To clarify, the pictured poster Caroline Kwan is an ally, not a TERF. The TERFs referred to in the title are the ones ‘protecting a very specific idea of what a woman is’
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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Please define "vanilla females."
Presumably they mean XX cis female persons with no medical disorder altering production or action of any sex-related hormone or anatomy. But that's a big mouthful to describe a large majority of female persons, and folks get real angry when you describe the by far most common set of common traits a group of humans have as "normal".
By that argument, Christianity is normal. It's the most common religion.
So I assume you think Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam are abnormal, yes?
I think when talking about what religion is "normal" you're better off to talk about within a given society or region because it is an extremely regional trait and trying to consider it globally makes it less useful. And it shows a lot in how those societies interact in the broad strokes with those religions. Including the presumption that one is at least probably familiar with it and it's broader teachings by default. For example, in India Hinduism is "normal" and you would expect a typical person to have a familiarity with Hinduism, to be aware of it, to see it's influences on culture even if a given individual isn't a devout Hindu. You see the same as regards Christianity in most of western Europe and North America, Mormonism in Utah, Islam in the Middle East, etc.
By comparison, unless you are in one of a few very particular contexts, Scientology is almost never normal.
But then you're trying to assign a moral value to being "normal." The degree to which one resembles the average or typical person of some group or social context is not a measure of their goodness or morality.
Is "christian" not a common set of common traits? Are Christians not of the largest religion?
They are, but they're not remotely as dominant on a global scale at 31% as things like "has XX chromosomes" or "has female sex organs" or "produces little testosterone and comparatively large amounts of estrogen" are for women as a group.
Because religion tends to be much more regional than that - for example the US is about 2/3 Christian and one can expect that if you grab a random person off the street they are at least passingly familiar with the broad strokes of what Christianity is, can recognize the most major Christian symbols, are familiar with Christian holidays, etc even if they themselves are not a devout Christian because of the impact the normality of Christianity has on the culture. The same thing applies to Islam in say Saudi Arabia. Or Shinto or Buddhism in Japan.
Again, normality is not morality. It's just resembling the statistical mode. Often the least normal things about people are the best parts.
...but not when it's a "masculine" woman who is good at sports that is competing against other women?
Didn't say that, my involvement in all this started with the question of what another poster meant by "vanilla women".
Personally I think the question of where to draw the lines is going to be particular to the sport, since the whole point of women's leagues in the first place is protectionism for women athletes who would otherwise just be dominated in many sports by male athletes out of a sense of fairness and no one was even thinking about trans or intersex athletes at the time.
So how intersex is too "masculine" to be a "fair" competition is going to depend on the sport, as is what guidelines are required for trans women to be "fair" competition against the protected class of cis women.
Except this is all thread about someone who, as far as we know, is just a woman. A woman who people just decided wasn't a woman because she had masculine features and was really good at boxing.