How are we the same?

Some great posts from @Barracker.

This is why the TWAW mantra fails when you start to think it through critically. And why TRAs are so keen to stifle debate.

Strangely, I feel I have more in common with the transmen I have met, not transwomen. I dress more like them (trousers generally, the more pockets, the better!), I have similar sort, low maintenance hair, I wear no make-up. I work in a very male dominated field, always have, and most of my close friendships are with men. I share what are generally considered male interests and stereotypes. I find it easier to make friends with men, because we seem to have more in common than I do with other women, trans or otherwise.

The only area where I have difficulty is where things relate to biology - for example, when I was pregnant I found it difficult to talk to my male friends as they didn't have any shared experience. But transwomen would be in the same category as men there.

It's a good question. I can't think of anything at the moment, because the only aspects of my life where I feel female are biological, but that is not something we have in common.

Those I’ve met I’ve had nothing in common with that I wouldn’t have in common with a man.

(Except we both wear clothes with inadequate pockets, but that’s hardly something to build a sorority on)

Woman: born, not worn.

Seems all your answers have come from women so far OP.

Imagine that. Women. Women having opinions on what we, as a group of, oh let's see, 3,800,000,000 may or may not have in common with a subset of the opposite sex who have very strong opinions on us.

When I reference the other 3.8 billion female humans in relation to myself, when I declare that we are all the same group, you know what I assume about their likes, dislikes, abilities, aptitudes, personalities, behaviour, cognitive strengths, political opinions, clothing choices?

Nothing.
I assume nothing.

I assume those characteristics are as wide and varied as humanity itself. All humanity, male and female.

I'm referencing one thing, and one thing only, about those other 3.8 billion females when I declare we're the same. I'm referencing our biological sex, our bodies. That's all. I'm saying this, and only this: I belong to a group of humans who all developed down the biological path to be the reproductive category that makes eggs not sperm, the only sex that creates offspring. It's a fact. Not an assumption. Not a value judgement. A material, observable, immutable fact, and I don't need permission or agreement or consent to freely observe the material facts of the world in which I exist.

Any other characteristic you could possibly think of is a characteristic of all humanity, not of sex.
And any characteristic of sex, references biology, and biology alone.

We need to stop scrabbling around for completely universal human traits that we can shoehorn into one category and claim as evidence of a common sex.

Female is a state of biology.

Performance and presentation are what men use to 'live as' women.
Unless a man makes efforts to change their look and how they act, then they aren't considered transwomen, just regular men.
No woman has to perform her womanhood, nor do we need to present in a particular way either. We just are women.

Great post, Barracker. Truth.

Well trans women who pass would be just as likely as any natal woman to experience sexism, misogyny, sexual violence etc.

This is bullshit. Aside from the fact that only a minuscule percentage actually pass, one of the biggest and most harmful aspects of misogyny is internalised misogyny. This is a direct result of growing up female in a misogynistic world: all the unconscious bias directed against us that we absorb and internalise without even realising it as we're growing up, never mind the conscious stuff which we are still fed on a daily basis.

No biologically male person is subjected to this - all males, on the contrary, learn (whether consciously or not) that their place in the pecking order is considerably higher than that of females, that they are full, autonomous humans while females - actual females - are the “service humans” there to facilitate their lives.

This is embedded so deeply in our society - in all societies - that even when conscious attempts are made to tackle it, the bedrock stubbornly remains.

Why else would we have so many women falling over themselves to accommodate this sub group of males at their own and their female sisters’ expense? Women who genuinely believe themselves to be “feminists” and yet are utterly blind to the way they are shoring up the same old patriarchal oppression of females by males as always.

There is nothing I and all other women have in common with all so-called transwomen that we don’t have in common with all other males too. Not one thing. Our shared human-ness is all that binds us. Human-ness that we do indeed all share, much as TRAs would like to deny that we do.

Nothing. Our socialisation and experience are such a massive part of who we are. Who we are, in terms of common ground as women, is based on the shared socialisation and experiences we have which is based on our observed sex at birth and on the facts of our shared biological reality

I’ve met a lot of transwomen and I didn’t Particularly have anything in common with them.
They seemed nice enough though.

Seems all your answers have come from women so far OP.

Transwomen will, on average, have the same height/weight/strength advantage as all males have over females. So they do not share the experience of male violence in the same way

This x1000.

Some women like to beautify themselves some of the time.

Transwomen are attracted to this part of womanhood.
Transwomen tend to be heavily invested in social media as a means to validate this aspect of themselves.

I’m thinking... I’m thinking...

I’ll get back to you if I come up with anything, drawing a blank right now.

Of course there is also the fact both women and trans women regularly fall victim to male violence.

But so do men.

Doesn't answer the question properly at all.

Transwomen will, on average, have the same height/weight/strength advantage as all males have over females. So they do not share the experience of male violence in the same way; women are vulnerable to males who are larger/stronger.

For any woman who has never experienced the primal, visceral, paralysing fear of an angry, violent male - I'm so very glad for you. Please spare a thought for the very many women who have had that experience and retain that fear. Traumatic responses are very real.

SapphosRock
Of course there is also the fact both women and trans women regularly fall victim to male violence.
Actually men fall victim to male violence even more often. You could argue men suffer from patriarchy and sexism. Transwomen suffer because they are men not because they are women.

Nothing apart from the fact we are all human.

It's silly to pretend that sexism and male violence doesn't apply to trans women, of course it does.

And male violence also applies to men.

Great post Barracker.

Nothing.

Those that have transitioned are subject to all the same negatives of living in a patriarchy as women. The difference is women don't have a choice and they have done it by choice.

It's silly to pretend that sexism and male violence doesn't apply to trans women, of course it does. We absolutely have that in common.