Sebastian Coe

[Spiral]

@Spiral
I'd give up at this point if I were you. I suspect most posters on here have zero experience of gender identity vs birth sex.

People like dsr are playing whack-a-mole in the hope of finding a gotcha moment. I know all too well the people I'm responding to aren't going to change their mind, but maybe some other people reading this thread might find a perspective that has not been shown to them before.

[android]

That's what the prefix trans- is for. It's to differentiate between women who were born female and those people who, in the case of trans women, were born male but whose most authentic gender experience is best expressed as a 'woman', meaning, all the social behaviours and performances and rituals, body language, patterns of speech, intonation, clothing, presentation, lifestyle, all things that are generally coalesced under the term 'woman'. It's not just dress-up, it's that such self expression is the only one that might feel authentic to such a person. Yes, some of these notions about what 'woman' is can be a bit regressive, but the capacity for punching out of regressive ideas and changing them is yet another thing I've already mentioned further back on this thread.

You note that you have had to repeat yourself but I do think some of your posts in the last 24 hours, like this one, have moved things on and provided greater clarity, some of which I will attempt to summarise.

When I state that I am a man, I am signifying my sex. I regard this as reality and you regard this as biological essentialism however you define that. We disagree. Fine.

When you state that you are a man you are signifying your gender identity. You have now clarified that this is based on "social behaviours and performances and rituals, body language, patterns of speech, intonation, clothing, presentation, lifestyle..." and so on. Fine, you are free to do so.

You recognise that the above ideas about gender identity, especially with regards to women, "can be a bit regressive". You say that to counter this you wish to "punch out of regressive ideas and change them." My view is that we should reject the regressive ideas in the first place. We disagree. I can't call this fine, as I want stronger resistance to the regressive ideas, but I am not challenging your right to your beliefs and opinions.

Your opening line about accepting the trans prefix shows signs of progress as well. I agree. The meaningless mantra "TWAW", which was presumably meant as a kindness to treat TW as W, appears to have done more harm than good. If we could accept that TW are TW then surely more people would be willing to proceed on that basis rather than the pushback now, which seems to be leading more people to say hang on a minute TW are M. Helen Joyce foresaw the damage this overreach would likely cause in her book "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" She wrote: "its overreach is likely to provoke a backlash that will harm ordinary trans people, who simply want safety and social acceptance. When the general public finally realises what is being demanded, the blame may not land with the activists, where it belongs". As you seem to have a penchant for philosophy, you might prefer Kathleen Stock's book "Material Girls: Why Reality Matters For Feminism", which covers many of the ideas you have been discussing and I can highly recommend it, if you have not already read it.

Finally, you state that all trans people are acutely aware of their sex. Seems obvious. And someone else mentioned a trans woman on QT last night. It was India Willoughby, who's twitter bio states "female" and I think used to say "biological woman". It's a shame that the BBC could not find a better representative, as India lies about just about everything, but it is a small example of the overreach that has taken place since TWAW was taken as undisputed fact. It's also behind what has happened in sport.

[I'maclaret]

Android the like post function doesn't work for me so I have had to post this to say wholeheartedly agree with your post. Though I may have been a little less tactful on the fragrant Ms Willoughby.

[Sproggy]

that is blatantly and ignorantly false

'War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.' - 1984
'Boys are girls' - 2023

[android]

Android the like post function doesn't work for me so I have had to post this to say wholeheartedly agree with your post. Though I may have been a little less tactful on the fragrant Ms Willoughby.

Ha ha ha. And thanks. I previously wanted to thank you for speaking up as a woman on a male dominated board/thread but I thought I would sound patronising - thanks anyway.

[android]

that is blatantly and ignorantly false

Wow. When and where is the next book burning?

[Devils_Advocate]

For balance the panel member there to stand up for women's rights in terms of opposition to Trans rights has a day job writing for a rancid right wing publication who's history on supporting marginalised groups such as women, Lesbian, gay and bi-sexual people is not that great.

Still must fill you with pride to see the defender of women's rights write articles such as "Women don't need protection from pro-life ideologues", "Misogyny must not become a hate crime" and "Andrew Tate and the hysteria of modern feminism"

[NRC]

Wow. When and where is the next book burning?

well, I'm not here to represent the Party, but I AM here to defend the English Language, and man/woman/boy/girl are NOT synonyms for male/female. As Spiral (I think) has previously pointed out they're not synonyms because sex and gender are not synonyms.

Unlike the bulk of posts on this thread that are opinions and academic posturing, at least the basis of my rejection of the assertion from IamaClaret is factually correct.

[Clovius Boofus]

The pushback on this nonsense is from left, right, and centre. Some people had better get used to it.

Also, Sturgeon has provoked a civil war within the SNP and the wider nationalist camp. Her days are numbered and she will be gone soon enough, but before she goes, I would like to thank her for making people aware about what is at stake when politicians pander to a very tiny minority at the expense of 50 percent of the population.

[I'maclaret]

The dictionary definition of woman is adult human female.
Man is not synonymous with male because man denotes that the male thing being referred to is an adult human rather than a dog fox, a bull elephant or screw piece in a flat pack furniture kit.

[Spiral]

You note that you have had to repeat yourself but I do think some of your posts in the last 24 hours, like this one, have moved things on and provided greater clarity, some of which I will attempt to summarise...

Just clipped for the sake of brevity, and I'll just respond in general to your last post, android. I'm pleasantly surprised to find there's actually a little bit of common ground, on this forum of all places, but there we are! I'll explain. I've always thought "trans women are women" is a useful political slogan but only up to a degree, and for some of the reasons you've mentioned which I agree with to an extent (mainly that the slogan can come across as antagonising to some people), and for some of the reasons I've spent a bit of time on here articulating, I think it's quite a clumsy, if well intended statement. I've always been really aware of the defects in the slogan when it is confronted by people's preconceived ideas, and my attempts on here have been to provide a more considered and thoughtful contribution to the debate that goes beyond repeating the slogan, because the slogan is vulnerable to attack, I think, and we end up fighting between antinomies, because the very definitions people use as the basis of their arguments are conflicting, hence why my efforts on here have been to articulate a more precise understanding of the subject, including greater precision in the use of the language used to conceptualise the ideas in the debate, which is what a large part of this all boils down to.

A lot of my stances on this are borrowed from feminist thought, and in feminist theory there are notably two different ends that conflict depending on which feminist you ask: equality, and liberation. They seem linked, and for the most part they share the same spirit, but there's a slight but important difference. In very basic and rudimentary terms, equality aspires to sort of do away with gender distinction in the name of women's uplift (that sentence itself might seem to contain a contradiction, using the concept of 'woman' to articulate a group who argue they ought not to be defined by the very label they choose to adopt in service of woman's uplift), but honestly I've never been totally convinced by the effectiveness of this approach, and I think liberatory ends that actually recognise distinctions between genders (man/woman, cis/trans, and the way they are interwoven) are more worthwhile, because you can't actually solve problems if you can't clearly define them, and you can't clearly define problems if everyone is smushed together in the mind without recognising the different challenges different groups face, all in the name of 'equality', and it's for this reason I'm inclined to oppose rigid gender definitions whose scope rejects trans people's actual lived experience and binds them to an inauthentic life.

The point of all that is, I kind of agree that the "trans women are women" slogan is not ideal owing to it's vulnerability to being misinterpreted and attacked for the reasons I've explained. But such is the nature of a slogan, I suppose, they're not always perfect. I think a lot of people who use the slogan are just trying to help move trans people from the periphery of society where they have historically been shunned as deviants, and toward a more general and sympathetic acceptance.

On the point about regressive stereotypes, I delegate to the individual in question who views a particular stereotype as regressive. I think it's important for me not to define what is regressive and what is not regressive for a woman (both in the case of cis, or if you prefer, those who were born and are women, and trans women also), because that's not my gender. I'll give you an example that might illustrate why universally resisting so-called regressive ideas might be impossible: some women think certain beauty standards are patriarchally informed and objectifying, and therefore oppressive and something to be resisted; a box to punched out of. While I can understand that point, and while I wouldn't argue with anyone who feels that way, there are also women who happily subscribe to those same beauty standards, whose attainment to those beauty standards genuinely, genuinely makes them happy, and I'm not going to argue with a woman who, to use a rudimentary example, wears a lot of makeup and does her hair up, and tell her she's holding back women. If it makes her happy then it makes her happy, it's no more complicated than that.

Anyway, a lot of the things discussed are far removed from the trans women in sport subject, and even moving away from the GRR debate (which to reiterate is just about certificates), and I don't know if there's much I can add to the debate, so I'm tapping out for now. Honestly, I'm just glad this thread hasn't been locked!!!

[Spiral]

Just to add, android, I realise that in the post above I talked about the differences between equality and liberation, and I've just realised that it might come across as patronising to you. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to "educate" you or anything, I was drawing on that difference, which I suspect you might already be very aware of, in the interest of explaining my thought process. I'm not trying to talk down to you or anything or assume your knowledge. Sorry if it came across that way.

[I'maclaret]

IF we were to take the transgenderist position that ‘biological sex’ and ‘gender identity’ are two separate things, and those two different things can be mismatched inside one person (the current definition of being transgender, and the basis of the new ‘Gender Incongruence’ medical diagnosis) and IF we were to agree with them that ‘male’ &’ female’ refer to sex and ‘woman’ & ‘man’ refer the completely separate concept of gender then why on earth would we ever need use two ‘gender’ words in a row?

If cisgender describes gender and transgender describes gender and woman describes gender and man describes gender then that surely means that trans and cis are completely superfluous (because we already have enough words to cover sex & gender as two distinct concepts)? And thus we can happily discard trans/cis from our language.

Because if you accept the trans ideological argument that sex/gender are separate and a mismatch is a naturally occurring possibility and then follow it all the way to the logical conclusion it results in the following:

instead of ‘ciswomen or ‘cisgender women’
we can just use ‘female women’!

instead of ‘transwomen’ or ‘transgender women’
we can just use ‘male women’!

instead of ‘cisman’ or ‘cisgender man’ we can just use ‘male men!

instead of ‘transman’ ‘transgender man’
we can just use ‘female men!


If sex and gender are truly different why can’t we these sex/gender language combos without being accused of transphobia?

And if sex and gender are completely separate then surely single sex spaces and services for female people are as irrelevant to ‘male women’ as they are to ‘male men’?

[Spiral]

...

The word 'trans' in effect preserves the idea of the biological sex assigned at birth of a trans person because when followed by the word 'man' or 'woman' their biological sex assigned at birth is implicitly revealed, so in the use of the word 'trans' there's no obfuscation about the fact a person's gender expression is different from the one conventionally derived from sex which was assigned to them from birth, and the benefits of using the word 'trans-' as apposed to saying 'male woman' or 'female man' are, 1. 'transgender' or 'trans' can be applied in the case of both transitioned genders, streamlining the language needed without sacrificing detail, which is altogether clearer (this is also true in the case of 'cisgender' or 'cis'), and 2. it is more dignifying to the person in question. Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, a former gender is something a lot of trans people want to move on from in their lives, and calling a trans woman a 'male woman' would feel insulting. I think once you realise just how miserable a lot of trans people feel in the gender assigned to them at birth, and the joy the overwhelming majority feel after they transition, it's clear if you've spoken to any that their former gender is not something they want to be reminded of on a daily basis, especially so when the debate surrounding their very existence is so toxic and a lot of times very cruel and dehumanising. People just want to be left alone to be happy.

You touched on a point about cis- and trans- being superfluous terms, and again, as I've already mentioned, there are situations where this is totally true, the example I used where a woman sits in a tearoom reading a book. Whether this woman is transgender or cisgender, the word 'woman' alone would probably be the only word needed to describe her if you were to say a sentence like, "the woman was sitting in the tea room reading a book".

[Jakubclaret]

You are fair giving Sebastian coe a run for his money with this thread credit where credits due, I think we've gone around the houses to lands end to John o Croats & back several times over.

[Spiral]

I think we've gone around the houses to lands end to John o Croats & back several times over.

Believe me, you aren't the first to notice that.

[android]

Just to add, android, I realise that in the post above I talked about the differences between equality and liberation, and I've just realised that it might come across as patronising to you. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to "educate" you or anything, I was drawing on that difference, which I suspect you might already be very aware of, in the interest of explaining my thought process. I'm not trying to talk down to you or anything or assume your knowledge. Sorry if it came across that way.

Thanks. No, I did not think the post you refer to was patronising. Have to admit that it crossed my mind when reading a few previous posts! Anyway, it was good to have a civilised debate. Goodnight.