So ... Does this indicate that you CAN be 'born the wrong gender'?

Yes when I said that I mainly related to it, the part about the body didn't fit for me at all, I've always been pretty comfortable in my body from that perspective, and was fortunate enough to be pretty oblivious at school while pretty much everyone around me struggled with eating disorders (I was at the sort of school where that is rife).

But I know that enormous amounts of girls and women do have varying amounts of discomfort with their bodies, eating disorders and self harm are pretty rife aren't they, girls trying to stave off the onset of puberty by not eating, wearing clothes to cover their breasts due to the attention they get and so on. It's fairly well documented that lots of females feel varying amounts of discomfort (as do boys in increasing numbers).

Interestingly I have a medical problem which meant a lot of hospital and pain and stuff when I was young, so I very much hated that part of my body, and I wonder if my focus on that bit of the body as being so awful, meant I got away with all the other stuff! Certainly if you have a bit which fails and means you get left out and stuff, maybe it occupies your thoughts so you don't get the other stuff, or the other stuff doesn't seem so bad, don't know.

Anyway. Actually, thinking about it, periods piss me off no end, pregnancy was shite, childbirth was shite, the whole children think totally fucked my mental health so that was no fun.... So actually the stuff around reproduction I'd be more than happy to lose. I hear that menopause can be a bastard as well so there's that to look forward to

Anyway yes, maybe that gives you some insight lass? Apart from the body thing, that blog is exactly me. And it sounds like it's exactly bertie, full stop.

I know that you have an internal id of female, so have you read anything that you can share that encapsulates that in a similar way? It would really help with understanding this stuff, if you can think of anything.

What struck me in the last couple of pages is that Bertie and Galaxy felt this
moreradicalwithage.com/2014/08/04/am-i-cisgender/
summed up what it means to be a woman.

For me, a born xx woman and a mother it's as impossible to identify with and relate to as I suspect I would find a transman's account of why he is a man.

The passage below for example is completely alien to my personal experience. I do not feel "an enormous amount of distress and dis-ease living in my female body". My female body is not "a continual source of shame and suffering for me".

I can live in my female body without discomfort, suffering, or anguish. Actually, that isn’t true, and I suspect it isn’t true for most women. As a woman raised in a culture that constantly bombards women with the message that their bodies are unacceptable, even disgusting, I feel an enormous amount of distress and dis-ease living in my female body, in a way that has shaped my life and continues to do so every day. What I really mean is that I have never felt that the discomfort and unhappiness I feel living in a female body would be eased if that body were male instead. While my female body is a continual source of shame and suffering for me

Yes, Whirlpool. It is a matter of understanding. And I'm not here because it is some kind of interesting discussion. I'm here because, as I outlined on the other thread, I need to understand the perspective of people who have a gender identity. Because I have to help support DD as she develops her adult identity while a number of her friends have come out as trans boys.

This is by the by with the whole language / what is going to happen to the women's movement if being female (and male) is entirely divorced from biology in speech when in all parts of the world actually everyone knows what a female is (and what a male is) and that has consequences which are often not good for said females.

I have found this thread really interesting actually it has helped coalesce some ideas starting with that rubbish pop quiz

I think that me (and many women on MN) do not have an "internal gender identity" and that this has been a source of confusion and misunderstanding from the get go. When a person who doesn't know what something feels like is asked to understand the feelings of someone who does, it is incredibly hard. So trans people who by definition have this feeling and have it strongly, and the non trans people who do, think that the non-feeling it people are being difficult and trying to make some kind of point. Meanwhile the people who don't feel it, are flailing around trying to understand what it is and how it works, and all hey can think of are gender stereotypes, and this (understandably) makes them pissed off.

The interesting thing is that I suspect that many women come to be feminists as a reaction against the gendered role they are put in, and that they don't feel it fits, they don't feel comfortable with it, or aspects of it. I guess this might be why many women react so strongly against the idea of being called cis - it's not just because of a reaction against the idea due to being gender critical, but actually a more visceral reaction of "that does not fit me why are you calling me that".

So in many ways it seems like there should be more similarities than arguments but sadly there aren't, it seems.

The really interesting thing from a personal perspective is that if we really need to label each and every different internal way of being, then having had a good think prompted by the crap quiz I would say that I certainly don't have an internal gender identity, so by the new naming systems I suppose I am agender. Well OK.

However I suspect that making that pronouncement would be met with a certain amount of derision as my appearance is (naturally) very feminine, I'm not a young beautiful androgynous person, I adhere to the norms of dress for a woman in our society, no-one would look at me and think "ah she's not quite female somehow" although it is fair to say that when people get to know me they often find a lot of my attitudes, opinions and interests a bit unexpected - which takes us back to why feminism in the first place!

So anyone, if anyone calls me cis now I can quite merrily tell them to get stuffed so that's something

And that's the end of another stream of consciousness post. And probably says badly the same as the blog post that I put up a little earlier

Whirlpool, that blog is brilliant. I agree with everything she says there.

Thanks slug appreciated

"Now that lead to questions of "what is a woman"? "

Why do you still keep asking this?

If you don't have a dictionary at home, there are plenty of online dictionaries that you can use free of charge. You clearly have internet access. What is stopping you from looking up the word "woman"? I really think that you will learn something from the experience.

I don't think it is hard at all.

As I said much earlier in the thread, I completely understand what people mean when they say a woman is an internal feeling and then go on to describe it. And I gave examples of traditional women who believe all women are defined by nurturing feelings, or those like Jazz Jennings who describe women as being defined by a consumerist feminine aesthetic.

I understand that I disagree with those people but this is a pluralist society and they are explaining their beliefs in good faith and a spirit of trying to be understood Many trans women have done that.

It isn't posting in good faith to repeatedly make the meaningless statement that a woman is someone who feels like a woman and refuse to be explicit as to what a woman is.

It isn't posting in good faith for Whenshewas to claim I have asked her things that I have never asked her.

It isn't posting in good faith to say that you can't explain what a woman is beyond a feeling, but then be entirely capable of explaining what intersex means and refer to people as 'regular XY boys' which is not a feeling at all, to bring up mother as a gender identity and then assume that means a person who has given birth (a biological function).

It is fundamentally dishonest to keep insisting that you believe woman is a gender identity - so a feeling and then keep mentioning genes and reproductive biology as examples. It is wholly inconsistent.

No. I asked you to explain what a woman was as a gender identity, because you claimed there was scientific evidence for it.

I am not asking what a gender identity is. Nobody disagrees with you that it means to feel like a particular gender.

I cannot agree or disagree with an opinion you won't explain. If you don't explain what you mean, then it doesn't mean anything!

Other people talking about biology is important and interesting, but it is pretty much a separate topic to your claims about woman as a gender identity.

At this point, I no longer think you are posting in good faith.

Just been googling and I relate to a lot of what this woman says, I enjoyed it.

jenny we don't agree on this. And that's fine.

My opinion on gender identity is simply that it is "feeling like you are a man or a woman, or indeed neither"

Now that lead to questions of "what is a woman"? And that's why this thread went down the biology line.

We are 22 pages in and we have different opinions on this. If I was to hang around for another 22 pages (which I don't have the time or energy for) we would still disagree.

You are right whirlpool. The section of this thread concerning gender identity was interesting.
People had different views but it was generally conducted pleasantly and was interesting.

Can't say the same for this past section.

I guess there isn't really an end point. I like discussing things and this topic interests me. My opinions aren't set in stone and it's interesting to see what others thoughts are.

Yes I will do further reading on this. I didn't bring up trolls someone else did.
And I'm sorry but I have looked at the MANA website and can't find anything suggesting pregnant women has been replaced with pregnant individuals.
Like you say maybe I've not looked hard enough. But don't get upset with me just because I looked into something and couldn't find what I was looking for.

I can tell people are getting seriously pissed off so maybe it's time for me to leave you to it.

I didn't ask you to do that.

I asked you to describe what woman was as a gender identity, because you made scientific claims on the basis of there being such a thing at the beginning of the thread.

I have no idea whether or not your description will encompass 100% of who you think women are because you have never said what you think a woman is. I don't need it to include any particular people who I might consider women and who might consider themselves women. I just want you to explain what you mean when you are talking about woman as a gender identity.

The Olympic committee, who have to make highly complex decisions about athletes who routinely take performance enchancing drugs that alter their bodies, isn't really about gender identity at all. I don't know why you keep bringing up biological sex and how that is defined when you have said woman is a gender identity.

Anyway

I was thinking earlier, and a lot of the more extreme stuff (as far as I am aware) and the instances of abortion clinics removing references to women, student unions cancelling stuff, and you know all of that, most of it seems to come out of the states?

(Correct me if I'm wrong - I know there are examples from elsewhere but the majority does seem to be US sourced and a lot of the blogs twitter stuff and so on).

Are we getting swept up in what is coming out of a massively different culture? The arguments around abortion - whereas here it's just a standard part of healthcare you can get (barring NI). The healthcare things generally (to do with cost). The general push for the individual (which as I understand it is a much stronger part of their national identity). Sort of, a lot of the people pushing for stuff only seem to be giving consideration to their immediate problems in their immediate locality - which is understandable - um

I'm not sure how to express this! In other countries there are loads of different set-ups, in some non gender conforming people are specifically recognised, in others like Iran where it is punishable by death to be gay there are results for "trans" around that, you have girls in Afghanistan being dressed as boys to go to school and then having terrible trouble when they hit puberty and are expected to step into submissive roles, just loads and loads and loads of stuff, so many differences and I just think that maybe so much of this conversation is focussed on one voice from one very specific part of the world IYSWIM.

Just a thought, don't know

all women college cancels vagina monologues production

stupid? hoax? good as it's not inclusive? it's up to you really, posters on here can only tell you what they think, not make your mind up for you, and certainly not tell you who is "good" and who is "bad".

You see at this point I start to wonder where you are coming from with this.

You absolutely refuse to say that you can say what a woman or a girl is, but are simultaneously comfortable with statements that talk about these groups when it comes to items that are related to their biology.

You ask repeatedly for examples when a bit of googling would prove really informative on all of this stuff, and the different viewpoints (ie not just the ones on this thread) which if you are trying to understand the issues and arguments would be more helpful than asking for links from a group who you make it clear that you think are wrong or exaggerating or whatever it is, and then either deeming the "stupid" and from "trolls" or suggesting they are hoaxes and so forth.

If you want to know and understand what various people of lots of different types make of all this then the answers are all just there.

What are you trying to get to here - is there an end point? Have you found any of this useful? Will you be doing more reading or have you made your mind up on anything? Do you understand the concerns of either the women on this thread, or the more extreme trans views that have been linked?

"I'm still wondering what a good trans person would look like from a feminist perspective."

Well you can keep on wondering.

I don't believe anyone is good or bad because I am not 8 years old.

I still think making a fuss about vulva shaped cupcakes is stupid. If you want to flame me for that I'm not really bothered.

I find it a bit odd that I can't have a black or white point of view regarding a cupcake. But earlier on in the thread I was expected to come up with a definitive description of a woman, one that would encompass 100% of women.

Like I said earlier the Olympics still struggles with a firm definition of what makes a biological woman.

I agree with Whirlpool. It isn't bad or stupid to believe those things, and I understand why people hold such beliefs.

There is absolutely loads to read on all of this stuff from a wide variety of people if you google, whenshe.