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[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

Obligatory, not QT but trans. I feel like a lot of transwomen are really self-absorbed. Many of them really feel like being a TW is the worst and more persecuted minority you can possibly be. They even believe TM have it easier than them because at least they are transitioning to be the privileged gender. I remember listening to some of them in trans groups and rolling my eyes because many of them were paying for transition with the all money from careers or degrees they got as man that somehow they never thought of that as a privileged. I could really go off about this lol, but I’ll stop. If you really believe you have it the hardest of any women, maybe you don’t care about the “minor struggles” that women more privileged than you have faced. I don’t think they would ever say that, but I think that’s what they believe. They look at “cis” women with an idealized view of having that body must be like (male gaze) and imagine it must be the best thing ever and no struggles you have could possible compare to the burden they have to bare. I used to get it too to some extend where they would tell me how lucky I was just because I was young and passing, even though I was nearly homeless at the time. It’s so insane!

[–]VioletRemihomosexual female (aka - lesbian) 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don’t think they would ever say that, but I think that’s what they believe.

I know few TW in real life and few through internet.

Most of them believing that women are overprivileged over men. Some of them believed that they are "the best woman", because they are like "smart like man, sexy like woman, and can't get pregnant, so only positives".

And there a lot of insulting views they have. That is not specific to them, thought - I met many regular men in internet who think like that. There even whole "Gynosphere Theory" I recently saw in /s/LGBDropTheT, where men (and some women) are theorising that whole world for last 500 years are centered on women and women are really rulling the world. And arguments there are such absurd, one I saw was "In arabian countries and in medieval ages, men are fighting to death to get a woman, so men's life means nothing, but women's life is super valued and focused on" - ignoring that woman in this part has no say, she is just commodity for which few men are fighting and then father of that woman is gifting woman to one who shown to be the best in eyes of father, or ignoring that in medieval age it happened only to the richest women and men, while for 99.999% men and women reality was different. And so on, such a twisted perception - they see that "OnlyFans" and "prostitution" are huge privileges of women, because "men can't so easily get money".

[–]adungitit 6 insightful - 5 fun6 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

Some of them believed that they are "the best woman", because they are like "smart like man, sexy like woman, and can't get pregnant, so only positives".

I've seen it too and it makes me livid. The notion that women are privileged for something we have literally been owned as sex slaves for.

"In arabian countries and in medieval ages, men are fighting to death to get a woman, so men's life means nothing, but women's life is super valued and focused on"

This is a common argument even among self-proclaimed progressive men who ofc always need to reframe any feminist ideals as being all about making men's dicks feel better for them to care. So the notion that women have been pitting men to fight against each other for their benefit remains popular.

[–][deleted] 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Thinking women are over-privileged because of perceived power, influence or beauty, and being jealous of how “easy” women have it is the #1 Men’s Rights and Incel talking point though. I remember in the early 2010s when MRA was big and this was foundational to their worldview.I honestly do not see a difference.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sadly, I don’t think it is that different. My experience in trans groups is from along time ago too so words like Incel and MRA weren’t really there yet, but a lot of ideas were the same. I think they really believe they have it worse, which seems just so insane, but maybe they experience life in a way that is privileged enough to let them think that.

[–]adungitit 7 insightful - 6 fun7 insightful - 5 fun8 insightful - 6 fun -  (0 children)

Because it's not a MRA thing, it's a man thing, and most men believe it to some extent (even many women). Even in history classes or books you can still see women's subjugation passed off as "fatal female sexuality" or "the power that women had over rulers/husbands" and being sold the notion of "different but equal" in regards to historical marriages. I have seen even men who claim to be anti-MRA parrot these exact same myths.

[–]MarkTwainiac 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I could really go off about this lol, but I’ll stop.

No, please don't stop, do go on! If not here, then in a new thread on the topic. I'd love to know about what you saw in those trans groups, and your experiences, observations and views on more generally. I think other posters- and many readers - would too.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Lol, I don’t know if I should really do that. If I said everything I really felt about adult transwomen it really could make it even more difficult to be QT here. There so few QT and trans users already and I want them to participate.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

But you wouldn't have to do it in a way that stereotypes all TW or singles out the ones who are self-absorbed & self-pitying unfairly. Self-absorption & self-pity aren't confined to TW, or to any one group. But in society today, TW - and all the other people with special claimed "gender identities" like all the enby young women, and people like Sams Smiths & Eddie Izzard - seem to be given leeway to be self-absorbed & self-pitying that no other group gets, or has gotten historically. And this raises the important question of whether self-absorbed, self-pitying people end up living happier, more fulfilled lives & are emotionally better off than the rest of us.

My own view is that not calling out adults for this kind of self-absorption and lack of perspective does a real disservice to them. It's treating them like they are toddlers or young adolescents rather than as adults with the capacity to see themselves, others and the world through more mature eyes and to behave in more grown-up ways. It's also treating them as though they are made of delicate porcelain rather than flesh-and-blood like the rest of us. On the other hand, though, maybe my view is the mistaken one. Maybe being self-absorbed, self-pitying & selfish is the key to happiness, after all. Maybe such people really are living their "best life" and the rest of us would do well to follow their lead.

Perhaps a thread focused on self-absorption, self-pity and lack of a broader perspective in a general sense would work. One that discusses the downsides, the roots, and all the advantages & "merits" of narcissism and solipsism - and also discusses the differences between narcissistic tendencies and full-blown narcissistic personality disorder. And which also looks at these characteristics in terms of individual developmental psychology as well as larger social patterns. After all, it's normal and healthy for kids to be self-absorbed and entirely self-referential at stages growing up. The problem is when people never grow out of these tendencies. Or at least that's what some people like me see as the problem. But the truth is, lot of the people who display these tendencies themselves seem perfectly happy with themselves and their lives - they seem tickled pink, in fact. So maybe my view is the real problem.

Sometimes I wonder if one of the reasons there seems to be more narcissism today is smaller family sizes and changing child-rearing practices. Also, I wonder if in recent decades there's been less teaching & learning about - and interest in - history, other cultures & traveling to see the world than in previous eras. But all this is just speculation...

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Okay, you make a good point! I just don’t want make a like a “Peaking throws TW under the bus” thread. The self-absorb people seem like the rule rather than the exception though for trans people. I feel like sexual orientation and history is important too because I feel like those tendencies are often much worse in heterosexual trans people or even those who passed as straight. I’m biased though because, at best, I never got along with them. I wasn’t straight and felt like we didn’t share much in common. Maybe I’ll make another thread when I have time to write enough.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Agreed that self-absorption is not a TW-exclusive phenomenon in the QT movement. Narcissism among female enbys and heterosexual (“gay”) trans men is common.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

So well put!

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

Since women experience hardships and difficulties that transwomen likely never will, why would those be of any concern to transwomen? (I mean, they should but it likely just doesn't enter transwomen's thoughts because some of it is likely incomprehensible.) I'm trans and have been made aware of many things I never had thought about or considered before because I'm not female.

I'd like to think that transwomen who think and act like that are just ignorant and don't know any better, not that that should absolve them but it seems better than if they were intentionally disregarding things and being bullies. But maybe I'm wrong and it's worse, or it just makes no difference.

[–][deleted] 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (19 children)

(Thank you for the comment. I'm going to mirror ur same terminology/spelling here just for consistency)

Because if transwomen acknowledge that women experience hardships and difficulties much different from them (and that they will never face and likely incomprehensible as you say), that would require the acknowledgement that transwomen and women are fundamentally, innately different (and this conclusion is not allowed for feminists to make). And, if they're fundamentally, innately different, then they have separate issues and separate experiences, and thus require separate spaces and separate movements. I know this isn't a forum for personal beliefs, but personally speaking I (and I think many GCs) would support separate women and transwomen movements and spaces. However, transwomen rail against the idea of cis-only spaces, cis-only groups, cis-only movements and discussion of cis-only oppression and issues, saying it's bigoted and delegitimizes their identity as women and goes against "trans women are women" (even though trans-only spaces and groups are allowed and encouraged). Recently, a rape crisis shelter in Vancouver was vandalized with dead rats and violent grafitti by trans activists for being cis-only. It seems to me, transwomen want it both ways: to claim they're no different in their womanhood from cis women and should thus be included in every women's space, while ignoring and denigrating the issues/rights women are concerned about in those spaces. I am wondering why, and how that reasoning is justifiable.

Edit: also, when i say "transwomen" I am talking about those involved in social/political discourse, activism, and feminism, since this is a forum about GC vs. transfeminism/activism. I am not saying every single transwoman has views like this.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

It seems to me, transwomen want it both ways: to claim they're no different in their womanhood from cis women and should thus be included in every women's space, while ignoring and denigrating the issues/rights women are concerned about in those spaces.

And thanks for your comment, too! What you said here describes what really is often happening. The reasoning for it is probably ignorance, as mentioned, and maybe downplaying what a transwoman does know about what women experience. I'm not really sure why, but it seems like there's a lack of empathy on the part of transwomen in these scenarios (that's not to say that transwomen lack empathy, but being unmoved by another's plight seems really indicative of empathy issues in this instance). That's probably not all, though.

A couple months ago I made and shared a video in the GC sub that I titled along the lines of 'Gender Critical feminists are people too'. MarkTwainiac pointed out how the title implied that I used to not see GC radfems as people, nor do others see them that way, which I told her I thought was (sadly) actually true: anyone who might challenge transgenderism or a trans identity is dehumanized so thoroughly, I feel like. Anything that is brought up by or about women that doesn't include transwomen is lumped in with what might be considered legitimate transphobia and no one sees the difference, so it's socially condoned and somewhat encouraged to not view or think of anyone who says such things as equals or even just people. There is something inherently cruel and hateful about it, it makes me really sad.

[–]adungitit 10 insightful - 7 fun10 insightful - 6 fun11 insightful - 7 fun -  (5 children)

it seems like there's a lack of empathy on the part of transwomen in these scenarios

There is as much empathy in them as there is in your average man. It is indeed a lack of empathy, but a normal and expected one.

it seems like there's a lack of empathy on the part of transwomen in these scenarios

They think the same about women. Because women do not want to give up their hard-won rights and go against their better judgement and safety measures when it comes to male trans people, they are labelled as cruel and inconsiderate. The exact same approach is visible in the reaction to feminism in general: the fact that women push for their rights and reject misogynistic norms that men want to keep in place is constantly characterised as hateful, misandrist and supremacist. This has been the normal reaction for as long as feminism has existed. Appeals for women to centre everyone's needs but women's and to deal with being dehumanised and subjugated because "men will feel bad otherwise :,(" have always been a part of the patriarchy, because women exist as secondary characters for the benefit of someone more important and more human.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thank you for putting this into words, because this is the only explanation I see possible, given that there has never been an alternative. As I’ve stated, I am open to alternatives but I’ve yet to see one besides the fact that they behave no differently from your average socialized male who feels threatened by feminism. We are talking about averages of course, of course there are individual transwomen who exhibit appropriate empathy just as there are individual men who exhibit appropriate empathy, but the trans activist movement as a whole, has none.

[–]adungitit 9 insightful - 5 fun9 insightful - 4 fun10 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

While magical sex changes or gender never made sense to me, before knowing any trans people I used to baselessly assume that men who related to women to the point of wanting to be them would be the rare men who I could actually feel comfortable around as a human being. I also naively assumed the same thing about male feminists. What a joke that was lol! I eventually learned that even the male communities that by all logic should've moved past their misogyny (like communities for gender nonconforming men, submissive men, or men traumatised by other men and their patriarchal hierarchies) are just as misogynistic as any other male community and are still functioning according to the exact same mindset, with all their thoughts and feelings resulting from that. And the reason really is because men do not see women as human beings, so when men do these seemingly "nonconforming" things, they're not in any way doing them as a rejection of the patriarchal system, in fact they seek to re-affirm it. They see women as inferior caricatures as opposed to the actual (male) human beings. Imitating a misogynistic caricature for the sake of a fetish doesn't require you to reconsider, let alone abandon the male supremacist view the whole thing feeds off of, and it certainly doesn't require you to consider pesky things like the caricature's rights and dignity. No-one seriously thinks about Mickey Mouse's deep feelings or mouse rights when watching his cartoons or putting his costume on. That wouldn't be fun, and he exists for other people's fun. Hence why even the most progressive male communities still treat women's rights as "political" and "controversial", why the men who say they "love women" only mean they love jerking off to male-made misogynistic fantasies, why the men who notice women don't want their shitty misogynistic sex still demand women have sex with them and why male trans people can create their insular male communities where they jerk off to anime characters and porn and think this is representative of the female experience. In men's minds, imitating or desiring women is 100% divorced from women's feelings, experience, wants, thoughts etc. If a woman were human, she would be male. Since she's not, her humanity need not enter the picture and we can focus on the sexy parts that men and their supremacist system can feel validated by.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

the fact that women push for their rights and reject misogynistic norms that men want to keep in place is constantly characterised as hateful, misandrist and supremacist. This has been the normal reaction for as long as feminism has existed.

I just want to point out that this has been "the normal reaction for as long as feminism has existed" only in some circles. In my own lifetime (born mid-1950s) there has been a sea change in prevailing attitudes towards feminism (genuine feminism, not fauxminism of the libfems), and the change has been for the worse. Dramatically so.

In the late 1960s and especially in the 70s and 80s but also through the 90s, when women would "push for our rights and reject misogynistic norms" we were not "constantly characterized as hateful, misandrist and supremacist." On the contrary, many of us were applauded and admired, and invited to write articles and books, give talks and appear on mainstream media. At least this was the case in the US where I mostly live(d).

Yes, some people back then called outspoken feminists "man haters," said we were out to "destroy the family," wanted to "lord it over" men, opined that our "real problem" was that we couldn't get laid or hadn't met the right guy, dismissed us as "granola-eating lesbian cranks" and "ugly bull dxkes with hairy armpits" and said much worse about us too such as calling us "femiNazis." But this was not the prevailing view across all of US society - and I'd even go so far as to say it wasn't the dominant view, either. Particularly amongst those privileged enough to have gotten college/uni degrees but also to a great extent amongst a lot of working class people, especially WC women, it was widely taken as a given that of course a lot of women would push for our rights and reject misogynistic norms - and we weren't demonized or dehumanized for doing so the way we routinely are by supposedly progressive, inclusive, tolerant "polite society" today.

Women back then were dehumanized and demonized in all the traditional ways for all the traditional reasons. We were reduced to sex objects and to use today's terminology "cum dumps;" regarded socially, legally & financially as the property of men; depicted as empty-headed bimbos good for nothing except fucking, making babies & keeping house; relegated to second-class status in pretty much every situation; and blamed whenever anything bad happened, including for all the violence, abuse and discrimination men committed against us. But back then there was no widespread, super popular cultural trend of dehumanizing and demonizing us simply for standing up for our rights and rejecting misogyny the way there is today when women who don't center men in our feminism are derided as TERFs.

Today, feminists who don't go along with trans dogma & parrot the lie that TWAW are routinely subjected to the most vile abuse, actively silenced and made pariahs not just by fringe activists and their groups, but by major institutions like universities, libraries, corporations, charities, the UN, the centrist & "leftwing" political parties, many governments and arms of government, book publishers, most of the mass media and nearly all the big players in social media such as FB, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and the controllers of info on the internet such as Google and Wikipedia. Back in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, women didn't risk losing our jobs, having our contracts cancelled, being hauled before disciplinary committees, being denied financial and business services, being banned from public platforms or getting visited by the police or arrested for standing up for our rights, demanding female sports and spaces, vocally opposing misogyny, pointing out the biological differences between the sexes or laughing at the absurd notion that men can become women through use of hormones & cosmetic surgeries and coz some men say so.

Moreover, in the 70s and 80s and the 90s, establishment institutions like the Democratic party and the ACLU as well as women's organizations like American Association of University Women, NOW, NARAL, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights were all for women's rights, as were major media outlets like PBS and the NY Times - or at least they all still gave lip service to the idea of women's rights.

A good illustration comes from the glowing review by Thomas Szasz of Janice Raymond's The Transsexual Empire that the NYTimes published in 1979. I'll C+P the text in another post. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/male-and-female-created-he-them-transexual.html

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Review of Janice Raymond's The Transsexual Empire by Thomas Szasz, MD published in the NY Times, June 10, 1979:

IN the old days, when I was a medical student, if a man wanted to have his penis amputated, my psychology professors said that he suffered from schizophrenia, locked him up in an asylum and threw away the key. Now that I am a professor, my colleagues in psychiatry say that he is a “transsexual,” my colleagues in urology refashion his penis into a perineal cavity they call a vagina, and Time magazine puts him on its cover and calls him “her.” Anyone who doubts that this is progress is considered to be ignorant of the discoveries of modern psychiatric sexology, and a political reactionary, a sexual bigot, or something equally unflattering.

Like much of the medical‐psychiatric mendacity characteristic of our day, the official definition “transsexualism” as a disease comes down to the strategic abuse of language — epitomized by confusing and equating biological phenomena with social roles (in the present case, chromosomal sexual identity with acting as a man or a woman). Although there are connections between these concepts and facts, neither one “causes'.’ or “determines” the other.

Because “transsexualism” involves, is indeed virtually synonymous with, extensive surgical alterations of the “normal” human body, we might ask what would happen, say, to a man who went to an orthopedic surgeon, told him that he felt like a right‐handed person trapped in an ambidextrous body and asked the doctor to cut off his perfectly healthy left arm? What would happen to a man who went to a urologist, told him that he felt like a Christian trapped in a Jewish body, and asked him to re‐cover the glans of his penis with foreskin? (Such an operation may be alluded to in I Corinthians, 7:17‐18.)

“But,” the medically informed reader might object, “isn't transsexualism a disease? Isn't it — in the grandly deceptive phrase of the American psychiatric establishment used to characterize all ‘mental diseases’ — ‘just like any other illness'?” No, it is not. The transsexual male is indistinguishable from other males, save by his desire to be a woman. ("He is a woman trapped in a man's body” is the standard rhetorical form of this claim.) If such a desire qualifies as a disease, transforming the desiring agent into a “transsexual,” then the old person who wants to be young is a “transchronological,” the poor person who wants to be rich is a “transeconomical,” and so on. Such hypothetical claims and the requests for “therapy” based on them (together with our cognitive and medical responses to them) frame, in my opinion, the proper background against which our contemporary beliefs and practices concerning “transsexualism” and transsexual “therapy” ought to be viewed.

Clearly, not all desires are authenticated in our society as diseases. Why the desire for a change in sex roles is so authenticated is analyzed with great sensitivity and skill by Janice Raymond in “The Transsexual Empire.” Arguing that “medicine and psychology ... function as secular religions in the area of transsexualism,” she demonstrates that this “condition” is now accepted as a disease because advances in the technology of sex‐conversion surgery have made certain alterations in the human genitals possible and because such operations reiterate and reinforce traditional patriarchal sex‐role expectations and stereotypes. Ostensibly, the “transsexers” (from psychologists to urologists) are curing a disease; actually, they engage in the religious and political shaping and controling of “masculine” and “feminine” behavior. Miss Raymond's development and documentation of this thesis is flawless. Her book Is an important achievement.

The claim that males can be transformed, by means of hormones and surgery, into females, and vice versa, is, of course, a lie. ("She‐males” are fabricated in much greater numbers than “he‐females.") Chromosomal sex is fixed. And so are one's historical experiences of growing up and living as boy or girl, man or woman. What, then, can be achieved by means of “transsexual therapy"? The language in which the reply is framed is crucial — and can never be neutral. The transsexual propagandists claim to transform “women trapped in men's bodies” into “real” women and want then to be accepted socially as females (say, in professional tennis). Critics of transsexualism contend that such a person is a “male‐to‐constructed‐female” (Miss Raymond's term), or a fake female, or a castrated male transvestite who wears not only feminine clothing but also feminine‐looking body parts. Miss Raymond quotes a Casablanca surgeon, who has operated on more than 700 American men, characterizing the transsexual transformation as follows: “I don't change men into women. I transform male genitals into genitals that have a female aspect. All the rest is in the patient's mind ".

Not quite. Some of the rest is in society's “mind.” For the fact is that Renee Richards was endorsed by Billie Jean King as a real woman and was accepted by the authorities monitoring women's professional tennis as a “real woman.” This authentication of a “constructed female” as a real female stands in dramatic contrast to the standard rules of Olympic competition in which the contestants’ bodily contours count for nothing, their sexual identity being based solely on their chromosomal makeup.

Miss Raymond has rightly seized on transsexualism as an emblem of modern society's unremitting — though increasingly concealed — antifeminism. And she correctly emphasizes that “the terminology of transsexualism disguises the reality ... that transsexuals ‘prove’ they are transsexuals by conforming to the canons of the medical‐psychiatric institution that evaluates them on the basis of their being able to pass as stereotypically masculine or feminine, and that ultimately grants surgery on this basis.” The “transsexual empire” is thus a Trojan horse in the battle between the sexes, helping men to seduce unsuspecting women, or women who ought to know better, to join forces with their oppressors.

Still, why should anyone (especially feminist women) object to men wanting to become women? Isn't imitation the highest form of flattery? Precisely herein lies the “liberal” sexologists’ betrayal of human dignity and integrity: They support the (male) transsexual's claim that he wants to be a woman — when, in fact, what he wants is to be a caricature of the male definition of “femininity.” What makes transsexual surgery a male‐supremacist obscenity is the fact that transsexing surgeons do not perform the operation on all clients (just for the money) but insist that the client prove that he can “pass” as a woman. That is as if Catholic priests were willing to convert only those Jews who could prove their Christianity by socially appropriate acts of antiSemitism. Janice Raymond's analysis is bitterly correct. The very existence of the “transsexual empire” is evidence of the persistence of our deep‐seated religious and cultural prejudices against woman.

The war between the sexes is a part of our, human heritage. It's no use denying It. If that war ever ends, it will be not because of a phony armistice arranged by doctors, but because men, women and children will place personal dignity before social sex‐role identity.

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/06/10/archives/male-and-female-created-he-them-transexual.html

That review reflected what were pretty mainstream views in the USA 42 years ago. Today, not only would no establishment press outlet even consider publishing it, but it would be widely condemned as hate speech.

[–]VioletRemihomosexual female (aka - lesbian) 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 4 fun9 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 4 fun -  (5 children)

A couple months ago I made and shared a video in the GC sub that I titled along the lines of 'Gender Critical feminists are people too'. MarkTwainiac pointed out how the title implied that I used to not see GC radfems as people, nor do others see them that way, which I told her I thought was (sadly) actually true: anyone who might challenge transgenderism or a trans identity is dehumanized so thoroughly, I feel like.

Fleurista, I owe you an apology for not going back to that thread on GC and continuing the exchange with you there.

I didn't go back and engage with you more about it coz I didn't want to let on how upset I was by the original title, and because I was afraid I'd say something intemperate and unfair to you. It was just a title on an obscure YT video, after all - a teeny tiny thing in the grand scheme of things. And I know you meant no offense. And you personally didn't really cause any. It was just that to me on that day, the title seemed to encapsulate in a nutshell the much bigger pattern of the way supposedly tolerant, progressive society now routinely derides women like me as subhuman, hateful verminous villains (and dinosaurs too) who deserve contempt, vitriol, abuse, rape, death and even extermination on a mass scale.

Being dehumanized and demonized like this is really distressing - and it's had a terrible effect on my own physical & mental health, much more than I like to let on. None of which is your fault. But when distressed, it's often hard to keep our emotions in check, and it's very common for anger to be misdirected. So rather than risk being unreasonable and unfair by unloading on you, I stepped away from that thread on GC and headed to the airport to politely give airline staff a piece of my mind instead: https://youtu.be/dQ--HIQdKwM

But I want you to know I very much appreciate that you changed the title - and I am sorry that I didn't tell you thanks sooner. BTW, hope you liked my outfit in the video. I was flattered that the voiceover guy took note of my "stylish plaid skirt."

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Oh gosh, Mark. You are going to make me cry. Maybe it's silly, but this means so much to me. Really. I'm so afraid of being inconsiderate to others or upsetting them or being unkind to them in any way, I felt so bad I had to change it. Honestly, I felt very intimidated and nervous being on here, so thank you very, very much for stepping away and sparing my feelings. And thank you so much for telling me all of this 💙

But also that was hilarious, I'm sure it looked like I was just giggling at someone's misfortune! Even with a blurry image from afar, it's clear just how incredibly stylish that skirt was, I gasped and nearly died when I saw it. Honestly I'm not even sure what happened in the rest of the video, I assume you had a quiet, lovely flight though looking totally fab. You go, girl!!! SLAYYYY🤩👏

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 5 fun9 insightful - 4 fun10 insightful - 5 fun -  (2 children)

I’m sorry I’m just having incredible whiplash from seeing a transwoman and GC actually get along. Wtf is going on here. Maybe I should delete my Twitter lol

[–]VioletRemihomosexual female (aka - lesbian) 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It is almost like GC feminists are not really hating transgender people, like Stonewall and LibDems are saying, and almost like it is poorly written laws and attacks on women rights and kid safeguarding is what the real issue. And it is not like current definition of "trans" and new laws are opening arms for all kinds of abusers who are saying they are trans only to get free out of jail card or gain privilege (like with Wadhwa Mridul or Aimee Challenor who got jobs without background checks or any education or any skills just because they are trans) or to get access to victims.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Crazy, right? 😄 It happens. Some of us are quite fond of each other across debating lines.

[–]VioletRemihomosexual female (aka - lesbian) 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

to not view or think of anyone who says such things as equals or even just people. There is something inherently cruel and hateful about it, it makes me really sad.

That's how things like nazism arised and how "good people" are turned into murdering machines, while thinking they are doing something good. It is common for cults and dictatorships, who require common enemy who is dehumanized.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Also, OP, some of us on this sub eschew the terms transwoman and transman and go with trans-identified male or female, male who identifies as the opposite sex, etc. And we've not been kicked off yet. I was very nervous when I first posted here, really felt I was walking on eggshells all the time and was about to hit a tripwire or landmine any second, but the moderators said so long as one is reasonable and respectful, they're not gonna boot me or other "GC" feminists off. The mods are all very reasonable & intelligent, not at all censorious.

You might want to read through some past threads to see the terms and arguments people have used.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Lol that’s weird I assumed there’d be QT who would refuse to engage with those terms. Regardless I’ll probably just mirror whatever language people use who I’m addressing to keep it consistent. Thanks for the heads up tho

Also yeah I’ll probably spend some time combing through some threads.

[–]adungitit 5 insightful - 6 fun5 insightful - 5 fun6 insightful - 6 fun -  (2 children)

I know this isn't a forum for personal beliefs

Uuh, what exactly do you think this forum is for?

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I figured just debating theory??? this is my first time posting LMFAO

[–]adungitit 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (0 children)

It is very much opinionated.

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I will never risk get pregnant in my life because I will only have sex with and date other cis women.

I hope that it will remain the case that you all the sex you ever have is with women you choose to have sex with, and you find it all to be gratifying. However, not to be negative, but a large number of pregnancies through history have been the result of rape, and lesbians are not immune from being raped or becoming pregnant through rape. In some parts of the world, such as South Africa, lesbians today are at especially high risk of rape because of the widespread practice of "corrective rape," whereby boys & men intentionally seek out lesbians and "sporty" girls & women to rape in order to teach them a lesson and set them straight (literally).

Content Warning for the rest of this post: male sexual violence against women, particularly lesbians and nuns

Rates of rape are extremely high in South Africa and LGBTQ women are sometimes targeted for what is known as “corrective” rape, where men allegedly believe forced sex can change a woman’s sexuality. Women who identify as lesbians are considered primary targets, but non-traditional gender expression broadens the number of individuals within the LGBTQ community who may experience “corrective” rape.

https://sjnnchicago.medill.northwestern.edu/blog/2019/05/15/in-south-africa-lgbtq-bigotry-raises-concern-of-corrective-rape/

From the BBC in 2011:

The practice appears to be on the increase in South Africa.

More than 10 lesbians per week are raped or gang-raped in Cape Town alone, according to Luleki Sizwe, a charity which helps women who have been raped in the Western Cape.

Some trace the root of the problem to pockets of traditional African society that have not accepted homosexuality - especially among women.

"African societies are still very patriarchal. Women are taught that they should marry men, anything outside of that is viewed as wrong," says Lesego Tlhwale from African gay rights group Behind the Mask.

"It is seen as un-African for two women to marry. Some men are threatened by this and then want to 'fix' it," she adds.

She notes that the women who have been killed in South Africa so far have been described as "butch lesbians" - a slang term used to describe lesbians with a masculine or manly appearance.

"They are threatened by these kinds of lesbians in particular. They say they are stealing their girlfriends. It is a warped sense of entitlement and a need to protect their manhood."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13908662

https://www.cnn.com/2011/10/27/world/wus-sa-rapes

https://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1157&context=annlsurvey

During times of war and social upheaval when men go on rape rampages - as happened during WW2 in places like Nanjing China, Italy, Poland and east Germany/Berlin, and happens in our own era wherever in the world there is war, strife, natural disasters, crisis, widespread lawlessness, corruption, tyranny, draconian regimes - the men committing mass rapes have never inquired stopped to ask their intended victims' sexual orientation first in an effort to spare lesbians.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/02/rape-weapon/

Even being a nun has never served to protect girls and women from being raped or from becoming pregnant in the process.

https://religionnews.com/2016/07/09/film-explores-hidden-history-of-world-war-ii-the-rape-of-nuns/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/abused-nuns-reveal-stories-of-rape-forced-abortions

https://tibet.net/persecution-and-sexual-abuse-of-tibetan-buddhist-nuns-by-the-ccp/

https://savetibet.org/tibetan-nun-gives-account-of-rape-in-custody/

Again, I hope you will always have a fully consensual and enjoyable sex life, OP. I apologize for sharing disturbing, depressing information. But I had to say something to correct the mistaken impression that lesbians have zero risk of unwanted pregnancy.

Also, just for the record, reproductive rights do directly affect many lesbians, including lesbian feminists, because many such women desire and choose to have children.

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

you're right, and this is a good point, of course it's still possible for me to get pregnant from rape due to being female, and this happens to women across the globe regardless of who they would want to have as partners. The point I was trying to make (albeit maybe poorly phrased) is that I cannot relate to women who date and have partners that could impregnate them, just as I cannot relate to much of the discourse around proper usage of condoms to prevent pregnancy and the STI rates of women with these types of partners, however, I still care very much about these issues even though I cannot relate, because I acknowledge they apply to the majority of other women and as a woman, I care about women's issues. I hope that makes more sense is clearer about what I was trying to get at.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I got the point you were trying to make, but a great deal of misinformation about the basic facts of life and female experience gets posted on this sub, so I felt compelled to correct what you actually said. Also, lately attempts have been made to inaccurately portray lesbians, so I am sensitive to misinformation about that group in particular. It's one thing to say that in day-to-day life a lesbian doesn't have to worry about contraception or unwanted pregnancies, but saying a lesbian has no risk of ever getting pregnant is something entirely different.

At the same time, now that males in droves are "identifying as" lesbians and major media outlets tell impressionable young people that lesbian sex often involves penises and PIV, and lesbians are being told it's bigoted and "exclusionary" not to do dick, there is considerable confusion afoot about what the term lesbian means and what lesbian sex is.

Moreover, some young female today really do seem to think that having a same-sex sexual orientation, or identifying as asexual, non-binary, as the opposite sex or adopting any one of the many newfangled "gender identities" out there really does remove their risk both of pregnancy and rape.

There have been quite a few stories in the press in recent years about "transmen" getting pregnant unexpectedly coz they thought taking exogenous T would stop them from ovulating. There also was a famous case in the UK where a "transman" who was raped couldn't understand why the rapist didn't stop when she kept telling him she identifies as a man.

With those kind of misunderstandings so prevalent today, I thought it best to make it clear that yes lesbians can get pregnant, and that many do - most by choice, but not all by choice. Sorry, though, for being so pedantic.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It’s all good. I understand. And thank you for the resources, this will be helpful in other discussions.

I did not know about that case in the UK with the transman. Unfortunately, i find that unsurprising and inevitable. It is sad that biologically female people lack any consciousness and solidarity with each other because sexual violence against us isn’t going to go away by “identifying” out of it.

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

What is the explanation?

One possibility -- the transwomen and activists doing this are simply doubling down on the notion of "exceptional status" (a minority within a protected class). It's logically void, but tactically useful, and depends completely on the conflation of sex with gender and the conciliatory mood of policymakers.

They all responded with "these are irrelevant questions", "trans-inclusion has already been decided so this is not valid to debate", and "doesn't matter, trans-inclusion is here to stay, cry about it".

And this is the evidence that it's logically void. The vast majority of responses to questions like this are blatant evasions.

If there were a coherent explanation, we've have heard it by now -- the evaders have had years to put one together.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I mean, I agree with you, but I'd like to see what the trans activist/transfeminist justification for it is. Because I can't think of one, besides what you just said. I have not seen a trans activist who is 1) educated on 1st wave, 2nd wave, and 3rd wave feminism and read the associated literature, and understands the differences and purposes behind each as well as what they've accomplished, 2) feminist movements in other countries and cultures outside of the west, and 3) cares about 99% of women's rights and women's issues and where these rights and issues originate from, and how to protect those rights and solve those issues. If we are expected to center trans issues and history above our own, why do they not do the same for us. I am open to being convinced that trans women and female people can be allies in activism and social/political discourse. But I have seen absolutely zero evidence for it, and in fact only seen evidence for the exact contrary time and time again. I am willing to hear alternative explanations but none have been given.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm right there with you. In the years I've been focused on this issue, I've seen none of that evidence, either -- just a steady drumbeat for forced inclusion and increasingly organized and violent silencing of all questioning and opposing opinion.

My own conclusion is that this advocacy was (collectively) never about facts, only about feelings. I'm still waiting for a coherent and evidence-based explanation to the contrary. Or a demonstrated sense of history, as you mention. None of that seems to be forthcoming . . . and I think that says it all.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 6 insightful - 5 fun6 insightful - 4 fun7 insightful - 5 fun -  (89 children)

Many issues that affect cis women affect trans women as well. All feminists, even feminists who are trans women, are fighting for women's rights. This means we are fighting for equal pay, to be seen as competent equals, being allowed to enter traditionally male professions like garbage collecting or mechanics, ending sexual harassment, prosecuting rape, ending sex-shaming. These are things that affect passing trans women as well. There are some things that don't affect trans women, like pregnancy and periods, but a lot of feminists are fighting for OTC birth control and to end pregnancy discrimination. Hell, many feminists also fight race, disability, LGB and class issues. I am a feminist. I support Black Lives Matter and fairer criminal justice, disabled children not being segregated in schools, more LGBT representation, universal healthcare, etc.

Also, Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Title IX does not mandate, nor prohibit sex-segregated spaces. Some key issue areas in which recipients have Title IX obligations are: recruitment, admissions, and counseling; financial assistance; athletics; sex-based harassment, which encompasses sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence; treatment of pregnant and parenting students; discipline; single-sex education; and employment.

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Title IX does not just apply to cis women. It applies to men (cis and trans) and even trans women.

Title IX and Sex Discrimination - US Department of Education

Title IX Frequently Asked Questions - National Collegiate Athletic Association

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (47 children)

Ahh yess a QT who responded! I recognize your username from some threads I've combed through. You seem to have gotten in some scruffles with the GCs here, lol. Well anyways, thanks for your comment, I think I have a few things to follow-up on: (I apologize for the shitty formatting ahead, I have no idea how to do quotations on saidit lol).

"All feminists, even feminists who are trans women, are fighting for women's rights" -Debatable, and depends on what the feminist's definition of "rights" for women are. Is it female liberation? Is it separatism? Is it gender abolition? Is it post-genderism? And what are the methods used, and to what end? For example, many 3rd wavers are supportive of the legalization and normalization of sex work. 2nd wavers would say prostitution and pornography are a stronghold of the patriarchy. There is a fundamental disagreement in ideology there, and it is impossible for them both to be right simultaneously. Only one of them is actually fighting for women's rights.

"Fighting for equal pay" -The problem is that before transition, trans women are treated as male and actually benefit from the pay disparity in the workplace, not suffer from it. I do wonder if there have been any studies done on transitioned/passing trans women in the workplace and what the paygap is compared to cis women, that would be interesting to see.

"to be seen as competent equals" -This is vague and subject to individual interpretation. What does that concretely look like, and what material objective can be pursued to achieve it? I've had conservative women tell me they feel most "equal" when they are subservient to their traditional husbands.

"being allowed to enter traditionally male professions" -Once again, this is something that pre-transition trans women benefit from, not suffer from. I concede passing trans women may face discrimination in this regard too though. I think some studies would be beneficial here.

"ending sexual harassment" -Yes, sexual harassment is an overlapping issue for cis and trans women. However, by ending sex-segregated spaces, you are introducing legal loopholes which would allow any man to identify into those spaces, regardless of whether that identity is authentic or not. Furthermore, given that 99% of men have penises and the sexual assault and harassment statistics against cis women and girls at the hands of men, cis women and girls have a right to not want to be exposed to these genitals in bathrooms and lockerooms.

"prosecuting rape" -Prosecuting rape is not just a feminist issue because it affects everyone. However, I'm glad you brought up the topic of rape, because it disproportionately affects females by male perpetrators. And by ending sex-segregated spaces, there are loopholes which will allow predators to enter those spaces unquestioned. This is already becoming an problem with female prisons.

"ending sex shaming" -I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you referring to "slut shaming" or something else?

"a lot of feminists are fighting for OTC birth control and to end pregnancy discrimination" -This is great, these are important women's issues. However, abortion access and menstrual stigma are still priority too, ESPECIALLY in countries and cultures outside of the West. I have never seen trans women step up to the plate and fight with cis women to maintain these rights. Cis women are expected to fight for trans-specific issues, but trans women don't extend the same courtesy. In fact, it seems when they do talk about it, it's to say "stop calling them women's issues! you're making us feel left out" and center their feelings instead. At protests and marches for reproductive rights, pussy hats and uterus signs are branded as "TERF". Why are cis women not allowed to talk about issues that affect their biology and 99% of women in general? If it affects 99% of women, it's a women's issue.

"Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs and activities... does not mandate nor prohibit sex-segregated spaces" -You're right, and this is my point. Title IX allowed for the establishment of sex-segregated spaces in schools and girls to be given their own sports etc. away from boys, by prohibiting sex discrimination. Prohibiting sex discrimination is what allows for girls to participate in opportunities that are equally afforded to boys. It applies to trans people too, you're correct, because trans people also have a sex. Furthermore, I am glad you highlighted that it was on the "basis of sex". Trans activists/feminists are deliberately trying to undo "on the basis of sex" by obfuscating sex and gender identity and render it meaningless. As I stated in my original post, if anyone can identify into any gender or sex, then there is no reason to have any segregated spaces at all based on either gender OR sex. Who would that benefit? girls or boys? men or women? Which leads me back to my original question. Why were sex-segregated fought for in the first place, why was it necessary, why was it an achievement for women's rights? It is these questions that no QT has answered me, as I said in the OP, which is why I have a fundamental problem with their reasoning.

[–]VioletRemihomosexual female (aka - lesbian) 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

(I apologize for the shitty formatting ahead, I have no idea how to do quotations on saidit lol)

Use ">" before the quoted text.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (45 children)

You can quote by putting a ">" before a paragraph. Saidit uses Reddit Formatting.

Debatable, and depends on what the feminist's definition of "rights" for women are. Is it female liberation? Is it separatism? Is it gender abolition? Is it post-genderism? And what are the methods used, and to what end? For example, many 3rd wavers are supportive of the legalization and normalization of sex work. 2nd wavers would say prostitution and pornography are a stronghold of the patriarchy. There is a fundamental disagreement in ideology there, and it is impossible for them both to be right simultaneously. Only one of them is actually fighting for women's rights.

For me, "rights" mean having the same equal opportunities and equal treatment. For instance, women not being fired for being pregnant, equal pay, ending rape and sexual harassment (which happens to men also). I support abolishing gender roles (such as "girl toys" and "boy toys") and gendered language. For instance, cousin is a gender neutral term, but aunt and uncle are not. I would like to use gender neutral terms. Mother and father will exclusively refer to reproductive roles, otherwise you can use the sex-neutral term parent. There will be no more foster mothers and foster fathers, just foster parents, as they were not involved in the conception of the child. You can tell me your parent is in the hospital. I would also eliminate he and she, and replace them with gender neutral pronouns in every language. I do support decriminalizing sex work, as criminalizing sex work only hurts the sex worker. Pimping however should always be a crime.

I support ending sex shaming. Women who are promiscuous or openly sexual are called whores, sluts, told they don't respect themselves, that they didn't have a daddy to tell them they're beautiful and they don't need male attention. Men who are openly promiscuous/sexual do not experience the same value judgements. There was a thread on the old GC sub criticizing J.Lo for doing a strip tease at the super bowl. They said rich, powerful women who do this are objectifying themselves and are victimizers, unlike the vast majority of strippers who are victims. First of all, if you find this objectifying, change the channel and don't strip tease. Second, it's rude to label someone a victim without their consent when no crime has been committed against them. Those women may or may not feel victimized. I have my criticisms of the mainstream porn industry, but it feels like GC is against any and all sexual entertainment by women. If men are seeing every women as sex objects, they need to be addressed, not the women.

The problem is that before transition, trans women are treated as male and actually benefit from the pay disparity in the workplace, not suffer from it. I do wonder if there have been any studies done on transitioned/passing trans women in the workplace and what the paygap is compared to cis women, that would be interesting to see.

I have heard from trans people that they were treated differently once they transitioned.

This is vague and subject to individual interpretation. What does that concretely look like, and what material objective can be pursued to achieve it? I've had conservative women tell me they feel most "equal" when they are subservient to their traditional husbands.

What I meant by being seen as competent is being taken seriously at work. For instance, not having men mansplain you, having your ideas taken seriously, not just taken seriously when a man says the same thing afterwards. Also people not assuming you're less competent because you're a woman, which is the reason women get paid less than men.

Prosecuting rape is not just a feminist issue because it affects everyone. However, I'm glad you brought up the topic of rape, because it disproportionately affects females by male perpetrators. And by ending sex-segregated spaces, there are loopholes which will allow predators to enter those spaces unquestioned. This is already becoming an problem with female prisons.

I agree that rape is a problem, but I think the solution is private spaces, not sex segregated spaces. For instance, locker rooms should have stalls anyway, because why do you need to see a strangers genitals, same sex or not? Rape was always a problem in female prisons. Women rape and sexually harass other women. It doesn’t get as much attention, but it happens.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you referring to "slut shaming" or something else?

Yes, slut shaming.

This is great, these are important women's issues. However, abortion access and menstrual stigma are still priority too, ESPECIALLY in countries and cultures outside of the West. I have never seen trans women step up to the plate and fight with cis women to maintain these rights. Cis women are expected to fight for trans-specific issues, but trans women don't extend the same courtesy.

To an extent I agree.

In fact, it seems when they do talk about it, it's to say "stop calling them women's issues! you're making us feel left out" and center their feelings instead.

It's mainly trans men who insist you stop calling AFAB issues women's issues. It was a trans man who fought to remove the female symbol from Always products. It is trans men who insist you say "pregnant people".

At protests and marches for reproductive rights, pussy hats and uterus signs are branded as "TERF".

No. You are branded a TERF when you say things like "trans men aren't men" or "trans women aren't women", calling transgenderism misogyny, etc.

Why are cis women not allowed to talk about issues that affect their biology and 99% of women in general? If it affects 99% of women, it's a women's issue.

You are allowed to talk about those issues. Everyday Feminism and other social justice groups that are trans-supportive speak about these issues as well.

You're right, and this is my point. Title IX allowed for the establishment of sex-segregated spaces in schools and girls to be given their own sports etc. away from boys, by prohibiting sex discrimination. Prohibiting sex discrimination is what allows for girls to participate in opportunities that are equally afforded to boys. It applies to trans people too, you're correct, because trans people also have a sex.

Title IX does not require separate restrooms and locker rooms though. If schools built gender-neutral facilities, it would not violate Title IX.

Trans activists/feminists are deliberately trying to undo "on the basis of sex" by obfuscating sex and gender identity and render it meaningless.

I don't think using the term gender necessarily renders it meaningless. For instance the New York City Department of Education has Guidelines on Gender Inclusion. It states schools may not create gender-specific dress codes. If a school allows girls to wear skirts, they must allow boys to wear skirts. Schools can't require gender-specific attire for yearbook photos and graduation or other school-sponsored activities. Schools must also allow students to wear hairstyles regardless of gender.

As I stated in my original post, if anyone can identify into any gender or sex, then there is no reason to have any segregated spaces at all based on either gender OR sex.

The only area I support sex-segregated spaces is in sports.

Why were sex-segregated fought for in the first place, why was it necessary, why was it an achievement for women's rights? It is these questions that no QT has answered me, as I said in the OP, which is why I have a fundamental problem with their reasoning.

That's because previously spaces were male only with no substantial women's equivalent. Many of us would not mind gender-neutral spaces.

[–]BiologyIsReal 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

I would also eliminate he and she, and replace them with gender neutral pronouns in every language.

I'd prefer you leave us non-English speakers alone. You keep saying you care about all social issues, not only feminism. If that is the case, then why do you think it's reasonable to expect we modify our own languages just because some native English speakers find unnecssary to distinguish between the sexes? Sorry, but this sound quite colonialist to me.

Besides, what would be the purpose of this change? How would this help to eliminate sex inequalities? Using only gender neutral language means invisibilizing women and women's issues because men are viewed as the default. You'd be only making more difficult to talk about sexism and misogyny.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 3 insightful - 7 fun3 insightful - 6 fun4 insightful - 7 fun -  (19 children)

I'd prefer you leave us non-English speakers alone. You keep saying you care about all social issues, not only feminism. If that is the case, then why do you think it's reasonable to expect we modify our own languages just because some native English speakers find unnecssary to distinguish between the sexes? Sorry, but this sound quite colonialist to me.

I'm a non-English speaker myself. My parents are from another country and I speak another language. Я сетим согласна.

This of course will require changes in English as well as other languages. I find it offensive you think all non-English speakers should think the same.

Besides, what would be the purpose of this change? How would this help to eliminate sex inequalities? Using only gender neutral language means invisibilizing women and women's issues because men are viewed as the default. You'd be only making more difficult to talk about sexism and misogyny.

We don't use pronouns based on race or disability, so why use gendered pronouns.

[–]BiologyIsReal 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (18 children)

I'm a non-English speaker myself. My parents are from another country and I speak another language. Я сетим согласна.

This of course will require changes in English as well as other languages. I find it offensive you think all non-English speakers should think the same.

No, I don't think all non-English speakers should think the same, but apparently you do think so given what you have said. You're the one who want to change every language, including all the ones you don't speak to. Don't you think many non-English speakers would have a problem with this idea of getting rid of sex based words? Especially if the person proposing it neither speak their language nor live in their country?

We don't use pronouns based on race or disability, so why use gendered pronouns.

We're a sexually dismorphic species and sex matters a lot in things like health care, safeguarding, dating, making a family, sports, etcetera. That is why we have words that indicate sex and why is important to recolect data segregated by sex.

[–]adungitit 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (14 children)

why do you think it's reasonable to expect we modify our own languages just because some native English speakers find unnecssary to distinguish between the sexes?

Not the poster, but because pointless distinctions between the sexes such as third person pronouns are needlessly gendered and originate from the need to exclude women from normal life. I also want all cultures to stop pointlessly separating the sexes as well, and I really don't care how much they claim that misogyny is an integral part of their life and heritage.

Don't you think many non-English speakers would have a problem with this idea of getting rid of sex based words?

People literally always make up a stink over ending sexism. Nothing to see here.

We're a sexually dismorphic species and sex matters a lot in things like health care, safeguarding, dating, making a family, sports, etcetera. That is why we have words that indicate sex and why is important to recolect data segregated by sex.

Gendered pronouns are not needed for this. Words like "man" and "woman" are. Moreover, you can tell how unnecessary gendered pronouns are from the fact that English speakers are still perfectly capable of differentiating and speaking of men and women even outside of third person.

[–]BiologyIsReal 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Not the poster, but because pointless distinctions between the sexes such as third person pronouns are needlessly gendered and originate from the need to exclude women from normal life. I also want all cultures to stop pointlessly separating the sexes as well, and I really don't care how much they claim that misogyny is an integral part of their life and heritage.

People literally always make up a stink over ending sexism. Nothing to see here.

Way to completely miss my point... You make it sound like if we were talking about something like child marriage or FGM when, in fact, we were talking about sexed pronouns and words like aunt. You know, something that for most people is NOT a issue in the slightest.

This is not going to be a popular opinion, but sexism and misogyny exists in virtually every culture. Lots of people from developed countries like to see themselves as "progressive" and "more advanced" in social issues than the rest of the world. They can easily point out the sexism and misogyny of other countries, but they are oblivious about their own. It was the "enligthened" and "progressive" western countries who started with the ideas of "sex is a spectrum", "TWAW", and "sex work is work" after all. Yet many of those people have the need to act as white saviours who could solve all the social issues of foreign countries if not were for the "regressive" natives. The implicit idea is that the locals (all of them) are too stupid, incompetent, corrupt, sexist, racist, or whathever to make social progress on their own.

Gendered pronouns are not needed for this. Words like "man" and "woman" are. Moreover, you can tell how unnecessary gendered pronouns are from the fact that English speakers are still perfectly capable of differentiating and speaking of men and women even outside of third person.

Fine, you and u/Genderbender can have fun convincing the rest of English speakers of not using sexed pronouns. Meanwhile, I'll keep speaking Spanish as I always did. I'm not going to start using made-up pronouns, adjectives, nouns and articles just to please some native English speakers, who may or may not know a word in Spanish.

[–]adungitit 4 insightful - 6 fun4 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 6 fun -  (7 children)

we were talking about sexed pronouns and words like aunt.

Pronouns do not have sex (in fact, 5 out of 6 personal pronouns don't). "Women" and "men" do.

They can easily point out the sexism and misogyny of other countries, but they are oblivious about their own

The person was literally saying this should apply to languages in general. People constantly criticise the dehumanisation, exclusion, abuse etc. that women put up with in their own culture, and want women to enjoy equal rights everywhere, regardless of culture.

sexism and misogyny exists in virtually every culture.

And yet it was only modern Western countries that have made any real strides in regards to pushing back against it, way beyond any other culture so far. So, miss me with that "cultural relativism" patriarchy apologia. I don't give a damn what repetitive misogynistic crap some group of people has arbitrarily decided is going to be their "heritage" or "tradition", I give a damn about ending the patriarchy.

It was the "enligthened" and "progressive" western countries who started with the ideas of "sex is a spectrum", "TWAW", and "sex work is work" after all.

And according to your cultural relativism, any dumb shit is equally valid as long as a culture forms around it. Yeah, no thanks.

[–]BiologyIsReal 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Pronouns do not have sex (in fact, 5 out of 6 personal pronouns don't). "Women" and "men" do.

You know exactly what I meant...

The person was literally saying this should apply to languages in general. People constantly criticise the dehumanisation, exclusion, abuse etc. that women put up with in their own culture, and want women to enjoy equal rights everywhere, regardless of culture.

And yet it was only modern Western countries that have made any real strides in regards to pushing back against it, way beyond any other culture so far. So, miss me with that "cultural relativism" patriarchy apologia. I don't give a damn what repetitive misogynistic crap some group of people has arbitrarily decided is going to be their "heritage" or "tradition", I give a damn about ending the patriarchy.

And according to your cultural relativism, any dumb shit is equally valid as long as a culture forms around it. Yeah, no thanks.

Show me exactly where the f*** I advocated for moral relativism and excused the misogyny of any country. All I say was every culture, included the developed world is guilty of sexism and misogyny. And that is was the so called western countries who came up with "sex is a spectrum" and "sex work is work" and exported it everywhere they could. And I would add its often the developed countries who used their self-perceived "progressism" to justify their many wars. Perfect way to solve all other countries problems, right? Just kill all those foreign bigots! Women and girls included, because sex equality, you know?

If you think having pronouns that indicate the sex of a person (however you want to call them) is on pair with things like FGM or child marriage we're going to agree to absolutely disagree.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 7 fun2 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 7 fun -  (4 children)

I agree with this. Also, in English, an easy way to get around using sexed pronouns is simply to switch from the second to third persons. So instead of writing, A woman... she, write instead, Women...they

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 2 insightful - 6 fun2 insightful - 5 fun3 insightful - 6 fun -  (2 children)

No, I don't think all non-English speakers should think the same, but apparently you do think so given what you have said. You're the one who want to change every language, including all the ones you don't speak to. Don't you think many non-English speakers would have a problem with this idea of getting rid of sex based words? Especially if the person proposing it neither speak their language nor live in their country?

You said "I'd prefer you leave us non-English speakers alone." Who is us? I am also a non-English speaker. I'm sure there are speakers of every language who want to get rid of gendered language, especially non-binary people, who are everywhere.

We're a sexually dismorphic species and sex matters a lot in things like health care, safeguarding, dating, making a family, sports, etcetera. That is why we have words that indicate sex and why is important to recolect data segregated by sex.

There are some areas where sex matters, bu

My former psychology professor told us when we meet someone the 1st thing we as is their gender, to apply stereotypes. For instance, on a parenting forum, an anonymous parent made a post about how they're an attorney and due to their busy work schedule they had no time to spend with their kid which made the kid upset. People kept asking the parent if they were the mother or the father, even though that was irrelevant to the discussion. They clearly wanted to apply stereotypes, that the mother should spend time with the child while it's OK for the father to have a busy work schedule. Same forum, parent posted how their teen didn't want to see their father and didn't like the father's new girlfriend. People kept asking for the gender of the teen, although that was irrelevant to the discussion. I support bringing up gender when it's relevant. You can say "this person at my church..." not "this woman at my church, who is 46, white with brunette hair and green eyes...". You can bring up characteristics when it's necessary.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 6 fun7 insightful - 5 fun8 insightful - 6 fun -  (0 children)

My former psychology professor told us when we meet someone the 1st thing we as is their gender, to apply stereotypes. For instance,

Was your psych professor speaking of when people meet IRL, on anonymously online? Whatever the answer, your professor mistakenly assumes everyone in the world is a genderist. But the fact is, lots of people don't try to scope out other people's gender when meeting for the first time - or later on - coz we don't agree with genderism and we don't go around imposing sexist sex stereotypes on everyone.

Do you and your psych professor assume everyone hurriedly tries to suss out the race, ethnicity, religious backgrounds, politics etc of others we encounter in life so that we can immediately start applying racist, ethnic, religious, political and other stereotypes to them as well?

Also, in the examples you gave, it seems like people were asking for the parent's sex in the first case, and for the child's sex in the second case. People might want to know this NOT coz "they clearly wanted to apply stereotypes" as you assume and assert, but because they might want to be able to inquire about & factor in which kind of sex stereotypes might be at play in the minds of the children in each case. Fact is, lots of parents who don't ascribe to or live according to sex stereotypes themselves, and who did not and do not fill their kids' heads with sex stereotypes at home, often still find that their children have learned many sex stereotypes from other kids, entertainment media and social media - and their kids use those sex stereotypes as the basis for forming expectations and judgments of their own parents and their parents' partners. Moreover, lots of kids with sexist ideas apply double standards to their own parents & parents' partners depending on the sex of the adults involved & of the kids too.

The sex of the parent in the first case and of the child in the second case are actually very relevant to the discussion.

Sounds like that psych prof of yours didn't teach much about psychosexual family dynamics.

[–]BiologyIsReal 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You said "I'd prefer you leave us non-English speakers alone." Who is us? I am also a non-English speaker. I'm sure there are speakers of every language who want to get rid of gendered language, especially non-binary people, who are everywhere.

The us there was more to say I'm a non-native English speaker myself (and that is why I took issue with your comment) rather than to say I speak for every non-English speaker in the world. Also, although I didn't mentioned it before, I'm from and live in a non English speaking country, and that is another part why I disliked your idea of changing other languages as you'd like.

I don't doubt there are some pleople from non English speaking countries that would entertain your idea. The question is wheter are enough of them to make this change in their respectives language a reality. And my feeling is that very likely there aren't. At the end of the day, I think native speakers are the ones who should decide on any change on their languages.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Why on earth should terms like aunt and uncle be gotten rid of? What is bad about having some sexed words?

Also, why should there be no sex segregated spaces when it’s been explained to you before not providing them is depriving people of privacy and dignity?

[–]ZveroboyAlinaIs clownfish a clown or a fish? 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

is depriving people of privacy and dignity?

And equality with safety if talking about female spaces.

Feminists in developing countries are fighting for sex-segregated safe spaces and public toilets, so women can have equal opportunities in social life and be more safe. And at the same time "feminists" in developed countries are fighting to remove those spaces and reduce ability of women to participate in social life (especially of low class and marginalized women).

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yup! I’d like to know if GB recognises crime stats that show transwomen maintain male criminality without any NAMALT hedging.

[–]ZveroboyAlinaIs clownfish a clown or a fish? 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There was one city in the UK and few cities in the Canada which allocated money to change all sex-segregated spaces with unisex ones in the next few years. In the UK it raised a lot of protests, so it was halted temporarily, and I don't know about Canada. Not "just allow all genders in women's spaces", but to remove them completely.

It is really horrible.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It’s cruel, harmful, inconsiderate, and dictates that nobody matters except the tiny handful of privileged little weenies who throw tantrums over pad packeting and the symbol on their toilet door or other silly little wants.

Never mind the very real needs of others. Apparently feminism now means throwing women under the bus and punishing any desire for privacy or dignity.

[–]Juniperius 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

If gender replaces sex in anti-discrimination law, companies will be able to say, "yeah we fire women for being pregnant; we fire men for being pregnant too! There's no discrimination here!" How would you stop them, without admitting that female people (the ones who may be able to get pregnant) constitute a class separate from male people (who definitely can't) and should be protected on the basis of that class?

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I oppose replacing sex with gender in any laws for a variety of reasons. But I think the US Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 would continue to hold up where it already applies (employers with 15 or more employees) despite such a change because it prohibits discrimination "on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions." The language of the original law only mentions the word women once, and the word mother twice. https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/pregnancy-discrimination-act-1978

Unless the PDA of 1978 were specifically repealed, my hunch is it would most likely continue to apply to "pregnant employees," which is already a term used in a lot of the implementation guidance and related court rulings. Remember, Title VII, which is part of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964, is a broad-based [sic, LOL] statute that prohibits discrimination on a number of different grounds, such as race/color, religion & place of natural origin - not just sex. Plus, the workplace protections in US law have been expanded over the years to prohibit discrimination based on age, disability and genetic information along with pregnancy & maternity too.

Even if we were to erase the category of sex in law, and make mentioning sex taboo and illegal as one poster here wants to happen, the fact is that pregnancy and maternity will continue to be facts of life for some human beings, and workers who go through these experiences would be covered under the law. Some medical conditions related to pregnancy (such as gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia) are already covered under disability provisions in the ADA, as are certain sex-specific conditions or diseases, and the ADA is not a law pertaining to sex.

Significantly, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act just passed last week by the US House of Representatives says in its preamble that it's

A BILL To eliminate discrimination and promote women’s health and economic security by ensuring reasonable workplace accommodations for workers whose ability to perform the functions of a job are limited by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.

But the actual tex that follows avoids any mention, women, mothers or sex:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Pregnant Workers Fairness Act”.

SEC. 2. NONDISCRIMINATION WITH REGARD TO REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS RELATED TO PREGNANCY.

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for a covered entity to—

(1) not make reasonable accommodations to the known limitations related to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions of a qualified employee, unless such covered entity can demonstrate that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the business of such covered entity;

(2) require a qualified employee affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions to accept an accommodation other than any reasonable accommodation arrived at through the interactive process referred to in section 5(7);

(3) deny employment opportunities to a qualified employee if such denial is based on the need of the covered entity to make reasonable accommodations to the known limitations related to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions of a qualified employee;

(4) require a qualified employee to take leave, whether paid or unpaid, if another reasonable accommodation can be provided to the known limitations related to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions of a qualified employee; or

(5) take adverse action in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment against a qualified employee on account of the employee requesting or using a reasonable accommodation to the known limitations related to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions of the employee.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1065/text

[–]Juniperius 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's good to know pregnancy is specifically covered. Thanks for the information! I wouldn't be optimistic about the house bill, though. Lots of bills pass the House; it doesn't mean anything unless it passes the Senate, too, and I'm sure all the USians here know what a mess that is.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, good point about all the bills the House passes that never pass the Senate. Most of the bills the House passes are never even voted on in the Senate, in fact.

But the point I was making was about the language. It's entirely possible to write legislation and policies concerning sex-specific issues such as pregnancy without using the words women, mother, mother-to-be by using such terms as "qualified employee" or "affected individuals." And as this bill shows, that's what's customarily done nowadays.

Similarly, laws and regulations for, say, such matters as PPE in sports, workplaces & warfare can avoid the whole issue of using terms that some genderists consider too "gendered" to bear by focusing not on the sex of the persons involved, but on the body parts requiring/getting protection. Such as:

League safety regulations require that athletes with testicles and/or penises be equipped with, and always wear, cups designed to protect those organs during any sports activity that involves, or might involve contact, both in practice and competition.

Department regulations require that all police/military officers are to be fitted with, and provided, safety vests designed and sized to suit their bodies, and to take into account whether they have breasts or flat chests - and to accommodate the specific size, shape and other characteristics of officers' breasts.

All health care personnel are to be provided with uniforms, footwear and PPE designed for the specific size and shape of their bodies and which are sufficiently well-fitted to provide them with proper protection and which will not create added vulnerabillties or hazards.

This kind of language is specific to body parts - and allows for the fact that most women have smaller stature, and usually smaller, differently shaped bodies, faces, heads, hands & feet, heads and faces than men, which traditionally have been ignored when it comes to safety equipment. Yet this kind of lingo does not reduce the people involved to nothing but body parts or biological processes the way offensive terms meant to dehumanize girls & women like "uterus havers," "cervix owners" and "menstruators" do. Coz the people themselves are still called terms that recognize they are people: qualified employees... athletes .. police/military officers... health care personnel.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree that rape is a problem, but I think the solution is private spaces, not sex segregated spaces. For instance, locker rooms should have stalls anyway, because why do you need to see a strangers genitals, same sex or not? Rape was always a problem in female prisons. Women rape and sexually harass other women. It doesn’t get as much attention, but it happens.

The more private, secluded spaces there are, the more opportunities and places rapists & other physically strong abusers will have to grab & shove other weaker, smaller people & rape, sexually abuse, victimize & terrorize them.

There's a reason that in grade schools, cubbies and coat hooks have become the norm and you don't find any coat closets. For the same reasons, [general-use] lockers in the higher grades in schools are always situated in the public hallways where there's lots of traffic, [and out in the open in locker rooms and change rooms in work spaces]. Moreover, lockers used in schools and workplaces are all sized so that no one can be pushed inside them. In schools, the few closets that exist - such as supply closets & janitor closets - are always under lock and key, and with rare exceptions the keys are kept in the hands of adults.

The "solutions" you propose don't sound like they've been thought through.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Title IX does not require separate restrooms and locker rooms though. If schools built gender-neutral facilities, it would not violate Title IX.

I get the impression that you are not at all acquainted with the history of Title IX, why it was necessary in the first place, or the massive amount of implementation regulations and interpretive court rulings that have been issued in the nearly 50 years since its inception. Title IX is very much up in the air at the moment, due to the executive orders rewriting it issued by the Dems starting with Obama and now repeated by Biden. Whether Title IX does uphold sex segregation in school toilets, locker rooms and sports is a matter the Supreme Court has yet to decide.

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/education/290402-obama-bullied-schools-into-same-sex-bathrooms

You clearly also have never head of Chesterton's fence! Or safeguarding. Which is scary to me.

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No. You are branded a TERF when you say things like "trans men aren't men" or "trans women aren't women", calling transgenderism misogyny, etc.

Demonstrably inaccurate. Change the conditional clause to something like "when you express any fact or opinion critical of trans rights philosophy and practice" and it would be accurate.

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

For me, "rights" mean having the same equal opportunities and equal treatment. For instance, women not being fired for being pregnant, equal pay, ending rape and sexual harassment (which happens to men also). I support abolishing gender roles (such as "girl toys" and "boy toys") and gendered language. For instance, cousin is a gender neutral term, but aunt and uncle are not. I would like to use gender neutral terms. Mother and father will exclusively refer to reproductive roles, otherwise you can use the sex-neutral term parent. There will be no more foster mothers and foster fathers, just foster parents, as they were not involved in the conception of the child. You can tell me your parent is in the hospital. I would also eliminate he and she, and replace them with gender neutral pronouns in every language.

It's very revealing that you start out here saying you define "rights" as "having equal opportunities and equal treatment" - and then in the next breath you say you think it's your right to dictate to everyone else in the world what words we're allowed to use, and you advocate putting formal measures into place to insure that you get your way in making some words verboten. Yikes, comrade, but that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Bolsheviks, Stalin, the Stasi and the high command of the Khmer Rouge.

[–]usehername 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (25 children)

This is addressed to Genderbender.

The fact that you quoted only the text of Title IX as it appears in the US federal statute suggests that you don't understand how the legal system in the US works. The letter of the law is only part of the story. Once a law is passed, a vast army of lawyers set to work figuring out what the practical policy implications of the law are, and how exactly the law is to be interpreted, and will be enforced by, the federal government as well as by the states - and how exactly it is to be implemented by all the various institutions impacted (in the case of Title schools, universities and grad schools; school districts; academic research institutions; educational funders such as scholarship programs; sports governing bodies that oversee scholastic sports like the NCAA, etc).

The implementation rules and regs pertaining to Title IX are vast. Moreover, each time the office of POTUS changes party, the new administration typically will issue its own executive decrees pertaining to Title IX that order the agencies of the federal government as well as the states to re-do the rules & regs to reflect the views of the current powers-that-be. The following provide just a peek at some of the Title IX implementation regulations that have been issued over the past 50 years:

https://www2.ed.gov/policy/rights/reg/ocr/edlite-34cfr106.html

https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/TitleIX-SexDiscrimination

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/05/19/2020-10512/nondiscrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-in-education-programs-or-activities-receiving-federal

https://www.wglaw.com/Trending/Newsletters/189703/Final-Regulations-Implementing-Title-IX-of-the-Education-Amendments-of-1972

On top of of all the implementation regulations that have been issued, there's also a vast mountain of paperwork stemming from the plethora of formal complaints and court cases around Title IX, and all the fine-tuning and parsing that has come from it. For example, the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights issued this ruling in 2020

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/investigations/more/01194025-a2.pdf

But on his first day in office and through subsequent executive orders, Biden decreed that OCR ruling null & void and has instructed the federal government not to enforce it. This leaves in place the Connecticut CIAC and school board policies allowing males to use gender identity claims to participate in girls & women's scholastic sports that led female athletes in CT to lodge a formal Title IX complaint and file a federal lawsuit to begin with.

The fact that you began a post where you cite USA Title IX by saying

Many issues that affect cis women affect trans women as well.

Also shows you really don't know much about history, particularly the specific historic circumstances that led to Title IX. When they attended HS and college/uni in the US, Caitlyn Jenner and Renee Richards both had huge athletic ambitions and because of their male sex, they were given ample - indeed enormous -opportunity and support to achieve their sports dreams. Both were able to gain admission to university and to build successful careers as men based on their success in male sports - (American) football and track & field in Jenner's case, and football & tennis in Richard's case. Had they been born female, they would have had NO such opportunities in sports - and in life. And if they had begun "identifying as" women when they were in JHS, HS, university or graduate school, there wouldn't have been any question of them joining the girls' or women's sports teams and programs - coz by and large back then, there weren't any.

Similarly, when Richards attended medical school, it was at a time when it was legal for medical schools to reject female applicants simply for being female. Indeed, Richards went to medical school during a period when virtually all medical schools had policies in place either barring female students outright, or keeping their numbers very low - and when the AMA had a rule that the vast majority of all medical degrees granted in any given year would go to males only.

When Jenner became an Olympic gold medalist and was heralded as "The World's Greatest Athlete," it was because of Jenner's achievements in an Olympic event - the decathlon - for which there was no female equivalent at the time. And funny thing is, all these years later, there's still no women's Olympic decathlon today. Despite years of lobbying, female athletes have been told that it's unlikely the Olympics will include a women's decathlon in 2024 - if it ever happens, the first women's Olympic decathlon probably won't be until 2028 or 2032.

You claim that aside from a few areas like "pregnancy and periods," males like Richards and Jenner and those who have followed in their footsteps prove that

Many issues that affect cis women affect trans women as well. All feminists, even feminists who are trans women, are fighting for women's rights.

Sorry, such claims don't stand up to even cursory scrutiny. Males who claim they are women are fighting for their own rights, which are men's rights.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 3 insightful - 5 fun3 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 5 fun -  (23 children)

Thank you for the information. Yes, I knew Title IX was set up due to sex discrimination, but didn’t know about specific cases. I do know justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a case Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan where she ruled the university had to admit men in their nursing program.

Also, if trans women pass as women, they will be treated as women, so our fight for rights are largely the same.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (22 children)

But the rights of TW and TG under Title IX aren't the same. By competing in female sports, or vying for female scholarships or places in programs set aside for girls & women, males claiming an opposite-sex gender identity are creating unfairness for females, and taking places & opportunities away from us. Girls and women are getting displaced, shoved aside and told we don't matter as much as males all over again.

I'm all for TG and TW being able to participate in sports and all academic programs, and to be treated respectfully and fairly. But in those instances where it's justified to have sex separation and sex distinction - such as female sports, locker rooms, toilets, scholarships and specialty academic programs and training involving female medical or intimate care specifically (such as PT that involves vaginal penetration) - I think the place for TG and TW is with members of their own sex.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (21 children)

I think the only institution where sex segregated spaces are justified is sports.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

It's good, then, that you are not the boss of the world or any state, country, municipality, school district, school administration or sports governing body. Coz your opinion isn't the shared by vast swathes of the population. Moreover, other people's opinions count too - not just yours.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (19 children)

Your opinion also isn't shared by vast swathes of the population. Trans people have sued for not being allowed to use the restroom or locker room that matches their gender identity, and won. In my state, it is illegal to harass a person for using a restroom that doesn't match their birth sex, and there are notices put up that violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

We all know vast swathes of the world hate women and want our rights taken away. Telling us how you agree with them doesn’t explain why men expressing femininity being considered more important than protecting women from rape is something you apparently agree with.

[–]GenderbenderShe/her/hers 2 insightful - 7 fun2 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 7 fun -  (16 children)

Trans women aren't men. We define gender identity as a personal conception of oneself as male, female, both or neither.

According to a PPRI study, 51% of men support requiring transgender individuals to use bathrooms corresponding to their assigned sex at birth, compared to four in ten 40% of women. Are you going to tell these women that they hate themselves?

[–]BiologyIsReal 11 insightful - 3 fun11 insightful - 2 fun12 insightful - 3 fun -  (8 children)

We're aware that you think "transwomen" are women based in their "gender identities". Maybe I missed it, but I think you have not explained what having a "gender identity" means yet. So, if "trans women" are women, what do they have in common with you and me? How do they know they are women? If their "identities" are based on gender roles, wouldn't this conflict with your goal of abolishing gender roles? Also, how can we differentiate between a "true trans woman" and a "cis" man pretending to be one for nefarious motives?

[–]MarkTwainiac 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Tellingly, the writeup of the poll results doesn't say or show how the question was asked. Nor does it break down the respondents by such important factors as age.

As the responses on this thread and sub to the dictatorial ideas and proposals you've made show, most people are not illiberal authoritarians - so if you ask the average person in a casual, cursory way "do you think trans people should be allowed to use toilets they feel most comfortable in like everyone else?" most people will say of course. Coz most of us are NOT keen to deny other people their rights and freedoms - that's your bag. But when asked, "do you think 13 year-old-girls and grown women should be forced to share public toilets with adult males?" most people will say no.

Since opinion polls can easily be rigged to yield the desired results, I'm surprised only 4 out of 10 female respondents assented to the idea of males in the female loos - and females in the male ones. That means 60% are against. In a national election, winning 60% of the vote would be an unprecedented landslide.

https://youtu.be/G0ZZJXw4MTA

Also, when coming up with public policy is about safeguarding and risk mitigation, the opinion and advice of seasoned experts holds the most weight, not what uninformed people on the street say.

As I said before, the policies you advocate for don't appear well thought-out or to be based on much knowledge of the issues at hand or the history of what led to the current practices and provisions in the first place.

[–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Cant speak for anyone else, but I would tell these women the same thing I have told conservative and antifeminist women: that they do not have the best interests of the majority of women, including their own, at heart, because their beliefs conflict directly with the safety and well-being of the majority of women. That’s usually the point where I get told to fuck off. But c’est la vie

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

No, I think they are ignorant and have latched onto “be nice” pseudo feminism that serves to give men what they want. Trans women are male and being adult and male is the only thing that makes someone a man.

You’re preaching gender to a non believer who cannot be converted. Try “correcting” my language and ignoring the point til you’re blue in the face if you must but it’s a waste of time.

Please address ideas instead of policing language.

[–]Juniperius 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I wouldn't tell them that they hate themselves, but I would tell them that a large majority of transwomen like, intend to keep, and continue to use sexually their dicks, and I would bet real money that after hearing that, at least half of those women would change their minds.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Again, you are just showing you really are clueless about how law gets made and refined in the USA and other similar countries like the UK, LOL. And how anti-democratic you are.

Legislators in male-dominated legislatures in your state or municipality might well have passed laws saying males who have an opposite-sex or no sex "gender identity" now have free access to girls/women's loos & locker rooms so they can "fully express their femininity" or whatever, and that it's an act of "harassment" for girls or women to question why all the ladies toilets and locker room are increasingly full of males "performing gender," pissing all over the seats and floors, loitering about having a laugh, leering or pestering the female "folx" and some are even using these spaces to jerk off in - and then are posting footage of themselves doing so online. Authoritarian trans activists operating like tinpot despots & working in government agencies, trans lobby orgs or just on their own accord might have drawn up, printed out and put up hectoring notices in girls & women's toilets & locker rooms telling us that anyone who questions the presence of males in such spaces or even dares gives them side-eye are "violators" who "will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." And some male jurists in lower level courts might have ruled the demand of some trans people to use the toilets and locker rooms meant for the opposite sex trumps other people's desire & need to keep those spaces sex-specific. But until the new rules are challenged & tested in the higher federal courts - as they will be - and they are upheld by the higher federal courts, which is a very big IF, they cannot be considered settled law.

You might have won a few battles in the short term, pal, but I predict that in the long term things are not going to go the way you want. Look what's already happened in the UK. Yesterday, the Telegraph revealed that the government has decided that

Public buildings will be forced to have separate male and female toilets under plans to target activists for 'gender-neutral' loos.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick is to rewrite planning regulations to enshrine separate stalls in new buildings and demand partitions be installed in current unisex facilities.

The Telegraph reported that the move was in response to claims that women were finding it hard to find single-sex facilities.

It said the change would apply to offices, shops and entertainment venues, plus hospitals and other public services. It will also apply to buildings undergoing refurbishment, where consent is required for the works.

A source close to Mr Jenrick told the paper: 'It's a necessity for women to have access to their own provision of toilets, but too often separate sex toilets are being removed by stealth - causing great distress.

'We've listened to the concerns raised by women and the elderly about their security, dignity and safety and are going to maintain and improve safe guards by updating regulations in order to ensure that there is always the necessary provision of separate toilets for everyone in the community.

'These changes will help to maintain safeguards that protect women and the proper provision of separate toilets, which has long been a regulatory requirement, will be retained and improved. We recognise there needs to be a public service provision for everyone in our community, and want to help to deliver on that objective.'

Now in the UK, all the schools, workplaces and public places like the Old Vic Theater that went ahead and removed single-sex loos and change rooms in line with the preferences, demands and faulty guidance of gender ideologues will have to change them all back.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9584757/Gents-ladies-toilets-compulsory-public-buildings-new-planning-laws.html

Back in the 1960s and 70s when "women's liberation" emerged, a lot of men were shocked to find out just how pissed off vast numbers of women were, and and how quickly & effectively women got organized too. There's another similar groundswell happening right now. Some advice from the past seems apropos: https://youtu.be/yKHUGvde7KU

[–][deleted] 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

Also, Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.

Exactly. Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination.

sex-based harassment

Which is overwhelmingly the harassment of women by men, hence the convention of sex-segregated spaces.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

Exactly. Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination.

This can affect TW too. I have an example in my life. About 10 years ago, two other women and I brought harassment charges separately against an employer under Title VII. The complaints were filed with the EEOC about inappropriate comments and touching from a male executive. We were discriminated against on the basis of sex because those things wouldn’t have happened to us if we had been male and weren’t happening to males in the office. It was a traumatizing experience I still carry scars from and it took years to resolve legally. Me being trans or biologically male didn’t change what happened because no one knew those things. I feel like that last sentence is true of so many difficult things that happened in my life and I feel like GC doesn’t appreciate that it exists because you are focused on visible trans people (understandably). I l know most TW aren’t stealth, but at least for us those protections are super important. I hope GC at least thinks it wasn’t wrong for me to have at least legal protection against that man’s behavior.

Edit: I meant to say Title VII, my mistake. I feel strongly that Title IX should continue to just be about biological sex, not gender identity or anything else. I feel like I want to delete this, but I’ll leave it up sense there was a reply, but I feel really stupid.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I'm actually glad you brought this up -- Titles VII and IX do go hand-in-hand in the discussion of protected classes. My intention was to point out that legalism doesn't work in trying to mount a "gotcha" on the wording of one CRA provision without considering its position within the context of related CRA provisions -- though it's attempted all the time on the interwebs. Reality: civil rights law doesn't work that way.

I hope GC at least thinks it wasn’t wrong for me to have at least legal protection against that man’s behavior.

It's beyond shitty how you and your coworkers were treated, and totally understandable that it was traumatic. Good for you for challenging it -- that's what Title VII is for!

[–]MarkTwainiac 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Just want to clarify that anti-discrimination laws don't really create "protected classes" of people as the term seems to suggest and as many often assume. The laws say that individuals have "protected characteristics" that in certain situations and settings (employment, publicly-funded education, housing, public institutions, businesses like retail shops, restaurants) other people can't use as a basis for discriminating against them. But individuals who have one or even many protected characteristics don't get catapulted into a special, fenced off and superior-status category that means no one is allowed to exclude them, criticize them, disagree with them, be mean to them or speak to or about them in ways they don't like.

In US federal law, it's illegal to discriminate against individuals in employment (and some other contexts) based on the specific characteristics of race/color, religion, sex, place of national origin, pregnancy or maternity, age (40 and over), disability, and genetic information. The EEOC website as it currently stands says that sex now includes both gender identity and sexual orientation as well, which reflects the Obama administration's edicts, the Biden admin's position and the court ruling in Bostock. However, so far the US Congress has not passed any laws formally giving gender identity and sexual orientation the same protections afforded to the other characteristics.

(Since the mid-1990s, efforts have been underway in the US to get the US Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which in its original form aimed to make it illegal to discriminate based on someone being, or being perceived to be, homosexual or bisexual. However, trans activists demanded that ENDA also include "gender identity and expression" as protected characteristics, which many longtime gay rights advocates in the 1990s and early 2007s balked at - and thought would cause ENDA to be rejected by Congress. In 2007, when it looked as though Congress had a good chance of passing ENDA if it was confined to sexual orientation only, gay Rep Barney Frank argued let's get sexual orientation federal protection first, then work towards including gender identity and expression down the line - a practical approach known as incrementalism that has worked in the past. But this did not sit well with the increasingly powerful T in the LGBT, and by the time the last skirmishes over ENDA occurred in Congress in 2014, the T had become the dominant force in LGBT politics - and the last iteration of of ENDA never made it out of committee. After that, ENDA morphed into the much more far-reaching omnibus legislation known as the federal Equality Act, which would make sex segregation for any reason illegal in the US and remove hard-won legal protections & provisions for female people by putting "gender identity and expression" on the same or superior footing as sex, and also redefining sex in federal law to mean "sex stereotype," "dress & mannerisms" rather than biology.)

In addition, in the US, individual states and municipalities have passed their own laws and codes that go beyond the federal statutes. For example, in the state I currently reside in, the anti-discrim laws say the protected characteristics are: race, color, religion, age, sex, marital status, national origin, ancestry, past or present history of mental disorder, mental retardation, learning disability, physical disability (including blindness), sexual orientation, and genetic information.

By contrast, under the UK's Equality Act of 2010, the protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/equality-act/protected-characteristics

In US employment and labor law, there are also "protected activities" - which are activities that involve asserting your rights under the law. Meaning an employer can't fire, punish or discriminate against employees or prospective employees for engaging in them. These include asking questions about workplace regulations & benefits, requesting accommodations for disabilities, resisting sexual advances, not disclosing information it's illegal of prospective employers or employers to ask, making complaints, filing lawsuits, serving as a witness in a complaint, as well as labor organizing, voting for the creation of a union, joining a union, serving as a union rep, and so on.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Correct. "Protected class"* is conceptual shorthand, not a legally defined entity. Advocates appealing to protected class status should be clear on that.

*(the author's conflation of sex and gender is unhelpful, but it's a fairly decent gloss)

[–]MarkTwainiac 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I didn't mean to be so pedantic - again - but it seems that a lot of people today do think that there are "protected classes" of people. Which is why so many seem to be trying to "identify into" perceived victim groups. They seem to think that if they are in a "marginalized" group, no one is allowed to criticize them, they get to police what everyone else does and says, and if someone does or says something they don't like - such as mentioning their sex or "dead name" - they can sue or sic the authorities on them.

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Nah, this needs to be explained, and it needs to be understood. I'm glad you're taking the time so say it so clearly.

Quick ETA I think younger activists may be conflating "intersectional stacking" with the actual CRA and similar legislation . . .

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Do you mean the "progressive stack" aka the "oppression pyramid"?

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, exactly (eta not Crenshaw's original, but what it's morphed into).

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

About 10 years ago, two other women and I brought harassment charges separately against an employer under Title XI. The complaints were filed with the EEOC about inappropriate comments and touching from a male executive. We were discriminated against on the basis of sex because those things wouldn’t have happened to us if we had been male and weren’t happening to males in the office. It was a traumatizing experience I still carry scars from and it took years to resolve legally. Me being trans or biologically male didn’t change what happened because no one knew those things. I feel like that last sentence is true of so many difficult things that happened in my life and I feel like GC doesn’t appreciate that it exists

Peaking, I am sorry you went through that; I understand how distressing and scarring such experiences can be coz I've been through it myself. But I think you are mixing up US anti-discrimination statutes. Title VII is the US statute that prohibits sex discrimination in employment, and which the EEOC enforces. I dunno what Title XI is - maybe a typo? But Title IX only pertains to sex discrimination in education or related to education in institutions that get federal funding. Even if you worked for a school, school district, educational institution such as an academically-affiliated research facility or in a position somehow related to scholastic sports, if the issue had to do with how you were treated as an employee, it would come under Title VII, not Title IX.

https://www.eeoc.gov/youth/what-laws-does-eeoc-enforce

Also - and this is a key element you seem to misunderstand - Title VII prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace of anyone, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or other characteristics. You are very much mistaken when you claim that the sexual harassment you and your (female?) colleagues experienced

wouldn’t have happened to us if we had been male

Because the inappropriate comments and touching

weren’t happening to males in the office.

Maybe in that particular workplace no males were sexually harassed, but in other workplace settings they are - and it's just as illegal to do it to males as to females.

You seem to be viewing the issue of what happened to you - and happens to so many others - in reverse order. The reasons your supervisor sexually harassed you and your colleagues had less to do with you and your colleagues perceived and actual sex than with him. His sex, his sexual orientation, his sexual proclivities, his sexual inappropriateness, his sense of license and entitlement as a member of the male sex, his sex prejudices, and the fact that he had power and authority over you were the main issue - not the sex or perceived sex of the people he picked on. If he were homosexual or bi, he most likely would have done the same thing to males in the office so long as he perceived them as weaker than he, and unlikely to fight back. Similarly, although it doesn't happen as much, women also can be guilty of sexually harassing female underlings and colleagues in workplace (and other) settings too.

I know a number of males who've experienced sexual harassment at work from supervisors, colleagues or customers/clients. Some from males, some from females. Including my brother and one of my own sons. Studies I've seen over the years say that 15-20% of males in the US experience sexual harassment at work at some point in their lives. 16-17% of the sexual harassment complaints lodged with the EEOC in any given year are by males. https://www.eeoc.gov/statistics/charges-alleging-sex-based-harassment-charges-filed-eeoc-fy-2010-fy-2020

I hope GC at least thinks it wasn’t wrong for me to have at least legal protection against that man’s behavior.

Feminists like me fought hard to make it illegal for anyone to commit any form of sexual harassment against anyone at work (and in other settings) - boys as well as girls, men as well as women, regardless of sexual orientation and "gender identity." The anti-discrimination laws put in place in the US - and which feminists have always supported - have always prohibited discrimination based on sex, which applies across the board. The statutes do not prohibit sex discrimination only against female people (or straight people, white people, people of a certain age, class status, etc).

As I imagine you know, the first federal sex discrimination lawsuit that feminist attorney and future SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed in 1970 - and won -was about sex discrimination against a man. Bader Ginsburg's reasoning and arguments in that case provided the foundation and framework for the many sex discrimination lawsuits that followed, which would dismantle many federal and state provisions and practices and policies affecting many areas of life.

I don't think any "GC" people of either sex would think it wrong for you to have legal protections against sex discrimination and sex harassment. I'm glad you had legal recourse. At the same time, though, please understand that the sort of experience you went through and found so traumatic 10 years ago is much more common for girls & women than many male people realize. I personally experienced sexual harassment including several instances of assault in numerous job situations starting when I was 16 into my 40s. But unlike you, I - and entire generations of women - had no recourse for most of our work lives because even though Title VII was passed in 1964, the courts only ruled that sexual harassment was illegal under Title VII in 1980 - and long after 1980, the EEOC did not take action on most complaints. Dunno if it's changed, but it used to be the EEOC wouldn't even consider a case unless it was officially or essentially a class action involving a number of plaintiffs against a major employer.

My situation is far from unique. The EEOC says that as many of 85% of all women in the US will be sexually harassed in the workplace one or more times in the course of our lives. https://www.eeoc.gov/select-task-force-study-harassment-workplace

Yet even today, the EEOC - and other bodies - barely do much to help victims of sexual harassment at work. A study looking at records from 2012-16 found that in the US:

About 5 million employees are sexually harassed at work every year (and the vast majority- 83-84% - are female)

The overwhelming majority (99.8%) of people who experience sexual harassment at work never file formal charges.

Of those who file formal charges, very few—we estimate less than 1,500 per year—go to court.

While the EEOC initially tends to judge sexual harassment charges as more likely than other discrimination complaints to sustain a finding of legal cause, most individuals benefit little from EEOC case processing.

[Only] 27% of employees who file a sexual harassment charge with the EEOC and continue to pursue redress receive any benefit [Only] 23% receive some monetary compensation; the average award is $24,700, the median is $10,000; less than 1% of awards are over $100,000

Only 12% of charges lead to a managerial agreement to change workplace practices

https://www.umass.edu/employmentequity/employers-responses-sexual-harassment

The other issue I hope you can keep in mind is that the reason you were able to file a complaint and get redress for what happened to you 10 years ago is because of all the women in preceding generations who pushed for changes in US federal and state law, filed complaints, set out the legal and ethical arguments, struggled to bring media & public attention to the issue of sexual harassment, and fought for changes in workplace practices and policies over the course of many decades in the 20th century.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Thanks for explaining and I’m sorry those things have happened to you.

I mixed up Title VII and Title IX.

I felt like the wording the complaint talked about sex a lot. Maybe you are right that it wouldn’t have matter, but it was talked about a lot. The final line of initial complaint was “ We believe that Ms. name-removed been discriminated on the basis of her sex, subjected to a hostile working environment and sexual harassment, and retaliated against for opposing unlawful employment practices in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.” Later on when the other two women (female) and I filed in court the second charge was “ Sex Discrimination in Violation of Title VII: Disparate Treatment”. I’m not an attorney and maybe it could have been done differently, but they focused a lot on sex. They specifically called out the difference in treatment between us and our male coworkers with the same Title and responsibilities who hadn’t been treated the way we were. Maybe they just thought it was better to explain it that way?

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

No biggie mixing up the statutes.

The point I took issue with was your suggestion that Title VII only offered you protection and recourse when you experienced workplace sexual harassment because you were/are perceived to be female, or believe you were perceived as such by the harasser in that particular case (as well as by whomever at the EEOC and in court heard & decided the case). Moreover, you seemed to be suggesting that the sexual harassment you experienced was illegal only because the harasser was male and the people he picked on were either female or perceived to be female, or presumed to be perceived as female. Specifically you said

The complaints were filed with the EEOC about inappropriate comments and touching from a male executive. We were discriminated against on the basis of sex because those things wouldn’t have happened to us if we had been male and weren’t happening to males in the office. It was a traumatizing experience I still carry scars from and it took years to resolve legally. Me being trans or biologically male didn’t change what happened because no one knew those things. I feel like that last sentence is true of so many difficult things that happened in my life and I feel like GC doesn’t appreciate that it exists because you are focused on visible trans people (understandably). I l know most TW aren’t stealth, but at least for us those protections are super important. I hope GC at least thinks it wasn’t wrong for me to have at least legal protection against that man’s behavior.

Which to me indicated that you have some misapprehensions about the law and about sexual harassment & sex discrimination more generally. It further indicated that you don't fully get the views of many "GC," particularly the positions of feminists of older generations like me who in the 1970s and 80s pushed for the interpretation of Title VII to be expanded so that anyone of either sex suffering workplace sexual harassment would be able to make use of it & benefit from it as you did 10 years ago.

Although second-wave feminists have always centered girls & women in our feminism, we have always been against sexism, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sex abuse, sex crimes, sex stereotyping etc against both sexes - and for the rights of people of all sexual orientations and modes of "presenting" that today would be called "gender expression" or identity. As a result, the laws, policies and provisions feminists have fought for over the decades have not been specific to female people only except in those few circumstances where biological sex is a key factor. Hence the 19th Amendment of the US Constitution reads in full:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

And the Equal Rights Amendment that feminists pushed for since the early 20th century that was passed by the US Congress in 1972 says:

"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

Please look into the laws and policies in the US originally put into place concerning pregnancy & maternity leave. Then you'll see that it was largely the doing of women, many of whom were "GC" feminists, that these laws & policies were expanded to cover not just women who today would be called "birthing people," but all parents of both sexes including adoptive, foster parents & guardians - and further, so the provisions wouldn't just pertain to those involved in child care, but to all persons of either sex & any marital status who need time off work to assist, tend to, or spend time with, any family member/relative who is ill or in need of care. (I bring up these laws coz they will directly benefit you & your partner if/when you adopt.)

https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2016/november/the-history-of-family-leave-policies-in-the-united-states/

To the specific issue at hand: Title VII prohibits discrimination based on "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." It doesn't prohibit discrimination only against certain races, specific skin tones, particular religions, one sex, or only some places of origin. (For the record, more US federal anti-discrimination statutes have been added over the years so that in employment it's also illegal to discriminate due to age; disability; pregnancy, maternity or breastfeeding; and genetic information.)

The issues around race-based, religious-based and national-origin-based discrimination and harassment give a clearer picture. A person doesn't actually have to be Chinese, Irish, Pakistani to be discriminated against or harassed at work as if they were. And the persons who discriminate or harass on such grounds don't have to believe the people they treat unfairly actually are Chinese, Irish, Pakistani or whatever either. Moreover, discrimination and harassment based on race, color, religion, national origin - and sex - can and does occur when the person who commits the discrimination or harassment is of the same exact race/ethnicity/color, religion, place of origin of those whom they feel - and behave - so strongly prejudiced against.

National origin discrimination involves treating people (applicants or employees) unfavorably because they are from a particular country or part of the world, because of ethnicity or accent, or because they appear to be of a certain ethnic background (even if they are not).

National origin discrimination also can involve treating people unfavorably because they are married to (or associated with) a person of a certain national origin.

Discrimination can occur when the victim and the person who inflicted the discrimination are the same national origin.

https://www.eeoc.gov/national-origin-discrimination#:~:text=National%20origin%20discrimination%20involves%20treating,even%20if%20they%20are%20not).

[Under Title VII] it is unlawful to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race or color in regard to hiring, termination, promotion, compensation, job training, or any other term, condition, or privilege of employment. Title VII also prohibits employment decisions based on stereotypes and assumptions about abilities, traits, or the performance of individuals of certain racial groups.

Even though race and color clearly overlap, they are not synonymous. Thus, color discrimination can occur between persons of different races or ethnicities, or between persons of the same race or ethnicity. Although Title VII does not define color,”the courts and the Commission read color” to have its commonly understood meaning pigmentation, complexion, or skin shade or tone. Thus, color discrimination occurs when a person is discriminated against based on the lightness, darkness, or other color characteristic of the person. Title VII prohibits race/color discrimination against all persons, including Caucasians.

https://www.eeoc.gov/fact-sheet/facts-about-racecolor-discrimination

I understand why in the initial complaint lodged in your case that you & your attorneys would have alleged that you and your female co-workers were discriminated against based on your sex (real or perceived really makes no difference in this type of case) and that you were subjected to "sexual harassment" under Title VII. And why in the second court filing that you and the other two plaintiffs would have alleged “ Sex Discrimination in Violation of Title VII: Disparate Treatment”. And why in the filings and hearings the attorneys representing you and your colleagues would have

focused a lot on sex. They specifically called out the difference in treatment between us and our male coworkers with the same Title and responsibilities who hadn’t been treated the way we were. Maybe they just thought it was better to explain it that way?

They (presumably the attorneys representing you) explained it that way coz it was a sexual harassment case & sexual harassment by definition is a form of sex discrimination, so sex tends to be a focus. It's the job of attorneys to represent their clients to the best of their ability, which means using any grounds at their disposal to try or make their case. Moreover, the sex - actual or presumed or both - of the individual parties involved in your particular case would been a focus because when arguing any legal case, the particulars matter.

But what you and your attorneys said in the initial complaint, in the court filings and in any oral arguments that were heard is sort of beside the point. What's most relevant is what the final ruling(s) issued by the EEOC and what the jurists said. Can you share that?

Sex discrimination is treating people unfairly and unlawfully based on sex, and sexual harassment is inappropriate aggressive behavior that uses sex as a way of trying to intimidate & exert power over others. So in any individual case, the sex (actual or perceived) and sexual orientation (actual or feigned) of the parties involved will be big factors - along with the sex-based prejudices, sexist assumptions and sex stereotypes adhered to by the perpetrator. But interestingly, the way sex discrimination cases have unfolded over time also shows very clearly that the sex-based prejudices, sexist assumptions and sex stereotypes adhered to by the victims of discrimination & harassment - as well as the attorneys, staffers at agencies like the EEOC and jurists who argue, hear and decide such cases - play a very big role too.

And none of this alters the fact that when sex discrimination and sexual harassment occurs in employment (and other areas of life), perpetrators and victims can be male or female - and the parties involved can be of the same sex too.

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

ETA: Peaking, if the executive in your case had also subjected the employees in your office assumed to be male to sexual touching, sexual advances, lewd and inappropriate comments about their sexed bodies, and made a lot of comments that reflected stereotypical views of the male sex as well as of the female sex, his behavior toward them too would have constituted illegal sexual harassment under the law. In that case, all the employees affected - male and female - could have filed & pursued complaints and lawsuits together, most likely with the same result.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Hi MT! Thanks for taking the time to explain it better! I know that harassment could happen between anyone, but I wasn’t sure if things like Title VII were more specific than that. It sounds like Title VII is the reason any of us are protected from those things, not only certain groups. The sad part is I literally work in HR and recruiting, but it’s rare I have to know those legal specifics and usually I’ll just look them up when I do. I do have the final ruling filed somewhere, but I don’t have them electronically the way I do all the communications and draft documents from my attorneys (most in emails). I feel like it had similar language though. Thanks again for explaining!

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Glad my long pedantic posts on this were of interest & perhaps useful. We need to get back to teaching civics and more history in schools. I've always found the story of how laws come into being and how they evolve over time through interpretation, implementation, amendments & court cases to be fascinating. Probably from going to Catholic school as a kid and spending so much time dissecting religious doctrine & how & why it changed over time.

Just want to reiterate that I am glad Title VII provided you with recourse. Feminism & "GC" aside, my impression is that girls & women don't normally respond to all the sexual harassment that we customarily get starting from age 11 or so by wishing it on anyone else - and we also don't feel resentful when people use the law to their benefit. Also, your legal action probably helped other people at that workplace who were not party to the complaint & suit. In an ideal world, no one would be sexually harassed at work, school or anywhere...

[–]MarkTwainiac 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sorry everyone for making so many posts on this thread, and such long ones filled with information about legislative history & details that I am sure comes across as boring.

It's just that Title IX and other anti-discrim laws are topics I know a fair a bit about from following these topics as an interested party since I was a kid in 1964, campaigning for many other anti-discrim laws and for Title VII's expansion to include matters like sexual harassment, and writing about a number of these laws & specific cases as journalist.

Title IX hits home personally for me, coz I grew up without it - so I can remember full well what it was like when most girls in US public education had no school sports at all. I graduated from HS the month Title IX was passed, and was involved in its implementation (states & schools were given 6 years to put Title IX into effect, so it wasn't an overnight process).