_Not_ an infinitely-thin, infinitely-bright line,[ref]As it is said: what about masculine women and feminine men (whose share of the population depends on where you set your sex-atypicality thresholds)? What about trans people (0.3%–[TODO] of the population, depending on how you define your categories and whose statistics you trust)? What about people with [5α-Reductase deficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%CE%B1-Reductase_deficiency) or any of a dozen other specific intersex conditions?[/ref] but a line thin _enough_ and bright _enough_ that the forces of social evolution have coughed up some institutions and other cultural practices that take the line into account for _functional_ reasons.
-My goal in writing about this is certainly not to argue _for more sexism_—I'm looking forward to the postgender lesbian transhumanist future of Total Morphological Freedom as much as anyone else. (I already have my new name and outfits picked out!) If we can invent _new_ institutions and practices that serve more people more effectively, we should _do it_. But because I am a rationalist, because I cannot _unsee_ the cold, cisheteronormative logic of [Chesterson's fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence), I have to speak out when people are using clever word games to obfuscate the function of the existing fences. It's not that it's impossible to do better; it's that doing better _isn't trivial_.
+My goal in writing about this is certainly not to argue _for more sexism_—I'm looking forward to the postgender lesbian transhumanist future of Total Morphological Freedom as much as anyone else. (I already have my new name and outfits picked out!) If we can invent _new_ institutions and practices that serve more people more effectively, we should _do it_. But because I am a rationalist, because I cannot _unsee_ the cold, cisheteronormative logic of [Chesterson's fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence), I have to speak out when people are using clever word games to obfuscate the function of the existing fences. It's not that it's impossible to do better; it's that doing better isn't _trivial_.
In response to the argument that women's restrooms function as safe havens that women can retreat to and exclude scary or threatening men from, Ozy writes:
> I do not understand the relationship between this and psychological gender differences. It seems quite obvious that the relevant category here is "people who look like the vast majority of street harassers" versus "people who do not look like the vast majority of street harassers." The former group uncontroversially includes some trans women (closeted trans women) and some trans men (Buck Angel) and has nothing to do with psychology anyway. No matter how female-typical a trans man's psychology is, if he has muscles like Chris Hemsworth and a beard like a lumberjack, he belongs in the men's room.
-It has to do with _probabilistic predictions about_ psychology in a world where [male violence against females is _older than humanity itself_](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexual_coercion&oldid=866576906). We can imagine an alternate universe designed by a loving God, where the people have the same physical forms as the women and men of our own world, but where rape and sexual harrassment and voyeurism are unknown, and in _that_ world, people with female bodies would have no particular reason to be wary of people with male bodies.[ref]Well, except for that _d_≈2.6 difference in muscle mass should a disputre escalate to physical fighting.[/ref]
+It has to do with _probabilistic predictions about_ psychology in a world where [male violence against females is _older than humanity itself_](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexual_coercion&oldid=866576906). We could imagine an alternate universe designed by a loving God, where the people have the same physical forms as the women and men of our own world, but where rape and sexual harrassment and voyeurism are unknown, and in _that_ world, people with female bodies would have no particular reason to be wary of people with male bodies.[ref]Well, except for that _d_≈2.6 difference in muscle mass should a dispute escalate to physical fighting.[/ref]
-Certainly _most_ men are nice, civilized people who don't harrass women—and occasional Hemsworthlike, lumberjack-bearded androphilic trans men with a feminine personalities, present even _less_ of a threat. But when designing the social norms for a safe space for the modal cis woman, false positives (including someone who shouldn't be included) are probably going to be worse than false negatives (excluding someone who shouldn't be). If "Does this person look male?" is _easier to directly assess_ than "Does this person-of-whatever-sex look like a potential threat to my safety and comfort?"—and possibly more importantly, is easier for third parties to _agree on_ when third parties are called in to enforce the rules—then the rule ends up being "no males."
+Certainly _most_ men are nice, civilized people who don't harrass women—and occasional Hemsworthlike, lumberjack-bearded androphilic trans men with a feminine personalities, present even _less_ of a threat. But when designing the social norms for a safe space for the modal cis woman, false positives (including someone who shouldn't be included) are probably going to be worse than false negatives (excluding someone who shouldn't be). If "Does this person look male?" is _easier to assess_ than "Does this person-of-whatever-sex look like a potential threat to my safety, comfort, and privacy?"—and possibly more importantly, is easier for third parties to _agree on_ when third parties are called in to enforce the rules—then the rule ends up being "no men" (or "no male-looking people").
Which is _not_ necessarily a great rule!
[TODO: link to Culturally Bound Gender on "Percentages, Prevalence, and ..."]
"The reason characteristics common to men and women, like height or hormone levels, are distributed bimodally and not normally is the impact of the sex binary on them.": https://twitter.com/radicalhag/status/1065860508232880128 (actually clarifies my thinking)
+
+https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelling-fences-on-slippery-slopes
https://medium.com/the-establishment/dont-judge-a-girl-for-what-s-between-her-legs-24f6b6c8cc6
+how come I've never heard of this Hogancamp guy on Trans Day of Rememberance? oh, right, AGP erasure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwencol
+
+read later: https://medium.com/@juliaserano/refusing-to-tolerate-intolerance-f24c1bff513f
+
+https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2012-11-15/online-paedophile-jailed-for-14-years/
+
+http://valleywag.gawker.com/twitter-engineer-dana-mccallum-pled-guilty-to-two-misde-1643207780
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff