In Canada, where trans people can be in the prison of their gender since 2018, my understanding is the "prison" doesn't decide anything. But they are instead referred to a psychologist who makes the determination, and then there is a lot of supports throughout the prison system that were part of the 2018 reform packages.

That sounds like a sane, sensible way to do things. The US prison system is the worst. So I kind of assume they looked at all the options and picked the worst one.

From what I can tell US policy seems to be all over the place depending on where it is. This cnn article https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/us/tr...ion/index.htmlis saying at a US prison in California 59% of trans women were sexually assaulted. That is insane. One thing is clear, they cannot be kept with the general male population. The woman in the article Jasmine was there because of multiple petty theft and drug charges. Putting someone in a cage were they will be subjected to rape is wrong no matter what they did, it is the prison's job to keep inmates safe. To do it because of non violent crime is a special kind of evil.

Uke,

I've only scanned the thread but I think you're somewhat understanding that trans athletes at college level and up could pose a problem?

I get that the bigots are loving the trans bashing in sports and such but changes could or should be made that a college trans swimmer doesn't unfairly dominate the sport?

FYP

Well, this is quite the hot take.

washoe to the rescue with another great solution! Because there's HUGE money in women's sports, so this is the really big issue we need to worry about. Whereas the women dedicating decades of their time, with virtually no compensation, to Olympic sports...who cares about them?

Well, given that we see this in his next two posts:

All I can say is that I don't know what the **** is wrong with Cuepee.

Speaking for uke, I think there are good-faith convos to be had here among posters less hysterical than QP. I'll say it seems like the WNBA has policies in place that the athletes and fans seem to be okay with.

+1

Then they came for amateur women's soccer, and I said nothing....

Indeed. There is basically two major views in this thread. Some see it is as a strict binary that if it is competitive at all, then you have to ban trans people full stop. I think it is a spectrum. To me it is obvious that for things like school sports teams playing regionally that the value of inclusion in sport dominates. Equally, at the top things like the Olympics the need for fair playing fields is strong that I imagine most sports should likely be pretty strictly exclusionary. For those that think of it as a balance of values, ok maybe we have differed on exactly the lines and I don't feel strongly about most of those lines. I think it depends a lot on the specific sport and the level and so forth. Typically I've largely drawn it in between high school and college, but at the same time I'm fine if NCAA basketball chooses to model after WNBA and be more inclusive or whatever. Or not. I dunno, lots of yelling. But I will say this: if you are advocating for banning trans people in a spot in these grey areas, you better be ****ing ferocious in defending trans rights more broadly.

Yup, truly tragic. Making prisons safe and supportive for trans people is absolutely crucial. There are a tonne of issues that take a lot of tact and sensitivity from the people on the ground on top of having equitable broad brush rules. And there are a lot of important conversations to be had here, which is part of why i'm so particularly dismissive of the boogeyman trope of cis men waltzing into female prisons on a whim by pretending to be trans for the day.

Well you sure took the butt of that joke and smashed it into your face, didn't ya?

What if we just grouped people according to their basic physical capabilities and went from there? We could even have a football league for guys who just aren't that strong or have weak jawlines, the Beta league. Boxing has like 50 classes why can't we do that to some degree with other sports? There are puny kinds of men who would be well matched in a bout vs. a stronger type woman, for example the type of woman the French call "impossant". Let's get our minds off genitalia and onto what really matters.

I actually enjoy women's tennis more than men's because there are more interesting points precisely because they can't hit the ball as fast. Maybe we can promote some new sports that aren't all about strength and speed but could still be fun to watch and involve skill. Just thinking outside the box here.

You are just a ridiculous person.

You are so vested in conflict that someone merely saying 'opening the door to all cis men convicts and those being sentenced to simply 'declare they are trans' without being questioned and to then make it their right to be diverted to women's prisons ' is a big risk and a minimum of proof of prior intention should be required'... that such a comment triggers you so much that you can only assume this is some secret way that would be used to deny a genuine trans women her rights because the population of trans women being sentenced is so high who would have no demonstrable trans history ... just shows both how paranoid and ridiculous you are.


Of the two populations 'genuine transwomen criminals who might get caught up in this' and 'actual cis male criminals who would exploit this', anyone not political and/or stupid can see which abuse is the bigger threat. The bigger threat to women both cis and trans.

I know first hand male inmates are absolutely desperate for access to women and simply opening a door when any of them only needs to verbally declare "I am now trans' and then without question they get to serve in a much easier, less threatening and more comfortable jail locked up with women, many of whom are eager for any male company is just foolish.

Your need to deny this TRUTH out of your mass insecurity is just that, naïve and dumb.

Which is exactly my position. Someone must make the determination by looking at the claim as opposed to the article that suggested the 'declaration alone' was enough and me responding to that.

So why would you want to undermine what Canada is currently doing and go to the lower standard?


Agreed.

That is why it was EXACTLY what i was arguing for and uke was arguing against.

He will, as i said prior start saying 'oh i was never arguing against that. He always does. he changes his view towards mine and then cites his latter posts as proof. You will not see him arguing for that standard I was prior. He has now only adopted to soften his stance as he realizes i was correct.

Anyone who thinks any talk of the potential cis male inmate abuse of a system that would allow them by declaration only to transfer to women's prison and would seek to silence any such talk, is the one avoiding an important part of the conversation on making things safer for ALL women.


it is absurd, as you did prior, to advocate for lowering the standard Canada now uses to 'declare only' and to not have a psychologist or other review it ensure cis men are not abusing that door.
Thankfully you seem to be amending your position towards mine even if you will pretend that is not the case.

That is what recreational sport already does. Everything you suggest there is available in recreational sport.

Competitive sport has always been different as the very idea of 'Competitive' requires an attempt at defining and enforcing some form of level playing field. You simply cannot call a sport 'competitive' if one segment within the sport has any advantage the other segment does not and thus cannot compete with to get a win.

the only way around that is to try and literally distort what the word 'competitive' has always meant and change it such that competition is no longer defined by 'ability to compete and actually vie for a win' and instead defined by 'ability to participate'.

it is a ridiculous notion but those pushing it understand no words have any meaning other than what we give them so if they can get enough people to change the common usage the definition will change. "Competitive' then will be defined as 'participation'.

It would be a farce as it is simply a coopting of the word but they would be fine with that farce as they would just bask in now putting it in the face of others that it is 'competitive' and that would be all that matters. Not the destruction of the defining principle.

To be clear, the article never says anything like the bolded, that was entirely your extrapolation. The closest it comes is a 3rd party saying "Women prisoners are being harmed by this", which is patently ridiculous since a) the statements are all talking about reporting and crime statistics, nothing at all to do with sentencing/imprisonment and b) it's literally never happened up to this point so talking about harms in the present tense makes no sense.

It also includes a quote that says
I think it's reasonable to assume that it would be considered pertinent to the case when it comes to the actual imprisonment of an offender.

The only argument with any substance in the article (the stuff about legal definition of rape is ridiculous) is about the potential for the practice to result in a distortion of the crime statistics. That is an actual potential issue but it's a far cry from what you seem to have read into it.

and we can differ on how we took that article.

I was clear on how I took it and what my issue is and yet still the reflexive and automatic attempts to define my position as one that is transphobic and meant to harm trans women continues.


And as always, if you are criticizing MY OPINION, it is then my opinion that is the topic. Especially when I clarify my stance. Not what others think or suggest the article or I meant.

And that is the pattern here in so many of our multi page disputes, is that uke and others argue against what they assume I meant even in the face of me clarifying it. They cling hard to trying to get me to own their assumptions and I never do and eventually they say 'oh well we were never arguing YOUR point, we were arguing the 'substituted' one'. Which i NEVER was and made clear.

To be clear if uke has merely said 'i think you are reading too much or too little into that article as those protections are already there. See what they do in Canada currently as it addresses exactly what you are saying QP', I would have said 'great extra info, glad that is the case and that the system has recognized and has safe guards against this obvious loop hole for exploitation'.


If 'declaration only' was the standard no such assessment would be needed but a psychologist is trained to test if it is accurate and sincere to ensure the person is truly trans and not just an abusive cis male.

So uke both agrees and acknowledges my ONLY point while also demonizing that any such need must be a transphobic position because uke first reflex is to attack others and create enemies.


uke : even suggesting a cis male inmate might try to abuse the process is ridiculous and transphobic. NO one should ever suggest anyone might abuse this.

also uke : glad the Canadian system has the foresight to put in some form of vetting to safeguard the system. I would not want that standard thrown out in favour of 'declaration only' without such a safeguard in place

Indeed. This is precisely why it is so egregious to read this article about reporting crime stats and immediately jump to bizarre fearmongering about cis men pretending to be trans women and waltzing into female prisons carte blanche. Nobody was talking about this. . Or to quote myself:
My point was about rhetoric, not policy. It is about the rhetoric of taking any trans issue and launching no matter how tangential into fearmongering about fake trans women in bathrooms and fake trans women in spors and fake trans women in prison. Do better. But Cuepee, you got this basic point about rhetoric totally confused:
Lol I did no such thing. I hope this is an instructive moment. Just because I blasted your framing and rhetoric does not mean I was "advocating" for the polar opposite of your view. I'm not #teamfakecismeninwomenprisons lol. I'm pointing out how bad it is to be myopically approaching trans issues through the lens of fake cis people trying to exploit stuff.

Except everything about this debate stems from you reading the article as saying something it doesn't come close to. Your starting position was therefore completely divorced from any real policies and it's the insinuation that it's something that could realistically happen that causes the friction in the first place.

I can entirely believe that you have no issues with the actual policies and I am fine saying that it would be problematic if a cis man could simply claim to be transgender and get placed in a women's prison. This dispute stems from the fact that you insist on getting people to agree on the latter point as if it's important when it is actually completely asinine and not anything close to being a real issue.

I think in your case it's entirely a function of the way you approach arguments/debates rather than anything malicious but distorting real policies into something extreme and then arguing against the extreme position is pretty much the number one go-to of people trying to deny trans rights. Again I really don't think you are doing it maliciously but try to understand why your insistence on getting people to acknowledge your position on these extreme examples is problematic.

To be fair to Cuepee, I highly doubt he got past the paywall. Of course the first couple paragraphs make pretty clear it is about reporting crime stats, but I think in his mind he just made up that beneath the paywall it would talk about cis men pretending to be trans women getting into female prisons with zero questions asked. Of course, that is just fearmongering nonsense and nobody has suggested anything of the sort.

Yes you absolutely did and everyone can read it.

My position was just that. Some type of process, some type of safe guard.

You mocked that as not only not necessary but transphobic. Thus if mine was, so to is the existing one you pointed out exists.

That you will spin and deny that, I understand but there is no disconnect there.

The ENTIRETY of my position was solely for some form safe guard. You labeled at wrong to even suggest such a thing was necessary while then pointing out that Canada has one you agree with.

Perhaps you are seeing the longer article. When I click thru I only get a tiny bit with the rest behind a paywall.

My take on what the article says is not your take and we can agree to disagree on that.

But what is in dispute here is not the ARTICLE it is my TAKE and COMMENT i came away from, after reading the article.


I merely made statements along the line of 'if what is being suggested is that cis men can claim to be trans and be sent to women's prisons based on that alone and no form of check, that is dangerous'.


THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DISCUSSING.

If someone instead said 'I don't think that is what the article says, nor do I think that is the reality (here is what is done in Canada)' I would say 'great extra info, fine' and we would move on.

Instead they chose to argue 'it is crazy, wrong, transphobic to suggest any such safe guard would be necessary. You are seeing trans bogeypersons everywhere', while later quoting that Canada has exactly what I was suggesting already set up.