Transphobic and Transcritical - what is the difference?

Gee thanks!

Excellent post, Prawn.

'It's transphobic to assume that every trans person wants to "physically transition." I don't need to physcially transition. I have a female body and female genitalia. I am a woman, and women have female bodies. This isn't difficult to understand, yet you have so-called allies who think our bodies have to look just like a cis woman's to be considered a real woman. Fucking cis women'

So 'woman' isn't enough, now they are trying to take 'female' too...lovely

Outside of MN the most popular term for what we're discussing is gender critical. Because our opposition to the erosion of women's rights is based on our rejection of the idea that gender is more important than sex. We don't think transwomen are women, not because we're mean but because we don't define women on the basis of gender. Feminist analysis places gender in the centre of the methods used to normalize the oppression of women. We would like to abolish gender and the trans lobby wants to elevate it.

The term trans critical suggests that our thinking on gender is limited to transgenderism. This is false. It also panders to the claim that feminists are trans exclusionary when in fact feminism excludes transwomen for the simple reason that they are not female, and female is the root of feminism. Transmen are included in feminism because they are women, and feminism creates an ideological home for the hundreds of detransitioners who realise that they are women - and often lesbians.

For this reason TERF is not only a slur but a nonsense. Feminism doesn't centre men? Well, no shit Sherlock!

I don't think a lot of people on these threads actually believe that many transactivists feel like that. Some of them really despise women.

What sort of crazy basis is Bambam's example for forming law and policy around? You would literally be accepting any man who said they were a woman was an actual woman, whether or not they had done a single thing to live as a woman. This charmer thinks they are a woman the same as any other woman so their male genitalia is female by default. When any reasonable person thinks that is patently ridiculous.

It doesn't sound like they have dysphoria to me, it sounds like they want to make women uncomfortable.

Well quite Bambambini and that's when the ideology's flaws become glaring.

Gender dysphoria is real. The rest is a crock.

"This is why I think the 'born in the wrong body' narrative is so ridiculous and damaging. There is little empathy for, or affinity with, women."

Well some Transfolk obviously think that is outdated or according to this TW

"It's transphobic to assume that every trans person wants to "physically transition." I don't need to physcially transition. I have a female body and female genitalia. I am a woman, and women have female bodies. This isn't difficult to understand, yet you have so-called allies who think our bodies have to look just like a cis woman's to be considered a real woman. Fucking cis women."

Absolutely agreee Things

I think though, that until you have seen the pain that someone with genuine dysphoria has gone through, it's difficult to judge the difference between that and a small child who decides that the socially decided box they're expected to sit in doesn't fit them and they don't wish to conform to it. Not wanting to conform to arbitrary roles that don't suit individuals is being pathologised.

I prefer the term 'gender critical' personally. As does my 16 year old trans son. Both of us think gender is a load of bollocks, and his being trans is in no way related to stereotypes or personality. He's often picked on because 'how is it possible to be trans but not believe in gender?'

No way related to thread but Im seeing more and more 'transkids' and it pisses me off. Children before puberty cant really have sex dysphoria, and hence their definition of being trans is based on clothing and toy preferences. It invalidates the genuine trans people and what utter hell they've gone through. Do like this thread though, no one appears to be screaming transphobia.

Perhaps I'm unusual on this thread but I prefer trans-critical to gender-critical.

I'm critical of the way trans has been erected as a huge umbrella catching within its shadow transsexuals, people having an intersex condition, people having gender dysphoria, young people uncertain of their sexuality, people with certain medical conditions, etc, as well as people deciding on their gender on a day-by-day basis and autogynephiles.

But trans-critical definitely has a PR problem and is prone to be misinterpreted as trans-phobic as we are continually seeing.

I prefer the term gender critical tbh. I feel gender is absolutely a social construct and harms women. It harms men also, but not to the same extent.

I personally would define transphobia as hating someone because they are trans. But it appears to have the meaning of...be even slightly critical of ANYTHING TAs fight for. I was called transphobic only yesterday as one of my friends was discussing transwomen in sports and I gave the view that they should compete against males or compete against each other but no way should they compete against born women. This opinion was absolutely disgraceful apparently..I was hurting transwomen by even saying it, and I may push them to suicide! By saying that sex matters in some areas of life. WTF indeed. Luckily this was in a pretty close friendship group so people were free to give [i]true[/i] opinions instead of the 'correct' one and I was backed up by 9 others(including a post op transwoman!). The issue of changing rooms and such was brought up and I was happy to discover that the majority opinion matched mine. This conversation ended with the 'trans ally' declaring all of us nasty transphobes (inslucing the trans woman who was with us...) and flouncing off. She hasn't spoken to any of us since, though I expect she will before long.

But this is just crazyness. ANY opinion that is not 'sex does not exist and there are literally no differences between males and females' is transphobic...

To me, it seems as though the gender they wish to change themselves into doesn't exist. It's fake and artificially constructed.

I'm a born female, but I don't follow fashion and I'm a bit of a tomboy (if that term is still permitted). I like both female and typically male interests and I don't believe in traditional gender roles. I would like to see equality between men and women.

The type of 'woman' that they seek to become appears to be modelled on very superficial characteristics and their idea of what a woman is. Human beings are far more complex than this and I believe that we're all a mix of typically male and female feelings and identity. Superficial characteristics are meaningless. The person comes first. They cannot feel comfortable with their identity as a human being if they need to take hormones, have surgery and step into an artificially constructed role in order to feel comfortable.

I think I have been reading too many accounts of MtT " journeys" : last night I had a dream that I was transformed from my usual rather practical
Short haired middle aged woman into a " girly girl", I then enjoyed swishing my long silky hair and preening in front of a mirror. I woke up feeling rather confused! ( derails thread...)

I think gender critical is perhaps the better term, transcriptional is too likely to be taken personally even if that is not the intention.

Perhaps they wish to negate women and replace us. By redefining the concept of 'female' and 'woman', they can erase our identity and replace it with their own. Once they occupy that place, they then 'own' the identity and are free to dictate and control what we are and who we are.

Yes, I can imagine they must have some serious psych issues. To be honest, the stupid unthinking virtue signallers who enable them to bully women make me angrier.

Why would TAs want to be women when they clearly hate and despise women?

It's pretty clear really. They want to be women for some bizarre reason but they hate and despise women, so the only way they can be a woman is by changing or even erasing the meaning of the word 'woman' so 'woman' ceases to describe a specific biological entity. That enables them (the fake version) to claim ownership of the word 'woman' and its meaning.

But logically, then, they would have to hate and despise themselves wouldn't they if they were real women? I think that deep down they do and all their efforts are the way they rationalise their self-hatred - a belief that they are not the hated and despised version but the new improved version complete with penis and balls (often).

A psychiatrists' nightmare.

The irony is that they are doing so much damage to the very small percentage of people who have true body dysmorphia. Because the backlash that will assuredly come when society wakes up to the fact that it is being scammed by these TAs will also hurt those with genuine dysmorphia.

And those crimes will be recorded as committed by women, presumably.

For those who said it would never happen one Twitter user thinks otherwise: twitter.com/StopLesbophobia/status/836329343907418112

ageingrunner

I think what transwomen want has got very little to do with women at all. People like Tumbletrans have gender dysphoria and find that ignoring their genitalia as much as possible helps to alleviate the problem. As there are only two types of genitalia, it naturally follows that presenting as a woman helps. If there was a third or fourth sex they might well choose one of those.

And in terms of the autogynephiles it's not about accepting that we are different. It's about women being the goal of a sexual obsession.

This is why I think the 'born in the wrong body' narrative is so ridiculous and damaging. There is little empathy for, or affinity with, women. There is no unification. There is no battling the same cause. In fact, for many of them, there is a distinct battle against women.

And I know people have told me on here that they know transwomen who are not like that. But you hear little from them. And it's not they who are changing the laws, or even want them changed.

Yy Datun and I don't understand why tw can't accept that we're different and just move on?

Good thread, OP.

Some transwomen's idea of a woman and the actual reality of a woman are completely and utterly different (and opposed). Which is why the term 'woman' should remain firmly as a biological description. Not a gendered role that becomes a legal cloak that you can don at will.

That's a really good description of it.

age

Yes, that's exactly it. Be what ever gender you like, but if you are pushing the idea that what you are presenting is representative of women, no fucking way.

Some transwomen's idea of a woman and the actual reality of a woman are completely and utterly different (and opposed). Which is why the term 'woman' should remain firmly as a biological description. Not a gendered role that becomes a legal cloak that you can don at will.

I saw this and thought it was appropriate

Thinking about it, it's a bit like having surrendered wives insisting, often with threats of violence, that they speak for feminists.