Transwomen answer why they are women

In that case, qumquat, you've never experienced the grisly depths of PMS and menopause.

I have not read one satisfactory answer from transwomen about why they feel they are women, not one. When frequenting the Guardian I have directly asked the TW posters on there and it's all vague waffley replies they give. I'm banned from commenting on trans issues on there now. I asked a perfectly legitimate question the other day about a trans topic and it got pulled with no explanation, fucking infuriating. It's only on here and a Reddit sub that I can be trans critical.

This discussion is SO fascinating and I resonate with so much of what all of you are contributing. FINALLY we have a space to discuss this topic without having to censor ourselves for fear of coming across as anti-trans, or being misogynistic for not automatically including a TW when she says she is one. I'm really struggling with this notion of word censorship now and the over PC way of having to make sure everyone is comfortable. Example: I went to a meeting and we had to refrain from saying "woman", "mother" "breastfeeding" or "she". We were supposed to say things like "womb holder" "chestfeeding" (WTF), and "they". Even though this was a meeting about childbirth and lactation support. I am a lefty-left-left and a die hard liberal BUT.... this is getting ridiculous. You wanna be trans, fine, go for it, but this over the top INCLUSION is almost too much.

There are so many degrees of being a "woman" that can't fully be explained or even experienced by someone unless they grew up as a female. I feel like we fucking FOUGHT to get here, we are still fighting for so much in our culture. In my mind I just can't get past the point of this still being about men's privilege to decide that they feel enough like a woman to take this away from us too. It's a weird dichotomy of feelings with this issue.

I've read a similar thing to SomeDyke about a detransitioner who said that she realised that she'd been attracted to transitioning because it was an unconscious way of trying to escape misogyny. However, when she started passing as a man, men started talking about women around her in an even more misogynistic way (because they assumed that she was also male) and that was even worse for her because it made her realise how real misogyny was.

Obviously it's a reversal of the situation in mustbe's post but in both situations the transperson was surprised about the reality of passing and therefore truly being seen as the opposite sex. Which means that they clearly didn't know what it felt like to be the opposite sex beforehand.

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I'm a bit confused by your post goody I think with my brain at all times of the month.

Q

"It was an enormous eye opener...."

I've come across similar stories from transmen, in particular one story where someone returned to work and was assumed to be the brother of the previous female in the job. They noted how much better he was at the job............

A male friend of mine used to spend a lot of time talking about how women were all caring, nurturing and respected automatically by men. Whenever I said that wasn't always the case and men could be patronizing and abusive it was explained to me that I was mistaken. A few years later he underwent gender reassignment still with this idealised view of womanhood.

This lasted until she took her car to be serviced for the first time. It was an enormous eye opener especially as she was technically minded and had never previously felt that garages were trying to pull the wool over her eyes. She was really shocked to be treated with contempt and her subsequent experiences didn't always tally with her assumptions of what life as a woman was all about.

I suspect she was far from unique in her pre op views

I lost them when they said we think with our brains. They've clearly not grown up with PMT - whether from their mum or themselves. Part of what makes us female is our hormones. Of course we think with our brains, but both society and hormones affect how our brains work.

I do understand what it means to be out of synch with your physical sex, because I was like that, too. Not to the extent of complete body dysmorphia and self-hatred, but feeling lost, confused, worried, scared of my poor fit.

What sufferers of other body dysmorphias receive is emotional support and psychiatric treatment. Not the world bending itself round and forcing everyone else to conspire in the dysmorphia!

"reducing being a woman/ female to genitals" (biology basically).

the word reducing is the misogynistic bit of that. I don't feel in any way 'reduced' by having biology which allowed me to grow and feed a whole new person!

What someone like Danielle Muscato?

Nothing that we know of. I guess you'd have to find someone who had transitioned but was still a "tomboy", i.e. Dressed like a man and had all the outward trappings of one.

But to be honest I don't have enough personal experience to be an expert.

Well precisely.

If it's not biology, and it can't be lived experience, and it's not hair, clothes or make up. There's nothing left.

I have absolutely no idea Datun!

I identify as female because I've been raised as female. I identify with women but fancy men (although I understand that sexual orientation and sex-identity are different things) so I've had the privilege of never having to feel outside of my body.

For a while when I was a kid I wanted to be a boy but now I realise that was just because I wanted to do what boys did and have the freedoms they had.

But I definitely know that the idea of innate femininity being about romance, flowing hair and high heels is a pile of gubbins.

What do you think it is to do with Lessthan?

The thing is I'm totally willing to accept that there is a thing such as feeling a strong identity with a particular sex. I just don't think it has anything to do with wearing dresses or makeup.

The mental gymnastics are utterly exhausting aren't they?

in a bid to distance themselves from trans women, it seems that some feminists are prepared to reinstate the notion that being a woman is something that can be defined and constrained biologically.

This is so manipulative. Jane Fae is deliberately conflating women's biology with the oppression women have experienced because of that biology, by saying 'defined and constrained', and by using the verb 'reinstate'. Notice what happens to the sentence if you take out 'and constrained' and replace 'reinstate', with 'assert'.

in a bid to distance themselves from trans women, it seems that some feminists are prepared to assert the notion that being a woman is something that can be defined biologically.

Because duh, yeah, it can.

I have an innate sense that I am meant to be rich and live in the Mediterranean with a yacht.

Me too, me too.
Hm, I wonder how the rich people will react if I turn up and demand to be given a yacht and a membership in a golf club and all that, to be taken away from what they have - I am rich, it is the rich people's job to acommodate me - because I feel like a rich person.

in a bid to distance themselves from trans women, it seems that some feminists are prepared to reinstate the notion that being a woman is something that can be defined and constrained biologically.

This bit from the second article totally misrepresents what feminists believe and shows that the author has totally bought into the male backlash definition of what feminism is.

IME feminists don't believe there is no such thing as biological sex but do believe that 1) gender is to a significant extent socially constructed and has been hugely over hyped in our society. 2) biology shouldn't restrict a person's opportunities in life in as much as that is possible

bamb

I am hoping as more and more people wake up to this, it will change. What do you think? Do most people understand the issue in Canada?

bamb

Exactly. It's like saying 'Jesus Christ' as an expletive now be considered a hate crime. Or 'oh my god'.

It requires everyone to proactively reinforce the belief, despite what they think, or be criminalised.