Kathleen Stock OBE: Trans Women Aren't Women : A discussion

I still maintain that Joe Public would consider a male who has grown breasts and had a vagina created (I know there is more to being a woman before I get shot down in flames, but for the purpose of this discussion lets keep it simple) would consider that said male was now for all intents and purposes female

Joe Public might think that (although I expect not for all intents and purposes). Josephine Public may well disagree.

Mind you he also told me about someone he knows who's had full m2f surgery and now "claims" they're a lesbian. Apparently if they were a man who was attracted to women they didn't need to transition

The damage is done, short of turning the clock back there is no happy compromise for Trans people

suck it up ladies! a happy solution for trans people trumps your needs for privacy, dignity and safety!

would consider that said male was now for all intents and purposes female

except for the purposes of

• childbearing
• heterosexual sex
• medical issues that only apply to people with female bodies (PCOS or cervical cancer for example)
• privacy - I know what a man looks like and I never want to get undressed in front of one I don't know, regardless of what surgery they've had

but yeah apart from that, sure

Yep! That's me. Arrogant to think that my knowledge of the emotional stress medical transition has on people - after 30+ years of helping two friends through their surgeries might be relevant. As opposed to someone who keeps on saying they are a non transitioned transwoman! So now you say you have experience, so that makes us about even on that!!

I did not say that your experience was not relevant, you stated that you had more of an insight than I do, I found that a strange conclusion given that you know very little about me.

And, as others have aid, I am not the only arrogant poster here. The difference is I can hear you and might after further listening conced you have a point! But only if you keep on engaging in a proper 2-way discussion.

I appreciate that and in turn I have listened to many people on here, including yourself on more than one occasion. I have taken on board what has been said re safe spaces, stonewall, tra's, sports etc etc but I have to draw the line at denying my own existence and I will always believe on a practical, face value level it is possible to change sex.

I would be interested to know how you think it "feels" to be trans.* No idea.
I don't claim to be able to put myself into someone elses body or mind. I am a female. Always have been. That's how I was before I was born! I CANNOT know.*
Nor can I but I am expected to explain "what it feels like to be a woman" pretty much everyday. Which as I have said I cant do

As for being beaten, ostracised, humiliated. Well yep! I am female. That REALLY does go with the SEX I am - and, as I have said here a lot, I am a rape survivor. So I am not guessing!
I am genuinely sorry for you anybody else that has suffered in such a way, yes its horrible that it goes with being female

It is possible to change your sex to a point that the average person would define as having changed sex. That is another ludicrous self referencing piece of anecdata though! There are many studies linked in many threads that show that is not true. As soon as people understand what' transitioned' actually means they change their mind about transwomen (or men) being akin to women (or men)!

Not at all ludicrous for anyone with an open mind, I still maintain that Joe Public would consider a male who has grown breasts and had a vagina created (I know there is more to being a woman before I get shot down in flames, but for the purpose of this discussion lets keep it simple) would consider that said male was now for all intents and purposes female.

It's stonewall and TRA's that are causing all this angst and discourse You said you would support women against this. But you are still here telling women EXACTLY the same thngs Stonewall does!

Not really no, I am against pretty much everything stonewall and TRA's stand for. And I am happy to fight against them

Then we could all discuss this without tall the ridiculous "A woman is someone who says she is a owman" malarkey! An honest 2-way dialogue that might find acceptabel compromises.

I am happy to compromise , in fact I have done. Though I can't see anyway that females can make compromises in all this and at the same time achieve what they need to .

But the next move is yours - solely because of Stonewall and TRAs. Women are saying no... what is your response?

The damage is done, short of turning the clock back there is no happy compromise for Trans people

'It's a view held by most people,'

Do you have evidence for that?

@NiceGerbil I think you're very right and that's a much more subtle and accurate take on public attitudes.

One of the reasons we are in such an insoluble argument is the effort to take something indefinable, fluid and unrelated to physical facts, and translate it into first an absolute slogan, and then into the law, which has to be firmly and publicly definable, with exceptions all labelled and dealt with in advance for definable reasons. The two don't fit.

Amazing how deeply and how much consideration we are willling and able to post on this!

Subjective and objectie truths! Who'd have thought we'd be getting that existential?

I know how I feel. Just because I can't define it doesn't mean it isn't real.

We have seen this before. Interesting? I think so.

Of course you being unable to define something doesn’t mean it isn't real.

But you thinking you know how you feel doesn’t mean it is real, either. You might be mistaken, even in sincerely claiming to know something, and even about how you think you feel.

“ I know how I feel; when I have a few drinks, I feel I am the life and soul of the party ,” is no evidence the speaker is really the life and soul of the party, even after a few drinks. Rather the opposite, really.

Likewise, “ I know how I feel; I feel I am a woman ,” is no evidence the speaker is a woman. (Again, rather the opposite.)

I am sorry and all. But have a think about this. People get confused because if it is true I know x , it follows that x is true … However, saying (or thinking , believing …) I know x does not entail that I do know x . So a claim, “I know x ” generally does not guarantee the truth of x (even if made in complete sincerity).

Strange, is it not? Knowledge and truth, interesting. But, actually, you very likely already knew this. You perhaps just did not think about it enough.

‘ Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ,’ Paul Robeson sang. Sometimes, me too, I do feel like a motherless child – I know I do! For all that, I had a mother, just like you all.

God I REALLY should have proffed that better. I have no excuse, I have a new keyboard now

Wow, how arrogant of you to suggest that you have better awareness of being trans than a transwoman who has been living with this for 5 decades. Yep! That's me. Arrogant to think that my knowledge of the emotional stress medical transition has on people - after 30+ years of helping two friends through their surgeries might be relevant. As opposed to someone who keeps on saying they are a non transitioned transwoman! So now you say you have experience, so that makes us about even on that!!

And, as others have aid, I am not the only arrogant poster here. The difference is I can hear you and might after further listening conced you have a point! But only if you keep on engaging in a proper 2-way discussion.

I would be interested to know how you think it "feels" to be trans. No idea. I don't claim to be able to put myself into someone elses body or mind. I am a female. Always have been. That's how I was before I was born! I CANNOT know.

I'd like to know how, if you cannot put it into words, you thik that how you feel IS like a woman? I am female, a woman. And I can't tell you! I am just me! Independent, educated, bolshy and not particularly 'feminine'. So, if you use the same stereotypes Stonewall uses, I am probably non binary. As, I suspect most women who care to stop and think about it are!

Just because I can't define it doesn't mean it isn't real It is intangible and that, for many things, is just a thought or feeling, wholy of the mind, a psychological phenomenon. (I was a multidisciplinarian, taught behavioural psych too!)

As for being beaten, ostracised, humiliated. Well yep! I am female. That REALLY does go with the SEX I am - and, as I have said here a lot, I am a rape survivor. So I am not guessing!

It is possible to change your sex to a point that the average person would define as having changed sex. That is another ludicrous self referencing piece of anecdata though! There are many studies linked in many threads that show that is not true. As soon as people understand what' transitioned' actually means they change their mind about transwomen (or men) being akin to women (or men)!

It's stonewall and TRA's that are causing all this angst and discourse You said you would support women against this. But you are still here telling women EXACTLY the same thngs Stonewall does!

I understand that you don't accept that and that's fine, I guess if you live in an echo chamber it's hard to listen to other opinions. That'll be the decades of teaching human phsyiology!

All this is ridiculous. Every transwoman is a transwoman and shoudl celebrate that.

Every transman is a transman and shoudl celebrate that.

And all should now, because of Stonewall and TRAs, stand up and say loudly and often "I feel that I want to be a wo/man. I know I cannot change my sex but I wish to live, to present myseflf as though I am and I will respect the woshes of wo/men whilst I do"

Then we could all discuss this without tall the ridiculous "A woman is someone who says she is a owman" malarkey! An honest 2-way dialogue that might find acceptabel compromises.

But the next move is yours - solely because of Stonewall and TRAs. Women are saying no... what is your response?

Just jumping down this may have been covered to make the point again from another pp.

The whole general public believe a person has changed sex if they've had surgery.

That not quite true- I think the general person thinks if someone has gone through something so serious and massive and irreversible then they really are committed to it. That so few do it and it's so huge that ok maybe just for you ok then.

It's a generosity to s person who obviously means it and obviously is really pretty vulnerable because you wouldn't do that to yourself if you weren't.

The other thing that ties in here that the connection between penis being so vital to men and what they are etc. Men are obsessed with their dicks. Have been through history. Unmanned as an old word for castration etc. The term manhood. All that. A man without a cock is seen as missing a fundamental part of the whole focus of maleness- they are a non man. They can go with the other non men.

Tied to that is that a lot of the objection to males in female spaces is risk of sexual assault. For men it comes back to the property/ my woman/ and other men having sex with them. (Yes I know it's rape im talking this real deep seated insecurity since forever). No dick? No probs.

I think it's a mistake to say that's the point as which the general public say yes they've changed sex. It's actually the point at which they say. Well ok if you've gone that far then alright.

Not really sure of your point here ?

People believe they talk to the Devil. Does that mean the Devil exists?

Honestly the average person on the street, not trans not feminist but people removed from the whole debate which is the vast majority of people would say that someone who is using hormones and had surgery would have changed their sex.It might not be scientifically correct but it is the common perception

I don't think that is true. Most people will be familiar with the term 'transexual'. They will picture an older male who has had surgery and taken cross sex hormones; and who dresses 'as a woman'. But they will also be aware that this is a surface transformation only. Most trans people are quite conspicuous. Everyone knows the score.

Saying that people change sex by having surgery is like saying people literally make themselves younger by getting a facelift and filers. They now appear to be the opposite sex or younger, but they are not in fact the opposite sex or younger.

No, I know how I feel. Just because I can't define it doesn't mean it isn't real

We all have feelings which are very real to us. that does not necessarily translate to the world or people beyond, though. We can be whoever we imagine in the privacy of our own mind.

Wow! Nice... did you have a street party? Down my street we were such a community growing up. All kids playing out together. Its not like that anymore sadly.

I have lots of friends, both transwomen and transmen, some of whom have fully transitioned some at all different stages, some who never will and a one who is de transitioning.

"Transition" here means what?

We stopped going out to Manchester gay village because the ladies toilets were always full of drag queens and I just didn't feel comfortable there. Voted with our feet.