Men can get pregnant too...

[KingsGambit]

I read an interesting account on another forum (one dealing with legal issues) this morning. I don't know if it's actually true but:

A woman was legally married to another woman. They broke up but before the divorce was finalized, she got pregnant. Because she was still legally married at the time of conception, the legal presumption in that state is that the spouse is the father until proven otherwise. Onlookers agreed that this was a good thing because it would be discriminatory to rule out the possibility based on her being a woman.

[One Bad Pig]

Apparently after living with my brother's cat for over a month, Jake thinks he is a cat too.

I am sending him to a re-education camp, where they will teach him to be a dog again.

It must be quite a shock to come home and find out that, instead of being the master, you are now staff.

[Sparko]

It must be quite a shock to come home and find out that, instead of being the master, you are now staff.

never got that bad. Just found him playing with a ball like a cat does. I nipped it in the bud. He is currently being water boarded to learn how to be a dog again.

[Teallaura]

Appearances of propriety must be maintained.

I fully agree...

[Teallaura]

I read an interesting account on another forum (one dealing with legal issues) this morning. I don't know if it's actually true but:

A woman was legally married to another woman. They broke up but before the divorce was finalized, she got pregnant. Because she was still legally married at the time of conception, the legal presumption in that state is that the spouse is the father until proven otherwise. Onlookers agreed that this was a good thing because it would be discriminatory to rule out the possibility based on her being a woman.

Because stupidity must be preserved...

[firstfloor]

Because stupidity must be preserved...

This is what happens when you go searching for silliness.

[oxmixmudd]

I read an interesting account on another forum (one dealing with legal issues) this morning. I don't know if it's actually true but:

A woman was legally married to another woman. They broke up but before the divorce was finalized, she got pregnant. Because she was still legally married at the time of conception, the legal presumption in that state is that the spouse is the father until proven otherwise. Onlookers agreed that this was a good thing because it would be discriminatory to rule out the possibility based on her being a woman.

especially if 'she' is a 'female' athlete ...

[Starlight]

When it comes to people that are physically not fully male or female, people that by nature of what they were born as are not really one or the other sex, we can agree.

Okay.

For people that are fully male or fully female physically, then we probably can't agree except that we need to be civil to all people where possibke.

The general point I was trying to make, which I'm not sure I was actually very clear about, was that if our society is going to go out of its way to make accommodation for those people who are physically not fully male or female (e.g. by having a 3rd gender, or similar social construct) which seems both justified and a sensible thing to do, then it seems to me there is little loss to anyone if others who wish to are also allowed to use those social constructs (because more freedom is better than less freedom in general).

I simply do not think it makes sense to allow a person to demand the rest of the world, including themselves, deny what they actually are.

I don't think this way of phrasing it makes sense. They are not denying what they actually are, as in they are not making a factually false statement about the biological sex of their own body. So your statement is factually false. They are actually saying that they are dissatisfied with, and unhappy about, the biological sex of their body. So they are, I think, comparable to a person who says "I am unhappy that I am overweight, I would like to lose weight", or "I am unhappy about the length/color of my hair, I would like to get a haircut/dye my hair". Trans people are aware of what the biological sex of their own body is, and are dissatisfied with it. Obviously as medical science continues to improve there will be increasingly more that can be done to change how the body looks / is, and people will continue to gain more options in terms of how they can physically change their bodies.

This is especially ridiculous in the arena of men's and women's sports where some men that are not particularly competitive as men can 'win' when competing against women while claiming the are 'really' a woman.

I agree. I think if trans-women are going to be allowed to compete in women's sports I think there should be very strict medical standards in place so that like is competing with like. I don't think that being nice to trans people in general extends to giving them a blank check to play in whatever sporting category they feel like.

And I think it is this sort of absurdity that drives most to reject the sort of generic acceptance of the trans part of LGBTQ.

I think it's silly and misguided to reject a whole category of people based on one extremist issue. If people don't want to have uneven sports competitions that's fine. But that hardly justifies a general across the board rejection of trans people as a whole.

If my body is male, I should just accept that is who I am.

In general we don't tend to do that on other issues - people commonly try to lose weight, gain muscle, use makeup, shave, do their hair, have medical operations, get tattoos and piercings, etc. On all sorts of issues people try very actively to change their bodies, and don't just accept that whatever their body is currently like is how things are going to be for them.

Would we pay to hear a Bass scream and muddle through che gelida? Or would we want a tenor to be able to demand he be allowed to sing zorastro because he really way deep down thought he was a Bass? Of course you can sing what you want. But you cant force an audience to hang around and listen, or a critic to give you rave reviews.

Is this a general assumption that people who have transitioned are not going to be able to convincingly pass muster as the other gender to observers? Because, in general, that is not true - modern medicine and hormonal treatments etc can make a person look/sound nigh on 100% like the gender they wish to be rather than the biological sex their body was born as.

[LeaC]

by having a 3rd gender, or similar social construct

Ok. Do that, and give them their own bathrooms, changing rooms, sports teams, prisons, homeless shelters, etc.

They are not denying what they actually are, as in they are not making a factually false statement about the biological sex of their own body.

Blatantly false. Check up on the now-infamous story of Jessica Yaniv. There are biological men who claim to have periods. Some of them go so far as to "fake" them(no one wants to know what that means) in a pretense of femaleness. Saying that transwomen are biologically male has resulted in the speaker getting death threats, barred from public speaking engagements, and generally accused of hate speech. How is that possible if they know the biological sex of their own body?

In general we don't tend to do that on other issues - people commonly try to lose weight, gain muscle, use makeup, shave, do their hair, have medical operations, get tattoos and piercings, etc. On all sorts of issues people try very actively to change their bodies, and don't just accept that whatever their body is currently like is how things are going to be for them.

In all of those cases, I am free to disagree with the necessity of the change. I have never been accused of hate speech for poking fun at a celebrity who gets a nose job. This is what you don't seem to understand about this issue: If all it was was people wanting to live their lives in peace, albeit in a manner I don't approve of, I wouldn't care. At least, not enough to argue with you about it. But if I disagree with "sex reassignment surgery" I am a hateful bigot who wants them to die, even though I have taken no action - beyond speech - to keep them from having surgery. It is the imposition on MY rights, MY freedom, MY speech that I care about, not how other people want to live.

Is this a general assumption that people who have transitioned are not going to be able to convincingly pass muster as the other gender to observers? Because, in general, that is not true - modern medicine and hormonal treatments etc can make a person look/sound nigh on 100% like the gender they wish to be rather than the biological sex their body was born as.

Not at all true. Very few people can pass as the opposite sex. If they could, there would never have been a need to debate bathrooms, change rooms, etc etc.

[rogue06]

This sucks, I wanted to be a man specifically so I didn't have to get pregnant and have periods!

I'm beginning to change my mind about this. Imagine the usefulness of being able to say "sorry, it's that time of the month" whenever you say something rude and the like

[Starlight]

Ok. Do that, and give them their own bathrooms, changing rooms, sports teams, prisons, homeless shelters, etc.

I would personally be fine with this as a solution.

They are not denying what they actually are, as in they are not making a factually false statement about the biological sex of their own body.

Blatantly false.

If you can't even get basic facts right I don't think there's much to talk about with you on this issue.

There are biological men who claim to have periods.

From what I understand, transwoman who take female hormones regularly can sometimes experience some of the symptoms of having periods.

In all of those cases, I am free to disagree with the necessity of the change. I have never been accused of hate speech for poking fun at a celebrity who gets a nose job. This is what you don't seem to understand about this issue: If all it was was people wanting to live their lives in peace, albeit in a manner I don't approve of, I wouldn't care. At least, not enough to argue with you about it. But if I disagree with "sex reassignment surgery" I am a hateful bigot who wants them to die, even though I have taken no action - beyond speech - to keep them from having surgery. It is the imposition on MY rights, MY freedom, MY speech that I care about, not how other people want to live.

Have you, personally, ever suffered any imposition or harm whatsoever from trans people, or is this just you getting hysterical based on claptrap you've read in crazy conservative publications?

Not at all true. Very few people can pass as the opposite sex. If they could, there would never have been a need to debate bathrooms, change rooms, etc etc.

Not at all true. Modern medical technologies are extremely effective at helping people look like the other sex. As the relevant medical technologies continue to improve and as especially as younger trans-people can use the newer technologies from the beginning of their transitions, the percentage who will pass successfully as their chosen gender will continue to increase.

[QuantaFille]

From what I understand, transwoman who take female hormones regularly can sometimes experience some of the symptoms of having periods.

I don't have time to make a full response to this, but I do want to point out that if you don't have a uterus and ovaries, you can't experience pain in those organs. And if taking those hormones did cause some kind of PMS symptoms, I have to question the sanity of the person who continues taking them. Most of the time, women with PMS take medication to stop the symptoms, not cause them.

[Starlight]

I don't have time to make a full response to this, but I do want to point out that if you don't have a uterus and ovaries, you can't experience pain in those organs. And if taking those hormones did cause some kind of PMS symptoms, I have to question the sanity of the person who continues taking them. Most of the time, women with PMS take medication to stop the symptoms, not cause them.

There are certainly plenty of people who find hormone therapies to cause side-effects that are too severe, and who stop taking them for that reason. People's experiences with them differ, just as different women have different levels of PMS symptoms.

[oxmixmudd]

I would personally be fine with this as a solution.

If you can't even get basic facts right I don't think there's much to talk about with you on this issue.

From what I understand, transwoman who take female hormones regularly can sometimes experience some of the symptoms of having periods.

Have you, personally, ever suffered any imposition or harm whatsoever from trans people, or is this just you getting hysterical based on claptrap you've read in crazy conservative publications?

Not at all true. Modern medical technologies are extremely effective at helping people look like the other sex. As the relevant medical technologies continue to improve and as especially as younger trans-people can use the newer technologies from the beginning of their transitions, the percentage who will pass successfully as their chosen gender will continue to increase.

The issue with 'transwomen' competing in women's athletics and 'winning' is real, is not just some conservative hyper-reaction. It is a clear indication those advocating for these issues do not have level heads and are not looking at reality but rather have moved beyond that. IT is a sort of insanity. And that is what has me against it.

The bottom line is that a man that has his physical shape adjusted by surgery and who takes female hormones is still biologically male. And there is literally nothing that can be done to change that fact.

Just so we don't lose sight of the point, I'm not talking about people that are actually, physically, as a result of the characteristics of their genome, 'in-between'.

[Psychic Missile]

The issue with 'transwomen' competing in women's athletics and 'winning' is real, is not just some conservative hyper-reaction. It is a clear indication those advocating for these issues do not have level heads and are not looking at reality but rather have moved beyond that. IT is a sort of insanity. And that is what has me against it.

Actually, that is a conservative hyper-reaction. Assuming hormone replacement therapy has been completed, the difference between trans and cis athletes is negligible, especially compared to members of the Kalenjin tribe* or Michael Phelps**. The fact that the same people who decry trans athletes are silent about greater outliers speaks volumes towards their ulterior motive, which is to justify exclusion of those living a disapproved lifestyle.

*disproportionate representation of champion runners
**variety of beneficial genetic mutations including producing half the lactic acid of your average athlete