‘Immutable’ self-identification

[TarnishedPenny]

Okay, falling out of another thread.

Let’s be clear. I am not not not making a judgement here, but am trying to understand the logic. The progressive argument as I understand it is essentially, “I identify as X, therefore I am X. It’s solely my call and nobody has the right to challenge me.”

Okay, but that’s WRT gender. Why doesn’t that apply to race or group identity or whatever you want to call it? Elizabeth Warren and Buffy St Marie were excoriated for claiming to be native. Same-same Rachel Doleful for claiming to be Black.

Speaking on this, a native spokesperson said, “Pretendians perpetuate the myth that Native identity is determined by the individual, not the tribe or community, directly undermining tribal sovereignty and Native self-determination.” Clearly, if this opinion is accepted, the individual’s claim is essentially void unless the majority of the group supports it. Some voices have claim that even genetic ancestry is not enough ‘cause cultural background or something.

So, perhaps somebody could explain why, for instance, somebody with a penis and testicles must be considered as a woman when they wish but the self-identification of somebody calling themselves native or Black is void if challenged by others of that group?

Again, not trying to start fires here. Just hoping somebody with slightly-less-Neolithic grey matter can explain this apparent paradox.

 

[SimonDoom]

You can't explain the paradox, because it IS a paradox. It doesn't make logical sense.

Let's confine things to erotica so we don't run afoul of the ban on politics.

I'm turned on by women. I have a pretty good idea what I think a "woman" is. That concept informs my writing and drives what I like to read.

If somebody with XY chromosomes and a functioning penis tells me "I am a woman," my reaction is "Go ahead and live your life the way you want to, I don't want to see you discriminated against, but I don't think of you as a woman for purposes of my own life and erotic preferences, and I'm not going to change the way I read and write to accommodate you." That's my right.

In the context of erotica, and what turns me on, and what I like to write, whether a person identifies as a woman is completely irrelevant to me as an author and as a reader. I look at other things to determine if I think of them as a woman. That doesn't make me phobic or hostile or bigoted. It's because I'm human and I'm like everybody else. We're attracted to what we're attracted to. There's nothing wrong with that. Somebody else's philosophy of identity has no impact on what I'm attracted to. Your rights stop at my fence. And my fence encloses my basic deep-felt ideas about what I'm attracted to and my ideas about gender. I suspect I'm like most people in that respect. You don't have a right to jump over my fence and tell me what to say and do and think to accommodate your own concepts of identity. My refusal to let you jump over my fence does not infringe upon any of your fundamental rights. Live your life the way you want to, and don't tell me how to live mine.

I don't see conflicts arising here, in erotica, because we can all just like what we like and nobody is the worse off for it. Conflicts arise in the real world when, for example, an athlete's demand to be recognized as a woman conflicts with the rights of women against whom they may compete and who want control over the right to define what a "woman" is, out of considerations of fairness. In a situation like that, there's nothing obviously logical or compelling about the concept that everybody should recognize you as what you claim to be. That's never been a universally recognized principle in any culture at any time, and there are plenty of good reasons NOT to recognize that as a universal principle. As TP points out, nobody recognizes that as a universal principle on issues like race or tribal identity, which, I would argue, are FAR more socially constructed than gender.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Some identities are negotiated.
Some identities are declared.
Some identities are earned.
Some identities are enforced.
Some identities are purely factual.

Consider the 'doctor' identity. There is obviously a very good reason why society doesn't let people go around calling themselves doctors just because they fancy it. But equally, someone who has a medical degree but has stopped practicing medicine for many years can reasonably refute people still calling them a doctor.

On the other hand, the 'convict' or 'former convict' identity is not one someone can just shrug off although they can try to hide it (and if they've served their time, maybe society should give them a break...)

Or consider the line "He may have been your father, but he sure wasn't you daddy." Identities around parenthood can get really complicated - it may be very easy to become a biological father, but actually being someone's 'daddy' involves being there for them way more often than not, and if you claim it without having put the hours in you might get it thrown back in your face.

In some fandoms, there's also the idea of 'gatekeeping'. If I claim to be an 'Elton John' fan - how many of his albums do I need to own? Do I need to have seen him live in concert? Do I need to know all the words? People can get pretty elitist, and increasingly there's this idea that says if people say they are a fan, they are a fan - leave them alone! Still, if I claim to be an EJ fan, you keep naming famous songs ('Candle in the Wind','Benny and the Jets) and I keep saying I've never heard of them, there comes a point where my self-declared identity feels a bit hollow.

Okay, here comes the gender-stuff and I'm going to keep this as simple as possible.

You start a new job. You have a co-worker who everyone calls Susan and refers to as 'she'. Susan wears dresses and make-up. Nevertheless, she is quite a big girl, muscular, has masculin bone structure and sometimes, when she's working late, she has just a hint of six-o'clock shadow under her chin. You find yourself wondering if, perhaps, Susan has a penis. Or maybe she had a penis and had an operation to have it removed. Or maybe she has always had a vagina and has just grown up a bit more 'butch' than 'other girls'.

And in a work-environment, this is none of your damn business. You don't expect to go around knowing the status of everyone else in the office's genitals. Susan identifies as female, so that is what she is in polite society.

Some people, those who have mixed-race heritage, do get some leeway in deciding their racial identity. They may end up identifying with one side of their heritage more than another. And excluding someone who is mixed heritage A and B from being a 'proper' B is nasty. Most people who have a clear and distinct racial identity (inso much as there is such a thing, no racial classification ever actually works) though are allowed to just swap it out. There are cases where this might be okay - you can hardly blame a Jewish person in Nazi Germany for lying about their Jewishness. In the cases you cited though Rachel Doleful was pretending to be black to gain status in a marginalized community she didn't belong to.

Both race and gender are socially constructed. That means we can construct them more or less any which way we like. For example, Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists say that what happened with Doleful is exactly the same as transwoman joining or entering a women's spaces.

That's true if that's how you want to construct your society, but you're not building necessarily the nicest society if that's what you go with.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Okay, falling out of another thread.

Let’s be clear. I am not not not making a judgement here, but am trying to understand the logic. The progressive argument as I understand it is essentially, “I identify as X, therefore I am X. It’s solely my call and nobody has the right to challenge me.”

Okay, but that’s WRT gender. Why doesn’t that apply to race or group identity or whatever you want to call it? Elizabeth Warren and Buffy St Marie were excoriated for claiming to be native. Same-same Rachel Doleful for claiming to be Black.

Speaking on this, a native spokesperson said, “Pretendians perpetuate the myth that Native identity is determined by the individual, not the tribe or community, directly undermining tribal sovereignty and Native self-determination.” Clearly, if this opinion is accepted, the individual’s claim is essentially void unless the majority of the group supports it. Some voices have claim that even genetic ancestry is not enough ‘cause cultural background or something.

So, perhaps somebody could explain why, for instance, somebody with a penis and testicles must be considered as a woman when they wish but the self-identification of somebody calling themselves native or Black is void if challenged by others of that group?

Again, not trying to start fires here. Just hoping somebody with slightly-less-Neolithic grey matter can explain this apparent paradox.

Ok, today’s Friday. The politically expeditions narrative is…

 

[SimonDoom]

For example, Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists say that what happened with Doleful is exactly the same as a transwoman joining or entering a women's spaces.

That's true if that's how you want to construct your society, but you're not building necessarily the nicest society if that's what you go with.

This requires a little push back, I think. Let's say you have a group of women who have survived domestic violence by men, who meet regularly to talk about their situations. In this group, suppose you're dealing with a lot of PTSD. A transgender woman wants to join the group. Some of the women may be extremely uncomfortable about that. They may feel like a man is pushing his way into their midst, and it may trigger them. I think that's understandable, and you have no basis for saying THEY are being less nice than the transgender woman who insists on being part of their group. A focus on "being nice" doesn't get you anywhere. The same is true with the athletic competition debate. It comes down to "whose feelings do you care about?" and there's no obviously correct way to mediate that.

It's situational and contextual. If the barista at my favorite coffee shop wants to be called a woman by me, it's no skin off my back. I'll oblige. But in other situations, like the two I cited, or in the context of my own personal erotic preferences, the considerations are different, and you can't fall back on vague concepts of "being nice" to decide what to do or how to identify people.

 

[XerXesXu]

Consider the 'doctor' identity. There is obviously a very good reason why society doesn't let people go around calling themselves doctors just because they fancy it. But equally, someone who has a medical degree but has stopped practicing medicine for many years can reasonably refute people still calling them a doctor.

In the UK, anyone can set themselves as a Doctor and practice medicine, or practice as a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist etc. What they can't do is fraudulently represent themselves to others. A person practising medicine cannot represent themselves as a 'Registered Medical Practitioner' if they're not. The representation may be made by act or admission. Neither can they fraudulently represent that they're a retired registered medical practitioner. Generally, anyone can represent themselves as anything, so long as they don't make claims to specific credentials which they lack, for fraudulent purposes.

 

[alohadave]

Elizabeth Warren and Buffy St Marie were excoriated for claiming to be native.

Elizabeth Warren was told by her family that she had native ancestry and when she found out that she didn't, she stopped making the claim. Her family is from Oklahoma, and I'll bet that there are lots of people who believe similarly without checking into it.

She never claimed that she was Native American, she claimed that she had Native ancestry.

 

[TheRedChamber]

In the UK, anyone can set themselves as a Doctor and practice medicine, or practice as a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist etc. What they can't do is fraudulently represent themselves to others. A person practising medicine cannot represent themselves as a 'Registered Medical Practitioner' if they're not. The representation may be made by act or admission. Neither can they fraudulently represent that they're a retired registered medical practitioner. Generally, anyone can represent themselves as anything, so long as they don't make claims to specific credentials which they lack, for fraudulent purposes.

This was news to me and I can't find much to substantiate it. This page does seem to indicate that you do in fact need to GMC to agree that you're qualified.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

In the UK, anyone can set themselves as a Doctor and practice medicine, or practice as a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist etc. What they can't do is fraudulently represent themselves to others. A person practising medicine cannot represent themselves as a 'Registered Medical Practitioner' if they're not. The representation may be made by act or admission. Neither can they fraudulently represent that they're a retired registered medical practitioner. Generally, anyone can represent themselves as anything, so long as they don't make claims to specific credentials which they lack, for fraudulent purposes.

The Courts in the United States have struck down various "Stolen Valor Laws" which criminalize falsely claiming to be a veteran and having earned various awards for bravery on free speech grounds as long as there is no financial gain.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Elizabeth Warren was told by her family that she had native ancestry and when she found out that she didn't, she stopped making the claim. Her family is from Oklahoma, and I'll bet that there are lots of people who believe similarly without checking into it.

She never claimed that she was Native American, she claimed that she had Native ancestry.

She did indeed claim she was Native American, while Warren was at U. Penn. Law School she put herself on the "Minority Law Teacher" list as Native American.
She claimed it when it provided her a benefit, then ran away from it when it started to be a hinderance.

 

[Areala-chan]

Wading in here, and hoping I don't regret it. I'll give it my best.

I think what might help the most here is to have a conversation with a trans or non-binary individual (preferably several, because they'll all have different perspectives on the matter). I fall into neither of those categories, but one thing I noticed in your question is: "considered as a woman when they wish", and I wonder if this might be where some of your concern lies.

There is a colossal difference between someone doing something "when they wish" vs. someone doing something because that is actually how they are. It's why the "today, I identify as an attack helicopter" memes completely missed the point. Cis-gendered individuals who don't know transgender individuals are looking at the question the way someone with only a hammer for a tool starts seeing every problem as being a nail.

The deal with trans people is that this isn't something they only want to do under certain conditions. If the sole reason you, as a male, want to identify as a female is so that you can gain access to the women's locker room at the gym, then you aren't trans, you're a creep. A trans woman does not want to be seen as a man sometimes and a woman other times, like wearing the pink dress today and the pinstripe suit + tie tomorrow. She wants to be considered a woman all the time, because that's what feels right to her. A trans man wants to be seen as a man, because that's what feels right to him.

An analogy, if you will:

I've always been a tomboy. I hated dressing up for anything as a kid: church, birthdays, holidays, weddings, funerals, I hated it. I don't care how many people told me how cute or pretty I looked, I wanted to get back into comfortable clothes as soon as was humanly possible. I constantly had other women complimenting me on my outfit, telling me how beautiful my dress was, and doing all the things adults say to kids. I have friends who eat that shit up, who hop into dress clothes with zero prompting because they love the ritual of getting dressed up for the occasion, and admiring how awesome they and everyone else looks after going to all that effort. I am not one of those people: I will do it because society frowns on people showing up to a wedding in a t-shirt and jeans, but I do not at all feel like me when I'm wearing a dress, no matter how many people compliment me on my attire, my makeup, my hair, or anything else. It does not feel right when I'm in those clothes; they're not who I am, I don't like them, and I do everything I possibly can to avoid having to dress up for anything. Yes, I have feigned illness to get out of social events where I would be obligated to dress up. I hate it that much.

I can only assume this feeling is akin (but to a much lesser extent) to the feeling of a trans individual who isn't allowed to be who they want to be. In my case, if I have to dress up for an event, I at least have the comfort of knowing that after a few hours, I can take that shit off. But imagine not having that as an option? Imagine knowing you had to keep wearing what someone else wanted you to wear, because no one would pay attention to you when you said, "I don't like this, I want to put on something else." Worse yet, imagine they laughed at you, they told you you didn't really mean that. They went on to tell you how handsome you looked, all dressed up in your nice suit and tie and cummerbund and cufflinks, with your hair freshly styled instead of freshly tousled the way you prefer, and how wrong it was to complain because you just look so incredible that way, how could you possibly be upset when you look so awesome?

You might look incredible. But if you don't feel incredible, those clothes...well, they wear differently. Your posture suffers. Your identity takes a hit. Even if everyone tells you how great you look, you don't feel that inside because you know the truth: you don't like that look. Sure, you can fake it for a while, but that takes energy, and sooner or later, that tank is going to run dry.

That's as close as I can get, and I'm sure it falls well short of the authentic experience. I'm not trans. But I have trans friends and acquaintances. I've heard them talk about their struggles, and I've seen the disappointment in the aftermath of someone refusing to treat them the way they want to be treated, identify them the way they want to be identified. They are not doing it because they want attention, any more than the reason I put on dress clothes for a wedding is because I want attention--I assure you, I would prefer everyone's attention stay far away from me when I'm dressed up, because I hate it.

They are the way they are because it's how they honestly and truly feel their most accurate and complete selves, and they're trying the best they can to be who they feel they are.

Cultural identify is largely structured and agreed upon externally, based on a wide array of factors, not all of which are agreed upon by every member of that culture. Gender identity, on the other hand, is largely internal. We've grown up in a society with a large number of agreed-upon stereotypes that mark someone as "male" or "female", and we're now reaching a point where some of those stereotypes are being discarded and changed, just as they have multiple times throughout history. People did not suddenly start being gay in the 20th century, we've just reached a point in our society where we've discarded a couple of stereotypes, specifically: "Men always fall in love with women" and "Women always fall in love with men." It's a change, and humans are resistant to change, so of course it feels weird. Change always does. But in the end, it doesn't matter...except to the people for whom it matters a great deal.

I hope that helps, and I'm happy to be corrected if I've gotten anything wrong.

*huggles*
Areala-chan

 

[XerXesXu]

This was news to me and I can't find much to substantiate it. This page does seem to indicate that you do in fact need to GMC to agree that you're qualified.

Exactly. You can't claim to be a Registered Medical Practitioner unless you're a 'Registered Medical Practitioner'. You can set up as a medical practitioner and prescribe herbs and meditation to your patients, give them silicone implants, slap their backsides etc just so long as you're not negligent, or they'll sue you, same as they'd sue a 'Registered Medical Practitioner' who was negligent.

 

[TheRedChamber]

This requires a little push back, I think. Let's say you have a group of women who have survived domestic violence by men, who meet regularly to talk about their situations. In this group, suppose you're dealing with a lot of PTSD. A transgender woman wants to join the group. Some of the women may be extremely uncomfortable about that. They may feel like a man is pushing his way into their midst, and it may trigger them. I think that's understandable, and you have no basis for saying THEY are being less nice than the transgender woman who insists on being part of their group. A focus on "being nice" doesn't get you anywhere.

Possibly. As a man, I should probably avoid sticking my oar into this too much.

If you are a psychologist then having therapy sessions where anyone is 'extremely uncomfortable' is probably to be avoided. If someone was assaulted by someone with say a French accent and that someone finds the French accent of a group member uncomfortable, it probably makes sense to split them up. So, yes, there may well be a point where it is counter-productive to insist that someone be allowed to attend against the wishes of the rest of the group. But assuming the transwoman is a genuine survivor of domestic violence, no less horrible than that suffered by the rest of the group is seems unfair to classify it as 'pushing his way into their midst', especially if their options for other types of help are limited.

The same is true with the athletic competition debate. It comes down to "whose feelings do you care about?" and there's no obviously correct way to mediate that.

Yeah, I'm not touching sport with a ten-foot pole vaulting pole.

It's situational and contextual. If the barista at my favorite coffee shop wants to be called a woman by me, it's no skin off my back. I'll oblige. But in other situations, like the two I cited, or in the context of my own personal erotic preferences, the considerations are different, and you can't fall back on vague concepts of "being nice" to decide what to do or how to identify people.

In the context of erotica, and what turns me on, and what I like to write, whether a person identifies as a woman is completely irrelevant to me as an author and as a reader. I look at other things to determine if I think of them as a woman. That doesn't make me phobic or hostile or bigoted. It's because I'm human and I'm like everybody else. We're attracted to what we're attracted to. There's nothing wrong with that. Somebody else's philosophy of identity has no impact on what I'm attracted to. Your rights stop at my fence. And my fence encloses my basic deep-felt ideas about what I'm attracted to and my ideas about gender. I suspect I'm like most people in that respect. You don't have a right to jump over my fence and tell me what to say and do and think to accommodate your own concepts of identity. My refusal to let you jump over my fence does not infringe upon any of your fundamental rights. Live your life the way you want to, and don't tell me how to live mine.

A few years ago there was this bruhaha as the right-wing 'troll' side of this debate decided to promote a new sexual identity - 'super-straight'. The basic idea was that, since the left had been firmly stating that 'transwomen were women' and thus 'sex between a man and a transwoman was straight sex' and, further, that everyone was inventing a million and one new sexual identities anyway, why not have one more. The idea behind super-straight was that you were expressing that you were attracted to ciswomen and nothing else. And while the trolls did it in the nastiest way possible, I'm sure a great number of men would say, yes, that was their sexual identity.

Generally, the right likes to talk only about biological sex and the left like to talk only about societal gender. At the end of the day, sexual intercourse is a biological urge so I don't think there's anything essentially wrong with 'only liking vag'. The issue is that dating starts as social and then becomes biological as you hit the bedroom and if you were attracted to a 'passing' transwoman before you knew they were trans, then is it transphobic to hit the breaks once you discover it.

(For the record, I'm attracted to ciswomen, transwomen, cismen to a lesser extent but not transmen)

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Yawn. I really hope another corner of the internet isn't going to get taken over by the "I'm only asking" trans obsessives.

Most of the 'trans women are men, end of' arguments end up simply policing women's behaviour. And they come from both men and women. It boils down to 'we can always tell if a woman is trans', whereas in reality, observers can't. Just like when customs officials clamped down on porn 'to protect women' but in fact disproportionately stopped women-made material, especially resources for lesbians, trying to root out trans women to 'protect' women backfires - you end up with any woman who's a bit tall - or has a robust chin or talks too firmly- being accused of being trans.

And given the numbers of women who don't quite conform to someone's idea of femininity, versus the tiny numbers of trans women, it's mostly those non-conforming women who get the crap.

It's happened to me - in my early 20s, I was slim, pretty much straight up and down, no obvious hips or tits. I wore jeans and DM boots and a leather jacket, no makeup, and most importantly, went out to work around midnight. Most people in passing assumed I was a bloke. A few times, I got yelled at for using women's facilities. And a couple for being a poof, because they thought I was a guy wearing some makeup to look more feminine...

I used to go to a women's group which had had an explicitly trans-welcome policy. After a couple years, some members wanted to exclude trans women, it transpired there were a couple incidents which made them uncomfortable. You've probably guessed the punchline here - the women who were getting drunk and grabby weren't any of the trans women. But it led to a bunch of rumours that anyone supporting trans women was trans themselves. I didn't realise how far that had spread until about 10 years later when several people were genuinely surprised I was pregnant!

Discomfort with individuals needs to be acknowledged in a therapeutic setting, but it doesn't mean letting the person having therapy get away with making assumptions about other people. If someone in a refuge is worried that someone in the building secretly has a penis that they've lied about, are they really going to be reassured by being told there are no penises? Or would it not be more helpful to have processes in place to ensure they couldn't be attacked in the building?

Also, the 'debate' always about trans women. No-one even thinks about trans men, as shown by claims that 'anyone with a penis should use mens toilets, if you have a vagina you should use the women's'. My mate 'Jim' is bearded, broad-shouldered, looks male to anyone who meets him. He's also got a vagina. If he used the ladies, people would assume he was being a perv. Which there are plenty of. Pervs don't need to claim to be trans - they just wander in to women's changing rooms or wherever and go 'oops' if confronted.

If they wanted to make effort, claiming to be the cleaner would be easier than claiming to be a woman, because there's male cleaners all the time. But the 'womens spaces must be penis-free' arguers never complain about that. I suspect a huge pile of classism deeming cleaners sexless...

 

[THBGato]

Why doesn’t that apply to race or group identity or whatever you want to call it?

Brexit was the worst for this.

I was born after the UK had joined the EEC (as it was then). I was a teenager when the Maastricht treaty came into force. My whole life I thought of myself as European. With my beloved burgundy passport, I traveled through Europe, lived in Europe, worked in Europe and planned a future as a European.

Then, in 2016, 17 million of my fellow Brits voted to take that identity - and all the rights and privileges that went with it - away from me and my family. As we were living in the UK at the time, my wife's words the morning the results were announced were: "Get us the fuck out of here."

We're three years away from re-qualifying for EU citizenship by residency. We'll need to give up our British identity to do so. That won't be a hard decision.

I don't know how well this maps onto other arguments about identity here. However, every time I hear/read about people wanting to deny others the right to identify as part of a particular group, I remember the sorrow and pain I felt when an identity I treasured was stripped from me against my will. I'd never wish that on anyone.

 

[XerXesXu]

We're three years away from re-qualifying for EU citizenship by residency. We'll need to give up our British identity to do so.

Why? I'm a dual citizen; the EU doesn't require you to give up your British citizenship.

 

[TheLobster]

Why? I'm a dual citizen; the EU doesn't require you to give up your British citizenship.

There is no such thing as “EU citizenship” that’s independent of citizenship of a particular member state. And individual state laws differ as to how they treat dual citizens.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Well, at least that other topic will hopefully be left alone now.
As I already said, I find this debate pointless in this specific place. There is no one violating anyone's rights or disrespecting anyone or making them feel unwelcome. There are plenty of things one could criticize about Literotica, but being unwelcome to everybody is not one of them. This is generally a safe and inclusive space.
So, the only thing I see are people who have different opinions and who are likely to keep arguing ad infinitum, especially considering the tenacity of one side, the side that very much seems to be offended by the fact that others have a different opinion about these things.
Since this is a topic that is meant specifically to continue this pointless debate, I guess I'll be idle enough to add a few thoughts just because I feel some of the arguments presented are quite one-sided.

Somebody mentioned WCs and locker rooms and the right of the transperson to choose the locker room of the gender they identify with. Here's one more difference between men and women. A woman enters a men's locker room and the majority of men will start cheering and hooting. A man enters a woman's locker room and the majority of women will start screaming or such.
Why is that? I'd say it's quite obvious. A man being a sexual predator or a plain creep is a serious thing. Women in general will feel threatened by the presence of a man in their private space. On the other hand, a woman being a sexual predator (towards a man) isn't a serious thing, even though there are cases, but statistically speaking, they are hardly significant. I am sure someone will pull some statistics here to contradict me about this but I don't really care. The more important thing is that men in general do not feel threatened by the presence of a woman in their private space. They might feel uncomfortable in certain situations but not threatened.
Why is this relevant? From what I've seen here, most of the arguments are being made from the side of the transperson, of their right to choose the locker room of the gender they identify with. What about all those women who share the locker room? What about their comfort and their feeling of safety in such a private space? Are they somehow supposed to know instantly that a transwoman who entered their locker room is someone who isn't a creep or a predator but a person who truly feels feminine and isn't a threat or something they should feel uncomfortable about? That transwoman used to be a man and they all know it.
What about a gender-fluid person (with male genitalia and generally male characteristics) who will use the men's locker room one day and women's locker room the next day, according to how they are feeling and identifying that day? Are those women supposed to automatically feel comfortable and safe in those situations?

The only "safe" solution is to have a WC and a locker room for each of these "genders" which I don't find realistic. There are too many of them now. I'll also admit to not knowing the answer to the question of which WC or locker room gender-diverse people should use as it is. But even though this is still not a debate for this particular place, it would help if people saw the other side of each argument.

 

[THBGato]

Why? I'm a dual citizen; the EU doesn't require you to give up your British citizenship.

There is no such thing as “EU citizenship” that’s independent of citizenship of a particular member state. And individual state laws differ as to how they treat dual citizens.

What @TheLobster said: it depends on the rules of the individual member state. The one we are in requires you to give up previous nationality. If we were able to apply via marriage or parentage, we wouldn't have to. But because we will apply via residency qualification, we will.

We're not bothered by this (as we both have UK birth certificates, it would be simple enough to regain British nationality should we wish to).

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Speaking on this, a native spokesperson said, “Pretendians perpetuate the myth that Native identity is determined by the individual, not the tribe or community, directly undermining tribal sovereignty and Native self-determination.”

I don't know the context of this quote but could they have been saying Native identity to mean enrollment? In some US contexts, saying you're Native American is more la claim of citizenship than ethnicity. It's pretty easy to see why some people would feel strongly about that not being a matter of self-identification.

Some identities are negotiated.
Some identities are declared.
Some identities are earned.
Some identities are enforced.
Some identities are purely factual.

This is a useful distinction, thanks!

 

[Plathfan]

A woman enters a men's locker room and the majority of men will start cheering and hooting. A man enters a woman's locker room and the majority of women will start screaming or such.
Why is that? I'd say it's quite obvious. A man being a sexual predator or a plain creep is a serious thing. Women in general will feel threatened by the presence of a man in their private space

This perspective is quite stereotypical. Many men would feel very uncomfortable if a female cleaning worker unexpectedly entered their gym’s showers. I don’t know where you were raised, but not all men are Neanderthal-like predators. Enough with these misandrist broad generalizations about men!

 

[joy_of_cooking]

https://www.jezebel.com/who-gets-to-decide-who-i-am-on-native-identity-tribal-1830732597 here's an article discussing enrollment in the context of Warren

 

[ElectricBlue]

The only "safe" solution is to have a WC and a locker room for each of these "genders" which I don't find realistic. There are too many of them now. I'll also admit to not knowing the answer to the question of which WC or locker room gender-diverse people should use as it is. But even though this is still not a debate for this particular place, it would help if people saw the other side of each argument.

Some public spaces in Australia are beginning to solve the "problem" by having traditional male and female toilets as well as designated combined spaces, with a row of cubicles, no urinal. I can't remember what the signs on the combined door says, but the layout assumes adults can make mature choices about who they might meet inside, and kids go wherever their parents take them.

Takes the wind out of everyone's sails, from what I can see.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Yawn. I really hope another corner of the internet isn't going to get taken over by the "I'm only asking" trans obsessives.

Most of the 'trans women are men, end of' arguments end up simply policing women's behaviour. And they come from both men and women. It boils down to 'we can always tell if a woman is trans', whereas in reality, observers can't. Just like when customs officials clamped down on porn 'to protect women' but in fact disproportionately stopped women-made material, especially resources for lesbians, trying to root out trans women to 'protect' women backfires - you end up with any woman who's a bit tall - or has a robust chin or talks too firmly- being accused of being trans.

All this. There are people on Twitter and Facebook who spend their time "analysing" photos of celebrities and politicians, measuring the dimensions of their faces and trying to deduce who's a Secret Trans. There's also a significant overlap with racism there, because these people's ideas of femininity tend to be constructed around white models.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

All this. There are people on Twitter and Facebook who spend their time "analysing" photos of celebrities and politicians, measuring the dimensions of their faces and trying to deduce who's a Secret Trans. There's also a significant overlap with racism there, because these people's ideas of femininity tend to be constructed around white models.

My "favorite" example: Andrew Tate, famous kickboxing misogynist, accused rapist and sex trafficker.

Someone looked at a pic of him in a bathing suit and thought his bulge was too small, so he must be a "woman" (meaning transman).

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/andrew-tate-transgender-conspiracy-theory/

-Annie