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This one is probably going to catch me a lot of heat from both the extremes, as it touches on that most sensitive and landmine-laden of topics: gender identity and the expressions thereof.
First, the parts which are going to piss the TERFs off: I am a proudly cisgender, XX-chromosome-having ("womyn-born-womyn" as they'd say) lesbian, with a strict policy of dating only other lesbians (after some bad experiences with bisexual women)...and I am also trans-inclusive. This is going to draw the usual predictable howls of outrage, and might even get me called "traitor to the lesbian race."
*Again.*
Because yes, that is a thing that happened once. Satire sometimes writes itself.
Incidentally, if someone knows where the lesbian race lives, please by all means send me a couple of plane tickets; I'm getting married soon and would love to have the reception there. Hopefully it's somewhere with nice beaches!
And now the parts which are going to annoy non-TERFs: some of the TERF arguments hold more water than their detractors give them credit for. In particular:
1) There are biological differences between the sexes. Note that this does *not* mean I believe transwomen and transmen are deluded or faking their lived experiences; it means that gender is not purely a "social construct," that one's brain structure and hormones play heavily into it. Incidentally, this is *not* an anti-trans argument. If anything, this is the reason I support trans* people in their transitions. Nature screwed up somewhere and put the wrong sort of mind/brain in the wrong sort of body. I can't imagine what that's like, but I can take their word for it, and having seen the real, positive changes in trans* friends of mine once they started hormones only cements this support.
Again: not being a gender essentialist here, and certainly not committing that stupid "physical sex and/or chromosome cohort *is* gender" fallacy. I'm on your side, I'm just not going to fall for the stupid, mush-headed "thinking" that attempts to reduce something as complex as gender to "just a social construct." Real data has borne out that this is not the case.
2) Trans* people do not have the lived experiences of cisgender people of the sex they are attempting to pass as. Transwomen: you do not bleed, you did not go through female puberty as a child/young teenager, you will never be pregnant, and you were not seen by society at large--this is different from "not seen by molesters and paedophiles!"--as potentially and primarily objects of convenience, sexual and otherwise, for men.
3) Expanding on 2 above, I support cisgender-women-only spaces. This does not mean I don't view you, transwomen, as "real women." Your experiences are your own, and if you feel so badly mismatched to your body that you want to change it, to me, that is enough to qualify you as "real women." Just...not cisgender women. Again, different life experiences.
So please, if some of us want *some* space that's not dealing with trans* issues, please, please, give us that. You can be in the inclusive spaces, and even start transwomen-only spaces; I will not intrude on those, because I do not have your lived experiences, and can't imagine what you've been through. I only ask that you extend us the same courtesy.
4) Having a genital preference does not make you anti-trans* or transmisogynist. I am a lesbian. I like ladybits. This means I'm not going to date a pre-operative MtF, no matter how well she passes otherwise. We can be friends, but we're never going to have sex. Of course, this one is a moot point *anyway* since I'm already taken, but even hypothetically, it's not going to happen. It's not personal, but it's also not negotiable.
5) Surgery does not change your chromosomes or your lived experiences. This is actually not anywhere near as important as TERFs make it out to be, since at least to my mind, most of gender and gender identity is performative anyway. I'm also not saying to feel invalid or less of a human because of who and what you are. But at the same time, understand that history is history, and it can't be retroactively changed.
Just understand that the social transition is going to be bigger than the physical one for you. We can spot otherwise well-passing early-stage transitioning MtFs very well based not on any physical cues, but based on behavior. It takes time to lose that male privilege, and understandably, some of you are going to be reluctant to let it go. It sucks on this side of the gender divide sometimes.
6) Please understand that much of the backlash from the TERF camp is because women have always, always, always been marginalized and shoved aside for mens' interests, and some of us feel that men are intruding *even as they become women.* There's hardly any discussion of FtM people compared to MtF, and I don't hear hardly anything about FtMs having trouble integrating into groups composed of cisgender men the way MtFs tend to kind of stomp all over womens' spaces sometimes (in my observation, mostly early in transition).
The reasons for this are probably complicated. They likely have something to do with male being the "default," so FtMs are basically going from other and different to default, if not "normal." And the MtF friends i have, both of them, both told me there was a tremendous backlash against them for abandoning being male, mostly backed up by "WHY would you want to be a chick?!" with the unspoken corollary being "womens' lives suck."
I am, again, not a TERF, and I will defend you against them in all arenas. In return, please keep the above in mind.
This all sounds reasonable enough, right? In the end, doesn't it just boil down to the golden rule, treating others as they want to be treated, taking their basic humanity (a level well below gender expression, mind you!) into account? But I'm sure this is going to catch me more flames than a California wildfire. So be it; I'm wearing my asbestos nightie. Have at it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:43AM (20 children)
"The Wage Gap is a lie"
Not entirely, but it is often exaggerated. There are glass ceilings (as well as glass floors) and study after study shows discrepancies in offered pay and call-back rate for identical resumes with male or female sounding names.
"Are you tired of being hit on constantly? Try being completely invisible unless you are needed to assist with something."
Those problems aren't equal and that is a beautiful/ugly division (how visible are ugly women).
"Sexual Assault? Sure, that terrible, but now all us men are walking on egg shells every day. OOHHHH did I just eye-rape her?"
Those problems are very far from being equal.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:38AM (19 children)
Wage Gap - Agree 100% The glass ceilings need to go. Everything should be merit based.
Getting hit on - OKCupid did an analysis on how men and women rated attractiveness in each other: https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e [okcupid.com]
Basically, 80% of men are below average looking. I would love some of the attention that a woman gets, but that's not how it works. There are some areas where men and women are not equal.
Sexual Assault - No, definitely not equal. I'm not advocating sexual assault, but I do think there should be due process. A woman accusing someone on twitter with no proof shouldn't ruin a man. If it's true, that's one thing, but making a false accusation and literally ruining a man's life is not cool either. Society needs to strike a fair balance, and that's going to be a tough problem to solve.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:55AM (11 children)
So you're saying you're a feminist?
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:34AM (2 children)
I'm saying we should all work together and reach a fair compromise instead of being beat into submission by their one-sided agenda. Men need someone at the table fighting for our rights too (ie. right to forfeit an unborn child, more equal access to children during divorce, equitable wealth redistribution after divorce). This shouldn't be a one-sided debate. It affects us all.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by coolgopher on Tuesday March 06 2018, @04:42AM (1 child)
I fear that ages of male dominance has by now made actual equality impossible to reach, without the pendulum first swinging back hard in the other direction. Only when both sides can see each others' issues will there be a chance to reach a good middle ground, as far as I can see. I'd be most happy to be proven wrong on this though.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:30PM
Sounds like a lot of people here don't share your fear.
Which has nothing to do with any pendulums swinging back hard.
Already happened in religion. Most people no longer care what you believe.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:55AM (7 children)
No, he's saying he is confused. I, for one, am starting to suspect that Snow is not polyamorous, but actually a pre-op TERF. He's showing all the signs. He needs our support!
(Score: 2) by Snow on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:54PM (2 children)
Sometimes I just want to feel pretty...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:22PM
"Oh so pretty! So pretty, and happy, and gay!" (_West Side Story_, correct?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07 2018, @01:57PM
You can try, but he might take out an avo on you
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:04PM (3 children)
I realize you're being humorous, but you do realize that bolded section above is a contradiction in terms, yes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:23PM (2 children)
This bothers you? Tell us more. What was your relation with your mother like? Have you ever mistook yourself for a mango?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07 2018, @02:30AM (1 child)
Yes. Reading nonsense is painful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:54AM
Yes, you have confused yourself for a mango, or yes, this bothers you? There is a Buckaroo Banzai riff on this.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:20AM (4 children)
An online dating site is not very representative of real life (IIRC men outnumber women and demonstrate a greater willingness to pursue by a large margin).
Western society largely experts men to make the first move (it's not easy to face rejection), but it is at least something more under your control. Things are changing, but women are largely expected to just be attractive and send passive signals that they want to be approached (it's not easy to be ignored or just judged based on looks).
There are at least two different problems: public opinion and official action.
For the first problem, there's been a stacked deck against women for a very long time (e.g. assault being tolerated, ignored, covered up and victims being blamed, being accused of fabricating stories, being shunned) and there is still a lot that hasn't changed enough. The false accusation rate is very low while the false denial rate is apparently very high, so who do you think society will believe? It's not fair to the victims on either side, but one side has a disproportionately large number on its side.
For the second problem, there's been a severe lack of justice for victims of sexual assault and this will continue to be the case as long as evidence is difficult to obtain. One of my favored approaches to help address this is the use of "information escrows" or "allegation escrows" (link below for more details). Briefly, a system could be set up where allegations and evidence of sexual assault are privately held until reaching a threshold of accumulated evidence (e.g. multiple independent allegations) to warrant some action. Such a system could help with underreporting and would catch serial perpetrators (who account for the majority of cases).
https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol111/iss2/1/ [umich.edu]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:34PM (3 children)
How do we know this? And how do we know that the false accusation rate won't increase if an accusation becomes good enough (it pretty much already is) to destroy someone's life?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:02PM (2 children)
In the US, rape and sexual assault is only reported in about 35% of cases. The false accusation rate of reported sexual assault cases is approximately 5%.
Public opinion has never been fair and has a much lower standard of "proof", so do you really think that society won't take the side of the victims that are truthful in ~95% of cases?
https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5111 [bjs.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape#Estimates_of_prevalence [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07 2018, @09:30PM (1 child)
How do we know either of these things? How can we truly measure them? Even those links acknowledge that it's very difficult to measure, for various reasons.
If I don't know either individual (if I knew them then I might have some idea of how truthful they are) and no real evidence is presented, then I simply say, "I don't know." I think this is more rational than destroying people's lives.
The question is, does punishing people over accusations like we're seeing in Title IX cases in colleges and universities give more incentive to malicious actors to make false accusations? Possibly, but again, I don't know how it could be measured.
Perhaps more concerning than malicious false accusations is when someone was indeed sexually assaulted but accidentally accuses the wrong person.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08 2018, @01:08AM
I modded your previous post underrated because I didn't think you were trolling, but perhaps I was wrong or you've already made up your mind and won't respond to evidence.
If you're looking for a perfect solution (nirvana fallacy) or insist on perfect knowledge, then you should probably read up on the relativity of wrongness and Bayesian reasoning.
As I said, public opinion is not fair. You can insist that the public should be fair and rational until you're blue in the face, but the moment you expect them to be is the moment you've let your idealism overcome your own rationality (and enter into straw Vulcan territory).
Unfortunately, the current "preponderance of evidence" standard used by many universities does not seem proportionate to the punishments they impose. This is one of the reasons I like the "allegation escrow" approach, since it basically defaults to a higher standard of evidence while working against underreporting and making it easier to stop repeat offenders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_solution_fallacy [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relativity_of_Wrong#Title_essay [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference [wikipedia.org]
http://lesswrong.com/lw/90n/summary_of_the_straw_vulcan/ [lesswrong.com]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:18AM (1 child)
So true. I've been saying it for a long, long time. Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:07PM
You left out the "some are borrowed and some are blue." bit. You're slipping Trumplestilskin.