> if you’re not trans you may not understand transphobia very well but it’s similar to white people saying they don’t think something is racist
This is just a terrible, terrible argument, that leads to a continual ratcheting up and broadening of the definition of "transphobia".
Transphobia should mean only "fear or hatred of trans people".
What it comes to mean, however: questioning self-identification, questioning trans women in women's sports, questioning trans women in women's spaces, questioning the use of puberty blockers in young children, among others. With these now defined as transphobia, it is no longer necessary to acknowledge any principled, genuine objections or concerns there, because even raising these topics is transphobic (or TERF) by definition. The sad thing here is, a frank discussion might indeed allow trans women and bio women to come to some accommodation, but insisting that some people are the only ones who can define certain words like transphobia elides those conversations.
No. Words matter and words belong to us all, not only to those who decide they want to determine the bounds of debate. I say all this with huge, massive respect to the gender warriors out there. I promise, these tactics win skirmishes but will lose the war.
> > if you’re not trans you may not understand transphobia very well but it’s similar to white people saying they don’t think something is racist
> This is just a terrible, terrible argument, that leads to a continual ratcheting up and broadening of the definition of "transphobia".
I don’t follow. While people not understanding racism is a very real phenomenon caused by the fact that white people in the USA are the dominant group and considered “raceless” and the “default” while non white people get all kinds of subtle discrimination regularly. It makes sense that non white people would be better judges of racism than many white people. Why would this not also make sense for trans people?
> It makes sense that non white people would be better judges of racism than many white people.
I don’t get this
Racism is a clearly defined concept - from Oxford dictionary:
1. prejudice, discrimination or antagonism against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular ethnic group
2. the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another.
Why do you think some races are better than others at judging racism ?
I have had black friends point out incidents of anti-Black racism to me that I definitely hadn't seen before, but I have as often had black friends perceive racism where definitely none existed, and black friends who did not see it where it definitely did. It happens enough, that I think only people who don't have much interaction with different races and classes would believe that only black people can tell what racism is. People have all degrees of sensitivity, empathy, perceptivity and hair-trigger paranoia; sometimes in the same person.
A blanket ban would be I think. Having a blanket ban demonstrates that you are judging transgender people on their transgender status alone, rather than making an evidence-based assessment of whether a particular athlete has an unfair advantage.
The International Olympic Committee, for example, has a framework for precisely this (you can read it here, it's pretty easy going: https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/News/2021/11/I... ) and I think it demonstrates really well that they've put a good amount of thought into being fair.
I think you'd have a hard time saying that the IOC framework is discrimination.
> Is-it discrimination to forbid trans-women to participate in the same sports category as bio-women?
It is absolutely discrimination to discriminate between cisgender and transgender competitors.
Whether it is acceptable discrimination is a value question, whether it is legal or permissible discrimination depends on the relevant law and rule framework, but it is unmistakably discrimination.
> This is just a terrible, terrible argument, that leads to a continual ratcheting up and broadening of the definition of "transphobia".
> Transphobia should mean only "fear or hatred of trans people".
> What it comes to mean, however: questioning self-identification, questioning trans women in women's sports, questioning trans women in women's spaces, questioning the use of puberty blockers in young children, among others. With these now defined as transphobia, it is no longer necessary to acknowledge any principled, genuine objections or concerns there, because even raising these topics is transphobic (or TERF) by definition. The sad thing here is, a frank discussion might indeed allow trans women and bio women to come to some accommodation, but insisting that some people are the only ones who can define certain words like transphobia elides those conversations.
> No. Words matter and words belong to us all, not only to those who decide
If you're opposing transgender people's attempts to secure rights that they are attempting to secure, why should you not be labelled as "transphobic" just because you personally feel that they might be able to get some more limited set if rights that you, as a cis person, are willing to give them?
It's like complaining that people are calling you "racist" for supporting segregation even though you personally feel that segregation is best for black people and therefore you aren't opposing equal rights.
> rights that you, as a cis person, are willing to give them?
The problem with these particular "rights" is that they are not actually rights, but impositions on the rights of others.
It's disingenuous to compare being trans to race or being gay. Race and orientation is an immutable characteristic of the person.
As yet, gender dysmorphia is recognized as a mental illness, which requires therapy, hormones and surgery to accommodate or treat. Arguments about these particular trans rights can also apply to, for example, the rights of schizophrenics to have their delusions indulged by everyone else.
With self-identification, the problem of "rights" becomes even more intractable, because unlike race or orientation, one can just declare oneself "trans" and thereby gain access to, say, physically weaker athletic opponents. Or to more vulnerable sexual prey, in the case of prisons.
> Race and orientation is an immutable characteristic of the person.
That is no more true that it is of gender identity.
> As yet, gender dysmorphia is recognized as a mental illness
So was homosexuality (also, you’ve confused dysphoria with dysmorphia. Also also, the diagnosable condition of gender dysphoria is not the same thing as having transgender identity; they are distinct.)
> which requires therapy, hormones and surgery to accommodate or treat.
People often get therapy, hormonal treatments, and surgery to deal with the failure of their body to conform to their image of their gender assigned at birth, but we don't call the need for these things a “mental illness” or gatekeep access to gender affirming treatments aligned with gender assigned at birth on distress reaching the dangerous levels that would be diagnosable as a mental illness.
> I think GP believes that race and orientation is mutable
Not particularly.
Race and gender are social constructs, and ones identity (and orientation, in the latter case) with regard to either is formed early – and, once formed, immutable or nearly so – as a product of innate traits interacting with socialization around the construct.
(The fact that gender identity can diverge from socially ascribed gender, resulting in demands to alter the latter to conform with the former, does not make gender identity mutable, in much the same way that the fact that people might mistake your race for a different one than your indentity doesn’t make racial identity mutable.)
I'll reiterate my previous comment then: the existence of detransitioners proves that gender identity is mutable.
From reading the accounts of detransitioners, gender identity seems to be more like a political or religious belief than anything else - often stable for long periods of time, but given the right circumstances, can be changed.
I don't think you have argued very well, here. Just minimally addressed some points, ignored others.
>> Race and orientation is an immutable characteristic of the person.
> That is no more true that it is of gender identity.
Not an argument. Clever rejoinders will not convince people that mentally ill men should be in women's prisons or sports teams. You will have to actually engage with the concerns that people have. How do you deal with self-identification and predatory men going into women's locker rooms? Just denying that it could ever happen is not going to work.
>> As yet, gender dysmorphia is recognized as a mental illness
> So was homosexuality
Not an argument. Declassifying homosexuality as a mental illness does not mean gender dysphoria is not.
As for the rest, we literally do call that behavior mental illness.
I'm fine with people doing whatever they want with their own bodies as long as their behavior doesn't impact other people.
Taking female hormones, great. Taking female hormones and then insisting that everyone else perceive them as women is not.
This is just a terrible, terrible argument, that leads to a continual ratcheting up and broadening of the definition of "transphobia".
Transphobia should mean only "fear or hatred of trans people".
What it comes to mean, however: questioning self-identification, questioning trans women in women's sports, questioning trans women in women's spaces, questioning the use of puberty blockers in young children, among others. With these now defined as transphobia, it is no longer necessary to acknowledge any principled, genuine objections or concerns there, because even raising these topics is transphobic (or TERF) by definition. The sad thing here is, a frank discussion might indeed allow trans women and bio women to come to some accommodation, but insisting that some people are the only ones who can define certain words like transphobia elides those conversations.
No. Words matter and words belong to us all, not only to those who decide they want to determine the bounds of debate. I say all this with huge, massive respect to the gender warriors out there. I promise, these tactics win skirmishes but will lose the war.