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

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.

And yet males who identify as women see fit to tell women they have real insight and understanding of the female experience and claim it for themselves, all the whilebehaving in ways that look very un-female to most women. How curious.

I would be interested to know how you think it "feels" to be trans.

I would be interested to know how you think it "feels" to be a woman.

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.

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.

I have sat with people after surgery, seen the pain they go through.
Seen and actually felt the despair of knowing that transition will never happen.

I have lost friends, bloody good friends who were so lost they took their own life's.

I have lived with being humiliated, bullied, beaten, sexualy assaulted and ostracised.

I would be interested to know how you think it "feels" to be trans.

You know perfectly well from other threads that I think the whole stonewall thing is incredibly harmful and just feeds division.

I don't rely on anything or anyone to define myself or my friends, I have a mind and I make my own decisions.

It is possible to change your sex to a point that the average person would define as having changed sex.
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.

I was asked to explain how I believe it is possible to change sex (at least how the average person would define that) I the question I asked, the one you replied to, was how can someone change sex and /or what does that mean to you? Nothing about some imagined average person. And you didn't answer. You gave a self referencing line that makes no sense at all

As a non transitioned trans woman I have a pretty good insight into all this. As smeone who has seen one male freind transition, fully medically, and hbeen the every day support for awoman who transitioned, I suspect I have a better awareness than you do. I can certainly tell you all about the psychological trauma each surgery brings, the hopes, the memotinal pain, the disappointments, the compromises.

So I fall into the category you mentioned and consider myself to be a transwoman. Except, as you keep on telling us, you haven't transitioned! So , whilst you say you decry the Stonewall Umbrella, you pretty much rely on it.

As a non transitioned trans woman I have a pretty good insight into all this. So I fall into the category you mentioned and consider myself to be a transwoman

Thank you for your reply. Could I therefore presume that in most cases you might agree with Professor Stock?

This 2020 Yougov poll is what I'm thinking of. The colours used in the reporting are misleading but it's possible to work out what it actually says if you look closely.

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/07/16/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights

I was going to ask for a source as well.

Often the questions are very vague, and even then the answers are taken to mean something else.

However, polls indicate that people's opinions of transwomen in women's spaces alter depending on whether the transwoman is said to have had genital surgery or not.

So there is a source? Could you share it, please?

I don't want it to be true. However, polls indicate that people's opinions of transwomen in women's spaces alter depending on whether the transwoman is said to have had genital surgery or not. I don't agree with that viewpoint myself. Do you think I shouldn't ever mention something I don't agree with?

There's no doubt that a substantial chunk of the population still consider 'sex change surgery' to exist and believe that a male who has had their penis inverted and who presents as a woman is as close to a woman as makes no difference

"There's no doubt" when asked for a source = I have no source but I'd like this to be true.

I was asked to explain how I believe it is possible to change sex (at least how the average person would define that)

As a non transitioned trans woman I have a pretty good insight into all this.
So I fall into the category you mentioned and consider myself to be a transwoman.

At my school girls were actively hounded out of taking these subjects even though they were technically allowed to no one did.

Was the same in our school. Teachers would 'strongly encourage/discourage' peoples choices too

Am only 34 too, so not even that long ago really

A great item - thanks for sharing.

What surgery is it that makes a transman a man, I wonder, soulman?

Is it a hysterectomy? Or a mastectomy? Are all the women who have had that procedure now men? Or just some of them? If the latter, what is the criteria?

A man who has had surgery and is taking body altering hormones is precisely a man who has had surgery ...etc etc.. As soon as they stop taking the hormones the testosterone will return the body to its original state. If you need a life of constant medication, it seems illogical to say that the body has changed sex, when those changes are so dependent on artificial hormones.

Just watched the video (and ordered her book). Thanks for sharing such a concise explanation about the situation.
Got to thank Mumsnet for sharing the information that matched my gut feelings and giving me the space to talk to others too.

We thought 1975 was a long hot summer, but then 1976 was moreso, the driest for over 200 years. '76 was the year Denis Howell was made Minister for Rain, then shortly after his appointment came the deluge and he became Minister for Rain. A couple of years later he became Minister for Snow.

believe that a male who has had their penis inverted and who presents as a woman is as close to a woman as makes no difference.

... but I bet most men wouldn't accept them as a sexual partner, so they do believe there's a difference.

In the real world a transwoman who has had surgery and is taking body altering hormones has changed their sex. You don't have to accept that but in reality most people wether they approve or not accept that is what is meant by changing sex.

I remember reading about "sex changes" when I was a young teenager.

Being quite smart, I was a bit flustered, because it made me question a whole lot of my world view - I was pretty certain our civilisation did not have that level of medical technology, so maybe there was something about human biology I'd misunderstood - some way to trigger a sex change. (Clownfish-style, as I now know).

When I realised that all they meant was "surgery and hormones" - ie a cosmetic procedure, and no actual sex change, I was rather miffed at being basically lied to. But also happy that I hadn't being wrong.

And this would have been the 1980s, when there was no intent to lie - I was just confused by the "sex change" terminology, and maybe most adult readers would have understood this?

But now there clearly is intent to lie - albeit by trying to change the definition of "sex" to just mean "secondary sexual characteristics"...