I'm just going to re-post this amazing contribution from TalkingintheDark on every trans thread from now on.
"Sporadicus yes, it does come down to who decides what is acceptable to say.
Who is entitled/qualified to define the meaning of the word "woman"?
When I first discovered the trans threads, I was initially baffled by how anyone could even be suggesting that transwomen are actually women, when the biological truth that they're not is so patently obvious.
It took me a while to realise that the argument hinges on the TRAs having assumed the right to redefine the meaning of the word woman. They have decided that woman no longer means adult human female, but "anyone who identifies as a woman, who 'feels like' a woman inside."
Leaving aside the obvious problem that there is actually no definition of what a woman actually is in the TRAs' versions, this is the battle ground now. TRAs maintain that the essence of womanhood is a real thing, regardless of male biology. And in that belief system it is hateful to say TW aren't women.
We have not given our consent to this new definition. We weren't even asked our opinion. Our experience of living as women under a patriarchal, oppressive system for generation upon generation, our experience of battling sexism, being feminists, fighting for equality and safety - it all counts for precisely nothing in the face of the TRAs' assertion that being a woman is a feeling.
So by whose authority did they twist language to make it suit their agenda? Why did they feel entitled to do so, without so much as a by your leave? What makes them think that as people born male (and no, not fucking assigned male at birth, BORN biologically, reproductively male) they are not only qualified but MORE qualified than us to say what it is to be a woman?
Not by my authority, that's for sure. I see this as just another marker on the continuum of male violence against women, where male people take what they want from female people regardless of whether the female people consent or not, because they can. Because even MtTs, far from being the most oppressed group on the planet, are still infinitely more powerful than women.
MNHQ, if there were a group of MRAs campaigning to have DV decriminalised, I doubt very much you would give them any kind of platform, much less a chairing role on the subject of being a force for good. But this bigotry and misogyny goes unchallenged and is even feted and held up as an inspiration - even though it is every bit as malign and dangerous as the "hypothetical" group of MRAs.
Men have been taking what they want from women without our consent since time immemorial. Now, under the guise of "equality" they want to take our very identities and access to all our safe spaces and services and awards that have been created by feminism, by the struggles of WOMEN, as compensation for our inferior status in society. They are even claiming ownership of feminism now!!! And yet we are being cast as the bigots for resisting them; prevented in very many ways from even speaking and being heard.
By whose authority, MNHQ? Yours, now, apparently."