to bring them down. Educational investments, community organizing, inner city youth programs, etc. Punishing a white kid by taking their spot in college away for a less qualified minority is wrong. We need to correct socio-economic disparities, but discrimination against whites is not the answer.
There's a fundamental difference between a generalized women's event and a trans women's event. Trans women, being a highly marginalized and oppressed group in general, create our own spaces to be free from all the cissexism and transphobia that run rampant in society. Excluding cis women isn't oppressive.
It's not oppression so long as you're discriminating against the "right" people? Seriously?
That is the argument that bigots have used from time immemorial. You are dehumanizing an entire group of people. This is made even more Orwellian in that it's being done in the name of equity.
The solution is programs that positively affect black people to bring them up, not programs that negatively affect white people to bring them down. Educational investments, community organizing, inner city youth programs, etc. Punishing a white kid by taking their spot in college away for a less qualified minority is wrong. We need to correct socio-economic disparities, but discrimination against whites is not the answer.
See, that's the hilarious problem. Because I've already seen Solaran (specifically) et al (generally) complain that it means we're STILL discriminating against whites because we're giving something to minorities that whites don't get. Like educational investments, youth programs for minorities that whites don't get, community organizing in black, but not white, communities. Etc.
I also think that you missed the point of affirmative action. Because it's LITERALLY not "take spots away from white kids that earned that college spot." It is "give a spot to black kids who would otherwise be unable to earn a spot in college because of the structural inequalities of education."
I would probably agree with you if Affirmative Action only stopped white kids from getting into college. That would be asinine. But given that it's not "just prohibit X group from accessing privilege" and is INSTEAD "ensure that Y underprivileged group gets access to privilege" which sometimes results in some members of X group being unable to access their privilege it's a fundamentally different game. Affirmative Action is NOT "let's oppress whites so that all groups are equally oppressed." If it were it would literally just cap white admissions and do nothing to actually benefit minorities. That's the difference.
There is NO solution that revolves around the question of "giving to everyone equally." Because of the fact that there is no level playing field.
If whites have 100 privilege points (arbitrary and made up for the purpose of an example) and blacks have 20. Any solution that gives the same privilege points to BOTH groups maintains the disparity. Whereas any that attempts to give to blacks to equalize to whites is deemed as "discriminatory against whites."
Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
If whites have 100 privilege points (arbitrary and made up for the purpose of an example) and blacks have 20. Any solution that gives the same privilege points to BOTH groups maintains the disparity. Whereas any that attempts to give to blacks to equalize to whites is deemed as "discriminatory against whites."
So: solution. Go.
Stop thinking about "blacks" and "whites" as different teams with different point totals. Evaluate the opportunities and well-being of individual people and neighborhoods. Target poor areas for education and economic development programs regardless of the predominant skin color among the occupants. A person's privilege* is not based on the average privilege of everybody in the country who shares an arbitrary phenotype feature with him. It's based on the particular circumstances in which he lives. If he lives in a crime-ridden ghetto worth ten "privilege points", it doesn't matter whether he's white and other people of the same race bring the racial average up to a hundred points or he's black and they only bring it up to twenty; he only has ten points either way.
Poverty matters. Crime matters. Unemployment matters. Lack of education matters. But race does not matter.
*Wrong word for this, but whatever.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I'm not disputing that or the study's results (Teia also argued this), however like I said I don't believe that having a neurological condition makes someone a 'male' or 'female'. It simply makes someone the sex they are with the neurological makeup of the opposite sex.
I think someone's sex is determined genetically and again while this isn't always so clear cut, in Jenna's case it is.
Oh, sure, and I wouldn't dare get in between and that argument, just stop calling a neurological condition "feelings."
Oh lay off it already. You know what he was doing, you know what he meant, quit lieing about it and twisting his words to fit your ridiculous agenda.
I'm not lying or twisting words when I point out that there's no real way to get from "I've never had my karyotype tested" to "karyotype testing is impossible," which is basically what he did.
I'm pretty sure that was the point. He was arguing that one test (genetic testing) is a real, doable, test that provides concrete results. The other test (what do you identify as) is a pseudo test that relies on getting correct honest answers and/or mind reading and is nebulous at best.
That's a flaw I've noticed permeates this forum, actually. It's as if anything involving less than 100% scientific certainty entails "mind reading" and is inherently wrong.
Wait, is this you saying that the issue isn't one of gender, but of sex?
This would be fundamentally confused since it doesn't matter how feminine a person is, it has nothing to do with whether or not that person is female.
And yet I cite people who say Jenna (or for that matter me) are "really" men still refer to us and classify us on some level as women. And on a lot of levels, it seems trans women are women enough to be put into the "female" category some of the time but the "male" category in cases where the authenticity of our femininity is involved. In short, we're seen as inauthentic women, not truly as "men," which is somewhat of an implicit third-gender category. We're not truly "female" in those eyes, but also not fully "male."
While there are people (like you) that use it as a social label, I can't find that in any dictionary, which suggests to me that it's not the primary meaning of the word.
Well, dictionary.com gives me "the nature, characteristics, or feelings often attributed to women; womanliness." Of course, you might fixate on the "woman = female" meaning, in which case the meaning in question, "a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a ******, a uterus and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts, and retaining a beardless face; a girl or woman," is a bit confused since while it implies having a ******/uterus/ovaries/specific dimorphic features isn't necessary, it places emphasis on the chromosomes. So under that definition, a trans woman who somehow has two X chromosomes is a woman, but a cis woman with CAIS isn't.
tl;dr The dictionary is a poor place to go to determine what these words actually mean when applied to real life instead of mere theory.
There is no such thing as "female brain structure" since the term female also applies to members of species that don't have brains.
And yet cissexual, cisgender human females have specific brain structures, while cissexual, cisgender human males have other specific brain structures. Trans women's brain structures follow the former, not the latter. Don't try to be coy and bring non-humans into a discussion specifically about humans.
We wanted to have a word for the member of a dioecious species that belongs to the sex that, during reproduction, conceives and gives birth. We used the word "female", which was originally derived from a word for breastfeading.
1) Your definition erases cis women who, for some reason, cannot give birth. Or for that matter cis women who are simply born without parts of their reproductive system.
2) If you got my hormone balance to that of a nursing mother, I'd lactate just like they would (since I have the physical structures to do so, and they'd simply need a biological trigger like a cis woman would). This is a very poor definition all around, but you seem intent on pursuing it so I might as well point out why it's wrong.
But if they were to suggest "We're human too", then they would be wrong, since the word "human" only applies to member of the species of homo sapiens.
Philosophically speaking, the concept of personhood is distinct from the concept of being human. Other sapient species (were they to exist like we do) could theoretically qualify for the former even if not the latter.
To me this sounds like "people should only take into consideration their own ideologies and presumptions instead of caring about the facts". Actually, scrap that. What you want is that people care about your ideologies and presumptions!
Well, no, I'm talking about gendered social interaction as it really occurs. No one really means "XX chromosomes" when they talk about someone being female. Chromosomes are only used as later justification when there's conflict with the person's presented gender and the gender they were assigned at birth. This process of systematically coming up with excuses for why someone who meets and identifies as a social definition of a word but not the perceived biological one is a concept called ungendering.
You said that there is no way of knowing whether or not someone is XY or not.
I said nothing of the sort.
How? Do we have infallible lie-detectors? Or are you suggesting to use brain scanners to figure out whether or not the structure of your brain corresponds to a transgendered woman?
Again, you're falling into the trap of "something is either completely 100% scientifically provable, or its validity is automatically cast into doubt such that assertion is meaningless." It's utterly fallacious.
NOWHERE in the definitions of the terms Male or Female does it say anything about how you feel inside.
Except in the part I posted earlier in this reply.
I do NOT believe it is the intent of Equal Rights to shut down every single "Gentlemen's Club" ever.
Who in this thread was arguing anything in anything approaching the spirit of this?
Let clubshouses keep their rules.
Those are a completely different kind of entity than what we're talking about. And in the case of forcing the NFL to accept a woman or whatever, sure, that's one thing, but what you'd be arguing would be that they should not accept a trans man. You kind of run into the Renee Richards sort of situation when you start arguing that.
If this pageant's rules were intended to keep the contest between naturally born females. I see nothing wrong with what they did.
Except that the "naturally born females" thing is the kind of reactionary measure that doesn't get written in when the rules are being formed, but when someone realizes that the rules as written apply to including groups that the writes don't want to include, so they scramble for meagre justification for exclusionary practices. We're talking about excluding someone who even has "Sex: F" on their birth certificate (since they get reissued following surgery) for not being female "enough," since in every legal and social way she is indeed a woman.
So you see Teia, make a big enough stink about it, and "oppressed minorities" can get their way. It's reverse oppression sure, but as long as you agree with the cause right?
You're trying to trivialize the issue, like a case such as this is unimportant and trans women are simply whining to be allowed into some place we apparently shouldn't be. So, tell me, was Rosa Parks simply "making a stink" by refusing to give up her seat on the bus? Is it "reverse oppression" in that case, too?
This sort of thing seems to happen in every competitive sport or game. Someone turns out to be trans or their gender in doubt and suddenly people start spouting stuff about chromosomes and gender roles and the real issue is lost.
Ungendering, in other words. I'll post a rather lengthy but extremely appropriate quote from Julia Serano (who, for those who don't know, is a trans activist and PhD biologist):
"...when we presume a person to be cissexual, we generally accept their overall perceived gender as natural and authentic, while disregarding any minor discrepancies in their gender appearance. However, upon discovering or suspecting that a person is transsexual, we often actively (and rather compulsively) search for evidence of their assigned sex in their personality, expressions, and physical bodies. I have experienced this firsthand during the countless occasions when I have come out to people as transsexual. Upon learning of my trans status, most people get this distinctive "look" in their eyes, as if they are suddenly seeing me differently--searching for clues of the boy that I used to be and projecting different meanings onto my body. I call this process ungendering, as it is an attempt to undo a trans person's gender by privileging incongruities and discrepancies in their gendered appearance that would normally be overlooked or dismissed if they were presumed to be cissexual. The only purpose that ungendering serves is to privilege cissexual genders, while delegitimizing the genders of transsexuals and other gender-variant people."
She speaks primarily of physical appearance, but the same applies to things like chromosomes as well. CAIS women get a pass there where trans women don't, for instance.
The lady in question made some people uncomfortable and for that reason she was disqualified. Maybe it was a sponsor or a judge or some of the competitors. It doesn't matter really.
It seems interesting to me to think about it in the same terms used to disqualify black women when that was the civil rights issue of the time. The actual argument might not have taken the form of "black women aren't women," but the underlying "we're not comfortable with black people competing with white people" sentiment was definitely similar, as was the "well, black people can go make their own pageants" attitude.
What happened here is that the competition only allows women to enter, the word woman means something that Jenna isn't, then a bunch people who don't know the meaning of the word got angry and made the categorical error that definitions can discriminate.
Her ID and birth certificate have that magical "Sex: F" on them. She's physically, socially, and endocrinologically female except for inconsequential traits like (presumably) her chromosomes. To me it seems rather reasonable to assume that this would be enough to qualify someone for entry into a women's event where chromosomes and breastfeeding and whatever other arguments you've made don't actually matter. Whether someone was assigned a male or female gender role at birth doesn't matter because none of the entrants identify or present that way now.
In the end, the people who shouted the loudest were heard.
Another instance of someone belittling progress. I'll ask you the same question I asked earlier in this post: Do you think Rosa Parks not giving up her seat on the bus and the subsequent fallout was simply a case of "the people who shouted the loudest were heard"?
I remind you, the Rosa Parks situation was about fighting discrimination even in cases where it's apparently minor. It's little different in that respect from fighting for trans acceptance in beauty pageants: There's a social norm ("white people should have priority" vs "only cis women should be allowed") that's being fought, and is simply being seen at the time of occurrence as a minority group haranguing the privileged minority into getting its was on what's seen as a minor, unimportant issue worth fighting. Except that it is worth fighting because all these "minor issues" add up to systematic oppression greater than the sum of its parts. Fighting that oppression means dismantling the parts that make it up, which is why you see such big issues being made over bus seats and beauty pageants and whatever else.
You tell me! You're the one who started to argue against it in the first place. I brought up the point to talk about why I don't view transgendered woman in the exact same sense as I do naturally born women.
Some people don't want relationships with black women, or with amputees, or with women who have mental disorders. No one would take discriminating against these traits as reason enough to attack their very womanhood. I have no problem with people who don't want to be with trans women, so long as the reason is along the lines of "they're in the umbrella of women I don't want to be with" rather than "they aren't women."
Transgendered females are not born with xx chromosomes in their genes, it's something they feel - not something they are according to their genes. That's part of the reason I think your metaphor was crappy in the first place.
It's something I feel due to the way my brain was hardwired long before I was born (kind of like how the system in question had PS3 internals long before it was given to you). The exact same way as you feel you're male, actually. You just don't put it in those terms because your identified gender and assigned gender agree with each other.
What you're talking about is psychological feelings - not physical genetic ones.
I'm talking about psychological feelings directly stemming from the way my brain is physically wired.
Again, you're trying to argue psychological feelings determine your sex.
No, or at least not so simply. I'm saying that gender determines how your sex is classified. A woman with CAIS is seen as a woman despite her XY chromosomes and lack of a uterus/ovaries, for instance, whereas a trans woman is seen as not really a woman because of those exact same reasons. Framing the issue as trans women being "men who become women" versus "women born with body parts usually classified as male" is what it's about—it's a classification issue at heart, and like it or not, the simplistic chromosome argument does not hold with how medical science actually classifies people as male or female.
I'm advocating a blind test or a double blind test - both of which are accepted testing methods for unbiased results.
You're advocating using single pieces of information to exclude other pieces of information that go into making the overall decision.
No they don't, they address sexual identity (which is psychological), not genetic sex. It's a strawman.
I don't understand why you're apparently so focused on framing transsexuality as a purely psychological issue when it's known not to be.
Arguments stand and fall on their own. That is why I don't accept arguments from authority and why they are a fallacy.
Appeal to authority is fallacious when that authority isn't actually authoritative, but in the case of trans identities that isn't the case. You're trying to dictate to me the finer details of my own identity and giving reasons for it that, frankly, disagree not only with me but with science.
I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Clarify please.
I've given the link no fewer than three times in this thread, twice to HTime and once to Belgareth. Here it is again.
Basically it reads, Well Transwomen don't become women except you know... to remove the ***** we are born with and turn it into a ****** and take estrogen shots because our bodies will otherwise produce testosterone.
None of that "makes" someone a woman, otherwise you could theoretically do all that to a cis man and he'd "become" a woman. But he wouldn't be. He'd just be a man (and at that point intensely dysphoric).
Which are things that a male goes through. There's no hormonal imbalance inherent in your bodies - your genes are telling your male body to produce a male hormone at puberty, which is a natural affect of being a genetic male.
Your brain is wired to prefer one sex hormone to the other. This is why HRT has such profound psychological effect on trans people, and why cis people who have to take the other hormone (such as male cancer patients who have to take estrogen) have such severe psychological reaction to it.
You get the surgery to match what you feel psychologically.
And also to make our bodies match the hardwired "map" in our brains. That "map" is the same reason why phantom limb pain exists even in people born without the limb in question—our brains are wired one way and our bodies don't match it. It's not purely psychological like you keep trying to say it is.
the version of the rules you present would allow any adult canadian to enter, including men!
Ah, the old "if we let trans women in, then men will come in too" argument. Unfortunately it doesn't hold any weight, not the least of which because we're talking about including someone who identifies as female, who presents and lives as female, and is legally female.
It's like protesting Miss Canada for not allowing American women to compete.
It's more like protesting them if they were to do something like say it's open to all Canadian citizens, but then they sneak in a "must be born in Canada" clause
So you fully support discrimination against natural-born XX women, but will scream bloody murder if a transgender XY is discriminated against?
Yes, I will cry bloody murder at institutionalized social and legal oppression. No, I don't see a marginalized group creating its own space to be remotely comparable. Trans women excluding cis women has no element of oppression to it. Cis women excluding trans women does.
Basically Teia, and I don't mean any offense by this, but that post basically reads "Transwomen like me are special and deserve special treatment and **** the natural-borns." For all your claims that you and other transgender XYs are no difference than a natural-born woman, aside from inability to ovulate, you sure go out of your way to set yourself apart and demand special treatment.
"Special treatment" is the cry of the overprivileged who see systematic inequality as being normal, and real equality shaking up this norm as wrong. I mean, what kind of "special treatment" do I even want for trans women? I just want us to be seen and recognized as the women we are, no more or less "real" women than cis women. I want there to be no distinctions drawn between trans and cis women. I want equality, not special treatment, and acknowledging very real differences in action based on power dynamics does not run counter to that in the slightest.
And demanding special treatment because you're different, even if it's only being treated the same in your eyes (as I'm sure this seems to you - but even in your view, transgender XYs should be allow to compete with natural-born XXs in women-only pageants, but natural-born XXs cannot compete with transgender/transsexual XYs in their own pageants, which is a double standard),
You ever stop to think that I might feel that in an ideal world, there wouldn't be any real need for trans-women-only pageants and the like?
It's not oppression so long as you're discriminating against the "right" people? Seriously?
Please feel free to enlighten me as to how us trans women are "oppressing" cis women in any way, shape, or form. And I mean real, systematic, institutionalized oppression here.
That is the argument that bigots have used from time immemorial. You are dehumanizing an entire group of people. This is made even more Orwellian in that it's being done in the name of equity.
A person's privilege* is not based on the average privilege of everybody in the country who shares an arbitrary phenotype feature with him.
You know, this isn't directed at you specifically, but I find that when it comes to teaching the concept of privilege, intersectionality is the single hardest concept to convey. The simple "X group is privileged over Y group" aspect is easy for most people to understand (if not accept), but when you start making it multidimensional and start comparing like 10-20 different traits at once, apparently it gets nigh impossible to follow.
It's like, to say white people are privileged over black people, that kind of statement exists in a vacuum ignoring the effects of, say, wealth. A rich black person is going to be privileged over a poor white person. Similarly, someone being trans doesn't instantly send them to "scum of the earth" levels, even if it does make everything harder unless you have passing privilege. No traits are really unimportant when considering someone's overall level of privilege, because all other things being equal, white people are more privileged than black people, and cis people are more privileged than (non-passing) trans people. It's just that different aspects of privilege almost never intersect in such a way that "all other things being equal" is ever true.
Oh, sure, and I wouldn't dare get in between and that argument, just stop calling a neurological condition "feelings."
Pretty much, but to me it seems to run a bit deeper than simply calling a neurological condition "feelings." I mean, the feelings in question are just representative of a condition being present. The really improper behaviour is to discount the concept of "feelings" to the point where everything absolutely positively must be grounded in cold, hard science with absolutely no relation to anything that is not 100% mathematically quantifiable (there's obviously an element of hyperbole here but I hope my point is still clear).
On a more serious note, consider that "logic" and "emotion" aren't really opposite or mutually exclusive or anything else of the sort. Emotion and feelings being inherently "illogical" has more to do with the opacity of the process required to get to the final conclusion than any necessary logical fallacy in it.
This is not because they have "wrong brain" or "opposite gender brain" but because their is a genetic abnormality just like in many other conditions. Yes it's more politically correct to just do as they desire and change the body and let them lead as close as possible to a normal life. However it is perfectly plausible with genetic therapy the issue may not even exist in the future as it will be possible to screen and repair the mutation before it takes effect.
MRI technology is improving every year which allows us to not only map the changes in the brain but more easily understand the issue.
I know you prefer to ignore the fact it is really a mutation but it is, yes it's not nice to be thought of as different from "normal" and hopefully it will become commonly accepted by all but as I got told a few pages back the world is not ideal.
So, in other words, the problem isn't that our society treats certain classes of people as inferior, it's that those people are defective. But there's good news! Science can "fix" those people to make them acceptable!
Perhaps you see your solution as compassionate, but I see it as a defense of the prejudicial attitudes of society.
In my experience, it is often the case that people can only reach their full potential when they feel that they belong, that they have a place in a community. For that to happen, the individual must both open up to others, and others must open up to them.
I've met transmen and transwomen who lead happy, productive lives, and who are welcomed and accepted by the communities they call home. Their "condition" is no vice, no detriment - certainly not something that demands "curing" or "fixing".
You claim that "prejudices will always exist", but I wholeheartedly disagree with you. I believe that prejudice flourishes only where it is allowed to, where it is left unquestioned. Living in the south, depending on where I go, I see instances of discrimination against people for all sorts of reasons. But I also find communities out there where acceptance and tolerance are the norm. Prejudice is often a highly circumstantial thing, and not something that is innate or unchangeable.
If race truly does not matter at all, then why can the average black person run faster than the average white person, as evidenced by their relative dominance in professional sports?
Who cares? Like I said, the fortunate circumstances of athletes like Kobe Bryant may bring the privilege average up for the black race, if you care to measure privilege that way, but they don't actually affect the very unfortunate circumstances of poor inner-city youths which is what we actually need to care about. Unless the athletes use their status to direct attention and resources towards troubled communities, of course, which is awesome of them.
And yet cissexual, cisgender human females have specific brain structures, while cissexual, cisgender human males have other specific brain structures. Trans women's brain structures follow the former, not the latter.
"Not the latter"? I know you know that's not true, because I've seen you acknowledge it's not true.
The only purpose that ungendering serves is to privilege cissexual genders, while delegitimizing the genders of transsexuals and other gender-variant people."
Also: human curiosity in the face of a novel circumstance. For God's sake, stop demonizing everything.
Ah, the old "if we let trans women in, then men will come in too" argument. Unfortunately it doesn't hold any weight, not the least of which because we're talking about including someone who identifies as female, who presents and lives as female, and is legally female.
Read what you're responding to again. It has nothing to do with this.
It's more like protesting them if they were to do something like say it's open to all Canadian citizens, but then they sneak in a "must be born in Canada" clause.
As long as the rule is out in the open, they didn't "sneak" it in, and they'd be absolutely in their rights to do this.
"Special treatment" is the cry of the overprivileged who see systematic inequality as being normal, and real equality shaking up this norm as wrong. I mean, what kind of "special treatment" do I even want for trans women? I just want us to be seen and recognized as the women we are, no more or less "real" women than cis women. I want there to be no distinctions drawn between trans and cis women. I want equality, not special treatment, and acknowledging very real differences in action based on power dynamics does not run counter to that in the slightest.
This is true. Letting Talackova compete doesn't exactly fall into the contentious area of "affirmative action" or "positive discrimination" or whatever you want to call it.
Please feel free to enlighten me as to how us trans women are "oppressing" cis women in any way, shape, or form. And I mean real, systematic, institutionalized oppression here.
If one trans-only pageant isn't systematic oppression, how can one cis-only pageant be systematic oppression?
Teia for the record the science links you point to are outdated and almost certainly supersceded by more cutting edge research such as that which I pm'd you.
I assume they're relevant here, so perhaps you could post them so the rest of us can evaluate as well?
Private Mod Note
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I have absolutely 0 issue with transgender people, I just wanted to correct teia from doing more harm to the issue with misrepresented facts.
I don't defend any societal prejudicial attitudes and promote acceptance for all (infact I have been trying to campaign for equal treatment for mental health cases versus other disabilities.)
I wasn't claiming that you were yourself prejudiced. I apologize if I seemed accusatorial.
But all too often I've heard people put forward medical models for our differences in ways that suggest that it's easier for the individual to fix themselves rather than for society to accommodate the individual. I'm very hesitant when it comes to that line of thinking.
I believe they should be given the choice of wether they stay as they are , have surgery to alter body , or hopefully in not to distant future are able to receive gene therapy.
What is the difference between treating mind versus treating body, both are effectively fixing a condition whether you like it or not.
However, when you said "the issue may not even exist in the future as it will be possible to screen and repair the mutation before it takes effect" I became confused as to what condition you were claiming gene therapy was to fix, and who was responsible for making the decision.
If by screening you meant screening and repair before or just after birth, I would have said that it was decidedly different than the surgery option, because the choice wouldn't be up to the individual. "Before it takes effect" came off as very ambiguous to me. Perhaps you could clarify that for me.
Teia
I just need to say this much You're trying to trivialize the issue, like a case such as this is unimportant and trans women are simply whining to be allowed into some place we apparently shouldn't be. So, tell me, was Rosa Parks simply "making a stink" by refusing to give up her seat on the bus?
Is it "reverse oppression" in that case, too?
~
I remind you, the Rosa Parks situation was about fighting discrimination
even in cases where it's apparently minor. It's little different in that
respect from fighting for trans acceptance in beauty pageants: There's a
social norm ("white people should have priority" vs "only cis women should
be allowed") that's being fought, and is simply being seen at the time of
occurrence as a minority group haranguing the privileged minority into
getting its was on what's seen as a minor, unimportant issue worth fighting.
Except that it is worth fighting because all these "minor issues" add up
to systematic oppression greater than the sum of its parts. Fighting that
oppression means dismantling the parts that make it up, which is why you
see such big issues being made over bus seats and beauty pageants and
whatever else.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE for the love of god, STOP with the Rosa Parks argument.
Rosa Parks did NOT have multiple physical and cosmetic surgeries and years of serious hormone drug therapy to BE BLACK!
Rosa Parks was NOT born some other race, and then CHANGED herself into a black person who then got descriminated against.
STOP comparing apples & oranges please!
Last I checked, Transpeople could vote in elections, go to the same schools, shop at the same stores, eat at the same restaurants, own homes and/or rent apartments wherever they like, apply for the same jobs, drink from the same drinking fountains, walk on the same side of the street, AND ALSO SIT ANYWHERE THEY CHOOSE ON THE BUS! Just the same as "cis" people. Whatever the **** "cis" really means.
Stop trying to equate Jenna (a born MALE) being excluded from a Womans beauty pageant (and reinstated under pressure,mind you) to ROSA PARKS.
You are NOT helping your argument, if anything you are only hurting the legacy of what Rosa Parks really did.
Well, dictionary.com gives me "the nature, characteristics, or feelings often attributed to women; womanliness." Of course, you might fixate on the "woman = female" meaning, in which case the meaning in question, "a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a ******, a uterus and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts, and retaining a beardless face; a girl or woman," is a bit confused since while it implies having a ******/uterus/ovaries/specific dimorphic features isn't necessary, it places emphasis on the chromosomes. So under that definition, a trans woman who somehow has two X chromosomes is a woman, but a cis woman with CAIS isn't.
Not in the definition of the term FEMALE it doesn't. What you quoted is only listed under the adjectives section where the synonym "feminine" is listed.
Under the NOUN (person, place, or thing) a FEMALE is an organism that has XX, Ova, makes eggs / makes babies.
(Oh, and before you bring up females that can't have babies, i.e. sterility, it's not comparable. A sterile female still has ovaries, XX, and a uterus.)
Under the ADJECTIVES (words to describe something) If something had the nature and characteristics or feelings associated to a women, or womanliness, we can describe it as female. But that doesn't make is A Female Organism.
(i.e. "Female Sufferage" is not A Female Organism)
NO ONE is arguing that Jenna is not Feminine. NO ONE is arguing that Jenna does not have female characteristics, nor am I arguing that Jenna is not "womanly". If I saw Jenna walking down the street I'd assume Jenna is a female. I don't look up people's medical reports when I pass them by.
noun 1. a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a ******, a uterus and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts, and retaining a beardless face; a girl or woman.
2. an organism of the sex or sexual phase that normally produces egg cells.
3. Botany . a pistillate plant.
adjective 4. of, pertaining to, or being a female animal or plant.
5. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a female person; feminine: female suffrage; female charm.
6. composed of females: a female readership.
7. Botany . a. designating or pertaining to a plant or its reproductive structure that produces or contains elements requiring fertilization. b. (of seed plants) pistillate.
8. Machinery . being or having a recessed part into which a corresponding part fits: a female plug. Compare male ( def. 5 ) .
I don't understand these statements about trans individuals being a highly oppressed group of people. In the US at least, excluding marriage laws in some states, they have every social right that any other person has. And even then, those states with marriage laws would only affect some individuals, depending on their state recognized gender.
If your talking about hate crimes, bullying or prejudice, this happens to every race & gender in America on some levels. This includes caucasian people. The idea that someday, people will never again dispute their differences is absurd. We can't even stop kids at school from picking on each other let alone abolish it from society completely.
Do not quote this and imply that I said "racism is okay because everyone experiences it". I AM saying this: your not special and no one is immune to societies natural dispute of differences. Societies natural dispute of differences will never completely go away, no matter how much someone wants it to.
Your alternative is to start your own private island and only invite those who have the same ideology as you do. In doing so, you would be the bigot. The concept itself would fail as your society developed and people started formulating their own opinions.
This is where "tolerance" comes in. The idea behind "tolerance" is that you tolerate something, but it doesn't mean you must approve of it or like it. Tolerance is the crucial link that allows all kinds of different people with different opinions to exist together. If your a guy and you show up at a restaurant with a dress & makeup on, the surrounding people staring at you or commenting about it amongst themselves are not evil bigoted people who don't accept others.
Should you choose to "break" the norm of society, don't blame society and claim something is wrong with it. If the management asked the man to leave the restaurant, its no different than being asked to leave because this establishment requires a collared shirt and dress shoes
If we are in outrage that someone was disqualified from a womens pageant for being born male, we might as well outrage that men don't get hired as hooter girls or that fat chicks have a hard time getting a job in the adult entertainment industry. Lets just outrage over everything.
One event where someone hits a brick wall doesn't mean people are highly oppressed. I agree with other posters; people who didn't care or agreed with the decision didn't write thousands of petitions expressing their opinion. Such petitions and pleas are always one sided. The squeakiest wheel gets oiled.
Its like cell phone reviews. People who love their phone don't find various websites to write a 5 star review expressing it. Only pissed off people who have an issue write a review and list every problem they had with their phone. My LG was apparently supposed to die within a year, be replaced 3 times, have buttons fall off and need a new battery every 6 months.
I don't understand these statements about trans individuals being a highly oppressed group of people. In the US at least, excluding marriage laws in some states, they have every social right that any other person has. And even then, those states with marriage laws would only affect some individuals, depending on their state recognized gender.
If your talking about hate crimes, bullying or prejudice, this happens to every race & gender in America on some levels. This includes caucasian people. The idea that someday, people will never again dispute their differences is absurd. We can't even stop kids at school from picking on each other let alone abolish it from society completely.
Do not quote this and imply that I said "racism is okay because everyone experiences it". I AM saying this: your not special and no one is immune to societies natural dispute of differences. Societies natural dispute of differences will never completely go away, no matter how much someone wants it to.
Your alternative is to start your own private island and only invite those who have the same ideology as you do. In doing so, you would be the bigot. The concept itself would fail as your society developed and people started formulating their own opinions.
This is where "tolerance" comes in. The idea behind "tolerance" is that you tolerate something, but it doesn't mean you must approve of it or like it. Tolerance is the crucial link that allows all kinds of different people with different opinions to exist together. If your a guy and you show up at a restaurant with a dress & makeup on, the surrounding people staring at you or commenting about it amongst themselves are not evil bigoted people who don't accept others.
Should you choose to "break" the norm of society, don't blame society and claim something is wrong with it. If the management asked the man to leave the restaurant, its no different than being asked to leave because this establishment requires a collared shirt and dress shoes
If we are in outrage that someone was disqualified from a womens pageant for being born male, we might as well outrage that men don't get hired as hooter girls or that fat chicks have a hard time getting a job in the adult entertainment industry. Lets just outrage over everything.
One event where someone hits a brick wall doesn't mean people are highly oppressed. I agree with other posters; people who didn't care or agreed with the decision didn't write thousands of petitions expressing their opinion. Such petitions and pleas are always one sided. The squeakiest wheel gets oiled.
Its like cell phone reviews. People who love their phone don't find various websites to write a 5 star review expressing it. Only pissed off people who have an issue write a review and list every problem they had with their phone. My LG was apparently supposed to die within a year, be replaced 3 times, have buttons fall off and need a new battery every 6 months.
None of which were true.
I count 10 separate and distinct Strawman arguments in this, but I might have missed a couple.
I count 10 separate and distinct Strawman arguments in this, but I might have missed a couple.
Maybe I'm not talking directly to specific individuals or quoting exact texts to refute and offer rebuttal. Sorry for making general statements about the discussion, without entertaining you with scientific arguments or outside links, while avoiding the whole brain xx-xy-yx-xz-99 argument your stuck on.
Maybe I'm not talking directly to specific individuals or quoting exact texts to refute and offer rebuttal. Sorry for making general statements about the discussion, without entertaining you with scientific arguments or outside links, while avoiding the whole brain xx-xy-yx-xz-99 argument your stuck on.
Oh, I certainly can't fault you for that, I'm staying the hell out of it too, but srsly cell phones and their relative value? That is a looooooong leap of logic to get from here to there.
Oh, I certainly can't fault you for that, I'm staying the hell out of it too, but srsly cell phones and their relative value? That is a looooooong leap of logic to get from here to there.
Because conservative bias is a far, far worse thing. Liberal bias doesn't, statistically speaking, make people stupid. Conservative bias (or at least Fox's version of it) does.
Oh, I certainly can't fault you for that, I'm staying the hell out of it too, but srsly cell phones and their relative value? That is a looooooong leap of logic to get from here to there.
Its really not. Heres the connection.
If mere 10,000 people signed petitions to change the ruling, there are millions and millions of others who didn't care thus didn't write their own petition agreeing with the ruling. So its not like the pageant recieved 10,000 petitions for it, and however many thousand against it.
Like cell phone reviews. People only write on them when theyre mad and something is wrong. If mere 10,000 people go and angrily post on verizon's website, that does not include the millions of people who are perfectly happy with it and didn't bother to even go look, let alone write a review.
So the perception in both is the same.
You recieve 10,000 angry petitions it would give the allure that the public is outraged by this and it must be changed. But really, your only holding the angry peitions in hand and nothing more.
When you read the reviews on (any product, really) your reading the 10,000 bad ones giving the allure that the phone is crap and the worst thing thats ever been made.
If a patch nerfs rogues in WoW, you can expect nothing less than a thousand rogues hitting the forums to protest. If you were to visit the forum, it would look like the community is in uproar. But really, the thousand angry people don't represent the millions of people who play and didn't come post.
IN SHORT
Angry people complain.
Content people don't.
The loudest get heard.
Admit, I could have said this better in my original post.
If mere 10,000 people signed petitions to change the ruling, there are millions and millions of others who didn't care thus didn't write their own petition agreeing with the ruling. So its not like the pageant recieved 10,000 petitions for it, and however many thousand against it.
Like cell phone reviews. People only write on them when their mad and something is wrong. If mere 10,000 people go and angrily post on verizon's website, that does not include the millions of people who are perfectly happy with it and didn't bother to even go look, let alone write a review.
So the perception in both is the same.
You recieve 10,000 angry petitions it would give the allure that the public is outraged by this and it must be changed. But really, your only holding the angry peitions in hand and nothing more.
When you read the reviews on (any product, really) your reading the 10,000 bad ones giving the allure that the phone is crap and the worst thing thats ever been made.
IN SHORT
Angry people complain.
Content people don't.
...and it's a strawman. You're attempting to draw a connection between people who are angry because they spent money and got a shoddy product (fiscal incentive) vs. people who signed a petition (moral/ethical/social incentive, depending). It may be that fiscal incentive is a more worthwhile endeavor than moral outrage, it may not, but you're still trying to nullify people's actions based on what another unrelated group did for different reasons!
I don't really follow newer gaming systems, which fiasco are we talking about, and how does it apply to cell phones?
It was a few pages back. Teia I believe started the analogy that being transgendered was like a ps3 case with Xbox innards or something to that effect.
Because conservative bias is a far, far worse thing. Liberal bias doesn't, statistically speaking, make people stupid. Conservative bias (or at least Fox's version of it) does.
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Yes, you are correct.
I'm not disputing that or the study's results (Teia also argued this), however like I said I don't believe that having a neurological condition makes someone a 'male' or 'female'. It simply makes someone the sex they are with the neurological makeup of the opposite sex.
I think someone's sex is determined genetically and again while this isn't always so clear cut, in Jenna's case it is.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
You still have yet to answer how we are supposed to resolve structural inequalities that privilege white heterosexual males if we aren't allowed to "discriminate" against them. There is no ****ing magical fairy wand to take everyone to Equalia.
If the only way to remove an advantageous position is to actively discriminate against people in said position, then that position isn't a result of privilege, it's a result of superiority.
Meaning that, for example, since it is a known genetic fact that white people aren't different from black people in any meaningful phenotypical sense, allowing the labor market to choose without discrimination between blacks and whites will eventually lead to "Equalia," while active discrimination against whites and in favor of blacks will tend to make things unequal.
Discriminating against whites is only a sensible measure if you think whites are actually superior to blacks and need to be hobbled to even things out. I always find this sort of amusing, since it's usually liberals who claim to be as far from white supremacists as one can get that take this stance, not realizing its true implications.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Except that the history of everything proves that this isn't true. Because there are structural inequalities such as the lack of access to education, etc. that make it such that whites have a massive advantage in both college acceptance and the marketplace writ large. If you said "just hire everyone according to qualifications" all of the time it would sustain discrimination against blacks because they don't have access to the same opportunities to make them as equally "qualified" as whites. It's asinine to think that just letting things continue the way they are will resolve everything simply because there is no biological difference between the two. There's no magic wand to make discrimination in socioeconomic conditions just disappear, and until that is the case it doesn't matter how biologically equal the two races are.
This is stupid. Read my above response. It's not the belief that whites have a biological superiority that has to be rectified. it's a social socioeconomic superiority that has to be rectified. I imagine you think you're quite clever for coming up with why liberals are "really" the white supremacists when in fact it's not about whites actually being better in any fashion than other minorities. It's about the social relationship of whites to other minorities. Whites are NOT better, I do believe that whites have SOCIAL superiority and THAT should be fixed.
You're not clever.
So what you are saying is that black people are still being discriminated against. That being the case, does it strike you as anything less than completely asinine to think that the solution to that problem is to heap as much discrimination against white people as we can so that both groups can be equally oppressed?
Wow, doesn't take much to get you to collapse into spewing drivel, does it?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
You really think that providing privilege to Black people because of a deficiency in their social situation that puts them at a structural disadvantage qualifies as "oppression of white people?"
And now for the 4th time in this thread. If the solution is not something like affirmative action which attempts to rectify the disparity in access to opportunity then what is?
Asking a question is not the same as providing a solution. Unless you honestly think that the status quo with large level discrimination against minorities is better than any other alternative you need to tell me what the better solution is. Because right now you're still relying upon fairy land. Especially since you didn't respond to ANY part of my post stating why your solution failed.
Yeah, all of my post. Drivel.
The solution is programs that positively affect black people to bring them up, not programs that negatively affect white people to bring them down. Educational investments, community organizing, inner city youth programs, etc. Punishing a white kid by taking their spot in college away for a less qualified minority is wrong. We need to correct socio-economic disparities, but discrimination against whites is not the answer.
It's not oppression so long as you're discriminating against the "right" people? Seriously?
That is the argument that bigots have used from time immemorial. You are dehumanizing an entire group of people. This is made even more Orwellian in that it's being done in the name of equity.
See, that's the hilarious problem. Because I've already seen Solaran (specifically) et al (generally) complain that it means we're STILL discriminating against whites because we're giving something to minorities that whites don't get. Like educational investments, youth programs for minorities that whites don't get, community organizing in black, but not white, communities. Etc.
I also think that you missed the point of affirmative action. Because it's LITERALLY not "take spots away from white kids that earned that college spot." It is "give a spot to black kids who would otherwise be unable to earn a spot in college because of the structural inequalities of education."
I would probably agree with you if Affirmative Action only stopped white kids from getting into college. That would be asinine. But given that it's not "just prohibit X group from accessing privilege" and is INSTEAD "ensure that Y underprivileged group gets access to privilege" which sometimes results in some members of X group being unable to access their privilege it's a fundamentally different game. Affirmative Action is NOT "let's oppress whites so that all groups are equally oppressed." If it were it would literally just cap white admissions and do nothing to actually benefit minorities. That's the difference.
There is NO solution that revolves around the question of "giving to everyone equally." Because of the fact that there is no level playing field.
If whites have 100 privilege points (arbitrary and made up for the purpose of an example) and blacks have 20. Any solution that gives the same privilege points to BOTH groups maintains the disparity. Whereas any that attempts to give to blacks to equalize to whites is deemed as "discriminatory against whites."
So: solution. Go.
Stop thinking about "blacks" and "whites" as different teams with different point totals. Evaluate the opportunities and well-being of individual people and neighborhoods. Target poor areas for education and economic development programs regardless of the predominant skin color among the occupants. A person's privilege* is not based on the average privilege of everybody in the country who shares an arbitrary phenotype feature with him. It's based on the particular circumstances in which he lives. If he lives in a crime-ridden ghetto worth ten "privilege points", it doesn't matter whether he's white and other people of the same race bring the racial average up to a hundred points or he's black and they only bring it up to twenty; he only has ten points either way.
Poverty matters. Crime matters. Unemployment matters. Lack of education matters. But race does not matter.
*Wrong word for this, but whatever.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Oh, sure, and I wouldn't dare get in between and that argument, just stop calling a neurological condition "feelings."
I'm not lying or twisting words when I point out that there's no real way to get from "I've never had my karyotype tested" to "karyotype testing is impossible," which is basically what he did.
That's a flaw I've noticed permeates this forum, actually. It's as if anything involving less than 100% scientific certainty entails "mind reading" and is inherently wrong.
Gender identity stems from encephalic sex.
And yet I cite people who say Jenna (or for that matter me) are "really" men still refer to us and classify us on some level as women. And on a lot of levels, it seems trans women are women enough to be put into the "female" category some of the time but the "male" category in cases where the authenticity of our femininity is involved. In short, we're seen as inauthentic women, not truly as "men," which is somewhat of an implicit third-gender category. We're not truly "female" in those eyes, but also not fully "male."
Well, dictionary.com gives me "the nature, characteristics, or feelings often attributed to women; womanliness." Of course, you might fixate on the "woman = female" meaning, in which case the meaning in question, "a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a ******, a uterus and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts, and retaining a beardless face; a girl or woman," is a bit confused since while it implies having a ******/uterus/ovaries/specific dimorphic features isn't necessary, it places emphasis on the chromosomes. So under that definition, a trans woman who somehow has two X chromosomes is a woman, but a cis woman with CAIS isn't.
tl;dr The dictionary is a poor place to go to determine what these words actually mean when applied to real life instead of mere theory.
And yet cissexual, cisgender human females have specific brain structures, while cissexual, cisgender human males have other specific brain structures. Trans women's brain structures follow the former, not the latter. Don't try to be coy and bring non-humans into a discussion specifically about humans.
1) Your definition erases cis women who, for some reason, cannot give birth. Or for that matter cis women who are simply born without parts of their reproductive system.
2) If you got my hormone balance to that of a nursing mother, I'd lactate just like they would (since I have the physical structures to do so, and they'd simply need a biological trigger like a cis woman would). This is a very poor definition all around, but you seem intent on pursuing it so I might as well point out why it's wrong.
Philosophically speaking, the concept of personhood is distinct from the concept of being human. Other sapient species (were they to exist like we do) could theoretically qualify for the former even if not the latter.
Well, no, I'm talking about gendered social interaction as it really occurs. No one really means "XX chromosomes" when they talk about someone being female. Chromosomes are only used as later justification when there's conflict with the person's presented gender and the gender they were assigned at birth. This process of systematically coming up with excuses for why someone who meets and identifies as a social definition of a word but not the perceived biological one is a concept called ungendering.
I said nothing of the sort.
Again, you're falling into the trap of "something is either completely 100% scientifically provable, or its validity is automatically cast into doubt such that assertion is meaningless." It's utterly fallacious.
There's also Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.
Except in the part I posted earlier in this reply.
Who in this thread was arguing anything in anything approaching the spirit of this?
Those are a completely different kind of entity than what we're talking about. And in the case of forcing the NFL to accept a woman or whatever, sure, that's one thing, but what you'd be arguing would be that they should not accept a trans man. You kind of run into the Renee Richards sort of situation when you start arguing that.
Except that the "naturally born females" thing is the kind of reactionary measure that doesn't get written in when the rules are being formed, but when someone realizes that the rules as written apply to including groups that the writes don't want to include, so they scramble for meagre justification for exclusionary practices. We're talking about excluding someone who even has "Sex: F" on their birth certificate (since they get reissued following surgery) for not being female "enough," since in every legal and social way she is indeed a woman.
You're trying to trivialize the issue, like a case such as this is unimportant and trans women are simply whining to be allowed into some place we apparently shouldn't be. So, tell me, was Rosa Parks simply "making a stink" by refusing to give up her seat on the bus? Is it "reverse oppression" in that case, too?
Ungendering, in other words. I'll post a rather lengthy but extremely appropriate quote from Julia Serano (who, for those who don't know, is a trans activist and PhD biologist):
"...when we presume a person to be cissexual, we generally accept their overall perceived gender as natural and authentic, while disregarding any minor discrepancies in their gender appearance. However, upon discovering or suspecting that a person is transsexual, we often actively (and rather compulsively) search for evidence of their assigned sex in their personality, expressions, and physical bodies. I have experienced this firsthand during the countless occasions when I have come out to people as transsexual. Upon learning of my trans status, most people get this distinctive "look" in their eyes, as if they are suddenly seeing me differently--searching for clues of the boy that I used to be and projecting different meanings onto my body. I call this process ungendering, as it is an attempt to undo a trans person's gender by privileging incongruities and discrepancies in their gendered appearance that would normally be overlooked or dismissed if they were presumed to be cissexual. The only purpose that ungendering serves is to privilege cissexual genders, while delegitimizing the genders of transsexuals and other gender-variant people."
She speaks primarily of physical appearance, but the same applies to things like chromosomes as well. CAIS women get a pass there where trans women don't, for instance.
It seems interesting to me to think about it in the same terms used to disqualify black women when that was the civil rights issue of the time. The actual argument might not have taken the form of "black women aren't women," but the underlying "we're not comfortable with black people competing with white people" sentiment was definitely similar, as was the "well, black people can go make their own pageants" attitude.
Her ID and birth certificate have that magical "Sex: F" on them. She's physically, socially, and endocrinologically female except for inconsequential traits like (presumably) her chromosomes. To me it seems rather reasonable to assume that this would be enough to qualify someone for entry into a women's event where chromosomes and breastfeeding and whatever other arguments you've made don't actually matter. Whether someone was assigned a male or female gender role at birth doesn't matter because none of the entrants identify or present that way now.
Another instance of someone belittling progress. I'll ask you the same question I asked earlier in this post: Do you think Rosa Parks not giving up her seat on the bus and the subsequent fallout was simply a case of "the people who shouted the loudest were heard"?
I remind you, the Rosa Parks situation was about fighting discrimination even in cases where it's apparently minor. It's little different in that respect from fighting for trans acceptance in beauty pageants: There's a social norm ("white people should have priority" vs "only cis women should be allowed") that's being fought, and is simply being seen at the time of occurrence as a minority group haranguing the privileged minority into getting its was on what's seen as a minor, unimportant issue worth fighting. Except that it is worth fighting because all these "minor issues" add up to systematic oppression greater than the sum of its parts. Fighting that oppression means dismantling the parts that make it up, which is why you see such big issues being made over bus seats and beauty pageants and whatever else.
Some people don't want relationships with black women, or with amputees, or with women who have mental disorders. No one would take discriminating against these traits as reason enough to attack their very womanhood. I have no problem with people who don't want to be with trans women, so long as the reason is along the lines of "they're in the umbrella of women I don't want to be with" rather than "they aren't women."
It's something I feel due to the way my brain was hardwired long before I was born (kind of like how the system in question had PS3 internals long before it was given to you). The exact same way as you feel you're male, actually. You just don't put it in those terms because your identified gender and assigned gender agree with each other.
I'm talking about psychological feelings directly stemming from the way my brain is physically wired.
No, or at least not so simply. I'm saying that gender determines how your sex is classified. A woman with CAIS is seen as a woman despite her XY chromosomes and lack of a uterus/ovaries, for instance, whereas a trans woman is seen as not really a woman because of those exact same reasons. Framing the issue as trans women being "men who become women" versus "women born with body parts usually classified as male" is what it's about—it's a classification issue at heart, and like it or not, the simplistic chromosome argument does not hold with how medical science actually classifies people as male or female.
You're advocating using single pieces of information to exclude other pieces of information that go into making the overall decision.
I don't understand why you're apparently so focused on framing transsexuality as a purely psychological issue when it's known not to be.
Appeal to authority is fallacious when that authority isn't actually authoritative, but in the case of trans identities that isn't the case. You're trying to dictate to me the finer details of my own identity and giving reasons for it that, frankly, disagree not only with me but with science.
I've given the link no fewer than three times in this thread, twice to HTime and once to Belgareth. Here it is again.
None of that "makes" someone a woman, otherwise you could theoretically do all that to a cis man and he'd "become" a woman. But he wouldn't be. He'd just be a man (and at that point intensely dysphoric).
Your brain is wired to prefer one sex hormone to the other. This is why HRT has such profound psychological effect on trans people, and why cis people who have to take the other hormone (such as male cancer patients who have to take estrogen) have such severe psychological reaction to it.
And also to make our bodies match the hardwired "map" in our brains. That "map" is the same reason why phantom limb pain exists even in people born without the limb in question—our brains are wired one way and our bodies don't match it. It's not purely psychological like you keep trying to say it is.
Ah, the old "if we let trans women in, then men will come in too" argument. Unfortunately it doesn't hold any weight, not the least of which because we're talking about including someone who identifies as female, who presents and lives as female, and is legally female.
It's more like protesting them if they were to do something like say it's open to all Canadian citizens, but then they sneak in a "must be born in Canada" clause
Yes, I will cry bloody murder at institutionalized social and legal oppression. No, I don't see a marginalized group creating its own space to be remotely comparable. Trans women excluding cis women has no element of oppression to it. Cis women excluding trans women does.
"Special treatment" is the cry of the overprivileged who see systematic inequality as being normal, and real equality shaking up this norm as wrong. I mean, what kind of "special treatment" do I even want for trans women? I just want us to be seen and recognized as the women we are, no more or less "real" women than cis women. I want there to be no distinctions drawn between trans and cis women. I want equality, not special treatment, and acknowledging very real differences in action based on power dynamics does not run counter to that in the slightest.
You ever stop to think that I might feel that in an ideal world, there wouldn't be any real need for trans-women-only pageants and the like?
Please feel free to enlighten me as to how us trans women are "oppressing" cis women in any way, shape, or form. And I mean real, systematic, institutionalized oppression here.
How am I dehumanizing anyone?
You know, this isn't directed at you specifically, but I find that when it comes to teaching the concept of privilege, intersectionality is the single hardest concept to convey. The simple "X group is privileged over Y group" aspect is easy for most people to understand (if not accept), but when you start making it multidimensional and start comparing like 10-20 different traits at once, apparently it gets nigh impossible to follow.
It's like, to say white people are privileged over black people, that kind of statement exists in a vacuum ignoring the effects of, say, wealth. A rich black person is going to be privileged over a poor white person. Similarly, someone being trans doesn't instantly send them to "scum of the earth" levels, even if it does make everything harder unless you have passing privilege. No traits are really unimportant when considering someone's overall level of privilege, because all other things being equal, white people are more privileged than black people, and cis people are more privileged than (non-passing) trans people. It's just that different aspects of privilege almost never intersect in such a way that "all other things being equal" is ever true.
Pretty much, but to me it seems to run a bit deeper than simply calling a neurological condition "feelings." I mean, the feelings in question are just representative of a condition being present. The really improper behaviour is to discount the concept of "feelings" to the point where everything absolutely positively must be grounded in cold, hard science with absolutely no relation to anything that is not 100% mathematically quantifiable (there's obviously an element of hyperbole here but I hope my point is still clear).
On a more serious note, consider that "logic" and "emotion" aren't really opposite or mutually exclusive or anything else of the sort. Emotion and feelings being inherently "illogical" has more to do with the opacity of the process required to get to the final conclusion than any necessary logical fallacy in it.
So, in other words, the problem isn't that our society treats certain classes of people as inferior, it's that those people are defective. But there's good news! Science can "fix" those people to make them acceptable!
Perhaps you see your solution as compassionate, but I see it as a defense of the prejudicial attitudes of society.
In my experience, it is often the case that people can only reach their full potential when they feel that they belong, that they have a place in a community. For that to happen, the individual must both open up to others, and others must open up to them.
I've met transmen and transwomen who lead happy, productive lives, and who are welcomed and accepted by the communities they call home. Their "condition" is no vice, no detriment - certainly not something that demands "curing" or "fixing".
You claim that "prejudices will always exist", but I wholeheartedly disagree with you. I believe that prejudice flourishes only where it is allowed to, where it is left unquestioned. Living in the south, depending on where I go, I see instances of discrimination against people for all sorts of reasons. But I also find communities out there where acceptance and tolerance are the norm. Prejudice is often a highly circumstantial thing, and not something that is innate or unchangeable.
My LinkedIn profile... thing (I have one of those now!).
My research team's webpage.
The mtg-rnn repo and the mtg-encode repo.
Who cares? Like I said, the fortunate circumstances of athletes like Kobe Bryant may bring the privilege average up for the black race, if you care to measure privilege that way, but they don't actually affect the very unfortunate circumstances of poor inner-city youths which is what we actually need to care about. Unless the athletes use their status to direct attention and resources towards troubled communities, of course, which is awesome of them.
"Not the latter"? I know you know that's not true, because I've seen you acknowledge it's not true.
Also: human curiosity in the face of a novel circumstance. For God's sake, stop demonizing everything.
Read what you're responding to again. It has nothing to do with this.
As long as the rule is out in the open, they didn't "sneak" it in, and they'd be absolutely in their rights to do this.
This is true. Letting Talackova compete doesn't exactly fall into the contentious area of "affirmative action" or "positive discrimination" or whatever you want to call it.
If one trans-only pageant isn't systematic oppression, how can one cis-only pageant be systematic oppression?
I assume they're relevant here, so perhaps you could post them so the rest of us can evaluate as well?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I wasn't claiming that you were yourself prejudiced. I apologize if I seemed accusatorial.
But all too often I've heard people put forward medical models for our differences in ways that suggest that it's easier for the individual to fix themselves rather than for society to accommodate the individual. I'm very hesitant when it comes to that line of thinking.
However, when you said "the issue may not even exist in the future as it will be possible to screen and repair the mutation before it takes effect" I became confused as to what condition you were claiming gene therapy was to fix, and who was responsible for making the decision.
If by screening you meant screening and repair before or just after birth, I would have said that it was decidedly different than the surgery option, because the choice wouldn't be up to the individual. "Before it takes effect" came off as very ambiguous to me. Perhaps you could clarify that for me.
My LinkedIn profile... thing (I have one of those now!).
My research team's webpage.
The mtg-rnn repo and the mtg-encode repo.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE for the love of god, STOP with the Rosa Parks argument.
Rosa Parks did NOT have multiple physical and cosmetic surgeries and years of serious hormone drug therapy to BE BLACK!
Rosa Parks was NOT born some other race, and then CHANGED herself into a black person who then got descriminated against.
STOP comparing apples & oranges please!
Last I checked, Transpeople could vote in elections, go to the same schools, shop at the same stores, eat at the same restaurants, own homes and/or rent apartments wherever they like, apply for the same jobs, drink from the same drinking fountains, walk on the same side of the street, AND ALSO SIT ANYWHERE THEY CHOOSE ON THE BUS! Just the same as "cis" people. Whatever the **** "cis" really means.
Stop trying to equate Jenna (a born MALE) being excluded from a Womans beauty pageant (and reinstated under pressure,mind you) to ROSA PARKS.
You are NOT helping your argument, if anything you are only hurting the legacy of what Rosa Parks really did.
Not in the definition of the term FEMALE it doesn't. What you quoted is only listed under the adjectives section where the synonym "feminine" is listed.
Under the NOUN (person, place, or thing) a FEMALE is an organism that has XX, Ova, makes eggs / makes babies.
(Oh, and before you bring up females that can't have babies, i.e. sterility, it's not comparable. A sterile female still has ovaries, XX, and a uterus.)
Under the ADJECTIVES (words to describe something) If something had the nature and characteristics or feelings associated to a women, or womanliness, we can describe it as female. But that doesn't make is A Female Organism.
(i.e. "Female Sufferage" is not A Female Organism)
NO ONE is arguing that Jenna is not Feminine. NO ONE is arguing that Jenna does not have female characteristics, nor am I arguing that Jenna is not "womanly". If I saw Jenna walking down the street I'd assume Jenna is a female. I don't look up people's medical reports when I pass them by.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/female
fe·male
/ˈfimeɪl/ Show Spelled[fee-meyl] Show IPA
noun
1. a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei and normally having a ******, a uterus and ovaries, and developing at puberty a relatively rounded body and enlarged breasts, and retaining a beardless face; a girl or woman.
2. an organism of the sex or sexual phase that normally produces egg cells.
3. Botany . a pistillate plant.
adjective
4. of, pertaining to, or being a female animal or plant.
5. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a female person; feminine: female suffrage; female charm.
6. composed of females: a female readership.
7. Botany . a. designating or pertaining to a plant or its reproductive structure that produces or contains elements requiring fertilization.
b. (of seed plants) pistillate.
8. Machinery . being or having a recessed part into which a corresponding part fits: a female plug. Compare male ( def. 5 ) .
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/female
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/female
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
If your talking about hate crimes, bullying or prejudice, this happens to every race & gender in America on some levels. This includes caucasian people. The idea that someday, people will never again dispute their differences is absurd. We can't even stop kids at school from picking on each other let alone abolish it from society completely.
Do not quote this and imply that I said "racism is okay because everyone experiences it". I AM saying this: your not special and no one is immune to societies natural dispute of differences. Societies natural dispute of differences will never completely go away, no matter how much someone wants it to.
Your alternative is to start your own private island and only invite those who have the same ideology as you do. In doing so, you would be the bigot. The concept itself would fail as your society developed and people started formulating their own opinions.
This is where "tolerance" comes in. The idea behind "tolerance" is that you tolerate something, but it doesn't mean you must approve of it or like it. Tolerance is the crucial link that allows all kinds of different people with different opinions to exist together. If your a guy and you show up at a restaurant with a dress & makeup on, the surrounding people staring at you or commenting about it amongst themselves are not evil bigoted people who don't accept others.
Should you choose to "break" the norm of society, don't blame society and claim something is wrong with it. If the management asked the man to leave the restaurant, its no different than being asked to leave because this establishment requires a collared shirt and dress shoes
If we are in outrage that someone was disqualified from a womens pageant for being born male, we might as well outrage that men don't get hired as hooter girls or that fat chicks have a hard time getting a job in the adult entertainment industry. Lets just outrage over everything.
One event where someone hits a brick wall doesn't mean people are highly oppressed. I agree with other posters; people who didn't care or agreed with the decision didn't write thousands of petitions expressing their opinion. Such petitions and pleas are always one sided. The squeakiest wheel gets oiled.
Its like cell phone reviews. People who love their phone don't find various websites to write a 5 star review expressing it. Only pissed off people who have an issue write a review and list every problem they had with their phone. My LG was apparently supposed to die within a year, be replaced 3 times, have buttons fall off and need a new battery every 6 months.
None of which were true.
My Buying Thread
I count 10 separate and distinct Strawman arguments in this, but I might have missed a couple.
Maybe I'm not talking directly to specific individuals or quoting exact texts to refute and offer rebuttal. Sorry for making general statements about the discussion, without entertaining you with scientific arguments or outside links, while avoiding the whole brain xx-xy-yx-xz-99 argument your stuck on.
My Buying Thread
Oh, I certainly can't fault you for that, I'm staying the hell out of it too, but srsly cell phones and their relative value? That is a looooooong leap of logic to get from here to there.
Not really after the whole ps3/Xbox 360 fiasco.
Its really not. Heres the connection.
If mere 10,000 people signed petitions to change the ruling, there are millions and millions of others who didn't care thus didn't write their own petition agreeing with the ruling. So its not like the pageant recieved 10,000 petitions for it, and however many thousand against it.
Like cell phone reviews. People only write on them when theyre mad and something is wrong. If mere 10,000 people go and angrily post on verizon's website, that does not include the millions of people who are perfectly happy with it and didn't bother to even go look, let alone write a review.
So the perception in both is the same.
You recieve 10,000 angry petitions it would give the allure that the public is outraged by this and it must be changed. But really, your only holding the angry peitions in hand and nothing more.
When you read the reviews on (any product, really) your reading the 10,000 bad ones giving the allure that the phone is crap and the worst thing thats ever been made.
If a patch nerfs rogues in WoW, you can expect nothing less than a thousand rogues hitting the forums to protest. If you were to visit the forum, it would look like the community is in uproar. But really, the thousand angry people don't represent the millions of people who play and didn't come post.
IN SHORT
Angry people complain.
Content people don't.
The loudest get heard.
Admit, I could have said this better in my original post.
My Buying Thread
I don't really follow newer gaming systems, which fiasco are we talking about, and how does it apply to cell phones?
...and it's a strawman. You're attempting to draw a connection between people who are angry because they spent money and got a shoddy product (fiscal incentive) vs. people who signed a petition (moral/ethical/social incentive, depending). It may be that fiscal incentive is a more worthwhile endeavor than moral outrage, it may not, but you're still trying to nullify people's actions based on what another unrelated group did for different reasons!
It was a few pages back. Teia I believe started the analogy that being transgendered was like a ps3 case with Xbox innards or something to that effect.