Guest post: These implicit claims about what’s going on inside other people’s heads
Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on The child is not an astronaut.
I often find it useful to spell out just exactly what we are talking about rather than assume we’re all talking about the same thing just because we’re using the same words. When gender-critical feminists (formerly known as “feminists”) use the word “women” they are talking about something like “people with physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers” (let’s call them “women₁”). The trans lobby on the other hand are talking about people who think or feel a certain way [1] about themselves (let’s call them “women₂”). Obviously women₂ are about as different from women₁ as flying mammals (let’s call them “bats₁”) are from clubs for hitting baseballs (let’s call them “bats₂”). And yet trans activists insist on acting as if we were all talking about the same thing and try to have it both ways…
…by demanding that feminists who oppose the discrimination faced by women₁ based specifically on physical traits change their cause entirely and turn all their focus toward the discrimination against women₂ [2].
…by demanding that women₂ be allowed to compete in sporting events that are reserved for women₁ specifically to compensate for biological differences.
…by demanding that straight men₁ and lesbian women₁ who are attracted to women₁ based specifically on physical traits consider women₂ as potential partners.
…by demanding that women₂ be allowed to use restrooms that are reserved for women₁ specifically because of physical/biological differences.
…Etc… etc…
There is a reason why trans women₂ are so obsessed with being called the same as the people with physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers: Because they want everyone to accept that they are the same. However, since they don’t in fact have innate physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers, they have to argue that something else makes them the same as women₁, or – more precisely – that something else makes women₁ the same as them, hence the strong insistence on “female” ways of thinking/feeling that women₁ supposedly share with them, thus making them the same kind of people. Seen from such a point of view this is not simply about whether or not trans women₂ should be free to define who they are, but whether or not trans people should be free to define who women₁ are as well. As I keep saying, these implicit claims about what’s going on inside other people’s heads are precisely the part that I for one have the greatest problem with.
Also, since it’s impermissible (because exclusionary [3] to trans women) to ever talk of women₁ as an oppressed group in its own right with its own specific issues that are not entirely reducible to those faced by women₂, the trans lobby’s ultimatum to women₁ everywhere boils down to: “Allow the discrimination you face to go forever unaddressed, or have your name dragged through the dirt all over the internet”. If that’s not a hostile ultimatum, then nothing is.
_________________________
1. I’d like to be more specific than “a certain way”, but unfortunately I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Apparently it has nothing to with the old sexist gender roles and cultural stereotypes, but we’re never told what it does have something to do with.
2. Someone once accused me of strawmanning for making this very point. Apparently no one has suggested that feminists stop fighting for abortion rights etc. My response was to challenge him to specify why abortion rights (or anything else pertaining to the equality of women₁) is specifically a feminist cause without saying the same kind of things that got Ophelia and pretty much every other feminist I admire labeled as TERFs and demonized. “Pregnant people”, anybody? Obviously, I never got an answer.
3. Never mind that their definition of “woman” by necessity excludes anyone who fails to think or feel the required way about themselves. But hey, when has it ever been wrong for entitled, loud, aggressive people with dicks to tell women₁ their place in life?
This. I keep coming back to this. A group of people loudly insisting that they’re exactly the same as women(1) in a way you never hear women(1) insisting, but men constantly do.
I have no dog in this hunt but to this outsider, it’s always looked like women2 enter women1 spaces and proceed to behave exactly like dudes always do. Right down to threats and actual violence.
A glorious comment/post, Bjarte. Kudos and applause.
Nicely sums up the problem. Of course, it will now get you labeled a TERF (if you haven’t already been so labeled).
I’m pretty sure Bjarte is at peace with that.
I don’t mind being asked to consider the possibility, but I do resent being told that, having given the idea some consideration, rejecting transwomen as potential sexual partners is an act of transphobia. They’re not so much demanding consideration, they’re demanding that one cannot refuse to sleep with them on the basis of what they are.
I remember saying a long time ago that the attitude of the trans people muscling in on feminism appeared to be “It’s OK, we have penises, we’ll take it from here.”
I also recall the moment I lost patience with the whole trans movement; it was when I read a comment on a certain other site (no prizes for guessing which) that transwomen absolutely do have periods, absolutely do require doctors to prescribe contraceptive pilld, absolutely do require access to abortion services, absolutely do have wombs, and so on…..and on…
Apparently, wishful thinking not only magically turns men into women, it makes them physically identical, inside and out, to women.
Excellent post, and a great summary of the problems for people reaching peak trans, who find the reasons why hard to articulate.
I seem to recall Danica Roem running against a TERF and Virginia’s “chief homophobe” and going on to beat that non-intersectional feminist oppression. Women like that are clearly the most vile oppressors possible… /s
Iknklast #4 Ophelia #5
Don’t forget the SWERF part :-D
Women1 and women2 are homonyms. They should each have their own entry in the dictionary. The problem is we are not even allowed a word for Women1 AT ALL. Not even a new made up word. And yet we are the ones accused of “erasure” or denying people’s existence. Classic reversal if ever I saw it.
I have an old, old friend (from school days so over thirty years). She has always been a bit… odd. But a lovely, lovely woman. We have some radically different views of the world. So different that there are some subjects I deliberately ignore because as far as I am concerned, she is flat out wrong. To be clearer, I am an atheist and have been since the age of fourteen-ish. She has always been a religious person. When we were teens, she was a christian – and we did have many debates about that, in the manner of disrespectful teens. Alas, I brought her to tears on a couple of occasions (which is when the, “Let’s avoid these subjects,” guideline came into play). Later, she moved onto various forms of woman-focussed paganism and is currently a practitioner of the Feri sub branch of paganism. I have no idea what this involves, but I do know she’s a ritual magic practitioner.
I should point out that while we are both pretty damned bright (selective grammar school pupils – which puts us in the top two per cent – at the age of eleven, of course – of the kids who took the exam. Which in our day was the vast majority of kids in England), she has always been academically more able than me. She has a top grade A’ Level in Maths – and took four other very serious subjects alongside that. (NB for the non-English: A’ Levels were an optional set of exams designed to fit pupils for University. They were taken at 18 after two years study. Most people took three, my friend took five and they were generally considered the hardest, most intense period of study you could undertake until you hit the third year of your degree. Seriously. After your A’s, the first two years of a degree were childs play).
And my friend genuinely believes she can change the operation of the universe by spells.
Anyway, the point of this is, for the last twenty or so years that my friend has lived a vaguely alternative life in an old shepherd’s bothy in Scotland with a guy who is a freelance tech journalist. Last year, said guy announced he is trans. My friend doesn’t have an issue with this – she’s bisexual, which may help the situation – but since then she has completely dropped her feminist work, always a big part of her life, for trans activism, along with the whole “no such thing as biological sex” schtick.
I am, currently, still calling her out as wrong on that one. I have more of a science background than she does, and a lot more of a biological one. So I can jump on stuff like “multiple basic sex chromosome structures making multiple sexes crap”. (Nope, two biological sexes – female, at least one X chromosome, no SRY region on any second chromosome, male, one X chromosome, one other possessing an SRY region – usually a Y, but occasionally an X that has picked up the SRY during recombination).
Now I get she’s supporting her partner – and fair play to her for that. I imagine this is a difficult time for both of them. And I’m not going to refuse to call a trans woman a woman because any reasonable definition of woman is partially a social one. If a trans person lives as a woman and is treated by society as a woman, then woman is the right term to use. Yes, you can insist on “trans woman” but that’s unwieldy and a bit picky. Bit there is such a thing as being biologically male or female (for 95 – 98.2% of the population, anyway). But my friend, and her new trans social group, insist quite vocally that this is not the case.
I’ve long wondered how an otherwise very intelligent woman is able to experience what, to me, is just doublethink. I don’t get it at all. Though I have no doubt she sees me as a reductive rationalist, refusing to see anything beyond my own nose…
Is it only humans, among all mammals, that (supposedly) don’t fit into the two-sex schema?
I have asked how sexual reproduction is supposed to work if there is no validity to the binary biological sex model. I have yet to have any answer, let alone a good one…
beauvoir’s baby #10
“The sex that must not be named” or as I prefer to say “The people formerly known as ‘women'”.
Steamshovelmama #11
Intelligence is clearly separate from critical thinking, though. It seems to me that critical thinking has more to do with attitude than anything else. Without the proper attitude intelligence and education only gives us more tools for arguing against anything we don’t agree with in advance.
#12
I have heard people claim, apparently seriously, that we should not refrain from using gendered language for our pets and other animals due to our inability to know which gender they have selected for themselves. Happily this still remains a niche view, confined to tumblr idiots that I have seen so far, but who knows if it will remain that way.
@Bjarte #14
It’s seems to be a blind spot. Or a couple of blindspots. because overall she’s not a gullible, uncritical person, far from it. But when it comes to gender (and magic) she goes all po-mo. I mean, we all have blindspots where we find it hard to be objective about our cherished beliefs. But those two are rather large ones…
An excellent post. The original comment NINJA’D me when I was about to take issue with something Ophelia said in the OP. After reading the comment I understood what Ophelia had been talking about and that I was wrong.
I have seen it explained that using reprodution as a binary marker is too simplistic because of infertile people. If a woman is classed as a person with a womb and ovaries, etc and who can conceive then a woman who does not have the ability to do so, whether through inherent infertility, as a result of illness, because of surgical sterilisation, even after menopause, that person is not, by definition, a woman. Likewise, a man who cannot produce viable sperm for whatever reason cannot be defined as a man.
It’s an insidious way of claiming that if a woman with a non-productive womb can still be called a woman even tbough she can’t conceive, well it just goes to reason that anybody who cannot conceive can be a woman if they so wish. If you deny that a person with a penis can be a woman then you must also deny that an infertile person with a vagina is a woman because neither can fulfil the traditional female reproductive role.
Basically, they’re using the infertile as weapons to force acceptance for themselves, which is shitty however you slice it.
My cat is a girl even though we spayed her. My wife is a woman even though chemotherapy caused menopause.
AoS is right that some people use examples like those to argue that women aren’t women. The agenda is fairly clear.
@AoS #18
Yes, I’ve heard a similar argument to which the only response is, “…that’s not even wrong.”
I know I’m preaching to the converted, but an infertile woman has the basic body pattern of the group of humans whose biology is optimised to bear young. She may not have all of it, and some of the developmental pathways may have gone awry, but the underlying anatomical and physiological architecture will be easily identifiable. Same with infertile men. They still have the bodily architecture of the group of humans optimised to sire young with the first group. There isn’t a third group who have bodies optimised for some other task. And sexual reproduction requires someone from group one and someone from group two.
Even in the 1.2 – 5% of true intersex people, it’s usually relatively straightforward to figure out which original body plan has gone awry. There are some exceptions to that, of course. Some people dislike the idea of saying a biological developmental pathway has gone wrong – and I understand that, to a point. It’s a horrible thing to say someone’s body is wrong, just because it is different. However, you can’t get round the fact that, despite no body should be automatically considered bad, just because it deviates from a statistical norm, it does deviate from the norm. To add to that, most intersex conditons render the individual infertile (or at least significantly decrease fertility), and that’s the first sign of an abnormal development.
Interestingly, I learned recently that some intersex folk object to the appropriation of “assigned male/female at birth” by the trans community. Those people say that it should only be applied to infants with ambiguous genitalia. I have to admit that makes sense.
I have a feeling we’re going to see a huge backlash against Trans people, due to the insanity of extreme political activists. The sad thing is that it won’t just affect them, but also the ordinary trans folk who are just trying to live their lives quietly and comfortably. The current generation of young feminists who are supporting the extremists are growing older and, as we all do, will natural become less accepting, more critical and a great deal more cynical. It happens to us all. The generation behind them will want to carve their own identity in opposition to the ultra-accepting, ultra supportive generation currently aged about 15 – 30 ish. What will settle out will hopefully be a more sensible conception of gender – bit of course, it may be a much more restrictive one that will hurt everyone.
Acolyte of Sagan #18
That’swhy my working definition is framed in terms of representativeness rather than a fixed list of physical traits. Of course you could always turn the table and ask them to provide the complete list of ways of thinking /feeling required to qualify as a woman..
latsot #17
:)
Is it fair to say mammals have two eyes? Well, no, because my friend’s father lost an eye in the war.
And birds stop being birds if their feathers fall out.
That way of thinking seems just a bit…
Ha! Yes, exactly. And some people are born without one, or with no eyes.
Humans are obviously not bipedal as some are born without legs or non-functioning legs, or lose the use of their legs.
Rinse and repeat for every bodily attribute associated with human beings.
“Gender has nothing to do with one’s physical body.”
“OK, so it’s a psychological thing.”
“Fuck off, ableist transphobe!”
AoS @25: I keep wondering, “What the hell is gender supposed to be, then?”
What does it mean to “feel like a man” or “feel like a woman”?
Does it only mean “feeling more or less comfortable with cultural expectations and assumptions”? Even though the bundles of cultural expectations and assumptions here in the West are arbitrary and often contradictory?
I asked that question of a young man I know who has toyed with the idea of changing genders, but has never pursued it. He informed me that asking that is transphobic.
It strikes me that the reason it’s transphobic is that they have no answer, so then it becomes a challenge to their cherished beliefs. Or they know their answer will be a reinforcement of culturally defined stereotypes that feminists have been fighting against for years (decades…centuries) and they are afraid that said feminist might punch them in the nose.
I’m open to other explanations about why such a simple and obvious question might be transphobic (and I’ve never, in all my feminist existence, punched anyone in the nose, though I was sorely tempted a few times).
I think the reason for the ragey shouts that every question and doubt is “transphobia” and “transmisogyny” is because they can, and because it’s an opportunity to abuse women while retaining social justicey cred.
It’s a thing “activists” started doing and other “activists” cringed and apologized and started calling their friends “TERFs” and it became a hardened custom.
@27: So, “I don’t understand. What do you mean by that?” is abusive and hateful. Got it.
Don’t forget ‘actual violence’, Ben.
No no, you’re forgetting to use maximum hyperbole. Transmisogynistic genocide thank you very much.
Hahahaha. Sure! Women are wombs on legs! Peak feminism!!
Dude. Srsly. Google before posting. It’s embarrassing. Here follows a…
Statement from man with a penis on Tumblr, 2017.Oh sorry, wait…Statement from a radical feminist lesbian separatist collective, 1977, regarding one of their sisters.
(Note that they value identity over reproductive organs. So radical.
(1977, folks. I ask you to think about that. Forty years ago, and still more enlightened than modern TERFs.))
(Source)
While I’m here…
Look, dude. I’m trying to restrain myself, because Ophelia apparently thinks I’m too bullying. But what the fuckety-fuckety-fuck were you thinking when you posted this inanity?! “Obviously”?! “Obviously”?!!! It’s not only not “obvious”, it’s just plain stupid.
99.4% of women fit both your definitions – they both “have physical traits representative of mothers” and “think or feel a certain way about themselves” (more commonly referred to as believing themselves to be women). 0% of flying mammals (I hope) are used to deflect balls. Think before you post. You’re making yourself look like a simple-minded idiot.
And, finally…
I think (and hope) that was me. Hi! *waves* Feel free, any day now, to present your evidence for any significant number of “trans activists” saying abortion access is not a feminist issue. “Apparently”, says Bjarte, completely and transparently unable to justify the bogus claim. We’re waiting.
(Anyway, Bjarte, don’t be offended. The only reason anyone ever sticks up for LGBT people is because it’s an excuse for them to hate women. Well, so I’m told. Hang on, are you a woman? Because if not, that would be another claim that turns out to be complete transphobic bullshit.)
Holms, I’m surprised they didn’t protest loudly about those transphobic X-Men movies.
That’s Silentbob trying hard NOT to be abusive.
^ The silent part is not a total success, to my feeble assessment. (I dare not judge abuse.)
I’m not going to get into it with Silentbob on trans, because that never goes anywhere, but I will observe one thing:
Well, yeah. Patriarchy oppresses women because of our bodies, because we have the potential for gestation. The goal of feminism is to liberate women from that oppression.
It’s an empirically obvious fact that there is a class of people who have the potential for gestation and a class of people who have the potential for insemination. Pointing this out isn’t calling women “wombs on legs,” it’s identifying the source of an injustice that’s been going on for millennia.
Silentbob seems to miss the fact that in the second wave marxist analysis of gender, that women are oppressed precisely because they are perceived to have a uterus, ovaries and an vagina. In this analysis of systemic class oppression, women are that class of people who are judged capable of reproductive (including sexual) labour. That identification is the source and centre of women’s oppression. And in order to accept trans narratives of gender, we have to ditch that marxist class based analysis which has proved itself over and over again for women (and, equally, for non-white people, and working class people).
But hey, we’re only women. What do we know about our own oppression? We need a dude to put us right. Obviously.
Did you just assume Silenbob’s gender????!!
^ :D
Turnaround is fair play?
Imagine how polite ze would have been if ze hadn’t been trying to restrain zerself.
… and how silent!
There is no logical or intellectually honest way to get from anything I have said to the idea that “Women are wombs on legs”. I have indeed argued that having physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers makes you… a person with physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers (Hardly a radical claim, when you think about it. Kind of trivial, actually). But since “person with physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers” is a rather awkward and cumbersome thing to say, some of us prefer the convenient short-hand “woman₁”. As far as I’m concerned this is all it means to be a “women₁”. Having such traits is what distinguishes “women₁” from “non-women₁”. It doesn’t follow that women₁ don’t have any other traits (or features, or attributes), but those other traits are not specifically female, only human.
Which makes “woman” part of the definition of “woman”, thus making the definition circular and useless (I.e. women are people who believe themselves to be people who believe themselves to be people who believe themselves to be etc… etc… ad infinitum)
As always.
Yes, I believe it was you. The insistence on “pregnant people” comes close. My point, however, (which you conveniently and selectively left out of your quote), is that whether or not anyone has ever come out and stated in so many words: “Feminists should stop fighting for abortion rights”, there is no consistent way to argue that abortion rights is a feminist cause without saying the same kind of things for which they themselves demonize others as TERFs (i.e. that being a “woman” does indeed have something to do with biology). You have been invited to give it your best shot. I’m not holding my breath.
Nah, that’s a dude saying dudely things. There are some ways of speaking that come directly from the centre of male culture – just as there are some that come from the centre of female culture.
It’s like “Punch Terfs.” Dudely statement. “Terfs should be raped.” Ultra dudely statement. Never once, in 48 years, heard a woman say something like that about another woman. Violent statements, yes, but not those violent statements.
Not exactly. Unless every woman on Earth was asked their opiion then 99.4% of women who were surveyed fit both definitions.
My main point, though, is that I would hazard a guess that 99.4% of your 99.4% of women weren’t also born with a cock and balls.
Anyway, “believing oneself to be a woman” is not a definition of “woman.” It’s an obvious-to-the-point-of-absurdity description aka a tautology, but it’s not a definition.
And 100% of trans women consider themselves to be women. Shit, I guess that’s that sorted then! Because women are simply people that call themselves women, anyone that calls themselves a woman is one. QED!
/silentboblogic
• It is trivially true that 100% of all women₁ fit the first definition.
• Once we have a non-circular version of the second definition that’s specific enough to be useful, it’s also trivially true that 100% of all women₂ fit the second definition.
• Women₂ fit the first definition if and only if they are also women₁
• The exact proportion of women₁ who fit the second definition depends critically on the specifics (and tautologies don’t count) of “a certain way”. Now, I don’t claim to have telepathic abilities, but let’s just say I’m… unconvinced that many women₁ would say they fit the definiton of women₂ if gender apologists ever came out and told them exactly how that requires them to think or feel about themselves.
Bjarte, great post.
THANK YOU. I’ve been told recently (a few hours ago, in fact) that a woman is a person with a “female personality.”
“Female personality.” Alrighty then.
(I am impatient, try to think critically, and prefer horror–including slasher flicks and so-called “torture porn” to rom com, so I guess that’s me out of the woman category.)
@Silentbob #33
No, Bjarte is correct: his second definition (women2) is entirely different from the first. You take his “think and feel a certain way about themselves” to mean “believe they are women,” but they’d still be discrete definitions even if that was what was meant– an interpretation that’s not supported by the context. It’s true that trans activists & allies often claim that a “woman” is “anyone who says they are one” (with “believes they are one” implied) but that claim/belief has got to rest on something, after all. If it doesn’t rest on the possession of particular reproductive biology, then it must rest on certain (unspecified) subjective thoughts and feelings, and for “woman” to be a coherent category, those thoughts and feelings must be shared by all women.
Sounds like gender essentialism to me. In any case, women1 and women2 are homonyms.
Also, your #32? Really? I was around back then, son. Feminists in 1977 had varying views about what were then called transsexuals. If I thought anyone worth my respect would be moved by such a silly appeal to authority, I’d dig up a feminist quote from that time expressing a contrary opinion (off the top of my head, I’d try Adrienne Rich, or, for a more mainstream TERFY viewpoint, Nora Ephron–her review of Jan Morris’s book Conundrum was golden.) But I don’t, so I won’t.
Lady Mondegreen #50
Exactly, as I like to put it, I’m not a man if being a “man” says anything about what what’s going on inside my head. I’m a man only in the “man₁” sense (i.e. person with innate physical traits more representative of fathers than mothers), not in the “man₂” sense (person who thinks or feels some identifiable if unspecified way about himself that is different from “women₂’s” way of thinking/feeling).
And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I know for a fact that even many (most…? all…?) of the “approved” feminists (the “trans-inclusive”, “intersectional”, “3rd wave” kind) have said things that could get them labeled as TERFs and demonized any time. E.g. I have personally been referred to as both “man” and “him” by “trans allies” who, in the absence of telepathic powers, couldn’t possibly know how I think or feel about myself. I have also heard feminists like that talk about the Bechdel Test and how this or that movie only had X “women” in it, when the movie in question didn’t offer any clue about these people’s “inner sense of self”. This goes to show that even the supposedly “good” ones are unable to consistently live up to what’s required of them: When specifically talking about *trans issues, words like “man” and “woman” – or for that matter “male” and “female” – refer to an inner state, but for all other purposes they still talk and act as if these words referred to something physical.
This goes to show that even the supposedly “good” ones are unable to consistently live up to what’s required of them: When specifically talking about *trans issues, words like “man” and “woman” – or for that matter “male” and “female” – refer to an inner state, but for all other purposes they still talk and act as if these words referred to something physical.
Yessssssssssssss.
Huh. So Bjarte is a man? My read of his posts was decidedly mistaken then! I thought his personality was noticeably female, which according to certain activists, really is a thing.
…
Therefore, Bjarte is a woman. Proven.