Transphobia

[exchemist]

The problem is that you (general you) don't know how many people are listening and taking other's comfort into account, because those people are silent. You usually only hear the voices that disagree with any given statement. "The activists" as a whole are not dismissing everyone even if some activists are.

Yes it's true the noisiest are often the most extreme and least reasonable.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

My interaction on this thread with @ImmortalFlame is a case in point. I was trying to explain there can be legitimate issues with some people that want to be accepted as women, just on their say-so (i.e. not having had the operation), giving the example of the Scottish rapist who decided to be a woman so he would be sent to a woman's prison. However IF immediately labelled my post "transphobic" and failed to make an attempt to understand my point.

You may want to look again at your interaction with me. I pointed out the transphobic implications of your statements, and your reaction was to say "look at this example of a person who posed as trans" and "I think there should be safeguards in place" and "don't you think there are 'legitimate concern' to be had, etc."

If you don't understand why
1) calling trans women "women" in inverted commas is transphobic
2) implying that the very existence of trans women in women's spaces poses a threat to cis women is transphobic
3) responding to allegations of transphobia by scare-mongering about edge cases and arguing against statements I never made about removing safeguards is transphobic
then we cannot have a reasonable discussion. I was very specific in what I said, and your response was to go on a screed implying that by calling your statements transphobic I was somehow overriding your "legitimate concerns" or the "desires of women" and that I wanted no safeguards in place to protect against edge cases. I was not. I was calling what you said transphobic, because it is.

The point I apparently "failed to understand" didn't exist. You're just scaremongering about trans people. When you calm down and stop acting as if the mere existence of trans people poses a threat to cis women we can talk about reasonable safeguards that can protect women from edge cases. Until you stop wrapping your statements in the pretense of "listening to women" (the majority of whom support trans rights and trans people's access to women's spaces) the sooner you can be rid of making transphobic statements and we can actually discuss the relevant issues.

Stop acting like I wasn't reasonable when you are the one who resorted to ranting at the mere notion of the things you said being pointed as transphobic. Which they obviously were. And you haven't even attempted a defence of that.

 

[exchemist]

You may want to look again at your interaction with me. I pointed out the transphobic implications of your statements, and your reaction was to say "look at this example of a person who posed as trans" and "I think there should be safeguards in place" and "don't you think there are 'legitimate concern' to be had, etc."

If you don't understand why
1) calling trans women "women" in inverted commas is transphobic
2) implying that the very existence of trans women in women's spaces poses a threat to cis women is transphobic
3) responding to allegations of transphobia by scare-mongering about edge cases and arguing against statements I never made about removing safeguards is transphobic
then we cannot have a reasonable discussion. I was very specific in what I said, and your response was to go on a screed implying that by calling your statements transphobic I was somehow overriding your "legitimate concerns" or the "desires of women" and that I wanted no safeguards in place to protect against edge cases. I was not. I was calling what you said transphobic, because it is.

The point I apparently "failed to understand" didn't exist. You're just scaremongering about trans people. When you calm down and stop acting as if the mere existence of trans people poses a threat to cis women we can talk about reasonable safeguards that can protect women from edge cases. Until you stop wrapping your statements in the pretense of "listening to women" (the majority of whom support trans rights and trans people's access to women's spaces) the sooner you can be rid of making transphobic statements and we can actually discuss the relevant issues.

Stop acting like I wasn't reasonable when you are the one who resorted to ranting at the mere notion of the things you said being pointed as transphobic. Which they obviously were. And you haven't even attempted a defence of that.

This intemperate diatribe is evidence of precisely the point I was making. Other people reading this thread have had no difficulty understanding what I was saying.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

This intemperate diatribe is evidence of precisely the point I was making. Other people reading this thread have had no difficulty understanding what I was saying.

Neither did I. I was very specific in what I said, and pointed out exactly what I meant. The fact you have to call what I said "intemperate" when it is nothing of the sort, meanwhile you ranted about safeguarding women at the mere mention of transphobia being directed at your comments, proves your inability to be reasonable with regards to this topic.

Review points 1, 2 and 3 and get back to me when you've stopped being upset by words and can reasonably deal with the actual issue at hand.

 

[exchemist]

Neither did I. I was very specific in what I said, and pointed out exactly what I meant. The fact you have to call what I said "intemperate" when it is nothing of the sort, meanwhile you ranted about safeguarding women at the mere mention of transphobia being directed at your comments, proves your inability to be reasonable with regards to this topic.

Review points 1, 2 and 3 and get back to me when you've stopped being upset by words and can reasonably deal with the actual issue at hand.

Ranted? I gave a recent example of the trans issue being abused by a rapist, to show that there are real issues to be resolved.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Ranted? I gave a recent example of the trans issue being abused by a rapist, to show that there are real issues to be resolved.

Which had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the statements you made were transphobic.

Imagine, if you will, a person making a bunch of statements that another person called racist, and instead of acknowledging or addressing what that second person has alleged, the first person gave a "recent example" of black people committing crime, or some overreach of racial identity politics leading to some negative outcome.

Is that a reasonable response to the allegation raised by the second person, or is it an attempt to somehow justify implicitly racist statements?

 

[exchemist]

Which had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the statements you made were transphobic.

Imagine, if you will, a person making a bunch of statements that another person called racist, and instead of acknowledging or addressing what that second person has alleged, the first person gave a "recent example" of black people committing crime, or some overreach of racial identity politics leading to some negative outcome.

Is that a reasonable response to the allegation raised by the second person, or is it an attempt to somehow justify implicitly racist statements?

I give up. This is clearly going to go nowhere unless you can calm down and stop making accusations.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I give up.

Are you really having that much difficulty understanding this? It's really not that hard to understand.

Saying "we need to make sure, if trans people are to have access to certain spaces, that nobody abuses this in order to get access to those spaces who poses a threat to the people in them" is entirely different to saying "I have 'reasonable concerns' about trans people entering certain spaces".

The first is a reasonable concern and worth debating. The second is a transphobic statement masquerading as reasonable concern because the implication is that trans people necessarily pose a threat to cis people. Responding to someone saying "that statement is transphobic" by saying "this one time someone pretended to be trans" isn't exactly a reasonable response.

 

[exchemist]

Are you really having that much difficulty understanding this? It's really not that hard to understand.

Have a nice day.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Have a nice day.

I always do!

 

[Augustus]

Neither did I. I was very specific in what I said, and pointed out exactly what I meant

Seems to me like you did.

Er, yes. Of course.

However, being opposed, say, to putting self-described trans "women", who have not have the operation, in a women's prison would not be "phobic", it seems to me

If you don't understand why
1) calling trans women "women" in inverted commas is transphobic
2) implying that the very existence of trans women in women's spaces poses a threat to cis women is transphobic

His use of “women” was clearly indicating those who may abuse the system (i.e. cismen).

He wasn’t saying the very existence of transwomen threatened women, but there are cases such as the Scottish rapist who “transitioned” after being charged that do threaten women.

He said it wouldn’t be transphobic to be concerned about such things (which it seems is a point you actually agree with once you get past your initial misunderstanding).

You replied

I would say calling trans women a "self-described trans "women"" would be pretty -phobic, yeah. As would requiring them to undergo gender corrective surgery, or to necessarily imply that being trans and having "the operation" need be synonymous, or implying that trans women somehow intrinsically pose a threat to cis women in prison.

Yes, I'd say those are transphobic statements.

Perhaps you were making a hypothetical case that if he had said something completely different to what he actually said then it would be transphobic?

Or perhaps you just read poorly and with prejudice and then continued to build on your initial error throughout your discussion. If this is the case then you illustrated one of the points in question in this thread pretty well.

(And no it’s not scaremongering to refer to actual real life cases that have recently caused controversy)

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Seems to me like you did.




His use of “women” was clearly indicating those who may abuse the system (i.e. cismen).

Then that could have been explained straight away, but was not. And the further clarification "that haven't had 'the operation'" implies the necessity of medical intervention to be considered "trans".

He wasn’t saying the very existence of transwomen threatened women, but there are cases such as the Scottish rapist who “transitioned” after being charged that do threaten women.

Again, then that needed to be specified, and again the qualifier of needing "the operation" further implies that anyone cannot be considered trans without it.

He said it wouldn’t be transphobic to be concerned about such things (which it seems is a point you actually agree with once you get past your initial misunderstanding).

Again, this could have been specified, but was not.

Perhaps you were making a hypothetical case that if he had said something completely different to what he actually said then it would be transphobic?

No, it's what he said. The implication of what he said was that a person claiming to be trans who hasn't had "the operation" isn't really a "woman". If he had meant a person claiming to be trans explicitly just to gain access to certain spaces, then that was not specified.

Or perhaps you just read poorly and with prejudice and then continued to build on your initial error throughout your discussion.

Or perhaps they can speak for themselves, and if they had simply explained that earlier on there wouldn't have been an issue, since I very specific in what I said.

If this is the case then you illustrated one of the points in question in this thread pretty well.

That people are bad at explaining their arguments?

(And no it’s not scaremongering to refer to actual real life cases that have recently caused controversy)

It is if you're doing it to make a broader point about social inclusion.

If this is just a misunderstanding of the argument, why is it so hard to simply say that instead of getting all aggressive about it? It exchemist had just said "to be clear, when I said "women" I meant people claiming to be trans but who aren't" that would have gone quite a long way towards resolving the initial problem. But they didn't.

Why?

 

[exchemist]

Seems to me like you did.




His use of “women” was clearly indicating those who may abuse the system (i.e. cismen).

He wasn’t saying the very existence of transwomen threatened women, but there are cases such as the Scottish rapist who “transitioned” after being charged that do threaten women.

He said it wouldn’t be transphobic to be concerned about such things (which it seems is a point you actually agree with once you get past your initial misunderstanding).

You replied



Perhaps you were making a hypothetical case that if he had said something completely different to what he actually said then it would be transphobic?

Or perhaps you just read poorly and with prejudice and then continued to build on your initial error throughout your discussion. If this is the case then you illustrated one of the points in question in this thread pretty well.

(And no it’s not scaremongering to refer to actual real life cases that have recently caused controversy)

This is exactly what I would have wanted to say to explain my position. I knew however it would be a waste of time for me to do it myself, since IF is not listening to me. So I hoped that maybe some 3rd party might do it. Which you have now done, so thank you for that.

 

[Augustus]

Then that could have been explained straight away

He did

We've just had a case in Scotland, in which a rapist chose to describe himself/herself, after the rapes, as a woman, so he/she could be sent to a women's prison. Good plan? That's what I meant by "self-described". Obviously this is abnormal, but it can happen if you don't have any safeguards about when to take seriously someone who has just announced he or she has changed sex. Any old perve can just announce he's a woman and start wandering into women's changing rooms. A lot of women really don't like the sound of that.

If you insist on labelling what I have written as "transphobic", then you are going to make adversaries of a large part of the population, quite unnecessarily. The activists need to make their case and listen to concerns, not try to shut down discussion of reasonable anxieties.

You said: "I would say calling trans women a "self-described trans "women"" would be pretty -phobic, yeah."

What did you mean by that? It seems to me you may have have jumped to a wrong conclusion about what I was saying.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

He did

Okay, I'll admit I missed that and suggest, in good faith, that I might have come into the discussion a bit late and overreacted to language that came across to me as explicitly transphobic.

 

[Augustus]

Okay, I'll admit I missed that and suggest, in good faith, that I might have come into the discussion a bit late and overreacted to language that came across to me as explicitly transphobic.

That’s fair enough.

Unfortunately, the nature of this medium means we all do things like this now and again

 

[Friend of Mara]

Just because I have seen the word "transphobia" pop up several times again.

To my understanding people have transphobia if they don't agree with the views on transgenders.

Do people also suffer from christianophobia, atheistphobia, democratphobia, republicanphobia, Trumpphobia, Bidenphobia, etc?

If "youns" is a made up word, transphobia definetly is IMO.

So if there is a group of people. You will me so far? And you hate those people. You hold negative opinions of those people based purely on the fact that they exist as a form of prejudice on an inalienable trait what else could you call it?

All words are made up.

 

[ChristineM]

Just because I have seen the word "transphobia" pop up several times again.

To my understanding people have transphobia if they don't agree with the views on transgenders.

Do people also suffer from christianophobia, atheistphobia, democratphobia, republicanphobia, Trumpphobia, Bidenphobia, etc?

If "youns" is a made up word, transphobia definetly is IMO.

Don't forget the important islamophobia.

I think they are made up by those leaders of language evolution, the press

 

[Revoltingest]

"Phobia" as a suffix to a word to denote bigoted, hateful or prejudicial attitudes towards a particular thing has been a standard part of the English language for decades.

Don't be obtuse.

It's not a matter of anyone being obtuse.
It's objection to having the suffix evolve from an
original meaning to a new one used to demonize
people who disagree.
The same thing has happened to "gaslighting".
Originally it was about corrupting a victim's grasp
on reality. Now it has come to mean disagreeing
with a feminist.
It's reasonable to object to weaponization of words.
Any who disagree with me are obtuse Revoltophobes.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

It's not a matter of anyone being obtuse.

Yes it is. It is pretty plain to understand that the suffix "phobia" doesn't always simply just mean "fear", and its use for terms denoting bigotry is widespread. Pretending that use of the word "phobia" in this context is either misleading or inaccurate (because everyone knows what the word means) means you are being obtuse. It's just a way to distract from the actual issue.

It's objection to having the suffix evolve from an
original meaning to a new one used to demonize
people who disagree.

Except it's not new, and it isn't used to demonize.

The same thing has happened to "gaslighting".
Originally it was about corrupting a victim's grasp
on reality. Now it has come to mean disagreeing
with a feminist.

I have never once ever heard anyone use that term in that way, and have never heard anyone defining it that way.

"Homophobia" has always meant bigotry against homosexuality. Nobody has changed its meaning. Nobody is re-inventing terminology.

It's reasonable to object to weaponization of words.

And I imagine whatever counts as "weaponization" is... Whatever a person personally feels is weaponization?

Nope. It's just being obtuse.

Stop it.