I’m a trans woman - AMA

[mal3volent]

I think you do need to personally know some women who actually think they need the kind of protection that you seem to think they need, otherwise you're not protecting them and you're not respecting them, you're just using their rights to justify your own prejudices.

Do you apply that standard to any of your other views? You need to personally know members of whatever group is being discussed, otherwise you're being disingenuous and your opinions don't matter? Do you know any Palestinians personally? Because if you don't, you're probably just using their rights to justify your own prejudice.

@arrall , do you feel you need to personally know members of every group that you advocate for?

 

[Vastness]

Do you apply that standard to any of your other views? You need to personally know members of whatever group is being discussed, otherwise you're being disingenuous and your opinions don't matter? Do you know any Palestinians personally? Because if you don't, you're probably just using their rights to justify your own prejudice.

I'll concede that probably that was a pretty clumsy attempt to make my point, maybe I would apply that standard to some views, but not all of them, no.

But this is a disingenuous comparison, IMO. It's obviously far more difficult to personally ask even a small number of oppressed Palestinians what they think about their homes being blasted into dust by the IDF on a sometimes daily basis, for most people, than it is to simply ask a sample of the women that most people presumably already know, whether or not they feel threatened by the idea of trans women using women's changing rooms, bathrooms, and the like. Frankly the example you've picked to illustrate my apparent hypocrisy I think is just an absurd one... it's just not comparable.

Anyway I was mainly responding to @Asclepius who accused me of bias based on the fact I said I'd never met a woman who actually felt threatened by trans women in sports or changing rooms - but then admitted immediately that they didn't know any women who felt threatened by this stuff either! Which I thought was just obvious and amusing hypocrisy and makes the original criticism a complete red herring.

I will however concede that I overstated it by saying anyone needs to know women personally who feel threatened by trans women in whatever situations, I shouldn't have used that word.

I do think it's necessary to have some reason to believe, based on things that women have actually said, that a significant proportion of women actually genuinely feel threatened by trans women, and not only that, but for reasons that make sense.

Someone point me to some women who have spoken about or written about why it's threatening to have trans women in changing rooms or sports, for reasons that are not based on obviously prejudicial, easily disproven ideas, like, trans women are more likely to be sexually violent, predators, or the like, and I'll reconsider my position based on that.

The primary reasons I think it just isn't that important are that the reasons given that trans women shouldn't be allowed in woman-only spaces are usually not explained beyond "they're potentially a threat to women", but I don't see any evidence that shows they're MORE of a threat than certain biological women, or just biological men who decide not to respect women's spaces already. There's also the reasoning that some minority of women would be made to feel uncomfortable, but this is essentially the same argument because their reasons for feeling uncomfortable appear to be a circular justification based on the first pseudo-explanation, and associated myths.

It's not nice to make people uncomfortable of course, but it's important why they're uncomfortable - is it because this apocryphal scary trans person looks too much like a man, or what? Most of the time I think this just boils down to a pre-rational dislike of trans people generally, rather than any considered or defensible position. How many trans women are assaulting kids or biological women in changing rooms? Does anyone who feels strongly about this topic even know, off the top of their head? I doubt it. And for those that do know, or who can look it up, what does that number look like when compared to biological women being assaulted or harassed in women's spaces by biological men?

To be clear, though. I'm not saying that all women's spaces need to accept all trans women at all times, with no caveats. There are exceptions. I remember reading about a domestic violence survivors support group where a visibly masculine trans woman who essentially just looked like a man started coming to sessions, which many of the existing members felt deeply uncomfortable about. I understand this, of course. There's nuance in these arguments. I just find the cliched talk about changing rooms and women's sports to be some of the worst examples of places trans women should be excluded from as a general rule, although again, I'm not saying there aren't some edge case scenarios where certain women's spaces should be solely for biological women, again I think this stuff really needs to be assessed on a case by case basis. But the changing room shit is just almost always poorly argued and often based on little more than prejudice... IMHO.

 

[mal3volent]

But this is a disingenuous comparison, IMO. It's obviously far more difficult to personally ask even a small number of oppressed Palestinians what they think about their homes being blasted into dust by the IDF on a sometimes daily basis, for most people, than it is to simply ask a sample of the women that most people presumably already know, whether or not they feel threatened by the idea of trans women using women's changing rooms, bathrooms, and the like. Frankly the example you've picked to illustrate my apparent hypocrisy I think is just an absurd one... it's just not comparable.

It absolutely is comparable. I just think it's inconvenient because it highlights how bad the logic is. It's actually the opposite of another very lazy habit where someone will say x is true because I know someone who thinks y. If I told you that actually, yes, I know several women personally who are vehemently against the idea of biological men entering women's spaces, you could just as easily say "oh well I guess since you know a few women who think that then surely it MUST be true."

my opinion is that it doesn't actually matter who we personally know or what they think. Ideas can be tested independent of that.

And if you zoom out, this subject can be simplified quite a bit. If you ask most people who are in favor of this type of thing, they'll say a trans woman is a woman, and they are a woman because they identify as such, and there are no requirements or expectations incumbent upon them when using female restrooms or locker rooms. If a biological male who looks like Randy Savage walks into the women's bathroom and scares the shit out of a young girl or woman, as long as he self identifies correctly, well then that's a learning opportunity for those females who need to broaden their minds and stop being bigots.

My point here is, if you'd like to know what women think on the subject, walk into one of their bathrooms and just ask.

 

[Allylbenzene]

You're not recognizing and respecting women's rights if you've never asked actually asked a woman

I'd simply be respecting their innate right to women-only spaces/sports. As per the name it's for biological women. Biological men have their own equivalent.

Most of the time I think this just boils down to a pre-rational dislike of trans people generally, rather than any considered or defensible position.

I think it's as simple as respecting the as-labelled space/sport. Women's sports is exclusively for biological women, not biological women and biological men.

I just find the cliched talk about changing rooms and women's sports to be some of the worst examples of places trans women should be excluded from

They are simply things that are specific and exclusive for biological women. Biological men have their own dedicated changing rooms and sports.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

This whole discussion is particularly interesting, and yet what I see as a result of the culture wars weapon of mass distraction.

Anyhow, I thought it interesting that arrall claims to be a woman, and at the same time feels comfortable with the fact that they have male genitals and do not wish to remove them. I have no beef with this (personally I’m attracted to anyone who has a pretty face and presents as feminine, call me a slut) but I don’t think this makes you a woman. I think this makes you a third gender as defined by other societies historically.

I asked my wife what she thought of this, her being the much more PC of the two of us, and she stated that if someone doesn’t want their genitals inverted to create a woman’s genitals, then how can they identify as female? To which I agree.

If I was single I think I’d be willing to date trans women, but being that I always wanted to have a stereotypical family unit at some point, I doubt I would settle down and marry one. Simply put, no womb.

When I was younger the third gender only seemed to exist in pornography and the photos of Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali hanging out at studio 54 kinda thing. It seems that the occurrence of plugging every human into the internet Matrix is what generated this sudden public discourse over what is man and what is woman and what is in between.

Maybe a bit of a ramble, but anyhow… what do you think @arrall ?

 

[arrall]

Life is lifeing but I will try to catch up on all these messages in the next several days

 

[chippermonk]

I'm going to repeat a little personal story which I think has some bearing on this issue.
Some years ago I took my then-13 yr old niece camping. She was in a phase where she wore her hair very short and dressed androgynously and had a lot of attitude ( I love that girl!) She went to the women's bathroom and some father of a young girl came storming up to me yapping about how I was letting my son in the girls room. At that moment she walked up and gave him the stink eye so he shut up. Neither of us said anything and maybe he still thought she was a boy, dunno.
Anyhow, even when you obey the law, you can still get shit given to you. What is the answer then, to dictate that people dress in "conventional" ways so the sensitive don't get their feelings upset? Dude was just as upset as he would have been if a trans woman went in there, in fact more than he would have been if the trans woman had been passable.

 

[PtahTek]

trans people have been a big point of contention on the forums.

this is sadly true globally
I haven't noticed any in the forum but i rarely visit imma ghost if you will. bullys just need a little pushback they fold every freakin time.
love ya

 

[Vastness]

it doesn't actually matter who we personally know or what they think. Ideas can be tested independent of that.

You're right - it doesn't matter and that was a lazy and admittedly somewhat disingenuous line of reasoning to bring up on my part.

Trans women in women's sports actually is a fairly unique and special circumstance and I regret bringing it up. When I say I don't think it's particularly important, I don't mean that I don't think it matters whatsoever - I thought I made that clear but perhaps I've meandered around the point. I mean it's not particularly important because there are just such a tiny quantity of trans athletes in the world. Granted - we can say that this tiny proportion of trans athletes are having an outsized impact on the far larger proportion of biological women by a minority who could be said to be cheating. We could also say that the affected group when we expand it to everyone who cares about sport, and fairness in sport, is negatively affected by the affected sports, competitions, fanbases and the like suffering from the sport that is their passion being somewhat discredited by the obvious lack of fairness.

But all that said... the trans people who choose to compete in competitions knowing (or in denial about the fact) that they have an unfair biological advantage compared to their competitors do not represent all trans people. They are a tiny, tiny minority. And the backlash against the actions of this tiny tiny minority taking advantage of the apparently completely incompetent and ineffectual regulatory bodies which could quite easily put a stop to this ends up affecting all trans people who have nothing to do with the individuals involved in these sports, or the decisions that allowed those few individuals to compete in the first place, by adding fuel to the already worryingly fierce blaze of anti-trans sentiment in much of the supposedly civilized, otherwise quite tolerant, lower-case-liberal societies. Because of this actually I just don't even believe that it's incompetence or "wokeness" that's preventing any clear lines from being drawn about what type of woman can compete as a woman, I think it's a deliberate tactic to make trans people just another oppressed, disadvantaged scapegoat for other problems in society...

...Which is why I'm now very wary of expressing particularly strong opinions one way of the other about whether trans women should be able to compete alongside biological women in professional sports. But fuck it I'll say it, most of the time they shouldn't. I still think it should be a case by case basis, ie, if male puberty was avoided, whatever other biomarkers can be objectively assessed and it can be demonstrated there's no remaining "masculine advantage", then I don't see any problem since there's no longer an unfair advantage. But most of the time, currently, in today's world, women's sports should be restricted to people who have been born women.

The changing room thing though... ugh, that I just cannot currently get past. I think it's a problem that only really exists because of the deeply repressed, puritanical, religiously-reinforced culture of shame around sex and gender and atypical sexualities and forms of gender expression. Dangerous, violent men can already enter women's changing rooms and threaten women. If a female-presenting "biological man" transwoman enters a woman's changing room just to get changed discreetly, I'm just not seeing an inherent danger here without getting back to the tired old trope that dangerous men might pretend to be trans women in order to access women's spaces and do bad things. I'm pretty sure the actual statistics on this do not support that hypothesis but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[mal3volent]

Dangerous, violent men can already enter women's changing rooms and threaten women. If a female-presenting "biological man" transwoman enters a woman's changing room just to get changed discreetly, I'm just not seeing an inherent danger here without getting back to the tired old trope that dangerous men might pretend to be trans women in order to access women's spaces and do bad things. I'm pretty sure the actual statistics on this do not support that hypothesis but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Well there aren't any statistics on that, not sure there ever could be. You bring up a solid point, one I used to mention. Sexual harassment, violence, etc are already illegal and no set of rules is going to stop a criminal from coming in if they want to. I guess the argument is that the rules are there to establish a standard or expectation. If you have a women's locker room but you allow biological males in there by rule you might as well just not bother with calling it a women's room. Just say it's for everyone and leave it at that so at least the 75-95% of society (depending on where you're at) who might find such things objectionable can opt out if they want. I do think the changing room scenario is one of the weakest that is frequently brought up (I think it's mostly what do we want normalized and what will that lead to), but the sports issue does have a ton of actual consequences. But the whole thing is pretty tired and pointless to discuss because it's almost impossible to have a good faith conversation. The histrionics employed by both sides are off the charts. I'm fine leaving it, I don't want to derail Arrall's thread.

 

[Asclepius]

Anyway I was mainly responding to @Asclepius who accused me of bias based on the fact I said I'd never met a woman who actually felt threatened by trans women in sports or changing rooms - but then admitted immediately that they didn't know any women who felt threatened by this stuff either! Which I thought was just obvious and amusing hypocrisy and makes the original criticism a complete red herring.

I will however concede that I overstated it by saying anyone needs to know women personally who feel threatened by trans women in whatever situations, I shouldn't have used that word.

I do think it's necessary to have some reason to believe, based on things that women have actually said, that a significant proportion of women actually genuinely feel threatened by trans women, and not only that, but for reasons that make sense.

Someone point me to some women who have spoken about or written about why it's threatening to have trans women in changing rooms or sports, for reasons that are not based on obviously prejudicial, easily disproven ideas, like, trans women are more likely to be sexually violent, predators, or the like, and I'll reconsider my position based on that.

The primary reasons I think it just isn't that important are that the reasons given that trans women shouldn't be allowed in woman-only spaces are usually not explained beyond "they're potentially a threat to women", but I don't see any evidence that shows they're MORE of a threat than certain biological women, or just biological men who decide not to respect women's spaces already. There's also the reasoning that some minority of women would be made to feel uncomfortable, but this is essentially the same argument because their reasons for feeling uncomfortable appear to be a circular justification based on the first pseudo-explanation, and associated myths.

It's not nice to make people uncomfortable of course, but it's important why they're uncomfortable - is it because this apocryphal scary trans person looks too much like a man, or what? Most of the time I think this just boils down to a pre-rational dislike of trans people generally, rather than any considered or defensible position. How many trans women are assaulting kids or biological women in changing rooms? Does anyone who feels strongly about this topic even know, off the top of their head? I doubt it. And for those that do know, or who can look it up, what does that number look like when compared to biological women being assaulted or harassed in women's spaces by biological men?

To be clear, though. I'm not saying that all women's spaces need to accept all trans women at all times, with no caveats. There are exceptions. I remember reading about a domestic violence survivors support group where a visibly masculine trans woman who essentially just looked like a man started coming to sessions, which many of the existing members felt deeply uncomfortable about. I understand this, of course. There's nuance in these arguments. I just find the cliched talk about changing rooms and women's sports to be some of the worst examples of places trans women should be excluded from as a general rule, although again, I'm not saying there aren't some edge case scenarios where certain women's spaces should be solely for biological women, again I think this stuff really needs to be assessed on a case by case basis. But the changing room shit is just almost always poorly argued and often based on little more than prejudice... IMHO.

Despite online musings (online discourse is nebulous & is a poor translator of real life, in many respects); there is something at least, disconcerting; mostly; hateful & unhinged, about people (anyone) who want to dominate & infringe on the personal boundaries of others irl - no matter what the ideology, or, excuse.

 

[Robi]

BENCE ulaşmak Kolay zanneden tiplerle uğraşmaktan yılları heba oluyor alakasız Lakin gün gelir insan değişir öncelikleride kuantum mekaniği

Yes

 

[arrall]

I know this is a way late response (have/had some personal things going on), but I have definitely used the comparison with bodybuilding on multiple occasions.

Nowadays it should be an even easier comparison with the number of anti-aging/longevity clinics that have popped up all over the place. It's become part of the societal norm now to augment one's hormones to "match" how they want to be from an internalized view of self. And that's without even factoring in the pervasive use of cosmetic surgery/procedures on top of it. It still baffles me how the whole "trans doesn't make sense to me" mentality still exists when you have a pretty substantial population of "normal" people doing "unnatural" things to make their outsides match their insides. Quotes used at the end to indicate bigoted language often used by people "simply asking questions".

Thank you for chiming in.
It is always good to see you on here, and I do appreciate you being one of the most pro-trans cis men (unless I am falsely assuming that you are a cis male) I have interacted with on here.

Hopefully society will one day reach a state where bodybuilders, trans people, and people who get anti-aging/plastic surgery/etc procedures can all be free of judgement and bigotry when doing so.

 

[arrall]

This thread is very interesting.

I've actually never met a trans person in real life (that I know of, anyway). I've occasionally matched with trans people on dating apps but they've all blocked me after revealing they're trans, and asking if I was aware. I wasn't, ever, but also said although I probably wouldn't see us dating romantically, I'd still like to meet up and maybe be friends! Now... having just typed that sentence I'm wondering if I'm revealing some kind of innate subconscious prejudice or closed mindedness in myself.

If they’ve had the surgery, why would you care?
If they ALL blocked you, that may reveal a problem in how you interacted with them - I presume not an intentional one, but one that you may want to work on.

Although that cannot be the only thing either because if I met some random guy who was just about to transition - in a more advanced, enlightened future - I feel like I'd still feel somewhat odd about the memory of their masculinity.

That would not be a guy, otherwise she wouldn’t be transitioning to female.

So there's something beyond anatomy. But what if I DIDN'T meet them before transitioning, so I'd only ever known them as a woman? I think if they'd JUST transitioned it would be different to if they'd been born male and transitioned later, but had been living as a woman for a while... like I'd want to know somehow that they had settled into and were comfortable with their current gendered "mindset", although what does that even mean?

Are there even gendered mindsets in any meaningful sense that outweighs biologically imposed necessities and sociocultural norms...? Both of which we'd have to assume would have been surpassed to near irrelevance in the far future scenario where complete, safe, reversible gender transitioning was a mature and widespread technology. In fact in that scenario I guess the duration of the transition wouldn't matter, maybe I wouldn't even care if I met them while a man. Maybe all of this is just internalized sociocultural conditioning...

Would you date someone recovering from other social conditioning (e.g. atheists who grew up in ultrareligious environments or cult survivors or people from very different cultures to yours)?
Why would you care?

Like if one of my exes had randomly grown a perfectly functioning biological penis... I wouldn't just leave them, I'd like to think. Disregarding for a moment the absolute shock of this seemingly impossible horror scenario in the present day. So my bias cannot be purely anatomical.

Do you think that someone born male or female can ever truly be the gender aligned with the opposite sex?
Your bias may lie there.

I'd think in that kind of world, probably many more people would be doing it too, even going back and forth more than once, so obviously there'd be zero stigma... which immediately invokes the uncomfortable thought, again, that how much of my current "preferences" or "aversions" to certain scenarios are just rationalizations build around externally imposed and internalized stigma?

Haha... I actually had some different questions I was gonna ask, but now I'm far more curious to hear any input or thoughts about my stream of consciousness there.

I think that most preferences and aversions around trans people are due to cultural stigma and social conditioning, as evidenced by the generational divides on this issue.

 

[arrall]

used to have strong opinions about trans men in women's sports (and I still have some much less strong opinions which I was gonna ask about) before I realized all the worst people on the planet had similar opinions, which really, embarrassingly perhaps, helped me to reconsider the importance of that.

Trans men are people born female who transition to male.
Trans women are people born male who transition to female.
I’m not sure if you meant to say trans women or if you have issues with people who identify as male but were born female not immediately pumping themselves full of testosterone and going to play sports with biological males (many of them do, such as a trans man who used to be active on these forums a few years back)

 

[Allylbenzene]

Hopefully society will one day reach a state where bodybuilders, trans people, and people who get anti-aging/plastic surgery/etc procedures can all be free of judgement and bigotry when doing so.

Isn't the challenging part here about people trying to force others to accept and abide by their personal chosen beliefs? And the subsequent influence on the education system involving young impressionable minds who are particularly vulnerable to adopting beliefs which influence how they view themselves.

 

[Asclepius]

Lobby groups or, politicians to grant trans-spaces; won't happen.

Lobby groups or politicians to grant " inclusive" spaces; will happen.

Why? Cost effective.

People used as political pawns; to enrich hedge funds (in construction, pharma, & chose your "left wing" NGO for votes -(probably funded by right-aligned, interest - same bullshit; different era).

 

[Dr. John Thackery]

have you had much cosmetic surgery like to your face and breasts?

 

[arrall]

Isn't the challenging part here about people trying to force others to accept and abide by their personal chosen beliefs? And the subsequent influence on the education system involving young impressionable minds who are particularly vulnerable to adopting beliefs which influence how they view themselves.

The only forced beliefs I see are the Republicans who want to inspect childrens’ genitalia to “check if they are transgender”.
Just treat other people with basic respect and decency and nobody cares about your personal chosen beliefs.

have you had much cosmetic surgery like to your face and breasts?

I’ve had no cosmetic surgery. Estrogen makes you grow breasts so most people don’t need surgery there.

 

[Allylbenzene]

The only forced beliefs I see are the Republicans who want to inspect childrens’ genitalia to “check if they are transgender”.
Just treat other people with basic respect and decency and nobody cares about your personal chosen beliefs.

Here in England people are a bit more pragmatic about things. There is a tendency to respect the basic human rights of women to have true women's spaces and equally for men.

In some countries certain groups are campaigning to force their personal gender-related beliefs on others by demanding that society abide by them. That includes imposing them on young impressionable children (eg at school) which could arguably be seen as indoctrination.

indoctrination: teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.

Some parents might consider this undesirable and wish to protect their children from being exposed to this ideology.