Gender identity thread

CtevenSrowder

km991148 wrote: »

I am prefixing this by saying I want discussion to continue, I really do, therefore I'm deliberately leaving out the he said she said stuff regarding the other posters. The mods can clarify who was banned, who quit and for what reasons.

Two technical points that I think are not quite true and are somewhat clouding the discussion.



I think cis is sometimes required in a conversation about trans people as sometimes you need to differentiate. People want to identify as 'man' or 'woman' but no one is in denial that someone was born something else. Therefore sometime cis is required, and I don't think it's misgendering (it might be clumsy language, or language you don't like, but sometimes required on the wider context).

No, it is absolutely not required. Posters have asked those that use the term cis to not use it, and use either non trans or natal instead. These requests have been ignored. Clumsy language ofcourse happens, but posters repeatedly asked for that term not to be used in reference to them and they were ignored.

It doesn't really bother me, I think it's just a silly usage of language, but it's interesting that posters who will talk about respect don't show it themselves (and that is not aimed at you).

km991148 wrote: »

Science doesn't cover only biology (and maybe more specifically biology of reproductive organs or chromosomes). There are other fields of science that follow the scientific method and I don't think you can argue on these lines alone (I.e. 'scientific fact'. i.e. your logic that only biological science is the only logic is somewhat illogical, especially given that scientific knowledge is not fixed. We observe, learn and our knowledge evolves.

Biology, chemistry, maths and physics make up the 'hard' sciences. This is to differentiate from the 'soft' sciences (which I presume you are referring to), that make up essential all the social sciences. I suggest you look up the difference between the two, particularly with regards to the scientific method and it's usage.

Yes, out knowledge evolves. And until the stage that biology has evolved so that somehow a female can become a male (in reference to humans), or it is shown that there is no differences between males and females, or some kind of definition that manages to include males in the the definition of what a women is that doesn't make the term completely obsolete, or appeal to stereotype, my point re science stands.

CtevenSrowder

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

But it’s not “incorrect”. If we are discussing trans then logic dictates there is cis. Without that it would get too confusing as we would not be able to tell if someone was referring to a transgender or a cisgender person.

No it doesn't. We aren't discussing chemistry. You can say non-trans, natal, you can just say trans for those that are (trans-man, trans-women, trans-person etc.) and 'man, women etc.') for those that aren't. The prefix 'cis' is not required.

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

No, that would be misgendering. But you already know that.

So is labelling someone a 'cis' man who identifies merely as a man.

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

See, I would regard the equal targeting as having balanced out now. Previously, I would have seen a number of pro-trans users getting banned. But they weren’t banned for no reason, they would have broken site, or thread, rules. The idea that the mods, collectively, are taking a “side” is laughable.

The mods rely on either seeing a post that breaks the “rules” or a post gets reported. Can you honestly say that anyone has been banned without a reason. The best way to avoid a ban is post within the rules. From what I saw a number of posters ignored mod instructions, repeatedly, and got banned. As for one post being missed, come on, they got it in the end.

What I am talking about is very recent. The moderation up to about a week or 2 ago was fine, with both sides being treated fairly in my opinion, and mods being open to discussing your ban, until the new updated mod warning in the OP. So I agree with you to an extent. This was clearly designed to rid the thread of posters, and supposedly came out of the mods discussing it between themselves. I don't see why the thread wasn't left as it was when it was initially started by Baggly.

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

The rules are set, I don’t know what you want here. Be able to say whatever you want? In an ideal world but the rules are there and everyone has to abide by them. I would imagine that users with good disciplinary “records” might get more leeway than the rest of us but that’s understandable.

No, the 'rules' were set and then changed.

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

I would argue that science is not backing one side here. It seems that one side is steadfast in the belief that 1+1=2 but won’t stand for 1+1+1=3. I guess belief and feelings are not exclusive to any side but I would see the anti-trans side as also holding fear as a “cornerstone” to their belief.

But here we go again. The 'anti-trans' side. Who is anti-trans? Are the women who want single sex spaces in areas of the World like south east asia 'anti-male' or 'anti-man' if you'd rather? What about women that advocate for more women's refuge's? Anti-man I guess? Why is wanting to keep male rapists out of a women's prison 'anti-trans'? Why is wanting to keep sport single sexed (at a high level at least) 'anti-trans', when it is known that biological males have inherent advantages on average, as a result of their sex?

Again, and again, and again, the terms 'anti-trans', 'TERF', 'transphobe' are wheeled out, and if the mods want to be heavy handed on the thread then there's not much we can do, but the heavy handedness must go both ways.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

km991148 wrote: »

I don't use terf and I don't really want to get into that. Context is key with any terminology.

I do find that highlighted part absolutely fascinating. If I understood correctly, the idea is that one cannot be anti trans because one wishes to include trans men in female spaces. A bit of a tricky situation, considering (I'd imagine) trans men are identifying as male because they no longer wish to be considered female. So they would only be included if their trans status was in fact denied.

I mean, please tell me I have made a mistake in that logic, because really that does not conpute.

Their trans status would only be denied to anyone who conflates gender and biological sex and we are ALWAYS being told that nobody is saying that sex and gender are one and the same. :rolleyes: My stance - transgender men and women can identify that way to their heart’s content. Their underlying sex is however unchangeable and with that comes material, serious concerns that must be acknowledged. The time of feigning innocence has passed. To many, transgender men are female and transgender women are male. It’s not anti-trans to say that. It’s stating the reality. And thankfully the thought police don’t exist - yet - so you can’t force anyone to believe otherwise.

Transgender men are female, always. That can’t be changed. So for what reason would anyone who wants to preserve female spaces want to exclude them from those spaces? That would be really hypocritical. For me the whole argument is that males are at a huge physical advantage and male patterns of offending greatly differ from female.

If you point this out online, you tend to get treated to a phalanx of photographs of females who have clearly had to take a hell of a lot of testosterone to get looking as manly as they do with guffawing accompanying comments like “Oh, you’d be okay with THIS female next to you in a space where females are vulnerable?”. And all I feel is sad, really, because we do actually know what damage androgens do to the female body so I immediately wonder about their bodily health. There’s plenty of research on that. And, yes, that heavily testosterone-medicated female could be veering into the male strength grouping. But it would be hypocritical of me to exclude that transgender man from female places based on my personal stance.

Secondly, I strongly suspect that most transgender men won’t look like those in the photos. I wouldn’t be at all concerned if Elliot Page as he looks today strolled into a changing room beside me. In fact, I strongly suspect that some of the transgender men in the photos presented online won’t look exactly that manly if I saw them in the flesh. This is the age of filters and there’s all kinds of anatomical tells of maleness and femaleness that human are wired to notice. The way one stands for example, gait etc. People aren’t going to be obsessively trying to clock these (no genital inspections required :rolleyes:). They just WILL, a lot of the time. So a photograph isn’t even that useful.

That reply went on longer than I thought.

TLDR: it’s only “anti-trans” to think of transgender men as female and transgender women as male if one thinks of sex and gender are the same thing.

Spear

Mod note:

the topic at hand is the moderation of the thread in question. This thread isn't a place to continue the discussion from that aforementioned thread. So please keep to the topic of the matter at hand.

EmmetSpiceland

The thread has been going for 4 months now, hundreds of pages. That’s not including its predecessor the JK Rowling Terf thread. Just a bit odd that this thread appears now.

From what I could see the CA thread would have died out were it not for the tireless “effort” of 2 posters, one currently sitebanned and the other currently threadbanned. Any “trans negative” article was posted and any dissenting voices were hounded out or got themselves threadbanned.

Even now, anytime someone trans-accepting tries to explain what they think, often “backed up” with links, they are dismissed offhand as being against science and if that doesn’t discourage them the toilet/changing room/prison/sport fear-mongering is deployed. It’s like a religion at this stage.

I don’t believe the thread should be closed, the discussion is important but I would be a little concerned about it being used as a personal “crusade” against trans people. Whether it should be moved to another forum, I’d leave that up to the mods but I, personally, don’t see a need for it.

Overall, I think the moderation of the forum has been balanced. Stay within the rules and you won’t get banned from the thread, break them and, well, you can’t really argue, can you?

GreeBo

Tokyo wrote: »

As a regular poster to the site, you have no visibility into what actions have taken place behind the scenes, or what discussions have been had over this between moderators. And considering you have posted prolifically in that thread, it's fair to say that confirmation bias might be a consideration there.

Well like every other regular poster I can only judge based on the visible actions and they are the ones I am basing my posts on.
Only one side is getting moderated and your own words are that one side is set in their beliefs, so it's obvious which side you think is which.

Tokyo wrote: »

I didn't say "only 1 side is the problem here". But to say there wasn't a groundswell from one side on the day of posting that led to this thread is disingenuous.

I didn't say there wasn't a groundswell, I also didn't think there was an issue with numerous posters having the same opinion? What you did say or rather agree with is that *one* side is set in their beliefs. Are you saying that the trans positive posters are open-minded, unlike everyone else?

Tokyo wrote: »

So by extrapolation, trans negative views should hold an equal place here??

If you consider asking basic questions negative then yes, they should. I have zero tolerance for discrimination or abuse of anyone, trans or otherwise, the problem seems to be that I'm not free to voice my opinion that maybe it's not at clear cut at everyone gets to choose and change their gender. I'd I do it's seen as negative. How do you have a debate if only one view is permitted?

Tokyo wrote: »

Either way, why should we sequester the discussion away to a 'safe space'? Why shouldn't the site as a whole be a safe space for all while still facilitating discussion?

If that's how you feel threads about a marginalized group of people should be treated, rather than making not unreasonable concessions, then you may want to ask yourself exactly why that is.

Well there are already lots of safe spaces on boards, posts that would be fine in Christianity wouldn't last long in A&A, equally negative cycling posts aren't tolerated in cycling forum.
I think it's disingenious to suggest otherwise frankly.

I also don't believe a specific forum is in anyway marginalizing. It's literally a dedicated forum.
Not allowing other posters voice their opinions means it's not an open discussion, if only one side is allowed post, what's the debate about? There is nothing left to debate!

GreeBo

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Any “trans negative” article was posted

What's wrong exactly with posting things that are negative? If they are genuine articles or links aren't they valid? How do you have a fair debate if only positive articles are permitted?

EmmetSpiceland

GreeBo wrote: »

What's wrong exactly with posting things that are negative? If they are genuine articles or links aren't they valid? How do you have a fair debate if only positive articles are permitted?

It’s not that, it’s that there was no discussion, or debate, just a couple of users going around in circles demonising trans people.

Quantum Erasure

Haven't been paying attention to all this, but I think its ridiculous that the dunne was banned when the poster he was arguing with at the time conflates sex and gender, saying chromosomes / biology mean nothing, and that's where the issue arose.

Gatling

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

It’s not that, it’s that there was no discussion, or debate, just a couple of users going around in circles demonising trans people.

That's not true ,

But you have touched on something ,in tra circles there is a well known tactic of claiming people are having hysterical reactions to toilets, changing rooms and or safe spaces for women, because all are claimed anti trans , it's used on social media and across other discussion forums ,and anyone who tries to speak up is put on the cancellation list or face threats of rape or other physical violence ,

It's a discussion forum not an echo chamber for a group of wannabe activists , Surely people should be engaging in discussion and voice their opinions ,not sitting on threads enmass reporting posts or thanking posts which are trolling or taking digs at people ,
If people people are happy to engage and discuss a topics let them do so ,this silly game of I'm reporting every post for one poster or several posters till no one wants to take part any more because the terminally offended are sitting teacher , teacher I think that person or persons said something they feel might have offended somebody , somewhere in the world and they are offended on their behalf,

LLMMLL

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

Haven't been paying attention to all this, but I think its ridiculous that the dunne was banned when the poster he was arguing with at the time conflates sex and gender, saying chromosomes / biology mean nothing, and that's where the issue arose.

I've never said chromosomes and biology mean nothing. Not going to debate it as it's not the point of this thread but I want to point out that this is inaccurate.

In fairness the Dunne called me pathetic and his other posts were very aggressive.

Just to support what other have been saying, I used to have a long list of the stuff I've been called during debates in trans threads. When I posted the list on thread I was told to stop whinging. It's been a fairly toxic debate and the thread seems much more balanced and calmer now.

And for anyone who says the debate can't continue now... Well it is continuing. On both sides. There's been a good few pages of debate over the last week. So it's fairly wrong to state that no debate can take place because it's been turned into a safe space.

Annasopra

AllForIt wrote: »

Point taken Mark.

But at the same time, we haven't had much input from transgender people themselves. And neither have we had much input from those to claim to be derivatives of transgender, i.e. non-binary, gender-fluid etc.

So yes I am at times speaking randomly, 'thinking out loud'. But I would have thought that would be helpful, rather than not. I'm open to being corrected/informed, but not in an aggressive withering fashion. I am 'open-minded' which I was accused of not being, otherwise I would't pose such questions.

I think as long as one makes a point civilly and within the charter rules, one should be able say what they like. It's only a discussion forum, and if ppl are really sensitive, maybe this isn't the place for them. I don't get why anyone would be here if they weren't up for debate which can often can evoke some degree of emotion.

But if people are allowed say what they like then why would trans people actually enter the discussion? If its a freeforall then its a debate often used to attack them and their identity.

Gatling

Annasopra wrote: »

But if people are allowed say what they like then why would trans people actually enter the discussion? If its a freeforall then its a debate often used to attack them and their identity.

That's not whats happening in that thread ,none of the mod actions have been for anything to do with transpobic comments or attacking trans people ,it's a cohort of posters who came from another thread with one objective shut down the discussion at all costs ,they don't want the topic discussed here ,CA or LGBT forum's by the look of it , why else would someone suggest only gay men should discuss the topic ,that makes zero sense ,a woman poster talked about her circumstance and why she feels about part of the discussion the same cohort had a go at her together ,
The same posters calling people bigots , transpobic , homophobic and other things just because people Call them out , while spamming the report button,

There is a few trans people using boards for years, I'd gladly listen to their opinions ,I'm not buying first time posters for obvious reasons

LLMMLL

It's really odd that anyone would think TRAs are trying to shut down the thread.

Just tonight there's been a respectful discussion on the topics of sports and toilets. No sniping, no reporting, very civil.

The most likely thing to get it shut down is an overwhelming number of people breaking the thread rules. And generally, it's not TRAs who are breaking the rules.

GreeBo

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

It’s not that, it’s that there was no discussion, or debate, just a couple of users going around in circles demonising trans people.

No debate? Demonizing?
I take great offence to that actually. Who did I ever demonize?

The last few days has been one poster presenting as trans yet refusing to answer any of the difficult questions and accusing others of going around in circles and on merry go round. If questions were actually answered there might be fewer circles?

LLMMLL

GreeBo wrote: »

No debate? Demonizing?
I take great offence to that actually. Who did I ever demonize?

The last few days has been one poster presenting as trans yet refusing to answer any of the difficult questions and accusing others of going around in circles and on merry go round. If questions were actually answered there might be fewer circles?

It's not an AMA. They can answer as many or as few questions as they like.

And let's be realistic. Whatever answer they gave to your questions is hardly going to get an "alright so" response. The usual arguments and nitpicking would of course follow on.

CtevenSrowder

LLMMLL wrote: »

I've never said chromosomes and biology mean nothing. Not going to debate it as it's not the point of this thread but I want to point out that this is inaccurate.

In fairness the Dunne called me pathetic and his other posts were very aggressive.

Just to support what other have been saying, I used to have a long list of the stuff I've been called during debates in trans threads. When I posted the list on thread I was told to stop whinging. It's been a fairly toxic debate and the thread seems much more balanced and calmer now.

And for anyone who says the debate can't continue now... Well it is continuing. On both sides. There's been a good few pages of debate over the last week. So it's fairly wrong to state that no debate can take place because it's been turned into a safe space.

Yes it's nice you have managed to go nearly a whole week without labeling everyone you don't agree with a TERF, anti-trans, a transphobe, a bigot etc. I guess now that the women such as gruff, ODB have been banned is why you've stopped with the TERF stuff.

When you eventually resort to it again, it's my hope that the mods be fair and take action on it. We can only wait and see.

km991148

Gatling wrote: »

That's not true ,

But you have touched on something ,in tra circles there is a well known tactic of claiming people are having hysterical reactions to toilets, changing rooms and or safe spaces for women, because all are claimed anti trans , it's used on social media and across other discussion forums ,and anyone who tries to speak up is put on the cancellation list or face threats of rape or other physical violence ,

It's a discussion forum not an echo chamber for a group of wannabe activists , Surely people should be engaging in discussion and voice their opinions ,not sitting on threads enmass reporting posts or thanking posts which are trolling or taking digs at people ,
If people people are happy to engage and discuss a topics let them do so ,this silly game of I'm reporting every post for one poster or several posters till no one wants to take part any more because the terminally offended are sitting teacher , teacher I think that person or persons said something they feel might have offended somebody , somewhere in the world and they are offended on their behalf,

If someone is gonna be a dick or if someone is starting a petty argument or of someone is tossing one liner half baked off topic nonsense over the fence then I'm gonna report. If someone takes works of fiction or out of context quotes, puts them on images and passed them off as fact, I'm gonna report that **** too, because there are enough facts and real problems to discuss without making stuff up.

The thread often goes off into arguments and tangents. That goes to all "sides" of the debate and if more people done it (report), it would be better for it. Let the moderators moderate.
That's not sitting teacher, being wannabe activist or any other such nonsense. Debate and discussion are healthy. Doesn't have to be heated argumentative nonsense.

Might it be suggested that maybe some of those that have had warnings or bans (such as myself) paid more attention to their own behaviour or posting style and stopped blaming others, then maybe they would get posting privileges back?

As for tactics? I don't have any. I didn't even know what a tra was until this thread. I often think those that discuss tactics and trolling are doing so because that's just how they see the world.

km991148

I've only ever seen two people campaigning to shut down the thread. One of them is currently claiming there has been a conspiracy to do so from 'the other side'.

It's nonsense.

GreeBo

LLMMLL wrote: »

And let's be realistic. Whatever answer they gave to your questions is hardly going to get an "alright so" response. The usual arguments and nitpicking would of course follow on.

That's called a debate.

GreeBo

LLMMLL wrote: »

Just tonight there's been a respectful discussion on the topics of sports and toilets. No sniping, no reporting, very civil.

Incorrect, I spent a couple of hours this morning getting a yellow card reversed.
I'm not sure how you can be sure there was no reporting?

Can we please close this thread? It's quite obvious that any request for reinstatement is being refused. I've aired my grievances with the moderation and it has been heard but not agreed with.

This thread is becoming gender identity 2.0 with certain posters coming on to gloat about how much they are enjoying the thread/echo chamber.

Tokyo

Admin:

The OP's original query has been addressed. Thread closed.