I mean, I think what you are saying is the very thing so many people have an issue with, that if I try to say something that is definitely true, "trans women are trans women, and are in some ways different from cis women", automatically implies your second statement, "we should be allowed to discriminate against trans women because they are different." I mean, sure, some people may mean that, but one of Adichie's main beefs is that we always assume the worst in a very "if you're not with us it every way then you're against us", and that given Adichie's other actions and support for the LGBT community (no small feat in Nigeria) that she is at least somewhat deserving of the benefit of the doubt.

Otherwise what you're left with is people feeling that their only option to not be considered transphobic is if they say "trans women are women and are the same as cis women", which gets at the heart of why people are so concerned about public discourse today.

Have you read the Rowling essay? She advocates many discriminatory positions in it. Among them, she doesn't think trans women should be allowed in women's bathrooms, or other "single sex spaces." I don't think everyone who agrees with that statement is transphobic, but it's become a bit of a shibboleth amongst people who are, as it's often posed against the statement "trans women are women."

> she doesn't think trans women should be allowed in women's bathrooms, ... a shibboleth amongst people who are, as it's often posed against the statement "trans women are women.

Because the right to call yourself "trans woman" has been widened to the point of including people who didn't undergo any gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy. And yes, I don't think that those "trans women" are, or should be considered, women. Actually, not even "trans".

> And yes, I don't think that those "trans women" are, or should be considered, women. Actually, not even "trans".

You say this very lightly but it's obvious to me that you haven't really considered the consequences.

For example, you say "people who didn't undergo any gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy". But you don't seem to consider that those are medical interventions. I think if you thought of them in that light, you would be a little more thoughtful about demanding that people undergo medical interventions for any reason, no less as the price of being recognised as their claimed, or lived gender.

Such requirements are common. In some countries in Europe until very recently transwomen were not allowed to change their papers to identify them as women and to declare the female names they used everyday unless they could demonstrate that they had been rendered surgically sterile, by castration. Germany was one such case.

I wonder also if you have a slightly romantic idea of surgery and hormone therapy. The truth is that surgery doesn't magically transform a man into a woman, no matter what some surgeons want us to believe. Some transwomen will always look like men, no matter how much they cut off and throw away. Others, will look like women without having taken any hormones in their entire lives. I know that's hard to believe, but it's how it is. The human species is only very lightly sexually dimorphic and some males can pass for women, and some females for men, with very little intervention. In the case of transwomen, for many it is enough to remove their beard (by electrolysis or photolysis) and take care of their hair, to be immediately identified as women by everyone that sees them. On the other side, history is full of females who cut their hair short, wore pants and lived the rest of their lives as men.

But, I know the above is hard to believe so OK. Just please try to keep an open mind and remember that you don't automatically know everything there is to know about transwomen (and transmen).

Transitioning is centered around the needs of each individual - many choose not to or are outright unable to receive surgery or medical transitioning, yet that doesn't make them any less trans.

At the end of the day, it's their decision what to do with their body, not yours. All that is asked of you is to respect their decisions and treat them with the same amount of respect as you'd treat any other non-trans individual.

It's their decision what to do with their bodies, absolutely, but then why should everyone be forced to accept their view of themselves as an objective fact? I don't doubt that in the vast majority of cases their view is sincere and sound- but shouldn't this judgement be left to those who know them rather than being imposed?

It is an objective fact. Each individual is free to express themselves as they see fit. Nobody is responsible for proving that they're a -real trans- and we really shouldn't be in the business of gatekeeping that anyways, because we already did that decades ago and the APA and AMA now move in line with WPATH guidelines which are far more reasonable.

If we meet in public and you say "Hi, my name is Michael" I can only assume that that's objective fact. If I then say "You know, you don't really seem like a Michael. I think you're more of a Denise based on what I've seen." You would be right to take offense for disregarding your own right to self expression based on my own interpretation of your person from the limited information gathered in a first impression.

This is a very similar thing, except by the time someone is out as trans you can best believe they've spent years agonizing about whether it's even a good idea to do so knowing they'll face this kind of a conversation every time the topic comes up around people who they aren't close with / are not sympathetic.

> It is an objective fact.

An attribute that can change based on someone's feelings is definitely not objective. And all of the genders that are neither male nor female were invented in the last few decades, so membership in one can't be factual. Likewise, membership in a construct called "gender" which is divorced from biological sex was also invented within the last century, so that can't be said to be factual either.

Objective [1]:

1. Of or relating to a material object, actual existence or reality.

2. Not influenced by the emotions or prejudices.

3. Based on observed facts; without subjective assessment.

Fact [2]:

1. Something actual as opposed to invented.

2. Something which is real.

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/objective

[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fact

Non-binary gender identity and roles have been present in human societies dating as far back as 4500 years ago[1]. The only thing relatively new in the last 100 years is the moral panic about it.

Furthermore, from a scientific standpoint, there's not really any such thing as a clean binary division between male and female. Chromosomes get messy, and even absent issues with the X and Y chromosomes themselves [2] there's some fun stuff with the SRY gene [3] and hormonal receptors in utero that can affect gender identity and presentation [4].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history [2] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9396296/ [3] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20184645/ [4] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235900/

We can be sensitive about edge cases, but we don't generalize from them.

Actual intersex conditions occur at a rate of approximately 0.018%. [1] This is a pathology, not a third category.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/

Meh... what you're describing is rarely where the actual conflict is. What about situations where it does affect other people (and unfortunately those situations tend to be ones where merely articulating your concerns is enough to earn you all sorts of labels and hate)?

I see your motte-and-bailey and I raise you a straw man.

I don't think there is much to read into “trans women are trans women, and are in some ways different from cis women” from this author. I certainly don't read “we should be allowed to discriminate against trans women because they are different.” out of it and thus I'd consider the interpretation to be a strawman: its easier to attack the author for it but I don't think its what she meant.

I think this gets at her point in the last paragraph, "the assumption of good faith is dead." If we interpret what the author said as the latter statement we are assuming it was said in bad faith.

Can you point out the bailey here? Because otherwise its just a motte.

Okay - you've shown us the motte, but where is the bailey?

Where does Chimamanda advocate for discrimination against trans women? Because there is nothing in your source that implies that.

Also, that is only a motte in liberal circles. Saying "I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people" is not necessarily a no-brainer moral stance for the general population.

The bailey is in the othering of trans women as a separate class which opens opportunities for discrimination by separating them from women-at-large. And since we still have binary gender norms to contend heavily with in the US and beyond, this ends up playing out as bills banning trans women from playing in a league in accordance their gender, bathroom bills, etc. [1]

There's a fantastic book about this written by Julia Serrano called 'Whipping Girl' [2] that goes over these things and more and describes these phenomena as 'Transmisogyny' - trans individuals being subject to both misogyny and misandry depending on the situation, and sometimes both when it's convenient.

[1] - https://freedomforallamericans.org/legislative-tracker/anti-...

[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Whipping-Girl-Transsexual-Scapegoatin...

Why is speaking of "trans women" othering them into a separate class, but the same isn't true when speaking about "black women" - which is something that is celebrated in modern intersectionality theory? Don't trans women face unique challenges relating to their womanhood - just the same way that black women do?

If you're interested in an intersectional discussion, then sure. But too often this framing of 'trans women are trans women, not Women' is used in bad faith to open the dialog of "What should we do about them in women's spaces then, since they aren't?'

Isn't it bad faith to assume that someone who says something like "I have and will continue to stand up for the rights of transgender people" is actually arguing against the rights of transgender people without any evidence otherwise?

Saying that you support the rights of transgender people is great, but it's possible to say that and still get it fundamentally wrong so much as to actively harm people. So if someone says that but then says "But I have concerns about women's safety" now you see how quickly trans women become removed from the conversation.

https://juliaserano.medium.com/debunking-trans-women-are-not...

Chimamanda, as far as I can tell, never argued about women's safety, or really anything like that. What I do know she said that got pushback was that transgender and cisgendered people have different histories and experiences. That doesn't seem particularly controversial, but then again I am not a twitter justice warrior.

To be clear, Adichie has said she finds J.K. Rowling's opinions on trans people reasonable, so it's not just an assumption. There's evidence backing it.

She said that Rowling's article was "a perfectly reasonable piece", relative to "all the noise" it was generating online. Are we talking about Rowling's actual words, or what they were morphed into on twitter?

Have you ever characterized something which you don't necessarily agree with, but appears genuine and well argued, as "reasonable"?

> Are we talking about Rowling's actual words, or what they were morphed into on twitter?

Her words. I read it. In the essay Rowling says explicitly that she doesn't think trans women should be allowed to use women's bathrooms or women's shelters, dismisses concerns about suicide rates in the trans community, and lumps in advocates for trans rights with Donald Trump and incels as part of a new wave of anti-feminist sentiment sweeping the liberal west.

I didn't find it well argued or reasonable, it's a rehashing of tired arguments that transphobic people have been making on Mumsnet and Fox News in the US for years.