"I feel like a woman"

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.

OK, have you read the threads that explain how?

I mean, this is the Women's Rights section of the website - the only reason for any trans threads to be here is where the subject crosses women's rights.

I probably shouldn't have spoken for all of us.

No, no! You're entitled to your anger. Keep it! Express it!

I get angry all the time, too. But with this specific dynamic? Not so much. I just feel it incumbent to point it out without prettifying it.

I often say that I failed at female socialisation but I don't know if that's really true. What I see in myself is that I object very strongly to being manipulated - consciously or otherwise, because I accept that often people don't realise they're doing it - on the assumption that my female socialisation will kick in and I will drop my objections because of it. When this happens, I become abrupt.

Me too Lang. But I am passed caring what they think about that.

I don't think Truscum has any more idea than the rest of us of how to fix this mess, for example, but in terms of wanting to help? Of that I have no doubt. Which entirely changes my response and how I feel about the person.

Exactly.

Maybe I shouldn't have generalised the anger - for me the manipulation of language and shutting women up does make me angry. Then again my temper can be too quick, quick to rise but doesn't last or hold grudges. So yep, I get angry - that won't apply to everyone here though so I probably shouldn't have spoken for all of us.

I'd even settle for "if i could figure out a way to help you then I would". I don't think Truscum has any more idea than the rest of us of how to fix this mess, for example, but in terms of wanting to help? Of that I have no doubt. Which entirely changes my response and how I feel about the person.

Not angry enough to wish harm on people but angry enough to question in an abrupt manner.

I don't even know whether I'd say angry - on my own behalf anyway.

I often say that I failed at female socialisation but I don't know if that's really true. What I see in myself is that I object very strongly to being manipulated - consciously or otherwise, because I accept that often people don't realise they're doing it - on the assumption that my female socialisation will kick in and I will drop my objections because of it. When this happens, I become abrupt. I'm not angry: I'm just deliberately failing to use female socialisation in my response.

On the other hand, if somebody turns up and says here are the many practical ways I intend to help you, I'm likely to respond lovely, thanks, how can I help you back? Female socialisation? Maybe!

I look forward to the day that isn't Groundhog and the latter dynamic plays out with a brand new trans visitor. The cynic in me says it'll be the twelfth of never, but I can live in hope!

Brilliantly said Barracker, just brilliant.
(the 'wish' but you are not thing was one that crossed my mind too)

The Eve Appeal have launched a campaign 'Get Lippy' to raise awareness of gynaecological cancer. This has just been discussed on Woman's Hour.

"More than 21,000 women in the UK are diagnosed each year with gynaecological cancer, which equates to 58 diagnoses each day.

Yet despite this, awareness levels among both women and men are startlingly low. That’s why here at #TeamEve we’re determined to change this by raising much-needed awareness that gynaecological cancers exist, and the associated signs and symptoms of these brutal cancers.

The lack of basic knowledge about the female body or conversations around how the female anatomy works, is extremely worrying - how can we expect women to know what to look out for in terms of unexpected changes in their vagina or vulva or to be aware of the signs and symptoms of a gynaecological cancer, if they’re not body aware?"

eveappeal.org.uk/gynaecological-cancers/gynaecological-cancers-brief-explainer/

Also...

Besides easing my physical dysphoria, they have also important psychological effects (like some women experience with their cycles)

Please explain what these physiological effects are and how they relate to what you think women experience as part of our menstrual cycles.

I'm so glad someone else noticed this and asked.

Hello OP, I'm sorry to hear of all you have been through, it sounds like it has all been very difficult and I hope you now feel better about yourself. I can relate to the wanting to smash your face against the mirror and hating your reflection because I have experienced this too though not for the same reasons. It's hard with so much pressure about appearance and size to not loathe that reflection sometimes. So I really do hope this has passed for you. Unfortunately I still suffer it from time to time though not as frequently as I did.

However, like AAK I am confused about this:

mportant psychological effects (like some women experience with their cycles)

I genuinely don't know what you mean.

I also agree (again) with LangCleg that we have had a few trans visitors and it is often about how we can help trans and not the other way around. So I would be very interested to discuss rights etc with you but I come from a place which very much centres women. You see our fight and rights aren't all in place yet either and we have been working at it for a very, very long time so when we see we are in danger of losing what we have we get frustrated and yes, angry. Not angry enough to wish harm on people but angry enough to question in an abrupt manner.

Finally, I have few issues with any trans individuals because it isn't individuals I take issue with, it is an ideology; it is this nebulous 'trans umbrella' which is almost impossible to define and it is the modifying of language to take away women's means to speak about themselves as a biological class of people (who are oppressed because of that biology; see FGM, dead and abandoned baby girls, period poverty etc.) that I take issue with. I'll admit though I really DO have a problems with the tactics of silencing women and I have no intention of being 'nice' and 'polite' when speaking about that issue.

When I say "I feel like a woman" to somebody, what I mean is:

" I wish I was born in a female body. I wish I had a female reproductive system"

Yes.
You wish you were a woman. But you are not.
And you must find a way to come to terms with your own reality, as women must come to terms with theirs.

But your "bad luck" at birth? Was good luck in comparison to ours.
Don't fetishise our female biology and frame it as 'good luck'.
In a different world this might be true.
In a different world, women's awesome ability to create life, to continue our human race, might be recognised for the astonishing ability it is.
But we live in this world, where women are imprisoned for controlling their own bodies and biological abilities. Where we are raped and killed and mutilated and kept as property. Where we are denied the same rights as men, and groomed to a lifetime of submission.

So, whether you acknowledge it or not, you were born with very, very good luck. You got to be born into the ruling class, the one that makes the rules. And if you really care about women, you get to speak to other men about them needing to recognise women as biologically different but humanly equal to men, and start pressuring them to acknowledge women as this.
But that acknowledgement has to start closer to home.

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.

We are female people, and respecting us begins with acknowledging that we exist not as an idea or an identity to be claimed or worn, but as people.

I wish I had a female reproductive system, and that I could carry a child.

To be parents was our wish too.

-Gyny cancer was found during IVF treatments (fertility issues likely caused by undiagnosed endometriosis)
-Treatment required radical hysterectomy and caused immediate surgical menopause.
-Some pre-menopausal/younger women can take HRT - its a balance of potential benefit vs potential risk as some cancers can be oestrogen driven whilst without HRT there is increased risk of cardiac issues and osteoporosis. I think the majority of pre-menopausal women diagnosed with gyny cancers are advised not to take HRT (not evidenced).

It's like Groundhog Day.

It is.

And where is the difference of intention between the appeal to female socialisation dressed up in phrases such as working together and the violent misogyny of the TRA extremist's die in a fire?

I don't see one. The intention is the same: get women to drop their boundaries and lose their safe spaces and protected services.

I took that bit to mean ‘happy hormones make me happy’. All in favour of making people happier, less distressed, more comfortable in their skins, unless it’s st someone else’s expense.

"It's like Groundhog Day."

To be fair, MN often is like grounghog day. Loads of posters come on and post something which has been discussed endlessly before. I no longer read the 'Mumsnet is getting very mean these days' threads for just that reason.

Pear, the problem may be that each person is treating the other group as a class. So you see gender critical women as cruel because of some cruelty you have seen. Gender critical women see TRAs as narcissistic and aggressive because of the threats and violence many of their representatives show.

Each 'side' of the debate has reasonable adherents, as well as zealots. But we all feel accused when complaints are made.

2nd rule of misogyny: Women saying no to men is a hate crime.
3rd rule of misogyny: Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.

Also...

Besides easing my physical dysphoria, they have also important psychological effects (like some women experience with their cycles)

Please explain what these physiological effects are and how they relate to what you think women experience as part of our menstrual cycles.

It's amazing, isn't it? Ever damn time. Trans woman hears about forum where women seem to have issues with the impact that the push for trans "rights" has on us. Trans woman decides to visit said forum and offer to explain to the women there why we're wrong about them not being women based on (insert appeals to pity here, as if the definition of "woman" was "unhappy person" or "person who finds the man box in society a poor fit for their personality and interests") and plead with us to reconsider and agree to support them (while conceding that maybe there are other trans people who we ought not to feel obligated to support).

It's like Groundhog Day.

I don't think I've seen anything on here that suggests people have left their common humanity at home. What there is is an unblinking refusal to accommodate male feelings at the expense of female needs, and it does come as a bit of a shock.

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.

instead of coming to a feminist forum to make an appeal to our female socialisation and to tell us all about what we could do for you, why don't you try coming here and telling us about what you propose to do for us? How do you propose to help feminists in their quest to protect women's spaces and services as single sex where needed and to prevent safeguarding frameworks from being diluted?

Absolutely.

Maybe you should try to define a "decent chance at life" in a way that does not try to take away the female population's very few sex-based protections.

YY

pearsapplesbananas - instead of coming to a feminist forum to make an appeal to our female socialisation and to tell us all about what we could do for you, why don't you try coming here and telling us about what you propose to do for us? How do you propose to help feminists in their quest to protect women's spaces and services as single sex where needed and to prevent safeguarding frameworks from being diluted?

I ask you this question because I ask it of every trans person who comes here and makes emotional appeals in a way intended to get us to centre trans issues instead of women's and parents' issues. This is a feminist forum, not a trans forum, so we centre women and girls here.

So, OP, what do you propose to do for women?

Also the many things to teach each other thing grates. What is it that trans women think they have to teach women? If the idea is to teach us about being women, well, that's absurd. Is it about "compassion", by which you seem to mean agreeing to loosen our boundaries enough to accommodate you (but not the more extreme TRAs)? That's not compassion, but using the idea that women are required to be kind and compassionate and giving at all times to manipulate us into doing what they want is behavior that women are very familiar with from male people. The male people may not even realize how unreasonable they're being, because their socialization has primed them to expect women to sacrifice our own needs to make their lives easier.

YY to this.

That was one of the key phrases, wasn't it? If it means surgery being available if it's wanted and the person seeking it is an adult, or any other cosmetic changes, then sure, why not? I don't think the surgery is a very good idea if I'm being honest, but I also don't think it's really my business (I'm not a fan of plastic surgery in general, but am not trying to ban it either). If it mean changing your name and telling people that you wish you'd been born a woman, OK. If it means in any way compelling women to pretend that the transsexual person is actually a woman, whether that's in terms of the words we use or the spaces the transsexual person has access to, then that's a problem, because your right to swing your fist ends where it meets my face.

"giving me a decent chance to life is a direct attack on women's rights."

Does giving you a "decent chance to life" involve forcing women to allow you into their female-only spaces like a swimming pool's common changing area, give you the one place for women's scholarship at a university, or letting you compete against women in sports events?

If so, yes, it's a direct attack on women's rights.

Maybe you should try to define a "decent chance at life" in a way that does not try to take away the female population's very few sex-based protections.

After all, the way you explain what you mean by "I feel like a woman" in your OP sounds like you know that you would very much like to be female but you are not one.