Are Transwomen Women?

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Consul
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

Post by Consul »

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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

Post by Alias »

Consul wrote: June 7th, 2018, 6:45 pm As for the practical relevance of this thread:
Links to other people's opinions, not a response. As usual.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Eduk wrote: June 7th, 2018, 12:24 pmI personally presented at least two. Granted you ignored them but I did present them.
I'm not the kind of guy who intentionally ignores counterarguments to his views. I re-read all your posts in this thread but couldn't find the arguments you're alluding to. In case I failed to notice them, would you please refer me to them!
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Greta wrote: June 6th, 2018, 6:50 pmYou seem to have mixed up transwomen and transvestites. You do know the difference, don't you?
Yes, of course; but being a transsexual and being a transvestite aren't mutually exclusive (only being a transsexual and being a mere transvestite are). Transwomen usually wear women's clothes.
Greta wrote: June 6th, 2018, 6:50 pmThey are not the same. An actual transwoman - not a bloke in drag - entering male bathrooms would be putting her life at risk every time she went to the toilet away from home. An actual transman - not a woman in a check shirt and boots - entering women's bathrooms would freak everyone out.
I do understand the problem, and that there is no easy solution (apart from creating special restrooms for transsexuals).
Greta wrote: June 6th, 2018, 6:50 pmThe good news is that this is a very small loophole because most men would prefer not to wander around the streets in drag so as to gain a quick perv at the women's toilets. Funny about that. Do you know why perverts don't routinely wander around in drag, posing as transwomen, so as to access women's toilets? Theoretically, it seems so easy to do!
I beg to differ, because I think there is a real danger that needs to be taken into consideration:

"One thing that is also blazingly clear, and that A Women's Place UK has been emphasizing, is that the proposed change to the law about gender identification in the UK is insane: if the law makes it ridiculously easy to become a "woman" or a "man" simply by self-identification (and without medical consultation, waiting period, etc.) then of course people who are not really transgender or otherwise suffering from gender dysphoria will take advantage of such laws to make mischief and cause harm. And those risks have to be discussed."
—Brian Leiter: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2 ... vists.html
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

Post by Eduk »

Well I brought up the potential for a female/male brain continuum. Now I think it's reasonable to say such a thing isn't proven so it's impossible to take as fact, however I don't feel it's beyond the bounds of possibility so, for me, it's worthy of at least consideration. And it is a counterargument to your claims either way.
Interestingly if we say there is no such thing as a female/male brain then this leads to an interesting conclusion. If I cut off my hand I am still 100% me. So in this sense I can correctly think of myself as female/male as I feel is more appropriate to myself without any need to factor in the physical characteristics of my body. This led to my second rebuttal which is that words mean their use (to paraphrase Wittgenstein). Again you are free to disagree as you please (though you would just be arguing with yourself) but it is a counterargument.
Now you have already conceded that intersex people don't apply to what you are talking about. I assume an intersex person is free to choose their sex as they please and you would be happy with that? However intersex people live on a continuum so I doubt very much you could categorise all intersex people. A transsexual, according to you, might be intersexual according to me, who is right? Personally I don't cut the world up into categories that people have to fit into neatly. I have no problem with my imperfection, or to be more precise I have accepted it.
To go on, as you are fond of copy pasting dictionary definitions without comment, I thought I would look at the dictionary definition of woman. It is an adult human female. So then to the dictionary definition of female. Which is 'sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs'. Personally if I was a woman who could bear offspring due to any number of reasons I would still consider myself a woman. So being able to bear offspring is one piece of evidence to suggest you are a woman but it's not conclusive. Again words are their use. Some people calling themselves female are wrong to do so, some are right, or at the very very least more right, I would hope that by now you had a more nuanced outlook on life.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Consul wrote: June 8th, 2018, 7:59 am "One thing that is also blazingly clear, and that A Women's Place UK has been emphasizing, is that the proposed change to the law about gender identification in the UK is insane: if the law makes it ridiculously easy to become a "woman" or a "man" simply by self-identification (and without medical consultation, waiting period, etc.) then of course people who are not really transgender or otherwise suffering from gender dysphoria will take advantage of such laws to make mischief and cause harm. And those risks have to be discussed."
—Brian Leiter: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2 ... vists.html
Let's remove the incendiary rhetoric and examine this opinion.
One thing is clear about gender identification in the UK. If the law makes it easy to become a "woman" or a "man" simply by self-identification then people who are not really transgender will take advantage to make mischief and cause harm."

1. What mischief?
2. What harm?
3. Who will do these things?
4. When will they do it?
5. What are the present indications of such future mischief and harm?
6. Are there no people currently causing mischief and harm?
7. If there are none, how are they being deterred by gender assignment?
8. Are there no laws, other than gender assignment, currently in place to stop mischief-makers and harm-doers?
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Eduk wrote: June 8th, 2018, 8:15 amWell I brought up the potential for a female/male brain continuum. Now I think it's reasonable to say such a thing isn't proven so it's impossible to take as fact, however I don't feel it's beyond the bounds of possibility so, for me, it's worthy of at least consideration. And it is a counterargument to your claims either way.
So here we have an actual argument:

1. All persons with female brains are women.
2. MtF transsexuals have female brains.
3. Therefore, MtF transsexuals (transwomen) are women.

This is a logically valid argument, but is it also sound, i.e. are all its premises true? I don't think so.

As for 1: What exactly is a "female brain"? Is womanhood scientifically defined in terms of cerebral femaleness? No, it isn't. Otherwise, transplanting a female brain into a male organism would turn the organism into a woman—which I think wouldn't be the case.

As for 2: You've conceded that 2 is not an established fact but a scientifically unconfirmed speculative hypothesis. What is more, this hypothesis seems not only scientifically unconfirmed but also scientifically disconfirmed; so it's probably false: viewtopic.php?p=312393#p312393

There's a weaker version of the above argument:

1. All persons with female brains are women.
2. MtF transsexuals might have female brains.
3. Therefore, MtF transsexuals (transwomen) might be women.

But "might" in the sense of mere logical possibility is much too weak to have any argumentational force, especially as the question at issue is not whether transwomen are possibly women, but whether they are actually ones. Possibility doesn't entail actuality.
Eduk wrote: June 8th, 2018, 8:15 amInterestingly if we say there is no such thing as a female/male brain then this leads to an interesting conclusion. If I cut off my hand I am still 100% me. So in this sense I can correctly think of myself as female/male as I feel is more appropriate to myself without any need to factor in the physical characteristics of my body. This led to my second rebuttal which is that words mean their use (to paraphrase Wittgenstein). Again you are free to disagree as you please (though you would just be arguing with yourself) but it is a counterargument.
Feeling female or feminine, or having an (ideal) mental image of oneself as a woman is not the same as being female or a woman. It just doesn't follow, so there's no valid argument here.

Of course, you can semantically "humptydumpty" about and idiosyncratically define "female"/"woman" as you please, ignoring all biological (physical/physiological) aspects; but this wouldn't alter the fact that the concepts of femaleness/womanhood and maleness/manhood (are) basically (used to) refer to biological sex. An arbitrary anti-biological redefinition of them results in different concepts—"femaleness*"/"womanhood*" and "maleness*"/"manhood*"—, but it doesn't follow that the redefinition is adequate and acceptable, and that the problem of the (alleged) femaleness/womanhood of transwomen can simply be solved affirmatively through redefining or reconceptualizing "female"/"woman".
Eduk wrote: June 8th, 2018, 8:15 amNow you have already conceded that intersex people don't apply to what you are talking about. I assume an intersex person is free to choose their sex as they please and you would be happy with that? However intersex people live on a continuum so I doubt very much you could categorise all intersex people. A transsexual, according to you, might be intersexual according to me, who is right? Personally I don't cut the world up into categories that people have to fit into neatly. I have no problem with my imperfection, or to be more precise I have accepted it.
There is an objective, natural difference between intersexuals and transsexuals:

– Intersexuals are by nature neither determinately/exclusively male nor determinately/exclusively female. They are both male and female, there being various forms of intersexuality, different mixtures of maleness and femaleness.

– Transsexuals are by nature either determinately/exclusively male or determinately/exclusively female.

Is an "interwoman", i.e. an intersexual person self-identifying and living as a woman, a woman?

In my understanding, interwomen are quasi-women, and so are (physically) feminized transwomen. However, there is a difference between them insofar as interwomen, who are partly female by nature, can but needn't be artificially feminized in order to be(come) quasi-women.

I accept "quasi-female"/"quasi-woman" and "quasi-male"/"quasi-man" as "third gender/sex" categories applicable both to intersexuals and to (physically feminized/masculinized) transsexuals.

By the way: What's the difference between being transgender or transsexual and having an intersex condition?
Eduk wrote: June 8th, 2018, 8:15 am To go on, as you are fond of copy pasting dictionary definitions without comment, I thought I would look at the dictionary definition of woman. It is an adult human female. So then to the dictionary definition of female. Which is 'sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs'. Personally if I was a woman who could bear offspring due to any number of reasons I would still consider myself a woman. So being able to bear offspring is one piece of evidence to suggest you are a woman but it's not conclusive. Again words are their use. Some people calling themselves female are wrong to do so, some are right, or at the very very least more right, I would hope that by now you had a more nuanced outlook on life.
Well, so what is your answer to the central question: Are transwomen women?

My answer is: No!
More precisely: Unfeminized transwomen are men, and feminized transwomen are quasi-women.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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I didn't say you would agree with me. Only that counter arguments had been made.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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What if a woman has had a hysterectomy, mastectomy and/or ovaries and/or cervix removed for various malignancies? Those cancers happen frequently and they happen only to women - with the exception of breast cancer, which men can also have. So, there are a lot of people, who have female chromosomes and have been undisputedly female all their lives, walking around minus the body parts that make up the definition of womanhood.
Then, there are a lot of women walking around - marrying men, using the restroom with the skirted figure on the door, changing and showering in the girls' locker room - who, for some physical reason or other, cannot bear young, and more who could, but choose not to.
I wonder how they're all to be classified.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

Post by Eduk »

Consul interestingly I don't consider surgery to remodel parts of the body to make any difference at all about whether someone is a woman or not.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Consul: I accept "quasi-female"/"quasi-woman" and "quasi-male"/"quasi-man" as "third gender/sex" categories applicable both to intersexuals and to (physically feminized/masculinized) transsexuals.

G: I do too, but that's not how things work in real life in real time, not in the social realm where life necessarily operates in shorthand rather than by strict technical definitions. Even if one wishes to thwart the mentally androgynous in their attempts to find a more harmonious way of being in the world, doing so also tends to punish those who are intersexed via no "fault" of their own.

Your toilets fear is largely ungrounded, though, since perverts in drag can try slipping into female toilets at any time anyway with what one would expect are similar results. However, as I say, for even sick men the humiliation of wandering around in drag would still be far greater than their desire to try peeping at women in toilets. I have never seen a strange man in the women's toilets - ever - and I am a senior citizen. You might as well about dangerous gangs storming into male or female toilets and having their way with the occupants. Maybe terrorists in the toilet? Probably more likely than strange men in dresses risking every aspect of their reputation in trying to gawk at women in bathrooms.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Consul wrote: June 6th, 2018, 2:55 pmWhat about changing rooms for women (in stores, gymnasiums, or swimming baths), public shower rooms for women, and public saunas for women? What about young girls seeing naked transwomen there who are physically male? Would that be okay for you?
"…other women-only spaces such as prisons, homeless hostels, public transport sleeper carriages…"

Source: https://medium.com/@kathleenstock/respo ... 263ffd87c8

One more example: women's refuges

The question is whether all transwomen, including unfeminized and only partly feminized ones (who have a male body or male genitals at least), should have the right to enter and use all these women-only spaces in society. The transgender activists argue that all transwomen are women, so they automatically have the right to do so; but there are many "ciswomen" who disagree.

See e.g.: Debate over inclusion of trans women in women-only spaces intensifies
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Eduk wrote: June 8th, 2018, 2:55 pmI didn't say you would agree with me. Only that counter arguments had been made.
Unfortunately, they are very bad.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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That is very unfortunate Consul. I am sorry.
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Re: Are Transwomen Women?

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Alias wrote: June 9th, 2018, 1:52 amWhat if a woman has had a hysterectomy, mastectomy and/or ovaries and/or cervix removed for various malignancies? Those cancers happen frequently and they happen only to women - with the exception of breast cancer, which men can also have. So, there are a lot of people, who have female chromosomes and have been undisputedly female all their lives, walking around minus the body parts that make up the definition of womanhood. Then, there are a lot of women walking around - marrying men, using the restroom with the skirted figure on the door, changing and showering in the girls' locker room - who, for some physical reason or other, cannot bear young, and more who could, but choose not to. I wonder how they're all to be classified.
A "ciswoman" who no longer has breasts or ovaries is doubtless still a woman, especially as she's still determinately female with regard to genetics and other physical features. There's no problem of classification here.
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