LGB refutation of TQ+, Part 2: Going on the Offense

submitted by PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust from self.LGBDropTheT

So: when attempting to come up with a streamlined refutation of the TQ+, I found my argument falling into two parts: the simpler and non-confrontational "self-defense" component (previous post), and the more complex and overtly confrontational "going on the offense" one (current post). This component is itself in two parts, and is intended to take on the "genderist" ideology/movement itself, rather than just defend LGB people/spaces against its assaults.

Here it is:

  1. By taking the position that they should not be perceived as their sex, the T are attempting to dictate others' perceptions. This is not something that any civil rights movement has ever done, and is not acceptable: among the most basic rights that we have is the right to our perceptions.
  2. Exacerbating this is the nature of what the T require us to substitute for their sex: gender. Gender, in the form of the female gender-role and the male gender-role, is a social role, defined and assigned automatically on the basis of an individual's sex. It can best be summed up as "sex-based stereotypes", much like racial or ethnic stereotypes: a set of rules for who you are allowed to be, or acknowledge being. This is a regressive, and cruel, system in general, but particularly for women/girls and LGB people. It's dangerous to the former because, while the details of the female gender-role differ by time and place, one thing remains consistent: it always means (relative to boys/men) "inferior". It's dangerous to the latter because a key component of both gender-roles is "heterosexuality". Treating gender as if it does, and should, override sex (a biological fact) is antithetical to science, reason, and reality, and reinforces harmful stereotypes to boot.

Of course I realize that this isn't a comprehensive refutation (going for streamlining precludes that), but does it seem useful? Covers the basic, most essential points clearly? Tracks? Can you think of anything else that should be included, or maybe removed/replaced? Is this the best approach, or do you think we should try something else? Possibly we could use both this strategy AND something else? Or perhaps multiple somethings? Any other thoughts? I'm WIDE open to suggestions here! :)

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[–]reluctant_commenter 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Couple off the cuff thoughts: I love your #1 point. The "right to have our own perceptions" is a good way to put it.

It's dangerous to the latter because a key component of both gender-roles is "heterosexuality".

^ THAT is probably one of the biggest takeaway points and one that I think even many trans rights activists would agree with. I am struggling a little with how to best argue it, though. I might approach it like this when talking to someone who believes in transgender ideology:

  • Society has certain expectations of members of each sex which I will refer to as "sex stereotypes" (I'd say this explicitly, so that terminology is not confused).

  • One of those sex stereotypes is that men are attracted to women and women are attracted to men.

  • Lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are attracted to the same sex and so this sex stereotype does not apply to them.

Someone who believes in transgender ideology might just then argue that LGB people are actually attracted to "gender identity" (lol). It would be good to bring out evidence at that point-- e.g. lesbians dating transmen at higher rates than transwomen, or something similar.

[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm glad that these points resonate with you! Boiling it all down is really hard, isn't it? They are SO wrong on SO many levels! And nothing seems to stop the trans-juggernaut... you feel like you can't afford not to throw EVERYTHING that you can think of at it. But that's often impractical, so I wanted to find what this "everything" traced back to. The root of all Cases Against Trans. And that seems to consist of three elements: biological sex; perception; gender. Maybe this can help us keep our bearings, when the gender-ideologues go particularly batshit.

Your take on my phrasing of the "gender" component is a good one. I was thinking that it could also be put this way:

  • both the male and female sex stereotypes require opposite-sex attraction and stigmatize same-sex attraction (often forbidding it altogether). So these sex stereotypes are inherently opposed to anyone being lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

And yeah, we need to be prepared for the "but homogenderality!/bigenderality!" objection. Some other possible evidence countering it:

  • If LGB people are attracted to gender rather than sex, then why haven't gay men always just dated masculine women, and lesbians feminine men? Indeed, why isn't this the rule, particularly in times and places where the penalties for same-sex erotic activity are severe?
  • If LGB people are attracted to gender rather than sex, why do trans people complain incessantly about gay men and lesbians not wanting to date/have sex with them? And try to pressure them into doing so? Isn't the proverbial proof in the pudding here?
  • If LGB people are attracted to gender rather than sex, doesn't that open the door to "straightening" them? After all, they should have no problem with dating people of the opposite sex, provided they're of the same "gender". So, for those who regard same-sex sexuality as wrong, why not pursue this "solution"?

[–]haveanicedaytoo💗💜💙 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Regarding point #2, this is going to be a whole bunch of blahblahblah but I hope you can bear with me and help me figure out what I'm trying to say.

I'm a woman. In my head, I've never felt like a man or woman, I'm just a human in a body. This gender shit is really not innate for me. It's stuff I had to learn by living in a society. So here is me - gender-free woman, trying to live.

Let's say 8 years ago... I go to work in a male-dominated field, and I'm happy to report a large amount of the male-people managed to just treat me like a normal person and didn't hold my lack of penis against me. They made the same jokes with me that they would make with a man, we had the same conversations that they would have with a man, the same respect, the same expectations about being able to complete my tasks. it was really nice. Of course they never forgot that I was a woman, but they managed to do a great job of treating me like a person rather than a walking pussy with tits.

And then there were other men, for the lack of a better term, treated me like I had cooties. If I made a joke, they would not laugh. If another guy made the same exact joke a minute later, they would HARHARHARHARHARRRRR the way certain men do. They'd ignore me, or say passive aggressive things towards me, like 'Oh no, we can't talk about XYZ right now, (haveanicedaytoo is here and we don't want her delicate vagina to get offended by our manly dialogues!)' There was a man who was an office assistant, meaning it was literally his job to assist me and others of my rank, but he would ignore me or plain refuse to do anything I asked him. I had to ask another male coworker to ask him to do his fucking job, and when I complained to the manager, I was told 'But that's his culture' (he happened to be from the same part of the world I'm from, but a different country, and I guess my vagina just offended him.)

Anyway, I think you can see from the picture I'm painting, that the fact that I'm a woman (not my gender, because I could have been potato-gender, and the treatment I received wouldn't have changed) caused certain behaviors towards me.

Would me being hired in that office as an FTM called PenisLord3000 who demands he/him pronouns have changed those mens' behavior towards me? I have a feeling the nice men would have continued to be nice, but a bit more distant (because let's be real, people don't like hanging around with weirdos) but the mean men...? Would they have treated me like a penis-having bro? Would they have HARHARHARHARHHHARRR at my jokes all of a sudden? Would the 'but it's his kultchurrr to treat women like shit' have fulfilled my requests? Would the manager have had my back when I complained?

Do these people really think changing their "Gender" is going to change the way society treats them? I think at least the teen and young adult FTM's really do believe this. But it doesn't end with getting called Aiden or Kai and getting the precious he/him pronouns. The only people who will coddle Aiden and Kai are the very specific kind of women who've been socialized to coddle this kind of behavior.

I'm sorry my comment is kind of all over the place and I'm having a hard time stitching it up into a point. I think I'm just trying to say that "Gender/Gender roles" are things OTHER PEOPLE force on you, and you can't change that with whining and crying and pronouns. You can't even change it with laws or cancellations. Society has to change, and that happens slooooooowly, and then suddenly.

[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is NOT all over the place! Far from it-- really brings the point home that women CANNOT "identify out of" our oppression. Because the female gender-role always comes down to "inferior", it's defined and imposed by society, and applies automatically as soon as our sex is perceived. Doesn't matter what WE think. Only what everyone ELSE thinks. (That's social roles for ya.) And too many of them think in these terms... particularly men. Sure, some may not... but we can never presume that we'll catch a break. And if we don't, the consequences for us can be as severe as it gets.

While I'm also a bi woman who's come to this same conclusion, my experience with gender is... a mess. Despite never having done the "feminine-wear" thing (makeup, dresses/skirts, heels, etc.), my interests and personality pretty much line up with what you'd expect. And when I was a preschooler and mom decided that my long hair should be cut short (too young to take care of it myself, and she was tired of doing it), I was SO upset... because I feared that people would mistake me for a boy, due to my supposed ugliness. And I've been haunted by my inadequacy in the prettiness/charm department ever since, to near-pathological levels. And yet... I've never "felt like a girl/woman" in anything besides the biological sense, never understood how (or why) other girls around 5th grade or so began acting in these weird, artificially-feminine ways. But I wasn't a "tomboy", either; hated sports, and playing with cars/trucks (or boys, at least the ruff n tuff kind), and anything "mechanical"; liked animals, and reading/writing, and drawing (often beautiful, beautifully-dressed ladies). So what was/am I, genderists? "Non-binary"? Why have I never had any issue with being female, then?

That's why the narrative transgenderism is peddling bugs me so much. Do ya think that I'm comfortable with my "gender"? Feel it fits me like a glove? NOT HARDLY. But that doesn't make me "trans"! OR, for that matter, "cis". It makes me a REAL PERSON, forced to contend with this decidedly UNreal set of stereotypes, which have to some extent shaped me, whether I like it or not... and I don't. Which is a common experience, I think. Especially for girls and women. But one that, increasingly, cannot be acknowledged... because if I, along with practically everyone else, feels this way... what does "trans" have to measure itself against? People who ALSO don't "identify" with their "gender"? Or, for that matter... with any OTHER one?

I mean, I have to live with this messy state of affairs, as do we all... what makes THEM so fucking special?

[–]Taln_Reich 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Regarding #2: well, the point a lot of transgender people claim is, that it isn't about gender roles/sex based stereotypes.

[–]lovelyspearmintLesbeing a lesbian 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

And yet they go out of their way to wear the most female clothing in existence, often as low cut, short, tight or ill-fitting as possible

[–]Taln_Reich 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Well, their explanation is, that they are using the cultural gender stereotypes in order to communicate their gender identity to the outside, in the timespan before their transition has progressed far enough that they don't need to rely on said stereotypes to be recognized as their gender.

[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I'd be interested in your counterargument here, Taln. This is what occurs to me:

  • It is inescapably about gender... because gender is the very basis of their "identity" in the first place. So how does the explanation "I don't even believe in gender, and intend to drop the gender stereotypes... as soon as people start applying them to me by default" make sense? The only thing at issue here is whether the trans person solicits being gendered versus being gendered automatically. What is their gender identity made of, after all? The "proof" that they're not "of their assigned gender"? Such things as "I like pink, and wearing makeup, and cutesy stuff, so I must be a woman". In other words... cultural gender stereotypes. There's no getting away from them, for those who buy into the trans ideology. Even if its adherents would like to suggest otherwise.
  • Since transwomen virtually never "pass", at what point do they stop relying on cultural gender stereotypes to signal that, while obviously men, they're somehow "really" women?
  • Even if this explanation was credible, how is using stereotypes at all-- thereby reinforcing/perpetuating them-- OK? If a white person "identifies" as black, and-- until their "racial transition" has progressed far enough for them to "pass"-- uses racial stereotypes to communicate their "true self", would that be acceptable? Or would it be offensive and harmful, regardless of whether the stereotypes were being used temporarily or permanently?

[–]Taln_Reich 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It is inescapably about gender... because gender is the very basis of their "identity" in the first place. So how does the explanation "I don't even believe in gender, and intend to drop the gender stereotypes... as soon as people start applying them to me by default" make sense? The only thing at issue here is whether the trans person solicits being gendered versus being gendered automatically. What is their gender identity made of, after all? The "proof" that they're not "of their assigned gender"? Such things as "I like pink, and wearing makeup, and cutesy stuff, so I must be a woman". In other words... cultural gender stereotypes. There's no getting away from them, for those who buy into the trans ideology. Even if its adherents would like to suggest otherwise.

The transdgender people I have talked to have been very insistent on seperating gender role and gender identity. Essentially, it's the other way around to how you made it out. As in, gender identity is not based on gender role, but gender role (as well as defiance thereof) is based on gender identity. Gender identity itself in turn relates how the person in question feels about their physical sexed anatomy (e.g. trans women being distressed at their lack of breasts, masculine facial features, beard growth and presence of penis, trans men being distressed at their presence of breasts, lack of penis, etc. with this distress being called "gender dysphoria" ), completly independent of gender role/gender expression. The descriptions that put it down to gender role/gender expression are simply oversimplistic. Essentially, a person with female birth sex, that loves wearing typical feminine clothing, loves cutesy stuff and has stereotypical feminine hobbys would still be a valid trans men (FtM) if this person felt distress over their female anatomical features (equivalent for trans women, so a person with male birth sex that is into tradionally masculine things would still be a valid trans women if they felt distress over their male anatomical features).

Since transwomen virtually never "pass", at what point do they stop relying on cultural gender stereotypes to signal that, while obviously men, they're somehow "really" women?

essentially, it's a balancing act. The further along the transition they are, the more the physical changes to the body the signaling of the gender identity, the less the person has to rely on cultural cues to be perceived as the gender they identify as. (Also, in regards to "virtually never pass", I want to bring up the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey https://www.transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/USTS-Full-Report-FINAL.PDF , in particular fig. 4.15, with the question "How often people could tell they were transgender without being told" which for transgender women is 19% "always/most of the time", 35% "sometimes" and 47% "Rarely/never")

Even if this explanation was credible, how is using stereotypes at all-- thereby reinforcing/perpetuating them-- OK? If a white person "identifies" as black, and-- until their "racial transition" has progressed far enough for them to "pass"-- uses racial stereotypes to communicate their "true self", would that be acceptable? Or would it be offensive and harmful, regardless of whether the stereotypes were being used temporarily or permanently?

a. ) pretty much no one consideras "transracial" to be a real thing, so argueing this is moot.

b.) the stereotypes utilized by transgender people to signal their gender identity until they are sufficently transitioned to not rely on this any longer are merely relating to external appearance, e.g. gendered clothing and applying makeup in ways to accentuate the facial features that fit the gender identity, while disaccenuating those that don't. So, for your "white dude that identifies as black dude"-example, that would essentially amount to said trans-black person styling their hair into an afro, as there is gendered clothing but not racialized one. Sure, there are people who would scream cultural appropiation about that, but I don't agree that "white person with afro hair" is somehow "offensive" or "harmfull".

[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks for replying, Taln.

I have more to say about this, but before getting into the nuts-and-bolts of it all, can you answer one question for me? What the heck is "gender identity"? Because there's no definition of it here. Sure, you make a point of saying that it's different than gender role/gender expression, and that it relates to how one feels about their own physical sexual anatomy... but not how. If it's not a gender role, than why would it have anything to do with one's sex, or the way in which others perceive you? And if it does have to do with those things... then it just sounds like gender roles by another name. (Since it apparently works in the same way.) Distinction without a difference, perhaps?

[–]Taln_Reich 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have explained the issue at this thread https://saidit.net/s/LGBDropTheT/comments/7aa2/gosh_could_you_imagine_grifters_invading_your_sub/ already, so I will copy-paste the explanation of what gender identity (as defined by the transmedicalist approach, which is really only the transgender issue approach that should be taken serious) is here:

the Idea is, that the brain has essentially some conception of what sex the body is supposed to have in terms of hormone levels and physical sexed characteristics, which, for the vast majority of people (non-transgender people, called "cisgender") alligns with the sex of the body. Now, when it doesn't allign (which it does for transgender people), this incongurance of hormone levels and sexed characteristics causes a state of distress termed "gender dysphoria", which is remediated by artifically alligning the hormone levels and sexed characteristics of the physical body to the ones the body is "supposed to have" according to this conception.

In terms of differentiating gender identity from gender role, there is a thought experiment that goes like this: imagine you are stuck on a island with no other people to interact with, and therefore no gendered expectations or roles. If you, in that situation, had the chance to irreversible change the sex of your body, would you do it? If the answer is yes, it is about gender identity and not role (since without a society there are no gender roles), if the answer is changed by the lack of a society with gender roles, it is about those gender roles.

[–]Not_a_celebrity 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

pretty much no one consideras "transracial" to be a real thing, so argueing this is moot.

It's hypocritical to consider "transgender" to be a "real" thing but not "transracial". TQs say a man "identifying" as a woman is a woman because he "identifies" as such. Either "identifying" as something makes you that thing, or it doesn't. If it does, "transracial" should be considered a thing. Someone white "identifying" as black would have to be legally seen as black, but the reason they aren't is because trans right activists and TQs are hypocrites. They understand "identifying" as another race doesn't make you that race even if you try hard to medically or surgically change skin color. They should understand no matter how many times someone has surgery or takes hormones, they can not say they are another sex either. Either "transracial" and "transgender" are real things, or "transgender" and "transracial" are not real things

It's also not "birth sex". It's sex. 🙃

[–]Taln_Reich 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's hypocritical to consider "transgender" to be a "real" thing but not "transracial". TQs say a man "identifying" as a woman is a woman because he "identifies" as such. Either "identifying" as something makes you that thing, or it doesn't. If it does, "transracial" should be considered a thing. Someone white "identifying" as black would have to be legally seen as black, but the reason they aren't is because trans right activists and TQs are hypocrites. They understand "identifying" as another race doesn't make you that race even if you try hard to medically or surgically change skin color. They should understand no matter how many times someone has surgery or takes hormones, they can not say they are another sex either. Either "transracial" and "transgender" are real things, or "transgender" and "transracial" are not real things

(Note: I'm argueing from the transmedicalist/truscum position)

This completly ignores what transgender people mean when they say "I identify as a man/as a woman". It means that the person in question is distressed at their female/male physical sexed characteristics, strongly desiring to have male/female ones instead (this being called gender dysphoria). It has nothing to do with gender roles or gender conformity. There is no such thing as "racial dysphoria", as in, the person being distressed at their physical ethnic characteristics, it is all about the cultural roles of the ethnicity in question. So, a transgender person in a world without gender based stereotypes/gender roles would still be a transgender person (as in: still distressed about their physical sexed characteristics), a transracial person would have nothing to base their "identification" on. The poster child of "transracial", Nkechi Amare Diallo (formerly known as Rachel Dolezal) is less comparable to a transgender person, the gender equivalnet would be more a gender non-conforming person who pretends to be the other sex in order to follow the gender role of the other gender.

It's also not "birth sex". It's sex. 🙃

If sex doesn't change (your position) than birth sex is the exact same as sex, meaning my use of the term is merely unnecessary specific. If sex does change by medical transitioning (which, again, some people do claim) it is a necessary specification. I'd rather be unnecessarily specific than fail to be necessarily specific.