Aibu? Don't want to include anyone but women

Transwomen are neither the gender nor the sex of women. Therefore they in no way fit a research category called women.

What they are are 'gender identifying' individuals. If you are researching using this category- that's fine.

Gender identity is made up bollocks that has led to some people thinking they have the right to order other people (usually women) to do and say what they want, giving up their own rights and spaces for them at great harm to themselves and their sex specific group.

I'm quite active in the women's group at my work. Whenever someone brings up 'but what about traaaaaaannnssss' (and predictably someone always does) I say, 'yes, we include trans, we welcome women who identify as men or NB. Men? No.'

That's my position and I always state it, with the hope and intention that it makes others braver to state their boundaries.

Do you know if any trans or NB women in the field?
If you do not then just focus on women in that field?

I did my nursing top up on breast implant illness in women and had to bloody write a spell about why only someone born as a woman. So as long as you state clearly the rationale and then give research into why you want to only look into women then your OK. You can maybe look into non binary female at birth possibly as they may chose to be non binary given the difficulties they have in your work place. As long as you state your facts and literature be ok

Trans women are a different kettle of fish as it could be seen to be excluding them in research on their own gender.

Why do you assume she is researching anything to do with gender? I understand her to be researching something affected by sex. Specifically, the female sex. In which case it is entirely appropriate to exclude transwmen from her research.

Well if you agreed to include all women already then the decision is already made tbh

Having no idea what your field or thesis is, suggest that the extent of part 2 being along the following lines: also note that trans women are now able to ride on the coattails of the fight of actual women to gain leg ups in industries (where those trans women already had no disadvantage), at the expense of all the women I've discussed in part 1"

No, this is nonsense.

Can you reframe the parameters as being about females?

It sounds like what non-binary females and trans-identified females have in common with other females (ie women) is more relevant to the study than their personal beliefs.

Surely the rationale for your research question should lead this eg exploring the impact of societal views on female children and young adults entering the profession?

Fuck sake. You can either be part of the problem or you can set boundaries. Why did you say 'yes'?

If there is a wealth of research on women in your field why are you so keen to do more of the same rather than branch out and contribute more meaningfully and originally by doing research on nb and trans, which you are saying there is very little research about?

Maybe that's why your colleagues asked you, as you have an opportunity to take a new angle, and novelty and originality is generally highly valued in research and it's unusual for a researcher to shy away from that.

Including non-binary people in research about women is nonsensical. Surely it would be offensive to a non-binary person to suggest they should take part in research about a gender they don’t identify with?

Trans women are a different kettle of fish as it could be seen to be excluding them in research on their own gender.

What kind of research? What kind of numbers? In a large quantitative survey the numbers of trans women would be far too small to skew anything and you could do a sub-group analysis if needed. For smaller numbers in qualitative research you’re unlikely to get any trans participants and if you did you could note where their experiences differ in your write up.

Is there a way to pitch running two parallel projects? Ie, you run a trans/NB inclusive project looking at slightly different questions and then argue that there is a research case for quarantining data on the biological women? Not sure on your field, but depending upon whether the data you are collecting is qualitative rather than quantitative you might be able to exclude or at least place that subset of data in its own data set? Mine is qualitative, as it’s a creative arts PhD, so am exploring lived experience of mothers very specifically, which helps because it both implicitly and explicitly excludes male born/non gestating subjects!!

Trans women make up 0.5% of the entire population. I doubt they’re going to take over your research 🙄

Or you could be crystal clear and define women as adult human females. My God, when they introduced the Equality Act in 2009 they didn't define women because everyone felt it was so patently obvious. Now in rarelified academic fields women are reduced to a subset of ourselves. Thanks to Maya Forstater and Jo Pheonix you are allowed to use clear language and your research may actually be of some use as a result.

That's not a problem though if the topic of research is specifically biological women who birthed a child. This is common practice in research to only look at a specific population. Not all research can or should be inclusive.

Research is specific, not inclusive.

It involves choosing particular categories and comparing/examining relationships/ results within them (amongst many other things)

So you choose - smokers/never smoked , research on police officers, research on particular age groups.

Those people who do not fit the categories are not included because the research is NOT ABOUT THEM!

If there is a wealth of research already, what are you adding with your project?

You can’t do this as it would exclude females who are not mothers, adoptive mothers etc etc

These issues likely wouldn't apply to a trans women (if they transitioned later).

Later than what - birth? Male and female babies are treated differently from the start, and the former will never experience pregancy & maternity discrimination. None of your points would affect transwomen in the same way as they affect women, regardless of when they transitioned.

Could one of the parameters be women who have birthed a child as you are looking at the effect that childbirth has on someone’s physical and mental health and the resulting effects this has on the woman.

Just include maternity leave and menopause and anything else that is linked to real women and you should be fine.

@Azureal It might be a clever counter but it's essentially a get out.

We need to be brave and honest. We cannot be forced to lie - we have a legal right to state our own beliefs and represent our views.

If we keep agreeing with the lies, nothing will change.

In this situation I would have anticipated this question and repeated that the study was on women.