You're not pro-LGBT if you think trans women aren't women.
That comment was in reference to this story, it looks like I got the quote wrong: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/journalist-sues-twitter-...
I think there's a difference between how we should recognise someone socially and the reality of an individual's biology. What's worrying here is that stating a biological fact can be viewed as too extreme if it goes against a certain political ideology.
But there are plenty of examples like this. I know people have been kick off of social media for suggesting the Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile, or for discussing racial crime stats. And many of the examples I've seen of this don't appear to be in bad faith either, in fact most seem to be in the interest of honest dialogue. They just had the wrong opinions.
I believe trans women are "real women" in just about every way that matters. I only make an exception when I absolutely have to. For example, in sports, or in a medical context.
It might help to remember the word "women" is just a label we assign to people who share a certain common set of social and biological traits. And the majority of these traits trans women share, however in the case of trans women there are some exceptions. But it's not just trans people who don't fit cleanly into these groups, there are similar difficulties to be had with intersex people for example.
There are no easy answers here. Life isn't black and white. It's silly to think we can cleanly divide the whole of society into to clear categories.
The way I read it is that it's taken over 50 years for "gender" and "sex" to become different things. It's still a word that's transitioning (ok, some pun intended), but essentially we're past the tipping point now and you'll offend people if you use gender words incorrectly.
The WHO has the progressive definition that you want to be using: https://www.who.int/gender-equity-rights/understanding/gende...
This is in contrast with the dictionary definition from Google, which still uses biological sex: https://www.google.com/search?q=define+gender
It does feel a little bit like when "literally" changed meaning to "figuratively", but this distinction is really important to an ever growing group of people.
It's also worth noting that it applies to gender words like "man" or "woman" which are different than sex words like "male" and "female".
I still don't understand how non-binary people fit into this, but if you embrace the "singular they", you'll probably not offend anyone.
N.B: what somebody says they are banned for and what they were actually banned for often differ.
Based on our experience at HN (not that it generalizes) I'd even say they usually differ.
It's not a matter of "my side has facts and your side has opinions." It's that we disagree on what the facts are. You can find a lot of scientists from a few centuries ago confidently asserting that black people are subhuman. It doesn't magically make them not-racist because they believed it to be a true fact.
They were wrong, and you are wrong.
Don't forget things like androgen insensitivity syndrome, infertile women, etc.
If we want a simple inclusive definition, you can't beat that.
My problem isn't with your definition, it's with your implied assertion that we should "we want a simple inclusive definition," which is clearly not the case, as the differing priorities in definition are literally central to the debate.
I find the trend of "this fact/data is not to be discussed" to be particularly disturbing.
Muhammed being a pedophile/child molester by modern definitions is pretty damn clear in the Quran. Saying we can't discuss it is very odd.
There are significant differences in racial crime and academic stats in the US. The causes can be debated - the existence of a difference less so.
And for a less controversial parallel to the previous... there are major differences in gendered crime stats in the US. Again, the causes can be debated - but a difference most definitely exists.
Under what standard is "racial crime differences are a forbidden discussion" reasonable where "gendered crime differences are a forbidden discussion" is not? What level of fact are we willing to memoryhole if it ends up politically inconvenient?
If a trans-man is given medicine in doses as a man, and not a woman, they have a much higher risk of overdosing because of differences in how the body metabolizes drugs for each gender [0] [1]. It isn't transphobic to identify them as a woman and give them the proper dosage for their gender. I'd prefer to be given the correct amount of medicine than to pretend there aren't important gender differences and that my actual gender and the gender I would prefer to identify and portray myself as differs [2].
Then you get into the mess of trans-women competing (and usually one-sidingly dominating) in women's sports because lo' and behold there are still gender differences between men and women regardless of how they choose to identify.
I'm becoming accustomed to being told how I should think. Must be my internalized transphobia speaking for me though and not that political correctness is going to cost someone their life one day and that that person could be me.
[0] https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/the-drug-dose-gend...
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=lindsey%20w%2C%20se...
Do you know how trans people on HRT respond to Ambien, as your first link brings up? I sure don't. Depends on why the drug works differently.
If you're scared that you'll die because your doctor thinks you're cis, tell them you're trans.
That doesn't mean you have to tell your doctor "I'm really a man, despite being a trans woman, and it's definitely important for you to store an M in your records because you might suddenly forget that I'm trans and also I'm sure my reaction to medicine is the same as a cis man's."
Just be an adult and talk with your doctor honestly.
I'm more scared that my doctor will know I'm trans but not give me proper treatment as a result of being scared of losing their career to backlash from the politically correct. It's a far more realistic fear than my doctor not knowing my gender and it isn't something that would be brought up because it is a taboo to ask someone their "real gender".
I'm happy to expand on this if necessary, but this fear of social backlash has already caused problems in other fields of work such as policing certain minority groups in the U.K. It isn't too large a stretch to see it impacting healthcare.
This is all a bit besides the point though. The point is there are many physiological differences between trans-women and women and that trying to conflate the two as being equal actively harms both groups. It's a social feel-good statement said by people who's identity is more important to them than reality and any of the negative externalities caused when adhering to their view of the world.
As far as I am concerned, letting trans-women compete in any physical sport against cis-women is harmful to women and the concept of women's sports. There are biological reasons many sports are segregated by gender. I don't care if this hurts any feelings because it's reality and it is harmful to people to ignore reality just to avoid hurting some feelings.
https://www.bustle.com/articles/144447-what-is-concern-troll...
This isn't an issue with easy, clearcut answers.
That trans women are women isn't a "small part" of the discussion. It's kind of the whole point.
Of course, we should treat them as humans in any case.