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This proves too much¹; your argument could be adapted to defend either cancel culture or Jim Crow laws!
or
Your argument also begs the question² of whether transitioning is a bad decision; furthermore, even if it were, if the 'consequences of a bad decision' include extralegal violence, protecting people from it is one of the most fundamental functions of society, and protects you from somebody else deciding that some aspect of your life-style is a 'bad decision' that they are entitled to assault people over. (You still Kant dismiss univeralisability.)
¹Proving too much: an argument which, if valid, would also prove something known to be false; elaborated here.
²In its older sense of 'a proof of P that assumes P'.
This question, on a fundamental level, resolves to postulates, and postulates are unfalsifiable so this turns into idiotic definitional debates.
Transgenders larping as women should learn self-defense, I guess. Society has to pick and choose whose safety to prioritize in this instance and it should come down hard on the side that's doing what its supposed to do.
Prioritise the safety of who whoever is in more danger.
And where will you stand when the leopards eat your face? When someone bigger and stronger than you decides that something about your life, that contravenes no legal code in the jurisdiction, is 'not doing what you are supposed to do', and that he is entitled to suppress it by force?
Consider Thomas More:
A transwoman, in existing publicly while appearing as the gender opposite that associated with her genitals at birth, has broken no law of Man (at least in North America or Western Europe); do not cut down Man's laws against assault, lest you call up that which you cannot put down.
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Donno man, there are a million 'bad decisions' a guy can make in a bar that will 100% get him beat up -- wearing a dress probably isn't even top 50.
And yet somehow society, while it will sometimes intervene if the aggressor is too hard to ignore -- mostly treats barfights over dumb shit as plus-or-minus consentual, and the response trends in the direction of 'even less than if you report your bike stolen'.
That seems incompatible with 'fundamental function of society' -- maybe you meant to say 'protecting women from extralegal violence?'
Yes, I am aware that there are many ways in which our society fall short of perfection.
If Adam and Bob get into a bar fight, with Adam being the first to escalate to physical attack, then Adam not being charged with assault does not mean that Bob was not wronged, any more than a lack of response to Charles stealing David's bicycle means that the bicycle in question was Charles' property all along.
(Although I could see the case for dismissing charges against Adam if Bob had referred to Adam's ethnic group as 'cockroaches', or called Adam's disabled relative a 'useless eater' or a 'life unworthy of living', or accused Adam of some grave act of moral turpitude such as sexual assault against an infant; but anything short of that....)
...which includes any instance in which the aggressor is substantially stronger, or arranges to have a half-dozen friends when the victim is alone. (If it is two people of approximately equal strength inflicting approximately equal damage on each other, one could make the case for limiting the societal response to a sternly-worded "Don't. Do. It. Again.".)
No, when I said 'people' I meant 'human beings.' The principle¹ that Alex should not be obligated to follow the demands of Bob the Random Nobody merely because Bob happens to be stronger than Alex does not depend on Alex's gender.
¹A principle originally dating back to at least the Bronze Age, even if inconsistently applied.
-- Code of Hammurabi.
Sure doesn't -- first-hand observation here. I'm talking about 'kicking a guy in the head just a cop happens to round the corner' or something -- I've seen both of your examples happen IRL (first one way more than once) and if anything there's even less sympathy for the 'victim' who did something (non-violent) that everyone knew would spiral into a fight with somebody way way bigger and tougher than him.
You moron. Why would you do that?
is the approximate response of everyone from bouncers to cops.
That's not what we're talking about here though -- we're talking about Alex doing something dumb, which he knows will insult or otherwise rouse Bob's personal ire. And doing so in a masculine environment.
This has consequences -- every man knows it, whether or not he will admit it and/or try to hide behind other dudes with guns.
(interesting principle though -- does it also apply to the actions of crybullies who are much weaker than their victims, and yet still issue demands expecting compliance?)
I doubt it, actually -- men fight each other over slights real and imaginary, whether you like it or not -- it dates well before and after the Bronze Age, and up until very recently if they punished everyone guilty of that there'd be nobody left to bring the grain in and whatnot.
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