what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

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warumich
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by warumich » Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:40 pm

Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:30 pm
But we do have the language.

Male/female = sex
Man/woman/trans woman/ trans man/etc. = gender
Well great, I'm happy to go along with that. Also I don't know any trans person who wouldn't (though I'm sure there are plenty, as with everything). They are certainly aware of what genitals they are born and unhappy with, and phrases such as "assigned male/female at birth" explicitly recognise that. However, then the argument over discrimination etc should focus on gender, not sex, because it is by their gender that women (either assigned male or female at birth) are being discriminated against, not their sex. It seems to me that your argument is objecting to people taking on another sex identity (I'm not saying this is a strawman, but ime that rarely if ever happens), when (almost) all the examples we have are about gender identity.

But then I want some persuasive arguments why safe spaces, scholarships, awards, toilets, sports or whatever the issue is, should apply to sex rather than gender. I made my concession about sports. I don't see why sex (as opposed to gender) has to impinge on the other areas, though I'm open to hear your arguments, such as safe spaces, as well. (a third space as a compromise as you say, maybe - but for this I would also like some clear reasoning why this would be so necessary - as earlier posts have outlined, there's no evidence that transwomen are any danger to cis women). [Not that as a cis man it is my part to agree or disagree to any compromise here.]


But I have the feeling there is something more to all of this - women have had it bad in a patriarchal society, and the cause of this is men - that now that women have at least some amount of safe spaces and protection from discrimination through exclusive scholarships, awards, etc. And now that you have all that, you see that there are "men" - who want in on those things too. And this is unfair. I can understand this, I don't know how it feels, but I think I get it (or, correct me if I got it wrong).

When there is a strong social identity, formed through adversity, other people can't just join the club, especially when they are from the outgroup that caused the adversity in the first place. But these specific people are not responsible for the patriarchy (well I suppose maybe some of them are, because there is always an exception), and they suffer just as much from the patriarchy (though, seeing that transpeople are now everybody's outgroup, they arguably suffer even more).
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by lpm » Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:41 pm

Jesus Christ, BoaF. On this thread have you have posted 793,244 times on JK Rowling's 22 word tweet. You are obsessed with it. You keep reinterpreting it. You need to stop reinterpreting it because you are rubbish at reinterpretation. You still don't understand what the 22 word tweet was about, despite your 793,244 posts.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by lpm » Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:55 pm

warumich wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:40 pm
Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:30 pm
But we do have the language.

Male/female = sex
Man/woman/trans woman/ trans man/etc. = gender
Well great, I'm happy to go along with that. Also I don't know any trans person who wouldn't (though I'm sure there are plenty, as with everything). They are certainly aware of what genitals they are born and unhappy with, and phrases such as "assigned male/female at birth" explicitly recognise that. However, then the argument over discrimination etc should focus on gender, not sex, because it is by their gender that women (either assigned male or female at birth) are being discriminated against, not their sex. It seems to me that your argument is objecting to people taking on another sex identity (I'm not saying this is a strawman, but ime that rarely if ever happens), when (almost) all the examples we have are about gender identity.

But then I want some persuasive arguments why safe spaces, scholarships, awards, toilets, sports or whatever the issue is, should apply to sex rather than gender. I made my concession about sports. I don't see why sex (as opposed to gender) has to impinge on the other areas, though I'm open to hear your arguments, such as safe spaces, as well. (a third space as a compromise as you say, maybe - but for this I would also like some clear reasoning why this would be so necessary - as earlier posts have outlined, there's no evidence that transwomen are any danger to cis women). [Not that as a cis man it is my part to agree or disagree to any compromise here.]


But I have the feeling there is something more to all of this - women have had it bad in a patriarchal society, and the cause of this is men - that now that women have at least some amount of safe spaces and protection from discrimination through exclusive scholarships, awards, etc. And now that you have all that, you see that there are "men" - who want in on those things too. And this is unfair. I can understand this, I don't know how it feels, but I think I get it (or, correct me if I got it wrong).

When there is a strong social identity, formed through adversity, other people can't just join the club, especially when they are from the outgroup that caused the adversity in the first place. But these specific people are not responsible for the patriarchy (well I suppose maybe some of them are, because there is always an exception), and they suffer just as much from the patriarchy (though, seeing that transpeople are now everybody's outgroup, they arguably suffer even more).
warumich, a lot of people get confused and think women have a fear of transwomen, hence arguments along the lines of "there's no evidence that transwomen are any danger to cis women". Fishnut made this mistake earlier in the thread.

The actual issue is male violence, and the justified fear that women have (and transmen and transwomen have) of violent men. Given the injury and fatality rates at the hands of men, certain safe spaces away from men are vital. Unfortunately, this essential requirement grates against the rights of transwomen. A teenage girl's fear of a man being in the changing rooms might be partly irrational, but it's a genuine fear. More women than men suffer PTSD, mostly due to sexual assault, and there are times when women need a refuge where they don't hear a male voice or see a male figure.

The violence inflicted on transwomen and transmen by men needs to be addressed, with the cirumstances and nature of the violence being likely different. As piggy said, possibly third and fourth spaces could be the answer.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by touchingcloth » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:03 pm

Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:30 pm
On menstruation:

Yes, I am aware that not all women menstruate. But those women aren’t complaining about the use of the word ‘woman’ when referring to menstruation, and a hell of a lot of women who do menstruate (I’d imagine the vast majority but I don’t have numbers) object to being called menstruators.

So no, not all females menstruate. But only females menstruate. And it’s nowhere near as dehumanising as ‘menstruator’.

Since when did we assume all products were for all members of the targeted demographic? Not all men shave, but the ones who don’t probably don’t care about razors ‘for men’. There are plenty of products ‘for women’ that I have zero use for, and I’m not remotely upset about it. I don’t want kids, but I’m hardly crying out for ovulation kits to be marketed exclusively to ‘baby wanters’.
warumich wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:35 pm
Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 2:28 pm
Sex-segregated spaces are the big one, along with sports, awards, scholarships, etc. intended for females/women. They exist for women because we are historically and/or physically at a disadvantage and are frequently discriminated against. Opening them up to trans women, who are male by definition, defeats the entire point.
But this is where I feel I get confused. Trans* people also get routinely discriminated against, that's the whole reason they are so upset.
But maybe lets say that's not the case. Since women are being discriminated against, any person presenting themselves (convincingly) as female will face the same discrimination as any other woman. The only way in which I can make sense of an argument to exclude transwomen is if we assume that women are indeed inferior in some way to people assigned male at birth and therefore need the handicap, which goes against absolutely everything I believe, morally and empirically. But then what other advantages would a transwoman have that puts her at an unfair position with respect to other women, if nobody can tell she is a transwoman? Serious question, I may have overlooked something.

But stating "they're male by definition" is confusing your argument, because we haven't settled on a definition of male/female yet, hence the whole screaming match we're having. Whichever definition of male is right, mine, your's or someone else's, we can't use that as a justification for the arguments we are making as part of the whole enterprise of trying to sort out this definition. It's begging the question.


[Sports and other areas where physical advantage is at play I concede may be a separate issue, though as far as I know hormone treatments are quite effective at leveling things out]
If trans women don’t feel safe with men, they can campaign for a third space. It’s not on women to make room and give up their rights.

And in what world do we not have a definition for male and female? Those are the biological terms used in science to describe the different categories of sex across species. A trans woman is a male by definition because a trans woman is not female. Otherwise they wouldn’t be trans.
touchingcloth wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:58 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:43 pm


Yes, that was weird. So much of the debate is focused around trans women, and trans men sometimes get left out both by trans activists and by people who want to refer to everyone who menstruates as women.

It would be a lot easier if we had one set of words that was widely agreed to refer specifically to biological sex and another for gender identity, but I don't think we're there yet.
Aye, the two things get horribly conflated and I’m never sure if that’s because people don’t know the difference or just don’t care about it. I’ve come across people saying that gender is innate and rooted in biology at one end, and people saying that sex is a spectrum at the other.

It feels like better language might detoxify the debate, as it seems to me that most people could probably agree that some people need protections in law based on their genders, others need protections based on their sex, with all of those things sitting on a Venn diagram with some areas which overlap and others which do not. Do the general public care nothing for set theory?
But we do have the language.

Male/female = sex
Man/woman/trans woman/ trans man/etc. = gender
I think the issue is that those words don't neatly distinguish between sex and gender. Even when talking about non-human animals you'll get people talking about women and men, so I guess what I was hoping for was a more universal understanding of language, but given how things evolve it's probably folly to hope for that.

Maybe people should a) not be dicks and b) keep away from platforms where the character limits are incompatible with nuance.

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:05 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:41 pm
Jesus Christ, BoaF. On this thread have you have posted 793,244 times on JK Rowling's 22 word tweet. You are obsessed with it. You keep reinterpreting it. You need to stop reinterpreting it because you are rubbish at reinterpretation. You still don't understand what the 22 word tweet was about, despite your 793,244 posts.
I know I keep coming back to the original topic of the thread, but I think it's interesting. Its brevity is a virtue, in terms of the discussion around language - if we can't agree on what 22 words mean there's not much hope for a wider discussion, so I think it's worth trying to understand where we differ in our interpretation of it.

What's your take on what she meant? You've been pretty coy about that so far. Let's work on understanding the microcosm before branching out into the rest of the world.

The wider discussion about shared spaces etc is interesting too, but a bit of a derail, and as the evidence posted by Fishnut still hasn't really been engaged with (ie, actual practising women's refuges seem much less worried about transwomen than many posters here) I'm not sure there's much point adding to it.

ETA I don't think it's accurate to say that I 'keep reinterpreting it'. I think I've had a pretty consistent interpretation for all 793,245 posts I've now made.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by Piggy » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:07 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:33 pm
Purely on this bit:
Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:30 pm
On menstruation:

Yes, I am aware that not all women menstruate. But those women aren’t complaining about the use of the word ‘woman’ when referring to menstruation, and a hell of a lot of women who do menstruate (I’d imagine the vast majority but I don’t have numbers) object to being called menstruators.
The article didn't refer to 'menstruators'. It referred to 'people who menstruate', in much the same way that you refer to 'women who do menstruate'.

So the 'who menstruate' part doesn't actually seem to be what people are objecting to. AFAICT the objection is to using 'people' instead of 'women'. Is that fair?
Not the same at all. I was talking about women who do and do not menstruate in the same sentence to point out that the push for this menstruation-focused language isn’t coming from women as a whole.

Right after the above I gave examples where products marketed to ‘men’ and ‘women’ don’t include all members of that group and no one is crying out for those to change because we understand that just because we’re part of the group, doesn’t mean we have the same interests/behaviour/needs as every other member.

Razors for men (who shave)
Ovulation kits for women (who are trying to get pregnant)
Sanitary products for women (who menstruate)
Product for sex/gender (but specifically these members of the group)

Obviously anyone of either sex/gender can buy the above products. They’re marketed at the group most likely to buy them though, because that’s where the companies make their money.

But let’s get this straight: the only trans people I have ever seen complaining about female bodily functions excluding them are trans women. ‘People who menstruate’ isn’t to make trans men feel included (many won’t be menstruating anyway thanks to hormone treatment). It’s for trans women who don’t want to be reminded of women’s so-called ‘cis privilege’.

On the one hand we’re meant to double down on making ad copy as hyper-specific as possible, while on the other we’re confusing people who don’t know whether they have a cervix because we’re afraid to use words too specific like female and woman for fear of backlash from trans women.

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:25 pm

Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:07 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:33 pm
Purely on this bit:
Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:30 pm
On menstruation:

Yes, I am aware that not all women menstruate. But those women aren’t complaining about the use of the word ‘woman’ when referring to menstruation, and a hell of a lot of women who do menstruate (I’d imagine the vast majority but I don’t have numbers) object to being called menstruators.
The article didn't refer to 'menstruators'. It referred to 'people who menstruate', in much the same way that you refer to 'women who do menstruate'.

So the 'who menstruate' part doesn't actually seem to be what people are objecting to. AFAICT the objection is to using 'people' instead of 'women'. Is that fair?
Not the same at all. I was talking about women who do and do not menstruate in the same sentence to point out that the push for this menstruation-focused language isn’t coming from women as a whole.
The menstruation-focused language was in an article about menstruation, which seems to me an (possibly the only?) appropriate place for such language.

Conflating menstruating with being a woman certainly does seem problematic, but on my reading that's what the article avoided doing, and what Rowling was referring to.
Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:07 pm
Right after the above I gave examples where products marketed to ‘men’ and ‘women’ don’t include all members of that group and no one is crying out for those to change because we understand that just because we’re part of the group, doesn’t mean we have the same interests/behaviour/needs as every other member.

Razors for men (who shave)
Ovulation kits for women (who are trying to get pregnant)
Sanitary products for women (who menstruate)
Product for sex/gender (but specifically these members of the group)

Obviously anyone of either sex/gender can buy the above products. They’re marketed at the group most likely to buy them though, because that’s where the companies make their money.
Yes, exactly. The article was talking about sanitary products (and other services) for people who menstruate. Rowling's response was to say that in the past, we used to call those people women. I suppose it's possible that she was trying to laud the progress made with inclusive language, but her follow-up tweets about the importance of recognising sex as 'real' suggest otherwise (unless I'm misunderstanding her).

There certainly are problems around gendered marketing, but the article was about humanitarianism/development so I'm not so clear that it's the crux of the problem here.
But let’s get this straight: the only trans people I have ever seen complaining about female bodily functions excluding them are trans women. ‘People who menstruate’ isn’t to make trans men feel included (many won’t be menstruating anyway thanks to hormone treatment). It’s for trans women who don’t want to be reminded of women’s so-called ‘cis privilege’.

On the one hand we’re meant to double down on making ad copy as hyper-specific as possible, while on the other we’re confusing people who don’t know whether they have a cervix because we’re afraid to use words too specific like female and woman for fear of backlash from trans women.
In this case, the backlash wasn't based on claiming that menstruation excludes trans women. It was saying that 'women' excludes trans men.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by warumich » Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:25 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:55 pm
warumich, a lot of people get confused and think women have a fear of transwomen, hence arguments along the lines of "there's no evidence that transwomen are any danger to cis women". Fishnut made this mistake earlier in the thread.

The actual issue is male violence, and the justified fear that women have (and transmen and transwomen have) of violent men. Given the injury and fatality rates at the hands of men, certain safe spaces away from men are vital. Unfortunately, this essential requirement grates against the rights of transwomen. A teenage girl's fear of a man being in the changing rooms might be partly irrational, but it's a genuine fear. More women than men suffer PTSD, mostly due to sexual assault, and there are times when women need a refuge where they don't hear a male voice or see a male figure.

The violence inflicted on transwomen and transmen by men needs to be addressed, with the cirumstances and nature of the violence being likely different. As piggy said, possibly third and fourth spaces could be the answer.

Thanks lpm. I mean I did say that the safe space issue is one where I could see myself conceding, and I'm happy to do so. As long as spaces for transwomen are also available, in maybe separate spaces. I would still say though that it is not my compromise to make of course.

What I want, all I want really, is for more people to accept that the decision to live - and the psychological need to be accepted as - a person of a gender you were not assigned to at birth, is not something that anyone does lightly. I'll never understand what my brother has been feeling, this has been completely alien to me. But I see how much his life has improved as a man, I see the sacrifices other trans people I know have made in terms of losing their family and many many friends, navigating dispiriting and horrifying bureaucratic and medical barriers, becoming a punch line in Little Britain and still be happier in their new gender. The suggestion that is often made between the lines that transwomen are doing this for some silly reason like accessing reserved scholarships, or making sexual assault easier, rather than a deep seated and to outsiders unexplainable psychological need, I find that quite offensive. And that's why tempers flare so easily I suppose.

Anyway, I've finished deep space nine, and now I need to attend to voyager
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by Piggy » Thu Jul 23, 2020 8:24 pm

warumich wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:25 pm
lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:55 pm
warumich, a lot of people get confused and think women have a fear of transwomen, hence arguments along the lines of "there's no evidence that transwomen are any danger to cis women". Fishnut made this mistake earlier in the thread.

The actual issue is male violence, and the justified fear that women have (and transmen and transwomen have) of violent men. Given the injury and fatality rates at the hands of men, certain safe spaces away from men are vital. Unfortunately, this essential requirement grates against the rights of transwomen. A teenage girl's fear of a man being in the changing rooms might be partly irrational, but it's a genuine fear. More women than men suffer PTSD, mostly due to sexual assault, and there are times when women need a refuge where they don't hear a male voice or see a male figure.

The violence inflicted on transwomen and transmen by men needs to be addressed, with the cirumstances and nature of the violence being likely different. As piggy said, possibly third and fourth spaces could be the answer.

Thanks lpm. I mean I did say that the safe space issue is one where I could see myself conceding, and I'm happy to do so. As long as spaces for transwomen are also available, in maybe separate spaces. I would still say though that it is not my compromise to make of course.

What I want, all I want really, is for more people to accept that the decision to live - and the psychological need to be accepted as - a person of a gender you were not assigned to at birth, is not something that anyone does lightly. I'll never understand what my brother has been feeling, this has been completely alien to me. But I see how much his life has improved as a man, I see the sacrifices other trans people I know have made in terms of losing their family and many many friends, navigating dispiriting and horrifying bureaucratic and medical barriers, becoming a punch line in Little Britain and still be happier in their new gender. The suggestion that is often made between the lines that transwomen are doing this for some silly reason like accessing reserved scholarships, or making sexual assault easier, rather than a deep seated and to outsiders unexplainable psychological need, I find that quite offensive. And that's why tempers flare so easily I suppose.

Anyway, I've finished deep space nine, and now I need to attend to voyager
I want to make it clear that I don’t like this current issue. At all.

I have avoided even acknowledging the entire situation for years. Ever since I saw things like ‘die cis scum’ being bandied about on LiveJournal back in the late 2000s.

I’m a woman who is most definitely ‘one of the guys’ and have been my entire life. I’m bisexual. I am gender non-conforming. I tend to be more comfortable in the company of men.

I don’t believe, for a moment, that all (or even most) trans people have any interest in hurting or taking away from others. Not at all. I don’t deny gender dysphoria is a thing, even though I don’t have a gender identity at all (in my case, I’m only ‘a woman’ by virtue of being an adult human female, that’s literally it).

But there are people who are taking advantage of the situation. Fallon Fox gloats about cracking ‘TERF’ skulls. Screenshots of Yaniv’s messages to women asking if he’ll see lots of ‘tits and p.ssy’ in changing rooms and tampon strings hanging out, and should he help a 12 year old girl if she needs help with her pad/tampon.

Anyone who won’t have sex with a trans person is automatically labelled transphobic and a genital fetishist. Lesbians in particular have been dealing with this for years, but just recently there have been a spate of posts on r/AskGayBros from trans men asking why gay men won’t date them, and then getting angry when the gay guys give them answers they don’t want.

Women-based subreddits which survived the recent cull are now overrun with with trans mods. PCOS, AskWomen, ActualLesbians, TwoXChromosomes—subreddits you’d think would centre females no longer centre females. PinkNews claimed recently that trans women can get cervical cancer, which is patently untrue because they don’t have a cervix.

Women are being pushed out and labelled ‘TERF’ and ‘transphobe’ and accused of ‘weaponising cancer’ and ‘weaponising abuse’ and ‘literally killing trans people’ when they try to discuss issues specific to females.

Twitter and Reddit are a complete mess of this sort of thing. If you haven’t seen it, and some of the ‘suck my lady dick,’ ‘I want to rape a TERF to death’ and ‘choke on a dick and die in a fire’ comments directed at women, I’m sure it all sounds a bit over the top and unbelievable. But it’s there every day.

These individuals use the same language as MRAs and incels.

So of course women don’t want them in these people in their spaces. The language is violent and threatening.

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by touchingcloth » Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:06 pm

warumich wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:40 pm
Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:30 pm
But we do have the language.

Male/female = sex
Man/woman/trans woman/ trans man/etc. = gender
Well great, I'm happy to go along with that. Also I don't know any trans person who wouldn't (though I'm sure there are plenty, as with everything). They are certainly aware of what genitals they are born and unhappy with, and phrases such as "assigned male/female at birth" explicitly recognise that. However, then the argument over discrimination etc should focus on gender, not sex, because it is by their gender that women (either assigned male or female at birth) are being discriminated against, not their sex. It seems to me that your argument is objecting to people taking on another sex identity (I'm not saying this is a strawman, but ime that rarely if ever happens), when (almost) all the examples we have are about gender identity.

But then I want some persuasive arguments why safe spaces, scholarships, awards, toilets, sports or whatever the issue is, should apply to sex rather than gender. I made my concession about sports. I don't see why sex (as opposed to gender) has to impinge on the other areas, though I'm open to hear your arguments, such as safe spaces, as well. (a third space as a compromise as you say, maybe - but for this I would also like some clear reasoning why this would be so necessary - as earlier posts have outlined, there's no evidence that transwomen are any danger to cis women). [Not that as a cis man it is my part to agree or disagree to any compromise here.]


But I have the feeling there is something more to all of this - women have had it bad in a patriarchal society, and the cause of this is men - that now that women have at least some amount of safe spaces and protection from discrimination through exclusive scholarships, awards, etc. And now that you have all that, you see that there are "men" - who want in on those things too. And this is unfair. I can understand this, I don't know how it feels, but I think I get it (or, correct me if I got it wrong).

When there is a strong social identity, formed through adversity, other people can't just join the club, especially when they are from the outgroup that caused the adversity in the first place. But these specific people are not responsible for the patriarchy (well I suppose maybe some of them are, because there is always an exception), and they suffer just as much from the patriarchy (though, seeing that transpeople are now everybody's outgroup, they arguably suffer even more).
Women are discriminated against on the basis of their sex, and until the clitoris loppers of this world change their stance sex-based protections will be needed.

Of course gender-based discrimination happens as well and it seems to me that some trans people receive abuse which is more akin to that meted out to gay people, butch women and effeminate men.

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by warumich » Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:20 pm

Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 8:24 pm
I want to make it clear that I don’t like this current issue. At all.
I wouldn't for a minute condone any of this behaviour of course. Twitter and Reddit are not spaces I like going to, for these sort of reasons mostly so I don't see much of that; and thank god for that.

But there are plenty of people in powerful positions who do, it appears to me, clearly deny the existence of gender dysphoria, who belittle the experiences of trans people and imply that this is all fakery. And what I mostly see among all this is the amount of hurt this is causing to people I love, and they are not responsible for what happens on reddit.

But I'm happy to step out of this argument now. I have no wish to add to anyone's distress, and I apologise if I have
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by lpm » Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:56 pm

warumich wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:20 pm

But there are plenty of people in powerful positions who do, it appears to me, clearly deny the existence of gender dysphoria, who belittle the experiences of trans people and imply that this is all fakery. And what I mostly see among all this is the amount of hurt this is causing to people I love, and they are not responsible for what happens on reddit.
Yes. There are definitely LGBT haters out to exploit this.

Which is why it's so frustrating when sensible compromisers, like JK Rowling, who support trans people but can see how trans rights grate against womens rights, get labelled haters and transphobic and get abused out of the necessary debates on practical solutions.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by warumich » Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:17 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:56 pm
warumich wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:20 pm

But there are plenty of people in powerful positions who do, it appears to me, clearly deny the existence of gender dysphoria, who belittle the experiences of trans people and imply that this is all fakery. And what I mostly see among all this is the amount of hurt this is causing to people I love, and they are not responsible for what happens on reddit.
Yes. There are definitely LGBT haters out to exploit this.

Which is why it's so frustrating when sensible compromisers, like JK Rowling, who support trans people but can see how trans rights grate against womens rights, get labelled haters and transphobic and get abused out of the necessary debates on practical solutions.

I haven't payed as much attention to the affair as others here so I may be wrong, but as far as I could see there wasn't much compromise from Rowling though.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by lpm » Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:31 pm

You are wrong. You have read reinterpreted words, not her actual words. Her position is very similar to yours - e.g. on sport, safe places - and you, like her, would be abused as a transphobe if you repeat your comments on Twitter.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by warumich » Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:44 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:31 pm
You are wrong. You have read reinterpreted words, not her actual words. Her position is very similar to yours - e.g. on sport, safe places - and you, like her, would be abused as a transphobe if you repeat your comments on Twitter.
Hm, yea thanks I might have a look, but I have also tried to be careful from the start to say that my gripe was not directly with Rowling anyway; I tried to respond to issues that came up in the conversation here.

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by Millennie Al » Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:05 am

lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 2:11 pm
The right to play rugby in women's teams?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... y-concerns
That rather assumes that every "male" is stronger/faster/heavier than every "female". But there are large varieties between individuals, so why doesn't the same argument apply within each group (as with boxing)?

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by Millennie Al » Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:14 am

Piggy wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:30 pm
Since when did we assume all products were for all members of the targeted demographic? Not all men shave, but the ones who don’t probably don’t care about razors ‘for men’.
But there should be no valid objection to refering to "people who shave" when discussing shaving supplies. In fact, if that were common we might see fewer cases of pink razors costing more than blue ones.
And in what world do we not have a definition for male and female?
This one. Or, at least, we have many such definitions and cannot agree on just one.
Those are the biological terms used in science to describe the different categories of sex across species.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by JQH » Fri Jul 24, 2020 10:39 am

warumich wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:44 pm
lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:31 pm
You are wrong. You have read reinterpreted words, not her actual words. Her position is very similar to yours - e.g. on sport, safe places - and you, like her, would be abused as a transphobe if you repeat your comments on Twitter.
Hm, yea thanks I might have a look, but I have also tried to be careful from the start to say that my gripe was not directly with Rowling anyway; I tried to respond to issues that came up in the conversation here.

There is a good reason why there's nothing but cobwebs and dead spiders in my twitter account.
Probably closely related to the reason I've never bothered having one.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by plodder » Fri Jul 24, 2020 10:50 am

Piggy wrote:
Mon Jun 15, 2020 7:57 pm


This is a real problem with the progressive left. There’s so much nitpicking, infighting and refusal to compromise that it takes far too long to make any progress. I say this as a bleeding heart liberal type.
Late to this. But I wish people who don't know how to make progress didn't label themselves as progressive.

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by egbert26 » Fri Jul 24, 2020 1:06 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 3:44 pm
Going by your definition above, this chap - the same one cited by purplehaze earlier in this thread - is female. (As warumich points out, I'm not bought into that definition, but let's go with it).

Image

Also according to your definition above, he would have, as a female*, every right to access those shared spaces - toilets, refuges, etc.

The idea that he would be welcomed with open arms into those spaces by the same women who object to transwomen being there is ludicrous.
Buck Angel describes himself as biologically female. One presumes that whilst Buck would have access to any single-sex facility, he probably wouldn't as, well, why would he?

https://twitter.com/BuckAngel/status/12 ... 7959816192
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by egbert26 » Fri Jul 24, 2020 1:31 pm

Millennie Al wrote:
Fri Jul 24, 2020 2:05 am
lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 2:11 pm
The right to play rugby in women's teams?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... y-concerns
That rather assumes that every "male" is stronger/faster/heavier than every "female". But there are large varieties between individuals, so why doesn't the same argument apply within each group (as with boxing)?
Are you saying that categorising sports teams by sex is wrong?
It's what happens when they try to apply IATBMCTT with their willies...

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by Cardinal Fang » Fri Jul 24, 2020 7:59 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:55 pm
The actual issue is male violence, and the justified fear that women have (and transmen and transwomen have) of violent men. Given the injury and fatality rates at the hands of men, certain safe spaces away from men are vital. Unfortunately, this essential requirement grates against the rights of transwomen. A teenage girl's fear of a man being in the changing rooms might be partly irrational, but it's a genuine fear. More women than men suffer PTSD, mostly due to sexual assault, and there are times when women need a refuge where they don't hear a male voice or see a male figure.
The problem with the the argument that allowing transgender women into female changing rooms/ spaces etc stops it being a "safe space away from men" ignores the fact that undisguised cis gender men are far, far more likely to commit assaults in women only spaces than trans women are, and even cis gendered men who decide to disguise themselves as women (or don't disguise themselves but claim they are female) are more likely to commit assaults than transwomen. Transwomen attacking other women is incredibly, incredibly rare. (source) So the fear of women being attacked by transwomen is unfounded.

But further than that, not only is the hypothesis that women have something to fear from transwomen using female facilities wrong, I think we should actaually be challenging it when people try to use it. Because it implicitly suggest that transgender people are perverts or as violent as cis men - neither which are in any way true. It wasn't that long ago that people openly argued that gay people should not be permitted to use the same changing rooms as everyone else because of the risk that they were paedophiles. If someone suggested that now, we'd dismiss that claim out of hand because we know that gay =/= sex offender. This to me is no different. Transgender =/= pervert, or rapist, or molester. But by saying "oh but if transwomen are allowed in the changing room I might get attacked" is basically making that same claim as was made of gay people only a couple of decades ago (and I'm saying this as a cis woman).

And we also need to acknowledge that transwomen are way way more likely to be the victims of assault if they are forced to use facilities corresponding with their birth sex. So by banning trans people from the facilities that are for their actual gender, and making them use the ones of their birth sex, we would be deliberately putting a proportion of the population at greater risk of harm in order to satisfy an unfounded myth.

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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by discovolante » Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:03 pm

I just feel really uncomfortable with the criminalization of a group of people. Gay men = paedophiles; black people = violent criminals/drug users; trans women = sexual assaulters. It sits very badly with me due to the history of this sort of thing and because of the argument that an entire group of people should be denied rights on the basis of a minority who may abuse them.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by lpm » Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:50 pm

Two more posts again repeating the same old mistake.

The concern is not violence from trans women, it is violence from men. Below is what I posted 24 hours ago in response to warumich.

It's a shame all men get criminalized as a group, but as the saying goes any man you see could be a potential rapist. People don't enter safe spaces with labels attached.
warumich, a lot of people get confused and think women have a fear of transwomen, hence arguments along the lines of "there's no evidence that transwomen are any danger to cis women". Fishnut made this mistake earlier in the thread.

The actual issue is male violence, and the justified fear that women have (and transmen and transwomen have) of violent men. Given the injury and fatality rates at the hands of men, certain safe spaces away from men are vital. Unfortunately, this essential requirement grates against the rights of transwomen. A teenage girl's fear of a man being in the changing rooms might be partly irrational, but it's a genuine fear. More women than men suffer PTSD, mostly due to sexual assault, and there are times when women need a refuge where they don't hear a male voice or see a male figure.

The violence inflicted on transwomen and transmen by men needs to be addressed, with the cirumstances and nature of the violence being likely different. As piggy said, possibly third and fourth spaces could be the answer.
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Re: what the hell is wrong with JK Rowling?

Post by discovolante » Fri Jul 24, 2020 10:20 pm

But then you are just shifting the risk to trans women?


I really hate this topic. I think one huge, really obvious mistake that people make all the time is that there are no 'bad people' on their side (whether genuine or false flags, whatever). This topic seems to attract the worst of it because it nicely incorporates misogyny and racism as well. And homophobia. Jeez. In my gut I do not like the idea of traumatized cis women being told they need to accept male presenting women in their spaces. But I feel equally uncomfortable with the dismissal of trans people's experience of sexual assault and harassment, the implication that trans women have no interest in things like reproductive rights. And with the difficulties non-passing trans women face just by existing. Anyway.
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