The cisgender woman in the women's changing room isn't going to know that the muscular, bearded person changing next to them was actually born a woman, and is going to be as uncomfortable with them being there as they would be a cisgender man being there. — Michael

I agree.

You seem somewhat bothered by something. Not sure what it is.

Anyway, you can have the last word. Bye have fun — I like sushi

Bothered? I'm discussing a topic on a message board. The topic being males in female only spaces.

But thanks for letting me have the last word. Not sure what I've said that isn't logical and equitable.

Why would manly looking women now be an issue since it hasn't been before? — Malcolm Parry

Because of the anti-trans agenda. There is such an uproar in some circles against trans women using women's bathrooms that masculine-looking cis women have faced abuse.

Cis Woman Mistaken as Transgender Records Being Berated in Bathroom

Cis woman confronted by police officers in Arizona Walmart restroom for looking too masculine

Because they are a woman. They have every right to use a female space.

But why do we have this female space? You've said before that it's because cis women would be uncomfortable sharing a changing room with biological men. But they'll also be uncomfortable sharing a changing room with "passing" trans men. So if "making cis women uncomfortable" is a good reason to exclude biological men from these changing rooms it must also be a good reason to exclude "passing" trans men from these changing rooms.

make that 16 pages now, but it's pretty simple gender is a mental status like nationalism, male or female nationalism. Sex is a physical status.

Because of the anti-trans agenda. — Michael

I don't see it in real life in UK but there is always nutters that use issues for their own agenda.

But why do we have this female space? You've said before that it's because cis women would be uncomfortable sharing a changing room with biological men. But they'll also be uncomfortable sharing a changing room with "passing" trans men. So if "making cis women uncomfortable" is a good reason to exclude biological men from these changing rooms it must also be a good reason to exclude "passing" trans men from these changing rooms. — Michael

I agree and I doubt that trans men would use the woman's bathroom BUT if they insisted then they have every right to do so. They are female.

My point is that bathrooms and sports are separated by biology, not gender. If sex and gender are separate then why is it so difficult to make a meaningful distinction between them? — Harry Hindu

, ,

A meaningful question to ask is why we have such separations.

For sports it's to give biological women a competitive chance, and that may be a reason to exclude trans women from women's sports. But then what about trans men? They're biological women, so ought they compete in women's sports? Or do we say that trans men who have taken hormones to transition into a man must compete in men's sports?

For bathrooms it may be something to do with "decency" or safety, but that may be a reason to allow trans women (esp. post-surgery) to use women's bathrooms and trans men (esp. post-surgery) to use men's bathrooms, and so bathrooms ought not be separated by biology but by something else (e.g. outward appearance, even if "artificial"). Of course, the difficulty then comes in how such things can be policed. Ought everyone be subject to genital inspection before and/or after using a public bathroom? — Michael

Your post just re-iterates my point - that there is no meaningful distinction between gender and sex. If one "affirms" their gender by taking hormones and having surgery, then gender is biological, not social. This would be like "affirming" an anorexic's distorted view of their body by prescribing them diet pills and performing bariatric surgery on them. The problem is not "men" using women's bathroom. The problem is affirming another's delusions for the purpose of using them as political pawns.

"Men" and "women" are terms we use to distinguish not just sexes but species as well. Men and women are similar to "buck" and "doe", "drone" and "queen", etc. in that they distinguish the males and females of different species.

If you read the rest of my post, you would see that I had said that we can have body scanners at public bathroom entrances to scan for biological features, not gendered ones - whatever that is if it is not a synonym for "sex".

In a society where it is against the law for people to walk around naked, we have adopted rules for the purpose of finding mates in a society where our bodies are covered. Trans people are uprooting these agreed upon rules for how females and males present themselves in society for the purpose of distinguishing between men and women so that heterosexuals and homosexuals (which are sexual orientations, not gender orientations) can find proper mates. Is a homosexual man still a homosexual if they are attracted to female dressed as a man? Is it right for a trans person to fool a homosexual into having intimate relations with them?

What would trans-gender mean in a society with no clothes - where we all walk around naked?

So. . . your solution as to why male assaults is so prevalent and how to solve this epidemic is to just put cameras or xray machines facing bathroom entrances.

So is the only way to solve the male asymmetry in assaults' is to use women as bait and wait for these offenders to jail themselves after they have or just nearly did assault someone? Brilliant strategy there. — substantivalism

I don't see how your response follows from my proposed solution. Are you saying everyone on an airplane is being used as bait for a terrorist hijacking? This is what you are saying, not me. If you want to insist on affirming delusions so men can get close to women in their safe-spaces, that is your position, not mine. I don't carry guns onto airplanes and have no intent on hijacking one, yet I am still subject to a search before boarding an airplane.

The problem is affirming another's delusions for the purpose of using them as political pawns. — Harry Hindu

If someone born without a penis believes that they have a penis then they would be suffering from a delusion, but this isn't what trans men believe.

If you read the rest of my post, you would see that I had said that we can have body scanners at public bathroom entrances to scan for biological features... — Harry Hindu

What would it scan for? Chromosomes? Genitals? What if someone has XX chromosomes and a penis?

Is it right for a trans person to fool a homosexual into having intimate relations with them? — Harry Hindu

I don't know what the etiquette is regarding transgender people having one night stands, but I'd presume that if they present as men when clothed but have a vagina then this will come up in conversation before they start getting naked.

In a society where it is against the law for people to walk around naked... — Harry Hindu

Which society do you live in? Because there are plenty of places where it isn't against the law for people to walk around naked.

For example:

Firstly, it is not an offence to be naked in public in England and Wales. However, it can become an offence if it can be proven that the naked individual caused harassment, alarm or distress to another person. In the absence of any sexual context and intention to cause alarm and distress – being naked in public is within the law.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) notes in its guidance that every case should be considered on its own facts and merits and ‘a balance needs to be struck between the naturist’s right to freedom of expression and the right of the wider public to be protected from harassment, alarm and distress’. In assessing intention, there must be a serious reason to believe that the naked individual intended to cause alarm and distress.

If someone born without a penis believes that they have a penis then they would be suffering from a delusion, but this isn't what trans men believe. — Michael

Then why do trans people modify there biology? If merely believing something is an affirmation, then there would be no need to modify one's biology.

What would it scan for? Chromosomes? Genitals? What if someone has XX chromosomes and a penis? — Michael

As I pointed out earlier in this thread that you appeared to have ignored, there are five traits that determine one's sex. You are one or the other based on having a majority (three or more) traits of a male or female.

In the absence of any sexual context and intention to cause alarm and distress – being naked in public is within the law.

How do you determine one's intention in this case? And this does not address the point I made in explaining what a trans person would be in a society where there are no clothes, and everyone is naked.

Then why do trans people modify there biology? If merely believing something is an affirmation, then there would be no need to modify one's biology. — Harry Hindu

Firstly, not all do. Secondly, you'll have to ask them, not me. Thirdly, the same can be asked about anyone who undergoes cosmetic surgery, whether transgender or not.

As I pointed out earlier in this thread that you appeared to have ignored, there are five traits that determine one's sex. — Harry Hindu

It's a long discussion and I haven't read every post.

How do you determine one's intention in this case? — Harry Hindu

I'm not a legal professional. I don't know how prosecutors prove intent beyond reasonable doubt.

Firstly, not all do. Secondly, you'll have to ask them, not me. Thirdly, the same can be asked about anyone who undergoes cosmetic surgery, whether transgender or not. — Michael

But you are speaking for them, so you appear to know what they think. It's ironic to see you speak for them up to the point when you are faced with difficult questions.

It's a long discussion and I haven't read every post. — Michael

Yet you are notified of responses to your posts. If notifications are not working, maybe you should notify an admin.

The point is that in continuing to make the "bathroom" argument you are merely trying to address a symptom of the problem, not the cause - which is affirming someone's delusions for political capital.

But you are speaking for them, so you appear to know what they think. — Harry Hindu

I don't need to understand why they wish to transition to understand that trans men do not believe that they have a penis. Indeed, the very fact that they transition (if they do) proves that they know that they don't have a penis.

So it's unclear what delusion you think they're suffering from.

Yet you are notified of responses to your posts. — Harry Hindu

Yes, but is this post of yours that listed the biological criteria a reply to me? If not then I wouldn't have been notified of it.

Found the post, was a reply to me. I forgot about it over my 4 day absence from this discussion. Apologies.

I provided five traits that almost always occur together in females and males.
- chromosomes (in humans, XY is male, XX female)
- genitals (penis vs. vagina)
- gonads (testes vs. ovaries)
- hormones (males have higher relative levels of testosterone than women, while women have higher levels of estrogen)
- secondary sex characteristics that aren’t connected with the reproductive system but distinguish the sexes, and usually appear at puberty (breasts, facial hair, size of larynx, subcutaneous fat, etc.) — Harry Hindu

So were some hypothetical person to have:

1. XX chromsomes
2. A penis
3. Testes
4. Low testosterone and high estrogen
5. Breasts

Then they have 3 female traits and 2 male traits and so are female and ought use the women's changing rooms, compete in women's sports, etc.?

The point is that in continuing to make the "bathroom" argument you are merely trying to address a symptom of the problem, not the cause - which is affirming someone's delusions. — Harry Hindu

Is that always a problem? People often have trivial delusions that their friends and co-workers humor. For example, someone might think they're a great singer or deep thinker and they're not and nobody has the heart to tell them the truth.

Your post just re-iterates my point - that there is no meaningful distinction between gender and sex. — Harry Hindu

Your assertion is consistent with my view that part of the issue is semantics. Language can drift, and there's no right/wrong to it. So what if we move toward using "sex" in the biological sense, and "gender" to denote some self-described social role?

Accepting such semantics allows us to focus on more serious issues, such as sports (it is unfair to biological women to compete against biological males). A bigger deal would be misrepresentation: if I were young and single, I would not consider having a romantic relationship with a transgender woman (biological male) - so I consider it improper for such a person to present themselves to me in that false way. Other than that, I couldn't care less how they dress, act, or what pronouns they prefer.

A third big issue is the difficult problem parents of transgender have to deal with. Even if (as you said) it's a delusion, it could be a life-long one, and the optimal path forward is not clear.

I was casual friends with a transgender woman a few years ago. My wife and I would hang out with at a wine bar that we frequented. When she committed suicide, we learned that her parents had never accepted her choice and this resulted in some serious emotional problems. I dare say their approach didn't work.

What about trans men (esp. after hormones and surgery)? Ought they use women's changing rooms because they're biological women? — Michael

Do they have a right to use the women's changing rooms?

So were some hypothetical person to have:

1. XX chromsomes
2. A penis
3. Testes
4. Low testosterone and high estrogen
5. Breasts

Then they have 3 female traits and 2 male traits and so are female and ought use the women's changing rooms, compete in women's sports, etc.? — Michael

That's according to Harry-biology, but other biological determinants have been suggested, which is why, according to me, there remains biological ambiguity, of which your hypothetical is an example. Why we cannot in such a case say "three fifths female and two fifths male" instead of forcing such people onto one or other side of the rather arbitrary line remains mysterious to me. It smacks of the one drop rule to me.

I don't need to understand why they wish to transition to understand that trans men do not believe that they have a penis. Indeed, the very fact that they transition (if they do) proves that they know that they don't have a penis.

So it's unclear what delusion you think they're suffering from. — Michael

...that they should have a penis.

Again, why would one need to transition if gender is separate from sex? Doesn't the fact that some do and some don't means that we're talking about two separate conditions, not one, yet we put those that do transition and those that do not under the same umbrella of "trans-gender".

Then they have 3 female traits and 2 male traits and so are female and ought use the women's changing rooms, compete in women's sports, etc.? — Michael

What I have said would support this, yes. Is there a problem? Notice though that we have moved from talking about trans-gender to trans-sexual, or intersex. How can this be if gender and sex are distinct?

there remains biological ambiguity, — unenlightened

It smacks of the one drop rule to me. — unenlightened

I would hardly call 99.9% vs. 0.1% a biological ambiguity. In nature, this is about has unambiguous you can get. This smacks of confusing mutations (mistakes in copying genes from one generation to the next) as biological ambiguities within a species.

Your assertion is consistent with my view that part of the issue is semantics. — Relativist

It's not semantics. It's politics.

The type of reasoning the left side of the spectrum is practicing here is no different than the reasoning the right makes when advocating societal change based on their unfounded beliefs. The leftists here have no problem questioning the claims of the right when it comes to the existence of God when the right is proposing changing society in ways that "affirms" their beliefs. The leftists are failing to question the claims of a transgender person when they claim to be a man or woman when they are the opposite.

This is no different than the religious right advocating for God in public schools when they cannot even provide evidence for the existence of God. You are assuming the person's premise that they are a woman or man and then using that to affect societal change.

This is typical of political and religious discussions where one side abandons logic and reason because they have an emotional attachment to the claims they are making, or are wishing to score political capital.

I am being logically consistent in this regard. I question the claims of the right and the left when they are using those claims for the basis of societal change but cannot provide any good evidence that any of their claims are true.

Is that always a problem? People often have trivial delusions that their friends and co-workers humor. For example, someone might think they're a great singer or deep thinker and they're not and nobody has the heart to tell them the truth. — RogueAI

It is when they are using their claims as the basis for changing society. Did you friend demand they receive an Grammy?

It is when they are using their claims as the basis for changing society. — Harry Hindu

Changing society is often a good thing. I think society should be more tolerant of trans people. It's a lot better now than it was when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's.

think society should be more tolerant of trans people — RogueAI

I’m very tolerant and trans people can do whatever they wish if it is within the law. What they cannot do is infringe the rights of women. Why should people be tolerant of that?

It's not semantics. It's politics. — Harry Hindu

There's a political dispute about semantics. This portion of the dispute is a waste of time- I mentioned some serious issues; this isn't one of them- it's a distraction.

I’m very tolerant and trans people can do whatever they wish if it is within the law. — Malcolm Parry

There are social norms that needed to change. It's not illegal to point and laugh at a crossdresser [ETA I used this term, because I was going to make a point about how in the 70's and 80's people did exactly that when they saw crossdressers], but it's still wrong and polite society should not tolerate that behavior.

What they cannot do is infringe the rights of women. Why should people be tolerant of that?

I agree with this.

What I have said would support this, yes. Is there a problem? — Harry Hindu

You tell me. You seem to think that there are good reasons to separate bathrooms according some biological binary. What are those reasons? Perhaps when we examine those reasons we might conclude that, actually, we ought separate according to genitals, and that DNA, hormones, and mammary glands are irrelevant.

Notice though that we have moved from talking about trans-gender to trans-sexual, or intersex. How can this be if gender and sex are distinct? — Harry Hindu

I don't understand what you're asking here.

Again, why would one need to transition if gender is separate from sex? — Harry Hindu

Because of gender dysphoria.

Did you guys have anything like separate-but-equal? I see systemic racism as simply meaning there are many racist people in positions of power in all walks of life that reflexively make decisions against black people. They may not even be aware they're doing it. For example, if two people are applying for an apartment — RogueAI

Hi Rogue,

The implicit bias stuff has been shown to be pretty unhelpful overall. Turns out results for early experiments were overstated and overly simplified. It's one of those studies that has to be taken with a grain of salt, which I think responsible social scientists did at the time, but even when I recall the idea first emerging in school PDs 20 years, responsible social scientists were increasingly scarce.

Not that there aren't some good examples. Coleman Hughes talks about the 'call back' studies for jobs that resonate with your point about names, citing them as one of the few genuinely robust examples of what he too perceives as an exaggerated premise. (going by memory, I lent his book to a neighbour, but I think I got this right). Those results are known to be robust.

Another problem with the concept of implicit bias is that it lends itself to a cultural of managerial control. I've seen a lot of fair questions around this concept by admin with a 'don't you want to help _____'?

And we don't see implicit bias informing meaningful self-reflection within marginalized communities themselves, which of course have their own issues with various isms. You'd think people genuinely motivated by woke principle would be self-reflective by nature, that seems the steel-man premise of the ideology.

It is far to easy to see the majority of people using such language to enforce managerial prerogative are acting in bad faith as they do so. I have certainly seen dozens of examples of this in action in high school teaching over a 20 year career, to go along with the myriad examples of, say, Justin Trudeau dismissing questions around racism as 'racist', to go along with powerful journalism and academic critique from across the political spectrum against wokeness, from Coleman Hughes and Glenn Loury and even Christopher Rufo on the right, to Marixsts like Walter Benn Michaels and Adolph Reed Jr.

Have you read any woke 'scholarship'? I've been able to swallow reading a representative few over the years, and it's hard to see any case for calling most of it 'scholarship' at all. I believe the vast majority of 'social scientists' in the modern sense would explicitly state that their primary purpose is advocacy. They reject and 'dismantle' objectivity. I can't see how this wouldn't impact scholarship negatively, and as you see with, say, the Sokal Hoax 30 years ago, this has been true for decades.

I started seeing 'wokeness' way back in the mid/late 90s as a humanities undergrad and then in teacher's college, and by the time I was teaching in the Toronto HS system in the early 2000s, it was already creeping in. My generation of teachers started to teach kids, including the newest generation of young teachers in public schools right now, to spread from the woke gospel. It feels like a failure of social science to me, speaking a a psych/soc/phil/history student and teacher, rather than an 'academic'

Also in both our lifetimes, we saw the first black president, legalized gay marriage and pretty massive improvements of standards of living for billions worldwide. Coleman Hughes again (just read it, so it's fresh) called out 'the Myth of no Progress', and John McWhorter has argued this as well. To both of these black men, to suggest this is an insult to those that experienced the worst of US discrimination. It is simply not true to suggest that 'inherited trauma' is equivalent to slavery, or that anything you use to fill in the blank '______ is the new Jim Crow' is comparable to the real Jim Crow.

Just examples, not suggesting you go this far in post!

In my line of work (teaching), I've worked with several very racist teachers. They got along well with black students who behaved themselves, but if you were black in their class, and you were a troublemaker, there was no mercy. — RogueAI

I'm sorry to hear that. I can't say that I ever worked with a racist teacher, nor ever suspected as much. And I have worked with teachers who failed on a bunch of different moral issues. Just not that one, and I've only taught in super-diverse urban schools.

I know more about California than many states, having been there to visit my brother in LA. Talking to him over the years has me up on the basics, I guess, and it seems easy to suggest there are some problems related to woke policy in the state? Has that penetrated the schools?

What scares me about the teaching ranks is that we are way more privileged than our students, and I question our own class/education privilege in expecting, say, a low literacy group of teens to be able to master 'new' pronouns without having even mastered the old ones?

In the U.S. Senate, out of 53 Republican Senators, 43 are men. The GOP is heavily evangelical Christian, so the fact they're not comfortable with women leaders isn't surprising.

There are 10 states in America with abortion laws with no exceptions for rape. Does Canada have anything like that? And the fact that Trump could survive the Access Hollywood tape, and win, says a lot. Are you familiar with Andrew Tate and his popularity in MAGA world? — RogueAI

We are similar to you guys in some ways, but very different in others, abortion being one. I think the major challenge to American politics is the forced binary of only two parties. We have a few, although only two with actual federal leadership potential, and that seems to diffuse the concentration of extremist views on issues like abortion that I see in the US generally; the fact that, say, GOP leadership is way out of touch with the majority of their own voters being an example.

So nothing like that. Some Liberals tried scare-mongering that our Conservative candidate for PM would restrict access to abortions, but that's just cheap political BS. They wouldn't touch it even if the majority wanted to, which itself is highly unlikely.

I know more about Tate than I should for someone who is almost entirely off social media and not currently working or participating much in the world. Something of a hermit.

What I see in Tate, and saw in the Access Hollywood tape, is elite entitlement first and foremost, which manifests in hateful misogyny. I don't think that sort of misogyny can exist without the power of elite class-based entitlement. Obviously, other forms of misogyny can and do proliferate more or less depending on confounding variables like social class. And non elites do act like this too.

It's just that I wouldn't infer from elite, entitled misogyny about the nature of say, poor, patriarchal misogyny.

The angry incel in the basement is a problem, but a frame like 'patriarchy' doesn't do much to explain how those opposite ends of the spectrum of class could experience something meaningfully similar from this term UNLESS you actually use intersectional thought to consider class intersections .

This conclusion, of course, does not fit within the 'white supremacy' framework. But like my fave article title from the 2010s implies, to 'Try explaining white privilege to a poor white person' is to see where popular applications of the theory fall apart, morally speaking.

Reed Jr. and Michaels' "No Politics but Class Politics" really solidified me on these anti-woke beliefs - these guys are the two Marxist profs, one black, one a white Jew, and their take is that wokeness is essentially a tool of social control wielded by technocratic neoliberal elites across the political spectrum.

And given that boys have been falling behind in schools for decades, I fear that woke teaching is actually exacerbating boys sense of alienation, as we see in Richard Reeves latest book. And that guy is no radical.

Premising masculinity itself as inherently toxic is nuts to me, as an educator of freakin' children, and yes, it is fair to suggest that this IS how masculinity is presented in some classrooms. I don't mean to suggest that this worst-case scenario is therefore a default assumption you can make about discussing masculinity critically. This can be done well, but like any teaching, it can be done poorly, ignorantly, unskillfully, whatever, and the consequences of getting it wrong are leading to boys turning to the hideous Tate's of the world.

Sorry for the long answer! I'm rusty at human interaction ....

Am I onto anything here? Missing something?

What they cannot do is infringe the rights of women. — Malcolm Parry

The right to pee without any biological males around?

What do you think 'systemic racism' means? — night912

Hello night,

I think I have a pretty standard understanding of the phrase. Certainly, when I see it used, I read it to refer to, say "any 'system' having biases implicit within it, biases which naturally reflect those of the powerful agents within the system, past and present, and that manifest in the structure and nature of these systems maintaining said biases, as long as they continue to reinforce self-beneficial power structures".

Or something like that. But these sorts of terms are intentionally vague, which to me is part of the problem.

As a high school teacher for the past 20 years, I certainly saw no actual 'evidence' of any significant 'structural racism', aside from 'differential outcomes', which I do not believe are evidence enough on their own for this explanation to work.

Open to disagreement on my use of the term or thoughts on my arguments!

There are social norms that needed to change. It's not illegal to point and laugh at a crossdresser [ETA I used this term, because I was going to make a point about how in the 70's and 80's people did exactly that when they saw crossdressers], but it's still wrong and polite society should not tolerate that behavior. — RogueAI

Manners can always improve and I think the world (well where I reside) is very tolerant of people and their life choices.

The right to pee without any biological males around? — frank

Seems a reasonable request

Seems a reasonable request — Malcolm Parry

That doesn't cash out as a right, though.

You tell me. You seem to think that there are good reasons to separate bathrooms according some biological binary. What are those reasons? Perhaps when we examine those reasons we might conclude that, actually, we ought separate according to genitals, and that DNA, hormones, and mammary glands are irrelevant. — Michael

You seem to think there are good reasons to change what has worked. The only reasons you provide is to point at 0.1% of the population of intersex people and being logically inconsistent with assuming the claims of some delusions but not others without question.

I would love for there to be an actual intersex person with the traits you provided to speak to and hear what they have to say. You seem to think they would be easy to find. I'm not worried about that small fraction of society. I'm more worried about the much larger portion that preys one women.

Changing society is often a good thing. I think society should be more tolerant of trans people. It's a lot better now than it was when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. — RogueAI

I am tolerant of anyone who keeps their delusions to themselves - whether it be believing in a God or believing you're a woman in a man's body - and not expect others to change in ways to affirm their delusion.

There's a political dispute about semantics. This portion of the dispute is a waste of time- I mentioned some serious issues; this isn't one of them- it's a distraction. — Relativist

Incorrect. You want to discuss the symptom while I want to focus on the cause. If you don't value logical consistency and questioning ALL extraordinary claims that are being made, then what's the use?

Incorrect. You want to discuss the symptom while I want to focus on the cause. If you don't value logical consistency and questioning ALL extraordinary claims that are being made, then what's the use? — Harry Hindu

There is no logical inconsistency in the semantics, if sex is defined as biological and gender is defined as what is presented and (presumably) felt. My sense is that this won't catch on, because many are like you: unwilling to accept the semantics. As I indicated initially, that's the most trivial aspect of the TG issue.