Wednesday, January 18, 2023

In Response To A Comment

The previous post on the actions of conservative legislators attacking the fundamentals of democracy brought the following reader comment that I wish to address in more detail.

The comment itself reads as follows: 

In the case of Scotland's Gender Recognition Act, it should be up to the national government to protect the rights of women, and not simply throw them under the bus to satisfy a smaller, vocal group. Canada, on the other hand, simply threw women under the bus while claiming to be feminist. You might find that reading the Cass Report would be helpful in understanding the situation in the UK. You might also notice that in the UK, Stonewall had free rein for years mis-informing businesses and governments about what the law actually said. Housing male rapists in female prisons (generally the rapists are white, and the overwhelming number of women in Canada's prisons are aboriginal) should be considered outrageous. Having women forced to share spaces like change rooms and hospital rooms with men is definitely a loss of women's rights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2xhZm9f8t4 Gender Ideology Destroying Women's Prisons with Heather Mason - Life Through a Distorted Linds - YouTube. Article 25, fourth paragraph, and Article 29, second paragraph, of the 1949 Geneva Convention III provide that in any camps in which men and women prisoners are accommodated together, separate dormitories and conveniences shall be provided for women. In Scotland, men then "detransition" after serving time in women's prisons https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-prisoners-switch-gender-again-once-freed-from-womens-units-qjjsd0nlx The left SHOULD be outraged, but will not look at any of the details of the idea of self-ID.

This is broadly off-topic relative to the point of the post, but it warrants being addressed in its own right.  If you're feeling brave, read on. 


I'm going to start with some of the specific points made, and then come back around to the opening statement.

You might find that reading the Cass Report would be helpful in understanding the situation in the UK.

I had scanned through the Cass Report last year when it came out. The problems in the NHS with regards to the accessibility of treatment are not particularly news. The transgender community from there has been demanding better access for years - decades even. Some of the report's findings to date are logical and fairly reasonable. There are other dimensions of the commentary which I disagree with.

However, the Cass Report is primarily aimed at the issues surrounding treatment for transgender people, and not the actions of politicians. It frankly tells us very little beyond the fact that the NHS model for treating transgender people has been woefully inadequate for years, and has more or less collapsed on itself. 

You might also notice that in the UK, Stonewall had free rein for years mis-informing businesses and governments about what the law actually said.

This is a general statement, and without specifics and references, is not worth the time to address. I have seen a lot of criticism of Stonewall coming out of the UK TERFs, but none of it is particularly well substantiated beyond the pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth.

Housing male rapists in female prisons (generally the rapists are white, and the overwhelming number of women in Canada's prisons are aboriginal) should be considered outrageous. Having women forced to share spaces like change rooms and hospital rooms with men is definitely a loss of women's rights.

Let me understand something here, because there are several things wound together here that need to be teased apart before they can be addressed.  

First, are you arguing that all transgender prisoners are necessarily male rapists?  If you are making such a claim, upon what basis do you make it? If the basis is largely resting upon the foundational assumption that one sex offender happens to be transgender, then you are mischaracterizing an entire population for no good reason. 

Second, you seem to be similarly arguing that a transgender woman should somehow be kept separately in settings such as hospitals? That's more than a bit strange from my perspective. Last I checked, in hospital settings, one is generally there for seriously needed care. The gender of one's roommate(s) seems somewhere between immaterial and irrelevant.

To call that "an erosion of women's rights" is more than just a little hyperbolic. Transgender people get sick and land in hospital just like anybody else might.  Why on earth should the hospital segregate them from the rest of the patients? What objective threat do they represent in such a situation? 

Article 25, fourth paragraph, and Article 29, second paragraph, of the 1949 Geneva Convention III provide that in any camps in which men and women prisoners are accommodated together, separate dormitories and conveniences shall be provided for women. 

The Geneva Conventions are a set of articles relating to the treatment of prisoners of war. Not particularly relevant here, and I doubt that the International Criminal Court (ICC) would be overly interested in "enforcing" them regarding the prisons used by governments in peacetime. That isn't the killing blow you think it is. 

In Scotland, men then "detransition" after serving time in women's prisons https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-prisoners-switch-gender-again-once-freed-from-womens-units-qjjsd0nlx

Without being overly blunt, this hardly shows an "epidemic" of such events, nor does it demonstrate that transgender prisoners are in fact a major threat in these circumstances. Statistically speaking, the numbers of prisoners involved is very small to start with, and hardly representative of the breadth of the transgender population as a whole. If one were to take such a position, one would have to similarly view all men as "intrinsically being sex offenders", largely for the "crime" of having a penis. (Or, since your argument seems to view transgender women as men, for having had a penis at some time in their lives)

Even if some number of transgender prisoners detransition after release, that really doesn't prove the "fox in the hen house" motif that your comment seems to be built around. Without talking to those people to understand why they took the path they did, all you have is supposition. 

The left SHOULD be outraged, but will not look at any of the details of the idea of self-ID.

No, not really. You haven't exactly presented any real evidence that these "concerns" of yours are substantially borne out by evidence. Instead, you seem to have gone trawling through the news looking for examples with "shock value", and expect the rest of us to arrive at the same level of outrage you carry with you.

In the case of Scotland's Gender Recognition Act, it should be up to the national government to protect the rights of women, and not simply throw them under the bus to satisfy a smaller, vocal group. Canada, on the other hand, simply threw women under the bus while claiming to be feminist.

Clearly, the division of powers in the UK does allow for the parliament of Scotland (or Wales, presumably) to pass such legislation. The fact that the UK national government is choosing to overrule this by invoking clauses that are seldom, if ever, used speaks to the fact that the Scottish Parliament has the authority to pass this legislation. 

The bigger takeaway here is whether or not "women have been thrown under the bus".  I don't see where this is at all the case.  Canada has effectively been "Self ID" for a lot longer than the current government has been in power. The fundamental reality is that transgender women (in particular) have not caused the end of women's rights here, and the whole GRC construct in the UK is, to be kind, a piece of legislative stupidity that harkens back to Thatcher's infamous Section 28.  

The simple reality is that even as a whole, transgender people are a tiny minority of the population, and do not as a group represent a "threat" to anyone. Yes, within that population there will be a proportion who are criminal offenders, but for the same reasons that we don't assume that all men are sex offenders, we should not assume that all transgender people are sex offenders either - the numbers simply do not bear that out. 

If you're worried about sexual predators, then you need to look towards lobbying law enforcement and the government to take more sexual offence cases to trial. Considering how few cases actually get tried (and how frequently white male offenders get off), it seems far more effective to pursue those cases more vigorously than it does to get all bent out of shape by a group of people who for the most part are just trying to live their lives in peace.

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