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

I think you can support and sympathise with individuals without supporting the trans concept.

I have two good friends, both MtoF trans (and are a couple). I love them and supported them through their 'coming out' to friends and family and one through her operation.

Though I have never gave them an inkling of how I feel, I don't truly 'get it'. In order to receive hormone therapy and the operation, she had to live as a woman for a certain period. This involved wearing dresses, make up and jewellry. They carried on in the same jobs, same hobbies, just changed their outward appearance.

This does make them happy, which I am, of course very glad about, but it doesn't make them women. It makes them men wearing dresses. Being a woman involves having female sex organs.

They have no true concept of what it is actually like to be a woman, just an idea of how they imagine it to be (as they are both physically very large and unlikely to ever 'pass' they will never truly know what it feels like). The reality is feeling vulnerable, wary of assault and abuse from men, criticised/praised for looks or lack thereof, pressure to act a certain way, discrimination at work, lower pay, menstruation etc.

I can't imagine anyone actually feeling they want that ^. They don't know about that. That, coupled with a vagina and uterus is being a woman.

I dislike my breasts (they are difficult to support, are often painful and get me unwanted attention since the age of 10), hate my heavy and painful periods, avoid make up and skirts, have a manual job, dislike sewing, would love to have a shaved head for ease of management and quite fancy having a penis. Am a man? No I am an individual. Are my friends women? IMHO, no, they are men who like to appear as stereotypical women.

It's the fault of our disgustingly gender-sterotyped society that decides 'men do and look like this' and 'women do and look like this' that makes individuals who's interests do not match with their genitals feel so out of place and upset that they are convinced they are in the wrong body. A man who likes make up and dresses is made to feel so absurd and perverted that his only option is conclude he is, in fact, a woman.

Having said all that, society is how it is and while change is happening it's too slow for trans people who are suffering now. So, yes, men and women should be able to dress and act how they want without persecution, but at the moment they can't, they have to justify their choices and behaviour by attempting to become the opposite sex. Of course, often they never really achieve this (due to physical size/characteristics) and are still discriminated and persecuted. I've seen the abuse first hand and it's sickening.

What's the answer? Total overhaul of society, destruction of stereotypes, gender roles, prejudice and discimination so people can act and behave however they want...Simple!

Agreed SeaHouses

I used "I am an XX woman" because the gender part does not apply to me... unless I was to say "I am an XX neutral woman".

But we do need words, and not these statements, for the ease of discussion where these terms are used over and over again.

Also, such a brain scan will only tell you what % male or female that part of you is biologically, just like a scan of your abdomen will tell you what internal male or female organs you have.

It will still not tell you what gender you are in your mind.

larrygrylls

I think you just made the same point I was trying to make when I said "chromosome" was not an appropriate word for what I wanted.

I also want a 'word', not a 'statement'.

The reason I want a word is because people default to words over statements when talking (as it is quicker and easier), and right now we don't have words to cover the statements I listed.

People tend to default back to using words which have now basically become umbrella terms for some.... and so we now need words that mean the subsections.

Some people would also want to say they were an XY gender woman or an XX gender woman, because both elements were important to them.

Sea,

I would be fascinated to have a brain scan and told what % male and what % female I was. I don't think that you then need to make societal judgments based on that, it is just an interesting fact, and maybe useful to me in how I study things or treat certain illnesses.

White,

You would say that "I am genetically female" not "I am a chromosome". That would imply you were XX chromosomally.

I think perhaps the issue is Larry that people in general don't want their brain chemistry looked at and then told that is what gender they are. Trans people have already decided what their gender identity is.

I mean, would you want that done; would you like to be given a brain scan, and then if the results come back and they say you are a woman, are you then going to accept society treating you at all times as female?

I don't see who this idea of brain chemistry is in the interests of. Who wants that to be the defining characteristic? Would we do the same thing for race or sexual orientation? Some people on here have argued that sexual orientation is innate. Does that mean you want brain chemistry to divided everybody up as gay or straight?

Brain structure and chemistry is biology.

Mind is not biology.

Brain and mind are not the same thing (though they may influence each other).

And no, chromosomes is not an adequate word because it does not mean the totality of what I mean, and is only a descriptor.

Eg. I could not simply say, "I am a chromsome".

At the very least I would have to say, "I have XX chromosomes" or "I am an XX-chromosomal woman."

Likewise, the dictionary defined description of someone with a gender-feeling would be "They are a gender woman."

We need a word (preferably single) that replaces those statements.

Otherwise, people will continually use man/woman when they mean one or the other and without a consensus about what the default is, it will always get very confusing when trying to discuss the specifics.

It would be GREAT if we could coin neologisms for all these new states of being.

what about:

Manalogical
Maninternal

Womalogical
Wominternal

?

White,

We have a word for the chromosomal biology, it is "chromosomes". Sexual organs are male or female genitalia and male or female secondary sexual characteristics. We do not have a good word for male or female brain structure yet as we are not entirely sure of its existence/importance and what exactly it consists of. And I guess our "feeling" of being man/woman is "gender".

And we are not sure that biology is not what we are talking about when we look at brain structure and chemistry. It might yet be.

When I say different words, I mean words as distinct from each other.

Eg. A word for internal self-identity as distinct from chromosomal biology.

We need new sets of words for:

• man/woman (different words for biological vs internal feeling)
• male/female (different words for biological vs internal feeling)

• a word for the internal feeling (we've been using gender)
• a word for the biology (XX, XY, intersex - often with associated features)

We need different words because historically all of these words have been based off biology. And biology is not the same as what we're trying to talk about.

One of the reasons words exist though is to reflect what happens in the real world. I don't think it's a good idea to take words that reflect a concrete demonstrable reality, and twist them into something that is a highly questionable concept at the very least.

Normally when people are lacking a word they create neologisms.

On the other hand taking the term woman and turning its meaning into "what a man feels he is" is a political move and not a good one for women.

Which takes us back to the topic of this thread.

And Nyac I fully understand why you want to keep the definitions that have been traditionally so.

The problem is that until new words are created, people will have no choice but to make their own definitions for the purpose of individual discussions like this one. (and clearly lay them out, because it is confusing otherwise)

Nyac

I am glad you have words that mean what you mean.

But I need a word that means: "what you feel and self-identify as in terms of gender"

And a word for each variation of person that has chosen that previous word (which is not the same as biological sex).

Right now the dictionary doesn't have any words that mean those things... so we've had to basically use our own definitions.

Using those definitions (the ones we've laid out), I can say that:

It is not possible to choose sex (because we are using sex as biologically defined), but it is possible to choose gender (because we are using gender as individually defined in the mind).

I have no other way to describe what I mean because the dictionary hasn't got enough words in it yet.

Larry, the difference between sex and gender is not from a narrow field of study. DS has been taught it several times in state secondary school, and he is 13.

I can only keep repeating that most trans people do not feel they were born in the wrong body. They just perceive that the body they have is the same as the gender they feel. So if they feel female and have a penis, they perceive their penis as a female one. If they are male and have a vulva, they perceive their vulva as a male one. The problem that arises is that many other people initially categorise man and woman based on physical appearance rather than on the person's feelings, particularly if they are strangers.

So comparing you waking up in a woman's body and being uncomfortable is not the same as trans. According to the trans ideas of it, if you couldn't wake up in a woman's body because you're a man. Thus any body you woke up in would be male, even if it had a womb, breasts etc.

Exactly SeaHouses. Somehow the exceptions have demanded to make the rules.

The dictionary has terms that specifically mean what I mean.

When I say woman, I mean adult human female which is also what the dictionary says, because that is always what woman has meant or other words for women. I'm not giving up my reality (not identity) to some men's feelings without a fight.

We're not using dictionary definitions here, we're using the ones we agreed on and laid out earlier upthread.

I think it is really odd that considering oneself not to have an internal gender identity is seen as an oddity.

Nobody has ever done any kind of study to see if randomly selected people have an internal gender identity.

Nobody has ever done any kind of scientific study to show that random people have brain types that match up with an internal gender identity.

And yet on the basis that a few people who particular political interests and a bit of knowledge of queer theory have declared themselves to have one, they are making the assumption that people with no such identity are unusual.

Nyac

I do understand about the definitions, I honestly get your point. :)

The trouble is that for this conversation, we needed some definitions, so we agreed on some. We're not lobbying to have the dictionary changed... but as it stands the dictionary doesn't seem to have any words that do specifically mean what we mean.

The language in this whole area is definitely going to have to change and get more specific, but in the meantime we're a bit stuck with making do.

I think the problem is with the term identity.

Being a man or a woman isn't an identity it's a state of being.

I think a lot of words are being misused here.