Girl Guides are now GIRL ONLY! - Thread 2

What makes yours "wider" and ours "narrower"?

Ours

Unquestioningly encompasses 51% of the world's population. Includes transmen and women with DSDs; lesbian, bi- and straight; pre-menopausal and post-menopausal, mothers and child-free, and the youngest girls (as this is how woman functions in the Equality Act) to the oldest record-holders; the joyfully gender non-conforming right through to the svelte covergirl; weightlifters and models; business leaders and cleaners...

Yours

Please input data... 😊

Female usually equals "woman" because most people aren't born in opposition to their gender.
If they are a transwoman, I believe they are also a woman.

Ok, so I'm trying to work this through.

Where you use the word "woman" at the end there, you meant "female"?

Or something else?

Female usually equals "woman" because most people aren't born in opposition to their gender.

If they are a transwoman, I believe they are also a woman.

I wouldn't be confused about whether most people are men or women or use terms interchangeably. And I would try not to assume a person's gender in any case anyway, especially if I wasn't sure what it was (ie: how they identify).

Hope that's clearer?

Nope sorry. Too busy standing in solidarity with women fighting to retain their single sex spaces and minimising the harm caused by the evil ideology of the genderborg

but I have a wider definition of "women" than most people on this thread, it seems.

Could you just actually say what it is then rather than have us all guessing? I'm guessing for it to be wider than "any female" it has to be "any human", but that raises the question in my previous post - a man is also "any human" so both words mean the same thing (to you).

The criteria is what pictures you waved at as a baby…..

Sorry, I've just seen this. I think I answered it in other threads - but I have a wider definition of "women" than most people on this thread, it seems.

In the quote you took issue with, I think I could have been clearer:

"But if people refuse to see trans girls and TRANS women as such then it'll be long road, sadly"

It was a wider point about affirming trans people in their preferred genders and standing in solidarity with them.

Exactly, so you are saying that female does not equal 'woman' in your view , right? Because a man could be male or female, and a woman could be male or female.

I did ask earlier today whether, and how, you differentiate "man" and "woman" and I'm getting the impression you would use the words interchangeably because there's no difference in your eyes?

I'm genuinely trying to grasp your meaning.

So when someone IDs as a woman, you're saying they ID as a person of either sex. (But possibly with some other criteria - you don't say).

But, Solid, you simultaneously agree that these are internal, subjective identities - gender - and yet expect people to "see" them instantly and non-judgementally, to the extent that sex-based descriptors become obsolete.

I don't want to be facetious - honestly, I'm so bemused it's almost a genuine question! ...Does this future utopia come with telepathy?! Or such deep-seated, penetrating empathy that there's instant mutual understanding of each others' respective identities?

Or (facetious again, but also genuinely confused), one hell of a lot of pronoun-exchanging and memorising in every imaginable context, to a degree that stops anything getting done?

No. So if an adult human female is a woman, that automatically excludes all males then right? I know you’re desperately trying to reshape the world so your son can never realise you lied to him but no. No male can be a woman.

No I don't think so, I think woman covers it. The word may no longer be thought of as having an exclusive, sex-based meaning - but in most cases an adult human female would be a woman.

Unless they are a trans man/non binary/gender non conforming.

But you believed your son was a girl because he waved vaguely at pictures of women? How did he know they were women and not gender non conforming men? Or non binary people?

I think the things that may not exist or resist definition typically provoke the most discussion. Dark matter, religion, ghosts, gender...!

If they don't exist, they seem to be provoking a lot of discussion here! Society has been built around lots of things apart from sex - and the gender roles women and men play are not fixed.

And I don't want to dismantle society but I do hope for change, yes.

no according to you a woman can be female or male. So that won’t work. So you’ll need another word for an adult human female won’t you?

But if people refuse to see trans girls and women as such then it'll be long road, sadly.

Genuinely - when you (general "you") refuse to explain what you even mean by "women" in this sentence, do you think that is helping understanding, or hindering it?

It's clear you don't mean "female people" when you say "women". But do you mean simply "people" or "people who (xyz)"...?

If you want acceptance you need to be able to articulate what it is you want people to accept.

So go on then. Without using sexist, outdated stereotypes, define woman in a way that will include all women and males with a trans identity but exclude all men and females with a trans identity. I know you can do it.

I think the key thing in the above example is that the women of Afghanistan are women - and that many posters here find the suggestion that we remove their descriptor in favour of a mere adjective also applicable to dogs, cats and parts of bloody plants deeply offensive.

Solid, I wasn't joking upthread when I said that I've talked to children who genuinely believe, because of the current attempts to redefine woman, that these women's biology is wholly unrelated to their oppression. I will not be complicit in muddying their plight, and women's all over the world, in that way. It appalls me that anyone could argue for this.

The good thing is that proponents of the redefinition of woman are fighting a losing battle in the long-term (cf. again human evolution, history and geography).

"Fetch" just isn't gonna happen, Gretchen!

A woman. Lots of words have multiple meanings.

It just depends on your definition of "woman". I'm sure noone will be surprised to hear that I have issue with the Supreme Court's legal definition.

It seems there's a heavy assumption in your point about Afghan women that trans women would automatically be oppressors because they are male, rather than potential allies to their fight for injustice against the Taliban.

I expect all women (biological, trans, whatever) have more in common in opposing their government, which speaks to my point about more solidarity across the divide.

”I just don't agree their sex prevents them from being a woman.”

But it does. Their sex is male, which pre-empts him from being a woman. However, their sex doesn’t prevent them from liking things traditionally attributed to women, such as wearing pink, and conversely girls can play football.

I do think there's a very insular, culturally colonialist and naively privileged context to the "women no longer even need a word" argument.

I mean, we are SO fortunate as a society for women to have the luxury of even conceiving (pun very much relevant here) of such a thing. And it really speaks for itself that it's only in the last millisecond or so of human civilisation, and the tiniest, wealthiest corners of a troubled world even then, that a small minority have begun to foolishly dream it.

Just one example, of a plethora of nightmare possibilities:

Take away all contraception (authoritarian government, AI apocalypse, pandemic supply chains, whatever). Women's and girls' lives change beyond recognition, just like that. Life, as some of us are lucky enough to currently know it, simply crumbles. While (with the obvious survival-related riders!) men and boys carry on blithely as before.

Giving up our words is a utopian dream, borne of a privilege enjoyed only by the very fewest of the few.

So if a woman is not an adult human female, what is the word for an adult human female? It can’t be woman, because you claim that should include males so what one word do you use to describe an adult human female?

I would say that they are "male" rather than "men", to keep the questions focused clearly on sex. Especially as I have a different understanding of "women" to you.

So "why would we see a transwoman as female?" You don't have to. But you can make a choice to accept and include her as a woman.

"They aren't women they're male." Correct. I just don't agree their sex prevents them from being a woman.

"You're asking us to disbelieve the evidence of our senses." I'm not, I'm asking you to include transwomen as women - though i know how problematic that is for many.

And who is this "us"? I raised the point about echo chambers earlier - and I really appreciate the forum here, so technically it's not an echo chamber. But the views here seem very one-sided and entrenched - though I'm sure that I seem so to many of you too! I assumed Mumsnet would have a wider umbrella and a broader spectrum of opinion.

The brownies leaders and a few parents in our local group have been sending supportive messages, so I assumed that there'd be a plurality of voices here too.