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

Really?

That's really interesting.

I think the reaction to other trans experiences (ethnicity, species, disability etc) compared to the reaction to trans women is very telling. I don't know enough about transmen - high profile or blogs or what have you - to know if the reaction to them is different as well. I suspect that it is slightly different although happy to be shown otherwise.

The differences in reactions is very telling IMO and what it is telling us is nothing good about how society views women and girls.

Which makes it hard for me to understand why feminists should be concerned about trans issues any more than the issues of any other minority group

I'm probably going to shock you to the core by agreeing with you on this particular point.
Now people do tend to campaign about what is close to their heart.

So a woman who has lost someone to breast cancer is more likely to activily support / raise money on behalf of that issue.
But I've never met a single woman who would say. There's no breast cancer in my family so its not an issue I care about, stop fundraising and give to heart disease instead.

So when it comes to issues that apply to transwomen I can see why you get pissed off.
If there are some vocal trans activists trying to stop discussion of some women's issues because it excludes them - then that's wrong.

I have to say I can see feminists don't want to support a group if that group just wants the focus of women's issues to be only the issues that apply to them.

Obviously I'm not saying that all trans activists act like this but maybe some do and it might paint all of them in a bad light

They have done neurological studies of people with clinical lycanthropy, and the parts of the brain that understand body image are experiencing something different from people who identify as human.

Hermione - Yes, it's called Species Dysphoria. Parallels are actually quite striking.

In a 2008 study by Gerbasi et al., 46% of people surveyed who identified as being in the furry fandom, (usually defined as a person with a strong connection with some sort of animal), answered "yes" to the question "Do you consider yourself to be less than 100% human?" and 41% answered "yes" to the question "If you could become 0% human, would you?"[6] Questions that Gerbasi states as being deliberately designed to draw parallels with gender identity disorder (GID), specifying "a persistent feeling of discomfort" about the human body and the feeling that the person was the "non-human species trapped in a human body", were answered "yes" by 24% and 29% of respondents, respectively.

As described by those who experience it, species dysphoria may include sensations of supernumerary phantom limbs associated with the species, such as phantom wings or claws.[7] Species dysphoria involves feelings of being an animal or other creatures "trapped in" a human body and so, is considered different from the traditional definition of clinical lycanthropy, in which the patient believes they have actually been transformed into an animal or have the ability to physically shapeshift.[8] However, some cases that have been labeled as "clinical lycanthropy" actually seem to be cases of species dysphoria, involving persons who have no delusion of transformation but instead have feelings of being in some way a non-human animal, while still acknowledging they possess a human form. Keck et al.[9] propose a redefinition for clinical lycanthropy that covers species dysphoric behaviours observed in several patients, including verbal reports, "during intervals of lucidity or retrospectively, that he or she was a particular animal" and behaving "in the manner of a particular animal, i.e. howling, growling, crawling on all fours". Keck et al. describe one patient as a depressed individual who "had always suspected he was a cat" and "laments his lack of fur, stripes and a tail".[10] Except for the persistent feeling of being feline, the patient's "thought processes and perception" were "usually logical".

There are people (I think they're called Kins?) who believe they are squirrels. Their existence doesn't make it difficult to identify actual squirrels.

I don't have an issue with defining either intersex or trans people. I think they both do fit into neat definitions.

I am certainly not going to advocate for intersex people to be legally made into a third gender group because it is up to intersex people to decide what they want their legal rights and categories to be. I've no reason to believe intersex people with entirely different conditions from each other want to all be lumped together, or that they want to be put in the same legal category as trans people.

But I understand what intersex means and what trans means. I understand that being intersex is a biological condition, while being trans is for some trans people a sex dysphoria, for others a social dysphoria, and for others both. I understand that trans people consider trans to be an umbrella term that is much broader than the old term transsexual, and is inclusive of those with no sex dysphoria and those with no gender identity.

So I don't think it should be that difficult to define the word woman just because those groups exist.

I don't understand how it is possible to claim that we can define and identify people as Intersex (which is biological) but we can't define and identify biological females.

I read a bunch of stuff in something called the transfeminist manifesto a few years ago and the concerns were around workplace equality, dv, lots of issues. Anything to do with reproductive health or rights which obviously forms a very major stand of more mainstream feminism was (naturally) not included.

Again, I don't know who wrote the document or whether it was a small group or a more legit document, but yes, the trans version of feminism represented did (obviously) exclude everything to do with the root of our oppression.

Interestingly the blogs I've read by transmen (only a couple they seem to be quieter!) talking about growing up as a girl and getting the shit from boys and men, their perspective on feminism is much more in tune with what a woman on MN or these boards might see as concerns.

Which kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

The idea that people growing up as girls and people growing up as boys don't have different experiences, in how they are treated and what their biology gets up to, it just doesn't make sense. And yet, that is what the new reality is. It erases women's reality. And it is women - transmen don't seem to be telling men what they can and can't do, say and so forth.

whirlpool

Like I said earlier this thread wasn't started about the 98% to 99% of women that do fit a simple definition.

The whole thread is about the 1% to 2% that don't fit into a neat definition.

You seem fine with the intersex group but not the trans.

Also like I said before if you want to give me a definition - fine, but it won't fit 100% of women. Now I know you argue that 99% is close enough and for most conversations it is
But this thread is about the 1%

disclaimer, lots of 1%s and 2%s in there I'm just sticking in very approximate numbers

The term FGM has been flagged as potentially problematic FYI.

Not by many people as far as I know, but it has been mooted that the name needs a rethink.

& I'm sorry if I sound a bit pissed off but the logical end-point of all of this is that we can't identify & therefore talk about and try to address sex based oppression

WhenShe - You are so deep into the rabbit hole of your world view that I don't know if any counterexample we give can bring you back out.

So some male children who feel like girls or girls with unusual genitals are becoming child brides in Chad, are they? Do you really believe that men in Chad take children with dicks as their child brides?

You might first like to consider that FGM is very widely practiced in Chad. That is Female Genital Mutilation. Do you really think that a child's genitals is his/her personal secret in a place like that and that a girl is anyone who "feels like" a girl?

You are using words like female and woman, in the context that they are normally understood, quite happily, but you refuse to accept that you know what a woman is.

Can't you see that that doesn't make sense? You can't simultaneously know and not know what something is, at the same time.

"I'm sorry if you find me evasive but I'm not about to suddenly make up a definition of what is a woman just because you've asked me for the 6th time."

But at the same time you know what a woman is, and say as much when you accept statements like the ones above.

How does a statement like "women in Ireland are refused access to abortion" go over with you? Is it inaccurate and exclusionary

Well it's relevant to fertile females. So anyone past the menopause isn't going to need an abortion.

Now if there are any transwomen out there saying this statement somehow excludes them - then I think they are being idiotic.

If you are unable to say what you think a woman is, then statements from charities such as the fistula foundation become meaningless:

"Recent studies indicate that there are between 36,000 and 39,000 women living with fistula in Ethiopia, and over 3,000 additional new cases occur each year. This unfortunate reality is a result of multiple factors such as prolonged labor, practices like early marriage and teenage pregnancy, low socio-economic status and high illiteracy rate among women, scarcity of healthcare units in rural areas, and a low rate of skilled care during and after pregnancy and delivery. In fact, there is only 1 obstetrician or gynecologist for roughly every 350,000 citizens in Ethiopia! - See more at: www.fistulafoundation.org/countries-we-help/ethiopia/#sthash.NG3NIXZi.dpuf"

xposts

"Again if I were to talk about all the women's or men's hair in the whole world.

I'm not explicitly talking about group 2 & 3 but I'm not excluding them either. Just talking about women or talking about men."

How are you defining women then? Are you including transwomen? Are you including transwomen who have not yet started (and may never start) any external changes to their appearance etc? Are you including transmen?

How does a statement like "women in Ireland are refused access to abortion" go over with you? Is it inaccurate and exclusionary?

I'm still not sure though.

How are you defining "boys" in that group when you say it's fine as it's "generic". I'm not sure what that means.

The boys in that group who are trans - I assume you mean the ones who have an internal identity of girls? You should not be including them in under your definition of "boys" then, I wouldn't have thought. If you are talking about children with female bodies but who are male inside, when you refer to the boys who are trans, then I think you will find that your conversation becomes messy because their captors will not know or care that they are actually boys, and will have put them in the group to be raped, rather than the group to be armed and go out and kill.

Why would i have difficulty with adults.

Again if I were to talk about all the women's or men's hair in the whole world.

I'm not explicitly talking about group 2 & 3 but I'm not excluding them either. Just talking about women or talking about men.

Not really sure why it would be different for adults.

OK then, so when it comes to children, you have no difficulty, it's just adults.

So, looking at Afghanistan under the Taliban, how would you rephrase:

"Afghan women were forced to wear the burqa at all times in public, because, according to one Taliban spokesman, "the face of a woman is a source of corruption"

Well the Chad statement is fine (obviously it's a horrible situation but from a sex point of view).

Some of those boys will be

• regular XY boys, normal genitalia and no dysforia
• intersex
• trans

Same for the girls.

Now obviously by far the biggest group will be the first group. There might well be no one from the last two groups. But I personally don't see why that statement only applies to the first group.

It's a very generic statement.

Like if I were to talk about boys hair colour in the USA. I'm not specifically talking about the last two groups but I'm not excluding them either. I'm just talking about all the boys in the USA - that's a lot of people.

Right OK then I know exactly where you're coming from.

Please can you tell me how you would like statements such as:

"In Chad, many young boys have been forced to fight and kill, while many girls have kidnapped and forcibly "married" to their captors"

should be rephrased in a way that is acceptably inclusive for you.

"So the 1% or 0.1% of women who don't fit a standard definition of "woman" aren't an issue."

Which women are you talking about? Intersex, Klinefelter Syndrome (XXY) etc are abnormalities. They don't change the definition of a woman no more than a baby born with one missing foot changes the definition of humanity as a bipedal race.

Whichever their physical anomalies, those women are still of the sex that can produce eggs/ova and bear young. They fit the definition of a woman because they are women.

"But the 0.1% of women who are transwoman do cause an issue because they don't fit the standard definition?"

They don't fit the definition for a very simple reason: they are not women, they are transwomen -i.e. they are adult human males who feel like women.

Oops that should read

So the 1% or 0.1% of women who are intersex don't fit a standard definition of "woman" aren't an issue.
But the 0.1% of women who are transwoman do cause an issue because they don't fit the standard definition?V

And is is very important. If you remove our ability to describe the group of people who generally have the potential to bear children, and the group of people who generally have the ability to cause impregnation, which happen to the the reason for the oppression of the former group by the latter group for as long as anyone can find out, the you remove the tool with which to identify and describe this situation, and then how on earth is anyone supposed to do anything about it

So the 1% or 0.1% of women who don't fit a standard definition of "woman" aren't an issue.
But the 0.1% of women who are transwoman do cause an issue because they don't fit the standard definition?

Adult human female is a perfectly fitting definition for all the women I have ever met.

Your problem is trying to find a definition for "woman" that covers transwomen and you're right, that's a bit mind boggling. And that is because...?