J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues

[sundin13]

Jaicee said:

sundin13 said:

To your first point, I don't really see any point going into that. I think your statements say all that need to be said. Those who are "gender critical" are simply transphobes who deny all transgender individuals their identity. That is basically the entire point I was making. Thanks for making it easy, I guess. If you want someone to explain how it feels to be trans to you, you probably shouldn't be asking me as a cis-man.

To the second, if we are to be concerned about women's feelings, why is it acceptable to have a masculine trans man in these spaces making them uncomfortable? If the issue was truly about the concerns and fears of women, why should it matter who exactly is causing them to be uncomfortable? Drawing an entirely arbitrary line here demonstrates to me that it is not about women's feelings of safety and concerns regarding how a woman might feel if a bearded individual walked into "their space", but instead just another lightly veiled means of denying trans identity and repressing trans individuals.

I asked you because you're the one asserting that gender identity is a real thing that exists objectively, not me.

Gender critical is also a broad term that encompasses women like me who take a hard line on gender identity, but also others (like J.K. Rowling) who don't, but at the same time recognized the socio-political significance of biological sex. Gender critical feminists could be conservatives, liberals, or radical feminists. It's a broad term. It even includes some transsexual women.

On the question of transmen and women's shelters, it's worth pointing out that you are speaking to a rape survivor. My experience with this tells me that what women in situations like these fear a lot in that moment is having to oh say spend the night with man they don't know, or someone they perceive as a man. It's not very easy for a transman to pass for a biological male, but if she is pulling that off in a way that causes fear to someone, then yeah, I think that should be addressed. But that's more of a marginal, exceptional phenom we're talking about here. The real, larger issue here is actual men wanting access to these spaces, and I don't just mean transwomen. To the extent that we collectively agree to render the term "woman" a meaningless one that anyone can claim, more and more men will claim it, and I don't mean with sincerity of heart but rather for predatory purposes and other social advantages over women.

The "real"ness of gender identity has not be a core part of my argument. I understand that to be a flashpoint, and as such, I have purposely made it so this conversation would not be about whether "gender identity is a real thing". I have my own personal beliefs, however I don't think it is necessary for me to bring them into this conversation at this time. To summarize, my three arguments are as follows:
1) Your speaker had several fundamental misunderstandings about transgender theory.
2) So called "gender critical" theory denies transgender identity as a whole.
3) The concerns about feelings of safety are valid, however the solution is fundamentally misplaced.

As for your comment on safety, I think your statements about "passing" are fairly interesting from a feminist perspective regarding gender, but the core point I want to highlight is that you largely acknowledge that codifying sex based spaces in law does not address the fundamental concerns at hand. It simply does not work as a solution. As such, we should not act like these "women are scared of trans women" arguments have any sway in these discussions, yet your speaker still devoted a significant chunk of her talk to these anecdotes. They simply aren't relevant to this discussion.

The question regarding the abuse of the system is another interesting question, however, it is an entirely separate matter to what I was discussing and what I was speaking about from the video you posted. I see this as you moving the goalposts. I presented a criticism about one point from the video and once you lost the ability to defend it, you said "oh, that isn't what is important, look over here!". I find this very telling about the strength of the core philosophy here.

But to briefly address this question, it seems to be something more akin to fear mongering than anything based on reality. In areas which have seen bans on discrimination based on gender identity and allowed access to spaces based on gender identity, there has been no record of an increase in this behavior. cis-Men pretending to be women to gain access to women's spaces is something that has happened in the past, but unsurprisingly, it isn't correlated with the presence of these rights for trans individuals. Further, even if there are laws segregating spaces based on sex, a cis-man could claim to be a trans man and enter a woman's space. Not only is this a poorly supported fear, laws to address it would simply change the things that an individual would have to say to gain access to the space. It would not provide any significant additional protections.

On the other hand, transgender individuals are in very real danger when their access to these spaces is policed.