Women’s college redefines ‘women’

[SuperLuigi]

On Tumblr people are even making up their own adjectives. They won’t go by he or she or yourself, but by stuff like “bun” and “cell” and “cellself”. Each person has their own set of them and they get offended if you don’t use them.

The world has truly gone mad.

I don’t like hiding the truth to protect hypersensitive feelings. :nope:

 

[DarkLight]

It is possible to make a notation, if there was something like a clerical error or a deception. An error would be noted and corrected if the child’s birth date or the names of her parents had been entered incorrectly; it is just that the original notation would not be obliterated. For instance, if a boy named Aaron were incorrectly entered in the baptismal register as a girl named Erin, he would not be prohibited later in life from being accepting for Holy Orders or marrying a woman in the Church, if it could be shown that there was merely a clerical error in the original record.

Correcting that kind of a recording error is different than pretending that a surgeon can alter a person’s gender, or that it is one’s most deep-seated self-perception that ultimately determines gender. Self-perception can be in error, even if the error is due to deep-seated structural or chemical issues in the brain that are no fault nor any choice of the patient. A surgery intended to relieve suffering or the grave danger of self-harm might accommodate the self-perception of the patient, but Church records aren’t to be altered as if an actual gender change were accomplished by that surgery. It isn’t that it is wrong to alter gender with the knife and hormones. It is that it is impossible.

I always found this a bit strange. Having known several transgender people, they all said that while they desired surgery, surgery was entirely secondary to being able to live as their preferred gender. A male-to-female transgendered person would say what mattered most was not being able to have surgery, but being able to put on a dress and be called “Sarah” instead of “Sam.” The dysphoria was in part physical but it seemed to have a large social component as well, in that the primary distress was the constant mismatch between external perception of them and internal perception, with the physical mismatch being important but often secondary.

 

[PaulinVA]

The dysphoria was in part physical but it seemed to have a large social component as well, in that the primary distress was the constant mismatch between external perception of them and internal perception, with the physical mismatch being important but often secondary.

Interesting comment.

 

[MJJean]

I always found this a bit strange. Having known several transgender people, they all said that while they desired surgery, surgery was entirely secondary to being able to live as their preferred gender. A male-to-female transgendered person would say what mattered most was not being able to have surgery, but being able to put on a dress and be called “Sarah” instead of “Sam.” The dysphoria was in part physical but it seemed to have a large social component as well, in that the primary distress was the constant mismatch between external perception of them and internal perception, with the physical mismatch being important but often secondary.

I’ve also found this to be true. The transgendered I have known seem to be very uncomfortable and stressed out when dressing, acting, and being treated like their assumed gender and much more comfortable and relaxed when dressing, behaving, and being treated like their preferred gender regardless of their pre or post op stage.

If a women’s college wants to admit transgendered I suppose it’s their decision. I just hope they’re asking for some kind of psychological and/or medical verification of the gender dysphoria.

 

[EasterJoy]

I always found this a bit strange. Having known several transgender people, they all said that while they desired surgery, surgery was entirely secondary to being able to live as their preferred gender. A male-to-female transgendered person would say what mattered most was not being able to have surgery, but being able to put on a dress and be called “Sarah” instead of “Sam.” The dysphoria was in part physical but it seemed to have a large social component as well, in that the primary distress was the constant mismatch between external perception of them and internal perception, with the physical mismatch being important but often secondary.

People can feel a lot of distress even over a far lesser aspect of identity, such as retiring and not having the former “identity” that their job gave them. This is what lead to that whole nonsense about SAHM’s being “domestic engineers.” That can only be a small fraction of the discomfort of being treated as one gender when your brain tells you that you have a different gender.

The Church is not saying that it is a sin to be indulgent with someone who insists they have an identity that they do not in fact have. If your grandfather insists he was in WWII when he wasn’t, you can let it go without a sin against the truth. The Church does teach that a deep sadness that the truth is not other than what it is does not change the truth. Sometimes, such as when making a finding over whether two people can marry, the literal truth must prevail.

 

[manualman]

People can feel a lot of distress even over a far lesser aspect of identity, such as retiring and not having the former “identity” that their job gave them. This is what lead to that whole nonsense about SAHM’s being “domestic engineers.”

Respectful tangent: I don’t think so. I think that particular silly label was a reaction against the misogyny of the 1960’s era feminists who actually AGREED with their hated foe male misogynists that women who forsake compensated employment in order to stay home and raise their own kids were not doing anything particularly valuable in the big picture. “Domestic Engineer” sounds like a gut-level defense against a criticism not fully understood. You don’t hear that counter much anymore partly because many feminists recognized their PR blunder and because stay home moms developed a rather better defense. (“Yeah, you’re a great lawyer or doctor. Big deal, I’m transmitting the greatness of civilization itself from our generation to the next.”)

 

[EasterJoy]

Respectful tangent: I don’t think so. I think that particular silly label was a reaction against the misogyny of the 1960’s era feminists who actually AGREED with their hated foe male misogynists that women who forsake compensated employment in order to stay home and raise their own kids were not doing anything particularly valuable in the big picture. “Domestic Engineer” sounds like a gut-level defense against a criticism not fully understood. You don’t hear that counter much anymore partly because many feminists recognized their PR blunder and because stay home moms developed a rather better defense. (“Yeah, you’re a great lawyer or doctor. Big deal, I’m transmitting the greatness of civilization itself from our generation to the next.”)

My memory of the time was that people (not just SAHMs) decided they needed some “title” to prove their work was worthwhile or that the people who went around with their noses in the air because they had a “title” could stand to be laughed at. It was meant to counter the idea that a title on your business card gave you more “dignity” than other people who did important work.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I’m almost cynical enough to decide to sue the state to change my officially registered sex from ‘male’ to ‘female.’ It no longer matters that I’ve got normal XY chromosomes, that I’m happily married to a woman (and have kids) or that I sing bass. Who are you to tell me that I’m NOT really a transgendered, butch lesbian? If you oppose my re-classification, then you’re a prejudiced, small minded, homophobic bigot. So there.

Once I’m officially a woman, I’m opening my own consulting engineering company and getting it certified in Cook County, IL as a WBE (Woman-owned Business Enterprise). Then I will rake in tons of taxpayer cash as there are big set asides for DBE/WBE firms and few qualified to meet the requirements.

If a transgendered, butch, lesbian-owned business isn’t disadvantaged, who IS?

Anyways, that’s my secret ‘get-out-of-bankruptcy free’ card if I ever need it. Now you can steal it from me - if you’re from Illinois (or dumb enough to move here)… and you’re a transgendered butch lesbian too.

I think by the time you hit year two of HRT and being treated as a woman you’d want to resume living as a guy and/or die.

It is possible to make a notation, if there was something like a clerical error or a deception. An error would be noted and corrected if the child’s birth date or the names of her parents had been entered incorrectly; it is just that the original notation would not be obliterated. For instance, if a boy named Aaron were incorrectly entered in the baptismal register as a girl named Erin, he would not be prohibited later in life from being accepting for Holy Orders or marrying a woman in the Church, if it could be shown that there was merely a clerical error in the original record.

Correcting that kind of a recording error is different than pretending that a surgeon can alter a person’s gender, or that it is one’s most deep-seated self-perception that ultimately determines gender. Self-perception can be in error, even if the error is due to deep-seated structural or chemical issues in the brain that are no fault nor any choice of the patient. A surgery intended to relieve suffering or the grave danger of self-harm might accommodate the self-perception of the patient, but Church records aren’t to be altered as if an actual gender change were accomplished by that surgery. It isn’t that it is wrong to alter gender with the knife and hormones. It is that it is impossible.

None of the transgender people I know have ever suggested that gender was mutable.

I always found this a bit strange. Having known several transgender people, they all said that while they desired surgery, surgery was entirely secondary to being able to live as their preferred gender. A male-to-female transgendered person would say what mattered most was not being able to have surgery, but being able to put on a dress and be called “Sarah” instead of “Sam.” The dysphoria was in part physical but it seemed to have a large social component as well, in that the primary distress was the constant mismatch between external perception of them and internal perception, with the physical mismatch being important but often secondary.

My experiences agree with this however there are nuances that you missed. While getting genitalia to conform with gender is much less important than passing socially, getting on HRT is also extremely important as it appears to cause the brain (not the mind) to be less distressed.

I’ve also found this to be true. The transgendered I have known seem to be very uncomfortable and stressed out when dressing, acting, and being treated like their assumed gender and much more comfortable and relaxed when dressing, behaving, and being treated like their preferred gender regardless of their pre or post op stage.

If a women’s college wants to admit transgendered I suppose it’s their decision. I just hope they’re asking for some kind of psychological and/or medical verification of the gender dysphoria.

To them being forced to act as their birth sex feels like being a fraud and a mask that is suffocating.

People can feel a lot of distress even over a far lesser aspect of identity, such as retiring and not having the former “identity” that their job gave them. This is what lead to that whole nonsense about SAHM’s being “domestic engineers.” That can only be a small fraction of the discomfort of being treated as one gender when your brain tells you that you have a different gender.

The Church is not saying that it is a sin to be indulgent with someone who insists they have an identity that they do not in fact have. If your grandfather insists he was in WWII when he wasn’t, you can let it go without a sin against the truth. The Church does teach that a deep sadness that the truth is not other than what it is does not change the truth. Sometimes, such as when making a finding over whether two people can marry, the literal truth must prevail.

Indeed the Church says that a man cannot become a woman nor a woman, a man however what exactly determines inherent maleness or femaleness hasn’t really been defined.

 

[50yroldTOBfan]

…If a women’s college wants to admit transgendered I suppose it’s their decision. I just hope they’re asking for some kind of psychological and/or medical verification of the gender dysphoria.

No, it looks like it is all based on self-identification.

From the article:

Mount Holyoke is the first school among the historic “Seven Sisters” women’s colleges—one-time female equivalents of the Ivy League schools—to craft a policy admitting transgendered students on the sole basis of self-identification.

I’m a male, but if I was a woman I would feel a little uncomfortable with this. I guess today’s woman is ok with it ?

 

[DarkLight]

No, it looks like it is all based on self-identification.

From the article:

I’m a male, but if I was a woman I would feel a little uncomfortable with this. I guess today’s woman is ok with it ?

Realistically, I’ve never heard of a non-transgender man pretending to be a woman in real life. And most transgender individuals tend to be more private - those I know generally avoid sharing spaces or showering around others. It’s probably still a lot lower risk overall than your average secular college would be.

 

[50yroldTOBfan]

To them being forced to act as their birth sex feels like being a fraud and a mask that is suffocating.

That is sad. It really is, and I have no easy answer.

But see, to me, I feel the exact same way when I am forced by rules or law to treat them as something OTHER than their birth sex. It really does “feel like a fraud and a mask that is suffocating” - to me. It offends against what I consider to be obvious reality, and coerces me to deny reality or pretend it does not exist, and actually pretend an alternate reality is in place, one where this male is a female or vice versa.

My version of reality conflicts with theirs. Who is right? Well, in terms of objective reality, I am.

It doesn’t quite seem fair that rules like this force folks like me to play pretend in ways we find offensive just so somebody with a real mental problem can feel like they don’t have one.

How about we just let them act however they want, try our best to be kind, but not be obliged to participate in their fantasy? Wouldn’t that be fair to all?

 

[50yroldTOBfan]

Realistically, I’ve never heard of a non-transgender man pretending to be a woman in real life. And most transgender individuals tend to be more private - those I know generally avoid sharing spaces or showering around others. It’s probably still a lot lower risk overall than your average secular college would be.

Ok fair enough but just to be clear you have shared a statement of belief not a fact.

Are you a woman? Have you ever been around a transgendered man with whom you did not get along and felt threatened physically? I am truly curious because to me this would be a real concern if I was a woman.

 

[EasterJoy]

Realistically, I’ve never heard of a non-transgender man pretending to be a woman in real life. And most transgender individuals tend to be more private - those I know generally avoid sharing spaces or showering around others. It’s probably still a lot lower risk overall than your average secular college would be.

If you define a man who pretends to be a woman in real life as transgender, then how would you have heard of a non-transgender man pretending to be a woman in real life? Do you mean like in Some Like It Hot?

The mayor of Silverton, Oregon, self-identifies as transgender, but he also self-identifies as a man. He likes to dress in women’s clothing, he has had breast augmentation, he wears dresses to visit schools–sometimes dresses that are too short, it has been complained–but he doesn’t seem to mind being referred to as a guy. He uses male pronouns. I wouldn’t mind having dinner with him in a restaurant, but I would be uncomfortable having him use my locker room. He has a long-time girlfriends. But he also goes by Carla, sometimes.

 

[DarkLight]

Ok fair enough but just to be clear you have shared a statement of belief not a fact.

Are you a woman? Have you ever been around a transgendered man with whom you did not get along and felt threatened physically? I am truly curious because to me this would be a real concern if I was a woman.

Yes I am a woman. I have not felt threatened physically, though I have been around cis women who I felt threatened physically by. I’m not really sure why it’s relevant unless we’re stating both that such people cannot be women and that their intentions are predatory for some reason. It really only makes sense to express that particular sort of discomfort if you either believe that men are by nature predatory, or that the state of being transgender makes one more of a predator. It’s crucial here at the very least transgender people think of themselves as and try to act as their identified gender - which is going to avoid many of the creepy behaviors that a certain class of men engage in.

Also, on your previous post - no one’s making you do anything. You’re perfectly free to say and do whatever you like here. Now, I’d never introduce you to any of my transgender friends, because I know you’d behave in a way that they’d find extremely hurtful. But despite the rhetoric no one’s “forcing” you to do anything, we’re just making arguments and telling you what in our experience would be hurtful. But really, making it so that you might have to sit in a classroom with a trans person isn’t forcing you to do much of anything.

 

[freeRadical]

So, being born male doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t be able to get into a women’s college.

Sign me up!

 

[EasterJoy]

Yes I am a woman. I have not felt threatened physically, though I have been around cis women who I felt threatened physically by. I’m not really sure why it’s relevant unless we’re stating both that such people cannot be women and that their intentions are predatory for some reason. It really only makes sense to express that particular sort of discomfort if you either believe that men are by nature predatory, or that the state of being transgender makes one more of a predator. It’s crucial here at the very least transgender people think of themselves as and try to act as their identified gender - which is going to avoid many of the creepy behaviors that a certain class of men engage in.

Also, on your previous post - no one’s making you do anything. You’re perfectly free to say and do whatever you like here. Now, I’d never introduce you to any of my transgender friends, because I know you’d behave in a way that they’d find extremely hurtful. But despite the rhetoric no one’s “forcing” you to do anything, we’re just making arguments and telling you what in our experience would be hurtful. But really, making it so that you might have to sit in a classroom with a trans person isn’t forcing you to do much of anything.

This is a college that excludes men. Why is it wrong to exclude someone who is transgender? Why is it OK to exclude men, but not OK to exclude those who are transgender? What do you mean by “a certain class of men,” and what makes you think that the transgender group doesn’t have a similar “class”?

 

[EasterJoy]

I think by the time you hit year two of HRT and being treated as a woman you’d want to resume living as a guy and/or die.

None of the transgender people I know have ever suggested that gender was mutable.

My experiences agree with this however there are nuances that you missed. While getting genitalia to conform with gender is much less important than passing socially, getting on HRT is also extremely important as it appears to cause the brain (not the mind) to be less distressed.

To them being forced to act as their birth sex feels like being a fraud and a mask that is suffocating.

Indeed the Church says that a man cannot become a woman nor a woman, a man however what exactly determines inherent maleness or femaleness hasn’t really been defined.

I’m pretty sure that if you can marry a woman and father her children, the Church considers you male. There is such a thing as getting too subtle about this question.

 

[DarkLight]

This is a college that excludes men. Why is it wrong to exclude someone who is transgender? Why is it OK to exclude men, but not OK to exclude those who are transgender? What do you mean by “a certain class of men,” and what makes you think that the transgender group doesn’t have a similar “class”?

As far as the first - it’s perfectly ok to say you don’t believe transgender individuals are the gender they identify as, and thus they shouldn’t admit it. My point was that you, as an individual, are not being forced into anything by the college making their choice. And it doesn’t sound to me like the college was “forced” to do anything.

There is a certain class of men that acts in particular, typically gendered, creepy ways. They’re the guys who are publicly discussing the women around them, who are whistling and catcalling, who are getting too close for comfort. I’m sure it’s possible for transgender people to engage in the same behavior, but I don’t think it’s any more common than for, say, a cis woman to engage in such things.

And I would reiterate my question - what would you say to, for example, a XY individual who is externally female? Are they a man or a woman? What decides?

 

[Rau]

The point being that altering your appearance does not make a woman into a man. That is beyond the capacity of a surgeon to accomplish. It could relieve a patient’s suffering or lower the chance that they will harm themselves, but it does not change a person’s gender. Yes, it would be an awful thing to live through.

It is a desperately difficult situation. We have individuals who have a desperate need to “live” as the gender their brain insists they are. They make changes changes to their body in support of that need. Thereafter, on what basis are they to relate to the rest of us?

 

[PaulinVA]

This question always confuses me, because I think the Church does not have a robust enough answer to the real-world applications of what is male and what is female.

It’s easy to say, “If you can father a child, you are a man.” What about those men with external male organs, think they are male, but can’t father children? What about women who have had hysterectomies?

If you take the position that people can not “pick” their gender, then what objective criteria do you use? Sometimes the objective answer is ambiguous. You have to have a test that handles all situations, and no one has put forth anything like that.

Is it a form of mental illness to have gender dysphoria, when science can provide information that the development of a person’s gender really can take two different paths? If we believe the fall did indeed create these kinds of issues, where does that leave us?

I feel like I have a “culture wars” position on the subject, a practical/compassionate position, but I’m not really sure what the right position is.