Trans Women Should Be Legally Treated as Women | UC Berkeley
Discussion abounds regarding the definition of “woman,” often focused on social and emotional factors of womanhood. This claim at University of California Berkeley raises the stakes: "Trans women should be legally treated as women."
One woman, a molecular geneticist, strongly disagrees with the claim, while another woman, an aspiring molecular geneticist, agrees. The third participant, a man, initially stands on the “disagree” line but recalibrates his confidence toward the end of the conversation.
Participants discuss how gender identity should be handled in hospitals, prisons, and legal identification documents (like driver’s licenses). The safety of biological women is a major point of consideration.
This conversation was filmed at UC Berkeley on April 19, 2022.
i can relay a story from my boyfriend's work as a props person on a broadway show. one night during a performance, an actress who identified as a "they" got her (their) foot (feet) caught in a track on stage. the show was stopped and an ambulance arrived. the EMS guy got the woman (women, people, them?) out of the trap and onto a (one, singular) stretcher to be taken to the hospital.
the stage manager said over the speaker "how are they?" and the poor EMS guy said "what? was someone else hurt?"
he had only brought one stretcher and only expected one injured person. that's how the english language works. "she WAS hurt"- "they WERE hurt." these distinctions allow people to speak and be understood. "they WAS hurt" just sounds like bad english. and it's confusing. the last thing you want in an emergency is for your EMS worker to be confused. you really don't want your fireman to risk his life any longer than necessary looking for imaginary people to save because the person he had already saved identified as a plural. we might allow the queen of england to use the plural because traditionally, she represents god but the rest of us non-blue blooded mortals are single individuals who represent nothing beyond ourselves and get to use the grammar that goes along with being a single individual
go figure, the woman who thinks that trans "women" should be legally treated as actual women is wearing a mask