4 ms·

> I think there's a big mix here. I think you'd find a lot of "TERFs" would support exactly this (take a look at someone like JK Rowling for example). JK Rowli

> I think there's a big mix here. I think you'd find a lot of "TERFs" would support exactly this (take a look at someone like JK Rowling for example). JK Rowling isn't really much of a radical feminist or a TERF as far as I can tell. She's just sympathetic to their views. The organizations that TERFs support and staff however do indeed do things like campaign to support Ken Zuckeresque conversion therapies for gender non-conforming youth. > I haven't seen many people deny that sex is real, but I have seen a lot of people saying that it isn't socially relevant and that for example people ought to define their sexuality in terms of gender identity rather than sex. Maybe you're alluding to something like the sports argument here? The transgender movement is a big tent that is made up of people who have no medical intervention or even gender dysphoria and also people who take cross-sex hormones and have gender affirming surgeries. The sports debate is muddied by the need to not alienate anyone. If you get down the brass tacks though, the real argument is about how much impact cross-sex hormones have on the performance of a body that has been through a testosterone dominant puberty. The conservative position seems to be that being AMAB grants you superior performance at all times regardless of any other condition, which complete androgen insensitivity syndrome seems to contradict considering that CAIS girls have no physical advantages over XX girls despite their Y chromosomes. The most radical liberal position would be that all sports should be open via self-id. The real answer is probably that trans kids who never had an androgen dominant puberty should be allowed to play any women's sport and trans women who transitioned later should be allowed in some women's sports but not others depending on how much the development of their skeleton during puberty number one might impact their performance. This nuanced view is rare however as both sides keep taking more and more extreme stances to spite one another. Look at how in Texas a 7 year old trans girl is considered too dangerous to play softball with cis girls. That's obviously dumb but the conservatives proposed HB25 to send a message that trans kids aren't wanted first and to """protect le women's sports""" second (a distant second). Nevertheless, self-id is one issue that has some real nuance but it's one issue in a whole constellation of other debates which have much less nuance and simply come down to: trans people look weird and I want them to not exist.

nicoburns 5y ago
> JK Rowling isn't really much of a radical feminist or a TERF as far as I can tell. I agree, but I can tell you that a lot of my Facebook friends (who are all people I know IRL) who post pro-trans content have posted stuff calling her a TERF and/or transphobic. > Maybe you're alluding to something like the sports argument here? FWIW, I agree with your take on sports. but that's not what I was alluding to. I was alluding to my recent experience which is that it seems to be fast becoming socially unacceptable within large parts of the transgender movement to talk about someone's physiological sex at all (and I mean their current physiology as modified by HRT and/or surgery, not what they were born with). I have been called transphobic on numerous occasions for: - Naming someone's sex - Wanting to differentiate between those who have medically transitioned and those who have not yet, or don't plan to. - For suggesting that hormones affect behaviour - For expressing my sexuality (I am attracted to physically female people (cis or trans)) - For expressing my opinion that someone's gender identity (be they cis or trans) is only rarely relevant to me (as people have such different ideas of what it means to be a certain gender that their identity tells you almost nothing about them). > Nevertheless, self-id is one issue that has some real nuance but it's one issue in a whole constellation of other debates which have much less nuance and simply come down to: trans people look weird and I want them to not exist. I would agree that there a bunch of issues that simply come down to "trans people look weird and I want them to not exist" (as a somewhat effiminate man, I have unfortunately experienced some of this myself). However, I would suggest that there are also a bunch of issues from the other direction that simply come down to "I'm not comfortable with my body, therefore I don't want anyone to talk about bodies".
- tiredofcomp 5y ago
  > I agree, but I can tell you that a lot of my Facebook friends (who are all people I know IRL) who post pro-trans content have posted stuff calling her a TERF and/or transphobic. I do think she is pretty blatantly transphobic. I mean she wrote a whole novel which just rehashed the old trope from Dressed to Kill to drive home the point about how dangerous she thought it was for males to be in women's spaces. That's some commitment. > FWIW, I agree with your take on sports. but that's not what I was alluding to. I was alluding to my recent experience which is that it seems to be fast becoming socially unacceptable within large parts of the transgender movement to talk about someone's physiological sex Maybe that's true? Thinking on my own experiences, I transitioned mtf when I was a teenager like 15 years ago and since then I've blended in and lived a pretty normal life with a husband and an adopted child, I had some uncles and stuff who would bring up physiological stuff but only as a sort of gotcha or subtle dig at me or later my husband (to make it clear to him that despite being a masculine cis man they think of him as a homo). I think it's pretty common for trans people to be gaslit with like "yeah but your chromosomes are male so you're a male" in bad faith to the point where it always looks like a dog whistle when someone brings it up. I'm sorry you had negative experiences as a feminine man. I can obviously relate. I think it's harder for feminine men who are attracted to women since as a gay guy before I at least had a community to be kind to me.

nicoburns 5y ago

> JK Rowling isn't really much of a radical feminist or a TERF as far as I can tell. I agree, but I can tell you that a lot of my Facebook friends (who are all people I know IRL) who post pro-trans content have posted stuff calling her a TERF and/or transphobic. > Maybe you're alluding to something like the sports argument here? FWIW, I agree with your take on sports. but that's not what I was alluding to. I was alluding to my recent experience which is that it seems to be fast becoming socially unacceptable within large parts of the transgender movement to talk about someone's physiological sex at all (and I mean their current physiology as modified by HRT and/or surgery, not what they were born with). I have been called transphobic on numerous occasions for: - Naming someone's sex - Wanting to differentiate between those who have medically transitioned and those who have not yet, or don't plan to. - For suggesting that hormones affect behaviour - For expressing my sexuality (I am attracted to physically female people (cis or trans)) - For expressing my opinion that someone's gender identity (be they cis or trans) is only rarely relevant to me (as people have such different ideas of what it means to be a certain gender that their identity tells you almost nothing about them). > Nevertheless, self-id is one issue that has some real nuance but it's one issue in a whole constellation of other debates which have much less nuance and simply come down to: trans people look weird and I want them to not exist. I would agree that there a bunch of issues that simply come down to "trans people look weird and I want them to not exist" (as a somewhat effiminate man, I have unfortunately experienced some of this myself). However, I would suggest that there are also a bunch of issues from the other direction that simply come down to "I'm not comfortable with my body, therefore I don't want anyone to talk about bodies".

tiredofcomp 5y ago
> I agree, but I can tell you that a lot of my Facebook friends (who are all people I know IRL) who post pro-trans content have posted stuff calling her a TERF and/or transphobic. I do think she is pretty blatantly transphobic. I mean she wrote a whole novel which just rehashed the old trope from Dressed to Kill to drive home the point about how dangerous she thought it was for males to be in women's spaces. That's some commitment. > FWIW, I agree with your take on sports. but that's not what I was alluding to. I was alluding to my recent experience which is that it seems to be fast becoming socially unacceptable within large parts of the transgender movement to talk about someone's physiological sex Maybe that's true? Thinking on my own experiences, I transitioned mtf when I was a teenager like 15 years ago and since then I've blended in and lived a pretty normal life with a husband and an adopted child, I had some uncles and stuff who would bring up physiological stuff but only as a sort of gotcha or subtle dig at me or later my husband (to make it clear to him that despite being a masculine cis man they think of him as a homo). I think it's pretty common for trans people to be gaslit with like "yeah but your chromosomes are male so you're a male" in bad faith to the point where it always looks like a dog whistle when someone brings it up. I'm sorry you had negative experiences as a feminine man. I can obviously relate. I think it's harder for feminine men who are attracted to women since as a gay guy before I at least had a community to be kind to me.