Run the numbers
This is where the Vocabulary Mandate gets you.
The Vocabulary Mandate makes that sound true, if you’ve been following it strictly enough. But it’s not true; it’s absurd. Disobey the Vocabulary Mandate and we’re back in the real world where that’s not how it works.
“Are you suggesting girls are taking a back seat to boys?”
“Uh, yes. Where have you been?”
“In life? No. Absolutely not. How many women have been senators? How many men? I can’t think of any credible data that suggests that men have more privilege than women but can think of plenty of data that suggests the reverse.”
Vox had the numbers as of November 1, 2016.
Throughout American history, 1,917 US senators have been men — and just 46 have been women.
Back seat? Yes.
Since we’re not allowed to ask, how would we know?
And if TWAW then maybe all 64 have been trans, but since we’re not allowed to ask …
The weird thing about this logic is that it implies that if, some X years into the future, trans people achieve equal representation, then it would no longer be appropriate for trans girls to play on girls’ sports teams.
I’m also not seeing the logic of how giving a trans person in 2021 an advantage somehow remedies whatever injustices trans people faced in the past. It’s not like race, where the fact that it is inheritable means that you can reasonably say that most black Americans in 2021 are worse off than they would have been had prior generations not been disadvantaged by redlining, Jim Crow, slavery, etc.
Hmm. You make a good bad analogy, by which I mean: the TRA logic may well likely derive from a twisted extension of the valid concerns behind affirmative action for Black people in America.
‘How many cis women have been senators? How many trans women? I can’t think of any credible data that suggests that trans women have more privilege than cis women but can think of plenty of data that suggests the reverse,’ writes Matt Wallaert.
How great is the population of women in the world, and how great is the population of trans-women? Are they in any way comparable? Mr Wallaert seems to be incapable of mathematics so simple that even I can understand it.
…Or elsewhere in the present. But here’s how it works: 1. men that want to be women, i.e. trans women, face the tremendous – nay, insurmountable – injustice in that they will never be what they want. A mental torture to plenty I am sure. 2. Men are frequently pretty entitled. 3. Therefore they need a freebie somewhere in life, and hey, why not in sports.
According to this, the ratio of male humans to female humans in the world is currently 101:100.
Woman = adult human female
Transwoman = adult human male
So there are slightly more transwomen than there are women.
Oh wait, there’s more to the definition of transwomen? Can the TRAs please explain that to me? So far, they haven’t successfully done so.
God, these people. They can never stick to the argument. Weren’t we talking about kids’ sport?
I come across this a lot. They come to you with some complaint about your horrible TERFitude, you begin to answer and then presto-changeo they’re demanding answers about something completely different. Any suggestion that you get back on topic is seen as a transphobic refusal to engage with the question and therefore an argument in bad faith.
It’s infuriating, all the more because everyone knows why they’re doing it: they can’t support their own original complaint.
Of course, if this is happening on Twitter, when you try to stick to the argument dozens of people swoop in to amplify your apparent refusal or inability to answer the brand new question through selective retweeting, ‘proving’ that the terven are intellectually as well as morally bankrupt.
I’ve learned to insist on sticking to the argument, no matter how tedious that might get. Of course, that’s exactly what got Helen Staniland permanently banned, but I’m male so I don’t have that problem.
Ah, but how many cis women does it take to screw in a light bulb? And how many trans women? That’s what I want to know!
You know the answer to that last question, GW.
How many trans women? ‘Do your own research, it’s not our job to educate you”.
@latsot #7:
I tend to try to bring all arguments re trans back to the initial claim: Gender Identity Theory (aka TWAW.) Every other TRA argument, from bathrooms to women’s sports to puberty blockers, is derived from that premise. The difference between “should some boys be allowed to play on the girl’s team?” and “should all girls be allowed to play on the girl’s team?” is huge.
But of course I get accused of changing the topic, however carefully I try to explain why it’s necessary. They want to focus down the line and frame the issue as one of kindness, or good sportsmanship, or social justice. I don’t think they’re being deliberately disingenuous or obtuse — some of them inside it’s irrelevant whether TWAW — but it’s still frustrating. And, of course, the more people piling on, the more it turns into a Gish Gallop.
There are two cogent answers to that argument, none of which work with Trans:
(1) If you are an advocate for a position, it is indeed your job to educate me. That’s what advocacy entails. The women’s movement has done it; we called it consciousness raising. The Civil Rights movement has done it. The LGB movement (sans trans) has done it. As an environmentalist, I do it. IT IS PART OF ADVOCACY, AND IT IS YOUR JOB.
(2) If you send people out to do their own research, and they do, you may get something you don’t want. Like with Martina Navratilova; she did her own research at your request (make that demand), and found out that she was right to begin with. There is a lot of information (and misinformation) out there, and if you want me to support your position, you may need to control my access to information (or misinformation). Left on my own, I may find out things you would rather not know.
But they don’t educate us, so I suspect they realize how weak their ‘evidence’ is. They’re afraid to answer our questions because the answers are not coherent, or because they make it obvious that the only answer to ‘what is woman’ is wrapped up in stereotypes and tied with a misogyny bow, or because they make it obvious that TWANW.
@iknklast #11:
I keep harking back to my years online in chat room which frequently involved arguments between creationists and those who accepted the theory of evolution. Whenever the former would ask a particularly naive or boneheaded question about evolution — how does it work? what’s a beneficial mutation? where are the transitional species? why are there still monkeys? — the evolution advocates would erupt in clear, simple explanations rife with detail. Some of us created ‘pop-ups’ with our best answers or favorite quotes, which needed only a single keystroke to respond to Frequently Asked Questions. The opportunity to “educate them” was our raison d’etre.
It wasn’t the rational, scientific side which prevaricated and dodged around. “Can you make a positive case for your ‘theory’ that doesn’t just rely on asserting another theory is inadequate?” Or even “What’s the mechanism?” or “define ‘God.’” They’d either change the topic, drop out, tell us the answer was out there, look for it … or say nothing.
Yeah, Sastra, I have that experience, too. Then there’s the ubiquitous “Were you there?” I suppose we could answer when they tell us about Jesus dying for their sins “Were you there?” I’ve not resorted to that…yet.
iknklast, it isn’t worth turning that question back on them, the answer they give is that the Bible is a far more reliable witness than any human. Any further questioning results in the usual circular argument of I know it’s right because the Bible is the perfect word of God: I know it’s the perfect word of God because it says so in the Bible, which is right because it’s the perfect word of God…..
That’s another one the trans have adopted (much nicer than ‘appropriated’): I’m a woman because I feel like a woman: I know I feel like a woman because I am a woman.
I’m reminded of the old Wild West movies about pioneer wagon trains. We’re being attacked by logic. Quick, circle the arguments, it’s our only defence!
I put this comment up at the “Far more ” post, but it fits here too, in connection wth appropriation/adoption.
AoS @ 14 – I was thinking about that circle this morning for some reason – wondering for the umptieth time how did that ever get off the ground? How do you know this secretive undetectable god exists? Because it says so, in this one book. Yes but – etcetera.
OB, I suppose that in its simplest form, someone brought up to believe that the Bible is the work of God and must not be questioned will be confused by the question ‘how do you know that God exists?’ Of course he exists, he says so in his book that he authored and that must not be questioned.
It must be hard to snap somebody out of such a mindset if they were indoctrinated into thinking that way. Nothing else will make sense to them.
I think that’s true for very young people, but as very young people get older, they at least have the potential to look critically at things they’ve always been told. Maybe not in all cultures, but in ones that have some access to literacy and so on, they do.
AoS/Ophelia@17/18
A minor-seeming example of how pernicious this sort of thinking is. A few years ago my Christian mother was talking about Christmas and my Dad (who was also Christian, but that’s irrelevant) pointed out that there’s no reason to think that the whole baby jebus thing happened on December 25th. I explained that we know exactly how existing end-of-year celebrations were coopted by early Christians and she listened with some interest and seemed to accept what we were both saying.
Then she said “but it happened around Christmas…”