Why DO people 'believe' transwomen are women?

I don't! Women are those born with a vagina and ovaries (I know some people are born with undetermined sex but I am not referring to them...hope that isn't rude) I also understand gender dysmorphia. A man in a dress is not a woman. Sorry if this offends but I think I am allowed an opinion!

reappearing

Scary isnt it

Thing is in real life when ever i have the conversation (which isnt much) everyone seems to accept that i have no problem with trans people

On here you seem to be automatically transphobic

Rufus, I get that feeling! My friend asked me where I was earlier & I gave vague information & then she dug a bit - I had no idea of her views beforehand & I think I just thought I’d just go for it/air my thoughts. I was beginning to regret it but we are old friends, it wasn’t an aggressive or argumentative discussion which made it easier to get behind what we were each thinking. One of the reasons I think things are so charged & polarised is down to the no debate stance. Nothing will diffuse thins toxic atmosphere as long as that stance is maintained.

What do people propose to do about the over 80% of men who take the drugs to grow breasts so they can wear womanhood like a costume because it gives them a boner, but have no intention of having any surgery?
They are not transitioning, they are simply identifying out of material reality and into the opposite sex.

reappearing

A few months ago i had a chat with an old work colleague

She asked what i thought about 'this whole trans business ' and i told her my views and about what i felt were the dangers of self Id

And then she told me that her son had come out to her as trans!!

It might have been handy to have had that information at the start of the bloody conversation!!!

I had a really interesting discussion with an old friend earlier - followed on from meeting up with some like minded people earlier today It was the 1st time I’ve really spoken about this stuff to anyone & I didn’t know my friend’s stance. Explained roughly what my take on things were & what the issues are & straight away I could tell she was viewing what I was saying as bigoted as she believed transwomen are women & said as much. After some further discussion & gently digging further into her beliefs it was rooted in the understanding that a transwoman is someone who has fully transitioned, had surgery & to ‘all intents & purposes’ was a woman. She also believed that no transwoman would ever be a threat to women in a woman only space. We jostled a bit on the finer points & when I’d explained self ID & the implications she did understand. She also agreed that self ID isn’t something that she would agree with. But she still believes transwomen are women if they’ve gone through a full transition.

Are you still female if you've had a hysterectomy?
Are we still human if we have a leg amputated?

Yes Datus, that makes plenty of sense to me. I can certainly see how a man might enjoy it without it being some indication of lack of masculinity (ergo it must be his feminine side). Can't he just like stockings, or heels fgs!

In the US, it used to be pink for boys, blue for girls, then after the war it reversed (allegedly).
This colouring scheme (a simple but common example) seems to be a 19th century invention, and I wonder if it's currently universal across all cultures (I suspect not).

TheBrilliantMistake

I'm sure a lot of cross dressers don't say they are Trans. Grayson Perry is one.

It would be an awful lot easier if they didn't. They never used to. I think it was widely understood that it was a fetish that was either practised in secret, or in the community, but not forced on women.

Autogynephilia isn't really about getting turned on by clothes in isolation. It's about fetishing womanhood. Sexual clothing is just the manifestation of 'womanhood'

Hmm, that's a little at odds with a couple of crossdressers I have spoken with, but then don't consider themselves 'trans' in any way, they both said they simply liked wearing women's clothes but still felt masculine. Perhaps that IS autogynephilia in some eyes, but not in mine. They didn't seem to be aroused at imagining themselves as women. Of course, they may have lied, or even misunderstood their own motivations, but I believed them - they just felt good in them. Pretty simple and understandable answer I think! They just liked what they liked, and maybe people are trying to look too deeply into why?

Gender neutral is meant to mean that frills and sparkles are designated for girls and camouflage trousers are designated for boys.

It's easier for girls to wear boys clothes because they are punching up. Not so easy the other way round.

I suppose eliminating the extremes of both sets of clothing is the only way people can make a start. Therefore, it ends up looking a bit beige.

It IS a start though. Beginning with colours.

Clothes are incredibly gendered, at the moment. It does need to be rolled backwards.

Gender neutral always means boys stuff that girls are allowed to use.

'Gender neutral' to me would mean nothing feminine though or masculine. Like..everything beige (figure of speech)

Surely that means if you find the look or feel of clothing designed for men or for women, it doesn't matter and doesn't make you a man or a woman, unless you argue that the design of male and female clothing stems from the inner preferences of both, and thus if you prefer women's clothing, you're more 'female'.

Autogynephilia isn't really about getting turned on by clothes in isolation. It's about fetishing womanhood. Sexual clothing is just the manifestation of 'womanhood'.

I'd really like to see a society, as I say, that was gender neutral. Not a popular view with some here it seems, but there you go. When we get to a point where a male person can wear a dress and make up and a female person can have cropped hair and wear a three piece trouser suit and no one turns a hair, then perhaps people may feel more comfortable with the bodies they're in and not want to alter them. We don't know because we've never been down that path. I think we currently live in a society in which gender stereotypes are being ever more closely enforced.

I agree with this. 'Gender neutral' to me would mean nothing feminine though. Like the parents who bring up their kids gender neutral and won't let them wear pink or blue and stick them in white or yellow all the time. Bit nuts.

I would like 'gender' to be abolished totally..so men could wear dresses and makeup if they so chose, without being stared at or outcasted. I do feel that if things were more relaxed with sex stereotypes, we would not have thousands of people (especially children) deciding that they are the opposite sex because they have interests that are usually associated with the opposite sex. Its ridiculous!

I could not fathom the assertion that crossdressing is a form of trans either, other than transvestism. To my rather simple mind, it seem that clothing is a human invention that was originally born out of necessity / function and then expanded to include form. Surely that means if you find the look or feel of clothing designed for men or for women, it doesn't matter and doesn't make you a man or a woman, unless you argue that the design of male and female clothing stems from the inner preferences of both, and thus if you prefer women's clothing, you're more 'female'. Doesn't quite seem right to me. Men wear kilts, and it's legitimised by not calling it a skirt. No problem with that, but it's a form of skirt however you look at it. What's the problem?

I am really not convinced at all that liking to dress in women's clothes means anything other than you're a fairly brave bloke prepared to go against the norm and you like what you like!

Women don't seem to have an issue wearing our shirts or shorts and feeling 'blokey'.

I think we could do with a hashtag that encapsulates our argument - GRAs have "nodebate / notadebate". Ideally something that expresses the idea that gender identity is either one thing or another. Personally I find it insulting that a biological man can dress in his male clothes, work Mon-Fri & then claim he is a Transwoman at the weekend. It's insulting to women for all the reasons previously discussed. It's insulting to men because it's deceitful. It's insulting to the Trans community because it implies that it's not important, that it's a game.
It also needs to be fully inclusive of all Trans people at any point in the process of a permanent transition, or who are contemplating doing so.

I thought perhaps something like GenderIsNotACostume.

Sorry, just a bit of a brain dump really.

If we weren't so conditioned to assign feelings with our sex, then we'd not end up liking fluffy things and assuming that's our feminine side, or liking to kick a ball and assume that's our masculine side, and being pressured (consciously or otherwise) into promoting the masculine feelings and suppressing the feminine ones (or rather those we are told are masculine and feminine feelings).

They don't
Nobody knows what another person feels like. They can only feel like they imagine a woman to be. A males interpretation of a woman.

I might be very naive here, but how does a man know he actually feels like a woman inside? I only have experience of 'self' and I assume other men feel similarly to myself, but I don't know this.
I can often find myself in situations where I do not feel in harmony with other men (boozy nights out) and situations where I do (football). But that's like trying to prove that we all see the colour red in the same way.
Equally, there are times when I feel more in harmony with women... but that's only because I make yet more assumptions that the feelings I have are like women have... how can I possibly know?

If I spent ALL my time being so in tune with women, and never in tune with men, then I face new problem: Women don't all think and feel alike, and neither do men, so how can I possibly feel in tune with women all the time?

So - how does a transperson know they feel like the other sex?

Don't forget women with PCOS! They're apparently not women either, despite that being a condition that you can only have if you're a woman.

(Was waiting for trolly troll troll to get to that.)

Well maybe Bert. But if people need class analysis before they understand women who have hysterectomies are still women then I just want to give up.

Discussion would be sonny he easier if we had a pinned post explaining class analysis. Yes, women who have had hysterectomies are still women because they belong to the class of human that produces eggs not the class of human that produces sperm

Are you still female if you've had a hysterectomy?

God in bloody heaven. Yes. Because you still belong to the reproductive class with the potential to produce large gametes.

When we discover the existence of a third type of gamete - other than sperm and ova - perhaps we can talk about sex on a spectrum or fertility issues. Since that won't happen, human beings will remain a sexually dimorphic species made of men and women.