Feminism and the idea of a man or woman trapped in the wrong body are contradictory ideas

Could it also be explained what intersex has to do with a man who has XY chromosomes, male hormones in his body and a penis and testicles claiming to be a woman. Because I can't see how those two things are connected in any logical way.

If the justification isn't valid that men feel they are woman (or women feel they are men) - what about lesbian and gay people?

They "feel" they are lesbian or gay - why should they be supported?

The only real justification for supporting trans I've seen on this thread is that these men feel very strongly that they are women (or vice versa) so we should support them.

I still don't see why feelings should trump physical reality, and it hasn't been explained.

But male and female are mutually exclusive. They have particular definitions.

Hotness and coldness are relative; male and female are not. In scientific terms we would perhaps more properly describe something as getting hotter. Or perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be that one thing is 15 degrees and another thing is 0 degrees, and a third thing is 7 degrees. The existence of 7 degrees doesn't suddenly make 15 degrees C and ) degrees C overlapping categories.

Why would a FTM want to be in a woman-only space? She's saying she's a man. But yes a woman who wants to be in a woman-only space is welcome. FTM don't become men, they are still women, so she'd be welcome.

Man is a noun, meaning adult male human, Bennifer. There isn't an sophistry in describing a man as a male.

I don't think the existence of a third category proves that the two other categories aren't mutually exclusive. People are so odd about sex in the way they want to deny it. Bennifer how do you think you arrived on this planet if it wasn't because of two people from mutually exclusive sexes reproducing to create you?

Well, you've stated that "A basic element of feminism is that women and men are born as that sex - biologically men/women"

Even if that is true for 99.99% of the population, it isn't true for everyone

Obviously the terms have been used loosely, "man" and "male" used interchangeably here. It seems like there's a bit of sophistry going on though with the intersex.

e.g. Hot and cold are mutually exclusive - luke warm is a third category!

The point is that even if it's a small number of people, male and female (and man and woman) is clearly not mutually exclusive.

Male and female are mutually exclusive categories. Intersex is another category, or more accurately intersex is an umbrella term for a range of discrete categories.

Out of curiosity, Nyac, how would you feel about a FTM transsexual being in a women only space?

Given that MTF transsexuals are, in your view, still men, then presumably FTM transsexuals are still women? And in that case they are welcome in women only space, even if they look and sound like men?

That's a version of biology I've never heard of. Is it one you just invented today Larry?

Sex refers to reproduction and is based in our sex organs and chromosomes. Female brain "development" as you put it, would be a brain that has XX chromosomes in its cells.

Males (men) don't have XX chromosomes they have XY chromosomes. Feelings don't change that.

I'm clearly not arguing that men and women don't exist, but what I'm saying is that the fact that intersex exists, makes it simply not correct to say to say that male and female are 100% mutually exclusive categories, i.e. you're either male or female, which is what I thought was implied in the statement that "woman and man is a biological fact"

Male and female are only biological facts where every single one of three boxes are ticked consistently in one direction. Are they XX or XY, do they have male or female sex organs and, more controversially, do they have male or female brain development. If any individual can tick every box in the above three categories, they are factually a man or a woman. If any of those boxes contradict one another, it is far more complex. Transgender people, I feel, would tend to believe that there was at least one contradictory element within them within the three categories.

It's a new internal policy SeaHouses, so not available publicly. Not sure about why they've done it, probably because they are legally required to.

Intersex is also a biological fact.

It's not logical to say that because of intersex, that male and female suddenly become nonexistent. What reasoning are you using there Bennifer?

Nobody has argued that people are only male or only female. A tiny number of people are biologically intersex.

Bennifer, male and female are biological facts. The fact that intersex people also exist doesn't mean that male and female people don't.

I don't know if someone has pointed this out yet, so apologies, but to say "Woman and man is a biological fact" is not the case. It might well be for 99% of the population, but for a small set of people, such as intersex, it's not true. Therefore that premise is wrong

NYAC, do you know why they have done that? Is it because of changes in the law or is it something they have decided for other reasons?

Will that apply to refuges that are solely for asian women? Or are those refuges run by an organisation other than women's aid?

Didn't mean you personally,Nyac - what I meant was "If one believes,which obviously you don't,that a MtoF is a woman,then one must also believe a FtoM is a man". my point wasn't to get at what you believe,but just to say I don't see this as misogyny,because it cuts both ways.

I think there are conflicts of interest, definitely. I think female-born-women need some exclusive spaces and it's wrong for trans people to be muscling in on those.

I don't think that's quite the same as trans being a contradictory idea though. I think hormones have a helluva lot to do with how at home we feel in our bodies. I currently feel like a young woman trapped inside the body of an old woman and am considering HRT. I should probably just face reality though, even if it gives me osteoporosis.

The gender stuff is obviously patriarchal BS. I'm sure I'd fail any 'living as a woman' test. Perhaps if we weren't living in a patriarchy, M to F trans wouldn't feel obliged to insist they are women.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I think the whole thing is a giant mess but that trans is a real condition which appears to be made better by hormonal therapy in lots of cases. I think we need to find social solutions to ensure that nobody's rights are impinged on, rather than telling trans they are deluded.

EBAL, if transgender people are only talking about their own internal gender experiences and not applying it to wider society I don't think it matters if they are right or not. It is then, as far as I concerned, like believing in God. People can believe in God, as long as they understand that is personal to them and don't tell me I must share their feelings.

And that seems to be a major issue with transgender. It is going beyond them having an internal gender identity to insisting that everyone must have those feelings, and claiming that everybody who denies they have these feelings just hasn't noticed these feelings because of their own privilege.

That is a ridiculous argument. Of course there are privileges that people can't see, white privilege, heterosexual privilege and so on. But these privileges can in a rational way be described and pointed out to people. The problem with the transgender argument is that nobody will rationally explain what this internal gender identity involves. So are we meant to take it on faith that we benefit from something that hasn't in any way described or defined?

I don't think we can segregate everyone based on a feeling that is not explained.

I don't think it is tolerant, or promoting equality, or compassionate, or broad minded, or inclusive of trans people to support their feelings when you have no idea what those feelings are. It is just playing lip service to an idea. But a lot of posters on here are claiming that they are fighting against the fascist, unfeeling, intolerant feminists in support of trans people, but yet they themselves don't seem to know what the characteristics of this internal gender identity are. Ignorance is not tolerance.

It reminds me of a tv programme where they had a black man (who I assume must have been some kind of specialist in equality) going around and sitting in on corporate equality workshops. The trainers were basically saying you must say XYZ, not say ABC, not do EFG, call such and such group MNO. He got angry about it and said that all that achieves is to mask people's real beliefs. There is no discussion of having a real understanding of what it means to be black, how it feels, and where racism comes from and what ethnicity means to each of us. When I did diversity training, the first thing the trainer said was that she wasn't doing the XYZ approach because it just builds better racists; they are still racist underneath but they hide their discrimination in the workplace by not saying XYX.

And that is what goes on on these threads. They end up full of people falling over themselves to say they are so compassionate to trans people and feminists are not. But I don't think that not agreeing that trans people shouldn't be beaten up on the street etc is a mark of particular compassion; it is simply a mark of basic humanity. I think that trying to understand that people have very different feelings about gender identity, gender roles and biological sex, and that we actually have to think about these things if we really want to build relationships with others, which is what you are doing by asking the questions in the first place.

Pride of Chanur, I'm not sure why you're saying this about me:

"then you also believe a FtoM is a man"

Where do you get that from what I've said?