I am embracing virtue signalling pronouns in emails

I don't see anything in that article that isn't either biology or stereotypes/enforced roles. Of course, Only the delusional would deny biological differences between people, but only the uninformed can maintain that what the body means, and how it relates to social category, doesn’t vary between cultures and over time.

...yes, the second part is right - informed people know the meaning of our sexed bodies and their social categories varies with time and space. 'Gender' is not a real objective thing like sex. It's not something to be reified and reinforced.

@aseriesofstillimages

in my view, it’s complicated.

I've read that article before and think that the author's closing remark (below) leaves me with the same question - what does it mean to 'live as a woman' if you are not biologically a woman and don't simply mean you've taken up superficial gender markers such as clothing and make up?

"After all, it’s we the living who say collectively what “woman” means, hopefully in ways that center the voices and experiences of all those who live as women, across all our other differences."

By making male bodied people including those who have gone through male puberty and experienced male privilege, part of the definition of womanhood, we place the feelings of males above the importance of accurate conversations about the lived experience of being a woman.

And isn't that a depressing thought? Men centred and prioritised in discourse about what it means to be a woman, men's voices being claimed as those of women (#nodebate etc) and in doing so taking the place of natal women who could have made valuable and accurate contributions.

This isn't a case of women (those you call cis women) being mean or nasty by asking not to be called cis and questioning why they are now being labelled as a subset of their own sex. Language is important.

in my view, it’s complicated.

Could you at least explain why it's complicated? Otherwise it seems like you don't really understand your own arguments.

Honestly, the only people who answer 'it's complicated', when asked what a woman is have a vested interest or are trying to 'be kind'. It's not complicated, it's got nothing to do with your empathy, or lack, or any other stereotype. You know the answer. Everyone not mentally ill or toddling knows the answer.

in my view, it’s complicated. This article is pretty good at setting out the issues time.com/5795626/what-womanhood-means/?amp=true

@aseriesofstillimages

The claim that ‘gender’ doesn’t exist to me seems a nonsense. If you look at all the differences between men and women in the real world which are nothing to do with biology, what do you call those aspects of who we are if not gender?

Can you name some that aren't biological and aren't gender stereotypes that aren't accurate and are often damaging e.g. women should wear dresses, women should wear make up, men shouldn't cry, men should earn more etc?

Genuinely asking as I have done before on here and nobody has answered.

If being a woman can be defined as a gender identity, what are the signifiers of that identity please?

Ah right. I don't do that, or rather would only do that if it was a very critical phrasing to convey a specific point.

But what this subthread of the discussion is highlighting is that ongoing problems, misunderstandings and hurt on both sides is being directly caused by the TRA insistence on using existing sex words to mean gender.

The dominant voices that are supposed to be speaking for trans people are creating this conflict by insisting that not only must existing nouns (and yes, pronouns) that used to refer to sex now refer to gender identity, but that any new terms that naturally arise in their place, arising due to the real need we have in some contexts to be able to talk about sex, cannot simply exist as a language backfill for "that thing we used to get confused with gender", but must be stopped, stamped on, either denounced as transphobic or immediately appropriated as more words for gender.

It's not enough to have words and recognition for gender, something in this movement also requires we have no words or recognition for sex. And that is what takes it from a progressive movement for acceptance to something worrying and repressive.

One has to wonder why on the one hand they are so very clear about the need to recognise gender as being different from sex, but on the other by taking away the language around sex, not allowing any dialogue about sex to be separate from gender.

my belief that ‘cis woman’ just means ‘a woman who is not a trans woman’

The mental gymnastics it must take to make this make sense in your own head...

I found this explanation of the prefix cis very easily:

"Cis has traditionally been used as a prefix, the same as trans has, and comes from the latin meaning “on the same side as”, which sits opposite trans, from the latin “on the opposite side"."

So a cis woman is 'on the same side' as a woman.

And a trans woman is 'on the opposite side' to a woman.

Why can't 'cis women' simply be called women? What is the necessity to give them a prefix that makes them a subset of a wider group (in this case, women)?

Can you understand why this feels not just pointless, but dismissive to many women who are now being labelled as a subset of their own sex?

That's your belief. Does it mean that an emotionally open man with empathy and verbal dexterity is actually a woman? Or a bloke who's emotionally constipated, totally lacking in empathy and monosyllabic, but who says he's trans, actually isn't?

but I do believe they are real and amount to more than ‘sex stereotypes’.

How exactly are those things “more than” sex stereotypes? Remember that stereotypes are frequently true.

And could you explain what greater empathy, enhanced verbal skills, and emotionally open ways of connecting have got to do with the concept of “gender identity?” Because you have been consistently conflating the sex-stereotype meaning of gender with the “gender identity” meaning. Is it your contention that transwomen are more empathetic and verbally gifted than the average man?

If that’s the case, and TW are women, why are most of the TRA who claim to be women sending death threats,rape threats and hurling abuse at women? You don’t see females doing that do you? So you’ve just proved that using your own argument, TW are not women

Excellent point.

I certainly don’t believe gender is ‘free floating’

What do you think it is then? So far you've only given the socially constructed stuff as an example, when for it to be true that "trans women are women who aren't cis women" there's a magical thinking process going on. What reality is this statement based on?

so any evidence or personal experience of women regarding women’s greater empathy, better verbal skills and emotionally open ways with connecting with one another can be reduced to ‘sex stereotypes’? I believe these things are socially learned, and often exaggerated or unhelpfully generalised, but I do believe they are real and amount to more than ‘sex stereotypes’.

Sexist much? Is this why the TRA are always telling women to be kind? They believe we’re inherently nice? If that’s the case, and TW are women, why are most of the TRA who claim to be women sending death threats,rape threats and hurling abuse at women? You don’t see females doing that do you? So you’ve just proved that using your own argument, TW are not women

Do men who identify as women also have all these qualities, as for the record, the prison stats show that they are 3 times as likely to be in there for sexual offences than men who do not identify as women. If gender was a thing, would men who identify as women gender wise also show these qualities or not?

so any evidence or personal experience of women regarding women’s greater empathy, better verbal skills and emotionally open ways with connecting with one another can be reduced to ‘sex stereotypes’? I believe these things are socially learned, and often exaggerated or unhelpfully generalised, but I do believe they are real and amount to more than ‘sex stereotypes’.

What do you mean by "real"? There may be evolutionary advantages to be gained from such behaviours, possibly. It's extremely difficult to unpick it from millennia of female socialisation. But it doesn't mean that those who don't display these qualities are the opposite sex, does it?

so any evidence or personal experience of women regarding women’s greater empathy, better verbal skills and emotionally open ways with connecting with one another can be reduced to ‘sex stereotypes’? I believe these things are socially learned, and often exaggerated or unhelpfully generalised, but I do believe they are real and amount to more than ‘sex stereotypes’.

I certainly don’t believe gender is ‘free floating’

If you take away your personal ideological belief that there are these mysterious internal senses of "gender" we all have, you are just left with sex, the reality of life in a male or female body, and what people think about members of both sexes. It's all based on sex.

Sorry for the confusing typo, I meant “refer to trans women as men, or as TIMS”

You are conflating two separate things.

The claim that ‘gender’ doesn’t exist to me seems a nonsense. If you look at all the differences between men and women in the real world which are nothing to do with biology, what do you call those aspects of who we are if not gender?

There's a huge leap of faith between recognising that there are sex stereotypes and ways people think about males and females (gender) and deciding that there must be a free floating "gender" identity that we all have.

That would be 'personality'.

Socially enforced bollocks that needs to be eradicated is what I call gender. You?

The claim that ‘gender’ doesn’t exist to me seems a nonsense. If you look at all the differences between men and women in the real world which are nothing to do with biology, what do you call those aspects of who we are if not gender?

Aah there we have it, the misogynistic slip that places trans women above women.

Cishet, is nearly as bad. I kinda like the Egyptian mythology vibe, which ties neatly with the whole semi-religious or outright cultist flavour of the gender doctrine.

It has a certain French sounding sophistication if you pronounce it "see-shay"