The 'aren't women who can't reproduce women then?!' argument

Its a truly horrendous argument.

Look, some women can't have children. If you say men are not women then these women are not women either!

Tends to go hand in hand with 'saying male people should not access female spaces is exactly like saying black people have to sit at the back of the bus' and other such vile arguments.

It's just unbelievable (well actually it's not anymore) the offensive lengths the trans debate is going to, to try and crowbar biological males into the definition of the word 'woman'.

I think the terms fertility is often mistakenly used when they mean fecundity anyway.

Female is of the sex that produces ova. Doesn't matter whether we get them fertilised or not.

I was really concerned that Penny Mordaunt seemed to be taking a step down that road in her recent MN webchat.

#Don'tHijackMyHysterectomy

When thousands upon countless thousands of female babies are aborted simply for being female no one stops and questions if some of them might be infertile, or might choose not to have children because it simply doesn't matter. It matters that they are biologically female. Male babies don't get aborted because they might be trans, because they are biologically male and so have privilege.
Female biology impacts on women from before birth and carries on impacting on women throughout their lives however much some people would like to pretend it doesn't.

Sorry I realize this didn't speak directly to your post - anyway I feel like the trans dislike speaking to this because they have no clue what it means, to spend 30 years of one's life having to deal with one's reproductive system in such a way; trying not to get pregnant, basically. I've seen pregnant 13 year olds and pregnant 50 year olds. The implications never end. I have had a Catholic pharmacist here in the US refuse me medication because it might cause a birth defect in the baby I was not pregnant with (I am almost 50) and I had to fight for my life saving medication. I am no longer fertile, but I am presumed to be fertile because i am female so it doesn't matter.

They don't get this, all the things you go through because you can (presumably) become pregnant. Then of course if you can't you are treated like a freak too.

There are so many analogies one can use to show why trans analogies re: infertile women are wrong. I have seen all of theirs, ie. "are women pre menarche/post menopause/post hysterectomy still women then?" if you bring up a uterus, or fertility, or childbearing.
The fact is woman is the half of the species than can bear children, individual exceptions or a time of one's life where one can't being irrlevant.

Useful analogies: "People have ten fingers and toes". If you lose a finger or toe, or are born with an extra finger or toe, you are still human; or it does not disprove the rule that people are born with ten fingers and toes.
"People have two legs and two arms". "Oh no what if you are born without them or lose one in an accident, are you saying someone isn't human?!" Of course not, but the general rule is, most people have two arms and legs.

Exceptions prove the rule. Most women go through 30 or so years of fertility where they are able to bear children. Men do not.

And I'm infertile not by choice. This has a profound impact on my life as a woman but in no way defines it. To imply that it does is so insulting that I really don't think I have the words.

Sorry should read “infertile by choice”.

Being of the sex capable of bearing children does not mean as individuals that if we can’t or choose not to bear children we stop being of the sex capable. That’s like saying a man who is born without or loses a leg is no longer of the bipedal species of human.

While I am not one of the infertile woman I think you are talking about, I am childfree by choice, and infertile choice. I am a woman. As are all women who are involuntarily infertile.

My decisions to be childfree and sterilize myself actually are deeply affected by my experiences as a woman, and I can not easily separate them.

The kind of mental gymnastics some people - even women - have gone through to come up with 'women who are infertile = men who want to be women' is quite staggering. I know small children who'd find that 'argument' entirely stupid.

I appreciate your point Ereshkigal.

With intersex people the situation can be different. While I completely agree with intersex people choosing the sex they ‘operate’ in day to day, it would be biologically dishonest to not acknowledge that some are genetic males, even though they have believed themselves to be females and have been brought up that way.

I agree. The point I made earlier was that it is disingenuous to compare perfectly healthy non intersex biological males (often only "identifying" as the opposite sex late in life) with biologically male intersex people with a condition that makes them appear to be female, so much so that they only find out they are not after having been raised as a girl for 15 odd years.

Infertile women are still of the sex that can bear offspring and produce eggs. The fact that pathology means bearing offspring and/or producing eggs doesn’t happen, doesn’t change the fact that they are of that (female) sex. They certainly aren’t of the sex which produce sperm to fertilise eggs, as is the case with transwomen.

With intersex people the situation can be different. While I completely agree with intersex people choosing the sex they ‘operate’ in day to day, it would be biologically dishonest to not acknowledge that some are genetic males, even though they have believed themselves to be females and have been brought up that way.

Every time I hear this argument, it makes me want to vomit.
Women with infertility issues or medical conditions that affect their reproductive systems go through enough.
They really don't need males-who-identify-as-women (or TRA allies) to insult them like this and be used in some kind of game to attempt to prop up the illogical house of cards that is gender ideology.

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Of the sex that produce ova and gestate. It's that simple. The ova and gestation don't have to be in full working order.

Is a car with a broken exhaust no longer a car? If I paint a parsnip orange does it become a carrot?

The appropriation of infertile women along with intersex people, as nothing more than a gotcha, is one of the most vile aspects of this whole thing.

Again it's dehumanising - these people only exist to TRAs as a way of getting one over those who disagree with them. They don't give a fuck about infertile women, about the experiences they have had, the road they have been down to get to the state of 'infertile woman'. Those women are only useful to them for one thing.

See, by now I just want to say 'Oh bugger off you daft wee sod and don't be so silly' to anyone trying that argument.

Do not tangle with the menopausally sleepless, I tell you.

Bicycle analogy

What I don't understand and can't seem to find an answer to, is why we can't work together on the understanding that we are differently oppressed rather than this forced assimilation which is causing harm to women and children.

Because they truly believe TWAW and are the same as us. They want to be us, be oppressed so they can have people feel sorry for them for being 'victims', have periods (I mean why on earth?), flick their hair and say they know how it feels...and do all this whilst chipping away at everything that we have for ourselves.

It is the perhaps the most selfish and least 'sisterly' thing you could do.

I read on a thread on here I think - someone who overheard two trans women students talking in a Uni canteen that they wouldn't use the Unisex loo as it would put them as transwomen. Says a lot.

You’re right, it’s an appalling argument, especially when used by an MP on a web chat