Cont:
The biggest sexist misogynist out there is mother nature, if she had intended men to share the work of nurturing babies they would have been able to breastfeed. But it is women, only women, only ever women that can do this. So equality for women isn't enough, we also need protections and rights that men do not have.
Pregnancy and childbirth takes a toll on a woman's body like nothing a man - or tranwoman - can ever empathise with. A woman's body is no longer theirs alone for 9 months, and will never be the same again. Women who get piles and morning sickness get off easily - to prepare for Childbirth all of the tendons and connective tissue in a woman's body will relax and soften; in one woman i knew this happened prematurely and to the extent that her shoulders and hips started dislocating, she spent BOTH her pregnancies on crutches and in a wheelchair. When my sister was pregnant, the baby drew all the calcium out of her body and her teeth began to crumble. Yes, you get free dental care whilst you are pregnant but that ends as soon as the baby is born and guess what? Your teeth don't grow back.
And childbirth? We gotta push something the size of a melon out of a hole the size of a lemon. it is only very recently, within the last 100 years or so, that childbirth stopped being the no1 cause of death for women globally, but even with those advances in maternity care and medicine, very few women escape childbirth without some kind of longlasting effects - from tears and damage to the vagina and split perineums to permanent pelvic floor and nerve damage. Goodbye orgasms - hello to peeing every time you laugh! To say nothing of the mental toll - dealing with postnatal depression, PTSD and extreme exhaustion being at the beck and call of a tiny little dictator who wakes you up at 3am and demands to be fed from your body. But don't forget to sign onto your work intranet and complete the latest WENUS.
You would think that after everything we go through to grow and give life to every single human being that ever lived, that we would be revered and worshipped, that we would be treated as precious and respected but no. Because making children, raising children, looking after children generates no money - costs money, in fact - so it has been devalued and dismissed in all but the most primitive cultures that existed before money.
However, most humans have a primal desire to have children. To continue their genes, and look after them when they are old and a man cannot do that himself, he needs a woman to do it for him. By hook or by crook - sure, through history men have met women and they fall in love and have babies, sure, but that is but a lovely romantic fantasy for many. Women are still forced into marriages today with much older men and expected to start having babies to the exclusion of any education, or enrichment, and it was ever thus because it is only women who can have babies. In history even privileged women have suffered, probably more than most. No princess or duchess or rich man's daughter was born without instant speculation about who would be best for them to marry and form alliances and power bases, no matter what they wanted to do with their lives and who they wanted to share their bodies with. Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, was 13 years old when she gave birth, and this is the lot of women, whether they are black or white or Jewish or of noble blood or peasants in the field, this is what has happened to women throughout history so that we can all be here today. A huge proportion of those mothers were raped, forced, coerced, or not given a choice over what to do with their own bodies. A huge proportion of those raped and abused mothers were children themselves.
What women's bodies have done is amazing. It is an honour and a privilege to have one - vaginas are incredible, what they can do whilst pushing out babies is a miracle. You can't make one out of an inverted penis or a length of bowel - it is not a front hole with no other use than for a man to ejaculate into it, it gives life and is unique only to women. yet our sacrifices have been so devalued that even women like me, who have chosen not to have babies, are seen as subservient and second class, only useful for what we can give men, only viable as support for men to have the children they want and the career they desire.
And when women like me chose not to become mothers? Or the women who can't? We still all share that biology and the oppression and prejudices that come with it. I still had periods - yup, horrible to start them so young but I am very lucky that mine aren't too bad. Just a bit of diarrhea and some awful wind, a few leaks but then I always wear black trousers, just in case! For some, with periods come endemetreosis, Pre menstrual tension, hormonal migraines, bloating, breast pain..... And the next part of my female story will be the glory of menopause....
Superb. I will battle my hardest against becoming one of those 'invisible women'; whilst my body sends out signals that I am no longer fertile so not worth fucking, society will be saying I have not played my role in contributing to the human race so am worthless. But will I finally be free to persue my dream of becoming The Ultimate Fighting Champion!?
Not if I have to come up against Fallon Fox I won't. Not with a body now at increased risk of osteoporosis and all the female cancers held momentarily at bay by pre-menopausal levels of Eastrogen. Whilst a 78 Yr old man has just been voted Leader of the Free World I will be trying to stop my vagina from atrophying and plucking my newly sprouting chin hair, no doubt.
Do you think when a transwoman says that she's a woman because she feels like a woman she's talking about the main characteristics that have defined women's lives for millenia? The pain and challenges of pregnancy and Childbirth, loosing ourselves in the role of motherhood? What does 'living as a woman' mean? When transwomen say they are now living as a woman, do they mean juggling three children, a full time job, doing all the house work and carrying all the emotional workload of a family whilst looking sexy to keep their men happy?
Literally every transgression against women that has ever been committed is because the world needs babies and women are the only people who can make those babies so that is what our smaller weaker, slower bodies are designed for. Sex is not a spectrum because there is no spectrum of pregnancy - there aren't some of us who only grow heads and some who do feet! One woman, one baby - often more than one ! - and that is a physical sacrifice, a huge risk, a lifetime commitment and something that men do often take for granted.
To me, anyone who says transwomen are women does not appreciate the unique function of our female bodies, which is to have babies, or has ever given thought to the sacrifices and hardships billions of women have faced throughout the whole of human history to give birth to every single human being on the planet.
Anyone who says 'yes, but the question is, what makes someone a woman, is it something more than your biology, something innate?' is thumbing their noses at every single woman - and girl - who has ever died in childbirth.
To me, anyone who talks about gender spectrums, or male brains or female brains don't seem to know where babies come from - babies don't come out of our amygdalas, Nick!
And if you say, yes, but some men have babies, and some women have penises, then you have removed the ability to group all of us together and talk about our lives and define the oppression against us. We need to be able to describe the class of people that have babies and need protections because they have babies and that word is woman.
That's the true story of womanhood and there is plenty of room for anyone who shares that story, including transmen should they so chose. Why does manhood have to be so inflexible and rigid that you are excluding transwomen?
As a thank you for having bodies that make children please can we keep our womens' sports? Please can we let our bodies be celebrated for doing something other than make babies? Please don't let us lose even one accolade to a transwoman whose body hasn't had to sacrifice strength and power so it can use every cell to best keep the human race going?
So, in reparation for the abuses heaped on our female bodies please can we keep our language to describe ourselves and our experiences? Everyone knows what women are and what women have done for humanity, so please don't call us cervix havers or menstruators, please don't tell us that's all we are. Please don't call us cis, please don't make us define ourselves by what we are not, we should be the default, not a subset.
Call us TERFs by all means, that's what we are, but don't spit it like an insult. When women like me, or jk Rowling, assert that biological reality exists and sex is real, please don't bully us off of our platforms by calling us bigots. Don't shut us up by telling us we are transphobic, don't tell us we are ignorant and need to get an education, don't tell us we have no right to comment and should check our privilege. We have earnt the right to that opinion by living in our bodies, make reparations for the things those bodies have been through and done for you by respecting that right. If you see anyone doing it, challenge them. You start off the new rhetoric; respect the TERFS, we may not agree but don't threaten to punch them or rape them or set them on fire because honestly, they have been through enough. Don't repress their opinions and make them fear for their livelihoods, don't block, don't insult. Do this in reparation for how women have ever been treated,.
Now, you believe that there is a more elusive quality that transcends biology and makes transwomen women and transmen men, that has nothing to do with any of this - i would be very interested to really understand that because i cannot see how a feeling, a belief, that cannot be described without resorting to sexist and misogynistic stereotypes really can trump biological reality. I have asked - in the quick fire world of twitter as soon as we question it we are told to shut up! Transphobe! Bigot! Disgusting TERF, check your privelege and choke on my girl dick! BLOCK!! Or the polite version of let's not talk about this because I can't change your mind and I don't want to fall out..... So no one has ever even given me a convincing account of what makes a woman if its not her biology.
but you can maybe understand why TERFs are so set in their beliefs?
You believe that women's rights should hinge on that and here there are no half measures, it really has to be one or the other.
but that does not mean we have no common ground. Work to move past it and see if a solution lies elsewhere.