“You’re reducing women to their genitalia!”

Homophobia is a side-effect of misogyny. Patriarchy requires that the gender categories 'masculine' and 'feminine' are kept distinct from each other and specific to their designated sex classes. Therefore gender-nonconforming men must be disqualified from the category 'men' (and gnc women from the category 'women) lest they disprove the identity of gender and sex and overturn the conceptual basis of patriarchy itself. Gay men must therefore be treated as if they are not men, i.e., not really people.

(Pretending that sex doesn't exist doesn't affect these relations, it just makes them harder to talk about)

In my experience, if you talk to a homophobe long enough to get a handle on what's actually driving them, it's fear of male violence. They know how shitty men can be - the idea that a man might be a rapist is far from being an alien concept to most men (the la la la la la fingers in ears NAMALT brigade aside - most men actually know that a fair percentage among them are violent, and often sexually violent). Homophobia tends to be driven by the fear of finding oneself the victim of male-on-male rape (of course, still statistically less at risk than a woman, and I suspect many of those rapes are actually perpetrated by men who would describe themselves as straight, because rape is about power, not sex or sexual orientation, but homophobes don't realise this).

isnt homophobia based somewhat in misogyny

Homophobia and misogyny have patriarchy in common but otherwise, no. Women's oppression under patriarchy is a result of men controlling the reproductive capacity of women (to ensure paternity and allow capitalism to have free care labour).

If you conflate the two, you are diluting the nature of women's oppression and playing into the hands of transactivists. That's what they want you to do.

It's about as sensible as saying that by saying that human beings have 2 legs and 2 arms, you're reducing them to their limbs.

It makes fuck all sense, like their whole mad ideology.

The heath and happiness of womens' genitalia are really quite important to them. When there is an issue of any sort, from illness, dysfunction or abuse, it's quite awful. So yes I'm going to keep talking about womens' genitalia till no woman ever has to fear the illness of, dysfunction of or abuse of her genitalia.

did I get the apostrophes right?!

I've seen this argument on Twitter too and I think it's a but difficult to put into 240 characters how much it infuriates me, because invariable what follows is 'Not all women have a cervix / uterus / ovaries etc. I think that this is just another way to shut us down and stop us talking about our biology. A way of making us second guess ourselves because we dont't want to cause offence.

FGM used to be seen as taboo and only now women are feeling comfortable to talk about it, but now survivors are told the term FGM is hurtful to those who've had bottom surgery. So they get shut down.

Periods were once seen as dirty so women felt ashamed to discuss whats normal and what's not, what's treatable and what is manageable. But some transwomen find it 'triggering' so we get shut down.

Menopause is still a dark secret, but transwomen don't experience female menopause and so please don't discuss it.

Transactivists hijack the experiences of infertile women and women who have had hysterectomies etc and say 'They're just like us' but don't give a shit about women who have experienced these things and certainly don't want us discussing it.

It's mysogynistic and divisive. An old tactic with new words.

langcleg but isnt homophobia based somewhat in misogyny? I do think that men who are aggressive towards trans women and indeed gay men or even just effeminate straight men do it because of a hatred and mistrust of all things feminine.

This absurdity is pretty obviously the accusation aspect of DARVO.
Are all trans identified males abusive?

I might tell them not to be so prissy. None of us would be here if it weren't for genitals.

Oleanna

I'm a sea lion! Talking to me is violence!

Just light strokes on the belly please.

I think if someone said to me “You’re reducing women to their genitalia!” I'd respond "Oh no, you're the one calling attention to that, but it's far more, it's the chromosomes that do it. People can have their bodies rearranged to make some better or worse imitations of the other sex's genitals, but the biggest differences are the things you need a microscope to see." Like fingerprints, except every cell in your body knows whether it's male or female.

straw men

I hope you aren't assuming the gender of the straw person? That's literal violence

Just one of the many straw men used. They also try to use intersex to show there is a natural variation in sex and thus sex doesn’t really exist. I’m getting so sick of their deceit, hypocrisy, bigotry and outright stupidity.

It's a bit of a tricky one to spot because it relies heavily on nuances of language but in a nutshell:

The argument uses the verb 'to reduce' in two separate ways but without actually repeating it (thereby making it multifunctional, so to speak).

'Reduce' #1 is meant to convey a reduction in numbers, i.e. the argument is 'you're only counting as women individuals with a certain type of genitalia' and implying 'reduced down by a range of further legitimate candidates for womanhood'.

'Reduce' #2 is metaphorical and borrowed from classical feminist rhetoric. It means 'you're failing to acknowledge the personhood of [already accepted as such] women as opposed to pieces of meat/objects'.

Quite insidious, actually, in that it misdirects sympathy for objections to #2 to the implied accusation in #1.

"If you say all vetebrates have spines, you are reducing them to their spines!"

I probably should have said that article is quite triggering. Apologies. I was quite affected by it and I have had no past history of sexual assault or abuse.

One is due to how the gender is seen and reacted to... and that doesnt really have to do with genitals but just with more external markers. So that type of oppression would also apply to transwomen.

This might have been somewhat true in the days when TW=post-SRS HSTS transsexual.

But it really doesn't cut the mustard today when 80% of TV are AGP men.

Approximately 000000001% of them "pass" when you're up close and personal. And approximately 000001% of them "pass" from a distance. I mean, only about 10% of them even pass with a gazillion Snapchat filters brushing up the selfies.

Only a tiny proportion of TIMs experience sexism or misogyny. What they experience is mostly homophobia, from homophobic men (not feminists) who don't see much of a difference between a TIM and a gay man. Both failed men. Both, to use an old fashioned term popular with homophobes, inverts.

Conceding that TIMs experience sexism is just validating them as women. Which is what they want. So I won't be doing it.

I agree Midgebabe. I think they way forward with all of this is to keep highlighting that for the vast majority of instances people are just people and it is unhelpful to bring the categories males and females into things.
I think the only reason to draw a distinction is for reasons relating to biology.
Can anybody think of reasons for drawing the distinction other than those relating to biology? I might be overlooking some important things.

Yy Hairy

Humans being a sexually dimorphic species just is what it is... women have ovaries, a uterus, vagina, can (barring infertility) bear children, have breasts which can lactate (without industrial quantities of artificial hormones or an underlying endocrine disorder).

None of this should have any bearing on our humanity - our political, moral, economic, intellectual and social value as human beings. It is a (subset of) men who insist that our female bodies determine our status as (in their eyes) lesser beings who are the ones practising determinism/essentialism (and a completely spurious and eroneous form of essentialism at that).

However, we do need to be able to talk about our biology, because that is (a) the reason why men choose to oppress us (men as a class stand to gain materially from our reproductive ability) and is (b) the reason why they are able to oppress us (because we are on average smaller and physically weaker and uniquely vulnerable to being forced into pregnancy, then doubly vulnerable once we are pregnant/looking after small children).

It's means, motive, opportunity. The biological fact of sexual dimorphism provides the means and motive for our oppression. The patriarchal societies men build provide the opportunity.

I think women face two types of oppression. One is due to how the gender is seen and reacted to... and that doesnt really have to do with genitals but just with more external markers. So that type of oppression would also apply to transwomen.
However women are also very much or have been historically very much controlled via their reproductive system and their actual bodies. So they DO need to be able to discuss and campaign about that. Sadly that doesnt apply to transwomen.
I support the rights of trans people but I do wish trans activists would acknowledge that it is important that the experience of being born with female genitalia is able to be campaigned about and discussed under the label of feminism because it is actually a very important issue. Its not a case of people with vaginas insisting they get to use the word woman exclusively, its a case of society having for hundreds of years labelled people with vaginas as women and controlling and oppressing them using that label and so we have to campaign using that label. Its not our choice for Gods sake! We didnt choose the word woman to be associated with vagina but you cant deny that it is and that people are discriminated against using the combination of having a female reproductive system and also female gender characteristics. That DOES need to be discussed and that isnt transphobic. Its not our bloody fault. And if we stop talking about it in those terms that leaves people with female productive systems who have been assumed female by society since birth at great risk.

I do think that people with a penis can live as women but I do also think that it is essential to acknowledge that the experience is different from living as a woman when you have a vagina and also from being born with a vagina and living as a woman.
We cant all be forced to use the same language and labels because then some peoples experiences are left without description and hence their oppression is left without description hence they are left vulnerable to it.

You have two X chromosomes.

Woman is a biological identifier. It’s in pretty much every cell in your body, regardless of hysterectomies, mastectomies or ridiculous TRA loopholes.

To me I guess the only times we need to say woman as distinct from person is when referring to something that is related to their chromosomal difference to men. so the person is not being reduced by saying that the person is a woman, they are being more clearly defined. To be reduced would mean that the other aspects of being a person were somehow lost. But since women is subset of person they are not. They inherit all the features of person with the additional features of women. Object oriented programming anyone?