8 ms·

The issue is that the costs of accomodating trans people are greatly exaggerated to push for discimination. This article is focused on language which is obvious

by JBits 4y ago

The issue is that the costs of accomodating trans people are greatly exaggerated to push for discimination. This article is focused on language which is obviously of great importance to everyone involved. I support the writer's hurt feeling but you can't justify not accomodating people because it requires looking at words differently.

dmix 4y ago
It's worth asking whether anyone is actually being excluded merely because the words aren't generic enough. We can accept that a very small portion of the population doesn't fit into the definitions we commonly use without having to abandon them. It's obvious with good intentions but it seems like a silly hill to die on. Why can't we just accept as a community that when you say male/female there will always be a little [*] attached to it for the exceptions?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- socialismisok 4y ago
  I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces. Many places offer gender neutral spaces (eg restrooms that are all genders). I don't require everyone to make me comfortable, but I do positively notice when someone does. If I go to my office and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender rooms, I do feel much less excluded. Not everyone is like me, but thousands or millions are. I do feel excluded by gendered language, and it does impact my ability to get work done, navigate social situations, etc.
  - nadieyninguno1 4y ago
    > I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces. I'm not trans or any of that sort - I'm generally uncomfortable around people. What I don't understand is, why impose upon others? To me, that's my cross to bear.
    - socialismisok 4y ago
      I literally said I don't impose it on others. Others make attempts to accommodate me and I feel more included as a result. If your workplace said, "we've got some private rooms to work if it would make you more comfortable, it'd be something you positively regard and would make you feel more included, right?
      - bequanna 4y ago
        Ah, but the whole genesis of this discussion is that many people are trying to impose it on others. I have absolutely no problem with gender neutral bathrooms. But I have a big problem with the name calling (“transphobe”), bullying, and shaming in some attempt to push an agenda where the upside is only fewer hurt feelings.
        socialismisok 4y ago
        If I choose to say "pregnant people" and I explain that I'm choosing that word to intentionally include both pregnant women and pregnant non-women, is that shaming or bullying? If I then go to my peers and say, "heads up, the phrase 'pregnant women' might not include everyone who is pregnant", and they say, "oh, that makes sense, let me adjust my own language!", I think that's probably not shaming or bullying either. If, over time, those conversations spread and we see a general public movement to use "pregnant person", this again seems like good intentions without any particular agenda besides, "oh, of course. If we recognize trans men, then we should probably make sure we say pregnant people". I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda - it's people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women. The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men." That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear.
        dmix 4y ago
        > If I choose to say "pregnant people" and I explain that I'm choosing that word to intentionally include both pregnant women and pregnant non-women, is that shaming or bullying? Are you really just talking about yourself? You don't also expect everyone else to use the same language? You don't want every corporate website, school newsletter, teacher's curriculum, every Tweet from a public person, random Reddit comments, etc to also use your preferred language? Because that's what it's meant IRL. I've heard 100 people on Reddit/Twitter saying "they just want to be left alone to do what they want" and "why do you care what people do with their own private lives (or in their bedroom)?". Then they spend all of their time gatekeeping and purity-testing the language and actions of every person they come into contact with.
  - thethirdone 4y ago
    I think society at large can and should be much more inclusive to people who don't fall cleanly into man and woman, but in the specific case of pregnancy, it seems trying remove all references to gender is challenging.
  - bequanna 4y ago
    I hear you, but please also consider that almost all people (trans or otherwise) experience social discomfort. For example, there are many more people who experience severe social anxiety than would identify as trans. Those people can have literal panic attacks and experience terrible fear and we aren’t considering redesigning society or language to accommodate them. Nor should we.
    - socialismisok 4y ago
      I'm curious why you feel this way. If we could find ways to make people with social anxiety more comfortable, why shouldn't we try to accommodate them?
      - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
        Anxiety comes from within. You cannot reorganize all of reality to be perfectly comfortable to you specifically, because reality is shared with others. Your safe space is a cost for everyone else. Fix your own head. It's more efficient.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        socialismisok 4y ago
        If only it were so simple. We make adjustments for people with all manner of neuroatypical behaviors. While it may feel like we should be able to just "fix" a mental health issue, sometimes it's not so simple. I'd prefer to live in a world where we support people in finding coping skills to work through their own anxieties AND we recognized some humans will always be outliers who would benefit from some affordances. We can do both.
      - funstuff007 4y ago
        It comes down to cost, and what costs society's are currently and consistently willing to bear. Would ADA laws have so much force if FDR were able bodied?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > If I go to my office and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender rooms, I do feel much less excluded. I'm not against gender neutral spaces. There's often no need to segregate by gender, and it makes no sense to do so if there is no need. What I don't understand is why you feel excluded. I don't feel an affinity to a gender either, but I understand that bathrooms labelled "mens" are generally intended to apply to people with penises, and bathrooms labelled "womens" a generally intended to apply to people with vaginas. That has nothing to do with any feelings I might or might not have about gender, and it's literally just a room. Why does it matter which one I/you use?
    - socialismisok 4y ago
      It's not something that can be rationally explained. Sorta like trying to explain why you don't like a taste. The mix of cultural history and labeling myself by entering a "men's" space is ... stressful. Same with people using "he". It's a automatic response I don't have much control over, but I've adapted to fairly well. Brains are wired to find different stimuli impacting or not. I've wondered if I am high functioning autistic at times, for a number of reasons unrelated to gender. Some of the "fight or flight" responses to, eg, the sounds of someone eating are very similar to the fight or flight response I have in a men's room. Ultimately, it's fairly textbook dysphoria and I've built up a lot of strategies so it's not super impactful day to day. But when I don't have to expend any of the energy employing those strategies, it's better.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    The problem with changing words is that women, females, who are more at risk of attack than males, lose their ability to have their own spaces and identities and to organize for their own safety. As we see they actually face attack for continuing to fight for their sex-based rights. That's identity appropriation. > I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda It doesn't have to be but it is. Look at the three-year long hate mob attacking Maya Forstater and JK Rowling because they objected to losing sex-based language. They both receive many credible death threats. That's bullying to push an agenda. Even when this is sugar coated it's a poison pill. Accepting that males could be "trans women" immediately requires you to accept that they should use the women's washroom despite being the wrong sex and that sex being the large dangerous one. (Females in male spaces isn't a safety issue so I'm ignoring it for now.) > people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women. Occam's razor would suggest that if a person is pregnant they probably aren't a man. Being that man basically means "the people who don't get pregnant". That is the difference between sexes. > The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men." That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear. You say that as if your trans man friend will vanish in a puff of logic. Nobody is denying that they exist or threatening to make it happen and it's emotional blackmail to exaggerate like that. There's a middle ground we could shoot for. These people would probably agree your TM friend was Masc (/Femme), because as a newly created word it doesn't have an existing meaning and isn't used to gate access to single-sex spaces like prisons. You use words like "comfort", "support", "included" and say that you feel uncomfortable entering "gendered" spaces. I submit that women are not supported, not included, are uncomfortable, and actually are unsafe when men enter women's spaces.
- Latty 4y ago
  When it comes to medicine, people not realising something applies to them can have negative health outcomes. Trying to produce the language that ensures everyone can understand if something applies to them is valuable. To be clear: I don't think that just means using inclusive language, you may need to specify more to help people understand that language if it isn't in common use, or whatever. I don't think there is a simple one-size-fits-all solution, but I think just assuming gendered language is good enough is clearly sub-optimal, and best terms that clarify the specific group in question are the best starting point.
- JBits 4y ago
  This aligns with my opinions so you're not really disagreeing with me. Most of the comments here never established what's actually being discussed. Personally I think a big source of contention is that a lot of people don't accept exceptions to words.
adastra22 4y ago
But the gender-inclusive language is not clear. It was downright confusing to be honest. If I were pregnant, anxious and trying to find info online, I wouldn’t want to wade through that either. The purpose of language is to communicate clearly, not to make you feel included.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  >The purpose of language is to communicate clearly, not to make you feel included. My brother was mentally ill his whole life; she is trans now. I showed her this comment and we both agreed. It’s a good way to put it. We can try and do both, but clearly has to come before feelings.
- anon291 4y ago
  My wife left her online breastfeeding support group after several incidents of obvious males (self identified trans women) would join, despite not even having children. They just wanted to observe the moms breastfeeding. It's just not a comfortable space anymore. Very sad.
  - cluedos 4y ago
    That is disgusting, but sadly not unexpected these days. The elephant in the room is that many 'transwomen' identify as so because of sexual fetishism; these men want to become the pornified image they have of women. It's easily witnessed in their forums, for example the 'MtF' subreddit, there are countless posts of men asking if it's normal to be sexually aroused while cross-dressing, fetishising their own breasts, talking about their longing to be a 'hot woman', and so on.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default.If you prefer to go by "Ty": people ought to call you Ty- it may be inconvenient looking you up in AD (is it Tyler, or Tyson?) If someone who's pregnant wants me to address them as "sir" or "them", that's exactly what I'll do, even if the author of TFA may be offended.
LightHugger 4y ago
If you can just look at words differently... then the people being "accommodated" can just do exactly the same thing, in this case, and there is no reason to waste time energy or resources doing any of this.
concordDance 4y ago
Note that the benefits of using the new language and terms are also greatly exaggerated. Only the most fragile of people are going to commit suicide because of talk of "women" in pregnancy resources. And frankly with that level of fragility they probably weren't long for this world anyway.
bradleyjg 4y ago
I support the writer's hurt feeling but you can't justify not accomodating people because it requires looking at words differently. You can. This is feelings all the way down. Specifically whose feelings are going to be accommodated.
- JBits 4y ago
  Accomodation to receive good medical treatment is more important than accomodating feelings about words.
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    Those things don’t trade off against each other. What trades off is accommodating some people’s feelings about words vs accommodating other people’s feelings about words. Since these different feelings are about the same words both sets of feelings can’t be accommodated. When we as a society make our choice between two incompatible options we express our values.
  - jimbokun 4y ago
    Yes, why it is important to use clear words referring to biological sex, as that has far more important ramifications for medical treatment than gender identity.
    - JBits 4y ago
      I'm not sure what the best words to use are, as if many cis women find these gender neutral terms offensive, they have a right to complain and push back. However, trans men have a right not to be ignored, for their view in what they're called to be taken into account by the medical literature and for their existence and needs to be reflected in the medical literature.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  Feelings vs Fatalities When men are allowed into women's spaces - washrooms, rape shelters, and prisons - women and children die. We have single-sex spaces for a lot of very good reasons.
ouid 4y ago
In what way is this language accomodating trans people? English has a right to a word that means, "those who can get pregnant". Moreover, that word is women. You seem to want a new word that means, "i want people to treat me the way society treats women/men". This is not a problem with the language, you might argue that its a problem with society, but consider exactly what it is that you're asking for. Do you really have a right to be treated differently from other people? Its pretty easy to argue that men and women should be treated more equitably, but theres also a fair amount of structure in place to treat men and women differently to further that aim. Do you really think you have a right to opt into the perceived benefits of this attempt? It sounds like you really value the social divisions between men and women.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Assuming you mean all of this in good faith. > English has a right to a word that means, "those who can get pregnant". Moreover, that word is women. Yes, but language has to evolve with new information. We discovered and are now socially recognizing the existence of a different kind of human. We now have XX women, XY women, XX men, and XY men. So now XX women, XX men (and in the future potentially XY women) can get pregnant so there’s a desire to adapt to this new information and genericise the term. > Do you really think you have a right to opt into the perceived benefits of this attempt? If that’s how it worked that would be a good point but it isn’t. Trans folks didn’t choose to be trans. A trans woman is and always has been a woman and can’t just opt in to being a man. If you’ve ever talked to one you would know most of them try and fail because it destroys their mental health. And this should be intuitively obvious because if a gay trans woman could just choose to be a straight man they probably would without hesitation. No hormones, expensive surgeries, no extreme difficulty dating, being the political punching bag de jour, don’t have to worry about being hatecrimed or discriminated against. > It sounds like you really value the social divisions between men and women. No, in fact it’s the opposite. Trans people are some of the biggest proponents of abolishing gender roles and pointlessly gendered stuff. Trans people are all about breaking down those social divisions. Wanting to be seen and treated as the gender you are is not the same thing as reinforcing or valuing the divisions between genders. Again, it really comes down to that not being able to choose thing. If people could choose and trans men were really just masculine women then you would have a point. This also should be intuitive because there are feminine trans men and masculine trans women. If they could choose and it was based on presentation wouldn’t it have been a heck of a lot easier for them to not be trans?
jimbokun 4y ago
> I support the writer's hurt feeling but you can't justify not accomodating people because it requires looking at words differently. Why does that only apply to trans people and how they want to be addressed? What about cis-women that want to be addressed as women, but now the medical profession is refusing to grant them that basic request for dignity?
- JBits 4y ago
  I never said that cis women don't deserve this right. If you look my other responses in this thread you'll see that I have expressed that they do multiple times. I also don't just mean accomodation in terms of words: if trans men have any needs different to cis women, then medical literature on pregancy must include this when in circumstances where it's appropriate.
  - tanseydavid 4y ago
    > if trans men have any needs different to cis women, then medical literature on pregancy must... Serious question: do you suppose that that trans men have different needs than cis women (in a medical sense) with regard to pregnancy?
    - autoexec 4y ago
      They might find they have increased problems with gender dysphoria as their body changes during pregnancy. It might cause a number of problems that should be considered/monitored/treated by their doctors.
    - foldr 4y ago
      If they’ve undergone medical transitioning procedures (e.g. hormones), then yes, quite possibly.
    - JBits 4y ago
      I'm not familiar with the topic so I don't know, but it seems reasonable that the question at a minimum needs to be asked. That said, if they've transitioned they (I think) need to stop taking testosterone, which points out that hormone stuff could perhaps be different. There's also the social aspect of a man attending/needing typically women only support.

by JBits 4y ago

dmix 4y ago

It's worth asking whether anyone is actually being excluded merely because the words aren't generic enough. We can accept that a very small portion of the population doesn't fit into the definitions we commonly use without having to abandon them. It's obvious with good intentions but it seems like a silly hill to die on. Why can't we just accept as a community that when you say male/female there will always be a little [*] attached to it for the exceptions?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
socialismisok 4y ago
I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces. Many places offer gender neutral spaces (eg restrooms that are all genders). I don't require everyone to make me comfortable, but I do positively notice when someone does. If I go to my office and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender rooms, I do feel much less excluded. Not everyone is like me, but thousands or millions are. I do feel excluded by gendered language, and it does impact my ability to get work done, navigate social situations, etc.
- nadieyninguno1 4y ago
  > I am deeply uncomfortable in gendered spaces. I'm not trans or any of that sort - I'm generally uncomfortable around people. What I don't understand is, why impose upon others? To me, that's my cross to bear.
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    I literally said I don't impose it on others. Others make attempts to accommodate me and I feel more included as a result. If your workplace said, "we've got some private rooms to work if it would make you more comfortable, it'd be something you positively regard and would make you feel more included, right?
    - bequanna 4y ago
      Ah, but the whole genesis of this discussion is that many people are trying to impose it on others. I have absolutely no problem with gender neutral bathrooms. But I have a big problem with the name calling (“transphobe”), bullying, and shaming in some attempt to push an agenda where the upside is only fewer hurt feelings.
      - socialismisok 4y ago
        If I choose to say "pregnant people" and I explain that I'm choosing that word to intentionally include both pregnant women and pregnant non-women, is that shaming or bullying? If I then go to my peers and say, "heads up, the phrase 'pregnant women' might not include everyone who is pregnant", and they say, "oh, that makes sense, let me adjust my own language!", I think that's probably not shaming or bullying either. If, over time, those conversations spread and we see a general public movement to use "pregnant person", this again seems like good intentions without any particular agenda besides, "oh, of course. If we recognize trans men, then we should probably make sure we say pregnant people". I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda - it's people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women. The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men." That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear.
        dmix 4y ago
        > If I choose to say "pregnant people" and I explain that I'm choosing that word to intentionally include both pregnant women and pregnant non-women, is that shaming or bullying? Are you really just talking about yourself? You don't also expect everyone else to use the same language? You don't want every corporate website, school newsletter, teacher's curriculum, every Tweet from a public person, random Reddit comments, etc to also use your preferred language? Because that's what it's meant IRL. I've heard 100 people on Reddit/Twitter saying "they just want to be left alone to do what they want" and "why do you care what people do with their own private lives (or in their bedroom)?". Then they spend all of their time gatekeeping and purity-testing the language and actions of every person they come into contact with.
- thethirdone 4y ago
  I think society at large can and should be much more inclusive to people who don't fall cleanly into man and woman, but in the specific case of pregnancy, it seems trying remove all references to gender is challenging.
- bequanna 4y ago
  I hear you, but please also consider that almost all people (trans or otherwise) experience social discomfort. For example, there are many more people who experience severe social anxiety than would identify as trans. Those people can have literal panic attacks and experience terrible fear and we aren’t considering redesigning society or language to accommodate them. Nor should we.
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    I'm curious why you feel this way. If we could find ways to make people with social anxiety more comfortable, why shouldn't we try to accommodate them?
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      Anxiety comes from within. You cannot reorganize all of reality to be perfectly comfortable to you specifically, because reality is shared with others. Your safe space is a cost for everyone else. Fix your own head. It's more efficient.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - socialismisok 4y ago
        If only it were so simple. We make adjustments for people with all manner of neuroatypical behaviors. While it may feel like we should be able to just "fix" a mental health issue, sometimes it's not so simple. I'd prefer to live in a world where we support people in finding coping skills to work through their own anxieties AND we recognized some humans will always be outliers who would benefit from some affordances. We can do both.
    - funstuff007 4y ago
      It comes down to cost, and what costs society's are currently and consistently willing to bear. Would ADA laws have so much force if FDR were able bodied?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > If I go to my office and there are men's rooms, women's rooms, and all gender rooms, I do feel much less excluded. I'm not against gender neutral spaces. There's often no need to segregate by gender, and it makes no sense to do so if there is no need. What I don't understand is why you feel excluded. I don't feel an affinity to a gender either, but I understand that bathrooms labelled "mens" are generally intended to apply to people with penises, and bathrooms labelled "womens" a generally intended to apply to people with vaginas. That has nothing to do with any feelings I might or might not have about gender, and it's literally just a room. Why does it matter which one I/you use?
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    It's not something that can be rationally explained. Sorta like trying to explain why you don't like a taste. The mix of cultural history and labeling myself by entering a "men's" space is ... stressful. Same with people using "he". It's a automatic response I don't have much control over, but I've adapted to fairly well. Brains are wired to find different stimuli impacting or not. I've wondered if I am high functioning autistic at times, for a number of reasons unrelated to gender. Some of the "fight or flight" responses to, eg, the sounds of someone eating are very similar to the fight or flight response I have in a men's room. Ultimately, it's fairly textbook dysphoria and I've built up a lot of strategies so it's not super impactful day to day. But when I don't have to expend any of the energy employing those strategies, it's better.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  The problem with changing words is that women, females, who are more at risk of attack than males, lose their ability to have their own spaces and identities and to organize for their own safety. As we see they actually face attack for continuing to fight for their sex-based rights. That's identity appropriation. > I don't think changing the language is bullying, shaming, or pushing an agenda It doesn't have to be but it is. Look at the three-year long hate mob attacking Maya Forstater and JK Rowling because they objected to losing sex-based language. They both receive many credible death threats. That's bullying to push an agenda. Even when this is sugar coated it's a poison pill. Accepting that males could be "trans women" immediately requires you to accept that they should use the women's washroom despite being the wrong sex and that sex being the large dangerous one. (Females in male spaces isn't a safety issue so I'm ignoring it for now.) > people making changes that are logically consistent with how they experience the world. Again: if trans men exist, then pregnancy must occur in men and women. Occam's razor would suggest that if a person is pregnant they probably aren't a man. Being that man basically means "the people who don't get pregnant". That is the difference between sexes. > The reason you hear people react strongly is because they believe they have a simple logic, and people come in and say, "I deny that trans men exist, or I deny trans men are men." That's a pretty strong thing to say and a pretty strong thing to hear. You say that as if your trans man friend will vanish in a puff of logic. Nobody is denying that they exist or threatening to make it happen and it's emotional blackmail to exaggerate like that. There's a middle ground we could shoot for. These people would probably agree your TM friend was Masc (/Femme), because as a newly created word it doesn't have an existing meaning and isn't used to gate access to single-sex spaces like prisons. You use words like "comfort", "support", "included" and say that you feel uncomfortable entering "gendered" spaces. I submit that women are not supported, not included, are uncomfortable, and actually are unsafe when men enter women's spaces.
Latty 4y ago
When it comes to medicine, people not realising something applies to them can have negative health outcomes. Trying to produce the language that ensures everyone can understand if something applies to them is valuable. To be clear: I don't think that just means using inclusive language, you may need to specify more to help people understand that language if it isn't in common use, or whatever. I don't think there is a simple one-size-fits-all solution, but I think just assuming gendered language is good enough is clearly sub-optimal, and best terms that clarify the specific group in question are the best starting point.
JBits 4y ago
This aligns with my opinions so you're not really disagreeing with me. Most of the comments here never established what's actually being discussed. Personally I think a big source of contention is that a lot of people don't accept exceptions to words.

adastra22 4y ago

But the gender-inclusive language is not clear. It was downright confusing to be honest. If I were pregnant, anxious and trying to find info online, I wouldn’t want to wade through that either. The purpose of language is to communicate clearly, not to make you feel included.

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
>The purpose of language is to communicate clearly, not to make you feel included. My brother was mentally ill his whole life; she is trans now. I showed her this comment and we both agreed. It’s a good way to put it. We can try and do both, but clearly has to come before feelings.
anon291 4y ago
My wife left her online breastfeeding support group after several incidents of obvious males (self identified trans women) would join, despite not even having children. They just wanted to observe the moms breastfeeding. It's just not a comfortable space anymore. Very sad.
- cluedos 4y ago
  That is disgusting, but sadly not unexpected these days. The elephant in the room is that many 'transwomen' identify as so because of sexual fetishism; these men want to become the pornified image they have of women. It's easily witnessed in their forums, for example the 'MtF' subreddit, there are countless posts of men asking if it's normal to be sexually aroused while cross-dressing, fetishising their own breasts, talking about their longing to be a 'hot woman', and so on.
sangnoir 4y ago
Deferring to how people want to be called seem like the non-asshole default.If you prefer to go by "Ty": people ought to call you Ty- it may be inconvenient looking you up in AD (is it Tyler, or Tyson?) If someone who's pregnant wants me to address them as "sir" or "them", that's exactly what I'll do, even if the author of TFA may be offended.

LightHugger 4y ago

If you can just look at words differently... then the people being "accommodated" can just do exactly the same thing, in this case, and there is no reason to waste time energy or resources doing any of this.

concordDance 4y ago

Note that the benefits of using the new language and terms are also greatly exaggerated. Only the most fragile of people are going to commit suicide because of talk of "women" in pregnancy resources. And frankly with that level of fragility they probably weren't long for this world anyway.

bradleyjg 4y ago

I support the writer's hurt feeling but you can't justify not accomodating people because it requires looking at words differently. You can. This is feelings all the way down. Specifically whose feelings are going to be accommodated.

JBits 4y ago
Accomodation to receive good medical treatment is more important than accomodating feelings about words.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  Those things don’t trade off against each other. What trades off is accommodating some people’s feelings about words vs accommodating other people’s feelings about words. Since these different feelings are about the same words both sets of feelings can’t be accommodated. When we as a society make our choice between two incompatible options we express our values.
- jimbokun 4y ago
  Yes, why it is important to use clear words referring to biological sex, as that has far more important ramifications for medical treatment than gender identity.
  - JBits 4y ago
    I'm not sure what the best words to use are, as if many cis women find these gender neutral terms offensive, they have a right to complain and push back. However, trans men have a right not to be ignored, for their view in what they're called to be taken into account by the medical literature and for their existence and needs to be reflected in the medical literature.
LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
Feelings vs Fatalities When men are allowed into women's spaces - washrooms, rape shelters, and prisons - women and children die. We have single-sex spaces for a lot of very good reasons.

ouid 4y ago

In what way is this language accomodating trans people? English has a right to a word that means, "those who can get pregnant". Moreover, that word is women. You seem to want a new word that means, "i want people to treat me the way society treats women/men". This is not a problem with the language, you might argue that its a problem with society, but consider exactly what it is that you're asking for. Do you really have a right to be treated differently from other people? Its pretty easy to argue that men and women should be treated more equitably, but theres also a fair amount of structure in place to treat men and women differently to further that aim. Do you really think you have a right to opt into the perceived benefits of this attempt? It sounds like you really value the social divisions between men and women.

Spivak 4y ago
Assuming you mean all of this in good faith. > English has a right to a word that means, "those who can get pregnant". Moreover, that word is women. Yes, but language has to evolve with new information. We discovered and are now socially recognizing the existence of a different kind of human. We now have XX women, XY women, XX men, and XY men. So now XX women, XX men (and in the future potentially XY women) can get pregnant so there’s a desire to adapt to this new information and genericise the term. > Do you really think you have a right to opt into the perceived benefits of this attempt? If that’s how it worked that would be a good point but it isn’t. Trans folks didn’t choose to be trans. A trans woman is and always has been a woman and can’t just opt in to being a man. If you’ve ever talked to one you would know most of them try and fail because it destroys their mental health. And this should be intuitively obvious because if a gay trans woman could just choose to be a straight man they probably would without hesitation. No hormones, expensive surgeries, no extreme difficulty dating, being the political punching bag de jour, don’t have to worry about being hatecrimed or discriminated against. > It sounds like you really value the social divisions between men and women. No, in fact it’s the opposite. Trans people are some of the biggest proponents of abolishing gender roles and pointlessly gendered stuff. Trans people are all about breaking down those social divisions. Wanting to be seen and treated as the gender you are is not the same thing as reinforcing or valuing the divisions between genders. Again, it really comes down to that not being able to choose thing. If people could choose and trans men were really just masculine women then you would have a point. This also should be intuitive because there are feminine trans men and masculine trans women. If they could choose and it was based on presentation wouldn’t it have been a heck of a lot easier for them to not be trans?

jimbokun 4y ago

> I support the writer's hurt feeling but you can't justify not accomodating people because it requires looking at words differently. Why does that only apply to trans people and how they want to be addressed? What about cis-women that want to be addressed as women, but now the medical profession is refusing to grant them that basic request for dignity?

JBits 4y ago
I never said that cis women don't deserve this right. If you look my other responses in this thread you'll see that I have expressed that they do multiple times. I also don't just mean accomodation in terms of words: if trans men have any needs different to cis women, then medical literature on pregancy must include this when in circumstances where it's appropriate.
- tanseydavid 4y ago
  > if trans men have any needs different to cis women, then medical literature on pregancy must... Serious question: do you suppose that that trans men have different needs than cis women (in a medical sense) with regard to pregnancy?
  - autoexec 4y ago
    They might find they have increased problems with gender dysphoria as their body changes during pregnancy. It might cause a number of problems that should be considered/monitored/treated by their doctors.
  - foldr 4y ago
    If they’ve undergone medical transitioning procedures (e.g. hormones), then yes, quite possibly.
  - JBits 4y ago
    I'm not familiar with the topic so I don't know, but it seems reasonable that the question at a minimum needs to be asked. That said, if they've transitioned they (I think) need to stop taking testosterone, which points out that hormone stuff could perhaps be different. There's also the social aspect of a man attending/needing typically women only support.