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Can You Help? I’m Confused About Transgender and Women’s Rights
As a lawyer, I try to understand the arguments for the “other side” regardless of whether I might agree with them. Being able to argue my opponent’s position sometimes reveals opportunities for agreement or settlement, and highlights weaknesses in my own position that I may need to shore up.
But I’m having trouble with recent developments in the “transgender” rights, specifically the court in Canada that is considering whether to require female employees of a grooming salon to view and to handle the private parts of a man who apparently wants to pretend he is a woman, and the US “Equality” Act that has been passed by the House of Representatives that would require women and girls to be exposed to men in women’s spaces such as restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, and showers.
In 2017 (just two years ago), the “Me Too” movement insisted that it is wrong for women and girls to be involuntarily exposed to men’s “private parts” or to require women and girls to expose their own “private parts” to men. The participants of the “Me Too” movement told us that such actions constituted morally wrong (and in some cases criminal) sexual harassment.
Now, the Canadian court and the US Congress are considering laws that would require women and girls to subject themselves to viewing men’s “private parts” if the man chooses to expose them in personal grooming businesses, in locker rooms, in bathrooms, and perhaps other places. In some cases (locker room, changing room, shower), the women and girls would be forced to expose their own “private parts” to this person who looks to them to be a man.
The women and girls see the same result whether it’s Harvey Weinstein or some guy who for some reason thinks he’s a woman. The women and girls do not know what is going through the man’s mind. Also, note that most demands for “transgender rights” insist that no one can question an individual’s “transgender” status or require that the person make any affirmative assertion or offer any proof about a “transgender” status.
I can’t see any interpretation other than that these transgender rights laws would require women and girls to submit to actions that have been deemed wrongful sexual harassment.
But I do not hear the “Me Too” proponents screaming “no” about the current “transgender rights” demands. That lack of outrage causes me to suspect that I’m missing some logical consistency between the demands of women to be free from exposure to men’s privates and the “transgender rights” demands that women must submit to exposure to men’s privates.
What logical thread am I missing that allows these two systems of rights to coexist? And if there is an inherent conflict, why am I not hearing more objections from the “Me Too” movement?
Published in Culture
I do believe that God will step in at some point and make reality clear, regardless of human opinion.
As long as you don’t impose it on me we can agree on that arrangement.
I didn’t mean to suggest that you should go along with my religion or philosophy. Only that religion, philosophy, and political science aren’t arbitrary preferences. They are informed by fact along with other unprovable assumptions. Western Civ happens to be centered around some specific mix of ideas and its track record is pretty good, but certainly not perfect.
Faith not freely chosen is not Faith. The logic of imposing religion escapes me. Wish it escaped the progressives, also.
It’s really not a question of requiring me to hold Ed’s faith. The question is whether I’ll be subject to laws derived from, and somewhat idiosyncratic to, his faith. And it’s a challenging question because many laws that few object to are consistent with Ed’s, and many other, faiths. But we also have a history of laws derived from faith that have little, let’s call it “objective,” support: laws that don’t prevent objective harms but merely offend tenets of a faith.
No, we’re not. Remember how the progressives vilified Mike Pence for his sensible policy of never being alone with a woman? Even setting the whole transgender question to one side, such guardrails are wrong if they in any way distinguish between men and women.
Suppose two salesmen are on a business trip, they have a few drinks at the bar, talk sales strategy over a steak dinner, then they go back upstairs to a hotel room and work on a PowerPoint deck for the big presentation tomorrow until 2:00 AM. Now tweak the scenario slightly so that one of the salesmen is actually a saleswoman. The New Think view holds that her male colleague should treat her exactly the same way as he would any male colleague, including inviting her up to his room after dinner and drinks to work on the sales presentation. Treating her differently on account of her
sexgender would besexistgenderist?@fullsizetabby – it all hinges on whether a trans woman is a woman (regardless of genitals) or whether a trans woman is a man (because of genitals).
Factor that into the assumption that women can be naked in front of women without it being sexual (sorry lesbians) and that men can be naked in front of men without it being sexual (sorry gay men) and that people can’t be naked with other people who might tick some of their boxes without it being automatically sexual.
That’s my understanding of it, but truly: if you genuinely want to understand the opposing side’s position you should ask the opposing side rather than your own to explain it to you.
Surely there is a trans woman out there somewhere who would be happy to go over this with you?
This seems a bit ‘woke’, but perhaps start here: https://askthetranspeople.tumblr.com/
Is there an objective answer to that question? Or is it all subjective?
All human perception is subjective. People just do the best they can.
I still think it’s weird to shower with anyone.
If the outcome of all this is that communal bathrooms are replaced by private, single-occupancy shower stalls and toilet facilities, I shall be quite pleased with that result, even if I disagree with some of the reasoning that got us there.
Yeah, but at least the attempt should be made to perceive reality. I am all for being courteous, but “let’s pretend” is getting ridiculous.
Agreed. Although the progressives are attempting to impose lays that don’t prevent objective harms but merely prevent offenses to the tenants of progressive faith. I don’t want those laws, either. Europe and Canada now regulate speech heavily.
Perception is subjective. Maybe ‘they’ really don’t perceive reality the way you do.
Who’s to say whose perception is closer to objective truth?
For eg wrt does sex determine gender? The answer may be ‘obvious’ to both sides of this debate, but I’m pretty sure their answers would be different.
Perhaps we can add bathroom remodels to the Green New Deal, since we’re going to be rehabbing every building in America anyway.
I agree. Progressivism, as it’s developing its theory of wokeness and identity politics, is becoming a lot like a very puritanical and intolerant religion. I don’t like it either.
I think where we’re getting hung up is that among the woke, there is no longer an acknowledgement of a distinction between sex and gender. Gender is considered subjective and either sex = gender or it’s just verboten to talk about sex.
One could logically say “I acknowledge that gender is subjective and does not always correspond to sex, but sex is biological and fixed by nature, and our bathrooms are segregated by sex, not gender.” But that won’t fly on the left.
Why are our bathrooms segregated by sex and not gender?
Well the short answer is they are because they always have been and because not long ago nobody thought there was any difference.
But I assume the question you’re getting at is “should they be?” That’s a question that can be asked, but my point would be that it’d be a lot easier to discuss that question clearly and openly if we were permitted to acknowledge that biological sex is still a thing, even if it’s not everything.
The thing about the left these days that irritates so many people is the effort to pretend that it’s not, that there’s really only (subjective) gender, that biology either doesn’t exist or so clearly doesn’t matter that it doesn’t even merit discussion, and therefore that there’s no other choice to even consider other than segregation by (subjective) gender.
That’s not a good faith discussion. That’s an attempt to eliminate discussion by pre-emptively ruling one side (and again, a side that had nearly 100% consensus support until yesterday) completely out of bounds and beyond the pale.
It’s hardly surprising that it leaves a lot of people who are accustomed to the way things have always been saying “like hell . . . .” And it doesn’t help that this insistence on sudden and radical change without any discussion is playing out in spaces inhabited mostly by children.
Yes, because “it’s always been this way” doesn’t work for me and doesn’t work for most gay men I know. It’s a lousy argument, from where I’m sitting. (And I’m assuming from where you sit as well. ??)
Ignoring the fact of biology makes no sense to me either.
I think to some degree it’s a reaction to “sex=gender” (response “gender has nothing to do with sex”) – I think neither of these statements is true – and it bugs me that we can’t do better. (If we don’t.)
With “we” definitely meaning gay people, and to some extent meaning progressive people as well.
We should know better than to respond to issues about gender with dumbed down binaries. If it didn’t work well or make sense for us why would it do any better for other people?
#gaypeopleyouarebetterthanthis!!
That said, it is
arguableclear that some public spaces are organised along the lines of gender – so it invites a deeper look at whether trans and cis women are the same gender, or are in fact different genders. My feeling is different, but I also don’t think trans women are just men who need a higher dose of prozac. And I’m not convinced that this should automatically mean different bathrooms. (Or that it shouldn’t.)It’s a function of (some) cis women feeling unsafe around trans women – because so many women feel unsafe around men. I’m pretty sure that cis men wouldn’t be similarly disturbed by trans men in the men’s bathroom – in fact I doubt we’d even notice they were there. You got it, I’m blaming straight men again. (Gotta watch that tendency…..)
How could anyone think this might work?
You’d think we’d have learned from our own experience, right?
To the extent that this is actually a response, I think it’s actually short hand for: it’s always been this way because it obviously reflects reality and because it works.
First, I don’t think the existing system is dumbed down binaries. It centers around a biological binary which I think you acknowledge it consequential. However, we also have common modifiers to the binary to account for variations (which are also biological to some extent). Masculine, feminine, butch, mannish, dainty, etc.
This is a different question, qualitatively, than homosexuality. To be a whole trans person, one does in fact need medication and surgery, and in most (many) cases drugs and surgery will never achieve the desired result of satisfaction and acceptance for people. Then there’s likely real variation within the category of trans itself. I assume for some people therapy to help get comfortable with who they are would be both more successful and more ethical than transformative surgeries and drug regimens.
Plus, we’re talking about so few people that there’s better ways to accommodate than by radical societal change. But accommodation isn’t the goal, it seems to me. All that talk about how cis people would be wrong to not want to date trans people who putatatively line up is just…. unrealistic. One way or the other, trans people are in for lifelong hardship in many ways similar to people with physical disabilities or even to people who simply aren’t blessed with attractive features.
I think that Basil’s point is that it has a history of working that way in the culture wars, SSM in particular.
It doesn’t work, or rather make sense to, enough people that it’s being challenged.
Whether this challenge succeeds or not, in the long run, remains to be seen.
These modifiers are about appearance, not (alleged) essence.
I get that there are people who see the trans thing as a matter of appearance rather than essence, but trans people don’t see it that way – and neither, apparently, does a critical mass of the rest of us.
Liberalism requires no logic. Rights are made up spur of the moment to cover the situation, and you’ll be damned if you don’t agree with them . . .
I was with you until you crossed our “arguable” and inserted “clear.” If you’re talking about communal bathrooms and showers, I don’t think it’s at all clear that they’re organized by gender rather than sex. I can listen to an argument that they should be. But the notion that it’s “clear” that they are just seems ahistorical and not in accord with common experience to me.
I agree that trans people are not just cis people in need of prozac. That’s why I advocated earlier for treating them with respect. You and I know, even if some of our fellow ricochetti don’t, that most people don’t voluntarily sign up for the kinds of stigma that come with self-identifying this way.
Last response I’ll have is that I’m not sure this is only a trans women in the women’s bathroom thing. I suspect lots of cis men have similar issues with trans men in those spaces. Maybe it’s a less common concern among men, but it’s not non-existent.
I don’t think these modifiers are just about appearance. They account for personality, attractions, interests, reactions. I also think that there is some really small percent of people who simply experience dysmorphia and require some kind of treatment one way or the other.
Is essence the secular version of soul? In any event, how can such a subjective thing be of any practical use on common life (as opposed to inner life)? If the trend is to continue plotting individual essences along an infinite spectrum then the answer is that of course it’s not practical. If the answer is simply to rename or plot the existing taxonomy onto a new scale with new names like the Romans did with the Greeks, then what is the point again?
It’s being responded to in a lot of the ways that male homosexuality was.
That seems like it might be an indicator that how traditional society views trans people is linked to how they view/viewed homosexuality.
Fair point, though I’m not sure that medication/surgery is an obvious marker of qualitative difference for everybody who’s looking at this issue.
That’s the thing. If only trans people cared about this then it would go nowhere.
Just like if only black people cared about civil rights the civil rights movement wouldn’t have had the impact it has.
Ditto if only gay people cared about SSM.
It is a broader issue about self-definition, and if Conservatives ignore that about trans issues I think they miss the point.
My point was that it’s pretty much how society dealt with gay rights for many, many years.