"I feel like a woman"

YY LaSqrrl

OP claims to feels like a woman, yet cannot, because of birth sex, ever understand what it is to actually be a woman

LaSqrrl got the points across either way!

LaSqrrl much better articulated than my poor attempt!
Probably the longwindedness, and soapboxiness I fear.

I'm sorry you live with body dysphoria to such a distressing degree Pears and I don't think you'll find anyone here who believes trans people or black people or disabled people or any kind of people are lesser. In fact MNetters, particularly the posters on FWR, tend to be pretty passionate on these matters, not to mention active in them.

a discussion framed as a dichotomy: that giving me a decent chance to life is a direct attack on women's rights.

Well that's a deeply emotionally manipulative way to put it? Turn that around. Women are being told if we don't hand over our rights like good girls with a smile we're denying trans people a decent chance at life. (Usually in far more dramatic and exaggerated language.)

The thing is, if you're female you know this kind of manipulative crap because it's part and parcel of being female. You recognise it. Your hackles go up the second someone starts it.

If you were born and grew up female you have fought all your life against people demanding that you service them, put them first, prioritise their needs and feelings, sacrifice, count yourself as less important than them. It's constant. It's in everything. It's so much daily life that many women were in their thirties or older before they truly realised how much it happened to them and how angry they were inside about it, and what internalised doormatting and poor boundaries they had.

Many women here have experienced abusive relationships because they were raised to give so others could have, and to put the needs of their angry partner above their need not to be beaten or abused. And had been raised to believe that women have no right to leave abusive situations.

Many women here have left relationships that went bad, and are struggling to parent alone and work having sacrificed their career to raise kids/enable partner to keep working and manage financially while their male partner got to walk away and start again with no legal responsibility other than a minimal financial contribution if he fails to exploit the many loopholes.

Many women here struggle with older generation females in their families who having suffered at the hands of other women in their youth and managed to get some status and control by motherhood either now see it as their turn to get their power by controlling lower status females or cling on to their motherhood role for dear life and try to separate son and kids from wife because to lose that status leaves so little.

Many women here struggle in careers and workplaces where they are constantly talked over, talked down to, patronised, dumped on, by their male colleagues and a system and culture that values men and devalues women.

We're surrounded by marketing and advertising - look at the toddler clothes in any supermarket. They all show that girls should be pretty, make others happy, shouldn't have ambition, but that boys are strong and tough and do exciting things. Girls doing boy things is empowering. Boys doing girl things... that's an insult, that's demeaning. We live in a world of language where 'throw like a girl' is normal.

So when a group are shouting death threats and demands that rights are handed over and that women care for them and prioritise them while surrendering their own rights - and those are rights this group frequently deny have any importance, they have no concept of what these rights are, what they mean or what the impact of removal will be upon women and girls and they loudly state when anyone tries to explain that THEY DONT CARE.....

Why would women be lining up to enable them?

This is NOT all about trans people. They are not the only stake holders. They are not more human than women are. Equality is about EQUAL rights, not superior and special status over others. Not about erasing, disempowering, subordinating others.

I will not ever be nice or co operative about that. What sane person would be?

my**

LaSqrrl much better articulated than by poor attempt!

Gosh, this thread went a little pear-shaped, didn't it pear ? Not exactly how you thought it would turn out. Perhaps because there is not really such a thing as 'feeling like a woman', other than how the rest of the world treats you. If you think getting surgeries to look like a woman, to 'pass' like a woman, will solve your woes - think again. You will just inherit a whole new bunch of woes IF you 'pass' as a woman. That is because, being a woman in a misogynist society, sucks bigtime. Hence, feminism (the real kind).

If I have read you correctly, and you are not lying to string us along, then I gather you are transsexual. That is fine, if you want to sleep with men - but this does not make you a woman - it makes you a homosexual male with internalised homophobia. Again, society is still fairly homophobic, but not as homophobic as it is misogynistic. So you would have a far better time of it just being a male, that sleeps with other males.

Wanting all the babies, still does not make you a woman either. Plenty of women actually do not. Some realise this early on, others after they have had them (and wish they had not). Just because we can, does not mean we do. And does not mean we are 'not women' by not wanting babies.

Then of course, in able to have the capabilities of making all the babies, we have the downside (read this entire thread to understand it really isn't about fabby hairdos and stunning make-up). A cramping angry uterus with a mind of its own, is no picnic, to put it mildly. That is often 30-40 years of a woman's life. Every four weeks, thirteen times per year, 30-40 years. The on top of that, the government likes to get a 'cut' on what your uterus is doing, and makes money off it. At 80% of the male wage, shelling out for sanitary products, is yet another drain on meagre resources.

Then we have all the shortened career life. People expecting us to look after them even if we are working. People expecting us to put their needs before our own. Usually nothing to retire on except the basic pension and good luck with meeting the heating bills. Not being taken seriously at work. Hearing your own ideas mansplained back to you five minutes later as 'his' idea. A very solid chance of being raped within our lifetime. A very good chance of losing custody of our children to our abuser if we get the courage to leave an abuser. A chance we may end up being one of the two women per week killed by a current or former male partner. Maybe by another relative or acquaintance. Having to navigate the world to avoid predatory and creepy dudes. There are far more than you realise. Trust me, it is NOT a compliment to be 'cat called'. And no, I have never been tempted to "have a piece of him" when offered that on the street.

So yes, stay off the street during the day when there are construction/maintenance workers. And stay off the street at night because some dude will either mistake you for a prostitute or rape you. But don't walk home. And don't take a cab home, he could be a rapist too. And even if you get the guts to take your rapist to court, you will be cross-examined as if you are the one on trial, and the underwear you were wearing that night will be held up in the courtroom for all to see, because somehow certain underwear, even hidden under clothes, makes men rape. And the word of four or five men insisting you consented will be taken as golden and you are just a filthy slut for wanting sex with so many men at once.

If you are murdered, your murder will become salacious fodder for the media, and you somehow deserved your murder, or set him off, or put a cold dinner on the table, late. And the domestic violence femicide rate remains constant, even over the last 20 years since the government and cops are 'now taking it seriously'. Even though when you report somewhat serious assault, they say they can't really do anything.

And most of the women reading this will be nodding at this, not all of it will apply, but most of it will apply - and it is nowhere near a complete list of what it is like to be a woman (I didn't cover birthing, medical, objectification, beauty standards, CSA, prostitution, this list is already way too long).

So pear, do you feel like that? Is that what you envisage 'woman' to be?

As I have said, many a time, read the damned Woman Brochure BEFORE you sign up for it. Because a lot of the shit side you experience (IF you pass) is not transphobia, but boring old misogyny. And it is boring, because it is mundane, everyday, and the background noise to which we have to live our lives.

I hadn't realised how very female-socialised I was in some ways (being very unfeminine in most ways) until I started to ask myself why I was so taken aback at the blunt lack-of-niceness from women when I'd simply expect it from a good many men.

YY Lancelottie so much this ^^

Have you also shared those opening thoughts with the transgender activists? How have they taken the suggestions?

I think you'll find that feminists are the group who have been trying to meet half way, be compassionate, have empathy, consider all sides. Only to hear 'no debate' at the polite end of the scale and genuinely frightening threats to person, wellbeing, livelihood and reputation at the other. Forgive us for responding defensively, sarcastically and with some absolutism as we are finally learning that 'the other side' - as they have positioned themselves - have no interest in sharing common ground or respecting and considering natal women.

Nothing of what you said defines feeling 'like a woman', just wanting to have things that women have. There is no one 'feeling like a woman' feeling. I'm sorry for your dysphoria but your post answers your title

So OP, to "feel" is to "wish" ?

I wish I had a reproductive system that didn’t cause me constant pain that ruins my sex life and fertility. I too want to smash my face into a mirror whenever I look into it. My hormones make me feel worse - I suffer with horrendous hormonal acne, mood swings and tiredness. My physical and psychological affects (including the horrendous ones from my cycles) of being a women only highlight my bad luck at birth.

But I'm starting to empower myself. I am realising I have the power to succeed as far as my male colleagues, if not further, despite working in the male dominated industry. Instead of simply feeling upset about being a member of the underclass gender I am now actively challenging and calling out inequality in my place of work.
Rather than caring about only what I “wish” I am joining the fight to equality.

Welcome pearsapplesbanana and thank you for sharing your story. Do you know what I thought when I read this:

Every time I look at a "normal" family, my heart sinks, because I will likely never get to have that.

I know that feeling. That's what I thought. It's for different reasons in my circumstances but that longing I know. It's painful, that feeling, and it hurts even more when you have to accept it's simply not possible. Oh, you find a workaround, you rationalise, you count your blessings, but you always know it's not going to happen. Not really, not the way you dreamt of.

Anyway...

Got to disagree on this though: that giving me a decent chance to life is a direct attack on women's rights

If all you read is discussions on trans forums and listen to trans activists, then you might think that. But that is not the truth. The feminists here, and actually everyone I know IRL (including the homophobe who won't let their DCs partner of 20yrs come into the house) support transsexuals getting a decent chance to live their lives as they wish. That's true even for those who don't agree with gender-non-conformity because they understand that gender dysphoria is a distressing condition to have.

The problem is not you living life as a M2F transsexual, taking hormones etc. The problem is taking rights away from women and girls to accommodate people who unlike you do not suffer from gender dysphoria but expect society to validate their individual self-expression which is not an illness and give it special protected status as if it was an illness or some other vulnerability that needs to be protected thereby directly overriding the sex-based protection of women and girls.

OP - could you work on the trans lobby NOT issuing rape and death threats to anyone who states publicly that they support women's rights, and then once that is sorted, we can all talk?

Because currently, anyone who does - gets rape and death threats.

Weird that isn't it?

You can't "feel like a woman" anymore than I can feel like a cat because you have never been a woman and I have never been a cat. Maybe it's more accurate to say you don't feel like a man?

Taking some female hormones is not going to give you the feeling of having a cycle either because a cycle is more than just oestrogen at play.

I'm not familiar with a lot of the things you talk about but these two statements stand out to me.

giving me a decent chance to life is a direct attack on women's rights. Well, I wouldn't see how, and of course, I wouldn't want it to be.

But when the Stonewall definition of trans, for instance, comes down to "anyone who says they are", and thus women are expected to accept males in domestic violence shelters, communal changing rooms, affirmative action programmes, prisons, single-sex groups, just because the male says the right words - do you see why that is a direct attack on women's rights?

And that's not even going into the whole issue of lesbians....

Most of us used to have no problem with transsexuals using the women's toilets. But sadly those days are long gone & now we're faced with protests outside our meetings, women getting punched, threats of violence on social media and celebrations of misogynist violence by TRAs in San Francisco Library.

If you want to support women, then you'll be working with people like Miranda Yardley & Truscum. You'll be separating yourself from the TRAs, shouting "NOT IN MY NAME" and fighting for our right to retain our single-sex spaces.

How about it?

I really, really wish I had been born with longer legs.

And non-freckly skin.

I really really wish all those women I know, who for whatever reason and usually not their choice, could have had children of their own.

I really really wish my mother hadn't suffered from Alzheimer's for ten long years.

We can all play that game at lots of levels.

Life sucks. If you're a young girl growing up in Africa or a child caught up in Syria, life really really sucks.

"well you can't have mine"

Same reaction. Definitely put me off ever considering organ donation tbh. I do think it a long way off. So many nerves and blood vessels - it is one thing to transfer a uterus into a female that had the infrastructure, another to transfer into a very narrow pelvis without the infrastructure. And no, baby cannot come out the mangina, ever, that thing is not fit for purpose, and nothing like it is imitating.

My immediate gut response to "I wish I had a female reproductive system" is always "well you can't have mine". May not be the most rational response but it's been there ever since I started seeing trans women talk about getting uterus transplants.

TBH Wicked, I think pears is probably a transsexual, and not your garden-variety TG-AGP. However, it can be easy to mistake the two, when they come across in such a covetous manner.

The covetousness, comes across as creepy cannibalism, to our ears. Not a compliment, as probably intended. The 'wishing' gets me - the vast majority of us, particularly women, rarely get what we wish for. So OP is ahead of us in that to a degree. However, accepting OP as 'one of the pack', well that relies on the rest of us, with varying views. To get the law to force us into 'acceptance', really isn't the way to go about it, will only lead to resentment, and rejection really. /ramble

"You don't feel like a woman.
You wish you did, because you haven't yet recognised what we actually, truly are.
We are not objects to be envied or fetishised"

^This. Pity some of us know first hand, just how fetishised cross dressers often are. And the lengths they'll go to, to legitisimise this.

@pearsapplesbananas What false dichotomies do you think are in play on MN?

You say you can't see how transgenderism can harm women's rights. Can you really not? Really? You say you've been reading MN and still you can't see how women's rights are being harmed. I am intrigued as to how you came to that conclusion. Have you actually read these pages in any depth with your empathy switched on?

I agree totally with thereom. Whislt i fully empathise with your experience and what you have had to go through and am sure irl i would accept you as a woman, my problem is transgender has become an alternate identity for individuals with what appears to be other mental / psychological conditions a lot who appear very angry with world and want to play both victim and oppressor to fulfill some other emotional / psychological deficit. Those that are only socially trans and for all intent very much appear as their born sex are not the same or subject to the same discrimination as one who is undergoing or undergone medical transition? , so why should a person who has no lived experience or real investment in the opposite sex get to legally own it and elevate their rights above those born into it who experience the real problems and issues of that sex.

Ffs. You couldn't possibly know how it feels to be a woman. Why can't you have a family?

You need to accept you're a man, with a penis. Then dress or behave how you like? Fuck anybody that criticises you.
I'm all for peoples rights to dress, behave or sleep with who they wish (within reason, sex is consensual etc). Without fear of being mocked, riddiculed or attacked.
Non of what you said makes you female though? I want to be billionaire type rich. It's never gonna happen, but I'm not gonna cry and waste the rest of my life being depressed over it.

I feel like I failed at the "defer to men and their feelings at your own expense and that of other women and girls" part of female socialization but most of the rest of it basically stuck. It's just that the "why should we defer to men?" part is really, really important and interlinked with all kinds of other issues, so it comes up a lot.

Truscum is another trans poster, by the way, OP. As are PidgeonPodge, Harv, Hobbit, JenSomething and several others (or they could all be the same person, I suppose).