If inquire into why spaces are separated we get various arguments based on human behaviour: safety and hygiene are the most common arguments I hear. Stuff like modesty/embarrassment/nakedness etc. are not usually talked about as much, but - I feel - often implied. I find the comparison to saunas interesting; they seem to be often mixed without problems: but there are two important differences: while nearly everyone uses public toilets, using saunas is far more optional. And the taboo nature of excreting heightens feeling of shame, which is absent with saunas. — Dawnstorm

This got me thinking about changing rooms in various gyms I've been in. None of them have been mixed, and women have complained about the presence of biological men, as in this story:
https://www.newsweek.com/gym-chain-center-tish-hyman-dispute-flooded-negative-reviews-10989692
This is also an issue in school locker rooms. Girls, understandably, are not always comfortable with biological boys being around them while they're changing.

Well, here's where differ: I do not think bathrooms are "divided by sex." I believe this is surface rhetoric. Bathrooms themselves are social constructs. And bathrooms being "divided by sex," means that bathrooms are gendered: there are bathrooms for girls and bathrooms for boys and unisex bathrooms. Gendering bathrooms is, first and foremost, something we're doing. Something we're used to doing. Something ingrained in our daily praxis. Gendering bathrooms is social behaviour. — Dawnstorm

That's interesting. It may be due to a difference of gender definition. For most of the life of the term gender it was a synonym for 'sex'. Probably about 60 years ago there was an introduction to create a new meaning from gender. This meaning of gender is 'Non biological social expectation from a particular sex."

So what does this mean? We know from biology that on average, men are taller than women. Can an individual man be shorter than a woman? Sure. This is biological expectation, not gender expectation. Gender is when society places cultural actions on a biological sex that have nothing to do with their biological sex. So for example, "Women wear dresses". Is there anything innately biological in a woman wearing a dress? No. Its purely a cultural construct of subjective expectation.

A trans gendered individual is not a trans sexual individual. It is an individual of one sex that does not like the cultural expectation of their sex. So they might be a man who likes to wear dresses, or a woman who likes to wear top hats. Or perhaps a man believes that only women stay at home and take care of the house while men have to work. So he lets his wife work and stays at home.

Bathrooms are not gendered. They are divided by sex. Urinals are designed for the biology of males, not females. The privacy is afforded each sex because there is also more than urination and excrement, but menstruation from women. Not to mention that there is nudity and clothing removal to take care of biological needs. One does not go into the bathroom to affirm that one is male or female, they use the bathroom because they are male or female.

The trans gendered community wants to argue that enacting the cultural expectation of the other sex gives them the right to be in spaces divided by sex. So if a man wears a dress, feels like a woman, and acts in a cultural way that he believes women aught to act, that he should be allowed in the women's bathroom, lockers, sexual abuse centers, and jails. This male can be fully intact and not on hormones.

To make my position clear: sexual facts applied in social contexts is always gendered. That includes biology: the way we organise the facts to make sense of them could be different. But biological facts do set boundries of what is likely to be successful. So empirical research is going to be far more strict than socially structured excretion. — Dawnstorm

So this is an incorrect view of gender within gender theory. Gender and sex are completely different meanings. Meaning you can have division based on sex differences, and based on gender differences. Anything based on biological differences is a sex differentiated situation that is not cultural. For example, getting a prostate exam. Since only men have prostates, the exclusion from females getting the exam is not a cultural difference, but a reasonable one based purely on biological ones.

The issue with many trans gendered individuals is they are likely unintentionally applying sexual differences as cultural expectations. Either that, are they are really trans sexuals and desire to have the cross sex access without the need to take hormones or have surgery. And of course there are always bad actors who want to cross these spaces for duplicitous, malicious, or perverted reasons. I want to be clear I do not think this is the majority, but it must be recognized they exist.

Smart people are good at building elaborate justifications that work out logically. But these elaborate legitimisations, too, are constructs, and not ones likely to be shared with trans people - or me, for that matter. — Dawnstorm

True and well said. I hope my point is based on rational argumentation and not merely bias or lazy thinking. The key is when we start saying things about rights and laws, we have to be very specific and accurate with definitions.

Now I'm a cis male and use bathrooms for boys without a second thought. I neither know or care if I ever shared a bathroom with a trans man. As a result, this is not an issue that intimately impacts me. Which also means that I'm talking from an easy place. I can question the status quo with little problem, because a change won't impact me personally at all. — Dawnstorm

Same, I really appreciate your humbleness and self-awareness in this.

Does Ms Pacman have a female biology? My personal take (in worldbuilding terms; I know Ms Pacman is just pixels... or scan lines... depending on the technology) is that Pacmen reproduce by mitosis (when you've eaten enough you get an extra life, no?). This is only partly a joke. — Dawnstorm

Its light hearted, but your point is well stated. Its interesting to think about what people feel. Some people might view Ms. Pacman as 'biologicaly female' as in 'female pac-creature'. Some people may feel that there is no separated sex intent between the two creatures, and that the only difference is that one wears a bow while the other doesn't. In the same way, it may be possible that humans view 'man and woman' in similar fashion sometimes. I personally cannot view a person in any other way than biology. If you pointed at the blue sky and told me it wasn't blue, I could no more unsee the blue sky than view a man or woman as a biologically distinct person. But, it may be that there are people who do not see biology, and generally only see cultural actions as their primary view of 'man or woman' and legitimately could swap them out in their mind without any compunction.

I think though that my viewpoint is the norm. When Mulan was found to be female, no one said, "Oh, well you were a man, but now you're only a woman because we made you wear a dress." Its an odd way of thinking that doesn't seem quite right.

This got me thinking about changing rooms in various gyms I've been in. None of them have been mixed, and women have complained about the presence of biological men, as in this story:
https://www.newsweek.com/gym-chain-center-tish-hyman-dispute-flooded-negative-reviews-10989692
This is also an issue in high school locker rooms. Girls, understandably, are not always comfortable with biological boys/men being around them while they're changing. — RogueAI

Hello RogueAI! To bring it to the OP, do you believe that it is a human right that a person's gender allow someone to enter cross sex spaces? That if a woman is uncomfortable with this, she is against a human right?

Hello RogueAI! To bring it to the OP, do you believe that it is a human right that a person's gender allow someone to enter cross sex spaces? That if a woman is uncomfortable with this, she is against a human right? — Philosophim

No, I think women have a well deserved fear of biological men. I think they have a human right to some traditional women-only spaces and sports. This is easy to do in sports, but incredibly difficult to legislate wrt bathrooms and changing rooms. Suppose you have a biological woman who has transitioned to a man and looks like a man. Do we want him to have to use the ladies bathroom/changing room? And vice-versa? On the other hand, if a biological man is walking around the PlanetFitness women's locker room with his junk hanging out, the ladies have a right to complain.

I think they have a human right to some traditional women-only spaces and sports. — RogueAI

What is this human right?

Suppose you have a biological woman who has transitioned to a man and looks like a man. Do we want him to have to use the ladies bathroom/changing room? — RogueAI

I personally don't mind. I had an encounter with a trans gender woman years ago in the male bathroom and it was fine. I think the case here is whether a person can identify the trans person as their natal sex. A person could disguise themselves as an employee and go 'behind the counter', behave like an employee, then leave without anyone knowing. But is that right? If someone can disguise themselves (trans gender, not trans sexual) as the opposite sex, does it make it ok for them to use opposite sex spaces?

Ah, but I do believe in a rational moral structure apart from the law. I don't make the all too common mistake of equating one with the other, though.

but I do believe in a rational moral structure apart from the law. — Ciceronianus

Structure? What kind of structure?

Ah, but I do believe in a rational moral structure apart from the law. I don't make the all too common mistake of equating one with the other, though. — Ciceronianus

Yes, a few had implied this equation, but you never did. Human and natural rights are rational moral structures apart from the law. Is yours something similar or is it a unique system? If similar we could address it, but if its unique that might be too much to tackle in this thread.

They might or they might not go away. Again, I think the situation could be considered analogous to that for gay people. Although the problems are not gone, social acceptance has improved. — T Clark

I'm not sure how to reply. After thinking this through, I'm not sure I understood you right. Are you talking about the results of a social justice movement? I was talking about the effects of a single personal transition and the results on that individuals life in the portion you quoted. But even then I was simplifying far too much (there's "being able to pass" vs "a perceived pressure to pass" - there's a tension field here or not, depending on the trans person's personality. I've lost track and I'm confused. I apologise.

This got me thinking about changing rooms in various gyms I've been in. None of them have been mixed, and women have complained about the presence of biological men, as in this story:
https://www.newsweek.com/gym-chain-center-tish-hyman-dispute-flooded-negative-reviews-10989692
This is also an issue in school locker rooms. Girls, understandably, are not always comfortable with biological boys being around them while they're changing. — RogueAI

Yes, that is one of the situations where empathy tears me apart inside and I dispair. In my darker hours I just think people deserve each other. Not all the time, I'm getting there more often than not lately.

I can't side with anyone here. Not with the trans woman, not with the lady, not with the gym. At the same time I realise it's a difficult situation. Given my personality: If I'd been the woman, I'd likely have been uncomfortable, too, but I'd have kept my head down. If I'd been the trans-person, I'd not have been there in the first place, and if for some reason circumstance would have driven me there, I'd have tried to be as inconspicable as possible, which wouldn't have been very inconspicable. If I were an employee present at the time, I'd be physically sick while being faced with firm policy, and two people fighting it out without giving a quarter.

This is stand-your-ground territory, and I tend to choose flight over fight whenever possible. It's people who choose fight over flight that tend to make headlines like these. And then people line up on either side of the fence, and that's what dominates the discourse. We're doomed, I tell you. Dooooooomed.

(Sorry, I'm better now.)

So what does this mean? We know from biology that on average, men are taller than women. Can an individual man be shorter than a woman? Sure. This is biological expectation, not gender expectation. Gender is when society places cultural actions on a biological sex that have nothing to do with their biological sex. So for example, "Women wear dresses". Is there anything innately biological in a woman wearing a dress? No. Its purely a cultural construct of subjective expectation. — Philosophim

This seems too crude a term to be analytically useful if the goal is to understand what's going on within the wide area on gender-non-conformism. For example, intersex is a biological condition, but it doesn't easily fit the expectations we have about bodies. Our society doesn't really provide easy categories and thus they're "deviant bodies". That implies a social role.

So on to "transgender":

A trans gendered individual is not a trans sexual individual. It is an individual of one sex that does not like the cultural expectation of their sex. So they might be a man who likes to wear dresses, or a woman who likes to wear top hats. Or perhaps a man believes that only women stay at home and take care of the house while men have to work. So he lets his wife work and stays at home. — Philosophim

I know you make that distinction, but it's a difficult one to make, because the terms aren't clear. There are people who are trans who use the terms like you do here, for sure. There are people who are trans who have no use for the term gender to being with. There are people who are trans who reject that they can ever be tanssexual, no matter how much they'd like to be; the latest reasoning (read by doing research while reading this thread, but I didn't keep a link) was that "they can only tinker with their phenotype; their genotype they have no control over").

I dispense with the distinction because I don't find it useful. Also simply cross-dressing does not make you trans. You lose a distinction here that is socially meaningful:

A cis woman who wears a dress, is the default expectation. It's unexceptional. Women these days don't stand out (at least not where I live) for wearing jeans and t-shirt instead. That's very common, too, so these days it's a "can-norm".

Every other constellation is aware that what they're doing shirks gender expectations. The model above would suggest you lump them all in the same category: people who are not biologically female yet still like to wear a dress are all trans. They're not. They're all aware that they shirk some sort of gender expectation, but their motivation and behaviour potential vastly differs:

A cis man can wear a dress for many reason. It could be a sign of rebellion. He could just like wearing dresses. It could be the outgrowth of an interest in haute couture... He'll generally not try to pass as a woman, though, unless he's into trolling.

A trans woman who wears a dress, wears the clothes of the gender she feels like. It could be what she wants to do, or maybe she'd prefer to wear her usual attire, but thinks that would make it harder for people to accept her chosen gender. Maybe it's peer pressure; other trans people want her to wear dresses.

More importantly, a cis man who likes to wear dresses may be at odds with a trans woman who uses wearing dresses as a signal of her felt gender. One wishes to loosen the dress code, while the other - as a side-effect, mind you - re-inforces the dress code. In places, where women are still expected to wear dresses and face censure for wearing trousers, cis women who like to wear trousers find themselves more aligned with cis men who wear dresses than with trans men who wear dresses: it's "I'm a man, and I can wear a dress if I want to," vs. "look at me, I'm wearing a dress, I'm a woman."

With the trans woman, wearing a dress also might help her "pass". That may relief the stress of having to explain yourself over and over again, but it carries the risk of being "found out". This might carry the stigma of dishonesty, even though that's not the intent. The mismatch is two-fold here: you're subjectively misgendered on account of your body, AND you're accused of a personality flaw you do not have.

A trans man who is wearing a dress is actually conforming to the expectations people have of him according to his body, and thus it's perhaps the least obvious form of shirking gender norms. I've recently learned of the term "girl moding". As long you're not close to passing you pretend to be what others think you are, but not you yourself. Once you're close to passing you may switch (or not, who knows).

It's far, far easier for me to navigate this messy situation if it's not only behaviour but also bodies that are gendered.

So:

When Mulan was found to be female, no one said, "Oh, well you were a man, but now you're only a woman because we made you wear a dress." Its an odd way of thinking that doesn't seem quite right. — Philosophim

Yes, that's an odd way of thinking. And it's not how I think.

Its light hearted, but your point is well stated. Its interesting to think about what people feel. Some people might view Ms. Pacman as 'biologicaly female' as in 'female pac-creature'. Some people may feel that there is no separated sex intent between the two creatures, and that the only difference is that one wears a bow while the other doesn't. — Philosophim

That, too. But what I'm drawn to here is that I think most people only perceive the gender and never topicalise sex to begin with. I think this might be more common in real life than we realise. I wish I could explain what I think this means in detail, but I'm unsure. It's certainly not that I think biological sex is irrelevant.

Where I do agree, I think, with @T Clark is that I do think treating the "mental condition" of being trans in the sense of "making them realise what they really are" is akin to conversion therapy for gays. But at the same time I think being trans is a real, bodily thing, and you can be wrong about being trans. And finally I don't trust that anyone currently alive knows enough about the subject to tell the difference. And that's a rather difficult postion from which to approach the subject.

[Argh, what a long post.]

This seems too crude a term to be analytically useful if the goal is to understand what's going on within the wide area on gender-non-conformism. — Dawnstorm

If we mean 'gender is purely a social construct' then its not crude. If we intend to tie 'gender is sex', then it is crude because then gender as a definition is ambiguous and crude itself. The way to 'uncrude it' as it were is to use sex for sex based realities and expectations vs gender for gender based realities and expectations. Conflating the two in any way muddies thinking and is the wrong way to approach it.

I know you make that distinction, but it's a difficult one to make, because the terms aren't clear. There are people who are trans who use the terms like you do here, for sure. — Dawnstorm

What's important in a philosophical analysis is to pull the terms that people may use indiscriminately and carefully define them in a way that makes rational discussion possible. "Slang" is not anything we can think rationally about. To have rational thought we must first use clear and unambiguous definitions. We can clearly note that if someone uses the term in a different way, that's a different concept. So we use the term in one clear context and concept, which is gender as a social construct. In this way using gender to mean anything related to biological sex expectation is poor vocabulary, unclear thinking, and emotional subjectivity. Nothing can be reasoned with poor and unclear vocabulary. Anyone who desires something at the expense of a person's rational thinking understands this and pushes it. In philosophy we have a responsibility to clarify and pull out the emotional and ill thought out uses of terms into something clear, rational, and unambiguous. What I've noted as the definition for gender is the basis of gender theory.

There are people who are trans who reject that they can ever be tanssexual, no matter how much they'd like to be; the latest reasoning (read by doing research while reading this thread, but I didn't keep a link) was that "they can only tinker with their phenotype; their genotype they have no control over"). — Dawnstorm

If 'trans sexual' means 'fully the other sex', then no one can be trans sexual. But 'trans gender' doesn't mean, 'fully the opposite gender' either. If we are to keep the terms in similar use, trans gender is crossing gender boundaries, trans sexual is crossing sex boundaries. Anyone who alters their biology in an attempt to cross a sex boundary is a trans sexual under this definition.

This is important, because there are many trans gendered individuals who do not attempt to alter their body. They are satisfied crossing the gender divide, but not the biological sexual divide. As such the two terms create a clear distinction that covers two separate modes of thought and process without leaving anyone behind.

A cis woman who wears a dress, is the default expectation. It's unexceptional. Women these days don't stand out (at least not where I live) for wearing jeans and t-shirt instead. That's very common, too, so these days it's a "can-norm". — Dawnstorm

Correct. This is because gender can change from person to person, group to group, and culture to culture over time. It is a purely subjective notion of behavior for a person's sex. As such it holds no objective weight.

Every other constellation is aware that what they're doing shirks gender expectations. The model above would suggest you lump them all in the same category: people who are not biologically female yet still like to wear a dress are all trans. — Dawnstorm

To be more accurate, they are exhibiting 'trans gender behavior'. "Trans" is a slang term. If we intend this slang term to mean, "A person who holds a trans gender identity", this would be a person who consciously chooses where possible to embody the culturally expected behaviors of the other sex while shunning the culturally expected behaviors of their own sex.

cis women who like to wear trousers find themselves more aligned with cis men who wear dresses than with trans men who wear dresses: it's "I'm a man, and I can wear a dress if I want to," vs. "look at me, I'm wearing a dress, I'm a woman." — Dawnstorm

This is 'trans gendered behavior" in the eyes of the social group, while in the subjective mind of the individual, it is a rejection of the social group's idea of gender. Lets say I was raised in a family that discouraged men from being dancers because "Real men don't dance." I grow up and really like to dance. Further, I think its completely stupid that they think men can't dance. I reject the idea of gender entirely and dance. To them, its trans gender behavior. For me, its not because in my definition of 'male gender', 'not dancing' isn't part of that definition.

This is the problem with making gender into a means of law or enforcement. What one believes gender should be for each sex can be different for every single person, group, or country. It is culturally enforced prejudice or sexism. Nothing more.

It's far, far easier for me to navigate this messy situation if it's not only behaviour but also bodies that are gendered. — Dawnstorm

No, its far, FAR messier. Keeping a clear distinction allows clear thought. Once you realize the difference between trans gender and trans sexual, you can correctly identify people's motivations. Some people truly only want trans gender situation. Other only want trans sexual situations. There are men who want to grow boobs, but behave like gendered men. There can also be blends. There are people who want to be both trans gendered, and trans sexual. Identifying which aspects are trans gender and trans sexual allow clear distinctions and greater accuracy in identifying people's situations.

That, too. But what I'm drawn to here is that I think most people only perceive the gender and never topicalise sex to begin with. — Dawnstorm

I disagree with this. I think you're still blending in expected sex behavior with cultural behavior. Imagine that you see a six foot tall man who walks with a physically straight gait, has a large nose, and is wearing a dress and a bow in their hair. The dress and the bow are gender, the gait and large nose are sex features. Perhaps I am wrong, but most people will look at the sex features over the gender features every time. To be clear, a female can have a large nose and a straight gait instead of a hip sway, but biologically it is more common for men to have large noses and a straight gait. Do you see the difference between gender expectations and sex expectations?

Where I do agree, I think, with T Clark is that I do think treating the "mental condition" of being trans in the sense of "making them realise what they really are" is akin to conversion therapy for gays. — Dawnstorm

Conversion therapy refers to sexual orientation. We know conversation therapy doesn't work because you can't change your sexual orientation. The attempt to claim "conversion therapy" is to claim the negative connotation from the word so that trans gender and trans sexual people can justify what they desire without having to do the work that went into demonstrating why changing a person's sexual orientation is doomed to fail.

Now, as I've noted above, many straight men have a sexual impetus to transition. Phil Illy's "Autosexual" book makes a great argument that this is a sexual orientation as it is lifelong and does not break. Just like a gay person has the wrong triggers for sexual attraction, a trans sexual person (all people who transition are tran sexuals by definition) are able to take the normal outside attraction they have for a woman and place it upon themselves. This is not farfetched, as there is another orientation called 'Autosexual". This is a person who is sexually and/or romantically aroused by themself. A person with this condition looks at themselves in the mirror and is physically turned on by themselves, and can fall romantically in love with themselves. A trans sexual with this orientation is essentially an auto sexual who gets the attraction trigger that they see in other women when they present themselves as a woman.

After examining all kinds of different motivations to transition, this is the only motivation I can actually see as being viable. It is something that cannot be removed from the individual as it seems to exhibit all the hallmarks of a sexual orientation. (I cannot say for sure, I am not a sexologist) If this is the case, then 'conversion therapy' would actually apply here. In the other cases in which it is non-sexually motivated, it seems to all boil down to confusion, trauma, or fear which cause transition. These all seem to me to be treatable as it wouldn't be treating a person's desire to transition, but treating the underlying issues that lead people to view transition as a coping mechanism.

I appreciate your long post! Its been a nice conversation.

I'm uncertain whether any thread so entirely devoted to claimed non-legal rights is an appropriate place to respond to your posts. That's because it should come as no surprise that such supposed rights have no place in what I think is moral conduct.

I favor a kind of virtue ethics, together with consideration of what conduct is appropriate to achieve eudamonia. It's based on ancient views concerning what is right conduct on our part rather than demands we be treated in certain ways by others. Hope that suffices for now.

I'm not sure how to reply. After thinking this through, I'm not sure I understood you right. Are you talking about the results of a social justice movement? I was talking about the effects of a single personal transition and the results on that individuals life in the portion you quoted. — Dawnstorm

Without going back and checking our previous posts, as I remember it, this whole discussion arose from me pointing out that homosexuality was once considered a mental disorder as gender dysphoria is currently. It no longer is.

I favor a kind of virtue ethics, together with consideration of what conduct is appropriate to achieve eudamonia. It's based on ancient views concerning what is right conduct on our part rather than demands we be treated in certain ways by others. Hope that suffices for now. — Ciceronianus

I much appreciate your polite contribution to the thread! Thank you for your viewpoints.