If you read up on how a surgically constructed vagina is created you might realise what a bad comparison that is.
https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/vaginoplasty
[RD] HuffPost: "I Coined The Term 'Cisgender' 29 Years Ago. Here's What This Controversial Word Really Means."
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
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https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/vaginoplasty
Again, not the home run argument you think it is. See AmazonQueen's post, above.
Also, if you can't tell the difference between plastic and glass, maybe consider that when entering a thread to confidently talk about the apparent differences between the two
Changing a plastic tube into a plastic beaker then. That’s not the point obviously comparisons are going to be inexact.
Again, not the home run argument you think it is. See AmazonQueen's post, above.
Also, if you can't tell the difference between plastic and glass, maybe consider that when entering a thread to confidently talk about the apparent differences between the two
The difference exists and you’re denying reality by refusing to admit that.
I didn't refuse to admit anything. You're arguing with a made-up person.
Of course comparisons are inexact. The point is you've said you can't tell the difference. That's the point. The self-own, as it were.
Read Sophie's (schlaufuchs') post again. Try to understand it, instead of imagining a completely different post that you find easier to object to.
I feel like we're in Schrodinger's Vagina territory here. Clearly, to you and TF, it's not whether the vagina was factory-installed, else you'd also be saying that cis women with surgically constructed vaginas are also... whatever you're saying we trans women are, or are not.
Well, thought experiment (to put poor Erwin out of his misery, and avoid the overlapping term for vaginas and cats to come to mind. Oops, there it goes. Nevermind.
)Let's say medical science advances to the point where an adult AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth) experiencing gender dysphoria and having sufficient health insurance coverage can go into the hospital and have certain body parts regrown and/or adjusted such that it's no longer considered "surgery"; they are truly undetectable changes - they walk out of the hospital with a crotch and abdomen showing no scars, and including the potential to give birth to a baby.
At that point is that AMAB date-able to you both?
They then go back and get the rest of their body adjusted to look/feel/sound fem as well. Date-able yet?
Then they go and get all their memories of their entire life adjusted to fit living as an AFAB throughout. You up for it now?
If not, why not?
schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
Of course sex differences exist. I’ve never denied it. I don’t take estrogen just because it makes my skin look amazing.
My arguments are:
1) perceived sex differences are far more malleable than cis people with little interaction or familiarity with trans people seem to understand. After a year on estrogen I’m two inches shorter, the orientation of my hips have changed such that they appear wider. I experience symptoms consistent with a period once a month. My breasts are larger than some cis women I know (and still growing), and have mammary glands and milk ducts just as a cis woman has. I get treated as a *female* all the time. Many of us do, even when meeting and interacting with doctors for whom these sex-based differences actually matter and would, presumably, be best able to identify them.
2) sex as a definition is circular. A female human is someone with female traits, and we know they’re female traits because female humans have them. This is a manifestation of oppositional sexism - the notion that male and female represent absolute, distinct, mutually exclusive categories. This notion hurts women generally as it enforces an ideal that all women automatically conform to this specific circular definition, when the reality is the opposite: no woman conforms to this ideal absolutely.
3) because of oppositional sexism, a sort of backwards logic is applied to trans people, and trans women especially. Since we are born as men, it is presumed that we are, under it all, men, with no overlap into the other sex. Any relationship to female characteristics are presumed therefore to be false, artificial, or superficial. And, crucially, any deviation from the ideal female form is presumed to stem from our fundamental maleness, rather than being chalked up to an inherent diversity in sex-characteristics and appearance. A trans woman and a cis woman could have precisely the same body proportions, and the cis woman would be seen as a woman and we would be seen as a man due to our obviously mannish shoulders and obviously mannish hips.
This is why the wE CaN alWaYs TeLL jokes are so funny and so consistently effective. Because of oppositional sexism, you assume women have no male features, and are conditioned to disregard exceptions when you see them ordinarily, so when you are primed to see a trans woman, those features that would be in another context perfectly normal and unremarkable, suddenly because those of an obvious transsexual. If you let this mind virus fester for long enough, you come out the other end convinced literally every celebrity on earth is trans, as has happened to many too-online TERFs.
My viewpoint is: having a preference for plumbing is not transphobic. Expressing the preference is not transphobic when and where appropriate. Intrinsically tying a specific plumbing configuration to a specific gender or sexual orientation *is* transphobic, as it is a denial that we are the gender we say we are, which is my yardstick definition of transphobia.
Put more succinctly:
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Cloud_Strife
Deity
I'm sure you have a great deal of experience telling the two apart, right lmao
Cis women's vagina's, famous for being uniform in appearance
I can’t tell the difference because I don’t have sex with women for one thing. I’m saying it’s absurd to argue that there is no difference. You just said if you can’t tell the difference there is no difference, which is just absurd.
I feel like we're in Schrodinger's Vagina territory here. Clearly, to you and TF, it's not whether the vagina was factory-installed, else you'd also be saying that cis women with surgically constructed vaginas are also... whatever you're saying we trans women are, or are not.
Well, thought experiment (to put poor Erwin out of his misery, and avoid the overlapping term for vaginas and cats to come to mind. Oops, there it goes. Nevermind.
Let's say medical science advances to the point where an adult AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth) experiencing gender dysphoria and having sufficient health insurance coverage can go into the hospital and have certain body parts regrown and/or adjusted such that it's no longer considered "surgery"; they are truly undetectable changes - they walk out of the hospital with a crotch and abdomen showing no scars, and including the potential to give birth to a baby.
At that point is that AMAB date-able to you both?
They then go back and get the rest of their body adjusted to look/feel/sound fem as well. Date-able yet?
Then they go and get all their memories of their entire life adjusted to fit living as an AFAB throughout. You up for it now?
If not, why not?
I’m not attracted to women so this doesn’t really apply to me and I wouldn’t be attracted to feminine looking cisgender men either so it goes deeper than that.
I appreciate you giving a thoughtful answer rather than what I’ve seen so far.
I think TF overstated it when he said that trans people can never pass. Maybe he didn’t say that exactly but something along those lines is what I took from it, but I think he’s generally right.
I do think people here are also over-emphasizing rare exceptions here like cisgender women who get a surgically constructed vagina. And it’s obviously not about just that, that was just one thing he mentioned.
Of course sex differences exist. I’ve never denied it. I don’t take estrogen just because it makes my skin look amazing.
My arguments are:
1) perceived sex differences are far more malleable than cis people with little interaction or familiarity with trans people seem to understand. After a year on estrogen I’m two inches shorter, the orientation of my hips have changed such that they appear wider. I experience symptoms consistent with a period once a month. My breasts are larger than some cis women I know (and still growing), and have mammary glands and milk ducts just as a cis woman has. I get treated as a *female* all the time. Many of us do, even when meeting and interacting with doctors for whom these sex-based differences actually matter and would, presumably, be best able to identify them.
2) sex as a definition is circular. A female human is someone with female traits, and we know they’re female traits because female humans have them. This is a manifestation of oppositional sexism - the notion that male and female represent absolute, distinct, mutually exclusive categories. This notion hurts women generally as it enforces an ideal that all women automatically conform to this specific circular definition, when the reality is the opposite: no woman conforms to this ideal absolutely.
3) because of oppositional sexism, a sort of backwards logic is applied to trans people, and trans women especially. Since we are born as men, it is presumed that we are, under it all, men, with no overlap into the other sex. Any relationship to female characteristics are presumed therefore to be false, artificial, or superficial. And, crucially, any deviation from the ideal female form is presumed to stem from our fundamental maleness, rather than being chalked up to an inherent diversity in sex-characteristics and appearance. A trans woman and a cis woman could have precisely the same body proportions, and the cis woman would be seen as a woman and we would be seen as a man due to our obviously mannish shoulders and obviously mannish hips.
My viewpoint is: having a preference for plumbing is not transphobic. Expressing the preference is not transphobic when and where appropriate. Intrinsically tying a specific plumbing configuration to a specific gender or sexual orientation *is* transphobic, as it is a denial that we are the gender we say we are, which is my yardstick definition of transphobia.
Put more succinctly:
Ok I appreciate you giving a detailed response here and it’s pretty interesting. Where mainly disagree here is I think you’re overemphasizing exceptions here like TF’s reference to brows shoulders and the idea that viewing these sex differences as male/female comes from sexism and patriarchy. I think we just view the world in fundamentally different ways that maybe stem from my not subscribing to beliefs that come from gender studies and that’s fine.
I’m not talking about there not being a detectable difference. I can’t tell the difference between a frog and a toad either, doesn’t mean there is no difference. What I’m getting at is people denying there is a difference.
What else did I say? I feel like I said something else that you're deliberately missing.
You’re seriously arguing there’s no difference if someone who’s not an expert can’t immediately detect the difference? This is the strange new world we live in. I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about but won’t allow yourself to admit it because of the prevailing dogma.
Synobun
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2006
- Messages
- 24,594
If the difference is only detectable with expert knowledge or in a clinical setting, what is the relevance of that difference in an interpersonal relationship? What is the disagreeable aspect?
Simply repeating "but there is a difference" has no bearing on the subject at hand. It ignores all context and scope. There's a difference. If all went well, the average person won't be able to tell. (Let's ignore for a moment that we're now in the "trans people have to pass to a cis person's standard" trap.)
Yet this is still unacceptable. Why is it unacceptable? If the function is identical between trans and cis, and both parties are fully capable of having a good time with their preferred plumbing, what is the issue?
I didn’t say there was an issue. If someone doesn’t have a vagina at all I don’t think there’s an issue. I’m taking issue to people denying there’s a difference.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
edit: i'm out.
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Nobody is saying that. Like I said, you've invented an argument to get mad about.
Lexicus
Deity
I am arguing that insisting on the all-consuming importance of this metaphysical difference which you've admitted wouldn't matter to you in practice is silly and shows up the underlying motivation of your argumentation which is bigotry
schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
I really do have to encourage you to spend more time responding to what I’ve actually written, rather than what you imagine I’ve written.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
Nobody is saying that transphobia is a fringe belief, unfortunately.
Senethro
Overlord
Any simple test to identify trans women is going to mis-identify cis women with medical histories or uncommon developmental stuff.
Any complicated test is impractical to apply at the bathroom door.
You may insist that it is always possible to tell the difference but are you actually insisting that expert gender adjudicators be involved in all aspects of lives? Perhaps there is a reasonable middle ground.
Any complicated test is impractical to apply at the bathroom door.
You may insist that it is always possible to tell the difference but are you actually insisting that expert gender adjudicators be involved in all aspects of lives? Perhaps there is a reasonable middle ground.
Cloud_Strife
Deity
It's certainly been tolerated on this forum for a long time
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