This fascinating exchange starts with a Tweet by Gloria Steinem, to which biologist Heather Heying responds with a science lesson. Some legislatures are bringing this issue to a head and it remains unclear whether we will (as a society) resolve this debate with biology or ideology. Perhaps the battleground will be the dictionary. As Heying says,
Transwomen are transwomen.
Women are women.
Somehow, writing these two sentences is being construed by the Woke as bigotry, with no end in sight as to how or whether this dispute can be resolved.
And as I review this thread, I keep shaking my head, given that a Tweet by Gloria Steinem started this discussion. For many of us, one of the most important parts of feminism is the tenet that the things that you like to do (whether climbing trees or cooking or fixing cars) don’t determine whether you are a fully man or woman. These things are irrelevant to your sex. You can be fully a woman even though you like to engage in activities typically associated with men. Yet I keep seeing writings by TRA’s that a girl who likes “boy” things is dysphoric, potentially meaning that she should take testosterone and cut off her breasts. Jesus! This is from the same types of people who, 15 and 20 years ago railed at cultures who practiced clitorectomies because it because it is so grotesque to massacre a healthy female body. The TRA’s argue that even young teenagers (who are too young to vote or drive) should be granted total deference when social pressures are appearing to be the main thing convincing them to make permanent changes to their bodies that will likely result in sterility. That that is where we are . . .
And the fringe left has pushed its ideology so hard that we are now supposed to think that there is no difference between a woman and a transwoman. There is a clear factual difference, as Heying explains.
None of what I am writing suggests that transwomen aren’t entitled to legally and socially present themselves as women in most situations (though I would make exceptions for women’s shelters, prisons and sports participation). Transwomen are entitled to our respect. They are human beings every bit as much as the rest of us. Because they are fully human, we owe them the respect of disagreeing with them when their claims violate basic principles of biology.
Here’s the beginning of the Twitter Thread:
The exchange was within normal limits, as we used to say in medicine, until it reached maxrenke’s tweet. That was when the temptation to go ideological on science could no longer be resisted by the authoritarian left. Today it is virtually impossible to have reasoned discourse because the authoritarian left will in every case try to control the narrative by defining others’ terms for them, and pretending to have psychic abilities to know what others mean by what they say, better than the speaker.
I don’t understand how seeing transwomen as different than women constitutes a phobia. I know and care about a trans person, and I accept that person and am not phobic about their situation. That person, however, is still bigger and stronger than any other woman I know, and will not be able to bear children (and there is no shame in that). To claim that they are the same as “cradle women” (a phrase that riffs on Catholicism’s phrase “cradle Catholic”) is illogical, and it is also illogical to say that I am phobic for pointing out that illogic.
Ruth: I feel the same way. I know several trans people and they are nice folks. I would never want them to be socially disparaged because they are trans. But they are trans and that is a fact, not an epithet. I am single and interested in dating. I am a man interested in dating a woman with a vagina and not a woman with a penis. Some would call me a bigot for that. I don’t know whether you’ve the vitriol out there on that issue. My understanding is that it is not coming from the great majority of people who are transgender (and who are live-and-let-live people), but from an very small but extremely loud minority who are well connected to our country’s sense-making institutions.
I quickly found this illustration of the new definition of “transphobic” from a trans rights activist (“TRA”):
Here’s an excerpt from another article describing the frustrations of gays and lesbians who are encountering the attitudes of TRAs this new hyper-expanded definition of transphobia:
I don’t know how this could possibly be resolved, given how entrenched the TRAs are. They will settle for nothing short of declarations that “transwomen are exactly the same as women,” a declaration that contravenes basic principles of biology.
From “Lesbians Aren’t Attracted to a Female ‘Gender Identity.’ We’re Attracted to Women”:
Agreed. How could you possibly know who is heterosexual, homosexual (or even bi-sexual) based upon gender. Basic biology is the place where everyone starts when categorizing sexuality, even if they don’t want to admit it. As J.K. Rowling wrote (I cannot find the passage) if people are transitioning, what are they transitioning from and transitioning to?