Moment of realisation

So, what do all women and transwomen have in common that make them women? How can a transwoman feel like a woman if all women feel differently and have different experiences as you have said?

Why? Would you say the same if we were discussing Adele, or Madonna, or Peter Andre? Are we not allowed to comment on people appearance now?

"Again it comes down to the type of male who transitions. An effeminate young gay male will be treated differently to other males, the fear of physical assault will be greater than for straight males, other males will not accept them as equal. Perhaps things have changed in 20 years, but when I was at school the camp boys were definitely made second-class citizens by other pupils."

You don't deal with that by making girls human shields

When you’re laid, in bed at night

watching roaches climb the wall

if you called your dad

he could stop it all

Not true. Boys have advantages that girls don't have, even before puberty. Look up some research about different treatment of girls and boys in/by schools, even primary schools

I would argue the opposite. The attainment grades for girls has outperformed boys for decades, and girls are pushed to achieve a lot more than boys in education. I've seen first hand her boys-only schools allow girls in sixth form, yet the sister girls-only school refused to accept boys in sixth form. (You can go on about potential risk factor, but at the same time it reduces opportunities, and I know this as it worked against some family members of mine, all the more reason to keep single-sex spaces completely single sex).

Again it comes down to the type of male who transitions. An effeminate young gay male will be treated differently to other males, the fear of physical assault will be greater than for straight males, other males will not accept them as equal. Perhaps things have changed in 20 years, but when I was at school the camp boys were definitely made second-class citizens by other pupils.

Essentially either sex has its advantages and disadvantages.

What things did you have in mind? Bearing in mind that a transwoman is anyone who says that they are one.

A transwomen benefiting from male privilege can only do so if they transitioned later in life, but if someone transitioned before the age of employment then they wouldn't have gained such privileges.

Not true. Boys have advantages that girls don't have, even before puberty. Look up some research about different treatment of girls and boys in/by schools, even primary schools. Look up how boy toddlers/babies are handled differently to girl toddlers/babies.
Young teenage girls and teenage boys have different experiences of puberty. Schoolgirls can fear rape or sexual assault. Schoolboys can commit these acts. Boys are often allowed out more by their parents and given more freedom than girls.

Not to mention things like only males inheriting titles.

Again it really depends on who we are talking about. The typical middle-aged man who decides to transition (as detailed by Dr Blanchard) would want to retain the benefits of masculinity (and wouldn't be interested in dating men) and has likely risen to the top of his profession due to being male.

If a teenage boy transitioned, typically they have been very effeminate gay men so potentially had a camp voice and possible slight physical presence (I know I'm being very stereotypical here), would not have had those beneficial male features anyway. And I'm sure campness/effeminate nature would work against a man in a professional capacity.

And what of those that have voice surgery and starve themselves to lose masculine physicality?

This is simply brilliant. What a succinct summation of women's reality that men opting to be seen as women or feeling like they are women will never experience and more importantly will never have been shaped by since those experiences are not options females get to choose. The phrase "the extreme consequent limits on our agency" knocks your post out of the ballpark.

If you think language where women are reduced to their bodily functions only ever happens on here, you really aren't paying attention. Its happening in public documents, adverts, science journals, health promotion material.

It only goes to show how weak your argument is that you pretend this is not happening. I presume you condemn this language though, as it reduces women to their bodily parts. Can you confirm this?

And I notice you ignore the other points I made too.

Not to mention that the whole “95 percent of transwomen keep their male genitalia” is precisely about retaining male physicality when that suits.

Isn’t the entire point that having a male voice, or being able to be a physical man for the purposes of an acting role or a business deal, precisely about the biological realities of manhood? They’re retaining the advantages of male physicality when it suits not to present socially as a woman.

Seems to have gone on a tangent as I thought that this was about opting out of biological realities of your sex? Less so about sociological realities.

Isn't a transwoman opting out of the biological realities of manhood? Isn't a transman opting out of the biological realities of womanhood? I know we get into very messy territory with pregnant trans men (who have had to stop testosterone to be able to function as a woman again).

A transwomen benefiting from male privilege can only do so if they transitioned later in life, but if someone transitioned before the age of employment then they wouldn't have gained such privileges.

Pip Bunce and Eddie Izzard are not transsexual, they are essentially crossdressers who use both male and female personas for their benefit.

@Footballmatchdilemma I had a similar feeling at a family event attended by one of my young male relatives who has a relatively new trans identity. This young male (who has only dated other males) said, "I know I'm a woman because I feel I am. Cis men don't feel womanhood. I was born female gender, but it's just my body was wrong." This young male says this in a room full of middle aged (and older) men and women who are all married w/ kids. After this pronouncement is made, I ponder to myself how these older men, husbands who have seen their wives in all states/ages of naked, have seen them go through painful periods, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, some endometriosis, menopause, etc. have FAR MORE INSIGHT into being a woman than you do, oh young, naive summer child you are.

I did not say this, but I am 100 percent positive some variation on this theme was running through the heads of all the older folks in attendance.

I genuinely have no idea what you're actually talking about.
I was just saying we don't all risk assess every time we're near men.
Yes some women will, but we're not all one person so it's daft to say all.

No. Reducing people to their body parts is calling women ' people with uteruses' Or ' cervix havers' and so on.
Which I only ever see on here, never in real life.
Posters calling themselves uterus Havers or woman the cunty kind which I saw the other day 🙄
*
Ah, I see — women must make sure they never stare anyone directly in the face. To do so is terribly unbecoming and forward.*
Sorry, but what are you actually talking about?!
How did you get there from my post?

Ah, I see — women must make sure they never stare anyone directly in the face. To do so is terribly unbecoming and forward. Women should always remember to be uncomplaining, never to take up space, and never to betray any thoughts of their own — lest anyone else be for a moment inconvenienced by the idea that a woman might have any interior life or subjectivity.

No. Reducing people to their body parts is calling women ' people with uteruses' Or ' cervix havers' and so on.

No, women do not all have the same experiences. But we do all have the same female sex, which relates to our reproductive sex class. And only women have this. And because of this female sex, women, as a population, have experiences that no men has or that men, as a population, do not have. The data is there large and clear and throughout the ages, on how women, as a population, have different experiences from men, because of their sex.

What's ridiculous is trying to pretend that women does not mean adult human female, because not all women have the same experiences or in the same way.

That is likely trying to pretend that a horse is not a 'a large plant-eating domesticated mammal with solid hoofs and a flowing mane and tail' because some horses pull carts and some race in the Grand National and therefore they don't have the same experiences. And then, from that, concluding that a llama can also be a horse, as actual horses don't have the same experiences as each other, so other animals, such as llamas, who also have different experiences from cart horses and race horses must therefore also be able to be horses.

That is the sort of mad world you enter into when you try to remove the definition of a classification of living creature from its biology.

Women stare because all women do a risk assessment with an unknown man - am I safe? - we all do it.
No, we don't. Don't try and speak for all of us.

I thought it was not the done thing anymore to expect trans woomen to 'pass'. It's all about the internal feelz, isn't it?
The reason people stare is because there are conflicting visual signals being given out and it takes a few moments to determine whether the person is male or female. It's a natural human process to classify by sex, just as you subconsciously classify people by age, height, skin colour, clothing, and a myriad other things.

Given that fashion for women is moving away from being a Kardashian clone/wannabe pornstar , it's going to be even harder for transwomen to pass.
If a man feels more comfortable in dresses and makeup, that's fine by me. Just stop colonising our language and our spaces

Women stare because all women do a risk assessment with an unknown man - am I safe? - we all do it. Even for a millisecond. Transwomen rarely pass.

I've always liked to see men rocking their looks with long hair, dresses, makeup, whatever, but was very taken aback to find that some of them seriously thought this made them actual women, and was then flummoxed to find we were expected to go along with it

This!

And @catsdrool, it is the social consequences of our biology which women share and which oppress us. We are a sex class.

We share characteristics and experiences with other humans, male and female. We might often feel a connection or an empathy - but that's not womanhood. It is our sex, and the consequences of our sex, which are unique to us as women and which, at the most basic level, define us as a class.