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I forget whether I already posted this, but it occurred to me recently that it may be more accurate to say that J.K. Rowling, and perhaps TERFs in general, are sexist than to say that they're transphobic. Rowling supports the right of people to dress however they like and receive whatever medical intervention they desire. She uses preferred pronouns in polite company. But she wants spaces to exist that discriminate based on biological sex, without taking someone's gender identity or expression into account. The term for sex-based discrimination is sexism.
The openly intentional result of what you're calling her sexism is that biological men are excluded from using the services of the rape crisis centre that she funds despite those men calling themselves women, ie trans, and so is plainly Trans Exclusionary. More accurate would be to say that she doesn't believe a biological man can be a woman, which is to say that she is a trans denialist. She doesn't hate transwomen (the transphobia charge), she simply doesn't recognise "transwoman" as a meaningful category.
Calling it sexism is similarly trans denialist as it casts the question solely in terms of objective biological sex, which trans ideology takes great efforts to escape from by introducing the subjective frame of gender.
One major reason radical feminists and other trans denialists deny transgenderism is because it requires not only that women identify with and express their gender but that doing so is what makes them women, and by extension not doing so diminishes their womanhood. A woman who becomes a radical feminist because she's been treated like shit by men, often in part for not being very feminine, while also being vulnerable to all the disadvantages that women suffer will rightly bristle at the implication that she's less of a woman, particularly when it's coming from men.
I do think the limits of this debate have been badly drawn.
It is completely possible to believe that "transwomen are women" and also believe that some spaces should be for cis women and trans men only. Similarly, it is completely possible to believe that "transwomen aren't women" and also believe that no spaces should be segregated based on sex, but only on legal "gender."
In this sense, I think "trans exclusionary" is a better term than "trans denialist." I agree that both terms are good summaries of JKR's position, but I don't think there's actually any necessary connection between the two of them.
believing "some spaces should be for cis women and trans men only" seems straightforward to me, or its reverse, because those lead to policy positions. What does believing, "transwomen are women" mean? It doesn't seem to lead to any policy positions, and if it can be "believed" alongside all sorts of other policy positions, is it really a belief? seems to me like a floating phrase, disconnected from policy. What am I missing?
We're both in agreement. I don't think that "transwomen are women" means that we must treat trans women and cis women the same in all circumstances.
Cis women who have had too many sports-related concussions are women too, but they probably shouldn't play on certain sports teams with other cis women for their own safety. So too, there might be safety-related reasons why trans women shouldn't play contact sports or fighting sports with cis women, or "fairness"-related reasons to not allow trans women to compete in the same category as cis women in at least some sports.
The question is not really whether "transwomen are women" is true, but whether transwomen are relevantly similar to cis women on an issue-by-issue basis. The broader policies matter a lot more than tiny linguistic/philosophical quibbles.
It is completely consistent to say, "Screw the evidence, I'm highly risk-tolerant and don't care about 'fair competition' so transwomen should be maximally included in all sports." That's not even a "factually incorrect" opinion - it's just a consequence of a different set of values. What will ideally happen is organizations will discuss all pros and cons, and all knowns and unknowns, and come to relevant callings, like the World Rugby Association (?) did in not allowing trans women to play with cis women.
What does it mean then?
This sounds like its trying to answer the question? The word "relatively" here seems like its doing a lot of work. I don't want to put words in your mouth; this reads to me like you're saying transphobia is like a spectrum. One pole is treating trans women and cis women similarly on zero issues, and on the other pole is treating them the same on all issues. For you, treating them as relatively the same is good enough?
I can't think of any one issue on which LGBT activists are OK with treating cis women and trans women differently. Can you think of any?
Maybe cervical screening tests? Prostate exams?
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It means about the same as "step-fathers are fathers." I outlined this elsewhere in this thread, but I'm in favor of "translegalism" as the official line of the state on trans issue - the state creates a legal fiction of "adoptive sex", and decides where adoptive men/woman are relevantly similar to natal men/women, passing laws based on these decisions. Everything else is left to private individuals and organizations to decide for themselves.
The word I use was relevantly, not relatively. And I think we are in a very similar situation to any legal question of how individuals should be treated.
In a liberal democracy, we recognize the law is limited by a set of rights possessed by the people, but sometimes rights come into conflict, or people want to know the limits of a right. Does the freedom of religion allow for polygamy or animal sacrifice? No, we've decided that the state can limit these practices without infringing on religious liberty. Etc., etc.
Every society has to navigate these conflicts as they arise, and many will come to different answers. Compare French laicite to American secularism, and the different problems and circumstances these two policies were responding to.
I do think that a spectrum like the one you described can be said to exist. I'm not sure I'd call it a spectrum of "transphobia" though. If I wanted to locate "transphobia" on the spectrum, I'd probably just draw a line somewhere and say, "below this level of equality, trans people's lives are hell." Whether a regime that causes trans people to suffer unnecessarily is properly called "transphobic" is another question.
I don't think LGBT activists ever 100% agree with one another. I'm sure that some are okay with not extending trans inclusion to prisons and sports, while thinking that other areas like bathrooms are locker rooms are more central.
I consider myself to be pro-trans, but I'm not a trans-maximalist. I think there can be reasonable disagreement on trans-inclusion in certain domains, but I'm also in favor of policies like those adopted in my state that make discrimination in the realms of housing, employment, public accommodations, and credit and lending illegal. I'm in favor of minors being allowed to make informed decisions, with their parents and doctors, whether they want to transition, but I'm not dismissive of fears people have of sterilization, unknown side effects or the risk of overly permissive medical regimes resulting in a large number of detransitioners down the line.
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I think our culture, and how different sides choose to debate, is much more clever than you seem to think. Generally if lines seem poorly drawn it's because one side or the other thinks they can eke out an advantage by framing things that way. In this case, "transwomen are women" only matters as a statement because it inherently includes other things like "and thus we should treat them like women." Ceding the implications--compromising and saying that trans women are "women" but that the important category is "female"--is for those who want transgenderism to be accepted to entirely admit defeat.
This is just pretty common throughout the culture war on many different fronts.
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