Something new about the Trans rights movement

Demanding to be regarded as a different identity goes well beyond speech. They don't just want you to call them "her" or "him". They want to actually be regarded as such, including all the gender segregated rights and conventions that comes with it, both socially and in law.

The OP question isn't asking if we have any obligation not to call people slurs and mean names. It is about whether or not there is any ethical obligation on you to accept that one society would otherwise regard as a man, is a woman, because she says so.

 

Once again your ANECDOTES are IRRELEVANT.

Just because YOU do NOT notice the transpeople who dress normally does not mean that the MAJORITY of them are "going overboard".

I dress age appropriately and so do the other transpeople I know. Very few of them are my age but none of them have the time or the money to "go overboard" on their clothing. The FtM's wear jeans, t-shirts and shorts. The MtF's wear jeans t-shirts and shorts. They just shop on the aisles that match their self identification.

 

Oh, wow. That is really offensive. It completely gives off the vibes "they should learn to stay in their place".

 

Overboard is a subjective view. I've seen cis-women who "go overboard" but there is no problem when they do. Well maybe in some work places. Then there are the ones who do pass, and still they are in trouble because the business wants them to dress their sex. In some cases, they would have them do so even if SRS occurred. And of course once again, you completely ignore the FtM aspects of the situation.

 

Well here is the crux of our disagreement. Unfortunately, I don't think either of us is very knowledgeable about this. My only objection to your OP had been your calling this desire to be referred to as another sex, part of the trans RIGHTS movement, as this was not a Right, for anyone; it is merely a trans PREFERENCE, which anyone can observe or not, and will never have the force of law behind it, only public opinion (which, currently, I would gauge as mixed).

I appreciate your longer response showing that you did get the gist of my argument-- though I had not meant to suggest that not using the desired pronoun was equivalent to some of the slurs I had included, but that was probably my fault; I had just meant to say that this desire of the minority was natural, but that did not make it a part of their "_____ Rights movement."

I do believe that you are mistaken, that all trans rights are covered under gay rights, and that all they want are "extra," rights. But, as I said, I am not knowledgeable enough to speak on this. I will do some research, & get back to you on that.

I also must grant you, from your detailed reply, that there are legitimately issues (outside of pronouns) in which your argument does have a case: gender-specific bathrooms, gyms, and sports. I have always considered these issues individually, not as part of an overall trans rights movement, but it must be acknowledged that they are, indeed, part of that movement. I do believe there is more to the movement, of which you are unaware; but, as I said earlier, I would rather research & have my facts straight, than to just shoot from the hip, on the balance of issues which you leave unaddressed.

 

Not so much extra rights perse, but somebody else's rights; rights belonging to people of a different identity. Trans is about their identity, and in our society we afford different rights to different gender identities. I personally don't think we should segregate as much as we do based on gender, but we do, so this becomes at issue.

It fits more with issues such as "cultural appropriation" to me than it does the civil rights movements for black or gay people. Black or gay people don't claim they are white or straight. They know they aren't, but demand they be treated equally as people, because their race and sexual orientation shouldn't be held against them.

A parallel to that does exist to what we've seen with black and gay civil rights movements, would be when people discriminate against trans people because they consider them freaks and the other, etc. But that's not the aspect of trans rights movement I'm talking about in the OP.

 

Would you mind expounding on the above comment? What kinds of segregation do you think is "too much"?

 

That agrees with the perspective that I have been expressing, that you are focusing on only part of the transgender rights movement, but are characterizing that part to be its essence. I agree that what you are talking about, certainly does enter into the equation, but I also see that you are missing a big part of the movement. Here is a link to a general, overall, coverage of the topic, that goes through the movement's history, back to the early 1950s. Throughout that history, up to & including today, the transgendered have been targeted for acts of violence, harassment, & non gender-specific discrimination, which our law does not yet address.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_rights_movement#:~:text=The transgender rights movement is,, education, and health care.

<SNIP>

Statistics of oppression
(Further information: Transgender inequality)
In a survey conducted by National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called "Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey", respondents reported that 90% of them had experienced discrimination and harassment in the work place and at school. The trans community experiences rates of unemployment that are double the national average. Additionally, one out of every twelve trans women, and one out of every eight trans women of color, are physically attacked or assaulted in public.[37]

<END SNIP>

I think this (above) is a more central concern of the trans community. In fact, it would take little speculation, to assume that the desire of trans women (Man to Woman switch over), to use female rest rooms, is largely out of fear of the harassment & violence that proceeds from their using male toilet facilities. So it does not seem that these two issues can be legitimately separated.

<SNIP>

The transgender rights movement is a movement to promote the legal status of transgender people and to eliminate discrimination and violence against transgender
people regarding housing, employment, public accommodations, education, and health care.

<End Snip>

The wikipedia page on Transgender inequality, seems a more detailed source of information:

<SNIP>

Several recent studies - from Trans Equality - have shown that transgender individuals face discrimination within their own family units and schools, in employment and housing, within government settings, through hate crimes, and under the justice and legal systems... In EDUCATION, transgender individuals also describe discrimination from peers. Transgender youth are three times more likely to be excluded by peers because they are "different."[7] A survey of National Center of Transgender Equality states, "Those who expressed a transgender identity or gender non-conformity while in grades K-12 reported alarming rates of harassment (78%), physical assault (35%) and sexual violence (12%); harassment was so severe that it led almost one-sixth (15%) to leave a school in K-12 settings or in higher education."[8]

Transgender individuals also face discrimination in EMPLOYMENT and HOUSING and within GOVERNMENT settings. Transgender individuals face double the unemployment, and 90% of those employed face discrimination within their own jobs.[8] The 1994 Employment Non-Discrimination Act DOES NOT PROTECT transgender individuals from employment discrimination.[6] Essentially 26% of transgender individuals had lost a job because of their transgender or non-conforming gender status.[8] The NCTE states, "Respondents who had lost a job due to bias also experienced ruinous consequences such as four times the rate of homelessness."[8]...

Although transgender individuals are more at risk health-wise, 19% of the respondents have described being refused medical care and 50% described their medical care was postponed because of their gender status.[8]...

Transgender individuals are disproportionately affected by HATE CRIMES, and some could argue the current justice and legal system are not equipped to manage such crimes. Transgender individuals are at risk for hate crime, yet transgender individuals are less likely to report transphobic violence because of their distrust for the police.[6] According to the NCTE, "One-fifth (22%) of respondents who have interacted with police, reported harassment by police, with much higher rates reported by people of color."[8] Overall, transgender individuals face discrimination by government agencies. NCTE also reports, "One fifth (22%) were denied equal treatment by a government agency or official; 29% reported police harassment or disrespect; and 12% had been denied equal treatment or harassed by judges or court officials."[8]

<END SNIP>

So this little bit of research, on my part, supports my impression that your presenting of the particular issues that you have, in this thread, as being the MAIN transgender rights issues, is a misrepresentation of the overall transgender rights movement.

 

It SHOULD be, but it isn't what you will typically hear about when you hear most "trans rights" activists.

It also isn't relevant to the OP post in this thread.

The point was that "trans rights" movement has something new to it that the black, women's and gay rights movements didn't have.

And the question asked in the OP is whether or not we have an ethical obligation to hold that something new up along with the old. Group of "others" being abused more than the majority or privileged is nothing new. A group of people asking not to be discriminated against, harrassed, etc is nothing new. But this demand to be regarded as a different identity than society would hold you to be, is something quite different.

 

The most obvious and non-controversial examples would be the equal rights the women's movement fought for and accomplished. The end of legally enforced gender roles, banning women from working in particular jobs, voting, etc. More controversial examples I would personally prefer would include multi-sex bathrooms, exclude "women's only" gyms or "men's only" lodges, and exclude shelters for the abused being usually only available for women. Most sports I also see little reason to gender segregate, especially minimal or zero contact sports.

Societal conventions I'd like to see done away with would mostly be those based on the presumption that women must be weak, victims and lack agency, and men must be strong, aggressors and be held responsible. Society patronizes women and treats them like children far too often even today after all these years of fighting for equality. And the recent rise of the illiberal left has bought into this and pushed this as well as the conservative (and especially religious conservative) right.

 

While I grant your, emboldened, argument, at the end of your post, I strongly question the accuracy of your post's opening sentence (in red). If that has been your experience, I think it is only indicative of where you have gained your exposure to transgender rights activists' arguments. That is, if you are only aware of them, based on their coverage in the Right wing Media (FOX News, etc.), it should go without saying that you are not getting a true sense of the aims of the movement; you are only seeing those parts of it, that those who object to the movement feel, reflect most poorly upon it/are the easiest to criticize.

I am relatively sure that the top priorities of the trans community, concern their being discriminated against-- including by the police, courts, & government agencies-- due to their lack of inclusion in anti-discrimination legislation. This includes housing discrimination, and a lack of protection from hate crimes, which are perpetrated, often, against them.

 

That all sounds horrible, but how much of it has been independently verified? Have you ever once observed this harassment?

Jesse Smollet "reported" being attacked by two MAGA thugs after midnight on a subzero night in Chicago. It was a total hoax, but the media ran with it. Not a single one of them called b.s. What were either he or two rednecks in Maga hats doing out in the ice after midnight in Chicago? (Dave Chappelle was one of the first to smell this anomaly.)

A woman was just kicked off an airplane because she wouldn't adhere to the dress code. She "reports" that this happened because she's fat, tattooed and biracial. Now, just as I know that air stewards have better things to do than to pick fights with random tattooed women on planes for no reason, I know also that cops have better things to do than to harass trans people. Not saying it has never happened, but don't believe everything you hear. People love attention and sympathy.

 

I recognize that this data was gathered from surveys, which rely on subjective opinion, so that I wouldn't assume the numbers to be 100% accurate, but I think it is a bizarre stretch to believe there might be nothing to this, as in the case of the individual actor, Smollett. That would be, to my mind, similar to pointing to cases in which women have been known to have lied about being raped, and extrapolating then, that "rape," is nothing that ever really happens.

I have enough experience with humans, to know that many treat people who they perceive as different from themselves, poorly. We saw this play out, historically, with many waves of American immigrants, from the Irish, to the Chinese, and everyone in-between. So I do not doubt that American police, among others, often "profile," young black men. I know that the homeless, as a community, do not get the same treatment, either from police or from the public, at large, as do other citizens. IOW, this idea is consistent with the discrimination that has, in the past, been much worse for blacks, for homosexuals, even for women.

Transgendered people are less-accepted by our society, on the whole, than any of these other groups. That our society would not be making them pay for being different, is the theory which, in my view, warrants the most skepticism.

 

I keep it simple. I decided that I don't know more about someone else's gender than they do. I decided decades ago that I was not so invested in someone's cues that I was going to make it power struggle. I recall in my youth we had folks still declaring war on 'Ms'. Women were married or they weren't married. The world did not owe them a third option that we never needed before. Well, the world adapted when the Washington Post changed its policy and the moon did its thing as it had before Ms was added to the Oxford dictionary..

It just about being respectful. I don't tell people what their name ought to be. They tell me. I don't tell them what gender I think they are. They tell me. I don't use my favorite pronouns on others. They pick the ones for them, I pick the ones for me.

What their gender is, and what their gender identity is, are issues between them and their personal physician to sort out. I know that I don't have any expertise on either of those issues and it's really none of my business to stick my nose in.

 

A point that YOU have FAILED to make!

In essence the OP is the same REHASHED bovine excrement that the extremist right used against Gays when it came to marriage claiming that they wanted "special rights".

Instead the trans rights movement is about DISCRIMINATION against transpeople which is ALLOWED under CURRENT laws!

Do YOU believe that transpeople can be DISCRIMINATED against just because they are a MINORITY that does NOT fit into YOUR STEREOTYPES of what comprises a minority?

All that transpeople want is the SAME as every other MINORITY which is be treated EQUALLY to everyone else.

Apparently even just GRASPING this simple concept appears to be too ONEROUS for those that do NOT understand what being trans is all about.

 

That's irrelevant. One doesn't require any knowledge of transgenderism to be respectful of a person's rights to have the same freedoms afforded them in our Constitution in the USA.

All of it. Black, brown, purple, homosexual, bi-sexual, asexual, transgender, disabled, unicorns, Martians...it's the same argument "I don't like you because you don't LOOK and/or LOVE like me."

 

That's a winner! We don't have to know or understand or even care for that matter.

All we have to do is respect someone else's right to be who they on their terms - the exact same thing we ask of others in return.

I sincerely believe if people stopped trying to force (or shame or blame or ostracize) others to conform to who they think they should be, much of this back and forth nonsense about politics would naturally dissipate. If the values we set for ourselves are strong enough, the question of what is "right" and "wrong" is complete. If it's wrong, it doesn't matter if the person of the same party and if it's right, it doesn't matter if the person is of the opposite party.

Our values and application of them should not be dependent on anything other than the ACTUAL circumstances, not political party, skin color, sexual preferences, level of poverty, level of education, shoe size, favorite ice cream of the people involved. It doesn't matter.

 

Your shouty tone is noted, but you speak bullshit. That is part of what is being asked for, and should obviously be granted. But that is not all that is being asked for. And that is not what sets this particular movement aside as different from the black, gay or women's rights movements.

What sets this movement apart as different is that they are being asked to be regarded as an identity that society does not see them as being. That means entering into gendered combat sports, going into shelters for abused women that exclude men, going into women's shower rooms, etc. Whether or not this is something that we should be on board with is open for debate and I see pros and cons on both sides of that debate. But there is no question that this is different than merely not wanting to be discriminated against because they are different, or to have the same rights as everybody else has.

 

That's all fine and good until you segregate people by gender and society disagrees with what people claim they are. A large person with a penis and a beard saying they are a woman and marching into a battered women's shelter that otherwise excludes men, entering women's combat sports and beating up women, etc, is just asking you to respect their right to be who they are on their terms.... except it really isn't that simple.

 

Thank you for CONFIRMING that YOU want to ENSURE that transpeople are DISCRIMINATED AGAINST when it comes to SPORTS and FACILITIES.

Apparently you do NOT understand what DISCRIMINATION means in DAILY LIFE.

Sad!

 

I gave no commentary on what I want in the text you quoted. I merely noted that there is something new here. You clearly want to shout at strawmen, so have at it.

I actually in a different post said I'm against a lot of gender segregation, which would make the OP observation a non-issue if society went in my preferred direction.

 

Can you explain how that (bolded) is any different than black people being "valued" at 3/5ths of a person and then counted as "whole"?

Using YOUR statement, "to be regarded as an identity that society does not see them as being."

It's the exact same argument. Society didn't see them that way. Some of our society STILL don't see them as having any "value".

And, that's exactly why movements like that one and this one evolve and will continue to evolve. As we grow, learn more, become more understanding and tolerant, the issues that surround these differences won't matter.

For example, my parents and my former in-laws are all racist and all homophobic. It felt like my ears were going to bleed listening to the stupidity of their arguments about people who've done nothing wrong to them.

I'm not racist or homophobic. I'm generally tolerant of most people, even ones I don't particularly like and I treat everyone with kindness. That's who I am. I'm not perfect. I don't always do everything right BUT I try to do the best I can to not intentionally cause another person harm.

Now, I'm a parent and I have two children. I never discussed racism with them. I never discussed sexuality with them either (I would have but they were kidnapped before they reached the age where that talk would have happened). I still am not a regular part of their but I know that before they were taken my ACTIONS, not my words made an influence.

I was talking to them on the phone and my daughter said that she saw an outfit that she wanted but she decided not to buy it. I asked her why and she said "because the company made a public statement that was negative about homosexual people and that's not right." I have never been the kind of person to tell my children (or others) WHAT to think. I taught them HOW to think.

And, I immediately realized the connection of *how* she reached that conclusion when she told me this. Several years ago, she was having lunch at school and one of her classmates had food that looked different than the other students' foods. Some of the kids were making fun of her so my daughter got up and went to sit next to her Indian classmate to provide a barrier between the kids making the comments. She didn't say anything much because she wasn't sure what to say in that moment. She just sat quietly next to her classmate and made small talk. I explained to her that she did the right thing and in those situations it's important to know that you don't always have the "right thing to say" but caring and kindness doesn't need any words. All it requires is action.

And, that's the same here. You don't have to understand it, like it, care about, think about it but you have to recognize it exists and it has a right to exist just like you do. And, that doesn't require knowing the right things to say. It just requires being kind enough to not say the wrong things. That's basic human respect.

 

First of all, that's not how domestic violence centers operate. Unless you have a specific case or cases in mind, this sounds like some point that has no destination.

Nobody in this conversation has ever said the answer to this is simple. It's not. That's not how societal evolution (and sometimes revolution) works. There is always social upheaval through change. It's going to be an adjustment. there are going to be some missteps, there are going to be changes to laws as society moves through this complex issue. All of that is the normal part of growing as a society.



I read quite a bit and I really like this site. Maybe you could take a look some time.

It was originally called "Teaching Tolerance." It is now "Learning for Justice".

https://www.learningforjustice.org/

https://www.splcenter.org/news/2021...s-name-reflect-evolving-work-struggle-radical