I am a transwoman, ask me anything.

ZOMBIE THREAD

Don't be dragged in.

TIM's are not hard to spot. It's the facial features, shape of the body and their voice. You can usually tell by how they walk too.

How can you possibly know this to be true?

What you mean is that you have seen people that you think are transwomen.

But how do you know that out of every other woman that you have ever walked past none of them are trans?

Unless you have sampled the DNA of every person you have ever met you cannot possibly know.

I don't feel like a woman, I just am one. Just like I don't feel like a human, I just am one.
You don't get to be the last word on how other people feel.

What part of the pronoun "I" made you think that I was talking about how other people feel?

The point was that it is a TRA myth that a Woman is someone who feels like a woman. It is just not true. Many if not most of us don't have any such feeling and yet we are women.

Spaghettijumper, just wanted to say your 1130 post on the 4th May was brilliant, and I think you might be spot on.

(back to RTFT)

^I acknowledge the need for closed spaces that only women who are born as women are entitled to.*

No, no no. Not "born women" or "women who are born as women" or "natal woman" or "cis women" ... WOMEN. We do not need different/new identifiers. That word has pretty much suited (most) of us for I don't know how long (someone will be able to tell me though )

Why do I have to change my identifiers because you don't want to be known as "man" any more?

Perhaps I don't see trans woman and men everywhere because (a) I don't share the monomania of some posters and (b) I actually do have a life

Two transwomen sometimes come into the dress shop i work in

We have had at least two men who wanted to try dresses on

Other than that i have only 'seen' one transwoman in another shop, a friends child (young adult) and a school child both of whom identify as the opposite sex. One male and one female

I think its stupid when people say that its weird that you dont know any transpeople or disabled people or black people

Especially as 'know' doesnt mean to me that i saw someone once

But i also think its stupid to rise to any bait by saying that its a bad thing if you have met someone like the above

OP said that puberty was one of the hardest time for them as MTF.

Puberty is one of the hardest times for EVERYONE and the exact reason not to give puberty blockers, indoctrinate in the TRAs mindset or allowing any form of transing as I remember personally I'd have done anything to have not gone through puberty, as would have anyone I know.

A rush of hormones, changing body, changing everything. I don't think anyone had an easy time during puberty .

Also I once saw a BBC (I think) programme which spoke to the mother of a MTF who described what puberty boxes d done to his body before he had surgery as a 16th birthday present. (Well she laughed about it) i shall now mention her name because she seems to regret this interviews and tries to have whoever talks about it arrested.

My question would be this:

Where is the violence that TRAs claim to be rife actually coming from? It must be perpetrated by people who know that someone is definitely trans right, if being trans is an internal feeling and not to do with stereotypes and outward appearances? Otherwise how would anyone know someone was trans?

Surely if a stranger attacks someone they don't know, they're doing it not because that person is trans but because they're clearly a man wearing feminine clothing, which is not about trans at all if trans is a feeling and not about stereotypes. Similarly I couldn't claim that the man who attacked me in a toilet was doing so because I'm autistic since he would have no way to tell, but he can clearly tell I'm female and was in a women's toilet, so it couldn't be argued that I could've been either sex, he was looking for a female specifically.

Someone above asked about the ASD thing. Much of what the 'self' is, is shaped by our interactions and experience with parents and others. If you find those sorts of human interactions more difficult then it can mean the sense of self is not as formed as it would be otherwise. This breeds a sense of not fitting and feeling 'other', which can lead people to search for a group to belong to.

Because many trans people do have ASD, this group is a pretty natural fit - there's a mutual understanding of the feeling of otherness and the struggles of communication and social interaction, and this then gets tied up with being trans.

Given that many people with ASD can be impressionable and naive because we're mimicking and trying to learn the rules, it's easy for us to be influenced by others and end up on a path that isn't right for us. For me this is a huge problem and another example of where trans rights are butting up against the rights of other minority groups.

I have read and commented on the thread Lass. I said "I" don't have a problem with it. Other people can have their own opinions.

To me the worst thing about the proposals to change the GRA including self ID is that they aren't being publicised enough.

Many women and men of my parents age have no idea that this is happening and no idea of what it means to allow self ID as a legal right.

I think it is very wrong that something as important as this could happen and a lot of people know nothing about it.

@Neverseen this thread has moved so fast and I have only just caught up!

You posted on Friday about teens identifying as trans in very large numbers (relatively speaking).

I’m not sure if the OP or anyone else answered your question/query so I wonder if I might give you my few pennies worth, please?

I have not had personal experience of being trans but I do know a few people who are trans identifying young females, either in wider family or friends; and like most people here I have read up a lot about it of late.

You said...
“There has been a wave of younger people coming out as 'trans' (school kids). A friend, who is gay and a teacher, has commented about the amount of teens suddenly 'identifying' as trans (currently around 10 at the school he teaches at, and we do not live in a high population area). I sympathise with teens truly dealing with this, but I can't help feeling some of these children are doing it for attention and will regret their decision in a few years when they have matured but have already started/made the transition.”

I agree with you that some may make a form of transition and regret that. There was a documentary (BBC I think) about some young women who had taken Testosterone and then decided it was not right for them and were left with facial hair and deep voices.

However, I really do not think that many teens are “doing it for attention.” Especially young females.

Many young women who are suffering with dysphoria are actually keen to stay out of the limelight. They wear baggy clothes and even bind their breasts to conceal their female bodies. Some may not actually bind their breasts but instead hide them under multiple layers.

I am not sure if they all, “…get special treatment at school, home and over social media” however, I do think that the social media aspect of it is very real. They may find a connection to the many trans people posting and they identify with what those people are saying. So I do agree that to some extent, “…teenagers especially feed off this.” And I also agree that “They might be gay or confused”

There are now some people talking about Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) and you may find reading up about that is useful.

In some ways no one knows who will genuinely go onto be trans and who will desists in some way. "I am wondering whether you agree that the amount of youngsters transitioning is just because of society now being more open, or there is genuine concern that some children are using trans as a way of getting attention?”

I think societies openness may have something to do with it but I also think that there is a lot of unhappiness and dissatisfaction around for young teens, a lot of pressure.

I am not sure there is a lot of evidence that people are doing this for attention, or feigning mental illness for this reason.

I do think there are possibly a lot of dysphoric girls who may be on the autistic spectrum, there is a correlation there, not sure exactly how it works but there does seem to be a connection.

I think ASD not being diagnosed in girls and the general lack of mental health services for teens/long waiting times etc all adds to problems. My dd has ASD and my friends dd is trans identifying and almost certainly has ASD, another friend’s child has mental health issues and she has waited ages for help (and she also has 'gender issues' - not sure how else to say it).

So I think there is a massive big picture which we are only seeing fragments of for teens at the moment. But as I say I am coming at this from having read about it and not from a personal perspective.

I am opposed to the GRA but I don't see longstanding transsexuals who just get on with their lives and aren't campaigning with the TRAs as a problem

Presumably you haven't read the thread about the letter in The Guardian by a number of long standing transexuals? There seems to be plenty of posters who have a problem with them.

@AriadneRose @JayceeDove thanks both for joining even for a short time, that really can't be easy and no one made you. Please do stick around: from my own gender-critical feminist's perspective, you are very welcome here.

If you live in Scotland there are very few trans folk around. The few I have met were through my work and the SGP. Fife is not a hive of transactivity.
I am opposed to the GRA but I don't see longstanding transsexuals who just get on with their lives and aren't campaigning with the TRAs as a problem.
I don't believe men can become women but I don't believe God exists either but am happy to let religious people worship as long as my rights and life aren't adversely affected.

You chat shit a lot of the time @LassWiADelicateAir but you're better than that. You're a very clever woman. You don't need to resort to hyperbole and petty point scoring. It's insulting to us and you to resort to lazy attacks.

I think you need to take a break Lass. You're being super-argumentative all over the shop today

Oh the irony. All that talk about women's voices being shut down women's coupled with a faux concern calm down. Well I suppose it worked to drive the OP away.

I have a question, how can you be sure you feel like a woman when you don't know for sure how a woman feels? Aren't you constructing a persona based upon a perception? Your brain cannot be a woman's brain because it doesn't have the fundamental biological support system in the hormonal sense to actually be a woman. So you could argue that there is no biological need for changing sex and that it's purely a psychological state of being?

In which case you thinking you are a woman is no different in that sense to someone thinking they are something or someone else. So if that were the case what is your basis for demanding equal rights to women? What supports your right to have your psychological construct recognised higher than say someone who feels that they are someone or something else?

I am genuinely open to expanding my thinking on this but I just cannot get past this logic loop.

I've come late to this party but do have a question for you, OP.

You do know you're not a woman don't you?
And a supplementary to that, if I may - Why do you think you should stop being a man, is there really not room in malehood for you?

In all the discourse about this subject I've not hear a trans person's answers to these questions that I could understand.

I think you need to take a break Lass. You're being super-argumentative all over the shop today.

I'm not saying that debate isn't welcome, but I don't even think the op was asking for debate. The op was offering their experiences as a TIM, not a debate.

Yes she was offfering up her experiences which a poster decided "we" didn't need to hear because "we" know all about it.

Tbf I don't think OP said debate she said ask me questions. Many threads have been started along the same line.

still catching up 'Yesterday 11:04' BeyondParody
"Thank you ariad, good (and appropriately feminist  ) answer!

Of course in any sane world the answer would be both (I'm in Wales, we don't even have the one yet)" very true. Good answer @AriadneRose

You (general you) say you want a debate- doesn't look like it to me.

But do we (the general we) say that? This is feminist chat, it's not promoted as a place to debate. It is going to be a place where feminist chat and discuss their feelings and experiences and don't have to have fair debate.

I'm not saying that debate isn't welcome, but I don't even think the op was asking for debate. The op was offering their experiences as a TIM, not a debate.

LassWiADelicateAir - You (general you) say you want a debate- doesn't look like it to me.

Hardly surprising coming from you (meaning you).

Stuff like this gets me. We wimminz can't understand trans stuff but TIM's know exactly what it feels like to be a woman

I think the OP was offering to talk about what she felt as a trans woman until some of you decided that "we" don't need to hear what she had to say because "we" know all about trans issues.

You (general you) say you want a debate- doesn't look like it to me.