I am a transwoman, ask me anything.

Do you think more could be done about the fact that nobody ever seems to bother men about this stuff?

What special acronym has been created for actual, for real transphobic men? Can't think of one.

But women who question gender and discuss the consequences of enforcing gender stereotypes are demonised as TERFs.

Why is it only women who have to be educated?

I note by the way that you told us we could ask you questions in order to further understand where you are coming from. I note that no one has asked women if they can ask them questions in order to further their understanding of where women are coming from.

God, I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're right!

I still have sympathy though for an isolated and struggling person in an unaccepting society. I am very prepared to believe that someone who doesn't fit into either the 'male mould' or the 'female mould' will be given a tough time and that for that individual they can be given a harder life than the average woman.

DS certainly was, as a not very masculine boy at school. He was very much more physically targeted for it (then) than most of his female peers. That doesn't change anything about class analysis or average risk.

@AriadneRose

You say "It was just a case of me letting my experiences override the issues of women, and I am sorry that I diminished them with that statement, it was not my intent."

That's exactly the point that people have been trying to make. You have to make yourself consciously consider the perspective and experiences of women. Women don't - we just have them.

A thread to mansplain transwomen shows up that you don't get women's experience at all.

I've seen this a few times on MN. A trans woman explains their experiences, their views, their opinions, their struggles etc etc etc. And takes no notice of those expressed by women.

I'm afraid I concur.

Ask what you can do for women, OP, instead of appealing to female socialisation to persuade us into doing things for you.

We have several longstanding trans contributors hereabouts and that is what marks them out as supporters of women. The difference between them and your approach is, I'm sorry to say, highly illuminating.

The use of language is the thin end of the wedge - 'transwoman' becomes 'trans woman' becomes 'woman with trans experience', and we need to be very careful to understand exactly what it is that we are implying when we use the terms advocated by TRA, or even 'normal non-arsey trans' (even though we may in our heads mean 'not a woman'). Here too these attempts to get us to 'understand' and to 'explain to us' are the thin end of the wedge.

By 'explaining' in a way that we will 'understand' and by inviting questions in order to 'help' us to do so, it is an attempt to reify trans as a real thing. And by doing so, it is an attempt to at the very least position 'trans' as 'not men'. And if they are 'not men' then it is less of a step to get them to be seen as women.

If the bottom line is that they are men, why does understanding matter? What value will it add? What difference will it make? Why do we 'need' to understand? Female socialisation says that we 'need to understand', particularly where men are concerned. We need to be cautious.

The conversation: "I am a transwoman, ask me anything", needs to be had with other men. Not here with us.

** Disclaimer: making a general point and not making any assumptions about the OP, much less making any accusations. OK, MNHQ??

I don't think I fully agree with Spaghettijumper's theory, but it's very very interesting.

It was just a case of me letting my experiences override the issues of women, and I am sorry that I diminished them with that statement, it was not my intent.

Fair enough, respect to you for saying that.

I do think this is a general problem within the transwomen community that they're so preoccupied with their own issues that they completely over-rides women's. The gender they say they want to join, and in some cases, represent.

Hi Ariadne and welcome,
It's brave of you to come here. I have a question:
Why do transpeople (don't expect you to answer for others, just yourself) fixate on binary genders? Why not just identify as Trans? What;s worng with trans as an identity in itself? Why the need to veer towards something you are not?

If you don't feel like a man and you have no idea what being a woman feels like why not just establish who you are as Trans - as a state in its own right? Why identify with a sex that has such powerful physical definitions that you cannot and never will be able to experience or understand first hand?

E.g. ime 25% of your whole life coping with griping stomach pains and wondering where the nearest loo is to be able to change sanitary protection; being pregnant; giving birth; menopause etc.)

Nor the subtle undertones of being raised a girl (being told pretty much every single day from the moment you hit adolescence to the moment you reach the invisible age of 50, to 'cheer up love', 'smile baby', 'look his way darlin' - to grow up feeling permanently watched and judged and found wanting simply because you are bait in the eyes of male strangers. And for that to be so commonplace you don't even realise how much it keeps you in your place.

These are formative experiences - the physical ones more so than the social but both are key in how they create an understanding within oneself of what it is to be a woman. I wonder how close your identity of womanhood is to mine, as outlined above.

I realise you have a lot of questions coming at you but I'd still like mine answered. You've partially addressed the misgendering and deadnaming by saying you mind when it's used against you but that's also the experience of women. I'm well aware that when I get called sir it's code for woman are unwelcome here and using my DH surname for me is also often a means of admonishment for my thinking I'm a person in my own right.

So I do get it's annoying but 'literal violence'? really?

Why not embrace it as giving more insight into what it's like being a woman?

Sorry I haven’t read all the answers yet so don’t know if someone’s asked this.

In the past couple of years there’s been so much talk of trans rights and trans awareness. Has it made things better or worse? I can’t help think with all the politically correct and mustn’t not offend people (there was uproar on twitter when a girl wore a Chinese dress to prom as she wasn’t Chinese) is it actually making more issues than solving? If I realised someone in the women’s toilets (chances are I wouldn’t notice) I would never of given it a second thought long before the big American debates over it. I just wondered if things are going forwards or backwards for most trans people with public acceptance

"I will admit my idea of womanhood for me personally is probably just a mishmash of stereotypes that have been handed down to me over the generations."

And do you think the law should recognise that and allow you to be on a woman's hospital ward?

@CoteDAzur

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.

I don't feel like a woman, or feel human. I am those things, as you say. When transpeople tell me they feel differently, I don't distrust their word because it doesn't resonate with me.

I feel unhappy to work in high heels and makeup*. It's an emotional reaction. I hate it. Most women are happy to work like that. They could be lying. They could be deluded. Or perhaps we just feel things differently.

• you could substitute makeup for sexual attraction, nationality or culture...These feelings sometimes only become apparent when they are in conflict with the external world e.g. I feel very European or British even when I travel to other continents.

*Being a woman doesn't 'erase a target on your forehead'.
....

It's really unhelpful to minimise the reality of male violence towards women in these discussions.*

^ repeating this. To suggest otherwise is male privilege which ultimately is the root of the issue. Men wanting to take womanhood.

This thread is so much like the men that come on here and announce their arrival.

Frankly I don't wish or need to know why you think you're a woman, I don't care enough to entertain it. You're not. You've no experience of all of the things that make me female, none. By the sounds of it you've never really bothered to listen to women past the bits you can co-opt.

I have to agree with posie - if we can free ourselves from these narrow gender stereotypes a lot of this just disappears. Because it wouldn’t matter if anyone was a typical boy, or an effeminate boy - you’d just be YOU. And there would be a few spaces/situations where biological sex would matter, because it does, but everyone generally would just get on with living.

AriadneRose - asking again - why do you assume that the primary need is for women to be educated about trans issues? Why do you not arrive here and ask how trans people can be better educated about women's issues?

This is a feminist forum. It centres women and their rights - trans issues are often talked about because they impinge on women's rights.

These are my questions for you: what do you intend to do to help feminists protect their sex-based rights and services? What interest do you have in educating yourself about these pressing issues for feminists? Or is your only purpose here to persuade us to centre your needs instead of our own? Why does your OP assume we are ignorant of the problems faced by trans people?

RidingWindhorses Hence why I won't bite. I'm watching, waiting for it to go the usual way. Bingo anyone?

It's really unhelpful to minimise the reality of male violence towards women in these discussions.

Indeed. As several have pointed out. It's also unhelpful to keep evading the issue.

I'm curious to know what you think of a personal theory I have. This is only based on my own thoughts, and has no basis in experience so I'm happy for you to call bullshit.

From reading about and talking to some transwomen, it appears to me that pre-transition they feel being a woman will solve a lot of problems for them and make them feel better, whatever form that might take. I think at that point they (inevitably) have a man's perspective on being what a woman is and in my experience, men struggle to understand just how much being a man has benefited them personally in life, and just how much being a woman basically sucks. I think many pre-transition men believe that when they become a woman they will gain things - as sense of belonging and a secure identity perhaps - when in fact because our society is a misogynistic one at its core, being a woman or associating yourself with womanly things diminishes you in the eyes of society. While for born women this is just a reality and something a lot of women don't even question, I think for transitioning men this is a massive massive shock and they experience that diminishment as violence and unacceptable oppression. Really, all they're experiencing is the full force of society's view on feminine things thrown at them with some added prejudice.

What I'm saying is, that the sense of danger, insecurity and threat that transwomen experience is part and parcel of being a woman. I think transwomen react so strongly to it because having been men they've never really experience it before - it feels personal and it feels like it's directed at them because of their trans status but I think a lot of the time it really isn't - it's actually just what born women experience being directed at them because of their female presentation. I think if more trans people would realise that and stop thinking they are somehow 'more oppressed' or being oppressed by women, then actually huge amounts of progress could be made societally. I think the reason that's not happening is because transwomen still operate under the male socialisation of seeing themselves as individuals first, therefore their suffering is unique to them. Sorry but when you become a woman you become part of the amorphous blob that is Woman, you are no longer Individual Important Man whose suffering and achievement means something. Don't like that situation? Stop blaming women for it, we think it sucks too. We did not create the situation.

I've seen this a few times on MN. A trans woman explains their experiences, their views, their opinions, their struggles etc etc etc.

And takes no notice of those expressed by women.

There's only one type of woman, the biological kind. Anything else is pretty insulting.

^ This.

third gender identities are born out of rigid patriarchal societies and created for effeminate men.

*Being a woman doesn't 'erase a target on your forehead'.

It makes you much more likely to be the victim of abuse, assault, harassment, sexual assault and violent crime.

It's really unhelpful to minimise the reality of male violence towards women in these discussions.*

I have to say I agree with this. I like to respect people's individuality and the fact that everyone faces adversity, but this comes across as in incredibly privileged and male way to view the reality of being female.

I wish there could be a breakthrough in male violence and toxic masculinity, because that would relieve a lot of suffering experienced by women.