Cady - Can I ask you how it is possible to be a transwoman and NOT impinge upon women's rights in some way? Even in a minor way?
For example, I think Miranda Yardley manages this - by not using women's spaces, by not claiming the word woman, by not enforcing his inclusion in women's data, and by arguing that he isn't a woman at all. In fact he acknowledges he is male and argues for the rights of women to be recognised as a biological class - in the knowledge that this excludes him.
But on some level, other transwomen, even 'gender critical' transwomen, all seem to push women's boundaries at least a little in the course of 'living their lives peacefully'. Using changing rooms, or requiring female pronouns, changing sex markers on documents, claiming that woman means something other than sex, at least for them personally.
I respect and listen to several transwomen, and some I consider brave and admire their integrity whilst still disagreeing, but there do seem to be blind spots in their reasoning where their identity as women treads on the toes of actual females is concerned.
And Miranda does seem to be exceptional in this regard.
It doesn't mean I don't respect transwomen. But I do still think this needs to be discussed.
I agree with all the concerns women have about safety and I share them, because they are valid.
But at the absolute root of my fundamental objection to the ideology, is that I want to be fully recognised. I am female, adult - a woman. I want to be recognised as distinct from males, all males. I'm as different from transwomen as I am from any other male.
I'm not a little bit more like these males than those males because we both use the word woman to name ourselves. I don't want to share a category with transwomen that isn't simply 'people'. It isn't true that I have similarities with transwomen that I don't also have with all other men too. Men and women are all people. That is our commonality. But there is no "men in this category/women & transwomen in this one". I object to this false duality that arises by some males declaring: females are women, we are transwomen, males are different from us. It lumps me into a category with some males, the ones who use 'woman' in any way, and distinguishes me - apparently - from other males, and my protests that this is against my wishes and against reality go unheard.
And any efforts to take the word which distinguishes me and to 'adapt' it with prefixes to blur boundaries between my sex, and the identity of anyone male, fundamentally takes away my right to name myself in a way that cannot be claimed by males.
There is only one word for adult human females to name ourselves, and all the rights we have fought for were granted to us as a recognised group of females under that name. Woman is synonymous with female. We need that word to talk about our sex. And yet, when male people claim it for themselves they force a false shared identity with me that doesn't exist, and that denies me the right to that clear refutation: Woman means female, and it isn't something you can transition to.
My right to say, I am sorry, I don't hate you, but I am not like you despite what you believe, this is who I am, this is what matters to me: recognise me, and respect my name as one that exists to describe me and my sex - please use another name for yourselves.