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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   15571 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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I am trying to understand the standard policy on transphobia in online LGBT communities - that making a distinction between women and transwomen is transphobic and as a consequence results in a ban. At present, it is utterly bizarre to me, grotesque even, but I'll try to charitably present their position. Here is a paragraph explaining the rules of the lesbian subreddit, which is in line with most subreddits and forums I've been researching:

Things which are transphobic:

  • Not being interested in, or not dating, a specific woman because she is trans.

Trans women are women. They are often indistinguishable from cis women. They can't get pregnant, but neither can almost 10% of cis women, and fortunately in a lesbian couple there's usually a womb to spare. (With enough forethought you might not need a sperm donor!) Saying you're "not attracted to trans women" as a blanket statement cannot have a basis in empirical reality, but purely in prejudice. It's not like not being attracted to redheads or blondes or butches, it's like not being attracted to immigrants, children of blue-collar workers or survivors of cancer. "Trans" is, for the numerical majority of trans women, a history which says nothing about the person.

There's also an elaboration that since not all transwomen have a penis, and since not all transwomen can easily be detected as having male features, then saying that you are categorically opposed to dating transwomen (because of either a penis or male features) makes you a transphobe.

So their argument is that since (1) there are some transwomen who are physically indistinguishable from women, and (2) there are also women who cannot get pregnant but you would have no problem dating, then (3) your prejudice towards transwomen must be based on the principle that women and transwomen are ontologically different, and therefore this makes you a transphobe.

The main objection here is that there are in fact zero transwomen who are indistinguishable from women with a womb. The paragraph above was written by a transwoman and is, to me, wishful thinking. They link to an Instagram of a transwoman who is supposed to illustrate how women-like their appearance can be, but even with the best filters and makeup there is something off about them, and in person this would be easily spotted. Even if there are some who would realistically pass a first-impression test, their body (hips, jaw, Adam's apple, "vagina", body odor) would soon give them away, and possibly also their behavior would seem incongruent. And all of this is based on the premise that people's sexual preference are based on formal logic as opposed to general trends in a group's appearance - most transwomen are not even close to passing and that's why many men have a categorical aversion to transwomen.

I tried asking this question on a few different subreddits but my post doesn't even show up and I received one ban as well, so here I am. Can anyone try to justify the transphobia policy above?

m, and in person this would be easily spotted. Even if there are some who would realistically pass a first-impression test, their body (hips, jaw, Adam's apple, "vagina", body odor) would soon give them away, and possibly also their behavior would seem incongruent. And all of this is based on the premise that people's sexual preference are based on formal logic as opposed to general trends in a group's appearance - most transwomen are not even close to passing and that's why many men have a categorical aversion to transwomen.

My biggest problem is it's false advertising. You are not really hooking up with a woman, but only an approximation of one. Even if it could 100% pass a blind test, it's still categorically not the same thing. This is a such a messy subject that it's pretty much off-limits anywhere...if you think race & IQ is contentious, the trans issue is even worse.

You say "false advertising", but I wonder how far this goes. Suppose we get to a point that with minimal effort that all trans people undergo, they all start to pass as the gender they identify with to the point where, as far as hooking up goes, you fundamentally could not tell if they were cis or trans. Is this "false advertising" still?

This sounds like an argument that attributes what it means to be a "real woman" to something non-material in nature.

Is this "false advertising" still?

Yes, some people would like to have children.

"Hooking up" and "trying to have kids" are two separate things. I agree that if you are looking for children, lying about the ability to have kids is a bad thing.

I don't think most people compartamentalize dating and hook-ups to that degree. The latter often leads to the former.

Suppose we get to a point that with minimal effort that all trans people undergo, they all start to pass as the gender they identify with to the point where, as far as hooking up goes, you fundamentally could not tell if they were cis or trans.

I bet that in such case they would have no problem with saying "I was born male, then rebuild myself as a giraffe and now I morphed to female form". But we are far away from this level of bioengineering no matter what would people claim.

The entire trans stuff is caused by uncanny valley of being able to imperfectly migrate - but extremely imperfectly with small minority achieving anything close to a success. Even if they do not care about fertility.

Well, for some people the deception is most of the problem. The idea that someone could so casually lie about something so huge. I don't think that needs overmuch explaining.

For others it's revulsion at the particular mode of femininity that seems to be adopted by those attempting to become female. They just do things normal women basically never do. "Dress go spinny!" and all that nonsense. The very stereotypical things they choose to wear and do, and the experiences they claim to have and enjoy. It all comes off as a man acting like what the thinks a woman acts like, instead of how women actually act. I don't know if those things would go away in the case of a magic perfect gender swap machine. The brain would still lack the socialisation and experience. Dressing it in a more appealing shell might blunt some of the disgust people feel, but I don't know...

Anti-TRA people like to bring up the "very male" responses these female aspirants come out with when challenged -- threats of rape and violence, fantasies about forcing themselves and their genitalia on unwilling lesbians. I don't know how much stock I put in that, I think pretty much everyone has the capability to be absolutely terrible, but it's possibly another point in the same vein.

Well, for some people the deception is most of the problem. The idea that someone could so casually lie about something so huge. I don't think that needs overmuch explaining.

If a person believes themselves to be a woman because they think you can self-identify into the category, this is a case of miscommunication, not a lie.

And if someone doesn't believe that, then it's a lie no matter how earnestly the speaker believes it. Confidently incorrect is still incorrect, and genuinely believing a lie doesn't make it true.

"God is real" is a lie to me, no matter how genuinely some people believe it to be truth.

"God is real" is a lie to me

the key point here is the "to me" part. I would argue that if two people hold different definitions on something, we cannot meaningfully call it a lie when one uses their definition in a way that contradicts the other's.

If I didn't think the opposite was a lie, how could I be meaningfully said to hold that my own opinions are true, when the two are mutually exclusive? If I truly believe that god is not real, then it stands to reason that I must also think the statement that god is real is a lie, no?

No, that does not follow. You must also think that the statement that God is real is incorrect, but if the person offering the statement is sincere and without the intent to deceive, then it is not a lie.

Common usage of the word "lie" would entail an intent to deceive i.e speak in bad faith. But two people who hold different definitions are not speaking to deceive the other, they're speaking from their own actually held beliefs. That you perceive it as a lie suggests you make no distinction between people who wish to actually mislead you and others who simply disagree.

This sounds like an argument that attributes what it means to be a "real woman" to something non-material in nature.

Isn't this the exact problem the trans advocate camp runs into? If gender as non-material nature is off the table doesn't that collapse the whole concept before we even need to consider the body swapping stuff?

We may someday get this theoretical full gender swap machine, albeit very very far into the future, but the justification for using it and the subsequent question of whether someone would want someone who had done so is going to look totally different to modern day trans theory.

When people propose this thought experiment I think a whole lot of really load bearing stuff is getting papered over. Just the fact that we'd actually be able to use it to run experiments both as individuals curious about how the other side lives and collectively on gendered phenomenon is a huge game changer and if you're making assumptions on how those experiments would have gone those assumptions hide all the actual interesting implications of the thought experiment.

If a cis person went through the procedure do you think they'd have dysphoria? why or why not?

When people propose this thought experiment I think a whole lot of really load bearing stuff is getting papered over. Just the fact that we'd actually be able to use it to run experiments both as individuals curious about how the other side lives and collectively on gendered phenomenon is a huge game changer and if you're making assumptions on how those experiments would have gone those assumptions hide all the actual interesting implications of the thought experiment.

Thought experiments used in this manner are trying to get at what the root argument is. You can't say something like "We can't make trans woman perfectly pass" as your argument in this case because the hypothetical assumes that we can. It's a way of getting around the surface-level arguments some people co-opt. We had a discussion back in the subreddit about whether race-swapping in media is bad, and some people very clearly used "It's not being done well" as a reason to reject the idea as a whole.

If a cis person went through the procedure do you think they'd have dysphoria? why or why not?

Insofar as they identify with a particular sex, I think they would. If it's not a big part of your identity, I think you might just shrug it off like a minor irritant.

Suppose we get to a point that with minimal effort that all trans people undergo, they all start to pass as the gender they identify with to the point where, as far as hooking up goes, you fundamentally could not tell if they were cis or trans. Is this "false advertising" still?

Probably, although you would never know it I suppose. But the point is that we very much do not live in that world. The idea that "a trans woman is indistinguishable from a woman" is a blatant lie, unless you're using something like the circular "a woman is anyone who says they're a woman" definition.

In the transhumanist future, we may get to the point that it's actually indistinguishable. At that point it's maybe false advertising in the sense that some people may have a disgust reaction if they found out they were sleeping with a trans woman, but they'd never know so the point is moot then.

People form their attitudes based on the world that actually exists. Any reasoning involved would be based on central examples, not on edge cases.

In a transhumanist world full of casual, perfect, sex changes, where the central examples are nothing like they are today, the attitude towards dating trans people would be different from today.

Oh for sure, we don't live in that world right now. But we should be clear about what exactly would make someone reject a trans person as a suitable sexual partner. I think any argument that firmly rejects trans people as partners even if they could perfectly pass on every biological level is an argument rooted in some notion of a non-material essence inside a person that corresponds to gender.

Even if the pizza hut meme is no longer true, and they're now indistinguishable from a natal woman. They still may be rejected because whatever is was that made them need to be a woman, is undesirable in a partner.

Based on Canada I think we'll have suicide booths before sex-swaping machines.

I think any argument that firmly rejects trans people as partners even if they could perfectly pass on every biological level is an argument rooted in some notion of a non-material essence inside a person that corresponds to gender.

This is related to why most people fight hypotheticals.

It's all fine to talk about hypothetical situations as hypothetical situations. But this kind of hypothetical is used as a way to sneak in assumptions about the real world. Answering "sure, I'd accept trans people who were biologically identical to cis examples of that gender" is likely to be followed up with "well, how big are the differences really" or some other suggestion which tries to use the hypothetical example as a step towards saying something about the real world.

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