The right to become
Headline:
Green MSP says rapist Isla Bryson has right to become a woman
Lede:
Rapists such as the convicted criminal Isla Bryson should be able to legally become women, a Green MSP has claimed.
Right or no right, men can’t “become women.” We can’t just “become” any old thing we fancy. We can’t “become” buildings or planets or tigers or the opposite sex. We can become lawyers or mountain climbers or citizens of various countries. There are things we can do and things we can’t do. There are things we can change and things we can’t change. There are realities and there are fantasies. It’s best to know the difference, and it’s not acceptable to try to force the entire world to endorse one’s personal fantasies. It’s also not acceptable for people in government to try to force everyone to endorse other people’s personal fantasies.
Maggie Chapman said that “any trans person” should be entitled to legal recognition of their gender. She refuted claims from Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s new First Minister, that Bryson was only pretending to be trans to get into a female prison.
No she didn’t. She rejected them, she didn’t refute them.
Asked whether people such as Bryson should be able to legally change their sex and be treated as a woman, Ms Chapman said: “I think any trans person should be able to get the gender recognition certificate that they seek, that recognises, in law, something that the rest of us just take for granted.”
Oh ffs. The rest of us “take it for granted” because it’s reality. Rabbits take being rabbits for granted; that doesn’t mean that anyone who has to seek to be a rabbit is a rabbit.
That’s such a ludicrous version of oppression or subordination or intersectionality – the fact that men don’t get to take it for granted that they’re women.
When it was put to the MSP that Bryson was only identifying as trans to avoid serving time in a male prison, Ms Chapman told the BBC that she did not agree.
“Well we don’t know that was the only motivation that Isla Bryson chose to do that,” she said. “Isla Bryson is a trans woman… it’s very very clear that we cannot let single cases determine the entire legislation that we’re talking about here.”
It’s true, philosophically speaking, that we don’t know that was Bryson’s only motivation, because we can’t know, because we can’t get inside other people’s heads. But we can have a damn good informed opinion on the subject, especially when the whole idea that men can be women is an absurdity in the first place. Rapists aren’t usually also up on the latest progressive belief system, and the criminal justice system is not based on knowing with absolute certainty in the first place. We have plenty of good reasons to think Bryson is pretending to be trans and no good reasons to think he isn’t, so let’s err on the side of safety for women, ok?
I for one will continue to fight the oppressors for my right to be a teapot.
It’s funny that the fantasy of a man becoming a woman is not seen as equally impossible as a man becoming invisible. The magic formulation “identifies as” is often inserted to do a lot of heavy lifting, but still lifts nothing. It’s entirely dependent upon shallow wordplay and (as Bjarte Foshaug has pointed out), bad puns. It’s also dependent upon the belief that women are lesser creatures, certainly less than men, without an independent existence of their own, defined and definable by men. Their entire “essence” and “being” is an idea that can be fully realized and captured by men wearing the right combination of costume, cosmetics and comportment or, under self-ID, simple fiat, simple force of will. Yet force of will has as much bearing on “becoming” a woman as it has on attaining invisibility. Yet people who would scoff at claims to invisibility are willing to swallow claims of womanhood that are as hopelessly marooned in category error as our Invisible Man. It’s an error lots of people are eager to embrace, because anyone can be a woman. Some men are better at it than women, apparently. If that ain’t the height of colonialist hubris, I don’t know what is.
There’s no difference in result that arises from honesty and sincerity. The “true trans” TiM is as unable to become a woman as someone who’s “just pretending.” Just pretending is all that any man is capable of. They can wish as hard as they like, but the pious and the opportunists both remain men.
What we do know is that he’s a convicted rapist. With a penis. Those two facts disqualify him.
YnNB?, that’s just what I was thinking. I don’t care if he isn’t a “real” tanswoman. First, there really isn’t a way to tell with self-ID; we can’t see motivation written on their face. Even if he is/was/will be a “real” transwoman, he doesn’t belong in women’s prisons. He’s a man.
I suspect this “not real” is a way for politicians to save face when they realize the optics of putting a man like “Isla” Bryson in woman’s prison. They have to wiggle out of the fact that they keep stating that TWAW, and that what a person says, he is.
It also does a lot to keep the rape stats from showing how many trans are committing the crime, if you declare every one of them “not real”.
…gain telepathy!
…turn into a bird!
…never age!
…live on Venus!
Anything’s possible if you just ignore reality!
The pretense that a claimed gender identity trumps the reality of sex is a legal fiction that must be binned.
https://youtu.be/duzYhRyyepU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duzYhRyyepU
I hope either of these links work. I think of this dialogue far more often than I used to because of the gender wars…
@iknklast #4
It’s not just “Isla” Bryson. Iirc, his name is Adam Graham, so he’s”Isla Bryson.” Such a cruel joke. He shouldn’t be allowed to change his name to whitewash his crimes.