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Original poster

We need to talk about what transgender means

190 replies

smemorata · 29/12/2019 11:00

Now that Stonewall has put just about everyone who ever even thought about wearing a dress under the transgender "umbrella", they have more or less forced women to push back at everyone. I find this really ridiculous and also counterproductive. Women (and men surely?) know that we are talking about different things. For example -

  1. an "AMAB" who feels acute gender dysphoria and goes through a lengthy process (both legally and medically) to gain a feeling of acceptance is not the same as -
  2. an "AMAB" who occasionally wears women's clothing but also enjoys male privilege in most situations
  3. an "AMAB" who always wears very OTT sexualised "feminine" clothing as part of a fetish which women are expected to collaborate in.
  4. a woke "AMAB" who dresses as a man, has a beard but claims to know what feeling like a woman is. Has no intention of giving up male genitalia but expects women to recognise it as female.

I have met some lovely people who are in category 1 and would actually have no problem in treating them as women in most (though not all) circumstances. But what do they have in common with the others? Are we expected to forget that festishes exist? I really resent the way that the MRAs and TRAs are asking us to treat such very different people in exactly the same way - and that's before taking into account the ROGD people and trans men. I don't see how the debate can move on until these differences are recognised.

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Datun · 30/12/2019 11:53

Oh for goodness sake. Take a damper.

Men commit 98% of all sexually violent crime. I'm sorry if that makes you sad, disappointed, and upset. But they do. That's why we have sex segregation. 20% of women will suffer from some kind of sexual assault in their lives. Those assaults are almost all committed by, yep you've guessed it, men.

Invoking women who commit assault doesn't alter those statistics.

The single biggest protection women have is to segregate by sex.

Ereshkigal · 30/12/2019 11:52

no I didn't take screen shots, I reported to admin and now the thread has gone so I can't retrieve them

Ah. How unfortunate.

Ereshkigal · 30/12/2019 11:51

Of course you have the right to an opinion. And others have the right to tell you why they think you're wrong. If you think you have a sound argument, what's the issue?

ahenderson270 · 30/12/2019 11:51

@Ereshkigal no I didn't take screen shots, I reported to admin and now the thread has gone so I can't retrieve them but hold on I'm sure there's more to come now.. I dared to think differently so let's watch this space

ahenderson270 · 30/12/2019 11:48

I really don't want to spend another few hours being attacked, shouted at and talked down to by people who one hand say they advocate for my rights and then stamp unceremoniously on my right to an opinion on a subject ..

However as I've stated previously yes some horrible people have used the 'trans' card to put themselves in a position to harm people whilst in a position of authority.. so have biological women (I see countless stories of "foster mothers" caught out abusing their wards horrendously and having them purely for the cash they get for fostering, mothers convicted of heinous crimes against their own children, recently here in the UK a story of such severe domestic violence carried about by a small woman against her partner over a span of years that the police officer that finally saved this man needed therapy to get over the trauma of what he was exposed to during the rescue, female prison guards pimping out inmates to other male prison guards .. the list goes on and on)

If it were only transgender people carrying out sexual assault on the basis of their status I'd be totally on board for this but what you're doing here is "trans woman abused people in her care .. all trans women are dangerous to women and children and should be segregated"

We've heard this rhetoric before and it never leads anywhere good and if it makes me idealist or stupid to have hoped we as a society had learned from the segregation of people based on the actions of a tiny minority within them.. then fine so be it.

If it makes me stupid and worthy of your abuse and nastiness that I can't understand how a fully transgendered woman believing she is now a woman impacts on your fight for fair treatment of our gender then so be it.. personally I'd be happy for a sister in the cause because let's face no one will have worked harder for acceptance or rights than she will have just to be legally accepted as female ..

If I'm a moron for thinking we should be embracing each other and each others battles so that the fight may finally end then I'm happy to be a moron .. rather a moron with hope and love at the base of my intentions than what I'm seeing here.

Ereshkigal · 30/12/2019 11:45

You might "feel sad"; but I feel so damn angry that many seem unable to empathise with the position of women; of what it means to be female in society. the reasons why women are vulnerable and why they require single sex spaces for their own dignity, comfort and safety.

Me too. Why do so many people of both sexes expect women to put their own feelings second? Could it be sexism?

Ereshkigal · 30/12/2019 11:43

call me horrendous names, bully me, question my intelligence and belittle me for offering an alternative view point.

You've got screenshots of this, right?

Ereshkigal · 30/12/2019 11:41

And because of that .. things like this just make me so very sad and disappointed.

Oh well. Lucky I don't depend on you for validation or approval of my thoughts, beliefs or actions.

LangCleg · 30/12/2019 11:36

And because of that .. things like this just make me so very sad and disappointed.

Oh well. Never mind. C'est la vie.

Thankfully, I'm long since immune to all lives matter preachy moralising and shall stick to concentrating on women's rights and child safeguarding.

MrPickles73 · 30/12/2019 11:36

For me gender is a biological not a psychological thing so if previous men have had all the operations and medication and then want to be called a woman OK but a bloke in a dress who wants to be considered as a woman no not ok. It's a bloke in a dress.

Justhadathought · 30/12/2019 11:32

The Layla Moran school of politics.......

Justhadathought · 30/12/2019 11:31

I'll never be able to lose hold of vision of unified peoples standing together regardless .. simply just regardless of anything. And because of that .. things like this just make me so very sad and disappointed

You are bound, then, to a life of disappointment. Because life is not ideal. The higher the ideal; the greater the fall and the disappointment.
That is what politics is about: managing the conflicts between imagination and reality.

Datun · 30/12/2019 11:31

So I honestly cannot fathom how excluded a trans woman might feel .. but her feelings don't count right because you believe she isn't entitled to a thought or feeling on this because her dna coding is different to yours ..

Utter rubbish. A transwoman can have any thought or feeling they like. What they can't do is expect other people to believe they've changed sex.

And incidentally, feminism is the liberation of women from patriarchal control. Anyone can do it. You don't need permission. You just need to work towards the goal.

It's not a club.

Justhadathought · 30/12/2019 11:27

If it’s not exclusive to 51% of the population it’s absolutely pointless

Even if not about exclusivity, feminism focuses on the female experience. Being female is a biological fact, not an inner feeling.

Justhadathought · 30/12/2019 11:26

I will never understand why and how a group of a people that claim division and exclusion has held us back for centuries continue to encourage division and exclusion

Try listening with an open heart then.......you'll find some of the absolute best women there are. Sex exists. There are two of them. This has real material consequences.

DuMondeB · 30/12/2019 11:25

because her dna coding is different to yours

Everyone’s DNA is unique but FEMINISM is for FEMALE people. If it’s not exclusive to 51% of the population it’s absolutely pointless.

Justhadathought · 30/12/2019 11:24

I will never understand why and how a group of a people that claim division and exclusion has held us back for centuries continue to encourage division and exclusion

You might "feel sad"; but I feel so damn angry that many seem unable to empathise with the position of women; of what it means to be female in society. the reasons why women are vulnerable and why they require single sex spaces for their own dignity, comfort and safety.

Other than that then nobody here believes in anything other than "live and let live".

Binterested · 30/12/2019 11:23

Were you disappointed for the women assaulted by Karen White ? Sad and disappointed that they were locked up with a predator ?

Binterested · 30/12/2019 11:22

Yes I exclude transwomen from the category of women. I also exclude them from the category of kittens and tables because they are simply not those things.

Sorry that the concept of women makes you sad and that women standing up for what women need makes you sad. I don’t wish any harm to any transwoman and they are free to campaign for their own needs as long as they don’t encroach on mine.

ahenderson270 · 30/12/2019 11:17

This .. just all makes me so so sad, I've tried engaging in this discussion previously and her women claiming they're all about women's rights and standing shoulder to shoulder call me horrendous names, bully me, question my intelligence and belittle me for offering an alternative view point.

As a biological woman I've felt very excluded by the 'feminist movement' or at least the Mumsnet one! So I honestly cannot fathom how excluded a trans woman might feel .. but her feelings don't count right because you believe she isn't entitled to a thought or feeling on this because her dna coding is different to yours ..

I will never understand why and how a group of a people that claim division and exclusion has held us back for centuries continue to encourage division and exclusion.

I'll never be able to lose hold of vision of unified peoples standing together regardless .. simply just regardless of anything.

And because of that .. things like this just make me so very sad and disappointed.

Justhadathought · 30/12/2019 10:53

It's not. But somehow the trans lobby has persuaded huge numbers of people that being transgender is similar to being gay, so shouldn't be considered as a psychiatric disorder

Yes, it's amazing how this has now taken hold......People now accepting, without much question at all, that it is possible to be born in the 'wrong body'. That being trans is a fact of birth, and as with being gay, being trans is just 'the way you are.....'

PlanDeRaccordement · 30/12/2019 10:32

DuMond
The only category of trans that us feminists need concern ourselves with are the small children being told they play with the wrong toys and the teenage girls who are transitioning to escape trauma/as a copy strategy for autistic spectrum disorder/because society is so lesbophobic it’s easier to be a ‘straight male’.

This. 100% this.

PlanDeRaccordement · 30/12/2019 10:17

Yes BSgoeson,
It would make me transgender too if I believed in gender identity driving sex. But I don’t. I think all gender identity is defined by gender stereotypes and thus is a fabrication, not real. Sex is biology, XX vs XY and is real.

I have read so many, hundreds, of transgender autobiographical accounts on how they realised they were transgender. And in every single one the person recounts the gender stereotypes for their sex that they did not meet and the gender stereotypes for the opposite sex that they did meet and then offer that up as evidence that their sex does not match their gender, hence they are transgender.

Because I don’t believe in gender stereotypes, I think it’s all a bunch of BS and refuse to allow society to tell me I am not really a woman but a man because I am more masculine than feminine by their stupid rules. I’m not going to turn myself into a bearded, flat chested woman through surgery and hormones so my appearance can match my behaviour and interests as dictated & expected by a patriarchal society.

The patriarchy can go fuck itself. Masculine women exist as do feminine men. That needs to be accepted and celebrated, not viewed as a sex to gender mismatch “problem” or “dysphoria” that must be corrected through hormones and surgery.

TheBullshitGoesOn · 30/12/2019 00:10

Plan

Your definition is simply, transgender is an internal feeling that you, as a person, meet more gender stereotypes associated with the sex opposite your own.

That definition makes me transgender. Genuinely.

popehilarious · 29/12/2019 23:22

Neurotrash I've got a subscription with New Scientist - I was wondering what their stance was (they have a non-binary journalist contributor).

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