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This argument, that it’s the trans community that is intolerant and not those who don’t fully accept trans gender identities as legitimate, is simplistic and in

by _jab 4y ago

This argument, that it’s the trans community that is intolerant and not those who don’t fully accept trans gender identities as legitimate, is simplistic and in bad faith. The problem is that a lack of genuine acceptance of trans identities (i.e. that trans men are men, and trans women are women) inevitably leads to trans people _not_ being treated the way they want to be treated. The classic examples of these are bathrooms and athletics. Trans people want to use the bathrooms and compete on athletics teams corresponding to their identity. It sure feels like intolerance when this choice is denied from trans people. I don’t know your own personal views, but it’s certainly not the case that “the vast majority of people” are aligned with trans people on the above issues.

MauranKilom 4y ago
> Trans people want to use the bathrooms and compete on athletics teams corresponding to their identity. I know I'm not the first person ever one to bring this up, but it's unclear to me how letting someone with (largely) the physique of a man compete against women is acceptable. There's a reason why (competitive) sports are usually divided by male/female, and that reason still overall holds for someone who is trans. There's a lot of gray area here depending on if and when they undertook HRT, sure, but labelling this as "intolerance" is not right in my book.
- fluoridation 4y ago
  It seems to me that the only fair way to let trans and cis athletes compete on level ground on the same event is to have a competition that completely ignores both sex and gender.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    I would be all for such events, and while you are it allow doping and ban all equipment including clothing. Make it truly even field.
- lapinot 4y ago
  > There's a reason why (competitive) sports are usually divided by male/female This division is arbitrary. The reason for this is the premise of fair competition that identical people should compete. Yet white males dominate male swimming whereas black males dominate male sprinting. There have been physiological explanations based on center of mass things afaik. Knowing that, why don't we split the competitions accordingly? Martial arts have categories based on weight, why shouldn't we have categories based on arm-length or blood volume? It's easy to see that the whole premise of fair competition is very naïve: where do you stop? What are the criteria for determining if competitors are "identical enough"? Choosing these criteria will be a political choice. Transgender people in sports are disturbing the status quo, but they just made apparent the inherent instability of the thing. Now i don't know about you, but when i personally do sports, for one i'm not good enough that physiological characteristics make the greatest differences: this problem mostly appears when we reach the limits, by "optimal training". Second, i'm playing as an amateur, that is for entertainment and for the art of it, which means that i will mostly play to be part of a good game, show off and see nice skill displays, and share this experience with other people, some of them with different levels of training and physical capabilities. I just wanted to say that this thread is imho unrelated to the issues of transgender and more to the fact that competitive sports is broken and the political struggle between professional and amateur sport.
  - thesid 4y ago
    > This division is arbitrary what the hell, how is Men's and Women's sports categorization arbitrary? its clearly defined who plays in which category.
    - lapinot 4y ago
      What the hell are you talking about? Being well-defined and arbitrary are two orthogonal things.
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    >The reason for this is the premise of fair competition that identical people should compete. No, actually the reason is that it makes both watching and competing more interesting. A competition where women never got anywhere near first place would mean women would simply stop showing up (or vice versa). A boxing championship with no weight classes would mean no lightweight boxers would sign up. On the other hand, with enough subcategories you can get to the point where some competitors win by default, or where you have championships of one or two matches. So no, it's not arbitrary to separate competitors by some physical characteristics and not others. There are practical reasons to do so that are unrelated to the whims of organizers.
AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
[dead]
nullsense 4y ago
>The problem is that a lack of genuine acceptance of trans identities (i.e. that trans men are men, and trans women are women) inevitably leads to trans people _not_ being treated the way they want to be treated. This is an interesting one. I definitely find being told I have to accept that "trans women are women" off putting and like the Aesop's fable with the wind and the sun, it feels like the wind blowing and makes me want to hold on to that jacket tighter. The way I see it, trans women are trans women, and trans men are trans men. They occupy a different category in my mind than either. I'm trying to imagine how I would feel going to either bathroom as a trans person, and the only answer I can come up with is "riddled with anxiety".
lelanthran 4y ago
[flagged]
- fn-mote 4y ago
  > Attacking people on these two points will be an attack that is almost exclusively on women, and society doesn't tolerate that. Given the prevalence of sexual violence in our society and the difficulty of getting an appropriate response, I find this statement incredibly ironic. (Out of context, I admit, but it's hard to reconcile the two views.) #MeToo is one source of evidence that society absolutely tolerates attacks on women. [1] No citations - live your own life, do your own reading, make your own conclusions.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > Given the prevalence of sexual violence in our society and the difficulty of getting an appropriate response, I find this statement incredibly ironic. (Out of context, I admit, but it's hard to reconcile the two views.) > > #MeToo is one source of evidence that society absolutely tolerates attacks on women. Isn't that evidence that society doesn't tolerate these things? Once it was out in the open, society rushed to condemn it. Everywhere. Everyone. It could only happen when society did not know about it. When it was kept secret. Society absolutely does not tolerate attacks on women, as the #MeToo movement showed.

by _jab 4y ago

MauranKilom 4y ago

> Trans people want to use the bathrooms and compete on athletics teams corresponding to their identity. I know I'm not the first person ever one to bring this up, but it's unclear to me how letting someone with (largely) the physique of a man compete against women is acceptable. There's a reason why (competitive) sports are usually divided by male/female, and that reason still overall holds for someone who is trans. There's a lot of gray area here depending on if and when they undertook HRT, sure, but labelling this as "intolerance" is not right in my book.

fluoridation 4y ago
It seems to me that the only fair way to let trans and cis athletes compete on level ground on the same event is to have a competition that completely ignores both sex and gender.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I would be all for such events, and while you are it allow doping and ban all equipment including clothing. Make it truly even field.
lapinot 4y ago
> There's a reason why (competitive) sports are usually divided by male/female This division is arbitrary. The reason for this is the premise of fair competition that identical people should compete. Yet white males dominate male swimming whereas black males dominate male sprinting. There have been physiological explanations based on center of mass things afaik. Knowing that, why don't we split the competitions accordingly? Martial arts have categories based on weight, why shouldn't we have categories based on arm-length or blood volume? It's easy to see that the whole premise of fair competition is very naïve: where do you stop? What are the criteria for determining if competitors are "identical enough"? Choosing these criteria will be a political choice. Transgender people in sports are disturbing the status quo, but they just made apparent the inherent instability of the thing. Now i don't know about you, but when i personally do sports, for one i'm not good enough that physiological characteristics make the greatest differences: this problem mostly appears when we reach the limits, by "optimal training". Second, i'm playing as an amateur, that is for entertainment and for the art of it, which means that i will mostly play to be part of a good game, show off and see nice skill displays, and share this experience with other people, some of them with different levels of training and physical capabilities. I just wanted to say that this thread is imho unrelated to the issues of transgender and more to the fact that competitive sports is broken and the political struggle between professional and amateur sport.
- thesid 4y ago
  > This division is arbitrary what the hell, how is Men's and Women's sports categorization arbitrary? its clearly defined who plays in which category.
  - lapinot 4y ago
    What the hell are you talking about? Being well-defined and arbitrary are two orthogonal things.
- fluoridation 4y ago
  >The reason for this is the premise of fair competition that identical people should compete. No, actually the reason is that it makes both watching and competing more interesting. A competition where women never got anywhere near first place would mean women would simply stop showing up (or vice versa). A boxing championship with no weight classes would mean no lightweight boxers would sign up. On the other hand, with enough subcategories you can get to the point where some competitors win by default, or where you have championships of one or two matches. So no, it's not arbitrary to separate competitors by some physical characteristics and not others. There are practical reasons to do so that are unrelated to the whims of organizers.

AlgorithmicTime 4y ago

[dead]

nullsense 4y ago

>The problem is that a lack of genuine acceptance of trans identities (i.e. that trans men are men, and trans women are women) inevitably leads to trans people _not_ being treated the way they want to be treated. This is an interesting one. I definitely find being told I have to accept that "trans women are women" off putting and like the Aesop's fable with the wind and the sun, it feels like the wind blowing and makes me want to hold on to that jacket tighter. The way I see it, trans women are trans women, and trans men are trans men. They occupy a different category in my mind than either. I'm trying to imagine how I would feel going to either bathroom as a trans person, and the only answer I can come up with is "riddled with anxiety".

lelanthran 4y ago

[flagged]

fn-mote 4y ago
> Attacking people on these two points will be an attack that is almost exclusively on women, and society doesn't tolerate that. Given the prevalence of sexual violence in our society and the difficulty of getting an appropriate response, I find this statement incredibly ironic. (Out of context, I admit, but it's hard to reconcile the two views.) #MeToo is one source of evidence that society absolutely tolerates attacks on women. [1] No citations - live your own life, do your own reading, make your own conclusions.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > Given the prevalence of sexual violence in our society and the difficulty of getting an appropriate response, I find this statement incredibly ironic. (Out of context, I admit, but it's hard to reconcile the two views.) > > #MeToo is one source of evidence that society absolutely tolerates attacks on women. Isn't that evidence that society doesn't tolerate these things? Once it was out in the open, society rushed to condemn it. Everywhere. Everyone. It could only happen when society did not know about it. When it was kept secret. Society absolutely does not tolerate attacks on women, as the #MeToo movement showed.