Remeber how when there was a fight for gay marriage a good portion of people said they didnt mind the legal concept and just wanted to call it “civil unions” and we totally did that as a first step to placate those people before going full on equal marriage…
I wonder why the approach to trans rights has been so all or nothing with people
It seems like there is no real desire for progress from eithet side the way things stand now.
What is there to compromise here? Every building with gendered facilities has to build a third set of toilets for trans people? The government has to build a third set of prisons for trans people?
An example of compromise would be to acknowledge that trans women are biologically different from cis women.This is not an extreme or hateful idea. Other issues like sports or bathrooms can still be nuanced discussions that acknowledge peoples concerns and work to educate rather then alienate. Acceptice means different things to different people and it wont come all at once.
To compare a similar example imagine someone who comes out as gay to parents in the 90s: strict chrisitan parents might kick them out of the house and never speak to them again, - OR- they could be the type of conservative parents who say “well i dont agree with it but i still love you”. Whch would you rather have? Which one would potentially lead to a potentially better outcome/changed mind?
It seems to me that completely alienating people who have reasonable objections to relatively new ideas is not the best way to go.
An example of compromise would be to acknowledge that trans women are biologically different from cis women.This is not an extreme or hateful idea.
It is also not in dispute.
What is in dispute is sometimes the extent of those differences, but is usually whether those differences are relevant at all.
Other issues like sports or bathrooms can still be nuanced discussions that acknowledge peoples concerns and work to educate rather then alienate.
Opposition to trans rights generally comes from three motivating factors:
The propensity to find trans people icky.
The desire to deny the existence of gender identity as something that is distinct from sex. (This comes in both pro- and anti- gender essentialist flavours and we could discuss it all day, but that is not relevant for now.)
Having a genuine concern about biological differences.
The reason why we’re not having nuanced discussions is because people in categories 1 and 2 will masquerade as people in category 3 and not participate in any discussion in good faith.
Let’s take trans women in sports as an example. There is - for sure - a small number of people who will argue that that anyone who identifies as a woman should be able to compete as a woman in any circumstances, but this is not a mainstream position, even in the trans community. The mainstream position is that trans women should be generally be allowed to compete as women in competition after some suitable amount of time on hormone replacement therapy.
This is because strength is not stored in the balls or in the genes; the difference in strength between cis men and cis women is a result of the effect of testosterone on the muscles, and the presence of testosterone needs to be maintained in order to maintain those muscular differences. Such studies that there are seem to suggest that trans women tend not to have any advantage over cis women after a year or two on HRT when controlling for differences in height.
Some people who are hostile to trans women in sport are unaware of this and think that strength advantages are permanent, and when you explain the reasons that they aren’t then those people may become less hostile to the concept. Maybe they have doubts about the specific studies or want there to be more research for any given sport or whatever, but that is the region in which compromise is possible. But maybe they’ll just start pulling further justifications out of their arse.
“Those height differences are significant enough to merit banning trans women!” If it were then the sport would have height categories, wouldn’t it?
“What about muh bone density?” In what world does having heavier bones and weaker muscles to move them around with constitute an advantage?
However, the debate is mostly populated by people who pretend to care about biological differences, but in reality simply object to any concession that trans women are in any way women. Anyone who claims that men are biologically better than women at chess or darts is fundamentally unserious. The film Lady Ballers came about when someone at the Daily Wire suggested that they make a documentary about men identifying as women so they can compete against women. When they found out that actually, that’s not a thing that happens and there are requirements that you have to meet, did they let that stop them? No, they just wrote a fictional film about it instead because they object to trans women being treated as women for ideological reasons, and they want to poison the well by persuading people that it is a thing that happens.
How do you compromise with that? How do you compromise with someone who objects to a trans woman competing as a woman in a chess competition because they fundamentally object to the premise that a trans woman is in any way a woman?
That didn’t answer the question you replied to, and didn’t actually say anything. What does that all look like in real world terms in your mind? How does this “compromise” manifest? I’m guessing that it involves putting trans folk in harms way…
Well, that whole civil union thing didn’t really work out so well and those same people were still (and are still) homophobic to the extreme so why give them anything? They are clearly not interested in compromises anyway.
Thanks to the people who were in favor of marriage equality in the first place, not thanks to the bigots who wanted “civil unions” instead. Those are even more vicious in their bigotry these days.
And why the fuck is there a compromise position at all? Bigots don’t have a right to discriminate against people. If they don’t want to get on board they can fuck off.
What happens when that attitude ends up creating more biggots and we find ourselves even more outnumbered. I dont know what the best solution is but surely its not to alienate a full third of the entire population and expect that to work out well for everyone.
On a personal one to one level i do agree they can fuck off. But from an observing the reality of living in a country that just elected a fascist, im worried all the demanding people accept things they disagree with lest they be shunned, its just going to lead to more pushback against trans and other vulnerable people.
I dont know what the best solution is but surely its not to alienate a full third of the entire population and expect that to work out well for everyone
A full third of the population is already alienated. It’s not working well for anyone. I’m simply saying we should leave a full third behind in the dust if they don’t want to give up bigotry. These people are not helpless, they know that they’re wrong, and they’re doing this shit anyway. Compromising with them is exactly why we elected a fascist.
And to be clear, conservatives drove this, they had a million opportunities to turn around, and refused every time. I’m not the one who brought us here.
Again i agree with this 100% on a personal level, my concern is just that it seems like that third is growing and the other side is shrinking due to increasing in fighting. Im not really sure what the solution for that is, i just think its a bad trend and leads to more hostility.
Im not sure you have my logic correct… Im not saying we should do things slower, im saying its concerning how black or white everything has gotten, everyone has purity tests and if you dont pass you arent worth engaging with and im concerned that will have a lot of negative consequences and lead to increased hostility.
I am sharing an observation, not suggesting a solution. I am saying the way things are is concering and while i hope for a positive outcome (one where people are accepted for who they are) i see a lot more pushback than acceptance with the current strategy/mindset.
Remeber how when there was a fight for gay marriage a good portion of people said they didnt mind the legal concept and just wanted to call it “civil unions” and we totally did that as a first step to placate those people before going full on equal marriage…
I wonder why the approach to trans rights has been so all or nothing with people It seems like there is no real desire for progress from eithet side the way things stand now.
What is there to compromise here? Every building with gendered facilities has to build a third set of toilets for trans people? The government has to build a third set of prisons for trans people?
An example of compromise would be to acknowledge that trans women are biologically different from cis women.This is not an extreme or hateful idea. Other issues like sports or bathrooms can still be nuanced discussions that acknowledge peoples concerns and work to educate rather then alienate. Acceptice means different things to different people and it wont come all at once.
To compare a similar example imagine someone who comes out as gay to parents in the 90s: strict chrisitan parents might kick them out of the house and never speak to them again, - OR- they could be the type of conservative parents who say “well i dont agree with it but i still love you”. Whch would you rather have? Which one would potentially lead to a potentially better outcome/changed mind?
It seems to me that completely alienating people who have reasonable objections to relatively new ideas is not the best way to go.
It is also not in dispute.
What is in dispute is sometimes the extent of those differences, but is usually whether those differences are relevant at all.
Opposition to trans rights generally comes from three motivating factors:
Let’s take trans women in sports as an example. There is - for sure - a small number of people who will argue that that anyone who identifies as a woman should be able to compete as a woman in any circumstances, but this is not a mainstream position, even in the trans community. The mainstream position is that trans women should be generally be allowed to compete as women in competition after some suitable amount of time on hormone replacement therapy.
This is because strength is not stored in the balls or in the genes; the difference in strength between cis men and cis women is a result of the effect of testosterone on the muscles, and the presence of testosterone needs to be maintained in order to maintain those muscular differences. Such studies that there are seem to suggest that trans women tend not to have any advantage over cis women after a year or two on HRT when controlling for differences in height.
Some people who are hostile to trans women in sport are unaware of this and think that strength advantages are permanent, and when you explain the reasons that they aren’t then those people may become less hostile to the concept. Maybe they have doubts about the specific studies or want there to be more research for any given sport or whatever, but that is the region in which compromise is possible. But maybe they’ll just start pulling further justifications out of their arse.
However, the debate is mostly populated by people who pretend to care about biological differences, but in reality simply object to any concession that trans women are in any way women. Anyone who claims that men are biologically better than women at chess or darts is fundamentally unserious. The film Lady Ballers came about when someone at the Daily Wire suggested that they make a documentary about men identifying as women so they can compete against women. When they found out that actually, that’s not a thing that happens and there are requirements that you have to meet, did they let that stop them? No, they just wrote a fictional film about it instead because they object to trans women being treated as women for ideological reasons, and they want to poison the well by persuading people that it is a thing that happens.
How do you compromise with that? How do you compromise with someone who objects to a trans woman competing as a woman in a chess competition because they fundamentally object to the premise that a trans woman is in any way a woman?
That didn’t answer the question you replied to, and didn’t actually say anything. What does that all look like in real world terms in your mind? How does this “compromise” manifest? I’m guessing that it involves putting trans folk in harms way…
Well, that whole civil union thing didn’t really work out so well and those same people were still (and are still) homophobic to the extreme so why give them anything? They are clearly not interested in compromises anyway.
It certainly did work out in many countries, which transitioned from it to Marriage for all in the end
Thanks to the people who were in favor of marriage equality in the first place, not thanks to the bigots who wanted “civil unions” instead. Those are even more vicious in their bigotry these days.
And why the fuck is there a compromise position at all? Bigots don’t have a right to discriminate against people. If they don’t want to get on board they can fuck off.
What happens when that attitude ends up creating more biggots and we find ourselves even more outnumbered. I dont know what the best solution is but surely its not to alienate a full third of the entire population and expect that to work out well for everyone.
On a personal one to one level i do agree they can fuck off. But from an observing the reality of living in a country that just elected a fascist, im worried all the demanding people accept things they disagree with lest they be shunned, its just going to lead to more pushback against trans and other vulnerable people.
A full third of the population is already alienated. It’s not working well for anyone. I’m simply saying we should leave a full third behind in the dust if they don’t want to give up bigotry. These people are not helpless, they know that they’re wrong, and they’re doing this shit anyway. Compromising with them is exactly why we elected a fascist.
And to be clear, conservatives drove this, they had a million opportunities to turn around, and refused every time. I’m not the one who brought us here.
Again i agree with this 100% on a personal level, my concern is just that it seems like that third is growing and the other side is shrinking due to increasing in fighting. Im not really sure what the solution for that is, i just think its a bad trend and leads to more hostility.
How didnt it work out? It lead to eventually getting marriage equality world wide, in large part because those first states tried to do civil unions.
By your logic, when they freed the slaves, they really should’ve done it slowly instead of all at once, because look how many racists it made!
Or was civil rights too fast as well?
Im not sure you have my logic correct… Im not saying we should do things slower, im saying its concerning how black or white everything has gotten, everyone has purity tests and if you dont pass you arent worth engaging with and im concerned that will have a lot of negative consequences and lead to increased hostility.
I am sharing an observation, not suggesting a solution. I am saying the way things are is concering and while i hope for a positive outcome (one where people are accepted for who they are) i see a lot more pushback than acceptance with the current strategy/mindset.