You tend to get a bit wordy when answering, but the response here is what I was looking for. Thanks.
Transgender Athletes
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Because we don't all know the rules and we're all getting trying to get our heads around the debate. This is the first time I've literally heard that those words are insulting to a group and I mean group, not a community, that I have family members in.
The fact that we’re in this dumb world of hypotheticals where you have to ‘buy coffee to a trans person’ to prove an absolutely nonsense point just beggars belief.
I honestly have lost the point of your earlier tweets when you are trying to discuss a situation or add context, so I was clarifying if there is a suitable descriptor to use to define a trans female.
That's fair, I'm sure I've said plenty of shit before listening to transgender folks and talking to them. You live and learn.
You don't have to buy coffee to anyone, you can simply talk to a transgender friend if your struggling with something. I'm sure they'll be glad to help. My experience with transgender people is that they don't mind talking to someone who genuinely wants to know more and wants to talk in good faith and not just engaging to arrive at some weird "gotcha moment".
The fact that we’re in this dumb world of hypotheticals where you have to ‘buy coffee to a trans person’ to prove an absolutely nonsense point just beggars belief.
If you don't know transgender people then I guess it would be weird going around town inviting random strangers for coffee, but it would also explain why some people here have the opinions they have, they simply don't hang out with transgender folks.
I would never use a term others find offensive if they made me aware of it.
What i am wonder, though, is why does it always affect women? It's their sport, and now they have to accept the "cis" part being added in front of "women".
It is much more unfair to a lot of women than a very small % of trans people.
Fair enough, I've posted so much that I'm sure I've lost myself once or twice.
OK, that's good to know.
What circumstances are you thinking of? I regularly watch women's football and women's handball and I've never heard the term cis woman being used.
Yet, just because people find a wording, term or sentences offending on their terms didn't mean it should be avoided in discussion. A community can literally release a press statement on what they find offensive. Doesn't mean we have to obey it.
Of course not, I'm not proposing any laws to punish people. My original point is that if someone chooses to use those terms they know some may find offensive, it makes conversation more difficult and it's not a stretch to assume they might not be engaging in good faith.
I don’t need to hang out with a transgender person to know that such a person would be at an advantage in the sporting arena when compared to a cis woman. It’s basic science, and common sense. That’s literally what the topic is centred on.
All of this and that about coffee, and spending time with obfuscation of a very simple discussion.
Me having coffee with a trans person to understand their life story doesn’t change the basic premise I’ve mentioned above.
Edit: and let me add - the basic premise I’ve mentioned above isn’t a ‘gotcha’ moment.
They don’t use it ‘to insult’ me. They use it to label me, and it is one that I have CHOSEN to take offence to. Just as when I use the term ‘transgender woman’, it is with the intention to describe/label, not to insult, but offence is still taken. We both have the right to take offence, and mine is as valid as anyone else’s, regardless of any malicious intent or not.
OK, I'll ask it differently, when was the last time some used those terms to label you? I'll be honest, in my decades on this earth, not a simgle human being reffered to me as cis man or biological male. Never. But maybe I'm missing some obvious context.
I have seen it being used different places, especially in discussions like this.
So happy i'm not living in the US, where these things tend to go crazy, people are either extreme on one side or the other.
As i said in my previous post, i do my best to never offend anyone, and treat every person i meet with respect, but i still have opinions on things like trans women in sports.
The problem now is that if i say i'm against it, i'm a bigot.
It's a bit like with racism. I have opinions about immigration to my country, i'm not against it, but if i ever say anything negative about it, i'm a racist.
I don't like religion, but if i say anything negative about islam, i'm somehow racist.
People are so fecking extreme today, that issues like these can't be discussed properly.
Ninja edit: Didn't mean to take thread off topic, just wanted to make a couple examples for comparison.
it may not be transphobic but it suggests that sex is binary and that’s widely accepted not to be the case.
Well, to be honest this latest round of discussion is about school sports, which as I've said before is a bit different. If you want to talk about the olympics or professional sports, sure, what you say is true and there is no good solution in my view, all solutions will feck someone over.
But school sports for me are different because I don't see school sports as being solely about competition and winning at all costs, I see them as a necessary part of many teenager's lives, something they need to be mentally and physically healthy, something they can use to feel part of a team or make friends. So in his case, knowing transgender people helped shape my opinion, the struggles some go through in their normal lives, the bullying they suffered in school, etc, made me realise that I can't accept another form of exclusion, especially inflicted on young kids.
So I may be wrong and maybe it's just my experience, but knowing transgender people and their life story, as you put it, may change your priorities and it did change mine. Or maybe not, but it will definitely make you think twice.
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I'm not stating any laws of punishment, things around this conversation are so confusing that people may not know that some find it offensive but also even if it is, doesn't mean it should be ruled out of discussion. For instance say a transperson had a child who refused to refer to them as their mum/dad on the transpersons persons insistence does that mean their child is in the wrong refusing, because they're offended by it. This is why as far as I'm concerned unless the wordings are offensive regardless of the in context of the discussion there should be no gates to definitions being closed despite who declares.
That's a bit unrealistic though, because whether you like it or not, whether it's your intention or not, if you use words the person talking to you finds offensive, the debate is dead before it starts. You can use them, for sure, but you can't act surprised and claim "yeah it's impossible to debate this".
I’m well aware that intersex people exist. That said, calling an actual biological female a biological female in the context of a discussion about sports isn’t transphobic in the least.
Mammalian sex is binary though. Anything outside of that paradigm is due to abnormalities/mutations etc etc in utero.
You'd think that deviations from the biological norm being called syndromes (Turner's, Klinefelter etc) would be a clue, but apparently not.
I've not stated that, and adding a definitive closure to a contradiction of discussion outside of context or understanding is just foot stamping. Norhave I stated that on the side of my debate am I acting surprised and ending a conversation. If some one said to me that they find my wording offensive I would want to know why and explain context. You have to be able to take offense and discuss it to change minds. Shutting off the conversation at offense becomes a stance and not a discussion.
Likewise, it will be uncommon for me to label people 'transgender women’ because this entire never-ending airwave dominating conversation about trans rights is in reality about an incredibly small minority of people and I can’t say that I am forced to address trans people with great frequency.
So to answer you question, the frequency is about equal, and the validity of feelings is also equal.
In this thread it was explained why some terms may be considered offensive and it was just laughed off or people just doubled down. It's quite different from trying to understand something.
I'm not this thread. Nor are my opinions
Well, not you personally, but you hear it being said on tv and so on. I suspect you don't see it about yourself.
And even though it's subjective, I can't agree on the validity of the feeling. Something being used as an insult is quite different from something being used as a descriptor.
Just because a trans woman takes offence to being referred to as a trans woman does not mean that the intention was to insult.
I was pointing out an instance where the context made something offensive and therefore made debate impossible, because you said "as far as I'm concerned unless the wordings are offensive regardless of the in context of the discussion there should be no gates". I don't think you can separate context from the words used.
Mate, the expression I'm criticizing is calling a transgender woman a biological male. something often done by transphobes.
You’d think that when researchers in the science of sex believe this may affect upto one in a hundred people, people would begin to realise that it’s far more common than originally thought. It’s roughly the same regularity as red hair or twice as common as twins.
But no people still seem to think it’s fine to refer to these real people with real feelings as deviations or abnormalities.
Language is a very powerful weapon.
Of course you can,. I could literally say the most offensive word possible, the context of it is more important.
It’s not though. These type of abnormalities range from 0.5% to 1.7%. These are mutations/abnormalities/complications in utero that mean a baby doesn’t fit the male / female sex binary. So we’re talking about a very very small set of the world’s population. And it 100% is an abnormality. It’s basic science.
No, but referring to trans women as "biological men" is a tried and true transphobic dog whistle, and you've spent enough time in these threads, agreed with enough transphobic shit that has been posted, and had enough shit explained to you, that I'm not about to give you the benefit of the doubt.
What's not transphobic about referring to trans women as "biological men"?
Yes, trans people are the real problem. Nail on the fecking head, hats off to you!
You've read me wrong, I have no issue with people disagreeing on this issue. What I do have an issue with is frequent trans issue thread poster @fergieisold blurting out problematic shit and claiming/feigning ignorance.
But, errrr, trans women in women’s sport are biological men. Quit with the the dog whistle shite.
Mind you don't fall off that box. The world is fecked, I tell you.
I said once the brainwashing wears off. Once they see the impact it actually has on women
Oh you're one of those people. I'll slowly back away.
So trans women are women until they start competing in sports, then suddenly they become biological men?
right.