5 ms·

This was addressed above, in the bit talking about people failing to put the same effort into empathising and understanding people who historically receive litt

This was addressed above, in the bit talking about people failing to put the same effort into empathising and understanding people who historically receive little to no empathy or understanding whatsoever. Ignore our personal feelings on the matter for a moment: do we honestly believe JK Rowling has made an effort to converse with, understand, and empathize with trans women?

nicoburns 6y ago
> do we honestly believe JK Rowling has made an effort to converse with, understand, and empathize with trans women? I don't agree with JK Rowling's take on these issues. But I actually think she likely has made at least some effort to do this. Some of her open letters certainly mention her knowing trans people and sympathising with their experiences. Although in general I think the gender debate is a prime example of neither side listening to the other. There is a group of people who aren't listening to trans people when they say that they have gender feelings which are important to them. But equally trans people aren't listening to other people when they say that their physical bodies are important to them.
- komali2 6y ago
  This doesn't read as "empathetic" to me: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=20 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=... And no, simply saying "I'm empathetic!" in a tweet doesn't make it true https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269406094595588096 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269406094595588096 Defending an avowed transphobe doesn't come off as very empathetic: https://twitter.com/Carter_AndrewJ/status/1270787945251905536 https://twitter.com/Carter_AndrewJ/status/127078794525190553... Nor does calling the person who said the following (Magdalen), "immensely brave:" > You are fucking blackface actors. You aren't women. You are men who get sexual kicks from being treated like women. fuck you and your dirty fucking perversions. our oppression isn't a fetish you pathetic, sick, fuck. Typically when I try to empathize with people, I don't turn around and compliment someone calling those people "pathetic" and "sick." EDIT: I guess I got downvoted enough to be rate limited. I only allow small windows of HN time so I'm going to post my reply to the below comment as an edit. Sorry that's annoying but, eh. Why are you talking about sides? Why are you talking about "trans people" being absolutely right, claiming moral highground, or dismissing viewpoints? I'm discussing an individual whose words I can point to. JK Rowling. Who are you talking about? You're engaging in a method of rhetoric that is wide open for abuse by fallacies such as strawman. If JK Rowling had mad a serious attempt to understand transgenderism, she wouldn't give credence to the idea that it's a fetish.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    I won't defend those words/actions: I don't agree with them, and they're definitely hurtful. But I don't believe that being hurtful necessarily means that you haven't made a serious attempt to understand the other persons point of view. I guess whether that is sufficient to count as empathy will depend on your definition of empathy. My wider point though is that both sides seem to be failing to sufficiently take into the other side's perspective. The point about same-sex attraction in the second tweet you link is a good one IMO. I can't describe my sexuality without referring people's physiological attributes. Doesn't that make them socially relevant? A view on gender that completely eliminates the physical components of sex/gender is denying people's realities just as much as one that doesn't account for people's "feeling of gender". Trans people are absolutely right that people like JK Rowling are treating them poorly. But they can't claim the moral high ground until they stop completely dismissing the viewpoints of anyone who tries to tell them that the physical aspects of sex/gender are important to them, and labelling such people as transphobic. That's not very empathetic either.
    - kaitai 6y ago
      I think this is a completely illogical thing you're arguing. Trans person: I feel (this way). a non-equivalent statement from an anti-transness-person: You are wrong to feel that way; your feeling is false and what you are doing is wrong. An equivalent statement for the non-trans-person here would be: I feel (this other way). This business about trans people "dismissing the viewpoints of anyone who tries to tell them that the physical aspects of sex/gender are important to them" is just bullshit. I've talked with and interacted with trans folks and really no one's gonna tell me that their experience growing up as a boy and transitioning into girlhood or womanhood is the same as my experience growing up as a girl. And none of them has ever said that my experience of my physical self is not important, or is transphobic. Like, what? Can you find me instances of this sort of behavior? Ragging on "people who menstruate" instead of "woman" (pun intended) as Rowling does is not her saying "the physical aspects of sex/gender are important to me". Menstruation is not the definition of womanhood (you do know postmenopausal women exist, right?). If you want to talk about menstruation, talk about menstruation. Don't pretend it's equivalent to wearing nailpolish or getting catcalled or giving birth or trying to find pants with pockets that fit a cell phone. JK Rowling is trying to tell other people about how they should experience sex/gender, not just representing her experience. Beyond being not empathetic, it's intellectually lazy.
- paulmd 6y ago
  Being told your opinions are problematic and hurtful is part of the process of changing them. This is the "paradox of intolerance", without a certain degree of intolerance of unacceptable beliefs, intolerance itself spreads further. It is really the same process as having any ingrained belief challenged, it is going to make that person uncomfortable because something they took on faith is being challenged. That doesn't mean it's not something that should happen.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    Also a great way to solidify them and get people to dig in their heels. Shaming is often more about making the shamer feel good than a rational calculation of persuasive power.
- chc 6y ago
  This seems like a false equivalence. Trans people aren't trying to tell cis people that their physical bodies aren't allowed to matter to them, nor to invalidate cis people's gender or force them to be treated as another gender.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    Except when they are: As in the case of Caster Semenya. Never has it been more clear that trans rights are human rights.
    - qazpot 6y ago
      Trans athletes who are male and transitioned to female should not be allowed to participate in women sports because it is discriminatory to women.
      - runarberg 6y ago
        Caster Semenya is a cis woman, not trans. People are so preoccupied with stripping the rights of trans people that they ended up stripping away the rights of cis people while they were at it.
        klipt 6y ago
        It's funny how this gets spun as "discrimination against women" when it's more "discrimination between women". Only women athletes want Caster excluded. No men athletes find Caster threatening. Caster's case has nothing to do with trans people, it's more that she has rare biology (intersex) but happened to be raised as a woman. Since her rare biology gives her some of the same advantages as men (elevated testosterone) the question is whether it's more fair for her to compete with men or with women. She can easily beat many women, so some women feel it's unfair for her to compete with them.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    > Trans people aren't trying to tell cis people that their physical bodies aren't allowed to matter to them I feel like they are. Specifically, if you believe that "feeling like" a gender makes you that gender, then it seems to me that logically you have to believe one of the following: (1) That having the physiology associated with a given gender is not sufficient to count as a gender. This invalidates the identity of people like me who don't experience the "gender feeling" that trans people (and some cis people) talk about, and therefore base their identity as a man/woman on their physicality. OR (2) That gender categories are "open" where for example either feeling like a man OR having "male" physiology makes you a man. But that seems to make the whole concept of gender pointless because people with penises don't share anything in common with people who feel like men (that they don't also share with people who feel like women and people with vaginas) unless they happen to be people who fall into both categories. It also makes it impossible for someone express that they have one of those things but not the other because there is only one label "man/woman" to describe two distinct phenomena. --- If you have a suggestion for how someone like me who has male physiology but doesn't have a "feeling of being a man" (or any other gender) can represent themselves in a system where there is only a single gender identifier and making sub-distinctions is frowned upon (because "trans (wo)men are (wo)men") then I'm all ears.
gmadsen 6y ago
is there not room outside of the right for people who are not that empathetic or would rather not spend the energy to understand these people? I want action on climate change, I want single payer health care, subsidized college, reproductive rights, separation of church and state. what i don't care about is how many genders an English department can create. I don't discriminate, but I also don't want to expend any energy understanding or empathizing .
- ezrast 6y ago
  Liberals aren't out here forcing each other at gunpoint to protest every cause that exists. If you don't want to engage on an issue, don't engage. The person being discussed above (Rowling) is being called out for making repeated, harmful public statements. Don't do that. Smile and nod and you'll be fine. Maybe avoid characterizing your would-be allies in terms of dumb right-wing tropes like "how many genders an English department can create" while you're at it.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    Interesting since 1 day later a major HN story is about a company (coinbase) blocking political discussions at the workplace. It created a big backlash by people who refused to follow that rule and insisted that anything and everything is politics, arguing that (lack of speech) is still speech, that speech is action, that being neutral is implicit or even active support of one side or the other, and many other completely extreme and unreasonable stances. Maybe people aren't forcing each other at gunpoint, but it's pretty close.
    - ezrast 6y ago
      I don't really see the parallel. The poster I responded to seemed to be asking the question in a personal capacity, not from a position of power over others. When you front an organization representing, and being represented by, hundreds of people, then yes, politics are unavoidable by definition. Furthermore, unless there's more context I've skimmed over (I assume you're referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899), it's not clear that Coinbase will suffer any negative consequences from this whatsoever aside from being shunned by activists, which I presume is a consequence they're okay with since they published a blog post explicitly alienating that group. The only folks being forced I see are the employees being told to pipe down or ship out. (also, while it may not be substantive to this discussion, the belief that neutrality, especially explicit neutrality, is tacit endorsement of the status quo is neither extreme nor unreasonable)

nicoburns 6y ago

> do we honestly believe JK Rowling has made an effort to converse with, understand, and empathize with trans women? I don't agree with JK Rowling's take on these issues. But I actually think she likely has made at least some effort to do this. Some of her open letters certainly mention her knowing trans people and sympathising with their experiences. Although in general I think the gender debate is a prime example of neither side listening to the other. There is a group of people who aren't listening to trans people when they say that they have gender feelings which are important to them. But equally trans people aren't listening to other people when they say that their physical bodies are important to them.

komali2 6y ago
This doesn't read as "empathetic" to me: https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=20 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=... And no, simply saying "I'm empathetic!" in a tweet doesn't make it true https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269406094595588096 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269406094595588096 Defending an avowed transphobe doesn't come off as very empathetic: https://twitter.com/Carter_AndrewJ/status/1270787945251905536 https://twitter.com/Carter_AndrewJ/status/127078794525190553... Nor does calling the person who said the following (Magdalen), "immensely brave:" > You are fucking blackface actors. You aren't women. You are men who get sexual kicks from being treated like women. fuck you and your dirty fucking perversions. our oppression isn't a fetish you pathetic, sick, fuck. Typically when I try to empathize with people, I don't turn around and compliment someone calling those people "pathetic" and "sick." EDIT: I guess I got downvoted enough to be rate limited. I only allow small windows of HN time so I'm going to post my reply to the below comment as an edit. Sorry that's annoying but, eh. Why are you talking about sides? Why are you talking about "trans people" being absolutely right, claiming moral highground, or dismissing viewpoints? I'm discussing an individual whose words I can point to. JK Rowling. Who are you talking about? You're engaging in a method of rhetoric that is wide open for abuse by fallacies such as strawman. If JK Rowling had mad a serious attempt to understand transgenderism, she wouldn't give credence to the idea that it's a fetish.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  I won't defend those words/actions: I don't agree with them, and they're definitely hurtful. But I don't believe that being hurtful necessarily means that you haven't made a serious attempt to understand the other persons point of view. I guess whether that is sufficient to count as empathy will depend on your definition of empathy. My wider point though is that both sides seem to be failing to sufficiently take into the other side's perspective. The point about same-sex attraction in the second tweet you link is a good one IMO. I can't describe my sexuality without referring people's physiological attributes. Doesn't that make them socially relevant? A view on gender that completely eliminates the physical components of sex/gender is denying people's realities just as much as one that doesn't account for people's "feeling of gender". Trans people are absolutely right that people like JK Rowling are treating them poorly. But they can't claim the moral high ground until they stop completely dismissing the viewpoints of anyone who tries to tell them that the physical aspects of sex/gender are important to them, and labelling such people as transphobic. That's not very empathetic either.
  - kaitai 6y ago
    I think this is a completely illogical thing you're arguing. Trans person: I feel (this way). a non-equivalent statement from an anti-transness-person: You are wrong to feel that way; your feeling is false and what you are doing is wrong. An equivalent statement for the non-trans-person here would be: I feel (this other way). This business about trans people "dismissing the viewpoints of anyone who tries to tell them that the physical aspects of sex/gender are important to them" is just bullshit. I've talked with and interacted with trans folks and really no one's gonna tell me that their experience growing up as a boy and transitioning into girlhood or womanhood is the same as my experience growing up as a girl. And none of them has ever said that my experience of my physical self is not important, or is transphobic. Like, what? Can you find me instances of this sort of behavior? Ragging on "people who menstruate" instead of "woman" (pun intended) as Rowling does is not her saying "the physical aspects of sex/gender are important to me". Menstruation is not the definition of womanhood (you do know postmenopausal women exist, right?). If you want to talk about menstruation, talk about menstruation. Don't pretend it's equivalent to wearing nailpolish or getting catcalled or giving birth or trying to find pants with pockets that fit a cell phone. JK Rowling is trying to tell other people about how they should experience sex/gender, not just representing her experience. Beyond being not empathetic, it's intellectually lazy.
paulmd 6y ago
Being told your opinions are problematic and hurtful is part of the process of changing them. This is the "paradox of intolerance", without a certain degree of intolerance of unacceptable beliefs, intolerance itself spreads further. It is really the same process as having any ingrained belief challenged, it is going to make that person uncomfortable because something they took on faith is being challenged. That doesn't mean it's not something that should happen.
- free_rms 6y ago
  Also a great way to solidify them and get people to dig in their heels. Shaming is often more about making the shamer feel good than a rational calculation of persuasive power.
chc 6y ago
This seems like a false equivalence. Trans people aren't trying to tell cis people that their physical bodies aren't allowed to matter to them, nor to invalidate cis people's gender or force them to be treated as another gender.
- runarberg 6y ago
  Except when they are: As in the case of Caster Semenya. Never has it been more clear that trans rights are human rights.
  - qazpot 6y ago
    Trans athletes who are male and transitioned to female should not be allowed to participate in women sports because it is discriminatory to women.
    - runarberg 6y ago
      Caster Semenya is a cis woman, not trans. People are so preoccupied with stripping the rights of trans people that they ended up stripping away the rights of cis people while they were at it.
      - klipt 6y ago
        It's funny how this gets spun as "discrimination against women" when it's more "discrimination between women". Only women athletes want Caster excluded. No men athletes find Caster threatening. Caster's case has nothing to do with trans people, it's more that she has rare biology (intersex) but happened to be raised as a woman. Since her rare biology gives her some of the same advantages as men (elevated testosterone) the question is whether it's more fair for her to compete with men or with women. She can easily beat many women, so some women feel it's unfair for her to compete with them.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  > Trans people aren't trying to tell cis people that their physical bodies aren't allowed to matter to them I feel like they are. Specifically, if you believe that "feeling like" a gender makes you that gender, then it seems to me that logically you have to believe one of the following: (1) That having the physiology associated with a given gender is not sufficient to count as a gender. This invalidates the identity of people like me who don't experience the "gender feeling" that trans people (and some cis people) talk about, and therefore base their identity as a man/woman on their physicality. OR (2) That gender categories are "open" where for example either feeling like a man OR having "male" physiology makes you a man. But that seems to make the whole concept of gender pointless because people with penises don't share anything in common with people who feel like men (that they don't also share with people who feel like women and people with vaginas) unless they happen to be people who fall into both categories. It also makes it impossible for someone express that they have one of those things but not the other because there is only one label "man/woman" to describe two distinct phenomena. --- If you have a suggestion for how someone like me who has male physiology but doesn't have a "feeling of being a man" (or any other gender) can represent themselves in a system where there is only a single gender identifier and making sub-distinctions is frowned upon (because "trans (wo)men are (wo)men") then I'm all ears.

gmadsen 6y ago

is there not room outside of the right for people who are not that empathetic or would rather not spend the energy to understand these people? I want action on climate change, I want single payer health care, subsidized college, reproductive rights, separation of church and state. what i don't care about is how many genders an English department can create. I don't discriminate, but I also don't want to expend any energy understanding or empathizing .

ezrast 6y ago
Liberals aren't out here forcing each other at gunpoint to protest every cause that exists. If you don't want to engage on an issue, don't engage. The person being discussed above (Rowling) is being called out for making repeated, harmful public statements. Don't do that. Smile and nod and you'll be fine. Maybe avoid characterizing your would-be allies in terms of dumb right-wing tropes like "how many genders an English department can create" while you're at it.
- manigandham 6y ago
  Interesting since 1 day later a major HN story is about a company (coinbase) blocking political discussions at the workplace. It created a big backlash by people who refused to follow that rule and insisted that anything and everything is politics, arguing that (lack of speech) is still speech, that speech is action, that being neutral is implicit or even active support of one side or the other, and many other completely extreme and unreasonable stances. Maybe people aren't forcing each other at gunpoint, but it's pretty close.
  - ezrast 6y ago
    I don't really see the parallel. The poster I responded to seemed to be asking the question in a personal capacity, not from a position of power over others. When you front an organization representing, and being represented by, hundreds of people, then yes, politics are unavoidable by definition. Furthermore, unless there's more context I've skimmed over (I assume you're referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636899), it's not clear that Coinbase will suffer any negative consequences from this whatsoever aside from being shunned by activists, which I presume is a consequence they're okay with since they published a blog post explicitly alienating that group. The only folks being forced I see are the employees being told to pipe down or ship out. (also, while it may not be substantive to this discussion, the belief that neutrality, especially explicit neutrality, is tacit endorsement of the status quo is neither extreme nor unreasonable)