The word ‘real’ is contentious here. That’s because the person believes they are already a woman. But....they don’t think they look like one. But...they are one. But...they don’t think they look like one. So they want (someone else to pay for) surgery. So they can look like what they already think they are???
2017 Dame Jenni Murray was publically sanctioned by the BBC after uproar/complaints from trans activists over her article in The Sunday Times. Much of the basis of complaint came from the headline & focussed on the word 'real'. I'm not convinced that many read the whole article.
Jenni Murray was prompted to write the article after India Willoughby's comments & atitude on BBC R4 WomansHour.
(I was listening too & also felt rage, once the incredulity had subsided)
March 5th 2017
'Jenni Murray: Be trans, be proud — but don’t call yourself a “real woman”
Can someone who has lived as a man, with all the privilege that entails, really lay claim to womanhood? It takes more than a sex change and make-up'
(extract)
"The fury that a male-to-female transsexual could be so ignorant of the politics that have preoccupied women for centuries hit me again last year — 16 years after I had met Carol. This time I was speaking to another trans woman, India Willoughby, who had hit the headlines after appearing on the ITV programme Loose Women.
India held firmly to her belief that she was a “real woman”, ignoring the fact that she had spent all of her life before her transition enjoying the privileged position in our society generally accorded to a man. In a discussion about the Dorchester hotel’s demands that its female staff should always wear make-up, have a manicure and wear stockings over shaved legs, she was perfectly happy to go along with such requirements. There wasn’t a hint of understanding that she was simply playing into the stereotype — a man’s idea of what a woman should be.
She described hairy legs on a woman as “dirty”. But hairy legs are not considered dirty in a man. Did she not know that the question of whether a woman should shave her legs or her a rmpits had been a topic of debate among women for an awfully long time? And that to describe a woman who chose not to shave as dirty was insulting and again suggested an ignorance of sexual politics?
Unsurprisingly, my polite and informed line of questioning exposed me to a barrage of criticism on social media. I was a Terf and didn’t understand what Simone de Beauvoir, the author of one of the great feminist tracts, The Second Sex, meant when she wrote: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
As a matter of fact, I have understood perfectly what de Beauvoir meant ever since I read her as a teenage girl. Her subject was that “second sex”. She used the word sex advisedly.
Your sex, male or female, is what you’re born with and determines whether you’ll provide the sperm or the eggs in the reproductive process. What de Beauvoir was analysing was gendered socialisation." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/be-trans-be-proud-but-dont-call-yourself-a-real-woman-frtld7q5c
BBC News:
'Responding to the article on Twitter on Sunday, Ms Willoughby wrote: "Delighted you're still narked. If ever want a make-over (attitude & clothes) give me a shout."
'They are women'
Stonewall, which campaigns for the equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people across Britain, criticised Dame Jenni's remarks.
"Trans women have every right to have their identity and experiences respected too. They are women - just like you and me - and their sense of their gender is as engrained in their identity as yours or mine," it said in a statement.
"Being trans is not about 'sex changes' and clothes - it's about an innate sense of self.
"To imply anything other than this is reductive and hurtful to many trans people who are only trying to live life as their authentic selves."
www.bbc.com/news/uk-39173398
Since then, Jenni Murray is regularly protested by transactivists & has been no-platformed at universities due to their complaints.
