Then provide your definition of the gender identity
You call “woman”. What does it entail and how is it differentiated from the gender identity “man”, and what links everyone with that identity that makes it useful to use it as a category in law and in everyday life, and why the word “woman” - with its meaning being traditionally “adult female human” is the right word to use for that category.
You’ve been completely unable to do this, because you’re working backwards from “I’m a good person because I believe trans people”. You’re completely unequipped to even elaborate on what you actually believe, because you don’t understand it, and you’ve been told “you don’t have to understand”
Your previous definitions are flawed as they don’t describe anything and ae self contradictory - they work on assumptions that we know what “femininity” is, and yet presumably you don’t believe that a female person with a “masculine” set of traits is a man, unless they claim to be, at which point you unquestioningly will accept it.
So the questions remains: what is a male person saying about themselves when they say “I am a woman”. Your own definitions suggest (though avoid clarity) that you think he’d be saying “I am feminine and therefore want to live as a woman”, but that leaves us with two issues
* it doesn’t demonstrate that he is literally a woman in any meaningful way (eg “feminine male” does not belong in the same social category as “female people”)
* it reinforces regressive ideas that what we call femininity is for women and what we call masculinity is for men.
Here, to pre-empt your likely response. When “describing” gender, you say “there are “manly men” - what is being measured in “manliness”? You’re measuring stereotypes of masculinity, and the implications of that are backwards. You know this, which is why you can’t actually engage with it and instead rely on obfuscation.
And here’s my “anti trans” position:
A man is a person with a male body and any personality
A woman is a person with a female body and any personality
Trans activism says this:
A man is a person with any body and a male personality
A woman is a person with any body and a female personality
Again, regressive as fuck, and not grounded in anything as we haven’t established what a “female personality” or “female identity” comprises.
Meanwhile, the reality based position is this:
A trans woman is a male who, to alleviate discomfort with their sex and their body , lives according to their idea of what a woman is
I get it - your intentions are great. But you’re having to do mental gymnastics to avoid dealing with the fact that you’re discussing a condition - gender dysphoria - which, despite having been successfully PR’d into being viewed by progressives as an intrinsic identity rather than a condition, has more in common with anorexia than with the gay rights movement. And that’s be absolutely fine if you were advocating for a point of view in a context where all views are freely aired, but you’re advocating for crazy, reality denying nonsense while decrying all objections as bad faith.
I had reason several years ago to look at pro-ana websites as they were called, and *every* mindset you encounter on those spaces has a direct analogue within the trans rights movement. The difference being that the infrastructure of the gay rights movement left a route to successfully advocating the idea that their condition is an intrinsic identity rather than a condition. To me, you are a person agreeing that an anorexic needs to lose weight, and that nobody has any right to challenge them, because you *believe* them.
And sure, I might be wrong, there might be an angle I haven’t considered. But I have a damn sight better a grasp on the issues here than you do. Do you think I’d be arguing this with you if there was any chance whatsoever that you have a good, non sexist definition of the gender identity you call “woman?
(, Tue 24 Aug 2021, 8:27, Reply)
I'm not attempting to define gender identities any further than I already have done, because they're subjective cultural terms.
I'm happy to leave things without restrictive and exclusive definition, especially when societal and cultural norms are involved.
It seems to be that we have a fundamental philosophical difference here, that cannot possibly be resolved with the positions that we've both put forward. Clearly you all rang rings round me logically, and I've got everything wrong.
You can have your philosophy of sex and gender, and I'll just go and have my opinions corrected, along with the WHO's and the GMC's and BMA's.
(
Invisible Wizard - 12th Level Errorer, Tue 24 Aug 2021, 12:40,
Reply)
i think your hearts in the right place
transpeople want to be seen and treated as their chosen gender and get distressed if they don't, and it's noble to try to accommodate them. you might be able to out-reason someone, but you cant instil empathy in them if they have none. Whether you think we're wrong in our categorisation of terms like woman, I think you'd concede that yours is a change to what most would have if pressed, and to how people have viewed it for centuries with the odd exception. This doesn't mean we have to keep things as they are, but it does mean that it's not a trivial change they're asking but a change to something fundamental all of us do constantly everyday, which is deduce the the gender of the person we're interacting with if we havent already. And there are plenty of thorny side issues that come with it.
(
cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 24 Aug 2021, 13:36,
Reply)
Why do you think
A “subjective cultural term” is a more meaningful category than “sex”? Why do you think a claim to come under the undefined umbrella of the “subjective cultural term” “woman” should qualify one into the category of sport created to recognise the material reality of sex?
(, Wed 25 Aug 2021, 15:29, Reply)