More inclusive spaces
Philosopher Asia Ferrin explains why feminists must defer to trans women no matter what:
There has been some online discussion recently about how, or if, people can have open conversations about policies that aim to create more inclusive spaces for trans people, trans women in particular. I will not recount the conversation here, but readers might want to see these posts, first from Kathleen Stock, then a reply from Talia Mae Bettcher, and a reply to the reply from Stock. Similar themes also come up in a recent post here on hostility in such discussions.
That’s one way to put it, but it’s quite a loaded way. “Inclusive” has become a highly deceptive or tendentious word in some contexts, and this is one of them. Nobody wants “inclusive spaces” in all situations and contexts, and the reasons for that are not all “exclusionary” or racist or racist-like. To put it another way, we are allowed to want privacy in some situations, and it can be a matter of life and death. Remember those girls in India who were raped and murdered because they had to go outside to crap?
Mostly women and men work together in shared spaces, but we know that that doesn’t always work out well for the women. That doesn’t mean the sexes should be segregated at work, but it does mean there’s an issue. One compromise people arrived at historically was that women could at least segregate themselves when they had to lift their skirts or take their trousers down to deal with physical imperatives. That means women do not necessarily want to “create more inclusive spaces for trans people” if that includes the places where they have to lift their skirts or take their trousers down, or take them off altogether to change into athletic gear. Women don’t necessarily want to be more inclusive about undressing, and they shouldn’t have to. They should not have to. Reasons for not wanting to include bruises, stab wounds, rape, and death. It’s not some stupid little whim and it’s not right-wing and it’s not cruel – it’s a core part of women’s ability to leave the house at all.
So, I’m put off by Asia Ferrin in the first paragraph, and I don’t warm to her as I read on.
I write primarily for the person who reads Stock’s writings and thinks “hmmm, good question: why do conversations about trans issues have to be so hostile or difficult? Some of Stock’s worries seem legitimate and worthy of further consideration.” I aim to explain, and in part defend, resistance and hostility to the conversation, at least as Stock presents it. In doing so, I will also problematize some of her analysis.
Yeah, we can’t have people thinking Stock’s questions are reasonable, and we should have lots of hostility toward her arguments and her.
Specifically, for our purposes, why might trans people and trans allies (myself included) express hostility—or exasperation, frustration, hurt, anger, betrayal, resistance, etc.—when someone proposes an investigation into whether trans women should have access to spaces typically designated as women only? There is much that could be said here, and again, much that has been said here, so I will aim to be relatively brief. One reason for such resistances is that it seems that a negative answer, that is, the claim that “no, trans women should not have access to spaces typically designated for women only” relies on one of the following premises:
Assumption A) Trans women aren’t women.
…
Assumption A) Trans women aren’t women. Stock defends this view, and the Gender Critical position generally, here. There is good reason to think this assumption is false, however, and thus a nonstarter. See here, here, here, and here. But even if it’s true, the assumption that trans women aren’t women doesn’t sufficiently ground the moral claim that Stock is after. One can’t derive the moral claim that trans women should be excluded from resources and spaces like homeless shelters, rape crises centers, changing rooms, hostels, public transport sleeping carriages, etc. from the descriptive claim that “Trans women aren’t women.”
But again, that’s a tendentious way of putting it. Men are already “excluded” from resources and spaces like some homeless shelters, rape crises centers, changing rooms, hostels, public transport sleeping carriages, and the like, because women need and want privacy from men in those situations. In a perfect world they wouldn’t need that because men would never take advantage of vulnerable women, but this is not that world.
Then she moves on to say the discussion is “hurtful and harmful.”
I can imagine that if someone wanted to have a discussion, or explore a thesis, that involved invoking this assumption about me, I would experience a range of emotions—e.g. fear, hurt, disappointment, anger, resentment, hopelessness, and/or betrayal. I would feel some or all of these things at once if someone implied that I was dangerous. Furthermore, when this assumption gets airtime and uptake from less well-intentioned individuals or groups, trans women’s lives can be compromised in physical, social, ontological, and political ways. In other words, trans women and trans allies would be expected to be upset when certain positions about gendered spaces depend upon an assumption about them as threatening.
Furthermore, this upset is normatively justified. Imagine a scholar wanted to discuss the legal status of Black people, making claims that invoked and implied the following: “Black people are dangerous to white people.” It would be unsurprising for a conversation involving these assumptions to make many Black people feel a range of emotions and thus inclined to shut down conversations in which these assumptions are made. Moreover, beyond emotional affront, the world is worse for Black people, due to white supremacy, when these ideas get airtime as worthy of consideration.
And, you see, women are to trans women as white people are to black people.
What?
No. No we are not. That’s one of the ways this movement goes all the way off the rails, and down the embankment and into our living rooms. Women as a class are not in the dominant or privileged position in this world, and that does not change just because you add the word “cis.” It’s embarrassing to see women themselves buying into that bullshit idea, and even doing their best to enforce it on other women.
Transwomen, having lived life almost totally from a male perspective, have had one particular luxury denied to women in that they have not generally been made to feel intimidated or threatened, either physically, sexually, or emotionally by men. However, it really isn’t all that difficult to understand this from a woman’s point of view. If a woman feels intimidated in any way by men, that is not going to change if men apply a bit of lippy and call themselves women.
To a lot of women, a man is a man is a man, and even those men who would in no circumstances even think of harming a woman (and I’m sure that the majority of transwomen fall into this category) should understand and respect that.
Maybe if the shouty activists tried looking at the issue from a woman’s point of view rather than that of a pseudo-woman or a wannabe-woman, then progress might just be possible. But whilst they continue looking at things from their male perspective they are going to achieve nothing but antagonism.
Well quite. And then the adamant refusal (or, more charitably, the total failure) to look at it from women’s point of view doesn’t exactly shore up the claims to be women, does it.
When I was younger I didn’t get that women might find my presence, just my presence, a concern. I mean, I had no intention of harming or hitting on anyone, let alone a stranger. Eventually I started putting together all the nonverbal clues and started thinking about it.
Now, where at all possible when walking in town at night I will cross the road, or speed up to avoid walking behind a women who is alone. I maintain a studied indifference when I need to stand beside them at say crossings, unless they initiate conversation (very rare) first.
It feels a bit sad on one level, because while I’m reasonably reserved, I’m also a fundamentally social person who believes strongly in community. Thing is, I realised it’s not about me and my needs, it is also about others. While apparent indifference may seem unsocial, if it reduces anxiety for others, that’s actually a community good.
I was unpersuaded by Ferrin until I saw that link to the Buzzfeed article. Whoa. Buzzfeed.
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.
Enzyme, there are two sides to Buzzfeed. Yes, it has a reputation for nonsensical, ‘clickbait’ articles, but it also has some excellent and experienced investigative journalists covering serious stories.
Ophelia,
This is, in a nutshell, what brought me to Peak Trans. The reason they keep repeating the mantra “Transwomen are women”, demanding compliance with their words, is because transwomen as a whole are completely failing to demonstrate their womanhood through their actions. And, indeed, now that the tiny number of transsexuals have been swamped by the Cluster B autogynephiles and their Flying Monkeys, trans identified males demonstrate precisely the opposite. They hate women who refuse to act like sex robots, i.e. silent, submissive, and prepared to stand aside without argument.
A woman friend of mine once posted about how she sometimes used the men’s room, it was no big deal, therefore other women shouldn’t feel intimidated by males (regardless of “identity”) in the women’s room. How remarkably insensitive to other women.
We are used to providing spaces for children where they are not exposed to random adults—especially males, for most of the same reasons that Stock lists. If a subset of adults choose to ‘identify’ as children (there are kink groups that do just that) would it constitute a ‘campaign of violence’ to express concern?
And how dare those Black folks impugn the behavior of our noble police?
Enzyme @ 4 – after I posted this I actually read the one on Bitchmedia, and it was…dreck. Top philosophy there, saying “There is good reason to think this assumption is false, however, and thus a nonstarter. See here, here, here, and here,” when the heres are to people asserting. Yes, we already know people make very emphatic assertions on this subject, but we precisely do not consider that “good reason to think this assumption is false.” Very much the opposite.
Sackbut, having worked in pubs and nightclubs I have seen countless women using the mens’ facilities, always because the womens’ facilities fall woefully short of requirements and the queues to use them could be like a conga line at times. Usually (though not always) the women would ask one of the staff for permission and we’d walk them through with a jocular “Keep ’em facing the porcelain, boys; lady coming through” and nobody seemed to mind.
We’d often also be called on to remove men from the womens’ facilities, usually because they were drunk and had wandered in by mistake but sometimes deliberately (and not once did I have a man ask me if he could go in because the men’s room was full).
The difference between the two being, as I mentioned in my initial comment, that men are generaly unthreatened by women, whereas women have no idea of the intentions of men who walk into a space knowing there’s a good chance of women being in a state of semi-undress, especially (and I don’t know if this is uniquely British) when women go to the loo in pairs and often leave the cubicle doors open so they can carry on chatting.
John the Drunkard, I was thinking something along those lines recently, regarding how far we are expected to bend in acquiescence to self-identification. If an adult male can legall i.d. as an adult woman, will adult men be able to get the same legal rights if they i.d. as teenaged girls? If that becomes possible, how long then before an adult male identifying as a fourteen year-old girl demands the right to enril un an all girls’ boarding school, living and sleeping among girls, because he has been legally recognised as such on the basis of self i.d.?
I know it sounds ridiculous, but not so very long ago the idea of men being gven unfettered access to women-only spaces on the basis of nothing more than self-identification was also thought of as a silly thing to say; part of a dystopian comedy routine, maybe.
Apologies for the typo’s abov. Must proo fread better.
AoS, on that thought, there are some (who shall remain nameless, but initials include P and Z) who have accepted the idea that women need to be cautious on elevators with strange men, but who refuse to accept the possibility that women might need to be cautious in restrooms when male-bodied individuals are there, because those male-bodied individuals probably identify as female, and thus are totally harmless.
Some people must have to live with a shitload of cognitive dissonance.
Yes, I saw that, along with about a thousand other contradictions over the past few years, like the one about no-questions-asked access to bathrooms in schools not being problematic because kids are unlikely to take advantage, and anyway all they would see are closed stall doors. It’s almost like he’s never met an adolescent boy in his life.
Acolyte @5 – You’re completely correct, of course: it does do some great stuff. But it’s also an easy target for being woke as hell… and I’d never want to miss an easy target. :)