What makes a Woman a Woman? (Or a Man a Man)

There is a sex binary.
The gender binary is not clear - many many people do not meet, or do not want to meet, the role prescribed for their sex.

I agree with Hully.

Not saying that Indian people are red-hot-keen on drowning babies BTW!
But that it happens, and in China too.

How many transgendered people does anyone else on this thread know in RL?

I know one.

She would no more wish to upset and trigger or belittle anyone than rise and fly to the moon.

It isn't fair to lump all transgendered people in with transactivists who do not speak for them, just as it wouldn't be fair to lump all people in a minority group with radicals in that group.

Most are really just trying to get on and live a life. Most have been subjected to horrible bullying, stares, name calling and they just want to live in peace.

So do you think you are a man, hully?

I don't, I'm just me.

Hullygully - what is the male essence or the female essence. And maybe I am unusual but I have known 5 MtoF Transsexuals in terms of regularly being in contact with them. But then I am a feminist who uses women only space and some MtoF Trans people lobby hard to get into women only space. They have largely achieved this.

And tbh all were sexist to varying degrees i.e. dominate conversation in groups of women, some making sexist remarks, etc. I don't care if Trans people attend say women only discos. I do care if they attend women only sexual abuse groups or even women only general discussion groups.

But women have largely lost the fight in this country to create women only spaces that exclude Trans people and I think it is because most women don't understand how valuable women only spaces can be to some women.

But most women in the world can't be wherever they want to be.

They are identified as female at birth and their gender role is prescribed and that is that.

If you take away the concepts of sex and gender as even existing, in a world that is so highly gendered, where does that leave women? It's not going to stop people in India drowning female babies at birth or make the Taliban decide that women don't have to wear Burqas after all, is it.

If you take away the concepts of sex, male and female, and gender, then how can you possibly have any kind of women's movement? How can you identify discrimination? How can you fight with anti-abortion people?

You can't. It is a huge problem.

I'd like to see the evidence for "wrong" wiring in the brain, given that the brain is plastic not wired and can actually develop in many different ways right throughout life.

Also with something like anxiety is doesn't mean your brain is wired differently (which implies permanence) - it can be a result of a range of different things - some of which are not permanent.

It leaves them where ever they want to be (FWIW I think I have a more "male" brain than is normal for a female)

And if my brain can be wired differently WRT anxiety and I can have medication and treatments for that, why can't a transgendered person whose brain is wired differently?

Not wrongly, hathor, differently.

And where does you theory leave all the women with "male brains"?

The other thing is that gender - it's not only to do with what stereotypical things you like but how others treat you. Being treated as a female growing up is a very different experience to being treated as a male growing up. How many people feel that the way they are being treated does not chime with how they feel inside.

Clearly for lots of women all around the world there is a great feeling that they are beign treated out of line with how they feel inside, but they are not in the position to be able to say "actually I'm a man" and make their lives so much better.

How many actual transgendered people have any of us ever come across in RL?

Me - one. A MtF. And she's lovely.

I have no problem accepting that in the same way as my brain is wired wrongly and I suffer with anxiety, a transgendered person's brain is wired wrongly WRT their gender/sex/whatevertherighttermis.

But if you take the gender roles away, then you are left with a "feeling". I don't really "feel" like a woman, I just feel like me. The idea that sex (not gender, sex) is nothing more than a "feeling" is really problematical.

Gender-wise I probably identify more closely with male.
Sex-wise I am female. I was born with female genitals, at puberty I grew breasts, I have had two babies and breast-fed them. Clearly I am female, there's no disputing that is there? But there is, if based on what I identify with, and what my "brain type" is, I am male.

But you said "trans promotes"

And legally it is real sex if they have gone through the requirements for a GRC.

What comparison? I'm the one saying that the institution of trans treat bodies like meccano sets, with the idea that an inverted penis somehow becomes a vagina, or a pair of silicon breasts are a pair of actual breasts, or that artificial female hormones, give someone "femaleness". I'm not aware that any trans uses that sort of analysis about the institution of trans - they all act as if it's "real" sex and those are the real body parts they are talking about, not facscimiles.

nyac could you show where a transgendered person has made that comparison? I'd be interested to read it in context.

I don't think that a male being raised as a female is about fitting the gender role "masculinity" but understanding at some deep level he is male SQ. I think it's more a demonstration that you can't change a fundamental biological part of a person.

Trans promotes the idea that we are just interchangeable body parts that can be added removed at will, a bit like a Meccano set. Nothing could be further from the truth of course.