Yes, yours did that, which is what my argument about the age of consent demonstrates. — BenMcLean

Ok. No, it didn't. my post was pretty clear. Your argument, somewhat less so.

Foucault was a critical theorist which puts him in this same post-Marxist / neo-Marxist space where social idenities replace economic determinism as the drivers of oppression, which formed the academic and ideological grounding for the current anti-liberal "woke" worldivew.[/quote]

Foucault's main thrust explains how discourse operates as power. Whereas sex is falsifiable by observations of nature, 'gender' is purely a discursive construct which is unfalsifiable.

It relates to to the story of The King's Body (Discipline and Punish). The King's body has two components. A living human body and the social body of 'The King'. 'The King' is a permanent fixture that a series of living bodies occupy. The living body has no power. The power resides in 'The King' (there's more to it about power existing as contrast between 'The King' and 'The Condemned Man'), but the point is, power is exerted by one social body against another. It doesn't exist in living bodies per-se, but the Social Body that living bodies occupy. "The King" is the product of a socially sanctioned discourse. It is not observable in nature.

'Men' and 'women', according to gender theory, are Social Bodies which (a succession of) living bodies occupy. Male and female are living bodies (observed in nature). The power of the gendered discourse is solely reliant on a socially sanctioned discourse, similar to "The King".

The claim a male makes, "I am a woman," expresses the desire to fill "The Woman's" social body, but the discourse about 'women' has always exclusively pertained to females. Males cannot occupy "The Woman's Body". This worked because females are identifiable in nature. When males claim that position, it is an exertion of power against females such that females aren't the exclusive occupiers of their own 'Body'. They are 'kicked out' by males who relegate them to a discursively constructed "Cis Body". Thus the transgender discourse is inherently misogynous.

Females who lay claim to 'The Man's' body also exert discursive power, but we are not writing 'men' out of social discourse. Only 'women'. Hence, whereas we have 'pregnant people' (who replace 'women' or 'mothers'), we do not have 'people with a prostrate' - we still call them 'Men'.

That's an off the cuff Foucaultian analysis of the thing, and far from being woke, it exposes the power dynamics at play. Foucault is woke in the sense that gender ideologues understand discourse as power (Foucault is essential gender studies reading), and intentionally use discourse to undermine women. That's how 'Gender' became structurally and institutionally established throughout policy, law, health, education, industry and everything.

If we socially sanction the gendered narrative, females will be 'written out' of "The Woman's Body" and thus become utterly disempowered. For example, many women and girls have stood down in sports because males entered 'The Woman's Body', and indeed, the power of a female to say 'No' to a male has been greatly diminished since she was relegated to being "Cis".

Thus the transgender discourse in inherently misogynous. — Throng

It is also can be equally masandrist when trans men are involved. This is all too often forgotten in the conversation, but rans men exist too. There are trans men who think because they've transitioned, they're now gay and can hit on gay men. Which is incredibly homophobic. I don't think transitioning is innately misogynist or mysandrist, but much of the rhetoric around it is.

The tenor of your discussion may be heading more towards the idea of gender as having any credible import in laws. I have another one here that may be more along the lines of what you're thinking about. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/16313/gender-elevated-over-sex-is-sexism/p1

I don't think transitioning is innately misogynist or mysandrist, but much of the rhetoric around it is. — Philosophim

Well, misogyny is a dynamic between powerful 'Men' in contrast with disempowered "Women". Males can exert that at any time because we can simply bash non-compliant females. That's why Afghan women live in black bags, and woe betide she who is seen! I don't knw if the males over there want to live as a "Woman". The "Woman" social body is not desirable over there because the living body is, and desire is so unbecoming of "A Man". It's "Her" fault that "Men" are craven, so "She" must not be seen.

Females in most of the world do not not live in bags, so she is desirable, and so is "She". Males want to occupy "Her" body and they are currently coercing consent. However, take Blair White for example, who doesn't attempt to TWAW her way in. She claims to be 'A Man' and respects women from a male's perspective. Thus, appearing feminine isn't inherently misogynistic, but the claim "I am a woman' is.

In this way, misogyny is inherent to males entering The Woman's Body (which was the context within which I made that remark), but not inherent to feminine men who remain within "The Body of The Man".

I think you may be describing some aspects from the transwomen side, but not all. And I still think only addressing trans women ignores the commonality between them and trans men.

More importantly for my purposes, I think there is a clear division between trans gender individuals and trans sexuals. I do believe that trans gender is inherently prejudicial, and ultimately sexist if it rises above the fact of the person. However trans sexual individuals simply desire the body of the other sex. While they can also be trans gender, I want to isolate specifically the trans sexuals who still understand they aren't going to magically change into the other sex, but have a deep psychological desire to do so anyway.

The trans gender issue takes up so much bandwidth, its rare I can think or discuss about this particular issue with another. Do you think there is something potentially different about trans sexual individuals? Even in societies where women are oppressed, there are trans sexuals. Its a very rare occurrence, but they exist across all cultures. Should the desire be entertained if the technology is available? Is the separation of trans sexuals and trans genders something viable to consider?

Words like woman and man aren’t fixed labels; their meanings come from how we use them in our lives, in law, in society, in everyday practice. Language isn’t a static system of definitions—it’s a web of practices, habits, and shared understandings. — Banno

Maybe, but you say it in such absolute terms, it casts some doubt on your own view. You make “language isn’t a static system” the static description of all that language ever is.

What if language would never have gotten off the ground if “language isn’t a static system of definitions”?

I know it’s all clear to you, but it seems to me, if I was you, and all I saw in language were blurry, shifting (not static) temporary practices, I wouldn’t be using dogmatic sounding terms like “language isn’t a static system.”

If language didn’t contain the static, ever, the notion of “shared understandings” is silly. How can two people share the same understanding if not even words can be fixed? What is left to fix as shared?

Uh-huh. And this fluid, ever shifting approach then applies directly to words like "child" and "adult" and "consent." We're no doubt supposed to understand these words, not as a static system of definitions, but as a web of practices, habits, etc, so that we can't point at a statute and say, "This person was underage" because words like "underage" can't be understood in such static, rigid terms. — BenMcLean

Exactly. Once you downplay and subvert the function of language to define itself and fix its terms, you destroy the ability of two communicants to coalesce on a shared understanding. Once you try to argue that “woman” need not mean the same thing to me and to you, today and tomorrow, then why bother trying to clarify anything? Whatever is clarified is not actually clear, and the words used to clarify it are not clarifying.

A man is a whole thing. Gender, biological sex, psychology and desires, etc. We have made the word “man” to distinguish this from that. Or are we all mumbling to ourselves, hoping some context might make it make sense to whomever hears us?

multiple legitimate uses — Banno

If language needs nothing static about it to function as communication, and foster “shared understanding”, how can you say “legitimate” and mean anything whatsoever by it? What, or who, legitimates? Legitimate here serves to make each use “static” so you’ve contradicted yourself.

Meaning is contextual: truth isn’t fixed by biology alone nor reducible to private claims. — Banno

That is all accurate. But it doesn’t mean that nothing static forms. It precisely means there is a particular (fixed) context for a particular meaning to cash out as “truth”. (Why do you bother with the word “truth” - you mean to say “function”. And you still don’t avoid what is fixed and static in order to say something that others wouldn’t also understand as truth.)

Statements like “transwomen are women” can be true in some contexts (social, legal, identity based), and false in others (strict biological categorisation) depending on which use of the term is salient. — Banno

But the only way to navigate through a conversation and make statements that “can be true in some contexts and false in others” is to fix things, and make our definitions concrete. The very statement you just made is meaningless to anyone and everyone until you fix something for us to measure it against. Why would I agree with anyone on earth about what they find salient when I am questioning the meaning of statements like “men are also not men, because the meaning of ‘men’ is not fixed?”

Language itself is the only salient thing now, because it seems to be slipping away, as we speak.

Attempts to privilege one use as “the only correct one” ignore the plurality of language functions and tacit prejudices about what counts as “rational” uses of terms. — Banno

I think this is the source of the flaws in the “language is use” model. The flaws are above (namely, language can simply be derived from itself and its functions; language contains nothing static; context is the locus of meaning to the detriment of the thing that is meant; words seem to function despite themselves.). So it’s not a flaw inside the model, but it’s the source of the flaws.

No one is attempting to privilege one use as the correct use. (You raised “correct” - you are the one raising “true in some contexts and false in others” - that is a conversation that would seek the “correct” - so someone must be trying to privilege the correct, but this is a digression.)

It’s not about correct use among many uses. The attempt is to find one single use of a word, at all. You miss this point, and skip right into the fray of “the plurality of language functions and tacit prejudices about what counts as “rational” uses of terms.” There is no plurality absent any individuals. The attempt is to individuate one clear term, to focus on the individual with its context. Fix an individual for all to share. The attempt is to count a single rational use. If you leap to the flux of context battering anecdotal instances without concern for fixing any words, context in flux devours all meaning. If language is not static, then “language” will one day not mean what “language” is spoken (like “woman” used to specifically exclude “with a penis” but no longer does.)

So the source of the flaws is a prejudice favoring flux and motion and its affects on any attempt to fix terms.

The flux is real and ubiquitous. But so are the things moved, the objects we similarly grasp and understand and fix.

Language as mere use, renders “meaning” fairly useless. Language is more than use, and that more, includes the fixed.

Being human wreaks of the absurd. But to say more than that, to say “the absurd” with clear meaning and understanding is to refute this absurdity existed in the first place. If we don’t want to recognize the fixed and the understood and the things about language that can never change, then it seems ridiculous to argue with anyone, about anything.

Basically “transwomen are women”, once true in any context, subverts any solid sense of “true” or “context” by dismantling any reliable use of the words “transwomen” or “woman”.

If language didn’t contain the static, ever, the notion of “shared understandings” is silly. How can two people share the same understanding if not even words can be fixed? — Fire Ologist

This is a bizarre take. We know language isn't fixed. Surely you know the language you're speaking now didn't exist 2000 years ago. And after it did come into existence, it was spoken very differently from how it's spoken now.

You can have a shared understanding without a perfectly static language, as long as it's static enough. It doesn't have to be entirely static, just relatively stable.

If all words had fixed meanings, there would be one true correct language and all other languages would just be wrong.

Interesting example: in Shakespearean times, the word "nice" meant foolish, it didn't mean kind. In his time, it was understood to mean foolish, and in our time it's understood to mean kind. So we clearly have a shifting non static language, and we also clearly have a contemporary common understanding.

If language didn’t contain the static, ever, the notion of “shared understandings” is silly. How can two people share the same understanding if not even words can be fixed?
— Fire Ologist

This is a bizarre take. We know language isn't fixed. Surely you know the language you're speaking now didn't exist 2000 years ago. And after it did come into existence, it was spoken very differently from how it's spoken now. — flannel jesus

I think the issue is that language cannot be a purely rule less enterprise. Its like saying, "Since every human is slightly different, a pig can be a human." Of course it can't. The entirety of philosophy is based on defining language and rules to create logical outcomes. If you use language to 'prove' language has no rules, you've just created a rule about language and contradicted yourself. Its not that rules can't change over time, but that doesn't mean the rules and outcomes of today are suddenly invalid or trivialized.

as long as it's static enough — flannel jesus

That’s my take. You just agreed with me, (which is also bizarre).

In order for the definition and use of a word to change (at all) from “x” to “y”, the word has to first be defined as “x”. Static enough is essential to communication among different people.

Can we define “woman” today, for right now, and for use tomorrow? Or not?

just relatively stable. — flannel jesus

Relative to what, the beginning of time, or the last time I spoke, or relative to what I meant by a word yesterday in my mind, or relative to what Shakespeare meant, or relative to what most people meant, last century versus last night? Relatively stable will get you to a single functioning definition if you let it. People can grow new uses and words can change, but that is a different topic isn’t it?

We act like it is impossible to fix a definition and stick with it.

It only seems to be impossible when people don’t like the word.

If all words had fixed meanings, there would be one true correct language and all other languages would just be wrong. — flannel jesus

I don’t see how fixing words within a language makes one true language (as opposed to other false languages). I’m just saying language isn’t language without fixing words with meanings. Meanings and uses can change. But a word is never useful at all if it is not fixed to some degree by all who attempt to use it, and if the word is never fixed first, how do we know its use changes, how to we mark its change?

Nice used to mean foolish. Today it doesn’t. In order for those two sentences to function at all to communicate your point, we need to fix two different meanings to the one word “nice”, one of them for a few hundred years ago, and another different one for now. There is a ton of relatively stable, static enough work being done to make things “nice”.

When it comes to “woman” for some reason people think we can let everyone say who/what it means differently everyday, for themselves, and for others, and yet believe language will function. Yesterday “woman” would never include “having a penis” but today, some think “woman” can include it while keeping “woman” functional in our language. Language doesn’t work that way.

We could redefine women to include people with a vagina and people with penis, if we want to, and find it useful. But we have a word for that group - person, or human being. Woman means something more specific.

that language cannot be a purely rule less enterprise. — Philosophim

Nobody said that though, just said that it's not static. And it's clearly not

Nobody said that though, — flannel jesus

The only way for you to know nobody said that is to fix meanings. Otherwise, are you sure you aren’t saying that? Absolutely “nobody” is saying down with all the rules? Gender is so fluid, “ladies room” could have anything in it? Or no?

you're doing a motte and bailey. You talk as if language is absolutely fixed and unchanging and then retreat to a more easily defendable position that it can and does change, but that is just kinda temporarily semi fixed in some contexts. It's hard to have a conversation when you claim one thing and then defend another.

Language isn't this objective truth that you can discover, like how we can discover the digits of pi or what elements bind with what other elements. People decide what words mean, together.

In order for the definition and use of a word to change (at all) from “x” to “y”, the word has to first be defined as “x”. Static enough is essential to communication among different people — Fire Ologist

This is actually incorrect. Word usage comes first; definitions come later. Lexicographers don't determine the definitions -- common usage does, and the lexicographers study it and use it to create dictionaries. These days, the definitions of gendered pronouns are changing. They are often used to refer to a person's gender identity rather than his or her sex.

People decide what words mean, — flannel jesus

So are transwomen women or not? What is our decision? I’m saying if you all decide yes, you are breaking the simple defining characteristics of women, and transwomen. We need two separate words for these or we will end up finding penises in girls rooms.

People decide what words mean, — flannel jesus

That doesn’t refute the need for stability and the static in language. It just states how stability is reached.

definitions come later. — Ecurb

I think I’m trying to speak to whether definitions come at all, ever.

You guys and your magical functioning use.

So are transwomen women or not? — Fire Ologist

That's a great question, and I'm not personally convinced very hard either direction. I think there's a lot of confusion around what it means to be trans, what trans people actually are and what they're going through. I would love to have more clarity on it.

I don't believe in the big conspiracy about trans people that they all just have a weird fetish. Some of them, maybe, but I don't think that's even the majority. I think the majority are probably going through something that's real, tangibly measurably real in some way despite our current inability to measure it. Whatever that thing is, whether that makes them Genuine Women ™️, I just don't know.

Some people hope to find the answer in the neurology of trans people. Something you can point to in the brain to see, see this structure here? Cis men don't have that, trans women do. If such a structure exists, it's pretty elusive, but finding it would clear up a lot of confusion in my opinion

So the word “woman” only functions relative to other words. That is the source of the confusion. I am saying the word “woman” functions relative to certain things. Otherwise, when a dude with a beard in a three-piece suit walks into the ladies room, we can’t tell him “Ladies” means “not you dude.”

if we don't want certain people in certain bathrooms, we should have practical justifications of that that aren't mired in trite things like semantic arguments. "We don't want you in this bathroom for this this and this reason", rather than "we don't want you in this bathroom because of what it says on page 356 of Merriam Webster's dictionary". You know what I mean?

So the word “woman” only functions relative to other words. That is the source of the confusion. I am saying the word “woman” functions relative to certain things. Otherwise, when a dude with a beard in a three-piece suit walks into the ladies room, we can’t tell him “Ladies” means “not you dude.” — Fire Ologist

What if the "dude with a beard" was born a woman? Which public toilet should (he or she) use now?

The bathroom obsession about trans people is ridiculous. If someone looks like a man, he or she will create less of a stir using the "Mens" room; if someone looks like a woman, what harm is done if (he or she) uses the "Ladies" room?

You know what I mean? — flannel jesus

I honestly don’t, if you are not talking about fixing definitions of words in order to allow two different people to share one understanding.

practical justifications — flannel jesus

In this context, isn’t a practical justification a definition? A fixed use of a word relative to fixed things the word refers to? That’s practical. That allows for an agreed justification. Some girls don’t transition from males, and don’t transition into males - we can fix a word for that. Let’s call it “girls”.

Transwomen no longer want to hide in confusion. Great. So let’s not think “she” can be applied to “John with a beard” and also think we are clearing things up.

trite things like semantic arguments — flannel jesus

Ok, then why not just agree with me? If this is trite. Throw me a bone and say “yeah, I guess words have some degree of static fixed components to them in order to function as a communication between people at all.” It’s just trite semantics at bottom anyway.

You are merely leaving the conversation leaving things unadressed.

Cis men don't have that, trans women do. — flannel jesus

So are you fixing a difference between “cis men” and “trans women”? Because if not, why bother pointing out something that one has and another doesn’t? If you are, that explains your static, fixed distinction between “cis” and “trans”.

The bathroom obsession…is ridiculous — Ecurb

The bathroom provides a context that makes this debate about words and people’s habits of any significance in our lives. It’s not just about what to do when it’s time to pee. It’s about saying “hi, ma’am, can I help you?” Such a statement can become a declaration of war today. As we all debate the meaning “woman”. This debate would be similar if Philosophim asked “Are snowfalls rainfalls?” The bathroom provides a practical application to our policy about language and the words “man” and “woman”. If I get to decide today that snow is rain, will I still earn equal treatment with other meteorologists? Will people come to me when they are interested in the weather tomorrow? Or am I only communicating confusion? Can it snow in a bathroom? Is taking a shower, standing in the rain? Is there nothing we can fix to clear up any confusion?

Some school districts are grappling with actual policy and the provision of bathrooms to the public. These are physical objects we are naming “boy” or “girl” and “bathroom”, not just mental notions. I am saying no one gets to make any policy about anything without fixing terms. Is saying things in the world have differences between that we can acknowledge in our language. What is the significance of the “men’s room” sign on the door? Is anyone thereby excluded? What is the sign purporting to facilitate?

What is ridiculous to me is the willingness of people to say something, and say they have referred to nothing fixed. Language doesn’t function that way. It’s too late for all of us - we keep fixing ourselves by speaking at all.

One cannot say what gender (or anything) is not without simultaneously defining something about what gender is. If gender, signified by words like “man” and “woman,” can be defined and applied as I alone see fit, then no one can tell me what is not a man or what is a woman. So no one can correct my use of these words either, and their confusion is all on them.

This isn’t just about words changing. There are solid situations we are struggling to describe, like when a person with a penis chooses to enter the room called “ladies”. Some people see something unexpected in that situation, because “ladies” and the person with a penis didn’t used to line up. Some people see this situation and think we need new words for the door, or we must not need the old words to mean what we expected before, what our shared understanding once was. Other people see men in women’s rooms under the name “ladies room” as risky, as harmful to the expectations of people already in the ladies room formerly exclusively identifiable as women, and through the misuse of language, divisive of community and communication.

Bathrooms provide one theatre for the conflict between the postmodern musing about language as only use and the practical functions of communicating.

Are transwomen women? This is a biological question, a psychological question, a sociological question, and a philosophical question. (And a practical one when it comes to where we are allowed by policy to pee.). I am focused on the philosophical question, and the fact that the “language is use” model provides only a means to seek definition while avoiding finding a definition, which subverts the purpose of language, which is communication between two different minds. Language isn’t just about words and word usages. It’s used to move bodies in the physical world. It captures practical policy.

If I get to identify myself as a woman, and everyone is confused by that, the postmodern solution is to tell everyone else “words change”. It’s not to correct me and my misuse of a word. The postmodern solution to confusion is, “live with the confusion”. But maybe, just maybe, the confusion stems from thinking anyone gets to identify objects any way they want and still communicate in a shared language, about a shared understanding. That seems like a cause of confusion to me. I’d rather take advantage of the fact that we can use words to fix things.

How do you guys not see that, in order to dialogue with me, we are each relying on fixed, static uses of words? I am assuming by “static” you don’t understand me to mean “amorphous and changing”. That is how language works. We make our moves standing on fixed points and moving.

Women are women. So how can transwomen simply be the same as women? Aren’t there any differences between women and transwomen worthy of any acknowledgment? What makes “trans” aEd or mean anything if “transwomen are simply women”? If there are differences, do you really think using the same word (such a basic word as “woman”) for these two different things is a clarifying solution to the question”are transwomen women?”

This debate truly is ridiculous. It isn’t rational to seek to use the same almost axiomatic word and concept “women” for distinct bodies, especially given that we keep distinguishing men from women. We need a new word for the distinction transwomen are carving out for themselves, as they they distinguish themselves from the men they once were lumped in with. It is impractical, non-biologically supported, socially confusing, and philosophically unsound to think “trans women are women.”

Transwomen are people, deserving of our love and kindness and respect, and equal rights as fellow citizens. That all really has nothing to do with this philosophic question. Women people deserving all of these as well. And men. A few people (and a political ideology) don’t get to hijack the function of language and repurpose the word “women” just because they think that is the only way equal rights and respect can be distributed to the people who distinguish themselves as “trans”.

It’s not about bathrooms. “She” no longer has meaning if it can refer to males, females, men and women. “She” used to clarify who you meant - now it causes confusion. I’m sure it feels good and validating and supportive for a transwoman to hear herself referred to as “she”. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to be confusing for everyone to keep trying to distinguish her from him in our language as we communicate.

People who seek to change the function/use/meaning/efficacy of such basic terms can probably chill out while still protecting their dignity.

So are you fixing a difference between “cis men” and “trans women”? — Fire Ologist

I don't even know what this question means. Am I fixing? No, I'm speculating that in reality there is one. I don't fix differences, that's not a meaningful English sentence.

Transwomen are people, deserving of our love and kindness and respect, and equal rights as fellow citizens. That all really has nothing to do with this philosophic question. Women people deserving all of these as well. And men. A few people (and a political ideology) don’t get to hijack the function of language and repurpose the word “women” just because they think that is the only way equal rights and respect can be distributed to the people who distinguish themselves as “trans”. — Fire Ologist

Good post Fire.

This needs to be understood clearly from all involved in this discussion. If at any moment anyone thinks raising this issue is about being bigoted, hateful, or 'against trans people', please correct that notion or at least provide a clear reason why you think any of those apply. We want to avoid the problems we have seen prior in discussions. "You don't believe in God? You must be evil and hate people." "You don't believe in our president? Well you must be a commie and hate America." "You're against using language to state a trans woman is a woman? You must hate trans people." Its the same pattern, and we as people who participate in philosophy have the responsibility to not fall into these same patterns.

isn’t a practical justification a definition? — Fire Ologist

No. Practical means something different. It means you can say something like "the consequences of letting people born with penises into these places will have these undesirable effects", and you can make that argument without referring to the definition of women at all.

And for the record, i have no problem with the suggestion that there are negative consequences to letting people born with penises into certain spaces. Maybe that's true, but if it's true it's true regardless of what it says on page 356 of the dictionary.

“Fixing a difference” like “stipulating”. The real question is can “cis man” and “trans man” refer to the same object in the bathroom, like “woman” and “transwoman” seem to do today in some bathrooms.

You gave up on me.

the way those terms are generally understood today, no, cis man and trans man cannot refer to the same human. Those are antonyms.

you can make that argument without referring to the definition — flannel jesus

How about without any definitions, can you argue (speak words) making distinctions between two different things using words with no fixed definitions? I’m still trying to show that we need definitions at all. “Woman” is just the latest foil.

We can’t escape how language serves to communicate between two people. What is communicated, the shared understanding, cannot be an amorphous changing blob, or nothing is communicated and no one understands what is shared.

cis man and trans man cannot refer to the same human. Those are antonyms. — flannel jesus

I don’t think we need to exaggerate the distinction into “antonym” but you admit here, in the man (not the word) there exists something that would make application of the terms “cis” and “trans” contradictory.

Well how about “woman” and “transwoman” - any distinctions of note there at all? Anything present in the transwoman that would beg use of a different term than “woman”? Is it just cis man and trans woman that cut clear lines as antonyms do and contradictions do?

Women are women. So how can transwomen simply be the same as women? — Fire Ologist

What does this have to do with bathrooms? Surely the way to allow people to feel comfortable in bathrooms is to allow those looking like and presenting as women to use the Ladies Room, and those presenting as men to use the Mens Room. Perhaps women would be uncomfortable if someone who looked like a man entered their domain -- but why would anyone care if someone presenting as a woman did?

about without any definitions, can argue distinctions between two different things using words with no fixed definitions? I’m still trying to show that we need definitions at all. “Woman” is just the latest foil. — Fire Ologist

You said words are fixed, that's just incorrect. People need common understandings of terms inside a conservation. Two people could even have sensible conversations if those definitions changed from one conversation to the next, as long as they agreed in each context on what they mean. Idk why you're still harping on about it tbh, you accept that language changes and evolves, I accept that communication relies on some kind of contextual agreement, so we're actually mostly in agreement there about words and how they work to communicate ideas.

If you want to make an argument that people with certain properties shouldn't be in certain places, it really doesn't matter what you call those properties. The argument that you make shouldn't depend on what you name those properties. If people with penises shouldn't be in the toilets we call "women's toilets", it doesn't matter what label you apply to those people with penises, it could be "men" or "trans women" or whatever, the label doesn't matter, the argument shouldn't be about the label. If it is, you aren't making a very compelling argument.

Cis and trans are antonyms, as cis means "on the same side" and trans means "on the other side".

let me spell it out for you a bit more clearly. The best argument for why trans women shouldn't be allowed in women's toilets won't rest on how we define the word "women", it will rest on tangible measurable outcomes from the proposed policies. "In this region, they took this policy and it resulted in a two-fold increase of sexual assaults", something like that. That's a compelling argument against a policy, and it doesn't rely on debating what it says in various dictionaries next to the word "women".

I have no idea what those statistics are in reality. I don't know if crime is increased, decreased, completely stable due to adopting this or that bathroom policy. But that's what's going to persuade people, not you choosing to die on the hill of the definition of a word. .

What does this have to do with bathrooms? — Ecurb

The issue is language. Bathrooms provide the laboratory to apply our changing languages. Bathroom choice is just one consequence. I’m interested in the cause of the confusion, not so much the traffic jam at the ladies room door.

Surely the way to allow people to feel comfortable in bathrooms is to allow those looking like and presenting as women to use the Ladies Room, and those presenting as men to use the Mens Room. — Ecurb

Surely? Millions of people disagree, so surely you don’t use “surely” the way I do.

Men’s rooms and ladies rooms kept separate had to be invented. Ladies rooms don’t grow on trees. So do you think the reason the two rooms were first kept separate was to facilitate comfort with being around people who “present as” certain genders, or to facilitate comfort about being in a space where people with vaginas can only possibly bump into or see or be look at by strangers with vaginas?

Perhaps women would be uncomfortable if someone who looked like a man entered their domain -- but why would anyone care if someone presenting as a woman did? — Ecurb

Maybe ask some girls. As a man, in today’s litigious society, if a woman walked into the men’s room while I was peeing at a urinal, my only concern would be whether I might accidentally do or say something that might instigate some insane lawsuit. I wouldn’t be afraid for my body. Girls might also be afraid they could get hurt. Girls have been hurt by penises in bathrooms, and bathrooms make all people vulnerable, naked, embarrassed.

This isn’t deep psychology or sociology.

I’ve got the bathroom thing all figured out. That really isn’t an issue. It’s one application of the issue.

The issue is the language. Are transwomen women? We need to define things to answer that. We need to define things to write down a policy, about bathrooms or sports or rights or whatever. I think there is a clear answer. I think it is easy to say, no, women are not the same as transwomen. Easy. All the linguistic acrobatics ensue for the people who want to stay confused about it, or the people who think they are the same gender. (Ironically, they don’t think they are using clear definitions in any of their acrobatics.)

As far as who gets to get naked in what public rooms, it’s probably best to keep all the penises segregated from the vaginas. Maybe as a temporary provisional solution while we sort out whether transwomen are women. If transwomen can’t stand using the men’s room, they really do have a problem when nature calls. But why on earth would we think all the girls, ladies and women should be forced to help transwomen with their feelings? Why would we think there would be no conflict created by letting persons with penises who identify as a woman into the “ladies room”? And why would we think we can just reassign the function of what “ladies room” was meant to signify and things would play out smoothly? It is bad philosophy at the least, if not bad psychology leading to such bad policy.