Trans women are women answers to Terfmore's questions

I don't mean to derail but I want to present you with a scenario I've thought about that helps me find clarity on these issues.

For context I used to be 100% trans inclusive so I have made all the same arguments you are making and have changed my mind in the face over overwhelming evidence.

Lets say that tomorrow I was in a terrible accident and the doctors use cutting edge technology to place my 100% female brain (with its objectively female structure, female socialization, and female personality) into Hafthor Bjornsson's body.

I would absolutely have a female 'gender identity' if such a thing does exist, and I imagine I would have a shitload of body dysphoria to go along with it.

The questions start to come up about how I would live my life afterwards:

"Should I use a womens bathroom or changeroom?"

Heck no. Even though I have proof that I am a woman on the inside (which no transwoman can possibly have) I still have a mans body. Male bodies belong in the male change room. That's what the changerooms are for. I would feel awkward as fuck using it and I would probably try to find an alternative if possible but I would never even think that I had a need or right to use the womens room thereby impeding other women's sense of safety and dignity.

"Should I be allowed to play on a women's sports team?"
I have been involved in roller derby for about a decade and it is a sport with lots of womens only teams and competitions. My local team is co-ed but if it was a womans only team it would be immoral for me to insist on joining it. I would be dissapointed that I couldn't play on the team and more but I wouldn't even think that I had a right to be there. I know that would be both massively unfair and undermine the important social role that an all womens team plays in supporting women. I would offer to coach, or referee, or otherwise find a way to support them and be involved socially.

"By what if I had surgery to feminise my body?"
I probably would want/need surgery to feminize my body and make me more comfortable in my day to day life. That wouldn't change the basis for either of the previous answer. There's no amount of surgery or hormones Hafthor Bjornsson's body could go through to make it 'practically' a woman.

And on the topic of legality, under what circumstance would it even make sense to classify my brain in Hafthor Bjornson's body as a 'woman' for legal purposes. For crime tracking? At best it should be recorded as a subset of male crime, since I would be capable of committing crimes that are not really possible in a womens body (like crushing a mans skull with my bare hands). For prison sentences? Nope. For other statistics like height, weight, health, employment? Nope, nope, nope.

There's not really a single measure I can think of where it would be beneficial to class my brain in Hafthor's body (whether I feminize it or not) as female or any type of women. And if my objectively female brain and identity aren't enough, then a mans subjective say-so that he has a female brain certainly isn't.

Of course, this new me would absolutely me deserving of empathy, acceptance, and probably a few special considerations (especially within the male side of sex segregation). That's where most of us are at with transwomen.

Transwomen are men, they should be in a mens prison. Within that prison they should be safe and treated with respect. Their crimes should be classed as male crimes though it may also be appropriate to track gender identity or transition status within the sex. Tranwomen should play on mens sports teams or co ed teams. etc etc

@MsBeaujangles

Those are valid concerns, however the statement I quoted doesn't say that.

@PoulaFisch

The bottom line: some people with female-sexed bodies want same-sex provision when the sexed-bodies of humans are significant to the provision. Safety plays a part but so does privacy and dignity.

For example, many people with female-sexed bodies want to undress in provision that prohibits people with males-sexed bodies from entering.

For clarity, they don't mind about the race, sexual orientation or gender identity of the female-sexed bodied people using the provision, they just want to exclude people with male-sexed bodies.

Its just that i think you're a twat and you're boring the shit out of me

@womanformallyknownaswoman

"They really are wanting us to give something up - so that non-women can gain access, under whatever guise, to women and children - it really comes down to aggrieved sexual entitlement"

This suggests you think trans people, specifically mtf are sexual predators and peadophiles. Really? Please clarify because that's how it reads...

The short version is "some people's gender identity is different to their biological sex".
But gender identity is subjective.
It's still circular argument that makes no sense.

There are a few posters on here that just come up with utter drivel

I might engage for a while but if i disengage its not because your well thought out arguments' have proved the unprovable or that i have been impressed by another completely pointless link that doesn't mean what you think it means

Its just that i think you're a twat and you're boring the shit out of me

And rather than being more than 650,000 I think it's far more likely to be less (i.e. it has been rounded up to 1%, so 0.5%+), and these figures back that up.

As I mentioned, the 1% figure is based on scientific research in the Netherlands, which was applied to the UK 65m estimated population at a particular time to give 650k.

Yes that fairer to say ereshkigal

Also happy to believe that a man does

I'm not. Crucially I'm happy to believe that a man doesn't feel like a man and thinks he feels more like what he assumes a woman feels but not that he "feels female" as he can have absolutely no way of knowing that, as a male person.

P

So as intellectually interesting as it might be to explore how and in what way an M2F transsexual could be considered to be a woman, it's entirely irrelevant to the self-id debate.

Exactly. And the endless walls of words distract from all the things women actually stand to lose under both social and legislated self-ID.

It's like an attempt to blind with (non) science. Doesn't work on me, I'm afraid.

Whether or not I feel female makes bugger all difference to whether or not I am female.

And you can extrapolate from there.

I know people on here constantly deny that they feel female

I beg your parden?

I dont constantly deny i feel female

I dont feel female

Happy to believe you do

Also happy to believe that a man does

Well look, even by the most generous stats above "women" is still a cohesive grip where the majority of members share the majority of factors.

It's not diluting the commonality to the point of meaninglessness to include transwomen in the definition is it?

Well, it is, if you can't now meaningfully define it. If two members of that group could share nothing in common at all, how can you meaningfully define that group?

For example if there are traits 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and people a,b,c

and person a has traits 1,2,3,4 person b has traits 3,4,5,6, and and person c has traits 1,2,5,6 then how could you say they are all of one group? You could say that the majority of these people share a majority of factors with another in the group perfectly truthfully, and yet person a and person b have nothing in common at all (ok, so it's 50/50 here not a majority, but how many numbers do you want to read in an example).

If, as a programmer I saw that in a specification, I would know that something's gone wrong - there are no common factors that justify putting all these people in the same set, therefore, they are not of the same set.

The group “women” all share XX chromosomes. That’s kind of a thing.

GIRES, in their Home Office funded study estimate the number of trans people in the UK to be between 300,000 - 500,000, defined as ‘..a large reservoir of transgender people who experience some degree of gender variance’ (Reed et al 2009)"

Thanks for this - that makes perfect sense.

I'll be honest Charlie, I don't think the statistical extrapolation means an awful lot, given the definition of trans here. And rather than being more than 650,000 I think it's far more likely to be less (i.e. it has been rounded up to 1%, so 0.5%+), and these figures back that up.

Anyway, really interesting thread either way.

So the group 'Woman' is now 'someone who is female' OR 'someone with a GRC'

Ie. it's no longer a cohesive group where the majority of the members share a majority of factors.

Well look, even by the most generous stats above "women" is still a cohesive grip where the majority of members share the majority of factors.

It's not diluting the commonality to the point of meaninglessness to include transwomen in the definition is it?

The problem I have is the legal fiction has been reversed to suggest that it's reflecting reality.

So the group 'Woman' is now 'someone who is female' OR 'someone with a GRC'

ie. it's no longer a cohesive group where the majority of the members share a majority of factors.

For example, I am a woman (I don't identify as or feel like a woman, I am a woman, and I work with what I have). What is my overlap with a transwoman? What shared characteristics do we have that makes us both part of the group 'woman'? Is that overlap greater or lesser than the overlap between me and my male partner? If I have a greater overlap of factors with my male partner, does that make me a man? Or does that make him a woman?

I think that this tinkering with reality with the GRC has actually caused no-end of problems here, because it just doesn't make practical sense.

Love the stats and the clarifying of common ground.

I just learnt from thebewilderness that in 2005 the Transgender Movement (btw who funded this minute minority to have such a loud voice) claimed sovereignty over all the LBGT community. I would be happy if they gave up that crown they sequestered and returned to just being the T in the LGBT community. And that their "leaders" stopped their sequestration of women and girls' rights and safe spaces for their own ends. #WAWAG

"According to your explanation, the other 950 to 995 out of every 1000 trans people cannot lay claim to being the other sex. But self-id will give them the same rights as if they were. "

This is making the huge assumption that those 900+ out of every 1000 will take up Self ID should it be available. It is just possible, most of them may be OK with staying as they are. Are there figures available from the other countries that have introduced Self ID to show that there has been a massive increase in transsexual or transgender people transitioning and living in the role of the opposite sex?

"Them" Light surely, not "it" !

I thought it was disgusting, the way the Royal Family announced that the Duchess of Cambridge had given birth to a boy, because how do they know? That "boy" may well be a transgirlbaby, and it's terrible that they have already assigned a sex to it.

Down with this sort of thing!

SupermatchGame I am entirely aware of how the numbers came about. And while the number of transsexuals is based on prevalence established in a large number of studies, the number who have a GRC can be looked up on the UK government website.

I understand from talking to a number of transsexuals that they consider the GRC an important part of their journey, therefore the number of post-op transsexuals without a GRC is unlikely to swell the numbers significantly.

My point is that protections were put in place to ensure that transsexuals have the right to live in their chosen gender role. The presentations to parliament before the GRA was passed into law were entirely focused on protecting post-op or soon to be post-op transsexuals.

The numbers projected forwards back then have turned out to be accurate. There has been no statistically significant uptick in the number of transsexuals applying for GRCs or waiting for genital surgery.

This is who politicians and the general public think self-id is intended for. This is who most people think of when they hear transwomen are women. Yet this is not who is pushing self-id.

So as intellectually interesting as it might be to explore how and in what way an M2F transsexual could be considered to be a woman, it's entirely irrelevant to the self-id debate.