"What makes a women" NY Times article

How many people have lost a leg, humans are bipedal, does that mean they're not human anymore?

Please don't use an infertile woman's pain to try to make your point - it's very distasteful. Just as intersex also don't fall into one of the handy boxes, but have no relation to trans, and using their issues as your own is rather dishonest.

"Also how do you identify 'Biological woman', I have breasts, the same muscle structure as any other woman, I have a slightly bigger shoulder frame, but small than my mothers."

Got any ovaries? Womb? Vagina which is not an inverted penis, or a "hole" as many men and transwomen seem to think, but an actual organ of the body, got any fallopian tubes, XX chromosomes? You know, all those things which female mammals have, but which you can't put a bit of lipstick on to mark them as female because they're too far into your body?

Who cares what you look like? I'm sure most men in our society could look like women if they chose to - all they have to do is shave a lot of body hair off, put on some make up, put on clothes we've decided are for females only and adopt feminised mannerisms. Doing any of that, won't make them women, because being a woman isn't about what you look like or what mannerisms you adopt or internalise. It's just about being a female human and you can be a hairy arsed slouching sensible-shoe-wearing, huntin, shootin & fishin loudmouth, if you've got XX chromosomes and female sex organs and you've been brought up as a girl, then you're a woman, even if you identify as Ernest Hemingway. And however much misogynist transwomen tell you they're better women than you, because they perform patriarchally constructed femininity better than you do.

Sigh... your statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of transgenderism, an FtM person is not a woman.

No. You're the one misunderstanding. There are four types of people being discussed. Men. Women. FtM transgender. MtF transgender. Not two different types.

Just because you feel like a woman IN YOUR HEAD does not give you the right to appropriate MY (non-niche, shared by billions of others) identity and definition of a woman. I am a woman. I am not a cis woman. As others have said, I want you to be happy, I really do. I also want you to stop trying to be something you're not, because that impinges on me in ways I find invasive and upsetting.

Your tone is absolutely indistinguishable from the bog standard MRAs that come on here telling us how we're all evil nasty wimmenz. The use of 'ladies', the patronising tone...

Yes, I've seen the studies - and I've seen pictures of trans athletes against female athletes which don't leave me convinced, I've also read some of the horrific things that some intersex women have been through in order to be allowed to compete as women, which suggest that the IOC may not be paragons of impartial virtue when it comes to this sort of thing.

Nothing is going to negate the fact that men are on average bigger than women, and transwomen are therefore on average bigger than women.

Also you can hardly base your argument on the ability to get pregnant, how many ladies out there are infertile, do they not count as women any more?

@Chunky
No it would put them on the same level as a 6'1" woman, come on ladies these are well documented, the IOC have done studies on it to allow transgender athletes to compete at the highest level because there is no difference between your supposed 'biological' woman and a transwoman after 2 years of HRT...

Nym, that's a bit silly - no amount of hormones would make my 6'1" partner the same height and weight as the average woman.

No amount of hormones is going to put him at risk of pregnancy.

It does however remove the ability to make someone pregnant ;)

HRT doesn't cause the ability to get pregnant.

and if we're going to discriminate on something to keep people safe I'll plump for discriminating on biology - since that's what makes men bigger and stronger, women at risk of pregnancy which are enormous areas of inequality we can do nothing about.

Then by your argument you are all for trans women using the same facilities as 'biological' woman. The effects of HRT on the musculature and size of the body are well documented.

nym you'll find that when women don't fall for the smoke and mirrors of queer theory passive aggressive bullshit, there's nothing more you can say. You got off to a bad start with your crap about there being no instances of MTTs attacking women. You make it clear you haven't read any of the trans threads on here or listened to what women have to say. Ho hum.

Selective Discrimination, So much for equality.

Nymia, you seem to be all for discrimination as long as you get to bunk in with the women, so perhaps I could say the same thing about you.

I'd prefer gender was ignored altogether personally. I don't identify with any gender. I am a woman though, and if we're going to discriminate on something to keep people safe I'll plump for discriminating on biology - since that's what makes men bigger and stronger, women at risk of pregnancy which are enormous areas of inequality we can do nothing about.

Selective Discrimination, So much for equality.

I'm out, this as usual has gotten back to the same arguments over and over.

My ID says female, by law I use the female bathrooms etc, good luck arguing otherwise.

By segregating on identified gender rather than biological sex you are opening us to the same risk that you are trying to prevent for yourself - unknown, predatory males in what should be a safe space

Well put.

"you want trans people to use the toilet of their birth? That means trans men using the womans bathrooms, womans safe spaces etc"

It doesn't mean that, actually. Men don't feel threatened by transmen. They are not protesting the presence of females in their changing rooms and toilets that I have noticed, probably because as a group they don't need safe spaces from women and never have.

So 'us people' ignore any kind of medical and societal standard...well 'you people' constantly claim that there are no instances of trans women attacking women in bathrooms, then when presented with evidence showing that these cases do exist, claim these people aren't trans women. Schrodinger's trans woman. A trans woman when she needs the toilet, a cross dressing man when they start a fight.

"trans people just want to be accepted for who we are"

We do accept you for who you are: Transwomen. That is, males who feel like women.

You want to be accepted to who you think you are: Women. That is, adult human females.

I'm sorry but there is (1) a difference between those two, and (2) a limit to how far I am prepared to go to make you feel good about yourself.

Being a woman is not about how you look, although that is part of how you are treated. Being a woman is not about how you are raised, although that is part of how you are treated.

Being a woman is being an adult, human female, and all the biological things that that entails, and all the social consequences that stem from that biological reality.

I'm not saying that being trans is easy, I'm not saying that trans people don't have similar problems to women (or men), and I'm not dismissing or minimising those problems.

What we're saying is that women and transwomen are different, and by trying to co-opt the word 'woman', and be counted as a woman in official statistics etc. you are harming us.

You are not harming us by coming into the same bathroom, but there are men that will, there are men that will pretend to be trans in order to do that, and we have no way of telling the difference. By segregating on identified gender rather than biological sex you are opening us to the same risk that you are trying to prevent for yourself - unknown, predatory males in what should be a safe space

I would hope that someone who has been through so much to get where they are, could sympathise with the position of those they identify and realise why this is a concern, rather than bully them into catering to your needs over their own.

Sigh... your statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of transgenderism, an FtM person is not a woman.

I had two minds about posting here in the first place, as usual you people staunchly ignore any kind of medical or societal standard. Its like banging ones head against a brick wall.

Ah, right, let me answer that then...

No. I think that for as long as we have people like you trying to elbow your way into our safe spaces, then it is far safer for women to have gender free single cubicles. Hope that helps. It would also keep TW and TM safe from the people who ACTUALLY harm them. Men. It's so much easier to attack women though, isn't it? We so usually capitulate.

Cis is a slur, I am not cis. I find it offensive and it misgenders me. Don't do it again. I will report any further posts which misgender me, and they will be deleted.

You obviously utterly failed to read the words I wrote. shock I don't discriminate against you, I actually said, in a whole paragraph, that I would fight beside you to stop discrimination against you. And, if you honestly think that the chromosome issue is small, then you have completely and utterly failed to understand women's oppression, which is hardly surprising really, given you grew up bathed in male entitlement and strive now to perpetuate Patriarchal values of femininity.

I'll answer it if you want. I don't mind whether FTTs use the women's or the men's. If men care about FTTs in their loos they can take that up. I don't mind if they use the women's because they are women.

@Puffins At what point do you establish something as 'fact', independant verfification by medical profesionals is usually good enough...

The facts that are stated in so many of the trans threads ive read on here are based on proven invalid scientific documents.

You err with your statement, you are quite correct that trans women are not trying to invalidate your identities, its the cisgendered women who want to invalidate the trans peoples identity by refusing them access to basic services such as toilets etc, trans people just want to be accepted for who we are.

What would you suggest a trans person does if they need to toilet, use the gents where they are statistically more likely to be attacked?

Of course you are completely correct in your statements about lesbians, rape crisis centers, and 'corrective rape' the people who are advocating for these things are just plan idiots, there is not two ways about it.

As I said previously, for a group that prides itself on wanting equality, you are very happy to discriminate based on something as small as a chromosome.

I note that my question to all of you goes regularly unanswered in these threads:

Finally a question for you, you want trans people to use the toilet of their birth? That means trans men using the womans bathrooms, womans safe spaces etc, for those who are unaware trans men have deep voices, bushy beards and the physical effects of testosterone. Would you rather it that way round?

Well we'll have to take your word for whether you pass as well as you think you do. You're not a woman though because you are not a human female. Your demand for women to say you are and always have been a woman negates the meaning of "woman". Being a woman is not an identity, not a feeling and not a club that you can bully your way into.

Oh dear... will more redditors be coming over? Just so I can send out a troll klaxon to the moderators?

I understand that you feel as if you were born in the wrong body,Nymia, but feelings aren't facts. Your verifiable facts are also not facts. No one is invalidating yours or anyone else's identity, you are Nymia, transwoman, and that's great.

I will stand beside you in your fight to gain better access to therapy and surgery. I will stand beside you in your fight to get better services and recognition for transwomen. What I won't do, and what you wouldn't be trying to force women to do if you weren't steeped in your learned male socialisation, is fight to allow you to violate women's safe spaces.

I won't fight for people who say that lesbians who refuse to sleep with TW who have penises are bigots, or who argue for their "corrective rape". I won't fight for those TW who have campaigned to have a rape crisis centre closed down because they won't allow TW into their safe space. And, given that those kinds of TW are the most prominent within your community, what are we to believe?

FWIW, I've never met an RF who doesn't want TW to live happy lives. All the ones I know would just like MtT to stop trying to enforce the very gender stereotypes we're trying to get rid of, in order for women to be able to be whatever we want to be. TW enforce and codify stereotypes, they can't help it, it's part of the dysphoria.