It’s nice to see the gender religious arguments carefully examined, this cribbed from Peaktrans.org.
“Trans women are women and trans men are men”
“This is the core tenet of trans ideology and is the fundamental reason why transgenderism is problematic for women. I believe that if males were content to define themselves as transwomen rather than insisting they are “‘real’ women – as much as any cis woman is” (see below) and accept that, as transwomen, there will inevitably be limitations placed on their “womanhood” and the degree to which they can be accepted as women, then there would be much less impetus to fight back.
An article that appears on the website laughingly known as Everyday Feminism provides a wonderful illustration of the logical fallacy known as ‘begging the question’ – a form of circular reasoning where the conclusion is assumed in the premise.
Trans Women Are Real Women
There is a simple truth that a lot of folks, even allies (even queer and genderqueer ones!), tend to forget or misunderstand when thinking about how trans women are affected by privilege/oppression: We are “real” women – as much as any cis woman is.
And if we are women, that means we can not receive male privilege – because male privilege is by definition something that only men and masculine-identified people can experience.
To say trans women receive male privilege implies that we are partially male, or less female than cis women, or falsely female. All of the above are incorrect and offensive, because trans women are women.
No ifs, no ands, no buts!
This is so bad, it’s almost funny. Why waste so many words when you can just say: “trans women aren’t men because they’re women”? No need for explanations, reasoning or evidence – just suck it up.
To assert that transwomen are real women is nothing more than an opinion phrased as a slogan and one that, logically, makes no more sense than saying “pantomime horses are real horses”. Yet so many people think it’s enough to simply state it without any attempt to offer any reasoning – apart from circular reasoning as in the example above – and, if our reaction is to contradict it, we are deemed to be transphobic and should just shut the hell up.
In their dreams.
One advantage of this slogan is that it gives trans allies an easy way to practise what is known nowadays as ‘virtue signalling’, as well as an excuse to close down debate and shout down those who might embarrass them with rational counter-arguments.”
9 comments
December 20, 2021 at 6:56 am
tildeb
Because the argument for ‘transwomen are women’ denies biological reality and replaces it with religious ideology based on imported reality-denying belief, it shouldn’t be surprising that compelling contrary evidence from reality must be considered blasphemy and anyone who raises it becomes treated as a blasphemer. (See JK Rowling). That’s how the rational incoherence from the ideology contradicted by evidence from reality is supposed to be of no concern to the True Believer and why the toxic ideology’s invertebrate allies whose supposed virtue can be signaled to the True Believers by going along with charade and joining the pogrom they are expected to accept and carry out.
To protect themselves from this mob’s vilification, the allies of reality denialism for ideological reasons are expected to denounce others who dare to respect reality.
So when reality doesn’t go along with the charade, denialism of reality is the ‘natural’ result. The only ‘rational’ tool available to support the ideology is the ideology, which is why we find the same idiotic mantra used to justify the idiotic mantra. That’s all they’ve got.
So the only useful tool to implement it in policy and practice is not some set of good reasons or best practices; it is fear and punishment. And that takes a village to go along with this idiot. I don’t mind the idiot so much but I do resent the village elders who think we all need to go along to get along or face penalties and punishments for failing to champion the idiot. We shouldn’t be surprised then to get systemic idiocy as a result.
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December 20, 2021 at 9:09 am
Infidel753
The most bizarre thing about “trans women are women” is the way adherents repeat it over and over, as in the Butcher tweet. This is very common, even though mere repetition obviously doesn’t make a slogan any more persuasive. In fact, “trans women are women” isn’t an argument; it’s barely even an assertion. It’s a mind-blanking chant intended to drown out others’ objections (and one’s own doubts). It’s the new “four legs good, two legs bad”.
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December 20, 2021 at 9:47 am
darthvelma
Even calling them “trans women” is giving them too much. They are not any kind of women.
They are men with fetishes who get off on forcing other people to pretend to believe they’re women (and we have a word for people who force others to participate in sexual activity without their consent).
They are men who are deluded and think they want to be women (though they only seem to want to be sex objects and not actually deal with the grunt work foisted on women).
They are men trying to identify their way out of being part of the oppressor class (though someone should explain that nothing says “I have power” like forcing women to cater to your whims).
They. Are. Men.
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December 20, 2021 at 12:19 pm
Infidel753
They. Are. Men.
When I happen to have to write about them, I refuse to bend or compromise on this. I refer to them as men; I use “he” and “him”. Orwell showed us how important this is. Allowing someone else to control what language you can use means they can control what concepts you can express, and eventually what thoughts you can think. Honest, factual language is essential.
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December 21, 2021 at 9:57 am
The Arbourist
@ Infidel753
Thank you for maintaining and defending a commitment to the truth. So many these day are swept away by social pressures and wanting the appearance of being ‘good’.
Please continue, I shall continue to do, an ardent defense of the material reality we all share.
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December 21, 2021 at 10:00 am
The Arbourist
@ Darthvelma
I agree. Too much has been ceded to this class of entitled men.
It is sad as well as people with actual gender dysphoria get lumped into the same category as these misogynists.
If the transactivists really cared about all who inhabit their class of people, they would be much more straightforward and less opaque with their ideology (not to mention less misogynistic).
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December 21, 2021 at 10:08 am
The Arbourist
@ Infidel753
It is an in/outgroup test. Either you believe in gender fantasy or you happen to be a ‘bigot'(?).
The transactivists have co-opted the language of marginalized groups and used them to their own selfish ends.
The evidence is the speed in which their ‘struggle’ has been noticed and adopted by mainstream society and institutions. Only men, and the societal power that they have, could push forward with an agenda this radical and have it accepted.
For instance, contrast with the female struggle, or Black struggle, or eve the homosexual struggle for rights and recognition in society. They are typified by a long and arduous struggle.
The transgender movement started in 2015ish and look where they are now. How could it not be a movement based on the entitlement of males?
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December 21, 2021 at 10:13 am
The Arbourist
@ Tildeb
It is really evidence that you can’t move forward in reality with fairy tales – as long as people who comport with reality exist to call one out on their magical assertions.
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December 21, 2021 at 11:28 am
Infidel753
The transgender movement started in 2015ish and look where they are now
I’ve held for a long time that the trans movement is a reactionary, reversal-of-progress movement, not a misguided liberation movement. It’s not analogous to groups like the suffragettes, the black civil rights movement, or the gay movement. It’s more analogous to the reactionary forces which pushed back bitterly against those movements. Most of its “progress” has consisted of invading and undermining women’s spaces, women’s sports, and women’s physical safety, and in breaking down gays’ and especially lesbians’ concepts of their own sexuality — rolling back real progress. If it has achieved remarkably fast endorsement from mainstream institutions, it’s because it was aligned with reactionary interests all along.
(One aspect of the trans movement — the pressure on young girls to “transition” if they deviate from stereotypical feminine norms as discussed in Shrier’s Irreversible Damage — arouses opposition from almost everyone, even conservatives, when they are aware of it. But that’s the one area where it casts its net, from their viewpoint, too wide, and represents a danger to society generally.)
In Iran, a country with an educated and surprisingly sophisticated urban population but one of the most reactionary governments on Earth, the regime endorses trans ideology to the extent that gay people are sometimes coerced into undergoing transition surgery to supposedly change them into heterosexuals of the opposite sex. Homosexuality carries the death penalty there, in it is sometimes actually carried out, but the regime apparently considers this an acceptable alternative.
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