Don't downplay the issue. It's not that she's conservative; I'm sure Google's executive groups are full of relatively conservative people.
No, the problem with her is that she's a transphobe and racist.
No, the problem with her is that she's a transphobe and racist.
This is an existing concern of many, that must be discussed. I disagree strongly that recognition of trans women takes away something from other womens' rights (if nothing else because there are so few trans women), but the opinion seems to be widespread enough that it must be confronted, and by that I don't mean with knee-jerk reactions and twitter flamewars. Like, really debated. So that it can be put to rest and we can all move on to more productive debates.
But, calling someone who expresses that view a transphobe and a racist is not debating them.
These attributes are neither objective not illegal.
Google are hypocrites; they want diversity, but not diversity of thought.
E.g. is it moral for male-to-female trans to compete in women sports events?
Why play on the thin lines instead of focusing on the issues that have the largest and broadest effects on people?
do you think the number of trans people compared to the world population isn't "a subset so small to be statistically insignificant by any measure"?
The short summary: as a lower bound, probably more than 1 in 10k people (0.01%) would identify as transgender. Including the DSM definition of gender dysphoria as an indicator, that figure rises to 1% or possibly even higher.
Now, my question to you: how small should a subset be to be statistically insignificant? For popular reference (and I apologize for using this example again), keep in mind that the global prevalence of Judaism is 0.2%.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20141205022609/http://web.hku.hk...
I agree. However those that do will affect (negatively) all the non-transgender women they are competing (and winning) against. And that does have "the largest and broadest effects on people" just not only transgender people.
I'd also generally challenge that one competitor in a field has that large of an effect on people's lives. Yeah, that first to second stings slightly. How about that 15th to 16th? And how many sports really have this problem right now? Let's again focus on this relative to its effects.
Same issue how we treat transgenders touches a lot of other fields. E.g. who can perform body search? Can ex-male-now-female do body search on a female? I could easily see many females not so happy about it.
The same reasoning is going to apply to e.g. restroom usage as well.
E.g. I'm 100% against trans participating in sports. It's disgusting when men pretend to be women just to have a record on their name. It's even more disgusting when it's celebrated as diversity or progressive or whatever.
Does that make me just a "relatively conservative" or full-on "transphobe"?
I agree it's a waste of my time to respond to comments like that. But on the other hand, letting those comments dominate the public space unchallenged is just legitimising their views. Which leads to vocal minority getting even bigger and louder. At the end of the day, it's the most vocal people who set the playrules. And I'm not a fan of ever-more-progressive rules, CoCs and legislations.
> I'm 100% against trans participating in sports
There's a nuanced argument to be made here.
> It's disgusting when men pretend to be women just to have a record on their name.
This is not that nuanced argument. I can assure you no one that is trans "pretends" to be a woman for sports records. That comment (as well as the word choice of "disgusting") shows a severe lack of understanding of trans people.
> It's even more disgusting when it's celebrated as diversity or progressive or whatever.
This shows a particular bias against "progressive/diversity" ideas and colors the comments before them with an even worse light that highlights the lack of understanding.
> Does that make me just a "relatively conservative" or full-on "transphobe"?
Just like anything, there are gradients and being transphobic now doesn't mean you have to be in the future.
I understand biology that born-male will be stronger in many sports than born-female even after a lot of hormone therapy (or maybe vice-versa in some sports). Born-female taking male hormones will have advantage over regular female as well in many cases.
You got gender disphoria and need a treatment for it? Sure. But there're side effects. Just like for many treatments.
> This shows a particular bias against "progressive/diversity" ideas and colors the comments before them with an even worse light that highlights the lack of understanding.
I'm considering ideas on their own merit, not how they're labeled. And it's disgusting that progressive/diversity label was ruined buy affairs like that. And yes, I definitely have bias against ideas that seem to have a label they're not worth of.
> Just like anything, there are gradients and being transphobic now doesn't mean you have to be in the future.
I hope definition of "transphobic" will change and I won't be called one in the future.
But the body and hormone levels absolutely do affect physical sports, you're right. If you want to dig into hormones, what about intersex people? What about people classified as women with significantly higher testosterone levels? Despite the classification most hospitals do, a surprising amount of births show non-traditional genitalia, and if you go beyond the external looks then the waters only get murkier. How many athletes are actually not traditionally male or female but were simply never classified as such medically due to a lack of awareness and education? Do you then want to have all sports competitions separated based on hormone levels instead of sex/gender?
> I'm considering ideas on their own merit, not how they're labeled. And it's disgusting that progressive/diversity label was ruined by affairs like that. And yes, I definitely have bias against ideas that seem to have a label they're not worth of.
But you give no argument for the unworthiness of it and instead start from the assumption. Not only that, but you paint with a very broad brush and are not digging into any of the nuance. That doesn't scream openness and combined with other things you said again comes off as ignorance or lack of education on the subject.
> I hope definition of "transphobic" will change and I won't be called one in the future.
That definition will only go the other way as more people become educated on trans people. What defines transphobia is ignorance, not gusts of cultural wind. What would make your actions change will have to be you, not the classification of them.
As an aside generally, being transphobic or racist or sexist should not define you - it's a chance to learn and understand. It's not an identity, despite how it is assigned like one to many public figures these days. What's much more important than never saying or doing something sexist/racist/transphobic/etc is being open to changing and understanding to not do it in the future. Really it's just listening and understanding other people's experiences.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2018/04/26/ne...
I don't care if they changed gender for the sake of winning sports titles or not. I'm against them competing in sports anyway.
> If you want to dig into hormones, what about intersex people? What about people classified as women with significantly higher testosterone levels?
That's definitely could an issue (see last paragraph). But IMO it's different that this is accidental from the individual's perspective. They themselves may be not aware of this. Sort of like getting lucky with good genes or rare mutation. Meanwhile for a transgender is purely a rational choice to transition. You may argue it's not fully rational since treatment is needed. But ultimately people do choose treatments and accept consequences for all sorts of illnesses.
> But you give no argument for the unworthiness of it and instead start from the assumption. Not only that, but you paint with a very broad brush and are not digging into any of the nuance.
Unfortunately interwebs comments are not well suited for a nuanced discussion. The person I originally replied to didn't go into nuance, neither did I. It'd be great if internet commentary moved towards more nuanced and longer discussions. But unfortunately old good forums with mile-long pagination are getting more and more scarce :( Especially with diverse audience.
> What defines transphobia is ignorance, not gusts of cultural wind. What would make your actions change will have to be you, not the classification of them.
I did research the topic and made my mind. IMO people who just jump on the ever-more-progressive bandwagon are much more ignorant. Ignorance shall be judge on refusing to look into the issue, not on coming to reasonable-yet-subjectively-wrong conclusions.
> That definition will only go the other way as more people become educated on trans people.
Personally I went the other way after reading more into it.
> What's much more important than ever saying or doing something sexist/racist/transphobic/etc is being open to changing and understanding to not do it in the future.
Yes. But that ability to change must be open both ways. IMO today's definitions went way too far and are too close to doing full horseshoe. Understanding is not just pushing the boundaries of what is progressive to no end.
> Do you then want to have all sports competitions separated based on hormone levels instead of sex/gender?
I'd support protection for the lesser (?) gender (women in endurance and power sports, men maybe in gymnastics?). Just have open group and the protected one for the lesser gender. In the long run, we'll probably need one more group for genetically-modified individuals.
This gets me curious. In your definition, a person with strongly deviating hormonal levels isn't transgender until they are aware of their situation?
Someone having issues with their hormones doesn't become transgender either.
So I'd say it's safe to say that the person has to have consciously chosen to transition to be considered a transgender. Also, people who didn't transition (yet) on hormonal level but did minor plastic surgeries and wear clothes accordingly are considered transgenders too.
If someone has XXY chromosomes and consider himself one gender their whole life, do they "trans" between something?
They may not view their own activity as "pretending" to be women, but the position of people like Kay Cole James (and many others, on both the left and right) is that they are simply not women. Whether or not they believe it about themselves is irrelevant.
When has that happened?
5sec googling: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/21/transgender...
There is a difference between someone transitioning from one gender to the other and someone pretending to be a woman, for whatever reason.
The "5-second googling" example you give is a of a transgendered woman who is also an athlete. I don't see how this fits in with "men who pretend to be women to win".
The simple solution I think is that sports should be sex based, not gender based.
What would stop me from lying that I am a woman (I could even put on some makeup) to compete as a women? In some sports difference between men and women is so big that average male athlete could easily compete with top-of-the-line females. There's more than enough incentive for some douchebag to go the dirty way to get some glory.
Gender is a subjective experience of a person. Doping is not. I don't find your comment funny.
>> What would stop me from lying that I am a woman (I could even put on some makeup) to compete as a women?
It wouldn't be enough to just "put on some makeup". The latest recommendation from the IOC for male-to-female transgendered athletes is that they must have testosterone levels in the female range for a year before they can be allowed to compete.
I struggle to believe that a male athlete would accept taking hormones or being castrated to reduce their testosterone so they can "pretend to be a woman" in order to compete. Not to mention, that would significantly reduce one's athletic prowess.
Generally, what you suggest is such a remote possibility as to be completely absurd.
Yet performance related to hormones is not a "subjective experience". Nor body composition. E.g. in cycling females are at big disadvantage because their hips are wider, making them less aerodynamic.
> I struggle to believe that a male athlete would accept taking hormones or being castrated to reduce their testosterone so they can "pretend to be a woman" in order to compete.
I see you haven't been in sports scene much. I saw even amateurs in local weekend-warrior league taking doping (the cheap one, with very clear risks later in life) just to win some meaningless local race. People fucking love even tiny slice of glory.
> Not to mention, that would significantly reduce one's athletic prowess.
Those people don't care about absolute prowess. They care about podium. For example, it's not uncommon for amateurs to cheat to qualify for lower-tier group just to singlehandedly win against weaker opponents.
Source: spent many years in local amateurs and semi-pros cycling scene.
What I don't understand is what all this has to do with transgendered athletes.