On January 11th, 1923, following a series of refusals and rejections, an Indian man named Bhagat Singh Thind finally got his application for naturalised U.S. citizenship before the Supreme Court. There was only one problem; according...
The UK Supreme Court ruling acknowledges that trans people are entitled to human rights.
They are further granted special protections from bullying and harassment, which is needed.
What is not protected are the entitled demands to be in women’s spaces whenever they want to be.
What is not acknowledged is that trans-identified men (trans women) have basically the same criminality rate as other men when it comes to sexual and violent assaults. (Although the UK prison stats indicate a higher rate of sex offenders among trans-identified men than the general male prison population.)
And trans-identified women (trans men) have the same sexual victimization rate as other women.
Because violence and sexual harassment and assaults are still a primary tool used by men to control women, we have sex-based protections, which the UK Supreme Court defined.
"The UK Supreme Court ruling acknowledges that trans people are entitled to human rights."
Absolutely. Despite the exhausting victimhood-baiting, this was never about denying trans people human rights. It was about challenging the special privileges they were demanding that no other man has or considers himself entitled to.
Change your body any way you like. That is your absolute right. But when you want to start altering the way society functions because of your choice, that, good fellow, merits a serious conversation. And if you don't get your way in every single detail, that is not oppression.
There is nothing I find more detestable than cowards who comment from behind a block. If you have something to say, why not find the courage to say it to the person it's directed at? Anyway, bye now!!
My advice to men who think they are women. If you think that, there are a few things that you need to understand. First of all is that you are still a man because you can't change your biological sex. It's okay to dress any way you wish and to adopt any superficial, stereotypical attributes of women that you desire. Live your life. No one should care, I certainly don't.
However, because women are entitled to be treated fairly and to enjoy privacy from men there are certain things that are prohibited to you and me because we are men. You can't compete against women in most sports because it would be unfair. You can't go into women's private places like restrooms and locker rooms because that would make them feel unsafe. Finally, if you are a criminal you certainly can't be imprisoned with women.
It would make us actually unsafe, not just feeling unsafe. The problem with legally allowing any men to use women's privacy facilities is that it means we can no longer demand that they leave. And so if they have ill intent, they will be free to act on it and we will not have legal recourse until they actually do something bad. This is unacceptable.
And, unfortunately, it is still the legal reality in the United States.
Thats the problem. Should trans-right destroy women's rights? I have a wife, sisters, daughters, granddaughters so you can guess where I stand for personal reasons. I general our rights shouldn't negate the rights of others. When trans-rights negate women's rights are they privileges?
Men having to deal with mens violence. Why is all that up to women to deal with? Why do women have to change in front on men who feel like they are women? Why do we get the blame for mens violence against other men? Why do women have to share our spaces with men who feel they are women?
Going to prison is the number one risk factor in adult men being raped by other men. It does not matter if the man wishes to wear lipstick or not. Why do men who do not wear lipstick deserve to be at greater risk of rape than men who do wear lipstick?
Do something about the rape rate in men's prisons. There is no need to build additional prisons for men who wish to play pretend.
One of the many problems with formulating trans rights is that trans people are such a heterogenous group. Just taking transwomen, you've got HSTS, AGP, Prison-Onset-Gender-Dysphoria, post-op, pre-op, entirely non-medicalised, and that's before you get to the Philip-but-Pippa-on-Wednesdayses. If gender studies departments just focus on a taxonomy of trans identities and do nothing else (no really - NOTHING else) for the next few decades, I think that will be time well spent. Or at least better spent than the decades spent dismantling women's rights and driving the entire academic, political and NGO world mad.
This! The heterogeneous nature of anything should be called out when any one person attempts to represent a whole group or conversely(?) when others use one individual to represent the whole. Nobody can represent all of us (or them).
Great article, beyond the well reasoned points. I applaud you on how respectfully you approached this subject. Everyone is asking for more open discussions of difficult topics like this but then start with insults and derision, which only opens the divide between us wider and wider. I worry that if people keep up the hate that we might stop seeing people on the opposite side of a debate and lose our common sense of humanity.
shoving other women into the path of violence? I thought we defined that trans women are not women? They are another, worthy, real and all rights deserving human, but def nor women- they are trans women and that is chill.
Well, this will certainly draw fire, Steve. Your well-reasoned piece makes an apt comparison to race and raises important questions for trans activists even as it provides cover for the truly transphobic who will likely seize upon the court’s ruling as justification for discrimination and hate. Maybe it’s time science came up with a nuance pill. Thanks for writing this.
This? Great concept: "Imagine if Martin Luther King had hinged the civil rights movement on the claim that black people weren’t just equal to white people, but that they were white people, and that it was hateful, even borderline genocidal, to admit you could very easily see the difference."
Very well written. And a brilliant comparison that I had not considered: what if Brother Martin insisted that Black was White? Wow! Of course I see the absolute incredulity of insisting that one can change gender but not race. And I write the word race deliberately because that also entails absolute incredulity.
It's always been so insane to me that trans activists will say that nobody has the right to question what a woman is, when men who want to be woman want to have breasts and want to take their pee pee away (if not outright remove it) and like Mulvany, wish to go on shopping sprees and brag about their emotional instability. It's painfully obvious that all these men who want to be women know exactly what a woman is and envy them for it!
They envy women with good reason. How sad that they don't see the enviable qualities of being men.
Men compulsively imitate women to avoid male competition both socially and sexually. They are often quite successful, males imitating women die of male violence at half the rate of other men.
They also have male-free access to women for reproduction - rape in prison; male-free access to territory to mark - pissing in women’s bathrooms; male-free access to dominating groups of women - men in women’s sports, men claiming sex with lesbians, and so on.
Women imitate men to confuse men who seek them for sex / social domination. Most men are heterosexual so there is a basic aversion to sexual attraction to someone who appears male. These women also can claim more resources for themselves from other women who won’t challenge someone who appears as a dominant male.
The imitative behavior occurs in all classes of animals except amphibians.
Whenever there is intense sexual competition in nature, evolution will create a way for some organism to cheat, so to speak. Entirely natural, but creates situations very exploitive of women when men are the imitator as rape is natural yet abhorrent.
Humans don’t use pheromones to indicate sex or ovulation status, so it’s particularly easy for men to imitate women. Likewise humans are quite good at detecting other humans, but are poor at discriminating sex. Easy to confuse.
I wrote about the phenomenon and repercussions, a group of essays.
At one time trans-sex was about things like XXY chromosomes (a birth defect) or gender dysphoria which could be caused by a biological brain (there is such a thing) that is at odds with the sexual biology of the rest of the body. But they let attention seekers and absurdities like gender fluid and non-binary include themselves which made them a laughingstock.
When someone says that a man cannot have a baby and they respond with, a trans-woman can, they are saying that the trans prefix negates the word woman. They brought this upon themselves.
I have sympathy for the genuinely gender dysphoric and people with nonstandard chromosomes and something should be done for them. But it is their need to clean their own house to be taken seriously.
There's the rub, what the hell is trans? Typical of "leftists", and what the hell does that mean, everything is all about a big tent to enlarge the tribe, even though the people in the tent may not have much in common.
Trans writers (attention seekers) often mention intersex even though they themselves might not want to be a part of the tribe. Then there is sex dysphoria, and I use the word sex because this is not a bunch of social construct nonsense. For reasons that could include a brain with the biological sex characteristic opposite of the rest of their body biology or things unfathomable to me, is is a real, and I would think maddening condition.
And then there are the social construct people. Masculine trait women and effeminate trait men are still women and men and being contrary so social expectation be damned. Followed by attention seekers like the non-binary and gender fluid people who by definition do not have sex or gender dysphoria. And most outrageously, people gaming the system for access to nude gender divided nude spaces and such.
So what is trans really? The intersex and honestly dysphoric people have a difficult condition that they didn't ask for and we should try to help them find the most accepted and comfortable place in society possible. Unfortunately for them, in nude spaces, visible genitals rule the day.
For the others, who may make up the majority of whatever the trans movement is, my sympathy and empathy are rapidity declining, not that my opinion matters. I've mentioned elsewhere that they need to clean house because as long as the "transwomen are women PERIOD", "men can have babies", "gender is a social construct" and such, most of society will view them as ass clowns.
trans women are trans women- what is the problem? they deserve respect and dignity and their very own bathroom - or at least there should always be a gender neutral bathroom - and prisons should have sectors for trans women- to keep them safe- why can we only have two groupings why not four or more? As much as I want to, I cannot go join a kindergarten group and claim to be a child- but I can create an adult kindergarten group- Life is not fair and people with gender dysphoria, like anyone else who does not fit the "norm" or has been dealt a difficult, sometimes impossible hand should be respected as who they are but they ought to accept that while society will make space, it might not always be willing to pretend or give up the sandbox. What is so wrong with being a trans woman that she has to be labelled a woman?
Let's compare the trans debate to gays pursuit of marriage.
The common accepted understanding of marriage was that it was between one man and one woman. The one and one was codified when the US refused to allow Utah to become a state unless they outlawed polygamy. So much for separation of church and state. The US forced the current day Christian view that marriage was one man and one woman down the throats of Utah.
About 100 years later, the gays wanted to be able to be married. What were they really asking for? Using the Utah case as the example, they want the states and federal government to recognize their unions as marriage. That gave them all the legal protections where the term marriage was used in law. States tried out civil unions. The challenge is that would require updating all the laws to be civil unions or state that a civil union was legal equivalent to marriage. My opinion, the state and federal governments should stay out of the concept of marriage completely.
Now back to your discussion of why what you call the trans activist movement argued that a trans-woman = a woman. Specifically because for all practical purposes that was how society was effectively operating before it became a discussion. Specifically, trans-activist-woman acknowledging they exist. Trans-woman and malicious men dressing as woman have been using woman's bathrooms and woman's locker rooms for ever. It's not new. Just as gay men have been using men's locker rooms and bathrooms forever. A subset of str8 guys only had a problem when they started knowing a guy in the bathroom or locker room was gay.
So what was the goal of trans-activists wanted to say a trans-woman is a woman. To basically legalize what was already happening.
The challenge was that they started pushing it into other domains that were not already happening. A trans-woman with a penis parading around a woman's locker room naked or using a woman's hot tub naked. A trans-woman competing in woman's or girls sports. Trans-women serving in the military. Trans-woman in women's prisons. And finally, trans-woman wanting medical care/insurance to help with the hormones and transition surgery. These all pushed into new spaces. Most trans-woman were not interested in being provocative by pushing into these spaces. That has caused pushback. Including drag queens doing library story hours - I never understood why this one became a thing. Seems to me it was just provocative.
But your bottom line comment "They shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces." That has nothing to do with any of the boundaries that trans-activist are promoting. As I stated above, malicious men were already dressing as woman to get into woman's spaces. No one ever checked for gender on a license or ask someone to do a strip search.
The only new area where malicious men are now accessing woman's spaces is prisons. This one is not hard to sort out. Many of the malicious men posing as women have a history of sexual assault. Also, everyone knows they are a man. They have already been stripped searched. My guess much of the abuse caused by malicious men in woman's prisons is happening because guards are amused by the situation. This gets into a question of how guards keep any prisoner safe in prison. If you're gay in a men's prison, you might as well walk around with your pants down because the guards are not going to stop other men from raping you.
Is it trans-women's responsibility to make sure as you call them "rapists and perverts can't get in there with them?" Seriously, when trans-woman were not being activists you didn't asked them to solve this problem. Why is it their responsibility now? For prisons, the problem has nothing to do with trans activists. We know most prisons are not safe for anyone. Calling out a very small fraction of malicious guys posing as woman and getting into a woman's prison is a nit on the problem of safety in prisons.
Thanks for letting me comment without a subscription. Use to pay for your substack but you implied you didn't want me commenting anymore so I stopped. You always seem to have a huge problem with my perspective.
"Let's compare the trans debate to gays pursuit of marriage."
I'd rather not. Because these two things are completely different.
Yes, one of the key arguments against gay marriage was the biblical idea that marriage was between a man and a woman.
But A) modern marriage is different in several ways from the biblical concept, and (unlike what a woman is) has changed several tines over the years already.
And B) expanding the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples does not, and cannot, have any negative impact on the rights, safety, or dignity of heterosexual couples.
If the gay marriage debate had been that one member of the same sex couple could arbitrarily and legally change their sex, therefore making them a heterosexual couple with the same rights to marriage, the gay marriage debate would have been bogged down in the same reality denying nonsense that the trans debate has been. But instead, the argument was simply that "love is love." Which it is.
As for my "problem with your perspective," you're ably demonstrating it once again here. My problem is that you don't think about what you're saying or bother to make sure your arguments are coherent!
For example, you say that:
"The only new area where malicious men are now accessing woman's spaces is prisons."
But just before that, you highlight several other areas:
"they started pushing it into other domains that were not already happening. A trans-woman with a penis parading around a woman's locker room naked or using a woman's hot tub naked. A trans-woman competing in woman's or girls sports. Trans-women serving in the military. Trans-woman in women's prisons. And finally, trans-woman wanting medical care/insurance to help with the hormones and transition surgery. These all pushed into new spaces."
Yes, they pushed into all these areas as well as several others. And to make it possible, they tried to destroy the legal category of "woman" completely, making it open to any man, at any time, who claimed that he was a woman. That's why "Isla Bryson" was able to argue successfully to be sent to a women's prison despite being a f*cking rapist!
When there was a clear, comprehensive process for "transsexuals," yes, nobody really cared. JK Rowling stuck to children's books, politicians didn't have to pretend they didn't know what women were, and I wouldn't have dreamed of writing an article about trans women. Or if I had, I'd almost certainly have been arguing in favour of letting them live their lives in peace.
But then, the "trans" category expanded to include transvestites and psychos and any man who fancied being in a women's changing room, it became a bandwagon that dishonest and dangerous men realised they could take advantage of, simply by uttering the magic words, "I identify as a woman," and hardly any of these newfound "women" cared about the damage they were causing.
This is the entire reason JK Rowling got involved in the trans inclusion debate. Self ID, the insane idea that a man is a woman the instant he says he is one, is the biggest thing that changed. Because if any man can say he's a woman, there's no longer any such thing as a woman's restroom or a women's refuge or women's sports or women's prisons.
Even worse, any women who objected to being overwritten were persecuted, threatened, and in many cases lost their careers, or at least found them in serious jeopardy.
p.s. I've never stopped you from commenting. Why do you say these weird things? We even had a long, frustrating conversation here just a week or so ago.
I very occasionally paywall posts, in which case only members can comment. If you choose to sign up, you can comment on those posts too. If not, that's totally fine, you're welcome to keep commenting on the free ones. I'd love to be able to offer ALL my posts for free, but I have to keep the lights on somehow.
Trans-woman does not equal malicious man posing as a woman.
There was a movie with Adam Sandler about two malicious men using gay marriage to get benefits. That does not mean a gay person = a malicious str8 man.
Trans-woman have been pushing into other domains. Sports and being naked in locker rooms and woman's facilities are the most controversial.
As for people who have lost their careers by saying a trans-woman is not equal to a woman, I have been kicked off of medium twice for making that statement.
Gender dysphoria is real. How to treat gender dysphoria is still up for debate. The CASS review and now the NHS have both stated that the science of gender affirming care is not settle. The trans-activist say it is. They are lying.
Regardless of whether gender affirming care is the right approach, none of this justifies your assessment of "They shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces."
People with gender dysphoria are trying to sort out their gender dysphoria. For them it seems obvious that they are just born in the wrong body and if they can adjust their body to be as close to their perceived gender their gender dysphoria will be mitigated. Their goal is to totally "pass" as the gender they perceive themselves to be. Part of "passing" would be for everyone else to acknowledge their gender. That all seems very intuitively obvious to me.
The challenge as many point out is that especially for woman that challenges their belief, in woman's spaces safety and in woman's sports fairness. For many lesbians they believe it erases their identity (i.e. a trans woman saying they are a lesbian - lesbians would just say this is a str8 relationship). All this is occurring because trans-people are coming out of the closet. More specifically trans-activists. Was stating that a trans-woman equals a woman a good strategy? I was never on board with that position and always supported JK Rowlings positions.
JK Rowling specifically stated she supports people who are trans. She does not judge them in any way. Her issues is with malicious men posing as woman. This gets back to my opening position.
A trans woman does not equal a malicious man posing as a woman. JK Rowling agrees with this.
JK Rowlings positions are very thoughtful even though the activists community tries to make them TERFish. She brings up basic issues like if you count a malicious man acting as a woman as a woman and they commit a sex crime, you start attributing sex crimes to woman. When the reality is that very, very, very few genetic woman commit sex crimes but the rate of sex crimes for genetic men is very high including trans-woman.
There is nothing simple about the gender dysphoria issue. First step for you to acknowledge is that it's real and have empathy for those who experience it. JK Rowling does. First you need to acknowledge once again:
A trans-woman does not equal a malicious man posing as a woman.
"Trans-woman does not equal malicious man posing as a woman."
Not necessarily, of course not. I've never said it does. But it *does*, 100% of the time, equal man.
Trans women are treated with suspicion in women's spaces for the exact same reason that I would be. I'm not a malicious man either. But that's not the point. It's that there's no way to tell the difference between a malicious man and a perfect gentleman just by looking. That's why ALL men are excluded from women's spaces.
Old men, weak men, even gay men, if you let some men in, it's very difficult not to let all men in.
As you say, gender dysphoria is real. I've said so several times. But the trans community has moved so incredibly far away from professionally diagnosed, carefully evaluated gender dysphoric people that it's absolutely ridiculous to pretend that that's who we're talking about for the most part.
Just because I happened to see it today (I see some version of it pretty much every day), here's a sampling of tweets from a guy who claims that a woman is being a "bigot" for not wanting his very obviously fetishistic, perverted and disturbed self in spaces where she might be undressed or vulnerable.
This is the point I'm making in the article. It's time, long past time, in fact, to be clear and honest about what a trans woman actually is. If it's rapists and perverts AND genuinely gender dysphoric men, I don't blame women at all for abandoning all nuance and blanket-rejecting them all.
If sanity is allowed to return, and the ridiculous notion that men are women simply because they say so is abandoned forever, I think there are plenty of women who are willing to have a sensible, sane conversation about how to manage trans inclusion.
I will agree with this statement if you add the change the first two words "The activist trans community has moved so incredibly far away from professionally diagnosed, carefully evaluated gender dysphoric people that it's absolutely ridiculous to pretend that that's who we're talking about for the most part."
Yes there are an incredible number of malicious men.
Yes the position of the trans-activists are enabling those malicious men "justify" their access into traditional women's spaces.
Yes, trans-women can never be the same as a woman. The concept of a man being a woman because they said so is not where the CASS or now NHS is. The trans activists position of a trans-woman = a woman and a person should be affirmed in their gender (i.e. you saying a man can say they are a woman) is rapidly losing ground. But there are still actors in Rowlings Fantastic Beasts and other new ventures making these claims. There will always be a fringe that will never admin a trans woman is not a woman (and a trans man is not a man but that seems to be less controversial).
Most of the trans community want to have a well thought out conversation on how they can be supported and ideally affirmed. As I have stated, I have trans people working for me. Both trans-men and trans-women. I'm learning allot about how they experience the world by interacting with them. They are not malicious. They are dealing with their gender dysphoria in the best ways they can.
Positions like yours don't create an environment for a well thought out conversation. You are just reacting to the trans activists.
My interaction with the Medium is indicative of Medium catering to the trans-activists. They flagged the following statement as the reason for my latest suspension.
"The trans community started the war by declaring trans-woman are woman. No if ands or buts."
My guess is that you would agree that is just a statement of fact. Medium still won't relent. Even after I followed up with Trump's position and recently the UK supreme court position. They are in a trans-activist bubble. I don't understand why but that's where they are.
The only way that this moves to a well thought out conversation is when you and I can have a well thought out conversation.
My position is clear.
A trans-woman is not a woman. A trans-man is not a man.
Gender dysphoria is real and those who experience it need support.
How that support plays out especially with traditional woman's spaces is controversial primarily because men tend to be malicious especially when it comes to pleasing their sexual urges. But it still boils down to the line.
A trans-woman is not equal to a man maliciously posing as a woman to access a woman's space.
"The activist trans community has moved so incredibly far away from professionally diagnosed...."
No, I go to great pains to differentiate the trans community from the activist community when I'm talking about the crazy demands and reality denying nonsense, because I understand clearly that there's a difference.
But the trans community in general is now composed of the transvestites and fetishists and people who are malicious and perverted because no serious attempt has been made to distinguish between them. And whenever somebody asks for that clarification, they get called a "transphobe" (as in somebody who has a problem with the whole trans community) or swamped with abuse.
To use the analogy to black people again, imagine if any meaningful number of black people had argued that "trans-racial people, a la Rachel Dolezal, were part of the black community. And argued that people like her should be called black and that anybody who refused was racist.
Well, if this went on for long enough, it would be totally reasonable to comply with that request and think of trans racial people as part of the black community. And it would be up to the black community to sort out the confusion.
Ah yes, "trans community in general is now composed of the transvestites and fetishists and people who are malicious and perverted" bring us back to discussions you and I have had before.
The trans-community does not include people who are malicious and perverted. You only state that because you believe some of what they do is malicious and perverted. That gets into a discussion of what is malicious and perverted. That of course is based on many things and most commonly the current societal view. What is considered malicious and perverted in Wheaton IL (the center of Evangelicalism) is very different than what is consider malicious and perverted in the Castro or Folsom in San Francisco and largely San Francisco in general. Lets take the drag queen story hour as an example. Wheaton IL would never allow it. San Francisco has no issues with it. Who is right?
i.e. But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?
You seem to have a problem with me narrowing it to the phrase "malicious men who are posing as woman". The reason I narrow it to that phrase because it focuses on the issue that the trans-activists as championed by JK Rowling have not directly addressed. How does their goals of defining a trans-woman as a woman incorporate the issues of cis-woman who don't want a genetic man in their spaces or activities.
From my perspective, that is the heart of the issue that the debate is about. Its not about the trans-community (i.e. not including malicious men posing as woman) being malicious or perverted. In my mind, this gets settle by a trans-activist making peace with JK Rowling. That's how I define success.
"The trans-community does not include people who are malicious and perverted."
What a bizarre thing to say. First of all, every community includes people who are malicious and perverted. Where does this idea come from that trans people are all angels?
But second, and more importantly, if there are no boundaries to a community other than, "whoever says they're trans us trans," and a swath of perverts and rapists say, "we're trans," and the rest of the trans community never clarifies and says, "no, they're not, because they fail to meet X or Y criteria," then how are we supposed to differentiate between them?
Again, this is the entire point. The "X and Y" criteria that denote that you're trans have never been meaningfully defined. This is necessary before we can even begin to have a sane, compassionate conversation about trans inclusion.
Yes, I have. But apparently you get your deepest insights from Jesus Christ Superstar, so that's neither here nor there, is it?
I understand perfectly well the difference between subjective experience and objective reality. I also understand the objections to the notion of objective reality. But those objections are theoretical navel gazing. Just as, for example, conversations about free will are.
There's a very strong argument that we don't have free will. It's an argument I'm convinced if, in fact. But as narrow, imperfect humans who want a workable society, we have no option but to live and act as if free will exists. Same with objective truth.
"A trans-woman is not a woman. A trans-man is not a man. Gender dysphoria is real and those who experience it need support."
Also, to be clear, this is my position too. I've never said any different and have said this several times. Including in this very conversation with you on this article. It is impossible (and infuriating) to have a conversation with you if you're not reading what I say or are insisting that I hold a position I don't.
There are several ways that support could play out. The most obvious being that trans women create provisions for trans women. That's what women did, I don't understand this idea that it's impossible for trans women to do the same.
Another option, in some cases, is that we have a serious and careful conversation about what a trans woman is, so that we can all immediately and uncontroversially say that a man who commits rape twice and spontaneously declares himself a woman is not a woman.
You're hung up on this notion of "malicious men." But it's not only about malice. Women want and deserve private spaces from men. Spaces where they can get undressed or use the toilet or take refuge from the creepy guy in a bar, and know there won't be any men (however they're dressed) inside.
I'm not a malicious man, but they still wouldn't want me in there, because they can’t tell whether I’m malicious or not just by looking at me. And I completely understand and support this. It's that simple.
Of course the trans-community needs to lead in sorting out what a trans woman is versus a malicious man or what you identify as women who want and deserve private spaces from men and trans-women. (I use men for a person who identifies as cis-male. I don't call a trans-woman a man).
I don't have gender dysphoria. It seems clear you don't either. By your statement, you are an alley of both the trans-community and woman who want women only spaces.
If your an alley, how do you propose to support trans-woman (and trans-men).
No. This is why you never actually learn anything and end up repeating the same debunked talking points in the next conversation. Because you never stay with a topic, when you discover you're wrong, for long enough to absorb the new information.
Do you accept that some things are in fact different from the old days of transsexuals? And that your repeated insistence that "nothing has changed" is wrong?
Do you accept that this is about more than "malicious men" and that women have a right to and need for private spaces from men, even if those men aren't malicious?
You appear to have accepted that it's up to the trans community to lead in the definition of what a trans woman is, which is the entire thesis of the article you're arguing with. Do you recognise that they've failed badly to do this?
Re-reading the whole thread. Realize I never responded to this question.
I agree that they (i.e. the trans activist community e.g. HRC) has created positions that don't include cis-woman who want only cis-woman spaces and activities views. There are many cis-woman who have no issues with a trans-woman in their spaces. There is no simple "side" to the debate.
My biggest issue with your initial article and your reply here is that you frame it as a black and white discussion. It is anything but black and white when you consider all the opinions that people including many famous people have stated.
Your view is just one view. The UK court and Trump have confirmed one part of your view. Trans-man is not a man and a trans-woman is not a woman. Other countries and many people do not agree with these positions.
"Do you accept that some things are in fact different from the old days of transsexuals?
Yes, awareness of trans-people and the goals of trans-activists.
And that your repeated insistence that "nothing has changed" is wrong?"
Nothing has changed with a trans-person besides awareness of them.
Pose as a series was a great way to understand the trans-community.
What else do you believe has changed?
"Do you accept that this is about more than "malicious men" and that women have a right to and need for private spaces from men, even if those men aren't malicious?"
I accept that there is a set of cis-woman (e.g. JK Rowling) who want to have their traditional cis-woman only spaces not be open to trans-men.
Do you accept that it's not all cis women who want this?
"You appear to have accepted that it's up to the trans community to lead in the definition of what a trans woman is, which is the entire thesis of the article you're arguing with. Do you recognize that they've failed badly to do this?"
No, its up to cis-woman who want woman only spaces and trans-activists who want access to woman only spaces to lead the discussion. There are many in the trans-community that don't agree with the trans-activists and just want to continue their life. As as said above, there are man cis-woman who don't seem to have a problem with a trans-woman in woman only spaces and don't seem to be concerned about malicious men in their spaces as a big problem. Likely because they view that nothing has changed. They always had to be cautious about malicious men in their spaces.
Your questions are phrased in very black and white terms. My answers are pointing out the grayness of the whole discussion.
"My biggest issue with your initial article and your reply here is that you frame it as a black and white discussion."
How have I done that? The entire thesis of the article is that we need a workable definition of what a trans woman is. How can we possibly talk about the grey areas of trans women's inclusion before we know what a trans woman is?
Tell me, specifically, preferably using quotes from the article, how I've framed trans inclusion as a "black and white discussion."
As I have written in my other posts, it refers to how you use broad concepts like women and trans-community as I have written above. Seems pretty obvious to me. But I get, you seem to have trouble with the way I communicate.
In this statement:
"Do you accept that this is about more than "malicious men" and that women have a right to and need for private spaces from men, even if those men aren't malicious?"
I clarified that non all women and I believe not all and not even necessarily a majority of women in the west (where women is defined by chromosomal sex) "have a right to and need for private spaces from men". You're attributing a black and white view to women.
"You appear to have accepted that it's up to the trans community to lead in the definition of what a trans woman is, which is the entire thesis of the article you're arguing with. Do you recognize that they've failed badly to do this?"
You once again attributed your black and white views on the issue to the term "trans-community" and "woman".
I specifically clarified to "trans-activist-community" that believes a trans-woman = a woman. From my experience, many in the trans-community don't hold that position.
Hopefully that helps you understand why from my perspective you seem to hold black and white beliefs.
You are talking past (versus at) Steve QJ. No one on this substack is saying sincere (versus malicious) trans people do not exist, yet you keep asking for that acknowledgement.
People are making valid points that also are statistically valid about trans people, yet somehow you are suggesting that "no true trans person" (no true scotsman argument) would do them. You also seek constant validation that true transpeople exist, despite no one on this substack claiming that sincere transpeople do exist. THEY EXIST!
I suggest you move on to related topics:
1 How distinguishing sincere trans from malicious trans is possible/practical in the real world,
2 How to address the righteous/reasonable demands of trans that are not being met today, while balancing everyone's rights (not removing some for others).
After re-reading, I do have thoughts about a and b above. It’s consistent with what I told peacefuldave.
I believe I can’t answer those questions. I empathize with both trans-woman (have trans people including trans-woman who work for me in my business) and woman (eg I have two daughters).
When I comment on trans-activists post on medium, I typically get into a discussion about whether JK Rowling is a trans-phobe. In one discussion I challenged the activist to point by point state why JK is a trans-phobe. The activists decided to accept. They later wrote that after reviewing all she has written, they no longer believe she is a transphobe. That leads to my answer to your two questions.
The next step to achieve that answer is for the trans-activists (eg maybe Dylan Mulvaney, Sarah McBride, or Lia Thomas) to have a face to face discussion with JK Rowling. Ideally where they make peace. Until that happens, I can only educate people given my knowledge of my personal journey (ie being gay), my family (ie my daughters), my experience with trans people(specifically those who work for me) and the education I have done on the specifics of gender dysphoria. That’s my goal in responding to Steve.
Steve and you both require the trans-community to propose the answers. Steve has allot of suspicion about the trans community.
My interactions with Steve or the years make me suspect why that is the case. I won’t go into that here.
But like my suggestion to Steve, I suggest you explore doing a mankind project warrior weekend.
"Steve and you both require the trans-community to propose the answers. Steve has allot of suspicion about the trans community."
Stop putting words in my mouth and assigning views to me that I don't hold. Your inability to understand the points that I'm ACTUALLY making doesn't give you the right to make up opinions of your own.
@Rogue4Gay, I was nodding in agreement to much of what you wrote above about the different sides actually meeting to discuss. You then state that until everyone meets to discuss, you have experience with which to educate. But to me what you communicate feels more like balancing the emphasis more than educating. You often seek weight for ideas that are not in dispute. Perhaps they are not held as highly as other ideas you feel are overstated? Two things can be true at the same time or in proper measure, and I would like to understand your nuances from that lens. Sometimes you do this very well!
You suggest that we (SteveQJ and I) do the mankind project warrior weekend. From what I can tell from wikipedia, the mankind project effects changes in men to make them more assertive and clear with others about what they want or need and accepting total responsibility for all aspects of their lives. While this is a friendly tip to share within a wandering face-to-face conversation, it is potentially distracting in written form. In writing I cannot see your visual cues, your clever timing, your visually placing your body in different places or positions to signal a new point, your voice inflection, and other things that allow me to compartmentalize random things and then return to the main branch.
For instance, I like broccoli. I recommend that you try it.
I love broccoli. Especially air fried with a little bit of olive oil. ;)
The reason I suggest the warrior weekend because for me it helped me understand my view of myself and my communication style and how my inner self influences that. Especially in use of I when making statements versus you.
I like Steve's writing because he at times addresses controversial topics. Steve has a tendency from my perspective to over simplify which for me comes across as black and white. For other people (e.g. you) it does not seem to.
Absolutely writing is different than meeting face to face. It requires much more thought to create.
Seems like you have some issues with my writing style. I know I can be terse and direct. The one thing that I try very hard when writing is to not generalize and not to project. My thoughts are about me. Your responses create impressions in me. My impressions can be right, wrong or somewhere in between. But the only way to communicate clearly is to not project. For example: I have never made the statement "You then state that until everyone meets to discuss, you have experience with which to educate." That's a projection you have gotten from reading my comments. Its not something I literally said.
I can infer that you got this from my suggestion that trans-activists need to make peace with JK Rowling.
As for educating. If you are educated from my comments, outstanding. My goal is not to educate you so much as inform you of how I receive your comments. Largely my goal is to educate myself on all the views out there. I do that be responding to how I take your comments or in Steve's case his article and point out where I agree, don't understand (e.g. need clarity) and disagree. Those are about me. How Steve takes them is about him.
From my perspective, Steve seems to be ruffled by my comments and for example deflects by saying that I'm weird. That's about him, not about me. If he did a mankind project weekend, he would understand that. If he wants to understand me, he needs to first own its about him and not try an make it some universal "truth".
Steve is very frustrated that I keep bringing up the JC Superstar line
"But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours."
That line describes my thoughts perfectly. It seems to frustrate Steve because he believes there are moral truths. I'm very cynical on the concept of moral truths. Including the UN human rights charter.
That's me. Thanks for the comment. Helps me understand you.
My assumption would normally be that you’re being deliberately dishonest. But I’m starting to genuinely believe you’re just incapable of absorbing new information once you’ve formed an opinion about something.
So even though you could literally go and see that I called your *comment* weird, not *you* weird, even though I directly corrected you when you made this same claim to someone else, here you are, repeating it again as if none of that ever happened.
Your comments about moral truths are similarly dishonest/confused. You’ve also done exactly the same projection about me that you’re criticising “some guy” for and claiming you never do.
The thread has gotten too complicated for me to respond to this in any specific way.
It is clear that somehow I trigger you.
On projecting, its certainly possible. I don't spend allot of time editing to make sure my statements are about me and my view of your comment versus absolutes "truths" about you.
In the mankind project there is a process called a "clearing" that helps the person making a judgement claim about someone else sort out whether they are projecting. Its a very interesting process to go through. Very insightful to help me understand when I make a judgement whether I its a projection.
Finding me frustrating is not necessarily bad. You're being exposed to communication styles that you seem to not like. That's OK.
Differentiating be whether you're saying I'm weird by saying my comment is weird is a red herring. If I make comments that you find weird, you are saying that at times I'm weird. You're basically just saying my writing and thus I'm not weird all the time. Just at times.
No, saying someone said something weird, or even that they do weird things sometimes, is clearly not the same as saying that they ARE weird.
You can say someone is funny sometimes, that doesn't mean you think they ARE a funny person. You can say someone is mean sometimes, that doesn't mean you think they ARE a mean person. Silly, angry, smart, these can all be transitory qualities.
Almost everyone has said something weird at some point in their lives, same for, funny, unreasonable, etc. that doesn't mean they ARE weird, funny, unreasonable etc, people.
It is rather simple-minded to be unable to distinguish between an observation of your behaviour and a judgement of you as a person.
In general I refrain from characterizing comments as weird. What I'm looking for is whether they make the comment about them or me. I get in that case I am weird. I challenge comments about me versus about you.
One of the biggest faults that I have is that I don't proof read my comments very well. It would be good if I did that more. Including possibly running my comments through ChatGPT to get its perspective. I haven't done that because for me this is just learning. Even writing the comment helps me clarify what my position is on the topic.
You on the other hand are soliciting a following of readers. Making sure the content is engaging, proof read, and coherent is part of the product you are creating.
This was all interesting and useful for ongoing discussion. If our discussion were instead information systems, we would be like two devices attempting to TX and RX 'handshake' with what communication protocols we can use, to then use the most secure or highest speed one available to both of us. In systems, this handshake occurs first, and we are doing it only lately!
Freely tell me this is wrong, but I think you are most comfortable with less-structured communication where many potential points can be made in one statement and there is no obligation to continue/address prior ones, but interesting related ones may be started. Or not. It feels like something a creative person would do (versus the linear ones common to engineers with whom I work).
It tempts me to go more with the total vibe from the sum of it all more than to depend upon all of the supporting parts. This does not mean that it is not well qualified in parts, but perhaps you wish to emphasize the forest more than the trees? I am probably wrong.
I do have a tip. You don't like voice that amounts to projection (did I just project?, LOL), and I am listening to that request. At the same time, when you say that Steve or I like or don't like something, it feels like a similar sin. This ask (don't project) and this frequent mention (Steve does not like) seem too similar to each other to come from the same person. What is the practical difference that others would appreciate and should they? Sincere ask.
I believe we are both trying to find constructive consensus, and I am enjoying that. For you and for anyone, I always look for the most flattering possible interpretation of whatever is said, because I believe we are all more similar than different until proven otherwise.
I say "From my perspective, you seem confused". That's about me.
Projections are "You're confused". That about the person you're talking to.
That's the difference.
As for a "constructive consensus", always a great ideal. Not something I believe will happen here. On Medium, I had a bunch of articles, one was about what writers are looking when people comment. It's a great question to Steve, he wrote the article and opened it for comments. He does not specifically ask what type of comments he's looking for. The articles I wrote on Medium, I usually ended with a question on what type of feedback I was interested in.
I comment because it helps me clarify my position and ideally get feedback on my position from others. I have gotten much feedback from you and Steve. On some things you seem to agree, on some you feel I'm not on point, on some Steve thinks I'm weird.
As for staying on topic, I believe I'm on topic. You suggest I'm not.
As you said, about the forest versus the trees. Many questions are focused on the details of a situation and fail to see the larger picture or overall context.
The analogy I like to bring up on this one is the famous "the answer is 42" from Douglass Adams Hitchhiker's Guide. Don't know if your familiar with. 42 was supposed to be the answer to "life the universe and everything". No one could understand the answer. Douglass Adams point was that the question many times is more important than the answer.
For the trans discussion, what question is Steve really trying to address? The article is titled "The Long Overdue Question Of What A Trans Woman Is." You would think that question would be clearly stated in the article. As far as I can tell, the question is "Is a trans woman is a woman?". He ends with a statement "Trans women are not women". But he never ask the question. The title of the article is not a question. It's a statement.
My first response to Steve was really about trying to clarify what the question might be.
“ On some things you seem to agree, on some you feel I'm not on point, on some Steve thinks I'm weird.”
😅Like a belligerent goldfish. I was having a quiet bet with myself about how long it would be before you claimed I called you weird again, even though I’ve clarified that three, or I guess four times now. But even I thought you’d do better r than the same article, twenty-four hours later. You really are hopeless. I’ll stop wasting my time.
The sentence begins “some things”. I state three ways you interpret my “things”:
A. I’m on point
B. I’m not on point.
C. I’m weird
It’s all about my “things, not about me.
Maybe I just don’t understand the basic structure of the English language.
Regardless, you’re beating a dead horse. Hope my restructuring of the sentence helps you understand my intended goal with the sentence.
As I said, for me, writing and responding are casual for enrichment and distraction. Not my profession. For many years I was in technology. Now I run a bakery business.
I’m more interested in what “the question” was for your article.
I’m also interested in what question you’re asking us as readers to comment on.
Shared Traits: Both ENTPs and ESTPs are extroverted and enjoy engaging with the world around them. They are also both thinking types, which means they value logic and rationality in their decision-making processes 1.
Differences:
Intuition vs. Sensing: ENTPs are intuitive, meaning they focus on possibilities and abstract concepts. ESTPs, on the other hand, are sensing types who prefer concrete information and practical experiences 1.
Flexibility: Both types are perceiving, which means they are adaptable and spontaneous. However, ENTPs might lean more towards exploring new ideas, while ESTPs might prefer hands-on activities 1.
Compatibility: These differences can complement each other well, with ENTPs bringing innovative ideas and ESTPs providing practical implementation. Their shared extroversion and thinking traits can help them understand each other's perspectives and work together effectively.
I feel the above AI summary is accurate to us. I had already figured that I would listen to you as a bit more of a brainstormer versus me which is a bit of a solution-committer. These are all relative, of course. We all dip into creativity and solutions, just with different things and emphasis.
Reacting to your wanting From my perspective" to avoid projection, I appreciate the request for more precise language. At the same time, everything I write is from my perspective, so this is understood unless I am trying to quote you with quotation marks to indicate this is not my interpretation but your literal words.
You also said things about others positions without the "from my perspective", so I don't think you are very insistent on it. I don't really care about that or when I do it, because everything we all say is "from my perspective" unless air quoting otherwise. I won't be distracted when seeing it and then not seeing it in use.
You’re attributing words to me that I never wrote. I never mentioned “true” or “sincere”.
I talk about gender dysphoria being real and that a trans woman (a person with gender dysphoria who mitigated it by looking like a woman) has nothing to do with malicious men posing as woman.
Everything else you attribute to me is a projections of your thoughts onto me. Better just to own them than project them!
Yes, I acknowledge that gender dysphoria is real. I see no evidence on this substack to the opposite.
Look, you make it easy to speculate as to where you are going with things, because you constantly seek validation for something that no one here has taken away. If you feel the harsh world outside of this substack needs this message and that this is frustrating, I completely agree with you. If that makes you feel like blowing some steam, then I get it. But it's just us here, man. We get it. Are we cool?
I am not trying to make you look bad. I am just hoping to build bridges and see the best of ideas from those around me. Admittedly, I am imperfect at it, and I am fine with that.
The trans-community has no way to police malicious men.
Anymore than the male community has a way to police malicious men.
Because the world no longer is communities of people who know each other, communities are made up of people who can be malicious and not malicious. That's just humanity 101.
You can speak out against non-binary and gender flued attention seekers who by definition are not trans in the sense of gender dysphoria where you identify as the opposite sex ALWAYS.
Just like you can speak out against racism in your own tribe. Gay and lesbians are not trans. The LGBTQ+(ashamed of P for pedophile) and they could champion LGB≠TQ+ because they are not equal. Trans harmed gay and lesbians with the false association.
No! I'm not a part of the LGBTQ+ community so when I mention people cleaning their own house it's not my house to clean. You appear to be gay with the Rogue4Gay handle and apparently are a trans advocate (correct me if that's wrong) so I am not projecting, I am saying exactly what I meant.
No, you are not clear on your position. And Steve can only rarely decipher what your position IS, because you twist and turn seemingly in whatever direction prevents you from acknowledging when you make a mistake. Please don't use me as an argument from authority.
I don't speak on their behalf. I speak on what I believe. There are trans-activists who don't agree with my position including the HRC. There are trans people who largely agree with my thoughts.
From an action point of view I have made the following suggestion to trans-activists. If you really want to help the larger trans community, make peace with JK Rowling. They generally don't like me suggested that to them.
What has changed is that there are many, many more boys and men trying to access women's restrooms, changing rooms, women's shelters, and athletic competitions, and some of them do not even try to conceal that they are male. They flaunt their claim of "trans" identity and taunt women by daring women to try to stop them, knowing that in many places the police and management of a building or organization will do nothing if women complain. In the past, the few males who went into women's restrooms kept their heads down and left as quickly as possible.
The men who used to be Peeping Toms, trying to look into windows of rooms where women were attending to intimate needs, now waltz right into those spaces, knowing that the authorities will tell girls and women that if they have a problem sharing a space with naked males with penises exposed, they need to either tough it out or find another place to change clothes. (That is what the U of Penn officials told the women on the swim team, when the latter complained about the male swimmer who was exposing himself in the women's changing room.)
If a man exposes himself to a woman and her daughter in the parking lot of a gym he would be arrested and put on a sex offender list. But if he says he identifies as a woman and goes into the women's dressing/shower area and strips down in front of them it's OK. That is insanity.
Where did you go to high school? I do not recognize your name. I went to Sullivan High School in Chicago. There are quite a few women named Holly Hart in the USA. There are two of us here in Portland, Oregon who are both attorneys! When I lived in Berkeley, there was another Holly Hart.
Chance at what? I am hopelessly, enduringly, eternally united with a wonderful woman. I was going for the obvious joke in my comment, but all I ever want with others is friendship.
And, er... Charlie? What am I, a badly-drawn tuna?
A trans-woman does not equal a peeping toms or many, many more boys and men trying to access woman's spaces.
Malicious boys and men exist. When I went to a Christian camp when I was in 5 grade a bunch of malicious boys took my camera to try to take pictures in the girls bathroom. That was in the 60s.
Equating a trans-woman with a malicious man posing as a woman is not valid. Gender dysphoria is real. Read my comment to Steve's comment.
You are talking past (versus at) Peaceful Dave. No one on this substack is saying sincere (versus malicious) trans people do not exist, yet you keep asking for that acknowledgement.
People are making valid points that also are statistically valid about trans people, yet somehow you are suggesting that "no true trans person" (no true scotsman argument) would do them. You also seek constant validation that true transpeople exist, despite no one on this substack claiming that sincere transpeople do exist. THEY EXIST! Let that soak in. Was that satisfying?
People are making points that, even where every trans person involved is assumed to be sincere, that infringements on the rights of others is being requested. This is one of the few places where they can openly discuss that without ad hominem attacks.
Yes, sincere trans people are real, and apparently no one is opposing you on that. I suggest you move on to related topics:
1 How distinguishing sincere trans from malicious trans is possible/practical in the real world,
2 How to address the righteous/reasonable demands of trans that are not being met today, while balancing everyone's rights (not removing some for others).
There are men who sincerely believe that they are God's gift to women and that women will realize that if those women would just "cuddle" (euphemism) with them. Does that mean that women should be compelled to "cuddle" with those sincere men, because then they will experience the wonders of God's gift? I don't think so!
Same with men who sincerely believe that they are women. That does not mean that girls and women should be compelled to share female single-sex spaces with those men, or that those men should be allowed to compete in athletics as if they were in fact female. It does not matter that some women may not mind having males in female spaces. No woman can give consent on behalf of other women. Women who have no problem being with men in restrooms should go use the men's restrooms. (I am not actually approving of women accessing men's spaces. Just making a point about no woman can waive other women's rights to privacy and safety.)
Don't try to put words in my mouth. I have not denied that there are legitimate gender dysphoric and abnormal chromosome people. But gender fluid, non-binary and phony for bad reasons is not gender-dysphoria where someone ALWAYS feels that they are the sex opposite their plumbing. As you wrote easy to distinguish with those tells. Words have meaning.
I have no idea how to balance rights that infringe upon the rights of others. That's why we are having this discussion.
All "abnormal chromosome people" are either male or female. "Aneuploidy" is an abnormality in the number of chromosomes in a cell due to loss or duplication. In humans, aneuploidy would be any number of chromosomes other than the usual 46. Any individual with the SRY gene, which enables the formation of testes, is male. The SRY gene is almost always found on the Y chromosome, so the shorthand way of saying how a male can be identified is to say that any individual with a Y chromosome is male. In very rare cases, the SRY gene will have migrated to and be found on the X chromosome which every male has. This is a great resource for understanding what sex is, how it is determined, and what Disorders of Sexual Development are: https://theparadoxinstitute.com
How do we balance the rights of men who "feel" they want to have sex with a woman with the rights of women who do not want to have sex with those men? We have criminal and civil laws and penalties against non-consensual sex.
That's the answer to how to treat individuals who "ALWAYS feel that they are the sex opposite their plumbing." They are objectively, materially, NOT female, no matter how they feel, and should not be treated as if they were female, no matter how they feel.
"No one on this substack is saying sincere (versus malicious trans people do not exist"????????
Steve made this explicit statement in his original post: "They(i.e. the trans community) shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces."
I guess I did some interpretation but it suspiciously seems to align with my statement implying that all trans-woman are malicious men.
Even Steve replying to the state above with
"Not necessarily, of course not. I've never said it does. But it *does*, 100% of the time, equal man"
Seems to imply that assume a trans-woman is a malicious man until proven otherwise.
That makes life extremely difficult for a trans-woman.
Yes its a complicated discussion now that the trans issue is out in the open.
I read an article by a trans-woman. They made an interesting statement.
"They feel more comfortable using a woman's bathroom in a rural Iowa town than they do in San Francisco". Why? Because in the rural Iowa town, very few people have trans on their mind. They just view the person as a woman. Because, like Sarah McBride, they look like a woman. Why would other woman even question it.
"Seems to imply that assume a trans-woman is a malicious man until proven otherwise."
This is absolutely ridiculous. Even for you.
And I clearly state, just above the paragraph that you disingenuously quoted, that I'm talking about trans activists, not the trans community in general.
Danger in using the pronoun "They". I took it as the trans-community. I doubt the trans-activist community is aligned with rapists and perverts in woman's spaces.
Just you and I having a conversation on trans issues shows much the sides have squared off as either pro-trans (support everything the trans activists want) or anti-trans (trans-woman are impersonating women).
JK Rowling as far as I can tell is the only one that seems to be able to hold both a woman is XX chromosomes and a trans-person needs empathy at the same time.
"Because one of the most telling aspects of this debate is that trans activists have never shown any interest in placing any boundaries on the men who opt into the trans identity. They shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces."
If you lack the reading comprehension to understand who the "they" is referring to in the above paragraph, it's no wonder that you are so consistently, belligerently wrong.
You and I having a conversation is only ever frustrating because of your habit of using this kind of dishonest, motivated reasoning. I've had several very productive and pleasant conversations with people who disagree with me on this topic.
I'm having one right now on a different article, in fact.
You keep trying to fool yourself into believing that the friction in our conversations comes from the difficulty of the issues. No. It comes from your apparent inability to think coherently, learn, and absorb new information.
You fail to understand the difference between "opinion" (or worse, “feeling”) and "truth" and so you don't ever engage in the kind of critical thinking and self-examination that might make conversations valuable, whether or not we agreed. If I only ever wanted to speak with people who agree with me, I wouldn't bother engaging in the comments at all.
And no, Rowling is far from the only person who is capable of compassion for both groups.
In fact, after enduring years of abuse and threats, I'd say Rowling is noticeably LESS compassionate towards trans women than she once was. I'm sad to see it, but I can't blame her one bit.
Rowling and many of us are experiencing "compassion fatigue" (similar to "empathy fatigue") because of the increasingly vitriolic attacks on women who speak up for the sex-based rights of girls and women. She receives many threats that she will be raped and/or tortured and/or murdered if she keeps advocating for girls' and women's rights to single-sex spaces and pursuits like women's sports competitions. Of little to no concern to her, considering the continuing popularity of her books and movies based on them, are the threats to boycott those movies and books.
She now has to have 24/7 security guards wherever she goes, which was not the case prior to 2020, when she first started speaking up for girls' and women's sex-based rights. Members of her family have also received such threats and there have been attempts to assault Rowling that would have succeeded if she did not have security guards and police protection.
It's amusing to me how you need to resort to denigration of my intellectual abilities to somehow prove a position on what I write.
You have a very confronted style. I believe I have recommended this to you before but you might want to study the concept of epistemic humility. Its a philosophical concept about holding a strong opinion but still believing you might be wrong.
It is not denigration, it's the truth! After several of these conversations, I am admittedly more blunt about it than I otherwise would be, but only because my more gentle approaches over years have fallen on deaf ears.
Even here, on this article, I pointed to a clear example of you contradicting yourself within the space of a couple of paragraphs, demonstrated right here that you've failed to read a paragraph correctly, and you're repeating arguments that you've already used and had debunked in other conversations.
I don't know how else to say it. The only reason I've spent years and years talking to readers and engaging with disagreement is that I'm aware I might be wrong. If anything, it appears to be you who can't admit he's wrong. In fact, in your world, being wrong doesn't even seem possible. After all, you think we each have our own "truths."
These last comments have been helpful to break down assumed interpretations. I had a different interpretation than previously expressed ones to, "They(i.e. the trans community) shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces." My interpretation isn't about potential malicious trans.
My interpretation is that trans activists are making demands while denying/avoiding the obvious inherent risks of male bodies in female spaces. You, Rogue4Gay, seem to capture this by pointing out that, it isn't trans that are putting females at risk, but that it would be any male body. I hope I did not misunderstand you, but I agree.
The truth of ". . . shared none of the concerns. . . " suggests how severely limited and powerless requests by trans activists have been without acknowledging the impact to others.
More plainly, activists could gain tremendous credibility by simply stating, "Yes, transmen bring into any space risks that male bodies do, but that is okay, or that can be mitigated because <reasons>". Instead, activists completely deny it.
Trans activists cannot credibly expect empathy for their request when, almost universally, their method is to deny empathy for female bodies. People sense that empathy is being requested in only one direction, and it puts the trans activist on a moral low road, literally on the wrong side right from the start. Want empathy? Give empathy.
Activists would be wise to not make false equivalencies of male trans:females as slaves:slave owners, because that would imply that females are inherently in power and unrighteous over trans male bodies, and that idea is absurd.
Again, want empathy? Give empathy.
Acknowledging risks and making suggestions for handling fake/malicious/opportunistic trans (not real trans) would really help move the conversation forward. The activist drum beat of "transwomen are women" is interpreted by many/(most?) as a refusal by activists to embrace reality.
Reality? Male bodies are much more violent and, on average, capable of imposing harm on female bodies. Nobody has time for anybody that denies these facts, yet, "transwomen are women"?
I bet we can get closer to discussing real trans freedom while including protections from malicious trans and also male bodies. Honesty is a necessary in order to advance on this journey.
How can anyone tell the difference between a man who "feels" or "believes" he is a "trans woman" and other boys and men trying to access women's spaces? Assuming (and it is a big assumption) that it is desirable to let males who "feel" they are women access females' spaces, exactly how can other boys and men be kept out of females' spaces? Gender dysphoria might be real, but that does not mean that girls and women should be deprived of privacy and a sense of safety by permitting males with gender dysphoria to access the spaces in which girls and women attend to intimate bodily care or sleep or participate in female athletics. Why should women in prison be forced to share space with males with "gender dysphoria", many of whom have been convicted of violent crimes against women? Psychosis is also real. Why are girls and women supposed to give up our privacy and safety because some men have mental health problems?
I agree with your statement that woman who want it need private spaces. Apparently their are many woman who are not concerned about letting trans-woman in their space.
Trans-woman by definition have a mental health condition that they try to mitigate thru hormones and body affirming surgery. For many that works (eg Kaitlin Jenner) and for some it doesn’t and they de-transition. Clearly it sucks to have gender dysphoria.
The question you don’t address is how to screen genetic men from going into woman’s spaces (or for that matter genetic woman from going into men’s spaces). Trans woman want to “pass” as a woman. Where should they take a pee and poop?
What about a genetic woman that is taking testosterone and has a beard, low voice and for all visual purposes appears as a man. Are you comfortable with them in cis-woman only spaces. Including if they have had gender affirming surgery?
I get the feelings. I don’t here practical solutions from you for both the cis and trans communities.
It's pretty simple. Females, no matter what they look like, should be using the restrooms, changing rooms and other single-sex spaces for females. Males, no matter what they look like, should be using the restrooms, changing rooms and other single-sex spaces for males. There is no feasible way to stop individuals who really can "pass" as a member of the opposite sex from accessing the single sex spaces of the opposite sex, but there are very few individuals who can pass. In real life, unlike in still photographs, people cannot use filters and photoshop to make themselves look as if they were of the opposite sex.
As for "trans-women by definition have a mental health condition that they try to mitigate thru hormones and body affirming surgery", why do you assume that this is true? By whose definition?
Are you aware of the extensive research done by psychologists such Dr. Ray Blanchard (https://x.com/BlanchardPhD) on men who say they feel like they are women or want to be women? Blanchard found that most of these are heterosexual men with the paraphilia (sexual fetish) of autogynephilia rather than effeminate homosexual men, which is what most people assume they are. These men become sexually aroused at the thought that they are women and/or have women's bodies such as women's breasts) and/or have female physiological processes such as menstruation, gestation, child birth and lactation.
Are we to consider this sexual fetish (or any sexual fetish) a "mental health condition" that women and girls are for some reason responsible for the amelioration of by allowing men with this sexual fetish to gratify themselves by being in female single-sex spaces since they get sexual satisfaction from this "affirmation" that others see them as women?
BTW, very few of these men who report "gender dysphoria" have their male genitalia amputated. And those who do take estrogen often titrate it so that they maintain their ability to get erections and experience orgasms while ejaculating. So the men accessing women's single sex spaces are not the de-sexed males many assume them to be, either physically or mentally.
The most famous book on the subject of autogynephilia is by Dr. Anne A. Lawrence, a male who himself is autogynephilic.
Here is the PDF of his book, Men Trapped in Men's Bodies.
Yes, there is allot of research trying to understand men and how their identity or sexual desires to be a woman relate. Personal I found this one - From Incel to Harvard, Neuroscientist on Gender Dysphoria and College Politics | Adam Omary EP 206 - as the most interesting. His research indicates that a person is is XY can develope the physically to have the mind of a woman.
As a gay person who has live through the last 60 years of societal judgements of being gay as first as psychiatric disorder that was treated with conversion therapy to now scientifically agreed that’s it’s a combination of genetics that is enable thru nurture and is fixed, I’m absolutely convinced that “science” that presumes to understand gender dysphoria is just pursuing their bias (a.l.a. Anthony Fauci).
Your bias is clear. You have a right to that bias.
Please read my comment about how there are MANY more men coming into women's spaces and they are flaunting their maleness instead of trying to be discrete.
I don't agree with your reasoning but I am thrilled to see somebody with an opposite viewpoint being so reasonable. No invective, no vindictiveness. Just a well-thought and consistent argument.
Polygamy is not a religious issue. It's a matter of societal mores. It's not fair to categorize a decision you don't agree with as religious bigotry. And true, malicious men in women's spaces is nothing new, but it is precisely trans activism that has brought the issue to the forefront. Your argument also neatly sidesteps the legitimate concerns that trans activism does not celebrate biological women... Which men identifying as women certainly champion.
Last, I would not say that Steve has been deliberately shutting you out for personal reasons. He's shut me out, too, I think for no other reason than he wants to make money off this substack. I wish him all the best with that!
I'm not sure what the difference is between "societal mores" and "religion". Maybe you can clarify. I believe societal mores for the most part are based in religion. Including new age religions that have developed in the last 30 years.
Steve as he said in his comment does not seem to agree with your view that comment is reasonable. He labels me as "weird"
No, Steve labels your obviously untrue statement weird. Because you must have known it was untrue even as you were writing it. Again, we had a long conversation just a week or so ago. We've had several over the years. And when an article is paywalled, there's a big banner telling you it's paywalled. You don't even get to see the comments section.
"What did I say that was weird or obviously "untrue"."
I don’t know if you’re genuinely incapable of following the thread of a simple conversation (that would explain a lot actually) or if you're only pretending to be, but either way it would obviously be a waste of my time continuing to indulge you.
I could not care less if you are weird or not, or is someone else thinks you are. With love and respect, you seem to be working out some deeper issues that I think have nothing to do with Steve's essay. I say this to you because I know from experience that reading barbed missles into another's speech and behavior is exhausting. And I'd rather see you exhaust yourself in more beneficial pursuits.
I use dictionary definitions of religion, society and mores. I do that with almost all words. It saves time.
Yes, mores are often - probably predominantly - based in religion. Which is your tacit admission that these are seperate topics. And may beg a deeper query about the existence of God.
I have no intention of exhausting myself. If you want to continue talking about the subject matter here, I'm game. But that's all.
I've always been in favor of gay marriage, or unions if they can't find a church that will do it. It's a legal contract to give your life partner the same rights as heterosexuals in marriage.
The UK Supreme Court ruling acknowledges that trans people are entitled to human rights.
They are further granted special protections from bullying and harassment, which is needed.
What is not protected are the entitled demands to be in women’s spaces whenever they want to be.
What is not acknowledged is that trans-identified men (trans women) have basically the same criminality rate as other men when it comes to sexual and violent assaults. (Although the UK prison stats indicate a higher rate of sex offenders among trans-identified men than the general male prison population.)
And trans-identified women (trans men) have the same sexual victimization rate as other women.
Because violence and sexual harassment and assaults are still a primary tool used by men to control women, we have sex-based protections, which the UK Supreme Court defined.
Gender has nothing to do with it.
"The UK Supreme Court ruling acknowledges that trans people are entitled to human rights."
Absolutely. Despite the exhausting victimhood-baiting, this was never about denying trans people human rights. It was about challenging the special privileges they were demanding that no other man has or considers himself entitled to.
Change your body any way you like. That is your absolute right. But when you want to start altering the way society functions because of your choice, that, good fellow, merits a serious conversation. And if you don't get your way in every single detail, that is not oppression.
There is nothing I find more detestable than cowards who comment from behind a block. If you have something to say, why not find the courage to say it to the person it's directed at? Anyway, bye now!!
My advice to men who think they are women. If you think that, there are a few things that you need to understand. First of all is that you are still a man because you can't change your biological sex. It's okay to dress any way you wish and to adopt any superficial, stereotypical attributes of women that you desire. Live your life. No one should care, I certainly don't.
However, because women are entitled to be treated fairly and to enjoy privacy from men there are certain things that are prohibited to you and me because we are men. You can't compete against women in most sports because it would be unfair. You can't go into women's private places like restrooms and locker rooms because that would make them feel unsafe. Finally, if you are a criminal you certainly can't be imprisoned with women.
That's it, just like me.
It would make us actually unsafe, not just feeling unsafe. The problem with legally allowing any men to use women's privacy facilities is that it means we can no longer demand that they leave. And so if they have ill intent, they will be free to act on it and we will not have legal recourse until they actually do something bad. This is unacceptable.
And, unfortunately, it is still the legal reality in the United States.
Thats the problem. Should trans-right destroy women's rights? I have a wife, sisters, daughters, granddaughters so you can guess where I stand for personal reasons. I general our rights shouldn't negate the rights of others. When trans-rights negate women's rights are they privileges?
Men having to deal with mens violence. Why is all that up to women to deal with? Why do women have to change in front on men who feel like they are women? Why do we get the blame for mens violence against other men? Why do women have to share our spaces with men who feel they are women?
Lacy: You said it so well. Men like Glau who deny reality have a hard time dealing with it.
You are not a woman, sir. And you know you are not one.
Agree- there should be trans prisons
Alcatrans
LOL
Why?
Going to prison is the number one risk factor in adult men being raped by other men. It does not matter if the man wishes to wear lipstick or not. Why do men who do not wear lipstick deserve to be at greater risk of rape than men who do wear lipstick?
Do something about the rape rate in men's prisons. There is no need to build additional prisons for men who wish to play pretend.
Don’t worry, there’s no lipstick, makeup, or high heels in prison.
One of the many problems with formulating trans rights is that trans people are such a heterogenous group. Just taking transwomen, you've got HSTS, AGP, Prison-Onset-Gender-Dysphoria, post-op, pre-op, entirely non-medicalised, and that's before you get to the Philip-but-Pippa-on-Wednesdayses. If gender studies departments just focus on a taxonomy of trans identities and do nothing else (no really - NOTHING else) for the next few decades, I think that will be time well spent. Or at least better spent than the decades spent dismantling women's rights and driving the entire academic, political and NGO world mad.
This! The heterogeneous nature of anything should be called out when any one person attempts to represent a whole group or conversely(?) when others use one individual to represent the whole. Nobody can represent all of us (or them).
It's HER penis, you horrible bigot!!!!!!
Great article, beyond the well reasoned points. I applaud you on how respectfully you approached this subject. Everyone is asking for more open discussions of difficult topics like this but then start with insults and derision, which only opens the divide between us wider and wider. I worry that if people keep up the hate that we might stop seeing people on the opposite side of a debate and lose our common sense of humanity.
shoving other women into the path of violence? I thought we defined that trans women are not women? They are another, worthy, real and all rights deserving human, but def nor women- they are trans women and that is chill.
Bravo.
Well, this will certainly draw fire, Steve. Your well-reasoned piece makes an apt comparison to race and raises important questions for trans activists even as it provides cover for the truly transphobic who will likely seize upon the court’s ruling as justification for discrimination and hate. Maybe it’s time science came up with a nuance pill. Thanks for writing this.
This? Great concept: "Imagine if Martin Luther King had hinged the civil rights movement on the claim that black people weren’t just equal to white people, but that they were white people, and that it was hateful, even borderline genocidal, to admit you could very easily see the difference."
Very well written. And a brilliant comparison that I had not considered: what if Brother Martin insisted that Black was White? Wow! Of course I see the absolute incredulity of insisting that one can change gender but not race. And I write the word race deliberately because that also entails absolute incredulity.
It's always been so insane to me that trans activists will say that nobody has the right to question what a woman is, when men who want to be woman want to have breasts and want to take their pee pee away (if not outright remove it) and like Mulvany, wish to go on shopping sprees and brag about their emotional instability. It's painfully obvious that all these men who want to be women know exactly what a woman is and envy them for it!
They envy women with good reason. How sad that they don't see the enviable qualities of being men.
I do not have the option to edit, so I will add this correction: I didn't mean to type "take" their pee pee away, but "tuck."
Men compulsively imitate women to avoid male competition both socially and sexually. They are often quite successful, males imitating women die of male violence at half the rate of other men.
They also have male-free access to women for reproduction - rape in prison; male-free access to territory to mark - pissing in women’s bathrooms; male-free access to dominating groups of women - men in women’s sports, men claiming sex with lesbians, and so on.
Women imitate men to confuse men who seek them for sex / social domination. Most men are heterosexual so there is a basic aversion to sexual attraction to someone who appears male. These women also can claim more resources for themselves from other women who won’t challenge someone who appears as a dominant male.
The imitative behavior occurs in all classes of animals except amphibians.
Whenever there is intense sexual competition in nature, evolution will create a way for some organism to cheat, so to speak. Entirely natural, but creates situations very exploitive of women when men are the imitator as rape is natural yet abhorrent.
Humans don’t use pheromones to indicate sex or ovulation status, so it’s particularly easy for men to imitate women. Likewise humans are quite good at detecting other humans, but are poor at discriminating sex. Easy to confuse.
I wrote about the phenomenon and repercussions, a group of essays.
https://open.substack.com/pub/sufeitzy/p/mimesexuality-1-incipendum?r=o79yv&utm_medium=ios
At one time trans-sex was about things like XXY chromosomes (a birth defect) or gender dysphoria which could be caused by a biological brain (there is such a thing) that is at odds with the sexual biology of the rest of the body. But they let attention seekers and absurdities like gender fluid and non-binary include themselves which made them a laughingstock.
When someone says that a man cannot have a baby and they respond with, a trans-woman can, they are saying that the trans prefix negates the word woman. They brought this upon themselves.
I have sympathy for the genuinely gender dysphoric and people with nonstandard chromosomes and something should be done for them. But it is their need to clean their own house to be taken seriously.
Trans NEVER had anything to do with intersex conditions.
There's the rub, what the hell is trans? Typical of "leftists", and what the hell does that mean, everything is all about a big tent to enlarge the tribe, even though the people in the tent may not have much in common.
Trans writers (attention seekers) often mention intersex even though they themselves might not want to be a part of the tribe. Then there is sex dysphoria, and I use the word sex because this is not a bunch of social construct nonsense. For reasons that could include a brain with the biological sex characteristic opposite of the rest of their body biology or things unfathomable to me, is is a real, and I would think maddening condition.
And then there are the social construct people. Masculine trait women and effeminate trait men are still women and men and being contrary so social expectation be damned. Followed by attention seekers like the non-binary and gender fluid people who by definition do not have sex or gender dysphoria. And most outrageously, people gaming the system for access to nude gender divided nude spaces and such.
So what is trans really? The intersex and honestly dysphoric people have a difficult condition that they didn't ask for and we should try to help them find the most accepted and comfortable place in society possible. Unfortunately for them, in nude spaces, visible genitals rule the day.
For the others, who may make up the majority of whatever the trans movement is, my sympathy and empathy are rapidity declining, not that my opinion matters. I've mentioned elsewhere that they need to clean house because as long as the "transwomen are women PERIOD", "men can have babies", "gender is a social construct" and such, most of society will view them as ass clowns.
https://www.pittparents.com/p/monumental-settlement-against-la
What does trans have to do with LGB?
trans women are trans women- what is the problem? they deserve respect and dignity and their very own bathroom - or at least there should always be a gender neutral bathroom - and prisons should have sectors for trans women- to keep them safe- why can we only have two groupings why not four or more? As much as I want to, I cannot go join a kindergarten group and claim to be a child- but I can create an adult kindergarten group- Life is not fair and people with gender dysphoria, like anyone else who does not fit the "norm" or has been dealt a difficult, sometimes impossible hand should be respected as who they are but they ought to accept that while society will make space, it might not always be willing to pretend or give up the sandbox. What is so wrong with being a trans woman that she has to be labelled a woman?
Excellent!
What to say about this?
Let's compare the trans debate to gays pursuit of marriage.
The common accepted understanding of marriage was that it was between one man and one woman. The one and one was codified when the US refused to allow Utah to become a state unless they outlawed polygamy. So much for separation of church and state. The US forced the current day Christian view that marriage was one man and one woman down the throats of Utah.
About 100 years later, the gays wanted to be able to be married. What were they really asking for? Using the Utah case as the example, they want the states and federal government to recognize their unions as marriage. That gave them all the legal protections where the term marriage was used in law. States tried out civil unions. The challenge is that would require updating all the laws to be civil unions or state that a civil union was legal equivalent to marriage. My opinion, the state and federal governments should stay out of the concept of marriage completely.
Now back to your discussion of why what you call the trans activist movement argued that a trans-woman = a woman. Specifically because for all practical purposes that was how society was effectively operating before it became a discussion. Specifically, trans-activist-woman acknowledging they exist. Trans-woman and malicious men dressing as woman have been using woman's bathrooms and woman's locker rooms for ever. It's not new. Just as gay men have been using men's locker rooms and bathrooms forever. A subset of str8 guys only had a problem when they started knowing a guy in the bathroom or locker room was gay.
So what was the goal of trans-activists wanted to say a trans-woman is a woman. To basically legalize what was already happening.
The challenge was that they started pushing it into other domains that were not already happening. A trans-woman with a penis parading around a woman's locker room naked or using a woman's hot tub naked. A trans-woman competing in woman's or girls sports. Trans-women serving in the military. Trans-woman in women's prisons. And finally, trans-woman wanting medical care/insurance to help with the hormones and transition surgery. These all pushed into new spaces. Most trans-woman were not interested in being provocative by pushing into these spaces. That has caused pushback. Including drag queens doing library story hours - I never understood why this one became a thing. Seems to me it was just provocative.
But your bottom line comment "They shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces." That has nothing to do with any of the boundaries that trans-activist are promoting. As I stated above, malicious men were already dressing as woman to get into woman's spaces. No one ever checked for gender on a license or ask someone to do a strip search.
The only new area where malicious men are now accessing woman's spaces is prisons. This one is not hard to sort out. Many of the malicious men posing as women have a history of sexual assault. Also, everyone knows they are a man. They have already been stripped searched. My guess much of the abuse caused by malicious men in woman's prisons is happening because guards are amused by the situation. This gets into a question of how guards keep any prisoner safe in prison. If you're gay in a men's prison, you might as well walk around with your pants down because the guards are not going to stop other men from raping you.
Is it trans-women's responsibility to make sure as you call them "rapists and perverts can't get in there with them?" Seriously, when trans-woman were not being activists you didn't asked them to solve this problem. Why is it their responsibility now? For prisons, the problem has nothing to do with trans activists. We know most prisons are not safe for anyone. Calling out a very small fraction of malicious guys posing as woman and getting into a woman's prison is a nit on the problem of safety in prisons.
Thanks for letting me comment without a subscription. Use to pay for your substack but you implied you didn't want me commenting anymore so I stopped. You always seem to have a huge problem with my perspective.
"Let's compare the trans debate to gays pursuit of marriage."
I'd rather not. Because these two things are completely different.
Yes, one of the key arguments against gay marriage was the biblical idea that marriage was between a man and a woman.
But A) modern marriage is different in several ways from the biblical concept, and (unlike what a woman is) has changed several tines over the years already.
And B) expanding the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples does not, and cannot, have any negative impact on the rights, safety, or dignity of heterosexual couples.
If the gay marriage debate had been that one member of the same sex couple could arbitrarily and legally change their sex, therefore making them a heterosexual couple with the same rights to marriage, the gay marriage debate would have been bogged down in the same reality denying nonsense that the trans debate has been. But instead, the argument was simply that "love is love." Which it is.
As for my "problem with your perspective," you're ably demonstrating it once again here. My problem is that you don't think about what you're saying or bother to make sure your arguments are coherent!
For example, you say that:
"The only new area where malicious men are now accessing woman's spaces is prisons."
But just before that, you highlight several other areas:
"they started pushing it into other domains that were not already happening. A trans-woman with a penis parading around a woman's locker room naked or using a woman's hot tub naked. A trans-woman competing in woman's or girls sports. Trans-women serving in the military. Trans-woman in women's prisons. And finally, trans-woman wanting medical care/insurance to help with the hormones and transition surgery. These all pushed into new spaces."
Yes, they pushed into all these areas as well as several others. And to make it possible, they tried to destroy the legal category of "woman" completely, making it open to any man, at any time, who claimed that he was a woman. That's why "Isla Bryson" was able to argue successfully to be sent to a women's prison despite being a f*cking rapist!
When there was a clear, comprehensive process for "transsexuals," yes, nobody really cared. JK Rowling stuck to children's books, politicians didn't have to pretend they didn't know what women were, and I wouldn't have dreamed of writing an article about trans women. Or if I had, I'd almost certainly have been arguing in favour of letting them live their lives in peace.
But then, the "trans" category expanded to include transvestites and psychos and any man who fancied being in a women's changing room, it became a bandwagon that dishonest and dangerous men realised they could take advantage of, simply by uttering the magic words, "I identify as a woman," and hardly any of these newfound "women" cared about the damage they were causing.
This is the entire reason JK Rowling got involved in the trans inclusion debate. Self ID, the insane idea that a man is a woman the instant he says he is one, is the biggest thing that changed. Because if any man can say he's a woman, there's no longer any such thing as a woman's restroom or a women's refuge or women's sports or women's prisons.
Even worse, any women who objected to being overwritten were persecuted, threatened, and in many cases lost their careers, or at least found them in serious jeopardy.
p.s. I've never stopped you from commenting. Why do you say these weird things? We even had a long, frustrating conversation here just a week or so ago.
I very occasionally paywall posts, in which case only members can comment. If you choose to sign up, you can comment on those posts too. If not, that's totally fine, you're welcome to keep commenting on the free ones. I'd love to be able to offer ALL my posts for free, but I have to keep the lights on somehow.
Lets be clear.
Trans-woman does not equal malicious man posing as a woman.
There was a movie with Adam Sandler about two malicious men using gay marriage to get benefits. That does not mean a gay person = a malicious str8 man.
Trans-woman have been pushing into other domains. Sports and being naked in locker rooms and woman's facilities are the most controversial.
As for people who have lost their careers by saying a trans-woman is not equal to a woman, I have been kicked off of medium twice for making that statement.
Gender dysphoria is real. How to treat gender dysphoria is still up for debate. The CASS review and now the NHS have both stated that the science of gender affirming care is not settle. The trans-activist say it is. They are lying.
Regardless of whether gender affirming care is the right approach, none of this justifies your assessment of "They shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces."
People with gender dysphoria are trying to sort out their gender dysphoria. For them it seems obvious that they are just born in the wrong body and if they can adjust their body to be as close to their perceived gender their gender dysphoria will be mitigated. Their goal is to totally "pass" as the gender they perceive themselves to be. Part of "passing" would be for everyone else to acknowledge their gender. That all seems very intuitively obvious to me.
The challenge as many point out is that especially for woman that challenges their belief, in woman's spaces safety and in woman's sports fairness. For many lesbians they believe it erases their identity (i.e. a trans woman saying they are a lesbian - lesbians would just say this is a str8 relationship). All this is occurring because trans-people are coming out of the closet. More specifically trans-activists. Was stating that a trans-woman equals a woman a good strategy? I was never on board with that position and always supported JK Rowlings positions.
JK Rowling specifically stated she supports people who are trans. She does not judge them in any way. Her issues is with malicious men posing as woman. This gets back to my opening position.
A trans woman does not equal a malicious man posing as a woman. JK Rowling agrees with this.
JK Rowlings positions are very thoughtful even though the activists community tries to make them TERFish. She brings up basic issues like if you count a malicious man acting as a woman as a woman and they commit a sex crime, you start attributing sex crimes to woman. When the reality is that very, very, very few genetic woman commit sex crimes but the rate of sex crimes for genetic men is very high including trans-woman.
There is nothing simple about the gender dysphoria issue. First step for you to acknowledge is that it's real and have empathy for those who experience it. JK Rowling does. First you need to acknowledge once again:
A trans-woman does not equal a malicious man posing as a woman.
Can you acknowledge that?
"Trans-woman does not equal malicious man posing as a woman."
Not necessarily, of course not. I've never said it does. But it *does*, 100% of the time, equal man.
Trans women are treated with suspicion in women's spaces for the exact same reason that I would be. I'm not a malicious man either. But that's not the point. It's that there's no way to tell the difference between a malicious man and a perfect gentleman just by looking. That's why ALL men are excluded from women's spaces.
Old men, weak men, even gay men, if you let some men in, it's very difficult not to let all men in.
As you say, gender dysphoria is real. I've said so several times. But the trans community has moved so incredibly far away from professionally diagnosed, carefully evaluated gender dysphoric people that it's absolutely ridiculous to pretend that that's who we're talking about for the most part.
Just because I happened to see it today (I see some version of it pretty much every day), here's a sampling of tweets from a guy who claims that a woman is being a "bigot" for not wanting his very obviously fetishistic, perverted and disturbed self in spaces where she might be undressed or vulnerable.
https://x.com/supertolerant/status/1917686798970392606
This is the point I'm making in the article. It's time, long past time, in fact, to be clear and honest about what a trans woman actually is. If it's rapists and perverts AND genuinely gender dysphoric men, I don't blame women at all for abandoning all nuance and blanket-rejecting them all.
If sanity is allowed to return, and the ridiculous notion that men are women simply because they say so is abandoned forever, I think there are plenty of women who are willing to have a sensible, sane conversation about how to manage trans inclusion.
I will agree with this statement if you add the change the first two words "The activist trans community has moved so incredibly far away from professionally diagnosed, carefully evaluated gender dysphoric people that it's absolutely ridiculous to pretend that that's who we're talking about for the most part."
Yes there are an incredible number of malicious men.
Yes the position of the trans-activists are enabling those malicious men "justify" their access into traditional women's spaces.
Yes, trans-women can never be the same as a woman. The concept of a man being a woman because they said so is not where the CASS or now NHS is. The trans activists position of a trans-woman = a woman and a person should be affirmed in their gender (i.e. you saying a man can say they are a woman) is rapidly losing ground. But there are still actors in Rowlings Fantastic Beasts and other new ventures making these claims. There will always be a fringe that will never admin a trans woman is not a woman (and a trans man is not a man but that seems to be less controversial).
Most of the trans community want to have a well thought out conversation on how they can be supported and ideally affirmed. As I have stated, I have trans people working for me. Both trans-men and trans-women. I'm learning allot about how they experience the world by interacting with them. They are not malicious. They are dealing with their gender dysphoria in the best ways they can.
Positions like yours don't create an environment for a well thought out conversation. You are just reacting to the trans activists.
My interaction with the Medium is indicative of Medium catering to the trans-activists. They flagged the following statement as the reason for my latest suspension.
"The trans community started the war by declaring trans-woman are woman. No if ands or buts."
My guess is that you would agree that is just a statement of fact. Medium still won't relent. Even after I followed up with Trump's position and recently the UK supreme court position. They are in a trans-activist bubble. I don't understand why but that's where they are.
The only way that this moves to a well thought out conversation is when you and I can have a well thought out conversation.
My position is clear.
A trans-woman is not a woman. A trans-man is not a man.
Gender dysphoria is real and those who experience it need support.
How that support plays out especially with traditional woman's spaces is controversial primarily because men tend to be malicious especially when it comes to pleasing their sexual urges. But it still boils down to the line.
A trans-woman is not equal to a man maliciously posing as a woman to access a woman's space.
"The activist trans community has moved so incredibly far away from professionally diagnosed...."
No, I go to great pains to differentiate the trans community from the activist community when I'm talking about the crazy demands and reality denying nonsense, because I understand clearly that there's a difference.
But the trans community in general is now composed of the transvestites and fetishists and people who are malicious and perverted because no serious attempt has been made to distinguish between them. And whenever somebody asks for that clarification, they get called a "transphobe" (as in somebody who has a problem with the whole trans community) or swamped with abuse.
To use the analogy to black people again, imagine if any meaningful number of black people had argued that "trans-racial people, a la Rachel Dolezal, were part of the black community. And argued that people like her should be called black and that anybody who refused was racist.
Well, if this went on for long enough, it would be totally reasonable to comply with that request and think of trans racial people as part of the black community. And it would be up to the black community to sort out the confusion.
Ah yes, "trans community in general is now composed of the transvestites and fetishists and people who are malicious and perverted" bring us back to discussions you and I have had before.
The trans-community does not include people who are malicious and perverted. You only state that because you believe some of what they do is malicious and perverted. That gets into a discussion of what is malicious and perverted. That of course is based on many things and most commonly the current societal view. What is considered malicious and perverted in Wheaton IL (the center of Evangelicalism) is very different than what is consider malicious and perverted in the Castro or Folsom in San Francisco and largely San Francisco in general. Lets take the drag queen story hour as an example. Wheaton IL would never allow it. San Francisco has no issues with it. Who is right?
i.e. But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?
You seem to have a problem with me narrowing it to the phrase "malicious men who are posing as woman". The reason I narrow it to that phrase because it focuses on the issue that the trans-activists as championed by JK Rowling have not directly addressed. How does their goals of defining a trans-woman as a woman incorporate the issues of cis-woman who don't want a genetic man in their spaces or activities.
From my perspective, that is the heart of the issue that the debate is about. Its not about the trans-community (i.e. not including malicious men posing as woman) being malicious or perverted. In my mind, this gets settle by a trans-activist making peace with JK Rowling. That's how I define success.
"The trans-community does not include people who are malicious and perverted."
What a bizarre thing to say. First of all, every community includes people who are malicious and perverted. Where does this idea come from that trans people are all angels?
But second, and more importantly, if there are no boundaries to a community other than, "whoever says they're trans us trans," and a swath of perverts and rapists say, "we're trans," and the rest of the trans community never clarifies and says, "no, they're not, because they fail to meet X or Y criteria," then how are we supposed to differentiate between them?
Again, this is the entire point. The "X and Y" criteria that denote that you're trans have never been meaningfully defined. This is necessary before we can even begin to have a sane, compassionate conversation about trans inclusion.
You never studied philosophy have you?
Yes, I have. But apparently you get your deepest insights from Jesus Christ Superstar, so that's neither here nor there, is it?
I understand perfectly well the difference between subjective experience and objective reality. I also understand the objections to the notion of objective reality. But those objections are theoretical navel gazing. Just as, for example, conversations about free will are.
There's a very strong argument that we don't have free will. It's an argument I'm convinced if, in fact. But as narrow, imperfect humans who want a workable society, we have no option but to live and act as if free will exists. Same with objective truth.
"A trans-woman is not a woman. A trans-man is not a man. Gender dysphoria is real and those who experience it need support."
Also, to be clear, this is my position too. I've never said any different and have said this several times. Including in this very conversation with you on this article. It is impossible (and infuriating) to have a conversation with you if you're not reading what I say or are insisting that I hold a position I don't.
There are several ways that support could play out. The most obvious being that trans women create provisions for trans women. That's what women did, I don't understand this idea that it's impossible for trans women to do the same.
Another option, in some cases, is that we have a serious and careful conversation about what a trans woman is, so that we can all immediately and uncontroversially say that a man who commits rape twice and spontaneously declares himself a woman is not a woman.
You're hung up on this notion of "malicious men." But it's not only about malice. Women want and deserve private spaces from men. Spaces where they can get undressed or use the toilet or take refuge from the creepy guy in a bar, and know there won't be any men (however they're dressed) inside.
I'm not a malicious man, but they still wouldn't want me in there, because they can’t tell whether I’m malicious or not just by looking at me. And I completely understand and support this. It's that simple.
Lets redirect the conversation.
Of course the trans-community needs to lead in sorting out what a trans woman is versus a malicious man or what you identify as women who want and deserve private spaces from men and trans-women. (I use men for a person who identifies as cis-male. I don't call a trans-woman a man).
I don't have gender dysphoria. It seems clear you don't either. By your statement, you are an alley of both the trans-community and woman who want women only spaces.
If your an alley, how do you propose to support trans-woman (and trans-men).
"Lets redirect the conversation."
No. This is why you never actually learn anything and end up repeating the same debunked talking points in the next conversation. Because you never stay with a topic, when you discover you're wrong, for long enough to absorb the new information.
Do you accept that some things are in fact different from the old days of transsexuals? And that your repeated insistence that "nothing has changed" is wrong?
Do you accept that this is about more than "malicious men" and that women have a right to and need for private spaces from men, even if those men aren't malicious?
You appear to have accepted that it's up to the trans community to lead in the definition of what a trans woman is, which is the entire thesis of the article you're arguing with. Do you recognise that they've failed badly to do this?
Re-reading the whole thread. Realize I never responded to this question.
I agree that they (i.e. the trans activist community e.g. HRC) has created positions that don't include cis-woman who want only cis-woman spaces and activities views. There are many cis-woman who have no issues with a trans-woman in their spaces. There is no simple "side" to the debate.
My biggest issue with your initial article and your reply here is that you frame it as a black and white discussion. It is anything but black and white when you consider all the opinions that people including many famous people have stated.
Your view is just one view. The UK court and Trump have confirmed one part of your view. Trans-man is not a man and a trans-woman is not a woman. Other countries and many people do not agree with these positions.
You haven't directly answered the questions from the comment above. Stop trying to gloss over them.
"Do you accept that some things are in fact different from the old days of transsexuals?
Yes, awareness of trans-people and the goals of trans-activists.
And that your repeated insistence that "nothing has changed" is wrong?"
Nothing has changed with a trans-person besides awareness of them.
Pose as a series was a great way to understand the trans-community.
What else do you believe has changed?
"Do you accept that this is about more than "malicious men" and that women have a right to and need for private spaces from men, even if those men aren't malicious?"
I accept that there is a set of cis-woman (e.g. JK Rowling) who want to have their traditional cis-woman only spaces not be open to trans-men.
Do you accept that it's not all cis women who want this?
"You appear to have accepted that it's up to the trans community to lead in the definition of what a trans woman is, which is the entire thesis of the article you're arguing with. Do you recognize that they've failed badly to do this?"
No, its up to cis-woman who want woman only spaces and trans-activists who want access to woman only spaces to lead the discussion. There are many in the trans-community that don't agree with the trans-activists and just want to continue their life. As as said above, there are man cis-woman who don't seem to have a problem with a trans-woman in woman only spaces and don't seem to be concerned about malicious men in their spaces as a big problem. Likely because they view that nothing has changed. They always had to be cautious about malicious men in their spaces.
Your questions are phrased in very black and white terms. My answers are pointing out the grayness of the whole discussion.
"My biggest issue with your initial article and your reply here is that you frame it as a black and white discussion."
How have I done that? The entire thesis of the article is that we need a workable definition of what a trans woman is. How can we possibly talk about the grey areas of trans women's inclusion before we know what a trans woman is?
Tell me, specifically, preferably using quotes from the article, how I've framed trans inclusion as a "black and white discussion."
As I have written in my other posts, it refers to how you use broad concepts like women and trans-community as I have written above. Seems pretty obvious to me. But I get, you seem to have trouble with the way I communicate.
In this statement:
"Do you accept that this is about more than "malicious men" and that women have a right to and need for private spaces from men, even if those men aren't malicious?"
I clarified that non all women and I believe not all and not even necessarily a majority of women in the west (where women is defined by chromosomal sex) "have a right to and need for private spaces from men". You're attributing a black and white view to women.
"You appear to have accepted that it's up to the trans community to lead in the definition of what a trans woman is, which is the entire thesis of the article you're arguing with. Do you recognize that they've failed badly to do this?"
You once again attributed your black and white views on the issue to the term "trans-community" and "woman".
I specifically clarified to "trans-activist-community" that believes a trans-woman = a woman. From my experience, many in the trans-community don't hold that position.
Hopefully that helps you understand why from my perspective you seem to hold black and white beliefs.
You are talking past (versus at) Steve QJ. No one on this substack is saying sincere (versus malicious) trans people do not exist, yet you keep asking for that acknowledgement.
People are making valid points that also are statistically valid about trans people, yet somehow you are suggesting that "no true trans person" (no true scotsman argument) would do them. You also seek constant validation that true transpeople exist, despite no one on this substack claiming that sincere transpeople do exist. THEY EXIST!
I suggest you move on to related topics:
1 How distinguishing sincere trans from malicious trans is possible/practical in the real world,
2 How to address the righteous/reasonable demands of trans that are not being met today, while balancing everyone's rights (not removing some for others).
"You are talking past (versus at) Steve QJ."
This is sadly a very common experience with Rogue😅
After re-reading, I do have thoughts about a and b above. It’s consistent with what I told peacefuldave.
I believe I can’t answer those questions. I empathize with both trans-woman (have trans people including trans-woman who work for me in my business) and woman (eg I have two daughters).
When I comment on trans-activists post on medium, I typically get into a discussion about whether JK Rowling is a trans-phobe. In one discussion I challenged the activist to point by point state why JK is a trans-phobe. The activists decided to accept. They later wrote that after reviewing all she has written, they no longer believe she is a transphobe. That leads to my answer to your two questions.
The next step to achieve that answer is for the trans-activists (eg maybe Dylan Mulvaney, Sarah McBride, or Lia Thomas) to have a face to face discussion with JK Rowling. Ideally where they make peace. Until that happens, I can only educate people given my knowledge of my personal journey (ie being gay), my family (ie my daughters), my experience with trans people(specifically those who work for me) and the education I have done on the specifics of gender dysphoria. That’s my goal in responding to Steve.
Steve and you both require the trans-community to propose the answers. Steve has allot of suspicion about the trans community.
My interactions with Steve or the years make me suspect why that is the case. I won’t go into that here.
But like my suggestion to Steve, I suggest you explore doing a mankind project warrior weekend.
"Steve and you both require the trans-community to propose the answers. Steve has allot of suspicion about the trans community."
Stop putting words in my mouth and assigning views to me that I don't hold. Your inability to understand the points that I'm ACTUALLY making doesn't give you the right to make up opinions of your own.
@Rogue4Gay, I was nodding in agreement to much of what you wrote above about the different sides actually meeting to discuss. You then state that until everyone meets to discuss, you have experience with which to educate. But to me what you communicate feels more like balancing the emphasis more than educating. You often seek weight for ideas that are not in dispute. Perhaps they are not held as highly as other ideas you feel are overstated? Two things can be true at the same time or in proper measure, and I would like to understand your nuances from that lens. Sometimes you do this very well!
You suggest that we (SteveQJ and I) do the mankind project warrior weekend. From what I can tell from wikipedia, the mankind project effects changes in men to make them more assertive and clear with others about what they want or need and accepting total responsibility for all aspects of their lives. While this is a friendly tip to share within a wandering face-to-face conversation, it is potentially distracting in written form. In writing I cannot see your visual cues, your clever timing, your visually placing your body in different places or positions to signal a new point, your voice inflection, and other things that allow me to compartmentalize random things and then return to the main branch.
For instance, I like broccoli. I recommend that you try it.
I love broccoli. Especially air fried with a little bit of olive oil. ;)
The reason I suggest the warrior weekend because for me it helped me understand my view of myself and my communication style and how my inner self influences that. Especially in use of I when making statements versus you.
I like Steve's writing because he at times addresses controversial topics. Steve has a tendency from my perspective to over simplify which for me comes across as black and white. For other people (e.g. you) it does not seem to.
Absolutely writing is different than meeting face to face. It requires much more thought to create.
Seems like you have some issues with my writing style. I know I can be terse and direct. The one thing that I try very hard when writing is to not generalize and not to project. My thoughts are about me. Your responses create impressions in me. My impressions can be right, wrong or somewhere in between. But the only way to communicate clearly is to not project. For example: I have never made the statement "You then state that until everyone meets to discuss, you have experience with which to educate." That's a projection you have gotten from reading my comments. Its not something I literally said.
I can infer that you got this from my suggestion that trans-activists need to make peace with JK Rowling.
As for educating. If you are educated from my comments, outstanding. My goal is not to educate you so much as inform you of how I receive your comments. Largely my goal is to educate myself on all the views out there. I do that be responding to how I take your comments or in Steve's case his article and point out where I agree, don't understand (e.g. need clarity) and disagree. Those are about me. How Steve takes them is about him.
From my perspective, Steve seems to be ruffled by my comments and for example deflects by saying that I'm weird. That's about him, not about me. If he did a mankind project weekend, he would understand that. If he wants to understand me, he needs to first own its about him and not try an make it some universal "truth".
Steve is very frustrated that I keep bringing up the JC Superstar line
"But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours."
That line describes my thoughts perfectly. It seems to frustrate Steve because he believes there are moral truths. I'm very cynical on the concept of moral truths. Including the UN human rights charter.
That's me. Thanks for the comment. Helps me understand you.
😅 Just dropping in to say that almost everything you’ve stated about me here is wrong. In some cases, like me calling you weird, you’re wrong in a way that I’ve already addressed with you in the comments of this very article (https://commentary.steveqj.com/p/the-long-overdue-question-of-what/comment/113709834).
My assumption would normally be that you’re being deliberately dishonest. But I’m starting to genuinely believe you’re just incapable of absorbing new information once you’ve formed an opinion about something.
So even though you could literally go and see that I called your *comment* weird, not *you* weird, even though I directly corrected you when you made this same claim to someone else, here you are, repeating it again as if none of that ever happened.
Your comments about moral truths are similarly dishonest/confused. You’ve also done exactly the same projection about me that you’re criticising “some guy” for and claiming you never do.
THIS is why I find talking to you frustrating.
The thread has gotten too complicated for me to respond to this in any specific way.
It is clear that somehow I trigger you.
On projecting, its certainly possible. I don't spend allot of time editing to make sure my statements are about me and my view of your comment versus absolutes "truths" about you.
In the mankind project there is a process called a "clearing" that helps the person making a judgement claim about someone else sort out whether they are projecting. Its a very interesting process to go through. Very insightful to help me understand when I make a judgement whether I its a projection.
Finding me frustrating is not necessarily bad. You're being exposed to communication styles that you seem to not like. That's OK.
Differentiating be whether you're saying I'm weird by saying my comment is weird is a red herring. If I make comments that you find weird, you are saying that at times I'm weird. You're basically just saying my writing and thus I'm not weird all the time. Just at times.
No, saying someone said something weird, or even that they do weird things sometimes, is clearly not the same as saying that they ARE weird.
You can say someone is funny sometimes, that doesn't mean you think they ARE a funny person. You can say someone is mean sometimes, that doesn't mean you think they ARE a mean person. Silly, angry, smart, these can all be transitory qualities.
Almost everyone has said something weird at some point in their lives, same for, funny, unreasonable, etc. that doesn't mean they ARE weird, funny, unreasonable etc, people.
It is rather simple-minded to be unable to distinguish between an observation of your behaviour and a judgement of you as a person.
I guess I'm simple minded.
In general I refrain from characterizing comments as weird. What I'm looking for is whether they make the comment about them or me. I get in that case I am weird. I challenge comments about me versus about you.
One of the biggest faults that I have is that I don't proof read my comments very well. It would be good if I did that more. Including possibly running my comments through ChatGPT to get its perspective. I haven't done that because for me this is just learning. Even writing the comment helps me clarify what my position is on the topic.
You on the other hand are soliciting a following of readers. Making sure the content is engaging, proof read, and coherent is part of the product you are creating.
This was all interesting and useful for ongoing discussion. If our discussion were instead information systems, we would be like two devices attempting to TX and RX 'handshake' with what communication protocols we can use, to then use the most secure or highest speed one available to both of us. In systems, this handshake occurs first, and we are doing it only lately!
Freely tell me this is wrong, but I think you are most comfortable with less-structured communication where many potential points can be made in one statement and there is no obligation to continue/address prior ones, but interesting related ones may be started. Or not. It feels like something a creative person would do (versus the linear ones common to engineers with whom I work).
It tempts me to go more with the total vibe from the sum of it all more than to depend upon all of the supporting parts. This does not mean that it is not well qualified in parts, but perhaps you wish to emphasize the forest more than the trees? I am probably wrong.
I do have a tip. You don't like voice that amounts to projection (did I just project?, LOL), and I am listening to that request. At the same time, when you say that Steve or I like or don't like something, it feels like a similar sin. This ask (don't project) and this frequent mention (Steve does not like) seem too similar to each other to come from the same person. What is the practical difference that others would appreciate and should they? Sincere ask.
I believe we are both trying to find constructive consensus, and I am enjoying that. For you and for anyone, I always look for the most flattering possible interpretation of whatever is said, because I believe we are all more similar than different until proven otherwise.
If you're into Myers-Briggs, I'm an ENTF.
On the projection in writing. Its the style.
I say "From my perspective, you seem confused". That's about me.
Projections are "You're confused". That about the person you're talking to.
That's the difference.
As for a "constructive consensus", always a great ideal. Not something I believe will happen here. On Medium, I had a bunch of articles, one was about what writers are looking when people comment. It's a great question to Steve, he wrote the article and opened it for comments. He does not specifically ask what type of comments he's looking for. The articles I wrote on Medium, I usually ended with a question on what type of feedback I was interested in.
I comment because it helps me clarify my position and ideally get feedback on my position from others. I have gotten much feedback from you and Steve. On some things you seem to agree, on some you feel I'm not on point, on some Steve thinks I'm weird.
As for staying on topic, I believe I'm on topic. You suggest I'm not.
As you said, about the forest versus the trees. Many questions are focused on the details of a situation and fail to see the larger picture or overall context.
The analogy I like to bring up on this one is the famous "the answer is 42" from Douglass Adams Hitchhiker's Guide. Don't know if your familiar with. 42 was supposed to be the answer to "life the universe and everything". No one could understand the answer. Douglass Adams point was that the question many times is more important than the answer.
For the trans discussion, what question is Steve really trying to address? The article is titled "The Long Overdue Question Of What A Trans Woman Is." You would think that question would be clearly stated in the article. As far as I can tell, the question is "Is a trans woman is a woman?". He ends with a statement "Trans women are not women". But he never ask the question. The title of the article is not a question. It's a statement.
My first response to Steve was really about trying to clarify what the question might be.
Thanks for the discussion.
“ On some things you seem to agree, on some you feel I'm not on point, on some Steve thinks I'm weird.”
😅Like a belligerent goldfish. I was having a quiet bet with myself about how long it would be before you claimed I called you weird again, even though I’ve clarified that three, or I guess four times now. But even I thought you’d do better r than the same article, twenty-four hours later. You really are hopeless. I’ll stop wasting my time.
Steve, Steve, Steve….
The sentence begins “some things”. I state three ways you interpret my “things”:
A. I’m on point
B. I’m not on point.
C. I’m weird
It’s all about my “things, not about me.
Maybe I just don’t understand the basic structure of the English language.
Regardless, you’re beating a dead horse. Hope my restructuring of the sentence helps you understand my intended goal with the sentence.
As I said, for me, writing and responding are casual for enrichment and distraction. Not my profession. For many years I was in technology. Now I run a bakery business.
I’m more interested in what “the question” was for your article.
I’m also interested in what question you’re asking us as readers to comment on.
LOL, you have unlocked level '42'. Consequently all of Monty Python is in fair play.
Hello ENTF, I am ESTP. This article accurately defined major peeves I have:
https://www.psychologyjunkie.com/2016/11/15/5-ways-annoy-estp/
1 – Plan Their Schedule
2 – Seek Attention at All Costs
3 – Complain Without Wanting a Solution
4 – Do Everything Slowly
5 – Dismiss Their Analysis and Logic
From AI:
Shared Traits: Both ENTPs and ESTPs are extroverted and enjoy engaging with the world around them. They are also both thinking types, which means they value logic and rationality in their decision-making processes 1.
Differences:
Intuition vs. Sensing: ENTPs are intuitive, meaning they focus on possibilities and abstract concepts. ESTPs, on the other hand, are sensing types who prefer concrete information and practical experiences 1.
Flexibility: Both types are perceiving, which means they are adaptable and spontaneous. However, ENTPs might lean more towards exploring new ideas, while ESTPs might prefer hands-on activities 1.
Compatibility: These differences can complement each other well, with ENTPs bringing innovative ideas and ESTPs providing practical implementation. Their shared extroversion and thinking traits can help them understand each other's perspectives and work together effectively.
I feel the above AI summary is accurate to us. I had already figured that I would listen to you as a bit more of a brainstormer versus me which is a bit of a solution-committer. These are all relative, of course. We all dip into creativity and solutions, just with different things and emphasis.
Reacting to your wanting From my perspective" to avoid projection, I appreciate the request for more precise language. At the same time, everything I write is from my perspective, so this is understood unless I am trying to quote you with quotation marks to indicate this is not my interpretation but your literal words.
You also said things about others positions without the "from my perspective", so I don't think you are very insistent on it. I don't really care about that or when I do it, because everything we all say is "from my perspective" unless air quoting otherwise. I won't be distracted when seeing it and then not seeing it in use.
You’re attributing words to me that I never wrote. I never mentioned “true” or “sincere”.
I talk about gender dysphoria being real and that a trans woman (a person with gender dysphoria who mitigated it by looking like a woman) has nothing to do with malicious men posing as woman.
Everything else you attribute to me is a projections of your thoughts onto me. Better just to own them than project them!
Yes, I acknowledge that gender dysphoria is real. I see no evidence on this substack to the opposite.
Look, you make it easy to speculate as to where you are going with things, because you constantly seek validation for something that no one here has taken away. If you feel the harsh world outside of this substack needs this message and that this is frustrating, I completely agree with you. If that makes you feel like blowing some steam, then I get it. But it's just us here, man. We get it. Are we cool?
It’s interesting how you make your comments about me instead of about you.
Instead of statements like “you constantly seek validation”, “if you feel”, or “if that makes you feel like blowing some steam” how about try
I feel like you want me to validate your position, is that true?
I feel you think of the world as harsh, is that true?
Note, my comments are all about how I interpret Steve’s article. I then ask a question to validate whether my interpretation is right?
When I read your comments, they come across as projections of your interpretation of what I wrote.
It’s very hard for me to understand what your view is of the topic.
I am not trying to make you look bad. I am just hoping to build bridges and see the best of ideas from those around me. Admittedly, I am imperfect at it, and I am fine with that.
"Trans-woman does not equal malicious man posing as a woman."
But it undeniably includes them which is why I wrote that the trans "community" needs to clean its own house.
The trans-community has no way to police malicious men.
Anymore than the male community has a way to police malicious men.
Because the world no longer is communities of people who know each other, communities are made up of people who can be malicious and not malicious. That's just humanity 101.
"The trans-community has no way to police malicious men. Anymore than the male community has a way to police malicious men."
Yes! This is precisely why ALL men are barred from women's spaces.
You can speak out against non-binary and gender flued attention seekers who by definition are not trans in the sense of gender dysphoria where you identify as the opposite sex ALWAYS.
Just like you can speak out against racism in your own tribe. Gay and lesbians are not trans. The LGBTQ+(ashamed of P for pedophile) and they could champion LGB≠TQ+ because they are not equal. Trans harmed gay and lesbians with the false association.
What does this mean "The LGBTQ+(ashamed of P for pedophile)"? What does the LGBTQ+ community have to do with pedophiles?
You have an interesting writing style by using “you can.” That writing style from my perspective is focused on projection.
Rephrase what you wrote using “I” instead of “you”.
No! I'm not a part of the LGBTQ+ community so when I mention people cleaning their own house it's not my house to clean. You appear to be gay with the Rogue4Gay handle and apparently are a trans advocate (correct me if that's wrong) so I am not projecting, I am saying exactly what I meant.
I do not know what a "trans-advocate" means.
I am clear on my position. Seems Steve agrees with my position.
What do you believe a "trans-advocate" is?
No, you are not clear on your position. And Steve can only rarely decipher what your position IS, because you twist and turn seemingly in whatever direction prevents you from acknowledging when you make a mistake. Please don't use me as an argument from authority.
Its amazing how hard it is for people to communicate now a days.
No wonder the US, UK and much of the world is so divided.
If you are not something yourself but speak of their behalf you are an advocate. An English language thing.
I don't speak on their behalf. I speak on what I believe. There are trans-activists who don't agree with my position including the HRC. There are trans people who largely agree with my thoughts.
From an action point of view I have made the following suggestion to trans-activists. If you really want to help the larger trans community, make peace with JK Rowling. They generally don't like me suggested that to them.
With that, am I a trans-advocate or not?
What has changed is that there are many, many more boys and men trying to access women's restrooms, changing rooms, women's shelters, and athletic competitions, and some of them do not even try to conceal that they are male. They flaunt their claim of "trans" identity and taunt women by daring women to try to stop them, knowing that in many places the police and management of a building or organization will do nothing if women complain. In the past, the few males who went into women's restrooms kept their heads down and left as quickly as possible.
The men who used to be Peeping Toms, trying to look into windows of rooms where women were attending to intimate needs, now waltz right into those spaces, knowing that the authorities will tell girls and women that if they have a problem sharing a space with naked males with penises exposed, they need to either tough it out or find another place to change clothes. (That is what the U of Penn officials told the women on the swim team, when the latter complained about the male swimmer who was exposing himself in the women's changing room.)
If a man exposes himself to a woman and her daughter in the parking lot of a gym he would be arrested and put on a sex offender list. But if he says he identifies as a woman and goes into the women's dressing/shower area and strips down in front of them it's OK. That is insanity.
Holly??
What??
THE Holly Hart that I went to high school with?
Where did you go to high school? I do not recognize your name. I went to Sullivan High School in Chicago. There are quite a few women named Holly Hart in the USA. There are two of us here in Portland, Oregon who are both attorneys! When I lived in Berkeley, there was another Holly Hart.
Hey, I was rolling the dice. She and I went to.school.in South Jersey. Ah, well. I wish you all the best!
It was fun while it lasted! lol
Yeah, story of my life...! :)
It's even worse than you thought. I am a lesbian. You never had a chance. Sorry, Charlie, you seem like a nice guy!
Chance at what? I am hopelessly, enduringly, eternally united with a wonderful woman. I was going for the obvious joke in my comment, but all I ever want with others is friendship.
And, er... Charlie? What am I, a badly-drawn tuna?
A trans-woman does not equal a peeping toms or many, many more boys and men trying to access woman's spaces.
Malicious boys and men exist. When I went to a Christian camp when I was in 5 grade a bunch of malicious boys took my camera to try to take pictures in the girls bathroom. That was in the 60s.
Equating a trans-woman with a malicious man posing as a woman is not valid. Gender dysphoria is real. Read my comment to Steve's comment.
You are talking past (versus at) Peaceful Dave. No one on this substack is saying sincere (versus malicious) trans people do not exist, yet you keep asking for that acknowledgement.
People are making valid points that also are statistically valid about trans people, yet somehow you are suggesting that "no true trans person" (no true scotsman argument) would do them. You also seek constant validation that true transpeople exist, despite no one on this substack claiming that sincere transpeople do exist. THEY EXIST! Let that soak in. Was that satisfying?
People are making points that, even where every trans person involved is assumed to be sincere, that infringements on the rights of others is being requested. This is one of the few places where they can openly discuss that without ad hominem attacks.
Yes, sincere trans people are real, and apparently no one is opposing you on that. I suggest you move on to related topics:
1 How distinguishing sincere trans from malicious trans is possible/practical in the real world,
2 How to address the righteous/reasonable demands of trans that are not being met today, while balancing everyone's rights (not removing some for others).
There are men who sincerely believe that they are God's gift to women and that women will realize that if those women would just "cuddle" (euphemism) with them. Does that mean that women should be compelled to "cuddle" with those sincere men, because then they will experience the wonders of God's gift? I don't think so!
Same with men who sincerely believe that they are women. That does not mean that girls and women should be compelled to share female single-sex spaces with those men, or that those men should be allowed to compete in athletics as if they were in fact female. It does not matter that some women may not mind having males in female spaces. No woman can give consent on behalf of other women. Women who have no problem being with men in restrooms should go use the men's restrooms. (I am not actually approving of women accessing men's spaces. Just making a point about no woman can waive other women's rights to privacy and safety.)
Don't try to put words in my mouth. I have not denied that there are legitimate gender dysphoric and abnormal chromosome people. But gender fluid, non-binary and phony for bad reasons is not gender-dysphoria where someone ALWAYS feels that they are the sex opposite their plumbing. As you wrote easy to distinguish with those tells. Words have meaning.
I have no idea how to balance rights that infringe upon the rights of others. That's why we are having this discussion.
All "abnormal chromosome people" are either male or female. "Aneuploidy" is an abnormality in the number of chromosomes in a cell due to loss or duplication. In humans, aneuploidy would be any number of chromosomes other than the usual 46. Any individual with the SRY gene, which enables the formation of testes, is male. The SRY gene is almost always found on the Y chromosome, so the shorthand way of saying how a male can be identified is to say that any individual with a Y chromosome is male. In very rare cases, the SRY gene will have migrated to and be found on the X chromosome which every male has. This is a great resource for understanding what sex is, how it is determined, and what Disorders of Sexual Development are: https://theparadoxinstitute.com
Thanks. I mentioned "abnormal chromosome people" with regard to whataboutism with respect to sports where it is not a case of "I identify as".
How do we balance the rights of men who "feel" they want to have sex with a woman with the rights of women who do not want to have sex with those men? We have criminal and civil laws and penalties against non-consensual sex.
That's the answer to how to treat individuals who "ALWAYS feel that they are the sex opposite their plumbing." They are objectively, materially, NOT female, no matter how they feel, and should not be treated as if they were female, no matter how they feel.
"No one on this substack is saying sincere (versus malicious trans people do not exist"????????
Steve made this explicit statement in his original post: "They(i.e. the trans community) shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces."
I guess I did some interpretation but it suspiciously seems to align with my statement implying that all trans-woman are malicious men.
Even Steve replying to the state above with
"Not necessarily, of course not. I've never said it does. But it *does*, 100% of the time, equal man"
Seems to imply that assume a trans-woman is a malicious man until proven otherwise.
That makes life extremely difficult for a trans-woman.
Yes its a complicated discussion now that the trans issue is out in the open.
I read an article by a trans-woman. They made an interesting statement.
"They feel more comfortable using a woman's bathroom in a rural Iowa town than they do in San Francisco". Why? Because in the rural Iowa town, very few people have trans on their mind. They just view the person as a woman. Because, like Sarah McBride, they look like a woman. Why would other woman even question it.
"Seems to imply that assume a trans-woman is a malicious man until proven otherwise."
This is absolutely ridiculous. Even for you.
And I clearly state, just above the paragraph that you disingenuously quoted, that I'm talking about trans activists, not the trans community in general.
Geeze, you two! Stop, wouldja?
We stopped a week ago😅
Have you read Sufeitzy's brilliant essays on mimesexuality, here on Substack?
Link?
https://substack.com/@sufeitzy/p-159144960
He has 11 essays in all, on this subject.
Danger in using the pronoun "They". I took it as the trans-community. I doubt the trans-activist community is aligned with rapists and perverts in woman's spaces.
Just you and I having a conversation on trans issues shows much the sides have squared off as either pro-trans (support everything the trans activists want) or anti-trans (trans-woman are impersonating women).
JK Rowling as far as I can tell is the only one that seems to be able to hold both a woman is XX chromosomes and a trans-person needs empathy at the same time.
"Because one of the most telling aspects of this debate is that trans activists have never shown any interest in placing any boundaries on the men who opt into the trans identity. They shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces."
If you lack the reading comprehension to understand who the "they" is referring to in the above paragraph, it's no wonder that you are so consistently, belligerently wrong.
You and I having a conversation is only ever frustrating because of your habit of using this kind of dishonest, motivated reasoning. I've had several very productive and pleasant conversations with people who disagree with me on this topic.
I'm having one right now on a different article, in fact.
You keep trying to fool yourself into believing that the friction in our conversations comes from the difficulty of the issues. No. It comes from your apparent inability to think coherently, learn, and absorb new information.
You fail to understand the difference between "opinion" (or worse, “feeling”) and "truth" and so you don't ever engage in the kind of critical thinking and self-examination that might make conversations valuable, whether or not we agreed. If I only ever wanted to speak with people who agree with me, I wouldn't bother engaging in the comments at all.
And no, Rowling is far from the only person who is capable of compassion for both groups.
In fact, after enduring years of abuse and threats, I'd say Rowling is noticeably LESS compassionate towards trans women than she once was. I'm sad to see it, but I can't blame her one bit.
Rowling and many of us are experiencing "compassion fatigue" (similar to "empathy fatigue") because of the increasingly vitriolic attacks on women who speak up for the sex-based rights of girls and women. She receives many threats that she will be raped and/or tortured and/or murdered if she keeps advocating for girls' and women's rights to single-sex spaces and pursuits like women's sports competitions. Of little to no concern to her, considering the continuing popularity of her books and movies based on them, are the threats to boycott those movies and books.
She now has to have 24/7 security guards wherever she goes, which was not the case prior to 2020, when she first started speaking up for girls' and women's sex-based rights. Members of her family have also received such threats and there have been attempts to assault Rowling that would have succeeded if she did not have security guards and police protection.
It's amusing to me how you need to resort to denigration of my intellectual abilities to somehow prove a position on what I write.
You have a very confronted style. I believe I have recommended this to you before but you might want to study the concept of epistemic humility. Its a philosophical concept about holding a strong opinion but still believing you might be wrong.
It is not denigration, it's the truth! After several of these conversations, I am admittedly more blunt about it than I otherwise would be, but only because my more gentle approaches over years have fallen on deaf ears.
Even here, on this article, I pointed to a clear example of you contradicting yourself within the space of a couple of paragraphs, demonstrated right here that you've failed to read a paragraph correctly, and you're repeating arguments that you've already used and had debunked in other conversations.
I don't know how else to say it. The only reason I've spent years and years talking to readers and engaging with disagreement is that I'm aware I might be wrong. If anything, it appears to be you who can't admit he's wrong. In fact, in your world, being wrong doesn't even seem possible. After all, you think we each have our own "truths."
But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?
Really suggest you look up epistemic humility.
Or as I have suggested in the past also, do a mankind warrior weekend.
These last comments have been helpful to break down assumed interpretations. I had a different interpretation than previously expressed ones to, "They(i.e. the trans community) shared none of the concerns that sane men and women felt about rapists and perverts in women’s spaces." My interpretation isn't about potential malicious trans.
My interpretation is that trans activists are making demands while denying/avoiding the obvious inherent risks of male bodies in female spaces. You, Rogue4Gay, seem to capture this by pointing out that, it isn't trans that are putting females at risk, but that it would be any male body. I hope I did not misunderstand you, but I agree.
The truth of ". . . shared none of the concerns. . . " suggests how severely limited and powerless requests by trans activists have been without acknowledging the impact to others.
More plainly, activists could gain tremendous credibility by simply stating, "Yes, transmen bring into any space risks that male bodies do, but that is okay, or that can be mitigated because <reasons>". Instead, activists completely deny it.
Trans activists cannot credibly expect empathy for their request when, almost universally, their method is to deny empathy for female bodies. People sense that empathy is being requested in only one direction, and it puts the trans activist on a moral low road, literally on the wrong side right from the start. Want empathy? Give empathy.
Activists would be wise to not make false equivalencies of male trans:females as slaves:slave owners, because that would imply that females are inherently in power and unrighteous over trans male bodies, and that idea is absurd.
Again, want empathy? Give empathy.
Acknowledging risks and making suggestions for handling fake/malicious/opportunistic trans (not real trans) would really help move the conversation forward. The activist drum beat of "transwomen are women" is interpreted by many/(most?) as a refusal by activists to embrace reality.
Reality? Male bodies are much more violent and, on average, capable of imposing harm on female bodies. Nobody has time for anybody that denies these facts, yet, "transwomen are women"?
I bet we can get closer to discussing real trans freedom while including protections from malicious trans and also male bodies. Honesty is a necessary in order to advance on this journey.
How can anyone tell the difference between a man who "feels" or "believes" he is a "trans woman" and other boys and men trying to access women's spaces? Assuming (and it is a big assumption) that it is desirable to let males who "feel" they are women access females' spaces, exactly how can other boys and men be kept out of females' spaces? Gender dysphoria might be real, but that does not mean that girls and women should be deprived of privacy and a sense of safety by permitting males with gender dysphoria to access the spaces in which girls and women attend to intimate bodily care or sleep or participate in female athletics. Why should women in prison be forced to share space with males with "gender dysphoria", many of whom have been convicted of violent crimes against women? Psychosis is also real. Why are girls and women supposed to give up our privacy and safety because some men have mental health problems?
I agree with your statement that woman who want it need private spaces. Apparently their are many woman who are not concerned about letting trans-woman in their space.
Trans-woman by definition have a mental health condition that they try to mitigate thru hormones and body affirming surgery. For many that works (eg Kaitlin Jenner) and for some it doesn’t and they de-transition. Clearly it sucks to have gender dysphoria.
The question you don’t address is how to screen genetic men from going into woman’s spaces (or for that matter genetic woman from going into men’s spaces). Trans woman want to “pass” as a woman. Where should they take a pee and poop?
What about a genetic woman that is taking testosterone and has a beard, low voice and for all visual purposes appears as a man. Are you comfortable with them in cis-woman only spaces. Including if they have had gender affirming surgery?
I get the feelings. I don’t here practical solutions from you for both the cis and trans communities.
It's pretty simple. Females, no matter what they look like, should be using the restrooms, changing rooms and other single-sex spaces for females. Males, no matter what they look like, should be using the restrooms, changing rooms and other single-sex spaces for males. There is no feasible way to stop individuals who really can "pass" as a member of the opposite sex from accessing the single sex spaces of the opposite sex, but there are very few individuals who can pass. In real life, unlike in still photographs, people cannot use filters and photoshop to make themselves look as if they were of the opposite sex.
As for "trans-women by definition have a mental health condition that they try to mitigate thru hormones and body affirming surgery", why do you assume that this is true? By whose definition?
Are you aware of the extensive research done by psychologists such Dr. Ray Blanchard (https://x.com/BlanchardPhD) on men who say they feel like they are women or want to be women? Blanchard found that most of these are heterosexual men with the paraphilia (sexual fetish) of autogynephilia rather than effeminate homosexual men, which is what most people assume they are. These men become sexually aroused at the thought that they are women and/or have women's bodies such as women's breasts) and/or have female physiological processes such as menstruation, gestation, child birth and lactation.
Are we to consider this sexual fetish (or any sexual fetish) a "mental health condition" that women and girls are for some reason responsible for the amelioration of by allowing men with this sexual fetish to gratify themselves by being in female single-sex spaces since they get sexual satisfaction from this "affirmation" that others see them as women?
BTW, very few of these men who report "gender dysphoria" have their male genitalia amputated. And those who do take estrogen often titrate it so that they maintain their ability to get erections and experience orgasms while ejaculating. So the men accessing women's single sex spaces are not the de-sexed males many assume them to be, either physically or mentally.
The most famous book on the subject of autogynephilia is by Dr. Anne A. Lawrence, a male who himself is autogynephilic.
Here is the PDF of his book, Men Trapped in Men's Bodies.
https://surveyanon.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/men-trapped-in-mens-bodies_book.pdf
Yes, there is allot of research trying to understand men and how their identity or sexual desires to be a woman relate. Personal I found this one - From Incel to Harvard, Neuroscientist on Gender Dysphoria and College Politics | Adam Omary EP 206 - as the most interesting. His research indicates that a person is is XY can develope the physically to have the mind of a woman.
As a gay person who has live through the last 60 years of societal judgements of being gay as first as psychiatric disorder that was treated with conversion therapy to now scientifically agreed that’s it’s a combination of genetics that is enable thru nurture and is fixed, I’m absolutely convinced that “science” that presumes to understand gender dysphoria is just pursuing their bias (a.l.a. Anthony Fauci).
Your bias is clear. You have a right to that bias.
What changed is that women began to be punished for calling out men of any kind in our bathrooms.
Please read my comment about how there are MANY more men coming into women's spaces and they are flaunting their maleness instead of trying to be discrete.
I don't agree with your reasoning but I am thrilled to see somebody with an opposite viewpoint being so reasonable. No invective, no vindictiveness. Just a well-thought and consistent argument.
Polygamy is not a religious issue. It's a matter of societal mores. It's not fair to categorize a decision you don't agree with as religious bigotry. And true, malicious men in women's spaces is nothing new, but it is precisely trans activism that has brought the issue to the forefront. Your argument also neatly sidesteps the legitimate concerns that trans activism does not celebrate biological women... Which men identifying as women certainly champion.
Last, I would not say that Steve has been deliberately shutting you out for personal reasons. He's shut me out, too, I think for no other reason than he wants to make money off this substack. I wish him all the best with that!
I'm not sure what the difference is between "societal mores" and "religion". Maybe you can clarify. I believe societal mores for the most part are based in religion. Including new age religions that have developed in the last 30 years.
Steve as he said in his comment does not seem to agree with your view that comment is reasonable. He labels me as "weird"
"He labels me as "weird""
No, Steve labels your obviously untrue statement weird. Because you must have known it was untrue even as you were writing it. Again, we had a long conversation just a week or so ago. We've had several over the years. And when an article is paywalled, there's a big banner telling you it's paywalled. You don't even get to see the comments section.
Maybe just never use the word weird to describe another persons position.
Maybe just stop saying weird, obviously untrue things for attention.
What did I say that was weird or obviously "untrue".
You are already familiar with my position on the words true or truth.
I'll repeat it here. Tim Rice Lyrics from JC Superstar.
"But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law?
We both have truths - are mine the same as yours?"
"What did I say that was weird or obviously "untrue"."
I don’t know if you’re genuinely incapable of following the thread of a simple conversation (that would explain a lot actually) or if you're only pretending to be, but either way it would obviously be a waste of my time continuing to indulge you.
I could not care less if you are weird or not, or is someone else thinks you are. With love and respect, you seem to be working out some deeper issues that I think have nothing to do with Steve's essay. I say this to you because I know from experience that reading barbed missles into another's speech and behavior is exhausting. And I'd rather see you exhaust yourself in more beneficial pursuits.
I use dictionary definitions of religion, society and mores. I do that with almost all words. It saves time.
Yes, mores are often - probably predominantly - based in religion. Which is your tacit admission that these are seperate topics. And may beg a deeper query about the existence of God.
I have no intention of exhausting myself. If you want to continue talking about the subject matter here, I'm game. But that's all.
“Working out deeper issues?”
It’s interesting that you have a need to characterize my motives for participating in the discussion. I stated those to Steve.
A. I have two daughters and two granddaughters. I want to be able to discuss the issues with them. They are directly affected.
B. I have trans people who work for me. I want to educate myself on their challenges including societies perception of them.
Does that help you understand my “deeper issues?”
What are your “deeper issues” for participating in this discussion? With “love and respect” laced with a little sarcasm.
I've always been in favor of gay marriage, or unions if they can't find a church that will do it. It's a legal contract to give your life partner the same rights as heterosexuals in marriage.