pleroma.debian.social

Sigh having to explain to an FSF Voting Member why "this woman is, genetically, not actually a woman" is transphobic even if the context is a woman who wouldn't call herself trans

FSF leadership stay in your lane challenge difficulty: impossible

For clarity I should say it wasn't said Voting Member who said this, he merely criticised someone for criticising it

@mjg59 FSF just get fucked and die in a ditch challenge 2025

they've done fuck all for their cause in recent times and in fact all they do is continue to act as a vehicle for promoting absolute cunts. they need to get the hell out of the way so the non-creepy folks can get some damn work done in peace.

@lxo what's the false conclusion? You criticised someone who was calling out someone else's transphobia.

@lxo To be clear about this: I'm referring to https://gnusocial.jp/notice/8003926 in which you say accuse Rysiek of "unrelentingly trying to staple some contradiction onto radek. ISTM you're projecting prejudice." The discussion you're responding to is largely triggered by Radek's claim in https://101010.pl/@rcz/113560689396703899 that "If the test shows Amal is a XY person with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, that would mean Amal is male". Radek's assertion is unambiguously transphobic, but you criticised Rysiek's response.

@lxo I have not accused you of being transphobic. I have said that you criticised someone for criticising transphobia. I believe that to be factually accurate. If you're going to accuse me of defamation, could you please be precise about your interpretation of my writing's meaning? Let's be careful and precise about that.

@mjg59 At the time of @lxo's first reply (https://gnusocial.jp/notice/8003926) and your first reply (https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/113570496539021220) I think a charitable reading still allowed a non-transphobic interpretation of Radek's posts. A narrow sliver of possibility still existed. (I'll elaborate in another post)

Rysiek was trying to get Radek to slip up and remove that sliver. Given all of Rysiek's time+effort, you (https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/113571171779365863) got Radek to remove that sliver quite quickly (https://101010.pl/@rcz/113571236878761566).

@mjg59

Radek could have replied to mjg59's post and said "There's socially-constructed gender, and there's biological sex. There are very few times when sex rather than gender is relevant: with your doctor, with your sexual partners, and--I would argue--in sports, for safety reasons. I have been discussing sex, not gender, although I have been a little sloppy with the terms."

That would be a coherent non-transphobic view, albeit one that is mostly adopted as a dog-whistle.

@lxo

@lukeshu @lxo once you're at the point of asserting that simple genetics mean that someone is male then even charitable readings are transphobic

@mjg59 @lxo

But there is a certain personality type that can take the facts as they know them and latch on to that view without being transphobic.

Of course, that view's confidence in the safety-value of sexual dimorphism shows ignorance of how common various forms of being intersex are.

@mjg59

And I've found that doing overly charitable readings has been a boon for my mental health. I would much rather believe that one less person in the world is transphobic.

But, I'd like to point out to @lxo, it can be dangerous for community leaders to do this. It is our responsibility to keep hateful views out of our communities, to keep our community members safe. And so we must be on the lookout for hate stowing away in carefully crafted messages.

@lukeshu @lxo I sympathise a lot with being charitable, and as you say it does make life a lot easier. But I count several trans people as loved ones and I see them attacked daily through dog whistles and subtle innuendo designed to poison attitudes towards them, and I cannot be charitable to that. It's an attack on people I love. Does it harm my mental health? Probably. Does it feel uncomfortable for others less tuned to this kind of thing? Certainly. But I will not let a single dog whistle by.

@skullhoney ok transphobe

@quasi @lxo I'm saying that when someone is transphobic it's bad to complain about someone else calling that person transphobic

@quasi you should maybe check my history with the FSF

@quasi @lxo it's never bad to call a transphobe a transphobe

@quasi look further

@quasi yeah you're admitting you didn't look far enough

@lukeshu@fosstodon.org @mjg59@nondeterministic.computer There is no non-transphobic assertion about "biological sex". What may matter with a doctor are specific characteristics depending on the situation (presence/absence of specific organs, hormone levels, genes, etc.). What matters with sexual partners depends on the activity (probably presence/absence of specific organs, too). The "but sports" thing is solely a right-wing talking point, and well disproved. "Biological sex" is ignorant at best, and more often a malicious attempt to make transphobia sound scientific.

@airtower

> ignorant at best

I sort-of touched on that in the next post (I feel that my posts as a whole suffered because of Mastodon character limits).

Full-endorse of what you've said, except:

> There is no non-transphobic assertion about "biological sex".

There is an ignorant one.

@airtower @mjg59 @lukeshu

> "Biological sex" is ignorant at best, and more often a malicious attempt to make transphobia sound scientific.

This is a really important point, agreed. I've heard people use the phrase out of well-meaning ignorance, but I'll argue that the phrase itself is a transphobic slur — it necessarily posits that as a matter of scientific fact, there's some notion of sex and/or gender that is immutable and unambiguous about a person.

@xgranade I mean biologically it's still a useful concept, even if it's not as unambiguous or binary as transphobes act like it is.

But I could totally believe that the majority of the phrase's use outside of specific scientific/medical contexts is by transphobes and/or ignorant people who have fallen for transphobic propaganda.

@airtower @mjg59 @lukeshu Just as with any other slur, I don't think that using it necessarily means one is transphobic as a category, but I do posit that it does mean that they just said something transphobic and that needs to be called out and resolved for healthy conversation to proceed.

@lxo btw, now I seem to be the one lacking context! Why was I mentioned?

@mjg59 @dalias @lukeshu @quasi

@lxo @alcinnz @dalias @lukeshu @quasi I assumed that you were replying with awareness of context rather than criticising someone without knowing what started the discussion. I apologise for making that assumption. I did not accuse you of being transphobic, but the reality is that you were (apparently unknowingly?) supporting a transphobe.

@lxo @alcinnz @dalias @lukeshu @quasi in any case, I believe you owe rysiek an apology.

@quasi @lxo There's never a need to defend a transphobe against the consequences of their transphobia

@quasi @lxo @mjg59 Hi, actual trans person here. When you support a transphobe making transphobic arguments, whether you mean to or not, that causes real and actual harm. As with any case where you cause harm, especially if that harm is unintended, the polite and helpful thing to do is to first address that harm, then apologize.

Worrying over vague hypotheticals about false accusations really shouldn't be a priority. Real harm was done here, and it's good to address that.

@quasi @lxo @xgranade the assertion that someone raised as a woman and who calls herself a woman isn't a woman is pretty obviously transphobic yeah

@quasi @lxo @mjg59 Put differently, bringing up vague hypotheticals about false accusations creates the very clear message that possibly inconveniencing cisgender people is worse than actually harming transgender people. That's really messed up and hurtful in its own right.

@quasi @lxo @mjg59 "not believing men can be women" is *precisely* what it means to hate trans people, yes. Taken very literally, it says that a trans woman like myself can never actually be a woman in your eyes.

@quasi @lxo @xgranade could you explain that analogy in more detail?

@quasi @lxo In the specific case, as @mjg59 points out, that statement is even more explicit — you're using your belief in "male-only DSDs" to justify imposing a gender on someone against their consent, their expression, their relationship to their body, and to their own history in that body.

That is, indeed, the exact kind of harm that I was referring to above.

@quasi @lxo @xgranade Like requiring someone to share a belief that "people are not inferior based on their skin colour or racial background" is a violation of that person's freedom of conscience?

@mittimithai @lxo @quasi @xgranade And you think the most important thing people should know about you is the presence of a transcription factor, I don't think you're in a position to call anything ridiculous