It is discrimination on its face. It is always up to proponents of discrimination to justify it, not the other way around.
I too believe that a significant component of gender construction is external. I am a man not merely because I identify as a man, but because I have been socialized for all my life with the understanding that (presumably almost) all around me view and treat me as a man/boy, set against my observation of the treatment of others as women/girls. So in a sense, I am a man insofar as others perceive me to be a man. But for society this could be a self-correcting problem; if people who reject transpeople in their gender perception diminish in number...In my view our society is becoming overly permissive in allowing people to self-define their identity rather than having their identity be at least partially defined by society.
Huh? People used pots and outhouses, AFAIK indiscriminately; I'm not aware of what or when you're referring to.2. Prior to female-only bathrooms there were only male-only bathrooms. Women had to urinate in gutters.
It could very well be a man wearing drag, if that helps. I'm not sure which conservatives revile more, transwomen or men in drag. (Yet another public blow-up in American conservative intellectual circles about this recently.)Honestly, I've seen the "man in a dress" on the street. It's something you notice precisely because of the incongruity, it's usually a middle-aged man, walking like a middle-aged man, wearing a very silly dress and a very bad wig. This will be, in some cases, a transgender woman only coming out late in life trying to shake off a mess of learned behaviours where "he" was trying to be as manly as possible to cover up who she was.
Or it could be a trans woman who doesn't want to transition many or any physical features but experiences a sort of social dysphoria in not being perceived as feminine. Don't worry about it too much, unless she wants you to.
Why? This is exactly prejudice. Where are the men doing this, let alone for nefarious purpose? Does the father in that moment observe any concrete behaviors or traits that suggest this specific person is a security risk?I'm not unsympathetic, but the bald truth is that if you saw her walking into the female toilets following your teenage daughter it looks like a middle-aged man wearing a dress as an excuse to walk into the toilets following your teenage daughter
Again, this is prejudice, the very essence. When prejudice is defended there is a frequent dissonance and circularity where the object is deemed outside the boundary because then one would be in the position of defending prejudice, and one wouldn't like to think of themselves like that, so what they're discussing can't be prejudice. If the man literally has no concept of what he's looking at, it's forgivable and they deserve an explanation. If they have some familiarity with the transgender concept and persist, condemn away. To you the sentiment you describe "understandable" to a far extent, but why should one give the benefit of the doubt to someone who refuses to give the benefit of the doubt when given the opportunity and will express recalcitrance through violence? Then there is little choice but to fight back through law and norms.It's also quite easy to understand why a man who's never had to think hard about his sexuality or gender, and even more so one who has but concluded he's actually a straight man anyway, will be sceptical of the "man in a dress."
Sure. But just in case that's where you're heading, 'misery loves company' is also not a good motivation.That's right - we arrest anyone carrying a penknife in public without a good excuse. I think that's repressive, don't you?
That's preposterous. Every single society ever is "selective", or there wouldn't be law in the first place. Or government really. You're complaining about the absence of utopia.Britain is simply not a liberal society - America is - my point is that when you are only selectively Liberal about the things YOU think people should be allowed to do you aren't really Liberals. Liberals let people do the things they think they shouldn't be allowed to do.
I can as well, I just think it's worthier of challenge than you do.That being said, I can understand why some people WOULD want such a ban
Cool, I'm glad we could clarify. I think you're empirically wrong about unisex toilets, but I'm not going to challenge you in yet another sub-thread.Yes - you completely missed the part where I didn't argue against transexuals using the appropriate (as in the one corresponding to their identified sex) bathroom. I am, however, against unisex facilities - which is something many Queer people (which is not the same lobby as the transgender lobby, necessarily) are increasingly pushing for.
[Not "diagnosed" as transgender, it's no longer treated as a medical condition]I'm 100% behind the transgender lobby on this issue. Having said that, I do have reservations about a trend developing where every teenager with gender dis-morphia is diagnosed as transgender or transexual.
Why do you think there is a trend of gender dysmorphic individuals being mistakenly or improperly treated? Why shouldn't we be comfortable deferring to the judgement of physicians and patients?
How are people being punished? Anti-trans is very much mainstream today. If the caution is baseless and regularly deployed in the mainstream in prejudicial fashion, it isn't respectable. Don't mischaracterize a criticism of content and form as a reaction to the mere fact of disagreement, it's annoying.My position is that I don't think people should be punished for holding view which were mainstream 20 years ago but which now have become unfashionable. I note that you described Furunculus' expression of caution on this topic as "not respectable" which verges on an accusation of prejudice, just for not wholeheartedly agreeing.
Tell that to the anti-trans people. Hard to take this sort of harrumphing seriously in light of what the discourse actually looks like and why. Think about who needs to lay down the knife here.That sort of thought pattern is prevalent in religious fundamentalists, it's the sort of think that the Taliban thinks - executing people who aren't Muslim "enough".
A Liberal society should be tolerant of differing views, it should be able to debate them calmly and rationally without resorting to name-calling.
Why should it? What does sleeping or urination have to do with breastfeeding?Why shouldn't breastfeeding be regulated by law? Urination is regulated by law, sleeping is regulated by law.
This isn't fixed, and the social disapprobation - including legal restrictions - has increasingly degraded over recent years. I'd expect in the UK included, get back to us.It's not my standard of modesty, anyway, it's the generally accepted standard in most Anglophone countries - women are expected to not bear their breasts in public.
How about we let the breastfeeders figure out what works for them?From that it logically follows that it should be fine for women to breastfeed in public, so long as they don't expose their breasts. The women sitting on public benches with a child suckling their dress around their waste and both breasts exposed are making a political statement.
Or it's just convenient for them. Have you considered many instances of breastfeeding with breast visible may not be political statements, but the outcome of a more permissive climate? That because political statements were made these women no longer have to make them.They are using their nudity to force society to acknowledge that they are breastfeeding in public.
I prioritize the other consideration.Asking women to use a shawl is not some terrible patriarchal imposition, it's asking them to have consideration of others, especially other parents with children who may not want them exposed to nude women.
I can't identify the negative trend. I'm charitable with you, but don't be surprised if an encounter with someone working in the field leads to them putting you down; listen carefully in that event.I've read quite a lot of journalism on the topic and also a few papers - look up the Tavistock Centre and the recent controversy there. It's not a "willy-nilly" approach so much as a "one size fits all" approach which includes mastectomy for teenage girls and castration for teenage boys. I've definitely read of cases where teenage girls have been identified as transgender and undergone hormone treatment and surgery at age 16.
If this were the case, we would see many thousands being fired. On the contrary, it pops into the news rarely and typically in connection with public figures or celebrities who tend to face minimal, if any, repercussions.At the present time I would say that anyone who, on meeting someone who claims to be transgender, questions that person's claim can probably expect to lose their job.
Men in general, but this is correct. Hence feminists speak of patriarchy. I myself can attest to the changes in norms among children, from what I have personally seen, read, and heard from others, including the experience of having a much-younger sister still in high school. We're both speaking from our own world-knowledge; I suspect you have a very particular experience of boyhood in yourself and those around you. I sure hope we continue to work on diverting it.I think the greatest threat the teenage girls is probably teenage boys, from personal experience.
On the basis in the first clause, certainly. Interesting elaborate second clause. Since you're not American there is plausible deniability as to who it refers to.What about, say, an influx of young boys from a country like Afghanistan where "woman's rights" are considered optional at best? Is it still shameful to be worried? Or, what about merging of school districts that brings in a group of which boys from a rough neighbourhood with a reputation for drug use and not being safe after dark. Still shameful?
In the final sense I doubt it. It could theoretically be purely class-based, but in practice I've always seen it racialized. This may be easier for an American to grasp than a conservative Englishman.There's a difference between being concerned about people outside your social group not adhering to your standards and racism.
That sounds like an opening for me to start drawing these threads down. Most propositions and attitudes in your posts I admittedly find to be wrong or ill-considered. More so than in the old days?Colder? I don't know, life's not much fun these days, aside from still being trapped in this PhD I'm in increasing pain as my joints take a beating from my Palsy. I'm probably less playful and more direct than I used to be. I don't really have the time or mental energy to write page-long screeds on one line of the Bible any more just for fits and giggle.
It was prejudiced when it was normal. You know prejudice as category isn't a function of prevalence or contestation, right? Also, since you keep pushing this logic I should point out an essay on the very subject.Plus, if I make an offhand comment suggesting maybe, just maybe, a man with a teenage daughter might have some legitimate reservations about allowing non-certified people who claim a transgender identity sharing a washroom with said daughter it becomes a whole thing.
Now I'm having to explain, repeatedly, that I don't personally have a problem with trangender people in certain bathrooms, but I have a problem with people who do just being tarred as prejudiced - as though that sort of view wasn't completely normal less than two decades ago.
What you're seeing is a - yet another - period of heavy contestation in society over what is acceptable, which social groups can petition for what standing, and so forth. Contrary to what you appear to have concluded, there is no Orthodoxy on trans issues ready to strike you down, just specific people who may fall in or fall out with you depending on the intensity of your or their positions. Conservatives are kind of schizophrenic in this, believing they have already been defeated while still wielding a preponderance of authority. In America (I don't know about the UK) there is a strong paleoconservative/neoreactionary movement in the major right-wing party to roll back social norms and legal protections to an 18th-century state, in some regards perhaps to go even further; and these people are losing their minds that they can no longer expect a non-conforming person to be randomly beset and beaten in the street for their effrontery. The loss of hegemony is not in truth equivalent to dissolution. They have not been defeated, and they remain very dangerous. Maybe that offers some perspective on why various agitating groups are not prioritizing displays of patience or deference.I come from a fairly liberal family that generally goes along with trying to strike a balance between tradition, common courtesy and everyone just getting along. Increasingly the world, online and offline, seems to resemble an Early-Modern state where any deviation from the accepted social orthodoxy is severely punished by society, and that orthodoxy is also rapidly changing.
Duuuuude. You're getting worked up over what to others seems like trivial cultural markers that no one gives a crap about, but now you know a little of how non-whites/women/LGBT/etc. feel when you tell them you just want to "calmly and rationally" discuss the fundamental matters of their identity and social participation. Think about it.When you tell a Cornishman his identity is "intriguing" you belittle it, it's not intriguing, it's important and if you can't see that it's not worth his time explaining his tin mines to you. It's certainly not worth his time if you think the identity might need "modifying".
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So you're ridiculing me instead of mocking me? I'm sorry Beskar, either way I'm entitled to be offended if I so choose.
It's not working out for me that way.Guilt is very underrated, if people spent more time feeling guilty they'd spend more time trying not to do bad things and making up for the things they did do.
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