Mick McQuaid wrote: ↑Thu Apr 07, 2022 2:26 pm
CEB, I remember years ago when you read the God Delusion and spent a few months haranguing anyone who expressed the mildest of religious sympathies as if they were fully signed up members of the Westboro Baptist Church, they were all WRONG and had to be told, you're giving similar vibes here. f*** decency and understanding, there's a matter of principle at stake.
In my opinion there are some things that don't need intellectual debate, tolerance and and anti-discrimination are starting points not something to be concluded from an argument. The people who get there by rational argument are the ones who make those wild leaps across the political spectrum from communist to right wing conspiracy nutjob. A transition which given your apparent glee this issue causes the lefties you may well be ambarking on.
For what t's worth I am absolutely happy to agree with you and Dawkins that there is (almost always) a biological difference between someone who is transgender and someone born male or female, I just don't think it needs to be relevant for how someone chooses to live their day to day life. I say almost always because as Dawkins well knows intersex conditions are rare but absolutely real, and if we're being picky about language his 'pretty damm binary' comment was nonsense. Something either is or isn't binary, there's no nearly.
Of course it does make things more complicated if the starting point is acceptance that someone can choose their gender, but for me that's no reason to change the starting point. In my view, and from what I've seen in practice, access to single sex services can be accommodated fairly easily with a bit of tolerance and common sense. The arguments against are the same what ifs or horror stories that were used to excuse homophobia and racism in the past. They were nonsense then and they are nonsense now.
There's also the practicalities of policing what you feel is essential to protect the women's rights movement. Would you want to demand everyone show they have a fanny before they are allowed in the door at an all female space, ot just carry out random spot checks on anyone who sounds a bit too gruff? Sure it might upset a few people to have to go through a brief but thorough medical but I guess the ends justify the means.
I accept there are a few cases, such as women's refuges where the vulnerability and rights of the people using the service would outweigh the right of someone to self identify, but to extrapolate from that to a an exercise class at the local gym as if there are the same issues is an absolute crock.
As for elite sport, again its clearly complex which makes it impossible to give a simple answer and is therefore exploited by people with ulterior motives. Just because a simple answer might be a vote winner doesn't make it right. I think there are very few people who would argue that someone can just declare themselves female and enter an elite competition. I would hope that it would be an equally rare view that someone identifying as female and wanting to join the local bowls club would be required to prove a testosterone level.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll find this terribly condescending but I do genuinely wish you all the best and hope reflect a bit on whether the aggressive stance you've taken up is really necessary.
Hi.
I don’t think you’re condescending, just wrong. I do think that earlier in the thread - before my participation - you were condescending though, in your casual dismissal of early, tentative counterpoints, seemingly on the basis that it was all fine, and there’s no debate. I appreciate your engagement.
I think you’re correct to place my objections to trans activism in the lineage of my objections to religion, though I think you’re wrong to characterise it as “reading the god delusion then haranguing anybody with mild religious sensibilities”; I’d say there are three areas where I’ve found my (I’ll happily acknowledge) strong commitment to rationality against irrational stances have clashed with some on the left; religion, alternative medicine, and the current form of trans activism. And on what basis have I objected to those? Consistently, I’ve objected to the imposition of a compelled belief on others, or institutional adoption of a compelled belief which may be imparted to people who are vulnerable. I wonder whether the fact that you correctly (however facetiously) contextualise my objection to trans activism as related to a consistent adherence to rationalism, rather than MB Gold’s clumsy attempt to characterise it as deferred homophobia, gives you pause? For the record, I don’t believe I ever, apropos nothing, told somebody they were wrong to believe in god - where it was discussed, it was in the context of secularism, and where people were advocating for policy based on belief, and in a context where Stewart Lee was being pursued for blasphemy, Blair was claiming, in the wake of Iraq, that Catholicism informed every decision he makes, and where (pertinent to the whole discussion) Hibo Wardere, FGM survivor and campaigner/evil TERF (delete as appropriate) was my upstairs neighbour.
You mischaracterise me as having “apparent glee” - what I actually have is anger. Anger that, from a starting point of being VERY pro trans rights on an assumption that it was the decent and understanding thing to do - I’m pretty sure several people here will remember me being very vocally supportive of Kellie Maloney after she came out as trans on an older iteration of the board, and approaching the issue literally from a “be decent, be understanding” perspective. But I noticed that when I had small, tiny questions, they went unanswered. Aside from when women friends messaged me privately and said “I’m glad you asked that, I’d like to, but there’d be consequences if I did”. And I noticed that when I tried asking them again, they were ignored, and I was told that asking such questions was inherently transphobic. I didn’t - and don’t - believe I am. I just wanted to understand something before I could support it. And so I read up. Not “gender critical” opinions (though I should have done - instead I read up to try to reinforce my existing position) and I found trans activism to be regressive, bullshit.
You are, demonstrably, only looking at this from a trans inclusion position. And that’s why you could sneeringly refer to a “debate” in inverted commas. In your post, you are literally saying that you do not think that *left wing feminist objections to male people’s demands to be entitled to access the category “female people”* are worth of intellectual debate, and that “tolerance and anti discrimination” are, in your view, things that, in this “debate” female people should be expected to grant to male people, and that you simply won’t hear of debating why female people might say “no”.
I’m rather bemused by your idea that rationality leads to becoming a right wing nutjob. You might have to show your working there fella, I remain a lefty, and I’m not sure that “believes that sex exists and matters” is quite the conspiracy theory you think it is, and I’m not sure that “man, you really have gifted the Tories an open goal by not actually listening to and understanding the position of second wave feminists on the question of the extent to which sex matters” is really that convincing as journeying towards right wing nutjob, but you’re welcome to pursue that avenue if you like ( it certainly adds a touch of hypocrisy to “characterising those who disagree as being members of westboro”)
You say:
“ For what t's worth I am absolutely happy to agree with you and Dawkins that there is (almost always) a biological difference between someone who is transgender and someone born male or female, I just don't think it needs to be relevant for how someone chooses to live their day to day life.”
I would say that this shows that you fundamentally misunderstand the counter arguments to trans activism. Gender non conformity is GREAT. Of COURSE people shouldn’t be restricted in how they live their day to day live by anyone else’s beliefs about what types of behaviour, personality, presentation is appropriate for their sex. I will *unequivocally* support a trans rights movement that respects the right of trans people to live their day to life according to how they feel.
What I don’t accept is that that feeling and that the life people live compels *others* to pretend that their sex isn’t in some circumstances relevant. And guess what we need to do in order to thrash out those areas? That’s right - it involves a debate, where impacts and clashes of rights and desires can be looked at.
You also say
“ I say almost always because as Dawkins well knows intersex conditions are rare but absolutely real, and if we're being picky about language his 'pretty damm binary' comment was nonsense. Something either is or isn't binary, there's no nearly. ”
Mate. Oh, mate. Intersex conditions are sex specific. Many people with intersex conditions reject the term “intersex” and prefer DSD’s (disorders of sexual development). Every person with an intersex condition is either male or female. Not a third sex, not half male/half female. Not both. Some very rare intersex conditions make observation of sex difficult. DSD’s don’t map onto identifying as transgender though, so it’s unclear as to why you’re using DSD’s to argue against the idea that (to parse your badly worded argument) being male is a prerequisite to being a transwoman.
Your next point:
“ Of course it does make things more complicated if the starting point is acceptance that someone can choose their gender, but for me that's no reason to change the starting point. In my view, and from what I've seen in practice, access to single sex services can be accommodated fairly easily with a bit of tolerance and common sense. The arguments against are the same what ifs or horror stories that were used to excuse homophobia and racism in the past. They were nonsense then and they are nonsense now. ”
Excluding gay people from a given space, service, job, was not legitimate because there is no legitimate reason to do so. So the gay civil rights movement won, because they had the arguments (and welcomed a “debate”)
Excluding non-white people from spaces, services and jobs was not legitimate, because there is, again, no legitimate reason to so, as above, every objection could be refuted by listening to the arguments, and finding that racist arguments did not stand up to scrutiny.
I believe that there are legitimate reasons that female people have to say “we want spaces and services free from male people”. I do not believe it is legitimate to exclude trans people from spaces, services and jobs *because they are trans* - I believe it is legitimate to maintain that a male person’s trans identity does not make that person a female person, and so female people have a legitimate reason to say no - because that “no” is not based on *trans identity* but on *sex*.
Are you claiming that in a dispute between feminists saying “no male people in female sports”, female people are the racists, and male people demanding access to female sport are the “black people”?
interesting if so.
I suspect that if you do so, it’s because you believe some male people are female people; as with religion, you’re free to believe it, not OK to compel others to believe it. Which is what you do when you sneer at the idea that there’s a debate.
It’s weird that you go on to talk about how single sex spaces would be able to police their status as single sex. It seems that you’re implying that if female spaces were deemed to be based on sex rather than gender identity, male people identifying as women wouldn’t respect that. My position would be that from where we are, we have to move towards a solution that does offer appropriate spaces for trans people, and doesn’t just put vulnerable trans women in the mens. Maybe we could get there, I dunno, by having it be ok to discuss solutions without considering women to be TERFs if they say single sex spaces remain important?
But there’s some relevant context here, too:
In recent years, trans activism has *aggressively pursued unquestioned access to female spaces* while demonstrably *widening the scope of what it even means to be trans*. These are issues that need to be thrashed out and a way forward found. You talk about spot checks. On what basis would you say that the MP who came out as trans last week, still uses male pronouns, and hasn’t changed presentation from that of a typical gender conforming man, should not be able to be on an all-women shortlist? Genital check necessary?
Glad to hear you accept that some spaces should be reserved as single sex. The question is on what basis would you do so? Are you aware that there is a trans woman with no gender recognition certificate running a women’s refuge in Scotland, who did not disclose her trans identity before starting work? Are you aware that she retains the full support of mainstream trans organisations like stonewall?
Good to see that you think it’s only when in crisis that women should have single sex spaces. Did you know that traumatised women go to the gym as well as to a refuge? And that they might not want to be with a male bodied person in either place? Or do you think of the gym as where *some* women go, of whom you haven’t considered their inner life, and of course they’re not the same as those women who go to shelters. Who deserve single sex spaces while they’re there.
Elite sport isn’t complex. Male people and female people have differing physiology. Female sport is for exceptional women. Reducing male ability through hormonal intervention to an arbitrarily set point - whether that be to be just ahead of the fastest/strongest female, or whether it be to a level where they are finishing 7th, isn’t introducing fairness, it’s prioritising inclusion of male access in female sport. I would suggest that the “complexity” is simply that you are less able to bluff this issue than the others because even you recognise it as a crock of sh*t.
It’s very interesting that your equivalent is a woman being barred from a local bowls club. What do a men only bowls club and male access to female spaces have in common? That’s right, they’re both instances where male people prioritise their needs, wants and comfort over those of women. And if you allowed yourself to think your thought through to the end, you’d know that there’s a reason you picked “female wants to join bowls club” and not “female international footballer identifies as male and takes Harry Kane’s spot up front” - because you know that female people’s physiology means that a female person identifying as male will never, ever, be a threat to male sport.
And yes, when people like you pretend there is no possible grounds by which reasonable people might take issue with a regressive, sexist activism, and pretend there’s no discussion necessary and sneer at the idea of it, I reserve the right to discuss it aggressively. Try reading what the actual counter arguments are, rather than chastising me for tone.i don’t expect you to agree. But there is nothing at all that you have brought up where there isn’t - at least - a robust counter-argument, and you seem to overall be minded that “decency” is why I shouldn’t apply intellectual scrutiny to batshit ideas. Nah. All the best. I don’t expect you to agree.
There can only be one winner.