When the push for transgender inclusion was about bathrooms, the discussion that ensued was about bathrooms, as if that was the start and end of the issue. Even then, there were other issues at play, locker rooms, showers, dorm and hotel rooms, that didn’t catch the level of interest of bathrooms. That meant people talked about stalls where people did their business, and what was the big deal, really?
The problem was never bathrooms, even if locker rooms, showers and dorms didn’t fit as nicely into the “no biggie” paradigm. Some women raised the issue of privacy, of a safe space for women, and for young girls, to clean and dress without seeing a penis, and without someone with a penis seeing them naked. The “social construct” argument was created in part to overcome the cognitive dissonance of this situation. It was a fight about nothing, about something society invented that didn’t really exist.
Their concerns were dismissed to the extent they were discussed at all. Just because some mom is a prude who feels her child deserves some female privacy is no excuse to discriminate. Their little darlin’ will get over it. A transgender person will not. Why the feelings of one trump the feelings of another was justified by marginalization. The more marginalized person’s rights beat the marginalized, but less so, person’s rights.
But once the initial shock and awe was overcome by the details of toilet stall doors and Puritan moms, the natural progression of the concept would necessarily happen, and to the outrage and horror of the trans community, the BBC said a part of it out loud, a variation on a theme predicted here.
Jennie is a lesbian woman. She says she is only sexually attracted to women who are biologically female and have vaginas. She therefore only has sex and relationships with women who are biologically female.
Jennie doesn’t think this should be controversial, but not everyone agrees. She has been described as transphobic, a genital fetishist, a pervert and a “terf” – a trans exclusionary radical feminist.
Jennie is a woman. Jennie is a lesbian woman. She is not sexually attracted to people with a penis. Is this not allowed?
“I’ve had someone saying they would rather kill me than Hitler,” says 24-year-old Jennie*.
“They said they would strangle me with a belt if they were in a room with me and Hitler. That was so bizarrely violent, just because I won’t have sex with trans women.”
What’s notable about this is that it isn’t a matter of persuasion, or even personal preference. It’s sexual demands upon threat of violence. That tolerance and empathy piece comes off a lot less sincere when accompanied by the two-prong reaction of deserve to die and worse than Hitler. Nice, right?
“There’s a common argument that they try and use that goes ‘What if you met a woman in a bar and she’s really beautiful and you got on really well and you went home and you discovered that she has a penis? Would you just not be interested?'” says Jennie, who lives in London and works in fashion.
Jennie’s answer is yes, for the obvious reason that she’s a lesbian and, as such, does not want someone to penetrate her with a penis no matter what that person was wearing before, what name she uses or what changes were made to her birth certificate or passport. It’s nothing personal, but it’s very personal.
This arises in the context of a lesbian woman pressured to accept a transgender woman as a woman for the purpose of engaging in sex. It presents the same situation that will arise when a straight man takes a beautiful woman on a date and, at the end of the evening, learns that his date has a penis. What’s it gonna be, boy?
At this stage of the progression, the attack is largely emotional pressure of the sort that many would argue constitutes rape if applied by a straight man to a straight woman.
As well as experiencing pressure to go on dates or engage in sexual activity with trans women, some of the respondents reported being successfully persuaded to do so.
“I thought I would be called a transphobe or that it would be wrong of me to turn down a trans woman who wanted to exchange nude pictures,” one wrote. “Young women feel pressured to sleep with trans women ‘to prove I am not a terf’.”
One woman reported being targeted in an online group. “I was told that homosexuality doesn’t exist and I owed it to my trans sisters to unlearn my ‘genital confusion’ so I can enjoy letting them penetrate me,” she wrote.
One might chalk up the fear of being called a “transphobe” or a “TERF” to the fact that these women were lesbians, and already inclined by their own experiences to be more sensitive to such characterizations. After all, when one relies on marginalization as an argument for asserting rights, it’s hard to deny the same to others, particularly when your initials have been mashed together for years.
But this sensitivity is also prevalent on college campuses. It’s not that every student suddenly identifies as non-binary, but many do to demonstrate their support or that they’re hip. Even students who don’t perceive themselves to be particularly progressive have a decidedly progressive perspective on issues of race and gender. This leaves many students open to sexual extortion by pressure to engage in sex not based on physical attraction, but identity politics. Nobody on campus wants to be called the university transphobe.
And when the date is over and sex is in the offing, until the moment Timmy learns that Sally has a penis, the option will be acquiesce or discriminate. For now, it’s sexual peer pressure. If that fails, there’s Title IX. It’s going to go there because it has nowhere else to go.
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Yes, it’s almost identical to the scenario you proposed a few years back–which was of course considered ridiculous at the time.
There’s no such thing as a “trans man” or a “trans woman.” There are people who, for whatever reason, claim to believe they’re something other than what they objectively are, and while I’ll admit I’m not a mental health professional, I’m pretty sure that “indulging the delusional patient’s delusions” isn’t a typical part of treatment for such conditions. If I were to wake up one morning believing I were a large badger, I’m pretty sure that treatment would not include surgically altering me to look more like a badger.
People who believe they’re something other than what they objectively are clearly suffer from a mental illness (likely some flavor of a delusional disorder). They should be treated with sympathy and compassion, to be sure, but the rest of us need not–indeed, should not–share in their delusions. The sooner we as a society re-learn this, the better off we will all be.
First, it’s not that I’m so smart that I figured out something others didn’t, but that this was always obvious to anyone who chose to take a serious look at where this had to go.
Second, I accept the premise that some people have gender dysphoria, and I’m neither qualified nor interested in disputing the point. I reject chalking it up to delusions. Let people be whoever they want to be. But the future acceptance of transgender people cannot be predicated on gender hegemony, where they get to dictate how other people’s sexual orientation must give way to theirs. It’s unsustainable and counterproductive.
Just as transgender people should not suffer discrimination, so too shouldn’t gay and straight people, men and women. We need to not make rights a zero-sum game, but accommodate everyone’s rights to the extent possible. The tail cannot wag the dog.
This is the humane, and rational view of the whole mess, and probably that held by most people who are even aware of the issue. That any debate on the matter has degenerated to the extent it has, does no favours to anyone, least of all the “minorities” in question. Here in the UK, there is a definite turning of the tide on this one, and, lacking discrimination as it does, it won’t just sweep up the extremists. And that’s a shame.
“What if you met a woman in a bar and…”
And what if her name was Lola?
A few days ago I wrote here that everything old is new again.
All kidding aside, there are many mental health issues where part of the treatment for the condition is accomodation, i.e. changing of one’s lifestyle or environment to minimize the discomfort caused by the condition. This is true for various forms of anxiety disorders and depression, and for gender dysphoria. It appears that some people become happier in their personal lives and more productive members of society if they change their outward gender presentation. I see no reason not to let them do that, since it doesn’t much affect me. Having worked with a few, I have no idea if they had surgical alterations or artificial hormonal treatments (except for one who was open about), since those things are none of my business. Professionally, they are colleagues just like everyone else; socially, they are friends just like everyone else.
Intimate relations are a different category from all others. One can be attracted, or not attracted, to people who are bald, or hairy, or muscular, or skinny, or whatever. The ‘genital confusion’ argument made in the article can only be supported if one believes that physical appearance plays no role in attraction. If it is OK for the shape of my face or body to play a role in your attraction to me, there is no reason to insist that the shape of my private parts ought not to.
It’s odd that no one complains about finding a person with a big nose or hairy back unattractive, but there are people, often the same, who find it racist to not be sexually attracted to people of a different race, or fat people (fatshaming) or unidexters. Some physical characteristics are acceptable while others, as relates to their place on the marginalized scale are not.
But it hurts their feelings!
“Pay attention to ME!”
That could apply to a great many things these days.
Pardon me for being obtuse, but how would a private refusal turn into a Title IX claim? We’ve seen heterosexual, cisgender Title IX claims based on what can accurately be described as buyer’s remorse, but has anyone actual brought a Title IX claim for being turned down for sex, let alone succeeded in that claim?
As explained in the linked post:
It has yet to happen, but it’s entirely possible and, ultimately, very likely.
But mere sex discrimination by an individual doesn’t get to a Title IX claim, it would have to be a school failing to prevent “sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence” to quote Lhamon’s letter. There’s not going to be a ‘turned me down for sex’ claim, although there might be a turned me down for sex and then said nasty things claim.
You may not be aware of this, but sexual harassment has been very broadly interpreted on many campuses.
At the moment, Title IX defines sexual harassment as one of the following three categories: quid pro quo, sexual assault, and “unwelcome conduct” which is defined as “[conduct] so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denied a person equal access to the school’s education program or activity”. Under this standard, a school attempting to categorize Joe’s conduct as violating Title IX would have to attempt the bold-face claim that sex between students is “an educational program or activity”.
But if they tried, it would result in Joe having a strong claim against the school under the quid pro quo prong which forbids a “school employee [conditioning] education benefits on participation in unwelcome sexual conduct.”
Even Catherine Lhamon and her minions will find it hard to rewrite these definitions in a way that could allow a school to discipline a student for refusing consent to sex.
smh. First, you’re new here, so you may not be aware that Title IX law is discussed here regularly, that we’re lawyers and nobody needs you, new commenter, to explain the law to them. Being a pedantic asshole is not the way to make friends with lawyers and judges on a law blog.
Second, your statement about Title IX causes of action misses the point. Those are the actions available by an aggrieved against the school, and have nothing to do with the rules schools put in place to govern peer-to-peer sexual misconduct. That they offer a potential for redress after a student has been expelled isn’t the issue.
Third, you’re likely wrong even on your point. Sexual harassment based on unwelcome conduct will very likely include refusal, after enthusiastic consent, to engage in sex based on transgender status. It’s no stretch at all.
Scott, I’ve been reading your blog pretty much daily since around 2007/2008 when Howard Bashman’s How Appealing pointed to your takedown on the insularity of one of the first ABA Blog 100 lists from those days. I never have the inclination to comment (today being a rare exception), but I’m quite familiar with the community that does, as well as with the nuanced history of your writing on the topic.
I certainly wasn’t intending to make it seem like I was jumping in an explaining nuances of the law that you know a damn sight better than I do – but re-reading what I wrote that was certainly a fair impression and I can’t argue that it reeks of pedantic assholery. Mea culpa, and sincere apologies.
Fair enough. All is forgotten (except for the Bashman part, for which I’m deeply wounded). Carry on.
Well, now I hate you because you handled this so well and maturely, and left me nothing but admiration.
Fuck, my day is ruined.
Maybe Jay will show up. Hope springs eternal.
Why would you assume that would happen when nobody has come for the people who refuse to date others outside their own race? After all, racism is much more unacceptable. I don’t know why this particular issue has someone who’s usually so level headed engaging in unrealistic fearmongering because you’ve found there’s a few extremists promoting it (some of whom are just trolls, if you’ve ever been to certain places on the web like 4chan, you’d know promoting fear about how cis people will be forced to have sex with trans people is a popular tactic of people who explicitly want trans people dead. The troll:true believer ratio might be just a little better than the “MAP rights” people demanding a “P” get added on to the alphabet, perhaps proclaiming that that’s actually a popular mainstream view ultimately very likely is next?).
This isn’t an application of Title IX that’s taken seriously by anyone except the anti-trans crowd trying to make it into a belief held by the trans rights movement when it’s about as popular there as the ‘enslave white people’ view is in the BLM crowd, and received the same way by the rest.
Ironically, race has been one of the biggest drivers of Title IX prosecutions, when white women have sex with black men and are later attacked by their friends for it, so claim rape. You can’t makes reality disappear by calling people trolls when it doesn’t turn out the way you wished it would.
So let me see if I understand progressive logic here.
If you are penetrated by someone you don’t want doing so, we will stand with you to destroy that person, unless that person is one of a group we favor that makes up 0.3% of the population. In that case, you’d better let it happen or we’re coming after YOU.
Does that about sum it up?
Let’s be fair, the argument isn’t that any particular person (of whatever identity) should be able to have their way sexually. The argument is that proclaiming your lack of sexual attraction to anyone of the group is a form of bigotry, comparable to saying the same thing about, say, a particular ethnic group. It’s not difficult to imagine such a sentiment being widely seen as racist.
But since we’re talking about sex identity in this case, they have to erase and demonize the whole concept of sexual orientation to make this analogous, sacrificing LGB (and S) on the altar of T. It’s a mystery how replacing it with a socially constructed gender preference is an upgrade rather than an even better example of what they are claiming.
The movement – as it is being championed and systemically implemented – is an MRA dream come true. It isn’t just working to allow trans-identified males into women’s spaces, it is working toward the removal of women’s spaces and contexts completely. It would dismantle sex-segregation of restrooms and intimate spaces, sports, social and institutional contexts, etc. by removing any justification for it beyond tradition, and labeling it as bigotry using #NotAllMen logic. Meanwhile they will deny that any memory-holed offenders are authentically trans while pushing for a standard that explicitly includes them.
When people used to say “The Future Is Female,” I wonder how many thought that it meant that “Female” would be dissolved and universalized. Anyone who claims that the definition of “woman” isn’t being erased but is merely being enlarged should similarly have no problem with the definition of “indigenous” being enlarged to include Mike Pence.
As a superstraight male, I heartily approve, and anxiously await the addition of SS to the LBGTQ++ privilege group with whom lesbians will be required to have gay sex if they don’t want to be shunned as terfs.
Is “superstraight” kinda like 110% or do you doth protest too much?
Haven’t you heard? Superstraight is the new marginalized group. I’ll spare you the link but you can google it.
Wow, and you get capes, too.
If, as the popular press claims, there are at least three biological sexes and three gender identities , there are at least 81 possible sexual orientations (eg “type 17”: biological male who identifies as a man attracted to biological female who identifies as non-binary). And of course if there are more than three classes per category or more categories to consider, the combinatorics expand well beyond 81.
Thus, the problem with the BBC analysis is oversimplification. Jennie is not merely a lesbian woman. She is (I gather) a “type 6”: biological female who identifies as a woman attracted to biological females who identify as women.
For those who want to play identity politics, there is an optimal size of one’s coalition: small enough to be an oppressed ‘minority’, large enough to have some political power. The intersectionality game allowed temporary escape from that constraint, by giving points along orthogonal axes: race, gender, religion, class, and ability, among others, were said to be independently assorted so you could collect points in each. Yet contrary to Wesley Yang’s theory of the plus-sign, the plight of Jennie makes clear that never-ending expansion cannot be done within the category of sexual orientation. And indeed, if the pile of treasure to be redistributed gets small enough, the intersectional alliances will collapse into inter-sectional warfare.
It’s hard to read the caption in this image, but I’ve always appreciated it.
In the back of mind, there is this voice that tells me that this part of a well-designed plot to destroy America through creating division. Step 1, cause hatred between political parties. Step 2, cause hatred between the rich and poor. … Step 27, cause hatred between trans and lesbians. .. Step 53, restart the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. I believe step 89 is designed to make you and I hate each other.
It may sound paranoid but it fits the facts and the second best explanation is that fluoride in the water causes insanity. I truly believe that there are foreign influences fanning the flames on both side. Perhaps it’s not a overarching plot but they are happy to egg on the extremists in cases like this.
Fluoride would explain a lot.
“I truly believe that there are foreign influences fanning the flames”
After all the work America has done to help the rest of the world cope with foreign influence this is the thanks we get.
I get called a trans-activist and a TERF and a transphobe. It’s confusing. But you say “let people be whoever they want to be,” and get no push back at all. Maybe sticking to platitudes is the way, rather than actually engaging with the ideas.
I’ll be here saying that gender is not entirely biological and not entirely social and not entirely performative until I run out of air. What trans-activists are saying is not all nonsense even if “genital preferences are transphobic” is absurd. At least you end up in a decent enough place despite hand-waving away arguments you might want to look at again. It isn’t all absurd. Maybe your rugged individualism does have its benefits or you’re being a good humanist, I can’t tell because you don’t say.
Live and let live. PK. The problem arises when others don’t believe in the platitude. I would hand-wave away your argument had you made any.
There are two primary problems with that: first, what does ‘gender’ mean in the first place as you use it, and second, what significance does one’s ‘gender’ have to others?
As per the subject at hand here, the sex of a person is the actual factor that matters in most interactions where others would wish to pretend ‘gender’ is the end-all-be-all, and it’s hard to think of a scenario where it genuinely could be said that sex is not the actual salient characteristic. Do women not deserve a word to unambiguously talk about the reality of being female? Do female athletes have to tolerate mixed sex competitions? Do female prisoners not have the right to actual, sex segregated accomodations? And per here again, do lesbians not deserve to have a word that describes their same sex attraction and to be able to openly describe this part of their being after decades, if not centuries, of activism to reach that point?
As the gracious host says, live and let live; no one should be persecuted for a desire to affect some trait associated with the other sex, but simultaneously the no one’s feelings – regardless of how deeply or genuinely held – can require that others participate in them. I’m not a “man” because of some deep seated feeling – you’re not welcome to know my deep seated feelings at all – I am one because my body is male and that’s the word we use. If you wish to live backwards in time where there was some other defining characteristics to satisfy if one is to “be a man” that’s your prerogative, but don’t expect me to feel you’re particularly progressive because of it.
Thanks for proving my point. I don’t even have to make an argument and you appear to disagree with me anyway. I don’t get it. I wish your simplistic understanding was all I needed to see the light, but it’s not. Why does everyone feel the need to be puritanical about this subject in particular? I’m tired of being a heretic.
Thanks for not burning me at the stake this time. Carry on.
What I didn’t know I needed. Thanks, Howl.
I’d reply with a “thumb’s up” emoji, but, you know, violence.
> It’s sexual demands upon threat of violence
Heck of a mouthful there. We should come up with a shorter way to refer to such a disgusting thing. If only the English language had such a word already, we wouldn’t have to search but, alas, nothing springs readily to mind.
I was being too subtle again when I drew the analogy to rape. Nuts.
As it turns out, what happens in the privacy of people’s bedrooms will become the business of government bureaucracies.
This goes to show that even when they identify as women, male bodies will still feel entitled to dominate female bodies.
So transgender women are still oppressors because of their “male bodies”?
https://assets.amuniversal.com/7ab14b700cdf013a7df7005056a9545d