Woman attacked by transactivists at speakers corner - part deux

GiantSteps I find your post uncomfortable reading.

Why would a transman want to get pregnant? Well, I would imagine for much the same reason you or I would want to get pregnant - to have a child. Also, people's feelings change as time goes by. I would hazard a guess that 18 years olds having their breasts removed may not feel BFing is at the top of their list of priorities. As time moves on their feelings on that may change.

How would they do it? Well that's their business - I don't go about asking my lesbian friends with kids how they managed it unless they volunteer the information. But to assume that they wouldn't be having PIV sex unless possibly rape sounds incredibly offensive to me!

Transmen aren't one homogenous mass. Like any other groups of people it's a gourp made up of individuals with their own thoughts, feelings and sexualities.

This as well "If getting pegnant triggers dysphoria, then surely as well as a mastectomy transmen might be looking for a hysterectomy or tubal ligation?"

You're putting transmen into one box and trying to work out what all of them must feel using logic about a situation you know not much about. If you're curious, why don't you do some research online to find out more about transmen and pregnancy instead of making sweeping and offensive statements about them?

Your post smacks of "who would want to have sex with them?!" which is I strongly suspect not what you're trying to say.

As I said upthread, I'm deeply troubled about the rise in trans ideology and I'm particularly worried about the rise in women persuing transition as a route out of the gender roles that our society is imposing on us.

If we are to support our daughters growing up in a culture that tells them they need to chop their breasts off in order to reach acceptance then - as well as fighting that ideology with all we have - we need to treat those who have chosen that route with respect and compassion, and not other them like this and treat them like freaks. It's very dangerous IMO.

Why are they doing this? Why does the act of feeding a child from your breasts not cause dysphoria for a transman but the word 'breast' does? Why are we expected to tiptoe around words when there is clearly something far more fundamentally amiss with some transmen's mental wellbeing for them to insist on 'chestfeeding' with their non-existent breasts.

And I guess I can't help wondering why/how a transman - post-op mastectomy - is getting pregnant. I mean I know how a woman gets pregnant - generally through PiV intercourse - but why would a post-op transman be doing this?

I understand about chaotic lives and non-vanilla sexual desire although it makes me feel very vanilla thinking about this and I could also understand a transman who's actually a lesbian wanting a baby and using artificial insemination, but the whole thing is so tangled & weird.

Of course, there's also the awful possibility of rape ...

I know I might seem prurient - I'm judging myself actually and trying to pick my words - but it seems to me that a post-mastectomy pregnancy is evidence of mental confusion needing careful and compassionate therapy, not surgery. If getting pegnant triggers dysphoria, then surely as well as a mastectomy transmen might be looking for a hysterectomy or tubal ligation?

The trans movement are the first large youth culture based on body modification (I think?) but they won't be the last.

Technology is changing, fast. People will be able to choose all sorts of body enhancements, modificatons, new senses and transformations in the future, to the point we will have to question - what is a human? This is the stuff of science fiction, but really not so far off reality. We'll see this in our lifetime, I'd bet good money.

I suspect the current trans ideology that you are already what you want to transform into will fall by the wayside and start to look very old fashioned as the technology gets cheaper and people don't need to rely on insurance or the NHS to give them the transformation they desire. There will be no need to justify it on health terms then.

7 real life cyborgs

People are already starting to do this shit for themselves, at home

I just hope the current TRA ideology doesn't do too much damage before it fizzles out and the genuine dysphoric people are allowed to get on with it in peace.

The laws are key though aren't they - if self-ID passes we're in big trouble aren't we, it'll be hard to put that genie back in the bottle.

trans as we know it today is primarily a cultural phenomenon

I agree, it's today's punk. It'll blow over and not be so popular at some point The next generation will look at the narciscistic culture, the ridiculous get-ups, the agression and think "no thanks, you washed up old has-beens" just as my generation looked at the junkies and coke-heads before us and thought "no way! We're not going there!" and all took esctacy and acid instead. We saw the tail end of their cultural movement, and it was ugly enough to warn us all off!

Every large youth movement has some lasting effect on society though. It's the laws that are particularly worrying, isn't it.

But it's not OK for us to tell a distinct group what to call their practices. This is where we get into dodgy territory.

I really wish some women didn't feel the need to chop their breasts off to be themselves in this society. But that is my perspective. I have NO right to tell transmen what to call their practice of chestfeeding, no matter what I might think of it. It's their culture and up to them.

Where it becomes problematic is where one set of people tries to enforce their ideology on another.

I am not going to call my own breastfeeding chestfeeding/ I would find that offensive.

But to try to police what trans people call their own practices is hypocritical, is it not, when we're objecting to them enforcing terminology on us?

"Why does the act of feeding a child from your breasts not cause dysphoria for a transman" Where are you getting this from?

I would hazard a guess that plenty of transmen do feel dysphoric at breastfeeding. I haven't looked it up. Have you or are you just assuming stuff?

Come on, if we're going to make way with this debate we must treat people with respect. Particularly those who have been pushed to such extremes by our culture, even if we fundamentally disagree on whether transition is the answer.

YY Backing. It's internalised oppression. We should be eradicating the causes not tiptoeing round language.

More than anything else, the intense focus on words convinces me that trans as we know it today is primarily a cultural phenomenon.

Totally agree 'pencils'.

Again what would the black community say to a black person who tried to deny their blackness and describe themselves as white or some other colour instead? They sure as hell wouldn't be endorsing that decision or being pressurised into using those words in order to be 'nice'.

Sorry stripysleeves, as much as it might offend some transmen I believe we need a bit of common sense here.

As well as being a thing a woman might choose to do with her breasts, breastfeeding is a method of infant feeding.

Transmen who have had a double mastectomy but who retain a few mammary glands have to contend with not only the usual disapproval of breastfeeding, and doubletakes if they have taken enough testosterone to look like men, but also the almost definite likelihood that they will be unable to effectively provide nutrition to a child from what's left of their breasts.

Breastfeeding is hard enough already for many many women who have no physical reason why they should not succeed and who desperately want to.

Who are they doing this for? What is the baby supposed to get out of this?

Why are they doing this? Why does the act of feeding a child from your breasts not cause dysphoria for a transman but the word 'breast' does? Why are we expected to tiptoe around words when there is clearly something far more fundamentally amiss with some transmen's mental wellbeing for them to insist on 'chestfeeding' with their non-existent breasts.

The breast is an organ which lactates and is capable of providing nutrition to a whole separate human being. Breasts are female organs and lactation is female physiology. Breasts are fucking amazing! Men are capable of lactation in rare circumstances but it usually signals that something is very wrong.

I'm not prepared to change my language to make a small group of people with deep hatred of their female bodies feel more comfortable, whether they have had a double mastectomy or not. I don't believe that's a good or healthy thing to do for transmen, women or babies.

Although - I take it back, I don't know enough about this to know if some TRAs expect us all to use the term.

Given their track record on other words there probably are, aren't there!

But the word itself doesn't offend me and I think we should be careful of ridiculing it.

One of the reason I am so worried about the TRA ideology is because of the number of women feeling pressured by society to undergo majoy surgery to live as men to shake of the limitations put on them because they're female or a butch lesbian. (The stories from detransitioners are heartwrenching IMO.)

If you've had a mastectomy and you're still managing to feed a baby you can call it what you damn well please IMO, we shouldn't be ridiculing or trying to police the language of others, as long as they're not trying to enforce it on us.

What is chestfeeding and how does it relate to breastfeeding?

"International Board Certified Lactation Consultant Rachel O'Brien noted on her website that chestfeeding is the term often used by transgender men who nurse their babies, but are uncomfortable with the term breastfeeding. "

"why chestfeeding?

Because not all men who chestfeed have breasts. In a study published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, researchers looked at the experience of transgender men through pregnancy, childbirth, and feeding their newborns. Of the 22 participants, nine had chest masculinization surgery before they conceived their babies, six had the surgery after they gave birth, five wanted the surgery in the future, and two participants did not want the surgery at all. According to The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, chest masculinization surgery includes removing female breasts to create a male chest, but doesn't remove all of the mammary tissue.

But whether most of the participants had the surgery or not, the study found that nearly all of them avoided the term breasts and preferred to call their upper torso their chest. When it came to feeding their children, however, there was a wide variety of terms used. Six participants used the term breastfeeding, four used the term nursing, three preferred chestfeeding, and some used a combination of terms like mammal feeding and nursing or feeding and mammal feeding."

Maybe it is a bit like chest-feeding in public places. The law made it clear that this has to be allowed whereas previously there was nothing to formally say that you had to allow it in your restaurant (etc).

I think the reference here is suggesting that we are all chest feeding, and that the law is protecting our right to do so. When, in fact, we are breast feeding.

And, yes, it is not the most important issue. But ALL of it matters.

Chestfeeding is a derail.

TRAs are NOT AFAIK demanding call BFing chestfeeding.

I think people have got the wrong end of the stick about chestfeeding,

Transmen specifically call what THEY do chestfeeding. They do not call BFing by women chestfeeding.

It's up to them what they call it's, it's their body! It can be different to BFing because lots of them have had their breasts removed (but still have a bit of mammary glands) and have to contend with not only anti-BFing people but also people staring coz they think they're a man. So it has its own name. Plus there's the whole dysphoric stuff too of course.

It's important we're aware of this stuff if we're going to debate about and with TRAs / transfolk. Otherwise it risks totally derailing the conversation.

But men wear dresses in loads of countries. They might not be called dresses but that is essentially what they are.
All these random stereotypes being dragged up.
Women are a series of observable biological characteristics. And of course we have xx and xy chromosomes.
Xx also pass on mitochondrial DNA. Males cannot possibly do this.

Anyone capable of making milk in their own body to feed a human baby is using a breast to do it. A breast attached to a female body.

That female body may have been butchered, stuffed with hormones and answer to the name Derek, but it is still a female body.

Pregnant people

Biological fact. Men can't get pregnant. I don't even know why I am posting this

I don't get why people keep bothering to engage with a poster who is not remotely interested in the subject at hand, but gets kicks out of getting attention and winding women up.

But, I don't get why I have to change the language used to define me, in order to include you.

Why do I have to change?

Is someone trying to stop you referring to your breasts as breasts, or to call a purpose you put them to breastfeeding? Is someone trying to stop you referring to yourself as a mother?

Once again, the target group may include you but it includes others too. So sometimes "pregnant people" et al will be needed when someone is talking generally and there is no guarantee that they are only going to be referring to non-trans females.

Blimey, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

As I say, if you object to the stereotype that women wear dresses then by far the biggest perpetrators of it are "cis" women

But there is your logical fallacy @JAPAB

Women wearing dresses is a social convention - a convention of the feminine gender role.

It is a symptom of femininity, not its cause.

Wearing a dress is a symptom, not a CAUSE

JAPAB

"Maybe it is a bit like chest-feeding in public places."

Honestly, that just made me laugh out loud. You read all these threads about how erasing women and the terminology is frightening and deeply concerning and then deliberately poke that into your first sentence.

Are you 12?

Breast feeding is truthful. Chest feeding is news speak and delusional. So yes it's offensive to me and to women who have breasts and have fed their babies with them.

I'm sorry some poor woman thinks she is now a man because she had her breasts cut off but I won't be pandering to that delusion since it denies womanhood and therefore affects me. I also wouldn't tell Rachel Dolezal that yes, she is black, jut because she thought she was.

RD got shut down by everyone because race matters. This crap gets elevated to the status of inclusive language because women don't matter.

How you have the nerve to come on MN and talk to women about chest feeding I do not know.

Go onto The Voice online and tell black people how to talk about race. Honestly, they'll love it.

what "rights" would self-identification give genuinely trans people that they currently can't get through following the current GRA procedures? I'm genuinely puzzled by this

The main argument I've heard is that trans people don't want to be regulated by medico-legal institutions of the State. They feel they shouldn't have to have their identity "approved" by medical & legal processes.

The counter arguments are easy enough: that
a) it is in transsexuals' interests to have medical acknowledgement, because they may need very specific and specialised healthcare after transition (if they do the full operative etc transition, not the "female penis/male uterus" crap)

b) most women (and indeed men, but to a lesser extent) are very much regulated by the state already. Try "self-identifying" for an abortion. Try "self-identifying" medical contraception. Try not allowing the state, or the medico/legal institutions to have some say over the way you gestate, give birth, educate, and generally raise your children .... I could go on.

They are spoilt little manchilds.

Last time I checked, only women could get pregnant. The term pregnant person is ridiculous.

Being inclusive is offensive?

To transmen or transwomen?

Either way, I'm not offended by the term breastfeeding.

In a society where women are simultaneously sexually harrassed for having breasts, and on occasion ostracised for using them for their actual biological function of feeding babies, where we've had to fight tooth and nail for decent woman-centred maternity care, maternity rights in the work place - all because of our biology, then yes, an insistence that we re-name our biology, the root of our oppression, because a few social justice warriors demand it is offensive. Very offensive.

Inclusivity would be a footnote in maternity guidance for midwifes saying "where service users are transmen, they may well prefer you to use the terms 'pregnant person' and 'chest feeding'. Please be guided by what the service user wants."

A blanket insistence that all women get talked of as "pregnant persons" and referred to as "chest feeding" is colonisation, not inclusivity. It's like the sort of white person who says "I don't see colour" and ties themselves in knots trying to describe Dave in accounts as opposed to Dave in sales without referring to his colour, yet at the same time refuses to see the existence of instituionalised racism.

So yes, yes you are being deliberately offensive, because you have had all this explained to you at length on numerous other threads