Transnegation Roundup/2020/08/12

Transnegation Round-up for Wednesday, 12 August 2020

Party Like It's 1999

It's P.C. run-a-Mac! (Dancing in the streets! Dogs and cats sleeping together! People marrying toasters! Changing the definition of marriage!)

07:33 @wendycockcroft “Ths arrant stupidity in the subtweet is more common than you think. This is what happens when you kick traditional religion out; people go looking for something to replace it with. TWAW, political ideology, etc., provide moral guidance and certainty for their adherents.”

You mean, the same traditional religion which has oppressed women since time immemorial? Seriously? (She claims to support "women's rights", see entry for 3 August...)

• Claim: Bad things happen when you get rid of traditional religion
  • No, they don't. People get on with their lives and make better decisions.
• Claim (implied): It's a religion to believe that trans women are women.
  • No.
    • The idea that trans women are well within the scope of womanhood is backed by science.
    • The idea that trans women should be legally treated as women is backed by science.
• Claim: People need some kind of religion for moral guidance.
  • No. That argument was thoroughly refuted back in the early 2000s.

Looking at this from a larger perspective, she's (intentionally or not) revealing the role of "traditional religion" in maintaining the status quo: basically, "If traditional religion loses its hold on the public, they'll start getting crazy ideas about improving society, and that's not okay." (There are few things that social conservatives dislike more than "improving society".)

This Proves Something! Really!

08:13 @Flashmaggie “Who's the dominant male here? Woe betide Kier if he says anything that hurts Heather's feelings, like mentioning that cervical smear tests are for women only.” (Spelling was later corrected to "Keir" in a comment.)

So much of this isn't explained. Apparently Heather (presumably on the left) is a trans woman, described by one respondent as "a dodgy bloke"; Keir is presumably a cis man, else they would have been misgendering him... but there's no context, and the video to which one comment has been taken down due to a "privacy request".

The post seems clearly intended to denegrate Heather, but we don't have enough information to understand why strategic ambiguity -- nor do any of the commenters seem to need one in order to merrily join in the dogpile.

Depends What You Mean

10:37 @TheFamousArtBR “Rosie Duffield said that Women have cervixes. What’s the problem???? Why exactly did she have to apologise for that?”

Reality:

• Most cis women have cervixes. (Some do not.)
• Most trans men also have cervixes.
• Trans women do not have cervixes (not possible with current technology).

The statement "X have Y" is an ambiguous statement which can mean either:

• All X have Y -- but "all women have cervixes" isn't true.
• All with Y are X -- but "all people with cervixes" isn't true either.

While there are some other groups of people for whom either of these statements is untrue, it so happens that by far the largest groups are trans women (who don't have cervixes) and trans men (who mostly do).

I'm sure this fact has nothing to do with any attempt to bait trans people by feigning ignorance over how it is inaccurate.