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Mark Monday's avatar

I loved reading this conversation! This part from TaraElla really summed it up for me:

"I definitely agree that tying trans acceptance to willingness to embrace a certain definition of woman is unwise. I'm quite frustrated about that approach personally. Many people are willing to accept and accomodate trans people, and we should be focusing on that instead, rather than alienating people."

100%, 100%. Will need to look into her posts.

I have to think more about your idea that there are only a few areas where women and trans women's needs intersect. I feel like there are many, but then that is a feeling not a list, and it says something that I'm not able to instantly provide that list LOL. What does stand out to me is the threat of violence from men that both demographics face regularly. So maybe it is not many intersecting areas, but a small number of really big areas?

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Steve QJ's avatar

"I feel like there are many, but then that is a feeling not a list"

Yeah, I may be missing something, but as far as I see, in the great pantheon of life, the only real area of conflict is access to female-only spaces. How a person dresses or what surgeries they have (significant caveat for children here) is none of my business. Sports, female prisons, female changing rooms, if these weren't in dispute, I don't think I'd have an issue with anything else.

Ironically, the key reason this *is* an area of conflict is that trans women want protection from men. Which is what women also want! And I think that's a perfectly reasonable goal. Trans women face violence at the hands of men too.

But I'm interested in solutions that offer that protection to trans women without opening women up to greater harm. And, at the very least, that means that simply saying "I'm a woman," can't be the standard for whether you are one.

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Chris Fox's avatar

And dressing as a woman, getting hormone treatments, and surgical castration don't make a man a woman either. Not that 99% of the "trans" crowd would go any further than cosmetic and raiment changes.

If they want to live as the opposite sex, fine, I'll even refer to them by the opposite SINGULAR pronoun, should I have reason to refer to them in their absence (unlikely).

But it's clear as could be that we are seeing a fad among people who are dissatisfied with themselves or who just want more attention. I cannot regard this as healthy. For the genuinely dysphoric the crossover is liberating and they deserve our support; when one's gender identity is reduced to the level of some teen hairstyle or fashion, we got trouble.

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Steve QJ's avatar

"And dressing as a woman, getting hormone treatments, and surgical castration don't make a man a woman either."

Yes, you're right. But I wonder how many women would object to sharing a space with a male who'd had these procedures done. I'm absolutely certain it would be lower than the number who have objections to sharing a space with a male who hasn't undergone any changes whatsoever.

That's the whole point of this conversation for me; finding a reasonable middle ground. I think that's the point for most women too. The idea that you can be treated as a woman simply by saying you are one is preposterous. But the idea that you can be treated as a woman if you do everything you can to rid yourself of your "maleness"? Personally, I don't find that unreasonable.

Now, of course, it's not about what *I* find reasonable. The most infuriating aspect of his whole situation is seeing how women are being ignored and abused for expressing their feelings on what a woman is. Women, and only women, should have the final say on where the line of "womanhood" lies.

But given that I genuinely do want trans women to be protected and affirmed to the greatest degree that's reasonably possible, I hope this conversation detoxifies enough that a solution that satisfies the maximum number of people can be reached.

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Chris Fox's avatar

well, ignoring the viewpoints of women is hardly without precedent, now is it.

I don't think formally or legally redefining even a fully feminized man as a woman is going to convince everyone, male or female that this former male should be accepted into the most private of woman-only areas e.g. bathrooms. I don't think niological men should be in women's sports at all. And having so many shrieking about misogyny and "transphobia" (what a stupid word, it should be transmisia, homomisia, etc.) isn't helping at all.

You will never get unanimity, but progress is possible. That progress recedes when you count cosplay as gender identity,

I presume in your final paragraph that you are referring to the authentically dysphoric, in which case I agree; I can't bring myself to extend the same to the nonbinary, who should never be allowed into female "spaces" (ugh).

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Steve QJ's avatar

"I don't think formally or legally redefining even a fully feminized man as a woman is going to convince everyone"

Yeah, absolutely. *Nothing* is going to convince everyone. 'Twas ever thus. Some women are going to be unhappy if trans women are permanently excluded from female spaces. Some will be unhappy if even fully transitioned trans women are allowed to use bathrooms. That's why I'm hammering on the word "reasonable." And I actually think bathrooms are the least controversial spaces for most women.

Unlike us floor-pissing neanderthals, women always have private stalls in which to use the bathroom. There are certainly some women who still object to trans women using bathrooms, and I get it, but once we recognise the fact that trans people exist, the most logical solution, in my opinion, is that trans people use the bathroom of the gender they identify as.

I've written about this in more detail here (https://steveqj.substack.com/p/every-time-i-think-the-left-has-jumped?s=w) but the short version is, if you're forcing trans women to use men's bathrooms, you're also forcing trans men to use women's bathrooms. But there's a problem. Trans men, in many cases, look absolutely indistinguishable from men. Beards and all. So what you're really doing is normalising the sight of completely masculine looking people walking into female bathrooms.

There's the trope of the pervy man in a dress trying to sneak into women's bathrooms, but what you'd end up with, is pervy men not even having to bother with the dress. Bathrooms aren't segregated by sex, they're segregated by gender expression (masculinity/femininity). Butch women already find themselves questioned in female bathrooms sometimes. And trans women who "pass" sail right in unchallenged.

But while bathrooms are segregated by gender expression, changing rooms, sports and rape crisis centres are segregated by biological sex. So a different conversation needs to be had there.

And yes, I'm always only referring to genuinely gender dysphoric people when I say trans. "Non-binary" people, and everybody else who likes to "dismantle categories" because they think it's "edgy", while giving no thought to the implications of their stupid, postmodernist games, can take a running jump.

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Chris Fox's avatar

Some good points in there, I take to heart the one about rape crisis centers over bathrooms.

Some countries only have one bathroom for everyone. Not here.

Love your final sentence.

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Paul's avatar

I agree with the impracticality of redefining the word "woman." We need to call those people we've historically called "women" something less cumbersome than "persons having an X and a Y chromosome." Let's stick with "women" and admit that gender is not a binary classification; we can make up all the genders we want and respect all of them. For those really want a binary classification, and think phrases referring to chromosomes are too clinical and awkward, how about "inseminator" and "incubator?"

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Mark Monday's avatar

Yep, agree. I see no reason why a third option is not considered to be just, fair, and compassionate. Women, men, trans. Or if you want 4, then women & men & trans women & trans men. I just don't see why adding a third is such a big deal to people - people from both political extremes. Like Steve wrote in his Medium post, third genders have existed since forever, across many different cultures.

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Chris Fox's avatar

In his novel "Distress" Australian SF writer Greg Egan paints a future in which a complete set of gender-neutral third-person singular pronouns is in common use:

ve nominative

vis direct object

ver possessive

There are seven of what you guys are calling genders:

umale/ufemale: gender characteristics deliberate exaggerated; men with very bony faces, women with huge breasts

male/female - what we have now

imale/ifemale - still gendered but with physical and behavioral characteristics reduced and muted

But then there are the asex, whom the new pronouns are mostly for; all physical and psychological characteristics of gender are completely suppressed. Their original sex is indeterminable, they have neither genitalia nor gonads and the neural mechanisms of orgasm are suppressed.

It's the latter part that is most interesting; Egan makes the point that "rushes" like orgasm, religious epiphany, drug-induced mental overloads ... are all illegitimate and that it's in these conditions that people make the worst decisions of their lives.

Read this book. It will really make you think.

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Mark Monday's avatar

That sounds like a strange and interesting plot. I'm a science fiction fan, I'll check it out.

Probably doesn't need to be said, but I view sex and gender as different things. Not an essentialist, but I see sex as essentially binary (and not "assigned") and gender as generally trinary (male/female/trans which includes basically everything that's not specifically male or female, from trans women to nonbinary to hijras to two-spirit et al). Also to repeat, not an essentialist, but I actually resent when folks casually add a 'they' to their pronouns, despite some good intentions, because it feels faddish to me, like being bi in college for some, and more importantly, ignores actual committed lives of people who are trans/who genuinely fall out of that binary. And as long as I'm resenting things, I also resent biological males who decide to simply call themselves women and then say or imply that they are "expanding the definition of women" as if men even have that right. And while I'm rambling on, have to say that I've always been confused/irritated about how LGBT are all lumped in together when the first 3 are sexual orientations and the 4th is about gender. Ugh. I say this as a bi guy who is a strong friend to the trans communities and have dated across both cis and trans genders.

Also, my pronouns are we/us/ours, please refer to me as such. LOL

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Steve QJ's avatar

"I've always been confused/irritated about how LGBT are all lumped in together when the first 3 are sexual orientations and the 4th is about gender."

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I have a LOT of thoughts about his issue. It's especially interesting in the context of "conversion therapy."

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Mark Monday's avatar

I would love to hear more about these thoughts!

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Steve QJ's avatar

Oof, that’s a whole article! It’s in the works though.

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Chris Fox's avatar

Aside from your definitions of sex and gender, I agree with everything you say. Particularly the alphabet soup.

I'm gay, I came out in 1974 in Norfolk, VA where the gay scene was mostly about drag queens. I felt no connection to them at all, and in fact most of them were thieving parasites. Let a transvestite into your house and valuables would go missing. They never worked and lived with a succession of soon-to-be-ex-friends from whom they stole.

Like many still adjusting I claimed bisexuality (it's not really common among men at all) but unlike most I had sex with women a few times.

Sex and gender: in my lifelong understand all matters of male and female, biological and psychological, are gender. Sex is an activity that most of the animal and plant kingdoms perform to reproduce and some high mammals do for enjoyment. Yes I have seen "sex" used to mean "gender"; then again I see "media" and "criteria" used as singulars every day,

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Mark Monday's avatar

I've been around drag queens for much of my adult life, especially as a doorman-bouncer at a drag bar called the Brass Rail in San Diego, mid-90s. I've had very different experiences from you because they are mostly positive experiences. I really enjoyed the people there, very warm and amiable. They were for the most part a male community, outside of their time in drag while at the bar. Was happy to call them "she" when they adopted their female personas, dressed up and at the bar. But the things is, for the most part that was a kind of performance (or sometimes literal performance on stage). Outside of the Brass Rail, these folks were usually men. And they usually saw themselves as such, when they were not in drag. Much like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence here in SF (well, at least the sisters I know).

To me at least, a person who is truly "trans" is a person who wants to be seen as not the biological sex that they were born in, and they want to be accepted as such 100% of the time, ideally forever. That's a hard path for many, thus my irritation with current fads that feel to me diminishing of genuinely trans individuals. I mean, even the drag queens back then often scorned actual trans women who had surgery, or were on the path to surgery. I recall a lot of transphobia from gay men back then. Fortunately, I think that has changed since the 2+ decades since.

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Mark Monday's avatar

And now after writing all that out, I wonder if we are just old & out of touch. I mean, sounds like you're a boomer and I'm gen x. You seem to have boomer anger towards changing sociopolitical modes while I have gen x apathy/irritation with new things that I deem faddish. Perhaps we both could be more flexible. Except I don't want to be lol. I already consider myself pretty flexible!

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Chris Fox's avatar

No I can adapt to authentic "changing sociopolitical modes" but I have detested fads since I was a freshman in high school. My own coming out was relatively painless, it didn't make me depressed much less suicidal. I can accept that people now pronounce the first c in Arctic but I will never accept the singular they, "reach out" or "moving forward."

I work in software and the industry is so riddled with destructive fads that all the joy I used to experienced has left it. Agile, scrum, test-driven development.

And having grown up taking every opportunity to draw attention to my intelligence as compensation for a severe stutter, it's no surprise that I am especially sensitive to attention-seeking behavior in others, and attention-seeking is all I see in most of this gender controversy and in 100.00% of the nonbinary horseshit. The stutter is largely gone and I have suppressed the attention-seeking boastfuless but I still react to people who always turn the conversation to themselves.

What I am reporting about Norfolk drag queens in 1974 is honest, in fact I was warned many times about them by other gay men. And, yes, some of them were charming, funny,. though the whole camp thing got old fast.

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Mark Monday's avatar

Well I'm just going to keep talking since I'm up and watching only barely-interesting anime. Also insomnia + whiskey. So hey Chris! I can be a talkative sort.

Coming out for me was also very much a painless and angst-free experience. Possibly because I had a girlfriend at the time in early high school, plus it was the 80s and folks thought it was just one more quirky thing I was adding to the repertoire. I also come across as a standard straight guy (unfortunately). And so while I really feel for the gays & lesbians who have felt shunned by their families, it is coming more from a place of sympathy than empathy. I have never felt the world is against me, I have never had to code-switch or otherwise be anything other than who I am. This is probably what has helped with self-confidence & self-esteem. Not a lot of insecurities over here and probably too much ego.

What do you mean when you say you'll never accept "reach out" or "moving forward"? You saying that you won't adapt by reaching out or continually moving forward? Not trying to mess with you, just totally mystified by that comment.

Your experiences are definitely not mine when it comes to "nonbinary" identities. The three colleagues I know who identify as such are just about the opposite of toxic personalities and definitely not attention-seekers. One of them is a decent Gen X-er lol but the other two are infernal Millennials. They literally do not seek attention and they've moved from "he" to "they" because it just felt more real to them. All of them have had top surgery but I don't think anything else, and could easily be mistaken for either a rather boyish man or a very, very tomboyish woman... if that's not a nonbinary gender, I don't know what is. They don't get in anyone's face about their pronouns, they just let you know it's "they" if asked. They are reasonable and don't push anything, including introducing pronouns at the start of meetings or any such ridiculous performative bullshit. I have no idea what they've had to deal with mentally or emotionally so I just make a point of referring to them as they because that's how they see themselves. Took some practice but it was worth it to me because these are three down-to-earth people that I can relate to due to their lack of drama and sardonic way of looking at the world.

I'm in a leadership position at a social services nonprofit in SF so believe me when I say I've come across plenty of dipshits over the years, but especially now, who love to get performative, angry for no good reason, adopt new identities to fit current faddish norms, etc etc fucking etc. The three non-binary folks that I know are real as hell and they are not interested in causing controversy or scenes that are all about them or about making some obscure political point. They are who they are and they are who they are in a low-key, non-attention seeking way. I respect the hell out of people like that.

You react to people who are turning the conversations to themselves and that's just what I did. Sorry! But honestly it's rare that I'm in the mood to even discuss these things so thought I'd take the opportunity. All thanks to the open space that Steve has created.

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Chris Fox's avatar

I'll have to take your word for it. Again, I am seeing an unrepresentative cross-section since I only run into them online. "Nonbinary" wasn't a fad when I left and if it had been I would have had no contact. I have had nothing to do with gay public territories since 1996. I used to be active in gay politics but I got disgusted with separatists who wanted to cling to the enclave life and who regarded marriage as a "str8" institution.

I don't have a single positive impression of the pronoun people. Not a single one.

Clarification: "reach out" is part of that Toxic Positivity corpspeak, synonym for "email" or "contact" and the phony warmth makes me want to puke. "Move forward" is TPC for "henceforth" or "from now on" or "proceed."

BTW I am not super comfortable hijacking Steve's forum for what is becoming a personal chat (so far we're keeping it at least a little germane) but it'd be courteous to other readers to take it private,

cheopys@gmail.com

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Steve QJ's avatar

"Read this book. It will really make you think."

Sounds fascinating! My sister is a sci-fi nut so I'll recommend it to her too!

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Apr 18, 2022
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Mark Monday's avatar

Can you provide some data on the amount of violence, including rape, committed on women & trans women by men as compared to violence committed by women & trans women on each other? Not trying to call you out, but I can't help but assume that one number is incredibly small compared to the other. What is your estimation of "significant" when it comes to threat of violence?

I have literally heard or read zero examples of actual physical violence happening to women from other women due to woke reasons. And believe, I am anti-woke. Or at the very least, post-woke.

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Chris Fox's avatar

I have no trouble believing this; the viciousness I've witnessed in the "they/them" crowd matches or exceeds that of the MAGA beards. I despise both-sidesism but what we are seeing in these addled fools may even be worse.

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Mark Monday's avatar

Viciousness online, jobs lost, cruel words, shunning, doxing, all of that - yes. All of that is horrible. But I'm talking actual physical violence from woke women to non-woke women, which is what e.pierce mentioned. I've seen no examples of that. Not saying it doesn't exist, just that I'm not going to believe something until I read about specific instances (or see it myself, which is unlikely here in SF). Have you seen such physical attacks or can you link me to examples of those attacks? Serious question.

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Chris Fox's avatar

No. If I had I would have written "I've seen it," not "I have no trouble believing it."

I left the USA in 2010 before this whole piece of idiocy got off the ground, but I've seen a lot of it online. Even after years of reading conservative gloating over their cruelty I've been shocked by what I've read from the "non-binary" crowd; their viciousness is absolutely appalling,

And Medium stands right behind them.

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Mark Monday's avatar

People are often their worst selves online. People are a lot less brave in person. I guess believe what you will.

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Chris Fox's avatar

Drop 330 million uh people on any bell curve and you're going to see some pretty freakish outliers. I'm sure there've been at least a few instances of the violence you refer to. *shrug*

I resent seeing these pronoun-reciting fools wearing the mantle of "the left." I don't care how much they call each other "comrade" or make glaringly futile noises about abolishing capitalism, we who are steeped in authentic leftist ideology disown them completely. In my better moods they make me laugh; most of the time they make me sick.

From my Twitter profile:

"If you have pronoun pairs in your profile we probably aren't going to get along very well."

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