The Transphobia Thread

Discussion in 'Politics 2.0' started by Moose, Oct 10, 2021.

  1. Bubble

    Bubble Wise Oracle

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...two-year-old-son-preschool-wearing-dress.html

    Also in the Daily Mail.

    'Dude' recording it showed incredible self-restraint!!

    Definitely wasn't for a fancy dress.......LMFAO.
     
  2. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Doesn’t it?

    Is there another -phobia word which doesn’t imply fear?

    Perhaps the word is an ill chosen one?
     
    Bubble likes this.
  3. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    That’s a fair challenge and one I should back away from. We don’t know conclusively and Emily and her supporters can put forward one set of data and others can show an alternative one.

    My main argument is that she and others like her should still have a place in sport and be treated with respect. That may not work with binary M and F competitions any more than it worked for disability. But Caster Semenya’s case shows how unfair that can be already. It’s not beyond our ability to come up with other supplementary forms of competition.
     
  4. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    It's disingenuous to compare her, a woman with unusually high test levels and a woman who was born a man and as a result, has a completely different physiology.

    She can grow her hair, wear make up, take hormones, have breast implants etc. But every single cell of her body belies the fact that she was born biologically male.

    The issue here is gender vs sex and the creep of the ground being claimed. If gender is a social construct that can be ephemeral or change with mood, as we've been instructed it is, then that's the outward appearance and socialised behaviour of an individual. If self identification is a enough to determine gender, then it cannot be conflated with sex, a binary and simple fact.

    If she is a woman by gender, that doesn't change her physical and biological sex, just because she says it does.

    Using outliers like Caster Semenya or the tiny percentage of genuinely intersex individuals out there to try and pretend that sex isn't a simple and binary fact is quite a pure smokescreen that everyone can see through if they look between their own legs.
     
  5. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It’s not in the Daily Mail with any extra information, they’ve just put the video up as a piss-boiling titbit.

    There is no apparent evidence that this was some deliberate attempt to misgender the boy or that such attempts often happen. No reason for you to stop the World and get off. Nothing has changed.

    When trying to Google the story (before you placed the link) it seems to be common for young boys to borrow girls clothes and for parents to worry about it. It’s simply not a biggie.
     
    WatfordTalk likes this.
  6. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    So what are you going to do about ‘outliers’? Because they may need a similar solution.
     
  7. Steve Leo Beleck

    Steve Leo Beleck Squad Player

    I don't think anyone disagrees they shouldn't have a place in sport and be treated with respect but Bridges' argument is that she doesn't want a separate competition, she wants to compete against biological women. I presume she would be grossly offended by the idea of a trans world championship as it would be seen to be treating her different to biological women.

    The problem that trans athletes have is that they have to argue that there's no advantage which appears to be manifestly untrue. I would have more sympathy with the position if it was an honest 'we do have an advantage but we think we should still be able to compete because of x, y, z'. But they can't admit that so we have this ludicrous position where athletes that are just below elite level in male competition can trounce all biological women whilst making the claim that they have no advantage.

    There is no solution that keeps everyone happy so the best one is the one that maintains the integrity of the sport and doesn't disadvantage (or in cases of combat sports endanger) biological women.
     
  8. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Not sacrifice the 'inliers' for them, for sure.

    If she wants to race bikes I'm not sure why it's up to women's cycling to find a way to accommodate her.

    If trans women want to race against trans women then for sure, go ahead.
     
  9. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    You’ve started off by saying that no one is saying they should be excluded and then by concluding they should and it’s their own fault.
     
  10. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    That's not what he's said at all. In fact he's largely agreed with your suggestion of a separate class, but pointed out that isn't what she is demanding. In that case, whose fault is it?
     
    Steve Leo Beleck likes this.
  11. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    A single two minute video posted online that cannot be vetted in any way is not reliable.

    How do we know that person wasn't mentally ill and wandered in off the street? How do we know their version of the facts is correct? How do we know they weren't spectacularly overreacting? How do we know that wasn't a plant or actor?

    Simply put, we don't, and the teacher/carer/whatever's refusal to engage in a verbal altercation in front of a classroom full of two year old children certainly can't be said to confirm anything. Scepticism of unverified info posted online is a healthy practice. Unfortunately people lie on the internet all the time, many of them willfully and deliberately so.
     
    WatfordTalk and Moose like this.
  12. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    Soon you won't even be allowed to play this:

     
  13. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    https://www.dictionary.com/browse/transphobia
    https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/transphobia
    https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/transphobia
    https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transphobia
    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/transphobia
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transphobia

    Far more sources than that, too.

    Whether or not it is ill chosen is honestly irrelevant. English is full of strange terms, contradictions, non-sequiturs and words whose meaning has evolved or changed over time. The fact none of us speak or understand Middle English is testament to that!
     
  14. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I’m not sure that it stacks up that this is solely what trans athletes are asking for. Emily Bridges has taken part in test events herself. No reason not to put those on because she and others retain the wish to compete in established events. They can’t do that and it’s not looking likely anytime soon, so let the governing bodies offer some alternatives.

    I think it’s a problem that we can only see this through the lens of professionalised sports. This was the problem for Semenya. She was a business rival and her genetics was a way of putting her out of business. Transgender women are a similar threat, but that’s not the point of sport per se.

    Sport needs to be for all and it would be advantageous to find a way to accommodate everyone and see where that leads.
     
  15. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Or it will be widely true. :)
     
  16. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    I don’t think it’s irrelevant in the slightest. Given the sensitivity of the topic and the emotions it arouses, not to mention the prospect of violence, would it not be better to use a label that doesn’t carry any implication of “fear” within it, if that is not, in fact, what is meant by the term? After all, that’s what the vast majority of people understand a phobia to be.
     
  17. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Ye verily spake truly
     
  18. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Dictionary definitions (and changes of word meanings) follow real world usage, which is why "literally" no longer means what it used to; that ship has long since sailed. If you don't like it, that's fair enough. I certainly have my own list of bugbears with the English language. It won't change the meaning, though.
     
  19. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Lloyd Shakespeare strikes again.
     
  20. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Well, we’re going to have to disagree on this because I think most people hearing or reading this word think it means what Bubble did, not what the dictionary says.

    I don’t really understand why the -phobia suffix was adopted in the first place if it is not concerned with the fear that that implies.
     
  21. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    There are plenty of things I don't understand about English. I've found it best to just not think about it and move on.
     
  22. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Mmm, but most of those aren’t concerned with matters nearly as sensitive as this.

    Cf Islamophobia.
     
  23. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    I suggest writing a letter. Strongly worded, of course. But not TOO strong, lest they think you're dictionaryphobic.
     
    Bwood_Horn likes this.
  24. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    Who has said this Moose. No one.

    It is just a case of you wishing to demonise those making serious points that you pretend to agree with earlier in your post.

    Again, no one is comparing her to male predators who have made nothing like the sacrifice that she has. She is clearly serious about her transition, she is clearly committed to it. The issue here is that her choice to compete in women's sport, when she was born and grew up a man, is incompatible with society's previously accepted perception of fairness, and she expects those most affected by her life choices (she has chosen to transition, no matter how much she believes she is a woman) to accomodate her emotions.

    If you have some sympathy for her situation because of your son's association through racing against her, then perhaps you could empathise with your sons situation, assuming he no longer competes at elite level, in that he came to terms with the fact that he could not compete at the. Kudos to your son, if it is the case, that he did not expect the men's sport to ban training to make it easier for him to compete, or insist that the women's sport accept him as a competitor because he wasn't good enough in the men's.

    Effectively, that IS what she is doing. There is nothing stopping her from competing in the men's sport, and no reason why she can't put every effort possible into doing so, which is what she says is her major motivator. But her taking oestrogen, and having testosterone reduced, is her choice, and no one is forcing her to do it. It does not stop her being a man, which is inherant in every fibre of her being, literally.

    Her case has nothing to do with male predators dressing as women. It is a shame that you are the one who has brought that subject into the discussion about her.
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  25. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    So, do we change the world because one person is in pain?

    The Trans lobby wishes society to change to accomodate individuals, each with a different issue, at the expense of women's sport.

    It is horrible for the individual, and in Semenia's case something she has no control over, but society does not exist so that one person may unobstructedly do as they please, nor does women's sport, no matter how innocent and genuine that desire is.

    I was never good enough to play for Watford. I got over it a long time ago. I didn't look to find a level in the game upon which I could impose myself in order to have a shot at the World Cup.
     
  26. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Please stop conflating Semenya, a female, with males who want to compete in female sport. They are not the same issue.
     
    Steve Leo Beleck and iamofwfc like this.
  27. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I am not saying it’s the same issue. I’m saying the model isn’t as straightforward or fair as people claim. Biology shouldn’t be a tyranny.
     
  28. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    It's not straight forward or fair, you are totally correct on that. But a line has to be drawn somewhere and I think the fairest thing for the vast majority is if it is based on sex.

    It is unfair to individuals and they have my genuine sympathy. But I think that we all agree that there is no answer that will satisfy everyone.

    I believe people can identify as what ever gender they feel they are and I 100% support that right. But, as others have said, it doesn't change the biology and they, in my view, have to accept that.
     
    Arakel, Robert Peel, wfcmoog and 2 others like this.
  29. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    It isn't. It's a incontrovertible fact.
     
    wfcmoog and Steve Leo Beleck like this.
  30. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I fear you misunderstand my point. I mean not all decisions arise purely from it, like the decision whether or not to offer some form of mixed competition to trans athletes or to exclude those who have different genetic expressions.

    But on the basis that I never like to continue an argument I’m losing, I’m happy to leave it at that.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  31. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    It's PC to not label someone by their gender yet, gender reveal parties/tiktoks whatever seem to be fashionable.

    The cynic in me suggests that there's a large section of the population that just do or believe stuff to be popular without actually thinking about it.
     
    Bwood_Horn likes this.
  32. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Or that what is PC difffers from what most people think/believe?
     
  33. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Dunno. Personally I think gender reveal stuff is silly.
     
  34. HenryHooter

    HenryHooter Reservist

    Nor should emotions be a tyranny, and the modern trans lobby are saying that emotions should supercede conventions that have developed through societal experience the fairest way to facilitate sporting competition.

    Tyranny, in this case, is where an individual, albeit for a reason they feel is imperative to them, May make a life style decision and impose the result of it upon everyone else.

    Tyranny is where people making arguments based on universally held societal concepts and established scientific facts, are called bigots and transphobes, in order to undermine and marginalise them. Case in point is you bringing the 'male predator' BS into Emily's case, when no one else had even contemplated, let alone suggested, such a link.

    Tyranny, is, when all is stripped down, where a man can say I am a better woman than you, because I say so. And then 'prove' it, by insisting that every woman must compete against her, or leave the sport as a transphobe bigot..

    A social nicety is apt where it facilitates a person's harmless an mutual lifestyle, but it should not be extended to societal conventions where physical facts, based on a person's biological sex, guide our conception of fairness.

    It is fair to challenge societal norms, but it is tyrannical for those norms to be brushed aside for the sake of an individual's needs and emotions. If the struggle to be the best she can be IS the main ambition in Emily's sporting life, then she already has access to competition that allows her to participate and do exactly that, with no complaint from anyone else.

    But if she likes winning, in the sporting spirit of society's conventions on fair competition, then she must accept her self chosen lot, and live with the consequences of her lifestyle decisions.

    I have every sympathy with her situation, but not with the way she expects society to change to accommodate her. If everyone did that, there would be no society.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2022
    iamofwfc likes this.
  35. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    ISTR* that 'cutting edge' research in the early 90's (in anthropological circles) was that the focus on genders was 'old hat' and should be dropped due to breakthroughs in 'Group Theory' (not the good, mathematical, one) combined with burgeoning reports from animal behaviourists on 'non-binary' sex in populations of non-human mammals. This gobbledegook never seemed to go anywhere (outside of a circle jerk select group of social anthologists) and was forgotten.

    Lo and behold Eliot Schrefer pops up on t'other night's Daily Show hawking his latest, very interesting, tome.

    The trouble is, for something as intrinsic to us as species as sex(uality), it is an academic area that's mostly populated by 'experts' who frauds and hucksters peddling their own snake oil. And as such they shouldn't let within a million miles of a developing child nor developing social policy.

    *Other half at the time was a social anthropologist.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.

Share This Page