Genuine question re “living as a woman”

The point is the framing of the OP, which is a rhetorical trick so that responders spend their time and energy replying but are bamboozled into accepting a false premise.

Absolutely it is framed improperly, which is why I said in my first post that the framing for the question was wrong, and that was why it was difficult to try and make sense of it.
I'd not assume though, which you seem to be doing even now, that it's really the OP trying to trick people here into responding to an impossible and biased question.

Maybe that's the case. But it's also something that is repeated so often, a lot of people think about it in those terms - they are the ones who have been bamboozled into accepting the framing. What people like that need is someone clearly and kindly show them what the problem is and what a clearer, more accurate way to think might be.

Huh.
"Living as a woman" is a euphemism for "using women only spaces without women's consent..."
This makes so much sense. Thank you Lang

I see on another thread the AWA have been trying to edge away from "born in the wrong body" I wonder when they will edge away from this...

That you think they are stupid questions does not mean that they aren't sincere

You're completely missing my point. OP turns up in FWR from time to time in order to present the genderist view of things. It's fine. They might be sincere, they might be JAQing. I don't much care either way.

The point is the framing of the OP, which is a rhetorical trick so that responders spend their time and energy replying but are bamboozled into accepting a false premise.

There's a book about it: Don't think of an elephant! As soon as somebody says it, you immediately start thinking in terms of elephants.

Here, the only reason that anyone ever uses the phrase living as a woman is because male doctors wanted to help heterosexual male patients transition, when before they'd been gatekept out.

My point is that the framing of the OP is what needs to be opposed. Not accepting it and trying to argue against it. Resisting false framing is as important as resisting language changes a la Barracker and her fabulous pronouns piece.

I think it's because the have tried to build up an understanding with this crazy language. They assume it has a meaning but they haven't really sussed out what it is yet. I know it has no meaning, but they have not figured it out yet

Yes, most often you have to own your own understanding; having thought it through properly for yourself. And then observed 'it' in action around you. Until that point you are just riffing, or bullshitting - because you don't actually really understand what you are saying.

And the thing about transgenderism is that it is based on inherently shaky foundations, since it is constructed out of untruths and fantasies; on feelings. It doesn't stand up to rational thought or scrutiny at all.

That you think they are stupid questions does not mean that they aren't sincere

I agree! It's the teacher in me.....

I know this board gets trolled very frequently - but I'm prepared to treat a poster as genuine unless/until they display otherwise. If genuinely not able to understand the root of an issue - then explaining it clearly; in simple terms; in non-threatening tone - is the best way to teach, or help understand.

I really want for people to be clear exactly why you cannot just become a woman because you have a fantasy that you are.

LangCleg brilliant point about 'living as a woman':
It is a sexist concept invented by male doctors to assist male patients. It has no relevance to the lives lived by actual women: it is a euphemism for using women's spaces before medical intervention.

And I would add without asking women if they were OK with it.

Needs saying, often.

OHJ, SMT, are you referring to my post above? I was speaking of menstruation, not of childbearing. We women all menstruate because it's the default setting for being female; it's the body preparing for a baby. A woman who is infertile will probably still menstruate and she is (obviously!) still a woman. A woman who does not menstruate will most likely undergo tests to find out why now, because a healthy woman should, and not menstruating could indicate a problem.

They have to mean something and honestly, I find it ridiculous that theres all this handwringing about what a woman is these days when for many many years, everyone has known what a woman is. Its only recently that people seem to try and make out its this complicated thing, when its really not.

I quite frequently go through security at an airport. How many hundred thousands of people do this every day, every hour! Yet funnily enough, security officers know very well who is a woman and who is a man! Women are patted down by female officers, men by male ones. No need to have their chromosomes inspected.
I can imagine that transpeople would have a hard time in such situations. "Misgendering" at airport security could be an issue.

I've never had my chromosomes analysed. I still know they are XX. We don't need chromosome tests at airport security. Everyone knows.

Iont I'm in the same situation. Also infertile and infuriated at being used in arguments to suggest i am not a woman.

Most transwomen don't experience life as a woman. They experience life and are treated by the world around them as a transwoman, having people stumbling over their correct pronoun, ppl getting their name wrong sometimes, getting side-eyed in the women's areas, etc all these experiences are a far cry from living as a woman.

A transwoman cannot "live as a woman", because a transwoman is not a woman.
Simple biology.
A skirt does not a woman make.
The removal of a penis does not a woman make.
Using the women's public loo does not a woman make.
We need to be quite clear and quite firm on this. No waffling, no fuzziness. No niceness.

There was a video posted on MN recently in the middle of which that poem, I will not say it (sic?) was recited. It is so powerful.

Having XX chromosomes makes you a woman.

Being a mum does not.

No one lives 'as a woman' as we all live different lives so there is no one way to live as a woman. You either are a woman or you aren't, you are a man.

If you don't start menstruating, or you stop menstruating, part of your "lived experience" will be to go for medical tests. You'll worry about what it means for your future fertility. Whether or not you carry a pregnancy, you're still affected by the possibility of it. You plan around contraception, ask yourself hypothetical questions about what you'd choose if you became pregnant, stress over your "closing window of fertility", worry about which time of life is best to have a child, field questions from family members on the subject, experience the pressure of advertising and media to have children. You still experience these things, even if it turns out you can't have children, or even if you choose not to have children. Our biology affects every step of our lives, even if that affect comes from the lack of our biology presenting or progressing in a "normal" way.
^^ This.
As women, our bodies are programmed to have children. It's our default setting. Every moment of every day, if we are of childbearing age, our bodies are preparing for conception. If we are of childbearing age, fertile, heterosexual, and sexually active, we have to do something to STOP contraception if we make the choice not to have a child. Yes, even women who never wanted children and do n't have a maternal bone in their body, have bodies that prepare for conception.
There's no way we can remove menstruation from the markers of what it means to be a woman.

Pinkyu
There is no such thing as living as a woman. You either are a woman or you are not. I know I'm a woman and that I'm not a man.
There is a biological group of humans called Women, and yes this group excludes that other biological group Men.
Get over it.
Human beings cannot change Sex, ever. Woman is not a fucking costume to be worn sometimes, you know if a man fancies a bit of down time.

Who knew going to the loo was such a landmark part of being a woman?! You TRAs really are obsessed.

The problems we are currently having are not due to genuine transexuals who have done everything possible to fit quietly and humbly into society's alloted female roles for many decades.

The 'trans' problem is down to unreconstructed misogynistic males discovering a new, socially acceptable way to make women's lives shit and exploiting the loopholes created by equalities legislation for their own sexual and controlling purposes.

If you've been on MN more than 5 minutes you'll already be well aware of the above but probably choose to ignore it for your own reasons.

PS. I realise I dug myself into a bit of hole there by suggesting that infertile women were subject to failings of biology and at the same time had to fight the stigma of being viewed as a failure. I of course would never suggest that a woman is a failure for not being able to have children, I just couldn't come up with a better term for 'things not working as they normally should'. Apologies if it was insensitive.

Lack of engagement by the OP after the initial comments, ignoring a number of questions put to them, does make their posting look a bit suspect, but I have no problem with people continuing to address the points as there are no doubt lurkers who will learn something.

For me, I'm impressed that posters have drawn attention to childless women, those by choice or those who are infertile. So often they are a side note in any biology discussion or used as a whataboutery trump card by TRAs, often ignoring what others have said, that these women are still subject to female biology; it's dangers and it's failings. Perhaps more so for childless women because they will live with a certain amount of daily stigma, either by having their lack of desire to have children presented as selfishness or their inability to have children framed as some kind of failing. It's likely in the case of infertile women that they have additional health issues, hormonal conditions or have had cancer, and it's likely that these conditions will be sex specific. And that's before you even go into the increased risk of certain cancers that not having children or even not breastfeeding can be associated with, cancers that for biological males will either be non existent or massively unlikely, not because they won't be giving birth, but because they are male and that risk isn't there in the first place.

So OP, if you are still reading what has been posted here, your fundamental undrstanding of 'living as a woman' will never be accurate as long as you dismiss the one thing ALL women have in common, Our reproductive biology, dictated at cellular level.

Some fantastic and logical posts here, thank you.

But really, a huge and strong and determined "fuck you" to every single man out there who uses my painful experience of infertility to tell me that I'm now just like them/they're like me.

They have no concept at all of what it's like to be an infertile woman.

I hope some lurkers here who still think this is a good point that TRAs have made understand what they're supporting.

To go through the fucking endless suicidal hell that was infertility and be told now that it's ALSO a reason that men can cheerfully use the spaces I'm in (because I can't breed, so I'm indistinguishable from them after all!) is just awful.

Women being a biological group 'excludes others'?

You mean it excludes men. Yes it does. That isn't naughty of women you know.

Good point.

I don’t know why we’ve got to the point where any kind of exclusion is seen as evil.

Clearly inclusion is important in some cases: it’s important for people with disabilities to be included fully in society, with rights to access, for example.

But the world is full of categories which are exclusionary, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, nor is it subject to social engineering.

I can’t sing, so I’m excluded from the category of pop star. I’m short and stocky, so the category of supermodel excludes me. I’m elderly, so the category of kindergarten excludes me.

No amount of wishful thinking will give me a singing voice, a models figure or youth.

The category of woman excludes men because that’s how biology works. The category of cats excludes humans; the category of reptiles excludes mammals.

Living as a woman means having XX chromosomes in every cell in my body; that’s my biological category. Getting around in my body is living as a woman; everything else is culture, personality or choice.

BatShite, yes, the language is one of my specific hobby horses. This is why I flat out refuse to use any version of 'woman' in reference to someone who is a man. Quite apart from the excellent Barracker's Rohypnol analogy, it just confuses everyone who hasn't spent quite a bit of time studying the cult language of the movement.

If you say woman, even with a disclaiming 'trans' prefix, the average person will think you mean an actual woman and respond accordingly.

The language is a huge huge issue. And I think its meant to be that way. Supposed to confuse people so much that they think it must be true as its so confusing or something.

Something I have came across a fair bit is people thinking transwoman means a female person who identifies as trans, and a transman the opposite. Those people seem uutterly baffled if you say, for example, I don't think transwomen should be in womens prisons. Because, its you saying you don't think female people belong in prisons for females to them, even though obviously you mean the opposite. Sometimes takes a while to work out that they think that. And really, their way around, it makes a bit more sense and would probably make the public more able to understand it. When people hear of these Evil TERFs who are campaigning to stop transwomen from going to womens prisons, they think 'horrible people, why on earth would a female who wants to dress as a man/thinks she is a man go to a mens prison, when they are women. It would obviously be unsafe for them in with the men' and think nothing much more of it besides thinking these terfs are obviously a bit derranged or something. Once you get past the language issue, they agree with you, speaking broadly.

I guess its a bit similar to those public polls. You could ask the same question a few ways, but wording it in easier to understand language and self ID and such become more and more unpopular. Especially once you get to 'should a fully intact man who makes no changes at all besides saying he is a woman be in a womans prison' the answer would be a resounding no. But if you start from 'should a self identifying non binary transwoman be in a womans prison' a lot would say eh..why not.

BatShite

Yes, I agree, it is weird to see how people try and make it all work. I had dinner with a group of students recently and the subject came up, and it was a similar kind of experience. "Sex is non-binary though." "Really, what do you mean by that?" "Oh, you know, like there is a spectrum." "A spectrum of what?" "oh you know, sex." "But you only need two sexes for reproduction." "Yes, but people are non-binary."
I think it's because the have tried to build up an understanding with this crazy language. They assume it has a meaning but they haven't really sussed out what it is yet. I know it has no meaning, but they have not figured it out yet.

'its hard for the kids these days to understand material reality' - nope.

That's not what I was getting at. Plenty of younger people, even in their 20s, haven't had those adults. They've just adopted the thinking they see and hear around them. Or just the words without much understanding. "Living as a woman" is something they may have heard used as a serious standard for what makes a woman.

If they are asking about things that seem silly or clearly irrational to older people it doesn't help them to just say they can't be sincere or no one could be so crazy as to think that way.

What does 'living as a gorilla' mean? If I go and live in sub-saharan Africa among gorillas and do as they do, does that then make me one? No, because I'm not a bloody gorilla.

Thats maybe the simplest explanation of how much this 'living as a woman' idea is bullshit that I have ever seen. Impossible to misunderstand, or so you would think. No doubt TRAs would read that and say you were saying that trans people are sub human (makes a change from 'dont exist) and maybe even yell racist at you even though that would be..stupid.

Telling people their questions are simply invalid and not worth a response will do nothing to help them see a different perspective. All it leaves them with is what they already have

This is true, and kind of why I answered the thread, and tend to even if I think the poster might be disingenuous, just incase they are not and are actually just questioning for the first tme. Mind I do sometimes think, how on earth do people tie themselves in so many knots yet not realise how much they are tying themselves in knots. I mean, the way the OP is worded..this group of people are referred to as she, they use areas that are meant to be for female people,they experience discrimination..but do not mention biology despite biology being pretty much the only thing that makes women women rather than men. It just baffles me that its not obvious to people as they type it out.

BUT, I was at that stage once too. Not at the stage of writing out long posts going on about stereotypes and how those are more important in 'womanhood' than being female and that, no. But, I was one of those who uncritically thought 'TWAW' and even (embarassing) yelled bigot at anyone who disagreed with me. I had a bit of a wobble when Kellie Maloney was on CBB mind, and was quite disgusted in myself that I could not bring myself to say 'she' as 'she' squared up to women in a very male way and such but I got over that quickly enough and just put it down as a bit of a blip in my otherwise wonderful progressive self. It was a massive shck when it all kind of hit me at once, the misogyny of it all, the homophobia, seeing how 'transactivists' actually behave, seeing how libfem types sounded once this had hit me, realising thats how I sounded to others just moments before, realising I had (this is the worst part for me I think) called someone close to me bigoted and distanced myself from her after she admitted to me that a transwoman had tried it on with her and she said no as she was gay, leading to finding out about the disgusting cotton ceiling and how many women with penises exist these days, then finding out that the majority of 'trans' people do not even want SRS, that I had signed a petition to get a male person moved to a female prison because I had been under the impression they had had SRS when infact they had had a boob job and had a penis that they seemed proud of, many many things finally culminating in me concluding this was just MRAs being 'clever', and seemingly some dodgy people with an interest in keeping children prepubescent longer and a vested interest in kids as young as 4 being able to 'consent', homophobes advocating for what is little more than conversion therapy and being lauded for it, predators, and just general misogynysts all banding together in some kind of 'perfect storm' that had blinded seemingly the whole world by yelling bigot and transphobe at anyone who disagreed.

So I get it. The need to be kind. The cognitive dissonance. Sometimes sense fighting its way to the front of your mind only for you to push it back, because you scold yourself for thinking it or someone scolds you for saying it. But it keeps coming and coming until it finally breaks through.

However all that said, it still looks so weird to me, seeing this in action. Seeing people write out large paragraphs trying to explain that a woman is actually just a feeling and that women are feminine, but not all women but thats because reasons, but its about how you feel inside your head, all identities are valid but not that one as that ones just bigoted terfs taking the piss, and for gods sake do not mention biology, you fucking transphobe! Not all women menstruate, so this means that men are absolutely women. Etc etc.

TLDR; I was once similar. Even though I was once similar and remember it, I still find it odd that people can write questions like in the OP and not question themselves about why are they trying to define what a woman is using any little thing they can think of except biology.

Of course when discussing whether its best to answer questions like in the OP even when you are a bit suspicious.. an honourable mention goes to the people who join simply to make us repeat ourselves for the hundredth time, or trying to post 'gotchas' about intersex people, and even the ones who think we know not transpeople so come onto do a AMA, refuse to answer any questions with anything substancial then finally yell that they absolutely are women as they haven't had their chromosomes testes and we are just terfs and angry hairy old lesbians jealous of fresh faced young transbians then leave never to be seen again, and of course, the brand new members who join and post transphobic bile and happen to be screenshotted by the monitors the second its posted, when the posts are deleted within minutes because HQ delete transphobia very quickly despite being a hotbed of transphobia themselves. Not to forget those who try to teach us uneducated sily wimmin some advanced biology, and coming up against posters such as BowlofBabelFish (I hope shes still here?) and running away with their tail between their legs.

This post is probably just a load of waffle. I was just kind of writing as it came into my head so might not make much sense in places really, as my train of thought is often a bit garbled. But its long and it felt pointless to delete it.

I do agree with you that its unhelpful for us to take a 'no debate' stance. But I do see why some women say that, because basically, its just groundhog day (and 9 times out of 10, 'curious' posters turn out to just be TRAs trying to catch us out on something but never suceeding and then flouncing) and it is very true that this shit wold not be entertained at all if it was about anything else. We all know how well Dolezal went down. And I really do not see how claiming to have a womanly essence when male, is different to claiming to have a black inner essence when white.

My son with GD understand all the above - he knows he is male, he understands he cannot change sex. He just currently (with a huge helping of social pressure from peers, media and the general floating homophobia) feels really anxious about his male body and has conceived the idea that he would feel less anxious about it if he had a body that didn't shout 'male'. I have zero diffculty talking to him about the realities of transition, and not the YouTube 'you go girl' b/s, so whomever said 'its hard for the kids these days to understand material reality' - nope. Adults around the kids just have to stay grounded in the face of obvious cognitive errors of thinking.

How to live as a woman - be female and be alive.*

Males can present as if they were women, by using stereotypical markers of femininity (hair, clothes, names) and by changing their bodies to more closely resemble female bodies (hormone and surgery) but they are still living as men who are trans aka transwomen.

*I actually think it's a bit more complicated b/c there are CAIS persons who I'd consider to be women, although not female. In that case, it's because the person is phenotypically female from birth, socialised as female from birth, doesn't go through a male puberty, and isn't virilized as a result. But these things don't apply to XY transwomen.

If you're a girl in Afghanistan pretending to be a boy, and the outside world regards you as a boy, by your argument you are no longer a girl.
You just Are. Or Aren't. Biologically.