This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What's your stance on hirsutism? Does a woman with a beard count as not a woman? less of a woman?
I understand the idea of defining a woman as an "adult human female", but using looks as your metric makes me curious.
That one is interesting, because Wikipedia is claiming it affects "5-15% of women of all ethnic backgrounds," which is less than the number of women I've seen with facial hair. I'm guessing it's fairly easily managed with a razor, and in any case facial hair is far from the only physical tell of sex, so that doesn't seem to pose an issue to what I'm saying.
To be more charitable we can go with whatever rare genetic condition may cause a woman to appear extremely mannish. In which case I would probably assume she is male unless corrected. That would be very unfortunate and I feel sympathy for her having to go around life that way, but she is by definition a rare genetic outlier. We can openly say that this is not the way it normally biologically works and don't feel the need to collapse biological gender categories over it.
If it was a political issue where people were identifying with this disorder or trying to medically induce it, demanding at risk of job loss you accept it, trying to normalize and give it to children, etc. and this was all surging at once within the last 10 years? At that point it leaves the category of weird genetic outlier and I start to ask what's going on here.
More options
Context Copy link
For me personally (not the person you are replying to), I don't define a woman by looks, but looks are a heuristic. It's obviously unacceptable to go "ok, let's see if you have a penis or a vagina in those pants", so you make an inference based on the overall appearance.
Ironically, I can envision a scenario where the trans movement will have made things harder for people you mention, such as a woman who has a beard. At no point would such a woman have been considered normal and unremarkable (see: every circus with a "bearded lady" exhibit), but I think time was that nobody would've questioned if they were actually women. If you saw a really butch looking woman one may have assumed she was a man, but when corrected one would accept that she's a woman.
Now, though, I can envision that same scenario happening but with people refusing to accept the woman as actually being a woman. Because from their point of view there are lots of people falsely labeling men as women, so now it's not as simple as "she says she's a woman, then she is". Now that person probably has to resort to using looks, and being suspicious of anyone who doesn't appear to be a woman but claims to be one.
I don't actually know if this is happening, so this isn't really meant to be an argument against the trans movement. But it seems very plausible to me, and I can't help but wonder if there have been unintended consequences in a vein like I describe.
From 2016: Connecticut woman says she was harassed in Walmart bathroom after customer mistook her as transgender (archive link because the website is unavailable in the EU). However, it seems in this case there is no evidence beyond the woman's claim.
Also from 2016, this time with a video of the incident: Man follows woman into restroom after mistaking her for a man (archived). This was apparently a simple misunderstanding that was resolved amicably.
While searching, I also found this article from 2008 (!): Woman mistaken for a man settles NY lawsuit.
This Twitter thread discusses another example.
So it does seem to happen. And I would assume that not every such incident makes the news.
But blaming trans people for this is ridiculous. How is it their fault that people prejudiced against them sometimes accidentally target insufficiently feminine-looking cis women? In fact, I've always considered these false-positive incidents a strong argument in favour of letting trans people use the toilet corresponding to their identified gender.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link