So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Ticklishchap]

"Self-definition." Therein lies the rub.

Sure, every person can choose for his- or her- or non-gender-binary-self how to identify or "define." But demanding that others accede to that "definition" is to believe that a person can control how others perceive him or her or non-gender-binary individual.

A person born male who wishes to present as female does me no injury. And, as I have no control over what that person thinks, I won't waste any energy on it. But if what I see is a man in makeup and women's clothing, well, I'm not about to apologize for that.

I really am sceptical about the whole thing. There is a rich tradition of female impersonation - as in La Cage Aux Folles - but that is not actually claiming to 'be' female. It involves acting and using the imagination. I can't say that I really believe a man can genuinely 'become' a woman or a woman 'become' a man. The physiological and emotional differences between the sexes are too strong. And that's good: the idea of interchangeability and 'self-definition' seems a dystopian nightmare.

 

[Ticklishchap]

It's certainly a difficult area. There can certainly be tension between the two, and I've certainly heard of cases where parents, for example, seek to raise their child as transgender because the child doesn't seem to fit in with their gender role norms - or, as you note, the kid might just be gay and they want to 'fix' them. I think a lot of people also struggle with the distinction between gender and sexuality, which doesn't help.

I also think that the conflation of gay men and lesbians - again by activists not 'real' people living from day to day - causes problems. The two 'groups' (if we have to define people in group terms) have very little in common culturally or socially.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I really am sceptical about the whole thing. There is a rich tradition of female impersonation - as in La Cage Aux Folles - but that is not actually claiming to 'be' female. It involves acting and using the imagination. I can't say that I really believe a man can genuinely 'become' a woman or a woman 'become' a man. The physiological and emotional differences between the sexes are too strong. And that's good: the idea of interchangeability and 'self-definition' seems a dystopian nightmare.

I've known a few transpeople as friends, and have found that there's a far, far valley between them and impersonators. They'd agree with you that a man can't become a woman, and a woman can't become a man -- that, in fact, is the root of their own personal dilemma. For them, gender identity and the physical body are two very different and separate things. One of them explained it to me this way: "Imagine going thru your entire life wearing a pair of shoes that didn't fit. Everybody thinks they look good on you, everybody thinks they're exactly the kind of shoes you ought to wear, but you know they don't fit, and every step you take reinforces how much they hurt your feet." And then she said "It's a lot easier to change your shoes than it is to change your feet." That was how she expereinced her life -- who am I to argue with her experience?

As for what people look like, well, my great aunt the longshoreman was bigger and more muscular than a lot of the men I know, and had a dirtier mouth to boot. She was, as they said in the Era, "quite mannish," but she was still a woman. Q. E. D.

As for the whole GBLQTIA spectrum, I suspect the main reason they've all come together for purposes of advocacy is that, while they don't really have all that much in common among themselves, they do have one thing in common: they tend to be oppressed by the same types of people.

 

[tonyb]

I've known a few transpeople as friends, and have found that there's a far, far valley between them and impersonators. They'd agree with you that a man can't become a woman, and a woman can't become a man -- that, in fact, is the root of their own personal dilemma. For them, gender identity and the physical body are two very different and separate things. One of them explained it to me this way: "Imagine going thru your entire life wearing a pair of shoes that didn't fit. Everybody thinks they look good on you, everybody thinks they're exactly the kind of shoes you ought to wear, but you know they don't fit, and every step you take reinforces how much they hurt your feet." And then she said "It's a lot easier to change your shoes than it is to change your feet." That was how she expereinced her life -- who am I to argue with her experience?

As for what people look like, well, my great aunt the longshoreman was bigger and more muscular than a lot of the men I know, and had a dirtier mouth to boot. She was, as they said in the Era, "quite mannish," but she was still a woman. Q. E. D.

As for the whole GBLQTIA spectrum, I suspect the main reason they've all come together for purposes of advocacy is that, while they don't really have all that much in common among themselves, they do have one thing in common: they tend to be oppressed by the same types of people.

There was a story in The New Yorker a couple three or four years ago about an annual gathering of some decades' standing -- exclusively women, mostly lesbian -- and the factionalizing within that community over trans women and whether they would be welcome there.

These discussions inevitably address the degree to which gender is a biological reality or a social construct. A case might be made that gender is more innate than, say, race. (Physical attributes -- skin color, for instance -- versus what we make of those characteristics in the social sphere.) And some would argue, more of less convincingly, that gender can't be defined by plumbing.

The degree to which personal identity ought matter in the life of an individual or a society is certainly debatable. Still, I couldn't help but watch on in amazement at some people of my acquaintance opining on how the case of Rachel Dolezal, the head of the Spokane, Wash. chapter of the NAACP, who identified as black, and presented herself as such, but who was outed by family members as nothing but white, differed so substantially from those born of a gender with which they no longer identify. Try as they might, I remained unconvinced that it was anything other than a distinction without a difference.

 

[Ticklishchap]

Still, I couldn't help but watch on in amazement at some prople of my acquaintance opining on how the case of Rachel Dolezal, the head of the Spokane, Wash. chapter of the NAACP, who identified as black, and presented herself as such, but who was outed by family members as nothing but white, differed so substantially from those born of a gender with which they no longer identify. Try as they might, I remained unconvinced that it was anything other than a distinction without a difference.

There are no biological differences between 'races' whereas there are strong biological differences between male and female. Therefore Rachel Dolzeal's claims are in some ways less outlandish than those of a woman claiming to 'be' a man or a man claiming to 'be' a woman. It's just that one is temporarily a la mode, while the other is considered politically incorrect.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I tend to think, just from the people I've known and the conversations I've had with them, that there is a biological component to gender identity -- you *know* you're one thing or another, and that tends to be immutable, in much the same way that sexual orientation seems to be immutable. Anyone presuming to tell a gay man that it was all in his head and that if he really worked at it he could be straight would, rightly, I think, be pilloried for it. I think there's still a lot we don't know about the prenatal influences of hormones on the brain, and I'm satisified to give people in such situations all the benefit of the doubt.

I really don't worry about bathrooms and swimming pools. In the United States a child has a statistically greater chance of being molested by a Speaker Of The House or a Congressman from Mississippi than by a transperson in a public facility.

As for Rachel Dolezal, well, I don't think there's a hormone that can have any kind of effect on one's perception of race in the way that prenatal sex hormones seem to affect a developing fetus, so you could argue that's a difference.

 

[tonyb]

...

As for Rachel Dolezal, well, I don't think there's a hormone that can have any kind of effect on one's perception of race in the way that prenatal sex hormones seem to affect a developing fetus, so you could argue that's a difference.

If race is indeed a social construct, then hormones, prenatal or otherwise, have nothing to do with one's racial identity.

I don't have to be convinced that Ms. Dolezal was something of a fraud. She said things about her own background that, um, stretched the truth. But it doesn't follow that she isn't as entitled to her racial identity as is any trans person to his or her gender identity.

 

[Fading Fast]

I tend to think, just from the people I've known and the conversations I've had with them, that there is a biological component to gender identity -- you *know* you're one thing or another, and that tends to be immutable, in much the same way that sexual orientation seems to be immutable. Anyone presuming to tell a gay man that it was all in his head and that if he really worked at it he could be straight would, rightly, I think, be pilloried for it. I think there's still a lot we don't know about the prenatal influences of hormones on the brain, and I'm satisified to give people in such situations all the benefit of the doubt.

I really don't worry about bathrooms and swimming pools. In the United States a child has a statistically greater chance of being molested by a Speaker Of The House or a Congressman from Mississippi than by a transperson in a public facility.

As for Rachel Dolezal, well, I don't think there's a hormone that can have any kind of effect on one's perception of race in the way that prenatal sex hormones seem to affect a developing fetus, so you could argue that's a difference.

I agree on the "...and I'm satisified to give people in such situations all the benefit of the doubt," completely - it's just kind in my mind. And I'm also glad that our society does things to accommodate this very small minority. That said, I take offense at the "all-or-none, you either agree to every accommodation I want or you are anti-transgender / narrow minded / a bigot" charge.

I support transgender people and do not want any discrimination or any reasonable accommodation not made, but there has to be some give and take at the margin on both sides. While I don't lose sleep about the bathroom thing either, if parents of young children don't want people who are biologically / physically men or have male anatomy sharing public bathrooms with their young girls, then can't we accommodate a not crazy desire?

And even if you don't agree, that doesn't make the person who wants that a bigot - the equivalent of a segregationist from the pre Civil Rights South. That's what ticks me off (title of our thread). I agree 90-98% with the transgender agenda, but understand the genuine challenge on a few issues - the response shouldn't be to call me names and put me in a class with the worst of our society.

From a parallel approach, gay men, have male anatomy and use male bathrooms. As Lizzie says, today most would denounce anyone who said that a gay man should change his orientation, but they aren't sharing bathrooms with young girls. Hence, the analogy isn't the same when we say transgender men who still have male anatomy should be allowed to use female bathrooms. I don't want them to not be transgender (I completely support their choice), but as long as they have male anatomy, requiring them to use male bathrooms isn't unreasonable IMHO. Maybe it will prove wrong, but at this moment in time, it is not an unreasonable position to take.

 

[Fading Fast]

Aren't some diseases more prevalent in some races than others? I thought I've read that - its that not correct? Is it true but the cause is environmental not genetic?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've really never understood the whole bathroom issue, to be honest. I've been going to women's bathrooms my whole life, and I've never once seen the genitalia of anyone else in the facility, nor has anyone ever seen mine. I have no idea who is sitting in the next stall, and they have no idea who is sitting in the stall where I am. And every public showering facility I've used, at a Y or a gym, has had stalls -- you don't see who's showering with you and they don't see you. So it isn't anything that worries me at all, and I don't see any point in starting to worry about it -- I'm just in there to pee, not obsess over who else might be in there.

True, gay men aren't sharing bathrooms with young girls -- but they do share them with straight men and young boys, and it seems to me that if we start postulating "what ifs" in determining who uses what facility, that once the transfolk have been put in their place, then those who press this issue will focus next on telling gay men and lesbians where *they* can go to the can. The slope is a slippery one and one should be very careful before starting down it.

Frankly, I have more concerns about random cisgender men loitering in a parking lot after dark -- I have a sharpened key on my key ring that I carry point-out, and anyone who hassles me is going to get it right in the groin -- than I do anyone I might meet in a public toilet.

 

[tonyb]

Aren't some diseases more prevalent in some races than others? I thought I've read that - its that not correct? Is it true but the cause is environmental not genetic?

There are certainly diseases far likelier to afflict some human populations more than others. And yes, some of those illnesses are indeed a matter of genetics.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If race is indeed a social construct, then hormones, prenatal or otherwise, have nothing to do with one's racial identity.

I don't have to be convinced that Ms. Dolezal was something of a fraud. She said things about her own background that, um, stretched the truth. But it doesn't follow that she isn't as entitled to her racial identity as is any trans person to his or her gender identity.

From what I've gathered from the people I've known, they *don't* believe gender identity is socially constructed, and that's why a certain subset of radical feminists dislikes them so. Many of them do believe that the way in which gender identity is *expressed* can be socially constructed -- the whole pink-and-blue deal -- but they argue that this differs from the way in which one *perceives their own internal sense of gender*. One of the transpeople I knew was a professional wrestler -- not exactly the sort of delicate, ladylike persona that comes out of so-called gender essentialism -- but she nonetheless perceived herself as a woman, not as a man.

We have had a few transpeople on the Lounge over the years, and if they're still here, I'd be interesting in hearing what they had to say on the issue.

 

[tonyb]

From what I've gathered from the people I've known, they *don't* believe gender identity is socially constructed, and that's why a certain subset of radical feminists dislikes them so. Many of them do believe that the way in which gender identity is *expressed* can be socially constructed -- the whole pink-and-blue deal -- but they argue that this differs from the way in which one *perceives their own internal sense of gender*. One of the transpeople I knew was a professional wrestler -- not exactly the sort of delicate, ladylike persona that comes out of so-called gender essentialism -- but she nonetheless perceived herself as a woman, not as a man.

It ought not matter. I fear that if a biological "cause" is ever found, people will screen for it in utero and terminate pregnancies testing positive for it, much as most pregnancies testing positive for Down syndrome are terminated today, just as pregnancies are terminated for reasons of sex selection in some cultures. (Don't think it doesn't happen here.)

 

[Fading Fast]

I've really never understood the whole bathroom issue, to be honest. I've been going to women's bathrooms my whole life, and I've never once seen the genitalia of anyone else in the facility, nor has anyone ever seen mine. I have no idea who is sitting in the next stall, and they have no idea who is sitting in the stall where I am. And every public showering facility I've used, at a Y or a gym, has had stalls -- you don't see who's showering with you and they don't see you. So it isn't anything that worries me at all, and I don't see any point in starting to worry about it -- I'm just in there to pee, not obsess over who else might be in there.

Frankly, I have more concerns about random cisgender men loitering in a parking lot after dark -- I have a sharpened key on my key ring that I carry point-out, and anyone who hassles me is going to get it right in the groin -- than I do anyone I might meet in a public toilet.

I don't have children, but what parents who don't want transgenders with male anatomy in women's bathroom have told me (yup, this stuff is debated in good liberal NYC) is (the men) don't want to send their little girls into a bathroom alone where there are allowed to be adult men in it (periodically, there are issues with men exposing themselves to girls in public bathrooms in NYC, while a law can't prevent that, allowing individuals with male anatomy in makes these parents uncomfortable) and the women said (and I'm paraphrasing, but not far off), "for God's sake, can't I just go to women's bathroom with only women is that too much to ask" and, living in NYC, these are (for the most) pretty liberal-leaning people.

I don't really care one way or the other, but my point is that it is wrong to denounce everyone who doesn't support every single last point supported by transgender advocates as "anti-this, bigoted that -" that's the thing that I find obnoxious. I support transgender rights, don't really care about the bathroom issue, but see both sides of the issue - does that make me horrible - according to some, yes.

Edit add: I'm existing this conversation as it feels too political to me, just my opinion as it applies to me, carry on.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I don't think anyone here has called you horrible for expressing your point of view. I certainly haven't, and I wouldn't.

As for me, like I said, I'm just there to pee. I'm only conscious of there being other people in the bathroom when there's no paper in the dispenser and I have to ask whoever is in the next stall to shoot me a piece. What ticks me off is when they only send over a couple of squares. I'm not here to blow my nose, sister.

 

[tonyb]

I'm with Gore Vidal on many matters, including his view that the terms "homosexual" and "heterosexual" are best used as adjectives, not nouns, just as most other terms denoting differences in humans are not in themselves definitive of who those humans are.

It was easy enough as a young person to be dazzled by Vidal's prose -- his essays much more so than his novels. But it was his courage that came to most impress me -- his being "out" at a time when a career might be destroyed by such a revelation, when a person might indeed be murdered on account of it. His public tangles with WF Buckley are for the ages. I refer anybody who doubts how far we've come since 1968 to the audio of their on-air exchange during the Democratic Party's National Convention in August of that year. These days, even the Troglodyte-iest of Troglodytes wouldn't dare sneeringly say on air that his adversary is "a queer" and then threaten to physically assault him.

 

[Ticklishchap]

I don't have children, but what parents who don't want transgenders with male anatomy in women's bathroom have told me (yup, this stuff is debated in good liberal NYC) is (the men) don't want to send their little girls into a bathroom alone where there are allowed to be adult men in it (periodically, there are issues with men exposing themselves to girls in public bathrooms in NYC, while a law can't prevent that, allowing individuals with male anatomy in makes these parents uncomfortable) and the women said (and I'm paraphrasing, but not far off), "for God's sake, can't I just go to women's bathroom with only women is that too much to ask" and, living in NYC, these are (for the most) pretty liberal-leaning people.

... And conversely, many of us chaps feel the same as the women you have described - we also want to go to a men's bathroom with other men only and we think that this type of 'segregation' is civilised, not bigoted, one of the things that distinguishes humans from livestock.
In the days of racial segregation in the Deep South, 'whites only' bathrooms were divided by gender, whereas the 'colored' bathrooms were most often gender-neutral, a sign of a society that didn't treat black people as fully human, as opposed to white people who had the right to be treated as 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' and have their privacy and intimacy respected.

 

[tonyb]

I don't have children, but what parents who don't want transgenders with male anatomy in women's bathroom have told me (yup, this stuff is debated in good liberal NYC) is (the men) don't want to send their little girls into a bathroom alone where there are allowed to be adult men in it (periodically, there are issues with men exposing themselves to girls in public bathrooms in NYC, while a law can't prevent that, allowing individuals with male anatomy in makes these parents uncomfortable) and the women said (and I'm paraphrasing, but not far off), "for God's sake, can't I just go to women's bathroom with only women is that too much to ask" and, living in NYC, these are (for the most) pretty liberal-leaning people.

I don't really care one way or the other, but my point is that it is wrong to denounce everyone who doesn't support every single last point supported by transgender advocates as "anti-this, bigoted that -" that's the thing that I find obnoxious. I support transgender rights, don't really care about the bathroom issue, but see both sides of the issue - does that make me horrible - according to some, yes.

Edit add: I'm existing this conversation as it feels too political to me, just my opinion as it applies to me, carry on.

It's okay, man. You give every indication that your opinion is as honestly arrived at as anyone else's here. One great remaining virtue of this forum is that it isn't an echo chamber.

 

[Harp]

Computer dual screens crashed today, a technician replaced both but this afternoon all keyboarding scratched for a few hours.
Caught up on the Sun Times sports page and the twitter tangle between Cubs catcher Wilson Contreras and the Cards' Yadier Molina,
with plenty of "that lovable St Louis sanctimony." But we've plenty of that barbecue sauce in Chicago too.
Also perused some articles concerning McCoy v Louisiana, and a defendant's right to direct his defense in a capital punishment trial
relating to the VI Amendment allowance relegating counsel to a subordinate role. Smacks of Courvoisier at the Old Bailey, when a defendant
admitted murderous guilt to his silk and demanded a proper trial defense; firmly establishing in the British courts the right to trial.

 

[GHT]

This came up on another thread, but having had to play Rugger through my A Level year, often on Saturdays as well as weekdays, I marvel that I managed to get any work done at that time! But being in the House team gave me a certain degree of status (meaningless) that I wouldn't have had otherwise - ironically more than I received for academic achievements.

Back in the day when I played Rugby, when it was three points for a try, we all sported a popular car sticker that read:
Give Blood. Play Rugby.