Finished

8/3 Monday

"Wokeness" is the enemy now?

I think the argument here is that because "woke" people aren't willing to throw trans people under the bus by agreeing with... whatever it is that gender-critical activists want (more gatekeeping around transition?), they're endangering (cis) women because more cis men will pretend to be women in order to get into women's spaces and perve on them.

This never actually happens, though... except the occasional "conservative" trying (and failing) to prove how terrible it would be if that did happen. fearmongery

Misrepresentation

03:41 @ripx4nutmeg “Some gender identity campaigners, including a former Lib Dem councillor, are saying they will not fill out the UK quarantine form to stop the spread of coronavirus when they return from their foreign holiday, as the form is 'transphobic'”

Actually:

None of the tweets shown said this, nor do any others in the thread (which was not linked).
Other tweets in the discussion indicate strong support for pandemic safety measures.
It is in fact trans-hostile to require an answer to a question about gender in this context, especially if there are no nonbinary options.

This misrepresentation has the effect of making trans people & allies look unreasonable.

A reshare with the comment “This is nuts” was followed by a self-reply blaming Queer Theory:

06:49 @wendycockcroft “This is why: Queer theory, the bastard spawn of Postmodernism, thinks normality itself *is* oppression. It won't accept normality and views anything or anyone who is normal, including LGBT persons, as oppressors. It's why they bash transsexuals.”, with a screenshot excerpted from "Queer Theory" on New Discourses

Reality:

Nobody is saying it's not ok to be "normal"; we're just saying "don't bludgeon us with it" -- because the ambiguity of the term is often used as a way to condemn behavior that makes them uncomfortable without having to demonstrate why it's problematic. misrepresentation
This kind of strategic ambiguity in general is like red meat for right-wingers; they love to be able to get bad ideas across without actually saying them directly. (See: dogwhistle)

So basically she tosses in a bit of support for trans people as sugar-coating for an attack on queer theory and covering fire for the idea that people should be "normal".

Bad Argument

Where's Spock when you need him...

13:04 @WilliamShatner comes down in support of the cis is a slur myth: “You are talking about yourself. When you use those descriptors towards someone else especially strangers you are more than likely doing it to express a negative comment or to single them out.”

Ok... so if I'm willing to use a term to describe myself, it follows logically that I would intend it negatively if I'm using it to describe someone else.

...In a pig's eye.

More Gender Essentialism FTW

13:13 @wendycockcroft “That will only ever change the outward appearance. Gestation is out for decades and might never happen. You can put a wig, makeup and dresses on a man, you can chop off his two veg and turn his meat inside out but he will always be a man. A Frankenwomb won't make him a woman.”

So... she refuses to define "woman", but apparently if you're born with a vagina you are one, forever and ever, and nothing can ever change that. Sounds magical or possibly religious – suggesting strongly that Maya Forstater's request for "religious freedom" protection for her beliefs was actually an admission that they really are based on nothing more than religion.

Also, there's a clear phobia of anything artificial: your genitals 100% determine your sex, but only if they're the factory originals; surgical corrections are "frankenstein" modifications, grotesque and perverse. (I wonder how she feels about surgical correction of other forms of birth defect? Or are trans people just special in that only they are fake if corrected?) ...oh, and yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but only if the change takes place naturally (e.g. 5α-Reductase deficiency).

The appeal to nature is an old, old trope which was also used on gay people, interracial marriage, and pretty much anything that made authoritarians feel uncomfortable throughout history. This is not progressive, much less feminist or pro-woman; it is anti-feminism putting on "pro-woman-face". (Yes, this same person has claimed that trans women are "putting on womanface".)

8/4 Tuesday

"cis is a slur"; no way to check if people said what is being claimed they said

I'm definitely getting the impression that transnegators simply don't believe trans people exist as a distinct category; trans women are really just cross-dressing men, and trans men are confused women, and we're all frankenstein monsters because gender is an innate quality which is given to you at birth and cannot be altered artificially, and our mental gender isn't what we say it is because the gender of brain and body always align 100% except for the exceptions, which don't prove anything so leave them out of this.

Cis is a slur

2020-08-04 05:54 @wendycockcroft “” reshares “I don't misgender or fail to use preferred descriptors, etc., in my dealings with trans people. Even so, saying that a woman is an adult human female gets me called a bigot.”

Nope. Nobody says that. I've seen this claim several times, and it's ridiculous. misrepresentation

...well, caveat: this statement is often repeated within the Gender Critical movement to the point of becoming a bit of a dogwhistle, a clique signal for bigotry.

She may be covertly redefining "female" to mean "cis female", but she needs to say that -- which is why it's so important to have disambiguators like "cis" in conversations like this.

This was a reshare of a tweet from Monday:

2020-08-04 21:31 @BlairJ640 “There are people in my mentions calling me all kinds of nasty names and forcing the label ‘cis’ on me, but if I don’t respect and use a transperson’s preferred pronouns, I’m a bigot? Go figure.”

That does indeed make you at least unreasonable (which may be driven by bigotry, but possibly just misunderstanding) – because the two are not the same:

"Cis[gender]" is a technical term, and "gender critical" advocates persistently refuse to definitively offer any alternatives. They will frequently use misleading terms like biological sex or birth sex (and gender-specific variants), but they have also argued that using these terms -- or any terms -- to distinguish between cis and trans people is problematic, for reasons that make no sense.
Respecting someone's pronouns is just common courtesy. Nobody likes being misgendered, and there's no reason (other than bigotry) to do it knowingly.

Omission of Evidence

"Caught in the Middle" was also the title shown for a 2015 short documentary about intersex people

2020-06-10 Caught in the middle: This is a blog post by a woman with CAIS (Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome), an intersex condition in which a person who can in every other way appear and identify as female at birth, while still having a Y chromosome and lacking a uterus.

“I have even seen my biology used to accuse JK Rowling of supporting the mutilation of intersex baby’s genitals...”

I've searched the analyses of JKR's writings/tweets that I was already aware of, and searched the web by keyword for any additional information, but have not been able to find anyone making this argument. That doesn't mean it didn't happen; it just means that I don't know what was actually said. sourceless interpretation

There are connections between the positions JKR has supported and the idea that intersex babies need to be surgically "corrected" as soon as possible after birth, though without a source link it's impossible to tell what the connection was that the accuser was making. As such, this comes across more as painting JKR as the "real" victim, which she is not.

To be fair, the author does link to a long page full of screenshots of some abuse that ranged from unproductive to downright awful and (yes!) misognynistic, not to mention body-shaming and in other ways despicable. Being abused for advocating a cause, however, is not really evidence in support of that cause – and while much of the abuse on that page goes beyond the pale, the anger behind it seems entirely justified in light of how JKR is abusing her platform to dishonestly promote false beliefs.

“Her crime has been to write the below tweet and an essay on her experiences as a woman.”

It's not clear what "the below tweet" refers to; no tweet is shown, nor is there one at the link, which goes to her infamous essay J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues, referred to here as "an essay on her experiences as a woman" -- which not only misrepresents the essay's content but pretends away how deeply problematic it is... as well as the other volumes of awful disinformation JKR has spread about trans people in general and trans women in particular. I feel like I'm drowning in it, even just looking at what she herself has said and ignoring the legions of people repeating it as fact on social media. misrepresentation

“The toxicity of this debate [...]” -- as if JKR herself wasn't largely responsible for the escalation in toxicity, via her support for unscientific beliefs presented as scientific, denying any real opposition, posing as if she spoke for all cis women, using language which attempts at every turn to deny trans people's existence except as cis cross-dressers... the list of "crimes" goes on and on. misrepresentation

“[...] has resulted in even well-respected academics who write about intersex issues, endorsing the belief that it is acceptable to refer to people like me in the most dehumanising ways.” -- again, where are the links? Did academics seriously argue that it's ok to dehumanize intersex people, or were they just yelling at the author in anger and the author decided to take that as directed at intersex people collectively? We have absolutely no reason to trust the pro-JKR faction to be arguing in good faith, at this point, so anyone defending her really needs to show their receipts. sourceless interpretation

She continues to cite more examples of abuse and bad-faith arguing without receipts, though, and at this point I am just kind of done with her... but I have to highlight one more thing:

“It is hard to understand why people promoting these guides on how to best support trans young people, do not share the same empathy for children & young people with different sex development.”

WTF. Yes, we absolutely do! We are often the ones who raise the issue of how anti-trans rules meant to "protect women" will often negatively impact intersex people, not to mention gender-non-conforming cis people and numerous other groups. At this point, she's so badly misrepresenting the trans activist position that it feels like hate speech, although I cannot tell if it was intended that way. misrepresentation

8/5 Wednesday

SRS is just for fun, apparently?; over-the-top moral TERFitude; trans women are really just men

SRS is apparently cosmetic

16:33 @pinktaxed “just had the misfortune of seeing someone (a TW) raise $35k for a vaginoplasty. someone donated $5k. of all the bullshit happening in the world right now and you need $35,000 for a faux vagina. okay.”

Self-reply:

16:35 @pinktaxed “the capital of lebanon was just blown to hell and women and children are in dire need and someone gave away $5,000 for a fake vag. right then.” Appeal to worse problems

Retweeted (tweet and account now deleted):

19:41 @DykeRojas (archived) “AAARRGGGHHH . Calm down Anna. Yes I agree.”

Some reality about this::

Minor point: $35k is rather a lot just for SRS; that must have included facial surgery and possibly other work.
Major point: This stuff isn't just for fun; it is life-saving, even if the threat isn't immediate. Would they complain about how much a kidney transplant or a knee-replacement costs?

Transition is indeed bloody expensive, and in most states in the US it is not covered by medical insurance -- which many of us can't afford anyway. Yes, by all means draw attention to the expense, but do remember that this is evidence that we're not exactly doing this stuff on a whim.

Note also the "fake vag" trope. (How is it fake? Is an artificial knee-joint "fake"?)

This is apparently the tweet to which they are reacting:

12:47 @TheAuntifa “You guys Shia LaBeouf is officially part of the story of my pussy and yes it’s for real 😭😭😭 / WHAT A MENSCH”

Those Scary, Scary Men

20:07 @Femflam1 “We can’t fight stupid. Seriously- these guys are basing all their ideas about trans women on this fluffy idealistic notion of some shy translady just trying to live their life- like the beardy beast with a baseball bat in a “kill terfs” bloody T-shirt is the exception” Demonization

Uh, yes, that trope is in fact the exception. I've never met one. Most of the trans people I know fit pretty well into the "fluffy idealistic notion" described.

How is this not just naked hatred of trans people?

AstroTERF

08:16 @Femflam1 “A young, sweet, mildly woke colleague told me today that JK is a TERF. It took a 3 minute chat for her to realise that she was not, that TERF is a slur and you are not an evil transphobe just for acknowledging biology. Real life is the best place to talk to people”

A suitably skeptical reply (via screencap):

@MistresSinestra “I'll take "things that never happened" for 500 please Alex.”

I'm feeling more and more like @Femflam1 is a troll account. She only joined in June, and her anti-trans is wayy over the top.

Trans Women Aren't Women, redux

09:48 @wendycockcroft “Sorry, I thought everyone knew. It stands for "transwomen are women." / They're not, they're male. The fighting is about what happens when you treat intact male people as actual women. Tl:dr; it's messy.” This repeats the "trans women are men" myth. disinformation

Reply:

11:34 @BuckAngel “Haha I didnt even know that”

Reply:

12:20 @wendycockcroft “It drives me nuts, Buck. It's open season on women as far as TWAW activists are concerned and they take great delight in getting us to explain the issues to them so they can ignore us and carry on as before. They're awful.”

What is it with right-wingers and the phrase "it's open season"? I guess it's an appeal to the fear of social chaos? (Right-wingers like things to be very orderly.) Same with "free for all", seen below. I'm beginning to think of those phrases alone as red flags, as they are invariably misrepresenting something.

In any case, this is a huge misrepresentation. Trans rights (and LGBT rights in general) actually help women, while this kind of pseudo-progressivism only hurts women's rights as far as I can tell. It makes enemies out of allies.

And dammit, I tried to talk with her, but she was dismissive and dishonest and when it becomes plain that someone is not participating in good faith, it's time to end the discussion.

16:57 @wendycockcroft “This is why we fight. I will not accept a free-for-all where men can perve on us at will and we're called bigots when we complain.” This implicitly equates "trans women" with "men" yet again. Trans activists do not argue that men should have access to women's spaces, nor does anyone advocate that perving would be okay for anyone of any gender unless it's consensual. disinformation

The tweet being boosted is 13:28 @GilmoreJNurse “I don’t subscribe to the concept of male bodiedness. / Bodies are diverse in their make-up. I don’t believe people should be excluded from spaces because of how their body looks”, which is part of an otherwise very transphobic thread.

I asked some friends, as neutrally as I could, what they thought of all this. Here are the replies I got:

“

It's fair for women–any women, of any journey–to complain about men coming into women's spaces to be pervy. It would also be fair to complain about women coming into women's spaces to be pervy. There are spaces where pervy is allowed or encouraged, and those are where that's appropriate regardless. Putting that onto transwomen is not fair or right, and while she didn't explicitly do that, it's absolutely what she was implying.
”

—a (cis) woman friend in GA (quoted with permission)

“

I agree that they are less hostile about men in their space than about trans women. Because they have this bizarre brain disconnect from reality that tells them that it isn't fair this person gets into the space without having to have grown up being treated as a woman in our society. Instead of realizing that if anything, these women have given up that shade of privilege to be who they are inside.
And that it can't possibly have been easier to have lived with that battle inside.
They are angry because they think trans women haven't had the hurt they have. Which makes them fucking self centered martyr assholes.
Sorry, very few things piss me off more than minorities who punch down.
”

—a (cis) woman friend in CA (quoted with permission)

8/6 Thursday

What is "the essence of womanhood" when it's at 'ome, anyway? And who are these people saying that presumably-cis women aren't women?

forwomen.scot newsletter

Legal action, Speakers' Corner and Schools action (archive.org) (via)

This one is a cesspit...

Item 1

The embedded letter argues that the Scottish government is trying to "redefine 'woman'", and that they have no authority to do so.

“

Speaking for For Women Scotland, Marion Calder said: “It beggars belief that the Scottish Government has introduced new legislation that contravenes the very essence of what a ‘woman’ is in law. This is just the introduction of self-identification of sex by the back door.”
”

—2020-07-31 News Release – Pre-Action Letter

I'm not sure this is an accurate representation of what we're asking for. Mainly, we want some aspects of gatekeeping to be reduced or eliminated.
- The evidence supports the idea that this does less harm than forcing trans people to go through the levels of gatekeeping that presently exist.
- The only counterpoints the faux "women's rights" advocates have offered is a few examples of violent crime being committed by trans women, not any statistics about rates of violence by trans women vs. cis women and cis men or studies on the likely effects of easing the gatekeeping restrictions.
  - It's also unclear whether the violent trans women had already been through the gatekeeping process, meaning that (as with many forms of punishment favored by the right) it's pretty much useless at accomplishing the stated goal.
Note the absence of any link to the legislation being criticized, so we can see what it's really about. sourceless interpretation
She says "the very essence of what a ‘woman’ is" – but declines to explain what that is ( semantic chameleon) or how the legislation is redefining it ( sourceless interpretation), so we can evaluate her argument for ourselves. This keeps happening.

Follow-up: https://twitter.com/tristangrayedi/status/1374334208710217731

Item 2

“

I am autistic, and I want to talk about the transitioning of children as the latest eugenics attack on our community.
”

—2020-08-02(?), unnamed speaker at Speakers' Corner

Wow, this is the abortion is black genocide argument all over again. No, autistic children are not being forcibly transitioned. Any child who wants to transition is likely to face deep opposition from all corners, fueled by bullshit like this; they are lucky if they at least have parental support.

They're right about Autism Speaks being problematic, however. They're also correct in observing the high overlap between autism and gender dysphoria -- which they paint, unambiguously, as evil transition clinics selecting out autistic kids for sterilization. hatemongery demonization

Item 3

“

It has been over a year since the Scottish Government announced that the transgender guidance in schools, produced by LGBT Youth, was to be replaced. We think it's disgraceful that this was not done by the promised date of Dec 2019, and it is unacceptable that the schools will returning next week with many still using guidance which the government acknowledges is not legal and risks excluding girls.
”

—forwomen.scot

At last, a link!

I don't really have time to dig into this properly, but at first glance it seems like the Scottish government agreed to update its Gender Recognition laws so as to better keep up with international progress, while still recognizing the need for women to be safe -- and forwomen.scot is praising this and asking why it is taking so long.

That doesn't seem like a bad thing. I've been fooled before...

...but I could probably spend a whole day trying to map this out. For now, I don't have time.

Nonexistent People Are Denying My Existence

13:55 @Alliewhowrites “Gah! I’m a woman - crew cut, lifelong lesbian. I could easily declare that what I am, and have always been, is something other, but that would be handing patriarchy the victory. Nah. I’m a woman. Expand your idea of what a woman is until it fits me too. Cos that’s what I am.”

Who and what is she arguing against? sourceless interpretation I keep seeing this argument in anti-trans threads, and I don't know what it is referring to. On what basis is someone denying she's a woman? I suspect it's a response to some straw man version of trans advocacy, but of course they love to keep things vague so they can always reinterpret themselves if cornered.

14:16 @ClaraenSc “They are all for expanding woman to embrace really feminine males while celebrating how many females want to escape from it. Of course, it makes perfect sense. Either you think of man/woman as the words to describe the human sexes or you colapse those into masc/fem."”

Who is "they"? What did they actually say? sourceless interpretation It certainly doesn't refer to trans people or trans activists. It's implied, yet again, that trans women are just "really feminine males", which is patently false.

14:26 @ClaraenSc “By saying being a man or a woman is a matter of a gender id they are forcing young ppl with no clear sense of identity to either identify or desidentify. In their quest for inclusivity, they are kicking young females out instead of allowing them time to find their footing.” This is blatantly counterfactual. Trans activists are trying to prevent exactly this – and this kind of hatemongery encourages it.

Even the US Has Anti-Trans Bigotry; Who Knew

The Wedge Issue That’s Dividing Trumpworld (via): "A group of social conservatives wants the president to embrace anti-transgender issues to reverse his sagging poll numbers. Some Trump advisers think it's political suicide."

In a way, this is good: even among Trumpnazis, attacking trans rights isn't a guaranteed win.

That said, it cites a Republican strategist repeating the "~~men~~-I-mean-trans-women to compete in women's sports is unfair" trope, because it's what got the most negative reactions -- including from Democrats. The same strategist is apparently planning to use the "forcing young kids to transition" and "de-transitioning is common" tropes against Biden in this year's presidential election.

Also note who is on the Trump side (of course): Concerned Women for America, yet another group (in this case, a right-wing hate group) posing as supporting women while actually being the opposite.

Queer Theory Misrepresentation, etc.

This tweet was in there somewhere. Red meat for the "trans women aren't women" crowd.

2020-08-05 05:31 @ProfessionalJu2 “I don’t know anyone outside of the internet that uses that disgusting slur. / These days the ‘queers’ support the homophobic gender identity pseudoscience. / It always signalled homophobia only now it’s on the left. / We’re here, we’re not with the queers, get used to it.” (retweet of this tweet)

2020-08-05 05:38 @ChrisThody “Good grief / @sunrayswench / Supporting LGBTIQ+ is now homophobic?” (I think the @sunrayswench mention is to pull them back into the discussion, since the retweet didn't mention them.)
2020-08-05 05:40 @ProfessionalJu2 “Supporting an ideology that argues that lesbians and gay men should include the opposite sex in their sex lives is both homophobic and biphobic. / I wouldn’t expect a straight man to quite understand that.”
2020-08-05 05:42 @ChrisThody “I'm not straight.. I've been fighting for LGBT+ rights for 35 years/ What don't I understand?”
2020-08-05 05:44 @ProfessionalJu2 “If you’ve been supporting us for 35 years you’ll understand how we’ve been pushing back against pressure to include opposite sex in our sex lives and be recognised as exclusively same-sex attached. / What don’t you understand about your support for the homophobia of the queers?”
2020-08-05 05:45 @ChrisThody “Tell me about the queers / But don't have sex with anyone you don't want to”
- 2020-08-05 06:17 @socialtechno “The Queers were a New Hampshire punk band in the 80s. Queer and gay people are regular folks who date and marry their own sex. Most people are cool with that.” (bold added for clarity)
- 2020-08-05 05:48 @ProfessionalJu2 “Do you understand what gender identity is and how it’s being pushed by orientations like Stonewall? / Do you understand the consequences of reframing homosexuality as being “same gender” and not “same sex” attraction? / You say you’ve been fighting for our rights for 35 years.:thinking face:” (I think she means "organization", not "orientation".)
- 2020-08-05 05:51 @ChrisThody “no.. I believe in gender”
  - 2020-08-11 12:13 @msbeingviolent “Yeah, read about John Money, before I [read] him I thought gender is stupid, after that I think it is evil. Besides gender didn't always exist, sexism and sexist stereotypes did.” Um, no, the David Reimer case -- for which John Money became infamous -- just proves that gender is not entirely socialized. The science still overwhelmingly shows that it exists, and history shows that it always has.
  - The poster looks like it may have been placed so as to give the impression that the University of Liverpool distributed it. No organizational attribution is shown.
    2020-08-05 18:04 @edeysal “If you erase sex then you erase same sex attraction ” What does this poster have to do with... anything? Yes, it's erasing sex -- but who is erasing sex? Trans people generally do not agree with this poster (though some do). This belief is not fundamental to the idea of transgenderness.
    - 2020-08-07 08:30 @ifawomandidit “Wow” Indeed.
    - 2020-08-05 18:42 @MargaretOfAnj “It's pretty wild how TERFs try to paint trans activists as homophobic while simultaneously demanding that gay trans people don't call themselves gay.” -- so, she's going along with the assumption that trans activists generally support this? Or even that it was placed there by a trans activist? While some trans activists may believe this, it seems just as likely to me that it was put there as a provocation -- a literal false flag.
      - 2020-08-05 18:43 @ChrisThody “Bigotry has no logic”
        2020-08-05 18:46 @TheWolfSpirit1 “Transphobia rots the brain.” - Based on the level of logic in the argumentation against trans rights here, I'd have to agree.
      - 2020-08-11 02:45 @MadeofChange “This actually constitutes hate speech IMO but also is an extraordinary example of rape culture and the denial of consent” - YES. This is an excellent point.
      - 2020-08-05 19:45 @Truthbomb_Queen “If sex were erased, you’d still be attracted to the same people you’re attracted to. Trans people don’t want to erase sex. Gender isn’t sex and hasn’t been since before we figured out agriculture.” - Yes. Thank you. This is all true.
        2020-08-11 12:14 @msbeingviolent “If that's true then why is it "controversial" to say that transwomen are male? :thinking face:” It's not "controversial"; it's wrong -- and why do you think that your question follows from what Truthbomb_Queen said?
        
        2020-08-07 13:54 @DemelzaPussycat “‘If sex were erased, you’d still be attracted to the same people’. If schmiff. This is about as meaningful as saying, ‘If we were all made of cheese, we’d all eat each other’. And how can you possibly know whether you or anyone else would still fancy the same people?” It's a statement of belief, not an argument from evidence -- although there is evidence to support it.
        
        2020-08-05 19:45 @edeysal “You make it sound so easy, like it's nothing - that doesnt mean it's true though / All gay rights and womens rights are hung on the legal concept of sex, if that is erased things like lesbian only events would be open to all / P.s. cavemen knew sex, not gender or we wouldnt be here” -- speaking of unsupported statements...
        2020-08-06 08:28 @McdowallLucy “Can you tell me how allowing trans women to identify as trans women will take away my right to vote, or the right to reproductive healthcare, or my right to marry another woman? These are the rights I currently enjoy living in Scotland as a cisgender, bisexual woman?”
        2020-08-06 08:36 @ProfessionalJu2 “Are lesbians sexually attracted to people who have a penis? / The issue isn't transwomen identifying as transwomen, the issue is transwomen trying to force everyone to believe that they are actual women. / They're not, they're male.” At last, she comes out and says it: Trans women are men disinformation Also, this is changing the subject.
        2020-08-06 08:39 @Truthbomb_Queen “The issue here is that you’re a transphobe who spends every day making specious and unfounded attacks against trans people. :woman shrugging:” Seems about right.
        2020-08-07 13:04 @ProfessionalJu2 “Can a male be a lesbian and can lesbians be attracted to males?” - She's also a broken record. No, a male can't be a lesbian. hidden premise is the myth that trans women are really men. Some trans women are lesbians, and hetero men have been known to be attracted to trans women as women because trans women are women.
        
        2020-08-06 08:40 @McdowallLucy “Not relevant to my question, but what the heck. / Perhaps it's my bisexual ways, Judy, but if someone I'm not sexually attracted to asks me out? / I just tell them 'no thanks.' / Whatever happened to using your grown-up words? / So. Which rights do I actually lose? Vote? Abortion?” - kudos for both answering the question and not falling for the subject-change
        
        2020-08-06 08:40 @McdowallLucy “And trans is an adjective. Trans [space] woman. 'Transwoman' is dehumanising, sexualising and objectifying. As feminists, we don't sexualise or objectify people—at least not without their consent.”
        2020-08-06 08:51 @ProfessionalJu2 “Transwomen are transwomen. / I’m using us as a noun.” So... we're not talking about trans women at all, but something different? (I'm not at all sure what she means by "using us as noun".)
        2020-08-06 08:53 @Truthbomb_Queen “Separate words. (And women.) [screenshot of "trans woman" in Merriam Webster]”
        2020-08-06 09:01 @ProfessionalJu2 ““Words change”” ...yes, they do; what's your point?
        
        2020-08-11 03:21 @terriehasler “It won't remove that particular set of rights which I'm assuming you carefully chose to make your point.” -- because they're the ones that are relevant. I notice this response does not include any counterexamples.
        
        2020-08-06 11:17 @EmJaRo2 “If anyone can be regarded as female on nothing more than their say so, it will be impossible to track whether employers and other institutions are discriminating on the basis of sex. It will be impossible to keep accurate crime stats which will potentially impact funding.” -- This seems to be assuming that some large percentage of the male population is going to start identifying as female. Like, larger than the ~1% of people who are trans female. It also presumes that trans women aren't women. ( hidden premise is the myth that trans women are not women)
        2020-08-06 11:19 @EmJaRo2 “If you require intimate care through illness, injury or age, you will potentially lose the right to a female carer. / You will lose the opportunity to compete in sports to the highest level.” ...nno... But if gender identity is not permitted to determine legal gender, then that would deprive trans women of both of these things. ( hidden premise: trans women are not women)

Editor's note: I've already spent hours mapping out the above thread, in hopes of trying to trace all the way back from the below to how the conversation started -- but although I can get to part of the above discussion by going to the following tweets, figuring out the connection is more than I have time for today. Thanks, Twitter, for such an opaque interface.

05:43 @McdowallLucy “
1. Your right to give or receive consent is not affected—there is no evidence of this.
2. Trans women have been using single sexed spaces for 30 years and the EHRC has confirmed there has been no increase in assaults in women's spaces.
So. Which of my Universal Human Rights?
”

08:22 @janeclarejones “There is no evidence of this????
I do not consent and neither does Maya and neither do thousands and thousands of other women.
THAT'S your evidence.”

Apparently Dr. Jones does not want even fully-passing trans women to access women's spaces.

This is sounding more and more like the "Christian" businesses who refuse to serve gay people because it violates their right of religious freedom.

Which of Us Is Glorifying Reproduction, Again?

2020-08-07 08:51 @wendycockcroft “Anyone else noticed that trans women are celebrated for their achievements and trans men for having babies?”

I think what's going on here is:

Wendy is claiming there's a dichotomy in how trans men and trans women are treated, in which trans women are taken seriously as individuals while trans men are still seen primarily as baby-factories.
I think she is trying to argue that this dichotomy illustrates that trans women continue to have male privilege after transitioning
I don't think the evidence supports this.

My personal answer to the question? Not really, no. I do remember a few examples of each, but that could easily be media bias and anyway, so what?

I assume she's not trying to say "trans men aren't men because they can have babies", because that would be a circular argument.

Conversely

2020-08-07 09:14 @lisaquestions “No particular reason would I post an article by a biologist with a Ph.D. about biological sex and trans people and how and why it's factually incorrect to say trans women are biologically male.”
- links to 2017-07-17 Transgender People and “Biological Sex” Myths

Julia Serano has a PhD in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from Columbia U, and researched genetics and developmental and evolutionary biology at UCal Berkeley for seventeen years.

2020-08-07 19:33 @JuliaSerano “as someone who is routinely piled-on by TERF accounts w/ interchangeable bios who mostly joined Twitter within the last 3 months, I deem this to be the truest tweet ever...”

In Progress

8/8

https://twitter.com/wendycockcroft/status/1292104474538979328
https://twitter.com/intersexfacts/status/1292064976983805954
https://twitter.com/mentalhellcat/status/1291934530920681474 "rapid onset gender dysphoria"
https://twitter.com/mentalhellcat/status/1291907478163267585 - elevation of detransition
https://twitter.com/GenderMistake/status/1291842583115771905 - transition is dangerous
https://twitter.com/IRefuseToSwerve/status/1291846108566761472 - transition is a big risk
- https://twitter.com/IRefuseToSwerve/status/1291837845364244481
https://twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1292067928435720192 "Recognising that women are female is not fucking biological determinism or gender essentialism, or 'bio-essentialism' or whatever butchered concept you want to label it with." umm... nobody is saying women aren't female
https://twitter.com/ComplainyRainy/status/1292064539933122560 - censuring the anti-trans LGB Alliance is "othering gays and lesbians"
https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1292025605697961984 "A mother is excited because her 4 year old child is trans. The child, a biological girl, still dresses feminine, refused to have their hair cut and refused a new male name, but the mother knows the child is a boy because the child prefers to play with other boys" -- looks like taking things out of context to misrepresent the situation
https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1292002759458213888 - another child-transition story
https://medium.com/@mary.leng/where-metaphysics-meets-politics-in-gender-critical-feminism-1fe565e2093a
- https://twitter.com/mary_leng/status/1291791744665890816
16:16 @babybeginner “Why I hate the term cis / Cis or cisgender is a term that means that you are comfortable with the gender that matches your sex. / This assumes you accept the whole giant kit and kaboodle of stereotypes, social mores and expectations as to who you should be based on your sex. 1/” - a new "cis is a slur" argument. No, it doesn't mean that. It just means you identify as the gender that you appear to be. misrepresentation

8/9

https://twitter.com/wendycockcroft/status/1292530457997905922

Some Support!

https://twitter.com/NotRightRuth/status/1292776680881303552
- https://twitter.com/GenderBen/status/1292767283744575488

12 02:48 @iamtranssexual “I really wish I had cancer. Just because I dont have the symptoms. I want to have cancer! It would be such a turn on. We need to stop allowing only those diagnosed with cancer to claim a monopoly on it. / Sound insane? / Why has it been allowed for transsexualism....? [self-reply tweet adds] This is not intented to be offensive to those with cancer - quite the opposite. / If you were able to identify into a condition without qualifying you demean and triviliase the experiences sufferers have.”

You could argue the same with depression -- that you can't call yourself depressed unless you have a diagnosis.

This cruel mockery makes me very angry.

12:19 @zaelefty “It's fascinating to see someone claim that there are no meaningful differences between males and females, including in hormone levels and phenotypes. / This is what happens when science is abandoned for political activism.”

Nobody is claiming this. misrepresentation

There are no distinctions which are always true for any given individual, except identity.

Countering Myths

04:25 @BellaRizinti “You'll see transphobes saying "these kids should be given therapy before they're given meds" which is EXACTLY what happens. Trans kids ALL go through rigorous psychological assessments by cis people, before ANYTHING else happens. What transphobes r raging about, already happens.”

Thread also debunks the claim that Stonewall UK abandoned Mermaids and claims about puberty blockers. 06:57 @ClaireLoneragan “Remember Julie Marshall? https://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-53410019 / @BBCNews say they reported the case as if Julie Marshall was actually a woman because the court made no mention of trans status.”

"As if" -- again, they're acting as if "trans women aren't really women" is a proven thing, when the opposite is true.

Just because she's criminally problematic doesn't mean she's not a woman. Did society revoke Squeaky Fromme's womanhood, or Patty Hearst's, or...?

11:33 @bjportraits “[retweet of] A male-bodied person, however kind, professional and blameless, can be traumatising to a woman or child who has been the victim of male violence. / Patients have the right to say no.” 15 17 00:17 @HabituallyFemme “They tell us to show them the numbers-- We try to do studies, then they sabotage it. / This feels like a losing battle.”

...except the numbers show that detransitioning is rare -- so what are the numbers showing otherwise? This feels like a quote copied from a trans rights activist, but with the details reversed. The numbers don't support the implicit claim.

Also, nobody is denying that detransition happens. https://mobile.twitter.com/Baalbek8/status/1296094302330912768 - yes, it can in fact kill. (See thread for more TERF mobbery.) 12:16 @MattWalshBlog “The primary tool used in our culture to sexualize children is trans indoctrination. Those who argue that children have the psychological and emotional capacity to consent to a sex change are setting a certain precedent. And they know exactly what they're doing.” - won't someone save the children from the imaginary threat of trans indoctrination

2020-08-24 15:48 @ZJemptv “When are you going to talk about cis indoctrination, the notion that cis children can consent to having a gender”

Further down the thread: 14:34 @Shoresy19 “I wish that were the case, but the Texas court system recently deprived a father of his parental rights when he was trying to prevent his batshit crazy ex-wife and her equally batshit crazy doctor from beginning transition therapy on their 7 year old son.”

Links to:
- 2020-08-17 'Save James': Court Scraps Past Ruling, Mom Can 'Transition' Son On Dad's Dime, Report Says
- related articles:
  - 2020-02-01 Dallas judge affirms joint custody order in case involving 7-year-old’s gender identity
  - 2020-01-29 James Younger Case Effectively Comes to a Close, Mother’s Legal Team Signals Future Appeals
  - 2019-11-11 What the battle over a 7-year-old trans girl could mean for families nationwide "Around age 3, Luna Younger started asking to wear dresses. Since the age of 5, she has insisted she is a girl. Now Luna is 7, and during court hearings, physicians, school staff, and family members have all testified that Luna has consistently, persistently identified as a girl."
  - 2019-10-24 Two Parents' Legal Battle Over Whether Their 7-Year-Old Is Transgender Has Drawn A Child Services Review

2020-08-23 08:00 @TheFamousArtBR “Prison time for not believing that men can magically turn into women? Belief in science is the new blasphemy and heresy.” - gotta love the word "magically", as if the science didn't 100% support transition -- and then the truth-inversion of claiming that science supports the opposite.

11:12 @KirstyDonnell15 “Like it again everyone”

retweet of 2019-12-19 07:57 @jk_rowling “Dress however you please. / Call yourself whatever you like. / Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. / Live your best life in peace and security. / But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? / #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill” - That's not why Maya Forstater was fired.

19:45 @shadipetosky “NY Literary Assistant Agent Sasha White, who announced the job a few weeks ago, was fired for transphobia. / Like many anti-trans folks, Sasha maintains that her firing was merely due to a feminist stance. This concerned me when a Radical Feminist DMed me — so I took a look...”

21:50 @JuliaSerano “I didn't know what the literary-agent-fired-for-transphobia story going 'round was about – found this to be a very helpful explainer!”
2020-08-25 09:49 @ZJemptv “Sasha White advocated for violently assaulting innocent trans women in public restrooms, don't defend her”
- 2020-08-25 09:58 @ZJemptv “I mean, come on. Imagine if a trans woman publicly called for trans women to storm into women's restrooms and start beating the shit out of every cis woman in there. Nobody, absolutely nobody, would be like ~but thought crimes~ ~wrongthink~ ~MY FEMINIST STANCE~”

Retweeted today, for no apparent reason:

2020-03-18 17:48 @gencritgreen “"The New Troubadours: On The Male Crusaders For The Left Facilitating Today's Witch Hunts"”
- links to:
  - 2018-02-08 [The new troubadours: On the male crusaders for the left facilitating today's witch hunts
    - Article opens with a discussion about the opening of the Vancouver Women's Library (Facebook), apparently a trans-excluding women's space. More about this:
      - 2017-03-13 How a Feminist Library Opening Became All About the Definition of a Woman
      - 2017-03-08 This Is a Call-Out Post for the Transmisogynist and Anti-Sex Work Vancouver Women’s Library "It turns out this Vancouver Women’s Library, which is re-opening this Saturday March 11th, is both transmisogynist and anti-sex work."
      - 2017-02-08 Transactivists harass feminists at the Vancouver Womens Library Launch (video)
      - 2017-02-07 Vancouver Women’s Library opens amid anti-feminist backlash
      - 2017-02-04 Queer fascists attempt to ban feminist books from a women’s library

https://twitter.com/ZJemptv/status/1298668033121177603 - ohai thar, right-wing transphobes! We thought you'd given up attacking us directly and were leaving it all to the faux-feminists. This is, at least familiar territory.

https://twitter.com/GBBranstetter/status/1298636805089239042 - and here they are again: children must be allowed to have guns even if their parents forbid it, but they also must not be allowed puberty blockers even if their parents permit it.

Argumentum ab Phallatio

2020-08-26 13:47 @chasestrangio “The notion of "biological sex" was developed for the exclusive purpose of being weaponized against people. Courts are recognizing it. Now you should too.” (Chase Strangio is a lawyer trans rights activist, and a trans man)
- includes screenshot of a recent court decision ruling that "biological sex" is a vague term (I think I have this filed somewhere)
- 2020-08-27 06:36 @FionneOrlander “Thanks for this ridiculous tweet, will bookmark it for the next time I hear 'No trans activist is promoting sex denialism!'”
  - 2020-08-27 08:32 @Woozalia “How is this sex denialism? It's not arguing "sex doesn't exist"; it's asking "how do we define it? what binary sex do we assign to someone when there are ambiguous indications?"”
    - 2020-08-27 08:34 @FionneOrlander “Ambiguous indications, such as?”
      - 2020-08-27 08:50 @Woozalia “"Biological sex" is a multidimensional similarity cluster -- that is, there are many aspects to it which usually align but sometimes don't. 1/”
      - 2020-08-27 09:01 @Woozalia “Some of the primary ones are: 1. chromosomes 2. genital configuration 3. the role one plays in reproduction (fertilizer or fertilized) 4. whether you host the embryo or not / (I'm assuming you're not willing to consider secondary sexual characteristics as relevant.)”
        2020-08-27 09:25 @batpatronum “This is the author of the article that gets misused a lot as evidence for these claims. Here's her clarification”
        retweets 2017-07-21 07:52 @ClaireAinsworth “No, not at all. Two sexes, with a continuum of variation in anatomy/physiology.” (thread ensues, some missing posts are preserved on archive.org)
        
        2020-08-27 09:00 @FionneOrlander “You could just say 'But intersex' if that's the argument you're getting at.” - this has 7 likes as of 2020-09-11
        2020-08-27 09:04 @Woozalia “Pick a rule that's *clear*, and then we can at least talk about potential problems it may cause. / The "Gender Critical" refusal to even *define* "biological sex", other than what "everyone knows", makes reasoned discussion impossible.”
        2020-08-27 09:11 @FionneOrlander “Like if you have or have ever had a penis you are male?” This is punctuated as a question, but I think it's meant to be a sarcastic interrogatory: "have you considered this totally obvious thing that everyone else agrees on?"
        2020-08-27 09:38 @Woozalia “Okay, that's mostly unambiguous. / Will you grant that people with ambiguous genitalia, at least, should be able to determine their own sex, since this rule doesn't clearly disambiguate them?”
        2020-08-27 09:44 @FionneOrlander “No one determines their own sex, anymore then they determine their eye colour. If someone is born with ambiguous genitalia professionals will be contacted to diagnose the developmental sex difference, they will still either be male or female with a DSD.” DSD: Wikipedia
        2020-08-27 09:46 @Woozalia “Okay, so you're saying that when someone is born, a doctor should be the one to decide what their gender is?”
        2020-08-27 09:46 @FionneOrlander “Not decide, observe what their sex is.” There's usually a little label on the underside.
        2020-08-27 09:48 @Woozalia “Based on what?” - Fionne never responded to this
        2020-08-27 19:49 @40elephantsmob “FFS every single day all across the globe, farmers manage to divide heifers/bullocks, ewes/rams, hens/cockerals. Why TF are humans such drama llamas as to assume that we are anything except 99.99999% as simple to divide to male/female than other mammals!”
        2020-08-31 12:48 @Woozalia “So, you're suggesting we should treat humans more like livestock?” Also, pretty sure ambiguous genitalia happen in livestock, too.
        
        2020-08-27 14:15 @todopensamient5 “Human beings as mammals that we are have sex: male or female. That one or the other does not have a properly closed scrotal bag or a clitoris that is larger than normal or has a chromosomal abnormality. That doesn't make him trans, nor does he make a third sex. denying the [next tweet] biological reality of the human being, denying the biological reality of other living beings.”
        
        2020-08-27 14:17 @todopensamient5 “Biological reality is a Material Reality.”
        2020-08-27 14:24 @todopensamient5 “It is also a weapon against people to say that they have two legs and two arms. There are also people who are born without legs or arms or are born without both.” I think this is meant as a snark, "Is it also bad to say..." rather than "it is".

Transnegation Roundup/2020/08

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