Don't understand how someone can be transgender? This man explains it all!

Erm

Live as themselves and trans, obviously!

Fuck gender role. Everyone is free to dress/ enjoy etc what they want.

But. Feeling like a woman inside when you are male or vice versa does not make it so. Women and men have different experiences due to biology. Rules and laws to follow. Around the world. Women and girls are still struggling. Even in the UK. Because of their sex.

You will struggle to find a GC woman on here who believes in enforcing gender role.

As I mentioned. Most women on here are, by stonewall definition, trans. You seem to forget that.

If it doesn't fit in with what every one else deems right, proper, what should they do?

Be gender non-conforming. Be a butch lesbian in sensible shoes. Or a straight woman with no makeup short hairs, unisex clothes and a job in engineering, call yourself Bob if you want. Be a man who likes to wear dresses, makeup have long swishy hair and calls himself Jessica.

Long hair on men was deemed improper in the UK in the sixties but now nobody minds. A hundred years ago a woman in trousers was shocking. What about women working after marriage, that used to be improper but people did it. Where I grew up I was an outlier for my church refusal.

There will always be people who don't conform to society's current norms.

Other option obviously pretend they aren't trans in the first place and nothing to see here

I would hardly advocate for conversion therapy for myself, would I! You are the only person who has mentioned that, or shock therapy

OK. so fair enough, what should trans people do then?
No to conversion therapy/shock therapy
No to actually being themselves, living as themselves and living as trans
What else is there, what other way?

You can do better than this I'm sure.

So no one on the thread has said this.

But you're asking people to respond as if they did.

And I don't think you've read my posts at all.

I would hardly advocate for conversion therapy for myself, would I! You are the only person who has mentioned that, or shock therapy.

You're not engaging with what people are saying.

But raising things that no one has (or would) mention.

Straw man. Who has said this

You might not have done, but what should people who do have that innate sense do if it doesn't "match" ?
If it doesn't fit in with what every one else deems right, proper, what should they do?
Pretend it isn't them? Pretend to be c * i s even if that's not who they are?
Hide themselves?
Shock themselves out of it, have conversion therapy?
What else do you suggest?
Any of those or something else?

Get your tits out to a girl in school uniform doesn't shout formless, does it.

It's insulting TBH.

All true but you need to remember that woman/ girl is ephemeral, a feeling,

WHO tweeted this:

'"Trans women are women at the end of the day. Every woman is a woman. Women are multifaceted, intergenerational, international. They are limitless, formless ... women are the world.'

We are whatever other people want us to be.

Biology (the root of our oppression globally and for as long as anyone can remember) is irrelevant.

As an aside. I didn't feel formless when men started sexually harassing me when I was pretty young.

So for those who do have the internal sense, should they just pretend to be something they're not to appease what everyone else sees as "normal"? To "fit in?"

No one has said this. And PPs have said why this is a bogus statement.

People can have whatever internal sense they want. We can even try and find labels for them like we have for other feelings eg sad, joyful, incandescent, etc

But we need words that are universal, global, and don’t change so we can make laws, record history, and understand oppressions.

If we started to agree for eg that transracial was a thing, then we’d dilute the needs of many, and deny the historical and continued subjugation of the truely oppressed.
I mean apartheid couldn’t be a thing if transblack people where allowed in golf clubs, and on busses.

Additionally.

I have just posted about my deep discomfort with the gender role assigned to me on account of my sex.

How do you get from that, what you posted. That people should toe the line and fit in?

The really shit thing is that feminists of the old school would be natural allies. I believe people should be freed of the constraints of gender role. Dress how you want, enjoy whatever interests you want etc. Get rid of gender boxes, is the aim for many. Free people to be themselves.

Great. I will fight for that.

But redefine women and girls (and most of it seems to be focussed on them rather than men) to mean nothing more than a self declared feeling... No thanks.

We are 50% of the world and have been oppressed globally for as long as anyone can remember. We need words for who we are, based on biology. In order to talk about our history, oppression, struggles etc. Take our language and ability to name ourselves as a group and we as are stuffed.

There's a difference between what I am and what I might wish, genuinely and fervently, to be.

My actual hope for those with sex-based dysphoria ( the only trans cohort I give thought to) is that we find better treatments to enable people to live in their own bodies without overwhelming distress.
Surgery, medication - these are not things we should see as anything more than a fairly primitive way of ameliorating some forms of psychological distress.

We don't need to reorganise society around gender; we need better understanding of the mind/brain.

I know there's a part of me that's nothing to do with what's between my legs, nothing to do with with what people have told me I am growing up, what my role or expectations have been as an adult, what I have liked toy wise/game wise growing up - it's just there.

Unless you can explain what this is, objectively, to someone who doesn't experience it, and it can be verified by others that it exists, it's no different to a belief, similar to a religious belief.

So it exists to you, and it may be an important part of your life, but we can't base laws on it.

'So for those who do have the internal sense, should they just pretend to be something they're not to appease what everyone else sees as "normal"? To "fit in?"'

Straw man. Who has said this. I certainly haven't.

I've said I'm happy to believe that some people feel this way, even though I have no such feelings.

Like with my religious friend, I am happy to believe that she has a feeling inside that there is something 'more'.

Interestingly she found it harder to get her head round the idea that I had no such feelings, than I had regarding her spirituality.

For many (and we don't know how many) an internal sense of 'gender identity' is not on the list

So for those who do have the internal sense, should they just pretend to be something they're not to appease what everyone else sees as "normal"? To "fit in?"

But sure, shelter behind 'rude women put me off sharing my compelling argument for taking irrational minority belief seriously in law'

Thing is we all have deeply held/ important things about how we 'identify' (what is fundamental in our feelings about who we are).

Thing is, there's loads of things. Loads.

For many (and we don't know how many) an internal sense of 'gender identity' is not on the list.

Quaagars has precisely no way of knowing whether her "woman feeling which is more than biology" is actually a product of her female socialisation...

I know there's a part of me that's nothing to do with what's between my legs, nothing to do with with what people have told me I am growing up, what my role or expectations have been as an adult, what I have liked toy wise/game wise growing up - it's just there.

But let’s make laws on that - can’t see a problem myself

I've even said yes, can see why problematic when comes to law, doesn't mean that it isn't real for people.

Quaagars has precisely no way of knowing whether her "woman feeling which is more than biology" is actually a product of her female socialisation...

Or in fact the same as a mans woman feeling. Or mine. Or my cats.

But let’s make laws on that - can’t see a problem myself 😺

The reason I became a feminist even before I knew the word was because

I went around feeling like a person, but people were forever pointing out my sex (gender role) and it pissed me off.

All through the years it has been jarring when I'm going about happily feeling like a person and someone treats me in a way that shows they don't see me as a person first but as girl/ woman first (and all that comes with that) and person second.

A lot of the fight of feminists has been around having women and girls seen as people rather than 2D stereotypes.

When I read about trans people wanting to be 'treated as a woman' it feels like all of the work to see us as actual people first is being undermined.

So make an argument, or stop wasting our time

I commend your optimism on both counts in terms of this poster

Why like that. why the arsiness?
Way to make people want to engage further lol
Then you wonder why people fuck off and can't be bothered when this is what you get.

Quaagars has precisely no way of knowing whether her "woman feeling which is more than biology" is actually a product of her female socialisation since birth. Or in fact something to do with biological perception of her sex.

I wouldn't give too much time over to these kind of thought experiments.

Just because some people are trans, or are trans but say they're c-s, doesn't mean that suddenly there's no such thing as biology.
That's still there.

If (general) we all decide the earth is flat, the (almost) spherical earth would just keep spinning but we’d have huge problems charting flight paths or shipping lanes.

So make an argument, or stop wasting our time.

I commend your optimism on both counts in terms of this poster