SD on 7/7/2020 at 09:57
Quote Posted by june gloom
"i have nothing but sympathy and compassion for transgender people" "IF U HAV DIK U NOT WOMAN" bro like why you so obsessed with peoples' genitals bro do you hear yourself bro you prefaced your entire post with a bald-faced lie bro why would you lie like that bro
I'm sure I don't need to draw you a diagram, but people with dicks do an incredible amount of damage to people without dicks every single day. If you can't even acknowledge the danger dicks pose to vulnerable people, then I don't see how rational debate is possible.
Sulphur on 7/7/2020 at 09:58
Quote Posted by SubJeff
Yes, but one doesn't need to talk to a black person to be able to tell if something is racist or not. You may need to have it explained to you because you don't understand the history or the references, but you don't need a black person to do that, and if you have that information you don't need to be black to process it.
So you're saying that after me posting, a person who skipped through the tweets and gave you a summary because you had also only touched upon a few things about it, you know all the information now required to process this properly?
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I'd like to hear the point of view of trans people, yes, or course. Not at all. I think you make a judgement after you've got the that input. I just don't think it needs to a trans/black/gay/whatever person who makes that judgement.
So where's the input, then? I'm seeing a lot of people talk about JKR, but we don't have anyone quoting an actual trans person.
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which directly, specifically and unequivocally expresses the opinion that
only trans people can understand on this. This was in response to your statement here:
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I'm undecided on this matter (I've said about JK Rowling's posting before) because I know I've not read enough about it and my opinion at the moment isn't fully informed.
If you're not fully informed, and I'm not fully informed, and we're both going to swat words around about the topic without anyone from the community giving their take on it, do you really think we're qualified to make a judgement on it?
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Imagine someone said this about white straight people - you wouldn't understand, you need to be a straight white person to get it. I think some people's heads would explode.
This is improbable because I challenge you to show me a world where we
don't have the opinions and perspectives of straight white people barrelling through 24/7.
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I don't think that happened. I think she had issue with the description, and I think she was wrong.
It was a direct reaction to a flyer on 'people who menstruate' - which she goes on to make fun of by implying there must be a better word for it.
And I'm not saying it's not a possibility, if a really low one (your link is of a convicted criminal perpetuating this in jail though? Is that the only anecdotal evidence available?). Rape is a possibility regardless of gender or restroom labelling. So what is the solution? Discriminate and not allow trans people with penises to enter the women's restrooms and let them be discriminated by men instead? And if we use her logic that men always perpetuate sexual violence, then are we saying it's okay to increase the possibility of trans people being raped by relegating them to the men's side? (Let's be clear though, this is an
assumption that she only means trans people with penises. It may or may not be true.)
SD on 7/7/2020 at 10:20
Quote Posted by Aja
I’m not the best person to explain this because the issue is complex and I’m still learning about it, but I’ll give it a shot. There are a couple problems with the argument that trans women shouldn’t be allowed in women’s spaces.
First, to assume that what she’s saying is true means you also have to assume, at a high level, that the distinction between men and women is something that can be objectively quantified. Yes, there's genitalia and chromosomes, but they don't explain the depression and dysphoria some people feel when their assigned gender doesn’t match what they know they actually are and the relief and the sense of wholeness that comes from adopting their true gender. To reduce the argument to, “Declaring you’re a women to gain access to female-only spaces is unacceptable” is to say that I, a person who has no idea what your lived experience is actually like, knows better than you about yourself. It invalidates what is clearly a very real and traumatic experience and ignores the actual reason people transition.
Second, statistically trans people are overwhelmingly more likely to be abused than abusers. So if your argument is the safety of women's-only spaces, you’re going to have to start banning lesbians or even straight women who are strong enough to overpower their peers. What's the excuse if they're just as much of a danger? Besides, a deranged person can already go into whatever bathroom or shelter they want to commit assault, so we wouldn’t really be solving that problem, even if did exist. It's like the people insisting that gay men shouldn't adopt because they're more likely to be pedophiles.
In the end, what it boils down to is plain and simple bigotry masquerading as an appeal to logic. Go on any TERF or so-called gender critical forum and what you'll see is mainly just people being grossed out by trans people and coming up with reasons to justify their discomfort, and that is exactly what JK Rowling did.
On your first point, it's not about invalidating how trans people feel. It's not really even about genuine trans people. It's about the practical danger penises pose to people without penises. It's unfortunate that we have to balance the fee-fees of trans people against the increased risk of sexual violence against women, but I make no apology for coming down on the side of the latter.
On the second point, it's correct that transwomen are statistically more likely to be the victims of abuse. This is largely because transwomen are over-represented in sex work, and sex workers in general are at a hugely increased risk of sexual violence.
Your concluding paragraph, well, I don't see what you see, and I've looked really, really hard. I think it's easier if people pretend their opponents are all grossed out bigots, because that saves them having to rationally justify allowing potential rapists into women's changing rooms and refuges.
june gloom on 7/7/2020 at 10:39
Quote Posted by SD
I'm sure I don't need to draw you a diagram, but people with dicks do an incredible amount of damage to people without dicks every single day. If you can't even acknowledge the danger dicks pose to vulnerable people, then I don't see how rational debate is possible.
correction:
cis men do an incredible amount of damage to afabs and trans women every single day
your entire position rests on gender essentialism and is therefore horseshit
SD on 7/7/2020 at 11:21
Quote Posted by june gloom
correction:
cis men do an incredible amount of damage to afabs and trans women every single day
your entire position rests on gender essentialism and is therefore horseshit
No, you're still missing the point. As I say, it's not really about genuine trans people. Allowing "cis" men to self-ID as trans, no questions asked, is where the potential problems lie.
Nameless Voice on 7/7/2020 at 12:57
No one was actively calling for the first thread to be closed, people were just saying that it had degenerated into a toxic morass and was pointless.
But, sure, I'll foolishly bite again.
What exactly is this "cancel culture" you're referring to? It's just people deciding that they find some public figure unpleasant and that they want nothing to do with them.
That's not anything new, people have been doing this for centuries. If someone behaves badly, you stop engaging with them, or at least become much more cautious in your dealings.
If someone represents something that you find morally reprehensible, you disassociate yourself from them and take your business elsewhere.
It could be simply because you don't want to support someone whose actions you are strongly opposed to (such as choosing not to buy from an artist that you believe to be a rapist), or it could be an attempt to enact change in the offending party (such, as for example, the boycott of South Africa during Apartheid.)
The people arguing against it are usually the same ones who aggressively defend freedom of speech. What is a boycott other than the freedom to take your business elsewhere?
Freedom of speech always needs to be combined with the freedom of others to react to that speech, and the freedom for your to accept those consequences.
So, tl;dr #1: "cancel culture" is when people decide that they do not want to support some person or group of people, and often also share their reasoning with others who might be interested.
Next, there's the question of why people choose to not support someone. There are two main flavours which are relevant here. The first is because of something that the person said or did (for example, J.K. Rowling's comments), and the second is because of something that another person accused them of doing (for example, people accused of rape.)
The first one is fairly simple. A person says or does something that people strongly disagree with, and so they decide to distance themselves from that person. I don't see how anyone could consider this unreasonable or problematic. The person in question did whatever they did publicly (usually posting it to the world on social media), so they should not be surprised when the public responds. The fact that the said the thing which people object to is not in question, as it is publicly available for everyone to see.
The second one is a little more complicated, because it's technically hearsay. If one person accuses another of a sex crime, and the second denies it, then people need to make up their own minds as to which party to believe.
Of course, different people are free to believe different things. From the cases I've read about, it seems that mostly the accuser is far more believable, though there have also been a few cases where it just seemed that all parties involves acted foolishly but not criminally. The impression I've had is that people tend to come down much less favourably on the former than on the latter.
There's also the question of when the thing in question happened. It seems to me that people are generally much more lenient of foolish actions from several years ago, but only if the person in question isn't obviously still acting in the same way in the present.
So, tl;dr #2: when a piece of worrying information about a public figure comes to light, people tend to evaluate it based on how offensive it is, when it is is from, and how reliable the source is. This evaluation may cause people to change their perception of that public figure.
Next up, we have false claims.
I don't think anyone actually denies that false claims are a bad thing, or that the people who make false claims in bad faith shouldn't be punished.
However, I've still seen no evidence that there are a large number of false claims being made, or that many peoples' lives are being ruined by these false claims.
Yes, it's a real problem, but as far as I can tell it is a minor one.
It seems extremely tone-deaf to make such a fuss over a very small number of lives being disrupted by e.g. false sexual assault claims, while ignoring the much larger problem of massive numbers of lives being ruined by actually being sexually assaulted, and by not being believed when they come forward, or of not even bothering to come forwards because they know they won't be believed.
So, tl;dr #3: False claims happen occasionally and are bad, but we have no evidence that they are common.
Finally, what is the proposal here? That people should be forbidden from making up their own minds about a public figure, that they shouldn't be allowed to decide if they want to support that person or not, because they might possibly be working on incomplete on inaccurate information?
That you should be forced to e.g. support someone that you suspect is a rapist, just because it hasn't been legally proven yet? Because you might be wrong?
That seems like a dangerous precedent to me.
I'd rather people considered the available facts on a case-by-case basis and made up their own minds about how much or little they should change their opinions or actions regarding a person based on those facts.
froghawk on 7/7/2020 at 13:53
^all of that. I personally know a truly offensive number of people who have been assaulted (and that's just the ones who have come out about it, so probably much more). Not a single one of them have managed to bring their accuser to justice. Meanwhile, I don't know a single person who has been falsely accused and had their life ruined. Anecdotal? Sure, but all existing statistics support it. If my response seems 'overly emotional' to you, that's why - because this state of affairs is disgusting, and thoughts like the ones expressed in the OP serve to make it even harder to get traction behind something that's already close to impossible for most women.
Most of the actual 'cancel culture' I'm seeing, on the other hand, is coming from infantile alt-righters who don't like that the protagonist of a movie or game is a brown women or gay. So excuse me if nothing in the argument appears to be rooted in reality.
And yes, as mentioned, courts do not prove innocence. Proving a negative isn't really a thing.
SubJeff on 7/7/2020 at 14:14
No one said the courts prove innocence.
Everyone is innocent, including the accused, until proven guilty.
froghawk on 7/7/2020 at 14:38
Oh, really?
Quote Posted by icemann
I'm not a lawyer, but your logic is flawed there. The point of going to court is prove ones innocence.
And again, Icemann, where are these false claims you've been reading about that have ruined people's lives? You haven't produced a single example of someone's life being ruined. The problem that you're missing here is that you want to separate these two things into discreet issues, but they're inextricable in practice. You can't just leave victims out of the conversation at your leisure when they directly suffer from having the conversation. So go ahead and put all the disclaimers you want and try to steer the conversation all you want, but no one's going to go along with that engineered thought experiment because in real life these thought experiments have concrete effects in reinforcing the difficulty of prosecution. And that, in short, has been our issue with this entire exercise.
